SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1750 (9), Wednesday, March 13, 2013
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TITLE: Russian Catholics Greet New Pope With Open Arms
AUTHOR: By Jonathan Earle
TEXT: MOSCOW – Russia's small Catholic community greeted the election of Pope Francis with elation and hopes that the new pontiff will continue to improve ties with the country's Russian Orthodox majority despite a rocky history and lingering disagreements.
Congratulations to the new pope, formerly the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, 76-year-old Jorge Mario Bergoglio, poured in from ordinary Catholics as well as senior political and religious leaders in Russia, which has an estimated 700,000 Catholics, or about 0.5 percent of the population.
President Vladimir Putinsaid he hopes ties between the Vatican and Russia will continue to develop "on the basis of the Christian values that unite us," according to a statement posted on the Kremlin's website.
The election of the first non-European pope in centuries was a sign that the church is global and open to all, said Father Igor Kovelevsky, chairman of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of the Russian Federation, which oversees the Roman Catholic Church in Russia, Interfax reported.
Described as warm, humble and conservative, Bergoglio appeared to fit the bill for Russian Catholics, many of whom harbor fond memories of the gregarious and worldly Pope John Paul II, who helped re-establish a Catholic presence in Russia in the waning days of the Soviet Union.
The new pope should unite religious believers of all faiths, including members of the Russian Orthodox Church, said Yegor Bredikhin, 18, a student and recent convert, standing in the falling snow outside Moscow's main cathedral Wednesday morning.
He should also be conservative, said Yekaterina, 26, a graduate student and member of the Greek Catholic Church. "It would be very strange and contradict the teachings of the church if the Catholic pope were for same-sex marriages," she said on the day of the vote.
Catholics have a long and variegated history in Russia going back to at least the 12th century. Over the years, and even to this day, they have had to fend off suspicion and occasional hostility from nativists who see them as an unwelcome Western import.
Inter-church relations have improved in the last decade under outgoing Pope Benedict XVI, and Catholics interviewed by The St. Petersburg Times say they feel at home in Russia. But unresolved issues remain between the two churches, the most troublesome being a property dispute in Ukraine.
That conflict has been the latest sticking point preventing a meeting of the heads of both churches, something that has never happened in their history.
Patriarch Kirill said the Russian Orthodox Church shared Francis's concern for the poor and suffering, and that this creates new opportunities for cooperation between the two churches, Interfax reported.
Experts said Russian Catholics had reason to be optimistic and pessimistic about the arrival of Pope Francis but warned that Russia would probably not be high on the new pontiff's to-do list.
The Vatican's prestige and influence has suffered in recent years with mounting revelations of child sex abuse by priests and allegations of corruption at the Vatican Bank, and there has been widespread speculation that Benedict XVI's historic resignation was linked to the church's woes.
Given these challenges, and the shift of Catholicism's heartland from Europe to South America and Africa, Russia's tiny fraction of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics will be far from Pope Francis's thoughts, wrote Kommersant FM editor-in-chief Konstantin von Eggert.
And unlike his predecessor, a long-time Vatican insider who met with Orthodox Patriarch Kirill while Kirill was still a metropolitan, Francis does not have established ties to the Orthodox Church, said Roman Lunkin, a religion expert at the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Furthermore, it's going to be difficult to explain to Francis, an Argentinian Jesuit who is said to have a passion for social work and a concern for the poor, how things are done in Russia, Lunkin said.
"Why is it important to tiptoe around the Moscow Patriarchate's sphere of influence? Why are Catholics constantly accused of proselytizing? Why is it important to be quiet when the Orthodox Church and the government object to new Catholic churches?" he said.
A Rocky Past
The Catholic Church in Russia, which includes Roman Catholics and Eastern Catholic churches that are also subordinate to the pope, currently consists of four dioceses in Russia — the archdiocese is in Moscow — and a total of 396 parishes nationwide.
The three other dioceses are based in Saratov, Novosibirsk and Irkutsk.
Catholicism has a long and turbulent history in Russia, punctuated by expulsions of Catholic missionaries and frustrated attempts to reunite the largest Western and Eastern branches of Christianity, which split in the Great Schism of 1054.
Roman Catholic chapels first appeared in the ancient cities of Novgorod, Ladoga and Smolensk between the 12th and 15th centuries, and Jesuit missionaries arrived in 1684, only to be expelled five years later and see their leader sent to a monastery.
The government became more tolerant to Catholics in the late 18th century under Emperor Catherine the Great, who established rules for a Catholic parish in the imperial capital, St. Petersburg. The Jesuits returned shortly thereafter, but were again expelled less than two decades later.
The relationship hit rock bottom under the Bolsheviks, who in 1918 declared all church property to belong to the Soviet state, a move that was followed by arrests of Catholic clergy.
In 1990, diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and the Holy See were established and the full re-establishment of the Catholic Church in Russia took off.
A Dominant Rival
Orthodox believers make up 74 percent of the Russian population, according to a December poll by the independent Levada Center, and critics have accused the Kremlin of cozying up to the Russian Orthodox Church to wage an information campaign against dissenters and critics.
While all religious groups face legal and property issues, "some confessions find it easier to resolve these issues than others," said Father Kirill, a spokesman for the Mother of God Catholic Archdiocese in Moscow.
Senior Orthodox clergymen have been spotted with expensive cars and pricey jewelry in recent years, enjoying scandalous luxuries that are anathema to Francis, who reportedly rides the subway to work, cooks his own food, and flew to Rome with a single suitcase and sans entourage.
"Metropolit Hilarion and other senior clergy are used to diplomatic discussions between top officials, but for this pope, concrete missions, concrete social and evangelical projects are more important," Lunkin said, referring to the Orthodox Church's head of external relations.
There is some hope that differing styles could be trumped by values and religious sensibilities.
Francis is said to be well-versed in Eastern Orthodox liturgical tradition, and an Orthodox bishop in South America told Itar-Tass that he was "pro-Russian," saying that Bergoglio was friendly with local Orthodox clergy in Argentina and sometimes attended Orthodox services.
Because of the Catholic Church's relatively small size and novelty in Russia — the archdiocese in Moscow was established in 2002, alarming some Orthodox leaders — it has managed to remain isolated from some of the Roman Catholic Church's problems, at least publicly.
There have not been any scandals involving alleged pedophilia by Catholic clergymen in Russia. The strongest whiff of sexual impropriety came in 2008, when a Russian man killed a Jesuit priest whom prosecutors said had been making sexual advances.
But its relative insignificance in the Catholic world also partly explains Russian Catholics' exclusion from the Vatican's hierarchy.
There aren't any Russian cardinals, and consequently, none of the 115 cardinals who chose Cardinal Bergoglio to be the 266th pontiff serves in Russia. Only one, Archbishop of Vilnius Audrys Juozas Backis, serves in the former Soviet Union.
"It's too dangerous" to appoint a Russian cardinal, which would surely harm relations with the Orthodox Church, said Ivar Maksutov, a senior lecturer at the Center for the Study of Religion at the Russian State University for the Humanities.
According to officials in both churches, relations warmed under Benedict XVI, who assumed the pontificate in 2005 and stepped down last month citing frailty, the first pope to retire in almost 600 years.
Moscow and the Holy See established full diplomatic relations in 2009, and perennial Orthodox complaints about Catholics' "poaching" their flock petered out.
The primary remaining irritant involves a dispute in Ukraine between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Greek Catholics, who the Orthodox Church says wrongfully seized its property in the 1980s and 1990s.
Soviet dictator Josef Stalin ordered the seizure of Eastern Catholic Churches and gave the property to the Russian Orthodox Church. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Eastern Catholics took back more than 500 of them, mostly in Western Ukraine.
The dispute was exacerbated by the presence of Greek Catholic missionaries in traditionally Orthodox parts of the country, said Deacon Alexei Dikarev, a spokesman for the Russian Orthodox Church.
No Easy Fix
Relations between the two churches will likely remain a source of tension for years to come, said Father Kirill, the spokesman for the Moscow Archdiocese.
"It's a dialogue of love," he said, adding that it was natural for the two churches, while close in terms of tradition and practice, to continually calibrate their relationship.
He denied that the Catholic Church ever aggressively proselytized in Russia. "If by proselytism we mean scaring people or using unsavory methods — payments, etc. — then this has never been the case," he said.
Maksutov, the religion expert, said relations between the two churches were currently "guarded."
"They're neither good nor bad. And because the Roman Catholic Church is less interested in the former Soviet Union than in Africa and Latin America, there's no special dialogue," he said.
The cardinals may have missed a chance to improve interfaith relations by failing to elect as pope Hungarian bishop Peter Erdo, who forged close ties with the Orthodox Church and was seen by Vatican insiders as a leading candidate before Wednesday's vote.
Officially, the churches' eventual goal is to unite after almost 1,000 years of separation. "We're on the path, but we have a long way to go," Dikarev said.
One often-cited step on that path is a meeting of the heads of the two churches, which has never happened despite rumors in recent years that a summit was in the wings.
Metropolitan Hilarion on Thursday repeated the Russian Orthodox Church's long-standing line on such a meeting: It's possible, but not until the churches resolve "conflicts that arose abroad in the 1980s and 1990s," he said, referring to the Ukrainian property dispute.
Father Kirill downplayed the significance of a summit of the two leaders. "It's not a magical solution to our problems," he said, adding that spiritual unity was the main goal in bilateral ties.
Love From Russia
Bergoglio's first appearance as Pope Francis on the Vatican balcony at about 11:15 p.m. Moscow time on Wednesday earned gushing reviews from Russian-speaking Catholics on the Vkontakte social network, the largest in Russia.
"They say the strongest and most mysterious feeling is falling in love, but I would beg to differ; I'm having 'that feeling' right now," wrote user Lilia Khugeyan, from Western Ukraine, where about 10 percent of the population is Catholic.
Others were more sober in their assessment. "Come on girls, emotions are good, but I'm more interested in whether he will rise to the challenges of the times," replied another Western Ukrainian user, Dima Mis. "I don't know much about him, and his Wikipedia entry is skimpy," he wrote.
Bergoglio was an unknown for many Catholics in Russia, including for Father Daniel Ceratto, a fellow priest and Argentinian. "Unfortunately, I don't know much about him. I've been here for 12 years," said Father Ceratto, director of the Church's Regional Family Center in St. Petersburg.
Although the church does not keep accurate statistics, Father Kirill speculated that the number of Catholics in Russia was probably shrinking due to emigration of Catholics with strong foreign roots. He denied that the trend was due to a "loss of faith" or signaled the church's unsustainability.
Catholics interviewed by The St. Petersburg Times said that while they're comfortable in Russia, many don't always feel accepted.
Bredikhin, the student, said he felt "fantastic" as a Catholic, but was concerned about how a coreligionist conscript would fare against endemic bullying in the Russian army.
"They wouldn't understand a Catholic there; he'd be an outcast," Bredikhin said. "Individuals understand that there's freedom of religion, but the masses don't."
Anna Belova, 28, who works in the cathedral's catechismal library, said her social circles didn't include any Orthodox Christians but that she occasionally encounters resistance from particularly conservative Orthodox believers.
"Once I invited an Orthodox priest to attend to my grandmother. When he found out that I'm Catholic, he gave me a long lecture and tried to convert me," she said.
Igor Gurkin, 39, a taxi driver and daily churchgoer, said he hadn't ever observed antagonism toward Catholics, but that could also be because, "It's not written on my forehead that I'm a Catholic."
TITLE: Stephen Fry Interviews Milonov for Gay Documentary
AUTHOR: By Nikolaus von Twickel
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: British actor and celebrity Stephen Fry sat down on Thursday for an interview with Vitaly Milonov, the author of St. Petersburg's controversial gay propaganda law.
Fry, who is openly gay and was shooting a documentary in St. Petersburg about homosexuality, said afterward that he found little in common with Milonov, a local lawmaker for United Russia.
"Milonov doesn't seem to believe there are teenagers bullied and tormented for being gay, he thinks they make it up & indoctrinate to minors," he wrote on Twitter.
Fry is one of the world's most popular Twitter users and currently has more than 5.5 million followers.
He added that Milonov regards liberals as the destroyers of Europe: "Look at Britain, destroyed by liberalism," he quoted him as saying.
"Well, I shall always love Russia and hope that its youth will not allow the toxic mix of nationalism and religious zealotry to destroy her," Fry wrote, adding that Russian politics "are none of my business, but I've been making a 2-part [documentary] called Out There about being gay globally."
At an improvised press conference in the city assembly, Fry then appeared to compare President Vladimir Putin to a goblin-like creature from the Harry Potter movies.
"Hope I haven't created an international incident by looking at pic of Putin & observing to the press that he looks like Dobby the House Elf," Fry tweeted.
"Maybe I'll be poisoned by one [of] his agents. If so I want no revenge taken I just want him laughed out of office," he added, linking to a photo montage of the Elf and Putin.
Milonov, meanwhile, told reporters that he found Fry to be interesting and talented but that he was skeptical about his documentary. He promised to pray "for Fry and his family every day," the local Fontanka.ru news site reported.
Fry arrived in St. Petersburg on Wednesday and is due to leave the country Thursday evening, the report said.
TITLE: Arts Organization Shuttered
AUTHOR: Natalya Smolentseva
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: On March 7, local officials shuttered new arts and performance venue Morye (Sea) on its opening day, citing a review of management procedures.
In a report by local website The Village, the founders of the venue claim that inspectors let slip that the real reason for the closure was a planned exhibition by Andrei Kezzin titled “Leningrad 2012.” Apparently, officials objected to the artist’s take on da Vinci’s “The Last Supper,” in which Jesus, Mary and the apostles are all dressed in police uniforms. Organizers say that they will open the exhibition as soon as they receive all the required documents to allow them to use the space legally.
“Our landlords haven’t liked us for a long time,” said Daria Shcherbinina, a spokesperson for the venue, to The Village. “People with an old-school mentality don’t really understand what sort of concerts we organize here. And once they heard that we were opening an exhibition, they said ‘Okay, we’ll come have a look.’ They came and found Kezzin’s [work] rather provocative, and immediately discovered a lot of violations that would force the space to close. The official reason given was fire safety violations. We will reapply for the required documents again and the exhibition will be opened anyway.”
“Leningrad 2012” is merely the latest in a series of exhibitions recently affected by a new wave of censorship in St. Petersburg. In May 2012 an image of a crying President Putin was removed from Danish artist Lars Crammer’s exhibition “Crying Icons” at the Art re.Flex gallery, though gallery director Diana Brat later admitted she had done this as a precautionary measure.
In October, the Rizzordi Art Foundation asked Marat Gelman to delay his exhibition “Icons” because of an “extremely unfavorable atmosphere” in the city. The curator cancelled the exhibition outright and has changed venues so that local audiences will have a chance to finally see the exhibition.
Due to open on March 29 at the Tkachi arts center, “Icons” will be supported by a series of lectures, round table discussions and workshops for children and adults, to help visitors better understand the exhibition and issues surrounding the presentation of contemporary art in Russia.
The chilling atmosphere is also being felt by theaters. Theater Alliance’s satirical production “Devil Citizens” was canceled not because of “technical problems” as cited by the theater’s owners, but rather for political reasons, according to the troupe. Meanwhile, a solo performance of “Lolita” by Leonid Mozgovoi at the Erarta Museum was canceled by the artist because of threats he says he received by letter shortly before the performance.
Even the State Hermitage Museum came under fire last December for mounting an exhibition by British art duo Jake and Dinos Chapman titled “End of Fun,” which attracted complaints from conservative elements over the exhibition’s provocative use of religious imagery, resulting in the State Prosecutor’s Office opening an investigation into the exhibition.
The Hermitage’s director Mikhail Piotrovsky was steadfast in his defense of the museum’s right to mount exhibitions it considered worthy of attention, branding the investigation “a sign of the cultural degradation of Russian society.”
TITLE: Canadian Business Students Visit St. Petersburg
AUTHOR: By Alan Maishman
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Last weekend St. Petersburg hosted a group of 37 business students and alumni from McGill University, Montreal, Canada, as part of the institution’s “Hot Cities” initiative.
The tour started in Moscow, with visits to the Skolkovo Business School, Fast Lane Ventures (a business start-up incubator), RBS Moscow and Bank of America, among others.
In St. Petersburg, business was mixed with pleasure, with participants learning about alternative energy projects in Russia at Schneider Electric, while also getting an overview of Russian culture at the State Hermitage Museum, the Mariinsky Theater and by having a soak at a local banya.
Speaking to the St Petersburg Times, trip leader Dr. Karl Moore, a lecturer in business leadership and strategy at McGill’s world-renowned Desautels Faculty of Management, explained that this trip was a chance for students to experience the global business environment first-hand.
According to Moore, the Desautels Faculty of Management “believes in giving its students the opportunity to better understand where the global economy is going by giving them the opportunity to travel to far flung parts of the world to meet with CEOs and other senior executives...”
The visit is the most recent in the faculty’s “Hot Cities” program, a course that aims to educate students about competitiveness internationally through experiential learning. Previous years have seen trips to Israel, Abu Dhabi, India and South Africa.
Moore, who is also an Associate Fellow of Templeton College at Oxford University, has written extensively about globalization and his current work involves grooming the business leaders of the future.
“Younger people have a different mindset from my generation,” he said. His latest book, due for publication next year, reflects this interest. “Leading, Managing, Working With Under 35s The Way They Want To Be Worked With” deals with the need to rethink business leadership in response to generational change.
The trips also combine business and cultural aspects with charitable work. In Russia the party visited the Kitezh Children’s Community in Kaluga, where orphaned and abandoned children are raised in a self-contained community in which they are given the opportunity to learn family and life skills.
“The charitable foundation that we visited gave me a great appreciation for the struggles that orphans have, and I was moved by the love and kindness that the Kitzeh Community has developed,” said Emma Bambrick, a student and research assistant at McGill. The “Hot Cities” group aims to raise $20,000 for the charity.
The students gained a positive impression of the business climate in Russia as well. “As we heard from business executives from Moscow and St. Petersburg, it became clear that Russia truly is a burgeoning economy,” said Bambrick. “I was surprised to hear how eager and welcoming the Russian state can be in terms of foreign direct investment and foreign business in general.”
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Baby on Board
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — A woman gave birth at a traffic police checkpoint on Tallinnskoye Shosse on Monday, news website Fontanka.ru reported.
The woman’s husband was driving his wife to a maternity clinic, but she began to give birth while they were en route. With few options available, the man decided to stop at a traffic police checkpoint, where the policemen on duty assisted in delivering the baby. Paramedics were called to the scene and were reported to have arrived promptly.
The woman gave birth to a boy.
G20 Access
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — St. Petersburg plans to build a separate access road for government corteges from the city’s Pulkovo airport for this year’s G20 summit, to be held in St. Petersburg on September 5 and 6, news website Fontanka.ru reported.
The city administration will receive 1.4 billion rubles ($45.5 million) for the construction of the road from federal sources, which will run from the airport runway to St. Petersburg’s ring road through the fields of the Predportovy collective farm. The road will allow VIPs to reach the ring road in seven minutes.
Large-scale international events in the city such as the St. Petersburg Economic Forum — or the G8 summit in 2006 — often cause huge traffic jams when the high-ranking guests arrive at Pulkovo airport and again when they leave. However, the G20 summit may cause city residents less inconvenience.
From the ring road the delegates will have rapid access to the Konstantinovsky Palace in the St. Petersburg suburb of Strelna, where the summit is set to take place.
Following the summit the road will be available for use by local residents.
Wireless Transport
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The city is holding a public vote to determine which routes of local public transport will be equipped with free Wi-Fi Internet, news agency Interfax reported.
The voting is taking place on the official website of one of the city transport operators supporting the project. The routes currently leading the voting list include one from Krestovsky Island to the Baltiisky Railway Station, another from the suburban railway station in Pesochnoye to the Ozerki metro station, a route linking the Staraya Derevnya metro station with Shuvalovsky Prospekt and a connection between the suburbs of Lomonosov and Kronstadt.
The pilot stage of the voting features at least 87 public and 98 commercially-operated routes.
The results of the voting are to be announced at the end of March. By summer vehicles on the winning routes will be equipped with special Wi-Fi modules. Bus routes from St. Petersburg to Kronstadt are already equipped with Wi-Fi.
TITLE: Public-Private Partnership Targets Infertility in Russia
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: With 15 percent of Russian couples experiencing problems of infertility, and in face of the country’s looming demographic crisis, healthcare providers are seeking opportunities to offer wider access to in vitro fertilization programs, or IVF therapy.
A new step forward toward encouraging an increase in births has been made with a free federal information and educational program called IVF School, which was launched in Russia in January this year.
The unique program is based on modern communication methods and allows participants to regularly receive dependable and timely information on IVF via mobile phone and e-mail, to attend live and online seminars, and to have questions answered by leading specialists in the field of reproductive health. A social media component of the program allows the community to share their experiences with those who are interested in IVF.
It is estimated that 1.7 million Russians are candidates for treatment with Assisted Reproductive Technology, or ART, which becomes extremely significant as the country experiences a demographic decline. The population has shrunk from 146 million to 143 million in the past decade.
Professor Leila Adamyan, a leading specialist on Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Russian Health Ministry, said IVF has become not only a high-tech treatment tool in Russia but also “a legal way for improving demographics in the country.” Adamyan said that IVF School, supported by the Russian Health Ministry, would help to make such information more accessible to patients.
Currently in Russia there are 150 IVF clinics, while ten years ago there were no more than 40. These figures indicate the increasing demand for such services. However, far from all Russian couples experiencing fertility issues have access to the latest IVF therapy.
Reasons for this include a lack of information on the issue and people waiting too long before seeking assistance from ART clinics. According to experts, being over the age of 38 significantly decreases the effectiveness of ART treatment, while after 42 the chance of success is no more than 7 to 10 percent. As a result, reproductive health experts recommend that couples do not delay in seeking out a specialized ART center after a year of fruitless attempts to conceive.
Another reason for limited access to IVF procedures for Russian families is the high cost of participation in ART programs. Repeated attempts to conceive using ART are expensive, and those couples residing in small towns may have to travel a long way to reach the nearest IVF center, adding both expense and stress.
One way of addressing the problem is through the use of online and SMS information services, which may offer a cost-effective option for getting essential information.
IVF School, which has become Russia’s first public-private partnership in the area of reproductive health, was developed by Russia’s Health and Development Foundation, the Kulakov Scientific Center of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Perinatology and MSD, a Russian branch of American pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co.
Patients considering IVF treatment who are interested in participating in the new education program, can register on the www.ivfschool.ru website, or send an SMS with the word (ÅÊÎ) to the number 5253. This provides free access to all of the modules of the IVF School programs, including SMS alerts that will offer information about the most important aspects of IVF at all stages of treatment.
TITLE: Counter-Extremisim Unit Targets Local Activists
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: An investigation against anti-Kremlin demonstrators in Moscow spread to St. Petersburg after three local activists had their homes raided and were then interrogated at the local Center for the Prevention of Extremism (Center E) last week.
Three investigative units entered the apartments of the three activists simultaneously at around 6:40 a.m. on March 6 and, after searching their homes, took them to Center E’s headquarters on Ruzovskaya Ulitsa.
Andrei Pivovarov, a member of the opposition’s Coordination Committee, Civic Responsibility activist Natalya Gryaznevich and the Federation of Socialist Youth’s Grigory Popov were interrogated in the Bolotnoye Case, also known as the Bolotnaya Square Case.
The investigation was launched in the aftermath of a massive protest demo called the March of Millions held in Moscow on May 6, 2012, which resulted in clashes with the police on Bolotnaya Ploshchad in Moscow. Over 400 people were detained.
More than 200 investigators were summoned to work on the investigation into the “organization of mass riots,” which was launched later that same day.
According to Pivovarov, investigator Timofei Grachyov arrived from Moscow to supervise the raids and investigations here.
Pivovarov said that the interrogations were anticipated, because the three had taken part in a seminar on observing elections in Vilnius, Lithuania, in February 2012. He said the investigators were trying to prove that the activists were being trained in techniques of instigating mass riots, rather than observing elections.
“It was predictable because they had searched the apartments of [implicated] Muscovites earlier, and our colleagues in Moscow warned us that it was possible,” he said. “The searches went off quietly; I can’t say there were any violations of the law or any aggression.”
Pivovarov said nothing was taken during the raids on his and Popov’s apartments, while some belongings were seized at Gryaznevich’s apartment.
“They came at 6:40 a.m. or so and finished everything by around 9 a.m. Then I was taken to Center E, where an interrogation was held until 2 p.m.,” Pivovarov said.
“I gave answers to some questions, some questions I left unanswered citing Article 51 [of the Constitution allowing people not to testify against themselves], after which I was declared a ‘witness.’ I can’t be more specific because I signed a non-disclosure statement.”
According to Pivovarov, the investigators were mostly interested in the May 6 demonstration, the seminar, and Left Front activists Sergei Udaltsov, Leonid Razvozzhayev and Konstantin Lebedev.
“I think the status of our being witnesses means we will not be threatened with anything, but I can’t exclude that they will continue their activities against us. The investigation has lasted for almost a year now, but they still have no results to demonstrate,” he said.
Opposition activists said that the clashes and the resulting investigation were brought about by police provocation initiated in order to curb the protest movement, comparing the incident and the resulting investigation to the Reichstag fire in Nazi Germany. Human rights organizations protested the case, which led to about 20 people being charged and held in custody.
One activist, Alexander Dolmatov, charged as part of the case, committed suicide in a Dutch refugee center after being refused political asylum in The Netherlands in January.
“I think the case doesn’t hold any water,” Pivovarov said.
“Even if they can still prove that the people who were caught on video took part in riots, they can’t prove that they took part in organizing the riots to anybody but themselves. What’s happened is obviously the fault of the Kremlin, the Moscow Mayor’s office, the police, and the provocateurs who were there.
“I am sure that the investigators will attempt to put the blame on some of the organizers, but it will be certainly falsified,” he added.
TITLE: Scientists Doubt Bacteria Claim
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Russian scientists based at Antarctica’s subglacial Lake Vostok, claimed to have found an unknown group of bacteria in samples of ice taken from the lake last week.
However, the head of the laboratory where the genetic analysis was done, Vladimir Korolyov, has cast doubt on the veracity of the findings, saying that most of the bacteria found were contaminants.
Russian media reported last week that the samples, taken from the lake in 2012, contained DNA from a unique microbe which was not classified in databases of microorganisms.
But on Monday, Korolyov, who is head of the laboratory at St. Petersburg’s Nuclear Physics Institute where the finding was analyzed, told Interfax that most of the bacteria in the samples were now thought to be contaminants from the drilling process or from the lab itself.
“We found certain specimens, although not many. All of them were contaminants,” said Korolyov, Interfax reported.
Korolyov said that pure samples would be gathered from Lake Vostok next year.
In February 2012, Russian scientists were the first to reach the waters of Lake Vostok, which has been preserved under 3,768 meters of Antarctic ice for millions of years.
Drilling of the borehole to the lake began in 1990 and lasted 20 years. The Russian Academy of Sciences compared the event on a scale with landing on Mars.
Scientists anticipate that the waters of the lake, which has been isolated from the Earth’s atmosphere for several million years, may contain creatures hitherto unknown to science and having no relatives elsewhere on earth.
TITLE: Paralympics Put Focus on Russia’s Disabled
AUTHOR: By Alexander Winning
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — With less than a year to go before the Sochi Winter Paralympics, government officials are talking up the games as a celebration of disabled athletes’ dedication and sporting prowess.
But the Sochi games are also likely to draw global attention to Russia’s treatment of its roughly 13 million disabled citizens, who have long struggled for access to essential public services and employment opportunities.
Despite patchy wheelchair access and lingering discrimination against the disabled, activists said conditions for handicapped people are gradually improving and expressed hope that Russia’s recent ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities would prompt increased government support.
At a glitzy Red Square ceremony to mark the one-year countdown to the Winter Paralympics on Thursday, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said the government would do everything in its power to make the games a success.
The eight-day games following the Winter Olympics will feature more than 1,300 athletes from 45 countries in five main events: downhill skiing, cross-country skiing, biathlon, sledge hockey and wheelchair curling.
“We are proud to host the Paralympics and have a very strong team,” Medvedev said, in a nod to the Russian team’s successful showing in Vancouver in 2010, when the country placed second with a haul of 38 medals.
“We always watch the Paralympics with admiration, because they involve strength of will,” he said, speaking on a podium on the GUM Ice Rink, with St. Basil’s Cathedral lit up behind him.
At the same event, Sir Philipp Craven, president of the International Paralympic Committee, suggested that “Russia could become the most successful Paralympic team in history” on the back of its eye-catching performance in Vancouver.
“Home success and widespread media coverage have the potential to shift attitudes toward people with disabilities and inspire a generation,” said Craven, a former champion with the British Paralympic team.
Activists working with disabilities-focused nongovernmental organizations echoed Craven’s optimism, seeing the Winter Paralympics, at which Russia has competed since 1994, as an opportunity to bring the lot of the country’s physically and mentally disabled population into sharper focus.
“After the success of the Vancouver Paralympics, people started paying more attention to disabled people at home,” said Marat Sheikhadinov, aide to the president of the Russian Union of Disabled People, a public group headed by senior officials affiliated with the ruling United Russia party.
“Since then, Russia has signed the UN Convention and is actively working to ensure disabled people’s rights. The work is progressing full steam ahead, but it’s impossible to make all the necessary changes in one day,” he said.
Sheikhadinov noted that authorities have raised pensions and benefits for the disabled and that state-sponsored projects catering to those with disabilities have started to blossom.
One such project, called “The Map of Accessibility” and launched in December 2011, allows users to search the country’s largest cities for streets, schools, shops, sports facilities and cultural institutions with wheelchair access.
The Siberian city of Omsk was the most accessible Russian city on the site Monday, with more than 1,000 wheelchair-accessible locations. Sochi and Moscow came in second and third, with roughly 950 and 690 locations, respectively.
Another project, launched by state-controlled automaker AvtoVAZ in July 2011 as a joint venture with German prosthetics manufacturer Ottobock, produced more than 35,000 wheelchairs last year.
Both programs operate alongside the government’s flagship Accessible Environment project, a 46.9 billion ruble ($1.53 billion) endeavor that aims to improve accessibility and medical care for the disabled through 2015.
Despite these new initiatives, there is an awareness among NGOs and Labor and Social Services Ministry officials that expanding wheelchair access is just the tip of the iceberg.
For this reason, senior officials, including President Vladimir Putin, have thrown their weight behind broader programs to build rehabilitation centers, provide specialized schooling for handicapped children and combat public discrimination.
But activists said a sore point for Russia’s disabled remains the question of finding work, as 2.6 million out of the country’s 3.4 million disabled people of “working age” are unemployed, according to the Labor Ministry. The retirement age for disabled persons differs depending on the disability.
Denise Roza, director of Perspektiva, an NGO seeking to improve the lives of disabled people in Russia and the former Soviet Union, said employment is particularly hard to come by for those with mental disabilities.
“They need special employment programs and supported living arrangements,” she said, explaining that the dearth of educational opportunities for disabled people hampers them in later life.
“What’s more, although public awareness has risen in recent years, stereotypes persist toward people with disabilities, who often don’t know whom to turn to,” she said, adding that Russians can expect “huge changes” once the UN Convention is fully implemented.
Oleg Smolin, a State Duma deputy with the Communist Party and vice president of the Russian Paralympic Committee, said that Russian schools remain only “pseudo-inclusive” and that parents of able-bodied children often complain when their children are taught in the same classes as their disabled peers.
Smolin, who is blind, also disputed that real progress had been made in boosting accessibility at institutions of higher learning, citing a discussion at the Presidential Commission on Disabled People’s Affairs, at which specialists said only 5 percent of such institutions are fully accessible to wheelchair users, who make up a small fraction of Russia’s wider disabled population.
TITLE: Attacker Just a Pawn, Says Bolshoi Head
AUTHOR: By Ivan Nechepurenko
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Bolshoi Theater’s general director has said he believes that dancer Pavel Dmitrichenko, who last week confessed to ordering an attack on the theater’s ballet director, Sergei Filin, was only an “executor and a pawn in someone else’s hands.”
In an interview Sunday night on the Rossia 1 television channel, Anatoly Iksanov said the recent hacking of email accounts at the theater, threats against artists and the Jan. 17 attack on Filin, in which acid was flung into his face, are all part of an orchestrated campaign against the Bolshoi Theater.
In recent days, dancers in the ballet troupe, and even Filin himself, have also expressed skepticism regarding Dmitrichenko’s role in the attack, which has become a black eye for the world-renowned theater.
Filin’s lawyer Tatiana Stukalova said Monday that they would push for the “harshest punishment” for Dmitrichenko and the other two men accused in the attack. But, she said, Filin thought it was possible that Dmitrichenko was hiding the name of the “real puppeteer” who ordered it.
The three suspects in the attack, who include a driver and a man accused of throwing sulfuric acid on Filin’s face, face up to 12 years in prison.
Dmitrichenko said in court last week that one of his co-defendants, Yury Zarutsky, had volunteered to beat up Filin, and Dmitrichenko agreed. He denied ordering Zarutsky to throw acid on Filin’s face.
Other dancers at the Bolshoi have expressed doubts that Dmitrichenko could have organized such an attack and have implied that they think the police pressured him into confessing.
They spoke out to investigators at a meeting after the arrests, but investigators told them that they had “solid proof of Dmitrichenko’s complicity in the attack,” according to Interfax.
Confirmation of the meeting was given by Bolshoi soloist Nikolai Tsiskaridze, one of the key figures in the unfolding drama, who was a rival of Filin and a mentor to Dmitrichenko’s girlfriend, Angelina Vorontsova.
In an interview with Ekho Mosvky radio last week, another Bolshoi soloist, Andrei Bolotin, said that “all members of the troupe cannot believe that Dmitrichenko could have done this.”
TITLE: Zhirinovsky: Arrest Gudkov for Trip to U.S.
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Head of the Liberal Democratic Party Vladimir Zhirinovsky has demanded that Just Russia deputy Dmitry Gudkov be arrested for traveling to the U.S. to speak at a Freedom House forum, a news report said Tuesday.
The forum, titled “New Approach or Business as Usual? US-EU-Russia Relations After Putin’s Crackdown,” was held in Washington D.C. on March 4.
Human rights activist Lyudmila Alexeyeva and Mikhail Kasyanov, co-chairman of the Republican Party of Russia-People’s Freedom Party, also spoke at the event, where the main topic of discussion was how to stop corruption in the Russian government.
In comments to RIA-Novosti, however, Zhirinovsky said that Gudkov, as a representative of the Russian government, cannot travel to other countries and conduct negotiations, and should be deprived of his mandate for betraying his country.
“He is a part of the government and goes to the U.S., which is preparing a war against our country, and he’s going there and kowtowing to them,” Zhirinovsky said.
“I demand the arrest of Gudkov and the removal of his parliamentary mandate for his betrayal of the country,” Zhirinovsky said.
Zhirinovsky’s comments follow an earlier statement by A Just Russia leader Sergei Mironov that Gudkov did not inform anybody of his trip, and that he himself “learned of the trip only from the newspapers.”
Georgy Fyodorov, president of the Aspekt center for political and social research and a member of the Public Chamber, called Gudkov’s actions “unethical” and said the Duma’s Ethics Committee should look into the incident.
In comments to RIA-Novosti, Gudkov said that he paid for the trip with his own money and was ready to provide confirmation of this.
“I’m being very open and public [about this],” he said.
He also said he intends to check with the U.S. Embassy to determine which other members of the State Duma and the Public Chamber received U.S. visas recently.
TITLE: Anti-Graft Head Hit By Apartment Scandal
AUTHOR: By Jonathan Earle
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Irina Yarovaya, head of the State Duma’s powerful Anti-Corruption and Security Committee, on Monday became the latest United Russia deputy to face embarrassing allegations of ethics violations with the publication of a report accusing her of de facto owning a multimillion-dollar apartment.
Despite declared earnings of 2.9 million rubles ($93,000) in 2011, Yarovaya lives with her husband in an elite $2.9 million apartment in downtown Moscow registered to their 23-year-old daughter, The New Times magazine reported in a scathing expose prompted by an anonymous tip.
The 127.6-square-meter apartment in the Tverskaya Plaza apartment complex, near the Novoslobodskaya metro station, was purchased for an estimated 36 million rubles ($1.4 million) in 2006 and registered to Yekaterina Yarovaya, then 17 years old, the report claimed.
While the revelation is unflattering, it’s unclear whether Irina Yarovaya, a particularly outspoken United Russia member and supporter of recent legislation tightening the screws on the protest movement and political NGOs, broke income-disclosure requirements by not listing the apartment in official documents.
Yekaterina was a legal adult when such requirements were stiffened by then-President Dmitry Medvedev in 2008, and the law doesn’t cover property owned by adult children, the weekly magazine reported.
Yarovaya dismissed the article as “nothing more than dirty insinuations,” and her spokesman accused its authors of spreading “knowingly false information,” according to a statement published on the ruling party’s website on Monday.
The spokesman, Oleg Zhdanov, took particular issue with the sale figure quoted in the article, arguing that the actual price paid was six times lower, which would amount to 6 million rubles ($231,000).
But Alexander Ziminsky, director of sales at Penny Lane Realty, told The St. Petersburg Times that a square meter at the apartment’s address, 3 Veskovsky Tupik, cost between $5,000 and $10,000 in 2006, meaning that the apartment likely cost between $638,000 and $1.3 million at the time, near The New Times’ figure.
Based on current market rates provided by Ziminsky, the apartment is probably worth between $1.9 million and $2.9 million. Another realtor, Metrium Group, said the apartment was now worth at least 62.65 million rubles ($2 million).
Reached by telephone, Zhdanov refused to provide further commentary on The New Times’ allegations, referring a reporter to the United Russia statement.
Senior United Russia officials did not appear to rush to Yarovaya’s defense on Monday.
“The law lays out a procedure for considering such cases, and naturally the Duma will act in strict accordance with the law,” Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin said when asked whether the relevant committee would look into the allegations, RIA-Novosti reported.
Political analyst and outspoken Kremlin critic Stanislav Belkovsky said the information was probably leaked by liberal members of the ruling United Russia party, many of whom are unhappy about the ban on U.S. adoptions and other initiatives pushed by Yarovaya’s conservative wing.
It’s unclear whether Yarovaya would be forced to give up her chairmanship of the Duma’s Anti-Corruption and Security Committee or her seat in the lower house of parliament.
“On the one hand, there’s an influential lobby that wants her ousted from the State Duma. On the other hand, Volodin supports her, which is a very weighty factor,” Belkovsky said, referring to Vyacheslav Volodin, the Kremlin’s formidable point man on domestic politics.
Yarovaya, once a senior member of the Western-leaning Yabloko party, defected to United Russia in 2007 and was promptly elected to the Duma, where she represents the Kamchatka region.
She has either authored or co-authored several controversial laws in recent months, including those that raised fines for illegal demonstrations, re-criminalized defamation and required certain nongovernmental organizations that receive foreign financing to register as “foreign agents.”
In recent weeks, United Russia lawmakers have faced a flood of accusations from media and opposition-linked bloggers, mostly involving allegations of undeclared foreign property.
Vladimir Pekhtin, a United Russia co-founder who headed the Duma’s Credentials and Ethics Commission, renounced his seat in parliament last month amid accusations that he purportedly owned millions of dollars worth of undeclared real estate in Florida.
The outpouring of such compromising information, known in Russian as “kompromat,” has been variously attributed to increased vigilance by opposition sleuths and targeted leaks by ruling party rivals.
The New Times’ report, for example, was prompted by an anonymous letter addressed to editor-in-chief Yevgenia Albats, containing information about the Yarovaya family apartment. The letter, which arrived in late February, was signed: “An admirer of A. Navalny and Doctor Z.”
Opposition leader and blogger Alexei Navalny, who first published the allegations against Pekhtin, said he was tipped off by a Spain-based blogger, Andrei Zayakin, better known as “Doctor Z.”
TITLE: Magnitsky Trial Postponed
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — A Moscow court on Monday postponed the trial of dead lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who accused law enforcement authorities of massive corruption and whose case sparked a dispute between Washington and Moscow.
Magnitsky was jailed in 2008 on charges of tax evasion. The charges came after he alleged that officials and organized criminals conspired to claim $230 million in tax rebates.
He died in prison the next year of untreated pancreatitis while awaiting trial. The Kremlin Human Rights Council said in 2011 that Magnitsky had been repeatedly beaten and deliberately denied medical treatment.
The posthumous trial for Magnitsky was to open Monday, but court-appointed defense attorneys Nikolai Gerasimov and Kirill Goncharov petitioned for the trial to be put off until May so that they could study the case files. Judge Igor Alisov postponed the hearings until March 22.
Lawyers representing Magnitsky’s family have refused to take part in the proceedings, calling them a mockery of justice and “blasphemy.”
The Supreme Court ruled in 2011 that posthumous trials are allowed, with the intention of letting relatives clear their loved ones’ names. In Magnitsky’s case, prosecutors refiled charges even though family members said they did not want another trial.
In a statement released by Hermitage Capital, the investment fund that once employed Magnitsky, the lawyer’s widow, Natalya Zharikova, called on the parties in the trial to refuse to participate.
“I think that if any of its participants have a conscience — and this is key not only in human morality but also in Russian criminal law — they have a duty to refuse to participate in this blasphemy,” she said.
Gerasimov and Goncharov told reporters at preliminary hearings earlier this month that as members of the Moscow Bar Association they had no choice but to take part in the trial once they were appointed to represent the dead lawyer, otherwise they would lose their licenses to practice.
TITLE: Russia Has Highest Teen Suicide Rates in Europe
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia has topped Europe in terms of teenage suicides, the Federal Consumer Protection Service said Monday.
“In recent years, the number of suicides and attempted suicides among children has climbed 35-37 percent. Between 1990 and 2010, the number of registered teen suicides in Russia amounted to 800,000,” a statement on the agency’s site read.
According to the consumer rights watchdog, the number of suicides among teenagers in Russia is 19-20 per 100,000 teenagers — a figure which is three times higher than the global average.
According to the agency, it has been established that only 10% of these teenagers genuinely intend to kill themselves, and in all other cases the attempt represents a “cry for help.”
The statement also emphasized the growing role of the Internet and communication technologies in spreading suicidal tendencies among teenagers, citing a growing number of group suicides.
“The scale and the above-mentioned statistics for suicides, primarily among children, due to information distributed on the Internet, raises the issue of threats to Russia’s growing generation and the need to take preventative measures,” the statement says.
In late 2011 the United Nations Children’s Fund published a report ranking Russia third in the world in per capita teenage suicides, behind two other former Soviet republics, Kazakhstan and Belarus.
TITLE: 85% of Russians Oppose Same-Sex Marriage, Says Poll
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Homophobic attitudes are widespread in Russia and fewer people appear tolerant of homosexuality than eight years ago, a survey released Tuesday said.
Eighty-five percent of respondents surveyed by the Levada Center said they opposed same-sex marriages in Russia and 87 percent said they did not want gay parades to take place in Russian cities, Interfax reported.
The survey showed that 23 percent of respondents felt gay people should be left alone, while 27 percent said they needed psychological help.
Another 16 percent suggested that gays be isolated from society, 22 percent insisted on compulsory treatment, and 5 percent said homosexuals should be “liquidated.”
Over the past eight years, the number of Russians who believe gay and lesbians should be left “to themselves” has declined by 7 percent, while the percentage of Russians who think homosexuals should receive treatment has climbed 5 percent. The percentage of those who believe homosexuals should be isolated from society has also increased 4 percent.
In response to the question, “What is your personal feeling toward gay and lesbians?” 50 percent of respondents said they felt irritation and disgust, another 18 said they felt a sense of alertness and 4 percent that homosexuals evoked a positive response.
Eighty percent of respondents opposed granting the right to adopt children to same sex couples, while 5 percent said they had no objections.
The majority of those surveyed (89 percent) said they had no homosexual friends or relatives.
The survey was conducted in February among 1,600 residents in over 130 cities in 45 regions across Russia. Although no margin of error was cited, Levada Center surveys usually have a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points
TITLE: Russia Put All of Its Eggs in Chavez’s Basket
AUTHOR: By Georgy Bovt
TEXT: The death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has forced Russian leaders to worry about the fate of billions of dollars in contracts it holds there, primarily in the oil and weapons sectors.
Moscow’s trade and economic relations with Caracas were typical of those it has established with similar, autocratic regimes elsewhere; that is, they hinged almost completely on relations with one person at the top. The problem, of course, is that relations are highly vulnerable when the leader is deposed or dies.
During Chavez’s reign, he nationalized hundreds of private companies, including foreign firms. He kicked U.S. oil companies out of Venezuela overnight after he concluded that Washington was plotting against him. He expelled them without any compensation and in violation of contractual obligations. But Chavez was above the law.
Chavez was personally behind all the major projects with Russia in energy, transportation, weapons purchases and banking. For example, military and technical cooperation with Russia to rearm the Venezuelan army took off in full force in 2005-06 after the U.S. refused to supply the country’s military with spare parts. Moscow signed military and technical contracts with Caracas totaling $11 billion, of which $4 billion is financed with Russian credit. As of today, $6 billion in contracts has been fulfilled.
Now that Chavez is gone, the one factor that has always worked against Russia — its lack of technological innovation — will play an even larger role in Venezuela turning to China instead of Russia for military and technical cooperation. What’s more, with deepening economic difficulties and a resultant currency shortage, Venezuela might have trouble paying off its large debt to Russia.
Russian oil companies should expect even more serious problems. State-owned Rosneft has already signed a contract with the Venezuelan state-owned PDVSA oil company to develop the Carabobo-2 heavy oil field in the Orinoco River basin as part of a joint venture in which Rosneft holds a 40 percent stake. Rosneft is also part of a consortium with LUKoil, TNK-BP and Gazprom Neft that is working on the Khunin-6 project, also in the Orinoco River basin. Those companies were required to pay the Venezuelan government $1 billion each just for the right to join the projects, and according to various estimates, their additional combined investment over many years will reach $40 billion.
It seems that there is more politics than profit behind these projects for two reasons. First, it is strange for Russian oil companies to invest tens of billions of dollars in a country with an unpredictable future, especially when similar projects at home are terribly underfunded. Second, it has always been extremely difficult to work in Venezuela, and all the more so now that Chavez, Moscow’s loyal friend and ally, has died. Chavez did not leave the country in the best condition. He doubled the size of the bureaucracy, which brought corruption and inefficiency to such high levels that the country is on the brink of collapse. The country’s infrastructure is in ruins, and foreign companies might be forced one way or another to finance expensive infrastructure programs from their profits.
Notably, Rosneft head Igor Sechin, who attended Chavez’s funeral last week, spoke with acting President Nicolas Maduro regarding the delicate issue of that country’s unfulfilled contractual obligations to other Russian companies, including RusHydro. Russia might not have enough political and economic leverage to influence the behavior of the new Venezuelan leadership, whichever happens to emerge. Of course, Moscow prefers Chavez’s hand-picked successor, Maduro, who is favored to win the election. But under the pressure of mounting economic problems, Maduro might take a more balanced and pragmatic approach, including subduing anti-U.S. rhetoric and turning to the U.S. and China for investment and large contracts.
Russian-Venezuelan relations could be complicated even further if opposition leader Henrique Capriles Radonski wins the presidential election on April 14. Even if Maduro wins, relations with Moscow will probably deteriorate all the same. Russian-Venezuelan relations are fundamentally fragile. Compare them to the long and well-developed relationship between Cuba and Venezuela. Cuba has sent about 40,000 workers to Venezuela, including more than 5,000 specialists in sports, health care and education, and has acted as the initiator and co-participant in many important social projects. Simply expelling such a partner like Cuba would be difficult, even if a right-wing leader were to come to power, because that relationship is deeply woven into the fabric of Venezuela’s economic and political life. But since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has showed little enthusiasm for large-scale programs designed to build a broad base in other countries.
Notably, China has taken this broad approach toward building relations with developing states like Venezuela, and as a result, Beijing enjoys a steadily growing economic presence in those countries, even when ruling regimes change. In contrast, Moscow continues to focus its bilateral relations on top leaders and their small inner circles in these countries. This might be fine as long as they remain in power, but as soon as they are gone, Russia risks losing political capital and billions of dollars in contracts.
Georgy Bovt is a political analyst.
TITLE: inside russia: Visions of Abuse in a Putin Costume
AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina
TEXT: One of the organizers of last Saturday’s rally against the adoption of Russian children by U.S. citizens was Irina Bergseth, head of the Russian Mothers movement.
The path Bergseth has taken in life is typical for a very specific segment of Russia’s female population. She met a foreign man through an Internet matchmaking service, traveled to his home in Norway, married him, gave birth to a baby boy and soon afterward divorced her husband.
The good-hearted Norwegian justice system awarded custody of the child to the mother but also granted visitation rights to the father. Apparently, that did not suit Bergseth, and she claimed that the father beat the boy. In Norway, a country obsessed with children’s rights, that is an extremely serious allegation. But the authorities doubted its veracity because the boy had no bruises on his body. Next, Bergseth claimed the boy told her that the Norwegian father had threatened to drive with the child on the hood of the car, run over him when he fell off and then do the same to Bergseth and her eldest son.
The police again took no action. That forced Bergseth to reveal the heartbreaking details of this tortured father-son relationship. According to Bergseth, the father had raped the boy and had not done so alone. He was joined by a dozen others.
After that, rather than place the father behind bars, Norway’s children’s services declared Bergseth insane and deprived her of custody of the children.
Naturally, according to Bergseth, the children’s services workers were also pedophiles. She claims they dressed children in animal costumes with drawings of reproductive organs on them. After that, she says, they covered the children in light blue paint and raped them. This was all recorded on video, she asserts.
After that, Bergseth took her son to a hospital to have him examined in hopes of proving the whole story. But the doctor she saw refused to cooperate.
Just prior to Saturday’s rally, Bergseth made an important clarification to her prior claims. It turns out that the workers at the “Red House” did not dress the children in animal costumes but in outfits made to resemble President Vladimir Putin.
“They dressed my son in a Putin costume,” she told the rally participants. “And people lined up to rape my 4-year-old son. And I have to keep silent about it because if I don’t, they will declare me insane,” the leader of the Russian Mothers movement said.
You might say Bergseth is clinically insane, but I don’t think so. The bit about the Putin costume is what bothers me. Suppose she was thinking to herself, “If I claim it was a Putin costume, the government will take my side.” Well, she said it, and the government did lend her support. And you still say the woman is crazy?
In my opinion, this is a question of psychological norms, and they differ in each society. In a shamanistic culture, the shaman is said to walk in the heavens, and nobody considers him crazy. In Putin’s Russia, a woman who claims that her son was dressed in a Putin costume and gang-raped by social workers becomes the leader of a social movement and wins support from the ruling regime. This is much less a question of Bergseth’s psychological health than it is of the authorities’ sanity.
Yulia Latynina hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio.
TITLE: From America With Music
AUTHOR: By Gillian Bradford
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Riding on the success of last year’s sell-out event, the second annual Festival of Traditional American Music is back to wow audiences starting March 14 at the St. Petersburg Jazz Philharmonic Hall. Appearing in nine different cities over a two-month period, the festival, which has been curated by the American Folklore Center at the Library of Congress, aims to introduce Russian audiences to idiomatic American music that highlights different aspects of the American experience.
The lineup includes a wide array of musical genres, ranging from a trio of bluegrass- and country-inspired sisters who play the fiddle to a modern take on Conjunto and Tejano music, and a group of “blues masters,” all of whom are performing in Russia for the first time and who personify the unique style of American music which they play.
Opening the festival this year is The Quebe Sisters Band from Fort Worth, Texas, The fiddle-playing trio play music that harks back to the days of the Carter Family and the beginnings of the Grand Ole Opry — Nashville’s high church of country music. Borrowing inspiration from western swing, bluegrass, country and jazz, the sisters manage at once to pay homage to their roots while creating a sound that is uniquely their own.
This ingenuity has led to multiple awards, including honors for Western Swing Album of the Year in 2008. The sisters started playing together when they were children and went on to perform with the likes of billionaire Warren Buffett, possibly the world's most famous investor, at the annual meeting of his multinational conglomerate, Berkshire Hathaway, that same year. Joining the sisters on stage and rounding out their sound in St. Petersburg are Joey McKenzie on guitar and Gavin Kelso on upright bass.
The second installment of the festival takes place April 4, with a performance by Modern Blues Masters. A trio of seasoned performers, the group consists of Phil Wiggins, Guy Davis and Samuel James. While Davis is perhaps the most widely recognized of the three, having been an honored guest at the Kennedy Center Awards in the U.S., as well as being viewed as one of the foremost blues musicians of his generation, both Wiggins and James shine brightly as talented blues performers.
Wiggins, who plays the harmonica as well as being a singer and a songwriter, is considered by many to be the best player of blues harmonica in the world, melding both the American and African roots of the genre into a cohesive and delicate whole. James, despite being the youngest of the trio, brings a unique quality to his performances, blending his unique blues style with a talent for storytelling. Playing both guitar and piano, he is generally viewed by fans and critics alike as one of the most promising up-and-coming blues musicians alive.
Finally, on May 11, the St. Petersburg portion of the festival comes to a close with Los Texmaniacs, a Conjunto-influenced band credited with reviving the genre among younger audiences. Conjunto emerged as a musical form in southern Texas following the introduction of the button accordion to the area at the end of the 19th century by German settlers, and is a melding of European dance music with traditional Mexican music.
With Hispanics representing a significant percentage of the American population, the inclusion of Los Texmaniacs on the festival program allows the rich and vibrant musical tradition of Mexican-Americans to reach a wider audience and stimulate interest beyond North America. Led by Max Baca, the band has been performing since 1997 and won a Grammy Award for its 2009 release “Borders Y Bailes,” Baca himself has participated in a number of other Grammy-winning projects, including collaborating with the Rolling Stones on their platinum-selling “Voodoo Lounge” album in 1996.
While each of the musical acts makes stops in St. Petersburg and Moscow, the rest of the tour will see the groups taking to the road across Russia to introduce the strains of cowboy songs, melancholic blues and Tex-Mex dance music to a whole new audience — an audience the founders of the various genres doubtless could never have imagined.
The Quebe Sisters Band appears at The St. Petersburg Jazz Philharmonic on Thursday 14 March. Complete details of the festival are available at www.cecartslink.org
TITLE: Celebrating Brodsky’s Legacy
AUTHOR: By Tatyana Sochiva
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Forty-nine years to the day after the trial of Soviet-era poet and writer Joseph Brodsky on charges of “parasitism” took place in Leningrad, the governor of the Arkhangelsk Oblast, Igor Orlov, is today due to make public the government’s plans for an educational and cultural tourism project dedicated to the poet’s exile in the region.
Brodsky lived in the village of Norenskaya, in the region’s Konoshsky district, from April 1964 to September 1965. Yet despite being forced to call Norenskaya home, he nonetheless wrote of this period as being one of the best times of his life.
In addition to elaborating on the government’s educational aims, Orlov is also due to address the preservation of the house where Brodsky lived. The house and property, which is still home to the birch and bird cherry trees that the poet planted, have been bought by regional authorities with a view to restoring it in the coming months.
Currently, a neighboring house contains an exhibition dedicated to the poet that includes Brodsky’s household items, hand tools and photographs. The exhibition will be moved into the poet’s former home following the restoration.
Authorities anticipate that the project will boost tourism in the region.
Now, local celebrations of the poet’s legacy include literary events, discussion clubs and conferences that take place throughout the year in the Konoshsky district. A permanent exhibition with photographs of the poet’s study is on display at the Brodsky Central Regional Library, while another Brodsky exhibition is housed at the Konosha State Regional Studies Museum.
Brodsky, who is widely considered to be one of Russia’s greatest poets, was given a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1987 for “for an all-embracing authorship, imbued with clarity of thought and poetic intensity.” His champions argue that he has had almost the same significance for modern poetry as Alexander Pushkin did for the literature of the 19th century.
As well as the official announcement by Arkhangelsk Oblast authorities on the new Brodsky project there, a presentation of Mikhail Milchik’s book “Joseph Brodsky in Exile” will take place today at the Bulthaup Design Gallery in St. Petersburg.
The book has been published by the Perlov Design Center and is devoted to the poet’s time spent in Norenskaya. Milchik, who is chairman of the board of the St. Petersburg Brodsky Museum Fund, and was also a friend of the poet, will present the new book.
TITLE: Magnified Love
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: GusGus, an internationally recognized top-selling act noted for its passionate, high-energy shows, and one of Iceland’s best-known bands, launches its six-date Russian tour this week.
Formed in 1995 in Reykjavik, Iceland, the electronic soul band, which balances its concerns between commercial pop and underground dance music, reemerged in 2011 with its seventh full-length studio album, “Arabian Horse,” which has been described by their current German label, Kompakt, as “Icelandic Hi-Tech Soul.”
The St. Petersburg Times spoke to GusGus singer Daniel Agust Haraldsson via Skype in advance of Sunday’s concert.
Q: This interview has been postponed two hours because of the blizzard there. What happened?
A: Oh, it just came all of a sudden. Yesterday was fine and there was no sign of this crazy snowfall coming down. So much snow, everybody getting stuck in traffic... I was fine in my car, my small Nissan Micra, but then I got stuck in a pile of snow just after having taken my kid to school.
Q: On Wednesday, you’re starting a six-date tour in Russia. I guess you haven’t done that before, have you?
A: It’s the first time we are doing a comprehensive tour like this, a big tour. We played St. Petersburg and Moscow quite a few times with great success. Now it was time to step up and do a bigger tour around your huge country. We’ll go to Krasnodar, Nizhny Novgorod, Chelyabinsk and Krasnoyarsk, I see here on our website. Some of these cities, with millions of people living in them, I hadn’t heard of before. So I am going to do some reading over the weekend before taking on the journey.
Q: What material are you going to perform in Russia?
A: Well, mainly we’ll be performing songs from “Arabian Horse,” our last album, which we’ve done before in Moscow and St. Petersburg. But we’re going to do a few new ones as well, so you have some special treats. We’re going to give you some sample of what’s coming up on the next album.
We’re planning to release an EP, a short album, in a couple of months, two or three months, and yeah, we’re finishing, like, a three- or four-track album for release in May, probably.
Q: When did you first come to Russia?
A: Hmm, I’m always bad at picking things from my memory in chronological order, but I always have great memories of coming to Russia. It’s always a pleasure to meet Russian audiences, because you really know our music and you really appreciate it. It cannot be better [than] to play in front of 1,500-2,000 people who really appreciate what you’re doing and it’s always been hugely entertaining and a pleasure to play for the audience.
Maybe the atmosphere is close to the Balkan countries, but it’s always been unique to come to Russia, because there’s nowhere else like Russia. The audience is intensely receptive to the music we’re making. It’s always been a great experience.
Q: Russia is quickly becoming a very unpleasant place, with the restrictive laws that are being passed, like the one banning the “promotion of homosexuality.” What do you think about this?
A: I hope narrow-mindedness will not prevail in your government. The government will hopefully — and I wish with all my heart that they will — embrace all kinds of people and they will just realize that banning or preventing human rights is not very wise. But maybe I have to speak carefully, because I might get arrested, so you must phrase this correctly. My hope is the government will just open their eyes and see with common sense that these restrictions will not help to make for a better country.
Q: The Pussy Riot trial and the prison sentences given to its members have caused several acts to refuse to perform in Russia. What’s your view on this?
A: That’s horrible. I just wish the authorities would come to their senses and realize that this is not helping the reputation of your nation. I mean, maybe they did do something wrong and were inappropriate. Of course, they should have respected other people’s beliefs and not protested in this vulgar way. But sometimes these measures, these vulgar measures, are necessary to make people open their eyes and see what’s wrong with the infrastructure of the nation.
Q: Speaking about the album, the lineup has changed since it has been released. How do you cope with performing the material on tour?
A: There’s been a slight change, you’re right, because Earth, our female singer, was going to have a baby. But she had a miscarriage and was unfortunately not able to tour with us anymore. She’s just lost the enjoyment of touring; she just wanted to attend to her family matters.
But otherwise, all the boys are onboard. We got Biggi Veira, President Bongo, Högni Elisson and myself. The crew is the same, and we have our great lighting guy, Agnar Hermannsson, and our sound guy, Aron Arnarsson. It’s just a solid rock-steady crew that’s going to come and deliver a fantastic show.
The changing of the people in GusGus has always been normal. I mean, I quit the band for seven years and came back.
People come in and out. If GusGus is not a passion anymore, then we step out. When it becomes interesting or appealing again, we step back in again. It’s an open playground which we can leave. If we feel tired or worn-out, we just step off the wagon, and step on it again when we feel rejuvenated and refreshed and are coming [up] with fresh ideas. It’s proven a good method throughout the history of the band.
Q: GusGus came together as a film collective, rather than as a regular band. How did it start out?
A: Yeah, it started out as a film project, basically. There were two directors, a directors’ team, and their friend, who became our manager, and they brought all the people — all the actors, the singers and the musicians — so we could make this short film. The shooting of the short film got postponed, but meanwhile we were able to make some music, which was used as a soundtrack for the film, eventually, because we made the film in the end, of course.
Q: The name of the band also came from a film — German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 1974 “Ali: Fear Eats the Soul” — and is really “couscous” mispronounced by a film character. Is that true?
A: Yeah, that’s how it all came around. Basically, these tiny [semolina pellets] are called couscous, which most people know from making food in a kitchen — an African influence in food-making. It probably came from Morocco or Algiers to Europe. It’s a common ingredient. The reason why we chose GusGus for the name of the group was because of the connotation to making love, or spending a good time together and having dinner. When the woman in the film invited the guy over to have some couscous, she was not only offering him food, but she was also offering him love and affection. After the meal, they would have sex and enjoy each other’s company. And that’s why we chose this name, and we wrote it with this funny pronunciation: “GusGus.”
Q: I have just listened to the acoustic version of the last album’s title track, “Arabian Horse,” and it works as a normal song, which is not always the case with electronic bands. Could you say a little about your method of songwriting?
A: Essentially, at the core, all the tunes we make that have vocals are composed as regular tunes, and then we take these tunes and put them into the GusGus environment — in an electronic environment. That’s what makes our songs stronger, basically. Because it’s not just some improvisation on top of electronic beats, it’s more constructed and architected in a classical composing way of making songs.
Q: GusGus were described as a collective rather than a regular band at the beginning, with Wikipedia listing 12 members as the original lineup. Is that correct?
A: Yeah, from the very beginning all these different people from all kinds of different directions came together, and a few of us had written songs and they hadn’t gone into production yet, so we used those songs and put them into the GusGus machine.
Q: What music did you like then — what was the influence?
A: It was mainly trip-hop. It was like break beat, trip-hop and electronica that was the greatest influence at the time. You know, Tricky and stuff like that as well as our background in listening to Depeche Mode and Kraftwerk. We also should not underestimate [other influences]. For example my favorite musician, when I was five years old, was Elvis Presley. He had an influence on my musicality, on my appreciation for music, although my taste developed from Elvis Presley to something else. But I can always relate to the roots from the background I have. And all the people in the band have different childhood favorites that have influenced them, so the whole concoction becomes interesting.
Q: What was your music background?
A: I started making music when I was 17 with Nydönsk, a regular pop-rock group singing in Icelandic. I am still singing with them but only in Icelandic, in Iceland. [The band performs] pop-rock in a very traditional rock-group setup with drums, guitars, keyboards and vocals.
Q: Were you with the band when you performed at Eurovision in 1989?
A: That was when I had just started making music. The songwriter noticed me playing with my new band — we had just started to exist, and he saw us playing at a small gig in a restaurant. He saw a talent in me and chose me to sing a song.
I was very glad I didn’t get any points. I scored zero points. It was very fortunate for me, because I did not want to step into the world of making that kind of music. I wanted to make a different kind of music. I was not very passionate about this way of making music. But the only thing that interested me at that time was to work with a songwriter, which was a great experience for me.
He had been in bands that I respected and I was very interested in collaborating with him. His name is Valgeir Gudjonsson and his bands are Spilverk Thjodanna and Studmenn. Valgeir participated [in Eurovision] twice before, with the song “Haegt og Hljott,” which ended up in 16th place.
Q: Icelandic pop music was not much heard of internationally before The Sugarcubes, was it?
A: The Sugarcubes were a big factor in pioneering and paving the way for Icelandic musicians going abroad and conquering other territories outside our island. But before that we had Mezzoforte. They had some success with a song called “Garden Party,” which is an instrumental jazz-fusion kind of music. Not very typical for the music scene, but they were able to market it in other countries around Europe, mainly the Benelux countries: Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxemburg. They were one of the first to have some success abroad. And then came The Sugarcubes, of course, and Björk got the biggest. And then us, and then Sigur Rós.
Q: To an outsider Iceland sounds like a magic country, with its volcanos and blizzards; has it influenced the music?
A: Well, when there’s a blizzard outside, you have to stay inside, and try not to get bored. And one way of not being bored is to make music, and make poetry and write novels. Hibernate, like a bear in winter.
Q: In the 1980s, Rolling Stone tried to explain The Sugarcubes with the help of an Icelandic Viking legend.
A: That’s hardly the reality. Icelandic people are just Northern Europeans, living in a cold and crazy country.
Q: Are you working on anything outside the band, maybe on a new solo album?
A: I’ve realized two solo albums already. I am always working on new material, it’s just a chance, you know, where they’re going to end up — on my album, on a GusGus album, on a Nydönsk album, as part of some other project, or as collaborations with other musicians. I am just writing songs for my fulfillment and enjoyment, because I really enjoy it. It has a curing effect on my soul. It has a very healing effect on my psychological entanglements.
I deal with problems through songwriting. I deal with my personal situations with my family, with myself, with my girlfriend; everything is dealt with in my lyrics and music. I mean, the lyrics are not necessarily autobiographical, they’re not always true stories, but they’re my outlet, my way of dealing with my mental conditions and situations.
Q: What are you up to at the moment, any new ideas?
A: I want to continue to work with GusGus because I really enjoy it at the moment. And I want to make some other interesting music as well. You know, I don’t have any specific plan about it, I just let it progress by itself, basically. I just let it come and flow.
GusGus will perform at 9 p.m. on Sunday, March 17 at A2, 3 Prospekt Medikov. M: Sportivnaya, Gorkovskaya. Tel. 309 9922.
TITLE: THE DISH: Lyubimy Habib
AUTHOR: Chris Gordon
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Unloveable and Unloved
If further evidence were needed that quantity rarely equals quality, Ulitsa Rubinshteina — which has become the city’s de facto restaurant row — would be proof positive. And while the appearance of yet another new restaurant isn’t necessarily exciting news, it does offer an opportunity to try to spot emerging trends.
With the opening of Lyubimy Habib, the street now has its second Central Asian restaurant to sit alongside the Italian, Spanish and pub food already on offer. The funky, well-designed space features an eclectic 70s vibe that somehow manages to feel fresh. With a long, exposed-brick wall topped with Moorish tiling backing open cooking stations and dangling chandeliers, a soft glow suffuses the room that is both flattering and cozy.
So far so good, but where the restaurant falls down is in its service. Friendly but inept, the wait staff all seemed to be more interested in their mobile phones than the diners desperately trying to catch their attention.
As far as trends go, the menu sadly fails to break any new ground. In what can only be seen as an unwelcome throwback, classic Central Asian dishes sit side-by-side with uninspired pizzas. The ubiquitous sushi menu, which seems to be a staple of a certain class of restaurant, is provided as a supplement to the main menu and speaks of a fear of commitment and a hedging of bets.
In keeping with our initial reason for choosing the place, we stuck to the Central Asian side of the menu and started with a plate of stuffed grape leaves (250 rubles, $8) and kutabi (230 rubles, $7.50) — normally a large, slippery, filled ravioli.
The grape leaves, when they finally arrived, were served gently warmed with a tangy yogurt sauce and were admirably dense and meaty although a bit under seasoned and lacking the usual hit of mint. The kutabi sadly arrived deep-fried, looking like a pale matzo cracker and tasting more like a chebureck. While the fillings of meat, cheese and greens were all flavorful, the bland and chewy dough made them rather a chore to force down. Luckily by that time the wine had arrived – just.
The wine list features some exciting Armenian selections as well as wines from Italy, France and further afield but has surprisingly not been updated with Georgian wines, which have recently become available in Russia following a ban on imports that lasted many years.
Trying to get a bottle of wine from Europe also proved surprisingly difficult. The first three bottles we selected from the list were unavailable and the Italian white from the Veneto (800 rubles, $25) that we finally settled on took a good ten minutes to arrive and was warm when it did. Another 15 minutes on ice and it was drinkable but by that time we were really in need of something stronger.
Shashlyk is almost always a safe bet at a Central Asian restaurant, and that holds true at Lyubimy Habib. The version featuring lamb cutlet (370 rubles, $11.75) was admirably tender, well seasoned and grilled to perfection. The lula kebab with sesame (260 rubles, $8.25), however, arrived without a sesame seed in sight. Apparently the kitchen had decided to replace them with an unpleasantly shard-filled and strangely flavorless crusting of coriander seeds.
With a bit of wine left but hankering for something sweet, we decided to split a dessert. The schizophrenia seen elsewhere on the menu is carried through to the dessert menu which offers choices from around the globe.
In the end, we settled on an order of profiteroles (240 rubles, $7.50) as being sufficiently innocuous. What arrived however would make even the most forgiving diner blanche.
The pile of profiteroles was deep-fried and crunchy, and left a lingering aftertaste of slightly rancid oil that coated the tongue. The unctuous warm chocolate fudge that normally makes the dish so irresistible was barely there, replaced by a thin dribble of brown liquid, as if the kitchen had added water to a nearly empty can of chocolate sauce. To this was added an equally thin cherry sauce that, besides being a shocking color, brought a sour note to the dish that was as unwelcome as it was unappealing, making the whole mess look like a rather gruesome accident.
While Ulitsa Rubinshteina may now have a new Central Asian restaurant, it’s probably a good idea to give it a miss and look elsewhere for an evening’s meal. With all the choices nearby, it won’t take long to find something better.
TITLE: Chanel, Back to the Future
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The creative connections between Russia and fashion brand Chanel are diverse and multivalent. The meeting between Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel and Prince Dmitry Romanov in Biarritz in 1920 sparked the designer’s genuine interest in Russian culture, art, history and costume, resulting in the creation of her famous “Russian collection” and the iconic Cuir de Russie perfume, as well as her contribution to Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes.
As Bruno Pavlovsky, the president of Chanel Fashion, points out, even today history remains a strong link connecting the brand to Russia. In December, Chanel opened its first boutique in St. Petersburg, and the expectations are high on both sides.
“Since the era of Mademoiselle, Chanel has inherited an impressive number of dedicated Russian customers,” Pavlovsky said. “We make every effort to ensure that Russia remains loyal to the brand. The Russian clients do appreciate these efforts. When in 2009 we showed our “Paris-Moscou” collection at Moscow’s Maly Theater — following the premiere of the collection in Paris — it was overwhelming. That show became our first in Russia since the historic 1967 show that was part of the First International Fashion Festival. A recent Chanel exhibition in Moscow’s Pushkin Museum, prepared by the curator Jean-Louis Froman, was a fusion of Chanel fashions, archival photographs, relics and art objects from the Pushkin museum, [and] brought a new perspective to the perception of Chanel in Russia.”
Chanel is careful about its international expansion strategy, limiting the number of openings to about ten new boutiques per year. According to Pavlovsky, the brand took several years to prepare its launch in St. Petersburg.
“Russia, along with the Middle East, Latin America and China, belongs to our priority markets,” Pavlovsky said. “Having established the brand in Moscow, we took the natural step of making a presence in St. Petersburg. Russian customers frequent our boutiques in Paris, London, Berlin and the Cote d’Azur, and we felt we ought to strengthen our presence in Russia.”
Designed by renowned New York architect Peter Marino, the St. Petersburg boutique is located at 152 Nevsky Prospekt and was inspired by the interiors of Mademoiselle Chanel’s apartment at 31 Rue Cambon in Paris.
Marino’s creative alliance with Chanel dates back years. The designer has been instrumental in shaping the images of all Chanel boutiques worldwide. Each new boutique bears a tangible connection to a symbol that is strongly associated with Chanel or the brand that she created.
The designs of the boutique in Kiev, for example, one of Chanel’s most recent openings, created direct associations with the bottle of Chanel’s signature fragrance, Chanel no.5.
“I would describe our alliance with the designer as unique,” Pavlovsky said. “Signs and symbols were important for Gabrielle Chanel; she took them seriously during her entire life. And at the heart of Marino’s approach to each project of Chanel boutiques is the concept that one of the symbols that were key to Chanel would serve as a foundation and inspiration for the design.”
Creativity, femininity and independence are the premier values upon which Chanel rests. As Pavlovsky points out, the brand has preserved the soul of Chanel, and this soul keeps the fashion house alive.
“We have been strong enough to resist the temptation to live off the immense history of Chanel,” he said. “We look at the world through the eyes of Coco Chanel but this is not at all a look from the past. I am talking about philosophy, the way of perceiving things. Gabrielle Chanel sought to surprise and amaze, and this is exactly what Karl Lagerfeld, our creative director, is seeking.”
Chanel today has set for itself the serious challenge of maintaining a reputation as one of the world’s most innovative and progressive brands, while taking inspiration from its incredibly rich heritage.
The trick is not to allow the legendary fashion house to become overwhelmed by its history — to keep one foot in the past and one in the future without being torn apart. Achieving the perfect balance is the task facing Bruno Pavlovsky, the president of Chanel Fashion.
“Creativity is the answer,” Pavlovsky said. “It is the talent of Karl Lagerfeld, his vision of Chanel, his ability to develop the fashion house and bring it forward. That is key to the brand’s success.”
Indeed, Lagerfeld is facing a Herculean task: Chanel releases eight collections annually, including two haute-couture and six ready-to-wear collections or each time the creative director has to produce a new interpretation, a fresh twist, while remaining grounded in the values originally created by Coco Chanel.
“Today, Chanel is perhaps one of the most successful business models based on creativity,” Pavlovsky said. “In her time, Mademoiselle was an avant-garde designer, a pioneer and innovator, and we are obliged to retain this spirit in the new collections. There are qualities in the character of Karl Lagerfeld that bring him close to Gabrielle Chanel — openness, sociability, a fantastic artistic intuition and a hunch for ideas that will set trends. There was no Internet back in Mademoiselle’s time yet she was always aware of the things that were going on, and her intuition enabled her to make the right choice, again and again. Lagerfeld belongs to the same breed of artists.”
Chanel Fashion has been enthusiastic about bringing its shows to new, at times unorthodox, venues, from palaces to luxury shopping centers, with one of the most recent examples being London’s Harrods.
Chanel excels at conceiving original staging solutions: The presentation of the brand’s haute-couture Spring/Summer collection, which had its world premiere at Paris’s Grand Palais in January, saw a romantic forest brought into the glass-covered, atrium-like space of the exhibition hall. The audience sat in front of a wooden theater surrounded by trees as models paraded in front of them on fine white sand. Furthermore, Chanel made sure that the forest that was uprooted for the show was removed from an area that had been intended for new construction.
While these efforts allow audiences to see Chanel creativity from fresh new angles, the goals that the fashion house sets when choosing a location sound much more pragmatic.
“Each time we simply seek the most adequate pairing to a particular collection,” Pavlovsky said. “We give Karl Lagerfeld all the support we can in finding the ideal venue and the right music, to ensure that every element of the collection’s presentation is in harmony with the designers’ ideas. My task here is to create the most favorable climate for the creative team. The starting point is always Mr. Lagerfeld’s concept, and we take it from there when we look for locations, models and soundtracks. The presentation is taken seriously as it ensures that the designer’s ideas are understood correctly.”
Unlike some leading European fashion brands such as Gucci, Armani and Versace, Chanel has been adamant about not using the Internet to sell its fashion items. While Pavlovsky admits that the launch of an online boutique would boost sales, he stresses that such a move would go against the brand’s philosophy.
“It is not only about the fact that a Chanel dress has to fit perfectly, and, as it has sophisticated and detailed tailoring, may require some adjustments,” Pavlovsky explains. “It is essential that our customers make their choice about a Chanel item through direct physical contact — which would only be possible if a potential customer makes a visit to our boutique.”
While Chanel refrains from launching online trade, the brand has been active in establishing a complex contact with potential audiences through the Internet, using the opportunities presented by websites and even Twitter. Bruno Pavlovsky sees no contradiction in this attitude. Rather, the president of Chanel Fashion explains that the brand is keen to use the Internet as an instrument of seduction, a tool of allure.
“The Internet is important for establishing a connection between the brand and the audience, to make this aesthetic connection strong and complex,” Pavlovsky said. “We need the Internet to attract, allure and seduce, to encourage those looking at the images that we create to make a physical connection with them in the real world. It is not our goal to shift our communication with the customers from reality onto the Internet.”