SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1743 (2), Wednesday, January 23, 2013
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TITLE: Party Conflict Highlights Divisions in Opposition
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Kravtsova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW – The social-democratic Just Russia party issued an ultimatum Thursday to four members who are leaders in the anti-Kremlin protest movement, warning them to quit leadership roles in other organizations or face dismissal from the party.
The demand threatens to further weaken and divide the already splintered opposition, which is struggling to find a purpose for its Coordination Council and to harness public discontent with President Vladimir Putin and the ruling United Russia party.
A leadership council for Just Russia told party members Gennady Gudkov, Dmitry Gudkov and Oleg Shein that they must quit the Coordination Council or leave the party, and it told Ilya Ponomaryov that he must quit the leadership of opposition group Left Front.
Ponomaryov and Dmitry Gudkov are members of the party's State Duma faction, while Gennady Gudkov, Dmitry Gudkov's father, and Shein are former Duma deputies.
Shein announced Thursday that he would leave the Coordination Council to work with the party, while Gennady and Dmitry Gudkov said they would try to persuade Just Russia leaders to drop their ultimatum. Ponomaryov said he would step down from his post at Left Front.
The party demand was prompted by dissatisfaction with a Jan. 13 protest march in Moscow, where tens of thousands of people thronged part of the Boulevard Ring to voice opposition to a ban on U.S. adoptions of Russian orphans.
Protesters called for the dissolution of the Duma and held signs showing the faces of lawmakers, including some from A Just Russia, with the word "Shame" written over them. The march concluded with participants symbolically throwing the signs into a large garbage container.
Ponomaryov and both Gudkovs have maintained a precarious balance since the protest movement started 13 months ago, pairing their official and party roles with leadership positions in the rallies that erupted following disputed Duma elections in December 2011.
The Jan. 13 march has turned out to be a particularly divisive event, causing renewed tensions not only within A Just Russia but also in the Coordination Council, the unofficial opposition body charged with organizing protests and taking positions on key issues.
The council did not organize the march, and some representatives of nationalist and leftist factions in the group were against its theme, even suggesting that council members Boris Nemtsov and Ilya Yashin be expelled for participating. Other members, including Left Front leader Sergei Udaltsov and anti-corruption lawyer Alexei Navalny, also attended the march.
Yet the protest was a resounding success in terms of turnout, especially compared with the last major opposition rally, held in December. That event, an unsanctioned demonstration on Lubyanskaya Ploshchad, drew only a few thousand people, one of the lowest turnouts for a protest over the preceding 12 months.
“The organization of the council’s first rally was not just bad but a complete failure,” council member and Moscow municipal deputy Maxim Kats said Sunday at a meeting of the council.
The contrast between the two events has prompted some opposition leaders to call for having protests only when a specific event has galvanized people into taking to the streets, as the U.S. adoption ban did.
“The march was destined to be successful because of its theme,” Nemtsov said at Sunday’s meeting. “People decided that children had been victimized by Putin. We need to learn a lesson and organize rallies only when its theme touches people’s hearts.”
Masha Lipman, an analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center, said the success of the Jan. 13 march partly reflected the popularity of civil initiatives, which she said don’t always coincide with the opposition’s political agenda.
“Lots of people at the march may not support the ‘Russia without Putin’ slogan,” Lipman said.
Within the 45-seat Coordination Council, members of which were chosen by opposition sympathizers in online elections in October, the conflict over the protest has fed frustration with the inefficiency of the body’s work.
About a third of the council’s members did not attend Sunday’s six-hour meeting, held at a conference room in the Izmailovskaya Beta Hotel in eastern Moscow. Much of the discussion centered on procedural questions and complaints about the slow progress of work.
The council’s manifesto, stating its goals and objectives, still has not been approved by members, and although dozens of amendments were considered Sunday, most of them were pushed back to the next meeting. Larger questions of opposition strategy have not been resolved either.
“Everyone is concerned with the council’s low effectiveness, and everyone knows we do very poor work here,” Nemtsov said.
Navalny disagreed, however, saying after Sunday’s meeting that he thinks the council is doing its job by distributing statements on blogs and social networks on issues important to the opposition.
“We make statements to tell people what we think about an issue, to inform them about our position,” Navalny said.
But when asked about the opposition’s strategy for the coming year, Navalny avoided the question.
Many analysts and critics regard the council as a group of celebrities that has limited understanding of the demands of society, a perception council member Sergei Davidis, a co-leader of opposition movement Solidarity, said the council will try to erase.
“A pretty long time has passed since its election, and the council hasn’t been able to confirm its authority and gather the support and faith of those who voted for it,” Lipman said.
Lipman said she believes the body will not stay together long, an assessment even some on the council agree with.
Shein, who gained national prominence after holding a hunger strike last year to protest voting violations in a mayoral election in Astrakhan that he lost, is the second member to depart from the council. Leftist Yekaterina Aitova quit in December, saying she didn’t have time for the extra work.
“From 2008 onward, groups that say they have political goals have been created, and then they disappear,” Lipman said. “Such a future is likely for the council as well.”

TITLE: Georgia-Russia Relations Warning
AUTHOR: By Nikolaus von Twickel
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW – A cocktail-party chat that lasted only minutes has triggered hopes that the country's troubled relations with Georgia might be headed for substantial recovery.
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev had a conversation with his Georgian counterpart, Bidzina Ivanishvili, during a reception at the Davos World Economic Forum late Wednesday, Medvedev's spokeswoman, Natalya Timakova, said Thursday. "Both prime ministers were at the reception and had a conversation," she was quoted as saying by Interfax.
Timakova downplayed the meeting by adding that Medvedev talked "with many delegation heads from other countries" during the forum, but national media were quick to point out that the encounter marked the first direct contact between governments of both countries in years.
Diplomatic ties between Moscow and Tbilisi were cut in 2008, after both countries fought a brief war over Georgia's breakaway region South Ossetia, followed by Moscow's recognition of independence for that region
as well as nearby Abkhazia. Moscow has since adamantly refused any contact with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, whom it accuses to be a war criminal for ordering troops into South Ossetia.
But the outlook has changed since Saakashvili's United National Movement was defeated in parliamentary elections last fall by Ivanishvili's Georgian Dream coalition. Ivanishvili, a billionaire who made much of his wealth in Russia, has said he wants better relations with Moscow.
This week saw other symbolic high-level meetings of officials between both countries. On Wednesday, Georgian Patriarch Ilia II became the most prominent Georgian to be received by President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin since the 2008 war.
The head of the Georgian Orthodox Church has maintained close ties with his Russian counterpart, Kirill, over the past years. Both church leaders met for talks Tuesday. Unlike the Kremlin, the Moscow Patriarchy has in the past supported Georgia's territorial integrity, arguing that under church law, the breakaway regions Abkhazia and South Ossetia remain part of Georgia.
No details of the Kremlin talks were published, but Ilia told RIA-Novosti that he would raise the issue with Putin.
Thursday then saw the first direct contacts between senior lawmakers from both sides, when the foreign relations committee heads from both countries met in Strasbourg.
Alexei Pushkov, chairman of the State Duma's International Affairs Committee, and his Georgian counterpart, Tedo Dzhaparidze, had an hour-long conversation at the sidelines of the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly winter session. Pushkov told Interfax afterward that the meeting was seen "as positive by both of us" and that they had agreed to meet again in April "in a broader format."
He added that the talk was about "getting to know each other personally and politically" and that they did not discuss any concrete questions. He added, however, that Dzhaparidze raised the issue of visa-free travel.
Tbilisi unilaterally scrapped visas for Russians last year, a move that has so far not been reciprocated by Moscow.
Dzhaparidze told reporters that both sides agreed on "red lines" that should not be crossed, Interfax reported.
Pushkov explained that Abkhazia, South Ossetia and security issues would be excluded from the agenda, because they would be discussed at UN-sponsored talks in Geneva.
In a signal that more substantial improvements are underway, Russia's chief sanitary official, Gennady Onishchenko, said Thursday that he was ready to visit Georgia after talks with Georgian experts scheduled for early next month in Moscow.
The Feb. 4 meeting will focus on resuming imports of Georgian wine and the famous Borjomi mineral water, he told Interfax.
Georgian food imports have been effectively banned since 2006, when the Federal Consumer Protection Service, headed by Onishchenko, deemed them to be of bad quality.
Earlier, Onishchenko said that almost 30 Georgian companies had submitted documents to resume shipments, and that the quality of wine had improved significantly. He has said he was hopeful to see imports start again in March.
Analysts have warned that a substantial rapprochement between both countries is hardly possible, because Moscow cannot revert its decision to recognize the two separatist provinces, while no Georgian government can be expected to give them up in the near future.
But this week's meetings were undoubtedly positive, said Felix Stanevsky, an expert with the Kremlin-connected CIS Institute, who served as ambassador to Georgia from 1996 to 2000.
Stanevsky argued that progress is likely to be slow because differences were based on non-tradable issues.
While Georgia has a lot to win economically by resuming exports to Russia, this is not the case in the other direction, he explained. "If economic ties are normalized, only Georgia will win," he said.
He added that Tbilisi would have to make political concessions, either over the separatist territories or over security policy.
Under Saakashvili, Georgia has forcefully lobbied for joining NATO, angering the Kremlin, which has argued that the Western military alliance should not expand in its sphere of interest.
Stanevsky explained that Tbilisi would not have to give up territorial claims but merely its previous argument that Abkhazia and South Ossetia are a Russian-Georgian problem.
"If they are honest they will stop speaking of Russian occupation and admit that it is the Abkhaz and South Ossetians who do not want to be inside Georgia," he said.
Georgian politicians accuse the regions' leadership of ethnic cleansing and demand the return of tens of thousands of ethnic Georgians that have fled those areas.

TITLE: 4 American Families Appeal to European Court of Human Rights Over Adoptions Ban
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW – Four American families have filed complaints with the European Court of Human Rights over Russia's recently passed adoptions ban.
In an interview with Interfax on Friday, Karina Moskalenko, a representative for the families, said the American families were at varying stages of the adoption process to adopt Russian children, but that the children had already bonded with their American parents.
"You know, when a child is already saying the words "mama" and "papa," that's already a family; you can already talk about rights to a private family life being violated," she said.
According to Moskalenko, the American families aim to have the violation of their rights acknowledged by the court and amendments made to the ban on adoptions.

TITLE: Forest Defender Stabbed in Moscow Region
AUTHOR: By Jonathan Earle
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW – A State Duma deputy's assistant and local lawmaker who battled development in Moscow region forestland is in critical condition after being stabbed in the chest by an unidentified assailant near her home in the village of Zelyony on Wednesday night.
Lyudmila Garifulina, 63, was stabbed four times, including once near her heart,  about 9:30 p.m. as she was returning from a town council meeting in Staraya Kupavna, a town of 29,000 people about 15 kilometers east of Moscow, said Dmitry Trunin, her lawyer.
At least one fellow activist immediately pointed a finger at the local administration, with whom Garifulina had clashed over plans to construct apartment buildings and a road in a nearby forest.
"She's a deputy with a capital 'D,' defending residents from lawless behavior by officials and the local administration. … This is the price she paid for it," said fellow activist Nina Romanova, who had just returned from Garifulina's bedside. She said Garifulina is currently in a medically induced coma.
A woman who answered the phone at the office of Staraya Kupavna head Igor Sukhin said she hadn't heard of the attack and couldn't provide any commentary.
Police are working to identify and apprehend the assailant, according to a statement on the regional police's website. They're also considering opening a criminal investigation into the intentional infliction of a grave injury, which carries a maximum sentence of eight years in prison.
If Garifulina hadn't been wearing a thick fur coat, she would have died on the spot, an assistant to State Duma Deputy Valery Zubov said. Garifulina has worked as an unpaid helper to Zubov for the last five or six years, the assistant said. She refused to give her name.
Zubov, a member of the Just Russia party and the former governor of the Krasnoyarsk region, was one of only eight deputies to vote against a ban on U.S. adoptions passed in December.
He sent an official request on Thursday to Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev asking him to take "firm control" of the investigation into the attack on Garifulina, Zubov's assistant said.
The stabbing was the second assault on Garifulina in recent months. In November, she was struck on the head and robbed of her purse and deputy's badge as she was exiting a bus.
"After the first attack, she went up to our local police chief and asked, 'What's going on with my case?' He said, 'We're working on it,' and that was it," said Romanova, the activist.
For years, Garifulina has fought against clearing local forestland to make way for construction projects, including high-rise apartment buildings and a road, both of which were approved by local officials, Romanova said.
Wednesday's stabbing was the latest in a string of violent attacks on conservationists in the Moscow region, including several who campaigned against an $8 billion highway through a forest in the city of Khimki that was tied to a close friend of President Vladimir Putin.
In November, the former Khimki municipal property department head was sentenced to four years in prison for ordering one of the attacks, which took place in November 2010 and left activist Konstantin Fetisov with permanent brain damage.
"Only publicity can save other activists from such things," said Trunin, the lawyer.

TITLE: Minsk: A City That Shines With Old Soviet Charm
AUTHOR: By Lena Smirnova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MINSK — If not for the occasional foreign-language billboard or a foreign car passing by, this city could easily be mistaken for the set of an old Soviet movie.
The extras smile and politely give you directions. Some even take you where you need to go for free or will provide you with change for your fare on public transportation, where you can ride with equally polite commuters.
The central thoroughfares of the Belarusian capital carry familiar Soviet names. The Palace of the Republic is located at the intersection of Engels and International streets while the presidential palace sits on Karl Marx Street.
Minsk's aesthetics can easily leave visiting Russians nostalgic for their childhood. In 2008, it was even chosen as the location for the film "Stilyagi," about hip Moscow youths of the 1950s.
But aside from these well-preserved Soviet throwbacks, the government is quickly pushing ahead to make Minsk into a modern and investor-friendly city. Several key steps have already been taken to make this happen, notably the creation of the National Agency of Investment and Privatization, which was set up to help with the arduous process of selling off Belarus' state assets.
And perhaps with the assumption that investors will be making money and need places to spend it, the government legalized gambling in 2005, so the city now boasts more than 30 casinos, the biggest of them developed by foreign investors.
Belarus has also moved forward in cooperating with the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, a part of the World Bank, which insures investors against political and other noncommercial risks.
Active investors agree that the Belarussian business climate still has many shortcomings, not least of which is the authoritarian regime of President Alexander Lukashenko. But they say the overall investment potential of the country is good.
Local lawyer Sergei Mashonsky advises foreign companies to get involved but points out that some of the key problems that investors could face in Belarus today are insufficient protection of private business property rights, complexities in the tax system and excessive interference by state organs in company activities.
Some of the leftover Soviet traits now benefit manufacturers in the country.
"Belarus has managed to preserve the standardization system that was created in the USSR. The success of Belarusian products that we are seeing owes much to that system," said Dmitry Bury, general director of Polimaster, a Belarusian company that sells radiation-detection equipment worldwide.
Stereotypes about the country may be hard to overcome. Fortunately for Minsk residents, they know all too well how to deal with adversity.
Minsk has burned down 18 times in its history, and the extensive bombing campaigns of World War II eliminated the city's architectural gems.
Nazis seized the city on the sixth day of the war. More than 40,000 people were killed during the three-year occupation, and when the smoke cleared, the surviving residents were left in a sea of rubble. More than 80 percent of houses were destroyed, as were most factories and theaters. Minsk received the title of a hero city for its partisan resistance, but it had to be completely rebuilt.
Despite the challenges that city residents have faced throughout history, they remain eternally upbeat and optimistic. It should not be a surprise then that one of the sayings that can be heard in Minsk is "what will burn will not rot, so let it burn!"
Those coming to Minsk with the impression that it is a hotbed of authoritarianism, a gambling playground or a backward ex-Soviet metropolis may be disappointed. The city's calm atmosphere and friendly residents help to offset its less marketable elements. And this special charm touches not only those nostalgic for Soviet traditions but also younger generations that never got to experience them.

<b>What to see if you have two hours</b>
If you begin your tour of the city from the railway station, take the metro from the railroad square to Ploshchad Nezavisimosti, where Minsk's central avenue begins. Here you can go into the Roman Catholic Church of Saints Simon and Helen (Ulitsa Sovietskaya), commonly referred to as the Red Church. The building was used as a theater and movie museum during the Soviet period but was returned to the Catholic Church in 1990.
Duck into the underground shopping mall, similar to Moscow's Okhotny Ryad, which is on the side of Ploshchad Nezavisimosti. This is one of the best places to buy Belarusian trinkets. Typical souvenirs include chocolates from the Belarus-based Kommunarka and Spartak factories as well as Milavitsa lingerie.
Your shopping complete, walk further along Prospekt Nezavisimosti and turn at Ulitsa Yanki Kupaly, which will take you into the oldest part of the city, Trinity Hill. The area on the banks of the Svisloch River is full of colorful old-style houses, some of which managed to survive the severe bombing campaigns of World War II.
This is a favorite walking place for Minchany, as the locals are called, including Dmitry Klevzhits, director of Belarus' National Agency of Investment and Privatization.
"I really like the old Minsk: Verkhny Gorod, Trinity Hill," he said. "Unfortunately, our city was practically fully destroyed and was rebuilt anew after the war. There aren't that many places where one can breathe in history, so you value them all the more."
Belarus' war experience is tangible even in this sunlit alcove of the city. On the north side of Trinity Hill is the artificially created Island of Tears, a touching tribute to the Belarusians who died in the Soviet conflict in Afghanistan. Construction began in 1988, before the end of the war, and the monument has since been inscribed with the names of every fallen Belarusian soldier. 

<b>What to do if you have two days</b>
Two days in Minsk gives you the luxury of comparing the Soviet and the modern city. After walking around the historic sites on your first day, head for the National Library of Belarus (116 Prospekt Nezavisimosti; +8 17-266-37-02; nlb.by). Construction on the new library building was completed in 2006, and it now resembles a 23-story diamond. The building is a good place for taking pictures during the day or at night, when it is illuminated with colorful lights.
A day trip to the Khatyn Memorial (Logoisk area; +375 17-745-5787; khatyn.by) is a somber but powerful reminder of the horrors that took place in Belarus during World War II. The memorial occupies the site of a village that was destroyed by the Nazis in 1943. This village was burned to the ground, and 149 people died in the subsequent massacre. The memorial is made up of sculptures and obelisks to mark where houses used to be. During the day, you can hear the heart-wrenching peals of the Khatyn bells.

<b>What to do with the family</b>
Take your children into the past with you at one of Minsk's old parks. The Gorky Children's Park (2 Ulitsa Frunze; +375 17-294-51-31; parki.by) officially opened in 1805 to the sounds of a military orchestra and tuxedo-clad men singing ceremonial cantatas. The park has since updated its image and now is a hub for kiddie entertainment. Rides, ice cream and cotton candy are all at your disposal at low prices. Prices for the rides start from 2,500 Belarusian rubles, equivalent to $0.30.
Park Cheluskintsev (84 Prospekt Nezavisimosti; +375 17-292-55-18; parki.by) also has multiple rides plus a 28-meter-high Ferris wheel. The Ferris wheel is one of the most expensive rides in the park, with tickets selling for a whopping 7,000 Belarusian rubles ($0.80).
Not far from the parks is the Belarusian State Circus (32 Prospekt Nezavisimosti; +375 17-327-78-42; circus.by), which hosts regular shows by local and visiting artists, including acrobats, jugglers and daredevils who are not afraid of sticking their head into a lion's mouth.

<b>Nightlife</b>
The one thing Minsk residents can't complain about is a lack of nightlife. In fact, complaints about an overabundance of opportunities for nocturnal carousing are more likely. Minsk has turned into an Eastern European version of Las Vegas thanks to a presidential order that regulates gambling in the country.
Russians make up more than half the visitors in the more than 30 casinos in the city. One local described the ritual of gambling-hungry Muscovites running into the arms of their limo drivers, who await their arrival at the Minsk airport on Fridays. After freshening up at the hotel, the Russians are promptly driven to the Shangri-La or Mirazh casinos. The ceremony repeats itself in reverse when the visitors are returned to their Moscow-bound planes on Sundays, this time slightly more subdued after a weekend of thrills and spending.

<b>Where to eat</b>
As its name suggests, the cozy and popular restaurant Bistro de Luxe (10 Ulitsa Gorodskoy Val; +375 44-789-1111; bistro-de-luxe.relax.by) is perfect for anyone in a hurry. The dishes, picked from international cuisine, are brought promptly, and the staff speaks English. A Caesar salad, roast beef, slice of cheesecake and coffee cost $35. This may not be the place to go, though, if you are irritated by cigarette smoke since there is no nonsmoking section at the restaurant.
For traditional Belarusian cuisine, head to Kamyanitsa (18 Pervomayskaya Ulitsa; +375 17-294-51-24; kamyanitsa.by). Here you can get large portions of traditional foods such as draniki, soups, syrniki and liqueurs in a medieval atmosphere. A chicken fillet salad, borshcht with buckwheat, pork fillet meat pot and strawberry-filled patties will cost you $17.
The Grand Cafe (2 Ulitsa Lenina; +375 44-703-1111; grand-cafe.relax.by) is a good place for special occasions. The prices are good compared with those of Moscow, but they are high for Minsk residents so you are unlikely to see locals there. A dinner for two of foie gras, salmon fillet, pasta with salmon and red caviar, steak, champagne and cocktails will cost you up to $100.

<b>Where to stay</b>
The five-star Hotel Europe (28 Internatsionalnaya Ulitsa; +375 17-229-83-39; hoteleurope.by) is the posh approach to staying in Minsk. Located in the historical center of the city, the hotel opened in 2007 and has all modern amenities, including a restaurant and fitness complex, to guarantee a comfortable stay. A single business suite costs $640 per night.
If you have a packed schedule and don't plan to spend every evening in the city center, Victoria Hotel and Business Center (59 Prospekt Pobeditelei; +375 17-239-77-44; hotel-victoria.by) could be a good fit. The hotel is not centrally located, so getting to the city would require a short ride in a taxi or on public transportation. This European-style hotel makes up for its remote location with a highly praised breakfast menu and modern rooms. A luxury suite with breakfast costs $303.
For something cozier, try Garni Hotel (11 Internatsionalnaya Ulitsa; +375 17-229-76-00; miniotel-belarus.com). The newly opened hotel is in the very heart of the city, just minutes from the Palace of the Republic. It has a good breakfast selection and choice of restaurants nearby. A suite will cost you $300 per night.

<b>Conversation starters</b>
Though you may be tempted to bring up politics when speaking to locals, it is best to avoid this subject entirely in casual conversations. In Minsk, you are just as likely to meet a supporter of the current regime as an opponent. Others may simply be put on their guard by the topic.
Stick to more flattering subjects instead. Belarusians are pleased to hear visitors praise their food products. Belarusian meat and dairy products are particularly well-known for their high quality, and the locals' love of potatoes has become the punch line for many Russian jokes. If you still have doubts about how much Belarusians love their homegrown food, consider that there is a statue of a potato on one of Minsk's streets.
Ironically, while people from across the Soviet Union went to Moscow to buy hard-to-get food products in the past, now trains leaving Minsk are packed with Muscovites, their bags stuffed with Belarusian comestibles, some of which are devoured before passengers reach their destination. 

<b>Culture tips</b>
One of the things most commonly said about Minsk is that it is very clean. This is not surprising since municipal cleaning trucks wash the streets mere minutes after a rain shower and groups of people get together on the weekends for Soviet-style clean-up days. Take care not to litter in the city to avoid annoyed glances or disciplining remarks. 

<b>How to get there</b>
The train is the most popular and easiest way to get to Minsk. Between one and three trains leave St. Petersburg's Vitebsky Station en route to the city each day. The train ride takes 13 to 14 hours, and single second class tickets start at around 3350 rubles ($110), while 3rd class tickets start at around 1500 rubles ($50).
The Belarusian national carrier Belavia operates daily flights between St. Petersburg and Minsk, with single tickets costing around 3,000 rubles ($100). Surprisingly, flights take 2.5 hours to cover the 700km between the two cities.
Road travel from Russia to Belarus got easier in 2011 with the creation of a customs union between the two countries. There is no longer customs or passport control on the border, so you will not be stopped if you are traveling in a passenger vehicle.
The route itself is very simple. You exit St. Petersburg via Pulkovskoye Shosse, and follow signs for Pskov on the M20 and continuing south from Pskov into Belarus, passing through Polotsk on your way to Minsk. The distance is 700 kilometers, and the trip takes an estimated 12-13 hours. Be sure to get local car insurance when you are in Belarus since the Russian one won't be valid. Foreigners can be fined $200 if they don't have the proper insurance.
<hr />
<b>Minsk</b>
Population: 1,904,300 
Main industries: Chemicals, light industry, machine building, construction materials, electronics, furniture, information technology 
Chairman of the Minsk City Council: Nikolai Ladutko 
Founded in 1067 
Interesting fact: Minsk was the jazz capital of the Soviet Union from 1939 to 1946. Prominent Polish and Soviet jazz musician Eddie Rosner made the city his home for those years, but when jazz was condemned in the Soviet Union in 1946, Rosner was sent to the gulag for 10 years. 
Sister cities: Nottingham, Britain; Sendai, Japan; Bangalore, India; Lyon, France; Belo Horizonte, Brazil; Changchun, China; Lodz, Poland; Bonn, Germany; Eindhoven, Netherlands; Kiev, Ukraine; Dushanbe, Tajikistan; Kishinev, Moldova; Havana, Cuba; Tehran, Iran; Abu-Dhabi, United Arab Emirates; Ankara, Turkey; Tiraspol, Moldova; Detroit, U.S.; Novosibirsk, Russia 
Helpful contacts: Dmitry Klevzhits, director of the National Agency of Investment and Privatization (+375 17-200-81-75; investinbelarus.by), Nikolai Ladutko, chairman of the Minsk City Council (+375 17-218-0001; minsk.gov.by); Vladimir Karyagin, chairman of the Minsk Capital Union of Entrepreneurs and Employers (+375 17-298-24-38; obschestvennoe-obedinenie-minskij-stolichnyj-soyuz.deal.by)

<b>Major Businesses</b>
Few enterprises can boast employees as politically mobilized as those at the Minsk Train Car Repair Plant (5 Ulitsa Zheleznodorozhnaya; +375 17-225-1838; mvrz.by). The workers at the plant, which recently celebrated its 140-year anniversary, participated in the October Revolution and took part in Minsk's partisan efforts during World War II. Now their main task is to restore and build train cars, including those used in Russia. "We give them a second life for at least another 20 years," the plant's slogan says proudly. 
One of Belarus' key success stories is the company Polimaster (51 Ulitsa Skoriny; +375 17-268-6819;polimaster.ru), which designs and produces devices for monitoring radiation levels. Started as a 15-person team in the early 1990s, Polimaster has since grown to a staff of over 180 people and makes more than 17,000 devices each year. Its products are supplied to 75 countries. 
In addition to the macho appeal of train cars and dosimeters, the Belarusian capital appeals to the sensual. For women, the city is primarily associated with the popular lingerie brand Milavitsa (28 Ulitsa Novovilenskaya; +375 17-288-0770; milavitsa.com). Founded in 1908 by a couple of Minsk-based Frenchmen who were then selling women's hair combs, the company has become an international sensation in the underwear market. It operates using the franchise model and has stores in Poland, Belgium, Italy, Russia and the United Arab Emirates, among others.


<b>Dmitry Klevzhits</b>, 
Director of Belarus' National Agency of Investment and Privatization 
<i>Q: What support do Minsk authorities provide to investors, particularly foreign investors?</i>
A: The Minsk City Council recently opened what is called a "one-stop window" for investors. This means that the investor is able to quickly and conveniently complete all the procedures, from filing inquiries to completing an investment agreement. The next step will be to optimize all the other procedures that investors have to go through after signing an agreement, including getting construction permits.
Our national agency has also been created and works according to the "one window" or rather the "one door" principle for investors. Here a foreigner can seek assistance to get his idea off the ground. We will help him to find and implement a project, and not just in Minsk. The Belarusian government now provides maximum preferences and benefits to investors in small towns.

<i>Q: Which segments have the most investment potential?</i>
A: Understandably, investors are most willing to put their money into the food industry, anything that involves superficial processing of our resources. However, we are trying to broaden the possibilities in industries that generate higher added value. It is in these areas that we are  formulating the most attractive conditions. All the attention is directed here. We believe, for example, that for us it is important to develop pharmaceuticals and biotechnology. These sectors now have the highest added value and work opportunities for qualified personnel. Our other focus is the development of new materials and alternative energy. The third focus is information and communication technologies.

<i>Q: Which barriers must still be overcome to increase investments?</i>
It is rare, but there is still some bureaucracy and a lack of desire on the part of local authorities to help out investors. The National Agency for Investment and Privatization exists in part to solve this issue by providing assistance to foreign investors interested in doing business in Belarus.
Lena Smirnova

<b>Sergei Mashonsky</b>, 
Managing partner at Arzinger & Partners, the first international law firm in Belarus 
<i>Q: What factors give Belarus such a high score in the World Bank's Doing Business rating category for protection of investors' rights?</i>
A: The state has taken additional steps to help foreign investors: ratification of the amendments to the Convention Establishing the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, execution of treaties on legal assistance to secured foreign investments and application of local currency, as well as the adoption of a strategy aimed at attracting direct foreign investments.

<i>Q: What should foreign investors be aware of before they start working here?</i>
A: First of all, investors should examine carefully the legal framework for future investments, including basic provisions in the customs, tax and currency legislations. As a rule, major companies turn to our office at the stage of preparing the business plan for the investment project or as part of their effort to eliminate excessive costs and additional risks related to investment activity.

<i>Q: How quickly do legal disagreements between the state and businesses get resolved?</i>
A: The Minsk municipal authorities routinely make efforts to settle disputes by means of negotiations so as to avoid court cases. 

<b>Vladimir Karyagin</b>, 
Chairman of the Minsk Capital Union of Entrepreneurs and Employers 
<i>Q: How has the investment climate in Belarus changed since the president created the National Agency of Investment and Privatization in 2010?</i>
A: The agency seeks to promote foreign direct investment, including the privatization of state property. And I must say it is working. The agency participates in the implementation of state policy concerting investment, privatization and monitoring. It supports investment projects when they are being rolled out and the privatization of state assets. It provides a full package of services to investors and actively promotes international networking. All this is having a positive effect on the investment climate of Belarus.

<i>Q: What advice would you give to an investor who plans to work in Minsk?</i>
A: Start to develop connections with Minsk using the "one-stop window" feature that was created by Minsk's executive committee. Thanks to this, an investor significantly increases productivity at the very initial stages.

TITLE: Davos Calls for Efficient Russian State
AUTHOR: By Irina Filatova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW – Improving the work of the government and fighting corruption should be key priorities on Russia's reform agenda for the next few years, participants in the World Economic Forum said Wednesday.
Almost 78 percent of them chose ensuring "good governance" as the No. 1 step for the country's progress during an interactive vote that took place at a panel session on Russia's future development.
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who arrived in the Swiss town of Davos to deliver a speech at the forum, said he was not surprised with the results of the vote.
"I'll be frank with you, I was absolutely certain that the overwhelming majority would vote for No. 1," he told international business leaders and politicians who were present in the congress hall. "It was clear from the beginning … because it reflects the view of Russia and its problems at the moment."
A total of 9.7 percent of the panel session participants voted for driving market competition as the main reform to be carried out. Regional development won 7.2 percent of votes, while ensuring social cohesion and macroeconomic stability got 2.7 percent and 2.5 percent of votes, respectively.
Medvedev's vision turned out to be different from that of the majority. "I voted for a different option," he said without elaborating. But, he acknowledged that increasing efficiency of government institutions is a critical point on his Cabinet's agenda, as poor governance stalls other reforms.
To improve the situation, Medvedev said, an active and systematic dialogue between government officials and civil society is needed. The prime minister, who was checking the notices on his tablet while speaking, pushed for a broader use of state-of-the-art technologies as a new format of cooperation between society and government officials.
To facilitate dialogue with the people, the government should rely on modern communication technologies that help reduce the existing distance between the citizenry and the authorities and ensure "a continuous contact — not just from one election to the next," Medvedev said.
"This allows society to control the authorities and provide information on the extent of its satisfaction with decisions that had been made," he added.
Successful institutional reforms are possible only if authorities act "wisely" responding to the growing demands of civil society, the prime minister said.
"Our civil society today is different from what it used to be five to seven years ago. … I think it's good because our civil society has become more mature," Medvedev said. "Our civil society is making demands to the authorities, and sometimes it does it in an uncompromising and cruel way."
Medvedev reiterated the government's position that the process of expressing people's opinion must not violate the existing law.
Russia has been facing an unprecedented wave of opposition protests over the last years, with thousands of people flooding the streets to express discontent with the government's policies.
Medvedev pointed out that the government had responded to some of the demands set by society. One measure, he said, involved facilitating registration of political parties that he initiated as a president in late 2011.
He pointed out that competition between political forces inside the country is no less important for its development than competitiveness of companies in major segments of the economy. To ensure commercial competition, he said, the government aims to create equal conditions for doing business in Russia and reducing state presence in the economy.
"I hope that we'll reach our targets and that we can earn even more this year than last year," the prime minister told Bloomberg television earlier that day, referring to the privatization program. He added that the government is considering different ways of selling state assets, but listing them on a bourse is a better option than selling to strategic investors, as the goal is to develop trading on the Moscow stock exchange.
Commenting on the competition issue, the prime minister didn't rule out lifting the domestic monopoly of state-owned gas giant Gazprom, if that doesn't result in the country losing money. He also rejected speculations about Gazprom as a political tool for the government.
"I think that Gazprom does not have the political role being ascribed to it. Gazprom is just earning money," Medvedev said, adding that the importance of the company as a gas supplier to Europe becomes even more obvious in Davos' cold winter weather.
Forum visitors were given metal chains to attach to their shoes, in order not to slip on the ice, said Yan Yanovsky, managing partner at First Nation Societe Bancaire, Business FM radio reported Wednesday. "The ground is very slippery, the streets are being cleaned very poorly … Many [attendees] have fallen already," he said.
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said he would not compete with President Vladimir Putin in the next presidential election in 2018.
Medvedev said in an interview with Bloomberg television Wednesday on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos that he does not consider Putin a rival, since the incumbent president represents the "same political power."

TITLE: Nationwide Public Smoking Ban Looms
AUTHOR: By Alexander Winning
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW – Suffocating bars, smoke-filled restaurants and ash-laden office stairwells could soon be a thing of the past if legislation aimed at banning smoking in public places passes the remaining few hurdles and gets signed into law.
But not everyone is rejoicing at the prospect of a government-led crackdown on smoking.
“Smoking is a habit for millions of Russian adults who buy legal products in licensed shops with money they have earned honestly and on which they have paid taxes,” said Andrei Loskutov, executive director of the All-Russia Movement for Smokers’ Rights.
“In its current form, the bill will prevent them from smoking these legal products. This is a direct infringement of smokers’ rights.”
Loskutov spoke to The St. Petersburg Times days before the State Duma is scheduled to hear on Friday a second reading of the anti-tobacco bill, which would phase in restrictions on smoking in public places and toughen legislation affecting tobacco sellers.
The bill, which lawmakers passed in a first reading on Dec. 14, would from June prevent kiosks from selling tobacco, ban filmmakers from showing smoking in movies and outlaw smoking in educational institutions, short-distance forms of public transportation and parks.
Starting June 1, 2014, smoking would be banned in bars, restaurants, nightclubs, medical and cultural institutions, long-distance forms of public transportation and hotels.
There are also plans to hike excise taxes on tobacco, introduce a minimum price of 61 rubles ($2) for a pack of cigarettes and ban tobacco companies from advertising.
“This is the 150th set of anti-smoking legislation worldwide, and it is the harshest of them all. Russia doesn’t deserve this, we had quite enough bans in the 20th century,” said Loskutov, who also heads the Russian Cigar Union.
Health experts have long argued that a tougher stance on smoking is essential in Russia, where roughly 40 percent of the adult population smokes, according to the latest government data.
And with Ukrainian authorities on Dec. 16 limiting smoking in public places to specially ventilated areas set apart from non-smokers, European smoking norms appear to be migrating east.
But there remains palpable discontent among Russia’s 44 million-strong smoking community, and Mikhail Boyarsky, a celebrated Soviet actor who also co-chairs the movement for smokers’ rights, said the government should leave smokers alone.
“Smokers have a different way of life. They look at the world differently and don’t mess with nonsmokers,” Boyarsky said in a video address posted on the movement’s website.
“A cigarette is a good friend. It can also be an enemy to a certain extent, but not for everyone. People who understand the meaning of smoking, I think God looks after them,” said Boyarsky, who has served as a campaign representative of President Vladimir Putin.
Putin, who is known for his love of sports and for performing heavily publicized “action man” stunts, backed the ban on smoking in public places in the buildup to last year’s presidential election.
Toughening smoking legislation is also close to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s heart, with the former president and United Russia leader having commented extensively on the issue.
“Nonsmokers are waiting impatiently for this bill to be passed, and I’m convinced it works in the interest of our country’s citizens,” Medvedev said on his video blog in October, adding that 80 percent of people, including two-thirds of smokers, backed harsher smoking regulations.
But judging by a countrywide poll released by the independent Levada Center last week, Medvedev’s calculations may be flawed.
The survey, which gave no margin of error, found that only 20 percent of respondents favored making smoking in airports illegal. Even fewer supported a ban on smoking on long-distance trains and in restaurants and bars (19 percent, 17 percent and 16 percent, respectively).
A more effective measure, respondents said, would be to better inform people about the dangers of smoking and offer advice on how to quit — a point of view expressed by municipal lawmakers at a recent anti-smoking event on the Arbat.
At the informal Jan. 17 event, municipal deputies Dmitry Salov and Yevgeny Babchenko pasted informative posters along sidewalks and offered passers-by Soviet-style candies in exchange for cigarettes to discourage smoking on one of Moscow’s most historic streets.
“We are aiming to show that Moscow is a European city, to instill respect for one’s neighbor,” Babchenko said.
Although passers-by initially seemed reluctant to hand over their smokes during the blustery event, Salov was optimistic that the Arbat would become the first non-smoking street in Russia.
Salov, who heads a council of municipal deputies promoting healthy living in the capital, said his council had appealed to the Moscow city government with a request to look into the proposal.
From the federal government’s perspective, Sergei Kalashnikov, head of the State Duma’s Public Health Committee, said the wording of any anti-smoking law needed to be tough to ensure compliance.
“In Russia, everyday life isn’t regulated enough. Whereas it’s enough to simply tell Swiss people that they shouldn’t smoke, in Russia this wouldn’t work. In Russia, tough laws are compensated by the fact that people don’t obey them,” said Kalashnikov, who represents the Liberal Democratic Party in the Duma.
“I’m convinced that smoking reflects the level of culture in a country. In countries where people worry about their health, smoking is seen as a vice,” he said by phone. “Unfortunately in Russia the majority of people think that smoking is completely acceptable.”
Work on the current bill began in 2008, when Russia ratified the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, Kalashnikov said, adding that his committee had relied on equivalent international legislation in drafting its recommendations to lawmakers.
In health circles at least, those recommendations appear sound. Luigi Migliorini, the World Health Organization’s special representative in Russia, said the bill could have a significant impact in reducing smoking-related fatalities.
“The measures presented in the bill will help teenagers, young people and women stay away from smoking,” he said in a written statement.
“It is expected that the number of smoking-linked premature deaths in Russia will be reduced significantly. At present, up to 400,000 Russian citizens die of tobacco-related diseases each year.”
Kalashnikov said that all political parties now back the government’s anti-smoking initiatives and that he expected them to be signed into law before the spring, despite Loskutov’s claims that they will be impossible to enforce.
“Instead of all these formal bans, we should be creating conditions for smokers to light up wherever they are in areas separated from non-smokers,” Loskutov said.
“That way they won’t unwittingly promote smoking to their children at home.”

TITLE: Gay Rights Demonstration Turns Violent
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Kravtsova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW – A demonstration outside the State Duma on Tuesday ended in fisticuffs as Orthodox activists clashed with opponents of a bill targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
Police and at least one Duma deputy intervened to halt the violence.
About 30 LGBT activists met at noon on Georgiyevsky Pereulok for an event they called "Kissing Day" to protest a proposed ban on "homosexual propaganda." Gay and lesbian couples posed for photographs at the entrance to the Duma building while kissing.
But Orthodox activists showed up at the event and tried to break it up, throwing eggs and ketchup at the couples and even attacking them when they started to kiss. Several journalists were also attacked.
The gay activists were protesting a bill that stipulates fines for promoting homosexuality among minors. The bill was introduced in the Duma in March by Novosibirsk regional lawmakers. Discussion of the bill by the Duma had been scheduled for Tuesday but was pushed back.
"This bill and the Duma that wants to consider and pass it is not the choice of society, which is tolerant, unlike the deputies who want to ban us from being ordinary people and equate us with pedophiles," activist Sergei Ilupin said.
The debate over gay rights came into the national spotlight last year after St. Petersburg city legislators passed a law similar to that proposed in the Duma. The St. Petersburg statute instituted fines for the promotion of homosexual relationships among minors, and it essentially bans gay pride parades.
Several regions, including Novosibirsk, Ryazan, Arkhangelsk and Kostroma, already have similar laws on the books.
The nationwide proposal has pitted gay activists and human rights groups against conservative forces lobbying for the ban. The Russian Orthodox Church is one of the measure's most prominent supporters.
"These people are unhealthy, so they must stay quiet and be treated," said former actress Galina Simonova, who came to Tuesday's event to show support for the Duma initiative.
Several Duma deputies witnessed the brawl between activists, and Ilya Ponomaryov of A Just Russia tried to break up the fight. Former boxer Nikolai Valuyev, a deputy with United Russia, stood passively by and smiled before going inside the building, Itar-Tass reported.
Police did not block the gay activists from standing in front of the Duma building but stepped in when fighting broke out, arresting at least five Orthodox activists by the end of the protest.
The fighting continued even after gay activists had walked away from the Duma. Several Orthodox activists attacked two gay demonstrators inside the Okhotny Ryad metro station.
LGBT rallies protesting the bill were held in several other cities Tuesday as well, including St. Petersburg, Voronezh, Arkhangelsk, Tomsk, Syktyvkar and Samara.
In Arkhangelsk, gay activists gathered on a city square in folk costumes and proclaimed that "LGBT values don't differ from heterosexual values."
On Monday, discussion of the bill by parliamentarians was pushed back to Friday, the latest in a series of delays in bringing it to the Duma floor.
"Something in it raises questions," A Just Russia faction head Sergei Mironov said in explaining the postponement, Interfax reported.
Ahead of planned discussion of the bill last month, LGBT activists held a demonstration that also ended in bloodshed. Several gay activists were detained by police, including Yelena Kostyuchenko, an organizer of Tuesday's event and a reporter for opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta, who spent two days in jail afterward.
"We hope that eventually the bill won't even be considered by the Duma," Kostyuchenko said. "But if it is, we'll come again."

TITLE: Russia To Submit Arctic Claims by Year's End
AUTHOR: By Roland Oliphant
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW – The federal government will submit its final Arctic territorial claims with the United Nations by the end of the year, the country's leading Arctic scientist said.
Artur Chilingarov, the veteran explorer who led the expedition to plant a Russian flag on the seabed at the North Pole in 2007, told Rossia 24 television that Russia's claim to a portion of the Arctic shelf would be filed with the United Nations Commission on the Law of the Sea by December.
"I think we are seriously prepared," he said. "We have gathered all the necessary information needed to make a just decision, including the experience of other countries."
Chilingarov led a series of expeditions over the past few years seeking to prove that the undersea Lomonosov Ridge is an extension of Russia's continental shelf.
If approved, the claim based on this research would see Russia gain an additional 1.2 million square kilometers of exclusive economic zone, Interfax reported.
Chilingarov's announcement came the same day the government published a new long-term strategy for Arctic development.
The State Program for the Arctic, which defines government policy for at least the next eight years, was published on the Regional Development Ministry's website Wednesday. Expert opinions on the draft are being accepted until Jan. 29.
The law would establish a mandatory review of any business activities that could pose an environmental hazard, starting from a "presumption of environmental danger of any proposed activity," RIA-Novosti reported.
In other provisions, the law would bar the privatization of any airlines in the region and allow certain regions to be closed to aircraft for environmental reasons. It would also ban off-road travel in the tundra.
While the document does make note of the need to defend the region, it does not directly mention rumored plans to close areas like the Yamal Peninsula to nonresidents.
The strategy also suggests that Russian domination of the Arctic Sea Route be written into a law, with a stipulation that at least 70 percent of ships operating in the region should be Russian.
It does, however, talk about allocating state financing for the "development and implementation of programs to attract foreign investment to the Arctic zone."
The new strategy, which will define state policy for the region for President Vladimir Putin's current presidential term and beyond, was published shortly after the United Nations Environment Program unveiled plans for a $300 million, five-year environmental undertaking in the area.  
UNEP Moscow chief Vladimir Moshkalo said the Russian government had asked his agency to oversee development of the program, which will be co-funded by agencies including the Economic Development Ministry, the Environment and Natural Resources Ministry, the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

TITLE: Sexual Orientation of Soldiers to Be Checked by Tattoos, Says Report
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW – The Defense Ministry's central administration on work with military personnel has developed a technical guide that urges leaders of military units involved in work with the troops to check the sexual orientation of conscripts and contract soldiers entering the military, a news report said Thursday.
The new guidelines, based on a psychology textbook published by a military university in 2005, call for carrying out a physical examination and recommend checking for tattoos in intimate places on the new recruits' bodies, Izvestia reported, citing a copy of the guidelines that it obtained.
Special attention is recommended for tattoos near the face, sexual organs and buttocks, as the author believes that such tattoos reveal possible sexual deviations.
"The reason for getting tattoos could indicate a low cultural or educational level. If an influence by external factors is determined, for example, persuasion or direct coercion, this indicates the malleability of the young man, his disposition to submit to another's will," the text says.
The guidelines also include a wide range of warning signs indicative of mental instability, including early sexual experience and 'uncontrolled sexual behavior,' both of which are included in the same category as alcohol abuse, running away from home, suicidal tendencies and theft.
Officers acting as mentors to new recruits are advised to hold a personal conversation with the conscripts to ask about sexual experience and conduct a physical examination, paying special attention to any tattoos — but only after leading up to such intimate questions by asking about family, everyday life, success in school and attitudes toward alcohol.
The guidelines offer a wide range of advice on various issues, from how to spot an opinion-shaper and natural-born leader within the ranks to what role religious and ethnic aspects will have in the barracks.
Most officers surveyed on the new guidelines said they don't intend to strictly follow the guidelines.
An undisclosed battalion chief assistant in the Southern Military District was cited as saying: "I just physically can't so confidentially hold a discussion with each new recruit. The commanders do that anyway. What will they do, examine their genitals for any tattoos? And how will they ask about someone's first sexual experience? 'Hey, when did you have your first woman, rookie? Answer directly, no beating around the bush!'"
A military psychologist who works with personnel noted that the military remains a stronghold of traditional views on sexuality.
The battalion chief assistant echoed that sentiment, saying: "I had one gay contract soldier who joined just to find more partners for himself. For people like that, of course, there's no place in the army."

TITLE: Hospital Plans Shelved Amid Uproar
AUTHOR: By Alexander Winning
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg authorities said Wednesday that they had shelved a plan to transform a local hospital into a clinic for officials after a huge public outcry against the initiative.
But in a sign of how deeply the plan’s opponents mistrust city officials, disgruntled residents said they did not believe assurances that the hospital would be left untouched and protested anyway.
Public anger over the plan erupted last week after a document came to light showing that authorities intended to set up a clinic exclusively for top judges on the site of City Hospital No. 31, one of the city’s largest public hospitals and one that houses unique children’s oncology and hematology wards.
The hospital contains 370 beds for adult patients, 35 beds for children suffering from cancer and two outpatient clinics, Kommersant reported Monday.
On Wednesday, St. Petersburg city legislature head Vyacheslav Makarov told municipal deputies that no concrete decisions had been made regarding the hospital.
“The hospital works and will work as it always has,” he said in a statement posted on the legislature’s website.
The document spelling out the plan to convert the hospital contained the signature of Vladimir Kozhin, head of the Office for Presidential Affairs, who oversees a commission handling the relocation of the Supreme Court and Supreme Arbitration Court from Moscow to St. Petersburg. PresidentVladimir Putinsigned an order in November to move the courts at an estimated cost of more than 50 billion rubles ($1.5 billion).
Kozhin’s official spokesman later told journalists that the Office for Presidential Affairs had excluded Hospital No. 31 from a list of potential sites for the judges’ clinic after an appeal by Federation Council senators and city lawmakers.
But despite officials’ assurances, local activists were out in force Wednesday, demanding formal confirmation that the plans to convert the hospital had been permanently abandoned.
Activists collected signatures in opposition to the plan outside metro stations and held one-man pickets by the city legislature and on Nevsky Prospekt, the city’s main thoroughfare.
According to news reports, they shouted slogans including “Not one step back! This is our Stalingrad,” referring to Soviet leader Josef Stalin’s wartime Order No. 227 ahead of the battle for the city currently known as Volgograd.
Around 6 p.m., several hundred people turned out for a protest at the central Field of Mars park, a live broadcast of the picket showed. Protesters carried posters reading “Judges to the Kresty [prison],” among other things.
On Tuesday, city authorities hastily increased the maximum attendance for the demonstration from 200 to 10,000 people in the wake of the escalating public uproar.
Anna Dudnikova, an organizer of an online campaign to save the hospital, said by phone that activists had decided to act since officials had gone back on their word on numerous occasions in the past.
“We aren’t taking officials’ statements seriously because the same thing happened with the city’s military-medical academy, which they closed despite Putin saying that everything was in order,” Dudnikova said.
“They are making these statements to ward off public discontent,” she said, adding that hundreds of concerned residents had gathered outside Hospital No. 31 on Sunday to highlight its critical role in the local community.
Dudnikova said city officials appeared to be trying to seize all the land on Krestovsky Island, the elite area of St. Petersburg favored by politicians and high-earners where the hospital is located.
“Kozhin is a petty official who has no right to make the decision to hand over the hospital to the judges,” she said.
Dudnikova’s group, which uses social network VKontakte to mobilize support and is called We’ll Save Hospital No. 31, is just one of a series of grass-roots initiatives aiming to thwart officials’ designs on the hospital.
Yelena Grachyova, coordinator of St. Petersburg-based cancer charity AdVita, has organized an online petition addressed to Putin that had garnered more than 108,000 signatures by Wednesday evening.
Prominent public figures including actress and philanthropist Chulpan Khamatova, filmmaker Alexander Sokurov and Nobel Prize-winning physicist Zhores Alfyorov have added their names to the petition alongside cancer patients, hospital doctors and others as far afield as Germany.

TITLE: Hospital Plans Cause Outrage
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: More than 85,000 people have already signed a petition addressed to President Vladimir Putin to defend St. Petersburg’s City Hospital No. 31, which is under threat of relocation. The hospital, one of the city’s most successful clinics in the treatment of child cancer, is currently in danger of being designated as a medical center for the judges of the country’s federal Arbitration and Supreme Courts, which are due to move to the city from Moscow during the next few years.
The list of those who have signed the petition includes not only medical personnel at the hospital and the desperate parents of young cancer patients, but also well-known figures from the worlds of art and science, as well as ordinary Russian citizens.
The list included Zhores Alfyorov, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics; actors Oleg Basilashvili, Liya Akhedzhakova and Yelizaveta Boyarskaya; actress and children’s charity leader Chulpan Khamatova, international award-winning film director Alexander Sokurov; musician Andrei Makarevich; writers Daniil Granin and Lev Lurye and other prominent figures.
The petition has attracted numerous supporters on Facebook and other social networks through the website of www.change.org, with many also leaving heartbreaking comments.
Maria Sautkina, the mother of one of the hospital’s patients, said the clinic “had the best doctors and equipment, which have saved the life of my child.”
“Only here can my son have annual examinations to prevent the return of his illness,” Sautkina said.
Irina Stelmakhova, another supporter of the petition, said there could be “no objective reason to stop the work of the hospital, which is of vital importance for sick children.”
“The people who are making the decision should realize that the dissolution of the hospital may turn out to be a death sentence for some kids. Sirs, you are not beasts, are you?” Stelmakhova wrote in her comment.
The city’s main oncologist Yury Punanov also disagreed with the idea of moving the hospital. Punanov has written an official statement saying that the hospital should stay on its own premises, Fontanka.ru news website reported.
The Russian Orthodox Church also spoke up in defense of the hospital. 
Vladimir Legoida, head of the Synod’s information department, said that although the purpose of providing medical help to the judges was “understandable,” for “they like all other people need medical service,” the “treatment of one [group of] people can’t be done at the expense of other people — especially when we are speaking about children. Our future depends on how we treat children today,” Legoida said on the church’s website Patriarchia.ru, adding that in any society it is difficult to find any other more simple and clear moral priority than the interests of a sick child.
“I believe the community of judges in Russia, which has many worthy people, will consider it morally unacceptable to get medical help if there is the tiniest threat that because of it, children with cancer may suffer,” Legoida said. 
On Jan. 20, about 300 people gathered in front of the hospital to demand the resignation of St. Petersburg Deputy Governor Olga Kazanskaya, deputy governor for social issues, and to request the cancelation of the courts’ planned move to St. Petersburg. More meetings in support of the hospital were held in the city last week.
In November, President Vladimir Putin approved a proposal to move the Supreme Court and the Supreme Arbitration Court from Moscow to St. Petersburg at a cost of more than 50 billion rubles ($1.5 billion). The process could take between 24 and 30 months, a senior official said at the time.
In December, a working group aimed at facilitating the move of the courts from Moscow to St. Petersburg made the decision to set up medical facilities for the judges in City Hospital No. 31. Vladimir Kozhin, head of the department of presidential affairs, ordered the city authorities and the country’s Health Ministry to move the hospital’s personnel and equipment to another hospital. No alternative options were suggested in the protocol. 
The final decision on which medical center will be chosen to provide medical assistance to the judges is to be announced in February, Interfax reported, referring to Valery Kolabutin, head of St. Petersburg Health Committee.
Kolabutin said the idea of setting up a medical center for judges in City Hospital No. 31 was suggested as one of the possible options, adding that the relocation of only a part of the hospital’s department would cost about 350 to 400 million rubles ($11.6-$13.2 million). The move would take two or three years, he said. 
Yelena Grachyova, coordinator of the charity foundation AdVita, which helps children and adults suffering from cancer, said there were only two ways to resolve the problem: “Either to leave the hospital alone or first build a brand new complex for it and only then allow the clinic for judges to move in.”
The hospital, located in a quiet area of the city’s prestigious Krestovsky Island district, has a unique child and adult oncohematology department, as well as departments for bone-marrow transplants, cardiology and kidney transplants. The hospital provides the combined services of chemotherapists, surgeons and emergency physicians, and has a center for radiation therapy nearby, which is convenient for sick children, as it saves them from having to put their health at risk by traveling around the city in order to have the treatment, Grachyova was cited by MedPortal.ru as saying. 
Grachyova said moving the hospital had “neither economic, nor medical, nor ethical grounds.” 
“Until at least one reason for the move is given, the matter should not even be discussed,” she was quoted by Interfax as saying.
On Jan. 16, a group of deputies from the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly sent a repeat request to City Governor Georgy Poltavchenko enquiring about the future of the hospital.
Poltavchenko answered that “Hospital No. 31 is being considered as one of the options for the location of the medical department to serve the upper court bodies in future.” He added, however, that “no action was being taken on moving the hospital at the moment.”
“Such action will begin only after a final, balanced decision that does not discriminate [against] anyone’s interests has been made. All the discussions that are being held now can be called speculative,” Poltavchenko said in his answer, RIA Novosti reported.
On Wednesday, Jan. 23, supporters of the hospital will gather on the city’s Field of Mars at 6 p.m. for another rally that has been approved by the city administration.
One-man pickets, which need no authorization from City Hall, are being held in support of the hospital every day through Jan. 25 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. near the Ploshchad Vosstaniya, Gostiny Dvor, Admiralteiskaya and Nevsky Prospekt metro stations, the authors of the petition said. Points for gathering signatures have also been set up in several places.

TITLE: City Duma Rejects Call For Ban on Assemblies
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: In a surprise move, the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly last week refused to consider a controversial bill on amendments to the law on public assemblies that would effectively ban any protests in most of the city, including bedroom communities.
Backed by City Hall and pro-Kremlin party deputies, the proposed law would ban public assemblies on Palace Square, St. Isaac’s Square and Nevsky Prospekt. Rallies would also be banned within 200 meters from state administration buildings, state educational and health institutions, railway stations and platforms, bus and boat stations and airports, as well as within 100 meters from metro stations and adjacent territory.
The bill on assemblies was drawn up by United Russia deputy Vitaly Milonov and submitted to the Legislative Assembly by City Governor Georgy Poltavchenko.
The assembly’s refusal to consider the bill caused a stir in the local media, because previously any bills proposed or supported by the authorities — including Milonov’s infamous “gay propaganda” ban — had all been passed by the Legislative Assembly indivertibly.
The Yabloko Democratic Party, A Just Russia and Communist Party deputies voted against the inclusion of the bill on the assembly’s agenda, while pro-Kremlin parties United Russia and the Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) backed it, with the exception of two deputies.
Alexander Kobrinsky, a Yabloko deputy and member of the Legislative Assembly’s Legislation Committee, believes that the authorities will attempt to push the amendments through again at a future session.
“But we made it quite clear that we don’t want to adopt it in its current form,” Kobrinsky said Tuesday.
“We received unexpected support from two members of the ruling coalition — United Russia and the LDPR — who realize that they will have to answer to their voters, because this law would drastically worsen things for citizens. They won’t even be able to gather to discuss problems of their district or courtyard, and I hope that the governor has enough common sense not to submit it in such a form again.”
Kobrinsky said that no march or rally would be possible in the city if the law is adopted.
“We’ll be left with nothing more than one-man pickets; you’ll be allowed to stand with a poster, and that’s all,” he said.
However, the lack of a new, harsher law did not prevent the authorities from refusing to authorize rallies or close down public assemblies.
The attempt to introduce the bill was taken soon after the police dispersed a group of teenagers who gathered for a snowball fight on the Field of Mars, arresting two for taking part in an “unauthorized assembly.”
Called “Snow Battle” and held annually, the snowball fight was organized via social networking sites and drew several dozen to the open space on Jan. 7. A video of the incident shows a police officer speaking into a megaphone to warn the teenagers that they are “committing mass presence and mass movement of citizens, qualified as a violation of public order.” 
The teenagers, some of who were holding snowballs, reacted with surprise and giggles. Two 18-year-olds, Andrei Veselov and Valery Okunev, were detained and face hefty fines. Their cases are reportedly due to be heard in court later this month.
The right of freedom of assembly is the focus of Strategy 31, a campaign 
of peaceful gatherings in defense 
of this constitutional right held regularly across Russia, including in St. Petersburg.
The most recent local Strategy 31 rally held near Gostiny Dvor metro on Nevsky Prospekt on Dec. 31 was broken up as soon as protesters raised a banner reading “Freedom of Assembly; Always and Everywhere.” 
Nine activists were arrested and after being held for up to two nights in a police precinct, most of them were fined from 10,000 to 20,000 rubles ($330-$660) for participating in an unauthorized rally and 500 to 1,000 rubles ($17-$33) for alleged failure to obey a police officer’s orders.
The demonstrators said they were acting in defense of the constitution, as arrests and refusals to authorize rallies violate both the constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights, which is ratified by the Russian Federation.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>Yabloko Seeks Growth</b>
 ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Forty-four people have annulled their membership of the St. Petersburg branch of the Yabloko Democratic Party, Interfax reported, citing information from former Yabloko member Vitaly Shtager. The news agency did not say during what period of time the annulments had taken place.
In the middle of January, Shtager announced that he had left the party along with 11 other people. The group of former Yabloko members also suggested that other members unhappy with the party’s current situation should also consider leaving.
Grigory Yavlinsky, head of the party in the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly, said that Yabloko could soon see a potential increase of 150 percent — more than 600 people — in membership in the city as new members join the party.
According to the latest statistics, the St. Petersburg branch of Yabloko consists of 400 members.

<b>Illegal Landfill Found</b>
 ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — A large illegal landfill site has been discovered near the construction site of the General Motors plant in the village of Shushary to the south of the city, Interfax reported, citing the city police.
Construction waste had been taken to the landfill using heavy vehicles, and the city police have already detained several dozen trucks involved in the dumping, the news agency reported. The vehicles used had come from the nearby GM construction site, Fontanka.ru reported.
A criminal case into violation of the rules for the treatment of ecologically dangerous substances and waste has been launched.
GM launched its plant in St. Petersburg in 2008. It produces models including the Chevrolet Cruze and Opel Astra. By 2015, GM plans to expand the capacity of the plant to 230,000 cars a year. The current capacity is 98,000 cars a year.

TITLE: Netherlands Implicated In Suicide of Russian Activist
AUTHOR: By Nikolaus von Twickel
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Friends and lawyers over the weekend accused the Netherlands of complicity in the suicide of opposition activist Alexander Dolmatov in a Dutch extradition center.
Dolmatov, a member of radical writer Eduard Limonov’s Other Russia movement, was found dead in his cell early Thursday in an extradition center in the port city of Rotterdam. He had fled to the Netherlands last summer to seek political asylum after being sought by police in connection with the violence during a May 6 protest against President Vladimir Putin’s inauguration.
His lawyer Yevgeny Arkhipov accused Dutch authorities of grave rights violations. He explained in a telephone interview Sunday that Dolmatov had been sent to the extradition center even though he had appealed an earlier decision to deny him asylum. Also, he said, authorities had notified nobody about two earlier attempts by his client to kill himself.
“He has become the victim of good relations with Russia,” Arkhipov said.
He added that Dutch authorities had not told him any details about the circumstances of the suicide. National media reports suggested that Dolmatov had cut his wrists.
Arkhipov confirmed that Dolmatov had been denied asylum in mid-December. The complaint was filed together with a Dutch lawyer, Marq Wijngaarden, on Jan. 11. Wijngaarden told Gazeta.ru that the authorities had no right to send him to the extradition center.
Dutch officials insisted that the reason for the suicide was personal. They based their statement on a letter that they say was found with Dolmatov’s body.
“This letter is evidence that he killed himself not because of his asylum case,” said Onno Elderenbosch, deputy head of the Dutch Embassy in Moscow.
Elderenbosch added that the letter was addressed to Dolmatov’s mother and that its contents would not be made public because it was personal. However, national media published the letter over the weekend. The handwritten note to his mother begins with the words, “Mom, I am leaving so I do not return a traitor and disgrace us all.”
Arkhipov said the letter clearly showed that Dolmatov killed himself because of his asylum case. “Obviously, he wrote it under severe pressure,” he said.
He dismissed media reports that suggested Dutch authorities had pressured Dolmatov to disclose military secrets. Dolmatov had worked as a constructor in a rocket factory near Moscow. Dolmatov told The St. Petersburg Times in an interview in July that he had not had access to top-secret information.
Arkhipov did, however, say that Russian special services had pressured his client. “He had told me that he got threatening phone calls from the Federal Security Service,” he said.
Denis Solopov, a friend of Dolmatov who lives in the Netherlands, echoed Arkhipov’s comments. “One hundred percent, the suicide was not a personal thing,” he said by telephone from Amsterdam.
He said he and family members had been unable to contact Dolmatov since December, when he stopped answering his cell phone. “He simply vanished,” Solopov said, suggesting that Dolmatov had suffered from depression.
The Dutch Justice Ministry, which oversees refugee affairs, said in an e-mail Friday that Minister Ivo Opstelten would order an investigation into the circumstances of the death.
Dolmatov said in the interview in July that he feared that he would be punished disproportionately because he had worked in a high-security rocket factory.
A laser engineer who worked in production allocation, Dolmatov said he was fired from the factory in Korolyov in May because of his political activities.
He hoped to follow the example of Solopov, an environmental activist, who received refugee status in the Netherlands in 2011 for being prosecuted for a 2010 attack on an administration building in the Moscow suburb of Khimki.
Solopov told The St. Petersburg Times that he knows at least three other opposition activists who have applied for asylum in the Netherlands after being targeted by investigators for the May 6 protests. Their cases are pending, he said.

TITLE: FMS Backs More Immigration
AUTHOR: By Nikolaus von Twickel
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia urgently needs to attract immigrants over the coming years to avoid labor shortages, the country’s top migration officer said Monday.
“Even if we manage to stabilize or increase the population by raising the birth rate, the only source for increasing the labor force for the coming 15 to 20 years will be migration,” Federal Migration Service head Konstantin Romodanovsky told Interfax in an interview.
Romodanovsky said that the Kremlin had ordered him to keep migration stable at about 300,000 people per year and that this number should include ethnic Russians from abroad, highly qualified foreign specialists and promising youths.
The figure of 300,000 immigrants was formulated by Vladimir Putin in a programmatic newspaper article in his presidential campaign one year ago. Critics have voiced serious doubts about its feasibility, arguing that the government’s past attempts to lure Russian speakers and qualified migrants to the country have seen little success.
Romodanovsky warned that according to official data, the country’s population is expected to fall from the current 143 million to 139.3 million by 2030. “It is problematic to refuse to attract foreign workers and to focus exclusively on your own labor resources when those are strongly declining,” he said.
However, the migration chief said he supports recent bills intended to tighten sanctions against illegal migrants. “They don’t pay taxes, they live in shacks, hang around on the streets. … It is time to put an end to this,” he was quoted as saying.
Romodanovsky suggested that a large share of the 3 million Uzbeks and Tajiks working in the country are illegals. A law Putin signed on Dec. 30 introduced criminal charges and drastically increases fines for violations of registration rules.
National media have described the law as directed against “elastic apartments,” fake addresses at which hundreds and even thousands of migrant workers are registered. Critics have called the law a populist gesture that will bolster anti-immigration sentiment in the country.
Russian law stipulates that foreigners inform the migration service of their whereabouts when they stay longer than seven working days in the country. According to rules reinstated in 2011, this can also be a company address for foreign employees. The law also requires Russian citizens to register any given home address three months after they move there.
Experts said that while recent reforms have greatly eased the country’s registration system, illegal registration documents are still widespread, especially because many employers require local registration as a hiring requirement.
“What might be easy on paper is often cumbersome in practice,” said Pavel Chikov, head of the Agora human rights organization. He pointed out that the rules stipulate a landlord’s consent and sometimes require the landlord to be present for the registration process, which typically involves standing in long lines.
Chikov predicted that the stricter rules would only increase corruption. “Higher fines will mean higher bribes,” he said.

TITLE: NTV Documentary Alleges Campaign Against Church
AUTHOR: By Jonathan Earle
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — State-controlled NTV television Sunday aired its latest documentary-style film targeting prominent opposition figures, this time for allegedly being part of an organized information campaign to discredit the Russian Orthodox Church.
The film, “I Don’t Believe It,” accuses popular blogger Rustam Adagamov — a member of the opposition Coordination Council — TV hosts Leonid Parfyonov and Vladimir Pozner, and others of links to an anti-clerical campaign partly run out of Ukraine.
Ukrainian feminist group Femen, known for staging topless protests, and the punk band Pussy Riot are portrayed as among the most infamous manifestations of the campaign.
Other participants in the effort, primarily bloggers and journalists, receive payouts in exchange for negative coverage of the church, the program alleges, and others come across as repulsive people.
Adagamov, for example, is said to be willing to accept 150,000 rubles ($5,000) for a blog post, and the show repeats allegations recently made by his ex-wife that he is a pedophile.
The blogger responded by saying that he was proud to be grouped with Pozner and controversial curator Marat Gelman, and criticized NTV for failing to mention his pro-Church activities.
“Where’s the part about how I used my blog to help Father Vladislav from Belgorod, who had adopted an orphan, raise money for a new house?” Adagamov wrote on his Facebook page, adding that the film was a “piece of crap.”
Parfyonov, a former host on NTV, directed his anger at filmmaker Boris Korchenikov, a journalist and actor best known for his role in “Kadety,” a television drama about military cadets.
“What is this shoddy, pompous heap of nonsense? Do you think Orthodox patriotism atones for the sin of wretched journalism?” Parfyonov wrote on his Live Journal blog.
Church spokesman Vsevolod Chaplin defended the film, saying it accurately reflected the general public’s mood, not including certain urban “cliques,” RIA-Novosti reported.

TITLE: Diva’s Voice Is ‘Too High’
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — One of the hardest things for an opera reviewer to do is to describe the lead singer’s voice. The reviewer could list off notes or compare the voice to that of a bird.
Polish soprano Katarzyna Dondalska reached a new milestone that reviewers can use to quantify her singing capacity. Her voice reaches high enough to damage the loudspeakers in Moscow’s metro.
Dondalska will be in Moscow on Jan. 25 to perform with the Morphing Vienna Chamber Orchestra at the Viennesse Strauss Gala 2013.
The concert’s organizers wanted to submit ads to play while people are riding the metro’s escalators, but some of the notes turned out to be too high and potentially damaging to the audio systems. In the end, the organizers had to choose another sound clip for the ad.
The Vienna-based chamber orchestra is returning to the city for the second time with a number of classical compositions from the repertoires of renowned world composers, including Johann Strauss and Wolfgang Mozart.

TITLE: Endangered Bison Overdosed on Speed, Says Forensic Study
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A European bison, whose sudden death at a Moscow region nature reserve earlier this month sparked outrage among conservationists, died not of food poisoning, but of an overdose of speed, according to a forensic study, RIA-Novosti reported.
The bizarre death of Shponti, a mating bull imported from Germany to boost Russia’s breeding program, was initially chalked up to rotten fruits.But an independent study revealed that the 1,300 kilogram animal had elevated levels of amphetamines in his kidneys, enough to cause cardiac arrest.
It was not immediately clear how Shponti could have ingested the powerful drug.
The Priosko-Terrasny reserve has been at the center of efforts to save the European bison since Soviet times, but has been scandalized in recent years by apparently open warfare between employees and the park’s management.
An earlier statement on the reserve’s website, which appeared to have been written by disgruntled employees, said KaMaZ trucks dumped several crates of rotten mandarins and tomatoes in the bison enclosure sometime before the New Year. The statement laid the blame for Shponti’s death squarely on the park’s director.
Three bison have died at the reserve in murky circumstances in recent months. A female bison, Madonna, perished on Jan. 7, the same day as Shponti, and an eight-year-old breeding bull named Multon was euthanized in October after he apparently broke his jaw.
The results of an official inquiry into the deaths are expected in February.

TITLE: Activists Urged to Become Elections Officials
AUTHOR: By Jonathan Earle
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A presidential election in Russia isn’t scheduled for another five years, but the people who will run the polling stations and count the ballots are already being selected.
Regional elections officials have until April 30 to form more than 90,000 local elections commissions nationwide — one for every polling station — whose members will serve five-year terms under a new law that elections watchdogs said is designed to protect the ruling party.
Given widespread allegations of fraud during State Duma elections in December 2011, often involving local elections officials, they say it is critical that independent activists committed to fair elections find their way onto local commissions.
Even one honest commission member is enough to “jam the vote-rigging machine,” said Roman Udot, head of monitoring at Golos, a nongovernmental elections watchdog.
Golos is one of several groups that have recruited thousands of volunteers to serve on the commissions, which have traditionally consisted of state employees and members of government-friendly civic groups handpicked for their loyalty, not for their democratic scruples, Udot said.
The new recruits, energized by the past year’s pro-democracy movement, which the 2011 election scandal helped to spark, will be placed on commissions mainly via the Communist Party and A Just Russia, parliamentary parties with the right to one spot on each commission.
As commission members, they’ll have access to voting documents as well as more clout than an observer, a significant number of whom said they were shooed away from polling stations during the Duma elections.
They can also influence other commission members, refuse to certify election results and offer dissenting opinions that can be used to challenge vote tallies.
Due to the new five-year rule, commissions chosen in the next few months will administer Duma elections in 2016, the presidential election in 2018, and gubernatorial and other local races.
Close attention will likely be paid to city legislative and mayoral elections in Moscow, expected next year and in 2015, respectively, given the particularly fervent opposition activism in the capital.
Georgy Alburov, of the opposition election-monitoring group Rosvybory, said he expects enough volunteers to cover every one of Moscow’s 3,400 voting stations.
“Recruitment is going well,” he said. “It’s picking up as the late-January deadline approaches. People are waking up and are ready to register.”
Alburov, a member of the opposition Coordination Council, is also a close ally of Kremlin foe Alexei Navalny.
To dissuade newcomers, elections officials began accepting applications over the long winter holidays, when many Russians travel or relax, Alburov said.
The window for applicants in the Samara region, for example, was from mid-December to mid-January, closing before Russians returned to work.
Recruitment appears to be going less well outside Moscow and other major cities, with even major parties saying they likely won’t be able to cover many polling stations.
The Communist Party will recruit enough people to cover only 75 percent of commissions nationwide and only 20 to 30 percent in regional centers and villages, said Vadim Solovyov, a senior party official, Kommersant reported last week.
A Just Russia’s Mikhail Yemelyanov was more optimistic, telling the newspaper that his party will cover all local commissions, excluding those in several regions, including the North Caucasus.
Incidentally, the ruling United Russia party’s overwhelming victory in several regions in the North Caucasus — it officially won more than 99 percent of the vote in Chechnya, for instance — raised eyebrows and sparked local protests.
“People are afraid that the commission will be a lot of work, although in reality, commissions are only active just before elections,” Ilya Mishchenko, head of training at vote monitor Citizen Observer said, explaining the choice ofsome activists not to volunteer.
More than 1 million people will be selected to serve on the commissions, whose average size is about 12 members, from a pool of nominees submitted by parties and local administrations.
Dozens of political parties that registered in the wake of last year’s political reforms, which made it easier to create new parties, are not entitled to place representatives on the commissions.
Video clips purportedly showing local elections officials committing infractions ranging from minor violations on tally sheets to outright vote-rigging, caused outrage during and after Duma elections in December 2011.
A recent study by U.S. and Russian academics published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a U.S. academic journal, concluded that United Russia’s official results in Moscow, 47 percent, were 11 percentage points higher than its actual haul.
Ultimately, the stated goal of Golos, Rosvybory and other recruiters is to instill integrity in the electoral process.
“For the time being, our task is to, at the very least, weaken the wave of falsifications, when people have become so unused to the idea that they can choose something that they A) don’t vote, B) don’t run for office and C) don’t donate money to political campaigns,” Udot said.

TITLE: Zhirinovsky Wants Fines For Using Foreign Words
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, said his party is preparing legislation that would impose fines on officials who use foreign words at work when there is a Russian equivalent.
“The Russian language must be freed from trash and foreign words,” Zhirinovsky told journalists, Interfax reported.
The legislation also stipulates dismissal from one’s job in certain cases.
He said lawyers are currently examining the bill, after which it will be submitted to the State Duma for consideration by lawmakers.
When asked what sanctions would be imposed on officials who violate the rules set out in the bill, Zhirinovsky said: “Fines and dismissal from your job — they’re obliged to adhere to the norms of the Russian language.”
“Why say ‘dealer’ when there is ‘posrednik,’ or ‘performance’ instead of ‘predstavleniya’ — soon they’ll even force us to use English pronunciation,” he said.
It was unclear Tuesday whether the legislation would also apply to other workers in the public sphere. 
Zhirinovsky’s proposal is the latest in a series of moves taken by the Duma in recent months to extirpate foreign influence.
The so-called “Anti-Magnitsky Law” passed late last year bans adoptions of Russian orphans by U.S. families, and a law passed earlier last year requires nongovernmental organizations that conduct “political activity” and receive foreign funding to register as “foreign agents.”
A proposal has also been put forward to ban officials from owning property abroad or sending their children to study in foreign countries.
Lawmakers have taken on less politically charged areas of foreign influence as well. Duma Deputy Sergei Zheleznyak of United Russia called for movie theaters that show foreign films to face a tax that all other movie theaters would be exempt from. That same bill also called for a quota on foreign films.

TITLE: Filin Awaits More Surgery
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Bolshoi Theater artistic director Sergei Filin will undergo two more surgeries after an unknown attacker splashed his face with sulfuric acid last week, doctors said Monday.
On Tuesday, Filin will have some areas of skin replaced. They were severely damaged in the attack. On Wednesday, he will undergo a second eye surgery, doctors said, Interfax reported.
But Filin’s eyesight will not return completely for at least six months, a theater spokeswoman told Komsomolskaya Pravda on Friday. The theater’s supervisory board will send Filin for rehabilitation to a foreign clinic, probably in Germany or Israel, she said.
Filin, 42, said he was certain that the attack was linked to his work, and police have tentatively agreed.

TITLE: Moscow Exchange Shuns Foreign Stock Markets with IPO
AUTHOR: By Howard Amos
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Moscow Exchange announced Monday that it will shun the foreign stock markets traditionally tapped by Russian companies 
and go ahead with an initial public 
offering on its own Russian trading platforms.
The size of the stake in the unified exchange being offered to foreign and domestic investors was not disclosed, but the company is looking to raise at least $500 million, said a source familiar with the situation.
The Moscow Exchange was formed by the 2012 merger of MICEX and RTS, the country’s leading bourses, and was supposed to help the Kremlin transform Moscow into an international financial center. Experts said that the success of the IPO could be a litmus test for how far this aspiration has been realized.
“[The Moscow Exchange’s] whole business case is that people should do more business in Moscow,” said Bruce Bower, a partner and portfolio manager at Verno Capital.
Media reports had previously suggested that the company would seek a dual flotation in London and Moscow, in a format similar to the biggest listings by Russian companies last year.
Targeting both London and Moscow, state-owned lender Sberbank raised $5.2 billion in September 2012 and telecommunications giant Megafon $1.3 billion two months later.
The Moscow Exchange has “never discussed a float in London,” said Nikita Bekasov, a company spokesman.
“The Exchange’s own listing is a key element of our strategy to promote the development of local capital markets,” said chairman of the Moscow Exchange supervisory board and Central Bank Deputy Chairman Sergei Shvetsov in an emailed statement.
Others were more blunt. “We want to show that Russia is an attractive place for investors,” said a source close to the company who requested anonymity to speak freely, adding that this was why Moscow had been picked over London.
Faced with a choice between London and Moscow, however, investors have previously been reluctant to settle on the Russian capital.
Sberbank executives said in advance of their secondary public offering last year that up to 15 percent of the company’s placement could be on the Moscow Exchange — but, in the end, 97 percent went to London.
In one of the most recent IPO announcements, private rail freight operator NefteTransService said last week that it is seeking to float only on the London Stock Exchange.
Unlike their more mature compatriots in Europe, the U.S. and Asia, Russian stock exchanges have traditionally been characterized by speculative investors, a dearth of long-term capital and high volatility. And trading volume declines in Moscow have been steeper than other financial centers throughout 2012.
The Moscow Exchange declined to comment on the exact timing of its IPO, but reports suggest that it is planned for mid-February. Nor did it comment on how the IPO funds would be used.  
The company last week announced earnings of 15.9 billion rubles ($525 million) for 2012 — 36.7 percent higher than the MICEX Index reported for the same period in 2011.
The exchange was valued at $4.5 billion when the merger between MICEX and dollar-denominated RTS was announced, but Central Bank Deputy Chairman Alexei Ulyukayev said early in 2012 that the joint entity was actually worth closer to $6 billion. He has since said that its value is likely to have diminished.

TITLE: Deputies Seek Karpov Probe
AUTHOR: By Alexander Bratersky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A group of United Russia lawmakers have accused a colleague, world chess champion Anatoly Karpov, of lobbying on behalf of a tobacco company, and they asked the Justice Ministry to see whether he can be labeled a foreign agent.
The attack against Karpov is seen as part of a smoldering conflict between lobbyists, as anti-smoking legislation is pending in the State Duma, experts said. The country’s $22 billion tobacco market is currently the second-largest in the world, surpassed only by China.
Several Duma deputies, including ones from United Russia, stated in a letter to the ministry that the charitable foundation Peace and Harmony, co-founded by Karpov, is a partner of Japan Tobacco International, one of the three largest tobacco companies in Russia.
The move was prompted by a proposal by Karpov to exclude an article from the anti-smoking bill that addresses the illegal tobacco trade.
The anti-tobacco bill, which passed in first reading, is seen as one of the strongest government attempts to curb rampant smoking in the country.
It will affect 44 million citizens, or a third of the population. About 400,000 people die annually from smoking related diseases, according to offical figures.
The law would ban smoking in most public places and introduce tough punishments for violators.
“The point of our collective letter is to check whether a deputy’s foundation is a foreign agent,” United Russia deputy Alyona Arshinova told Izvestia Monday.
Arshinova was referring to a controversial new law that obliges any organization receiving foreign grants and engaging in political activity to register as a foreign agent. The law was mainly aimed at human rights organizations that have voiced opposition to the Kremlin.
Anatoly Vereshchagin, communication director for Japan Tobacco International, said his company works with one of the partners of Karpov’s foundation, which is not prohibited by the legislation. Karpov was not available for comment Monday.
Karpov, a senior deputy who sits on the Economic Policy Committee, told Izvestia his colleagues’ reaction to his proposed amendment was “overheated.”
He said the language of the article he seeks to exclude is preserved in the World Health Organization’s Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products, which the Russian parliament plans to ratify.  
Vereshchagin said Monday that after the protocol is ratified it will take priority over national legislation.
“All tobacco companies are supporting the fight against the illegal market,” Vereshchagin said.
That sentiment was repeated by Vadim Zhelnin, the head of Tabakprom, an industry lobbyist group. He said, however, that the industry is more concerned with different provisions of the article that Kasparov wants to exclude.
Both the anti-tobacco legislation and the WHO protocol require that all tobacco products be marked with special codes so illegal trading can be tracked.
Zhelnin said tobacco companies are dubious about the required markings. He said such an approach didn’t prove effective when it was introduced for the alcohol industry.
“It hasn’t produced an effect, while legal producers have suffered,” he said.
In 2005, producers of alcoholic beverages were subjected to a policy that forced them to pay for the installation of costly equipment to mark their products with special stamps.
The idea to implement such a system for the tobacco industry has received a similarly negative response from the Agriculture Ministry, which said existing excise stamps are enough to control the tobacco trade.  
However, Slon online columnist Dmitry Yanin noted in a recent article that the ministry’s response repeats a similar argument from British American Tobacco almost word for word.

TITLE: Cabinet: No Reinstatement
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Cabinet has rejected a proposal to reinstate government officials on the boards of state-controlled companies.
It has also nominated several newcomers to sit on the boards at such behemoths as Gazprom, the Federal Grid Company and Svyazinvest, Vedomosti reported Monday.
By keeping the boardrooms free of officials, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s Cabinet seemed to signal that it still disapproves of excessive state influence over business even after the ministers backed the megatakeover of privately owned TNK-BP by state-run Rosneft.
“Overall, it’s a positive development,” Alexander Shevchuk, deputy executive director of the Association for the Protection of Investor Rights, said about the decision on the boards.
During Medvedev’s presidency from 2008 to 2012, he ordered an exodus of officials from the boards in a bid to make the economy more transparent and competitive.
Deputy prime ministers Igor Shuvalov and Arkady Dvorkovich rebuffed a proposal by the Federal State Property Management Agency that officials make their way back to the companies to be privatized by 2016. The agency said they would oversee preparations for the sell-offs. 
Instead, Shuvalov and Dvorkovich listed only people who have no government jobs — at least at the moment. The nominees included former Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko, who would vie for a seat at the Federal Grid Company and the Inter-Regional Grid Company, which run electricity grids.
The Cabinet submitted its proposal to President Vladimir Putin’s administration for approval. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the Kremlin would respond in the next few days, Vedomosti reported.
Shevchuk said he was concerned that a lack of officials on the boards could delay decision-making.
“Government officials on a board is quite a fine idea,” he said. “It’s better than having someone who would take triple the time to get the government’s approval for something.”
In addition to Shmatko, the Cabinet listed a fair share of other would-be novices on the boards. Most of the new faces would appear at telecom provider Svyazinvest.
They are IBS Deputy CEO Anton Yevgenyev; chairman of Thermal Devices Research Institute Sergei Malinov; adviser to the chief executive of the Research Center for Industrial Technology and Aerial Navigation Systems, Vladimir Yakovlev; and deputy head of Moscow city property department, Konstantin Pesotsky.

TITLE: Report Assesses Popular Discontent Scenarios
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — How popular discontent will play out is one of the key uncertainties that the World Economic Forum identified for Russia’s long-term economic development in a report released Tuesday.
Attendees of the annual forum in Davos, Switzerland, which opened Tuesday, are set to question Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev about this and the report’s findings, the forum said in a statement.
In a report titled “Scenarios for the Russian Federation,” the forum also names two more potential game-changers: Major shifts in global energy trade and Russia’s ability to reform its institutions. 
The conclusions of the research will come up for discussion at a session led by Medvedev on Wednesday, Jan. 23.
“During the session, Prime Minister Medvedev will answer related questions from the audience as well as from social media users worldwide,” the forum said.
In addition to street protests, which have become the hallmark of domestic politics, the report also examined the surge in U.S. shale gas production and Russia’s institutional environment, stating that the country appeared to have made little headway against corruption despite a significant rise in per capita wealth over recent years. 
Depending on how the situation unfolds, the report outlines three scenarios to challenge thinking about Russia’s economic development through 2030. 
“We believe ‘Scenarios for the Russian Federation’ delivers an accurate portrayal of the challenges facing Russia,” Borge Brende, a managing director at the World Economic Forum, said in the statement. “We hope it provides policymakers and planners with insights they can use to optimize the country’s long-term development.”
One outlook, called regional rebalancing, stipulates that unexpected sources, such as the resourcefulness of the country’s regions, will drive economic change. Institutional reform will progress mainly at the regional level and stagnate at the national one. 
Another scenario, called precarious stability, explored the consequences of a sudden and sustained drop in oil prices, concluding that the government would likely choose to preserve economic stability over reform in a time of crisis.
In the third possibility envisioned in the report, beyond complacency, high oil prices stall institutional reform while popular discontent grows as a result of inefficiency in the provision of public services.

TITLE: Another Day, Another Dismembered Body
AUTHOR: By Victor Davidoff
TEXT: A dysfunctional family with spouses living separate lives but staying together only for the sake of the children. Huge debts from the couple’s small business. A family of five crammed into a tiny, rented two-room apartment. No chance to start a new business or find well-paying jobs. Add to that serious drinking problems for both husband and wife and you get the perfect setup for a Dostoyevskian novel that inevitably leads to murder.
The murder took place Jan. 3 after a fight. The lawyer for former restaurateur Alexei Kabanov said Kabanov confessed to strangling his wife, journalist Irina Kabanova, and dismembering her body. Kabanov started hiding the body parts but was prevented from completing his task by investigators. They searched a car he was driving and found two bags filled with human remains in the trunk.
Kabanov made his name in the Moscow restaurant scene. In 2000, he was one of the originators of the innovative OGI Project, named after a publisher of art-house literature. A literary club and cafe hybrid, it was a place where people could have dinner as well as attend exhibitions, book readings, literary festivals and poetry readings. It even had its own library.
The project was a success. The owners opened several other cafes under the brand PROgi and had plans to start another 18 cafes. But the company wasn’t able to raise the money to expand, and after the oil boom crashed in 2008, the company began to nosedive. A number of cafes were closed, and others were sold. Kabanov and his wife opened their own cafe, called Cherska, in the center of Moscow. It was financed by the sale of Kabanova’s apartment. But the cafe failed, and the couple lived on her income from a radio talk show.
Unfortunately, domestic murders are common in Russia. As psychologist Gennady Chichkanov said in an interview with Verchernyaya Moskva, “Someone’s body is being dismembered every day.” But the Kabanov case got a tremendous amount of attention because of one detail: Kabanov is a well-known opposition figure. He ran in the elections for the opposition’s Coordinating Council. He was arrested several times during the Moscow demonstrations in 2012 and volunteered to help with clean-up operations after the flooding in Krymsk last summer. It is thus no wonder that as soon as the murder was reported, anti-opposition web sites erupted with joy.
Blogger Dobryiviwer wrote on his LiveJournal blog: “People who wear the opposition movement’s white ribbon symbol are criminals. … The white-ribboner Alexei Kabanov brutally murdered his own wife and cut her body into pieces. Another opposition leader, Leonid Razvozzhayev, was a mugger. Garry Kasparov is constantly giving speeches in the U.S., while Boris Nemtsov is seen embracing one of Russia’s worst enemies, John McCain. What a lovely creative class Russia has: Murderers, thieves, sadists and traitors.”
A blogger on the Ridus agency site — financed by the Kremlin, according to former employees — wrote: “The Zavtra club that Kabanov co-owned is now the favorite hangout for white-ribboners. Maybe that would be a good place to show his art of dismembering a human body.” A translator and anti-opposition writer who uses the pseudonym Goblin wrote: “The avid opposition activist Kabanov killed his wife and dismembered her body. Who else is among them? Necrophiliacs? Cannibals?”
Questions like these, which sound like they were taken from Stalinist-era newspapers during the Great Terror, are more puzzling than upsetting. Poet Vsevolod Yemelin wrote on his LiveJournal blog: “I don’t wear a white ribbon myself. But what is there to cheer about? What’s going on? One guy out of a demonstration of 100,000 people killed his wife. What does this have to do with the protest movement in general? One person was a murderer, while 99,999 people were not. It’s not going to stop the movement. People will still demonstrate — perhaps not tomorrow, but at some time. Don’t rush to bury the protest movement.”
Of course, the Kabanov family tragedy has nothing to do with the protest movement. But it does have something to do with the economic situation in the country, particularly the crisis of small business development. Last year, income from individual businesses in Moscow was down 3 percent, according to an analysis published in Kommersant. The number of entrepreneurs has been falling over the last four years; it fell 4 percent in 2012. More and more small business owners and entrepreneurs, whether they are engaged in computer programming or trade, are being forced to find full-time jobs and abandon their hopes of owning their own business.
The analytical Internet site Tolkovatel says “business activity in Moscow is slowing down, and white-collar labor is less in demand. Middle-aged, middle-class migrants to Moscow can’t find work. They can either go back to the provinces or even abroad, or they have to change professions.”
There were many factors that led to the murder in the Kabanov family. But there is a larger lesson that can be gleaned from this tragedy. A country that denies opportunities to its creative and entrepreneurial class is a country without prospects for economic development in the 21st century.

<i>Victor Davidoff is a Moscow-based writer and journalist who follows the Russian blogosphere.</i>

TITLE: regional dimensions: More Protests in 2013
AUTHOR: By Nikolai Petrov
TEXT: The first weeks of 2013 have already shown that relations between Russian authorities and society will be no better this year than they were in 2012.
The large-scale “March against Scoundrels” rally in Moscow on Jan. 13 and the smaller but significant rallies in a host of major cities showed that large numbers of demonstrators can be mobilized on short notice to protest the actions of the authorities. The angry protests might be triggered by fraudulent elections, repressive measures against protesters or even something as seemingly far removed from the standard political agenda as the recent law prohibiting U.S. citizens from adopting Russian children.
Among the key things that could trigger protests this year are the criminal charges authorities plan to file against participants in the mass protest rally on Bolotnaya Ploshchad on May 6, the day before Vladimir Putin’s inauguration. In a Levada Center survey conducted in December, 40 percent of respondents said the process could have a negative effect on the authorities. At the same time, 40 percent said they believe dissatisfaction and resentment will grow as a result of unjust court rulings and abuses by the judicial system, police and government officials. In addition, 12 percent of those questioned predicted that the protest mood would increase and become more radicalized.
Also noteworthy, opinion polls indicate that a significant part of the population sympathizes with protesters. According to a recent survey by the Levada Center, more than one-third of Russians fully or partially support the mass protests.
The environmental protest movement is also growing. Expert Siberia magazine named an environmental activist as its person of the year for 2012. Also in Siberia, the Krasnoyarsk is Opposed movement forced local authorities to halt construction of an iron plant in Yenesei that would have heavily polluted the environment. An increasing number of people who were previously unengaged are now joining the environmental protest movement. In the fall, 181,000 Krasnoyarsk residents — one out of every three adults in the city — signed a petition demanding that President Vladimir Putin halt construction of the plant.
A number of environmental protests were also held in the Moscow region demanding an end to highway construction and the clearing of forests, the most notable being the Khimki forest dispute and the defense of the Tsagovsky forest in Zhukovsky, 25 kilometers from Moscow.
Demonstrations against social and economic conditions, especially the increase in utility rates, are also increasing. Spontaneous rallies were held recently in Volgograd, Kaliningrad, Bryansk, Omsk, Pervouralsk and other cities.
Rising prices on the full range of consumer goods and price hikes on alcohol and tobacco products are also fueling social and economic protests. The new law on education, which entails reductions in many areas, is slated to go into full force this fall, along with similar “reforms” in the the health care system. Both of these initiatives alone could add attract more Russians to the protest movement.
As a measure to prevent unrest, Putin promised to raise salaries for state employees, largely drawing on regional budgets to fund the increase. But Putin is taking a risk in potentially creating a “middle class” of bureaucrats, which he hopes will counterbalance the more independent opposition movement. We will likely see the first problems in Putin’s strategy when the ineptitude of governors and the Regional Development Ministry leads to financial mismanagement and chaos.

<i>Nikolai Petrov is a scholar in residence at the Carnegie Moscow Center.</i>

TITLE: What Katya did next
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Twelve months after feminist punk collective Pussy Riot’s “Putin Has Pissed Himself” breakthrough protest performance on Red Square, group member Yekaterina Samutsevich, who was freed by an appeal court in October, came to St. Petersburg to take part in a roundtable organized by the Center for Independent Social Research.
Called “Class, Gender, Politics: Russia After Pussy Riot,” it was dedicated to the imprisoned group member Maria Alyokhina, whose appeal was heard — and rejected — last week in Berezniki in the Perm Krai, some 2,000 kilometers away.
On Sunday, Samutsevich, 30, spoke to The St. Petersburg Times via Skype about events surrounding Pussy Riot and Russia in general throughout the past year. 

<b>Q:</b> What are your impressions of your visit to St. Petersburg?
<b>A:</b> I came to take part in the roundtable, but the actual reason was that the roundtable was dedicated to Maria Alyokhina and a court hearing about a postponement of her sentence that was taking place that day. That’s why I decided to support Masha by coming to St. Petersburg and talking about her and problems of media coverage of our case.
I liked the roundtable a lot, I liked the Center for Independent Social Research, very intelligent and sincere people work there. I haven’t spoken to such people for a long time, and I was pleased that they supported us and invited me. There were many specialists on gender issues at the roundtable; there was even a specialist on the problems of female prisons there. I really appreciated this professional approach to the topic.
As for St. Petersburg, it was a sunny day when I arrived, so that put me in a good mood. Especially when I just arrived, because I had hopes that Masha could be released. But obviously, as soon as I learned that Masha’s postponement appeal had been rejected, my mood got a lot worse. I found out when the roundtable had already started, so probably wasn’t very cheerful during it, but I had good reason to be upset.

<b>Q:</b> Pussy Riot last gave an interview to The St. Petersburg Times a year ago — just after the “Putin Has Pissed Himself” performance on Red Square and a month before the first two members of the group were arrested. The protest movement was still at its peak, but you were unhappy that it had turned into sanctioned rallies and said that the Kremlin was not afraid of them. Would you say this tendency has prevailed and the protest movement has subsided?
<b>A:</b> Well, not everything has subsided, because people see what is happening. The authorities attempt to present the situation like this: There was an opposition, it made some weak moves, but failed to make a critical point in a convincing way, so people didn’t choose the opposition but chose Putin again.
But obviously, thinking people who follow the situation see an entirely different picture. There was an opposition and still is. The other thing is that the authorities have started to take a definite political stance. They saw a certain threat and decided to attack the problem from different sides to cut away the ground from under opposition-minded citizens. 
They resorted to repressive measures — such as our arrests for virtually nothing, and those of the May 6 protesters — and distortion of the situation in the media at the same time. Libel against various political figures as well as the situation in general came from the television the whole time. The authorities reduced the entire opposition to two or three people and attacked them, often using libel. In reality the opposition is not two or three people, but a great number of citizens who are unhappy about the situation in the country and are ready to change the system.
It doesn’t mean that there’s no opposition, it does exist — but now we have to take the authorities’ strategy into account, analyze it and build some new line of struggle.

<b>Q:</b> Propaganda against Pussy Riot frequently contained accusations of things actually done not by Pussy Riot, but done in the past by the Voina art group, including a stunt in which a woman stole a chicken from a supermarket by concealing it in her vagina, or, as Putin told Angela Merkel, hanging an “effigy of a Jew” in a store. Questions about those performances at the roundtable showed that this strategy even worked with informed people, didn’t it?
<b>A:</b> The information about the chicken and the “effigy of a Jew” was obviously targeted at people not informed about what had happened in action art and Russian art in general during the 2000s. It’s aimed at people who are not interested in such things and who — if they happen to see some video or documentation [of such things] — are simply shocked, and simply won’t understand anything. That’s what it was calculated for — for this shock stemming from a lack of understanding.
The authorities did everything to collect such “strange” information, which was in reality false. Because yes, these things did happen, but they were different and connected to entirely different people. It relied on the effect that people would hear snatches of it in passing and would not try to get to the bottom of it or analyze in a detailed way. 
They hear about [Voina’s] performance at the Biological Museum [in which the group staged an orgy] or about a chicken stunt and think that Pussy Riot are perverted girls who have sex in public and then go to the cathedral and desecrate the ambon and soleas [restricted sections of Orthodox churches]. It’s targeted at a lack of understanding, a lack of information and lack of critical thinking, and maybe a lack of analysis of the authorities’ strategy.

<b>Q:</b> How do you respond to criticism that the punk prayer in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior presented a chance for the authorities to split society?
<b>A:</b> In reality, what existed before was revealed here; we didn’t produce anything new, it simply became visible. People have been divided over many issues for a long time, especially along the lines of conservative values and contemporary art in such forms as action art or media art. This division has existed for a long time and has been created artificially by our authorities’ cultural policy.
There’s practically no education in the field of art. That’s why there are so few artists. They’re either self-taught, or come from the Rodchenko School. It’s good that it exists in Moscow, but it still doesn’t produce many young artists, and the kind of art that would be open and visible is scarce. That’s why people don’t fully understand what they are seeing when they see work by Pussy Riot.
Of course, the authorities have done a lot to present contemporary art, especially action art, as hooliganism. The opinion that this is not art but some ordinary hooligans who are destroying values is constantly being implanted, with other points of view suppressed and going unheard. That’s where this misbalance around contemporary art, especially political art comes from. This division of opinions is the result. 

<b>Q:</b> It was clear that all the Pussy Riot performances annoyed the Kremlin, especially the Red Square one. Was the punk prayer simply used as an excuse to stop the group’s activities and make an example of it?
<b>A:</b> Well, yes, I think the group’s entire work caused annoyance starting from its first performances, because — as it was said at the Zamoskvoretsky Court — they contained “calls to extremism, to overthrow the regime,” and so on. 
They were annoyed about everything. Either it simply came to a boiling point, or the people from the special services who were in charge of monitoring us were given orders to open a criminal investigation and arrest us.

<b>Q:</b> Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina were arrested on March 3, 2012, on the eve of Putin’s re-election, leading to speculation that the arrests were a present for him. Do you think it was his personal revenge for your anti-Putin performances?
<b>A:</b> Actually, it’s not that simple. When we talk about the situation in Russia, we are not just talking about Putin. The powers that be are not one person, even if he’s the president and the top man. In reality, we are dealing with the whole system that is in power in Russia, and there are many political forces at play. 
Putin as one person has simply become the symbol of the system and it’s only natural that the system protects itself, that’s why it reacts in such an aggressive way to any damage done to this symbol, to what it sees as an insult to him, even if in reality it’s just a critical statement. 

<b>Q:</b> But didn’t he speak almost sensually about the two-year sentences using the diminutive word “dvushechka” [for the two-year prison sentence handed to the women] and sounding as if  it was indeed a personal matter for him?
<b>A:</b> Yes, sure. I think he has a certain image, a certain role, and this image is pretty strange now, let’s put it that way. It’s analyzed by the Western press, because many are surprised by his behavior. Because a head of state shouldn’t behave like this. They are always on guard, they watch their words — both what they say and how they say it — how they dress, how they sit, it’s literally like that. And allowing themselves to say such things, in such a tone, and tell lies in a conversation with the leader of another country, like in the conversation with Angela Merkel, is simply impermissible.
There are many versions: It may be a deliberate anti-Western move, to demonstrate such a disdainful, utterly contemptuous attitude toward the rest of the world, or maybe something is happening to him, maybe he’s simply going insane. It’s like [former Russian leader Boris] Yeltsin, who used to get drunk and behave in a weird way.
Everybody is analyzing why he behaves like that, and what he said, but the authorities’ actual strategy — for instance, the reform of education — is not analyzed well enough. So it could be a deceptive move as well. Perhaps instead of paying so much attention to this inappropriate behavior, we should bear it in mind and pay more attention to things that are actually happening now.

<b>Q:</b> What’s happening with the ban on Pussy Riot’s videos?
<b>A:</b> The Moscow City Court will hear my appeal on Jan. 24, as well as my second complaint about the refusal of the court to acknowledge me as an interested party. I don’t know the order in which they will be heard, but there’s a hope that maybe the court will send the case back for reconsideration. It’s another stage of the struggle. Then, if they reject it, it’ll go immediately as an appendix to our complaint to the European Court of Human Rights, because it violates the right of freedom of speech and the right of freedom of expression guaranteed by  the European Convention on Human Rights. It violates the rights of three people: Nadya, Masha and me.

<b>Q:</b> How did international support affect the Pussy Riot situation?
<b>A:</b> Such support could not fail to have an effect, it was very strong. But the influence was multi-faceted, it can’t be said that it brought great benefits, that everybody was ecstatic because of such support. Obviously, the authorities started to react and create their own media campaign. The stronger support was, the stronger the resistance of the media that serve the authorities. And so a kind of media war began. There is a confrontation of different ideas: The idea of freedom of speech, which is turned upside down in Russian media that speak about a threat to traditional values. There’s a permanent struggle going on, and that’s OK.
But the support showed that Pussy Riot was not a bunch of freaks who had done some stuff that no-one could understand. It became clear that it is art, that it’s very articulate art, it’s political art, it’s feminist art. This was understood by a majority in the West. 
Then there was understanding about the situation in Russia. Because Putin and the other people who represent power say that we have democracy and freedom of speech. It turned out that that is not true, that it is all lies. That Russia had huge problems with freedom of speech, with human rights.

<b>Q:</b> What’s your opinion about “Pussy Riot — A Punk Prayer,” a feature-length documentary shown at the Sundance Film Festival last week?
<b>A:</b> I’ve seen a rough cut of the film, but what I saw was filmed in a quality, good way. As far as I understood, its makers tried to present the situation as objectively as they could, that is, to include and show opinions from different sides. But to be honest, it seemed to me that mostly, opinions had been collected that if not quite against us, were definitely not for us. I speak with a lot of people who support us ideologically — who don’t simply pity us as young women, but support our ideas. I think there’s quite a few such people in Russia, but this documentary makes it seem that the situation is entirely different — that everybody is against us. That even our relatives misunderstand us, or don’t fully understand us.

<b>Q:</b> In a recent interview with the French magazine Les Inrockuptibles, you said that it’s difficult to continue as Pussy Riot under the current conditions and invited people to repeat what the group had done, which was interpreted by some as an announcement that Pussy Riot is disbanding. Is that the case?
<b>A:</b> Well, it definitely wasn’t a statement about disbanding the group, because otherwise I would have put it in a different way, like: “The group is disbanded, it doesn’t exist anymore.” Of course it exists, and the group members exist too. But I meant that it is difficult to continue in the same way as before the arrest, because the situation for us, the actual members of the group, has changed radically.
And then I meant that Pussy Riot has shown what can be done within a cultural form of protest. As creators of the group, we had a very strong desire to have people not watching us in silence as we deal with the difficult trial. It would be worthwhile to try and do the same thing that we did, or to somehow use what we had offered to the people.

TITLE: Mutiny at the Mikhailovsky
AUTHOR: By Viktoria Koltsova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Benjamin Britten’s 1961 opera “Billy Budd” will see its Russia premiere on Jan. 24, 25 and 26 on the stage of the Mikhailovsky Theater. The theater is staging the Vienna State Opera’s production from 2001, directed by the eminent German theater director Willy Decker.
As the world marks the British composer’s centenary in 2013, Decker is visiting Russia for the first time and is personally recreating his version of the opera for the Mikhailovsky.
“I have worked with wonderful Russian singers, but I have never staged anything in Russia,” Decker was quoted by the theater’s press service as saying. 
 “The fact that Britten’s opera has never been performed here either adds to the responsibility,” he said.   
The libretto is based on Herman Melville’s novella “Billy Budd,” about a young sailor with a stammer being bullied aboard a ship in 1797. The libretto was written at Britten’s request by the novelist E. M. Forster, an expert on Melville’s work, who wrote it together with Eric Crozier. The action takes place on board the ship, and there is not one female character. 
The title role will be sung by Andrei Bondarenko, while German bass-baritone Johannes von Duisburg and British bass Graeme Broadbent will alternate in the role of John Claggart, the ship’s master-at-arms who sets out to make trouble for Billy.
Von Duisburg first played Claggart in Decker’s production seven years ago. 
“The clash between Billy Budd and Claggart is an example of the eternal struggle between good and evil,” said the bass-baritone. 
“Claggart is a man devoid of feelings; his only enjoyment comes from his ability to manipulate the crew of HMS Indomitable. He is a very slippery character. Listen to the music: Everything around my character moves quickly — well-coordinated work is underway — but Claggart’s arrival is accompanied by the appearance of legato, glissando... This is a man who can do anything he wants, but always formally within the law, like some politicians. 
“Then comes the entrance of Billy Budd, whose sincerity and purity captivates the whole crew, Claggart included. The master-at-arms encounters something unfamiliar — emotion, affection — and because of this, he begins to hate Billy. It is the kind of love-hate relationship that leads to disaster,” said von Duisburg.
His counterpart Broadbent sees the HMS Indomitable as a model of society in miniature. “All the classes are represented, from the aristocracy in the person of Captain Vere to virtual criminals, since anyone could be conscripted as a sailor,” he said. 
“The confrontation between Billy Budd and Claggart is actually a story of the struggle between good and evil, only in this case everyone turns out to be the loser. As a result, the laws by which society lives are victorious over humanity: After Billy accidentally kills Claggart, the captain has to decide whether or not he should be executed. In human terms, he understands Billy and knows he is innocent, but according to the law, the sailor deserves death. The law turns out to be more important than morals. 
Bondarenko says he dreamed of singing the role of Billy Budd. 
“When Claggart notices how much everyone loves Billy, he becomes angry because he himself will never be like Billy, and at the same time he’s afraid that he likes Billy himself,” he said. 
“This is conveyed wonderfully in Britten’s music: In the score the characters’ themes are very clear and the details communicate the drama of their relationships. There are amazing ensembles in which you sense the scale of the ocean, waves and hurricanes. When I first heard this opera, I immediately imagined everything as a complete whole — the atmosphere on that specific ship. I think that out of all of Britten’s operas Billy Budd is the most musically accessible to an audience.”
Mikhail Tatarnikov, musical director at the Mikhailovsky Theater, described Britten as one of two exceptional figures in 20th-century music, alongside Czech composer Leo Jan&#225;cek.
“The most powerful influence [Britten] experienced was the influence of life itself,” said Tatarnikov. “He suffered from a very strong, internal anguish: Basically, his entire life was a challenge to society. And although that’s not very good for a normal person, it’s excellent for creativity, for art,” he said.

<i>“Billy Budd” will be shown at 7 p.m. on Jan. 24, 25 and 26 at the Mikhailovsky Theater, 1 Ploshchad Iskusstv. Tel. 595 4305. www.mikhailovsky.ru.</i>

TITLE: Petersburg: Poetic and prosaic
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A cultural guide to St. Petersburg that was published in October by Academia Rossica in cooperation with Oxygen Books in London, “City-Pick St. Petersburg” offers a fascinating view of Russia’s northern capital as seen by more than sixty writers, poets, dancers and artists from different eras.
“It is an essential read — slip it into your bag alongside a Rough Guide,” is the advice to readers from Waterstones Books Quarterly, a literary magazine published by the U.K. book retailer Waterstones.
While a classic guidebook serves travelers up heaps of helpful practicalities, from ideas for quick refuels between sightseeing and water taxi schedules to skating rink locations and warnings about pickpockets’ favorite hangouts, “City-Pick St. Petersburg” offers readers a wealth of different flavors of St. Petersburg, creating a fabulous sense of the city. Flipping through the pages, the reader is presented with a diverse and beautiful portrait of the city, and a fair idea of what St. Petersburg is about.
“Along the canals, the globes of the street lamps throw pale circles onto the pastel walls; in the deserted Square of the Decembrists, the Bronze Horseman looks lost, the only complex, human form in the middle of a vast geometric space, standing out in the mist made of mingled water and sky, the receding perspectives of the palaces converging on the shining spire of the Peter and Paul Fortress,” reads an excerpt from a 1987 essay by French journalist and travel writer Olivier Rolin. 
A rather different image of the city comes from an essay by the British writer Duncan Fallowell, the author of “One Hot Summer in St. Petersburg.” “St. Isaac’s balloons ahead, the cross mounted on an anchor at its apex (anchors and tritons are everywhere in St. Petersburg),” he writes. “This is the almightiest cathedral in the city, with Samsonic columns to prove it outside, and within an opulence of malachite and lapis lazuli and harlequinades of colored glass.”
Divided into nine chapters, the anthology interweaves memoirs and diaries with fiction and documentary prose as well as historical essays and travelers’ notebooks.
Incorporated in the book are short fragments from the novels of some of Russia’s greatest writers, including Leo Tolstoy’s “War And Peace,” Ivan Goncharov’s “Oblomov,” Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s “The Idiot” and Alexander Pushkin’s “The Captain’s Daughter.”
The lion’s share of the anthology, however, is devoted to much more recent writing, encompassing the prose of Vladimir Nabokov and Andrei Bitov, and the recollections of poet and Novel Prize winner Joseph Brodsky, composer Sergei Prokofiev and filmmaker Alexander Sokurov.
The most sobering and perhaps also the most emotional chapter, “City Under Siege,” is devoted to the 900-day Nazi Siege of Leningrad during World War II, the most tragic period in the history of the city. Here, a translation of the sharp official proclamation by Leningrad Defense Chiefs and Soviet Party Leaders, giving chilling descriptions of the cruel and ruthless enemy, is fused with a moving story, the novel “The Conductor,” Sarah Quigley’s humane account loosely based on the events leading to the writing of Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony and the preparation of its premiere under the baton of conductor Karl Eliasberg.
With winter temperatures lower than minus 30 degrees Celsius and no electricity or heating during the second winter of the Siege of Leningrad, the orchestra’s pianist Alexander Kamensky kept his hands warm by placing two scorching bricks on both sides of the instrument to radiate some heat. Eliasberg was so weak he was driven to rehearsals on a sledge.
The Leningrad Bolshoi Symphony Orchestra gave 300 performances during the nearly 900 days of the siege, but the performance of Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony was special.
Many Leningraders who didn’t have a radio at home would gather on the streets to listen to orchestral music coming from the loudspeakers. It was an opportunity to rise above physical weakness, fear and starvation.
The book is primarily aimed at culture vultures, barely touching upon mundane matters such as the local political hierarchy, gastronomy or sports. 
Instead, we find the legendary Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova describing her studies at the Imperial Ballet School.
“I learnt my art under as nearly perfect conditions as one ever found on this earth,” reads the ballerina’s story, originally published in the U.S. in “The Lady’s Home Journal” in September 1924. “The Russian ballet owes its subtle perfection of detail, its greatness ... to the fact that it is made up of dancers who from the day they went to live in the dormitories of the Imperial School saw nothing — were surrounded by nothing — but beauty — beauty — and the highest standards physically, mentally, morally and spiritually.”
Another renowned Russian ballerina, Tamara Karsavina, remembers on these pages a precious tradition that still exists today, that of the finest pupils of the Vaganova Ballet Academy — the former Imperial School — being allowed to dance on the venerable stage of the Court Theater at the Hermitage. On each such occasion, one member or another of the Imperial Family would come to have supper with the artists — the part that nobody wanted to miss!
In one of the more recently written travel features, the U.K. journalist Miranda Sawyer delivers a bitter and rather sarcastic account of her observations of apparently overdressed modern Russian women, whom the author slags down as “Swarowski-studded glamazons” and “stout grumpy lady trolls.”
“Today’s Russian woman is tall and gorgeous and dressed like a Selfridges Christmas tree,” Sawyer wrote in her piece “Back in the U.S.S.R.,” originally published in British newspaper The Observer in 2011. “There is no part of her clothing that is plain: Everything is stonewashed, or appliqued, or has diamante dangly bits, or is made out of actual leopard. Heels are killer. Make-up can be viewed at a hundred paces. Our trousers — and us — are just too dull.”
One would bet that Tim Stanley saw a rather different Russian female crowd in the new St. Petersburg art galleries that he describes with enthusiasm and admiration in his essay, discussing the “sudden northern Renaissance.” It is not dress sense that Stanley examines but rather the phenomenon of the appearance of a whole array of wonderful new museums of the caliber of the New Museum and Erarta Museum of Contemporary Art.
As for the appearance of the city and its residents, the male opinion that can be found in the book is much more delightful to hear. As Viv Groskov of the British Airways “High Life” magazine puts it, “St. Petersburg is seductive, charming, and a little eccentric.” Most locals, regardless of their sex, age, occupation and social status, could not agree more.

<i>“City-Pick St. Petersburg” is published in English by Oxygen Books, 272 pages, and is on sale for around $16.</i>

TITLE: The one that got away
AUTHOR: By Viktoria Koltsova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The celebrated Russian &#233;migr&#233; ballet dancer and actor Mikhail Baryshnikov, who celebrates his 65th birthday this month, is being paid tribute to in St. Petersburg with an exhibition.
“Ballet Is a Castle of Beauty,” an abbreviation of the opening line of a 1976 poem dedicated to Baryshnikov by poet Joseph Brodsky, is the title of a new photography exhibition at Erarta Museum of Contemporary Art that consists of images of the dancer on stage.
The photographs on show, which are exclusively images of Baryshnikov on stage, build up the story of his dance and theater career through the work of three prominent dance photographers who captured Baryshnikov during performances and rehearsals at different stages of his career.
Art historian Irina Ivanchenko said at the exhibition opening that Baryshnikov’s main contribution to the art form was his demonstration of the potential of the human body, adding that he was also an innovator who had pushed new boundaries in dance when he unexpectedly left classical ballet in 1989 to become a modern dancer.
“He was unique and without any competition the best performer of modernist choreography, [he] influenced the development of the American dance genre, far from classical ballet,” said Ivanchenko.
Baryshnikov, heralded by New York Times critic Clive Barnes as “the most perfect dancer I have ever seen,” famously defected in 1974 while on tour in Canada with the Kirov Theater, as St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theater was known during the Soviet era.
He sought political asylum in Toronto, and after announcing that he would never return to the U.S.S.R., has spent the rest of his career abroad, most famously spending 18 months as principal dancer at the New York City Ballet when it was run by the legendary choreographer George Balanchine. 
“Baryshnikov not only provided modernist choreographers [with] the opportunity to work with professional class [dancers] and revealed new horizons of creativity to them and aroused their imagination, but discovered through his performances the benefits of classical education for contemporary dancers. In this case — the benefits of the Russian classical school,” said Ivanchenko. 
The photos on show at Erarta were all taken by three photographers: Nina Alovert, who photographed ballet at the Kirov and Bolshoi Theaters in the 1950s before emigrating to the U.S. in 1977 and who is the author of Baryshnikov’s biography; Paul Kolnik, the official photographer of the New York City Ballet for the last 30 years, who photographed Baryshnikov during his time at the company; and Maria Baranova, a fashion and dance photographer who has mostly photographed Baryshnikov’s recent work in various plays.
The photos are different in epoch and style, but Baryshnikov’s phenomenal energy and brilliance are present in every image.
The exhibition has been organized by the Open World Dance Foundation, a charity that encourages children who are interested in ballet to pursue their ambitions, and that counts Baryshnikov among its supporters. The foundation was set up with the goal of helping orphans to develop their creative talent and integrate into society through the arts and psychological care.
“We do not set a goal to raise ballet stars; for us it is important to give children the opportunity to have a choice,” said founder Yekaterina Schyolkanova, a former soloist with the Kirov Ballet and the American Ballet Theater and a native of St. Petersburg. 
“We hope that children involved in dance will never fall into a criminal environment, as art changes people. Familiarity with ballet connects children to different kinds of art — theater, music and decorative art,” she said.
Although the exhibition mainly features photographs of Baryshnikov in acting roles, they are just as energetic and striking as the images of him dancing in Roland Petit’s “Carmen” 30 years earlier. The show is proof of the words of ballet historian and critic Vadim Gayevsky, who wrote of Baryshnikov: 
“…What was really unique was his intellect, a mind that broke all barriers and could understand the logic of any choreographic structure. He wanted to do what he could not do, he wanted to try everything, and he was always successful. He flies through the dance, he is free.”

<i>“Ballet Is a Castle of Beauty” runs through Feb. 9 at Erarta Museum and Galleries of Contemporary Art, 2, 29th Liniya, Vasilyevsky Island. Tel. 324 0809. www.erarta.com</i>

TITLE: THE DISH: Ukrop
AUTHOR: By Allison Geller
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: <b>Dilligent dining</b>
Those faced with the predicament of where to take vegetarian — or, even more dire, vegan — guests in the city, or who want to go out to dinner and still feel good about themselves, will be glad to find the new vegetarian caf&#233; Ukrop (Russian for “dill”) on the map. Diners are also sure to appreciate the eatery’s hip eco-friendly aesthetic: Think tree house taken over by home makeover show.
The cafe has two levels, with a coffee bar and seating area on the lower one, and another coffee bar and the main dining area on the top. Decorations include origami chandeliers, artistically rendered wall sculptures of dill plants, and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves arrayed with clay pots, clocks, books and other well-curated knickknacks. 
The whimsical touches extend to the tables, which are separated from each other by high planters. On each table is a jar of coloring pencils, which, we were assured, are conscientiously sharpened each night before the next day of business. And don’t leave Ukrop without sticking your hands under the table — there you’ll find small pebbles, stones and even whole walnuts. Think of it as a raw, vegetarian, vegan, lactose-free hand massage.
While the menu — in Russian only — is available on the caf&#233;’s website, it does not fully correspond to the up-to-date menu at Ukrop itself. The only English words on the menu are those explaining the “vegan,” “raw,” “milk” and “spicy” symbols beside the dishes.
The stereotype about Russia and borsh will never die if restaurants keep coming up with their own take on the classic beet soup. Ukrop’s otlichny(excellent) raw borsch (180 rubles, $6) translated into shreds of crispy, raw cabbage floating in a cold beet broth and sprinkled liberally with the herb most loved by Russians and after which the caf&#233; is named: Dill. While the greasy, meaty taste that permeates most bouillon-based borsch was not missed, the dish didn’t pack much punch. The crunchy Olivier salad (220 rubles, $7.30), which featured raw mayonnaise and innovative cubes of sweet potato in place of the usual ham, was just as fresh, but also nothing to moon over.
Our slightly bumbling but well-meaning waiter brought out the main courses while our jaws were still working on all that roughage. The vegetable cutlets with tomato tartare (180 rubles, $6), were made from some indefinable mixture of ground up nuts and raw vegetables, resulting in a tan-flecked, light green patty. While the creamy pesto offered some encouragement, the cutlets were still reminiscent of something you would put in your pocket before a long bike ride.
The ravioli with spinach, homemade cheese and pine nuts (260 rubles, $8.60) bore a close resemblance to fried wontons and were a pleasant surprise, garnished with a sweet sauce and a few leaves of arugula, and accompanied by a ramekin of sour cream.
The raw concept also extends to most of Ukrop’s desserts. The pomegranate tart (220 rubles, $7.30) was appealingly presented, covered in fresh pomegranate seeds and plated with a dusting of cocoa powder. The other tart, a “striped cashew cake” (220 rubles, $7.30), was made up of tan, pink and brown layers. The flavor was not unlike that of the vegetable cutlet. 
A glass of German Klaus Langhoff white wine (180 rubles, $6), was as sweet as grape juice and served in a glass with a disturbing red stain, and the coffee (80 rubles, $2.60) was mediocre. Stick to the fresh juices and well-chosen tea list.
Except for the ravioli, with their appealing chew and satisfying flavors, this is food that announces itself as vegetarian at first bite. Expect to feel surprisingly heavy after eating here, as if you had dined on dense, protein-packed energy bars. On the other hand, Ukrop certainly offers freshness, in both food and atmosphere. 
Even if it’s just for a coffee or a juice, it’s modestly priced and centrally located, and it’s good to know that something crisp, wholesome and full of fiber is only one recycled-paper menu away.

TITLE: Martial Art Shows You Can’t Beat the System
AUTHOR: By Melinee Prochasson
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: It’s the middle of a December afternoon, and in a spartan hall in northwest Moscow, a group of men and women of various ages are lying on the floor, while others are defending themselves from opponents wielding whips. This is not some sado-masochistic ritual, but a seminar devoted to a form of the Russian martial art Systema.
Originally developed as a military practice for Russian special forces, Systema remains a relatively unheralded practice. Nowadays this training is also employed in the form of an education based on self-knowledge and control of others through the practice of defensive hand-to-hand combat.
There are several branches of Systema, each following a different pedagogy. The seminar in Moscow is taking place at the school of Mikhail Ryabko, founder and developer of one of the most popular forms of Systema, known as the Ryabko Style. Ryabko, a Special Forces colonel who has been involved in combat training since the age of 15, has seen his passion blossom into what is now a network of 200 affiliate schools around the world.
The main principles of Ryabko’s Systema are an absence of rank and precise techniques and an emphasis on improvisation and playful exercises. No physical protection is worn in this contact sport, in which breathing technique is a major focus.
“Genius things are simple, and I think that Systema incorporates the God-given principle of power and energy at minimum costs,” said Vadim Yusupov, a 24-year-old Ryabko Systema adherent who has practiced boxing for two years and Shotokan karate for nine years. 
“You can come to [Systema] with a rich experience of other martial art classes and with strength of body and good knowledge. But from this moment, everything is going to change: You come not to get additional information and techniques, but to cut out unnecessary things in your life. You will discover with amazement how great your power is. This power sits in harmony with nature, simple natural motions and relaxation,” he added.
The origins of Systema are difficult to assert, but it is believed to have grown out of various foreign-influenced martial arts that existed in imperial Russia and that practically disappeared after the Revolution. 
“Some things are true, others are basically unverifiable,” said Vladimir Vasilyev, a former student of Mikhail Ryabko’s school and now an instructor in Toronto, Canada.  
“The changes in government in Russia [during the last century] didn’t help to conserve a trace of what happened,” he added.
Despite its military origins, a friendly atmosphere reigned at the Moscow seminar and a number of foreign enthusiasts were present. Participants were welcoming and keen for observers — and even journalists — to join in.
The participants demonstrate a remarkable readiness to shed any restraints about their self-image in order to do the exercises and assume some highly unusual positions. 
After the training sessions, a group discussion takes place. The participants talk about the exercises, and how people feel about the course. The idea of community and dialogue is an integral part of Systema. 
The ability to express and understand oneself is one of the key focuses of the activity, with the aim of subsequently being able to employ this ability in daily situations. A system originally developed for warfare has become a system for coping with the demands of daily life — and this is a view shared by many adherents of the Ryabko Style. 
St&#233;phane Vartarian, a Ryabko Style instructor in France, says that Systema helped him to understand himself better.
“It has shown me how it is my thought that determines my daily situations,” Vartarian said. 
“I have learned to analyze my feelings and thus make better use of my intuition in day-to-day situations.”
For Yevgeny Sokolov, a 53-year-old Special Forces reserve officer who is a scientist and MBA lecturer by profession, as well as an expert in psychological techniques and training officer of the Ryabko Systema, the community aspect of Systema is of crucial importance. 
“Firstly, it’s a like-minded community,” he said. 
“The community of permanent participants and mentors is based on the spiritual values of the Russian Orthodox Church; it’s grounded in patriotism and in the ancient military traditions of Russia, but it’s accessible for people of different nationalities and religions. 
“Secondly, Systema offers an opportunity to constantly improve yourself spiritually, psychologically and physically, regardless of your age, sex, level of basic training and health. Everyone can discover something useful in it, from health-improving practices to unique fighting techniques,” said Sokolov. 
“Finally, Systema makes it possible to achieve a high degree of self-control and self-correction, which helps to maintain balance and efficiently defend yourself under any circumstances,” he said. 
Ryabko’s school represents just one of a number of different approaches to Systema. Another popular style is the Kadochnikov Systema, named after its creator, Alexei Kadochnikov. Both the Ryabko and Kadochnikov forms of Systema are based on the idea of developing a better knowledge of one’s internal state, but despite being branches of the same discipline, the two “systems” have important differences: Ryabko’s style is a system of effective breathing and relaxation, whereas the technique developed by Kadochnikov is based on biomechanics, which visualizes the body as a set of angles, levers and points of application of force. One of the key principles of the Kadochnikov system is to unbalance your opponent, according to Nikita Rozin, a student of the method.
“To do this, you have to make the body of your opponent relaxed,” said Rozin. “There are many tricks to do this — a punch to the throat or an impact to the eyes, grabbing their hair, impacts on certain points on the body, sudden yells and other tricks,” he added. 
“After these tricks, usually you have about one or two seconds while your opponent is shocked. Then you start to unbalance the body of your opponent using the system of leverage.”
According to Rozin, there is nothing new in this approach — which is based on simple laws of mechanics from physics textbooks — because the body is built according to a system of levers. 
“After that, when your opponent is on the ground, you get him into a painful hold or more often trample on the joints of your opponent to prevent any riposte,” said Rozin.
“An essential point of the system is to react to the opponent only when they strike you. As a self-defense practice, in Systema they teach technical aspects based on the lever principle, and then let you ad lib.”
Rozin, whose father is a boxer, used to practice Aikido, but found it difficult to apply many of the techniques he learned in that martial art. He then took up Systema instead, and was surprised by how quickly he made progress.
“After one year of practice I felt very confident in my skills. I started to know how to act in different situations,” says Rozin.
“When someone attacks you in a confined space (for example an elevator or a train), when you have several opponents, when they go for you with a knife, club or whatever. And that is very important in Systema, because it’s primarily a system of self-defense and they teach you how to defend yourself as efficiently as you can. I remember that after one year I could  “see” around 360 degrees of my body; it seems mystical when you hear about it, but it’s real.”

TITLE: Hermitage Finds Itself in Ferragamo’s Shoes
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Salvatore Ferragamo, one of Italy’s most renowned and successful fashion companies, has become the first member of the association of the Friends of the Hermitage Museum in Italy. What will the alliance between the iconic shoe brand and the vast art collection bring to these venerable institutions — and indeed, their dedicated audiences? Giovanna Gentile Ferragamo, vice-president of the company and the daughter of its founder Salvatore Ferragamo, spoke to The St. Petersburg Times about this collaboration and the many connections between the Ferragamo family and the world of art. 
“Naturally, we are fascinated by the Hermitage’s collections, and we would be thrilled to be able to get inspiration from the amazing artworks; our designers recently had the precious opportunity to study the archives of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow,” Ferragamo said. 
On the board of the Hermitage Friends in Italy, Ferragamo works alongside the heads of some of Italy’s most respected businesses, as well as scholars and members of aristocratic families, such as Contessa Maria Vittoria Rimbotti, president of the Friends of the Uffizzi Gallery Association; Claudia Cremonini, head of the external relations department of the Cremonini food processing holding; professor Stefania Pavan, a senior lecturer in Russian literature at the University of Florence; and Marquise Bona Frescobaldi. 
“We are very honored by this opportunity to be so close to the Hermitage Museum; the Ferragamo family has always been affiliated with arts and culture,” Ferragamo said. 
Most recently, the company sponsored the restoration of Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Virgin and Child With Saint Anne,” a newly restored oil-on-wood painting dating back to circa 1510 and left unfinished by the artist when he died in 1519. The painting was the focal point of the Louvre’s exhibition “Saint Anne, Leonardo da Vinci’s Ultimate Masterpiece,” which juxtaposed sketches and drawings from the last two decades of the master’s life.
The sponsorship earned Ferragamo the right to hold its first ever fashion runway show inside the Louvre, which took place in June 2012.
Yet of all the arts — just like in Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin’s famous declaration — cinema has been the most important art form for Ferragamo since the 1920s.
Hollywood would bring Ferragamo energy, inspiration — and the loyalty of distinguished clients such as Lauren Bacall, Audrey Hepburn, Ava Gardner, Greta Garbo and Sophia Loren.
Salvatore Ferragamo Spa has made it a tradition to work for big film productions, both by making accessories for them and by working closely and actively with costume designers on set. Collaborations in the last 20 years include Alan Parker’s “Evita” in 1996, which starred Madonna in the lead role, and Andy Tennant’s 1998 film “Ever After: A Cinderella Story,” starring Drew Barrymore, Anjelica Huston and Jeanne Moreau, and more recently on Baz Luhrmann’s “Australia” (2008), with Nicole Kidman in the lead role.
“Evita herself was a dedicated client of ours, and for the film we made exact copies of the models that she had ordered,” Ferragamo recalls. “So what Madonna wears in the film are in fact replicas of the very same designs that we had made for Evita.”
It was the same story with Meryl Streep and the film “The Iron Lady,” in which the actress portrayed former U.K. prime minister Margaret Thatcher. “We had the history of her orders in the archives, and we were able to produce copies of Thatcher’s shoes for Meryl Streep,” Ferragamo said.
During a visit to Italy for the launch ceremony of the association in July 2012, the Hermitage’s director, Mikhail Piotrovsky, visited the Ferragamo Museum in Florence, where he attended an exhibit dedicated to Marilyn Monroe. 
Some of the items at the permanent collection of the Ferragamo Museum are particularly moving for Giovanna Ferragamo. For example, she has a strong emotional connection with the patchwork shoes that are associated with her childhood.
“Over the years, my father had made — he did it a few times — a patchwork flat shoe design which is made of many little pieces of leather sewn together with another piece of leather,” she remembers. 
“The little bits had different colors and textures. These pieces could be lizard or suede, or anything else. When my sister and I were about 10 years old, he would make these shoes for us. I was a very shy child, and, of course, the other kids did not have shoes like those. So I hardly ever wore the fantastic shoes — or, when I did, I tried to hide my feet under the chair! When I think of those now, my thoughts are very different. If I had them today, I would love them.” 
Salvatore Ferragamo used to divide his female clients into three categories: The Cinderella, the Venus and the Aristocrat. The division was not based on style, however, but solely on the size of the ladies’ feet. A Cinderella had a shoe size smaller than a six (39), the Venus took a size six, and the Aristocrat a seven (41) or larger.
Joking aside, when he created shoes for any great actress he was working with, he would start with their personality. 
“Marilyn Monroe was a stiletto woman — and indeed, this shape comes to mind immediately when we think of her,” said Giovanna Ferragamo. “This was an ideal match between a woman and a fashion item, and stilettos are frequently even associated with Monroe. By comparison, Greta Garbo loved flat, somewhat masculine-looking shoes.”
Russian admirers of the Ferragamo brand are hoping that this cooperation will result not only in arts projects, but also new collections inspired by the Hermitage’s objects of art. 
The Hermitage has already collaborated with considerable success with St. Petersburg designers Lilia Kisselenko, Tatyana Parfyonova and Ianis Chamalidy, who received permission to study the museum’s collections, consult curators and produce new designs inspired and influenced by the Hermitage’s treasures.
Is there anything that Giovanna Ferragamo really likes and remains faithful to that is not fashionable? 
“A lot of things, actually, starting with this bag,” she replies, pointing at her elegant, compact, black leather handbag. 
“The company first produced them about 25 years ago, and indeed, Ferragamo does not make these designs anymore. They do it for me, upon request, specifically — and I have a few of them, in different colors.
“Come to think about it, most of my wardrobe is not fashionable. If I opened my closet, people would think, goodness, this is all vintage!”