SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1719 (30), Wednesday, July 25, 2012
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TITLE: Russia Scoops Its First Gold Medal of the Games in Judo
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Kravtsova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: LONDON — The first Russian gold medal to be won at the Olympic Games in London was won by Arsen Galstyan, a judoka in the weight category of under 60 kilograms, on the very first day of the Olympics on Saturday, June 28. 

According to Galstyan, the semi-final, in which he fought Uzbekistan’s Rishod Sobirov, was much more difficult to win than the final against Japanese judoka Hiroaki Hiraoka, in which he got a winning score in the 40th second after the start of the fight.

“I was heading to this victory with the aim of getting only the gold,” Galstyan, 23, said at a press conference held just after his victory at Russia Park House in London. “Of course it was difficult to win, but at the final it got much easier: I managed to catch a submission hold in the first minute and to gain the victory by fall,” he added. 

Before the semi-final and final fights, the rivals were very strong, Galstyan said, adding that he didn’t expect an easy victory and was ready to fight to the finish.

Galstyan, who is from the Krasnodar region, dedicated his victory to the recent tragedy in Krymsk, where severe flooding brought about a death toll of more than 170 and left many people without a home. 
“I want to share this grief,” Galstyan said. “My medal gave Russia a dignified place, and I want people who suffered in Krymsk not to give up and to know that they can find the strength to move on.”

It is the first time that Russia has won an Olympic gold medal in judo. 
“Arsen not only won a gold medal for Russia, he also made a stepping stone for other Russian judoka who will have fights later on at these Olympics,” said Igor Romanov, Galstyan’s coach, who expressed optimism that it would not be the last medal taken home by the Russian judo team from London.

“Arsen was raised in a good team, and he became an international master of sport when he was still studying at a village school,” Romanov said. 

Galstyan is from a sporting family: His father is a professional footballer and his two brothers are also judoka. Galstyan has been a member of the national team since 2004.

“My objective was to help him, and a huge amount of work was conducted by all of the coaches,” Romanov said. “This Olympic cycle he worked with a new team [within the national team], and now you can see the result,” he added.

Galstyan promised to stay in London in order to support the Russian judo team. 

TITLE: Kresty Prison Could Soon House Hotel or Gallery
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: As a new pre-trial detention facility in the suburb of Kolpino nears completion, the city government is exploring the possibilities of breathing new life into the infamous Kresty prison on the Arsenalnaya embankment. In the autumn, City Hall plans to announce a tender for potential investors to redevelop the territory of the prison and its surroundings.
Turning the prison into a hotel, a museum, an art gallery, a business center and even a creative cluster complete with studios of local artists are just some of the ideas that have already been voiced. City Hall’s Committee for Investment and Strategic Projects has already voiced the cluster idea to City Governor Georgy Poltavchenko, and it was received favorably, according to the committee’s representative, Irina Babyuk.
“By October 1, our committee will prepare a plan for the redevelopment of a number of dilapidated former industrial zones,” she said. “What is required at the moment is for us to be able to include Kresty — which is controlled by the federal government — on the list. This issue needs to be settled with the federal authorities.” 
Although in no way a postcard view, Kresty became one of the city’s iconic images long before St. Petersburg earned the unflattering nickname of Russia’s criminal capital in the turbulent 1990s. It has housed some of the country’s most high-profile prisoners, including politicians Lev Trotsky and Alexander Kerensky and poets Nikolai Gumilev and Daniil Kharms, and has been the setting for dozens of thrillers and crime series.
Kresty opened a small museum back in 1993 that originally served for the purposes of training prison staff, but opened to the general public in 1999. The excursion covers visits to the administrative building as well as the Alexander Nevsky church and one of the cells. The exhibit features photographs of famous inmates, banned items confiscated during searches, and souvenirs made by the prisoners from bread, wood and paper.
The federal government began construction of a new facility in Kolpino several years ago after Russia adopted a program of moving 70 prisons from their locations in the center of towns. 
Built in 1890 and designed by the architect Antony Tomishko, Kresty is scheduled to relocate to Kolpino in 2015.
The jail got its nickname, Kresty (Crosses) very shortly after it received its first inmates. The two four-story wings of the prison are designed in the form of a cross. According to legend, Tomishko initially designed the jail for 999 cells, but there was a 1000th cell, where the architect himself was locked up and buried after allegedly saying to the tsar, “Look what a beautiful prison I have built for you.” Although no proof has ever been found for the legend, speculation about the mythical 1000th cell still circulates. There are in fact 960 cells in the prison.
The prison has not undergone large-scale renovation since it was built.
Many of the country’s prisons are located in historical buildings, many of which were built back in tsarist times. 
By the 1990s, Kresty was one of the country’s most overcrowded jails. The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has been bombarded with applications from inmates complaining about dimly lit cells and blocked ventilation systems, overcrowded cells and a permanent lack of basic toiletries. Inmates were for a long time limited to less than 10 minutes per week in the shower, and were forced to huddle together to share showerheads. 
In 2007, the Strasbourg court ruled that the Russian authorities must pay more than $20,000 in damages to a St. Petersburg prisoner forced to share a cell in Kresty measuring eight square meters with 12 other inmates. The prisoner, Andrei Frolov, was held in Kresty from January 1999 to February 2003.
“The fact that Frolov was obliged to live, sleep and use the toilet in the same cell as so many other inmates for more than four years was in itself sufficient to cause distress or hardship of an intensity exceeding the unavoidable level of suffering inherent in detention,” the ruling reads.
Kresty, which was and remains Europe’s largest jail, was originally designed for the prisoners to be kept in solitary conditions in order that they be able to meditate over their crimes. The prison was designed to contain a maximum of 1,150 prisoners, but in recent decades routinely held from 4,000 to 12,000 inmates. The new facility in Kolpino is designed for 4,000 inmates. The authorities have promised that conditions in the new jail will comply with European standards and will not earn Russia more appeals to the European Court of Human Rights.


TITLE: Robbers Get Away From Bank With 10M Rubles
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Unidentified criminals stole 10 million rubles ($307,000) in cash from a branch of VTB 24 bank on Moskovsky Prospekt on Saturday.
The robbers broke into the bank through a hole they dug through the bank’s floor from the building’s cellar, Fontanka.ru reported.
The culprits worked quickly, apparently realizing that they would have very little time before the alarm system went off. It took the criminals two minutes to open the vault, take the cash and leave before police arrived.
The bank was robbed at about 7 p.m. — immediately after the branch closed. The security police officers who arrived on the scene after the alarm was activated did not notice any sign of a robbery, but were suspicious and called the bank’s office. They then found two of the bank’s female clerks tied up in the room in which the vault was located. There was a hole in the floor through which the robbers had entered.
The intruders included three masked people wearing gloves. Their actions were obviously well coordinated and planned in advance: It was clear that they had studied the layout of the building beforehand. The building was constructed in the 1970s and the concrete floor that the criminals dug through was about 20 centimeters thick. The police estimated that it would have taken at least four or five hours to break through the floor from the cellar, even with the use of power tools. It is likely that preparation work was carried out on Thursday night and Friday morning, Fontanka reported.
The criminals’ knowledge of the premises was also visible in the fact that they didn’t dig their hole right under the vault, whose walls are enforced and equipped with alarm sensors. Instead, the robbers entered through a hole made under the hall where financial operations are conducted and where the two female employees were at the time of the break-in. The women told police that the robbers acted like lightning: They broke through the floor, three people jumped through the hole and they handcuffed the women without pushing them around or shouting. When the alarm system sounded, the robbers realized they had no more than two-and-a-half minutes before the police arrived.
The security police officers arrived at the scene within two minutes. Two armed officers entered the building while one stayed outside. During that time, the robbers were leaving through the cellar.
Igor Paradeyev, head of the St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast criminal department, said the criminals had obviously trained for their robbery in another place, Fontanka reported.
St. Petersburg police spokesman Vyacheslav Stepchenko told The St. Petersburg Times on Tuesday that the investigation into the robbery was ongoing. He did not comment on how the criminals had accessed the bank’s safe.
Bank clients will not be affected as a result of the robbery, VTB 24’s press service said, Fontanka reported.
Items were not stolen from client safety deposit boxes, only from the bank’s vault, and the money was insured, the bank said. VTB 24 said the most important thing for the company was that none of the bank’s employees were harmed during the attack.

TITLE: Families Left in Debt After Bank Gives Cards to Minors  
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The city’s consumer rights service, Rospotrebnadzor, has warned St. Petersburg parents about local banking market violations in which children have been given bankcards without the knowledge of their parents.
Over the last three months, the service has received seven complaints from local parents with claims against Svyaznoi Bank, Rospotrebnadzor wrote on its website. 
The parents said that the bank had allowed their children to obtain bankcards in the children’s names. The parents, however, were not informed. As a result of the children being given bankcards, the families found themselves in large amounts of debt.
The customers found out about the money they allegedly owe only in February, when they received notifications from the bank concerning their debt. The bank demanded they return the money.
The families later found out that their children had been asked to apply for bankcards by other people, who then paid the minors for the cards. 
They also learned that unidentified people had withdrawn more than two million rubles ($61,700) using the cards. The St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast police department has been notified of the fraud. Rospotrebnadzor also found that the bank had violated the young customers’ rights by issuing the bankcards. 
According to the Russian Civil Code, underage citizens between the ages of 14 and 18 years old have limited legal rights and are not authorized to sign an official contract without written permission from their parents.
“Therefore signing a contract to get a bankcard that implies an opportunity for further credit relations should not be done without written permission from the parents,” Rospotrebnadzor said.
Following an investigation, Svyaznoi Bank has been issued with four fines totaling 40,000 rubles ($1,230). 
Investigations into three more incidents are currently being conducted. 
Svyaznoi Bank said that the children were given debit cards — not credit cards — which can be issued without parental permission. The criminals took advantage of a technical overdraft of the cards by depositing money on the bankcard remotely and, as soon as the money was available on the card but had not yet been deposited in the bank account, they withdrew the money from ATMs. After that they canceled the deposit transaction, Anton Goltsman, a bank representative, was cited as saying by Vedomosti daily.
Rospotrebnadzor estimated the amount owed at two million rubles ($61,700); the bank itself said it was 20 million rubles ($617,000).
The bank has refused to pay back the families whose children received and used the debit cards, but has raised the age limit for people obtaining debit cards up to 18 years old. It also decreased the limit on possible technical overdrafts. The bank conducted its own investigation within the company but did not find any misconduct on the part of the employees who issued the cards, Interfax reported.
The bank’s card service software does not differentiate between adult and underage cardholders, Interfax reported.
Rospotrebnadzor asked parents to warn their children about the potential danger of signing bank contracts and explain the consequences of giving bankcards to strangers.




TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>Freedom of Press</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The head of the St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast police, Sergei Umnov, said that when journalists are detained during mass events, police should release them once the journalists identify themselves.
“After a journalist presents their professional ID to police, that person should be released,” Umnov said last week.
The police chief said that journalists would of course only be released if they had not broken the law. Umnov said that after a July 8 incident during which some reporters were detained during a rally near the city’s Oktyabrsky Concert Hall, he had held personal meetings with the heads of the media outlets whose employees had been detained.
News agency ITAR-TASS reporter Ivan Skirtach and RBC Daily’s Sergei Kovalchenko were detained along with Left Front movement coordinator Sergei Udaltsov and 10 other opposition members on July 8 for defying police orders.

<b>Zenit Seeks Players</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Luciano Spalletti, head coach of the city’s FC Zenit, said the club needs to strengthen its team and that it will buy new soccer players this year in order to accomplish this goal.
It is possible that one such new player may be former Zenit star Andrei Arshavin, who currently plays for London’s Arsenal, Fontanka.ru reported.

<b>Man Sews Mouth Shut</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — A man holding an individual picket in support of controversial punk rock group Pussy Riot sewed his mouth shut in front of the city’s Kazansky Cathedral on Monday.
Police called an ambulance and handed the protester over to doctors, Interfax reported.
On February 21, several masked members of Pussy Riot performed a “punk prayer” in the Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow. The three look set to remain in pre-trial detention for the stunt until at least January 12, 2013.

<b>Roadside Paramedics</b>
St. Petersburg (SPT) — Ambulances should take no more than 30 minutes to arrive at the scene of a car accident in Russia, according to Olga Golodets, deputy prime minister for social issues.
“We’re hoping for the [new] program to be ready by fall. We are calculating where air rescue and ambulance stations should be located in order to minimize the time it takes paramedics to arrive at the scene to less than 30 minutes,” Golodets said last week, Interfax reported.
Golodets said the decision had been made to set up ambulance stations along 40 percent of federal highways.
In Moscow, ambulances arrive at the scenes of car accidents in nine minutes, but it’s hard to achieve similar results in other regions, Golodets said. 
Last year 28,000 people died in car accidents in Russia.

<b>Visa Bill Makes Progress</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — A bill on three-day visa-free travel to Russia in order to visit major cultural events will be ready this fall, Olga Golodets, deputy prime minister for social issues, said last week.
The program would likely work for events such as the opera and ballet weeks hosted by St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theater and Moscow’s Bolshoi Theater, as well as for high-profile events at some of the country’s most prominent museums, Golodets said.
The three-day visa-free regime is already in place for foreign tourists traveling by ferry to St. Petersburg and Russia’s Far East. 

<b>Stars Made From Sand </b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The 11th International Sand Sculpture Festival opened on the beach of the city’s Peter and Paul Fortress on Friday.
The sculptors began working on their projects on July 12. Among them were artists from Russia, the U.S., Spain, Portugal, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, Lithuania, France, Mexico, Poland and Turkey.
This year the theme of the festival is children’s cartoons. Among the characters captured in sand are those from popular Russian cartoons as well as Walt Disney creations.
The exhibition is open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. until the end of the summer.

<b>Gay Law Applied</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — More than 70 people have already fallen foul of the new law banning the promotion of homosexuality and pedophilia among minors in St. Petersburg, Interfax reported last week.
St. Petersburg police chief Sergei Umnov said 73 people had been reprimanded for promoting homosexuality, and one for promoting pedophilia.


TITLE: Children’s Camp Causes Worry
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A scandal has erupted over a children’s summer camp in the Leningrad Oblast after the LenOblast prosecutor’s office said the children attending the camp were not being fed enough and that the living conditions were too poor to host HIV-positive children.
At least 112 children from St. Petersburg children’s homes are currently residing at the summer camp in the village of Roshchino in the Vyborgsky district. Some of these children have HIV.
According to the Ministry of Health and Social Development, institutions for health and recreation can only receive children who do not have special dietary or medical requirements. When Yunost registered as a camp, it reportedly failed to provide for additional health facilities for children with additional needs.
The majority of children with HIV receive anti-retrovirus therapy. Infected children, especially those receiving this treatment, require constant medical check-ups to monitor side effects, the prosecutor’s office said last week.
The HIV-positive campers at Yunost were being given their medicine, which was stored in a staff room within the children’s reach, not from medical workers but from speech therapists, the press service of the prosecutor’s office said. 
The press service also reported that personnel did not have the skills required to provide medical help to campers in the event of an emergency and that the camp health office was lacking a number of essential items of medical equipment such as scales and a device for measuring blood pressure. The rooms in the camp were overcrowded, in some rooms there was no hot water and there were not enough bedside tables, it said.
The Vyborg prosecutor’s office has opened a case against the camp director, Interfax reported.
St. Petersburg’s children’s ombudsman, Svetlana Agapitova, expressed dismay over comments made by the federal authorities concerning the living conditions of children at the camp.
On her blog on the St. Petersburg children’s ombudsman’s website, Agapitova said inspections at institutions such as summer camps were necessary, but they should be done “systematically and not impulsively,” by collecting facts and opinions.
Agapitova said that before the camp opened, city services — including the consumer watchdog Rospotrebnadzor, the food safety department, the fire department and the Education Committee, had checked conditions at the camp and given it the green light to open for the season.
“Do you think they have all conspired to harm children? Does a day-long inspection by a guest official put in question the work of many specialists?” Agapitova asked.
Agapitova criticized the conclusions made by the federal inspection, which Russia’s children’s ombudsman Pavel Astakhov later shared on his Twitter account. Astakhov wrote that the children were playing card games with a deck of regular cards (which is strongly disapproved of in Russia on the grounds that it encourages gambling) at the camp, but Agapitova disputed that, saying they were playing the children’s card game UNO. Agapitova also said that the children had regular meals five times a day with a rotating menu and that the medical office had all the necessary licenses.
“Yes, there were alarming comments on the parent’s forum, but they were directed not against camp administrators, but against the city’s Children’s Home No. 1, whose children were spending time at the camp,” Agapitova said.
Agapitova said the children’s home had attracted concern from various departments before.
Children’s Home No. 1 is an institution for HIV-positive children. There were also children from several other local children’s homes at the camp, as well as children who live with their parents.
Moscow officials inspected the camp after volunteers who came to visit the children at the camp wrote that the children there were living in unsanitary conditions and were not being fed enough. The volunteers said that they brought the children confectionary and berries, but noticed that the children were in need not only of dessert foods, but also of more regular food.
Astakhov said on Twitter that numerous sanitary violations had been discovered at the camp and that complaints had been made by some of the children.
Astakhov said that during a discussion, the children said that they received normal food and a balanced diet, but that there was no 10-day rotating menu as stipulated by consumer watchdog Rospotrebnadzor.
“Older children smoke openly. Children complained about harsh treatment by a tutor. Medicine was not stored at the appropriate temperature. Medicine past its expiry date was also found. The camp does not have a pediatric medical license, making medical treatment given at the camp illegal,” Astakhov said on Twitter.
Meanwhile, an inspection commission sent by St. Petersburg’s Education Committee to the camp — which remains open — did not confirm the fact of children going hungry or the lice infestation that volunteers claimed to have seen, Interfax reported.
The St. Petersburg prosecutor’s office did, however, find certain fire safety and hygiene violations, Interfax reported. 

TITLE: Local Athletes Leave For Olympics, Paralympics 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Forty-seven athletes from St. Petersburg are to participate in the London Olympic Games, the city’s Sports Committee said.
St. Petersburg usually sends high numbers of track and field athletes and swimmers to the Olympics. This year, 17 track athletes and six swimmers are due to participate. For the first time ever, a woman from St. Petersburg is to take part in weight-lifting events, Fontanka.ru reported. 
In addition to track and field and swimming events, Russia is seen as a strong contender for medals in sea kayaking and canoeing, cycling and catch wrestling.
Yury Avdeyev, head of the city’s Sports Committee, said that if the St. Petersburg athletes win at least 12 medals, their performances will be considered a success, Fontanka.ru reported.
This year will also be the first time since 2000 that St. Petersburg athletes have taken part in the Paralympic Games. During the 2004 Summer Paralympic Games and the 2006 and 2010 Winter Games, no athletes from the city participated. This time around, there are nine athletes from St. Petersburg on the team.

TITLE: Russians Disregard Eye Care
AUTHOR: By Lena Smirnova 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russians would rather lose a body part or several years of their life than lose their eyesight, yet they do little to make sure that their eyes are healthy, according to a recent study by eye-care company Bausch & Lomb.
The international online survey, Barometer of Global Eye Health, collected responses from over 11,000 people from 11 countries: The United States, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Britain, China, Japan, India and Russia.
Fewer than a third of all respondents took basic measures to protect their eyes, but Russians, more than other Europeans, believed that their eyes must be healthy as long as they can continue to see.
“Russians have this mentality of ‘perhaps.’ Perhaps [the problem] will pass. Perhaps nothing will happen,” said Boris Malyugin, eye surgeon and one of the experts who helped to draft the questions for the study.
Malyugin said he was struck by the discordance in terms of how much Russians value their eyesight and how little they do to protect it.
The study showed that Russians consider losing eyesight to have a more negative effect on the quality of life than hearing loss, diabetes, toothaches or high blood pressure.
At the same time, Russians are less likely to check their eyesight than check their teeth or blood pressure.
Only 33 percent of the Russian respondents checked their eyesight in the past 12 months. A quarter of them haven’t checked their eyesight in the past two years.
Malyugin said that one of the reasons for this discordance may be the lack of information on how important eye checkups are.
“People think that they need to turn to the ophthalmologist when they already have a problem,” Malyugin said. “Eye problems need to be treated when they are at their beginning, not when it hurts.”
Even parents who regularly take their children for checkups may neglect to do the same for themselves, Malyugin said.
While Malyugin said there are no set number of checkups people must do, he suggested that children have annual visits with the eye doctor and people who recently turned 45 have their eyes checked at least once.
Malyugin also suggested that the government and businesses should do more to inform Russians about the need for regular checkups in order to increase the accessibility and wait times of eye checkpoints.
In the study, more than half of the young Russian respondents who don’t have their eyes checked regularly said they just don’t have the time.

TITLE: Gay Propaganda Bill Sparks Outcry in Ukraine
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: KIEV, Ukraine — If a group of Ukrainian lawmakers succeeds in its mission, TV shows and movies sympathetically portraying homosexuals such as “Brokeback Mountain” will be banned. So will gay pride parades.
The recently introduced bill, supported by the president’s representative in parliament, would impose prison terms of up to five years and unspecified fines for spreading “propaganda of homosexuality” — defined as positive public depiction of gays in public.
It has sparked an outcry from rights organizations in Ukraine and beyond, which condemn the bill as a throwback to Soviet times when homosexuality was a criminal offense. They also warn that harassing the gay community could lead to a spike in the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Ukraine, one of Europe’s most severe, by driving gays further underground.
Although homosexuality was decriminalized in Ukraine and Russia after the fall of communism, animosity toward gays remains high across the former Soviet sphere. 
The Ukrainian bill comes in the wake of organizers’ decision to cancel the country’s first gay-pride parade in May, which they made after hearing that hundreds of potentially violent opponents of gay rights had come to the capital.
The hostility toward homosexuals raises concern wider questions about tolerance in Ukraine and whether the country is truly capable of embracing Western values as it strives to join the European Union. 
Pavlo Ungurian, one of the six lawmakers from various parties who authored the bill, told reporters Monday that growing acceptance of gay rights in the West is “not evolution, but degradation” and needed to be fought.
“Our goal is the preservation of the moral, spiritual and physical health of the nation,” Ungurian said. “We must stop the propaganda, the positive description and the publicity ... of this abnormal lifestyle.”
Ruslan Kukharchuk, who heads the group “Love Against Homosexuality” and campaigns in support of the bill, said the legislation would make TV dating shows involving same-sex couples and movies like “Brokeback Mountain,” which explores the romantic relationship of two cowboys in the U.S., illegal. 
Kukharchuk charged that homosexuality is an illness and that people must be treated for it. In 1990, the World Health Organization removed homosexuality from the international classification of illnesses.
“We believe that homosexuality is a disease, it is a psychological disorder of a person and without a doubt there must be institutions, perhaps even financed by the government, to help such people get rehabilitation therapy,” Kukharchuk said.
No date has been set for a vote on the bill in parliament, but Kukharchuk hopes it will be considered in September before a parliamentary election in October.
President Viktor Yanukovych has remained mum about the initiative, but the fact that his parliamentary representative Yury Meroshnichenko supports the bill is an indication that Yanukovych may back it as well. 
Anastasia Zhivkova, a gay rights activist, called the bill “a throwback to the Middle Ages” that would even further clamp down on Ukraine’s gays and lesbians, most of whom already hide their lifestyle because of a severe public stigma. For every one gay Ukrainian who is out, another 80 are forced to conceal their sexuality, according to gay groups.
The United Nations Development Program said in a statement that the bill amounts to “state-supported discrimination against” gay, lesbian and transgender groups and could fuel the AIDS epidemic in Ukraine, by preventing them from getting proper information on preventing and living with sexually transmitted diseases.
Zhivkova said gays are forced to hide their relationships from their work colleagues and their relatives.
“A great part of our life remains in the shadows,” Zhivkova said. “All the time you balance between being an outcast or a criminal.”


TITLE: McDonald’s Fails to Find Worms in McChicken
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — McDonald’s found no irregularities at one of its Moscow restaurants that a customer said sold her a chicken burger containing worms.
“No foreign objects were found in the contents of the sandwich,” McDonald’s said in a statement, adding that staff had inspected the offending McChicken shortly after it was returned Sunday at one of the chain’s restaurants in the Global City mall in the south of the city.
Checks later run by the company of producers who supply ingredients used in burgers sold locally showed that company rules were being followed at every stage of the preparation process, the statement said.
On Monday, chief sanitary doctor Gennady Onishchenko waded into the row over the purportedly worm-infested fast food, criticizing burgers as being alien to the Russian diet.
“I remind our citizens that burgers, even without worms, aren’t a sensible dietary choice for the population of Moscow and Russia. This is not our food,” Gennady Onishchenko said in comments carried by Interfax.
Onishchenko, who in early June advised Russians not to eat sushi to avoid “gastrointestinal adventures,” said the Federal Consumer Protection Service, which he heads, was prepared to investigate McDonald’s as a result of the complaint.

TITLE: Cargo Spacecraft Fails To Dock at International Space Station
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — An unmanned Russian cargo vessel failed to dock with the International Space Station early Tuesday morning due to technical complications, NASA said in a statement on its website.
The Progress craft had separated from the space station Sunday to perform a series of engineering tests and was due to try out an upgraded docking system that will facilitate future Russian missions to the station.
NASA scientists said two separate docking attempts had failed, the second at 6 a.m. Moscow time, and that the failures appeared to be caused by the new Kurs-NA docking system.
A source in the Russian Mission Control Center told Interfax that its scientists were analyzing the problem, adding that the Progress craft was at a safe distance from the station after performing a passive abort.
Progress will most likely reattempt docking on Saturday or Sunday as a Japanese Harmony cargo ship is expected to arrive Friday, the NASA statement read.
The Federal Space Agency hadn’t officially commented on the docking failures as of late Tuesday morning.
Out of a team of six, there are currently three Russian astronauts living and carrying out tests on the space station: Gennady Padalka, Sergei Revin and Yury Malenchenko.

TITLE: 1,800 Stalin Deportation Victims From Kalmykia Seek State Compensation
AUTHOR: By Jennifer Rankin 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — More than 1,800 Kalmyks are seeking compensation from the government as victims of a forced deportation ordered by Josef Stalin 60 years ago.
A court in Elista, the capital of the Kalmykia republic, which lies between the southern end of the Volga River and the Caspian Sea, has rejected their claims, prompting them to rush to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. People have been lining up from as early as 4 a.m. at the city court in Elista to register their applications, according to the Kalmykia News website.
“For the last week we have been working at a furious pace from early in the morning until practically midnight,” Yulia Erendzhenova, head of information and archives at Elista City Court, told Nezavisimaya Gazeta.
The plaintiffs, who numbered more than 1,800 according to the newspaper, argue that they have a right to compensation for “moral harm” under a 1991 Russian law on the rehabilitation of victims of political repression.
In December 1943, Stalin ordered the deportation of the entire population of ethnic Kalmyks to Siberia, as part of a wave of forced exiles that also targeted Chechens, Tatars, Greeks and numerous other groups.
Historians estimate that more than 100,000 Kalmyks — including women, children and decorated war heroes who had been fighting Nazi Germany in the Red Army — were forced into exile for “betrayal” of the motherland during World War II.
Several thousand Kalmyks died on the horrifying journey in freezing cattle cars, and about one-fifth died of hunger, cold and disease during the first five years of forced exile.
The Kalmyks were allowed to return to Kalmykia in 1956 and today make up just over half the population of 285,000 people in the Buddhist republic.
The scramble for compensation among Kalmyks who experienced the deportation or grew up in forced exile appears to have been triggered by a 2010 ruling of the Strasbourg court in favor of two Georgian victims of Stalinist repression. Klaus and Yuri Kiladze, who were sent to filthy orphanages and later forced into hard labor as children in the 1930s, won compensation from the Georgian government in 2010 for its failure to enact a long-promised law to compensate the victims of political repression.
The Elista court contends that their case does not match this precedent because Russia already has the 1991 victims’ law on the books.
The court said the claimants’ request for compensation has no basis, a verdict upheld by the higher court of the republic, according to information published on Elista City Court’s website on July 17.
Repeated calls to Elista City Court went unanswered and no one from the press service of the Kalmykia republic administration or from a newspaper purporting to represent the interests of the Kalmyks immediately responded to a request for comment.

TITLE: Prisoners Strike en Masse To Protest Inmate’s Death
AUTHOR: By Alexander Winning 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Up to 900 prisoners are refusing food, and five slashed their forearms in a high-security prison in Bashkortostan after an inmate was beaten to death, rights activists said. Two of the inmates that cut their arms have been removed from the prison.
The inmates took the step to draw attention to prison authorities’ refusal to grant medical assistance to Sergei Lasko, who died after a severe beating by prison employees on the night of July 17, activists from the Public Monitoring Committee, an organization that defends prisoners’ rights, told the Gulagu.net human rights portal.
Activists said 900 of the roughly 1,100 inmates at Bashkortostan’s Prison Colony No. 4 were refusing food, while the Federal Prison Service gave a figure of 118, stressing that the inmates were only refusing food prepared on the prison’s premises.
Almira Zhukova, a member of the local branch of the Public Monitoring Committee, said activists learned about Lasko’s death and the ensuing hunger strike only by chance after a lawyer visited the prison on a separate issue.
“Then we discovered the beatings; we found proof,” Zhukova told Gulagu.ru. “It was terrifying. They beat [prisoners] till they were blue. All the rooms were covered in blood.”
An inmate told Zhukova that while Lasko was being beaten, guards played loud music over prison speakers to mask the victim’s shouts. “Whenever the music starts, we know that they are going to beat someone,” the unidentified inmate was quoted as saying.
Activists now fear that prison authorities could refuse to give up Lasko’s body for burial in order to hide the cause of his death.
Both Zhukova and Gulagu.ru head Vladimir Osechkin have written to the Investigative Committee and Federal Security Service with requests to open criminal cases into the death.
On Saturday, the Bashkortostan arm of the Federal Prison Service denied Zhukova’s comments in a statement on its website and justified prison employees’ use of force against Lasko by the severity of his conviction.
“Prison Colony No. 4 houses criminals who have committed especially grave crimes. They are repeat offenders,” the statement said, adding that the inmates on strike had behaved extremely badly over the course of their incarceration.

TITLE: 248 Fetuses Found in Forest 
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — Villagers in Russia’s south Urals have stumbled upon a gruesome discovery — four barrels containing 248 human fetuses left in a forest.
Police in the Sverdlovsk region said Tuesday that the fetuses, preserved in formaldehyde, were kept in barrels with tags containing surnames and numbers.
Police suspects that one of the four local hospitals is responsible for dumping the barrels.
The fetuses were found a few miles away from a highway linking the region’s capital, Yekaterinburg, with another big city, Nizhny Tagil.


TITLE: Search for Missing Plane Called Off 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Authorities have called off an airborne search operation for a biplane that went missing more than a month ago in the Sverdlovsk region and will rely on volunteer crews on the ground to keep up the efforts, local media reported.
The active phase of the rescue effort is ending, and the search will most likely be carried on by rangers, hunters, fishermen, forest fire monitors and volunteers, according to the Globus newspaper.
Twelve people were on board the missing An-2, including the head of the local traffic police, and members of the group were thought to have been drinking before the June 11 trip.
The plane took off without authorization from an airstrip near Serov for an unknown destination.
The last helicopter taking part in the search left for Tyumen on Monday, while another departed for Perm earlier, Globus said, adding that the helicopters would return to the area only if authorities receive credible information about the missing plane’s location.
The rescue operation has been dogged by false leads over the past week.
On Monday, a “satellite” photo showing the clear outline of an airplane appeared online.
Rescuers believed the tipoff to be genuine, but when relatives of the missing passengers arrived on the scene, they were confronted by an empty expanse of land, Globus reported.
Authorities followed up on another dead end on July 20, when rescuers tracked down a man believed to be one of the missing passengers. He turned out to be a former convict who had lost contact with his relatives.


TITLE: Murmansk Prosecutors Sue Social Network Over Pornographic Materials
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Murmansk prosecutors have sued Vkontakte, the country’s largest social network, over pornographic materials distributed by its users.
Prosecutors for the city’s Oktyabrsky district said in their lawsuit that Vkontakte contains a large amount of pornographic materials that can be easily accessed by minors and urged it to monitor uploaded content and remove any that violated the law.
“Under current legislation, the Vkontakte social network owns the website and therefore is obliged to take measures to limit access to pornography,” prosecutors said in a statement. They did not cite which law obliged the website to take such action.
Last week, the Federation Council passed a bill that allows the government to disable access to content that it believes shows child pornography, solicits children to appear in pornographic materials, encourages drug use, promotes suicide or distributes content that is illegal under Russian law.
The legislation is expected to come into effect not earlier than November.
Pavel Durov, founder and owner of Vkontakte, has repeatedly maintained that the site removes all illegal materials as soon as they are detected.



TITLE: Ukraine Wraps Up Putin Case 
AUTHOR: By Natalya Krainova 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Ukrainian investigators have wrapped up an inquiry into two suspects accused of plotting to assassinate President Vladimir Putin after the March presidential election on orders of Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov.
It was not clear Tuesday when the case against Chechen native Adam Osmayev and Kazakh national Ilya Pyanzin would be sent to court. But Osmayev is reportedly actively cooperating with investigators for fear of extradition to Russia.
The Prosecutor General’s Office asked Ukraine to turn over the men in March, but it appeared Tuesday that the Russians were keeping an eye on the Ukrainian proceedings rather than actively pushing for extradition.
Pyanzin and Osmayev were arrested in the Black Sea port of Odessa on charges of the illegal possession of explosives after a Jan. 4 blast at their Odessa apartment building. An associate, Ruslan Madayev, was killed in the blast, which resulted from the mishandling of explosives.
Russian state television broke the news about the Putin assassination plot in late February and showed video footage of Osmayev detailing a plot to bomb Putin’s motorcade in Moscow after the March 4 presidential election. The emergence of the news less than a week before the vote prompted skeptics to speculate that it was a publicity stunt meant to boost Putin’s popularity ratings, while human rights activists voiced worries that the suspects had been tortured and raised doubts that there ever had been a plot against Putin.
At Russia’s request, Osmayev has been on an international wanted list on a number of terrorist charges since 2008.
Osmayev and several associates were briefly detained in Moscow in 2007 in connection with a bomb plot against Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, Kommersant reported Tuesday, citing a source in the Ukrainian Security Service. Osmayev was released for lack of evidence and fled to Ukraine, where he plotted a bomb attack against Kadyrov in Odessa in July 2011, it said.
In April, Moscow’s Lefortovsky District Court issued an arrest warrant in absentia for the two suspects on five charges: Membership in an armed group, the illegal production of instruments of crime, an attempt on the life of a political leader, the illegal production of weapons and the illegal purchase, sale, storage, transportation or carrying of weapons, RIA-Novosti said. If convicted of the charges, the suspects would face up to life in prison.
In Ukraine, the two suspects face 15 years on charges of forming a terrorist group and preparing a terrorist act, Kommersant said.
Pyanzin and Osmayev admit their guilt, and Osmayev is cooperating with investigators to avoid extradition to Russia, the report said.
Russian investigators have not decided whether to push for extradition before or after the trial, RIA-Novosti reported, citing an unidentified security services official.

TITLE: Paper Owned By Billionaire’s Son Goes Bankrupt
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A Paris court has ordered the liquidation of the France Soir, a 70-year-old newspaper owned by the son of Russian billionaire Sergei Pugachyov.
Pugachyov’s son, Alexander, purchased the French paper in 2009 in a bid to save it from looming bankruptcy at that time.
He invested some 75 million euros ($90.7 million) into the paper, but bankruptcy became inevitable this year because of its huge debts.
At least 49 people, including 42 journalists, have lost their jobs because of the bankruptcy.
The court ruled Monday that all of the paper’s assets, its archives, trademarks and website domain will be sold in an auction, Kommersant reported.
The auction will be announced in the nearest future. The only offer to buy the assets has been made by Robert Lafont, CEO of the Lafont Presse, which specializes in low cost media, Le Monde reported.




TITLE: Russia to Boost Tigers in South Korea
AUTHOR: By Roland Oliphant 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russian conservation specialists will go to South Korea to aid efforts to reintroduce Siberian tigers, which were wiped out on the Korean peninsula in the early 20th century.
“Korea plans to develop [a tiger] population, and we have enough experience, we will send experts to help them save the population,” Natural Resources and Environment Minister Sergei Donskoi told reporters last Wednesday.
Russia’s own population of the critically endangered beasts has stabilized at about 450 individuals in the Primorye and Khabarovsk regions, largely as a result of intensive conservation and anti-poaching efforts in the past 20 years.
Donskoi was speaking at a two-day conference of environment ministers from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group in Khabarovsk.
The meeting, part of preparations for the summit of APEC leaders in Vladivostok in September, saw delegates identify fighting biodiversity loss and improving cross-border cooperation on water management and air pollution as priorities for the upcoming years.
A joint declaration adopted by the summit last week highlighted five key areas as priorities: Biodiversity, sustainable use of natural resources, water management and transnational watercourses, cross-border air pollution and climate change and green growth.
Donskoi singled out biodiversity loss, pollution and climate change as the key challenges facing Russia.
By the organization’s own estimates, APEC’s 21 member economies account for more than 50 percent of global forest areas, 60 percent of global wood products and 80 percent of the global trade in forest products. The Asia Pacific region is the world’s biggest producer and consumer of mineral resources.
Donskoi claimed the meeting had determined “which mutual decisions will be made to adapt the economy [to climate change], or how we will react to pollution, including if it comes from another country.”
Cross-border issues are a sensitive topic among the 21-member group. Taiwan has said that 37 percent of its air pollution comes from abroad — a clear reference to mainland China — and that only multi-national cooperation could solve the issue. Russia has in the past squabbled with China over pollution of rivers the two countries share.
No clear mechanism on consultation or even information exchange was outlined in the declaration released by APEC last week, however. Instead, the document endorsed by environment ministers, which will be included in the declaration signed by heads of state and at the main summit in September, is confined to endorsing decisions already made at other multi-governmental summits rather than setting out new targets or specific mechanisms for action.
“Environmental protection and the conservation and sustainable use of natural resources, ecosystems and biodiversity are essential foundations for achieving sustainable economic and social results for the APEC region,” the declaration read.
Donskoi said other bilateral issues discussed included using the U.S. experience of allowing trust funds to finance conservation projects, and the further development of the Beringia National Park, a proposed transnational reserve stretching across the Bering Strait between Alaska and Chukotka, RIA-Novosti reported.




TITLE: Ombudsman’s Visit Brings Debate to Ufa
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: UFA, Bashkortostan — Boris Titov on Monday made his first trip in the capacity of business ombudsman to Ufa, where he chided the local interior minister in a show of the new clout of the community he represents.
President Vladimir Putin instituted the post of business ombudsman in a bid to rein in rampant abuses by law enforcers who extort assets and bribes from businesses, often through rigged indictments and court trials.
Titov chaired a meeting that was also attended by the Bashkir presidential chief of staff, where he demanded justice for three businessmen whose cases he reviewed.
The story that drew the most debate focused on the publisher of newspapers that advertised employment vacancies that the police later discovered were false. But it was the publisher, not the advertisers, who charged people a small fee for access to details about the positions and it was the publisher who ended up in detention, for 11 months now, pending trial.
“I would ask you not to interrupt me,” Bashkir Interior Minister Mikhail Tarasenko said amid hostile comments. “If he found himself in detention, that means the court considered it substantiated.”
Titov interjected.
“I will interrupt you,” he said firmly, before going on to make the case that the publisher didn’t have to be in a cell while the investigation continued.
On another occasion, he laid out his vision of justice to the minister, saying, “There’s not only the letter of law, but also the spirit of law. … We need to dig down to the truth.”
Tarasenko was fuming by the end of the meeting.
The chief of investigations at the Bashkir Interior Ministry got his share of this kind of talk, too.
“We will not believe you, absolutely not,” Titov said to him, in response to an attempted sentence that the officer had started with a “believe me” after using the phrase several times before.
Yana Yakovleva, head of the nongovernmental group Business Solidarity, said this was one of very few meetings with the business community where law enforcers were put on the defensive.
“Today he was rough,” Yakovleva said of Titov on the sidelines of the meeting. “Well done.”
Yakovleva, a member of Titov’s delegation, prompted the investigation chief to grin skeptically during an opening speech at the meeting as she recalled her own ordeal of getting out of the “paws of corrupt law enforcers.” A colonel, he sported what looked like a heavy golden Swiss watch that displayed various information in addition to the time.
Titov owns a winery that served sparkling wine for Putin’s inauguration party in May.
He said he had enough power to make police and other law enforcement officers have strong regard for him.
“I have direct access to the chiefs of all law enforcement agencies,” he told reporters after the meeting. “So they won’t get away with a we-don’t-care attitude. They may have views of their own, but they will have to defend them.”
Bashkortostan, headed by a former top executive of one of the country’s largest corporations, was the first in the country to establish a regional business ombudsman. Bashkortostan President Rustem Khamitov, who was chief of hydroelectric power generator RusHydro before he took office in 2010, said he was unaware of any conspicuous cases of corruption that regional business groups ever brought to light.
Nevertheless, the region’s pick for ombudsman raised some doubt. After he spoke at a separate meeting, a local entrepreneur rose from his seat with an inquiry.
“Will the local ombudsman make the agency monotonous as well?” he said to the official. “We just heard your speech, and it brought up this concern. We need things done here and now. You are our god, you are our diamond.”



TITLE: Rosneft, Eni Sign Oil Exploration Deal
AUTHOR: By Oleg Sukhov 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Oil major Rosneft and Italian energy company Eni on Monday signed a landmark deal to finance oil and gas exploration at three offshore blocks.
The document, and a number of others, was signed at a meeting between Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and his Italian counterpart, Mario Monti, Interfax reported.
The agreement elaborates on a deal concluded in June and applies to the Fedynsky and Central Barents blocks in the Barents Sea and the Western Chernomorsky block in the Black Sea, Rosneft said.
Under the deal, Eni will fully finance exploration commitments stipulated by the block license requirements. Spending on exploration exceeding them will be split between the companies in line with their stakes in the projects.
Eni holds 33.33 percent in the blocks, while Rosneft owns 66.67 percent.
Eni will also cover expenses on exploration work that has already been carried out. The company’s investment will be returned from project cash flows if production is launched at any of the blocks.
But Rosneft will not be obliged to return the investment if production does not begin.
The Fedynsky block has undergone a two-dimensional seismic survey, and nine prospective structures with 18.7 billion barrels of oil-equivalent in recoverable reserves have been discovered.
The Central Barents block neighbors Fedynsky to the north. Three prospective structures have been discovered there with total recoverable reserves of over 7 billion barrels of oil equivalent.
The third block for joint development is the Western Chernomorsky block in the Black Sea, where Rosneft has discovered six prospective structures with total recoverable resources of around 10 billion barrels of oil equivalent.
Meanwhile, mining conglomerate Norilsk Nickel signed a memorandum of understanding with Italian steelmaker Techint on a $1.8-billion project to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions at the Russian company’s Medny and Nadezhdinsky plants on the Taimyr Peninsula.
A consortium led by Techint and including companies from France, Austria and Belgium won a tender for the right to carry out the project.
Also at the meeting, Gazprombank and Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo concluded an agreement to set up a 300-million-euro ($363 million) private equity fund.
The fund will support the operations of Italian and Russian businesses in Russia and EU countries. The banks said in a press release that each of them would own 50 percent in the fund.
Intesa Sanpaolo also signed a deal to lend funds to VTB to finance the 276 million euro VTB-Arena Park real estate project. It covers an area of 31 hectares, while the building site area is 850,000 square meters.
The project will include auxiliary infrastructure at the Dinamo Stadium, 68,200 square meters of office space, 142,000 square meters of residential buildings, a hotel with 310 rooms and a conference hall.
Another Italian company, property developer Rizzani de Eccher, signed a protocol of intent with North Caucasus Resorts to invest about 1 billion euros ($1.2 billion) to build hotels and commercial infrastructure in Russia’s southern regions.



TITLE: United Russia Gets a Little Help From Its Friends
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Ryzhkov 
TEXT: Novaya Gazeta published documents last week that are widely believed to have been written by top members of the presidential administration. The documents provide a good snapshot of how an authoritarian regime strengthens monopoly political control while trying to keep the semblance of free elections.
Although the government claims that the leaked documents are fake, they carry all the telltale signs of a Kremlin special operation. The style, content, structure and method all point to the presidential administration.
The documents focus on how to maintain control of regional elections on Oct. 14, in which governors, legislative assemblies and mayors will be elected. All of the Kremlin’s administrative resources will be applied in full force, including coercion and intimidation to get people to vote for United Russia candidates. There will also be campaigns to discredit opponents, remove strong opposition candidates from the elections and nominate fake rival candidates. The headquarters for this operation, according to the documents, is in the Kremlin, which would blatantly violate the Constitution. After all, the Kremlin is supposed to be defending the rights of all citizens and parties, not just the interests of the ruling party.
This strategy for the October elections would once again show that United Russia is in real trouble in the regions. The only way it can win is through coercion, electoral fraud and mass propaganda.
In the Bryansk region, Governor Nikolai Denin is unpopular. Some strong opponents who are supported by the Communist Party come from the ranks of local businessmen. Yet the leaked documents recommend sidelining these strong opponents by coercing the Communist Party to pick a much weaker and less popular candidate.
In Primorye, where the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, or APEC, summit will be held in September on Russky Island near Vladivostok, Governor Vladimir Miklushevsky is also unpopular. Moreover, there is a bitter fight between political and economic clans in the region. But the Kremlin is apparently most scared by the fact that the APEC summit coincides with the election campaign, which threatens to result in “provocations from the opposition.”
The Kremlin faces serious problems in Kaliningrad, where mayoral elections are also scheduled to be held. The recently appointed governor, Nikolai Tsukanov, is not very well-liked by the people, and he’s butting heads with Mayor Alexander Yaroshchuk. United Russia is not liked in the city, having received only 25 percent of the vote in the December State Duma elections. Kaliningrad has always been one of the more active regions in terms of anti-government protests, and manipulations of the October vote may spur post-election protesters to take to the streets once again.
In Kursk, municipal leaders will be elected against the background of a harsh internal conflict between factions of United Russia and a conflict between Governor Alexander Mikhailov and the head of the region’s United Russia branch, Vladimir Karamyshev. As a result, the leaked document says, “representatives of the acting government are not interested in getting a decent result for the Party.” (Throughout the documents, United Russia is referred to “the Party.”)
Novgorod Governor Sergei Mitin, an outsider brought in from Nizhny Novgorod by Moscow, is also weak and unpopular, but he is determined to be elected for another term in October. This is exactly why his benefactors are already busy selecting an even weaker sparring partner for him from the Patriots of Russia party.
Mitin has poor relations with everybody, including Duma deputies, federal officials, local security officials and his constituency in the region. That is why they have given the command not to let any strong contenders pass through the “municipal filter,” according to local Communists. The governor was unable to set up a competent and cohesive team over the years.
In Udmurtia, elections for the legislature are coming up. For many years, the approval rating of the acting head of the republic, Alexander Volkov, has been only 16 percent. The region has been shaken by numerous corruption scandals. Under these conditions, the administration recommends the introduction of strong methods to control the election results.
Elections for the Tver municipal legislature will also be held amid a deep crisis among Kremlin favored candidates. The weak Governor Andrei Shevelev, an outsider, has completely discredited city authorities. In neighboring Yaroslavl, new Governor Sergei Yastrebov has neither the trust of the people nor support among the elite.
The widespread unpopularity of regional and local authorities is a direct result of the de facto absence of direct elections of governors and mayors. This is what happens when regional leadership is composed of loyal but highly incompetent functionaries.
The leaked documents from the presidential administration are just the latest reminder of how the Kremlin apparatus and United Russia have been essentially fused into one organization. It may be the only way to keep United Russia alive, but it violates the Constitution and makes a mockery of the Kremlin’s proclaimed attempt to build a democracy.

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: from a safe distance: How the Lottery Jackpot Is Destroying Russia
AUTHOR: By Alexei Bayer 
TEXT: In the 1990s, Russia was a poor country struggling to make ends meet and to find its place in the post-Soviet world. Then came a sudden rise in global commodity prices, notably oil and gas.
To be sure, other factors also came into play, too. In the 1990s, the Russian economy was restructured and made more flexible. The wasteful Soviet economic system was eliminated, freeing more natural resources for export. Still, the economy would have remained in the doldrums had oil prices not risen 15-fold in a decade. In 2011, despite a global economic slowdown, Russia earned a record $300 billion from oil and gas exports. After hitting a gigantic jackpot, Russia can now be viewed in terms of a lottery-winner economy.
There have been numerous psychological, sociological and general interest studies about those who win huge sums in the lottery. In the United States, state and national lotteries have become very popular, especially among the poor. The poor spend a substantial portion of their income hoping to win one of those multimillion-dollar jackpots, and some inevitably do. How their winnings change their lives makes for fascinating reading and also provides insight into Russia’s economy.
Generally, winning a lottery improves people’s lives. Money may not buy happiness, but it definitely makes life easier. Typically, however, winners of smaller jackpots tend to do better than those who pick up a windfall of $100 million or more. It also helps for winners not to change their lifestyles too radically but to stick to their work, family and community.
Still, winning can create considerable problems. Lottery winners find it psychologically hard to accept that their winning is a completely random event. They tend to see it as their “achievement,” the result of them being special or chosen by providence. Remarkably, this is also the case with Russia, where the government ascribes the country’s relative economic prosperity not to the inflow of petrodollars — and the luck from an extended period of high global oil prices — but to its supposedly wise, prudent economic policies. Ordinary Russians similarly see the wealth that is flowing into their country as somehow the result of their hard work, not circumstances beyond their control.
Lottery winners often see their long-standing friendships disintegrate when friends feel that the winners should share their money more readily. Meanwhile, winners, when they do help their friends, tend to impose demands and conditions that friends resent. In a way, spats over natural gas that Russia has with Ukraine and Belarus are similar to typical quarrels among lottery winners.
But even as old friendships collapse, winners often fall for foolish schemes and swindles. In parallel fashion, Russia’s massive revenues are being pilfered on a massive scale. Lottery millionaires’ extravagant, ostentatious purchases are also similar to the white elephant projects Russia has undertaken, such as the Sochi Olympics or the multibillion-dollar Russky Island development project near Vladivostok.
Winners’ greatest victims, however, are their own children. Very rarely are the lottery winnings used to ensure good education for winners’ kids. Many end up spoiled, morally corrupt and traumatized by their parents’ good fortune. This could be seen as a metaphor for Russia’s lack of investment in its future. Russia has done little to wean its economy from oil or revive the education and research infrastructure that existed in the Soviet Union.
Most alarmingly, lottery money usually ends up as an easy-come-easy-go fortune. Even enormous jackpots have been squandered completely. It is a cautionary tale for Russia, which could end up back in the indigent 1990s if oil prices fall.

Alexei Bayer, a native Muscovite, is a New York-based economist.


TITLE: Haunted by past mistakes
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Mariinsky Theater baritone Yevgeny Nikitin loves tattoos. Spiders, dragons and demons cover a fair share of the Russian singer’s muscular body. One of them has just cost the 38-year-old star baritone a long-awaited engagement with Germany’s prestigious Bayreuth festival, where the singer was due to appear in the title role of Richard Wagner’s “Der Fliegende Hollander” (“The Flying Dutchman”) on Wednesday. The tattoo in question was a swastika on the singer’s chest. 
Expectations were high for this engagement. Nikitin’s participation in “The Flying Dutchman” would have been the first-ever involvement of a Russian singer with the Bayreuth festival, and Russia’s entrance to a prestigious club with restricted access.
Nikitin will be replaced by the South Korean bass-baritone Samuel Youn after the Russian singer was forced to cancel his performance. In an official statement distributed by the festival, Nikitin said he regrets having the tattoo done and stresses it was a “mistake of youth.”
“I was not aware of the extent of the irritation and offence these signs and symbols would cause, particularly in Bayreuth given the context of the festival’s history,” the singer said in the statement. “I had them done in my youth. It was a big mistake and I wish I’d never done it.” 
The singer stressed that the symbols carried no political meaning for him and that it had never occured to him that the fact of having them done more than 20 years ago would be seen as Nazi propaganda.
In the meantime, the festival’s management justified Nikitin’s withdrawal by what they described as the festival’s firm rejection of Nazi ideas, regardless of their means of expression.
“The decision about Mr. Nikitin’s withdrawal was made after the festival acquainted the singer with the connotations of these symbols in connection with German history,” reads an official festival statement. 
Nikitin is one of the Mariinsky’s most successful opera singers, who has built an impressive international career and has a busy performing schedule at the world’s most respected operatic venues. Wagner operas are key to his repertoire, and he has performed Wagner roles in Germany on a number of occassions. At the Mariinsky, his most recent success was the lead role in Graham Vick’s production of Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov” that premiered in May this year.
In Russia, the degree of public commentary on the abrupt ending of Nikitin’s romance with Bayreuth has been extremely moderate, and essentially limited to regrets that a talented singer is missing an important engagement, and not getting the well-deserved recognition of his artistic achievement. However, behind the scenes, there is fury.
It is hard for those who sympathize with the artist to defend him, as it goes without saying that bearing a tattoo in the shape of a symbol that became associated with fascism — though the swastika significantly predates Hitler and originates in Asia — is not something to be proud of. 
“There is a new tattoo that was done later over the swastika, and, more importantly, Yevgeny Nikitin does not have a history of fascist rhetoric or any behavior that can be interpreted as Nazi propaganda,” wrote Anastasia Boutsko, a cultural reviewer with Deutsche Welle media outlet. “Without a doubt, had the singer imagined the potential damage that this old tattoo could do to his career, he would have had it removed with the help of a surgeon.”
The Bayreuth scandal raises a series of important issues: Does the concept of statute of limitations apply to ethical issues, and to what extent can these issues affect an artistic engagement? Is the classical music scene giving stage to a fight without rules when it comes to plum contracts? Or is Bayreuth assuming the tactics of a private club to which entrance can be restricted to anyone, at the management’s sole discretion, and in some cases without an explanation?
The Russian criminal code includes the concept of the statute of limitation, meaning that after a certain length of time, legal proceedings regarding a crime cannot be launched. This concept is applicable even to murders. 
The tattoos were done in about 1989 and 1990, according to Nikitin, when he was a member of a youth heavy metal band. A video showing a performance of that band — fronted by a bare chested Nikitin — was obtained by the German media, and its publication stirred up a scandal that resulted in the singer’s last-minute departure from the festival.
Clearly, the statute of limitations does not apply at Bayreuth. Does the method of an exemplary punishment work, then?
If this were the case, one peaceful solution would have been to invite Nikitin to have the tattoo removed, or offer a written apology, considering the sensitivity of the issue.
“The bitter irony is that in ‘The Flying Dutchman,’ the sinful main character is granted the chance for a spiritual transformation, and the Wagner festival has just denied a singer — who struggled with a heroine addiction in his teens that he ended after joining the Mariinsky Theater and building an international career — a tiny fraction of mercy,” Boutsko wrote. “The festival’s blow was below the belt.”
For Vladimir Dudin, a classical music reviewer who contributes to a number of publications, including Rossiiskaya Gazeta, the Bayreuth incident has left a strong aftertaste of a media provocation. 
“From whatever perspective you look at it, the scandal gives a sense of dredging up dirt from the past,” Dudin said. “Yes, Nikitin’s body is densely covered with tattoos, but it does not affect his singing in any way. And stripping on stage was not required for this performance. More importantly, his body is his personal business. The festival does not have the right to interfere in such intimate issues.”
Wagner (1813-1883) was Adolf Hitler’s favorite composer. The musician was an open and outspoken anti-Semite, while Winifred Wagner, the composer’s daughter-in-law, was friends with Hitler.
Wagner’s music is still de facto banned in Israel.


TITLE: New directions at Open Cinema
AUTHOR: By Luisa Schulz 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The 8th Open Cinema International Short and Animation Film festival that kicks off in St. Petersburg this weekend is open in more than one way: It is in part an open-air festival, and focuses on being open to new cinematic directions.
Its spotlight is on animated films and experimentation. In addition to countries traditionally prominent in the cinematic world such as France, the U.K. and Germany, there are also more exotic representatives on the competition shortlist, including Cuba, Albania, Slovakia, Sri Lanka and Kosovo.
The latter are not the only countries where cinema is currently a struggling art, however. Another such country is Russia itself. Funding for young directors is almost non-existent in Russia today, especially in minority subgenres such as short film, documentary and experimental film. In light of this fact, it is a pleasant surprise that this year’s Open Cinema festival is “stating a Russian vogue,” according to the festival’s website, with a record 23 out of 84 shortlisted films being Russian. 
The festival opens next weekend on the beach of the Peter and Paul Fortress and commences with two all-night open-air short film marathons on July 27 and 28, starting at 8 p.m. and going until the first bridges reopen to traffic. Under the name “Around the World in a Night,” the July 27 session will feature a series of visually impressive productions from all over the world, some of which — but not all — are also finalists of the festival’s competition. The evening will include the Russian big screen premiere of Taisia Igumentseva’s “The Road To...,” which won the debut prize at the Cannes International Film Festival earlier this year.
The second night has a more specific title: “The Echo of Metropolis.” According to the festival organizers, Fritz Lang’s monumental technocracy dystopia “Metropolis,” released exactly 85 years ago, is particularly evocative for young directors today. While it is not very surprising that many films on the program deal with topics such as the modern world, technology and the two-tiered societies that Lang’s tour de force paradigmatically dealt with, there are also films that refer explicitly to Metropolis. 
Max Hattler’s “1925 aka Hell,” for instance, is a remake of the Moloch Machine — a contraption in Lang’s film whose inexhaustible appetite absorbs all of the energy of those who work on it — while David O’Reilly’s cynical “The External World” perpetually quotes the classic. By using computer animation, these films have not only drawn on Lang’s stop motion technique, but developed it further — and with it the dystopia. 
Most of the 52 short films shortlisted for this year’s grand prix — a symbolical hourglass — are still live acting films, however. These will be screened at the city’s Rodina movie theater from July 30 through Aug. 1. 
The films cover themes as diverse as the problems encountered by the Kurds in Turkey (Rezan Yesilbas’ “Silent”), German soldiers repatriated after serving in Afghanistan (Christoph Schuler’s “Fallen”), a man returning to Kosovo from a Serbian prison after the war (Blerta Zeqiri’s “The Return”) and a Cuban transvestite seeking his mother’s attention (Simon Paetau’s “Mila Caos”). The most internationally acclaimed pieces include Douglas Hart’s “Long Distance Information,” Slony Sow’s “Winter Frog” with G&#233;rard D&#233;pardieu and Mikhail Mestetsky’s Russian Internet hit “Legs — Atavism” about grotesque medical experiments.
Two screenings are entirely devoted to animated films. Many of these seem to revolve around themes of nature and art, real and fictional worlds and the tangible and the intangible. Some of them rely on drawing, while most are primarily computer-animated with the use of unorthodox techniques. One is Theodore Ushev’s “Nightingales in December,” which uses classical painting, and is remarkable for its frenetic and chaotic cuts and montage. Another original example is “Chinti” by Petersburg director Natalya Mirzoyan, who used various kinds of tea leaves to build minuscule figurines of ants.
A former addict settling down in a Slovakian village, language problems between a bilingual couple and cocaine are examples of themes on the documentary shortlist. Locals may be interested in a documentary by Sergei Lando titled “Petersburg Dolls” on puppet theater in St. Petersburg. 
Among the most curious films in the competition are those tagged “experimental.” Directors shortlisted in this section include German experimental director Max Hattler with his mandalic war film “Spin,” French visual artist Francois Vogel with a hypnotic train journey titled “This Thirst,” and Singapurian celebrity Royston Tan with his exploration of memory in “Fish Love.” A favorite in the section is certainly Will Anderson’s 2011 “The Making of Long Bird,” in which the director describes how he fabricates his film’s hero, a black cartoon bird, which keeps ranting and laughing at him throughout the creation process. 
For films so extravagant that they do not fit under any of these categories, there is yet another, alternative competition with wide-ranging sections such as “Great Expectations” and “The Other Lands.” Particularly intriguing is the alternative section “No Anesthesia,” which is intended for politically incorrect films. 

The 8th Open Cinema International Short and Animation Film Festival runs from July 27 through Aug. 3 on the beach of the Peter and Paul Fortress and at the Rodina movie theater at 12 Karavannaya Ulitsa, M. Gostiny Dvor. Tel. 571 6131. For a complete timetable of events visit the festival’s website at www.opencinemafest.com.

TITLE: A touch of Italian friendship
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The State Hermitage Museum spread its wings as far as Italy this month, with the inauguration in Florence of an Italian Association of Friends of the Hermitage Museum.
Hermitage Italy is the fifth association of its kind, following Hermitage friends’ clubs in the U.K., the Netherlands, the U.S. and Canada.
The Hermitage has been Russia’s most internationally active art gallery during the past decade. Not only does it boast international friends’ organizations, it operates several branches in some of the world’s tourist Meccas, willfully expanding its international audience. In 2000, Somerset House in London became home to the Hermitage Rooms. In the same year, the museum joined forces with the New York Guggenheim Foundation to bring more contemporary art to the Hermitage, and to hold joint exhibitions with museums around the world. One of these projects, the Hermitage Guggenheim Museum in Las Vegas, has been operating ever since. On top of that, the museum opened an exhibition center in Amsterdam as well as a branch in the Italian town of Ferrara.
Not surprisingly, some members of Friends of the Hermitage societies around the world have either Russian roots or a personal Russian connection.
The president of Friends of the Hermitage in Italy is Francesco Bigazzi, an eminent Italian foreign correspondent who spent more than 20 years covering Russia and the former Soviet Union for the weekly magazine Panorama. Bigazzi was among the first five foreign correspondents to travel to Chernobyl shortly after the nuclear disaster in 1986. Bigazzi also served as a culture and press attach&#233; at the Italian Consulate General in St. Petersburg, before becoming the president of Viva Italia, an association promoting Italian tourism opportunities in Russia.
“The goal of the Friends of the Hermitage in Italy is to make Italians closer to one of the greatest art galleries on this planet,” Bigazzi told The St. Petersburg Times. “Museums like the Hermitage belong to the world, as they often represent the art and culture of a city or country. Therefore, a museum as great as the Hermitage should be accessible for exploration as much as possible for people far beyond Russia. It should also be an institution with many events and activities that people can be part of — even though they live abroad.”
Friends’ societies frequently help to arrange exhibitions from the Hermitage abroad.
Friends of the Hermitage in Italy will work in close alliance with the Hermitage Ferrara in organizing exhibitions, concerts, festivals and other cultural events. The association will raise funds for restoration work and the purchase of new masterpieces, organize arts conferences and promote cultural tourism.
“Cultural tourism will be one of our priorities,” Bigazzi said. “For the Hermitage Days, which we are holding from December 6 to 10, 2012, the association is organizing the first charter flight from St. Petersburg to Florence for members and friends of the association.”
Bigazzi believes that friends’ organizations help to build an objective image of St. Petersburg. 
“Great art galleries like the Hermitage can ultimately act as cultural ambassadors representing the country of their origin,” he said.
His views are shared by the Hermitage’s director Mikhail Piotrovsky, who is convinced that the museum’s international activities contribute toward building a positive image of Russia abroad. “When the Hermitage Rooms opened in London, for the first time in years the general tone of Russia-related stories in the British media was more favorable than usual,” he said.
According to Bigazzi, the Friends of the Hermitage Organization in Italy was established to carry out major projects in support of the Hermitage and its collections and to raise funds for these projects.
“Many Italians have never been to the Hermitage, but are fascinated by the visual arts and are most interested in exploring the Hermitage,” Bigazzi said. “Those who are affiliated with the world of arts and culture know how much the Hermitage deserves to be known and supported. On the whole, there is a great deal of goodwill toward this exceptional museum and the beautiful palace that it occupies.”
In 1996, the Hermitage became the first museum in Russia to organize a society for friends of the museum. The public immediately welcomed the creation of the organization. 
Piotrovsky announced the decision to create a friends’ organization at a press conference in November 1996. The next day, people were knocking on the museum’s door expressing their interest in becoming members.
Although a number of Russia’s leading museums and theaters now also boast their own friends’ organizations both in Russia and abroad, the practice is still relatively new in this country. 
In Western Europe, similar organizations have thousands of members, while the largest ones of their kind in Russia boast slightly fewer than 1,000 people. 
The board of the Hermitage Friends in Italy includes respected business people, scholars and members of aristocratic families, such as Ferruccio Ferragamo, chairman of the Salvatore Ferragamo fashion group; Contessa Maria Vittoria Rimbotti, president of the Uffizzi Gallery Friends Association; Claudia Cremonini, head of the external relations department of the Cremonini food processing holding; professor Stefania Pavan, a senior lecturer in Russian literature at the University of Florence; and Marquise Bona Frescobaldi.
Ferragamo, who runs one of Italy’s most renowned and successful fashion companies, became the first member of the association. During a visit to Italy for the launch ceremony of the association, Piotrovsky visited the Ferragamo Museum in Florence, where he attended an exhibit dedicated to the Hollywood legend Marilyn Monroe.
Admirers of the Ferragamo brand are hoping that this cooperation will result not only in arts projects, but also new collections inspired by the Hermitage’s objects of art.
The Hermitage has already collaborated with considerable success with St. Petersburg designers Tatyana Parfyonova and Ianis Chamalidy, who both received permission to study the museum’s collections, consult curators and produce new designs inspired and influenced by the Hermitage’s treasures.

TITLE: the word’s worth: Everyday rage, nastiness, spite and malice
AUTHOR: By Michele A. Berdy 
TEXT: <i>Çëîáîäíåâíûé âîïðîñ:</i> the question of the hour

I’m always fascinated by Russian words that come from the same root and are very similar in meaning. That is, I find these words incredibly confusing, frustrating and annoying, and my misuse of them clearly gives me away as being íåçäåøíÿÿ (not from around here).
Well, that and my accent and my other mistakes in Russian grammar.
In any case, lately I’ve been a bit obsessed with çëîñòü and çëîáà, which both originally come from çëî (evil) and can both be defined as malice, spite, rage, malevolence or animosity.
According to a highly unscientific poll of Russian speakers, çëîñòü is the lesser evil. Çëîñòü is nastiness in the form of rage, and native speakers see it as an emotion that can come and go, often quickly, rather than a state of being. Ïðèõîæó ÿ äîìîé: æåíà ðóãàåòñÿ, à ìåíÿ çëîñòü áåð¸ò (So I come home and my wife starts yelling at me, and it makes me furious).
Çëîñòü can even be a positive emotion in the context of a competition. Dmitry Medvedev once told the United Russia leadership, “Çëîñòü — âîò, ÷òî íóæíî, íî â ðàçóìíûõ ïðåäåëàõ, ñïîðòèâíàÿ çëîñòü, ïîçâîëÿþùàÿ äîñòèãàòü ðåçóëüòàòîâ” (Zeal — that’s what you need, but within reason: a passion to win that will produce results).
But the adjective çëîñòíûé often has the sense of persistent bad behavior. Çëîñòíûé íåïëàòåëüùèê is someone who consistently doesn’t pay his bills. Çëîñòíûé íàðóøèòåëü çàêîíà is what Americans used to call a scofflaw and now call a repeat offender.
But çëîñòíûé sometimes means particularly malevolent in some way: çëîñòíîå áàíêðîòñòâî (fraudulent bankruptcy); çëîñòíàÿ êëåâåòà (malicious slander).
Çëîáà, according to my respondents, is spitefulness that is more a state of being than a fleeting emotion. Çëîáíûé ÷åëîâåê is a nasty, spiteful, ill-natured person. Ïèòàòü çëîáó is a slightly old-fashioned way of bearing a grudge against someone: Îíà ñîçíàëàñü, ÷òî ðàçáèëà îêíî äîìà óìûøëåííî, ïèòàÿ çëîáó ê õîçÿèíó (She admitted that she broke the window in the house on purpose since she bore a grudge against the owner).
But çëîáà äíÿ is not, as you might think, “malice of the day.” Today, it means the hot topic, the latest news, the issues that most concern society. The phrase has even been turned into the adjective çëîáîäíåâíûé, as in çëîáîäíåâíûå âîïðîñû (burning issues) or çëîáîäíåâíàÿ êíèãà (topical book). Here there isn’t much sense of wickedness or evil, except in the sense that the latest news or hottest topics are most likely to be about some problem or catastrophe. So where does this expression come from?
The Bible: Matthew 6:34. In old translations it reads: Äîâëååò äíåâè çëîáà åãî (Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof), but it’s clearer in more recent translations: Äîâîëüíî äëÿ êàæäîãî äíÿ åãî çàáîòû (Each day has enough trouble of its own.) As far as I can tell, translators have disagreed over the intensity of the original Greek word, which in various languages and at various times has been rendered as evil, cares or trouble. And then the “cares of the day” evolved to be the most topical and urgent issues.
Today, one of these phrases is usually in the first question at a news conference: ß çàäàì âîïðîñ íà ñàìóþ, ïîæàëóé, çëîáîäíåâíóþ òåìó (I’ll ask a question about perhaps the most urgent topic of the day.)
The answer, of course, depends on the çëîáà äíÿ.

Michele A. Berdy, a Moscow-based translator and interpreter, is author of “The Russian Word’s Worth” (Glas), a collection of her columns.

TITLE: Meeting Pussy Riot
AUTHOR: By John Freedman 
TEXT: Whatever I might read about the members of Pussy Riot, I’ll never believe for a minute that they are “silly” or mere “hooligans.”
Who doesn’t have an opinion about Pussy Riot, the punk feminists who are currently in custody awaiting a trial that could bring them a sentence of seven years in prison?
Their supporters, of which there are legions, consider them heroines of Russia’s recent political protest movement. That notion gained considerable weight when in April, Amnesty International declared the women in the punk band prisoners of conscience.
Their detractors, of which there are no fewer legions, consider them heretics, hooligans, criminals, charlatans and/or “silly little girls.”
For the record, a few facts.
Pussy Riot emerged from a group of highly politicized artists called Voina, or War. That group, with factions in St. Petersburg and Moscow, existed more or less as one group until 2009, when internal friction caused it to split in two. The Moscow-based collective, a loose conglomeration of dozens of members, is nominally headed by Pyotr Verzilov, the husband of Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, a founding member of Pussy Riot.
The notion of a political punk band called Pussy Riot reportedly arose in March 2011 when the female members of Voina began studying the feminist punk movement Riot Grrrl. In the fall, Pussy Riot mounted several protest-performance acts that usually were posted on YouTube. Their most famous stunt was done in February 2012 at Christ the Savior Cathedral. It depicted four women praying, dancing and singing a song with the refrain of “Mother of God, cast Putin out.” It was for this that three of the women were arrested in March and have been held in custody ever since, threatened with up to seven years in prison. Other members of the group have eluded arrest.
I can say one thing about Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Yekaterina Samutsevich, two of the women now awaiting trial. “Stupid,” “silly,” or “fake” would have been the last words to come to mind after I saw them at an event titled “The Artist and Authority: War or Peace” at the Joseph Beuys Theater on Dec. 8, 2011.
Representing the Voina group that evening, they took part in a discussion on whether artists should collaborate with the state or not. Four representatives of Voina, representing the “no” vote on that question, sat across a table from the two founding members of the relatively scandalous Blue Noses group of artists founded in 1999 by Vyacheslav Mizin and Alexander Shaburin. They were there to say that they saw no reason why an artist should lose independence by participating in government-funded programs.
Both Samutsevich and Tolokonnikova were severe and unwavering in their opinions, to the point, perhaps, of demonstrating a lack of sense of humor. While Shaburin went on at length telling anecdotes about being picked up by limousines paid for by the Culture Ministry and occasionally drawing unusually large honorariums for work, the women often sat stone-faced and judgmental in their seats, or whispered between themselves.
When asked about their activities and to what extent they considered themselves artists, Tolokonnikova responded that members of Voina were artists only insofar as they had “something to say politically.” Art is pointless without a political message, she declared, adding that one cannot remain politically or artistically independent while collaborating with the authorities.
What Shaburin and Mizin saw as a harmless game, Tolokonnikova and Samutsevich unmistakably saw as the road to compromising not only one’s personal integrity, but the integrity of the art.
Many in the audience that night were incredulous when the four representatives of Voina, after huddling among themselves, stood and declared that they were leaving because they had “another appointment” to attend. Ignoring entreaties to remain, they turned and marched out briskly. They did it demonstratively in a way that almost looked planned or rehearsed.
They clearly understood the visual and emotional impact of making a bold statement — “we’re leaving” — and then making a quick exit. It essentially was a performance, a small work of art, if you will. 
These people knew what they were doing; they seemed to understand why they were doing it; and they gave the impression that they knew how it could best be done. For all the jocular jabbering and light-hearted showing of slightly naughty short films that the Blue Nose group engaged in that evening, they came across as insignificant and self-indulgent. The members of Voina, on the other hand, occasionally looked rather haughty and so serious as to be dour. But they wore the stamp of purpose in their gazes.

TITLE: Musicians unite for Pussy Riot
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Anthony Kiedis, lead singer of the U.S. group Red Hot Chili Peppers, appeared on stage in St. Petersburg during a concert last Friday wearing a T-shirt bearing the name of the controversial Russian punk rock group Pussy Riot.
Kiedis also put on a similar T-shirt during the band’s concert in Moscow the next day.
This was how the Red Hot Chili Peppers chose to show their support for the young women from the group that performed a “punk prayer” in one of the country’s main orthodox churches, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, in Moscow in February. The women have been in pre-trial detention for the past six months.
A Moscow district court prolonged the detention of the group members by another six months only a few hours before the concert. The women face charges of hooliganism and face up to seven years in prison.
Red Hot Chili Peppers also passed along some letters of support written by celebrated rock musicians to the women. The letters were written by Kiedis, Chili Peppers bassist Michael Balzary (better known by his stage name Flea) and Alex Kapranos, lead singer of the group Franz Ferdinand, RIA Novosti news agency reported.
Pyotr Verzilov, husband of Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, one of the Pussy Riot members currently in custody, said the musicians had asked him to pass the letters on to the women. Verzilov said the idea of the meeting with the musicians came from the concert organizers, RIA Novosti reported.

TITLE: in the spotlight: An interview with strings attached
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas 
TEXT: Last week, figure skater Yevgeny Plushenko and his wife, pop producer Yana Rudkovskaya, announced that they are expecting in Hello! magazine. This was also an opportunity for Rudkovskaya to plug a brand of moisturizer.
To be fair, their pregnancy news was broken for them a long time ago by television host and friend to the stars Andrei Malakhov, who somewhat unethically wrote on Twitter back in May that Rudkovskaya was nine weeks pregnant. Rudkovskaya told Hello! the baby is due in late December or early January.
I was hoping she might mention her ex-husband and the father of her two sons, Viktor Baturin. Remember him? The black sheep brother-in-law of ex-Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov who has been banged up in in pre-trial detention since November last year on suspicion of financial machinations connected to his sister’s former company Inteko. But she did not — that would not be very Hello! magazine.
She did go into an obscure scandal involving one of her sons, who in fact is not her blood relation. In a bizarre Brazilian soap opera twist, Baturin’s first wife gave up her rights to her son in favor of her husband and he is being brought up by Rudkovskaya after she divorced Baturin in 2008. The boy’s mother made a recent reappearance on tell-all chat show “Let Them Talk,” hosted by Malakhov, claiming her right to the child.
Rudkovskaya hinted that she had delayed the show’s coming out but said that she finally resigned herself to it as people were unlikely to feel much sympathy for a woman who gave up her mother’s rights — albeit presumably under a lot of pressure and using ridiculously lax laws.
Rudkovskaya is also bringing up Baturin’s one-time protege, pop star Dima Bilan, who somehow came under the custody arrangements. And she found time to mention to Hello! that he has a new album coming out.
You definitely detect an iron will in the pair, and it is not Plushenko’s, despite his rigor as an Olympic gold medal winner.
At one point, he mentions that Rudkovskaya “does a lot of my business and helps find sponsors,” and that one of these is a gambling company called Bingo-Boom.
Surprise, surprise, the magazine runs a full page ad in which Plushenko registers joy next to a woman holding a glass of champagne. It’s a chain of bingo clubs that calls itself a lottery to comply with anti-gambling laws.
Rudkovskaya also drops into the interview that luckily a popular moisturizer brand is still perfectly safe during pregnancy and that she has just done an ad for the brand.
And we find the full-page ad that calls Rudkovskaya a qualified dermatologist (she has beauty salons in Sochi) and in which she endorses the anti-aging cream.
Finally there is a full-page ad for Rudkovskaya’s talent show on Muz-TV called “Children’s top ten with Yana Rudkvovskaya.” Children get to make pop videos that are aired on the show — but only if they enter via something called the Stars Academy of Cinema and Show-Business, whose general producer is one Yana Rudkovskaya.
The academy doesn’t give a price list, but its poorly moderated comments on VKontakte suggest that you do have to pay for your child to go there. Hello! magazine is listed as a partner on its website with examples of ads from the magazine.
And the academy’s website says that one of its pupils’ recent projects has been making an ad for their “friends,” a certain Bingo-Boom company.
Russia’s WTO entry probably came with fewer pre-conditions than the Hello! interview.

TITLE: THE DISH: Gloriously green
AUTHOR: By Luisa Schulz  
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A veggie restaurant in Petersburg is still a surprise in itself, although the ranks are gradually swelling with the relatively recent addition of Rada and K to the several branches of Troitsky Most around town and the ever-popular Botanika caf&#233;.
Prekrasnaya Zelyonaya, however, holds far more surprises than just vegetarian food, and from the very moment customers enter: Stepping down into the basement, it takes a moment to realize that behind the first room, the venue zigzags around the bar into another angular backroom. A particular treat is a very small third room behind a curtain, with one table for two. On the downside, those back corners are so heavy with a sweet, greasy cake-like smell that they are somewhat stifling. 
The restaurant is named after Coline Serreau’s 1996 film about a journey to Earth from a utopian green planet, but its interior has little in common with that planet’s bucolic setting. It is instead a coquettish array of granny lamps, sofas and potted plants, with framed embroideries on green flowery wallpaper, plus cat figurines on the piano — a design probably meant to make diners feel at home, but this is in fact unlikely to work except for anyone who previously lived in Victorian Britain.  
The menu, on the other hand, almost resembles a botanic dictionary, from cauliflower to persimmon. The restaurant, which initially served “vegetarian and fish” — for many, an oxymoron — now confines itself to ovo-lacto-vegetarian options, while skillfully avoiding the typical meat substitute clich&#233;s. Also appetizing are the prices, all undeniably fair (170 to 280 rubles, or $5.25 to $8.60, for a main). Here, however, we encountered a negative surprise: Not one, not two, but three of the options we first attempted to order were not available on the day of our visit. Vegans might also have cause for complaint, as there are only soups and two other dishes suitable for them. The soymilk option, though written in bold on the menu, was unavailable. But there were also pleasant surprises: Upon an anxious enquiry as to whether the buckwheat noodles just brought were really vegan, the waitress, generally attentive and smiling, returned to the kitchen and fetched the empty noodle packet to check.
The dishes arrived in quite an unorderly fashion — plates before cutlery, main before starter, dishes for the two guests at different times — but were imaginative compositions. The vegan Waldorf salad (180 rubles, $5.50) with its long slices of cucumber, apple and orange was a symphony of colors, though slightly cacophonous in taste, and surprised with some exotic kumquats. Just like the buckwheat noodles with eggplant and tomato (190 rubles, $5.80), it was almost unseasoned, which perfectly brought out the freshness of the ingredients. 
A particular delight was the mushroom julienne (190 rubles), which came in a lovely arrangement, the creamy mushroom stew in a little bowl hidden under Parmesan, with two dunes of potato mash, laced with strips of melting balsamic and pesto, at its side. Only in the pumpkin soup (180 rubles) was the purism of the dishes a bit of a letdown — with its typically viscous substance and mild pumpkin taste, it did not take well to being left unseasoned and tasted more like baby food than haute cuisine. A bonus was the dessert kovrizhka (lenten honey cake priced at 100 rubles or $3), which, though slightly too greasy and syrupy, yielded surprises of dried apricots baked into it and a mint leaf that ideally agreed with the cocoa and balanced out the sweetness of the cake.
Almost the entire meal was exquisitely accompanied by live piano music, as both an instrument and sheet music for works by composers as varied as Yann Tiersen, Brahms and Frank Sinatra were readily available. And for hungry pianists, there is a 20-percent discount on all dishes. 
It is worth bearing in mind that Prekrasnaya Zelyonaya does not accept credit cards. Otherwise, even payment is a pleasant surprise: The check comes in an old-fashioned coffee box, sublimating the payment process. The cafe is an intriguing and unorthodox venue that enriches the local vegetarian landscape, even if it doesn’t quite live up to the utopian standards of its name. 


TITLE: The World’s Largest City on Permafrost
AUTHOR: By Alec Luhn 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: YAKUTSK — Flying into Yakutsk, the capital of the Sakha republic and the coldest city in the world, feels like flying to the end of the Earth.
A pale brown, desolate expanse with the contours of a crumpled paper bag covers the western approach to the city, fingers of white filling its crevasses even in May. Rusty tankers sit packed together in a canal off the nearly 5-kilometer-wide channel of the still-frozen Lena River, awaiting the short spring and the month-long thaw, when the unbridged river is impassable.
To inquire about someone’s age in Yakut, a Turkic tongue that is the second official language of the republic, you ask how many springtimes they’ve seen. That’s because living through a winter here is no mean feat: Yakutsk has an average January temperature of minus 39 degrees Celsius, and the lowest temperature ever recorded here was minus 64 degrees Celsius (minus 83 degrees Fahrenheit). The world’s coldest permanently inhabited place is either Oimyakon or Verkhoyansk, both villages in the Sakha republic that vie for the title of “Pole of Cold,” each with record lows of minus 68 degrees Celsius (minus 90 degrees Fahrenheit).
Summers are short and hot, with many mosquitoes.
“This is a place that changes people for the better, because they have to demonstrate good qualities to survive,” said Lena Sidorova, a local historian and deputy editor of the historical and cultural journal Ilin.
The end-of-the-Earth impressions continue in the city itself. Yakutsk is the largest city built on permafrost — the permafrost zone encompasses all of Sakha — and many buildings are built atop concrete pilings that often jut out of the ground as if awaiting a flood. In warm months, the many dirt parking lots and roads turn to muddy morasses, and most locals navigate the epic puddles and mud patches in SUVs. At the local market, vendors sell bear fat to cure various ills.
This is not the end of the world, however, as Yakutsk is just the start of the Sakha republic, which would be the eighth-largest country in the world if it were an independent state. It includes natural wonders such as the Lena Pillars, a rock formation, and man-made ones like the 525-meter-deep diamond-mining pit in Mirny. Since its founding, Yakutsk has served as a basing point for Russian and foreign explorers such as Yerofei Khabarov, after whom the Far East city of Khabarovsk is named.
The first people came to the area of Yakutsk at the end of the last glacial period, including nomadic peoples such as the Evenks, Yukhagir and Chukchi. The Yakuts later settled and began raising livestock, becoming the most populous group in the area.
Groups of Russian Cossacks first reached the Lena in the 1620s. At that time, the main economic activity in Siberia was the trade in “soft gold,” or fur. Yenisei Cossack leader Pyotr Beketov was sent to establish a Russian presence on the Lena, which he did by building a fort 70 kilometers south of present-day Yakutsk in 1632. This date is considered the founding of the city, although the fort was only moved to Yakutsk’s current location in 1643.
As early as 1641, the Russian tsardom was already collecting a fur tribute here, and the permanent Russian population increased along with the fur trade. The area was gradually incorporated into Muscovy without much large-scale conflict.
Today, Yakuts make up 46 percent and Russians 41 percent of the 949,280 people living in the republic.
In the 18th century, the city became a center of Russian Orthodoxy in Siberia. Travelers described Yakutsk as a small city with many churches, and the first stone building in here was the still-standing Spassky Monastery built in 1664.
But the shamanistic healing practices and beliefs of the region’s indigenous peoples — “shaman” is an Evenk word — live on. Sakha and the Altai region are the two places in the world where shamanism has been best preserved, and some residents still go to shamans for healing or communication with the spirit world, Sidorova said.
Sakha’s shamanistic roots can be seen at Ysyakh, the Yakut New Year celebration on the summer solstice, when tens of thousands of people gather on the fields of Yus Khastyn outside the capital. Participants traditionally feed the earth spirits with kumys, or fermented mare’s milk, sing songs, compete in horse races and traditional wrestling, take part in khorovod circle dances, and greet the sunrise at 3 a.m. with outstretched arms to absorb the sun’s energy for the coming year.
During Soviet times, Yakutsk served as a transfer point in the gulag system. This continued the city’s long history as a place of political and criminal exile: As early as the 17th century, rebellious Cossacks and victims of political intrigues were sent to the area. Gulag prisoners built the M56 Kolyma Highway from Magadan to Yakutsk that is now often called “The Road of Bones” and is a popular route for adventure motorcyclists. The majority of foreign travelers who come to Yakutsk arrive on Kolyma Highway trips, according to local blogger Bolot Bochkaryov, who answers travelers’ questions in English on his blog, AskYakutia.com.
In World War II, Yakutsk was part of the route by which the United States supplied lend-lease aid to the Soviet Union. More than 8,000 American military airplanes were flown from Fairbanks, Alaska, to Krasnoyarsk with stops in Uelkal and Yakutsk.
After the war, the Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic became a source of natural resources, and the discovery of diamond-containing kimberlite rock here in 1954 marked the start of Soviet diamond mining. By the 1970s, almost all the country’s diamonds and antimony as well as a large percentage of its gold, mica and tin were mined here. Coal and natural gas are also extracted in Sakha.
Although most raw diamonds and gold are mined elsewhere in the republic, which holds some of the largest open pit mines in the world, Yakutsk has long been a center of jewelry production. Jewelry companies such as Zoloto Yakutii, the Yakut Diamond Company and EPL Diamond are based in the city, along with the Indian-run Choron Diamond. Alrosa, the largest diamond supplier in the world, is based in Mirny in the west of the republic but has a representative office in Yakutsk. In August, Yakutsk will hold its first-ever “Diamond Week,” a festival celebrating the diamond industry, with reduced prices on local jewelry.

<b>What to do if you have two hours</b>
If your time in Yakutsk is limited, head straight to the Old City of reconstructed historic buildings along Ammosova and Kirova streets, just south of Lenin Square in the city center. A wooden tower of the 17th-century stockade stood on Ulitsa Kirova until a decade ago, when it was damaged by arson. A replica now stands in its place, and several other reconstructions dot the area, including the Preobrazhenskaya Church just down the street, the original incarnation of which was built in 1845.
Continue toward Ulitsa Chernyshevskogo, where you’ll find an eternal flame memorial to fallen soldiers and a monument to Beketov. The distant view of the Lena River across the huge floodplain is the best you’ll find in the city.
Also on Ulitsa Chernyshevskogo is Archy Diete, colloquially known as “Dom Archy,” a spiritual center that holds traditional games and dances on the weekends. You can also arrange to undergo obryady, cleansing rituals performed by a folk healer.
Finish your stroll at the State Repository of Treasures of the Sakha Republic (12 Ulitsa Kirova, +7 (4112) 
48-22-07; sakha.gov.ru/node/44727), located in the large glass Komdragmetall building on Ulitsa Kirova next to the Tyghyn Derkhan hotel. Here you’ll see some famous local diamonds, as well as a variety of other precious stones.
An alternate option is the People of the World Khomus Museum and Center (33 Ulitsa Kirova; 
+7 (4112) 42-86-75; ilkhomus.com) at the other end of Ulitsa Kirova. The khomus, or jaw harp, is a celebrated instrument in Yakutsk and is played by many locals, some of whom ascribe spiritual qualities to it.
The city has hosted several international jaw-harp conventions, and each summer it holds a contest for women ages 16 to 25 to select the most talented and beautiful jaw-harp player (the women dress in highly decorative folk costumes). The museum has jaw harps from many countries and eras of history, including an oversized jaw harp that must be stuck into the ground to be sounded.

<b>What to do if you have two days</b>
If you have more time in Yakutsk, head to the Chochur Muran Ethnographic Complex (7th kilometer Vilyuisky Trakt, 5, +7 (924) 661-61-00; arctic-travel.ru) just outside the city. Start with the complex’s Tsarstvo Vechnoi Merzloty (“Permafrost Kingdom”), which basically amounts to a long horizontal tunnel dug into the side of a hill.
As you walk along the wood-planked passage cloaked in a thick silver-colored poncho for warmth, surrounded by earthen walls covered in ice crystals, you’ll truly see — and feel — the Siberian permafrost up close. Hundreds of intricate ice sculptures, entrants in a republic-wide contest, decorate the tunnel and its side-caverns. Ask the staff for a chance to try a shot of vodka — from a shot glass made of ice.
Once your fingers have gone numb, go around the small lake to the rest of the complex. In the wintertime, snowmobile and dogsled rides are often on offer, while in the summer, you can enjoy the antics of the many animals on the property, including ducks, goats, short Yakut ponies and striking Siberian huskies. The complex also features such far-northern sights as a decorated yurt-like balagan and a huge Polar Airlines Mi-8 helicopter. The ornate, wooden main building houses an excellent restaurant that is popular with locals and tourists alike.
With a little more time, you can see the Lena Pillars, a set of rock formations on the Lena River that rise to 300 meters in height. From June until mid-September, boats based in Yakutsk take visitors on three-day river cruises to the Lena Pillars Nature Park, which the UNESCO World Heritage Committee recently added to its list of areas of special natural importance.

<b>What to do with the kids</b>
The woolly mammoths of the Mammoth Museum and the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography 
(48 Ulitsa Kulakovskogo, +7 (4112) 36-16-47 and +7 (4112) 49-68-41; 
museum.sakha.ru), both located in the North Eastern Federal University, are sure to pique children’s interest. A giant mammoth skeleton greets visitors to the archaeology museum, which also holds exhibits about the various peoples of Yakutia and how they survived in an unforgiving climate, while a cryogenically preserved mammoth head and other discoveries await those who make it up to the Mammoth Museum on the fifth floor.

<b>Nightlife</b>
As the longstanding fine-arts center of Eastern Siberia, Yakutsk has produced a number of well-known performers over the years, including the bass singer Ivan Stepanov. The city holds a number of theaters, including the Sakha Republic State Theater of Opera and Ballet (46/1 Prospekt Lenina; +7 4112-35-49-02; opera-balet.ykt.ru) and the State Academic Russian Drama Theater in the name of 
A. S. Pushkin (23 Prospekt Lenina; 
+7 4112-42-46-91; gardt.ykt.ru).
For a louder atmosphere, go to Cafe Harley (21 Ulitsa Fyodora Popova; 
+7 924-860-88-81), where live bands play every weekend. The restaurant-bar Dikaya Utka (20 Ulitsa Chernyshevskogo; +7 4112-26-36-13; restoran.sakha.ru), located in the Old City, also offers live music and dancing.
Finally, Yakutsk’s one-stop shop for all things nightlife is Club Evropa (47 Prospekt Lenina; +7 4112-40-04-00; evropaklub.ru), a five-floor behemoth that holds a dance club, sports bar, bowling alley, karaoke club and gentlemen’s club.

<b>Where to eat</b>
Yakut food may seem bland to those from warmer climates, but it has its own rustic charm. Traditional dishes often feature dairy products and raw fish, with an occasional dose of horse or reindeer meat. The pride of the Yakut kitchen is stroganina, thinly striped strips of frozen fish dipped in salt and pepper, a treat that goes perfectly with a shot of ice-chilled vodka.
A good stop for quality Yakutian food in the city center is Mamont, or Mammoth (38 Ulitsa Ordzhonikidze; +7 4112-40-21-11), although not all dishes are always available. Be sure to try the buttery mannaya kasha with horse meat, kerchik (cream with berries), potatoes with caviar, and the Yakut soup made of cow intestines, which doesn’t taste half bad as long as you can stomach its strong odor. Dinner for one without alcohol costs about 1,500 rubles ($45).
The restaurant at Tygyn Darkhan (See contact information in Where to stay), the jewel of the city’s hotel scene, also features good Yakut food, as does the restaurant at Chochur Morgan (See contact information in What to do if you have two days).

<b>Where to stay</b>
No international hotels operate in Yakutsk, and the level of quality even in the city’s toniest hotels is less than in Moscow. Despite its five stars and recent renovations, local top dog Tygyn Darkhan (9 Ulitsa Ammosova; +7 (4112) 43-51-09; tygyn.ru) will likely leave international customers underwhelmed, with small rooms and chintzy fixtures. Nonetheless, the hotel is classier than most Soviet holdovers, and the staff is relatively friendly. A single costs 4,950 rubles ($150) per night.
The two other main hotels in the city center are the Lena (8 Prospekt Lenina, +7 (4112) 42-48-92; lena-hotel.ru) and Polyarnaya Zvezda 
(24 Prospekt Lenina; +7 (4112) 
34-12-15; alrosa-hotels.ru), which is owned by Alrosa, although the company is reportedly looking to sell off its chain of hotels.

<b>Conversation starters</b>
Almost anywhere, locals like to gripe about the roads, but Yakutsk residents truly have reason to complain. Outside the city center, the roads start to hump and buckle like roller-coaster tracks. Almost anyone would be glad to discuss the trickiness of building on permafrost — or rant about the need for more road funding.

<b>How to get there</b>
Some Western readers may remember conquering Yakutsk in the classic board game Risk, but getting an army here would have been supremely difficult. The railroad has not yet reached Yakutsk, although it is being built. The only road leading to and from the city is the M56 highway, a dirt track that regularly makes lists of the world’s “worst,” “most dangerous” and “insane” roads. Be aware that during the spring and fall, when the river is thawing and freezing, you cannot reach the city from the highway, which is on the opposite bank.
Thus, unless you’re an adventure traveler such as Ewan McGregor in the motorcycle documentary “Long Way Round,” flying remains the only way into the city. The airlines Yakutia, Transaero and S7 offer regular connections to Yakutsk via Moscow. The 4,900-kilometer flight from Moscow takes six-and-a-half hours, and roundtrip tickets from St. Petersburg cost about 25,000 rubles ($770).
<hr>
<b>Yakutsk</b>

<i>Population:</i> 267,983 
<i>Main industries:</i> Energy production, diamond processing and jewelry making, food production
<i>Mayor:</i> Aisen Nikolayev
Founded in 1632

<i>Interesting fact No. 1:</i> The lowest temperature ever recorded in Yakutsk was minus 64 degrees Celsius (minus 83 degrees Fahrenheit). The coldest place on Earth outside Antarctica is either Oimyakon or Verkhoyansk, both villages in the Sakha republic, where record lows of minus 68 degrees Celsius (minus 90 degrees Fahrenheit) have been recorded. 

<i>Interesting fact No. 2:</i> The city was founded as a fort by Cossack Pyotr Beketov 70 kilometers south of its current location on the eastern bank of the Lena River. The fort was moved to the western bank of the Lena River in the Tuimaada Valley and renamed Yakutsk in 1643. The river cannot be crossed during the spring thaw and fall freeze.

<i>Sister cities:</i> Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada; Harbin, China; Darmstadt, Germany; Olympia, Greece; Murayama, Japan; Changwon, South Korea; Fairbanks, Alaska, U.S.

<i>Helpful contacts:</i>
&bull; Local blogger Bolot Bochkaryov (askyakutia.com/ask-your-questions, Twitter: @yakutia), 
&bull; Valery Maximov, federal affairs and external relations minister of the Sakha republic 
(+7 914-291-7583), 
&bull; Sakha deputy head Dmitry Glushko (+7 914-273-3185) 

<b>Major Businesses</b> 
&bull; EPL Diamond (4 Ulitsa Oiunskogo, +7 (4112) 35-10-92, epldiamond.ru) is the largest diamond maker in the Sakha republic. The company polishes diamonds and places them in jewelry, which is then sold through its chain of stores.
&bull; Yakutskaya Ptitsefabrika (Mikroraion Ptitsefabrika, 
+7 (4112) 33-05-18, selen.ykt.ru) produces eggs and meat at its factory in Yakutsk. Although the enterprise was reorganized as a public company only in 2006, the factory has been operating since 1970.
&bull; Yakutia Airlines (9 Ulitsa Bykovskogo, +7 (4112) 44-30-60, yakutia.aero), founded in 2002, 
is based in Yakutsk, Krasnodar and Moscow (Vnukovo) and offers national and international flights.

TITLE: U.S. Cultural Tip: ‘Don’t Wear a Speedo. Ever.’
AUTHOR: By Jonathan Earle 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: SABUROVO, Moscow Region — The group of 35 teens linked arms and formed two parallel lines.
“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight!” they shouted, stamping their feet.
“Let me see your Funky Chicken!” one line of teens said.
Passersby stared. It’s not everyday that vacationers in the Moscow region stumble across a game of “Funky Chicken,” in which participants variously pretend to be the Klitschko brothers, Michael Jackson and orangutans.
“We do this so that the United States won’t be as shocking as it could be,” said Jason Jimenez-Bragdon, a program officer with the FLEX program.
By “this,” he means the PDO, program jargon for “pre-departure orientation” — the last chance to prepare this year’s crop of Russian high-school students for their year in the United States.
FLEX, which celebrates its 20th year in 2012-13, is a U.S. State Department-funded study-abroad program that sends hundreds of teens from across the former Soviet Union to the United States for one school year. The students live with American families and study at American high schools, typically in rural towns, where they will be the first Russians that many of their peers have ever met.
Program officials hope these students will come back to Russia empowered and inspired to improve their home communities.
“The idea of the program is to gain an understanding of American culture and diversity, to teach Americans about Russia and Russian culture, to create long-lasting relationships with American people, and to understand American civil society, especially concepts such as volunteerism and the idea that American citizens can and do act at the grassroots level to deal with societal problems,” Jimenez-Bragdon said in e-mailed comments. “Also, we want them to understand and respect the concept of rule of law.”
This PDO, held at a sanatorium in the Moscow region, is the final orientation program that the group of 35 students will pass through before leaving Russia during the next five weeks. A total of 244 from Russia will study in the United States this year, and The St. Petersburg Times is following them from when they first applied last November until they return in summer 2013.
For three days this month, the 35 students attended workshops, played games and listened to program alumni discuss the peculiarities of American life. The tips formed a jarring crash course on how Americans live.
“Use deodorant,” said alumna Maria Shishkina, who spent her year in Hudson, Massachusetts. “You’ll stand out if you don’t shower, wash your hair, and change your clothes every day.”
Other things to watch out for: Girls, wear high heels only on special occasions. Boys, no Speedo bathing suits. Ever.
“Is it OK to clean your shoes?” asked Maxim Kotov, 15, who wore large, Armani glasses.
Only six of the 35 finalists in this group are boys, a fact Jimenez-Bragdon attributes to nature and nurture. “Girls reach maturity earlier than boys so they’re more ready to commit to something like FLEX. More girls turn out for round one testing and more of them have high scores,” he said in the e-mail.
It’s also worth noting that boys are traditionally encouraged to pursue science and math, while the girls are pushed toward humanities, he said.
The students shifted in their seats when the conversation turned to making American friends. Even though they’re predominantly outgoing and speak English, they’re still nervous about starting from scratch.
“Don’t expect to be a star. Don’t expect everyone to hate you,” advised Maya Klisho, who studied in Snohomish, Washington. “Just be friendly. Smile.”
The students are excited. They’re among the 1 percent of applicants who made it into the program. More important, they’re ready to go.
They’ve been told many times what to expect: Winter depression, limitations on Internet use, small towns, the prominence of religion in many families.
“There are lots of rules to learn,” said Tamara Revva, 17, from Saransk. “Program rules, placement organization rules, home-stay family rules, school rules, U.S. rules.”
The group emitted a knowing snicker every time a program maxim is spoken, the most ubiquitous being, “It’s not better, it’s not worse, it’s just different.”
“Are there fat cheerleaders?” one girl asked. Answer: Yes.
Some students are already in touch with their host families. Daria Merzlikina, 15, is headed to Nashville, Tennessee. A native of Voronezh, she acknowledged that she doesn’t know anything about country music, but she was looking forward to hearing it.




TITLE: Toastmasters Thrive on Tomatoes and Insults
AUTHOR: By Lena Smirnova 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Every weekend, Mikhail Vasin suits up for the unexpected.
The lanky 31-year-old is no stranger to performing under pressure, having spent his college years as a member of an improvisational acting group, which was appropriately named Risk. However, that experience hardly matches up to the risks Vasin faces today.
Now, common job hazards include airborne tomatoes, deoxygenated workspaces, half-naked audiences and stone-faced people reciting greeting card poetry.
Vasin is a tamada, the Georgian term for a toastmaster at a feast, which has also become a common part of the Russian lexicon and social life.
He says the title of his profession with an exaggerated Georgian accent and a reverent, upward jab of his index finger to emphasize the top-notch caliber of the profession.
“This job is different from an organized, cultured performance on stage in front of the 200 to 300 civilized people who come to a theater,” Vasin said. “They won’t throw tomatoes at you. They won’t swear at you and won’t provoke conflicts. And they’re sober.”
Traditionally in the Caucasus, the tamada was a respected family member or friend who would be entrusted with leading festive banquets, such as weddings, anniversaries and birthday parties.
The tradition continues, but now it frequently takes a more commercial — and professional — tone. The pay can be quite good, and weddings are a particularly profitable sector.
Prices for regular tamadas are between 30,000 ($918) and 50,000 rubles, media personalities such as radio hosts and theater actors can get up to 150,000 rubles, and well-known celebrities start at 20,000 euros ($24,500).
Hired tamadas readily step into the role of respected relative to lead wedding guests through a series of entertaining games such as charades or mindreading and, when necessary, manage conflicts between warring uncles and mutinous mothers-in-law.
Websites, social media sites and personal recommendations are the usual ways newly engaged couples find a master for their wedding ceremonies when relatives are not solicited to take up the role.
Alexei Mayorov, director of the Scarlett Star wedding agency, picks tamadas for his clients based on their budget and basic preferences regarding gender and age.
The agency has a database of about 50 tamadas with whom it collaborates. Mayorov selects several candidates from the database to meet with the engaged couple.
Scarlett Star also has a lineup of tamadas who are willing to do themed weddings.
“Each [tamada] has his own basic image,” Mayorov said. “Not everyone can dress up and reincarnate into some character such as a sea captain.”
Acting experience comes in handy when leading a themed wedding.
Svetlana Svetlaya has gone from playing a mother-hero in an amateur theater to playing a witch at Ukrainian-themed weddings. 
“The most important thing is to create a festive atmosphere,” Svetlaya said.
Most weddings don’t require such meticulous preparations as themed weddings do. Svetlaya said only 10 percent of the average 60 weddings she does per year are themed. 
Svetlaya has a website and good references, making her a unique case in an otherwise male-dominated business.
Overall, there are fewer females in the profession, and they are paid less.
Female tamadas are not in demand partially because it is difficult for them to control boisterous wedding crowds, Mayorov said. 
Svetlaya said female humor tends to be underrated, and she herself dislikes her female colleagues’ inclination to recite poems and jump up in octaves when speaking.
“For people to say about me ‘Oh, that was a great tamada,’ I need to be three heads above the men,” Svetlaya said.
English-speaking tamadas are also rare. Although 10 to 15 percent of clients at Scarlett Star are foreigners, there are few bilingual tamadas. Some couples are happy to hire a Russian native and follow his hand gestures, Mayorov said.
Vasin said he learned English by watching MTV, and he can switch to that language for an extra 5,000 rubles. He has received one such request.
Not all couples who call Vasin become his clients.
Vasin said he can usually tell by the caller’s voice how respectful the guests will be toward the tamada, and he has turned down some people he deemed too provincial.
“A wedding plan meant for intellectuals will be boring for less intellectual people,” Vasin said. “There is not enough meat there. There is not enough of rolling oranges from one pant leg to the next. This is very ‘funny,’ you know.”
Vasin has also taken up several celebrations that were out of his comfort zone. Notably, he once led a wedding for a couple of newlywed prison workers and their guest colleagues.
Problems with unemotional or overly enthusiastic guests are some of the most common. Mayorov has had to subdue a best man who took his shirt off and rein in female guests requesting a nude photo session with a variety of wedding props.
For Svetlaya, the most dreaded partygoer is the unemotional one. In one such case, she had to entertain a group of somber guests who, even during the official ceremony at City Hall, looked as if they were at a funeral.
“There is a feeling like you’re pulling a very, very heavy cart up a mountain. All of the 60 or so guests at a wedding are in that cart,” Svetlaya said.
While the tamada’s work isn’t always as colorful as it looks, Svetlaya doesn’t plan to leave the business. She’s even trained her daughter to become a tamada.
Vasin wants to grow professionally but said he doesn’t want his entire career to be summed up with that one reverently raised finger.
“I enjoy this work,” he said. “But I wouldn’t want my grandchildren to say ‘our grandfather is a tamada’ or for my gravestone to be engraved with the words ‘here lies a tamada.’”