SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1738 (49), Wednesday, December 5, 2012
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TITLE: Hermitage Art Show Faces Barrage of 'Religious Hatred' Complaints
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg prosecutors are checking whether an exhibit by British artists incited religious hatred by displaying Ronald McDonald and a teddy bear nailed to a crucifix.
Prosecutors have received 117 complaints about the "The End of Fun" exhibit by brothers Jake and Dinos Chapman at the State Hermitage Museum, Interfax reported Friday, citing local prosecutors.
The complainants say the exhibit "offends" their faith and is "aimed at inciting ethnic hatred and enmity," a representative of the prosecutors told Interfax.
The museum's director, Mikhail Piotrovsky, said the complainants believed that the crucifix had been desecrated because it had a McDonald's clown and a teddy bear nailed to it.
Piotrovsky asked Prosecutor General Yury Chaika to take action "so that both we and prosecutors are not distracted from our work."
"Our society is being used for smear campaigns," Piotrovsky said. "There is nothing blasphemous [in the exhibit], but there is a clear intention to spoil the mood in the city."
In a statement on his museum's website, Piotrovsky noted that the complaints were "almost identical in wording."
Inciting religious hatred is a criminal charge in Russia punishable by up to two years in prison for an individual and up to five years for a member of an "organized group."
The exhibit, depicting a day of reckoning for fascists, opened on Oct. 20 and runs through Jan. 13.
On Oct. 20, an obscure group of Cossacks e-mailed local television network Piter.tv, calling on Piotrovsky "to come to his senses." They said they would complain to prosecutors if he didn't heed their suggestion to close the exhibit because it depicted swastikas.
Last month, the same Cossack group made another local museum cancel a staging of "Lolita," a play based on the Vladimir Nabokov novel, saying it violated a local law enacted in March against promoting pedophilia.
TITLE: 'Red-Haired Tarzan' Sentenced to 5 Years for Robbery and Arson
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A St. Petersburg court Friday sentenced former mixed-martial-arts fighter Vyacheslav Datsik to five years in prison for robbery and arson.
Datsik, who fought under the nickname "Red-Haired Tarzan," has denied his guilt and intends to appeal the Nevsky District Court's verdict, RIA-Novosti reported, citing Datsik's lawyer.
State prosecutors had sought nine years' imprisonment for Datsik, who was first detained in 2007 on suspicion of robbing cell-phone stores and burning down a church. He was later sent to a psychiatric hospital, from where he escaped and evaded law enforcement officials.
In a bizarre twist, Datsik turned up at Norwegian immigration control in September 2010, seeking asylum and carrying a pistol. He was denied asylum and deported to Russia in March 2011, when he was arrested by Russian law enforcement officials.
In closing statements, the judge said Friday that he had no doubts about Datsik's guilt, pointing to eyewitness accounts that said Datsik had taunted police by asking employees at the cell-phone stores he robbed to pass on "best wishes from the Red-Haired Tarzan," RIA-Novosti said.
Doctors have conducted psychiatric tests on Datsik and declared him criminally sane.
TITLE: Clinton and Lavrov Bicker Over OSCE
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Open disagreement between Moscow and Washington over human rights and democracy as well as intra-organization infighting overshadowed high-level talks of Europe's top security watchdog Thursday.
During a foreign ministers meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, or OSCE, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accused each other's governments of not complying with the organization's principles.
In his address to the meeting's plenary session in Dublin, Lavrov complained that plans to turn the organization into a security guarantor for much of the northern hemisphere were foiled by "unilateral approaches."
As a result, the OSCE is sidelined from key events, and demands for its unity "are countered with unfriendly acts," he said, according to a transcript on his ministry's website.
The minister added that conventional arms control had been "degraded" because of longstanding attempts to use arms control for political aims. Lavrov did not name any country, but NATO members, led by the United States, have staunchly resisted Moscow's wishes to increase the OSCE's regional security role, arguing that it would reduce the Western alliance's position.
Lavrov echoed comments by President Vladimir Putin, who said Wednesday that the OSCE must stop serving the interests of individual members. The 57-member group includes all European and former Soviet states, Mongolia, the U.S. and Canada.
Meanwhile, Clinton criticized Moscow and its key allies on human rights and called for strengthening OSCE institutions by ensuring their functioning without outside interference.
In her address, she mentioned the recent law that forces foreign-funded political NGOs to register as "foreign agents" as an example of "restrictions on civil society" in Russia, according to an official transcript.
During an earlier meeting with rights activists, Clinton criticized a general trend to roll back civil freedoms in Russia and other former Soviet countries.
"There is a move to re-Sovietize the region," she was quoted as saying by The Associated Press.
Lavrov, on the other hand, said Moscow was fulfilling its human rights obligations while other OSCE members were not. As an example, he pointed to police crackdowns on protests against social inequality in EU countries.
He also complained that the OSCE's election observer missions display "double standards" by sending "hundreds of observers" to some countries but only a few to others. He announced an initiative by Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan to introduce new rules for election observers.
In a rare instance of institutional infighting, the OSCE's Parliamentary Assembly on Thursday criticized the organization's elections and human rights watchdog.
Assembly leader Riccardo Migliori complained in a speech to the OSCE ministers that the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights had not adhered to the organization's principles by failing to cooperate with the assembly.
As a consequence, he said, the parliamentary assembly, which consists of lawmakers from all member countries, considered a 1997 cooperation agreement with the Warsaw-based office invalid.
TITLE: Investigators Raid Home of Director Shooting Opposition Documentary
AUTHOR: By Alexander Winning
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Law enforcement officials Friday morning raided the flat of a director filming an ongoing documentary series about the lives of opposition leaders.
The news first broke on social networks, where Pavel Kostomarov's colleagues drew attention to the search of his apartment.
"There is a search going on in Pavel Kostomarov's flat. The originals for the 'Srok' project are kept in his flat," Vitaly Mansky, a fellow director, wrote on Facebook.
Kostomarov, 37, is currently shooting a political documentary series called "Srok" (The Term) with fellow director Alexander Rastorguyev and NTV journalist Alexei Pivovarov that features dozens of interviews with opposition leaders.
There are more than 1,100 episodes in the series so far, many of which are no more than a few minutes long, and the directors have said that they ultimately aim to make a full-length film with the material they have gathered.
Friday's raid comes on the same day that NTV's Pivovarov interviewed Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev during a live TV question-and-answer session with other journalists broadcast on five state-run channels at noon.
Pivovarov told RIA-Novosti that investigators' actions would likely delay the release of the documentary.
Explaining the early-morning raid, investigators linked the searches to the ongoing criminal case against protesters charged over clashes with police at a May 6 protest on Bolotnaya Ploshchad and said Kostomarov was being treated as a witness.
Kostomarov later confirmed to Kommersant-FM radio that he had been summoned to the Investigative Committee's headquarters for questioning Monday and that he had been forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
The first episode of "Srok," which was posted on YouTube on May 21, was dedicated to the life of anti-corruption lawyer Alexei Navalny and featured scenes in which the opposition figurehead was detained during the May 6 rally.
In the wake of the protest, at which more than 400 people were detained, authorities have implicated at least 17 demonstrators — most of whom are still awaiting trial — in what Kremlin critics have painted as a crackdown on dissent.
Speaking hours after Friday's raid, fellow director Mansky criticized authorities for "showing not the slightest respect for property rights, for an artist or for material filmed without government money."
"We know what usually happens next — arrest, torture and what 1937 already taught us," Mansky told Interfax, referring to the Great Terror under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.
Left Front leader Sergei Udaltsov, whom Kostomarov interviewed for the "Srok" project, described the raids as an attempt to apply pressure on the opposition on the eve of an anti-Kremlin rally planned for Dec. 15.
"When searches start at journalists' homes, the authorities cross a sort of border. This is an element of pressure, intimidation," Udaltsov told Interfax.
"We can expect other such surprises in the buildup to Dec. 15," he said.
TITLE: TV News Anchor Shot Dead in Nalchik
AUTHOR: By Natalya Krainova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A popular local TV anchor was shot dead in the North Caucasus republic of Kabardino-Balkaria late Wednesday in what investigators and observers interpreted as a warning to the journalist's bosses not to give news coverage to authorities' fight against local rebels.
In a separate attack, a deputy transportation minister for the republic was hospitalized in Nalchik on Thursday morning after his car exploded as he was leaving his home. The official, Vladislav Dyadchenko, was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries.
Investigators said they suspect the killing of Kazbek Gekkiyev, 28, an anchor for the evening news show Vesti KBR, was linked to his job.
Vesti KBR is the local edition of a national news show of the same name, aired on Rossia 1 television, which is broadcast by the state-run VGTRK media holding.
Gekkiyev is the first journalist to have been killed in Russia this year because of his job or while on assignment, according to data compiled by the International Press Institute, maintaining a streak of more than 15 years in which at least one journalist was killed in the country each year.
He is also the latest journalist to have been killed in the turbulent North Caucasus, where a number of high-profile killings of journalists have occurred in recent years.
The anchor was shot in the head by an unidentified gunman outside the TV office in Nalchik at around 9 p.m. on Wednesday, the Investigative Committee said in a statement Thursday.
Gekkiyev was talking with a female friend near his office when two unidentified men came out of a nearby car and approached him, Vesti television reported, citing unidentified relatives of the victim. The woman thought the men were Gekkiyev's friends and walked a few meters away to let them talk.
The men asked the journalist whether he was the television anchor Kazbek Gekkiyev, and when Gekkiyev replied that he was, they fired at him, according to the Vesti report.
He died at the scene, investigators said.
The Investigative Committee said it views the crime as "a threat to other journalists who tell about the results of the fight [of authorities] with the bandit underground functioning in the republic."
Before shooting Gekkiyev, his attackers made sure he was an anchor of a news program, which "confirms the priority lead" in the probe, the committee said.
Violence is endemic in the republics of the North Caucasus, and there have been several killings of journalists in the region in recent years.
Last December, a masked attacker shot dead Khadzhimurad Kamalov, founder of the opposition-leaning Dagestan newspaper Chernovik.
In July 2009, the body of journalist and human rights activist Natalya Estemirova was discovered in Ingushetia with gunshot wounds after she was abducted earlier in Chechnya. In 2008, there were at least three beatings and two murders of journalists in Dagestan alone.
According to data compiled by the International Press Institute, the number of journalists killed because of their work or while on assignment in Russia has fluctuated over the last 15 years, with the worst year being 1999, when 12 journalists were killed. IPI has information on journalist killings dating back to 1997.
In rankings for 2012, Russia was not ranked among the most dangerous countries for journalists, with Gekkiyev being the only one killed this year. In 2011, Russia was ranked the sixth-most dangerous out of 40 nations, with 3 journalists killed.
Other anchors of the Kabardino-Balkaria VGTRK channel received threats from local rebels in February because of a report about the "successful destruction" of a rebel group last year, said Lyudmila Kazancheva, head of the local VGTRK office.
In a video address posted on YouTube, the rebels threatened several anchors of the channel, Kazancheva said, declining to provide the anchors' names out of fear for their safety.
Kazancheva said she and her subordinates presumed that previous threats to their other anchors were linked to Gekkiyev's slaying because he "had no enemies."
Vesti television said Thursday that the rebels in the YouTube video demanded that the anchors they named be taken off the air, and Gekkiyev was one of their replacements.
Zhanna Gulyayeva, head of the news desk at the local VGTRK office, said Gekkiyev "hadn't covered any sensitive issues or crime" in almost three years of working for the local channel.
Gekkiyev reported about low-profile social issues like "the inconvenience of speed bumps" on local roads, or unusual news like a report about a man who built a bus, Gulyayeva said.
Kazancheva said that Gekkiyev was popular with viewers as a "maestro of beautiful stand-ups," a term for on-scene reports.
Rebels are blamed by authorities for much of the almost daily violence in the North Caucasus, where a separatist movement is seeking to carve out an Islamic state.
The gun battles with law enforcement and attacks on state officials are most common in the republics of Dagestan and Ingushetia. But there are also attacks in Chechnya, where two wars were fought in the early 1990s and 2000s, and in other republics including in Kabardino-Balkaria, which is tucked between Karachaeyeva-Cherkessia to the west and North Ossetia to the east.
Authorities say the movement is fed by poverty and low employment rates, while activists say rebels are also motivated by ill treatment of the population by local law enforcement.
Alexei Malashenko, an Islam expert with the Carnegie Moscow Center, said the standoff between rebels and authorities in Kabardino-Balkaria has grown worse in the past 10 years.
"It is symbolic that a blow was dealt to a public person and it is meant to say that if you talk about us, Islamic radicals, you will be punished," Malashenko said.
"It is a defiant act that says 'We fear nothing,'" he said.
The republic's president, Arsen Kanokov, expressed condolences to Gekkiyev's family on his official website. "The criminals deserve the gravest punishment," he said. "To solve this crime is a matter of honor for law enforcement structures."
Locals suspect that Wahhabis ordered the murder of Gekkiyev to "warn someone from VGTRK," said Mukhamed Khafitse, head of Adyghe Khase, a Nalchik-based non-governmental organization and member of the International Circassian Association.
Khafitse knew Gekkiyev personally and attended his funeral at a local village Thursday. About 500 people came to the funeral, including national VGTRK head Oleg Dobrodeyev, RIA-Novosti reported.
"I can only guess that they [the masterminds of the attack] wanted publicity and they got it," said Gulyayeva, the head of the news desk at the local VGTRK channel.
Asked whether she would change the coverage at her channel because of Gekkiyev's murder, Kazancheva said her reporters would "keep fulfilling their professional duties" but that she would not allow them to "look for trouble."
"No report is worth a human life," Kazancheva said.
TITLE: Magnitsky Act Sparks Russian Fury
AUTHOR: By Roland Oliphant
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia will impose a visa ban on U.S. citizens accused of human rights abuses in response to the "absurd" trade and human rights bill passed by the U.S. Senate on Thursday, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
"We will also close entry to Americans who are guilty of human rights violations," Lavrov told reporters after a meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Dublin late Thursday.
The Magnitsky Act, which lifts Cold War-era trade restrictions but also imposes sanctions on suspected human rights offenders, cleared the Senate by 92 to 4 votes on Thursday.
U.S. President Barack Obama welcomed the move and is expected to sign the bill into law before the end of the year.
The law repeals the Cold War-era Jackson-Vanik amendment, which barred the United States from establishing normal trade relations with Russia because of restrictions the Soviet Union imposed on the emigration of Jews and other minorities.
The United States was obliged to lift Jackson-Vanik after Russia joined the World Trade Organization earlier this year.
But another section of the bill bans Russian citizens believed to have been involved in the arrest, prosecution and death in custody of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky and other human rights violations from entering the United States.
The Foreign Ministry has called the human rights component of the bill "an exercise in the theater of the absurd" and warned immediately that the bill would have a "negative impact on bilateral relations," the responsibility for which "lies entirely with the United States."
No names have yet been mentioned as candidates for Russia's retaliatory list of U.S. human rights offenders, but Alexei Pushkov, the chairman of the State Duma International Affairs Committee, has suggested that it could blacklist U.S. officials accused of human rights violations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Earlier it had been suggested that the Russian list would target U.S. officials involved in the arrest and prosecution of arms dealer Viktor Bout, who was extradited from Thailand to the United States over Russian objections in 2010.
An anonymous government source told Kommersant that the response would be "entirely symmetrical." "We will have as many people on our list as they have on theirs. If they add some people later — so will we," the source said.
President Obama immediately welcomed the normalization of trade relations, but made no direct reference to the human rights component of the bill.
"I commend the House and Senate for working on a bipartisan basis to pass legislation to end the application of the Jackson-Vanik amendment to Russia and Moldova, allowing me to extend Permanent Normal Trade Relations to both countries. I look forward to receiving and signing this legislation," he said in a statement posted on the White House website late Thursday.
"My administration will continue to work with Congress and our partners to support those seeking a free and democratic future for Russia and promote the rule of law and respect for human rights around the world."
TITLE: After Year of Protests, Activists Founding Political Parties
AUTHOR: By Alexander Bratersky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Activists who took part in large-scale protests against the Kremlin over the last year are putting their hopes in new political parties that could be used as a platform for opposition leaders like Alexei Navalny.
With public enthusiasm for protests seeming to have waned after a year of mass demonstrations, members of the opposition are building political parties to give people a new vehicle to put forth their demands.
"When you realize that you can't count on fast solutions and as protest activity is declining, you have to act more constructively," said Natalya Pelevina, a civil activist and one of the leaders of the December 5th Party, set to hold its founding congress Saturday.
The party takes its name from the date of the first mass anti-Kremlin demonstration last year, when thousands of people filled Chistoprudny Bulvar to protest alleged vote rigging in State Duma elections held the day before.
More than 100 people gathered Wednesday evening to remember that day's events at a small unsanctioned demonstration on the tree-lined boulevard. Andrei Semyonov, a 33-year-old lawyer, held up the only poster in the crowd, which said that Vladimir Churov, the Central Elections Commission chief — a reviled figure among protesters — made up the Duma vote results.
Veteran opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was also in attendance and said that his state of mind had changed since last year's protest.
"A year ago I was angry. Now I'm in a working mood," he said.
The December 5th Party will include several members of the Solidarity movement, which played an active role in protests held over the last year and whose leaders include Nemtsov and opposition politicians Ilya Yashin and Garry Kasparov.
Nemtsov is also a co-leader of the Republican Party — People's Freedom Party, along with Mikhail Kasyanov and Vladimir Ryzhkov.
Ryzhkov, a former State Duma deputy who in October led efforts to get his party elected to the city legislature of Barnaul in the Altai region, has been a vocal proponent of working for change through elections, with less emphasis on protests.
The new December 5th Party has ties to another emerging political force called the People's Alliance, created by close associates of Navalny, the anti-corruption blogger and opposition leader, Pelevina said.
Among those behind the People's Alliance, which also plans to hold its founding congress later this month, is Vladimir Ashurkov, a former top manager at Alfa Bank and current director of Navalny's Foundation for Fighting Corruption.
"We are almost like family friends, who are united by a common view on events," Pelevina said about the People's Alliance.
Pelevina, who also helps Navalny in his anti-corruption efforts, is best known for her campaign against First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, who made millions of dollars in 2004 through investments in companies controlled by powerful tycoons Alisher Usmanov and Suleiman Kerimov.
Pelevina tried to get a criminal case opened against Shuvalov, but prosecutors have refused. Shuvalov has repeatedly denied that he did anything improper or illegal.
Navalny has not expressed a desire to join either party, as he is apparently trying to appeal to a broader electorate, particularly to moderate nationalists.
"He wants to be an icon of a different scale," said Alexei Makarkin, deputy head of the Center for Political Technologies think tank.
Asked to judge the chances of new opposition parties to achieve their goals — which include more liberal political reforms and a crackdown on endemic government corruption — analysts said a rift within the Kremlin system is likely their only hope for change.
Makarkin also expressed doubts that the December 5th Party or the People's Alliance will be able to attract many rank-and-file participants in the opposition protests, saying the movement encompasses a highly diverse range of people, from social democrats to far-leftists to nationalists.
"It is very difficult to consolidate them," Makarkin said.
Pelevina said the December 5th Party will stand for liberal-democratic values, while Ashurkov of the People's Alliance told Vedomosti last week that the party will be centrist and oriented toward the middle class.
Political analyst Yevgeny Minchenko, head of the influential Minchenko Consulting Group, said the protest leaders have lost support because they largely skipped out on regional elections in October, when United Russia swept the five gubernatorial races.
He said that with authorities tightening the screws on protesters — such as with a law passed earlier this year toughening rules on public rallies — and amid calls for political liberalization, the only hope for the protest movement will be a "rift within the elites."
Minchenko, who recently co-authored a report on power struggles within Putin's inner circle, estimated that around 60 percent of protest leaders are "fueled by Kremlin clans." He declined to name any of the leaders he suspected of having ties to the authorities, citing fear of a potential libel suit.
There have not been visible contacts between Navalny and members of the ruling elite. Navalny declined a proposal to work in the so-called Open Government task force started by Medvedev during his term as president.
Pelevina said she is against meeting with members of the Kremlin elite. "I know how much you can trust people in power. Some of them might look nice, unlike the political line they are pursuing," she said.
Yekaterina Kravtsova and staff writer Jonathan Earle contributed to this report.
TITLE: Small-Business Association Defends Foreign Cooperation
AUTHOR: By Rachel Nielsen
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The head of Opora vowed Wednesday to continue the small-business association's cooperation with a U.S.-Russian business group that he said was maligned by "yellow" press in the wake of the new law on nongovernmental groups.
Opora president Sergei Borisov, who is also a vice president at state-lender Sberbank responsible for small business development, passionately defended the U.S.-Russia Foundation against allegations that it is a covert political organization. The foundation advises entrepreneurs in Russia.
Calling the reports about the group outright lies, he said Opora "won't break off" its cooperation with the foundation regardless of the new legislation on nongovernmental organizations, which brands those with non-Russian funding as "foreign agents."
"USRF brings a huge amount of American business experience," Borisov said.
He also said the recent expansion of the treason law shouldn't be used to stop exchanges of business experience.
"If the transfer of knowledge is treason, then I don't know what treason is," he said.
But most of the news conference convened by Opora to discuss its survey results for 2012 was devoted to financial and administrative barriers facing entrepreneurs.
Describing the frustrations of the country's small- and medium-size-business owners, executives at the round table lamented what they called a shortage of qualified employees and access to credit, as well as burdensome taxes.
Alexei Prazdnichnykh, who heads the public sector practice at Sberbank consulting business Strategy Partners, said Russian businesspeople have much less access to financial resources than their peers in other countries.
A similar sentiment appeared in the survey of 6,000 entrepreneurs in 40 regions that Opora conducted this year. One of the biggest problems they cited was limited access to funding.
"As in the previous [survey] year, the longer the desired period of the loan, the lower the chance they will get it," Opora said in a Wednesday press release following the conference. Nearly half the respondents said the main obstacle to getting financing is prohibitively high rates.
The No. 1 problem cited by survey participants was a lack of qualified employees. That is tied to the education and training of future workers, Borisov said.
In the report, the percentage of small- and medium-size-business owners giving a negative rating to their job candidate pool rose 12 percentage points this year, to 68 percent. About 20 percent of respondents, however, said they can easily find qualified workers.
Another major hang-up for businesspeople is the taxes that must be paid on employee salaries as contributions to the government's pension fund and other social guarantees.
The country has a "a not totally well-thought-out system" in this regard, Borisov said. Instead of assessing high taxes, the government should increase its tax revenues by lowering the rates, stimulating the development of small business and thereby widening its tax base.
He named the three areas panned in the survey as the parts of federal policy with the biggest inadequacies.
TITLE: Napoleon's Secret Coded Kremlin Letter Sold
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: FONTAINEBLEAU, France — The single line of Napoleon's secret code told Paris of his desperate last order against the Russians: "At three o'clock in the morning, on the 22nd I am going to blow up the Kremlin."
By the time Paris received the letter three days later, the Russian tsar's seat of power was in flames and the diminished French army was in retreat. Its elegantly calligraphic ciphers show history's famed general at one of his weakest moments.
"My cavalry is in tatters, many horses are dying," dictated Napoleon, the once-feared leader showing the strain of his calamitous Russian invasion, which halved his army.
The rare document, dated Oct. 20, 1812, signed "Nap" in the emperor's hand and written in numeric code, was sold Sunday at France's Fontainebleau Auction House for 10 times its estimated presale price.
A Paris museum, the Museum of Letters and Manuscripts, was finalizing its purchase of the document for 187,500 euros ($243,500), including fees. That's far above the presale estimate of 15,000 euros ($19,500).
The Napoleon code, used only for top-secret letters when the French emperor was far from home, aimed to stop enemies from intercepting French army orders. The code was regularly changed to prevent it from being cracked.
Napoleon must have dispatched his strongest horses and riders to carry the news. It took only three days to reach France's Interior Ministry — 2,480 kilometers across Europe.
"This letter is unique," Jean-Christophe Chataignier, of the auction house, said before the sale. "Not only is it all in code but it's also the first time we see this different Napoleon. He went into Moscow in 1812 at the height of his power. He returned profoundly weakened. In Moscow, the Russians had fled days before and burned down the city. There was no victory for Napoleon, nor were there any provisions for his starving, dying army."
The only thing left for the weakened leader was to give the order to burn Russia's government buildings, coded in the letter as "449, 514, 451, 1365 …"
It is evidence of what historians call the beginning of the end of Napoleon's glorious empire. His downfall started in Russia and ended at Waterloo three years later.
In June 1812, Napoleon's Grand Army — at 600,000 men one of the largest in human history -— confidently entered Russia.
But they were woefully unprepared for the harsh weather, the strong Russian defense and the Russian scorched-earth tactics, which left nothing behind to sustain the hungry and freezing French troops.
"This letter is an incredible insight. We never see Napoleon emotively speaking in this way before," Chataignier said. "Only in letters to [his wife], Josephine, did he ever express anything near to emotion. Moscow knocked him."
In the text, which announces that his commanders are evacuating Moscow, Napoleon laments his army's plight, asking for assistance to replenish his forces and the ravaged cavalry, which saw thousands of horses die.
In September, 200 years after Russia's victory over Napoleon, the Kremlin held huge celebrations aimed at rousing patriotism among modern Russians. The highlight was a re-enactment of the battle of Borodino, one of the most damaging clashes for Napoleon's troops, which saw thousands in Russian and French military uniforms perform before several hundred thousand spectators.
The 1812 victory played an important role in Russia's emergence as a major world power. Until World War I, Napoleon's Russian campaign and the ensuing wars were the largest European military face-off in history.
The letter was accompanied by a second decoded sheet in the auction.
TITLE: Corruption Index Keeps Russia in 'Zone of Shame'
AUTHOR: By Alec Luhn
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Even as the government wages a high-profile anti-corruption campaign, Russia remains in the bottom third of Transparency International’s corruption index, released Wednesday. The nation ranked on par with Kazakhstan, Iran and Honduras.
This is “the zone of national shame,” said Yelena Panfilova, director of Transparency International Russia. It indicates an “incorrect attitude on the part of the authorities toward fighting corruption and a lack of participation on the part of society in fighting corruption.”
On a 100-point scale inversely proportionate to the level of corruption, Russia scored a meager 28 this year, tying it for 133rd-most corrupt of 174 nations. Last year, it came in 143rd of 182.
But the study’s authors said the ostensible improvement in rank was misleading, as changes in data sources and methodology made this year’s ranking virtually incomparable with the previous one. However, new rankings will be commensurate.
The government is very keen to improve Russia’s international rankings in many fields as it tries to showcase the country as a good investment opportunity. Russia has consistently placed low in many rankings, such as the World Bank’s Doing Business report, prompting complaints from government officials about unfair treatment.
This year’s release of the annual Corruption Perception’s Index follows a slew of high-profile anti-corruption cases, the most prominent of which was the Nov. 6 dismissal of Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov amid a scandal involving the sale of ministry assets at prices below market value.
The ranking does not reflect the recent anti-corruption campaign, Panfilova said. However, she added, it will serve as a benchmark for assessing the progress of the campaign in years to come.
This year's study marked the introduction of a 100-point rating system and other adaptations that will henceforth allow for comparisons between yearly results, she said.
"The change in methodology and the new 100-point system is very timely for Russia for the simple reason that we are experiencing a relatively new period in the regime's attitude toward fighting corruption," Panfilova said. "The regime has suddenly gotten going."
Russia ranked behind all other G20 countries, as well as such former Soviet republics as Belarus (123), Armenia (105), Georgia (51) and the Baltic states. As with last year's results, Russia remains in the bottom third of the list, which Panfilova hopes it will change in the future.
Denmark, Finland and New Zealand tied for first place with a score of 90, while Afghanistan, North Korea and Somalia came in last.
The ostensible war on corruption campaign has drawn mixed interpretations, with many castigating it as the manifestation of a clan war within the Kremlin rather than the start of a systematic anti-corruption campaign.
According to Panfilova, events such as Serdyukov's ouster and the accusal of a recently retired Cabinet member of corruption are likely the result of both Kremlin power struggles and a wider campaign against corruption. She noted that recent corruption scandals have occurred mostly in spheres related to the regime's two prime concerns: social stability and security.
"It's no longer possible for the authorities to not fight corruption in the country," Panfilova said. "Leaving everything as it is … would be risky for the stability of the regime over the next six years."
Regardless of the reasons behind it, the crackdown on corruption is hitting home, said Kirill Kabanov, head of the National Anti-Corruption Committee think tank.
"Even if it is a clan war … it is having a good effect," Kabanov said. "For us, the main thing is the result."
Both Panfilova and Kabanov pointed out as a positive development the appearance of several anti-corruption legislative measures.
Most recently, Putin signed amendments to a law on public officials that would require Cabinet members to report their expenditures and those of their spouses and underage children if the sum of a financial transaction is greater than their declared income over the past three years.
The two also praised recent grassroots efforts on reporting corruption, such as the iPhone application Bribr, with Kabanov noting that such crowdsourcing efforts can also have a significant effect on the wider problem.
Panfilova said it was her dream that participation in civil society would grow so that "the public will to fight corruption meets the political will."
Irina Yarovaya, head of the State Duma's committee for fighting corruption, refused to comment on the rating specifically but said that "according to international standards, a very modern and progressive system for fighting corruption has been formed in Russia."
"Even those who treat our country with bias are forced to admit it," she said.
Kremlin chief of staff Sergei Ivanov said in March that Western ratings, in particular those by Transparency International, were "arbitrary."
Ivanov called for a Russian rating to be created, saying it should assess every Russian region separately because the situation differed very much from one region to another.
No government official contacted on Wednesday would comment on the rating. A government spokesman asked for a faxed inquiry to be submitted for consideration within a month.
Staff writer Natalya Krainova contributed to this report.
TITLE: Putin Rated 3rd Most Powerful Person by Forbes
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin came third in Forbes magazine's annual list of the world's most powerful people, down one position from last year's ranking.
For the second year in a row, first place went to recently re-elected U.S. President Barack Obama. German Chancellor Angela Merkel came in second, up from fourth in 2011.
Microsoft founder Bill Gates was given fourth place, moving up one position from last year, and was followed by Pope Benedict XVI, who also improved his ranking since 2011.
Forbes' top 10 also included Ben Bernanke, head of the U.S. Federal Reserve, Mario Draghi of the European Central Bank, Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, General Secretary of China's Communist Party Xi Jinping and British Prime Minister David Cameron.
Other powerful Russians included in the top 100 were Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev (61st), business magnate Alisher Usmanov (67th) and Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller (70th).
The Forbes ranking is based on four criteria: the number of people the person controls, the financial resources at his or her disposal, how actively the person uses their power and his or her ability to exert influence on various spheres of life.
Commenting on this year's ranking, Forbes online supplement wrote: "Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin (#3) scored points because he so frequently shows his strength — like when he jails protesters."
TITLE: Forest Workers Getting Pay Raises, but Tasks Remain Daunting
AUTHOR: By Roland Oliphant
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Forestry workers can expect a pay raise next year as the government seeks to get a grip on the endemic wildfire problem and widespread illegal logging.
Federal Forestry Agency chief Victor Maslyakov said Tuesday that both regular forest rangers and airborne fire fighters, the agency's "forest special forces," would be better rewarded to reflect the importance of their work and the dangers they face.
But wages vary wildly from region to region, with rangers across the country making from 70,000 rubles ($2,200) to just 4,000 rubles ($125) a month, Maslyakov said.
"As far as regular forest rangers are concerned … the aim is they should be paid not less than 30,000 rubles a month," he said at a news conference Tuesday. "The absolute minimum we should aim for is not lower than the average wage in a region," he said.
There are about 18,000 employees at the Federal Forestry Agency, meaning that each inspector has responsibility for about 65,000 hectares of land. That falls to 5,000 hectares in parts of European Russia. In parts of the Far East, there is only one ranger for each 200,000 hectares of Forest, RIA-Novosti reported, citing Forest Agency documents.
A chronic shortage of forestry service personnel resulting from reforms in 2006 was widely blamed for the disastrous wildfires that swept European Russia in the summer of 2010.
Airborne firefighters, who are delivered by helicopter to fight fires in remote areas, were thrown into the spotlight this summer when 8 of them died battling blazes in the Tyva republic in June. Maslyakov said 13 airborne firefighters were killed in 2012.
Maslyakov rejected accusations of playing down the extent and seriousness of wild fires, but he acknowledged that local authorities could underreport.
"Every fire has its own passport. It is numbered and measured and watched," he said.
At the height of the fires this summer, Greenpeace said publicly available satellite images showed that millions of hectares were burning, while official figures on the Emergency Ministry's website showed just over 18,000 hectares.
An integrated forestry registry is due to be introduced Jan. 1 to combat illegal logging. The real-time database will record every event relating to forests across the country, from the issuance of logging permits to the felling of tress and forest fires
The registry is an effort by the government to close loopholes that have allowed black-market lumberjacks to "correct" documents to mislead inspectors.
In the Moscow region, the main threat to trees comes not from loggers or fire but from beetles.
Spruce bark beetles have swept through European forests in recent years and do significant damage to spruce trees.
Up to 3 million cubic meters of timber will have to be felled each year for the next five to seven years to bring the epidemic under control, Maslyakov said.
"If you go up in a plane and look down, you can see the infected area, these brown patches among the green," he said.
About 35,000 of the 2.1 million hectares of woodland in the Moscow region is affected by the epidemic, which experts believe began during the dry summer of 2010.
The beetles attack only spruce trees and can destroy a healthy tree within a month. Apart from felling infected trees, the only way to combat the beetles is with pheromone traps.
TITLE: 100s Join Recycling Campaign
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Hundreds of local environmental activists took part in a citywide smart recycling initiative Saturday organized by the St. Petersburg "Waste Separation" environmental group. Local residents joined group's members and Greenpeace activists in a waste collection and separation event that was held in eight districts of the city.
“Our goal was to promote the idea of separating waste for recycling,” said Maria Musatova, spokeswoman for the St. Petersburg branch of Greenpeace. “For a healthy environment it is essential that residents do not perceive used items as “garbage” but rather understand the policy of recycling, and how, for instance, plastic items should be treated and processed differently from waste paper and cardboard.”
Since Greenpeace launched its recycling project in summer 2011, volunteers have collected 35 tons of waste paper and nine tons of glass as well as several tons of plastic, Musatova added. “More than 4,500 people of different age groups and social circles have joined our ‘Waste Separation’ Internet group and participate in our events.”
The process of separating glass, paper, metal and organic waste is common in developed countries. But in St. Petersburg, paper refuse and various other recyclable materials are usually mixed up with non-organic materials, making them impossible to recycle.
Since the collapse of the Soviet system of separating refuse materials such as waste paper or scrap metal at schools and other state organizations for delivery to factories, no other system has been developed to replace it. The industry has seen very little investment and virtually no competition.
Greenpeace provides information on its website about where recyclable materials can be deposited in an attempt to encourage people to recycle and make it easier to do so.
“Garbage dumps continue to pollute the environment for more than 100 years after they are closed. Waste burning plants turn some of the burnt waste into more toxic substances than the garbage that it once was, and release it into the environment,” Greenpeace said.
In an effort to reduce the volume of waste, Greenpeace suggests using reusable bags when shopping, and buying products made of recyclable materials.
As Greenpeace activists point out, St. Petersburg companies have shown no haste in purchasing equipment and introducing technologies that would support the principles of separating waste for recycling. One of the very few positive examples is the St. Petersburg brewery Baltika, which has introduced additional industrial beer filtration systems. Baltika sends spent brewer’s grains to farms in the countryside, as they make a useful nutritional supplement in dairy and animal farming and may also serve as a soil nutrient.
As Musatova stresses, it is crucially important to change the mindsets of companies. Some of the methods do not call for innovative technologies, and require only a rational look at waste-management policies, she said.
According to official statistics, St. Petersburg produces at least 10 million cubic meters of garbage per year.
Independent environmental experts estimate that up to 60 percent of the garbage could be recycled, but the city does not have the resources and equipment to do so.
Even City Hall admits that St. Petersburg lacks the waste-processing facilities needed to treat refuse, and that unless new plants are built, most of the waste will either be sent abroad or piled up and left to decompose at local storage sites.
“Confrontation with City Hall over the waste management issue has been our biggest problem,” said Dmitry Artamonov, head of the St. Petersburg branch of Greenpeace.
Earlier this year, Greenpeace obtained a letter signed by Sergei Kozyrev, deputy governor of St. Petersburg responsible for the city’s housing maintenance and utility policies. In the letter, Kozyrev urged heads of local industrial giants to offer their thoughts and suggestions about the construction of a waste-burning plant.
“Launching a waste-burning facility will be beneficial for the city,” Kozyrev argues in the letter. “Electricity and heat energy will be generated in the process of burning solid household waste.”
What worries environmentalists, however, is that the plant would treat all waste together. The incineration technology that would be used at the facility would severely damage the environment by contributing to air pollution, ecologists say.
“Since 2002, Greenpeace has been campaigning for the introduction of separated waste management in the city, and it is bureaucracy and backward thinking that have been the biggest issue,” Artamonov said. “Officials have been talking about local residents not being ready to embrace the European policies of waste collection and treatment, while in fact, it is their own apathy, hands-off attitude and cowardice that is the real obstacle.
“The enthusiasm of ordinary people that we have seen should really put the authorities to shame,” he added.
TITLE: Opposition Groups Plan Rallies 1 Year After Fraud
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The St. Petersburg opposition has applied to City Hall for approval to hold a rally on Saturday, Dec. 15 to mark the anniversary of the December 2011 protests, when tens of thousands took to the streets to protest fraud and violations recorded during the Dec. 4 State Duma elections.
Called the March of Freedom, the rally is set to coincide with the Moscow march of the same name initiated by the Opposition Coordination Council elected in October.
In the application submitted to City Hall on Nov. 30, the organizers proposed two possible routes for the march: From Oktyabrsky Concert Hall on Ligovsky Prospekt to Arts Square or from Ulitsa Belinskogo to Konyushennaya Ploshchad.
In an attempt to reconcile conflicting political and social groups, the organizers have banned participants from carrying flags of political organizations and civic associations. Only the use of Russian national flags and St. Petersburg flags will be allowed. No stationary rally with speeches at the end of the march is planned, for the same reason.
Earlier last month, a group of activists and concerned citizens urged local political and civic groups to overcome their “eternal squabbles” and “ideological and personal preferences” and hold a unified mass event against the current political situation in Russian.
“We believe that a single protest rally will help to restore citizens’ trust in political and civic activists, and force the authorities to reckon with the opinion of millions,” they said in a statement.
The March of Freedom is expected to draw a broad range of protesters, from liberals to moderate nationalists.
In September, a local rally called March of Millions splintered into four different rallies held by different groups who did not want to protest alongside each other, while the main March of Millions event in Moscow was held on the same day as a single protest, despite differences.
Andrei Pivovarov, a member of the opposition’s Coordination Council and one of the March of Freedom organizers, said Tuesday that, unlike in Moscow, the St. Petersburg opposition remains split.
“In Moscow, they have the Coordination Council operating, and there have been no schismatics for a long time,” Pivovarov said. He referred to former Soviet dissident Valeria Novodvorskaya, who held a separate, “anti-fascist” rally that drew several hundred people on Prospekt Sakharova in Moscow in February, while the main anti-electoral fraud march held on that day drew tens of thousands.
According to Pivovarov, City Hall rejected the March of Freedom application late on Monday. He said that negotiations with the local authorities would be resumed on Friday.
Despite concessions, a recently formed coalition called Democratic St. Petersburg, which features the Yabloko Democratic Party, Russian Republican Party/People’s Freedom Party (RPR-PARNAS), Christian Democrats, Soldiers’ Mothers, Memorial and a number of LGBT rights groups, said it would hold a different march on Sunday, Dec. 9.
Although the rally is called “For Freedom Yours and Ours,” Democratic St. Petersburg said this week that it would be part of the national March of Freedom, despite the fact that it is being held a week ahead of the national protest. Democratic St. Petersburg will march from Gorkovskaya metro station on the Petrograd Side at 4 p.m. Sunday to the Field of Mars to have a brief stationary rally there. City Hall authorized the march Tuesday, changing the suggested route (six different routes were suggested by the organizers) and the time. “Because of the authorities’ unwillingness to compromise, [the stationary rally] will be held in twilight,” Democratic St. Petersburg said in a statement.
Nikolai Rybakov, a member of the Yabloko party and one of the For Freedom Yours and Ours march’s organizers, said that Democratic St. Petersburg had taken a decision to hold a march this week several months ago.
“When Democratic St. Petersburg formed, its main goal was holding events by democratic organizations and non-acceptance of joint rallies with the nationalists,” Rybakov said Tuesday.
“That’s very important, because we are concerned not only with the down-with-Putin issue, but also with the what-will-be-next issue. I think ‘What will be next?’ is the key question. It’s absolutely clear that Putin will stop being the president at some point, and we have different views of what will come after. At our rallies we should stand up for our view of what Russia will be like.”
TITLE: Whistle-Blowing Schoolteacher Wins Case
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg schoolteacher Tatyana Ivanova, who spoke out about falsifications at the State Duma elections last year, has won a court case against her former superiors.
The St. Petersburg city court dismissed the claim of Natalya Nazarova, head of the Vasileostrovsky district education department, who had sought to obtain recognition that what Ivanova had told Novaya Gazeta newspaper had “discredited her reputation.”
Ivanova came to prominence after she refused Nazarova’s instructions to falsify results of elections to the State Duma in favor of the United Russia ruling party at her local polling station in December 2011. Ivanova told Novaya Gazeta that members of local election commissions had been instructed to adjust the results. In the case of Ivanova, the person who issued her — and a number of other teachers on her commission — with instructions was Nazarova.
In response, Nazarova filed a suit against Ivanova. In June 2012, the Vasileostrovsky district court partially satisfied Nazarova’s demands, and three phrases out of the four in question were recognized as “having discredited her reputation.” The defendants, including Ivanova and Novaya Gazeta, were ordered to pay damages of 30,000 rubles ($970). However, the defendants chose to appeal the district court’s decision, and the city court found in favor of the defendants, news site Fontanka.ru reported.
TITLE: Boutiques, Malls to Sleepwalk For White Night Shopping
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Local shopaholics and fashionistas are looking forward to the night of Dec. 7, the city’s biggest pre-Christmas shopping event embracing St. Petersburg’s most prominent luxury boutiques and top-class shopping centers.
Conceived by the ideologists and managers of the Aurora Fashion Week, the event is titled White Night Shopping. The shopping night is held twice a year. This time round, the shopping night will involve more than 60 local boutiques that will offer special deals and discounts for one night only. To facilitate the navigation process and in an effort to manage shoppers’ time more efficiently, seven themed routes have been introduced.
The simplest one is titled DLT TSUM St. Petersburg. After the event kicks off at 7 p.m. at this newly renovated shopping mall, its devotees will have an opportunity to stay inside and check the offers available in its historical galleries.
Other routes include Prime/Time, designed for those looking for a luxury watches and jewelry, while the Catwalk route is devoted to shoes.
TITLE: Jalonen Takes The Reins At SKA
AUTHOR: By Christopher Hamilton
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg SKA’s new head coach Jukka Jalonen, who was introduced to the team following last Friday’s 6-1 loss to Spartak Moscow, held his first practice with the team Monday.
SKA signed Jalonen, Finland’s national team coach, on Nov. 29 on an 18-month contract.
Jalonen will wear two hats, as he will continue to be Finland’s national coach until the International Ice Hockey Federation World Championships in May 2013, which will be co-hosted by Finland and Sweden. During his four years as head coach he has led the Finns to the gold medal at the 2011 World Championships in Slovakia and the bronze medal at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver.
“I’m really excited about this new step in my career,” he told journalists after practice. “The team is in great condition and I want to thank the previous coach for his work. Just look at where we are in the standings. He truly did a excellent job, however, I already have some ideas that will lift the club to new heights and ensure it will achieve its maximum potential during the playoffs.”
Jalonen replaces interim head coach Mikhail Kravets, who in his two appearances at the helm, saw his team edged out by Donbass Donetsk 3-2 last Wednesday before getting punished by Spartak.
Team management fired former coach Milos Riha on Nov. 25, following SKA’s 4-3 win over Vityaz Chekhov — a result that took the team to the top of the Kontinental Hockey League standings and gave them a sixth win out of seven in November.
The unexpected firing prompted speculation of internal conflict between Riha and team captain Ilya Kovalchuk, who has been playing for the team since SKA took advantage of the North American National Hockey League lockout to sign him in September. Kovalchuk denied the allegations, stating “all these rumors about problems between Riha and me are total nonsense... No one ever said that Milos was a bad coach. Both management and players are grateful for his work. The stadium was always packed and we played great hockey.”
“However, perhaps the last month we haven’t been playing at the level that management expects from us, and that’s why they made this change,” he said.
SKA general manager Alexei Kasatonov told news site Lenta.ru that Riha’s team should have achieved more with the budget and roster that he had, suggesting that the team’s sponsor, gas giant Gazprom should be getting more for their money.
SKA will play two home games this week, on Wednesday night against Atlant Moscow Oblast, and on Friday against Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod. Both games start at 7:30 p.m. at the Ice Palace.
TITLE: $100M Heating Fraud Exposed
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg authorities have dismantled a syndicate they say cost the city budget 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. Police seized 18 million rubles, $100,000 and 100,000 euros ($130,000) from the apartment of the head of the city’s energy and engineering committee, Vladislav Petrov.
On Friday, City Governor Georgy Poltavchenko accepted Petrov’s resignation. At present, Petrov is only considered a witness in the investigation.
Four people involved in the case have already been taken to Moscow. The other four suspects remain under written oath not to leave their place of residence.
One of the suspects in the case, Andrei Kadkin, founder of Petrokom, has been taken into custody and investigators have up to two months to question him. The warrant for the arrest was issued by Moscow’s Tverskoi court.
“The criminal group has been active for a long period of time, they’ve developed strong connections,” one of the investigators was cited by Interfax as saying, explaining the court’s decision to arrest Kadkin. “Kadkin played one of the key roles in the group and one of the witnesses is dependent on him, therefore Kadkin could pressure him,” the investigator added.
Kadkin in turn asked to be bailed for 48 million rubles ($1.5 million). Kadkin’s lawyer reportedly intends to appeal against his client’s detention.
A criminal fraud investigation has been opened, as investigators believe that money allocated for construction and capital repairs to the city’s heating and water facilities was stolen.
During searches of offices and officials’ homes, police seized a total of about 25 million rubles ($810,000), 200,000 euros and $100,000. They also seized evidence that the suspects own property in elite districts of St. Petersburg, as well as out-of-town real estate and land.
St. Petersburg has suffered a constant stream of burst pipes during the last few years, often with devastating consequences. Dozens of people have died or suffered serious injuries as a result of accidents involving burst pipes, often sustaining serious scalding from hot water.
Ironically, on Friday, when Petrov resigned, another hot water pipe burst on the city’s Vasilyevsky Island. The hot water gushed out onto the road, covering an area of 1,200 square meters. A 61-year-old man suffered burns to his hand and legs at the scene of the incident.
A day before, another pipe burst at the intersection of Voznesensky Prospekt and Sadovaya Ulitsa in the city center.
The risk of burst water pipes leaving homes with no central heating and hot water in freezing winter weather is already an uncomfortable reality for many city residents.
TITLE: Kamenny Island May Become Nature Reserve
AUTHOR: By Lena Smirnova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Senior officials and millionaires from St. Petersburg could be symbolically equated to endangered species if City Hall pushes ahead with its proposal to designate their elite residential area on a centrally located island a nature reserve.
The St. Petersburg city legislature’s commission on urban planning has compiled a list of about 30 sites that would be mandated by law as sites required to go through ecological tests to determine whether they should be declared nature reserves. Last week, however, St. Petersburg Governor Georgy Poltavchenko vetoed this list. At the same time, deputy governor Sergei Kozyrev put out a proposal to give Kamenny Island this status without any prior tests.
Some deputies and ecologists have denounced the proposal as a means to create a VIP-zone for the posh island’s residents.
“It seems we need to create special conditions for them to survive and multiply,” said Alexander Karpov, director of EKOM, a St. Petersburg-based center of ecological expertise.
The 108-hectare island, dubbed St. Petersburg’s Rublyovka, has some of the city’s most prestigious real estate, with price tags in the millions of dollars. Some of the reported occupants of the island’s elite houses and dachas include chairman of the board of directors at Gazprom Viktor Zubkov, former chairman of the Federation Council Sergei Mironov and several shareholders of Bank Rossiya.
Despite its elite residents, Kamenny Island remains open to visitors. Transportation and walks on the islands by non-residents could be limited if it is given the status of a protected area.
“It will be quiet there. There will be birds singing and rich people will be walking around,” said Alexei Kovalev, a legislative assembly deputy who serves on the urban planning commission. “They are putting their personal interests ahead of the interests of the city.”
Ecological tests that would study local species and see what actions need to be taken to protect them, such as limiting transportation or construction, were not carried out on the island. Karpov said that the area holds little value in terms of nature because it has been so built up.
“The experts are shrugging their shoulders,” Karpov said. “There are zones that need this status much more. Kamenny Island is at best 10th on the list.”
Karpov said that the proposal to make Kamenny Island a nature reserve was probably intended to raise the value of its real estate, since the status would limit or restrict further construction in the area.
Kovalev sent a request to the deputy governor last week to ask why such a proposal was made, though he added that he is pessimistic about the response. He also warned that if the sites that the governor vetoed are not inspected, construction work would destroy their natural habitats.
“These areas are now only 10 to 15 percent built up,” Kovalev said. “But in two years it will be too late to save them.”
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: City to Host G20
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The G20 summit will be held in St. Petersburg on Sept. 5 to 6 next year, Anton Siluanov, head of the Finance Ministry, announced at a press conference in Moscow on Monday.
Discussion at the summit is traditionally focused on financial and economic issues.
Russia intends to raise two new topics for discussion, including financing investment as the basis for economic growth and job creation, as well as the subject of modernizing the national state loan and state debt management systems, Interfax reported.
Snow Disposal
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The snow-melting facilities of the city’s Vodokanal water utility disposed of more than 41,000 cubic meters of snow in St. Petersburg from Friday through Sunday, Interfax reported, after the city experienced heavy snowfalls at the end of last week and during the weekend.
Court on the Hop
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The relocation of the Supreme Arbitration Court from Moscow to St. Petersburg may take up to four years, Anton Ivanov, chairman of the court said, Interfax reported.
“I think we’ll need at least four years for the construction of the buildings and the move of the judges,” Ivanov said during his visit to St. Petersburg for the ceremony of laying the first stone in the foundation of the city’s new building for the local arbitration court.
Ivanov said relocating the court may cost up to 50 billion rubles ($1.6 billion). Asked about the reaction of the court’s staff to the news about the move, Ivanov said that the Supreme Arbitration Court is “very young” and its judges are “more mobile.”
“I hope they will move to St. Petersburg and won’t tender their resignation,” Ivanov said.
TITLE: Japan PM Delays Trip Over Putin’s ‘Health’
AUTHOR: By Nikolaus von Twickel
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Talk about Vladimir Putin’s health resurfaced Friday after Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda reportedly said he had postponed a visit to Moscow because Putin was feeling unwell.
“It’s about [Putin’s] health problem. This is not something that can be made public,” Noda told officials on the northern island of Hokkaido about the delay of his trip, according to Reuters, which quoted Japanese news reports citing one of the officials.
Noda’s visit was postponed from December to January, apparently because of scheduling difficulties, Japanese media reported earlier in November.
Following the reports Friday, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov once again denied that Putin was ill.
“The president’s health, I can repeat for the hundredth time, is absolutely normal, and he has a very, very overloaded work schedule,” Peskov said on Kommersant FM radio, according to a transcript on the station’s website.
Peskov added that no date had been fixed yet for Noda’s visit. He explained the reports from Japan by arguing that “rumors” from the media had reached foreign leaders whose aides “then start to operate on the basis of these rumors.”
Peskov also dismissed the fact that Putin has been seen mainly sitting at public events — such as during his Nov. 16 meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the Kremlin — by saying that such talks are usually held that way. “Can you imagine Putin occasionally jumping up in a conversation with Merkel?” he said.
Putin’s chief foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov weighed in Friday as well, criticizing the Japanese reports as “unethical leaks.”
Speaking to reporters, he confirmed that talks with Noda have been preliminarily scheduled for January. But, he said, “it is not customary to talk about this,” Interfax reported.
Rumors have been swirling since media reports were published in late October that said Putin suffers from a back ailment and might need surgery. They were fueled by information that the Kremlin had cancelled or postponed presidential travels and public events in November, while Putin largely confined his work to his residence in the Novo-Ogaryovo suburb west of Moscow.
Earlier this week, the Kremlin confirmed that Putin will resume traveling. He is expected to visit Istanbul for talks with the Turkish government on Monday and to attend a summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States in Turkmenistan on Wednesday.
Peskov has consistently denied that Putin is suffering from a major health problem, saying merely that he pulled a muscle while exercising and that some travels had been postponed because of scheduling difficulties.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said earlier this week that Putin had injured his spine while practicing judo. “He lifted a guy, threw him and twisted his spine,” Lukashenko told Reuters in an interview published Wednesday.
Asked about the Belarusian leader’s comments, Peskov told national daily Komsomolskaya Pravda in an interview published Friday that Putin took them philosophically. “[Lukashenko always] needs to chat about something,” he was quoted as saying.
TITLE: Russia Asked By Court For Answers
AUTHOR: By Natalya Krainova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The European Court of Human Rights has asked Russia and Ukraine to provide information about the criminal case against opposition activist Leonid Razvozzhayev, his lawyer Anna Stavitskaya said.
Stavitskaya told Interfax on Friday that Razvozzhayev’s lawyers had addressed the court with a request to “urgently intervene” in the criminal case against their client and learned from the court Friday that it wanted to question Russian and Ukrainian authorities.
Meanwhile, the Investigative Committee said Friday that it had received evidence that Razvozzhayev and his accomplices in the case — Left Front leader Sergei Udaltsov and his aide Konstantin Lebedev — attended training abroad while preparing to orchestrate mass riots.
Razvozzhayev’s former girlfriend, Samira Bader, daughter of Khalid Bader, a powerful businessman in Kuwait, told investigators that Razvozzhayev regularly met and received money from Georgian politicians, NTV state television reported.
Bader recently broke up with Razvozzhayev after finding out that he had a wife, NTV reported.
Razvozzhayev, an activist with the Left Front opposition movement, was arrested in Moscow in late October on charges of plotting mass riots after allegedly turning himself in to investigators, according to the Investigative Committee.
The charges against Razvozzhayev stemmed from a documentary-style program titled “Anatomy of a Protest 2” that was broadcast on NTV in early October.
Razvozzhayev has said masked men seized him in Kiev, subjected him to death threats and forced him to write a confession saying he had plotted to foment political unrest.
After this, he said, he was driven to Moscow and handed over to investigators.
In early November, Razvozzhayev retracted his confession. In late November, the Investigative Committee refused to open a criminal case into Razvozzhayev’s claims that he had been tortured, citing a lack of evidence.
Last week, the pro-government Izvestia daily cited sources in the security services as saying that businessman Bader was close to criminal circles and that he “contributed” to Razzvozhayev’s return from Kiev after learning of videos in which Razvozzhayev is seen having sex with a woman resembling his daughter.
TITLE: Prizewinning Animator Dies
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Fyodor Khitruk, one of Russia’s most renowned animators and the creator of the Russian version of the “Winnie the Pooh” cartoon, died Monday morning at his home in Moscow at age 95.
Khitruk was born on April 18, 1917, in Tver, approximately 200 kilometers northwest of Moscow. He started working as an animator in the newly created Soyuzmultfilm studio in 1937 and returned there after serving in the Soviet army in World War II.
Altogether, Khitruk took part in creating over 200 cartoons for the studio, Animator.ru reported.
He went on to make his debut as a director in 1962 at the age of 43. He directed many cartoon classics, such as “Istoriya Odnogo Priklucheniya” (The Story of One Adventure), “Kanikuly Bonifitsiya” (Boniface’s Vacation) and, perhaps the most famous and beloved of all, the Russian adaptation of “Winnie the Pooh.”
Altogether, Khitruk took part in creating over 200 cartoons for the studio, Animator.ru reported.
Khitruk was awarded many titles and prizes during his career, including the title of People’s Artist of the USSR.
Along with several other prominent animators, Khitruk established an animation studio Shar (Sphere), where he taught until the age of 90.
TITLE: Putin Dismisses Investigator Who Closed Navalny Case
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A regional investigator who was publicly grilled over his decision to close a criminal case against anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny was fired Tuesday, according to a statement on the Kremlin website.
President Vladimir Putin signed the order dismissing Major-General Alexander Panov, the statement said. Putin oversees the hiring and firing of top law enforcement officials in line with the Constitution.
Panov, who headed the Kirov region branch of the Investigative Committee, entered the media spotlight in July after being dressed down by Investigative Committee head Alexander Bastrykin.
“You have a man named Navalny. You had a criminal case against him and you stopped it on the quiet,” Bastrykin said while addressing Panov in November.
Bastrykin was referring to a criminal case opened in May 2011 against Navalny, who worked as an unpaid adviser to regional Governor Nikita Belykh in 2009.
Investigators said that Navalny violated his duties by pressuring the heads of the local Kirovles timber-processing plant and causing the state-owned company financial damages.
After an investigation, regional investigators found that Navalny had not committed any violations. A separate branch of the Investigative Committee has declined to open a new investigation on the grounds that no crime was committed.
On Tuesday, Putin fired several other law enforcement officials, including Alexei Velichko, deputy head of the Federal Prison Service. Velichko, who assumed the post in 2010, previously served as deputy justice minister.
TITLE: Instability Growing in Regions
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Social problems like the quality of local education and state of the utilities sector are causing growing instability in Russia’s regions, a report by an influential think tank said Tuesday.
The report by the St. Petersburg politics think tank said that average estimates of regional stability have dropped from 7.05 to 6.90 points across the country since the October regional elections.
On the think tank’s scale, 10 signifies stability and 0 instability.
The report, which assessed the situation in 83 regions, cited the utilities sector and education as major sources of concern that could lead to “social risks,” Kommersant reported Tuesday.
But unrest is unlikely to result in broader support for the opposition, since opposition parties haven’t presented a “bright agenda” to the electorate, Mikhail Vinogradov, head of the think tank, told the newspaper.
In the report, the three most stable regions were the Penza and Ivanovo regions and the Mordovia republic, all of which got scores close to 9 points.
Dagestan, Ingushetia and Kalmykia were considered the least stable, garnering between 2.3 and 4.2 points, respectively, while Moscow and St. Petersburg’s combined score dropped from 6.8 points in October to a current total of 6.6.
Among reasons for falling stability in Moscow, Kommersant cited a recent shooting spree by a legal adviser at a pharmaceutical company and Cossack patrols on central streets.
St. Petersburg’s rating was influenced by recent scandals linked to the Zenit football club and a court case against pop star Madonna for “gay propaganda.”
TITLE: Blame Passed for Traffic Chaos
AUTHOR: By Natalya Krainova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Officials on Monday passed around blame for a 70-kilometer traffic jam on the Moscow-St. Petersburg highway that trapped 9,000 drivers over the weekend with scarce food, water and fuel, following heavy snowfall.
Meanwhile, by 5 p.m. Monday, a 40-kilometer stretch of the M10 highway was brought to a near-standstill once again, state radio Vesti FM reported. More congestion was expected with additional heavy snowfall in Tuesday’s forecast.
Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin blamed the “ineffective work of road services” for the huge traffic jam, adding that some 4,000 trucks and 5,000 other vehicles were stuck in the weekend congestion.
He said almost 200 snow removal machines were deployed to the road after the snowfall but road workers had failed to cover roads with deicing agents in time.
Emergency workers set up 27 assistance areas for warming up and feeding drivers, and helped “4,780 people” during the traffic jam through the Tver region, north of Moscow, Rogozin said. Authorities also organized quick refueling of cars at 20 gas stations and six mobile stations, he said.
“But, of course, the aid didn’t arrive in time more often than not, and many drivers were left without food and gas in the middle of the forest,” Rogozin said.
“The road, let’s put it this way, is not a European one. It’s Russian-like, forested, dark and snowed in,” he said about the 565-kilometer route, which connects Moscow to St. Petersburg through Tver and Veliky Novgorod.
“So you can imagine the particular level of despair of some drivers,” Rogozin said at a regular meeting of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev with his deputies Monday, the government website reported.
A number of the road’s sections have steep slopes, sharp bends and pass over dams, requiring drivers to be very attentive. The distance between rest areas on the M10 is 25 to 30 kilometers.
Regional emergency workers said in a statement that by 6 a.m. Monday traffic flow had been restored on the highway M10, but hours later the second 40-kilometer jam near the town of Torzhok was reported by state news.
However, the regular speed of traffic flow on the M10 on Monday morning was 40 to 90 kilometers per hour, and buses were traveling as normal, Rogozin said.
Roman Starovoit, head of the Federal Road Agency, said the traffic jam was caused by a road accident amid the heavy snowfall.
Road workers “were coping” with the snowfall until the accident, Starovoit said at an emergency meeting of his subordinates, Interfax reported. Starovoit blamed a “lack of coordination” between various state services for the traffic jam.
Igor Astakhov, head of the road maintenance department at Starovoit’s agency, blamed traffic police for the congestion, saying they arrived at the scene of the accident “very late” and failed to direct the traffic to the bypass route — Baltia, Astakhov said at the meeting, Interfax reported.
Starovoit said traffic police should have used the media to inform drivers about the road conditions.
But Vladimir Puchkov, head of the Emergency Situations Ministry, praised traffic police for “quickly” leading buses and motorcars out of the traffic jam by leading them through the oncoming lane by police and fire fighting vehicles.
Puchkov said road workers, not traffic police, should have informed drivers and passengers about the congestion.
Rogozin suggested that truck drivers should be obliged by law to put winter tires on their cars by Nov. 1 and use them until April 1, and be equipped with maneuvering chains and sensing systems for safe driving.
But Pyotr Shkumatov, head of the Blue Buckets driver activist group, said forcing drivers to use winter tires would boost cargo transportation costs and make them slower if drivers have to change tires each time they travel from Russia’s north to the south, he told Interfax.
Shkumatov said authorities should instead boost responsibility of officials responsible for road maintenance and install automated systems of covering roads with deicing agents.
Rogozin also proposed to involve engineering units of the army to dealing with snowfall, saying they had suitable machines. He didn’t elaborate. Medvedev said he would consider the proposals.
Regional traffic police have opened 10 administrative cases against DEP-75, a state enterprise which serves the M10 route, on charges of failing to secure road safety, regional traffic police said in a statement. The enterprise faces a fine of up to 30,000 rubles ($970) for each case.
Meanwhile, activists of a regional search and rescue team who supplied food and water to the drivers stuck in the traffic jam Sunday complained that the regional governor tried to scare them away.
The governor, Andrei Shevelyov, yelled at the activists of the Sova team and said they were causing a traffic jam and threatened to call the police and drug control officers if they didn’t leave, activist Alexander Smirnov wrote in a post on VKontakte.
Shevelyov later apologized to the activists and offered cooperation, regional radio reporter Alexander Gamburg tweeted.
TITLE: Putin Warns Against NATO Plan on Visit
AUTHOR: By Jonathan Earle
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin used his first known trip in almost two months to boost economic ties with Turkey and slam a NATO plan to place surface-to-air missiles on the Turkish-Syrian border.
The one-day visit to Istanbul also seemed to refute rumors that Putin is suffering from poor health. Speculation swirled after the Kremlin canceled a slew of foreign trips, including this one, in October and November.
Putin used the occasion to criticize a plan to use Patriot missiles to protect Turkey against airborne attacks from its war-torn neighbor Syria, such as a rocket strike that killed five in October.
Speaking at a news conference, Putin described that attack as an “accident” and said Syria is “obviously in no position to attack its neighbors,” Interfax reported Monday.
Russia traditionally views foreign anti-missile batteries near its borders as a security threat, and Putin warned that the missiles could lead to escalating tensions between Turkey and Syria.
“You know, as they say, if there’s a gun hanging on the wall at the beginning of the play, by the end it will absolutely be fired, and why do we need additional shots fired on the border?” he said.
NATO foreign ministers are expected to approve Turkey’s request for the Patriot missile batteries at a meeting on Tuesday in Brussels.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen dismissed Russian fears of an escalation.
“This is a solely defensive measure that will be de-escalating,” he told reporters in Brussels. “The [missiles’] purpose is to ensure the effective protection of people on Turkish territory. … The essence of the alliance is to protect.”
Some described Putin’s visit to Turkey as a last attempt to derail the plan.
Alexander Shumilin, a Middle East expert at the Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies, said Putin likely traveled to Istanbul with a serious proposal, possibly including the evacuation of Syrian President Bashar Assad to Russia in exchange for Turkey rejecting the missile plan.
“If Putin didn’t have any proposals for influencing the situation in Syria, why would he go to discuss this question with Erdogan?” Shumilin said Monday by telephone, referring to Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan.
There are “very persistent” rumors about Assad being evacuated to Moscow, he said. “This is one of those cases when the rumors have a strong foundation.”
Russia has used its UN Security Council veto power to swat down calls for international sanctions on the Syrian government. It has also said it would honor existing weapons contracts.
But Putin denied that Russia was a “staunch defender” of the Syrian regime, saying the Russian government was worried about repeating “recent mistakes,” a vague reference to Libya.
An estimated 40,000 Syrians have died since mass anti-government protests began in March 2011 and later evolved into a civil war.
TITLE: $2.8 Bln Facelift Awaits Historical Districts
AUTHOR: By Alla Tokareva and Nadezhda Zaitseva
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: City Hall last Wednesday approved the adoption of a program titled “The Protection and Development of Konyushennaya and ‘North Kolomna-New Holland’ from 2013-2018.” The amount of investment will come to 86.9 billion rubles ($2.8 billion), of which 69 billion rubles ($2.2 billion) will be funded through the municipal budget and 17.9 billion rubles ($579 million) by investors. The total area of both districts is 126.7 hectares.
Alexander Nikonov, first deputy chairman of the Committee for Economic Development, Industrial Policy and Trade (KERPPT), has announced that extra-budgetary funds will go toward the construction of hotels in the area around Konyushennaya Ploshchad and a cultural and business center on New Holland island. Two projects from the Plaza Lotus Group, which is under the control of brothers Boris and Mikhail Zingarevich, will be completed in the area around Konyushennaya Ploshchad. According to information from the company’s representatives, investments in the transformation of the building at 1 Konyushennaya Ploshchad into a hotel will come to $150 million, while the reconstruction of the building at 1 Field of Mars will cost $250 million.
The reconstruction of New Holland will cost around 12 billion rubles ($388.2 million), and will involve the creation of a cultural center, including a dance palace, a gallery, and a museum, as well as offices and hotels. Investments from Roman Abramovich’s Millhouse in the project will come to 2 billion rubles ($64.7 million) by the end of the year, said a spokesperson for the investor.
Around 75 percent of the budgetary funds will go into design, refurbishment, property redevelopment, the adaptation of cultural heritage sites for modern use and the creation of temporary housing for the relocation of residents, according to the document. Approximately 7 billion rubles ($226.5 million) will be spent on transport infrastructure and almost 9.5 billion rubles ($307.4 million) on energy infrastructure. As a result, the city will resettle the inhabitants of 570 communal apartments, repair 17 bridges and 1,200 meters of embankment, and reconstruct Sennaya Ploshchad, all at its own expense. A representative of KERPPT said that until now there had not been sufficient funding available for the program in the budget. The Treasury plans to finance the program with 1 billion rubles next year, 3 billion rubles in 2014, 5 billion rubles in 2015, 10 billion rubles in 2016, 20 billion rubles in 2017, and 30 billion rubles in 2018.
The Chairman of the Committee for Construction, Andrei Arteyev, spoke out against the project at a meeting of the municipal government; he recommended discarding traditional methods of surveying in favor of laser scanning, which requires far less money and time. Alexander Makarov, chairman of the Committee for the State Control, Use and Protection of Monuments, suggested postponing the adoption of the project. According to him, the New Holland investor is yet to present a plan for the development of the area to his department.
The reconstruction of a further five of the city’s historical districts, according to City Governor Georgy Poltavchenko, will require around 360 billion rubles ($11.6 billion), of which 200 billion rubles ($6.5 billion) will be allocated from the city budget; the rest will come from federal and private investments. The spokesperson from KERPPT did not comment on when projects for the development of the remaining historic districts will appear. The governor had previously valued a program for the preservation and development of St. Petersburg’s historic center at 4 trillion rubles ($129.5 billion).
Representatives of Millhouse and the Plaza Lotus Group expressed satisfaction with the adoption of the project. “Kolomna will attract tourists and as such our project can only succeed,” said John Mann, a representative of Millhouse. The company took part in the project’s development and sponsored its designers, he added.
This is a significant advantage for all of the investment projects in the districts concerned, said Yelena Deshpit, executive director of Plaza Lotus Group. The main concerns are the complex approach to infrastructure, the optimization of transport networks and the improvement of the urban environment, she added. “The main thing is that the process of getting the districts into decent condition is speeded up, but at the same time we won’t be seeing any significant savings in our projects,” said Deshpit.
It is a huge plus for investors working in these areas, said Dmitry Zolin, managing director of the Senator network of business centers. According to Zolin, attention from the authorities will provide an opportunity to speed up agreements. Although Senator does not have any projects in these districts, the fact that the city has decided to tackle the historic center is something that can only be welcomed, he added. “The authorities obviously expect an economic return, perhaps the arrival of new investors in these districts,” said Zolin.
TITLE: Sakha to Get $1.8 Bln Bridge Over Lena
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Sakha republic leader Yegor Borisov has said after meeting Transportation Minister Maxim Sokolov that work has begun on the design of a bridge across the Lena River.
The 55 billion ruble ($1.8 billion) bridge will span more than 3 kilometers and have two lanes to connect Yakutsk with the left bank of the Lena, according to preliminary parameters described in a presentation by the Federal Road Agency, Vedomosti reported Monday.
The bridge to Russky Island in Vladivostok, which was built for the APEC summit that the city hosted in September, cost 35.4 billion rubles. It also runs for about 3 kilometers but has four lanes.
The Sakha project will also require construction of 15 kilometers of access roads from existing federal and local highways.
The road agency, which usually allocates federal money for this type of construction, aims to cover 20 percent of the bridge costs by attracting private investment.
The company that wins the bidding to build the bridge will have to complete construction by 2018 and maintain the bridge through 2030. The government will pay an annual maintenance fee that will total 11.6 billion rubles over the course of 2019-2030.
Three major construction contractors — Transstroi, Most and Mostovik — said they were interested in bidding, Vedomosti reported. A spokesman for construction firm Mostotrest said the company would decide whether it would bid after studying the terms.
Yakutsk should develop in order to provide for the growth of the resource-rich Sakha republic, said Bulat Stolyarov, chief of consulting firm IPR Group, Vedomosti reported.
TITLE: Voting Reform to Be Key Issue on Agenda of G20
AUTHOR: By Irina Filatova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A decision on reforming the International Monetary Fund’s distribution of voting quotas among member states is likely to be made next year, as it is one of the key issues on the agenda of the G20 summit to be hosted by Russia, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said Monday.
The participants in the summit, which is often referred to as an informal forum of the world’s 20 leading economies, were expected to agree this year on changing the formula for allocating quotas.
But this deadline will have to be postponed, “as different groups of countries have different reactions to proposals to change the formula and the size of quotas, so we see that we’ll have to resolve this issue during our presidency,” Siluanov said at a news conference on the G20 agenda. “We hope that it will be resolved.”
Russia, whose presidency of the summit officially started Saturday, is pushing for the quota allocation formula to be based on a country’s gross domestic product. Siluanov said that the existing formula is too complicated and that some of the parameters it is based on could be eliminated from the calculations.
He said the proposal found support from other BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) nations and the United States but faces resistance from some European countries, which might see their voting quotas reduced significantly as a result of small GDP.
“Allocating quotas doesn’t respond to the current realities,” Siluanov said. “The developing countries have moved forward significantly. They are not what they used to be five or 10 years ago. So the desire of such countries to have a greater influence … on decision-making in the world financial system is natural.”
Other issues Russia plans to push are access to financial sources to stimulate investment activity and ways to modernize state borrowing systems and managing sovereign debt. Leaders of the participating countries are slated to meet in St. Petersburg in September.
Siluanov said organizing the summit events would cost 5 billion rubles ($156 million), which is already allocated in next year’s federal budget.
“These are normal expenditures to organize the meetings,” he said.
The price tag is much smaller than it was for preparations for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, which Russia hosted earlier this year in Vladivostok.
Construction of the infrastructure ahead of the high-profile event required nearly 700 billion rubles ($22.7 bln), of which 218.5 billion rubles ($7.1 bln)was spent from the federal budget, according to Russia’s APEC website.
TITLE: Apple Launches iTunes Store in Russia
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Apple on Tuesday launched a Russian version of its bestselling iTunes Store, but the online music shop so far offers a limited selection of Russian songs because the U.S. company has failed to sign agreements with all domestic copyright-holders.
“Due to the fragmentation of Russian copyright laws, we came up with licenses through several companies. Ideally we’d like a new and reliable union of copyright-holders to be created through which we could draw up licenses,” Vedomosti quoted Apple spokesman Ben Cave as saying.
The business daily reported that Apple had wanted to launch its Russian iTunes Store in November, but that signing agreements with copyright-holders had delayed the store’s launch date.
Browsing the store Tuesday morning, individual songs on the Russian site cost at least 10 rubles (30 cents), and whole albums start at roughly 100 rubles ($3) — a significant discount to U.S. prices.
Local copyright-holders explained their reluctance to sell their music on Apple’s site by the U.S. company’s unusual approach to signing licensing agreements.
“We just received an offer from Apple to work with them through the Russian Authors Society or First Music Publishing House, and we were very surprised by this approach,” Alexei Kozlov, director of the Navigator Records label, told Vedomosti. “This is why we temporarily halted putting albums from our catalog on iTunes.”
Navigator Records owns the rights to the songs of artists including DDT, Melnitsa, Zveri, Kalinov Most, Splin and Vladimir Vysotsky.
Valeria Grishina, general producer of Medialiner, another record company negotiating with Apple, said that the U.S. firm had “still not completely thought through how it should work with Russian copyright laws. We don’t need an intermediary such as the Russian Authors Society, we can come to an agreement directly.”
The iTunes Store first launched in the United States on April 28, 2003, and now operates in 61 countries across the globe.
TITLE: Medvedev Announces Housing Reform Plans
AUTHOR: By Rachel Nielsen
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Monday put forth a finalized version of the government’s plan for improving the country’s dilapidated housing stock and making quality apartments more accessible.
The measure is designed to fulfill a decree on housing issued by President Vladimir Putin on May 7, his first day in office.
Titled “Providing Accessible and Comfortable Housing and Building Management,” it lays out a slew of goals ranging from increasing the level of the mortgage lending to developing “noncommercial housing stock” to cleaning up drinking water.
The overarching goals “are to increase the population’s access to housing,” including high-quality housing, which the government is obligated to provide to special groups such as young families, and “to increase the quality and safety of provided housing and utilities,” according to the government’s website.
All the goals are supposed to be addressed during a three-stage timeline that begins next year and ends in 2020. But only two goals listed in Medvedev’s version include metrics for evaluating success.
Those are reduction of the average cost of constructing a square meter of new housing by 20 percent by 2018, using the deflation-indexed figure for this year as a yardstick; and increasing the annual number of mortgages to 868,000 by 2020.
The growth of noncommercial housing construction is highlighted several times in the plan. Currently, much of the nation’s housing is built by for-profit developers.
Medvedev’s plan also calls for a lowering of mortgage rates and government assistance for housing loans.
Regional Development Minister Igor Slyunyayev presented an earlier version of the housing strategy at a Cabinet meeting with Medvedev on Nov. 15. Those proposals included “the maximum number of directives” from Putin’s May 7 edict, he said at the meeting, according to a transcript on his ministry’s website.
Many details and metrics in Slyunyayev’s presentation were absent from Monday’s version.
TITLE: Chocolate Has Sweet Potential
AUTHOR: By Lena Smirnova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW— The founders of the Korkunov premium chocolate boutique that opened in Moscow’s AFIMALL City on Sunday hope to transform Russians into chocolate gourmands.
“I want such boutiques to open in other malls,” said the founder of the brand, Andrei Korkunov. “This kind of boutique raises the consumption culture around chocolate and quality food.”
What makes the Korkunov boutique special is that it has a broader gastronomical focus, rather than just selling boxed candy, said Peter Knauer, general manager of the Odintsovo Chocolate Factory, where the Korkunov products are made. The boutique will sell 15 types of hot chocolate and its candies will be delivered fresh from the Odintsovo factory every morning.
Russia is considered to be one of the most promising emerging markets for chocolatiers, according to a KPMG study released in September, which predicts that the domestic market for chocolate, now worth over $8 billion, will grow by 45 percent in three years. This compares to the global chocolate market, which is only expected to grow by 2 percent.
The outlook for premium-level chocolate sales is also good, with Russians expected to gradually switch to more expensive products, such as handcrafted chocolates.
Opening chocolate boutiques in the regions has good business potential, Konstantin Soldatenkov, manager of the Belgian elite chocolate boutique chain Daskalides in Russia, told Businessmania magazine. A city with 1 million or more residents can have several chocolate boutiques, and even a smaller city, with up to 500,000 residents, can support five such boutiques, he said.
Knauer agreed that the opportunities for building chocolate boutiques in Russia look good and said that they hope to eventually build up a chain of Korkunov boutiques across Russia. The chocolate could be supplied fresh even outside of Moscow, Knauer said.
“Currently, we are starting to develop this model,” he said. “There are already possibilities to quickly solve logistical questions so that we can get products to St. Petersburg within a day.”
Knauer added that there are still no concrete plans to launch this chain.
“We want to see how this model works, and after that we will make further plans,” he said.
Experts also suspect that the boutique itself does not have much commercial value, but is rather meant to promote the product brand. Andrei Korkunov said in 2008 that the brand’s store, which opened on Lubyanka in 2004, has not yet returned the investment and was more of an image project for the company.
But others were less conservative in their predictions. Alexander Nosov, the main chocolatier at the Odintsovo Chocolate Factory, said that Korkunov is mulling the idea of creating a boutique that would not only serve freshly made chocolate, but also have walls and ceilings made from the sweet product.
TITLE: Russia Applies to Host Expo
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia has applied to host the Expo world exhibition in Yekaterinburg in 2020.
The application documents were submitted to the headquarters of the International Exhibitions Bureau, or BIE, in Paris.
Vicente Gonzalez Loscerates, BIE’s secretary general, personally accepted the application from the representatives of the Russian delegation. He praised its “high quality,” the city’s bid committee said in a statement.
The parameters of the event state that it can run for up to six months and must adhere to a “wide universal theme that applies to all humanity.”
Deputy Premier Arkady Dvorkovich congratulated the bid team on its successful application and said the country will honor all its obligations in preparing Russia’s fourth-biggest city for hosting the World Expo, the statement said.
Erik Bugulov, head of the Expo 2020 Yekaterinburg bid committee, said Russia will be able to host the event at the highest level. He added that the committee’s next task will be to convince the BIE’s inspection team, which will visit Yekaterinburg early next year, that the city is ready to hold the event.
The winner will be determined by voting in November 2013 in Paris, Interfax reported.
TITLE: New Rules in Old Corruption Game
AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina
TEXT: In 2007, Semyon Vainshtok stepped down as head of state-owned Transneft and was replaced by Federal Security Service General Nikolai Tokarev.
The siloviki had long waged a backroom fight to remove Vainshtok, and the Audit Chamber compiled a secret report on his murky activities as Transneft chief. But when a copy of the report was leaked to anti-corruption whistle-blower Alexei Navalny, the new Transneft management became even more upset than the old leadership named in the report.
The conflict between Tokarev and Vainshtok was a textbook case of infighting among the ruling elite that has been brewing for several years now. The main rule in such squabbles is not to air the dirty laundry because public scrutiny is always counterproductive. Tokarev kept the interclan feud under wraps because President Vladimir Putin made it explicitly clear that he would resolve the matter himself. It was also understood that anyone who went public with these kinds of problems would lose big.
For instance, in October 2007, Viktor Cherkesov, former first deputy director of the Federal Security Service, tried to drag his conflict with Igor Sechin, the quintessential eminence grise who is now head of Rosneft, into the public spotlight by publishing a comment in Kommersant that referred to many chekist members as crooks. This article marked the end of Cherkesov’s career.
After the firing of Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, once a trusted member of Putin’s inner circle, that system began collapsing before our eyes. As recently as six months ago, Putin had no plans to fire Serdyukov. Otherwise, he would not have reappointed him as defense minister in May. But then, Putin unexpectedly fired him amid a high-profile criminal case that was preceded by a public announcement that Serdyukov had been found at 6 a.m. in the apartment of his attractive subordinate, 33-year-old Yevgenia Vasilyeva, who has been charged with stealing millions of rubles from government funds.
Under the old rules, a public scandal involving Serdyukov would have failed to result in his dismissal. It also would have meant that those who brought the situation into the open would have paid dearly for their escapade. The reason for this is simple: There is only one arbiter for these types of conflicts — Putin, not the Russian people. Nonetheless, Serdyukov was fired, proving that it is possible to force Putin’s hand by appealing to the public.
In less than a month, four new scandals emerged. The Rostelecom offices were searched, Glonass chief designer Yury Urlichich was sacked over allegations of embezzlement, Channel One aired incriminating material about the murky activities of former Agriculture Minister Yelena Skrynnik, and a former aide to onetime St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko was arrested in St. Petersburg on charges of laying 600 kilometers of used water pipes and billing them as new.
Note that all these scandals involve misdeeds that stretch back years into the past. Presidential administration head Sergei Ivanov benefited from both the Glonass and Serdyukov scandals and admitted in no uncertain terms that he had known about the theft as recently as two years ago but kept silent to build a stronger case against the suspects. Matviyenko has long had a very bad relationship with the new governor of St. Petersburg, Georgy Poltavchenko, but criminal proceedings began only now, when the siloviki are recovering lost ground following the end of Medvedev’s presidency.
The rules of the game have changed with blinding speed. Five years ago, every scandal like the current ones would have been dealt with behind closed doors. Putin would have been the only arbiter in every case, and no incriminating information would ever have been released to the public.
This is a major change in Putin’s behavior, and it is coming at a time when rumors are flying that he is experiencing health problems.
Yulia Latynina hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio.
TITLE: russian unorthodox: Preparing for the End of the World
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
TEXT: Thousands of Russians are preparing for a very special day during the last half of December. And they are looking for special deals and attractive offers to mark the occasion.
If you guessed New Year’s Eve, you’d be wrong. They are preparing for doomsday, December 21. That is the day on which the Mayan people of Central America calculated the world would come to an end.
Residents in the Siberian city of Tomsk, for instance, have been buying “emergency kits” designed specifically to enable Russian people to face the ultimate calamity. These packs are being distributed by the Marina Mendelson private wedding agency at the bargain price of 890 rubles ($28). They contain food items such as buckwheat and sprats, and, this being Russia, there is vodka — to soften the trauma of extinction, or maybe just lubricate that last party.
The kits also contain practical equipment like matches, candles, and a first aid kit. Judging by the contents, its creators expect the last day of human civilization to include, at the very least, a power outage.
According to the state-funded daily newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta, several thousand packs were sold in less than a week. The wedding agency said it has been getting orders from far beyond Tomsk.
The Mayan doomsday kit seems to be a bit of light-hearted fun that got out of hand. Spokespeople for Marina Mandelson told the media that the packs were created as “a kind of comic relief idea.” But it seems that plenty of people have taken the apocalyptic prediction at face value.
In Moscow, dozens of people have apparently been buying vouchers, at 500 rubles ($16.20) apiece, that are supposed to grant absolution for their sins, guaranteed by a Roman Catholic church in Italy. In the Middle Ages the sale of indulgences was widespread. The main difference today is that they are sold on the Internet.
Normally that offer might cut little ice with Russian Orthodox believers, but it seems that on this occasion the potent brew of Mayan prophecy, god-fearing Russian Orthodoxy, and purported Roman Catholic endorsement has proved too much for some people to resist.
The Mayan calendar is no laughing matter for Andrei Gorshechnikov, a member of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly. He sponsored a motion calling on St. Petersburg Governor Georgy Poltavchenko to ban discussion of the doomsday prophecy in the media. The appeal, supported by a group of Gorshechnikov’s fellow lawmakers, said, “Media attention to the doomsday according to the Mayan calendar is unhealthy and is provoking a climate of panic in society.”
Assembly member Alexei Kovalev did not support Gorshechnikov’s attempt to ban doomsday coverage, but he agreed that the Russian press had become hysterical about prophecy.
“Some of the publications on the subject that I have seen bordered on the delirious,” Kovalev said. “The reports took the Mayan calendar warning as a real danger, and even the major television channel couldn’t resist speculating on this juicy topic…
“I didn’t support the appeal for a media ban because I believe that this issue is not the governor’s business,” he added. “But I do agree that the level of superstition and the lack of education in Russian society is very dangerous and has to be dealt with one way or another.”
In Russia, websites have been set up to help people prepare for the end of the world. One of the most popular is www.calendarmaya.ru. It ridicules Gorshechnikov’s initiative and suggests, tongue-in-cheek, a ban on those chapters in the Bible that mention the apocalypse.
But just why are modern-day Russians so gullible? It seems that since the downfall of the Soviet Union, with its strong focus on science education, levels of ignorance and credulity have skyrocketed. According to a nationwide survey by the VTSIOM polling agency in 2012, one-third of Russians think the sun revolves around the Earth. About the same proportion of respondents are convinced that humankind is as old as the dinosaurs.
The results of the poll came as a shock to the country’s academic community. But it gets worse. According to various polls conducted over the past five years, 15 percent to 30 percent of Russians believe in aliens. And another VTSIOM survey this year said that 2 percent of Russians — around 3 million people — believe in the existence of zombies.
The current hysteria over the Mayan doomsday is surely a matter of shame for the Kremlin, with its ambitious Skolkovo Innovation Center and Russian Silicon Valley plans and its much-advertised focus on nanotechnology. Surely the government’s initiatives to rescue the Russian economy from dependence on oil and gas are doomed if so many people are so poorly educated that they believe in aliens or zombies or succumb to doomsday fever.
The whole episode provides more evidence, should we need it, that the nation that put the first man into space and has for years boasted the world’s best chess players is now drowning in superstition. Many people don’t trust the government, and many more apparently lack the reserves of skepticism and objectivity to shield them from hoaxers and tricksters.
That’s reason to worry that the crack of doom will indeed come soon — not for the world as a whole, but for Russia. Sometimes it seems that in our country, ignorance, superstition, and primitive beliefs are gaining a greater hold than common sense and education. And surely it is this softening of our brains, and not some cataclysm on Dec. 21, that contains the real seeds of national disaster.
This column first appeared on Transitions Online, an award-winning analytical online magazine covering Eastern Europe and CIS countries, available at www.tol.org.
TITLE: The art of protest
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: When people feel their freedom of speech is limited, and what they are fed by the media is often pure propaganda or mere informational noise serving to distract their attention from pressing issues, they start to express themselves on the streets, be it through rallies or political graffiti.
An exhibition titled “Voice of the Streets” that opened last month at Loft Project Etagi, an arts center located in a former bread factory, documents the current state of the messages expressed on city walls in St. Petersburg and other Russian cities, ranging from anarchist and left-wing to feminist and pacifist.
Although a number of the exhibits seem apolitical, most represent direct forms of political and social protest.
Surprisingly, the exhibition’s organizer, PublicPost, has links to both the authorities and liberals.
PublicPost is a website created in November 2011 by the Russian state bank Sberbank, news agency Interfax and Alexei Venediktov, editor of Ekho Moskvy radio station, which enjoys a reputation as a liberal station. The website combines blogs and professional journalism, according to Interfax.
Venediktov was quoted as saying that “very diverse social and political figures will be able to discuss the fate of Russia freely” on the website.
The works for the exhibition were picked by Stanislav Reshetnyov, who works at PublicPost as a programmer in Moscow, and Alexandra Kachko, a local artist known for her paper graffiti, frequently featuring a memorable female character named Zoa.
“Usually they [PublicPost] go to different cities and support things that are already happening there, but here Stas [Stanislav] suggested that they should organize something of their own,” Kachko said.
“Of course, nobody [at PublicPost] had any idea what street art was. But thanks to them, the local offices of Interfax gave us a room in which to draw and prepare the exhibition, and we got this room at Etagi for free, even if we were forbidden to make any extra holes in the walls.”
For the first time in St. Petersburg, art was collected directly from the streets in the form of photos and reprints. According to the curators, the only selection criteria were that the works should have a clear message and express a plea for dialog.
The organizers have not divided the works according to ideology or movement, so “Voice of the Streets” reproduces the world of Russian street art, in which non-political graffiti sits side by side with radical mottoes, and well-known artists are displayed alongside amateurs, they said.
Artists and art groups presented include Slava PTRK, Incubus, ZukClub, Grigory Yushchenko, Mikaela, Bez Aftora, p3ncil, Volodya Kirilin, Sne*ok, Maria Bovenko and about 30 anonymous artists.
The opening days of the show were marked by censorship, when the administration of Etagi asked for a work made by the group Ispravlyai! Ugarai! (Correct! Hoot!) to be removed. The group had altered a City Hall outdoor advertisement for the controversial new Russian public holiday People’s Unity Day, celebrated annually on Nov. 4. The holiday commemorates the expulsion of Polish occupiers from the Kremlin in 1612, and replaced the Day of the Great October Revolution, which was celebrated every year on Nov. 7.
Replacing the faces of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus on the poster with those of President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, respectively, was seen as an “anti-religious message” by Etagi, whose publicity manager denied that the arts center’s request for the work to be removed was prompted by a call from City Hall.
“Considering the situation in the country now, we realize that religious people might stage a protest,” she was quoted by Interfax as saying.
“So at our own initiative, we decided to preempt that.”
The organizers agreed to the request in order to save the exhibition, which is due to run through mid-December when it is set to travel to Kaliningrad, from closing.
“We were confronted with the decision to close the exhibition or to compromise and remove the picture,” wrote Reshetnyov. “We could have shut the exhibition down, but we need it to exist so that the ideas spread.”
According to Kachko, it was more important to preserve the exhibition rather than shut it down as a protest.
“We wanted people to be inspired and start to do street art, too,” she said.
After the work in question was taken down by the organizers, the group Ispravlyai! Ugarai! and its sister group KHUYA DSPA removed their other works from the show in protest and urged the other artists to do the same, but no-one else followed their gesture.
“The organizers ordered to remove one of the exhibition’s main works dedicated to the merge of the church and the state,” group Ispravlyai! Ugarai! said in a statement.
“We find it unacceptable and hypocritical — to flirt with street art and at the same time engage in political censorship. If the owners of Loft Project Etagi fear for their property and openly censor any statement relating to power, then let them openly declare that Loft Project Etagi is a shopping mall-cum-entertainment center, not a space for art.”
However, the Etagi administration had no objections to other anti-clerical works, such as a bust of Patriarch Kirill with a coin slot in his head, referring to scandals over the head of the Russian Orthodox Church’s real estate and possessions and over the commercial activities of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. An image of Kirill as a moneybox is repeated on a painting, showing a hand dropping a coin in his head slot.
The Patriarch as a moneybox was originally created by Slava PTRK, an artist from Yekaterinburg, as graffiti, and was remade by him as a bust especially for the exhibition.
Apart from the patriarch, the most popular graffiti anti-hero is obviously Putin.
“In fact, a lot of people do Putin, so at one point we decided to stop collecting Putin and Gundyayev [Patriarch Kirill’s born name], because it is not profound and has grown tiresome,” Kachko said.
Putin is, however, featured in “Little Brother Is Watching You,” a work by Finnish artist Sampsa, and is shown upside down in the anonymous work “Crab,” which takes its title from a derogative nickname for the president.
Inevitably, the slogan “Free Pussy Riot” can be found as part of a larger work at the exhibition, while “Bye Bye, Democracy” shows three colored-balaclava-clad faces behind prison bars.
Many works are devoted to street protests and their dispersals by the OMON riot police. Kachko’s own large-scale work called “Partizany” (“Guerillas”) depicts policemen, protesters and her Zoa character sitting, detained, in a police van, all made out of cut-out paper graffiti.
As an activist with The Other Russia, Kachko has been a frequent sight at protests and had her wrist broken by an OMON policeman while being detained on July 31, 2011.
“Guerrillas” is credited to Avdotya Kablukova. Kachko said she got her new artistic name due to a mistake, being erroneously listed as “Avdotya Kablukova” on the guest list for a concert by the politically conscious Belarusian rock band Lyapis Trubetskoy. A free pass to the concert was a reward for her contribution to the band’s video to the song “Bronenosets” (Battleship).
Inspired by Sergei Eisenstein’s 1925 revolutionary film classic “The Battleship Potemkin,” the video alternates the silent film’s famous Odessa Steps massacre sequence with contemporary chronicles of massive demos being dispersed by OMON police, and features graffiti by about 60 street artists.
Out of about 100 works on display, “Voices of the Streets” features photographs of graffiti and other street art and actual stencil prints, but a number of artists are also represented by other forms of their work. For instance, local artist Alexei Varsopko exhibited his cardboard creations, which he makes by carving out layers of cardboard.
“We thought that if we only had photographs, it would be rather boring,” Kachko said.
“What Varsopko does out of cardboard is similar to street art in spirit, moreover, he is very political and civic-minded in his work.”
One of the few apparently nationalist-minded artworks shows a sign saying “Russian Means Sober,” reminiscent of nationalist campaigns for a healthy lifestyle, while another is called “The myth of Russian tolerance will not last forever” and is made out of packaging for the Russian soap powder Mif (Myth).
The stencil print “What’s Berezyuk in Prison for” is devoted to The Other Russia activist who was arrested in the wake of nationalism-dominated protests on Manezhnaya Ploshchad in Moscow in December 2010 and sentenced to five and a half years in a prison colony on charges of “rioting,” “the use of violence against a government representative,” “inciting hatred or enmity,” “group hooliganism” and “involving a minor in a crime.”
His supporters say Berezyuk was handpicked as a scapegoat, because he belonged to The Other Russia party disliked by the Kremlin and the police for its uncompromising stand, and that he did not commit the offenses with which he was charged. Two other activists of The Other Russia were sentenced to lesser terms alongside Berezyuk, with Ruslan Khubayev getting four years, while Kirill Unchuk was given three.
One of Kachko’s graffiti works shows a girl with her mouth plastered with the number “282,” the Criminal Code’s “counter-extremism” article, which is frequently used to suppress political dissent.
Voina art group, one of the leading street art groups in St. Petersburg, and the group responsible for painting a giant penis on the Liteiny Bridge next to the local FSB and former KGB offices, is not represented at the show.
Kachko said Voina, two of whose activists are wanted by the police and are in hiding, frequently without Internet access, had initially agreed to take part, but later stopped answering emails.
According to Kachko, some streets artists did not participate because the organizers could not meet their demands. “There were people who asked for fees or, for instance, their second-class train fare or hotel accommodation to be covered,” she said. “But our budget was very modest; for instance, Stas [Reshetnyov] and I worked for free as the curators. But there were people who painted everything, brought it, nailed it up and didn’t want anything in return.”
The “Voice of the Streets” exhibition runs through Dec. 14 at Loft Project Etagi, 74 Ligovsky Prospekt. Tel. 458 5005. www.loftprojectetagi.ru.
TITLE: Life in a female prison
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A group of St. Petersburg sociologists have published their insights into the lives of Russia’s imprisoned women. Titled “Before and After Prison: Women’s Stories,” the book (in Russian) blends uncensored stories written by prisoners with a professional assessment of the plight of the country’s female prison population.
“There were thirty of us sharing the same room in the colony,” recalled Galina, a prisoner whose story is included in the book. “It was awful, and really felt like barracks. And there was only one toilet room — with two toilets in it — per one detachment of three hundred people, who had a total of half an hour in the morning to use this toilet. It was surreal. […] We hardly ever had hot water, and the toilets, if they broke, would not be repaired. It was a concentration camp.”
“I remember we did not have any water at all for a few days, and it was raining. We collected some rainwater that was falling from the roof in a basin, and then boiled it and drank it,” Galina said.
According to official statistics, Russia’s total prison population in 2012 amounted to 714,000, with women representing 59,000 of them, or 8.3 percent. Conditions in Russian prisons have been examined before but the research has mainly been carried out by lawyers and human rights advocates. The studies have also been general and have not touched on gender aspects at all. However, as the St. Petersburg-published book clearly proves, Russian prisons feature a series of ordeals that appear to have been designed to suppress femininity, the authors say.
A Kafkaesque lack of privacy and inexplicable humiliation was what the book’s authors said shocked them the most in their interviewees’ sobering accounts.
“One complaint that was repeated over and over again in the interviews was a devastating lack of personal space,” said sociologist Yelena Omelchenko, a co-author of the book. “Whether you are eating or working or sleeping or showering, and even when you are using the toilet, you are exposed to others.”
Toilets and showers in prisons do not have partitions. Remarkably enough, this shameful element is preserved in them even when the premises undergo full renovation. The principle of full deprivation of personal space is being kept intact.
“When I discovered, during the course of my research, how they renovated a toilet in one colony, I was stunned,” Omelchenko recalled. “In front of a row of holes in the ground — not separated by partitions — they placed a large mirror. I am still not fully convinced that the person who was responsible for that interior design solution was not in fact a moral sadist.”
Another distinct feature of Russian female prisons and colonies is that they create a system of severe suppression of femininity.
“Colored bed sheets are forbidden; and there are rules in jails stipulating that if you soil your bed sheets — for example, with menstrual blood — you will be punished for it,” said sociologist Natalya Goncharova, a co-author of the book.
“When your period starts unexpectedly, you are not allowed to wash until the next allocated shift for showering, which could be the next day,” the prisoner Galina remembered.
There is one myth that the study dispels — that relations between prisoners themselves are gentler in female jails and colonies.
“Women are cruel, and they are extremely nasty to each other, vicious as hell,” said Yulia, a prisoner whose story is included in the book. “If you are ill, or weak or old, they will be sure to exploit you, humiliate you, harass you, sometimes just for fun. When someone was snoring, they would come and hit them with a shoe over the head — and if you complained, they would simply give the duty officer a chocolate bar or another sweetener to hush up the incident. We were working in a sewing workshop in the colony, and some vicious inmates would cut the items that the girls in my team made so that we would fail to fulfill the plan.”
The strict system of surveillance that exists in Russian jails is made worse by the informal system of snitching.
“The system of squealing and earning high marks with the management for snooping on others, which was originally created in the Gulag [Soviet-era labor camps] and has effectively survived until the present day, is as strong in women’s prisons as in men’s ones,” Omelchenko said.
According to the experts who wrote the book, one drastic difference between a male and a female prison or colony is that there are always lines of visitors standing in line to enter or waiting outside the men’s jails. By contrast, visitor areas in women’s prisons are striking for their emptiness and strong sense of abandonment.
“You immediately feel that loneliness abounds here; when a woman is given a prison term, in Russia this inevitably means almost complete exclusion from society at all levels,” Goncharova said. “A sentenced woman is typically rejected by her husband or partner, her friends, her colleagues and social circle. By contrast, women rarely abandon men over imprisonment. On the contrary, women often give support to their partners who are put behind bars.”
“Who visited me? If anyone came there, it was almost always our mothers; nobody else gives a damn,” said Lyudmila, who served a five-year term in jail.
“Lawlessness, despair, devastation, hopelessness are the key words that describe the incarceration of our interviewees,” said sociologist Gyuzel Sabirova, another of the book’s co-authors.
The sociologists conducted 35 in-depth interviews with women who had served one or several terms in Russian jails. “The women were very different: They had committed different crimes, been given different sentences, their age and personal circumstances were also different, yet there were patterns that emerged that made them equal in the ordeal they had been through.”
Anna Tyomkina, a doctor of philosophy and a senior lecturer at the European University in St. Petersburg, stressed that, although the subject of the research may seem marginal for the general public, the book is fascinating to read to anyone who considers themselves a human being.
“For me personally, this book was a revelation,” Tyomkina said. “Not only because it says a lot about our society and the social sciences that I study, but because I have learned some important things about myself. When reading the book, I remembered a time when, very recently, I was very ill and felt extremely vulnerable. I had very similar feelings back then to those that our heroines had: I was up against a system that was designed to cure, but was not helping me. Just like the prisons that, in theory, should prevent people from committing crimes in the future, but only make them ill, bitter and emotionally traumatized. We live in a society of hedonists and prefer to turn a blind eye to all things depressing, sad or unfair. This book is an essential read for anyone who wants to stay human and look life full in the face.”
“Before and After Prison: Women’s Stories” is published in Russian by Aleteya Publishing House. The book is on sale at the Poryadok Slov bookstore at 15 Naberezhnaya Reki Fontanki.
It costs 250 rubles.
TITLE: the word’s worth: Take it for what it’s worth
AUTHOR: By Michele A. Berdy
TEXT: One of my more grim memories of early Russian language learning is sitting in my college dorm room, a textbook in my lap, eyes shut and repeating verb declensions over and over again: ÿ ïèøó, òû ïèøåøü, îí ïèøåò… (I write, you write, he writes…) The point was to sear those forms into my brain so that eventually, one day, just maybe I could say ÿ (I) and automatically follow the word with the properly declined verb.
I’m happy to say that the old-fashioned rote method finally worked.
Now the problem is modifying those imprinted verb forms to accept idioms and constructions that violate them.
Take the idiom áåðè íå õî÷ó, which, thanks to years of declensions whispered into the night, I would translate as “you take — I don’t want (to).” But it doesn’t mean that at all. It means: There’s a ton of something, and you can take as much as you want.
For example, in a comment contrasting the shopping experience today with the Soviet period, someone said: Òåïåðü êàæäûé ìàãàçèí ëîìèòñÿ îò òîâàðîâ — áåðè íå õî÷ó (Today every store is crammed full of goods. You can buy to your heart’s content).
This construction can be used with other verbs, too, most of them involving some form of consumption. Ìàìà ïåêëà âåñü äåíü. Ïèðîæêîâ òàì — åøü íå õî÷ó. (My mother baked all day. I could eat all the pastries I wanted.) Ñâàäüáà øëà òðè äíÿ — ãóëÿé íå õî÷ó (The wedding went for three days — you could party nonstop). Ìû çàâåëè êîðîâó — ìîëîêà ïåé íå õî÷ó! (We got a cow and could drink as much milk as we wanted!)
Language learners out there will note that the thing in abundance is in the genitive case — ïèðîæêîâ, ìîëîêà — and that the idiom can refer to you, me, us, them or anyone and everyone, depending on the context.
You can often find this idiom in newspaper headlines: Äîñòóïíîå æèëü¸! Áåðè íå õî÷ó! (The market is glutted with affordable housing.) But Russian newspaper editors love to do word play with headlines and sometimes jokingly flip the idiom so it has a literal meaning: Áåðè — íå õî÷ó: Ïî÷åìó ñòîëè÷íûå âëàñòè íå ñìîãëè ðàçäàòü ìîñêâè÷àì ïî 350 òûñÿ÷ ðóáëåé íà îòêðûòèå ñîáñòâåííîãî äåëà (No takers: Why the capital’s authorities couldn’t hand out 350,000 rubles to Muscovites to open their own business.)
Perhaps because of media wordplay, or perhaps because the idiom fell into disuse, today some Russians now understand and use it to mean what I originally thought it meant. One of my respondents said, “Ïîéä¸øü â ìàãàçèí è òàì âñå âîçìîæíûå êîìïüþòåðû, íî öåíà íå óñòðàèâàåò èëè òû óæå êóïèë. Ñêàæåøü: Áåðè íå õî÷ó.” (You go into a store where there is every kind of computer imaginable, but either the price is too high or you already bought one. You say: There’s lots of stuff but I’m not interested.)
So if a Russian headline about last week’s post-Thanksgiving shopping frenzy in the U.S. was: “׸ðíàÿ ïÿòíèöà â ÑØÀ — áåðè íå õî÷ó,” you’d have to read further to find out if sales were great or disappointing. If they were great, it means: Black Friday in the U.S. — they shopped till they dropped. If they were a bust, it means: Black Friday in the U.S. — they dropped and didn’t shop.
Michele A. Berdy, a Moscow-based translator and interpreter, is author of “The Russian Word’s Worth” (Glas), a collection of her columns.
TITLE: Mysticism in war
AUTHOR: By Joanna Kozlowska
TEXT: Karen Shakhnazarov’s “White Tiger,” a World War II fantasy blending history, philosophy and the supernatural, has made it onto the long list of Oscar 2013 nominees for Best Foreign Language Films.
The director, who also heads Russia’s leading studio, Mosfilm, spoke about his new movie, mysticism in cinema and the struggle for a national film industry.
The Academy Award’s shortlist of foreign language nominees will be announced on Jan. 10, 2013.
Q: “White Tiger” is unlike the average World War II movie. The story of a soldier who sets out to defeat a monstrous German tank often borders on the mystical. Why did you choose this particular angle?
A: I got the idea from a short story by Ilya Boyashov called “The Tank Crewman, or the White Tiger.” I chose it simply because I found it interesting, as I think most directors do. The larger than life Nazi “ghost tank,” the White Tiger, reminded me of Melville’s Moby Dick. I think one can still argue the movie is realistic. Many scenes, like that of German capitulation and the following banquet, are based verbatim on historical sources. I would say the supernatural element helps make the story more universal. The White Tiger does not merely stand for the German military threat in the 1940s. After all, Nazi ideology is alive and well: Neo-Nazi movements abound, Nietzsche’s philosophy is still deemed “respectable” and taught at universities. Many will argue the Nietzsche-Hitler link is tenuous. Still, I think reading [Nietzsche’s] “Antichrist” makes it clear that Nazism did not appear out of nowhere. This is where the finale [of my film] comes from: even though Naydenov’s companions convince him that war is over, he knows that he needs to stay alert.
Q: So you would agree that “White Tiger” harks back to a “mystical” tradition in cinema: Tarkovsky, Fellini...
A: Fellini was probably the director who influenced me most. In my opinion, what people call “mysticism” comes down to a certain sense of mystery. The word itself is derived from “mystery.” I have always felt that life itself is mysterious, that rational assumptions about it are always limited. A good work of art should be able to capture this. That’s why I love Fellini and Bunuel.
Q: Karl Krantzkowski’s Hitler also cuts an unusual figure. The Nazi dictator is often pictured as a frenzied fanatic. In your movie he is cold, reserved, calculating.
A: I think this is much closer to historical truth. The trend of caricaturing Hitler, picturing him as a clown, obscures the continuing dangerousness of his ideas and his politics. A clown would not have been able to achieve such power, create such a war machine and commit such atrocities. He must have been an apt, coldblooded politician. As for Krantzkowski, I knew I had to hire German actors. Anything else was out of the question. I wanted my Germans to speak German, and the German to sound absolutely natural.
Q: You have said that war movies are the most difficult genre to direct. Why is that?
A: The reasons are purely practical: No other genre requires such physical effort and incorporates so many mass scenes. Of course, I mean movies that feature battle scenes. You can have a perfectly legitimate war movie with two characters talking in a room.
Q: You have been general director of Mosfilm since 1998. How has the Russian film industry changed since then, and what were the biggest challenges?
A: I would say that in the 1990s, we had to start from scratch. We literally had to rebuild the whole industry from zero. The most important thing was to transform Mosfilm into a technologically modern film studio, introducing a range of crucial post-production technologies. It was only in the late 1990s that modern sound production or computer graphics appeared at Mosfilm. I think that our film industry is now on a par with most European ones. Hollywood is surely a whole different story, but we are no worse than France or Italy.
Q: What role would you like to play in modern Russian cinema?
A: I have never thought about that, I just want to go on making films [based] on what I find to be interesting material. As for Russian cinema today, we at Mosfilm are happy to work with anyone who has an intriguing idea.
However, I think that there were somehow more artistic ideas in Soviet times than today. It’s not just a Russian phenomenon. Think of Italian directors in the 1960s and 1970s: Fellini, Antonioni, Pasolini … Perhaps this is just how world culture develops.
TITLE: Back from exile
AUTHOR: By Eradzh Nidoev
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — “I’m a gallery owner again,” he said.
Marat Guelman, a former political spin doctor, returns less than six months after closing his Moscow gallery and after a period of semi-exile in Perm, where he attempted to make the Urals city a cultural powerhouse.
His new project, called Cultural Alliance, currently showcases Kazakh art and is an attempt to unite modern artists from different areas.
“Working in Perm, I realized that you can’t organize a full cultural life in the city by using creative minds only from the city. It’s impossible. You need a constant cultural exchange,” Guelman said in an interview.
Guelman shut down his gallery earlier this year because he felt the idea of running a gallery had changed.
“The market model for Russian art, launched in the ‘90s, has already ended. That time it was created just for a small group of oligarchs,” he said.
“New rich people in Russia, who frequently are connected to the authorities, now hide their money rather than show it. Now, the people who are interested in art for real are from the middle class. They are well-off but not very rich. They will not buy a picture for 50,000 euros,” he said.
Guelman has decided to tap this new market by showing artists from outside Moscow, who are more affordable for this new breed of collectors.
“Russian art must stop being a clique of just 30 oligarchs,” he said. “We want it to have a big, active and creative life with communication between artists, between cities.”
Guelman says his prices have fallen to a range of about 3,000 to 8,000 euros per work.
“These artists were outside the Moscow art market. This is the real price from their own town,” he said. “In the future their works will become more expensive and we will bring new ones.”
For his return, Guelman is concentrating on new Kazakh art.
“Kazakh art is very powerful. Of course, I wanted to amaze everybody by showing something new,” he said. “Kazakh art is terra incognito.”
One of the most prominent Kazakh artists in the exhibition is Yerbossin Meldibekov, whose sculpture of four horse legs and a ball has drawn much attention, although the most popular work at the gallery was a video by another Kazakh artist that showed a couple copulating while riding a horse.
“After Kazakhstan I will astound even more — our next exhibition will be held in Izhevsk,” Guelman said, referring to the Udmurtian capital, which is most famous for being the home of the Kalashnikov rifle and a group of singing grannies. “Nobody expected that Izhevsk would have such an interesting cultural life.”
Cultural Alliance, Marat Guelman Project runs through Dec. 12 at Winzavod, 1 4th Syromyatnichesky Pereulok, Bldg. 6 in Moscow. Metro Chkalovskaya, Kurskaya. Tel. (495) 766 4519.
TITLE: THE DISH: Tao Restaurant Bar Lounge
AUTHOR: By Isabel Makman
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Dinner in Narnia
Stepping into Tao, the latest addition to the parade of hip, upscale eateries on Konyushennaya Ploshchad, off of the blustering streets of wintry St. Petersburg is something akin to climbing through the wardrobe and ending up in Narnia.
Upon entering the restaurant visitors find themselves in a small, dark cloakroom that is separated from the rest of the premises by heavy, black velvet curtains. This gives the establishment an air of mystery, as guests are left to dive blindly into the folds of fabric, without any idea of what awaits them on the other side. Upon surfacing, they may well feel as though they’ve landed in a James Bond movie set in some chic Asian city. A small bar is located near the door, with a DJ set up inconspicuously in the corner and glamorous couples sipping brightly colored cocktails sprinkled around the room.
The bar section is divided off from the rest of the restaurant, giving the initial appearance that the establishment is quite small. After rounding the corner, however, guests are immediately confronted with a rather spectacular series of dining rooms and a large (and slightly disproportionate) golden lion dominating the back wall. Giant turquoise clay pots are positioned in various corners, and several walls are decorated with intricately carved wooden latticework. To complete the scene, lamps are dotted throughout the room, topped with bright orange Chinese-lantern-inspired shades. The entire ensemble makes for an exotic, chic atmosphere. The clientele matches the mood perfectly. Everyone is fashionably dressed in accordance with the “smart casual” weekday dress code (“chic and fun” is required for weekend nights).
The Pan-Asian menu offers everything from foie gras with mango rolls to chicken noodle soup to Chilean sea bass. On the waiter’s recommendation, we started with the crispy duck salad (480 rubles, $15) and duck spring rolls (340 rubles, $11). The salad was adorned with pomegranate seeds and the duck in it was cooked to perfection, with a crunchy texture and a wonderful, sweet, almost cinnamon-inspired aftertaste. The spring rolls alone were rather uninspired but coupled with the sweet dipping sauce they certainly merit high praise. In typical Russian style, these appetizers were only brought once we were in the middle of our main course which consisted of ostrich fillet with Malaysian sauce (860 rubles, $28) and sea scallops with asparagus (740 rubles, $24). The ostrich fillet, very reminiscent of beef, was cooked to the perfect level of tenderness and the Malaysian sauce was thick and sweet, almost like sweet and sour sauce. Despite being marked with a single chili pepper on the menu (supposedly indicating a moderate level of spiciness), the dish lacked any sort of spice whatsoever. This was disappointing and mildly surprising since the chef, Ken Lee, is not a typical spice-averse Russian cook but a highly acclaimed master from Singapore. Nor were the sea scallops anything to write home about.
The jumbled meal of entrees and appetizers was followed by a slice of crispy chocolate cake (360 rubles, $11) and a serving of mascarpone with mango sauce and whipped cream (300 rubles, $9). The chocolate cake earned its “crispy” description from the layer of crunchy chocolate on the bottom of the slice, making for an interesting, although not unpleasant, texture. The side of homemade mango sorbet was everything sorbet should be and complimented the dessert perfectly. The mascarpone, on the other hand, was rather uninteresting, lacking any sort of distinguishing qualities.
Tao also offers an extensive wine list, although few wines are served by the glass. Prices range from 390 rubles ($12) for a standard glass of Malbec to 37,000 rubles ($1,199) for the restaurant’s most expensive red. Other spirits and cocktails are also offered.
While the food and service at Tao were both good, it seems as though patrons are paying for the atmosphere rather than the cuisine itself. This ultimately might not be such a bad deal, however, as the chic, exotic décor makes for a much-needed getaway from the cold, gray streets of St. Petersburg.
TITLE: H2 Sees Flurry in Office Sector
AUTHOR: By Olga Kalashnikova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The St. Petersburg office real estate sector has become more “civilized,” according to analysts from consulting companies. The city is attracting more and more large international and Russian tenants who wish to have an office here.
“The deadlines announced for launching new projects are being adhered to, and property owners and management companies offer commercial conditions with full services and maintenance,” said Marina Puzanova, head of the office real estate department at Knight Frank St. Petersburg.
Moreover, the residential rental real estate market has sparked the development of the apartment-hotels sector, which in turn attracts highly qualified staff to the city, she said.
“St. Petersburg is becoming an attractive place for business and successfully competes with Moscow with lower rental rates for the same quality offices and lower staff expenses yet with a comparable level of educated personnel,” she added.
A SOLID SECOND HALF
The second half of this year saw heightened activity on the office real estate market.
Since July 2012, eight office centers have been launched in the city. Five of them — two A-class business centers and three B-class centers — were opened in the final quarter of the year.
Analysts expect about 300,000 square meters of quality office space to be launched in 2013, according to data from Maris, part of the CBRE Affiliate Network.
“But taking into account that deadlines are often postponed, the actual volume of new office buildings could be smaller,” said Yelena Prozorova, a consultant at Maris’s evaluation and consulting department.
“According to our forecast, the figure will be 200,000 to 230,000 square meters, which is the optimum volume for St. Petersburg, as the level of new occupancy is about 200,000 square meters per year,” she said.
Currently, 47 percent of A-class offices and 51 percent of B-class office space sees 100-percent occupancy, according to Maris data. The occupancy of B-class business centers will increase next year by 1 or 2 percent each quarter, Maris predicts, while A-class occupancy will stay almost the same and will reach more than 90 percent on average for the city as a whole.
Fifty-four percent of newly constructed business centers will be classified as A-class. Most contracts signed on the office rental market in the third quarter of this year regarded premises in this category.
Overall, experts are observing increased demand for office premises.
“More than a fifth of all the companies that approached us wanted to improve their office premises,” said Tamara Popova, head of the real estate market research department at Knight Frank St. Petersburg. “The trend of moving from unclassified offices to high-class modern business centers continues,” she said.
The companies most actively renting premises in A-class business centers are those operating in the mining and extraction sector, IT and banking, according to Knight Frank data.
THE RISE OF VASILYEVSKY
Business centers located in the central districts of the city — Tsentralny (Central), Petrogradsky and Vasileostrovsky — are in highest demand.
“During the last few years, Vasilyevsky Island has begun to actively develop into the new business district,” said Puzanova. “The tenants of offices [in this district] are people living or working there or ‘patriots’ of the district. To develop the business activity of Vasilyevsky Island, it is necessary to increase the number of metro stations and the routes of overground public transport,” she added.
One of the trends observed in 2012 is the construction of office centers by large companies specifically for their needs. These are primarily oil companies that want to consolidate various departments in one building.
The highest demand is not for large office premises from 250 to 400 square meters, according to Knight Frank specialists, but for small furnished offices in existing business centers (mostly B-class) within walking distance of a metro station, and with convenient access to the office building and parking facilities.
“The presence of enough parking spaces is one of the determining factors for most companies in search of a new office,” said Prozorova. “With the lack of liquid premises on existing sites, large tenants are starting to think about renting offices not only in ready-built buildings, but in projects at the final stage of construction,” she said.
There is also demand for large office premises upwards of 1,500 square meters, of which there is currently a shortage.
“We expect that the lack of large office premises in one block will change in 2013 after the launch of several quality business centers,” said Puzanova.
AVERAGE COSTS
The average cost per square meter as of late October of renting A-class office space is from 1,400 to 1,700 rubles ($45 to $55) per month (including VAT and operating expenses), while B-class space costs from 900 to 1,200 rubles ($29 to $39), according to Maris data.
“During the recent post-crisis years, the difference between rental rates in A- and B-class buildings was quite small,” said Veronika Lezhneva, head of research in St. Petersburg at Jones Lang LaSalle Russia & CIS.
“But the third quarter of 2012 saw an increasing gap between rental rates in business centers of various levels based in comparable locations. This could potentially become an overall trend for all A-class objects in St. Petersburg,” she said.
Colliers International experts observed growth of 7 to 10 percent in rental rates for both A- and B-class office premises in 2012. Analysts say this is a result of the decrease in empty premises and the small number of new premises appearing on the market.
In spite of the high volume of new office premises launched in the second half of 2012, the average level of vacant premises has decreased, which reflects on the growing activity among tenants.
FORECASTS FOR THE FUTURE
With the development of the office real estate market and increase in competition, Maris experts do not predict significant growth in rental rates in 2013.
“An increase of average rental rates can be forecast of 5-7 percent, in keeping with inflation, for both A- and B-class premises,” said Prozorova. “For A-class office centers, the rental rate will be from 1,500 to 1,800 rubles ($49 to $58) including VAT and operating expenses, and 950 to 1,300 rubles ($31 to $42) for B-class,” she added.
“Rental rates for quality premises situated close to metro stations with maximum occupancy indicators will grow more rapidly — by 10 percent and upwards,” she predicted.
TITLE: New Malls Boost City’s Retail Real Estate Sector
AUTHOR: By Olga Kalashnikova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Investments in the Russian commercial real estate market could reach $6.5 billion by the end of the year, according to data published by consulting company Knight Frank. Although that figure is less than that seen in 2011, experts note that the market’s dynamic is positive in comparison with previous years.
“The St. Petersburg market has become calmer and the general development of the real estate market is leading to an increase in quality projects that can stake a claim to being ‘investment products,’” said Nikolai Pashkov, general director of Knight Frank St. Petersburg.
The majority of investment transactions in Russia (49 percent) take place in the retail sector, while second place is occupied by office real estate, which accounts for 30 percent of the overall commercial real estate market in Russia.
NEW ARRIVALS
The end of 2012 has been an active period for the St. Petersburg retail real estate market. During the third quarter of the year, four new shopping malls were opened in the city, the same number as during the first six months of 2012, according to Knight Frank. Among the most notable launches are the Elektra shopping center on Moskovsky Prospekt, the multi-functional Mezhdunarodny center adjacent to the new metro station of the same name that is due to open Dec. 27, and the reopening of the historic DLT department store, which opened after renovation as a branch of Moscow’s upscale TSUM department store.
There are more than 900,000 square meters of retail space currently under construction in St. Petersburg and scheduled for launch before the end of 2014, according to consulting company Maris, part of the CBRE Affiliate Network.
At the same time, other retail sites are closed for reconstruction or rebranding. According to Knight Frank, during the last two years six major shopping malls have closed for renovation work, four of which have already reopened their doors to visitors.
“Taking into account the high level of saturation of the St. Petersburg retail market, we are seeing a trend toward rebranding existing shopping centers and the construction of new ones in the zones of large-scale development projects near new metro stations and transport hubs,” said Yelena Prozorova, a consultant at Maris’s consulting and valuation department.
NORTH AND SOUTH
Most shopping malls in St. Petersburg are located in suburban districts, where 86.2 percent of all the city’s retail space is located, according to Maris. The biggest number of shopping centers is in the Primorsky and Vyborgsky districts in the north and in the Moskovsky district in the south of the city.
As a result of the opening of new retail space, the city’s Tsentralny (Central) district, which two years ago wasn’t included in the top five districts in the provision of leasable quality retail spaces, now occupies third place in this ranking, according to Knight Frank research.
“The Vasileostrovsky and Petrogradsky districts remain less provided for when it comes to retail space,” said Prozorova. “The reasons are the restrictions on construction and the absence of available space for building,” she added.
“While the Tsentralny district has 849 square meters [of quality retail space] per 1,000 people, the Vasileostrovsky and Petrogradsky districts have just 73 and 0 square meters per 1,000 customers respectively,” said Veronika Lezhneva, head of research in St. Petersburg at Jones Lang LaSalle Russia & CIS, which specializes in investment and real estate management.
In order to be considered “quality” retail space, a shopping mall must occupy more than 10,000 square meters and be home to recognized international brands.
FOOD, GLORIOUS FOOD
Food stores have shown the most active expansion on the retail market in 2012. Finnish supermarket chain Prisma and the premium-class supermarket Lend have opened a number of new outlets this year, contributing to the active development of the premium segment of the city’s food retail market. The Lend supermarket chain has a share of 50 to 54 percent of the St. Petersburg premium food market, according to the company’s data.
According to Jones Lang LaSalle’s Cross-Border Retailer Index – Destination Europe 2013, St. Petersburg ranks 8th on the list of the cities with the biggest number of international retailers. The company’s new report analyzes the presence and expansion plans of 250 international retailers. Of these, 142 international retailers now operate in St. Petersburg, about half of which belong to the mass-market segment, said analysts at Jones Lang LaSalle Russia & CIS.
INSIDE, OUTSIDE
Space in shopping malls is in high demand compared with street retail. Experts observe a growth in occupancy levels even in poorly located malls and those with high rental rates and other disadvantages.
The average minimum rental rate for anchor tenants is from 4,500 rubles ($145) to 12,000 rubles ($390) per square meter per year (excluding VAT and maintenance fees), according to Maris data for the third quarter of 2012. The rental rates depend on the size of the rental space and the class and location of the shopping mall.
The highest rates are found at the largest malls, and can vary from 20,000 rubles ($650) to 45,000 rubles ($1,455) per square meter per year.
According to forecasts by consulting company experts, the retail market in St. Petersburg will maintain a stable pace of development. The provision of retail space by the end of 2012 could reach 452 square meters per 1,000 people, Colliers International experts predict.
Among the largest projects due for launch by the end of the year are the Continent On Bukharestskaya multi-functional retail center located in the same building as the new Bukharestskaya metro station that is due to open Dec. 27, and the 12 Stulyev (12 Chairs) furniture center in the Balkania Nova shopping and entertainment center next to Kupchino metro station.
Both projects are being realized by the Adamant corporate holding company. If they are opened on schedule by the end of the year, a third of retail space launched this year will belong to Adamant, said Knight Frank analysts.
Another company with a strong market position is the Fort Group investment company. Together with Adamant, it owns half of all retail premises currently under construction in St. Petersburg.
TITLE: Small Apartments Dominate Housing Market
AUTHOR: By Olga Kalashnikova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: This year is considered to have been a stable year on the residential real estate market, with no drastic increase in prices observed. Next year, analysts predict stable growth in this sector of 1 to 1.3 percent every month, totaling a 12 to 15 percent rise by the end of 2013.
Small and medium-sized apartments were most in demand during 2012, which led to a reduction of such properties on the market. The most in-demand properties are inexpensive one-room apartments and studios with an average size of 30 to 35 square meters.
“The high demand for this format [of one-room and studio apartments] together with the high level of value-added, as the price per square meter can be 20 percent higher for these than the price of a square meter in a three- or four-room apartment in the same building, leads to a situation in which the proportion of small apartments can reach 90 percent in some [construction]projects,” said Pavel Pikalev, head of Penny Lane Realty in St. Petersburg.
“Mass market” housing accounts for 91 percent of all residential real estate for sale on the St. Petersburg market, according to Petersburg Real Estate data. The average cost of a square meter in such apartments varies from 60,000 to 80,000 rubles ($2,000 to $2,600).
Another widespread trend on the residential real estate market is the demand for apartments in large-scale development projects.
“For example, the apartments in the Severnaya Dolina complex near Parnas metro station have been actively bought in 2012, not only because of the low price per square meter, but also because of the gradual occupation of the buildings — people have moved in to that area, new stores are emerging and so on,” said Pikalev.
DESIGN FOR LIFE
The second most appealing factor for people buying property in a newly built building is apartments that are already decorated, equipped with a bathroom and ready to move into, as opposed to the option of buying an empty shell and choosing one’s own bathroom and decor. According to Penny Lane Realty data, ready apartments account for more than 30 percent of all sales, while among sales of small apartments, this figure rises to 50 percent. The same trend is seen in the higher price segment.
“Interior decor, short deadlines in launching new apartment buildings, close location to a metro station and the technical facilities of the building are additional pluses in the search for a suitable apartment,” said Olga Trosheva, head of the Petersburg Real Estate consulting center.
TOP FIVE DISTRICTS
Most offers on the St. Petersburg residential real estate market are based in the Primorsky district in the north of the city, which accounts for a fifth of all the properties on sale, according to Penny Lane Realty.
In second place is another northern district, Vyborgsky, with 17 percent of all offers. The other areas in the top five are the Moskovsky, Nevsky and Krasnoselsky districts, which each account for 10 percent of offers. Together, these five districts contain 68 percent of all residential real estate on sale in St. Petersburg, with a total volume of 2.5 million square meters, according to Penny Lane Realty.
The Kirovsky and Frunsensky districts are less active; there is a lack of space under construction and low demand among customers in these locations, according to Petersburg Real Estate specialists.
The closest districts of the Leningrad Oblast to the city are gaining in popularity among buyers due to the lower cost of property there.
According to data compiled by Petersburg Real Estate, in June 2012 there were 16 complexes in the suburbs of St. Petersburg in which an apartment could be purchased for less than 2 million rubles, while in September, there were apartments available at that price in a total of 30 complexes.
MORE MORTGAGES
Another trend observed by analysts is the growing popularity of mortgage schemes.
“About half of all sales are made using payment in installment systems and mortgage schemes, while the year before, this figure was 10 to 15 percent,” said Trosheva.
The development of mortgage schemes along with changes in the average interest rates for private loans are factors that significantly influence demand and price setting.
“[Demand and price setting] will also be influenced by macro-economic factors such as the stability of the euro, local factors like town-planning regulations restricting construction in the Tsentralny district, and the development of residential construction in the nearest districts of the Leningrad Oblast,” said Pikalev.
Penny Lane Realty experts predict stable price growth on the residential real estate market of 1 to 1.3 percent every month, totaling a 12 to 15 percent rise by the end of 2013.
RENTAL BOOM
The demand for rented property increased greatly in the late summer and continued through the end of November.
“The demand for rented apartments in autumn 2012 was 34 percent higher than average year indicators,” said Pikalev. “This is connected, first of all, with the end of the holiday season, the start of the academic year in primary schools and high schools and with the general activation of business,” said Pikalev.
One-room apartments are also the most popular in the economy sector of the rental residential market. Seventy-one percent of all apartments for rent belong to this category, according to Penny Lane Realty research.
Most economy-class properties up for rent are in the Primorsky district, where the average monthly cost of renting a one-room apartment is 23,900 rubles ($771), 31,500 rubles ($1,000) for a two-room apartment and 43,200 rubles ($1,390) per month for a three-room apartment.
Elite apartments are far more expensive and cost from $1,500 per month. Most rental rates — 46 percent of all apartments on offer in the elite section of the residential market — fall in the $1,500 to $2,500 per month category, according to Penny Lane Realty data. About half of top-end properties up for rent are three-room apartments with a combined kitchen and living room, and two bedrooms. In second place are one-bedroom apartments and studios that together account for 27 percent of elite apartments for rent, according to Penny Lane Realty analysts.
The leader on the elite rental residential real estate market is the Tsentralny district, followed by the Petrogradsky district.
As the number of business and elite-class apartments up for rent is decreasing and new projects fail to satisfy existing demand, property owners can pick and choose their tenants. Favored tenants in this sector are, according to Penny Lane Realty, expats. The proportion of expats renting apartments for $2,000 or more per month is currently about 60 percent of all clients in this category. Owners explain their preference for expats as due to them being more reliable and attentive to the legal terms of the rental agreement. Other preferred tenants include married couples without children or pets. Embassy employees and corporate clients are also favored. Generally, landlords prefer tenants aged 35 and older.
ELITE SALES
The prevalence of small apartments in the economy sector is mirrored in sales on the elite residential market. According to Knight Frank data, as of September 2012, 880 newly constructed apartments and 1,650 apartments in existing buildings were on sale on the elite residential market.
The average cost of housing in a “comfort-class” apartment is 93,150 rubles ($3,000) per square meter, “business-class” costs 127,120 rubles ($4,100) and “premium class” costs 195,900 rubles ($6,300), according to Penny Lane Realty. Prices for apartments in existing buildings are higher.
Buyers looking for an apartment in an existing building pay more attention to the layout and decor of the apartment, and to the technical condition of the building. There are high requirements regarding the availability of parking and security systems in historical buildings, according to Knight Frank analysts.
Taking into account the difficulty of construction in the historic center of the city and ensuing lack of new projects in exclusive locations, any properties up for sale in buildings constructed during the last ten years are of high interest to potential buyers.
“There is a new trend on the elite residential market that came from Moscow and Europe,” said Yelena Gromova, head of elite residential real estate at Knight Frank St. Petersburg. “Interest has emerged in buildings that are under the management of hotel operators, offering high-class services, from room cleaning to the delivery of haute cuisine to the apartment,” she said.
“If such a project emerges on the market, there will be great interest in it and high demand, as this niche is currently free of competition,” she added.
TITLE: Competition Increasing as Hotel Sector Continues to Develop
AUTHOR: By Olga Kalashnikova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: During the last two years the development of the St. Petersburg hotel real estate market has advanced significantly, according to experts at consulting company Colliers International. Almost all hotels that were in the early stages of construction prior to the 2008 financial crisis have now entered the market.
In 2012 only one new hotel appeared in St. Petersburg — the five-star Domina Prestige St. Petersburg Hotel on the Moika embankment. It is the first hotel run by the international operator Domina Hotels & Resorts to open in St. Petersburg.
The earlier announced openings of the Four Seasons hotel and The Hermitage hotel have again been delayed, according to data from consulting company Maris, part of the CBRE Affiliate Network.
There are now 127 hotels operating in the city, offering a total number of 18,400 rooms (this figure does not include mini-hotels, government-sponsored hotels and those located in the suburbs), according to Colliers International.
“Taking into account all hotels in the city, including economy class, we can say there are 6.8 rooms for every 1,000 city inhabitants,” said Natalya Kireyeva, senior analyst at the consulting and evaluation department of Maris.
“In Europe, the average figure is seven rooms. According to European standards, the ideal ratio is 10 to 12 rooms per 1,000 inhabitants. So St. Petersburg, with all it has to offer tourists, has potential for expanding its supply of hotel rooms. The city now lacks about 6,000 rooms,” she added.
“In 2013, six hotels of various categories will be launched on the market, with a total number of 1,174 rooms. These are mainly four-star hotels,” said Yelena Prozorova, consultant at Maris.
“Although the category most in demand is three-star hotels, most of the hotels being built are four- and five-star. There is a need for the development of the economy class market and hostel market,” she said.
In 2014 and 2015, Hilton Worldwide will open three hotels in St. Petersburg, according to Colliers International. Currently, 14 international hotel operators are represented on the city’s hotel market, managing 50 percent of the city’ rooms in hotels of three stars and above. Russian hotel chains are also developing in St. Petersburg. For example, the Oktyabrskaya, St. Petersburg and Olgino hotels have now united under one brand, according to Maris data.
Growing competition and higher requirements among guests have resulted in a number of existing hotels undergoing refurbishment. The Yuzhnaya hotel on Rastannaya Ulitsa has been renovated and reopened as the Bristol hotel, while the former Hotel Sovietskaya, now Hotel Azimut, is awaiting renovation. Next year the Neva hotel on Ulitsa Tchaikovskogo will be modernized and reopened as the boutique Hotel Indigo, according to Colliers International.
The development of boutique and spa-hotels is another feature of the local market, and the apartment-hotel rental sector is also expanding rapidly.
“Few hotels are currently being built in St. Petersburg because of the reduction in profit of the hotel segment and due to growth in competition,” said Kireyeva. “It takes far longer to break even in the hotel segment than in any other sector of commercial real estate.”
According to Colliers International data, 2012 should bring 5.9 million visitors to St. Petersburg, 50 percent of whom are business travelers. About 40 percent come to the city as tourists, according to Maris data.
Accommodation prices in St. Petersburg are among the highest in Europe and Russia. However, hotels in the northern capital are far from the most expensive ones. For example, Maris quotes Interfax data citing around 10,500 rubles ($340) per night for a hotel in Norilsk. According to Maris, St. Petersburg ranks 57th among Russian cities in terms of accommodation prices.
Depending on the season, the average daily room rate at St. Petersburg three-star hotels ranges from 2,550 to 4,500 rubles ($82 to $145), while a room in a four-star hotel costs from 4,500 to 8,000 rubles ($145 to $260) and prices for five-star hotel rooms vary from 11,000 to 19,500 rubles ($355 to $630), according to Maris. None of these prices include VAT.
TITLE: Ukraine Battles With Growing HIV Epidemic
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BUCHA, Ukraine — Andrei Mandrykin, an inmate at Prison No. 85 outside Kiev, has HIV. He looks ghostly and much older than his 35 years. But Mandrykin is better off than tens of thousands of his countrymen, because he is receiving treatment amid what the World Health Organization says is the worst AIDS epidemic in Europe.
Prior to World AIDS Day last Saturday, international groups urged Ukraine to increase funding for treatment and do more to prevent HIV from spreading from high-risk groups into the mainstream population.
Some 230,000 Ukrainians, about 0.8 percent of people aged 15 to 49, are living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Some 120,000 are in urgent need of anti-retroviral therapy, which can greatly prolong and improve the quality of their lives. But due to a lack of funds, fewer than a quarter are receiving the drugs — one of the lowest levels in the world.
Ukraine’s AIDS epidemic is still concentrated in high-risk groups such as intravenous drug users, sex workers, homosexuals and prisoners. But nearly half of new cases registered last year were traced to unprotected heterosexual contact.
“Slowly but surely the epidemic is moving from the most at-risk, vulnerable population to the general population,” said Nicolas Cantau of The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. “For the moment there is not enough treatment in Ukraine.”
Stigma is also a big problem for those with HIV in Ukraine. Lilia, a 65-year-old woman who would give only her first name, recently attended a class on how to tell her 9-year-old great-granddaughter that she has HIV. The girl, who contacted HIV at birth from her drug-abusing mother, has been denied a place in preschool because of her diagnosis. “People are like wolves, they don’t understand,” Lilia said. “If any of the parents found out, they would eat the child alive.”
While the AIDS epidemic has leveled off elsewhere in the world, it is still progressing in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, according to Cantau. Nearly 21,200 new cases were reported in Ukraine in 2011, the highest number since the former Soviet republic registered its first case in 1987, and a 3-percent increase over 2010. As a result of limited and often delayed treatment, the number of AIDS-related deaths grew 17 percent last year to about 3,800.
Two years ago, Mandrykin, the prisoner, was on the verge of becoming part of that statistic, with his level of crucial CD4 immune cells, a way to measure the strength of the immune system, dropping to 11. In a healthy person, the CD4 count is usually over 600. “I was lying in the hospital, I was dying,” said Mandrykin, serving seven years for robbery, his fourth stint in jail. “It’s a scary disease.”
After two years of treatment in a prison clinic, his CD4 count has risen to 159 and he feels much better, although he looks exhausted and is too weak to work in the medium-security prison.
The government currently focuses on testing and treating standard cases among the general population. The anti-retroviral treatment of more than 1,000 inmates, as well as some 10,000 HIV patients across the nation who also require treatment for tuberculosis and other complications, and all prevention and support activities are paid for by foreign donors, mainly the Global Fund. The fund is committed to spending $640 million through 2016 to fight AIDS and tuberculosis in Ukraine and then hopes to hand over most programs to the government.
Advocacy groups say corruption and indifference help fuel the epidemic.
Over the past two years, authorities have seized vital AIDS drugs at the border due to technicalities, sent prosecutors to investigate AIDS support groups sponsored by the Global Fund and harassed patients on methadone substitution therapy, prompting the Global Fund to threaten to freeze its prevention grant.
Most recently, Ukraine’s parliament gave initial approval to a bill that would impose jail terms of up to five years for any positive public depiction of homosexuality. Western organizations say it would make the work of AIDS prevention organizations that distribute condoms and teach safe homosexual sex illegal and further fuel the epidemic. It is unclear when the bill will come up for a final vote.
AIDS drug procurement is another headache, with Ukrainian health authorities greatly overpaying for AIDS drugs. Advocacy groups accuse health officials of embezzling funds by purchasing drugs at inflated prices and then pocketing kickbacks. Officials deny the allegations, saying tender procedures are transparent.
Much also remains to be done in Ukraine to educate people about AIDS.
Oksana Golubova, a 40-year-old former drug user, infected her daughter, now 8, with HIV and lost her first husband to AIDS. But she still has unprotected sex with her new husband, saying his health is in God’s hands. “Those who are afraid get infected,” she said.
TITLE: Fears Rise Over Syrian Chemical Weapons
AUTHOR: By Barbara Surk
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BEIRUT — Syrian forces fired artillery at rebel targets in and around Damascus on Tuesday as the country’s civil war closed in on President Bashar Assad’s seat of power and the international community grew increasingly alarmed about the regime’s chemical weapons stocks.
Syrian rebels have made gains in recent weeks, overrunning military bases and bringing the fight to Damascus. Since Thursday, the capital has seen some of the heaviest fighting since July, killing scores of people, forcing international flights to turn back or cancel flights and prompting the United Nations to withdraw most of its international staff.
U.S. intelligence has detected signs the regime was moving chemical weapons components around within several sites in recent days, according to a senior U.S. defense official and two U.S. officials. The activities involved movement within the sites, rather than the transfer of components in or out of various sites, two of the officials said.
But this type of activity had not been detected before and one of the U.S. officials said it bears further scrutiny.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen warned Tuesday that “if anybody uses chemical weapons, I would expect an immediate reaction from the international community.”
His comments echoed a warning on Monday from President Barack Obama that there would be consequences if Assad made the “tragic mistake” of deploying chemical weapons.
“Syrian stockpiles of chemical weapons are a matter of great concern,” Fogh Rasmussen said as he arrived in Brussels.
Syria is party to the 1925 Geneva Protocol banning chemical weapons in war.
In July, Syria threatened to unleash its chemical and biological weapons in case of a foreign attack. The statement was Syria’s first-ever acknowledgement that the country possesses weapons of mass destruction.
But the regime quickly tried to clarify its comments, saying “all of these types of weapons — IF ANY — are in storage and under security.” That appeared to be an attempt to return to the regime’s position of neither confirming nor denying whether it possessed non-conventional weapons.
NATO foreign ministers are expected Tuesday to approve member Turkey’s request for Patriot anti-missile systems to bolster its defense against strikes from neighboring Syria.
Ankara, which has firmly backed the Syrian opposition, wants the Patriots to defend against possible retaliatory attacks by Syrian missiles carrying chemical warheads.
Syria is reported to have an array of artillery rockets, as well as short- and medium-range missiles in its arsenal — some capable of carrying chemical warheads.
In the Damascus area, the Britain-based opposition activist group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Tuesday’s clashes between rebels and troops loyal to Assad were taking place in Beit Saham, Akraba and Yalda suburbs as well as near the international airport.
The Observatory relies on reports from activists on the ground.
The state-run news agency SANA reported that eight students were killed when a mortar round hit their school in the near the Damascus suburb of Douma. It said the mortar was fired by terrorists, the same term the regime uses to describe rebels.
The Damascus suburbs, which have been opposition strongholds since the uprising against Assad began in March 2011, have been the scene of heavy fighting since last week following the start of an army offensive to regain lost territory around the capital. Assad’s forces have so far repelled major rebel advances on the capital, though their hold may be slipping.
Syria’s official SANA news agency said a journalist for the state-run Tishrin newspaper was killed near his home in al-Tadhamon suburb of Damascus. Naji Assaad was “assassinated by an armed terrorist group” Tuesday morning on his way to work, SANA said. The regime refers to rebels fighting to topple Assad as terrorists.
The Syrian uprising began with peaceful protests in March 2011, but has since morphed into a civil war that activists say has killed more than 40,000 people.
TITLE: Iran Claims It Captured Drone, U.S. Denies It
AUTHOR: By Ali Akbar Dareini and Brian Murphy
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TEHRAN, Iran — Iran claimed Tuesday it had captured a U.S. drone after it entered Iranian airspace over the Persian Gulf — even showing an image of a purportedly downed craft on state TV — but the U.S. Navy said all its unmanned aircraft in the region were “fully accounted for.”
The conflicting accounts still leave the possibility that the drone claimed by Iran, a Boeing-designed ScanEagle, could have been plucked from the sea in the past and unveiled for maximum effect following escalating tensions over U.S. surveillance missions in the Gulf.
Other countries in the region — such as the United Arab Emirates — also have ScanEagle drones in their fleets.
Commander Jason Salata, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet in Bahrain, said ScanEagles operated by the Navy “have been lost into the water” over the years, but there is no “record of that occurring most recently.”
The Iranian announcement did not give details on the time or location of the claimed drone capture.
It’s certain, however, to be portrayed by Tehran as another bold challenge to U.S. reconnaissance efforts in the region. Last month, the Pentagon said a drone came under Iranian fire in the Gulf but was not harmed. A year ago, Iran managed to bring down an unmanned CIA spy drone possibly coming from Afghanistan.
Iran also has recently alleged repeated airspace violations by U.S. drones, which Washington denies.
“The U.S. Navy has fully accounted for all unmanned air vehicles operating in the Middle East region,” said Salata. “Our operations in the Gulf are confined to internationally recognized waters and airspace.”
Iran claimed it captured the drone after it entered Iranian airspace. A report on state TV quoted the navy chief of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard, General Ali Fadavi, as saying the Iranian forces caught the “intruding” drone, which had apparently taken off from a U.S. aircraft carrier.
“The U.S. drone, which was conducting a reconnaissance flight and gathering data over the Persian Gulf in the past few days, was captured by the Guard’s navy air defense unit as soon as it entered Iranian airspace,” Fadavi said. “Such drones usually take off from large warships.”
Al-Alam, the Iranian state TV’s Arabic-language channel, showed two Guard commanders examining what appeared to be an intact ScanEagle drone. It was not immediately clear if that was the same drone Iran claimed to have captured.
In the footage, the two men then point to a huge map of the Persian Gulf in the background, showing the drone’s alleged path of entry into Iranian airspace.
“We shall trample on the U.S.,” was printed over the map in Farsi and English next to the Guard’s emblem.
If true, the seizure of the drone would be the third reported incident involving Iran and U.S. drones in the past two years.
TITLE: Palestine Threatens Israel With War Crimes Charges
AUTHOR: By Amy Teibel and Karin Laub
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: JERUSALEM — Israel is moving forward with plans for two major settlement projects in east Jerusalem, a spokeswoman said Tuesday, even as a senior Palestinian official warned that his government could pursue war crimes charges if Israel doesn’t halt such construction.
International anger over Israeli settlement construction has snowballed in recent days, following last week’s UN recognition of a state of Palestine — in lands Israel occupied in 1967 — as a non-member observer in the General Assembly.
Israel retaliated for UN recognition of Palestine in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem by announcing plans to build 3,000 homes for Jews in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, as well as preparations for construction of an especially sensitive project near Jerusalem, known as E-1.
The Israeli reprisal has prompted the country’s strongest Western allies to take an unusually strong line with the Jewish state.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague warned Tuesday that the latest Israeli building plans would make the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, with Jerusalem as a shared capital, “almost inconceivable.”
Australia and Brazil summoned the local Israeli ambassadors Tuesday in protest, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said, a day after five European countries, including Britain, took the same step.
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev defended the recent Israeli decisions, saying that “from our perspective, Israel is responding in a very measured way to a series of Palestinian provocations.”
UN recognition could enable the Palestinians to gain access to the International Criminal Court and seek war crimes charges against Israel for its construction of settlements on occupied lands.
Last week, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that he’s not going to turn to the ICC “unless we were attacked” and that he informed many countries, including the United States, of this position. Abbas spoke before Israel announced its latest settlement plans.
A senior Abbas aide, Nabil Shaath, said Monday that “by continuing these war crimes of settlement activities on our lands and stealing our money, Israel is forcing us to go to the ICC.”
Israel also said it is withholding some $100 million in tax rebates and other fees it collects on behalf of the Palestinians. The monthly transfer of the funds is vital for keeping afloat Abbas’ Palestinian Authority, the self-rule government in the West Bank.
TITLE: Japanese Tunnel Collapse Elicits Infrastructure Fears
AUTHOR: By Elaine Kurtenbach
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TOKYO — The deadly collapse last weekend of hundreds of concrete ceiling slabs in a tunnel outside Tokyo is raising calls for more spending on Japan’s aging infrastructure, but the country might simply not have the money.
Nine people were killed Sunday in the tunnel, a major link between the capital and central Japan that opened in 1977 at the peak of the country’s postwar road construction boom. Police searched the tunnel operator’s offices Tuesday, looking for evidence of negligence.
The transport ministry has ordered inspections of 49 other highway and road tunnels of similar construction around the mountainous country.
Much more of Japan’s transportation system may require refurbishing after years of spending cuts that starved projects of funding, including for needed basic maintenance.
The infrastructure ministry, which is in charge of land and roads, joined with three government highway operators last month in forming a panel on how to handle problems of deteriorating expressways and tunnels.
Experts told the panel that about 40 percent of the 8,716 kilometers of expressways the agencies run had been in operation for more than 30 years, the Yomiuri newspaper reported Tuesday.
The paper cited Kyoto University expert Toyoaki Miyagawa as saying that countermeasures are “urgently needed” because the roadways and tunnels were built according to specifications suiting much lighter traffic loads than today’s.
Such projects would pose an extra burden at a time when Japan’s public debt already has soared to more than 200 percent of its GDP.
Miyagawa said Sunday’s tunnel accident likely resulted from a faster-than-anticipated aging of the structure.
About 270 concrete slabs collapsed onto the roadway deep inside the Sasago Tunnel 80 kilometers (50 miles) west of Tokyo, falling on three moving vehicles.
Central Nippon Expressway Co., the tunnel’s government-owned operator, said it had no record of any major repairs performed since the tunnel opened, but company official Satoshi Noguchi said an inspection of the tunnel’s roof in September found nothing amiss.
The slabs, each weighing 1.4 metric tons, fell over a stretch of about 110 meters. They had been suspended from the arched roof of the tunnel.