SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1737 (48), Wednesday, November 28, 2012
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TITLE: Kalashnikov Maker Finding Success in America 
AUTHOR: By Irina Filatova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The producer of the legendary Kalashnikov rifles, Izhmash, is betting on an increase in exports of nonmilitary weapons, which skyrocketed in the January-to-September period, besting output over the same period a year earlier by 60 percent, the company said Thursday.
Exports of civilian weapons totaled 484 million rubles ($15 million) during the first nine months of the year, and the overall figure for 2012 is expected to reach 665 million rubles, Izhmash said in a statement.
Since carrying weapons in Russia is severely restricted by law, the United States remains the major consumer of nonmilitary arms produced at the plant, Alexander Kosov, acting chief executive of Izhmash, told reporters. He added that Izhmash supplies weapons for retail sale as well as for use by the country's police. 
The United States accounts for more than 80 percent of the plant's export sales. Other big markets where the plant sells civilian weapons are Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Pakistan and Norway. 
Kosov said negotiations on next year's contracts are under way, with exports expected to grow approximately 20 percent from 2012, according to preliminary estimates. 
Once a defense industry giant, Izhmash is now focused on making civilian weapons, whose share of total output is between 60 and 70 percent. 
"We think this trend will continue next year," Kosov said. 
The company plans to make 150,000 guns next year. Total production from January to September was valued at 2.74 billion rubles, up from 2.64 billion rubles during the first nine months of last year, Kosov said, adding that the growth resulted from expansion of the company's market share abroad. 
He said the plant's situation had drastically improved after parent company Russian Technologies began financially restructuring the subsidiary. 
The announcement came amid a curious campaign against the current management of Izhmash that some said was orchestrated by regional authorities of the Udmurtia republic, where the plant is based. 
In one recent move, a group of the plant's veterans, supposedly including legendary rifle designer Mikhail Kalashnikov, reportedly sent a letter to President Vladimir Putin asking him to save the 200-year-old factory. 
It is facing an array of problems, including a decline in manufacturing and failure to meet procurement deadlines because of inefficient management. Sources said later that the veterans' signatures had been faked. 
The letter echoed earlier accusations by Udmurtia's government. Regional Deputy Prime Minister Ildar Bikbulatov said in October that Izhmash had "basically failed to fulfill all its defense orders."
Kosov said that he hadn't seen the veterans' letter and that no one had seen Kalashnikov signing it. He also rejected accusations that the company was not satisfying defense orders. 
Izhmash has already supplied most of the weapons ordered by the state for this year, Kosov said. Although the plant required additional time to improve the quality of the weapons, it will fill the gun orders by the end of this year, he said.
The Defense Ministry suspended purchases of Kalashnikov rifles last year, saying that warehouse reserves of the gun significantly exceed needs. The ministry also demanded that Izhmash provide a modernized version of the assault rifle. 
To meet those requirements, Izhmash has proposed to upgrade the guns in reserves and is developing a new AK-12 rifle, which could be supplied to the armed forces, Kosov said, adding that 
official testing of the AK-12 might start next year.
Earlier this month, Russian Technologies postponed a contest to appoint the plant's chief executive. It was initially scheduled for Nov. 12. The state corporation will accept applications from candidates until Dec. 19, according to a statement posted on its website. 
The date of selection has yet to be set, but Kosov said there's no doubt that the contest will take place. 
"There's no other mechanism to appoint a director," he said.

TITLE: Pussy Riot Clip Classified as Extremist
AUTHOR: By Nikolaus von Twickel
TEXT: MOSCOW — A city court has declared Pussy Riot's “punk prayer” video extremist, meaning that media outlets can face closure for publishing the all-female band's famous performance in Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral.
Thursday's far-reaching decision also means that hosting platforms like YouTube must remove the video for Russian users and that national Internet providers will have to block access to sites that continue to carry the video.
It marks the second time that the country's notorious extremism law is used against a popular video, after a city court in October handed down a similar ruling against the U.S. film “Innocence of Muslims.”
Activists said the decision is part of a wider crackdown on the opposition and freedom of speech, although they noted that it would be difficult to enforce in practice.
The Zamoskvoretsky District Court on Thursday declared three other Pussy Riot videos, in addition to the "punk prayer" one, as extremist, news agencies reported. 
The judge did not watch any of the videos and based her decision solely on a legal expertise ordered by prosecutors that said the videos represent a concealed call for mass disorder and might incite religious hatred, the RAPSI News agency reported.
The “punk prayer” performance, which took place in February, was the basis for which three band members were found guilty of inciting religious hatred.
Two of those members, Nadezhda Tolikonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, are currently serving two-year sentences in prison colonies. The third, Yekaterina Samutsevich, who was acquitted last month, said she would challenge the extremism decision. 
But in a bizarre twist, court spokeswoman Yevgenia Pazukhina told RAPSI that this could only be done by the parties in the trial — the Justice Ministry and the prosecution. Samutsevich later filed a complaint against being denied being a trial party.
It was unclear, when and how the decision would be implemented. Channel One State TV even showed excerpts of it in its Thursday evening news broadcast.  
Reports said it goes into force after the deadline for challenging it in a higher court expires. However, they differed in identifying the time frame from three days to more than a month. Channel One said it was 10 days.
The judge explicitly said sites carrying the videos would have to be blocked. However, the list of those sites and the court's reasoning will be published at an unspecified later date, RAPSI reported.
The most affected companies said it was too early to comment. A Google representative told Interfax that YouTube, a 100 percent subsidiary of the U.S. Internet giant, would wait for the decision to be published. 
“To make a decision, YouTube needs a copy of the ruling with the videos' URL addresses,” the unspecified representative was quoted as saying.
LiveJournal spokeswoman Yekaterina Pakhomchik merely said the company had not received any demands from law enforcement authorities to block any content.
Pussy Riot published most of its past performances on the group's LiveJournal blog and its YouTube channel, where the “punk prayer” has been watched almost 2.4 million times.
The biggest eagerness to comply was displayed by the Rutube.ru hosting service, which on Thursday had blocked several videos with the catchword “Pussy Riot” — curiously including a Sept. 13 state television report in which Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev criticized the band members' prison sentences as too harsh. Rutube.ru is owned by the state-controlled holding Gazprom-Media.
Experts said Thursday that while YouTube, LiveJournal and Internet providers had complied with similar court orders in the past, it would be difficult to remove the videos entirely.
A number of LiveJournal blogs listed on the Justice Ministry's official list of publications banned under the extremism law, are no longer online. The list, which as of Thursday had 1,539 entries, only contains a single YouTube video.  
When users in Russia click on the song “Russky Marsh” by nationalist songwriter Alexander Kharchikov, they get a message that it is unavailable “due to a legal complaint.” 
Experts have pointed out that while some big players might cooperate, it would be practically impossible to force all foreign hosting services to delete any given content, thus forcing authorities to demand that Internet providers block it.
While the blocking of specific content is possible through so-called deep packet inspection (DPI) filtering, employing this technology is expensive and cumbersome.
“It gives them a lot of work,” said Irina Borogan, a security analyst with the Agentura.ru think tank.
Experts also said regional Internet providers had blocked content before it appeared on the Justice Ministry's list and even before a court decisions. As an example they pointed to the “Innocence of Muslims” video, which has led to YouTube being entirely unavailable in Chechnya and Dagestan. 
A recent Supreme Court decision has increased pressure on providers to block sites without direct state interference. The October ruling stipulates that they risk losing their licenses if they fail to block access to sites with illegal content.
The Federal Mass Media Inspection Service said Thursday that it would ask hosting companies to delete the videos after the ruling comes into force. “We want to take the initiative … so that Internet operators [providers] won't block access to innocent resources,” an unspecified spokesman told Interfax. 
The agency runs a non-public blacklist of sites deemed harmful to children under a stringent law that came into effect on Nov. 1. Article 15 of the law also stipulates that the blacklist contains online content that has been declared illegal by courts. However, so far no site has been reported to be on the blacklist because of being extremist.
Adding to the confusion, the Federal Mass Media Inspection Service spokesman told Interfax that his agency would not deal with extremist content like the Pussy Riot videos.

TITLE: City Officials in $100M Fraud
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg authorities have dismantled a syndicate they say cost the city 3 billion rubles ($100 million) by installing some 600 kilometers of substandard heating and water pipes.
Top officials in the city's energy and engineering committee and the state treasury's energy infrastructure construction and remodeling department, as well as the heads of several private firms including installer Petrokom and supplier Rustrubprom, took part in the scheme to defraud the city budget, the Interior Ministry said Thursday.
More than 200 law enforcement officials participated in exposing the scheme and conducting 30 searches, the ministry said in a statement. From the apartment of the head of the city's energy and engineering committee, police seized 18 million rubles, $100,000 and 100,000 euros ($130,000).

TITLE: Price Differential Causing Airplane Travel to Overtake Rails
AUTHOR: By Lena Smirnova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The romantic role of train travel in Russian culture is slowly being unseated by cramped airplanes as flight tickets become more affordable and government subsidies for economy-class rail tickets are trimmed, according to a report from Metropol consultancy.
"The Russian aviation industry has already surpassed Russian Railways," said Andrei Rozhkov, senior transportation analyst at Metropol. "The trends are clear, and we can see already that these trends will remain in effect for the future." 
The research, which is slated to be released next week, was done at the behest of investment funds interested in buying shares in national carrier Aeroflot and No.2 airline Transaero.
Traffic on both trains and airlines is seeing double-digit growth, but rail travel is losing market share. One of the key issues is that some train tickets are increasing in price faster than the cost of traveling the same route by air. 
The average ticket price on Aeroflot rose 7 percent in the first nine months of 2011, while average train ticket prices rose 10 percent, according to Metropol's study. Train prices are expected to increase even more in the future following the government's announcement that it will drastically cut subsidies for Russian Railways. 
State subsidies for rail travel have been cut in half, from 30 billion rubles ($966 million) in 2012 to 15 billion rubles in 2013. Meanwhile, the Transportation Ministry said this week that it plans to give 750 million rubles in subsidies to Russian airlines to keep regional ticket prices down. This measure could cut prices on some domestic routes up to 50 percent. 
Passengers traveling by third-class platzkart rail will be hit the hardest by the reduced subsidies. The Federal Passenger Co., a Russian Railways subsidiary for long-haul passenger routes, estimated that price liberalization for the cheapest train tickets would result in a 67 percent cost increase.
Just getting these tickets could be challenging, since the company has no plans to increase the number of platzkart train cars despite high demand. The quantity of such cars has not increased since 2011, Mikhail Akulov, general director of the Federal Passenger Co. and vice president of Russian Railways, said Thursday. 
The practice of financing lower-class travel through revenues from higher-priced tickets must stop, Akulov said.
"Starting next year, we won't have the opportunity to continue this cross-subsidization within the company," he said. "We are spending money that we skillfully earn through the expensive segment not to develop that segment but to fulfill obligations that are set by the state." 
The liberalization of train ticket prices will result in more passengers choosing to travel by air, Rozhkov said. The shift will be felt most in shorter flights, since medium-distance and long-haul travel will still be cheaper on trains — though less so than in the past. 
Metropol estimated that train fares for journeys less than 1,000 kilometers would rise to 127 percent of Aeroflot's price for an analogous ticket. Medium- and long-distance fares are expected to increase to 40 and 28 percent, respectively, of prices for a comparable Aeroflot ticket. 
The Federal Passenger Co. has projects in the pipeline to make rail travel more attractive. The company plans to debut 50 double-decker train cars in 2013, shorten travel times on several routes, expand the Wi-Fi network on its trains and roll out more customer-loyalty and discount programs. 
But Rozhkov said these measures are unlikely to shift travelers' preferences. 
"The key factors are cost and time of travel, not access to Wi-Fi," Rozhkov said. 
At the same time, trains would have the advantage against regional airlines in terms of departure frequency. Russian Railways may offer multiple travel-time options, while regional airlines could be limited to one flight per week. 
Russia has a lot of room to grow in terms of air travel, Rozhkov said. The country's air mobility index, which is used to estimate the annual number of flights per inhabitants, was 0.45 in 2011, while in developing countries the index ranges from 1.5 to 2.5. 
The Russian government forecasts that the air mobility index will increase to between 0.69 and 0.88 by 2020.

TITLE: Medvedev: Repression Charges Are Pure Politics
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Saying the "repressive" label given to new laws on treason and other civil issues is "a pure political tactic," Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev voiced support for the State Duma's reinstating of criminal charges for libel — which overturned one of his own initiatives as president.
In a wide-ranging interview published in Kommersant on Thursday, Medvedev said that while "you shouldn't put people in prison for libel," he agrees with the "new legal construction" that paints libel as "an activity dangerous to society."
Fielding a question about the laws enacted by the State Duma beginning in the spring and particularly since Vladimir Putin's presidential inauguration, Medvedev replied that "these expectations of repression are a pure political tactic."
His word for "tactic" also can be translated in Russian as "ploy."
In addition to libel, the new laws tighten restrictions and increase penalties for treason, unsanctioned protests and Internet content deemed illicit by government agencies. The Duma also passed legislation forcing nongovernmental organizations that receive foreign funding to declare themselves "foreign agents."
Medvedev did warn, however, that those people advocating a reprisal of 1930s tactics — a group that includes both older citizens and youth, he said — fail to grasp the reach of such measures.
"I repeat my position: The majority of people who extol those times absolutely can't imagine what happened," he said, referring to the Great Terror. "It's very easy to extol tyranny when you know that they aren't coming for you at night, aren't shooting you without a trial and investigation, won't put you in jail for 25 years on a false accusation."
Alluding to the giant demonstrations in December 2011 against election fraud in that month's State Duma contests, Medvedev said "the fact that society's demands grew during the elections in 2011 is proof of the maturation of our civil society." 
In the 8,000-word interview with the business daily, Medvedev also discussed the recent ousters of Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov and Regional Development Minister Oleg Govorun.
The quick firing of the regional minister just six months after he got the job was a necessary move and Govorun shouldn't take the firing personally, Medvedev said. 
"A person in a public position — the position of a minister — has to understand that he is the object of attention and criticism, including from the president or the head of government," the prime minister said. "And he must deal with this more calmly."
Govorun was fired by Putin in what many political analysts viewed as the president overpowering the prime minister.

TITLE: Ruling Tandem's Approval Rating Falling, Poll Says
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: According to a new poll published Thursday, the approval ratings of President Vladimir Putin and his protege, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, have fallen over the past seven months.
Putin's approval rating is down from 69 percent in May to 63 percent in November, and Medvedev's from 64 percent to 54 percent over the same period, according to statistics posted on the independent Levada Center's website.
The poll, which surveyed 1,596 people over 18 years of age across 45 Russian regions, also showed that the public's opinion of the State Duma has worsened over the past month. Sixty-five percent of respondents said they were unhappy with the country's lower house, compared with 57 percent in October.
While the approval rating of recently appointed Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has risen from 11 percent in October to 16 percent in November, 24 percent of those surveyed said they do not trust any politicians at all, and 44 percent think that the country is heading in the wrong direction, up 11 percent since May.
But it appears that Russian citizens trust opposition leaders even less, with only 5 percent expressing faith in businessman and former presidential candidate Mikhail Prokhorov and 10 percent in Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov.
The Levada Center gave a margin of error of 3.4 percent for the poll.

TITLE: Prison Revolt Yields More Questions Than Answers 
AUTHOR: By Jonathan Earle
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: There were either 250 participants or about 1,000. They demanded improved conditions or nothing at all. Their protest was plotted by criminal masterminds or it was spontaneous.
Almost nothing is clear about last weekend's revolt at a maximum security prison in the Urals, as official statements, media reports and testimony from human rights activists vary wildly.
What is clear, however, is that the incident has attracted an unusually large amount of attention, with even state television — usually deaf to reports of widespread abuse and corruption in the nation's prison system — devoting prime-time programming to developments at Federal Prison No. 6.
Activists say that might be because the reportedly non-violent revolt, which lasted from Saturday to Monday, was an extraordinary reaction to a familiar problem.
"There hasn't been anything like it for a long time," said Nadezhda Radnayeva, an expert at the In the Defense of the Rights of Prisoners Foundation. A typical revolt involves a few dozen prisoners. The rest are too afraid, have a separate agenda or come to an agreement with administrators, she said.
Hence the shock created by footage from the prison in the city of Kopeisk, which showed hundreds of prisoners standing on the roof of a building above a homemade banner reading, "Free people, help us! The administration is extorting $ [sic]. They torture and humiliate."
The incident prompted Chelyabinsk region Governor Mikhail Yurevich to acknowledge that the local penal system needed reform, and prosecutors promptly opened an investigation into prisoners' complaints that officials were extorting money, including for visits with family.
"If this kind of event had happened several years ago, there wouldn't have been such success," veteran human rights defender and deputy chairman of In the Defense of the Rights of Prisoners Foundation Lev Ponomaryov said by telephone Wednesday.
Ponomaryov speculated that high-profile criminal cases in recent months involving the punk protest band Pussy Riot and opposition activists suspected of attacking police at a May rally have led to an awakening of Russian civil society and increased attention to rights abuses.
Others, including Radnayeva, weren't so optimistic. Russians outside a small class of politically charged urbanites were still very indifferent to the plight of Russia's inmates, she said, and there was a pervasive belief that prisoners deserved whatever they got.
An estimated 712,500 Russians are currently behind bars, according to government estimates.
Radnayeva said the clashes between prisoners' relatives and riot police, which resulted in 38 detentions, helped galvanize public opinion in the prisoners' favor.
Additional contradictory details about the revolt emerged Wednesday.
A local rights activist, part of a small group allowed inside the prison on Tuesday, said interviews with about 30 inmates confirmed allegations of abuse and extortion by prison officials.
Nikolai Shchur contested several claims made by officials. He said the revolt involved "all" prisoners, not 250; prisoners demanded media attention, not "a relaxed regime" or freedom for a comrade in solitary confinement; and the revolt was spontaneous, not planned by so-called criminal ringleaders.
"We didn't find out anything new about this colony. … We've known this all for two years and don't only know it, but we've also constantly talked about it and filed complaints. … We've received no response," he said in a statement e-mailed to The St. Petersburg Times.
Shchur blamed prison officials and investigators' "clumsy moves" for escalating the crisis and said their main mistake was summoning riot police, who he said beat peaceful demonstrators.
Officials said eight riot police officers were injured when they broke up a rowdy crowd.
Also on Wednesday, a journalist and human rights activist at the Gulagu.net news site, which was instrumental in spreading word of the uprising, said she had received multiple threatening phone calls from a "prison employee."
"Your head should be ripped off, so that you'd learn where you shouldn't stick your nose. Got hit by riot police? You'll get it again!" she wrote on Ekho Moskvy, quoting one of several calls that she claims were made by one anonymous caller.
Prisons No. 1 and No. 6 in Kopeisk, a city of 140,000 near Chelyabinsk in the Ural Mountains, have a notorious history of abuse, Ponomaryov wrote on Ekho Moskvy on Wednesday.
In May 2008, four prisoners at Prison No. 1 died after being savagely beaten by officers, taken to different cells and denied medical attention, he wrote. Another died of alleged maltreatment in June.
Allegations surfaced Wednesday of prisoners buying their release on parole. A man identified as Andrei T., convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to six years in prison in 2008, said he paid 50,000 rubles ($1,600) in contributions to "prison upkeep" for his freedom, Life News reported.
Radnayeva and Ponomaryov said the first step to uprooting a culture of violence was to fire prison administrators. "All this violence and lawlessness primarily emanates from prison administrators," Radnayeva said.
But neither were confident that it would be easy to improve conditions at Prison No. 6 — or the penal system that it has increasingly come to represent.
A January 2008 protest at a prison in the Amur region in which 700 inmates slit their wrists led to criminal charges against the prisoners, and official checks failed to validate their complaints.
An initial check of Prison No. 6 failed to confirm prisoners' claims of beatings or any other form of bodily harm, the Prosecutor General's Office said in a statement on Monday.
"Everybody understands that lawlessness [in prisons] exists, but either they're afraid to intervene or they're too lazy to figure it out," Radnayeva said, adding that 90 percent of the complaints that her organization makes to official agencies come back with a single reply: "not enough evidence."

TITLE: Rusnano Inspires U.S. Drug Company to Move to Russia 
AUTHOR: By Lena Smirnova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: KHIMKI — Decked out in a white lab coat and chatting freely with scientists, Rusnano chief Anatoly Chubais seemed particularly cheerful Wednesday as he welcomed American pharmaceutical company Selecta Biosciences, which aspires to develop the world's first anti-smoking vaccine.
"When we made the decision about investing in Selecta, we made the right choice," Chubais said. "It seemed to us that the company has unique technological capacity and that with time, as it develops, this startup will show very strong results."
Selecta Rus, a subsidiary of Boston-based Selecta Biosciences, opened a research lab in Khimki and moved its global top management to Russia as a sign of confidence in the country's potential for nanotechnology research. 
Selecta Rus develops vaccines that are based on nano particles. The smoking vaccine, which would help people quit by taking the joy out of the habit, is well along in the development process, having already been safety tested on nonsmoking Belgians. 
The vaccine still has to go through multiple tests and may be available as early as 2016, said Dmitry Ovchinnikov, deputy general director of Selecta Rus. 
The laboratory is also working on a vaccine for Type 1 diabetes, and in collaboration with the multinational pharmaceutical company Sanofi, it will start working on vaccines against life-threatening allergies. 
The agreement with Sanofi was signed Tuesday and envisions Selecta Rus getting $900 million from the French drug company to finance its laboratory tests. 
Selecta Rus eventually plans to manufacture vaccines in Russia, said Werner Cautreels, general director of Selecta Biosciences.
Cautreels, a Belgian, will move to Khimki in January. Russia is an attractive location from which to manage global operations because of its high scientific and business potential, he said. 
"You know what Wayne Gretzky always says? You have to skate where the puck will be, not where the puck is," Cautreels said. "In business, pharmaceutical companies all want to be in countries like this. We're being ahead of the game."
Cautreels added that Selecta probably could not have moved to Russia without help from Rusnano. The state corporation plans to invest up to $25 million in the project and is also providing administrative assistance to the startup. 
Under a deal Selecta Rus and Rusnano signed a year ago, the pharmaceutical company gets to keep the intellectual property rights to the vaccines and choose where to produce them. Rusnano would then get a share of the company's revenues, although the company's managing director, Dmitry Lisenkov, declined to reveal more specifics. 
Rusnano may also be able to help Selecta with manufacturing capacity. The corporation is looking forward to building a large manufacturing complex for its medical partner companies.
"We are looking at consolidating several of our medical projects when they are in their production stage on this large-scale plant that we are planning to build," Chubais told The St. Petersburg Times. "At the same time, we must understand that this will be meaningful only if we can offer economic conditions in this enterprise that will be as profitable as those at other sites."
Rusnano planned to launch 16 new partnerships this year, but Chubais could not say whether it would meet that target. The corporation launched 13 partnerships last year.

TITLE: Key Witness in Magnitsky Case Found Dead in Britain
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A key witness in a Swiss investigation into alleged money-laundering by Russian officials suspected in the death of anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was found dead outside his palatial home in southern England, a media report said Wednesday.
The body of 44-year-old Russian businessman Alexander Perepilichny was discovered two weeks ago, but news of his death came to light only now, The Independent reported. Russian media later reported his last name as Perepelichny.
An initial post-mortem conducted by local police was "inconclusive" and could not immediately establish the cause of Perepilichny's death, the British daily reported, adding that the exiled businessman is the fourth person linked to the Magnitsky case who died suddenly.
Unconfirmed reports said that Perepilichny, who applied for political asylum in Britain three years ago, had gone jogging prior to collapsing not far from his mansion on the outskirts of Weybridge. Local police said additional tests would be carried out to determine the cause of death.
The Independent reported that Perepilichny was instrumental in the opening of a case against the so-called Kluyev Group, a set of government officials accused by Hermitage Capital lawyer Magnitsky of stealing $230 million in Russian government funds.
Magnitsky died on the floor of a Moscow pretrial detention center in November 2009 while awaiting trial on tax evasion charges, which his supporters say were fabricated. A report by the Kremlin's human rights council said he had been severely beaten the day he died.
Perepilichny provided Swiss prosecutors with information detailing how Russian officials used Swiss bank accounts to purchase luxury estates abroad using money from fraudulent tax returns, an unidentified person with knowledge of the investigation told the Independent.
A Hermitage Capital representative told Gazeta.ru on Wednesday that Perepilichny had approached the company in 2010 with evidence that certain officials accused by Magnitsky of stealing money from the Russian treasury had become wealthy. That evidence was passed on to Swiss prosecutors, the representative said.
An unidentified Interior Ministry official told Interfax on Wednesday that Perepilichny had nothing to do with the Magnitsky tax case.

TITLE: Rebel Sentenced to 15 Years for Plotting Red Square Bombing
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The Moscow City Court on Wednesday handed a 15-year prison sentence to a Caucasus rebel who planned two suicide bombings on Red Square on New Year's Eve two years ago.
The court convicted Ilyas Saidov of multiple charges, including racketeering, terrorism, attempting to detonate explosives, assaulting a police officer, murder, and illegal dissemination of weapons and explosives, the Prosecutor General's Office said in a statement. Saidov committed the crimes as part of an organized criminal group, prosecutors said.
The verdict said Saidov brought two explosive devices to Moscow on a bus from Makhachkala, the capital of the Dagestan republic, in order to pass them to female suicide bombers who were supposed to detonate them on Red Square on the night of Dec. 31, 2010.
One of the suicide bombers died when the explosives detonated in her room several hours before the planned attack. The other one, Zeinap Suyunova, and another associate, Timur Akubekov, were sentenced to 10 years in jail each by the same court in May 2012.
The court determined that in Dagestan in 2010, Saidov joined a criminal gang led by Ibragimkhalil Daudov. The group's activities were aimed at winning independence from Russia for the North Caucasus republics, prosecutors said.
Saidov was also convicted of carrying out with his associates three bombings, two attempts on the lives of policemen and military officers, several murders of civilians and three bombing attempts. He was also found guilty of illegal possession of weapons and explosives.

TITLE: Dancers: Mariinsky Is Favoritist
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Members of the Mariinsky Theater ballet troupe have sent an open letter to Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky, accusing the theater’s management of not paying their salaries in full and of creating a manipulative system of running the company in which critics of the bosses get restricted access to the stage, which in turn immediately affects their pay. 
The petition’s authors spoke about the mass exodus of the most outstanding dancing talent from the company: Leonid Sarafanov defected to the Mikhailovsky Theater in 2010, and that same year, Mikhail Lobukhin left for the Bolshoi Theater, and Yevgenia Obraztsova joined him there one year later. 
According to the dancers who signed the petition, soloists and members of the corps de ballet alike are fleeing the Mariinsky because of “ill-conceived planning and disrespect for the artists.”
“Tatyana Bessarabova, the aide to the head of the ballet division, has continually humiliated and insulted the artists, and numerous complaints about her behavior from coaches and dancers have failed to yield any results,” reads the open letter. “While some of the dancers have very tight performing schedules, others are left to starve and are not getting any engagements. It is not enough to be in good shape to win a role, you have to make yourself likeable to the management. This is pure manipulation.” 
The Mariinsky’s managers countered the accusations by saying that the staff turnover at the company has remained stable, and argued that there is no cause for concern.
“Since 2009, the ballet division has welcomed 64 new members,” said Oksana Tokranova, head of the Mariinsky Theater press office. 
“There is no disaster in soloists moving from company to company; rather, this is a natural process. At present, we have several foreign soloists with the company, including Keenan Kampa (U.S.), Xander Parish (U.K.) and Kim Kimin (South Korea). Importantly, since the start of the season, the troupe has seen 70 debuts of dancers in new roles — and we are talking about aspiring young performers as well as seasoned dancers.”   
The Mariinsky management denies allegations about biased performance engagements. 
“The issue of each dancer’s involvement in the repertoire and their participation in a tour is never decided singlehandedly by the head of the ballet division,” Tokranova said. “In every case, the situation is discussed with the coaches and is fully transparent.” 
The company’s critics say, and not without grounds, that the theater’s ballet division began to go downhill after the departure of its charismatic leader Makharbek Vaziev. The man who had led the ballet division of the world-renowned theater for almost 12 years resigned in spring 2008 following an argument with the Mariinsky’s artistic director Valery Gergiev over Vaziev’s status in the company.
Vaziev was replaced by Yury Fateyev, a former soloist of the company, who now faces accusations of lacking the vision and ability to develop the troupe.
Vaziev, who is currently coaching at Milan’s La Scala theater, had wanted an official title as the ballet division’s artistic director. He raised the issue after his contract as a soloist expired and he officially reached retirement age — although Vaziev was de facto head of the ballet division, officially, he was employed as a soloist — but Gergiev refused to promote the manager to the job.
Gergiev spoke critically of Vaziev’s performance as the troupe’s leader back then, accusing him of “putting on mediocre shows” and “failing to create an atmosphere in which the company’s emerging young talent is helped sufficiently by the troupe’s star and veteran performers.”
A number of Russian ballet critics, on the other hand, have pointed out that it was primarily Vaziev who was credited with inviting esteemed modern choreographers such as William Forsythe and John Neumeier to work with Mariinsky dancers and with motivating the troupe to mount spectacular performances of their works. For some time until his resignation, Vaziev had been trying without great success to obtain better conditions and more funding for the ballet troupe. 

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>Pay Raise for Governor</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — City Hall introduced a bill to the Legislative Assembly last week in order to update the salary and compensation package of the St. Petersburg governor.
According to the document, the governor is to receive a salary of 170 so-called units of payment a month. The governor is also guaranteed compensation for expenses on business trips and the cost of maintaining an official car, Interfax reported.
Units of payment are used by City Hall as a means of calculating the salary of city officials. From Jan. 1, 2013, a unit will constitute 1,080 rubles ($35), guaranteeing the official a salary of more than 180,000 rubles ($5,800) a month.
A person who has served as governor of St. Petersburg for at least four years and who permanently resides in Russia would also be entitled to an additional monthly pension premium of 60 units under the bill. 
The new document also sets the governor’s paid vacation at 45 days. In addition, the official can take 10 extra vacation days to compensate for overtime worked. If passed, the bill will come into effect on May 1, 2013.

TITLE: Prosecutor Seeks Fines as Trial of 12 Concludes
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The controversial Trial of 12, which started with 12 activists accused of organizing and conducting “extremist” activities of the banned National Bolshevik Party (NBP) in April, came to an end Tuesday with only seven defendants left. Judge Sergei Yakovlev declared a break until Dec. 21, when the verdict will be announced.
On Friday, Prosecutor Nadezhda Filimonova unexpectedly asked the court to sentence the remaining defendants to large fines rather than prison terms. The Russian Criminal Code stipulates up to three years for the crime with which they were charged.
Filimonova called for fines of 250,000 rubles ($8,080) for Andrei Dmitriyev, Andrei Pesotsky and Alexei Marochkin, charged as “organizers,” and of 180,000 rubles ($5,810) for Roman Khrenov, Ravil Bashirov, Andrei Milyuk and Alexander Yashin as “participants.”
The defense called for the defendants, who all pleaded not guilty, to be acquitted on the grounds that no real evidence that the NBP existed after it had been banned as “extremist” by the Moscow City Court in August 2007 had been presented by the prosecution.
However, Filimonova said in her two-hour speech Friday that their guilt had been proven by the testimonies of Center E counter-extremism operatives, as well as by secret police agents who infiltrated the group, the activists’ detentions at protests and by video surveillance. 
The evidence cited by the prosecutor included items such as a “book with a portrait of [Eduard] Limonov on its back cover” and a “button with a number 31.” 
Limonov was a co-founder of the NBP in 1994 and the founder of The Other Russia in July 2010, while the number “31” stands for Strategy 31 — the ongoing nonpartisan campaign in defense of Article 31 of the Constitution that guarantees the right of assembly.
The prosecutor dismissed testimonies of defense witnesses — who included author Zakhar Prilepin and Limonov himself, Legislative Assembly deputies Maxim Reznik and Vyacheslav Notyag and the actual organizers of Strategy 31 rallies Andrei Pivovarov and Tamara Vedernikova — as “insubstantial.” 
“It’s extremely strange to hear the state prosecutor’s allegations that our ‘crime’ was aimed at undermining the constitutional order,” said Dmitriyev, The Other Russia’s local leader and one of the key defendants.
“On the contrary, the key event that we are accused of is Strategy 31, which is aimed at defending the Constitution of the Russian Federation, in particular Article 31. How can peaceful, nonviolent actions in support of the main law undermine it?”
Responding to the prosecutor’s speech, Pesotsky’s lawyer Olga Tseitlina described the trial as “perhaps Russia’s first purely political trial.”
“The trial […] is a demonstration that any of us whose beliefs and words are seen by the authorities as oppositional activities could become the subject of criminal prosecution and criminal punishment,” she said during the concluding arguments Friday.
“It’s not only the fate of my client and the other defendants that depends on your decision, but the implementation of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly in this country,” she said, addressing the judge.
“In the event of a guilty verdict, there will be a legal precedent, the use of which could have far-reaching consequences. A repressive mechanism will be established by which anybody can be accused of extremism. For this, it’s enough to install surveillance equipment in any room, in any apartment or any kitchen where people who disagree with the powers that be gather, discuss topical issues and politics and criticize the authorities.”
Dmitriyev, whose phrase at a secretly taped meeting that “one should not rally in cattle-pens, but not to be afraid to go against the OMON police’s truncheons and fight with the police, otherwise nothing will change in this country” was interpreted by the prosecution as “extremist,” drew attention to the official phraseology of Russian politicians.
President Vladimir Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that the “protesters should have their livers smeared on the asphalt for injuring an OMON policeman,” while pro-Kremlin Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) State Duma deputy Sergei Abeltsev said that protesters “should have mad dogs set on them.” 
“I suggest that the respected state prosecutor should examine the statements of these politicians for extremism and calls to violence and take action,” Dmitriyev said.
Speaking to The St. Petersburg Times on Tuesday, Dmitriyev said the prosecution had asked for fines rather than prison terms due to the obvious innocence of the defendants.
“I think that throughout the trial, which lasted for six months and during which this case was examined in quite a detailed way, both the prosecutor and the judge started to feel somewhat uncomfortable, because they have to support the prosecution and come up with a guilty verdict, but because they are reasonable people, they could not help seeing that the evidence was worthless,” he said.
“Now, at the end of the trial, it’s finally become clear who we are, what organization we represent, what ideology we profess and why we are not the banned NBP, which is what we are accused of.”
Dmitriyev said he did not expect to be acquitted, because acquittals are a “miracle” in Russia, constituting less than one percent of all cases, while the prosecutor dropping charges is something that never happens.
He said that imposing huge fines on opposition activists is the authorities’ new tactic. “It looks more humane than putting a man in prison, on one hand, but on the other it’s no good, because none of us have such sums,” Dmitriyev said.

TITLE: RFA Sanctions Infuriate Zenit
AUTHOR: By Daniel Kozin and Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Despite an appeal by St. Petersburg’s soccer club FC Zenit against sanctions imposed by the disciplinary committee of the Russian Football Association last week, Zenit was forced to play a key derby with one of its main rivals, Russian Premier League leader CSKA Moscow, behind closed doors Monday.
An encounter that would usually draw a sell-out crowd of 20,000 raucous home supporters and a smaller contingent of away fans was played in an eerily empty Petrovsky stadium. The match ended in a 1-1 tie, with Renat Yanbayev opening the scoring for Zenit in the 56th minute, before Rasmus Elm leveled the scores with an 84th-minute penalty.
The decision of the disciplinary committee to punish Zenit came in response to an incident in the Nov. 17 league match between FC Dinamo Moscow and Zenit in Moscow’s Khimki Arena, which was stopped in the 38th minute by the referee and abandoned after a firecracker thrown from the stands hit and injured Dinamo goalkeeper Anton Shunin, who sustained injuries to his eye and ear as a result.
The firecracker was thrown from a sector allocated to Zenit supporters, but the identity of the perpetrator has not yet been determined, despite a police investigation of video evidence and the interrogation of 53 fans directly after the game. According to sports newspaper Sport Express, a police source has confirmed that it was an unidentified young woman who threw the firecracker.
Police from Moscow’s Khimki municipal district, where the abandoned match took place, have arrived in St. Petersburg to assist local police investigating the incident in identifying the woman, Interfax reported.
In an official statement, Zenit said that Dinamo should be held responsible for match safety, as the host club was in charge of selling tickets for the away sector. The identity of fans was not checked during purchasing of tickets to the sector, and searching for dangerous objects such as firecrackers was the responsibility of stadium officials, Zenit said.
“We believe … that responsibility for the incident lies entirely with the home side Dinamo. At the moment there is no evidence that the crime was committed by Zenit fans. The away team is not responsible for the safety of the fans and players according to regulations, and thus should not endure sanctions,” said the statement on the official Zenit website. 
Despite this, the committee handed the club a 0-3 default loss for the abandoned fixture against Dinamo and ordered it to play two matches — against the two teams above Zenit in the league table, CSKA Moscow and Anzhi Makhachkala — behind closed doors. Zenit was also ordered to pay a fine of 1.13 million rubles ($36,470). Dinamo, which must also play its Dec. 1 match against FC Rubin Kazan behind closed doors, was issued with a fine of 580,000 rubles ($18,720). 
The punishment came at a crucial time in the title race, and presents yet another obstacle to Zenit’s ambition to claim a third successive league title. 
The club administration was incensed at the decision, launching an appeal to the disciplinary committee and publicly condemning what it claims to be unfair treatment, going as far as to say it was “considering withdrawing Zenit from the league after the decision of the disciplinary committee,” Fontanka.ru reported, citing a source close to the club.
 “Is there any point in participating in a league in which a match can be abandoned due to the fault of one club, but responsibility [for the cancelation] is put on a different club that doesn’t have anything to do with the crime and has no way of preventing it?” the club said in an official statement before the hearing.
Alexei Miller, head of gas behemoth Gazprom, which sponsors Zenit, echoed the seriousness of the statement in an interview published on Zenit’s website.
“Many people think that we could play in a CIS championship, and I am also a firm supporter of the idea,” he said.
“If the time comes to create this new league, we will act and take well thought-through steps, coming to an agreement with those people who support the aim of creating the championship,” he added.
“This conversation has been ongoing in the past few days, and the answer is positive — we may play in a different league,” Miller said when asked about the possibility of Zenit’s withdrawal from the Russian Premier League. 
Zenit is due to play Anzhi Makhachkala behind closed doors at the Petrovsky Stadium on Dec. 10.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>Imperial Interiors</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The dressing rooms of the Romanov dynasty and the chambers of their maids of honor became part of the permanent exhibition at Gatchina Palace last week. 
The rooms have become part of an exhibition called “The Family Members of the Emperor Alexander III in Gatchina,” which forms part of the museum collection of the former royal estate at Gatchina.
Wardrobes, trunks and other everyday belongings can be seen in the imperial dressing rooms, as well as a unique object called a wardrobe-suitcase, in which one part serves as a wardrobe with coat hangers, while the other is meant for smaller items. Such suitcases were convenient for long journeys, and reflect the new approach to the packing and transport of luggage following the appearance of trains, cruise ships and automobiles.
 The interiors of the rooms designated for maids of honor were designed in a simple, formal manner that emphasized the service function of the chambers. There were no decorative elements, only essential belongings, and the furniture was often old. 

<b>Less Speed in Finland</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The number of cases of Russians caught speeding when driving in Finland has halved, web portal Fontanka.ru reported.
The statistics on speeding improved after the introduction of the LVS unified information system at border crossing points on Finland’s eastern border in May 2012. Drivers caught exceeding the speed limit by Finnish video cameras are now issued with a fine when leaving Finland.
Since May, Russian drivers have been issued with 1,200 fines for speeding — almost twice fewer than during the same period last year.

<b>Communal Living</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — About half a million city residents still live in communal apartments, of which there are more than 100,000, Sergei Filimonov, head of the city’s state housing organization Gorzhilobmen, was quoted as saying on Monday by Interfax news agency.
Filimonov said that when the program for resettling residents of communal apartments was launched in 2008, there were 116,000 such apartments in the city. In the past four years, city authorities have managed to resettle 13 percent of people living in communal apartments.
The difficulties in implementing the program are chiefly caused by residents’ unwillingness to move and the profitable use of rooms in these apartments by their owners for rental, the official said.
Filimonov said that this year, the city had allocated one billion rubles ($32 million) to the program, while in 2013 it will provide two billion rubles.
In May, City Governor Georgy Poltavchenko said that resettlement was being complicated by a decline in investor interest and rising prices for new apartments.
“If this trend continues to develop, communal apartments are at risk of surviving until the 22nd century,” Poltavchenko said.

TITLE: Kashin Fired by Kommersant 
AUTHOR: By Nikolaus von Twickel
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Kommersant has fired opposition-minded journalist Oleg Kashin for writing too much for other media and too little for his employer, the leading daily’s editor said Monday.
“An agreement has been reached with Kashin [to terminate his employment] because he effectively has not worked for Kommersant for one year,” editor Mikhail Mikhailin told Interfax. 
The news triggered a wave of media speculation Monday that the journalist has become the latest victim of an ongoing crackdown on the opposition. Kashin is a member of the opposition’s Coordination Council, formed last month.
A source inside the Kommersant publishing house said Monday that Kashin’s relations with his superiors had been deteriorating for months and that he reduced his contribution to a weekly column for the Kommersant FM radio station.
“This has been expected for some time,” the source said, requesting anonymity because she was not authorized to speak on the record.
She added that while Kashin’s opposition activities were seen as controversial inside the newsroom, it was wrong to interpret his dismissal as political. 
“Some here viewed it as unacceptable — you’re either a journalist or a politician,” the source said, adding that the underlying conflict of interests applies to any political activity, be it oppositional or pro-government.
Reached by telephone Monday, Kashin refused to comment. National media reported that he would join the OpenSpace.ru website, where he has been running a column since this summer. His name was already up Monday on the site’s list of newsroom staff. 
Oleg Kashin made headlines in 2010 when he was badly beaten in the courtyard of his house in Moscow. The incident is still unsolved, prompting his lawyer to announce earlier this month that Kashin would appeal to the European Court of Human Rights because the authorities’ allegedly poor investigation violated his right to life.
A prolific writer, Kashin had worked for Kommersant since 2003, with a four-year break after 2005, during which he worked for a range of media outlets, including the Kremlin-friendly Izvestia daily and Expert magazine. For two years he served as deputy editor of Russkaya Zhizn magazine before returning to Kommersant as special correspondent in 2009.


TITLE: Duma Passes Legislation To Curb Expenses Fraud
AUTHOR: By Alexander Bratersky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The State Duma on Friday passed anti-corruption legislation requiring government officials to prove the legality of their spending and the spending of their spouses and underage children if it exceeds the family’s declared income.
All 449 deputies voted in favor of the bill pushed by President Vladimir Putin, which would apply to officials including Duma deputies, Federation Council senators, Cabinet ministers, the prime minister and the president.
The bill complements legislation already on the books requiring officials to declare their incomes, a measure that critics have said is ineffectual without a requirement to also declare expenses.
The legislation comes amid a wave of corruption scandals in various government bodies, including the alleged embezzlement of almost $100 million from Defense Ministry-controlled agencies. Earlier this month, Putin cited that investigation when dismissing Anatoly Serdyukov as defense minister.
According to the bill, if the amount of money spent or goods purchased by an official or his spouse over a three-year period exceeds their earnings, the official can be relieved of his post and his property confiscated.
If the bill is passed by the Federation Council and signed into law by Putin as expected, it will come into effect in January but will cover cases beginning in 2012, according to state newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta.
“It’s true that this is a ‘presumption of guilt,’ but this is in line with the anti-corruption convention that we implement in whole sets of laws,” said Vladimir Vasilyev, head of the United Russia faction in the Duma, before the vote Friday, the newspaper reported.
Vasilyev was referring to Chapter 20 of the UN Convention Against Corruption, which advises that countries criminalize the illicit enrichment of government officials, a measure that many view as a powerful tool in fighting corruption.
Russia has not ratified the chapter, but the new legislation follows the spirit of its recommendation.
The bill says that upon the emergence of information from banks, the media, political parties or the public, a special commission could be appointed to oversee a possible case of illegal financial gain. Information from anonymous sources will not be considered.
If a person under review cannot prove his innocence, his case will be referred to the Prosecutor General’s Office.
The bill would also allow prosecutors to confiscate unlawfully obtained property, placing it into government custody.
Kirill Kabanov, head of the National Anti-Corruption Committee think tank, said he welcomed the law but believed that it would be applied “selectively” to government officials.
He also noted that the law is limited to close relatives, giving officials the chance to find loopholes. “This law should have covered other relatives, too,” Kabanov said Friday.
Kabanov’s concerns were echoed by a federal official who said that some “crooked” officials would register property to associates outside their families.
But he said the law is still a step forward. “Before, you could have declared, say, 50 Maybach cars and nobody could legally ask you where they came from,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.
Kabanov also said the law doesn’t provide a clear definition of how the check of the suspected government employees will be carried out.
The legislation only says that the probe will be carried out by an anti-corruption body or by law enforcement officials according to a procedure defined by the president.
Putin, to whom the new legislation would also apply, has been accused by opposition leader Boris Nemtsov of having a watch collection valued at around 22 million rubles ($700,000), which amounts to Putin’s annual salary over a six-year period. The information was published in a report co-authored by Nemtsov in June.
According to Transparency International’s 2011 Corruption Perception Index, Russia is ranked 143 out of 182 countries surveyed.

TITLE: Indulgent ‘Thief’ Claims He Is ‘Robin Hood’
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A bank security guard suspected of stealing 8 million rubles ($260,000) from his place of employment was caught at a Perm region spa, police said in an official statement Monday.
Forty-year-old Andrei Sysoyev was partying in a banya with some “easy” girls at the time of a police raid, Life News reported. He had apparently gone through several million rubles since making off with the cash 10 days earlier.
However, the Investbank employee, whom a surveillance camera recorded leaving his workplace with a sack full of cash, told police he took the money to pay off loans and help his sick parents, likening himself to Robin Hood, the news report said, citing a police source.
The official police statement said Sysoyev had checked in to the spa with a fake passport and was “leading a carefree lifestyle, not considering how much money he spent.”
He later told police that he “wanted to distribute the money to the needy,” the statement said.
News reports cited a police spokesman as saying the suspect paid for chewing gum with a 5,000 ruble ($160) note at a kiosk and said “Keep the change.” He also was especially generous to a taxi driver who later identified him and gave away his hiding place.
When police burst into the room, they had a hard time identifying Sysoyev because he had become “so bloated” over the week and a half since he had gone missing, Newsru.com reported. 
A case of grand theft has been opened against Sysoyev.

TITLE: PM: Russia Neutral in Syria 
AUTHOR: By Jonathan Earle
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia will stay neutral on the Syrian civil war but continue to honor arms contracts with President Bashar Assad’s regime, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview published Monday.
UN rules bar members from backing the armed overthrow of a foreign government, therefore it is legally “unacceptable” for Russia or any other country to recognize the opposition, he said.
“Despite popular belief, Russia supports neither the Assad regime nor the opposition. We’re neutral,” Medvedev told French media ahead of a working visit to Paris on Monday.
Earlier this month, France became the first major power to recognize the new Syrian rebel coalition as the legitimate government of Syria.
Medvedev also said Russia was both permitted and bound by law to honor arms contracts with the Syrian government, which he suggested predate the current conflict. 
“The deliveries that we’ve made are of weapons for defending against foreign aggression,” he said, adding that Russia would stop arms sales if they were banned by international sanctions.
The United States has accused Russia of sending attack helicopters to Syria, and last month Turkey intercepted an airplane that it said was carrying munitions to the Syrian government.
Russia has insisted that it is abiding by international law.
In the wide-ranging interview with Agence France Presse and the Le Figaro newspaper, Medvedev also denied that the Russian government was “tightening the screws” on the opposition, including with new laws on treason and foreign financing for NGOs.
He cited political reforms, including gubernatorial elections — albeit with presidential oversight — and easier registration for political parties as proof that the government was listening to protesters.
Medvedev, who served one term as president from 2008 to 2012, said he wouldn’t exclude a return to the presidency, which would depend on his health and the “trust of the Russian people.”
“Never say ‘never’,” he said. “Moreover, I’ve bathed in that river once. Why not go in again?”




TITLE: Tatarstan Police Bust Traffickers
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Drug police seized more than 175 kilograms of Afghan heroin in a special operation in the Tatarstan republic, the director of the Federal Drug Control Service said Tuesday.
“On the night of Nov. 23, four drug traffickers were arrested in Naberezhniye Chelny, and 175 kilograms of heroin were seized with a diacetylmorphine concentration of 55 percent,” Viktor Ivanov told reporters, according to RIA-Novosti.
The drug control service chief explained that the drug seizure came as part of an operation codenamed “Cartel” that has sought to clamp down on an international trafficking ring with bases in Afghanistan, Central Asia and the Persian Gulf. 
The traffickers delivered concentrated heroin from Afghanistan to Russia, Ivanov said.
So far, the operation has lasted four years. In total, police have uncovered and detained more than 25 trafficking bosses, 100 accomplices and confiscated 750 kilograms of Afghan heroin, he said.


TITLE: Putin to Travel Again After Fears of Ill Health 
AUTHOR: By Nikolaus von Twickel 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin is visiting Turkey and Turkmenistan next week, signaling that he is fit for travel again after a two-month hiatus that raised speculation about his health.
Putin is expected to meet Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah G&#252;l during a half-day working visit Dec. 3 in Istanbul, a Turkish diplomatic source confirmed Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity because an official announcement had not been made.
Two days later, Putin will attend the summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States in the Turkmen capital, Ashgabat, Konstantin Zatulin, director of the influential CIS Institute and a former Duma deputy, told The St. Petersburg Times.
Putin is not known to have traveled since returning from an Oct. 5 visit to Tajikistan. The Kremlin subsequently canceled all visits planned for October and November, citing scheduling difficulties. 
It also postponed Putin’s annual TV call-in show until summer, citing climatic conditions. The annual presidential State of the Nation Address is also overdue.
In late October, Reuters reported that the real reason was a back ailment that required surgery. A week later, Vedomosti reported that the president was suffering from an old injury that came to the fore after he flew in a hang glider with endangered cranes in Siberia on Sept. 6.
Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, denied the reports, saying the president had merely pulled a muscle while exercising. He also said Putin would spend as much time as possible at his out-of-town residence, Novo-Ogaryovo, to avoid disrupting traffic. 
But speculation of Putin’s failing health has been spiraling since, with some opposition activists even claiming that the president is terminally ill with cancer.
“Bolen” (sick) was the second-most-popular search word to accompany “Putin” on the popular Yandex search engine Monday.
Apart from Turkey and Turkmenistan, Putin is expected to attend a summit with European Union leaders in Brussels on Dec. 21 and visit India on Dec. 24, according to the monthly schedule published on state-run news agency RIA-Novosti’s website.
Also Monday, the Kremlin announced that Putin would give his annual presidential news conference on Dec. 20. 


TITLE: PM’s ‘Megafine’ Meets Derision  
AUTHOR: By Roland Oliphant
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was showered by a wave of ridicule and negative public sentiment on Monday following a weekend tirade against bad driving.
The backlash kicked off on Saturday when Medvedev used the latest entry on his video blog to call for a crackdown on the country’s notoriously lax attitude to driving rules by setting traffic violation fines higher than the average annual wage.
The video featured a leather-clad Medvedev disembarking from an SUV to deliver a lecture on the dire state of the country’s road safety record.
“Some 28,000 people have been killed on the roads in the past year alone,” the prime minister said in the blog posting.
To tackle this grim statistic, he added, drivers who don’t respect traffic lights and speed limits must be punished.
Drunk drivers who seriously injure two or more people should face five to 15 years in prison; reckless drivers should have their cars temporarily confiscated; and drivers who speed, run red lights or drive in the oncoming lane should face more serious fines, he said.
“These fines should be differentiated on individual specifics. For example, for Moscow and St. Petersburg [the fines] could be up to 500,000 rubles ($15,600), for other regions 250,000 rubles ($8,000),” Medvedev said to the camera.
Critics immediately argued that the “megafine” would be impossible for many people to pay and would give corrupt police officers the perfect leverage to extract larger but relatively more affordable bribes.
“Who outside of Rublyovka does he think has that much money? I’ve never seen that kind of money in my life,” one Muscovite caller to the Ekho Moskvy radio station complained.
According to the State Statistics Service, the average monthly income was 20,700 rubles ($670) in 2011 — meaning the average Russian earns 248,400 rubles ($8,000) a year.
The current fine for running a red light is 1,000 rubles ($32).
Even those who would have little trouble paying such a fine weighed in. Billionaire and former presidential candidate Mikhail Prokhorov wrote on a blog post Saturday that Medvedev was obviously “disturbed by the growth of incomes” of ordinary Russians, and had therefore come up with a “new method to strip them of their honestly earned money.”
“I suggest a bill to charge only Medvedev 500,000 rubles, every time he runs red lights, enters the oncoming lane or blocks traffic, making us all suffer for hours in traffic jams,” the tycoon and one-time presidential candidate said.
Others argued that the differentiation of fines by region — a nod to the comparative wealth of Moscow and St. Petersburg — would be a violation of the Constitution, which guarantees equality before the law.
Medvedev quickly back-pedaled, writing on Twitter that the half-a-million fine would only apply to drunk drivers.
“I’m most surprised by comments like ‘such a fine would be difficult to pay.’ Maybe it’d be easier just not to drive drunk?” he wrote on his Facebook page.
But even Kremlin allies joined the chorus of disdain. Deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Constitutional Legislation Vyacheslav Lysakov, a key figure in the pro-Putin All-Russia People’s Front who has backed a flurry of road safety legislation, told RIA-Novosti that the idea would be “inadequate,” without clear criteria written into law.
Lysakov has suggested introducing a Western-style points system for traffic violations, so that habitual offenders would be more severely punished.
He is also pushing to change the law so driving with trace amounts of alcohol in the blood will not be criminalized — overturning a zero-tolerance policy Medvedev introduced as president.
While some challenged the idea of a megafine, others seemed to take umbrage at the prime minister’s choice of props: a flashy motor vehicle and a shiny leather hoodie.
“Perhaps he just wanted to make a popular decision that would be cheered by the electorate … [and] the appearance of the prime minister in a leather jacket in a luxury SUV would strengthen positive emotions,” Kommersant FM said.
Political analyst Yevgeny Minchenko was less charitable. “The only thing missing was the music from [2003 gangster road movie] Boomer. He shows up in a black BMW X5, the most gangster car there is, in a black leather jacket,” he said on TV Rain. “I think it’s simply an image disaster. You can’t do that,” he added.

TITLE: Chelyabinsk Prison Revolt Raises Question of Reform
AUTHOR: By Jonathan Earle
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A revolt at a maximum security prison in the Chelyabinsk region by prisoners complaining of corruption and abuse has ended, regional prison officials said in a statement Monday.
But the fallout appears to be just beginning, as prosecutors quickly opened a check into the incident, and two senior officials appeared to confirm the prisoners’ complaints.
Chelyabinsk region Governor Mikhail Yurevich admitted that the region’s prison system needs reform, a matter he blamed on the system’s former administrator, now deceased.
The prison system leads to an “enormous number of suicides,” Yurevich told Russian News Service radio Monday. He also said he had information about kickbacks in prisons. 
National human rights ombudsman Vladimir Lukin said he had also received evidence of abuse and corruption at Prison No. 6 in the city of Kopeisk, Interfax reported Monday.
An initial check by prosecutors failed to confirm prisoners’ complaints of beatings, or reports of escapees, fatalities and evidence of bodily harm, the Prosecutor General’s Office said in an online statement Monday.
But prosecutors plan to conduct a full probe into the revolt, and Lukin said he would oversee his own.
“I’m extremely worried that a superficial investigation might cause the situation to deteriorate elsewhere, and something similar might happen at a different prison,” Lukin said.
Two hundred fifty prisoners revolted Saturday, demanding a more relaxed prison regime and the release of a prisoner from solitary confinement, prosecutors said.
A video taken Saturday showed prisoners standing on top of the prison with a banner that read, “Free people, help us! The administration is embezzling $ [sic]. They torture and humiliate.”
As of Monday, however, all prisoners at Prison No. 6 in the city of Kopeisk had returned to their blocks, and administrators are in complete control of the facility, prison officials said.
The revolt was accompanied by bloody clashes outside the prison between riot police and prisoner supporters, including relatives and ex-convicts.
Thirty people outside were detained for disturbing the peace, and eight riot police officers were hurt, police said.
About 30 relatives remained at the scene Monday afternoon, police said, but the situation had “stabilized.”




TITLE: Time Shortlists Pussy Riot 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Feminist punk band Pussy Riot has been shortlisted for Time magazine’s Person of the Year award.
“In a year when so many voices of liberty and dissent have suffered harsh retribution, the Russian feminist punk group Pussy Riot has paid a particularly steep price for provocative political expression,” the influential magazine said on its website.
This year’s nominees also include U.S. President Barack Obama, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Syrian President Bashar Assad and U.S. Olympic swimming champion Michael Phelps.
The Pussy Riot group has been in the spotlight since performing a “punk prayer” in late February in Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral. 
Two of the women are currently serving two-year jail sentences in prison colonies far from Moscow, while a third was let off with a suspended sentence on appeal.
Last year, Time named Tunisian fruit vendor Mohamed Bouazizi its person of the year for setting himself on fire in protest against the authoritarian regime in his country. 



TITLE: Cinemas to Be Built at Railway Stations
AUTHOR: By Lena Smirnova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russian Railways is giving its transportation hubs a glitzy makeover, with 40 movie theaters set to be created near railway stations in the near future.
These theaters are meant to restore the image of railway stations as cities’ cultural centers, Sergei Abramov, head of Russian Railways’ stations department, said late last week.
The state-owned corporation is looking into the possibility of opening theaters at stations in Nizhny Novgorod, Ulyanovsk, Stavropol, Smolensk and Tver, among others.
Moscow’s Kazansky Station will be the first to get its own movie theater — perhaps to add to its cultural track record, which already includes hosting a Jean Paul Gaultier fashion show in 2010. The theater is slated to open next year and will have between two and four screens. Russian Railways is now selecting a private investor for the project.
This initiative is part of the rail monopoly’s larger program to modernize railway stations and make them into full-service leisure complexes by 2015. Other planned developments include setting up malls, restaurants, children’s play areas and wireless Internet access. 
Russian Railways is trying to attract large operators and private investors to carry out these projects.
Private investments into the development of railway stations came to 5 billion rubles ($160 million) in 2012, Abramov said. The corporation hopes to raise 10 to 30 billion in such investments next year. 
Setting up shops and restaurants near railway stations could be lucrative because of the high traffic in these areas, experts said. The shopping malls already working next to Moscow’s stations, such as Evropeisky next to Kievsky Station and Atrium next to Kursky Station, have good customer flow and low turnover of retailers. 
A retail hub set up by a railway station may draw in some train passengers, particularly those who are traveling to Moscow for the first time, said Pavel Tiger, director of the real estate investment department at Third Rome consulting company. Unlike busy Muscovites, these passengers might come to the station two to three hours in advance and go shopping for things that they can’t find in the regions. 
Tiger said that he would also recommend that investors set up restaurants, souvenir shops and bars near railway stations. 
“The average Russian man has this mentality that he has to go into the train a little bit ‘warmed up,’” Tiger said, referring to the last of his three recommendations.


TITLE: Ukraine Faces $2.7Bln Bill for Unused Gas
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — If Ukraine turns its plans to slash Russian gas imports into a reality, Gazprom will demand that Naftogaz pay billions of dollars for the 2013 import shortfall as per the “take-or-pay” provision outlined in the contract.
Gazprom’s claims against Ukraine’s national oil and gas company Naftogaz Ukrainy might reach $2.7 billion this year if Naftogaz only imports 27 billion cubic meters of gas, instead of 33.28 bcm, according to preliminary expert estimates. 
The shortfall might total 6.28 bcm of the allowed minimum amount stipulated in the existing contract, President of the Ukrainian Law Collegium Daniil Kurdelchuk and Partner at Grant Thornton Ukraine Oleksandr Malynovsky wrote in the weekly newspaper Zerkalo Nedeli — Ukraina, Interfax reported.
Potential penalties for Naftogaz for failing to take the contracted amount of gas in 2013 might cause the firm to shell out some $3.8 billion if it reduces imports to 34.5 bcm, which Ukrainian Energy and Coal Industry Minister Yuriy Boyko has indicated will happen. 
Gazprom could slap Naftogaz with a major lawsuit if the Ukrainian company only imports 20 bcm of gas, which Naftogaz’s Deputy CEO Vadim Chuprun has not ruled out. In such a case, Naftogaz would be threatened with a fine of about $5.7 billion. 
The amount of this possible penalty is calculated on a price of $430 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas. 
This is only if Naftogaz and Gazprom do not settle disagreements over reduced gas withdrawal by mutual agreement, Malynovsky and Kurdelchuk wrote. 
Ukraine would have to cut Russian gas imports to 18 bcm next year due to price pressure. “We have a single lever to influence the situation — to reduce procurements of Russian gas even further. If Russia’s pricing policy changes for the better for us, we could gradually restore gas procurements. Otherwise, we will go even further along the path towards reducing procurements and searching for more favorable alternative sources of gas supplies,” Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych said Friday.




TITLE: Official Hits Out At Roads
AUTHOR: By Roland Oliphant
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — It will take 1,000 years to build a decent road network at current rates of construction, a top official has said. 
“The program to modernize the transportation system says we have to build on the order of half a million roads for common use,” Regional Development Minister Igor Slunyayev said Friday. “But the dynamics and rate of construction show that at 500 kilometers annually we will finish the task in about 1,000 years.”
Slunyayev was speaking at a Cabinet session on transportation development chaired by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. 
The prime minister expressed concern about the domestic aircraft manufacturing industry during the same meeting.
State-owned airlines, the Defense Ministry and other government-owned aircraft operators will buy foreign planes if domestic plane builders are unable to provide competitive products, Medvedev said. 
“Our producers should feel foreigners breathing down their necks. Otherwise nothing will happen,” he said. “Other major aviation powers — in the United States and Europe — still buy foreign-made aircraft so their own industry evolves. We need to do everything to ensure the right level of competitiveness in our aviation industry,” he said. 
Russia will add 100 new runways at airports around the country in the next seven years as part of a massive expansion of transportation infrastructure, Medvedev said. 



TITLE: Govt Withdraws Telenor Case
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Federal Anti-Monopoly Service has dropped a case against Norwegian telecoms firm Telenor’s increased stake in VimpelCom, the agency said. 
“The Russian Government has decided to withdraw the case brought by the FAS before the Moscow Arbitration Court which was seeking to annul the transaction by Telenor in VimpelCom shares,” the FAS said in a statement Friday. 
“We are grateful to the shareholders of VimpelCom for their cooperation and patience in this complex dispute, and we are very glad it is over,” FAS chief Igor Artemyev said, Interfax reported. 
The FAS brought the case in April challenging a deal between Telenor and Egyptian tycoon Nagib Zafiris’s Weather that saw the Norwegian company up its stake in VimpelCom to 36.36 percent. Telenor subsequently further increased its share of the company to 39.5 percent. 
The watchdog argued that Telenor’s dominant position in the telecoms giant breached laws that limit foreign investment in companies considered to be of strategic interest to the country. 
A settlement became possible after Mikhail Fridman’s Altimo raised its stake in VimpelCom, overtaking Telenor as the biggest shareholder earlier this year. 
Telenor CEO Jon Fredrik Baksaas said in an interview with Vedomosti this week that he believed VimpelCom could be run without a shareholder agreement between the two major stakeholders. 
The FAS decision clears the way for VimpelCom to hold its annual general meeting to elect the board, due to be held on Dec. 21.
“We have felt all along that the claims have been groundless … We will do what we can to run VimpelCom forward as a profitable company,” Telenor spokesman Dag Melgaard said, adding that it had no reason for exiting Russia any time soon, Reuters reported.
“We have long-term prospects in Russia. However, when Altimo now has secured a majority, it does not preclude us being pragmatic about our ownership in the company,” Melgaard said. Telenor said for the first time this month it did not rule out selling its stake.


TITLE: Watchdog Blacklists Google Site
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW— The Federal Mass Media Inspection Service has put the IP address of a blog service belonging to Google on the “blacklist” of Internet sites containing prohibited information.
Including Blogspot.ru — which contains information including Gmail.com user files — in the list published on Zapret-info.gov.ru constitutes the third time that websites related to major Internet firms are among banned online sources, Vedomosti reported Monday.
Vladimir Pikov, spokesman for the mass media service, said the inclusion of Google’s IP address in the list of banned websites was caused by “a program glitch.”
“It was promptly removed from the list at 11 a.m.,” he added.
Pikov said that one of Google’s sources may contain prohibited information and will be checked further.


TITLE: Restrictions To Be Lifted On Foreign IPOs
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Federal Anti-Monopoly Service will lift restrictions on Russian companies seeking to list on bourses abroad, in a bid to boost foreign investment, the head of the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service said. 
FAS chief Igor Artemyev said strategic enterprises listing abroad would themselves be responsible for ensuring they did not exceed the legally established foreign ownership threshold. 
“There will be no kind of limits on listing on foreign exchanges,” he told President Vladimir Putin during a meeting Friday, Interfax reported. 
The move was one of several reforms of the law restricting foreign investment in so-called “strategic” enterprises Artemyev outlined in a meeting with Putin on Friday. 
Under the law, any investments in enterprises listed as strategic usually have to be approved by a special commission unless the federal government offers a waiver. 
Artemyev said under the reforms regional governments will also be granted the right to allow Russian residents and taxpayers to buy shares in strategic enterprises without permission from the commission. 
Under other proposed changes to the law, banks will no longer be subject to the legislation, and foreign investors will no longer have to seek approval from the commission on strategic companies for investments in dairies and other food production facilities. 
“Overall, we had a lot of meetings with foreign investors. They consider this initiative very positive,” Artemyev said.   

TITLE: Kremlin Eyes Tax Incentives for Far East
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A recent flurry of proposals related to developing the Far East shows the government’s resolve to make policy adjustments that will attract investment to the hinterland.
In the wake of enormous construction efforts in the east coast city of Vladivostok that enabled it to host the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in September, the government’s proposals are focused on slashing taxes. 
They come ahead of a session of an abridged State Council, an advisory board that includes governors, which President Vladimir Putin is slated to chair later this week.
“I have a feeling that there will be an easing of taxes,” said Natalya Zubarevich, director of the regional program at the Independent Institute of Social Policy, a think tank. “There’s a high probability of that.”
The presidium of the State Council will aim to plot the course for the further development of the Far East, where lack of roads, power lines and people prevent investment, said Pavel Maslovsky, a Federation Council member who formerly was a mining director there.
In one of the most recent proposals, Energy Minister Alexander Novak said earlier this month that the ministry wants new oil and gas projects to be exempt from the tax on resource extraction for 25 years. The Finance Ministry supports the idea, he said.
The government is also drafting a bill to grant rebates on the profit, land and property taxes to companies that start projects in the Far East, Vedomosti reported last week.
Zubarevich believes that these three tax reductions are likely to become a reality. Regional, not federal, coffers would stand to lose the most from the measure because the larger portion of the profit tax is payable locally, she noted.
“It would be like getting the regions to pull the chestnuts out of the fire,” she said.
Land and property taxes also go to local budgets, she said. Land in the Far East costs little and wouldn’t generate much tax revenue anyway, she said.
On the flip side, the policy to suspend or reduce taxes for the area could cause a backlash from other economically depressed regions, such as the North Caucasus.
“Giving special status to a section of the country ... raises a question of the country’s unity,” said political analyst Alexander Kynev.
Russia wouldn’t be reinventing the wheel if the government created special tax conditions for the Far East, Maslovsky said. It would simply follow the experience of Canada, Australia and the United States, he added.
Zubarevich said several tools to draw investment to the Far East have remained outside the policy debate. One approach would be to reopen the way for production-sharing agreements, she said.
Under these agreements, the government allows a company to own and sell all natural resources produced from a field until the investor recovers the money it spent on the project. The government and the company then split the resources in a pre-agreed proportion.
Zubarevich also pointed to concession contracts as another way of attracting capital to remote areas. Under this type of contract, a company would pay the state either a fixed sum or a percentage of revenue from a business.
Maslovsky said a State Council working group seeks to allow more geological exploration and development in the Far East by making sure companies can get government licenses more easily as well as buy and sell them from each other.
It’s also imperative to build new railways and reduce the rates they charge for cargo transportation, he said. In addition, the group, which includes regional governors, entrepreneurs and academics, is pushing for lower electricity rates, Maslovsky added. 
To encourage domestic migration to the area, the government could offer income tax rebates and subsidized rates on mortgages and car loans, he said.
The Far East Development Ministry recently unveiled a list of 92 priority projects for the Far East, which are worth an estimated 5 trillion rubles ($156 billion). It asked the country’s development bank, VEB, to consider financing them.
But it’s doubtful the government will allot so much money, given the global economic slowdown and increasing domestic spending on social needs, Zubarevich said.

TITLE: Russian Censors Are Dim-Witted and Dull
AUTHOR: By Victor Davidoff
TEXT: Once upon a time, there was a free country. The country’s citizens could openly express their opinions, share information and read, watch and listen to whatever they wanted. The Constitution of that country stated clearly that censorship was not permitted. That country was the Russian Federation.
Today the country bears the same name and Constitution, but the freedom is gone. Censorship is flourishing. In just eight years, more than 1,500 works have been put on the official list of banned materials. In comparison, Index Librorum Prohibitorum, issued by the Vatican over the course of 400 years, contained 4,000 works.
Lest anyone think that only “Mein Kampf” and al-Qaida manifestoes have been banned, a look at the list is enlightening.
The list is diverse. There are historical documents, like Benito Mussolini’s memoirs and Joseph Goebbels’ diaries; medieval Muslim theoretical tracts; scholarly research on the Holodomor, the mass famine in Ukraine in the 1930s; a library of Jehovah’s Witnesses’ publications; books published by the Chinese sect Falun Gong; a brochure called “Paganism as Magic”; flyers from independent trade unions; petitions to the European Parliament and U.S. Congress from relatives of the victims of the terrorist act in Beslan and much more.
It is not only texts that are banned. Rock songs are on the list, including one called “No Chance for Marxists,” as are paintings by avant-garde artists and even a computer game that is set during the Chechen war.
Just like their 18th-century predecessors, today’s censors even banned an encyclopedia produced in 21st-century Moscow, specifically a volume with an article titled “The Chechen Republic.”
Naturally, the new generation of Russian censors has focused its attention primarily on the Internet. They have blocked access to sites of skinhead groups, the anti-fascist movement “Antifa,” fan sites of heavy metal rock groups and a forum that discussed the 1971 book “The Anarchist Cookbook.” Like almost all censors, they lack a sense of humor. Lurkmore, a tongue-in-cheek youth version of Wikipedia, was banned in its entirety for one day for an article called “Marijuana Soup.” The article is still forbidden.
Last week the censors grabbed the world’s attention when YouTube was blacklisted under the Internet restriction law. The ban lasted all of one day, after which an official explained that its inclusion was a “technical error.” In reality, Gennady Onishchenko, head of the Federal Consumer Protection Service, demanded that 22 videos on the site be banned.
This isn’t the first time Russian web surfers have been blocked from YouTube. Two years ago, the police in Komsomolsk-on-Amur made an attempt to block it for the reason that “our city doesn’t need YouTube.” In September, YouTube was blocked in Omsk and Volgograd. After several Muslim countries blocked YouTube during the riots over the film “The Innocence of Muslims,” the site was also blocked in Dagestan.
The authorities’ particular problem with YouTube is easily explainable. Along with social media, YouTube was one of the main instruments of the protest movement that began in December. There are clips on YouTube showing election fraud, as well as videos taken during the unrest on May 6 in Moscow that supports people accused of participating in “mass riots” rather than the accusers.
Not surprisingly, virtually the entire Russian blogosphere called this new escalation in censorship an insult. In a blog post on the Kommersant website, the user new_solomon wrote, “The authorities explain the bans as concern for children. Thank you, but I’ll take care of my child myself through Parental Control and other useful programs. The government should first put its own house in order and earn the country’s respect.”
But censorship isn’t just insulting. It can be outright dangerous. Everyone needs to know that if he or she posts a blog post quoting something from a banned book or a link to a banned video, it’s an offense and may be punished under the law.
On Tuesday, writer Boris Stomakhin was arrested in Moscow after a search of his apartment. Stomakhin is one of the small group of Russian activists who believes that the only way to revive democracy in Russia is through violent revolution. He has never hidden his views and has even supported Chechen separatists in his articles, which resulted in a five-year prison sentence in 2006. When the police came for him, Stomakhin tried to escape by jumping out a fourth-floor window. He broke his spine and both ankles and today uses crutches or a cane to walk.
The new charges against Stomakhin have not been made public, but some sources say they include posting articles on his site from three Chechen separatist websites deemed “extremist.” One of the articles was a letter from the Chechen diaspora to the prime minister of Turkey about a number of murders allegedly committed by assassins sent by Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. That could send Stomakhin back to prison for another five years.
Human rights activist Vladimir Bukovsky wrote about Stomakhin on the Grani.ru blog: “He is crippled with a broken spine. Why was he arrested? Only because Stomakhin wrote what he thought. He didn’t blow anyone up, kill anyone, rob anyone or attack anyone. He was arrested for what he wrote. And with that, it’s back to the U.S.S.R.”
Bukovsky has been in politics for more than 50 years, and his predictions usually come true. One can only hope that this is one of the rare cases when he’s wrong.

Victor Davidoff is a Moscow-based writer and journalist who follows the Russian blogosphere in his biweekly column.

TITLE: from a safe distance: The First Post-Soviet Revolution
AUTHOR: By Alexei Bayer
TEXT: On July 14, 1789, as the Paris mob stormed the Bastille, King Louis XVI wrote “rien” in his diary, meaning that nothing of note had happened on that day.
Historic events often become historic only in retrospect. Their significance is all too frequently determined not by what they achieve but by what kind of forces they unleash. Disturbances in major Russian cities in 1905, which followed Russia’s naval defeat in the Far East, are now known as the First Russian Revolution. But the riots were relatively minor events, never seriously threatening the monarchy. They were important only because of what followed. On the one hand, the tsar’s government cracked down on socialist parties, marginalizing various leftist movements and pushing most revolutionaries out of the country. Even more important, it implemented limited liberalization and economic reforms, laying the foundation for rapid economic development. To gauge Russia’s progress in the decade prior to World War I, it is enough to take a walk in the center of Moscow and see the huge number of extremely elegant, modernist apartment buildings constructed for Russia’s expanding middle class.
The government’s two-pronged response was so successful that a few months before the monarchy fell, Lenin declared that his generation of revolutionaries would not live to see their cause triumph. What he and most others didn’t realize was that rapidly advancing capitalism had disoriented millions of Russian peasants, who were willing to lend their support to a party that promised to smash capitalism and bring back what they thought would be a version of a traditional village commune.
At a distance of one year removed, the protest movement that spontaneously arose in Russia in late 2011 looks like a failure. It never managed to bring out the promised hundreds of thousands of protesters, and it petered out without achieving even a relatively free, clean election. It didn’t force greater openness and accountability on the government, it failed to combat blatant corruption by the entrenched bureaucracy, and it did nothing to promote democracy and respect for human rights. Its most heroic act of civil disobedience occurred when a handful of protesters sat down on a bridge near Bolotnaya Ploshchad during the May 6 rally, and its most colorful symbol was a prank by an all-female punk group in Christ the Savior Cathedral. The repressive apparatus of the government arrested leaders and random activists involved in these protests, many of whom are facing serious prison terms.
But to think that the protests were fruitless is a mistake. We have observed a genuine revolution. If judged by the response of the authorities, it was a major event. The Russian government has unleashed everything at its disposal against the liberal opposition: police, courts, mass media and even the Russian Orthodox Church. Protesters are being thrown in jail on trumped-up charges, while the secret police are fabricating nasty or humiliating scandals involving members of the opposition. State-run television shows slanderous pseudodocumentaries about the movement and its supposed foreign backers, and religious goons and ultranationalists pretending to be Cossacks attack cultural events.
It’s very depressing, but it is also good because it is a classic reaction that every doomed repressive regime always unleashes when it feels seriously threatened. The 2011-12 revolution may yet prove no less meaningful for Russia than President Boris Yeltsin’s stand during the abortive 1991 hard-line coup. The men and women who sat near Bolotnaya Ploshchad braving the OMON riot police may one day be cast in bronze as harbingers of Russia’s liberation.

Alexei Bayer, a native Muscovite, is a New York-based economist.

TITLE: Only a northern song
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Aino Venna, an up-and-coming singer-songwriter from Finland, sings in English and French, blending folk, chanson, torch songs and pop, but admits a Finnish music tradition. 
Venna, who released her debut album “Marlene” in late October, had success with the album’s first single “Suzette,” which was named the “Summer Hit” by Radio Helsinki and was among the most played songs at Radio Suomi for three months.
Venna will perform in St. Petersburg and Moscow early next week — alongside Big Wave Riders and Tundramatiks — as part of the News from Helsinki project organized by Music Finland.
In St. Petersburg, Venna will perform with her band, which features double bass, guitars, percussion and ukulele.
Born in Helsinki, Venna spent five years in Turku studying film at the Arts Academy at Turku University of Applied Sciences. 
“The music came along a bit later,” Venna said speaking to The St. Petersburg Times by phone ahead of the concert. 
“I have been composing and writing songs from a very early age. I decided to study film because I was too shy to perform my songs, and I thought that making films was more introvert work.”
Venna said that at the end of her studies, she suddenly found that her passion for music was outweighing her interest in film, and music started to take up much more of her time.
“I did a bit of TV work after I graduated, but then I realized that I really wanted to focus on music, so that’s what I am doing right now,” she said. “I have directed our music videos, so that is my way of making films.”
Venna, whose first musical instrument was cello, said her interest in music originates from her childhood in Helsinki.
“My father listened to a great deal of music, and he used to play guitar when I was very little, and I was into music from a very early age,” she said.
“He used to listen to everything, but musically it was like old style, like blues and jazz, Ray Charles and Edith Piaf, old chansons. It was [everything] from Pavarotti to the Beatles. He had a very large appetite for music. But in the beginning it was old style, [stuff from] before the 1960s — Elvis and all the big names.”
Venna said her influences are international, but admitted that the Finnish music tradition could be felt in her songs.
“I think a certain melancholy, simplicity, like we have in our traditional songs in Finland — you can see some influences from that in our music,” she said.
“[The songs] are very minimalistic in a way, I think it’s very Finnish to have this kind of certain frankness.” 
One of her earliest music memories was of her father confiscating a tape by Finnish singer-songwriter Juice Leskinen from her and giving her an Elvis tape as a replacement.
“I used to listen to this Finnish musician, singer-songwriter Juice Leskinen, his songs were a bit provocative, and my parents took his tape from me and gave me an Elvis one,” she said.
“I was maybe five years old, I was a bit angry at first, but I liked Elvis almost instantly and he became my idol. I used to watch these awful Elvis movies they made in the 1950s and 1960s.
“I used to sing in public, on trains, buses or trams when we were traveling to school or to visit someone, I used to sing all the time, so I think my parents got a bit embarrassed of my interpretations of Juice Leskinen, so Elvis was nicer.”
“Juice Leskinen is very famous and he’s famous for his lyrics that are quite brilliant. But his early recordings were more provocative and more against the government, and they had some punk tones. I think that that was the part that my parents didn’t like. They used to listen to that music themselves, but they didn’t want me to listen to it, or sing it in public!”
Venna said she mostly writes in English, apart from two songs that she wrote in French, but none in Finnish.
“I think it’s because I was shy at first, so it was easier to choose a foreign language, to express yourself it was easier to have this kind of distance. Finnish is a bit of a difficult language; it has a different tone than English. But I think it was probably just a way to get distance and the courage to perform —that was the reason that I chose a different language.”
Venna, whose first recording was a solo EP called “Missing Buttons” released last year, said her debut album was built around the title song “Marlene,” which referred to German actress Marlene Dietrich with themes “circling around love and the feeling of being the odd one out,” as she put it in a press release for the album.
The album was, in a way, a development of her first recording with the band, the EP “Waltz to Paris,” released in February.
“We had such a good feeling about it, a good feeling about playing and recording, so we just stayed in the studio and continued, and then we realized that we actually had an album in our hands,” she said.
“It was a very intense process, we were sitting in the studio for a year.”
She calls Dietrich and French singer Edith Piaf, to whom she paid homage in “Waltz to Paris,” her idols.
“The first time I heard [Piaf] sing, I understood that something very important was happening. I didn’t understand the words but it sounded like she was singing like it was the last moment in life,” Venna wrote in her autobiography.
“She and Marlene Dietrich are my idols because they had the courage to change the female role of their times. I named our first album after Marlene because of respect for this great artist, woman and a great speaker of peace.”
“Piaf and Dietrich are inspiration to our music but we are not trying to imitate them or reproduce their works. They inspire us like a beautiful landscape, a good book, movie or a cello concerto.”
According to Venna, she finds inspiration for her lyrics in “old movies, books, the past and present world,” rather than in everyday life.
“I think it’s because there are more strong feelings that are not that like everyday life,” she said.
“And I’ve always been a great fan of melodrama, at one point I was a great fan of your great writers, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, who have these very strong pictures in their books about being unhappy, and alone, and being in love in a very destructive way. Because I’ve been watching films from a very early stage, I started to adopt a certain taste for huge and dramatic gestures and feelings. It’s not like everyday living.”
The success of “Suzette,” a catchy tune in French, came as a surprise to Venna.
“We were a bit shocked, because it was so popular; it won the ‘Summer Hit’ contest on one of the radio stations in Finland, Radio Helsinki. I was a bit astonished.”
According to Venna, the song stems from the French urban folk tradition.
“It’s about a girl, she is not a very nice girl, she is singing that you should leave me, I’m not good for you. I’m with other boys, I [run around] with girls who are criminals,” she said.
“If I smile, I’ll never smile for you, so you should leave me. It’s very simple, it’s like old-style street songs that they have in Paris, it’s really repeating the same thing. She sings ‘Pourquoi tu ne me quittes pas’ — ‘Why don’t you leave me?’”
“War Song,” the album’s closing track whose video features beautifully desolate Finnish landscapes, is somewhat darker.
“It’s not about the Winter War per se, I was maybe thinking about the Second World War; not the war we had to go through in Finland, but the war that we had to go through all around the world,” Venna said.
“It’s not domestic, but more a global song about war. How someone always stays at home, and someone always goes to the front.”

Aino Venna will perform as part of the News from Helsinki project at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 4 at Zoccolo, 2/3 3rd Sovietskaya Ulitsa. Tel. 274 9467.

TITLE: All-American icon
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Humphrey Bogart, a Hollywood legend and one of America’s cultural icons, takes center stage at the upcoming American Film Festival, which will run at the Avrora movie theater from Nov. 28 through Dec. 2. Bogart’s name graces the festival’s title this year as it marks the first retrospective festival of the celebrated actor in Russia.
The star of the golden age of Hollywood, Bogart gained worldwide fame and began building his reputation in cinema’s romantic repertoire after starring in Michael Curtiz’s 1942 classic “Casablanca,” which opens the festival’s program at 7 p.m. on Nov. 28. 
Bogart’s name is inextricably linked with that of Lauren Bacall, and the cinematic alliance between them is one of the most striking in the history of Hollywood. The two actors, who met in 1944 when shooting “To Have and Have Not,” made four successful films together and were happily married right up until Bogart’s death in 1957.
Audiences at the American Film Festival will be able to appreciate the Bogart-Bacall partnership in two film noir movies: “The Big Sleep,” which will be shown on Nov. 30 at 7 p.m., and “Key Largo” on Dec. 2 at 5 p.m.
The films on the festival’s menu also include “Sabrina” (Dec. 1), “The Two Mrs Carrolls” (Dec. 1), “Across the Pacific” (Dec. 2) and “In a Lonely Place” (Nov. 29).
The festival in St. Petersburg marks the 70th anniversary of the Oscar-winning “Casablanca,” in which Bogart plays a charming world-weary cynic who unexpectedly displays his honorable side at a most unlikely moment.
For the actor, who played opposite Ingrid Bergman in the film, the shooting process was one of the most memorable experiences of his life.
“I didn’t do anything [in ‘Casablanca’] I’ve never done before, but when the camera moves in on that Bergman face, and she’s saying she loves you, it would make anybody feel romantic,” Bogart would later say.
In 2010, “Casablanca” was rated the second most romantic film of all time by Britain’s Guardian newspaper. 
“The romantic or erotic energy is sublimated in the most impeccable cause of all — the war effort. Rick forsakes Ilsa as part of his new commitment to the fight against fascism,” reads the review in The Guardian. “Casablanca stands for movie romance in great part because it is hardly true to life. It seemed to be history coming to life — it opened just after the allies had occupied the real Casablanca. In fact, divorce and infidelity rates increased rapidly during the war. But Casablanca reassured us all; it promised that honor was intact.”
Although he possessed an impressive dramatic range, Bogart cultivated the image that brought him international success: That of a noble-hearted cynic, a tough guy with icy humor and an impenetrable face, yet a sensitive soul and a generous heart. Bogart excelled in the portrayal of exquisite nuances, where his charms were irresistible — lighting a cigarette, smiling, raising his eyebrows and putting on a stylish hat. 
“Acting is experience with something sweet behind it,” Bogart once famously said, and this phrase seems to summarize the natural approach of the actor, who openly indulged in every moment of the filming process.
The American Film Festival features seven films, in which Bogart is partnered by some of the finest actresses that the film industry ever produced, including Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Audrey Hepburn, Gloria Grahame and Barbara Stanwyck.
In “Across the Pacific” (1942), Bogart plays a U.S. secret service agent operating during World War II in the territory of Japan. This gripping spy thriller is a high-level detective drama, complete with agents, femmes fatales and enemy bomb plots. Interestingly, when the film was being conceived, the plot featured the Japanese plotting an attack on Pearl Harbor. When the shooting on the movie began, that imagined attack took place in reality, forcing the team to urgently move the action to Panama.
A classic example of film noir, “The Big Sleep” (1946) shows the real chemistry between Bogart, who plays a private detective, and Bacall. The actors’ romance was in full swing on set, and the cunning producers convinced the screenwriters to add a few additional scenes that allowed audiences to get a taste of the mutual attraction.   
“In a Lonely Place” (1950) is an outstanding example of intense film noir, bordering on a psychological thriller. It features Bogart in the challenging and highly complex role of screenwriter Dixon Steele, whose uncontrollable explosions of anger are ruining his relationship with his beloved (Gloria Grahame). This role became arguably Bogart’s deepest and most complete, and came closest to a representation of him as a person. Critics recommend this film to those with an interest in seeing the man behind the roles that he played.
Organized by the international festival agency Tour de Film, the festival is supported by the cultural section of the U.S. Consulate General in St. Petersburg.

For a full festival program, see www.tourdefilm.ru

TITLE: the word’s worth: Now, that is gross!
AUTHOR: By Michele A. Berdy
TEXT: If you hang around kids or dogs in Russia, or happen to have some of your own, very early on you’re going to hear the word áÿêà, which means something that is filthy, gross or yucky. The first time your toddler picks up a dirt-encrusted stick and aims it toward his mouth, you shout: Ôó! Áÿêà! (Ew! That’s yucky!)
Dictionaries tell you that the word is imitation baby talk, and I suppose it’s possible that some kids in the babbling stage of language acquisition spit out êà-êà (ca-ca) or áÿêà. But it’s a funny word — very expressive yet used almost exclusively by adults when trying to impress the rudiments of hygiene on children or pets.
Of course, it can be used jokingly among adults in various contexts, but it always has that whisper of baby talk. Åñëè îáíàðóæèòñÿ êàêàÿ-òî áÿêà, ïðèä¸òñÿ ëå÷èòüñÿ àíòèáèîòèêàìè (If they find some kind of crud, you’ll need to take antibiotics). Äåíüãè, îí ìíå ñêàçàë, áÿêà (Money, he told me, is yucky).
Áóêà is another great Russian word. It is a bogeyman, a scary creature used to frighten children in the days when terrorizing kids was considered a sound child-raising philosophy. Áóêà is right up with ìèëèöèîíåð — or today ïîëèöåéñêèé (policeman) — in the category of external threats invoked by parents. Åøü êàøó, à òî áóêà òåáÿ âîçüì¸ò! (Eat your porridge or the bogeyman will get you!).
Áóêà can also be any unsociable, gloomy person, a definition that is obvious the first time you say the word. Try it: áóêà (stress on the first syllable). Your lower lip sticks out in a dour pout like, well, áóêà.
Together áÿêà-áóêà (also áÿêà áóê, áÿêà è áóêà) is a double whammy of yucky. Ðàáîòà äîñòàâèëà ìíå áîëüøîå óäîâîëüñòâèå, à òåïåðü ìû óçíàëè, êàêèå ìû áÿêè è áóêè (I really enjoyed my work, only now it turns out that we were cruddy sleazebags).
Russian has other marvelously onomatopoetic words to describe all things cruddy. Ïàêîñòü is something either literally or figuratively disgusting, filthy or nasty. Áóäòî ïàóêè ïî ìíå ïîëçàþò — êàêàÿ ïàêîñòü! (It was like spiders crawling all over me — disgusting!) Ïîéä¸ì, íå÷åãî íà òàêóþ ïàêîñòü ñìîòðåòü. Òû æå ïðàâîñëàâíûé. (Let’s go. You shouldn’t watch that filth. You’re an Orthodox Christian.)
Ìåðçîñòü is also something abominable, nasty or immoral. Óáåðè ñî ñòîëà ýòó ìåðçîñòü! (Take that filth off the table!) Äî êàêîé ìåðçîñòè ìîãóò îïóñòèòüñÿ ëþäè! (People can sink to such nastiness!)
You can combine the ìåðçîñòü and ïàêîñòü to get the colloquial ìåðçîïàêîñòü, which is something really and truly disgusting. Êàêîå ñåãîäíÿ êîëè÷åñòâî ìåðçîïàêîñòåé âûïë¸ñêèâàåòñÿ èç òåëåâèäåíèÿ! (The amount of disgusting filth that pours out of the television today is unbelievable!)
When confronted with something revolting, you can go with the more classic Ôó! Ãàäîñòü! (Ew! Yuck!), which is pronounced almost as if it were one word: ôóãàäîñòü. Or you might use the expressive òîøíîòâîðíîñòü, something that creates (òâîðèòü) nausea (òîøíîòà) and its related adjective òîøíîòâîðíûé or adverb òîøíîòâîðíî. Ìûñëü î òîì, ÷òî ïðèä¸òñÿ ñïóñêàòüñÿ â ìåòðî è òîëêàòüñÿ òàì, áûëà íåïåðåíîñèìà, òîøíîòâîðíà (The thought that I had to go down into the metro and be jostled was unbearable and sick-making). Îò áîìæà èñõîäèëî òîøíîòâîðíîå çëîâîíèå, ñî÷åòàíèå íåñìûòîãî ïîòà è çàñòàðåëîé ìî÷è (The bum exuded a stomach-turning stench that was a combination of unwashed sweat and old urine).
Now that’s what I call áÿêà.

Michele A. Berdy, a Moscow-based translator and interpreter, is author of “The Russian Word’s Worth” (Glas), a collection of her columns.

TITLE: Funding freedom
AUTHOR: By Maximilian Gill
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Independent American film director Gary Huswit spoke to a packed audience at Moscow’s Polytechnic Institute on Monday about “crowdfunding,” the Internet phenomenon that is revolutionizing the media industry.
Huswit used crowdfunding to finance his documentary films (“Helvetica,” “Objectified” and “Urbanized”) on design that were shown last week in Moscow.
Crowdfunding is the collective effort of individuals who come together and pledge varying sums of money in order to be a part of a project that interests them. In return, funders receive memorabilia or copies of the project as well as a sense of contribution.
Most crowdfunding success stories have to do with the music or film industries, but Huswit was keen to stress its boundless scope and the possibility of totally undercutting the role of managers and studios.
“Crowd surfing also provides a testing ground,” said Huswit. The response from the public makes it very easy to gauge “if people want to see this happen.”
“You’re not asking them for money. You’re asking them to become a part of the project.”
The majority of crowdfunding takes place on websites such as Kickstarter, which in three years has seen over 30,000 projects funded. The average amount raised is between $4,000 to $6,000 but some projects have been known to raise upwards of $1,000,000.
Huswit spoke to Kickstarter founder, Charles Adler, via Skype during the lecture. Adler said the inspiration for Kickstarter came from organizing gigs in New Orleans in 2001. Keen to “distribute the risk among everyone participating” by selling T-shirts and records, he was able to cover costs without having to rely on an investment return for middle management companies.
Both Huswit and Adler praised the autonomy an artist or creator enjoys using crowdfunding.
“Traditional funding detracts from the original product,” Adler said. “Often you lose creative control.”
“It’s almost like pre-ordering a book or a film.” Huswit continued. “It’s different from a donation, you get something in return.”
Those who contributed $35 or more to “Helvetica” received a copy of the DVD, as well as a limited edition print, while those who contributed $5,000 or more received a private screening anywhere in the world hosted by Huswit and memorabilia.
Members of the audience were concerned about the potential for corruption in Russia. The Russian equivalent of Kickstarter is Planeta.ru.
Huswit said that contributors need “to trust that something will come through,” adding that “it’s mostly artists funding other artists.”
The most successful projects are those that are not pipe-dreams, but with something to show already.
Huswit believes that the popularity of crowdfunding is part of a realization that “there is more to this world than just consuming products. The success of crowdfunding projects was a kind of “Darwinian evolution” where only the best thrive, he said.
The idea of mutually beneficial public contribution to cultural projects is not new, however. Huswit recounted the story of the base of the Statue of Liberty. Although the statue was a gift from France, it had no pedestal. New York newspapers offered readers the chance to contribute $1 in return for a figurine of the monument.
“We could use crowdfunding for anything. To fund a park, or even a city if we wanted to,” Huswit said.




TITLE: Opening minds
AUTHOR: By Tatyana Sochiva
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: This week will see the city attempt to inculcate tolerance for other cultures among city residents via the medium of cinema.
The “Art Without Borders” marathon of movies from around the world event kicked off at the Dom Kino and Rodina movie theaters on Nov. 27, with the aim of drawing public attention to issues of tolerance and promoting friendly cooperation between people with different worldviews.
The organizers of the event, which is being held in the city for the first time, hope it will prove to be a significant event both for those seeking to promote the ideals of tolerance, and for cinema aficionados. 
“The idea of the festival has been in the air for a long time,” said Alexei Nedviga, program director at Rodina movie theater. 
“Previously irrelevant problems have become inescapable in our day. In fact, several years ago an ideology [communism] played the role of a single religion, uniting different national cultures. But after the failure of this ideology, various religions have come to the fore. Let’s take Islam. Twenty years ago we weren’t even thinking about it. Today we realize that it is necessary to find ways of interacting with it, as we are all neighbors and we should respect other’s opinions,” he said.  
The term “tolerance” is used here in the broadest sense, to encompass class, generational and national issues. Accordingly, the festival program features a suitable broad palette of different themes and genres (including feature films, short films and documentaries) as well as movies made in different eras and different countries. 
The marathon program consists of films from Iran, France, Mexico, Ukraine, Armenia, Belarus, Finland, Lithuania and Korea, as well as motion pictures from Russia’s Tatarstan and Sakha (Yakutia) federal subjects.
Several classic movies from the Soviet period will be shown, the most famous of which is “Chuchelo” (Scarecrow, 1984) directed by Rolan Bykov, starring the well-known Soviet actor Yury Nikulin and Russian singer and actress Kristina Orbakaite. The drama film depicts life as a teenager, school violence and the suffering borne by outcasts.
The festival also features some brand new films that have only recently been released to the public, such as “Broken,” “In the House,” “The Beloved” and “Light After Darkness.” The “Art Without Borders” project offers movie-goers a unique chance to watch them free of charge.
Many of the films shown at the marathon are international festival winners, including “Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame” by Hana Makhmalbaf (2007, Special Jury Prize at the San Sebastian Film Festival), “The Class” by Laurent Cantet (2008, Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival) and “Le Havre” by Aki Kaurism&#228;ki (2011, FIPRESCI Prize for best film at the Cannes Film Festival).
In addition to the film program, “Art Without Borders” comprise a children’s painting competition titled “My Petersburg” and a roundtable conference devoted to exploring the issue of tolerance via cinema.
The principles of tolerance have always been especially important for St. Petersburg, which became infamous during the last decade as a hotbed of hate crime and racist attacks. According to the Sova Center, which monitors hate crimes, between January and August 2008 at least 42 people in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast were the victims of racist and neo-Nazi attacks. Thirteen of them died. 
In recent years, the city authorities have made a visible effort to tackle the problem with a campaign of social advertising and program of cultural events that aim to contribute to mutual understanding between representatives of the city’s different religions and nations. A number of conferences, exhibitions, seminars and other activities were recently held in the city to mark International Tolerance Day (Nov. 16). 

The “Art Without Borders” international movie marathon runs through Dec. 12. Admission is free for all visitors. For a full program, visit www.rodinakino.ru and www.domkino.spb.ru

TITLE: THE DISH: Young at heart
AUTHOR: By Isabel Makman 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: On entering a restaurant named Leica, one might expect to be welcomed by a barrage of photo-related d&#233;cor, as a tribute to the renowned camera company of the same name. Here, however, visitors are initially confronted by a small bar — Leica describes itself not only as a caf&#233; but also a bar. At 2 p.m., however, the bar portion of the restaurant was receiving very little attention. The remainder of the interior, a vast, cavern-like series of rooms sporting whitewashed brick walls and a number of decorative archways, was reasonably crowded. 
Leica boasts English-speaking wait staff and an English-language menu, with a section titled “a history of coffee” devoted to the extensive range of coffee beverages offered by the caf&#233;. The afternoon began with an order of two cappuccinos (150 rubles each, $4.80), which turned out to be not only larger than in many places, but also exceptionally good. 
The drinks menu is not limited to coffee, but encompasses everything from milkshakes to cocktails. Wine starts at 190 rubles ($6) for a glass or 800 rubles ($25.70) for a bottle, and peaks at 1,350 rubles ($43.35) for the most expensive bottle. 
A young and funky atmosphere rules at Leica. The placemats, which are clearly designed for the young-at-heart, provide various games such as battleship and tic-tac-toe, as well as ample space for drawing. This inspired set up is completed by individual buckets of colored pencils provided for each patron’s gaming or drawing needs. The d&#233;cor of the restaurant continues along this same playful line, with brightly colored plastic watering cans adorning the windowsills, potted plants dotted strategically around the room and large framed photographs of vintage cameras hanging on the walls. An eclectic mix of music played constantly in the background, broadcasting anything from Michael Jackson to light techno, and always at a level slightly too loud for comfort, though not entirely overwhelming. 
The menu at Leica is an interesting one, consisting of a combination of traditional Russian dishes interspersed with some Asian options, as well as salads, pizzas and pastas. Leica can accordingly satisfy both adventurous diners and more conservative ones. Lunch exemplified this theory perfectly, starting with one order of Thai “sharp” soup — one of numerous comical translation errors in the menu, here, seemingly, a literal translation of the Russian word for spicy — for 250 rubles, $8, and another of the more traditional borsch (210 rubles, $6.70). The Thai soup was excellent, sporting flavors seldom found in Russia such as ginger, lemongrass and coconut milk, while the borsch was slightly sweeter than usual, though none the worse for that. 
Also from the Asian section of the menu came a wok dish with rice noodles, chicken, beansprouts and mushrooms, completed with a sweet chili sauce (260 rubles, $8.30). This dish lacked the spicy zing that usually characterizes such Thai meals, and the other flavors didn’t entirely make up for it, with the promised sweet chili sauce failing to make an appearance entirely. To top it off, the portion was relatively small. 
The other main dish, beef Stroganoff with potatoes (370 rubles, $11.90), was decent though also small, smothered with an excess of sauce and lacking any noteworthy flavors or qualities. Furthermore, in a typical Russian service quirk, the waiter failed to stagger our courses, bringing out the main dishes before the soups were finished, making for an uncomfortably crowded table. 
Any grumbles, however, were quickly forgotten upon the appearance of the Belgian waffles (150 rubles, $4.80) and hot chocolate lava cake (250 rubles, $8) that arrived for dessert, accompanied by a modest but rich side of vanilla ice cream.  Both desserts were served warm and left no room for criticism. This led to the conclusion that Leica might perhaps be a better place to visit for a fun, engaging atmosphere, good cup of coffee and mood-lifting dessert, rather than a full-fledged meal. 

TITLE: Murom Still Lives in a Fairy Tale
AUTHOR: By Oleg Sukhov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Locals complain that outsiders are often surprised to find out that Murom actually exists, having heard of the small town in the Vladimir region only from fairy tales.
Murom is featured in a wide range of literature, usually as a gateway into a fantasy world of epic battles, dragons, heroic quests, slain martyrs, gods, princes and saints or a time machine that brings you back to the age of Vikings, pagan tribes and fierce nomads. 
Murom — along with Ladoga, Beloozero, Izborsk, Rostov, Polotsk, Smolensk, Novgorod and Kiev — is one of the first cities of Ancient Rus. The Primary Chronicle first mentions all of them in 862-863.
At the time, Finnic tribes held undisputed sway over vast territories all the way from modern Finland to the Volga basin, and one of them — muroma — lived where the modern city is now. Finnish linguist Arja Ahlqvist translates the tribe’s name from the now dead Muromian language as “people living on a hill near water.”
The city’s subsequent history revolves around several myths. The most famous one is about Ilya Muromets, the local analogue of Hercules and the central hero of “Bylinas” — the cycle of epic poetry sometimes called Russia’s “Iliad.”
When the glory of ancient battles faded away, in the 16th to 19th centuries Murom became a quiet merchant town. The vibrant commercial culture survived through the Soviet period until this day; the number of retail outlets per capita is far higher than in Moscow.
Despite being relatively far from Moscow, Murom is in some ways a commuter town, with many residents regularly traveling to work in the capital.
Murom is linked with Moscow through the Gorky (formerly known as Kazan) railroad, the main artery connecting European Russia with Siberia. Russian Railways has been a major employer and shaped the development of the Kazanka neighborhood near Murom’s railway station, and it even used to own stores and other facilities there in the Soviet era.
Engineering giants were built in Murom during that period but they fell on hard times in the 1990s due to a lack of market demand. Since then, the city’s economy has refocused on retail and other service industries, and currently about 50 percent of its residents are employed in consumer goods industries. But the defense plants have also recovered some of their clout as the economy expanded and defense purchases soared in the 2000s.
Given the city’s ancient history, one would assume that the tourism industry would be booming. But currently, few visitors come to Murom (compared with cities like Suzdal and Vladimir) due to a lack of infrastructure and its former “closed city” status.
In the Soviet era Murom was off-limits to foreigners because the state feared that they could get access to defense industries.
Although in the 1920s a British specialist named B. G. Jobling helped develop the city’s museum and was even its director for a short period, Murom was subsequently isolated from the outside world.
A resident told The St. Petersburg Times that once an Englishwoman caused a furor in the city when she appeared, out of the blue, at the doorstop of the local museum in the 1980s. She had managed to escape the attention of the KGB and clandestinely made her way into the “closed city” — a visit that felt to locals like making contact with aliens.
But since 1991, Murom has become a major destination for religious pilgrims — especially ones combining a tour of the city with a trip to the Diveyevo Monastery in the nearby Nizhny Novgorod region, which was founded by Saint Serafim of Sarov.
Murom locals consider the Nizhny Novgorod region their backyard. Since the Oka River’s opposite bank used to be part of the Murom district, locals still feel at home there, even though it is now in the Nizhny Novgorod region. Residents frequently cross the river to Navashino — jokingly referred to as Nawashington, due to the similarity of the names. Many locals have also studied or worked in Nizhny Novgorod.
Muromtsy, as the natives are called, have a nickname for the metal factory in Vyksa, a city near Navashino: “Putin’s plant.” They claim that President Vladimir Putin might have an interest in it, though its website says that it is controlled by Anatoly Sedykh’s United Metal Company.
Though Putin has easily won a majority in Murom on a regular basis, the city has had a turbulent political life. Mayor Pyotr Kaurov was killed in 2000 in a conflict typical of the “wild ‘90s,” while the next mayor, Valentin Kachevan, had frequent disputes with the city council, which was dominated by United Russia. The Kremlin eventually managed to assert control over City Hall when Yevgeny Rychkov, a United Russia member, became head of the city in 2011.
The nationwide upsurge in protest activity in recent years breathed new life into Murom’s politics. When the local election committee did not register any major opposition candidates during the March 2011 mayoral election, an impressive rally against the decision was held, drawing hundreds of participants. In November 2011, a rally against a nuclear plant project in the Navashino district took place, while recent months have seen protests against a building management company backed by City Hall and a nationalist rally.
Valery Yelistrarov, the owner of the Tibor and Vityaz shopping malls and a Just Russia member, now sponsors Novy Murom, a newspaper critical of the authorities.
Despite the possibly healthy local discord, federal authorities have paid some attention to the relatively non-strategic city.
In 2008 they established the Day of Pyotr and Fevronia — named after an ancient prince of Murom and his wife — as an alternative to St. Valentine’s Day, in line with the Kremlin’s efforts to combat foreign influence. Svetlana Medvedeva, the wife of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, has been a key supporter of the new holiday and promotes it on her frequent trips to Murom.

<b>What to see if you have two hours</b>

Take a tour of the Cathedral of the Transfiguration (1 Ulitsa Lakina; +7 492 342 2050; http://svyto.ru/). It is a good example of the austere 16th-century style: It lacks decorations and features monumental arches and columns. The monastery was, according to legend, founded by Prince Gleb no later than in 1015, while the current buildings were constructed by Ivan the Terrible in the 1560s.
The Church of Cosmas and Damian (Naberezhnaya Ulitsa) was also built by Ivan the Terrible. The tsar pitched his tent here in 1562, when he was watching his troops cross the river on their way to Kazan. When Ivan conquered the city, he thanked God by building the church, which resembles a tent.
Don’t miss the Monastery of the Annunciation (16 Krasnoarmeyskaya Ulitsa; +7 492 342 0502). It exemplifies the elegant 17th-century style known as Uzorochye, which some scholars believe to have been influenced by Western Europe’s Renaissance architecture. The richly decorated Cathedral of the Annunciation was reportedly founded by Prince Konstantinin in 1205. It became a monastery under Ivan the Terrible and was ruined by the Poles during the Time of Troubles. In 1664 it was rebuilt by wealthy merchant and arts patron Tarasy Tsvetnov. The monastery features the relics of Konstantin and his sons Mikhail and Fyodor.
According to a legend recorded by local aristocrat and amateur historian Alexander Yepanchin, each midnight the monastery’s gates disappear, and Konstantin, Mikhail and Fyodor, clad in regal attire, ride out in a gilded carriage and head to the Cathedral of the Nativity of Mary, where they are met by Pyotr and Fevronia. After praying there, they guard and patrol the city.
The monastery’s graveyard holds the grave of Andrei Polisadov, to whom poet Andrei Voznesensky, one of his descendants, devoted a poem. He was taken as a hostage from Georgia and transported to Russia, where he became archimandrite of the monastery.
While the Monastery of the Annunciation is a friary, the nearby Monastery of the Trinity (3-a Ploshchad Krestyanina, +7 492 342 2648), also built by Tsvetnov, is a nunnery. Its cathedral is a graceful five-domed church with luxurious d&#233;cor. The relics of Pyotr and Fevronia are located there. The monastery’s chief sponsor is John Kopiski, an Englishman who moved to Russia, converted to the Orthodox faith and became a farmer.

<b>What to see if you have two days</b>

Take a trip to Karacharovo in Murom’s south, a 10-minute bus ride from the city center. According to a local myth, the former village was named after a wizard who turned people into animals. He was later beheaded as punishment.
It is believed to be Ilya Muromets’ birthplace. Traces of him are all around this area. Oaks dredged up from the river were supposedly uprooted and thrown into the Oka by the hero to either clean up his parents’ field or to change the course of the river. In many places, springs are still found that some believe to have burst forth where his steed’s hoofs beat the earth.
Meanwhile, dinosaur bones found in Karacharovo were thought to be those of a dragon Ilya slew. You can even visit the Gushchin family (279 Priokskaya Ulitsa), who believe themselves to be descendants of Ilya Muromets.
A major landmark of Karacharovo is the Uvarov Estate (1 Ulitsa Kirova; +7 492 342 0535), which currently houses a military unit. Countess Praskovya Uvarova, nee Princess Shcherbatova — the daughter-in-law of Nicholas I’s chief ideologue Sergei Uvarov and a possible prototype for Kitty Shcherbatsky in Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina — lived here in 1900-1910.
Local folklore surrounds Uvarova, who was an archeologist. One legend has the countess, clad in white, mounting a white horse to accompany Ilya Muromets to Kiev — even though he lived 1,000 years before her. Some natives also believe that she was a relative of Adolf Hitler, and that is why Nazi airplanes heading to Nizhny Novgorod did not bomb Murom — in order to avoid destroying the countess’ estate, according to Yepanchin’s notes. They also claim that the planes distributed leaflets saying they would destroy Moscow and Leningrad and make Murom the capital.
Visit the centrally located Oka Park, at the original site of a pagan muroma temple and Murom’s wooden kremlin, which was dismantled under Catherine the Great. The park features amusement rides and an observation platform with a colorful view of the Oka. A statue of Ilya Muromets by sculptor Vyacheslav Klykov is located at the site of the city’s cathedral, the 19-century Church of the Nativity of Mary, which was demolished in 1939 by Soviet authorities as part of an anti-religion campaign.
Another must-see is the Murom History and Art Museum (13 Moskovskaya Ulitsa; +7 492 343 2359; http://www.museum-murom.ru). Its collection includes 18th-century German baroque furniture, exquisite 19th-century porcelain, Carolingian type swords, bronze muroma jewelry, Viking brooches and Dosso Dossi paintings. Don’t miss the Cloth of Pyotr and Fevronia, which was sown by Tsaritsa Irina Godunova and donated by Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich (1584-1598) to Murom. You should also take a look at duck-shaped muroma pendants, which symbolize the mythical bird that created the earth by bringing it up from the cosmic ocean floor.

<b>Conversation starters</b>

You can break the ice with locals by talking about the city’s famous residents. These include Vladimir Zvorykin, an inventor of television who emigrated to the U.S.; Prokudin-Gorksy, a pioneer of color photography; painter Ivan Kulikov; Ivan Gubkin, the founder of Soviet petroleum geology; Nikolai Gastello, a renowned Soviet pilot who reportedly died in a suicide attack on Nazi troops; and Kristina Potupchik, a former activist of the pro-Kremlin Nashi group involved in a major e-mail hacking scandal. Other well-known residents include Ileyka Muromets, an imposter who passed himself off as a son of Tsar Fyodor in the Time of Troubles, and Loginus of Murom, a leader of the Old Believers during the schism of the church in the 17th century.

<b>Culture tips</b>

Murom is not ethnically diverse, with Russians accounting for 95 percent of its residents. However, there is a Tatar settlement with a mosque, known as Aul, within the city limits.

<b>Nightlife</b>

Check out the 1,100th Year Anniversary Cultural Center (23 Ulitsa Lva Tolstogo, +7 492 343 6373), where you can enjoy amateur theater, dance and circus shows and concerts.

<b>Where to eat </b>

Rioni (village of Kovarditsy, 1a Ulitsa Sosnovy Bor; +7 492 345 3301; http://rioni.promurom.ru/) is one of the area’s most upmarket restaurants. There you can savor pastirma, a seasoned cured beef of Turkish origin, for 120 rubles ($4), as well as beef tongue with horseradish sauce (180 rubles, $5.8) and chicken with Georgian Imeruli cheese (550 rubles, $18). The venue also features a dance floor, VIP lounges and billiard tables. It is frequented by Murom’s top businesspeople.
The multi-functional Moskva complex (7/A Radiozavodskoye Shosse; +7 492 343 3862; http://òðê-ìîñêâà.ðô/) includes a restaurant, bar, nightclub, bowling lanes and karaoke lounge. The restaurant serves Russian, European, Japanese and Uzbek cuisine. A mutton shishkebab costs 490 rubles ($16).

<b>Where to stay</b>

Murom’s most popular hotel is Lada (43 Moskovskaya Ulitsa; +7 492 343 1171; http://www.lada-murom.ru/), where celebrities usually stay when they are in town. In 2009 the hotel was visited by then-First Lady Svetlana Medvedeva. A deluxe suite costs 5,200 rubles ($168), while a one-bed luxury room costs 4,950 rubles ($160).

<b>What to do with kids</b>

Children are sure to enjoy living in traditional local dwellings (izby and terema) heated by Russian ovens at Usadba (village of Nezhilovka, 34 Prigorodnaya Ulitsa, +7 492 347 3484). The hotel offers an assortment of entertainment including banyas, ice skating, horse riding, paintball and sleds. It also includes a small zoo with ponies, camels, yaks, foxes and raccoons. A log cabin costs 4,000 rubles ($130) in the winter and 3,000 rubles ($97) in the summer.

<b>How to get there</b>

The daily train from St. Petersburg to Kazan (No. 133A) stops at Murom. The train leaves the Moscow Railway Station at 4.13 p.m., and the journey takes about 13 and a half hours. Second-class tickets start at about 2,000 rubles ($65), while third-class tickets begin at 1,000 rubles ($32).
<hr>
<b>Murom</b>
<i>Population:</i> 116,075
<i>Major industries:</i> Engineering, timber processing, tourism
<i>Mayor:</i> Yevgeny Rychkov
<i>Founded:</i> The first mention of a fortified Muroma settlement was in 862, and the city itself was likely founded in the 10th century.

<i>Interesting fact 1:</i> The city’s main hero, Ilya Muromets, had an independent mind and often had conflicts with his master Vladimir the Great, grand prince of Kiev in 980-1015, once even calling him a “dog.”
<i>Interesting fact 2:</i> In 1570 Ivan the Terrible violated diplomatic ritual by humiliating several Swedish ambassadors and then exiled them to Murom, where some of them died of the plague.
<i>Interesting fact 3:</i> The city is unique in having the “Murom Cycle of Novellas,” published in the 16th to 17th centuries. One of them is the Tale of Ulyania of Lazarevo, which some believe to be the first Russian work that crossed the boundary between religious and secular fiction. The others include the Tale of Murom’s Christianization, the Tale of Pyotr and Fevronia, the Tale of the Unzha Cross and the Tale of the Miracles of the Vilnius Cross.
<i>Interesting fact 4:</i> Murom was one of three locations (along with Yaroslavl and Rybinsk) where revolts erupted against Soviet authorities in 1918. It was also one of the cities (the others include Novocherkassk, Aleksandrov and Krasnodar) where uprisings took place in the early 1960s. At that time, protesters stormed Murom’s law enforcement department after rumors spread that a resident was killed by police.

<i>Helpful contacts:</i>
Mayor Yevgeny Rychkov (+7 492 343 1102; post@murom.info)
Vera Kurdikova, head of City Hall’s economic department (+7 492 343 3911; post@murom.info)
Sister cities: Most, Czech Republic; Babruysk, Belarus; Mexico City, Mexico
Factories
The Murom Electronic Test Equipment Plant, set up in 1947, is a subsidiary of state-owned arms producer Almaz-Antei. The company manufactures air defense and precision approach radars. Its revenue totaled 1.159 billion rubles in 2011, while its net profit stood at 13.113 million rubles. &#8232;The Railroad Switch Plant, established in 1928, is Russia’s largest railroad switch manufacturer. The plant is controlled by little-known Moscow-based company Verkneye Stroyeniye Puti. The company’s revenue amounted to 3.1 billion rubles in 2011, while its net profit was at 105 million rubles. &#8232;The Murom Plywood Plant, also known as ZAO Murom, was founded in 1929, and produces plywood, particleboard and furniture. Its sales revenue totaled 1.049 billion rubles in 2009, while its net profit amounted to 7.586 million rubles.
<hr>
<b>Vladimir Batayev</b>, a local painter.
<b><i>Q: What inspires you in Murom?</i></b>
A: The atmosphere of an ancient city. It has preserved a unique picturesque aura. Its small streets are inspiring.
<b><i>Q: What places do you like most in the city?</i></b>
A: I like some beautiful places near the Church of Our Lady of Smolensk and the Cathedral of the Trinity. There are also picturesque streets near the Church of the Resurrection.
<b><i>Q: What are Murom’s most important cultural achievements?</i></b>
A: The most significant painter was Kulikov. He undoubtedly gave an impetus to the city’s cultural development.
<b><i>Q: Is there anything unique and unifying about the art of Murom?</i></b>
A: I haven’t really thought about whether my art has similar aspects to that of other artists. I don’t think there is a unified art school in the city. It’s different from the situation with the Vladimir art school, which is more unified. It’s simpler and freer here. Nobody depends on anyone else.
<i>— Oleg Sukhov</i>

<hr>
<b>Yevgeny Krotov</b>, owner of Talant, a company that focuses on selling works of art and holding exhibitions.
<b><i>Q: What are the main challenges for business in Murom? &#8232;&#8232;</i></b>
A: To be honest, I haven’t had any major difficulties. Sometimes there were misunderstandings with City Hall but they have always been tolerant towards us. Though there have been some attempts to crack down on some businessmen. &#8232;I used to head the Alliance of Entrepreneurs and I was the first to have a legal dispute with tax authorities. Fifty of the first entrepreneurs registered in Murom were being pressured. Some of them gave up and caved in to the authorities. Many left the alliance and City Hall set up a lobby group of its own to thwart us. &#8232;
<b><i>Q: What are the most promising industries in Murom? &#8232;</i></b>
A: The city’s economy went in the wrong direction. More attention was paid to trade but trade is all about tossing money around. The focus should be on manufacturing. &#8232;
<b><i>Q: What are the benefits of doing business in Murom? &#8232;</i></b>
A: Our city is ancient and attracts many tourists. Restaurant chains have developed, and a hospitality industry has emerged. &#8232;
<b><i>Q: Why is the tourism industry underdeveloped? &#8232;</i></b>
A: The authorities are not educated enough to bring the tourism industry to the level appropriate for Murom. Infrastructure is necessary, roads, parks etc. The main industry would be tourism and culture. We have splendid artists and a magnificent museum.
<i>— Oleg Sukhov</i>

TITLE: Chuvash Farmer Wages War on Corruption
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: YARABAIKASY, Chuvashia  — When Eduard Mochalov tried to have the people who stole his cattle and pig farm brought to justice, he spent eight months in jail on charges he says were cooked up. He appealed to Vladimir Putin and even set himself on fire outside the Kremlin in protest, but still couldn’t draw attention to his cause as his farm slowly fell into disrepair.
Now, Mochalov has found a new life as a crusading journalist investigating corruption in his native region, fueled by tips from disgruntled businessmen and government workers. Undeterred by a system where the law is selectively used to protect the powerful and crack down on critics, Mochalov has quickly earned cult status — not to mention the ire of countless local officials — throughout the small province of Chuvashia.
Roughly once a month, he publishes a free newspaper called Vzyatka, or The Bribe, which rails against what it calls “Chuvash kingpins” who steal from the province’s budget. Headlines include “The Governor of Chuvashia’s Family Business” and “If Nobody’s Been Found Guilty, That Means They’re Already In Power.” The paper has proved so popular that with a print run of 20,000 he has trouble meeting demand.
Frustration with corrupt officials has skyrocketed under President Putin’s rule. Twenty-nine percent of Russians believe that civil servants only care about using public funds to enrich themselves, a more than nine-fold increase since Putin took power in 2000, according to the Levada Center, an independent polling agency.
Corruption was a key motivation behind the unprecedented series of mass protests against Putin in Moscow last winter and spring, and remains a key rallying point for the opposition. Recently, the Kremlin has attempted to siphon off popular anger by launching a major crackdown on corruption, which has cost several high-level officials their jobs.
In Chuvashia, a sleepy rural region about 650 kilometers east of Moscow best known for its felt boots, Mochalov devotes all his energy to campaigning against local corruption. That makes him unusual in Russia, especially in the provinces, where few journalists seriously investigate officials and those who do frequently face violent reprisal.
Chuvashia is one of the three most corrupt regions in Russia, according to the country’s top investigative agency, but few cases make it to court. Officials in Chuvashia did not immediately respond to requests for comment on this story.
“If they brought charges based on my investigations, they’d have to arrest the entire provincial government,” said Mochalov, as what remained of his abandoned hog barn’s roof crumbled around him.
What started as an attempt to end the legal struggles over his farm has become an all-consuming mission. The newspaper’s high costs — each print run costs 100,000 rubles ($3,150) — have essentially forced Mochalov to give up his farm: He sold all his livestock and equipment years ago, and rents out some of the buildings to local services like banks and post offices. The rest lack heat and electricity, if they are still standing at all. One barn is filled with rotting bales of hay; a corrugated iron shed next to it has nearly collapsed.
The change was a dramatic one for Mochalov, who left school at 16 and now at age 38 sports the thickly callused hands and yellow gap-toothed grin of the provincial farmer. He once employed 150 workers from 11 surrounding villages and ran a thriving concern trading in pigs, cows, sheep and horses.
But seven years ago, Mochalov says, he failed to pay a policeman a bribe in full. Shortly afterward, men burst into his office with armed guards and presented tax papers supposedly showing that Mochalov had sold them the farm. When he filed a legal appeal, prosecutors filed charges against him instead, accusing him of having obtained credit illegally to buy the farm.
After spending eight months in jail awaiting trial, Mochalov was released on time served and later succeeded in restoring his legal ownership. By then, however, the farm had already fallen into disrepair.
Mochalov set about trying to bring the raiders to justice. First he tried the legal route, but to no avail. Appeals to Putin and the government also produced nothing. Then he staged protests, including the 2007 Kremlin fire stunt, which caused little physical harm aside from a few scars on his hands. The disused barn where he stores newspapers is full of banners left over from demonstrations imploring pro-Kremlin political parties to “help us fight corruption.”
He put his faith in Dmitry Medvedev, who served as president from 2004 to 2008 when Putin had to step aside because of term limits — but was soon disappointed.
“He promised to crack down on corruption when he was elected, and I believed him!” laughs Mochalov. “I’ve never considered myself a member of the opposition. It’s about sorting out what’s wrong with our country — it’s plagued by corruption.”
Mochalov puts the newspaper together in a pokey office at the back of a truck repair shop. He prints it in a neighboring province, since no printer in Chuvashia will go near it. He only has two colleagues, a journalist and a village woman who helps hand the paper out at factories, and he writes many of the articles himself under pseudonyms.
To his frustration, however, no charges have been filed against the officials exposed in The Bribe. Russian officials frequently turn a blind eye to corruption stories in the press. The Bribe has nonetheless struck a chord in Chuvashia, whose president earlier this year proposed creating a blacklist of print media “that write untruths.” Several officials mentioned in the newspaper have sued him for damaging their reputation. In court, Mochalov, who says he cannot afford a lawyer, defends himself by insisting proceedings be carried out in his native Chuvash language and storming out.
“All of the government knows about what he’s writing,” Alexei Glukhov, a local human rights activist, said. “So they try to make him look like a crazy village person who sets himself on fire, and Eduard favors the poetic aspect over the legal side. He has his own, idiosyncratic way of doing things.”
That unusual style is earning Mochalov fans far and wide. Last month, he traveled to Moscow to meet Alexei Navalny, one of the main leaders of the opposition. In messages posted on Twitter, Navalny described Mochalov and his assistant as “real heroes,” and wondered how he has “managed not to get whacked yet.”
Mochalov says he is undeterred by any possible reprisal, legal or otherwise, and shrugs off the threat of violence. Russia is the ninth most dangerous country to be a journalist, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based watchdog. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, 53 journalists have been murdered.
More important for Mochalov, however, is the newspaper’s continued popularity. Demand has been so great that he is considering selling copies to help cover its increasing costs. When he set up a makeshift stall at a market on a recent afternoon, he was quickly surrounded by people who made off with several copies at a time. After 15 minutes he had given away several hundred.
“The people have had it with all these corrupt people in power,” Mochalov said, grinning. “They want to know the truth.”



TITLE: Egyptians Rally Against Leader 
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: CAIRO — Thousands flocked to Cairo’s central Tahrir Square on Tuesday for a protest against Egypt’s president in a significant test of whether the opposition can rally the street behind it in a confrontation aimed at forcing the Islamist leader to rescind decrees that granted him near absolute powers.
Waving Egypt’s red, white and black flags and chanting slogans against President Mohammed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood, the protesters joined several hundreds who have been camping out at the square since Friday demanding the decrees be revoked.
Even as the crowds swelled, clashes erupted nearby between several hundred young protesters throwing stones and police firing tear gas on a street off Tahrir leading to the U.S. Embassy. Clashes have been taking place at the site for several days fueled by anger over police abuses, separately from the crisis over Morsi.
The president’s declaration last week of new powers for himself has energized and — to a degree unified — the mostly liberal and secular opposition after months of divisions and uncertainty while Islamists from the Muslim Brotherhood and other groups rose to dominate the political landscape.
The turnout for Tuesday’s protest call is key to whether the opposition can keep a movement going against Morsi. While the edicts last week sparked the protests, they have also been fueled by anger over what critics see as the Brotherhood’s monopolizing of power after its election victories the past year for parliament and the presidency.
“We want to change this whole setting. The Brotherhood hijacked the revolution,” said Rafat Magdi, an engineer who was among a crowd of around 2,000 marching from the Cairo district of Shubra to Tahrir to join the rally. “People woke up by his mistakes, and any new elections they will get no votes.”
Morsi’s decrees, issued Thursday, placed him above any kind of oversight, including that of the courts, until a new constitution is adopted and parliamentary elections are held — a timeline that stretches to mid-2013.
The opposition says the decrees give Morsi near dictatorial powers by neutralizing the judiciary at a time when he already holds executive and legislative powers. Leading judges have also denounced the measures.
Morsi says the decrees are necessary to protect the “revolution” and the nation’s transition to democratic rule. His declaration made all his decisions immune to judicial review and banned the courts from dissolving the upper house of parliament and an assembly writing the new constitution, both of which are dominated by Islamists. The decree also gave Morsi sweeping authority to stop any “threats” to the revolution.

TITLE: Bangladesh Blaze Elicits Protests, Calls for Reform 
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: DHAKA, Bangladesh — Bangladesh held a day of mourning Tuesday for the 112 people killed in a weekend fire at a garment factory, and labor groups planned more protests to demand better worker safety in an industry notorious for operating in firetraps.
The national flag flew at half-staff in government buildings. The country’s factories were closed as a mark of respect, and prayers for the dead were held in places of worship across the Muslim-majority South Asian nation.
Relatives and colleagues gathered near the site of Saturday’s blaze, many wearing black badges as a sign of mourning.
“I’ve lost my son and the only member to earn for the family,” said Nilufar Khatoon, the mother of a worker who died. “What shall I do now?”
Some labor organizations planned rallies later Tuesday. About 15,000 workers protested Monday blocks away from the gutted factory, blocking traffic on a major highway in a suburb of Dhaka, the capital.
In a statement issued Tuesday the European Union deplored the loss of lives in the fire and urged the Bangladesh government to improve working conditions in garment factories.
“The European Union has always been very clear about the need to improve working standards and safety in this sector,” said the statement. The European market is a major export destination of Bangladesh textiles.
The fire was the deadliest of many to hit garment factories in Bangladesh in recent years. The industry has grown from nothing to become the country’s dominant exporter in little more than three decades, but factories often ignore safety in the rush to supply major retailers in the U.S. and Europe. More than 300 people have died during the past six years in Bangladesh garment-factory fires.
Wal-Mart said Monday that the factory, owned by Tazreen Fashions Ltd., had been making clothes for the U.S. retail giant without its knowledge. Tazreen was given a “high risk” safety rating after a May 2011 audit conducted by an “ethical sourcing” assessor for Wal-Mart, according to a document posted on the website of Tazreen’s parent company, the Tuba Group.
Wal-Mart said the factory was no longer authorized to produce merchandise for Wal-Mart but that a supplier subcontracted work to it “in direct violation of our policies.” The retailer said it stopped doing business with the supplier Monday.
“The fact that this occurred is extremely troubling to us, and we will continue to work across the apparel industry to improve fire safety education and training in Bangladesh,” Wal-Mart said in a statement.
Survivors of the weekend fire said an exit door was locked, fire extinguishers didn’t work and apparently were there just to impress inspectors, and that when the fire alarm went off, bosses told workers to return to their sewing machines. Victims were trapped or jumped to their deaths from the eight-story building, which had no emergency exits.
Major Mohammad Mahbub, fire department operations director, said investigators suspect a short circuit caused the fire. But he added that if the building had had even one emergency exit, “the casualties would have been much lower.”
The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, which has offered $1,250 to each of the families of the dead, urged investigators not to rule out sabotage.
Investigator Mainuddin Sarkar said the government is “looking into all possibilities, including sabotage.”
Bangladesh has some 4,000 garment factories. The country earns about $20 billion a year from exports of garments, mainly to the U.S. and Europe.


TITLE: Experts to Examine Arafat’s Remains  
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: RAMALLAH, West Bank — Yasser Arafat’s political heirs on Tuesday opened his grave and foreign experts took samples of the iconic Palestinian leader’s remains as part of a long-shot attempt — eight years after his mysterious death — to determine whether he was poisoned.
Arafat died in November 2004 at a French military hospital, a month after suddenly falling ill at his West Bank compound, at the time besieged by Israeli troops.
The immediate cause of death was a stroke, but the underlying reasons were unclear, leading to widespread belief in the Arab world that Israel poisoned the 75-year-old symbol of Palestinian nationalism.
Israel has denied involvement in Arafat’s death.
The exhumation began before dawn Tuesday, under the cover of huge sheets of blue tarpaulin draped over Arafat’s mausoleum in his former government compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah. By mid-morning, the grave was reclosed, and officials from Arafat’s Fatah movement and the Palestine Liberation Organization laid wreaths at the mausoleum.
Palestinians had launched an investigation after Arafat’s death, but made no progress. The probe was revived this summer when a Swiss lab detected elevated traces of a lethal radioactive substance, polonium-210, in biological stains on his clothing.
The lab said the tests were inconclusive and that it needed to examine the remains for a clearer picture.
Arafat’s successor, Mahmoud Abbas, authorized the exhumation despite strong cultural and religious taboos against disturbing a gravesite, apparently to avoid any suggestion that he was standing in the way of a thorough investigation.
Abbas was absent during Tuesday’s proceedings, instead heading to the United Nations to seek a General Assembly acceptance of Palestine as a non-member observer state. Abbas has said the request, strongly opposed by the U.S. and Israel, is meant to strengthen his leverage with Israel.
The exhumation was attended by experts from Switzerland, France and Russia who will examine the samples in their home countries, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the exhumation. Earlier, samples were also taken from Arafat’s bedroom, office and personal belongings, he said.
Dr. Abdullah Bashir, a member of the Palestinian investigative team, said it would take at least three months for results to come back.
Public reaction in the West Bank was mixed.
Nidaa Younes, a Palestinian government employee, said it was unnecessary to dig up the remains. “Our religion forbids exhuming graves. It is not nice at all to do this, even if religion permits it in some cases,” she said, adding that she believes Israel was responsible for Arafat’s death.
Ramallah resident Tony Abdo said he supports the exhumation, expecting it to prove that Arafat did not die a natural death.
For decades, Arafat was the symbol of the Palestinians’ struggle for an independent state. After returning from exile to the Palestinian territories in the early 1990s, as part of interim peace deals with Israel, he zigzagged between leading negotiations with Israel and condoning violence as a means of obtaining political goals.
Arafat, along with two Israeli leaders, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 for his commitment to work toward peace with Israel. He later presided over the Palestinians as they waged a violent uprising against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, the territories they seek for an independent state.


TITLE: U.S. Scientists Strive to Learn From Japan’s Nuclear Disaster 
AUTHOR: By Mari Yamaguchi
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TOKYO — A group of American scientists met in Tokyo on Tuesday to study last year’s Fukushima nuclear accident in hopes of finding lessons to improve the safety of U.S. atomic power reactors.
Norman Neureiter, head of the 22-member committee of the National Academy of Sciences, said the tsunami-spawned disaster at Fukushima nuclear power plant and its continuing impact have caused widespread concerns about the safety of nuclear energy.
“We are trying to look at the whole experience and to take from that lessons which can be applied to increasing safety of nuclear power,” he told The Associated Press during a coffee break between technical sessions.
Neureiter said the committee is hearing from Japanese officials and will conduct its own investigation. He said the findings would be valuable to the nuclear industry throughout the world.
A tsunami generated by a powerful earthquake hit the Fukushima nuclear plant in March 2011, knocking out power and cooling systems and causing partial meltdowns in three reactors. More than 100,000 people evacuated from the area are still unable to return to their homes in Fukushima due to radiation concerns. The magnitude-9.0 earthquake and ensuing tsunami also left more than 19,000 people dead or missing on Japan’s northeastern coast, but no death linked to radiation has been reported.
“Because after a thing like this in Japan and a damage and human losses and continuing radiation and all of these things, people will have more and more questions about nuclear energy. So, to draw the conclusion from this investigation hopefully useful lessons which can be applied to elsewhere to make sure nothing like this happens again.”
During the three-day meeting that began Monday, the group conducted hearings from experts who led Japanese investigations, as well as regulators and officials from the Tokyo Electric Power Co., which runs the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, to gather information independently and discuss technical details. The group was also to visit Fukushima for a plant visit after wrapping up a Tokyo leg Wednesday.