SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1726 (37), Wednesday, September 12, 2012
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TITLE: Trial of 12 Becomes Trial of 11 as Judge Scraps Case
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: In an unpredictable turn of events, Judge Sergei Yakovlev threw out the case Tuesday against one of the 12 Other Russia activists on trial in St. Petersburg, several days after Maxim Reznik, the Yabloko Democratic Party’s local leader, dismissed the charges against the defendants as “balderdash.” 
Defendant Oleg Petrov motioned Friday for the case against him to be closed on the grounds that two years (the expiration term for petty crimes) had passed since he took part in a Strategy 31 rally in August 2010, and to the surprise of those assembled in the courtroom, the judge accepted his motion.
Reznik, a Legislative Assembly deputy — where he chairs the education, culture and science commission — testified Friday as a defense witness at the trial, in which 12 (now 11) activists of The Other Russia opposition party are charged with acting as the banned National Bolshevik Party (NBP). Reznik denied the prosecution’s claims that the activists had used NBP flags or advertised the party or its program since the NBP was banned in August 2007.
The politician said that Strategy 31 rallies — claimed by the prosecution to be NBP party rallies where activists allegedly used the party’s banned flags and urged people to join the party — were in reality non-partisan, civic events in defense of the right to freedom of assembly, where any party paraphernalia was banned by the organizers. 
He said the charges faced by the detained participants were falsified, because the detention reports had been written by officers stationed at the police precinct, rather than by the ones who actually made the arrests.
“They wrote that I was shouting ‘Russia for the Russians,’ which is utterly absurd, because Yabloko is an internationalist party,” said Reznik, who was arrested at the same Strategy 31 rally on Oct. 31, 2010, as the accused activists. “Of course, the charges didn’t stand up in court, and I was acquitted.”
He said that no party flags were used at the rallies, except one occasion when a woman turned up with a Yabloko flag. “I personally approached her and asked her to put it away,” he said.
No party slogans were used, according to Reznik.
‘The main slogan at Strategy 31 rallies is ‘Russia will be free,’ and wanting Russia to be free is not a crime,” he said.
Reznik — who combines his deputy duties with his job as a history teacher at a local high school — said he had witnessed the arrests of defendants Andrei Dmitriyev and Andrei Milyuk at the rallies. 
“Milyuk was standing quietly near me when he was arrested,” he said. “I was holding a copy of the Russian constitution, and he did not even have one.” 
Reznik also said that he witnessed Dmitriyev being detained for no apparent reason at another rally.
 “Perhaps this word is not appropriate in a courtroom, but the charges are a load of balderdash,” he said.
According to Reznik, The Other Russia differs from the NBP in its political program. He said that while disagreeing with The Other Russia’s “nationalist rhetoric” and its “left-wing” approach to the economy, he shares its demands of free elections and civic freedoms.
Earlier, in Aug. 31 and Sept. 4 hearings, respectively, Strategy 31 co-organizers Andrei Pivovarov and Tamara Vedernikova also testified that no party flags or slogans were used during the events, which were organized on a non-partisan basis and featured hundreds of people, many of whom did not belong to any party.
Pivovarov was the local leader of the liberal Party of People’s Freedom (Parnas) and earlier of the Russian People’s Democratic Union (RNDS), when he organized the events, while Vedernikova belongs to the Russian Communist Workers’ Party (RKRP) — not to be confused with the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) led by Gennady Zyuganov — and ROT Front (Russian United Labor Front) movement that unites several communist groups.
Both said they disagreed with the Other Russia ideologically, but they held Strategy 31 rallies together, because they were united in their demand for basic constitutional freedoms to be upheld by the authorities.
Pivovarov said that an attempt to deliver a petition to then-President Dmitry Medvedev, who was at a United Russia party congress held at LenExpo exhibition complex on Vasilyevsky Island on Nov. 21, 2009, was also a non-partisan initiative, and that he was one of the people who was detained as the group of a dozen activists plus a number of journalists walked along Bolshoi Prospekt, with no flags or any other paraphernalia.  
“We were walking peacefully along the sidewalk without violating any laws when a police van pulled up alongside us and to our surprise, the officer offered to drive us to our destination,” Pivovarov said. “We declined — and that’s when we were arrested under threat of physical force and without any grounds given.” 
The activists were taken to a police precinct and charged with jaywalking. The investigators later added to the indictment that the activists “had expressed the extremist views of the National Bolshevik Party by crossing the road on a red light, thus impeding traffic.” 
Three of the activists on trial face up to three years in prison as organizers of the banned NBP’s “extremist activities,” while the remaining eight face up to two years as “participants.”

TITLE: Local Opposition Divides Ahead of March
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg will join Moscow and nearly 50 Russian cities in holding a rally called the March of Millions on Saturday. 
According to organizer Andrei Pivovarov, City Hall authorized the rally Tuesday after initially rejecting it.
The main demands of the rally, which coincides with the International Day of Democracy established by the UN in 2007, are the resignation of President Vladimir Putin, early elections, the release of political prisoners, an end to political repression and the establishment of social justice.
The march is due to start at 2 p.m. near the Oktyabrsky Concert Hall on Ligovsky Prospekt and end on Konyushchennaya Ploshchad, where a stationary rally is scheduled to be held from 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Despite the local opposition having split into several groups, which filed applications with City Hall separately, all the rallies were authorized for approximately the same starting point within half an hour of each other.
According to Pivovarov, City Hall effectively helped the protesters to overcome their differences. 
“The split has been resolved by the authorities themselves, who got everybody together into one united march,” he said by phone Tuesday.
On Sept. 4, City Hall refused to authorize the same route, referring to road repairs and other events allegedly due to be held in the area, and proposed the remote Polyustrovsky Park instead. The organizers continued to insist that the rally should be held in the city center, starting from the Oktyabrsky Concert Hall.
The Other Russia, Left Front, Left Alliance, ROT Front and National Democrats are among the organizers.
Late last month, however, another group formed to hold its own rally under the same name on the same day, but in a different location.
Tatyana Dorutina, one of the leaders of the group that called itself “Democratic St. Petersburg,” said she wanted to break away from nationalists and communists.
“Take ROT Front [Russian United Labor Front], they’re Stalinists,” Dorutina told Zaks.ru. “Maybe we will defeat Putin, and they will send us to the Gulag. How could I know?”
The Democratic St. Petersburg committee comprises the St. Petersburg Human Rights Council, the League of Female Voters, Soldiers’ Mothers, Memorial and the Vykhod (Coming Out) LGBT rights group.
On Monday, the Solidarity Democratic Movement said that it would only take part if one consolidated rally was held. Earlier, on Sept. 4, it joined Democratic St. Petersburg, but left the alliance after another Internet vote was held on Monday.
Youth Yabloko said that they would refrain from participating in both rallies because of the split, while St. Petersburg Observers — an association formed last year to observe the Dec. 4 State Duma elections — said they would march with the original group.
“Over the past few years, we have seen with amazement that any successful campaign gets cloned [in St. Petersburg], and people are trying to hold their own events on the very same day and at nearly the same time,” The Other Russia’s local leader Andrei Dmitriyev said.
“It started with Strategy 31; as soon as we started to go to Gostiny Dvor, there emerged a group of ‘pure democrats,’ ‘pure liberals,’ who didn’t wish to meet up with the scary and terrible The Other Russia and ROT Front, and who started to go to Palace Square. […] 
“Now they are saying it in a perfectly clear way: We don’t want to march with nationalists, we don’t want to march with left-wingers, we’re ‘Democratic St. Petersburg,’ we’ll march on our own. I don’t understand why they would ‘support’ the united Moscow rally and call their rally ‘March of Millions.’”
On Tuesday, a third march applied for by maverick liberal activist Olga Kurnosova and nationalist Nikolai Bondarik was authorized.
Previous Marches of Millions were held on May 6 and June 12. A 500-strong group from St. Petersburg went to Moscow to take part in the May 6 march, while on June 12 the march from Oktyabrsky Concert Hall to Konyushennaya Ploshchad was held in St. Petersburg, under the name “Russia Day Without Putin.”
Seventeen people are in pre-trial detention for participating in the May 6 march in Moscow, which ended in riots as a result of alleged police provocation. Hundreds of people were interrogated by a large team of investigators, estimated to number between 100 and 200, in the wake of the rally. The apartments of opposition leaders, including anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny and television presenter Ksenia Sobchak, were searched.

TITLE: Police Investigate Shooting Death of University Head
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A criminal investigation has been opened into the murder of Alexander Viktorov, rector of St. Petersburg State Service and Economics University (SPbGUSE).
Viktorov, 61, was shot dead near his house in the town of Vsevolozhsk outside St. Petersburg at about 8 p.m. last Wednesday. His wife Yelena Viktorova, 60, who worked at the same university, was wounded in the leg.
The attack happened soon after the couple got out of Viktorov’s company car, which was being driven by a chauffeur. When the driver looked in the rear view mirror of the car after driving a short distance away, he saw the Viktorovs lying on the ground and an unidentified man running away from them. The driver drove back and went to get help, but Viktorov was already dead, while his wife was calling for help. 
The assailant shot Viktorov three times. 
Local news website Fontanka.ru reported that the only serious problem that Viktorov’s friends, colleagues and local journalists could recall with regard to him was a conflict with Viktorov’s predecessor Vladimir Solovyov three years ago. Viktorov publicly blamed Solovyov for the disappearance of nearly a billion rubles ($32 million) from the university’s budget. 
Numerous inspections into the missing funds were stopped when Solovyov and his son, who also worked at the university, resigned from their posts, Fontanka reported.
The university is reportedly one of the most popular higher education establishments in St. Petersburg, with 2.6 candidates for every fee-paying place. The cost of studying at the university ranges from 83,000 to 130,000 rubles ($2,600 to $4,100) a year, Fontanka reported.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>Bridge Replaces Tunnel</b>
 ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — City Hall has found an alternative to the Orlov Tunnel project that was canceled earlier this year.
The city’s Transport Infrastructure Development Committee has proposed the construction of the Feodosiisky Bridge that would connect the Sinopskaya and Sverdlovskaya embankments and remain open to traffic 24 hours, unlike the other bridges over the River Neva in the city center. The maximum cost of the bridge is estimated at 15 to 17 billion rubles (about $500 million), Fontanka reported.
The length of the new bridge is planned to be 320 meters. It is not yet clear whether the Feodosiisky Bridge would be a toll bridge. The canceled Orlov Tunnel that was due to be built under the Neva to solve the same problem was planned to have been a toll road.

TITLE: Peterhof Marks Fountain Closing With 1812 Ode
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The former imperial estate of Peterhof is hosting a large-scale two-day event on Sept. 14 and 15, turning its annual closing of the fountains festival into a spectacular visual feast. Twice a year, when the fountains are turned on in May and off in September, Peterhof draws crowds of locals and tourists alike. An estimated 30,000 came to the fountain festivals last year, according to the organizers.
This autumn, the closing of the fountains ceremony is dedicated to the Russian victory in the 1812 Napoleonic wars. More than 600 musicians, artists and performers will join multimedia artists and lighting designers to plunge spectators into the atmosphere of the heroic military campaign, the show’s creators promise.
Titled “Ode to the Fatherland,” the show will take audiences to an Imperial ball, the Battle of Borodino, the fire of Moscow and the gallery of heroes of the 1812 campaign, with the use of 3D-mapping technologies.
The show will be performed against the facade of the Grand Palace at Peterhof.
“For the first time, we have decided to devote our festival to a particular historic event, and this event carries a special significance for every Russian,” said Yelena Kalnitskaya, director of the Peterhof Museum and Estate. 
“Our guests will see a reconstruction of the famous Battle of Borodino, with the show serving as a sort of time machine. It is going to be an absolutely thrilling sight that will be crowned by fireworks.”
According to Kalnitskaya, the show took almost a year to prepare. The team behind it included State Chief Herald and Chairman of the Heraldic Council of Russia Georgy Vilinbakhov, the renowned artist Oleg Orlov and lighting designer Gleb Filshtinsky, arguably Russia’s most renowned specialist in his field.
“We are proud to treat local audiences to a world-class show,” Filshtinsky said. “And we are also proud that we did not use a penny from the state budget, especially considering that this is a performance with a distinctly patriotic feel. I would love for “Ode to the Fatherland” to make Russian spectators proud of their native country, and I also hope that such festivities will unite us around genuine values and real victories, rather than vanity or ideological fast food.”
The shows begin at 9 p.m., and tickets cost 500 rubles.

TITLE: Kids Swap Streets for Circus
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The city’s Upsala Circus charity organization will hold the 5th Flying Children festival in St. Petersburg this weekend.
Upsala Circus is a real circus for children from social risk groups that offers them an alternative to life on the streets and gradually helps them to become polished circus performers. The children learn acrobatics, juggling, modern dance and mime and combine all these skills in performances.
The Flying Children festival features circus acts, music, theater and art accessible to children of all ages and abilities.
This year, the program includes performances by circus troupes from Switzerland, Finland and Brazil, as well as master classes, food and entertainment.
The festival will take place in and around the circus’s new big top, which Upsala Circus was recently able to purchase after raising funds all over the world.
Between the trees around the big top, fabric canvases will be stretched to create a so-called Photo Forest, featuring photo-portraits of Cirque du Soleil performers taken by the St. Petersburg photographer and artist Yury Molodkovets.
Master classes to be held non-stop next to the big top will allow visitors to try their hand at juggling, riding a unicycle, doing tricks and bouncing on a real circus trampoline. This year, the master classes will be given not only by performers of Upsala Circus but also by members of Finnish and Swiss troupes.
In the active entertainment zone, both children and adults can try jumpers, kites, petanque and zorbing, in which participants ride in a huge transparent ball on the surface of a lake.
Visitors will also have the chance to paint porcelain during master classes by the city’s Imperial Porcelain Factory, as well as create cartoons and listen to unusual fairy tales.
Larisa Afanasyeva, head of Upsala Circus, said that this year the organization expects up to 5,000 visitors to visit the festival.
About 70 street kids aged from six to 20 years old are currently learning circus skills with Upsala Circus. 
Afanasyeva said that during the 12 years of the circus’s existence, about 200 children have taken part in the program.
“Our circus is like a small house that gives a big opportunity to some of its residents,” Afanasyeva said.
Enrollment into the circus takes place once every three years, when the organizers take their circus equipment around various social institutions for children in the city. They often take along performers whom they have found by chance in the past to inspire their audiences.
Afanasyeva explained that the model of a circus was chosen to help children from social risk groups because it is often “a hooligan’s dream” with a romantic image, and provides the “aspect of the extreme that teenagers look for.”
“And of course it’s not boring in our circus, and that is of vital significance for children,” she said.

<i>The Flying Children festival will be held from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Sept. 15 and 16 in the park of the Benua (Benois) business center, 44 Sverdlovskaya Naberezhnaya. A free bus will run to the site from Finlyandsky railway station (Ploshchad Lenina metro station). For more information, 
visit: www.upsala-zirk.org</i>

TITLE: Robbers Raid Mini-Russia Museum, Beat Accountant
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A team of robbers stole boxes of cash from the Grand Model Russia museum in St. Petersburg early Monday after entering an open door to the facility and  tying up multiple staff members.
Five burglars entered the museum — an 800-square-meter model of Russia with sections devoted to every area of the country from Kaliningrad to the Far East — and beat up the office accountant, deputy general director of the museum Olga Drukarenko told Interfax on Tuesday.
The robbers then used zip ties — plastic fasteners that can be used as makeshift handcuffs — to restrain the accountant, the museum’s deputy technical director, two model builders and two janitors, Drukarenko told the news agency. A law enforcement source told RIA-Novosti that there were six burglars, two of whom were women, all dressed in camouflage. The source said they entered the museum around 1:30 a.m. Monday.
The intruders collected five metal boxes filled with money and documents, as well as discs containing security-camera footage, and fled in a car, Drukarenko told Interfax. She said it had not yet been determined how much money was stolen.
Drukarenko added that the museum, located at 16 Tsvetochnaya Ulitsa, was open for visitors Monday and operating on its regular daily schedule. 
The museum’s website says it is open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>American Stabs Russian</b>
 ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — An American who inflicted a knife wound on a Russian in the city’s metro last week was determined to have been the victim in the case after local police opened a criminal investigation into the incident, Fontanka.ru news website reported last week.
The incident took place Thursday night at Vladimirskaya metro station. 
The conflict between a 49-year-old American man from the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and a drunk 25-year-old Russian reportedly began in front of the entrance to the station, continued inside the metro entrance and escalated into a physical fight on the platform.
When police arrived at the scene, they found the Russian man with a knife wound to his forearm and the American with bruises and a dislocated shoulder. Both men were hospitalized, though the American was discharged the next day.
The U.S. citizen had reportedly already been in St. Petersburg for four weeks, having come to the city to make a documentary film about St. Petersburg. 
The Russian man said in an interview with Fontanka.ru that he had been on his way home from a wedding party and was drunk, and could not remember the cause of the fight. 

<b>City Hall Seeks Puppets</b>
 ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The city’s Culture Committee has allocated two million rubles ($63,000) for the staging of a Petersburg puppet show for adults to be performed in New York City with the aim of developing cultural connections between St. Petersburg and New York. A tender for a contractor was published on the committee’s website, Fontanka.ru news website reported.
The main condition for participants is that the performance should be recognized by international and Russian theater society. The show should have won no fewer than two awards. The play is due to be performed on a specially equipped theater ground in the center of New York with a capacity of no fewer than 200 seats.

TITLE: Russia Takes 2nd at Paralympics
AUTHOR: By Alexander Bratersky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The nation’s Paralympic team came in second overall at the London games, winning 36 gold, 38 silver and 28 bronze medals.
They fared much better than their regular Olympic counterparts, who came in fourth with 24 gold, 25 silver and 33 bronze. The Paralympians’ medal tally was also twice that of their previous summer finish in Beijing, where they placed eighth.
“The results have exceeded all our expectations,” Oleg Smolin, a first deputy president of the Paralympic Committee, told The St. Petersburg Times on Monday.
“We came in second in the gold medal tally,” Smolin said, adding that Russia took part in only 12 of the 20 disciplines.
Smolin said that although the team did not have an official medal forecast from the get-go, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak believed that the team would end up in the top five.
Runner Yelena Ivanova became a star of the games, winning three gold medals in racing events. This was her first Paralympics.
“I can’t even express my feelings. My dreams came true and there is nothing more to dream about,” Ivanova, a Chuvashia resident who suffers from cerebral palsy, told R-Sport agency last week.
Swimmer Oksana Savchenko took home five gold medals, the most of any member of the Russian team, and claimed a world record in the 50 meters freestyle.
“She is just simply a very beautiful woman whose stature and character could put her among the best in the Olympic team if not for her problems with eyesight,” said Andrei Mitkov, chief editor of the All Sport news agency, who worked as a press attache for the Paralympic team in Beijing.
Smolin said a combination of “fighting spirit” and state support for the athletes helped the Russian team achieve its spectacular results.
Observers said the appointment of seasoned politician and former ambassador to the United States Vladimir Lukin to head the Paralympic Committee played a positive role in bringing attention to the sport.
“He is a political figure, an ideological banner,” the All Sports agency’s Mitkov said about Lukin, who has been re-elected several times since his first appointment in 1997.
Lukin, who praised the Paralympic team’s performance at the London games, also cautioned the athletes to not “exaggerate the significance” of their achievements.
“The Russian athletes trailed too far behind the Chinese, who prepared for the games very seriously,” Lukin said, Itar-Tass reported Sunday. The first-place Chinese team got twice as many medals as second-place Russia.
The Paralympic medal winners met with President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday to be awarded with medals.
The gold medal winners were expected to get 100,000 euros ($130,000), silver winners — 60,000 euros, and bronze winners — 40,000 euros. The sums are equivalent to those given to regular Olympic winners.
Officials have noted that considerable funding played a role in helping the Russian Paralympians.
In June, a Paralympic training center was opened in the Tula region after a 1.7 billion ruble ($54 million) refurbishment.
“The disabled athletes are grateful because they were not used to financial support,” Smolin said.
But he said more money is needed to achieve higher results in more expensive sports like horse riding. “Today we are more successful in the less expensive types of sports,” he said.
The government started to pay more attention to the Paralympics team after a remarkable winter games in Vancouver in 2010.
The Paralympic team came in second overall, trumping their regular Olympic counterparts, who came in 11th.
This year, the Paralympic team has made top officials happy once again.
“Our Paralympic team performed brilliantly in London. They are extremely brave and strong people. Well done!” Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev wrote in English on Twitter on Monday.

TITLE: Moscow-Petersburg Toll Road To Open in 2014
AUTHOR: By Roland Oliphant
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The controversial Moscow to St. Petersburg toll road will open to traffic in 2014 “regardless” of developments on the parallel Leningradskoye Shosse, senior managers said.
Pierre-Yves Estrade, general manager of North West Concession Company, or NWCC, which will hold the rights to charge fees on the road after it is completed, dismissed concerns that plans to widen Leningradskoye Shosse would have an adverse impact on the project.
“This [toll road] service will help to attract new customers our way regardless of the alternative routes,” he told journalists Monday, Interfax reported.
Estrade was responding to claims that a plan to upgrade Leningradskoye Shosse — the heavily congested artery that currently provides the main link between Moscow and St. Petersburg — would breach a contractual commitment made by the government not to support competing roads.
Acting Khimki Mayor Oleg Shakhov said last week that authorities are planning to spend 6 billion rubles ($189 million) to widen Leningradskoye Shosse.
Yevgenia Chirikova, the anti-road campaigner who is now running for mayor of Khimki, last week claimed a securities prospectus published by the company showed that the government is legally bound to compensate NWCC if it widens Leningradskoye Shosse to ease congestion because it would provide direct competition to the new road.
Chirikova said the clause, which effectively means the government is obliged to ensure sufficient traffic jams on Leningradskoye Shosse to force drivers on to the toll road, could be grounds for suing NWCC in French courts, but she has not said whether she will initiate such a suit.
NWCC, a subsidiary of a joint venture between French engineering firm Vinci and several Russian investors including Arkady Rotenberg, won the concession to build and levy fees on a 43-kilometer section of the new road in 2009.
Estrada dismissed the allegations as “rumors” and declined to comment on them.
The stretch from the Businovskaya junction with the Moscow Ring Road to Solnechnogorsk is currently “35 percent” complete, and will open for traffic in 2014, Estrada said Monday.
It will have 10 lanes between Moscow and Sheremetyevo Airport, eight lanes from Sheremetyevo to Zelenograd, and four between Zelenograd and the intersection with the M10 highway.
The road is just one section of a planned 650-hundred kilometer highway between the two capitals that on paper is meant to be completed by 2017.
The project has been mired in controversy since environmental activists challenged the route of the road through woodland near Khimki, on Moscow’s northwestern edge.
Public protests in 2010 compelled then-President Dmitry Medvedev to halt work and order an inquiry into the route. The commission eventually endorsed the original route, but activists led by Chirikova have continued to oppose the plans.
Toll roads, in which concessionaires build roads in exchange for the right to levy a fee on drivers for several years, have come to be seen as an attractive model for attracting private investment to fund much needed but prohibitively expensive road links.
NWCC claims the total cost of the section of the Moscow to St. Petersburg road that it is building comes to more than 60 billion rubles, of which the state is providing just 22.9 billion.
In August last year an international consortium led by VTB Capital won a concession to build an 11.5-kilometer, 120-billion-ruble segment of a high-speed toll road in St. Petersburg.
The first toll road in the Moscow Region, a 23-kilometer stretch of the M4 Don highway that runs parallel to Kashirskoye Shosse to the south of the capital, was opened in May. Fees will begin to be levied in the fall.
From Oct. 1, car drivers on the 48th to 71st kilometer of the highway, which connects Moscow to the Rostov region, will have to pay 10 rubles between midnight and 7 a.m., and 30 rubles between 7 a.m. and midnight.
Heavier vehicles like trucks and buses will have to pay 20 rubles between midnight and 7 a.m. and 60 rubles from 7 a.m. to midnight, while super-heavy vehicles will have to pay 40 at night and 120 rubles by day, respectively.
The charge is meant to recoup some of the costs of repairs to the highway, which took over three years and cost about 6 billion rubles.
Drivers will be able to pay in cash, by credit card or via specially-produced smart cards and transponders installed on the windshield of a car that allow drivers to pay automatically without stopping.

TITLE: ‘Living’ Mammoth Cells Found
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A team of paleontologists said they have found “living” mammoth cells in remains discovered in Sakha republic that could be used to clone the ancient mammal.
But some scientists expressed skepticism regarding the find, saying they doubted living cells had been found and questioned why such a significant discovery had not been announced in a scientific journal.
A hundred meters under the permafrost in the Ust-Yansky district of Sakha, an international expedition called Yana-2012 found soft tissue, fatty tissue, fur and bone marrow of mammoths, expedition leader and Northeast Federal University researcher Semyon Grigoryev said Friday, according to a news report posted on the university’s website.
Head of the Korean Sooam Biotech fund Huang Vu-Souk said the “living” cells that were found could be used for cloning, the news report said. An unidentified member of the expedition team said findings from the expedition would be published in authoritative scientific journals.
A scientist from the Institute of Paleontology at the Russian Academy of Sciences said he doubted that living cells had been found so deep in the permafrost.
“Thus far there haven’t been truly living cells in any of the mammoths [found] — a complete DNA sequence has not even been able to be obtained,” head of the mammals laboratory at the Institute of Paleontology Alexander Agadzhanyan told RIA-Novosti.
Agadzhayan’s colleague at the Institute of Paleontology Alexander Markov told the news agency that in serious scientific practice, such major discoveries are announced not in the media but in research journals.

TITLE: U.S. Fights Penalty For Russia Over Documents
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s administration is opposing a Jewish group’s bid to have Russia fined for its failure to return historic books and documents, a dispute that has halted the loan of Russian artworks for exhibition in the United States. 
In a recent court filing, the Justice Department argued that judicial sanctions against Russia in this case would be contrary to U.S. foreign policy interests and inconsistent with U.S. law. 
The Jewish group, Chabad-Lubavitch, based in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, has already convinced Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court here that it has a valid claim to the tens of thousands of religious books and manuscripts, some up to 500 years old, which record the group’s core teachings and traditions.
Lambert ruled that the records are unlawfully possessed by the Russian State Library and the Russian military archive. 
In 2010, he ordered the Russian government to turn them over to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow or to the group’s representative. 
Russia, which doesn’t recognize the authority of the U.S. court, has refused. It says the collection is part of Russia’s national heritage. 
Chabad’s lawsuit and earlier rulings in the case by Lamberth have already had unintended consequences: Russia has completely halted the loan of its art treasures for exhibit in the United States for fear that they will be seized and held hostage in the court battle. 
Lamberth is known for issuing largely unenforceable multimillion-dollar judgments against foreign governments he believes are hostile to the United States and have harmed U.S. citizens. 
Last year, he granted Chabad permission to seek attachment of Russian property in the United States. So far, the group has not done so. 
Lamberth also is currently weighing Chabad’s motion to hold Russia in civil contempt of court and impose fines of at least $25,000 a day. 
Alarmed at the prospect of having its property seized, Russia has refused to loan any art to the country, even though Chabad has said in court filings that it will not go after any art deemed culturally significant by the U.S. State Department, which is the case for major exhibitions. 
Such art is already protected from legal claims under the Immunity from Seizure Act. 
At issue are two collections: 12,000 religious books and manuscripts seized during the Bolshevik Revolution and the Russian Civil War nearly a century ago; and 25,000 pages of handwritten teachings and other writings of religious leaders stolen by Nazi Germany during World War II, then transferred by the Soviet Red Army as war booty to the Russian State Military Archive.  
In its filing, the Justice Department said Chabad’s bid for sanctions is precluded by the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. The department argues that this law doesn’t allow a court to compel compliance with an order for property held by a foreign state within the state’s own territory. 
The department added that even if sanctions were allowed, the judge should not issue them “in order to avoid damage to foreign policy interests of the United States.”

TITLE: U.S. Allows Russians 3-Year Visas
AUTHOR: By Nikolaus von Twickel
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Television star Tina Kandelaki became the first Russian to pick up a three-year U.S. visa on Monday, one day after the much-touted visa facilitation agreement between both countries went into force.
Kandelaki said she was chosen because of her popularity on the Russian Internet. “I want to tell you that this happened because of you, dear friends,” she wrote on her blog. The U.S. Embassy also published a photo of her holding up her visa.
It remained unclear how Americans would fare in Russian consulates because no practical results were available as of Monday night. However, the Russian Embassy in Washington published some far-reaching details about the agreement’s implementation.
Many U.S. citizens living in Russia will for the first time be able to invite friends and family members simply by having an invitation notarized and submitted with the applicant’s paperwork, according to the website of the embassy’s official visa agency, Invisa Logistics Services. 
The new rules for so-called private visas are a massive improvement on the previous regime, whereby only U.S. citizens with residency permits — which are extremely hard to get — and Russians can request official invitations from the Federal Migration Service, a process that usually lasts 30 days. That regime still applies to most other Western foreigners.
Similarly, companies no longer have to bother obtaining business visa invitations through the Federal Migration Service, but can simply write them using their own official letterhead. The same applies for nongovernmental organizations wishing to invite experts for so-called humanitarian visas, typically conference speakers.
Analysts said this presents a massive time-saver because migration service invitations may take a whole month to get. “They usually took the full 30 days to process visa invitations for private visas. Processing of visa invitations for business and humanitarian visas also take a lot of time,” said Yekaterina Elekchyan, an associate with Baker & McKenzie’s Moscow office.
The visa agreement stipulates that both private and business travelers from both countries “as a rule” get three-year visas allowing stays of up to three months. It does away with migration service invitations for private, humanitarian and business visas, while the requirements for tourist visas remain unchanged: Applicants need to present hotel reservation confirmations or contracts with registered tour operators.
Issuing three-year visas is a small step for the United States, which already gives two-year visas to most applicants, but it means a large change for Russia, whose consulates have hitherto issued visas strictly according to applicants’ travel dates.
Foreign Ministry officials have promised that the agreement would be fully implemented and that official recommendations for consulates say applications from U.S. citizens should be handled “favorably” by giving three-year visas even to tourists on the basis of much shorter hotel reservations.
However, in a somewhat puzzling move, the ministry has also said that U.S. applicants may choose to apply for visas under the old rules for at least another year.
Observers said consulates’ implementation would be the main indicator. “The agreement says three-year visas will be granted ‘as a rule,’ so we need to see how it pans out in reality,” said Tatyana Bondareva of Visa Delight, a Moscow-based agency handling visa issues for foreigners.

TITLE: Results of Roundtable Show Opposition Still in Disarray
AUTHOR: By Alexander Bratersky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — An opposition roundtable intended to unite opponents of President Vladimir Putin went largely ignored by the younger leaders of the protest movement, evidence that the protest camp is still in disarray, insiders and opponents said.
Friday’s roundtable, presided over by former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov and Vladimir Ryzhkov, the leaders of the newly merged RPR-PARNAS liberal party, was one of the many attempts to call for unity in the opposition movement.
“We are sure that only peaceful methods can be used to change the regime,” Kasyanov said at the roundtable at Moscow’s Ararat Hotel on Friday.
But Kasyanov’s calls for unity, supported by some political dissidents, including Lyudmila Alexeyeva, chairman of the Moscow Helsinki human rights group, were ignored by more popular leaders of the protest movement, including Alexei Navalny, leftist politician Sergei Udaltsov and liberal Ilya Yashin.
All of them, including seasoned liberal politician Boris Nemtsov, skipped the meeting, despite being invited by the organizers.
“Many of those who didn’t come did it for ideological reasons,” Yabloko party co-chairman Sergei Ivanenko said.
“Younger leaders don’t want to unite, since they see many of the elder politicians as ‘old guys’ from the ‘90s,” a senior political strategist who helped organize the roundtable said.
She spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak with the press.
The absence of young leaders, including Navalny, who is seen by many as a rising star of the protest movement, was clear evidence of a divide in the opposition as it looks for a way to harness the protest sentiment in the country.
“The main way to force authorities to take part in a roundtable should be large-scale peaceful protests based on democratic values,” the roundtable’s mission statement said.
But opposition leaders who did attend the roundtable acknowledged that their powers to reach a broad Russian audience are limited because their slogans do not appeal to a mass audience of Russians who would rather support forces on the left.
“The problem with democratic forces can be described as a problem with the second word: ‘forces,’” liberal Yabloko party deputy Sergei Ivanenko said.
“Nothing changes from our talks, things change only when people get on the street,” leftwing Just Russia deputy Gennady Gudkov said during the roundtable.
The opposition’s inability to unite around a political program is noticed by political opponents as well.
“Those December protests could have been turned into a real asset, but they were not,” a United Russia State Duma deputy told The St. Petersburg Times last week.
The deputy, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Putin might take advantage of the situation in the opposition camp by dissolving the United Russia-dominated Duma and calling for early elections.

TITLE: Experts: WTO Entry To Boost Franchising
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization will have a positive impact on the further development of franchising in the country, experts said Thursday at a press conference.
WTO membership will attract new business players into the country, including new brands willing to operate as a franchise, Tatyana Bogomyakova, business development consultant for Subway fast food chain in Russia, said at the press conference, which was devoted to franchising in Russia under the conditions of the country’s entry into the WTO.
 “At the same time, many new foreign banks will enter the Russian market, and they will surely be willing to help franchisers financially, as this is currently being done through Sberbank’s ‘Business Start’ loan program,” she said. 
“We also expect the decrease of customs duties on the import of foreign equipment, and that will accordingly reduce business expenses,” she said.
Bogomyakova said Subway, a franchising chain, is successfully developing under this scheme in Russia.
“The company started with its first restaurant in St. Petersburg and now it has 437 restaurants in 70 cities of the country,” she said.
Yana Borovskaya, deputy director of sales for small businesses at Sberbank Northwest, said the bank’s ‘Business Start’ pilot program is designed to help entrepreneurs who wish to open their own franchise. The program was launched in December last year in St. Petersburg and Murmansk. Currently the program is expanding to Pskov and Novgorod, and will later be introduced to other cities of Russia’s northwest.
“Small businesses need support, and our program aims to help them,” said Borovskaya. “Under this program, entrepreneurs who start their own businesses can get loans for up to 80 percent of the business expenses for 42 months at 17.5 to 18 percent interest,” Borovskaya said.
Igor Snegiryov, director of foreign economic affairs at the Leningrad Oblast Chamber of Trade and Industry, said the chamber had opened a franchising information center to help entrepreneurs go about setting up a franchise in the right way.
Sergei Tsybukov of the St. Petersburg Chamber of Trade and Industry warned that people who want to open a franchise business should calculate everything thoroughly.
“Businessmen should bear in mind that those who invite you to work under a franchise scheme will put all the expenses on your shoulders. Franchising alone won’t allow you to make a lot of profit,” he said.
Tsybukov also said that Russia’s entry into the WTO would bring new challenges for national producers.
“We must understand that in a while, foreign goods will flood into Russia, and euro and dollar exchange rates will increase. Therefore only national producers who have already developed their business well will be able to compete successfully in that situation,” he said.
Participants of the press conference said they expected the National Franchising Festival due to be held in the city this week to boost the development of franchising in Russia’s northwest.
Mikhail Granik, commercial director of Northwest Tele2 telecommunications company, which also offers franchising opportunities to businesses, said the company saw the festival as a “convenient ground on which to attract B2B partners.”
Bogomyakova said the Franchising Festival would be “the first event of the kind in the city to offer a whole range of opportunities for people to open their own business.”
“Franchising is the best option to start one’s own business and find reliable partners,” said Yevgeny Kuznetsov, director of Russkii Prostor, which is organizing the festival.
“And this festival will give another impulse for the development of franchising in Russia’s northwest,” Kuznetsov said.

TITLE: City Hosts Franchising Festival
AUTHOR: By Yelena Minenko
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Bad attitudes and lack of state support are hindering the development of franchising in Russian, one expert said ahead of the National Franchising Festival due to be held in the city this week, which aims to address the issue of developing small and medium-sized businesses in Northwest Russia.
“The term franchise differs in principle in Russia and abroad,” said Dmitry Potapenko, business coach and former general manager of the Pyatyorochka network in the Central Federal District. “In all other countries, franchising is when, let’s say, a family of two or three people buys a license and runs the business. In Russia, family businesses don’t exist. When people start a business here, they won’t stand behind the cash desk. They think, ‘I’m the big boss and I should have a have whole bunch of subordinates.’ 
“Franchising is when your profit is your salary, and in Russia this is only true of some kiosks. We have a lot of small businesses that behave like huge corporations. That is why the level of franchising development in Russia is so low,” he added.
Potapenko is one of the experts taking part in the Franchise Festival, due to be held on Sept. 14 and 15. He will conduct a master class on Sept. 15. 
“Every day new enterprises open in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast,” said Tatyana Bogomyakova, business development consultant at Subway Russia Service Company, during a seminar devoted to franchising at the Leningrad Oblast chamber of commerce and industry.
“The first questions that future entrepreneurs are confronted with are what to open, and how to open it. In most cases, the franchising concept comes to help with its precise guide for action,” she said.
Franchising offers the franchisee the advantages of low business risks, a popular brand, promotional support, and an existing successful business model. 
The franchiser, on the other hand, gets instant access to a wide network of branches without having to put up major investment, since the cost of the opening is paid by the franchisee. The franchiser also receives payment for the license and monthly royalties. 
There are, however, inevitably disadvantages too. Franchisers make less profit from a franchisee than they could get from running the enterprise themselves. They cannot fully control the financial activity of a franchisee, and risk acquiring a bad reputation from one of the branches reflecting on the rest of the company. The franchisee, in turn, lacks independence; the extent of their freedom depends on the contract signed.
In recent years, the opinion has emerged that the term franchising has lost its meaning and its primary vectors in the modern Russian economy. Today franchising is not about making a profit from selling business models and management systems, but simply about the expansion of a specific trade name’s presence on the market. 
The main sectors in which franchising is used as a model are retail and food outlets. One of the biggest franchising networks in Russia — and a participant in the Franchise Festival — is the X5 Retail Group, which is virtually the only company in the food store sector to use the franchising model.
“CityMag [chain of convenience stores] was a pilot project in our company’s franchising program,” said Valery Tarakanov, CEO of X5 Retail Group’s daughter company Express Retail, in an interview with Praktika Torgovly magazine. 
“A few years ago hardly anyone was familiar with the term, and small businesses were afraid of such collaboration. This led us to the idea of a ‘lite’ version of a franchise. Our partners worked under the name CityMag, but ordered consumer goods according to their own discretion and independently managed their retail outlets,” he explained. 
Today franchising at X5 Retail Group is getting closer to its original meaning with the development of independent outlets under the names Perekryostok Express and Kopeika in the Moscow Region, and the Pyatyorochka discount stores in northwest Russia.
According to data collected by the Deloshop company, there are currently about 600 franchises in Russia. About 70 percent of them are franchises of domestic companies. 
“Today there are a lot of franchising associations and people who create franchises out of the blue,” said Potapenko. “The word itself is limited today, it has been trampled down. I know that out of 600 well known franchises, only 50 work well and effectively; the rest are just fakes. All this discredits the market.” 
One of the reasons why franchising isn’t experiencing qualitative growth, beside economic and social issues, is a lack of government support. In other countries, a franchise company doesn’t require official registration, but in Russia, a contract for a commercial concession has to be registered with Rospatent, which leads to delays caused by bureaucratic processes. In addition, there is no legislative basis for franchising. For example, in the U.S., there are about 100 federal laws regulating franchising in one way or another, while in Russia there are none. 
“For small and medium-sized businesses to develop, the number of controlling authorities and registration papers needs to be reduced,” said Potapenko. 
“They say that franchising will help the development of small businesses, then they’ll write a nice report about how some 24 franchises were opened, forgetting that even in little Germany there are 6 million small businesses, but in Russia, there is nothing even to talk about,” he added.
“Until we start seriously considering ourselves an entrepreneurial society and thinking about its development, nothing will happen — we will sit and show off in front of each other that instead of size 41 shoes we have started wearing size 43, and consider that qualitative growth,” he concluded.
More than 1,500 people are expected to participate in the National Franchising Festival, including businessmen, potential investors of the northwest region and large franchising companies, such as Ecco, Melange Group, Milavitsa, Subway, Rosbank and others.

<i>The National Franchising Festival takes place from Sept. 14-15 at the Park Inn Pulkovskaya hotel. Entrance is free of charge, but participants are required 
to register on the festival’s website, www.nffrussia.ru.</i>

TITLE: Putin Turns to Stalin for Modernization Ideas
AUTHOR: By Alexander Golts
TEXT: Now that President Vladimir Putin has firmly aligned the government with the Russian Orthodox Church, he has moved on to create a new burden for the nation: A program to re-industrialize the country. Speaking on Aug. 31 to a Security Council meeting on the military-industrial complex, Putin said: “Over the past 30 years, our defense companies have missed out on several modernization cycles for a number of reasons — above all, chronic financing shortages. … In short, we will have to modernize the entire defense industry … and carry out the same kind of comprehensive and powerful modernization drive that was achieved in the 1930s.” 
Surprisingly, that is almost verbatim of what Josef Stalin said in 1931: “We have fallen 50 to 100 years behind the leading countries. We must make up for that shortfall in 10 years. If we don’t do this, we will get crushed.” 
Putin’s proposal for modernizing the country’s industrial base is similar to Stalin’s program: Pumping massive amounts of money into the defense industry. “By creating a modernized and effective defense industry,” Putin told the Security Council, “we can ensure large growth potential for the entire economy. The bulk of our advanced technology is in the defense industry. … The defense industry has always been an engine pulling the other manufacturing sectors along behind it.”
Apparently, Putin is unaware that since the 1980s, the civilian sector, not the military-industrial complex, has been the driving force behind the world’s leading economies, as well as the source of the greatest technological breakthroughs. In contrast to the period from the 1940s to the 1970s, the modern-day technological revolution has shifted the chief scientific advances to the civilian sector. This is because mass production for widespread consumption is far more efficient and involves many more cycles of innovation and change than the “one-off” production of expensive military hardware. 
What’s more, Stalin’s industrialization was based on the exact opposite approach. He built factories that produced civilian goods in peacetime but had to quickly shift to weapons production in wartime. That model simply doesn’t work in a market economy because the price of the consumer goods would have to include the cost of making the expensive shift to military production later.
Let us all hope that Putin has no intention of copying Stalin’s method of industrialization. The Soviet dictator’s forced collectivization campaign drove millions of peasants from the countryside to industrial cities to provide the labor force for his gigantic industrial and construction projects. The funding for this campaign was provided by widespread expropriation of personal property during the Great Terror of the 1930s that robbed millions of helpless citizens of their possessions and lives. 
But it seems that Putin’s sole source of funding for his industrialization drive would be the windfall from high oil prices. The only problem, however, is that if oil prices fall sharply, Putin may think that he has no other choice but to choose a Stalinesque road to industrialization and economic revival. As for raising a large, skilled labor force, simply restoring the old Soviet title of Hero of Labor isn’t likely to help. The only other option is to force the nearly 1 million convicts sitting in Russian prisons to work for the benefit of the motherland’s re-industrialization. But prison labor has never been known for its high productivity and efficiency.
Putin’s approach is riddled with contradictions. He seems to acknowledge the obvious problems with the defense industry. For example, he has firmly stated that the defense industry will be judged by the actual quantity of equipment it produces. But for the past 10 years, the only growth has been in the price of manufacturing and not in the number of units manufactured. Mass production depends on the ability to create an efficient chain of manufacturing plants and suppliers — something Putin has no idea how to implement.
Putin has also issued stern warnings about how weapons prices should be set. But that is also an impossible task if the large state-controlled defense corporations that Putin himself created remain unchanged. By definition, those corporations — essentially a caricature of Soviet-era defense industry ministries — cannot produce equipment for reasonable prices because they are forced to maintain enormously bloated bureaucratic structures, the cost of which is reflected in the price of their end products. If you add the built-in cost of corruption, the prices of weapons are even higher. 
Against this backdrop, all of Putin’s talk about the private sector investing in the defense industry is meaningless. What businessperson would risk investing in an enormously inefficient and unmanageable corporate behemoth like Russian Technologies? Most investors understand the risk of being robbed of their money and know-how if they invest in a state corporation. 
Equally worthless is Putin’s proposal to create a database of military and technical information from which private manufacturers could draw information about the needs of the armed forces and learn of technological breakthroughs that have potential applications in the civilian sector. Several university professors have already landed in prison for refusing to share with corrupt officials the royalties they received from military technologies they invented.
The irony is that Russia can no longer use totalitarian methods to industrialize or modernize. Nor is the Kremlin willing to use democratic methods to achieve the same goals. I think that Putin will soon make a choice between the two, and I’m afraid it won’t be in favor of democracy.

<i>Alexander Golts is deputy editor of the online newspaper Yezhednevny Zhurnal.</i>

TITLE: comment: Mixing Turncoats and Terrorism
AUTHOR: By Simon Saradzhyan
TEXT: Events of one August day in Russia’s volatile republic of Dagestan have once again highlighted how turncoats can enhance terrorists’ capabilities to carry out deadly attacks in the North Caucasus and other regions of Russia.
On Aug. 28, Aminat Kurbanova, an ethnic Russian woman whose original name was Alla Saprykina, visited Said Afandi al-Chirkawi, the spiritual leader of two major Sufi orders in the North Caucasus. The prominent sheikh was initially reluctant to meet Kurbanova, but the 29-year-old woman said she was a Russian who wanted to convert to Islam, and he eventually agreed to receive her in his village home. In reality, this former actress and dancer had not only already converted to Islam, but had also joined the ranks of the believers in Salafism, the so-called pure Islam. Once in the same room with the sheikh, she detonated a bomb concealed under her clothes to kill him and seven others, including herself.
Russian law enforcement officials were aware that Kurbanova had been assisting militant Salafites and that she may have decided to become a shahid after her second husband was killed fighting. But they still could not intercept the woman during her deadly mission. 
About 150,000 people showed up for the funeral of the sheikh, who had tens of thousands of followers. His death is likely to fuel tensions and perhaps incite violence between members of the Sufi orders and militant Salafites in the North Caucasus.
On the day Kurbanova blew herself up, another militant Salafite carried out a suicide attack in Dagestan. Ramazan Aliyev, a border guard, opened fire on colleagues and police at a barracks in Dagestan’s Derbent district, killing seven before being shot to death himself. 
Russia’s border guard force is highly professional, and its members are screened more thoroughly than conscripts in the armed forces. Yet Aliyev, whose radical religious views had been reportedly known for years, was allowed to serve for years.
There have been dozens of documented cases in the North Caucasus when servicemen of Russia’s so-called power agencies switch sides to assist terrorists, or when local militants infiltrate these agencies to facilitate deadly attacks.
It is also well known that a number of ethnic Slavs have converted to Islam and joined the North Caucasus-based groups, including suicide bombers Vitaly Razdobudko and his wife. It should be noted that Kurbanova’s second husband, Magomed Ilyasov, helped to train the Razdobudkos for their suicide missions. Such converts could be especially dangerous because they have a better chance to successfully approach targets in Russia, as policemen tend to focus on dark-skinned non-Slavs in their racial profiling of terrorist suspects.
Terrorist attacks involving these kinds of converts and turncoats would be particularly difficult to repel, especially if the assailants are well-trained, equipped and prepared to die, believing that the reward for their “martyrdom” is paradise. Such attacks could prove particularly devastating if they are staged against critical infrastructure facilities such as nuclear power stations. Major catastrophes on the scale of Chernobyl or Fukushima could be repeated as a result of premeditated actions by terrorists who are assisted from sources within Russia if employees of the country’s security services and critical facilities are not prepared to prevent such attacks. 
The authorities must also take measures to prevent such attacks from being staged. Apart from addressing root causes and contributing factors behind the organized violence in the North Caucasus, preventive actions should include comprehensive screening of staff at power agencies and key infrastructure facilities to weed out insiders who could cooperate with terrorists to cause significant casualties and major social and economic disruptions.

<i>Simon Saradzhyan is a research fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center.</i>

TITLE: Rock solidarity
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Russia’s first large concert in support of Pussy Riot and other political prisoners went ahead in St. Petersburg on Sunday despite pressure from the authorities. Three people were detained for alleged jaywalking after the concert.
On the day of the show, Glavclub was surrounded by scores of OMON riot policemen. More than a dozen police vehicles were parked along the short Kremenchugskaya Ulitsa on which Glavclub is located, with more parked in the streets close to the location.
Called Free Pussy Riot Fest, the concert also aimed to raise awareness and funds for The Other Russia activist Taisia Osipova, who was sentenced to eight years for drug dealing in Smolensk on Aug. 28 in a case her supporters say was entirely fabricated, and for 17 people held under pre-trial arrest since the May 6 March of Millions protest rally on Bolotnaya Ploshchad in Moscow. 
An appeal for the three jailed members of feminist punk band Pussy Riot, who were sentenced to two years in a prison colony on Aug. 17, will be heard in Moscow on Oct. 1.
The concert opened with speeches by the band’s lawyers, Violetta Volkova and Nikolai Polozov, who came to St. Petersburg for the concert from Moscow. A third lawyer, Mark Feigin, was summoned to an interrogation at the investigative committee concerning the case against the Bolotnaya Ploshchad protesters on Monday, and did not come. Throughout the concert — which drew about a thousand people — the public chanted “Freedom to political prisoners.”
Concert headliners DDT, who performed early in the show, started poignantly with “Church With No Crosses.” It was with this song that the band opened its legendary debut show at the Leningrad Rock Club in 1987.
“It was written and dedicated to the churches destroyed by the past authorities,” frontman Yury Shevchuk said.
“Now the churches seem to have been rebuilt, but there has not become more love and mercy. It’s sad, and this song is relevant once again.”
Organizers said they had received several telephone threats from the police and officials wanting to stop the show since the venue was first announced last month. The last one came from the prosecutor’s office on Sept. 4, when Glavclub was informed that a random fire inspection would be carried out at the venue the following day. 
According to concert organizer Olga Kurnosova, the inspection was carried out, but only minor violations were found. She said the club only managed to remain open because of publicity in the national media.
“They calculated in Moscow that the damage from bad publicity would be larger than the benefits of shutting down the concert,” she said Monday. 
No outdoor advertising for the concert was available because the company in charge of putting up street posters refused to sign a contract with the organizers at the last moment, Kurnosova said. Ticket distribution networks also refused to sell tickets to the show, which were only available from Glavclub. 
Dmitry Shagin, who performed with guitarist and singer Vladimir Rekshan, founder of the city’s 1970s rock legends Sankt Peterburg, sang in a balaclava made of a striped sailor shirt. Sailor shirts are the trademark clothing of the Mitki art group that Shagin co-founded in the 1980s.
Shagin, 54, spoke about the children of the imprisoned women of Pussy Riot and his late father, Vladimir Shagin.
“When I was little, about the same age as Nadya’s [Nadezhda Tolokonnikova] daughter Gera and Masha [Maria] Alyokhina’s son Filipp, my father Vladimir Shagin, a remarkable non-conformist artist, was jailed for six years,” Shagin said.
“I remember it perfectly — his face behind the bars — and I understand what Gera and Filipp feel, knowing that their moms have been put in prison.”
The concert also saw performances by Televizor, PTVP, the Electric Guerillas, Gleb Samoilov, Brigadir, Razniye Lyudi, Atmoravi, Alexander Zaslavsky, Mikhail Novitsky, Vasily K and Kirill Komarov. The musicians also spoke about the political repressions of Putin’s era. 
None of the bands received any payment for their performances, and Glavclub’s director Igor Tonkikh offered his venue for free. All proceeds from ticket sales will go to help political prisoners.
Kurnosova said the police did not interfere with the concert.
However, three members of the audience were detained after the concert and taken to a police precinct where they were charged with jaywalking.
“A violation probably did take place, and the 200 OMON policemen stationed outside the club did not hesitate to make use of it,” said rights activist Dinar Idrisov. 
“But they could have organized a safe crossing for the masses of people leaving the club instead.”

TITLE: Solidarity from Scissor Sisters
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Scissor Sisters took Moscow by storm when they first performed in Russia in 2004. Back then, the country was almost exclusively toured by veteran rockers, and the New York five-piece was clearly in its heyday when it performed in the pouring rain in the Hermitage Gardens.
From the moment the band came running onto the stage, and Ana Matronic — one of Scissor Sisters’ two singers (and dancers) along with Jake Shears — sent her shoe into the air, the crowd was swept away by the bumping disco sound of songs like “Laura” or the unlikely Pink Floyd cover “Comfortably Numb,” and danced while twirling their umbrellas, or stood still transfixed.
Eight years later, as the band prepares to make its St. Petersburg debut, there are only four musicians on the posters. In 2007, original drummer Paddy Boom parted ways with the band “amicably” and was replaced by Randy Real, who does not appear on publicity photos.
Last month, Matronic spoke to the BBC in support of the imprisoned female members of the Moscow feminist punk group Pussy Riot soon after they were sentenced to two years in prison for a brief performance in a Moscow church.
“To me, this verdict is really indicative of the beginning of what could be a very large problem not just for artists and intellectuals in Russia, but for people in general — everyone who wants to speak their mind,” Matronic said.
On the other hand, according to a recent press release from Russian state bank Sberbank, Scissor Sisters are to take part in an event promoted by the bank in Kaliningrad and also to participate in an official fans’ anthem for the Sochi Winter Olympics due to be held in 2014.
The news was surprising in light of the fact that there are voices urging foreign musicians to boycott Russia — and specifically the Sochi Olympics — over human rights violations, notably the Pussy Riot verdict and laws against “gay propaganda” recently passed in several cities.
Scissor Sisters, whose name is a slang expression for a lesbian sex position, have spoken occasionally in support of gay rights, while Shears even had plans to hold a Gay Pride concert in Moscow in 2007, alongside Elton John and the Pet Shop Boys. Those plans never materialized.

<i>Scissor Sisters will perform at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 12 at Kosmonavt, located at 24 Bronnitskaya Ulitsa. M. Tekhnologichesky Institut. Tel. 922 1300.</i>

TITLE: Film festival fusion
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The much-loved Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica will preside over the jury at the first St. Petersburg International Film Festival that kicks off on Sept. 21 as part of the Third St. Petersburg Kinoforum.
The festival’s competition program features 14 films by established European directors such as Mika Kaurismaki (Finland) and Alexei Balabanov (Russia) as well as up-and-coming talent from far beyond Europe.
Balabanov will present his latest film, “Me Too,” which has just had its world premiere at the 69th International Film Festival in Venice. The film portrays a motley crew of characters traveling around the Russian provinces searching for the mysterious Bell Tower of Happiness that performs miracles and ensures people’s lives take a turn for the better.
The Kinoforum has completely changed its management and structure since last year. Gone are the filmmakers Alexei German and Alexander Sokurov, whose ideas defined last year’s event. Instead, the Kinoforum has turned into an umbrella brand for four different film events, including the international film festival and three already established local events: The Message to Man festival of short and documentary films, The Beginning festival of student works and Vivat, Russian Cinema! festival of Russian films.
The philosophy of the festival does, however, follow in the footsteps of the previous edition of the event. While German promised in 2011 that the festival would serve as “a charger for the soul,” this time around, Kirsi Tykkylainen, the program director of the international film festival, said the core principle for selecting the films was that they “touched the soul.”
Maria Averbakh, director of the international film festival, said she was proud of the fact that the program of her event boasts the works of filmmakers from countries that are not yet recognized international film Meccas, yet showcase extraordinary productions.
All the films will have their Russian premieres at the festival.
“I am sure that the film ‘Inside’ by the Turkish director Zeki Demikubuz that is loosely based on Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s “Notes From the Underground” will generate a genuine interest,” Averbakh said. 
“Profoundly disturbing and fiercely personal, the kind of film that attempts to grab its audience by the throat and never let go until the last second, Demirkubuz’ latest opus offers such a bleak, uncompromisingly dark portrait of man at war with himself, that many people will balk at its sight,” wrote Dan Fainaru in a recent review of the film for the www.screendaily.com portal. 
“The main character, Muharrem (Engin Gunaydin), a self-hating paranoiac, passive-aggressive, disturbed to the brink of insanity, jealous of the entire world and out to take his revenge on evils he was done or imagines to have suffered, while at the same time intentionally dragging himself through the mire, is not only a fair and square representation of Dostoyevsky’s short novel’s hero, but deploys on screen a scary image of human nature as a battlefield between psychotic emotions, fear, envy, aggression, cowardice, sexual insecurities and frustrations, abject solitude and a desperate need for an identity, to mention just a few of Muharrem’s problems,” Fainaru concluded.
The festival’s program director Tykkylainen was keen to stress that while every international film festival strives to reach as far as possible in its quest for filming and acting talent, it is important not to overlook talent close to the event’s location.
“I understand the interest in various exotic things, but I would like to remind you that a wealth of most exciting and thrilling things are happening just round the corner,” she said. 
“For example, the Latvian director Juris Poskus has made an absolutely overwhelming film “Kolka Cool,” while my compatriot, Mika Kaurismaki, made a very human movie, “Road to the North,” that has already become very successful in Finland, about the relationships between men in a family, the responsibility of a father. Many people in my country feel very close to the topic and the director’s attitude. I am interested in what sort of reaction it will produce in Russia.”
The festival’s Grand Prix is shaped in the form of the golden angel that graces the top of the spire of the Peter and Paul Fortress. Prizes will be awarded for the best film as well as to the best actor and actress. The audiences will also be able to award their own prizes.
Joining Kusturica on the jury will be the Russian producer Yelena Yatsura, as well as Erika Gregor, the co-founder of the Forum of New Cinema at the Berlinale International Film Festival, Finnish filmmaker Aku Louhimies and Gilli Mendel, director of film and media education at the Jerusalem Film Center, the Israel Film Archive and the Jerusalem International film festival.
Gregor and her husband Ulrich are also organizing a retrospective of the most outstanding works showcased at the Forum of New Cinema from 1958 through 2011. All of the films will enjoy their Russian premieres. Kusturica fans will be cheered by a retrospective of his works, including his first three films, which have never been shown in Russia. 
“These films, which are stylistically very different from the Kusturica that all of us are so used to, were filmed in the former Yugoslavia, which made it very difficult and time-consuming for us to secure the rights to show them in Russia,” Averbakh explained. “It took ages to find all the owners of the rights to these films.”
Lenfilm, Russia’s oldest film studio, will be honored with a special retrospective too, and the films that have been selected have all had a hard life, having either been shelved for decades or been the subject of a fierce battle before being shown to audiences. 
“What we would like our festival to offer is a diversity of angles in addition to the diversity of talent,” Averbakh said. 

<i>The Kinoforum runs through Sept. 29. For more information, 
see www.kinoforumspb.ru.</i>

TITLE: TALK OF THE TOWN
TEXT: Sept. 13 will see the fourth installment of the gastronomic <b>Chef’s Discovery</b> project, with the award-winning <b>South-African chef David Higgs</b> introducing a highly creative signature five-course meal at the <b>More</b>.<b>Yachts&Seafood</b> restaurant. Squid and scallop tartare, rabbit and oyster served with beetroot, truffles, seaweed and vanilla, and cinnamon mousse with apple sorbet are just a few of the evening’s promised temptations.
Higgs, who began his career in 1990 at the three-star Protea hotel in Cape Town, has been going from strength to strength as his country’s most innovative chef. In 2011 alone, Higgs, now the man behind such restaurants as Central One (Radisson Blue Hotel) and the Saxon (Saxon Boutique Hotel, Villas & Spa) grabbed an impressive total of eight prestigious awards, including Rossouw’s Platinum Restaurant Award for best overall restaurant, Eatout magazine’s Best Chef in South Africa and the Wine Spectator’s Best of Award of Excellence.
<b>The Grand Palace Shopping Gallery</b> has opened a new restaurant and bar, <b>Chaika</b>, which thrives on a nostalgia concept. Its retro d&#233;cor and a menu that plays tribute to the Soviet era look set to draw different generations of diners. Located on the boutique mall’s top floor, Chaika offers gastronomic hits of the Soviet and post-Soviet era as well as European bestsellers. According to the restaurant, the chefs rely on regional products and will create seasonal menus. Live music, Soviet film screenings, retro parties and concerts are scheduled to be held most weeks.
The floating restaurant <b>Regatta</b> welcomes a new chef, Yaroslav Medvedev, who will be celebrating his arrival with a gastronomic dinner on Sept. 20. Medvedev, who studied with the established Russian chef Ivan Berezutsky, is something of a prodigy. The job at Regatta — a restaurant that has already won a reputation for its variety of homemade pastas, summer grills and mushroom specialties — is his first major engagement, and hopes are high for the young culinary adept. The five-course meal that Medvedev has created for his debut supper promises a European approach and a Russian character, as the chef himself puts it.
The legendary British perfume brand <b>Jo Malone</b> has arrived in town and set up shop in the newly refurbished DLT department store. The uninitiated will be thrilled to discover the zesty citrus effervescence of the already iconic Lime Basil & Mandarin — a summertime energizer that warms up in winter when mixed with a drop or two of another unisex masterpiece by Jo Malone, the Vetyver. Long-term devotees of the brand, in turn, will find it hard not to be seduced by the intriguing new Blackberry & Bay line. After all, when was the last time that a perfume brand had time for bay leaves? And has anyone ever managed to turn it into a captivating fragrance before?

TITLE: the word’s worth: English trembles less than Russian
AUTHOR: By Michele A. Berdy
TEXT: Ñòðàõ è òðåïåò: fear and trembling

I have a love-hate relationship with the word òðåïåò (trembling, quivering).
I love that the word catches and magnifies the smallest tremble or quiver in nature, like òðåïåò ëèñòüåâ (the trembling of leaves), òðåïåò çàíàâåñêè (the rustling of the curtains), or the old-fashioned òðåïåò ðåñíèö (flutter of eyelashes). When it is used to describe a person’s reaction to something, I love that it brings to the surface the most subtle emotions. It’s as if the language is so attuned to the world that it notices the passing of the slightest breeze and almost imperceptible human reactions. Or it’s as if Russians experience the most subtle emotions so intensely that they express them physically. Great stuff.
But I hate the word’s ambiguity. People can tremble out of fear, awe, reverence, joy or tenderness. Sometimes it’s clear what kind of trembling is going on because it’s spelled out: ß èñïûòûâàë ðàäîñòíûé òðåïåò (I trembled with joy.) But often I can’t figure out why someone is quivering, quaking, trembling or shuddering. Russians always seem to know. Is it because they understand the linguistic context better than I do, or they have broader historical knowledge, or they know more about the writer? I don’t know, but it drives me nuts.
In any case, because English speakers tremble and quiver a lot less than Russian speakers, òðåïåò is often translated by the emotion that causes it. ß âèäåëà, êàê ìîé òðèíàäöàòèëåòíèé ñûí ñïîêîéíî è áåçî âñÿêîãî òðåïåòà îáðàùàåòñÿ ñ ýòîé ìàøèíîé (I saw how my 13-year-old son dealt with the car calmly, without a hint of trepidation.) Ýòîò õóäîæíèê íå âûçûâàåò âî ìíå òðåïåòà (I’m not at all awed by that artist’s work.) Ìû ïîêëîíÿåìñÿ ñ òðåïåòîì è áëàãîäàðíîñòüþ Êðåñòó Ãîñïîäíþ (We bow down with reverence and gratitude before the holy cross.) Ïðåêðàñíî ïîìíþ, ñ êàêèì òðåïåòîì ÿ ïîñìîòðåëà ýòîò ìóëüòôèëüì â ïåðâûé ðàç (I remember how thrilled I was the first time I saw that animated film.) Ýòè ñîëäàòû âûçûâàëè òðåïåò ó ïðîòèâíèêà (Those soldiers made the enemy quake in horror.) Ñòàðóøêà ñ òðåïåòîì îòíîñèëàñü ê ýòîé ìàëåíüêîé, íåêðàñèâîé ñîáà÷êå (The old woman was so tender with that ugly little dog.)
But what about this: Íå èñïûòûâàÿ íèêàêîãî îñîáîãî òðåïåòà, ÿ ïðèø¸ë â óíèâåðñèòåò íà Ìîõîâîé. I came to the university on Mokhovaya Ulitsa without any particular … what? Fear? Excitement? Awe? Intimidation? Delight? Apprehension? Beats me. If I couldn’t get clarification from the rest of the text or an omniscient Russian speaker, I’d probably fudge it: I was pretty calm when I got into the university on Mokhovaya.
The verb to describe trembling is òðåïåòàòü. ß òðåïåòàëà ïðè ìûñëè î âñòðå÷å ñ íèì (I trembled at the thought of seeing him.) This shouldn’t be confused with the verb òðåïàòü (and its perfective forms ïîòðåïàòü, èñòðåïàòü), which has a variety of standard and slangy meanings. It can mean “cause something to tremble”: Âåòåð òðåïàë ëèñòüÿ (the wind fluttered the leaves). Or “bring disarray”: Îí ïîòðåïàë å¸ âîëîñû (He tousled her hair). Or “wear out”: Îí çà òðè ìåñÿöà èñòðåïàë íîâûå áîòèíêè (He wore out his new boots in three months.) Æèçíü åãî ïîòðåïàëà (Life wore him down.)
Òðåïàòü íåðâû is to get on someone’s nerves. Òðåïàòü ÿçûêîì is to blab. Ïîòðåïàòü ÷åëîâåêà is to beat someone up — what I want to do whenever I see òðåïåò in a text.

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

TITLE: Worlds apart
AUTHOR: By Tatyana Sochiva
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: As part of Rosphoto’s 10th anniversary celebrations, the State Museum and Exhibition Center for Photography is this month hosting an exhibit of 19th-century photography that brings together more than 100 images of the Russian Empire from the museum’s collection, including works by masters such as William Carrick, Dmitry Yermakov, Alfred Lorens and Sergei Levitsky. 
The exhibit showcases only a small part of Rosphoto’s priceless collection, assembled through long systematic research. But the photos on display are enough to compile a fascinating glimpse of the lives of both peasants and nobles in 19th-century Russia, as well as presenting an overview of the early history of documentary photography.
The old photographs embrace all imaginable photo genres, including street scenes, portraits, architecture and landscapes, but focus primarily on views of pre-revolutionary Russian cities. According to the organizers of the exhibit, it is geared toward both historians of photography and ordinary museums-goers interested in Russian culture and history.
Another section of the photography center is simultaneously hosting “100 Years of Tokyo,” a traveling exhibit of images taken from the collection of the JCII (Japan Camera Industry Institute) photo salon on the occasion of its anniversary: By a strange coincidence, the Japanese salon is turning the same age as Rosphoto.
The “100 Years of Tokyo” project comprises 360 images by 40 Japanese photographers that reflect the significant changes seen by the Japanese capital during the last century. Unlike the exhibit of 19th-century photography, this one not only explores an early stage of documentary photography, it also displays snapshots of the whole century. 
The first exhibit room houses the oldest photographs of Tokyo. Some of them were made using the old technology of coloring the image after printing.
Other pictures recording the 20th-century history of the city are not arranged chronologically. 
“We did not try to adhere to a chronological system,” said Alexandra Sadovskaya, the local curator of the exhibit. “Our main goal was to create an attractive exposition, conveying the spirit of Tokyo,” she said. 
“100 Years of Tokyo” will stay in St. Petersburg for a month before continuing on its travels around the world, but other projects of the JCII photo salon are expected to visit Rosphoto in the near future.

<i>“19th-Century Photographs from Rosphoto’s Collection” and “100 Years of Tokyo” both run through Oct. 7 at Rosphoto, 35 Bolshaya Morskaya Ulitsa. Tel. 314 1214. M. Admiralteiskaya. www.rosphoto.org.</i>

TITLE: Going Dutch on the culture scene this fall
AUTHOR: By Natalya Smolentseva
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Dutch flavor will dominate St. Petersburg’s art scene for the next two months as the annual Window on the Netherlands program gets underway.
Photo exhibits, music festivals, films, lectures and much more will be held at venues around the city including the State Hermitage Museum, Loft Project Etagi, Dom Kino, Tkachi Creative Space and St. Petersburg State University.
This year, the festival is something of a dress rehearsal for 2013, which has officially been designated the Year of the Netherlands in Russia and Year of Russia in the Netherlands. The topic of this year’s “window” is creative industries, and the festival focuses on contemporary Dutch art. 
“The main purpose of this program is to widely represent arts and crafts, design, music, dance, fashion, literature — the entire spectrum of creative professions in Holland,” said Jennes de Mol, consul general of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in St. Petersburg.
As well as one-off events organized especially for the festival, artists from the Netherlands will take part in other events traditionally held in the city in autumn, such as the PROEstate international real estate investment forum from Sept. 12 to 14, at which a group of six architects titled Collective Amsterdam will present their projects.
One of this year’s highlights looks set to be the showing of a documentary film by Jessica Gorter about the Siege of Leningrad. The film, “900 Days,” will be shown at Dom Kino movie theater as part of the annual Message To Man film festival. 
“I have already seen this film. This extraordinary event will probably prompt many discussions,” said de Mol.
Dutch musicians will participate in two big festivals this year: Early Music and Ethno Mechanica. “A Day in Gatchina,” part of the former, is this year dedicated to the 450th anniversary of the birth of the Dutch composer Jan Swelinck. 
“In Russia, this composer is virtually unknown, and we hope to remedy the situation,” said Viktoria Lurik, coordinator of the Window on the Netherlands festival. 
Anastasia Kuryokhina, the organizer of Ethno Mechanica, said this year’s festival would feature two guests from the Netherlands: Fellow and VJ Ken Wolff. 
Meanwhile, the Hermitage will host a lecture by the eminent Dutch ornithologist Nico de Hann, who will bring new life to one of the museum’s many masterpieces — “Bird Concert” by Frans Snijders. 
“The lector with an ornithological surname (hann in Dutch means cockerel) has collected the voices of all 26 birds represented on the picture,” said Svetlana Dotsenko, the lecture’s organizer. After the lecture on Sept. 26, the audience will witness the painting come alive as the bird concert is played.
The last event of the program and a “high-powered last chord,” as organizers describe it, will be the presentation of the collection of Dutch designer Addy van der Krommenacker at Aurora Fashion Week. The designer has made dresses for Dutch actresses, for the wife of the football star Ruud van Nistelrooy and for the Netherlands’ Eurovision participant, Glennis Grace. Van der Krommenacker will open this year’s Aurora Fashion Week program on Oct. 17 at the Manezh. 

<i>A full schedule of events can be found at http://stpetersburg.nlconsulate.org/news/2012/09/window-on-the-netherlands.html</i>

TITLE: Fashion and dance: A lasting romance
AUTHOR: By Viktoria Koltsova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Ballet in St. Petersburg may only just be coming to the end of its regular summer hiatus, but Erarta has stepped in to console those pining for it with a photo exhibit titled “Dance in Vogue” organized by Russian Vogue and Aurora Fashion week, among others. The exhibit celebrates and explores the unbreakable bond between fashion and ballet. 
Russian Vogue prepared a special edition titled “Dance in Vogue” to mark the grand reopening of Moscow’s newly refurbished Bolshoi Theater in October last year. The issue featured ballet photographs that had been taken especially for Vogue during the last 13 years. A vast collection of ballet-related photos were found in the archives of the Conde Nast publishing house during the selection process, and these have now been compiled to create an exhibit devoted to photographic masterpieces inspired by the art of ballet. 
The show comprises 120 photographs taken during the last 100 years. 
“It is an exhibit of stars, by all means,” said Mikhail Ovchinnikov, director of Erarta, at the opening of the exhibit last month. The subjects include Anna Pavlova, Margot Fonteyn, Rudolf Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Margie Gillis, Sylvie Guillem and Diana Vishneva, captured by legendary Vogue photographers such as Vivian Maier, Horst P. Horst, Cecil Beaton, Helmut Newton and Arthur Elgort. 
“The main goal of the Dance in Vogue project is to show the unbreakable bond between fashion and ballet, and the trend-setting role of Russian ballet,” said Viktoria Davydova, editor-in-chief at Russian Vogue. 
“There has always been a strong chemistry between ballet and fashion,” she said. “Still, the greatest romance of the century happened between ballet and fashion photography. Prima ballerinas established fashion trends in high society, designers looked for inspiration in the works of famous choreographers ... and fashion designers made costumes for ballet performances.” 
Sergei Diaghilev’s Russian Seasons, which featured costumes by Coco Chanel, among others, had an enormous influence on Paris fashion trends for several years in a row. Pierre Cardin created multiple collections inspired by Maya Plisetskaya, made costumes for several ballets in which she starred, and designed more than 30 dresses especially for the ballerina. Gianni Versace worked on costumes and scenery for Maurice Bejart’s ballet company. 
The exhibit does not focus solely on Russian dancers. Stars of the New York City Ballet, Opera Garnier and Covent Garden are captured executing flawless arabesques and grand battements. The changes in the idea of the perfect body in ballet can also be traced though the exhibit: One decade, tiny childlike dancers rule the stage, while the next is dominated by tall and mature-looking performers.
The photographer Annie Leibovitz, herself the author of many spectacular dance shots, once said: “Dancing is almost impossible to shoot, because it is born from the air and tends to disappear in it.” 
Despite this difficulty, all the works at the exhibit have captured the movement of dance — and kept it hostage. Style and esthetics have also been preserved for eternity in the images: George Balanchine’s dancers look sharp, sophisticated and striving for perfection, just like his choreography, while Plisetskaya appears as an explosion of energy, just as she performed. Photos of Sylvie Guillem likewise capture her commanding stage presence.
 The featured photographs, though depicting a range of different styles and epochs, together form a fascinating and beautiful timeline of ballet, fashion and the art of photography.
 
<i>“Dance in Vogue” is on show through Oct. 14 at Erarta Museum and Galleries of Contemporary Art, 2, 29th Liniya, Vasilyevsky Island. Tel. 324 0809. 
www.erarta.com</i>

TITLE: Placebo returns to Petersburg
AUTHOR: By Tatyana Sochiva
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The upcoming performance will be Placebo’s third visit to St. Petersburg. The last one was in 2010 to support its sixth studio album, “Battle for the Sun.” This time, the cult band has no new release, but is expected to play classic hits and probably a new single, “B3,” from its seventh album, which is expected to be released next spring.
“Our last album, ‘Battle for the Sun’ was loud stadium rock, so most likely we’ll try to get away from that a little,” frontman Brian Molko was quoted by Rolling Stone as saying in an interview with the magazine. “Our new record will be eclectic, interesting and with a couple of surprises. 
Placebo’s musical style has evolved rapidly since the band was founded in 1994. Its current lineup consists of singer-guitarist Molko, bass guitarist Stefan Olsdal and drummer Steve Forrest, who replaced Robert Schultzberg in 2008. Having started out as a punk-pop band, the musicians have since leaned toward rock, though each new album has seen its own musical experiments. One thing that has not changed over the years is Molko’s androgynous appearance and distinctive vocals. 
International recognition came to Placebo in 1998 with the group’s second album “Without You, I’m Nothing.” The success of it allowed the band to start global tours, including with music legends such as David Bowie and Marilyn Manson. Its third studio album “Black Market Music” (2002) sold more than a million copies. Since then, the group has released three more successful albums: “Sleeping with Ghosts” (2003), “Meds” (2006), which caused the greatest stir, and “Battle for the Sun” (2009), its first album with the new drummer. In 2009, Placebo won the MTV Music Europe Award in the “Best Alternative” category.
From St. Petersburg, Placebo will go on to perform in Moscow, Kiev and Minsk, before continuing to work on material for its upcoming new studio album.

<i>Placebo will perform at 7 p.m. on Sept. 16 at the Yubileiny Sports Stadium, 18 Prospekt Dobrolyubova. 
M. Sportivnaya. Tel. 498 6033.</i>

TITLE: THE DISH: Sviter s Olenyami
AUTHOR: By Daniel Kozin
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: <b>Hanging with reindeers</b>
Russia is changing before our very eyes and taste buds. 
Dozens of restaurants, cafes and bars have been mushrooming in St. Petersburg in recent months that defy all stereotypes about the Russian restaurant business. Their clients share marked similarities: Young, Westernized, well dressed, “indie” and with a certain disposable income. Most importantly, this emerging social class has tastes and expectations that are a step ahead of the average Russian consumer.
Their demands for a corresponding food experience are being heard, as emphatically felt in the newly opened Sviter s Olenyami (Reindeer Sweater) on Canal Griboyedova. 
Cheekily describing itself as a “hoax hipster buffet,” it is infused with the hipster aesthetic in a move sure to delight the self-mocking and irony-obsessed demographic. There is no doubt about who is targeted here; the establishment’s name itself is both a celebration and jest directed at the most popular clothing accessory of the new fashion-conscious youth. 
Add to this young personnel and clients carefully pruned into skinny jeans and square rimmed glasses, and a hodgepodge interior combining retro carpets, a wooden deer head, pixilated pop-art portraits and a pillar wrapped in Grandma’s oversized snowflake sweater.
The eclecticism does not stop here, for the establishment has graciously provided flat screen TVs that play a mix of pre-color art house films without sound or subtitles just in case life starts to seem too mundane for restless clients. For a touch of humor be sure to head to the restroom, where you can spend ample time gagging over Internet memes that play on 19th-century social scenes. 
This is not to say that visitors unenlightened in the quirks of modern youth culture will not enjoy themselves. The interior, though whacky, paradoxically lends a sense of (ironic) harmony and wholeness. Two rooms make up the setting for the cool kids crowd: The smoking room in the back is dimmed, lit only by modern orange lamps hanging down from the glossy black glass ceiling over each wooden table, while the room in the front provides a cozy view of the Kazan Cathedral and a well organized space for tweeting or gossiping to a soundtrack of Norah Jones, samba, lounge, post-punk, ethnic African music, and more.
The diversity theme is continued by the menu, which will satisfy even the most non-conformist of food connoisseurs: Finger food, tapas, five categories of main dishes including pan-Asian and Italian, and burgers, as well as fusion appetizers, salads, soups and desserts. Dishes are conveniently priced by category, which helps somewhat with the overwhelming choices offered. 
Appetizers (30 rubles, $1) were well presented and took just the right amount of time to arrive, lending confidence to their freshness. While the bruschetta with tomato, pesto and pine nuts was unexciting and on the bland side, the cupcake with mushrooms and spinach rewarded us for our curiosity; the unusual concoction was delightfully moist, warm and creamy, with sweetish soft dough surrounding a tender and juicy fungi-filled center. 
Next up in our experimentation was the “doll” salad (220 rubles, $7.30): Fresh and crispy, with large strips of grilled chicken, grilled watermelon, cubes of orange, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers and spinach in a light orange dressing. The Thai tom yam kung soup with shrimp (190 rubles, $6.30) was equally interesting: Sweet, sour, spicy and salty in equal measure, though it may seem overpowering for those used to Russian cuisine. 
Having been surprised by the creative take on appetizers, the biggest surprise was yet to come. Our party had been taking its time with appetizers, and a natural worry crept in that the waiter had forgotten about the main course. When prompted, we were delighted to hear that he was waiting for our signal. Such professionalism is rare in similarly priced establishments, and is yet another sign of service that caters particularly and perfectly to the demands of the new generation of Russians: Helpful when prompted, non-intrusive and professional.
The khao pad kap kung pork with jasmine rice (340 rubles, $11.30) came in due time, combining tender pork in a sweet teriyaki-like sauce with red and yellow peppers and pineapple, topped off with fresh bean sprouts. 
The pumpkin cheesecake with strawberry sauce (220 rubles, $7.30) had the most potential for an anti-climatic finish, but the risk more than paid off. This was no cottage cheese imitator! A fresh, creative take on an American classic, it resembled a mix between a pumpkin pie and a New York cheesecake.
Add to this an extensive cocktail list and live music on most evenings, and the demands of young urban Russians for decent hangouts are finally being met. Who knows, maybe political change is next on the menu.

TITLE: Coasting It — A Guide to the Resort Region
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Pavlova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The Kurortny Rayon (literally the “Resort Region”) which stretches along the coast of the Gulf of Finland to the northwest of the city has as much to offer those in search of out-of-town activities in the autumn as it does to sun-seekers in the summer. 

<b>Sestroretsk</b>
Sestroretsk is one of the most attractive suburbs of St. Petersburg, located in the south of the Karelian Isthmus, between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Razliv. This small town  is perhaps best known for its fresh, ionized sea air, pine woods and sandy beaches stretching out along the Gulf of Finland, and is particularly popular among locals during the summer. The fall, however, also offers some great attractions and activities.
Right on the coast you’ll find the “Dubki” or “Oaks” park with its Dutch garden and hydraulic engineering constructions. At the beginning of the 18th century, one of Peter the Great’s country residences was located here, but now it’s a great recreation area and a delight to take long strolls in. 
Here you can also find tennis courts and a horse-racing complex with horses that can be taken on hour-long walks. Horse-riding lessons with professional instructors are also available. Alternatively, you can head for the boat rental station at the heart of the park where you can hire boats, catamarans and pedalos, have a game of table tennis or use the shooting gallery. And finally, the fall is the perfect time to collect acorns under the oak tree that, according to legend, was planted by Peter the Great himself 300 years ago. 
Sestroretsk’s museums are worth a visit, not least because they are a little out of the ordinary. There’s a shack where Vladimir Lenin hid out while fleeing from the Provisional Government in the summer of 1917 — the Communists later turned it into a museum complex, placing the shack itself in a vast glass display case. 
At the 37th kilometer along the Primorskoye Highway you can also visit the Sestoretsk Boundary exhibition complex, an outdoor museum of military constructions from the Winter War (1939-1940) between the Soviet Union and Finland. 

<b>Kurort Kite-Surfing</b>
St. Petersburg and the surrounding region are notorious for their changeable weather. In town it may be windy, but out on the coast it could be ideal for some rest and relaxation. You needn’t despair if it’s windy either — the Gulf of Finland is a great place to try kite-surfing, and there are numerous options for those looking to take lessons.
Kite-surfing began its development in the 1970s and 1980s, with forerunners to the modern parafoi kite being coupled with skates, water-skis and three-wheeled buggies. They’re now used with single boards, similar to surfboards. 
You can try your hand at this extreme sport at the Kurort surfing station, the prevailing westerly, north-westerly or south-westerly winds being ideal for novices along this stretch of coastline. Alternatively, you can simply take a walk here and admire the breathtaking views of colorful kites in flight. 

<b>Repino</b>
As you proceed along the Primorskoye Highway from Sestroretsk, on the right-hand side, behind a wooden fence, you can make out the glass turrets of the renowned Russian painter Ilya Repin’s country estate, Penaty (the word comes from the Latin penates — the Roman household gods, the protectors of the home and family). Repin’s works are ranked among the highest achievements of Russian realist art, and the artist lived here for 30 years, from 1900 to 1930.
At Penaty, Repin created many canvases that are gems in the world treasure-house of painting: Session of the State Council, Bloody Sunday, Pushkin’s Examination at the Lyceum, as well as celebrated portraits of the writers Lev Tolstoy and Maxim Gorky, the chemist Dmitry Mendeleyev and the opera singer Fyodor Chaliapin. 
In 1940, the Penaty estate was turned into a museum, though shortly afterwards it was destroyed by the invading Nazi army. After World War II, comprehensive restoration was carried out, and the estate was reopened for visitors in June of 1962. 
The house now comprises a fascinating exhibition focusing on the artist’s key works, the various periods in his career and his biography. 

<b>Dining out</b>
From Sestroretsk all the way along the coast to the next large town of Zelenogorsk you’ll find a range of beachfront restaurants featuring a variety of cuisines. None of them are real standouts, with the exception of the Bellevue restaurant at the Scandinavia Country Club and Spa in Sestroretsk itself (16 Ulitsa Parkovaya, Sestroretsk), but those with kids should definitely drop in on Russkaya Rybalka in Repino, if only for the excellent petting zoo and vast wooden slide. 

<b>Zelenogorsk</b>
The final stop on our suburban voyage. Over half a century ago, this was the territory of Russia’s northern neighbor,  Finland. It is now a small, attractive town with numerous parks, tree-lined streets — the root of the town’s name is “zelyony,” which means green — beaches and lakes. 
Whilst visiting you can drop in on the Retro Car Museum — it’s not large, but the collection is unique.
The Yalkala Historical and Ethnographic Museum, located just 12 kilometers out of the city, is ideal for those with an interest in local history. Here you can find out about the daily life of the ancient local settlements and the different traditional dwellings of the people who inhabited these lands centuries ago. 
Zelenogorsk is also a great place to rent a quad bike and take it for a burn along the beachfront — beginners can get instruction from skilled instructors.
Those walking in Zelenogorsk should also look out for two charming churches, one Lutheran, the other Orthodox, and School No. 445, built in the Stalinist style.
<hr />
<b>Sestroretsk</b>
How to get there: Commuter train or minibus from the Finland railway station (metro station Ploshchad Lenina).
Minibus ¹ 417 or ¹ 425 from 
Chyornaya Rechka metro station. 
Park address: 59 Dubkovsky Highway
Website: www.parkdubki.ru/

<b>Kurort Kite-Surfing</b>
How to get there: Commuter train or minibus ¹ 400 from the Finland railway station (metro station Ploshchad Lenina).
Minibus ¹ 417 from Chyornaya Rechka metro station. 
Location: Beach next to Sestroretsk railway station
Website: www.kiteliberty.ru

<b>Repino</b>
How to get there: Minibus ¹ 400 from Ploshchad Lenina metro station.
Bus ¹ 211 from Chyornaya Rechka metro station, minibus ¹ 305 from Staraya Derevnya metro station, minibus ¹ 680 from Prospekt Prosveshcheniya metro station.
Minibus ¹ 417 from Chyornaya Rechka metro station. 

<b>Zelenogorsk</b>
How to get there: Commuter train or minibus ¹ 400 from the Finland railway station (metro station Ploshchad Lenina).
Minibus ¹ 305 from Staraya Derevnya metro station. 
Address: Retro Car Museum, 
536 Primorskoye Highway, Zelenogorsk.
Open 11 a.m. – 7 p.m., 
closed Monday. 
Admission: Adult – 100 rubles, 
children under 7 – free
Tel: 315 2857
<hr />
<b>Ilya Repin’s Memorial Home Penaty</b>
Address: 411 Primorskoye Highway, Repino
Website: www.museum.ru/M267
Open Wednesday to Sunday. From May 15 to Sept. 15, 10.30 a.m. to 6 p.m.
From September 15 to May 15, 10.30 a.m. to 5 p.m. 
The ticket office closes one hour before the museum closes. Guided tours are obligatory.
Admission: For Russian citizens: Adults – 100 rubles, children – 30 rubles. Foreign tourists: Full price ­– 300 rubles, concessions – 100 rubles.

TITLE: Informality of U.S. Schools Stuns Russian Teens
AUTHOR: By Jonathan Earle
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: School started early for a group of Russian teens spending their first year away from home in the United States — and it came with a few surprises.
Yulia Sherstyuk, a native of Veliky Novgorod who’s living in Soldotna, Alaska, was one of the many students to remark that U.S. high schools are more informal than Russian schools.
“In Russia, we are not allowed to eat or drink in the classroom. Here, it’s alright,” she said. “Also, in American schools, students can choose their classes, which is really great!”
Yekaterina Bubnova was surprised that students in her high school in St. Charles, Missouri, didn’t stand when their teacher entered the room and that the teachers told the students about themselves.
The social hierarchy, with freshmen at the bottom and seniors at the top, struck Anna Filipchik, based in Alton, Illinois. “The whole school is divided between freshmen and those who are disgusted by and hate them,” she said. “I’m happy to be a senior.”
The school year started Sept. 1 across Russia, but it began in mid- to late August for many of the 244 Russians studying in towns across the United States as part of the U.S. government’s FLEX exchange program, which started in 1992. The elite group of Russian 15- and 16-year-olds are ambitious, energetic, and sharp — quite possibly Russia’s future leaders — and the skills, perspective and confidence they bring back could change the country from the ground up.
The St. Petersburg Times has been following the teens from the beginning of the rigorous selection process last November and will continue until the end of the school year next summer.
Students who volunteered to share their first-day-of-school experience with The St. Petersburg Times declared the day a smashing success, despite moments of chaos and awkwardness.
Alexandra Voronova, a native of the Far East town of Fokino, who is living in Raleigh, North Carolina, was struck by the size of her high school. “There are 2,348 students!” she said. “Everybody was running to his class, so it was very chaotic in the morning.”
The students were “very friendly and easy going,” she said, adding that the music band welcomed her as a member of the family.
The academics didn’t disappoint either. “I didn’t notice the last bell because it was so interesting to listen to the teacher,” she said. “I can’t wait for the next day at school!”
No details were too trivial to mention. “The school bells don’t ring, they squeak!” said Bubnova, the student in St. Charles, Missouri.
Students’ host families lent a helping hand when it came to navigating sprawling school complexes, making introductions, and opening lockers, which are rare in Russian schools.
Yevgenia Rudenko’s host siblings took her to school a day early to show her around. When she struggled to open her locker, they drew her a diagram of the lock.
Even though the students are selected in part due to their English-language skills, it wasn’t always easy to understand what was being said. “The hardest part was understanding my classmates’ speech and pronunciation, because they speak very fast and use special slang words,” Bubnova said.
Program administrator Valerie Frank described the first two to three months of the program as an adjustment period. “Everyone’s kind of in the settling in phase right now, meeting their host families, getting registered at school, picking classes,” she said by telephone.
Homesickness and other discomforts can strike at any moment, something program administrators say they are well-equipped to handle.
“Quiet students sometimes have trouble adjusting to a host family that’s loud and boisterous. Or they might think that somebody is laughing at their accent, or have problems with the food,” Frank said, adding that most problems could be resolved by a simple conversation or two.
But despite the rigorous selection process for students and host families, and additional support provided by regional placement organizations, about 5 percent of the students will leave the program early for various reasons, which Frank says is normal for programs of this type.
She added that it’s difficult to predict who will succeed and who won’t. “It’s just a mystery factor,” she said. “If you go back and look at the applications, you find that theirs were some of the best.”

TITLE: Russian Surrogate Moms Attract Foreigners
AUTHOR: By Marina Ivankiva
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: When Viktoria, a 29-year-old from St. Petersburg, gave birth to twin boys in June, it was not the beginning of a new chapter in her life. Rather, it was the completion of a job: Viktoria is one of a growing number of surrogate mothers. She was paid to carry and give birth to the twins by the Finnish couple who were their biological parents.
Viktoria, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, is divorced and lives with her four-year-old daughter in her parents’ apartment. She graduated from the city’s University of Cinema and Television and was quite a successful businesswoman before her husband left her. She says that she adores children and can’t imagine anybody’s life without “these little angels.” Like most surrogates, Viktoria says her motivation is to help people who can’t have children. But when asked how she will spend the money, she says that she has a lot of problems to solve and things to buy. 
Viktoria is religious, and one of the first questions she asked the would-be parents was: “Have your parents blessed your decision?” She says that before making a decision, she talked to her priest and from time to time during the program went to church to light a candle. Outside of church, Viktoria did not speak to anyone about the surrogacy except her mother and a friend who lives in America. Even her father did not know about his daughter’s new job. Viktoria did not see any of her relatives during the program, which she said she found extremely difficult, and tried not to speak to the other mothers at her daughter’s playground.
Surrogacy is a relatively recent social phenomenon in Russia. The first recorded example of it was in 1995 when a young woman whose child died a few days after birth had another baby with the help of a surrogate mother. That surrogate was compensated by the woman after the birth with an apartment. At the time, there were no regulatory laws in place for such an arrangement. 
Russia is now one of the few countries where commercial surrogacy is legal, along with South Africa, Ukraine and some states in the U.S. In Austria, Sweden, Germany, France and other American states it is illegal, and in Norway, a woman faces five years in prison for donating her eggs. In other countries such as the U.K., Australia, Denmark, Spain, Holland and Canada, surrogacy is non-commercial, which means that the surrogate cannot be paid for her role.
The twins given birth to by Viktoria for the Finnish couple heralded the launch of an international program by Rosyurconsulting, the first company to arrange surrogacy programs in Russia. Founded more than 10 years ago, the company opened a St. Petersburg office five years ago, where 60 surrogate births have successfully taken place. Its Moscow office carries out a staggering 100 IVF treatments every month.
Natalya Kacheyeva, a manager at the St. Petersburg office of Rosyurconsulting, is responsible for the search and choice of suitable egg donors and surrogate mothers. The company currently has about 40 candidates in its database. The main condition is that candidates should already have their own children. When asked to describe the typical social portrait of would-be surrogates, Kacheyeva does not hesitate. 
“They are young women of lower or lower-middle class with no higher education. They generally do not have enough money to support their family and no education to find a good job,” she said. 
Maxim Kiyayev, a lawyer for the company, added that they are typically single, divorced or widowed women from small towns. 
Surrogate mothers in St. Petersburg are paid on average 500,000 to 600,000 rubles ($16,000 to $19,000) for their services. Would-be parents who want a surrogate mother from St. Petersburg or a woman with a higher education have to pay more. Even though the surrogates inevitably say they do it to help people who do not have children, they are all paid for their help. But is surrogacy a real job? Both Kacheyeva, Kiyayev and their colleague Sergei Bobrov, a gynecologist, agree that it would be ideal if the surrogates treated their pregnancy as a job, but said that in reality they do not, which sometimes leads to unexpected problems such as medical complications or even miscarriage. 
The social portrait of potential parents is more difficult to ascertain. There are many variants, including single parents of both sexes, couples who need a sperm or egg donor and couples who are able to conceive but not carry a child. The only thing that all clients have in common, according to Kacheyeva, is that they all want children. Kiyayev said Rosyurconsulting’s clients are usually successful businessmen aged about 40. 
These people have purchasing power, and sometimes think they can buy everything they don’t or can’t have. Bobrov, the gynecologist, said it can be difficult to work with people who believe that starting a surrogacy program is like going shopping. Until earlier this year, when it was banned, clients could even choose the sex of the child. Some parents even insist on the surrogate mother being a particular sign of the zodiac, Kacheyeva added. 
At the beginning of a surrogacy program, once a surrogate mother has been selected but before the contract is signed, Kacheyeva and Kiyayev organize a brief meeting between the parents and the surrogate. With Russian programs, this is usually the first and last time that the parents and surrogate meet. Foreign couples tend to get more involved, according to Rosyurconsulting. The office’s entire staff confessed to being surprised to see that the Finnish parents came to support their surrogate, Viktoria, every time she had a doctor’s appointment. 
After the contract is signed, the process begins. Once an embryo is created and transferred into the uterus of the gestational carrier by in vitro fertilization, the difference between natural pregnancy and surrogacy is minimal, and mainly depends on the doctor. Bobrov said that the medical world in Russia is still very closed-minded. 
“Most doctors, not to mention nurses, are very judgmental and suspicious of surrogacy, and are deeply prejudiced against it. They do not understand it and cannot accept it,” he said. On Bobrov’s maternity ward, where he has worked for more than five years, the situation has improved and the staff have become more tolerant, he added.  
After the delivery, the surrogate signs all the necessary documents and her job is done. She is advised not to see the child, but if the parents have no objections, as in the case of the Finns, she might pay them a visit and even hold the child in her arms. But nearly always, both sides part forever in the maternity ward without ever seeing each other again. 
Before the delivery, Viktoria said she had never left her daughter for more than one day at a time, and that as soon as she was discharged from the maternity ward, she would run home to see her own child. 
Although surrogacy is officially legal in Russia and the procedure has been worked out during a number of years, there are still a lot of gaps in the law. There are no regulations on single male parents, and no regulations on using a man’s sperm or woman’s eggs after that person has died. Kiyayev says that it is essential that the surrogate be obliged to waive her rights to the child. Currently, Russian surrogates may keep the child if they change their mind, and neither the client nor the company can make her give it up. 
Kiyayev also cited some extreme situations that have to be allowed for and regulated by the law. “What if the parents die while the surrogate is pregnant? Or the surrogate dies during pregnancy?” he asked. 
Last but not least, what if the Russian Orthodox Church, which does not approve of surrogacy and which is visibly becoming more and more influential, instigates a move to ban it? Kiyayev says that surrogacy in Russia is classified as infertility treatment and, in light of the country’s negative demographic trend, the church would be unlikely to do anything to oppose it. He cited a priest from Saloniki who, when asked by a parishioner who was desperate for a child and asked the priest to bless her decision to use a surrogate, replied: “If science can make it happen, then God needs it too.”