SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #674 (41), Friday, June 1, 2001
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TITLE: Zoo Director Fights Relocation Plan
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The director of the St. Petersburg Zoo is locking horns with the City Culture Committee and the wife of Governor Vla dimir Yakovlev over the future of his job - as well as that of the entire zoo.
 At issue are plans by the Zoosad Fund - patronized by Yakolev's wife, Irina Yakovleva - to relocate the 136-year-old zoo and its 2,000 animals to the more verdant environs of the Dolgoye Lake district in the far northwest of the city. The zoo is currenly located on the central, urban Petrograd Side.
 The Zoosad charitable fund was created by gubernatorial decree in August 1996 - two months after Yakovlev defeated the late Anatoly Sobchak for the city's top post - with the mission of drawing investment to the perpetually ailing zoo. Ivan Korneyev, who is barely able to pay salaries on an annual City Hall budget of 10 million rubles ($36,000), was initially delighted by the fund's creation, although wary that zoo officials hadn't been consulted. 
 Ever since then, said Korneyev in an interview, the charitable foundation has been putting steady pressure on him and lodging allegations of financial mismanagment against him. Further compounding Korneyev's difficulties was the departure last year of former Culture Committee chief Vladimir P. Ya kov lev (no relation to the governor), which drastically reduced the zoo director's political clout. 
 In February, Korneyev was given an ultimatum to improve the zoo's finances inside several months, after an earlier audit apparently revealed ill financial health. Then, last Wednesday, he got a phone call from the Culture Committee telling him he was being fired. 
 Korneyev and his supporters believe that the plan to oust him and move the zoo is part of a City Hall plan to clear the animal park off of land that would constitute a real estate gold mine. 
 But Culture Committee spokesperson Vasily Kazak insists that the axe over Korneyev's head is the result of incompetence and financial mismanagement. Kazak said Korneyev's walking papers have not yet been signed, pending the results of a second scheduled audit of the zoo, which will be completed by June 5. 
 However, even in the absence of the results, Kazak confidently said in a telephone interview Monday that Korneyev was "in trouble." 
 "Unauthorized people - not cashiers - were collecting [ticket] money," said Kazak, enumerating the allegations. "Contracts with kiosk owners operating at the zoo were improperly aranged; zoo staff were forced to work extra hours without the consent of the labor union; tickets were being sold not only from the ticket booths but other places as well, and the list goes on." 
 Zoosad's general director Olga Ches nova added to the accusations that Korneyev was misusing millions of rubles, according to the news Web site fontanka.ru. The report did not specify if the money in question was provided by Zoosad, whose representatives could not be reached for further comment. 
 On Thursday, Yakovlev demanded that the audit results be handed over to the City Prosecutor. 
 "Certain people think that they can stay in their jobs without doing anything. ... The zoo is really in bad condition, and its management could have done something about it," Yakovlev told reporters.
 Korneyev has called the accusations a groundless personal attack. Indeed, he has been an energetic fundraiser, introducing initiatives like animal sponsorship and creating a system of open admission tickets, as opposed to the previous system whereby tickets were only valid on the day purchased. 
 At the heart of his pending ouster, Korneyev sees the shadow of real-estate speculators in City Hall with an eye on the zoo's prestigious location. 
 To buttress this theory, Korneyev recalled in an interview a conversation he said he had with Yakovlev while the latter was still a vice mayor in the Sobchak administration. 
 "He told me directly that, since the city doesn't have enough money to maintain its zoo properly, it would be best to sell its territory and use the money raised to construct a new zoo," said Korneyev. 
 Yakovlev's press service could not verify the conversation, and Yakovlev could not be reached for comment. 
 Yakovlev's intentions for the zoo have indeed been contradictory. In August 1996, shortly after Zoosad's founding, he vowed to pour money into the zoo at its current location and even import an elephant to make it, as he said at the time, a "real zoo."
 Such an about face five years on has led some observers to point out a conflict of interest arising from Irina Yakovlev's tireless lobbying to move the zoo. 
 "The project is known to be very dear to Irina Yakovleva and opposed by Korneyev," said Leonid Romankov, head of the Legislative Assembly's culture and education committee.
 "A new zoo would cost nearly a billion rubles to construct, and economic analysis shows the project is bankrupt." 
 Besides a critical lack of funding to build a new zoo - which even the Culture Committee's Kazak admits to - it may be the will of the people and the stubborness of the zoo itself that will resist the move: In the past 136 years, there have been five attempts to move the zoo or close it down, and all have failed. 
 Furthermore, a poll of 2,000 visitors conducted by the zoo indicated more than 90 percent want the current zoo to remain, even if a new one is eventually built. And 83 percent said the money should simply be spent to refurbish the current zoo.

TITLE: The Joke's On Putin In Humor Collection
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalyev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: "President Vladimir Putin has released a new program for reform. Its first goal: 'To make people rich and happy. (List of people attached.)'"
 Don't panic. This objective will not cause heated debate in the State Duma - because it is just one of more than a hundred Putin jokes featured in a small book published in St. Petersburg earlier this month.
 The book's compiler, Dmitry Pe re vyaz kin - who is a member of one of the city's municipal councils - collected the jokes mostly among friends and colleagues, after finding that the existing humor on Putin lacked variety.
 "I tried to look on the Web, but the same jokes keep surfacing on all the sites," Perevyazkin said at a press conference Thursday. "I presented a broader assortment of jokes in this book, including critical ones."
 And there are certainly plenty of the latter:
 "Putin calls in the finance minister and says: 'Listen, what's going on with the economy?'
 "'Er, Vladimir Vladimirovich, I can explain. ...'
 "'No, no, you don't need to explain. I can do that myself. Just tell me, what's going on?'"
 Some of the jokes may offend readers' sensibilities. For example, on the sinking of the Kursk nuclear submarine: "A navy officer: 'Mr. President, I have good news and bad news.' Putin: 'What's the good news?' 'Those Gra nit anti-submarine missiles we have really work.'"
 But Perevyazkin did not seem worried about any possible repercussions of his joke book.
 "I didn't have any problems printing the book. I just did some market research and chose the publishing house that offered best terms," Pe re vyazkin, a member of the Yabloko party, said in a telephone interview on Wednesday.
 A small print run of 5,000 copies, published by St. Petersburg-based Di zain press, will be sold in suburban commuter trains, according to Perevyazkin, who has already collected 80 more jokes for a second edition this fall.
 The book is divided into sections, including Putin and freedom of speech, Putin and elections, his way of thinking, catastrophes, the outhouse, children and economics.
 Many of the jokes play on claims by Putin's critics that the president has a strong autocratic streak, akin to that of Soviet-era leaders - some of whom figure in Perevyazkin's collection.
 "Stalin appears to Putin in a dream, and asks: 'Can I do anything to help you?' Putin says: 'Why is everything here so bad - the economy is falling to pieces, and so on. What am I to do?'
 "Stalin, without pausing for thought, answers: 'Execute the entire government, and paint the walls of the Kremlin blue.'
 "'Why blue?' Putin asks.
 "Stalin replies: 'I had a feeling that you would only want to discuss the second part.'"
 According to local media reports, presidential press officer Alexei Gromov declined to comment on the jokes, saying he "had not seen the book yet." But he did say Putin had heard other jokes about himself and his reaction, according to Gromov, was a healthy laugh.
 In Soviet times, humor lampooning political figures or the quality of life was perhaps the most widespread form of dissidence, and it was not unheard of for people to be arrested for spreading jokes construed as anti-Soviet. A whiff of that era is discernible in "Jokes About Putin."
 "Our life five years from now:
 "Don't think.
 "If you think something, don't say it.
 "If you think it and say it, don't write it.
 "If you think it, say it and write it, don't sign it.
 "If you think it, say it, write it and sign it, don't be surprised."

TITLE: Scientists To Report Foreign Ties
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The Academy of Sciences has ordered Russian scientists to report to state authorities on contacts with foreign officials, according to a directive shown to journalists by Duma deputy and human-rights campaigner Sergei Kovalyov on Wednesday. 
 According to news reports, one directive orders the heads of laboratories and research groups throughout Russia to inform the academy's "foreign department" by June 1 of any agreements and international cooperation deals they may have entered into. 
 Science officials are required to inform the department of any visit by a foreigner to their laboratories and of any application for financial aid from foreign organizations. They are also to present a report after any scientific mission abroad, and to provide a copy to the authorities of any article sent abroad for publication. 
 Scientists from the Academy refused to comment on the directives. But Kovalyov, presenting the documents to a Moscow press conference, told journalists the directive showed that Russia, "a country where the KGB has taken power," was becoming "a police state," Agence France Press reported. 
 The May 24 directive orders "specialist departments" and heads of research institutes to "carry out an analysis of international agreements signed by scientific bodies to ... prevent the transmission abroad of information concerning national security," the agency said. 
 It calls for "strengthening controls on articles being prepared and the exchange of information with foreign countries" in order "not to permit the publication abroad of unauthorized information."
 Moreover, it calls for "organizational and technical measures to ensure the security of limited-access information when [Russian] scientists link up with international computer networks, particularly the Internet," Ekho Moskvy reported.

TITLE: Justice Ministry Acts To Limit Prisoners' Pardons
AUTHOR: By Ana Uzelac
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A.G. was 14 years old when he and his brother stole a leather jacket and 10 rubles from a passer-by. The police caught them and returned the jacket and the money to the owner.
 But A.G. was sentenced to five years in prison.
 After three years, his wardens agreed he had long repented of the crime and said he was even "exerting a positive influence" on other teenagers. So the presidential pardon commission recommended he be set free.
 A year ago, this would have been enough to send A.G. home. But this year, President Vladimir Putin did not set him free.
 Neither did he pardon V. Postokhailov, sentenced to five years for stealing three chickens and two turkeys. Nor could Y. Kozlova, a mother of three sentenced to five years for stealing a goat, count on the president's mercy.
 Actually, no Russians have been pardoned this year. Anatoly Pristavkin, head of the presidential pardons commission, said the only person Putin pardoned in the past six months was American businessman Edmond Pope, who was sentenced to 20 years for spying.
 Pristavkin and other commission members say none of Russia's estimated 950,000 prisoners is being pardoned because of a concerted campaign by the Justice Ministry to put the pardon system under its control. 
 "We're standing on the verge of destruction," commission member and human rights activist Valery Borshchov said in a recent telephone interview. He confirmed that no Russians have been pardoned since the end of September.
 Founded in 1992, the pardons commission has represented the voice of Russian society, and it worked hand in hand with former president Boris Yeltsin. The commission's 17 members - who include human right activists, writers, a priest and a former judge - meet every Tuesday to sift through a stack of gruesome files containing the stories of hundreds of people stuck in overcrowded prisons and decide whom to recommend for pardoning.
 The country's imperfect legal system gives them plenty to chose from: As many as 57,000 people have been pardoned since its forming, the commission members say. The numbers even surged in the past two years. In 1999 there were more than 11,000 pardons and that number topped 12,000 in 2000. 
 And then the pardons abruptly stopped. 
 Both Pristavkin and Borshchov said the drop in pardons is supported by a group of presidential aides acting on behalf of the Justice Ministry.
 A highly placed Kremlin source agreed. "The Justice Ministry is guilty of trying to step between the president and the prisoner, which they have no right to do under the Constitution," the official said on condition of anonymity. "The ministry simply doesn't want society to have a say in it."
 Justice Minister Yury Chaika wrote a letter to the presidential administration on May 18 asking that the ministry be allowed to "prepare the materials" for pardoning convicts, meaning that the Justice Ministry wants to act as a filter between prisoners and the pardons commission.
 The materials, Chaika explains, would be prepared with assistance from the Prosecutor General's Office, the courts and the Interior Ministry.
 In the letter, Chaika complains that the number of pardons is surging and claims - without providing examples or figures - that there are instances of pardoned prisoners committing new crimes.
 "This exerts a very negative influence on society and undermines the authority of courts, even that of the president of the Russian Federation," Chaika writes.
 The justice minister's appeal is getting results. For the first time in the history of the commission, Putin recently sent the Justice Ministry a list of people recommended for pardoning by the commission and asked for its opinion.
 The result, commission members say, is that the Justice Ministry has nixed 269 of the 300 or so names of people recommended for pardons. All of the people mentioned at the beginning of this story were among them. A list of the denied pardons identified the prisoners only by their initials.
 "The commission is continuing to ask that the members of criminal organizations and people accused of serious and very serious crimes be pardoned," Deputy Justice Minster Yury Kalinin wrote in an instruction sent to prison wardens on Oct. 20.
 He asks the wardens to "sharply cut down the number of prisoners' pardon requests."
 What can be construed as a serious crime varies. Robbery, for example, is considered a serious crime if a person habitually steals or steals a large amount. 
 "In practice, judges often interpret two kids stealing a box of chocolates as theft by an organized group, and they end up with long prison sentences," said pardons commission member Borshchov.
 "The ministry's approach to the problem is disturbingly mechanical," he said. "You can't simply ask that everybody accused of serious crimes be treated equally. You have to approach each case individually. And that's exactly what the ministry doesn't want."
 It is unclear why the ministry - which manages the country's overcrowded prisons on an insufficient budget - would want to cut down on the number of people leaving the system. 
 Justice Ministry spokesperson Kalyagin maintains the ministry wants the prisons emptied, only more systematically. 
 "We were one of the authors of the bill that will limit the number of crimes for which a person can end up in prison and will introduce alternative forms of punishment," he said.
 The bill, signed into law by Putin earlier this year, is a package of amendments to the Criminal Code and three other laws regulating the country's penal policy. The amendments should cut down the prison population by 300,000 over the next three years, Kalyagin said.

TITLE: Putin Announces Plans for Housing Reform
AUTHOR: By Valeria Korchagina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin ordered the government Tuesday to draw up a $20 billion plan to overhaul the country's rusting housing sector by July 1, a move that will force households to foot the entire bill for housing expenses for the first time since 1917.
 Government officials agreed at a round-table meeting that the reforms to curb the widespread municipal and state subsidies for expenses such as heating, electricity, sewage and water should be spread out over a period of nine years. During that time companies offering housing services would be able to upgrade their services to become more competitive.
 "We should admit that the multiple accidents in utilities are not the result of an extraordinary event," Putin said in televised remarks, referring to Russia's frequent water and heating shortages. "They are the result not only of poor management, but primarily of our habit of putting things off until later."
 The housing sector must "be awakened from hibernation," Putin was quoted by Interfax as saying. "By July 1, the government will have to complete the final details of the project and present it to the president."
 The housing sector involves a large number of services including utilities and building repair. Besides water, electricity and heating, housing expenses include garbage disposal, maintenance, sewage disposal, gas, as well as access to buildings' television and radio antennae.
 Maintenance and replacement costs are built into the gross - the subsidized - amount of the bill. However, much of the funding that comes from the federal and municipal budgets is delayed, leaving services with growing debts and insufficient cash to cover replacement costs. 
 As a result, 60 percent of the housing infrastructure is worn down, according to a report presented at the government meeting Tuesday. One-third of all water pipes and 17 percent of sewage pipes urgently need to be replaced. Waste is exceeding the capacity of sewage pipes by 60 percent, and 40 percent of those pipes have been in use for 25 years or more.
 Housing sector reform is likely to become Putin's first across-the-board unpopular move. Regardless of how gradually the reform would be implemented, it will lead to a noticeable drop in disposable incomes.
 Fear of nationwide protests have prevented previous governments from taking any serious steps to reform the creaking housing sector. Housing costs were frozen for the first few years after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, which forced the government to pick up nearly 100 percent of all of the expenses. A very mild growth in utilities prices began only in the mid-1990s.
 "People these days treat housing reforms just like another threatened hike in housing expenses," Putin was quoted by Interfax as saying. "We all have to understand that solving the problem at the expense of worsening the quality of life is not an option and no one has the right to do it [make reforms] that way."
 Putin said 120 billion rubles ($4.1 billion) a year is spent by the federal and municipal budgets in housing subsidies. Some 3 billion rubles ($102.5 million) actually end up in the form of discounts on household bills, while the rest is consumed by the those enterprises that actually provide the necessary housing services. 
 "The main portion of the subsidies should go to citizens' personal accounts, then their rights will be maintained," Putin said.
 Households would have to apply for subsidies after the reforms are implemented.
 Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Khris tenko said the government is planning to work out a system to assess individuals' wealth and thereby select those most eligible for subsidies, Interfax reported.
 Khristenko also said the federal government was ready to help regions organize subsidies during the nine-year transition.
 The transition will take place in three phases.
 From this year until 2003, legislation supporting the reforms will be hammered out, State Council Chairman Leonid Polezhayev told Interfax. Also during this period, debts currently owed to the housing sector by the state and municipal budgets would have to be repaid and equipment would have to besignificantly upgraded to meet modern standards.
 During the second phase, from 2004 to 2005, companies that offer housing services would be privatized in order to boost competition on the market.
 The sector should be ready to operate on its own by 2010.
 Some 600 billion to 700 billion rubles ($20.5 billion to $24 billion) would be needed to carry out the reforms, Polezhayev said.
 He did not say in what phase all households would have to pay their housing expenses in full.

TITLE: No Merger for Unity, Fatherland-All Russia
AUTHOR: By Oksana Yablokova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The much-touted plans for a merger of the pro-Kremlin Unity party and the Fatherland-All Russia movement melted away Thursday when the leaders of the two groups decided to restrict their cooperation to forming a coalition ahead of the 2003 parliamentary elections.
 Unity leader Sergei Shoigu announced the decision after meeting Thursday with Fatherland-All Russia leader Yury Luzhkov. Shoigu refused to elaborate but he downplayed any feelings of bitterness over the failed merger.
 "You expect bad news from us, while we will bring you good news tomorrow," Interfax reported Shoigu as saying. A joint council assigned to work on forming a coalition was to meet Friday, he said. 
 The two groups announced in April that they intended to merge and thus create the largest faction in the State Duma. But right off the bat they were faced with a number of problems.
 One was that Fatherland was not willing to disband and join Unity, and if both disbanded to form a new party, it would have to re-register with the Justice Ministry. But the law allows political parties to participate in elections only after they have been registered for a year, and if the Duma were dissolved before then, the new party would be unable to participate in new elections. This was a risk neither party was willing to take.
 Another problem was that although neither Unity nor Fatherland has a clear ideology, their positions proved just different enough to trip up a merger. While Unity supports the liberal economic principles of the Kremlin, Fatherland stands firmly by its more socialist principles.
 "It turned out that there are fewer things that bring them together than pull them apart," said Andrei Ryabov of the Carnegie Endowment for Internation Peace in Moscow.
 Ryabov said the idea behind the union had been to combine Unity's clout in the regions with the strong personalities of Fatherland, which in addition to Mayor Luzhkov has a former prime minister, two former deputy prime ministers and a number of other former cabinet ministers in its ranks.
 One aim of the merger was to put an end to the Communists' dominance of the Duma since 1995. It would have given the new party a total of 131 votes in the 450-seat Duma, surpassing the 129 votes controlled by the Communist Party and its Agrarian allies.
 But it was not at all clear that Unity, at least, would derive any benefit in elections from a merger. According to a recent poll conducted by VTsIOM, Unity enjoys the support of 22 percent of voters, while Fatherland can count on 6 percent of the vote. But if the two parties merged, they would still attract only 22 percent of the vote. One assumption is that many of Fatherland's supporters would defect to the Communists rather than vote for Unity.

TITLE: Tycoon Offers To Back SPS Breakaway Parties
AUTHOR: By Ana Uzelac
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Splinter liberal groups that refused to join the Union of Right Forces, or SPS, last weekend will receive financial backing from self-exiled tycoon Boris Berezovsky, their leaders announced Tuesday.
 State Duma deputies Sergei Yushenkov and Vladimir Golovlyov both refused to join SPS at its founding congress on Saturday, saying they opposed its "servile" attitude toward the Kremlin and its insufficiently liberal charter.
 They also announced they would create a new liberal party intended to become the voice of small and medium business. 
 Yushenkov and Golovlyov said in telephone interviews Tuesday that they met with Berezovsky in France last week and secured a pledge for funding for the new party. Both deputies declined to give figures.
 According to Yushenkov, Berezovsky would finance only specific projects rather than the party as a whole. The first such project would be a congress of small- and medium-businessmen, which Yushenkov is planning to organize later this year.
 Earlier this month, Berezovsky announced plans to form a "real" liberal opposition to President Vla di mir Putin.
 But both Yushenkov and Golovlyov denied their planned party was the one Berezovsky had in mind. 
 "As far as I know, he will soon announce the formation of his own party," Yushenkov said. "We will only cooperate ... where our political goals coincide." 
 Berezovsky - a former Kremlin power broker who publicly broke with Putin last year - is living in self-imposed exile abroad, in part to avoid questioning in a criminal investigation into allegations of large-scale embezzlement at Aeroflot.
 Vladimir Golovlyov said the SPS dissidents were also negotiating with other businessmen about helping the new group financially, but declined to give names.
 Earlier, the influential president of Alfa Bank, Pyotr Aven, said that he would be willing to support SPS if it became a "normal right-wing opposition" group. But Golovlyov said that it was unlikely Aven would extend his help to the splinter group.
 SPS's newly elected leader Boris Nemt sov responded to his colleagues' decision by saying he would not comment on "madness," adding that Yushenkov and Golovlyov are still members of SPS's Duma faction.
 Yushenkov said that he believed Berezovsky's motives for helping them were noble. "Now that he has lost his influence on the government, he realizes the benefits of the rule of law and the system of checks and balances."

TITLE: Russia Makes Plans To Win Over Tourists
AUTHOR: By Lyuba Pronina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Russia must embark on a global advertising blitz to drum up tourists - and their fat wallets, the Economic Development and Trade Ministry said on Tuesday.
 The country must also ease the burden of getting tourist visas and look for investment to upgrade its tourism sector, the ministry said in unveiling a plan aimed at kick-starting tourism.
 "This is the first such concept of its kind since a federal program for tourism development in Russia was approved in 1996," said Natela Shengeliya, chief of the ministry's tourism department.
 The ministry estimates that 6.8 million tourists came to Russia last year, or about 1 percent of tourists worldwide. A third of the tourists came from countries other than those of the former Soviet republics and they spent $374 million, the ministry said.
 By comparison, tourism brought Hungary some $2.4 billion, the Czech Republic $3.6 billion and Poland $6.1 billion in 1999, according to the latest figures available.
 With such a drastic difference in mind, the Economic Development and Trade Ministry has taken a hard look at the barriers that are keeping visitors away, said Vladimir Strzhalkovsky, deputy economic development and trade minister. The main hurdles the ministry has come up with include perceptions of an unfriendly visa regime, an underdeveloped tourism infrastructure, a lack of a favorable tax regime and low-quality services.
 A first step toward winning foreigners over will come in the form of an aggressive advertising and marketing campaign. Promotional programs will air on radio and television stations around the world, while Internet users will be able to visit an as-yet unopened Web site offering tourist information.
 In addition, brochures, maps and posters will be sent to travel agencies and exhibitions around the world. Such information will also be sent to tourist information centers in Russian cities with large numbers of tourists.
 The ministry said, however, that that there's a crying need to bring housing facilities up to an acceptable standard for tourists.
 Of the 9,000 accommodations available to guests, only a handful can live up to the standards of international tourists. The few that do, however, are exorbitantly expensive. 
 The ministry plans to push to open two- and three-star hotels. 
 Strzhalkovsky said the Golden Ring - cities including Suzdal, Vladimir, Yaroslavl and Rostov - would be ideal locations for a chain of small, 50-room hotels.
 "We need to construct such hotels or we will lose the market," said Valery Golubev, head of the St. Petersburg tourism committee. 
 He said the northwestern city has 1,900 rooms suitable for tourists but needs 30,000.
 Less-developed venues such as the Far East require even more attention.
 "The number of tourists would increase dozens of times if we had decent hotels," Strzhalkovsky said. "Now their capacity is limited. People have to wait up to two years to go to Kamchatka."
 He said that to fulfill the ministry's plan the federal government will have to earmark 120 million rubles ($4.1 million) a year, an amount that he acknowledged was meager compared to spending in other European countries.
 The plan presented on Tuesday will be reviewed until July 15 and then sent for the government's consideration in the third quarter of this year, Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref said.

TITLE: Chechnya Luring Refugees Home With Offer of Food
AUTHOR: By Yevgenia Borisova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The 150,000 Chechen refugees living in Ingushetia must return to Chechnya by the end of June if they want to receive government food supplies, said officials from the pro-Moscow Chechen government.
 The Chechen government previously had given refugees until the end of the year, but last week Prime Minister Stanislav Ilyasov signed a decree moving the deadline forward, his spokesperson Alla Vlazneva said Wednesday.
 "We need to raise the republic from the ashes," she said in a telephone interview from Grozny. "Who else will do it if not Chechen residents?"
 Those who decide to stay in Ingushetia will still receive aid provided by humanitarian organizations working in the republic, according to Danish Refugee Council spokesperson Zelim Yandarov, who is based in Stavropol. 
 His group, which has the biggest aid operation in Ingushetia and Chechnya, distributes food parcels under the UN World Food Program.
 The federal government is supposed to supply the refugees in Ingushetia with hot food and bread - spending 15 rubles per person per day - but it has not done so for two months, Interfax reported, citing Ingush President Ruslan Aushev.
 Ilyasov's government says refugees who move back to Chechnya will be given food. But it is not the fear of going hungry in Chechnya that is keeping refugees in Ingushetia. 
 People are not willing to return while military actions are still going on and many are afraid of federal troops.
 "I have just come from Argun," said Zaina, who did not want her last name printed, in a telephone interview from her Moscow home. 
 "Every day people are dying there. Cleansing operations are on often, and the behavior of the federal troops is insulting and humiliating to us. I won't to return to Chechnya in the next 10 years."
 Eliza Musayeva, who heads the office of the Memorial human-rights organization in the Ingush capital, Nazran, said envoys from Ilyasov's government and Akhmad Kadyrov's administration are "softly pushing people back to Chechnya from the Ingush camps."
 "They promise them they will be paid up to 300,000 rubles if they come back," she said Wednesday by telephone from Nazran. 
 "But nothing is being paid there, and they can't return [to Ingushetia] because the Ingush branch of the Nationalities and Migration Ministry refuses to register them in Nazran a second time."
 Vlazneva denied any such promises are being given.
 She said refugees who go back to Chechnya will dismantle homes that cannot be restored and use the salvaged construction materials for their own homes. 
 Only 354 Chechens from the camps in Ingushetia have moved to newly opened refugee centers in Chechnya, Vlazneva said. 
 Seven centers have been opened in Argun, a still-volatile town not far from Grozny, and in three villages close to the border with Ingushetia: Znamenskaya, Sernovodsk and Assinovskaya. 
 Some refugees have been housed in renovated dormitories and other buildings, some in tent camps.
 Five more centers are to open soon in these same locations and 10 in Grozny by the end of June, she said. 
 It was not clear if the centers could accommodate all 150,000 refugees in Ingushetia. 
 The centers in Grozny are designed for 15,000, Vlazneva said.
 If the military campaign in Chechnya goes on unchanged, Aushev said, most Chechen refugees will spend another winter in Ingushetia, where conditions are bad.
 "Having such a lot of people in Ingushetia, whose own population is only 315,000, is a big burden for us and we would be only too happy if all of them went back to Chechnya," Aushev was quoted as saying.
 But the refugees should not return to Chechnya until they receive guarantees that their basic human rights will be protected, he added.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Kiev's Chernomyrdin 
 

MOSCOW (AP) - Amid concerns about alleged muscle-flexing by Russia in Ukraine, former prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin on Wednesday took up his new post as ambassador to Kiev - and immediately plunged into a political and religious controversy. 
 Chernomyrdin criticized Pope John Paul II's plans to visit Ukraine next month, echoing the position of the Russian Orthodox Church, which has jurisdiction over most parishes in majority-Orthodox Ukraine. 
 "The pope's visit is Ukraine's affair, but maybe it's not very good and not very right. We are Slav Orthodox. I don't think there should be cracks in our spirituality," Chernomyrdin said. 
 President Vladimir Putin named Chernomyrdin to the post earlier this month and also appointed him special presidential envoy on Russian-Ukrai nian trade and economic relations.
 
 
Hanssen: I'm Innocent
 

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (AP) - Former FBI agent Robert Hanssen pleaded innocent Thursday to federal charges of spying for Moscow. Hanssen, at his arraignment at U.S. District Court in this Virginia suburb, said nothing in his brief appearance. His "not guilty" plea was entered on his behalf, and plans were set for an October trial. 
 "We will be filing motions in federal court attacking this indictment," his lawyer, Plato Cacheris, told reporters. In a federal indictment, Hanssen is accused of passing U.S. secrets to Moscow for 15 years in exchange for $1.4 million in cash and diamonds. The arraignment came after lawyers for Hanssen and the government reportedly failed to negotiate a plea.
 One issue was the prosecution's insistence that the death penalty could be imposed for several of the 21 counts against the FBI agent. Asked about this Thursday, Cacheris said he wasn't sure the death penalty would be constitutional. 
 
 
Russia Backs Arafat
 

MOSCOW (AP) - Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov on Tuesday urged the Israeli government to end construction of settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, calling a moratorium on building a key condition for ending hostilities in the Middle East. 
 He and visiting Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat also voiced support for the Egyptian-Jordanian initiative to end violence between Palestinians and Israelis, and for following the recommendations set out in the Mitchell report. 
 The joint Egyptian-Jordanian proposal for a cease-fire and the report by an international commission include calls to stop building Jewish settlements. 
 Arafat later met with President Vladimir Putin, who emphasized the need to end violence. 
 "Every day brings new casualties on both the Palestinian and Israeli side," Putin said. "Together with you, we are suffering the tragedy of the Palestinian people and all the peoples of the region."
 
 
Embassy Attack
 

MINSK (Reuters) -Unidentified attackers threw a hand grenade into the compound of the Russian Embassy in Belarus hours before President Vla di mir Putin was to arrive in the city for a summit, Belarussian officials said Thursday.
 An official at Belarus' Security Council said no one was hurt in the incident, which happened shortly before midnight on Wednesday. He said the grenade hit a tree and bounced back towards the perimeter fence before going off.
 The official said the grenade was of a type designed to produce more sound than destruction. Belarussian authorities said President Alexander Luka shen ko had convened security officials in emergency session to discuss the attack. Belarus is hosting a summit of 12 former Soviet republics on Friday. 



TITLE: Vyakhirev Bounced as Head of Gazprom
AUTHOR: By Anna Raff
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Veteran Gazprom chief executive Rem Vyakhirev was ousted Wednesday and replaced with a longtime associate of President Vladimir Putin's in a move that signaled an imminent overhaul of the natural gas monopoly.
 However, the board meeting that sacked Vyakhirev also chose him as its preferred candidate to fill the post of board chairman, leaving the balance of power in the company unclear.
 Walking out of the meeting, government board representative Dmitry Medvedev said that the voting was unanimous on both points, meaning that Vyakhirev voted with the board to terminate his own contract.
 Deputy Energy Minister Alexei Miller was tapped to head Gazprom.
 In the days and hours leading up to Wednesday's announcement, analysts and the media scrambled to predict Vyak hirev's fate. The Financial Times reported that Deputy Prime Minister Vik tor Khristenko was the front-runner to become chief executive. Other media suggested Vyakhirev would remain CEO until the company's annual shareholders meeting June 29 and that a successor would be named at a later date.
 Speculation picked up steam around noon Wednesday when Putin called the Gazprom board to the Kremlin for talks. It was unclear what was discussed.
 Wednesday evening, Putin said at a meeting attended by Prime Minister Mik hail Kasyanov, Miller and Vyak hi rev that he hoped that "this kind of leadership arrangement will allow us to keep a good balance between new strengths and experience."
 "Vyakhirev's experience can and must be utilized," Putin said.
 The president has been seen as a vital force pushing for reform at the monopoly ever since he announced plans in April to raise the cap on foreign ownership and increase transparency. Currently, the cap on foreign ownership is 20 percent.
 Miller said his first priorities would include increasing the company's capitalization, ensuring the transparency of expenditures and maximizing investments.
 "Management's task is to build on [Gazprom's] achievements," he said.
 Vyakhirev said he was satisfied with the board's decision.
 "We went through all the basic points and under what conditions all this would take place," Vyakhirev said. "When I say 'conditions,' I mean that Gaz prom management can't be broken up and thus allow the chaos evident in our other industries."
 Vyakhirev started his career in the Soviet Gas Ministry and took the reins at Gazprom when his predecessor, Viktor Chernomyrdin, was named prime minister in 1992.
 Investors have harangued Gazprom for months for its lack of transparency, and minority shareholders have accused its management of asset-stripping.
 Analysts say that shares in Gazprom - the world's largest gas producer, the largest natural gas supplier to Europe and the biggest contributor to Russia's federal coffers - should be among the most valuable in Russia.
 "I feel good about this [decision] because we've been waiting for it for a long time," said James Henderson, head of research at Renaissance Capital. "With the backing of Putin, Miller will at least be able to get in there and make the situation more transparent.
 "But it's clearly a massive bureaucracy that's been operating for many a year, and he's a relatively young guy with little experience. There's a lot of incumbent management in place, and he could be effectively ignored."
 Former Finance Minister Boris Fyodorov, a Gazprom board member representing minority shareholders, has led the fight for Vyakhirev's ouster. He was the first to accuse Gazprom of asset-stripping last year. "I hope that with the coming of the new CEO we will be able to calm passions and that talks with the management will take a normal and constructive direction," Fyodorov said.
 Fyodorov also expressed doubt that the six current board members representing management will make it onto the next board of directors. The Simonovsky District Court on May 24 froze 5.5 percent of Gazprom shares owned by management. That effectively prevents management from voting with those shares at the annual meeting.
 Although Vyakhirev's ouster breathed new life into Gazprom shares, some observers said they were less optimistic than investors and feared that any overhaul at the company was a long way down the road.
 Corporate governance issues have plagued the company since its inception, Vladimir Pribylovsky, head of the Panorama think tank, said. Past dividends, which amounted to kopeks, have been a "pure mockery" for Gaz prom's common shareholders, who have looked on while top managers have received salaries upward of $10,000 a month.
 The government owns 38 percent of Gazprom, while Russian shareholders have about 50 percent. Twelve percent is in foreign hands.
 Gennady Krasovsky, an analyst at the NIKoil brokerage, was upbeat about Miller's appointment, saying it could mark a turning point for the company.
 Krasovsky pointed out several recent Gazprom corporate governance violations, including the transfer of $2.8 billion to a Gazprom-managed fund of doubtful importance in the fourth quarter of last year. "If it weren't for that, Gazprom's 2000 net income would have exceeded $4 billion instead of the $2.2 billion announced," Krasovsky said.
 And hundreds of pages of documents uncovered or reviewed by The St. Petersburg Times show that top Gazprom managers have stripped assets potentially worth billions of dollars from the company.
 Itera, an independent natural gas producer, has also benefited from Gaz prom's philanthropy. Gazprom has sold gas to Itera for below-market prices and sold it subsidiaries at nominal value.
 "Without a CEO change, there was no chance," Renaissance Capital's Henderson said. "But Putin took some concrete action. It shows that Putin is committed to change. Let's hope that the next few steps show the same thing."

TITLE: Oligarchs Stunned by Choice of New Chief
AUTHOR: By Anna Raff
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The newly appointed head of Gazprom, Alexei Miller, faced Thursday what could just turn out to be the most challenging endeavor of his career as he set foot into his new offices with a Kremlin mandate to overhaul the world's largest natural-gas company.
 The significance of the shakeup at Gazprom was not lost on anyone at a meeting on Thursday of many of Russia's wealthiest businessmen at the Kremlin where Miller was introduced to the group. Miller and ousted Gaz prom chief executive Rem Vyak hi rev, who is expected to be named chairman of Gazprom's board, sat at opposite ends of the table during the meeting of the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs.
 Union president Arkady Volsky said the shuffle had left the group of oligarchs stunned. 
 "What can I say about Miller's appointment?" Volsky said. "We have to come to our senses first. We need time. The Energy Ministry has a good opinion of him."
 But investor enthusiasm - which sent Russian-traded shares to fresh highs on Wednesday - cooled off again on Thursday. Domestic shares, which are restricted for sale to foreigners, closed up 0.42 percent at 12.05 rubles ($0.414), while American Depository Receipts traded in London continued to climb. The ADRs, each of which is the equivalent of 10 Russian shares, rose 7.3 percent to close at $9.55. 
 Gazprom's largest foreign investor, Ruhrgas of Germany, said it was relieved that Vyakhirev looks set to stay onboard the company.
 "That suggestion wouldn't be a bad idea," Ruhrgas spokesperson Antje Nickel said. "We are also glad that there was a unanimous decision on this very important topic. We also don't doubt that our relationship with Gazprom will continue to be a positive one because it's beneficial to both sides."
 Ruhrgas, Germany's main producer of gas, holds a stake of about 5 percent stake in Gazprom and recently expressed interest in acquiring additional shares.
 The government controls about 38 percent of Gazprom.
 Wednesday's investor enthusiasm over the changes at Gazprom spilled onto the pages of Thursday's newspapers across the country.
 "Since Putin's election, this is the most serious evidence that he's in charge," said the business daily Vedomosti. The daily newspaper Kommersant echoed that observation, describing Vyakhirev's departure as a "landmark event."
 "One of the stalwarts of [former president Boris] Yeltsin's era is gone," the newspaper said.
 The newspaper Nezavisimaya Ga ze ta described the shakeup as nothing less than a kind of coup d'etat.
 "The appointment of Alexei Miller as chairman of the Gazprom board turned out to be literally shocking to the company management, who learned about the appointment one hour before the board meeting began, during a conversation with the president in the Kremlin."

TITLE: Miller Latest Petersburg Loyalist Named to Major Posting
AUTHOR: By Valeria Korchagina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - He is young, relatively unknown and, in fact, a dark horse. But Alexei Miller is yet another member of Vla dimir Putin's St. Petersburg team who has been brought to the very top.
 Miller, 39, was named the new executive of Gazprom on Wednesday. He had been serving as a deputy energy minister.
 Miller's career until Wednesday was a straightforward path from being a low-ranking St. Petersburg bureaucrat to a deputy minister - with one notable exception. He built his career under the wing of President Putin. The two men have known each other for at least a decade, and in the mid-'90s, Mil ler was Putin's deputy at the foreign relations department in St. Petersburg.
 It seems it was Miller's loyalty to Putin, more than any qualifications, that earned him the post of the chief executive at the world's largest gas company.
 Putin personally received Miller in the Kremlin after the appointment.
 Miller is the latest in a chain of Pu tin allies who have taken over top posts in Russia. Most recently, Putin appointed Boris Gryzlov, an old acquaintance and the head of the pro-Kremlin Unity faction in the State Du ma, as interior minister. Also in April, he made Sergei Ivanov, a longtime colleague from the Federal Security Service, defense minister.
 Miller was born in 1962 in St. Petersburg, then Leningrad. In 1984, he graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Finance and Economics. He holds a doctorate in economics.
 Miller's bureaucratic career started in 1991 when he joined the economic reform committee of the Leningrad city administration. He left City Hall in 1996 to head the investment division of the St. Petersburg Sea Port. In 1999, he was appointed head of the Baltic Pipeline System, a project to link Russia's oil reserves to the Baltic Sea.
 He was called to Moscow to join the Energy Ministry as a deputy a year ago. There, he developed energy strategies and supervised energy ties with the West and organizations such as OPEC.
 Miller is married and has a son.
 Pro-Kremlin politicians praised Mil ler's appointment, while analysts and liberals said the move was a mixed bag.
 "From a business viewpoint, the decision is horrible," said Boris Nemtsov, leader of the Union of Right Forces faction. "This means that the Kremlin still considers Gazprom a political rather than economic structure."
 While pointing out that bringing an outsider to run Gazprom was a positive step, analysts cast doubt on Miller's managerial skills and his capacity to tame a company fiercely loyal to Vyakhirev.
 Roland Nash, chief strategist with Renaissance Capital brokerage, said the selection was largely based on Miller belonging to Putin's old team, rather than any outstanding management qualities he may possess.
 "He is known to do what Putin tells him to do. The most important qualification that he's got is his personal loyalty to Putin," Nash said.
 As Putin would have it, Miller's main goal will be to reform the gas giant by cleaning up its books and making it more investor-friendly.
 Miller spoke vaguely about his plans Wednesday, using an interview with Interfax to praise Gazprom's achievements.
 "Miller is considered to be a person close to German Gref, who is probably the only man in the country with a program to reform Gazprom," said Dmitry Av deyev, oil and gas analyst with United Financial Group. Gref is the economic development and trade minister and also a St. Petersburg associate of Putin's.
 Avdeyev said, however, that Miller's track record suggests that his views on economic and market policies are not consistently liberal. For example, during his stint as deputy energy minister, Miller insisted on tougher control over oil exports and advocated tighter state regulation of the domestic oil market.

TITLE: Oligarchs Union, Putin Hold Rap Session
AUTHOR: By Torrey Clark
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin told the country's top businessmen Thursday that foreign currency rules would be relaxed and the Central Bank and the government have until the end of June to recommend how.
 "Without a solution to this problem, many other problems in the sphere of economics cannot be solved," Putin said in remarks broadcast on television.
 Putin had previously pledged support for currency reforms in his April address to the nation.
 The 30-minute meeting with the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, referred to in the press as the "union of oligarchs," was "purposeful, efficient and fruitful," said union president Arkady Volsky.
 In addition to currency liberalization, the group discussed tax and judicial reforms and Russia's possible entrance into the World Trade Organization.
 The magnates cheered Putin's support for loosening currency controls, despite a lack of clear steps. The government's approach would be to "do no harm," Putin told the group.
 "Putin's point of view is close to ours," said Oleg Kiselyov, chairman of the Board of the Metalloinvest holding. Three things that will help prevent a negative outcome from such reforms, he said, are the amount of hard-currency earnings that must be repatriated and sold, equalizing the rights of non-residents and residents and allowing individuals and enterprises to export currency.
 Current rules force exporters to sell 75 percent of hard currency revenues to the Central Bank, which uses this mechanism as a way to control the ruble rate.
 "To stem capital flight, we must allow capital export," said Vladimir Potanin, head of the Interros group, who urged Putin to let individuals and enterprises hold foreign bank accounts and invest where they like.
 Currency liberalization would benefit Russia's major oil and metals conglomerates, which in the past year have begun buying or eyeing foreign assets.
 "Many Russian companies are expanding into other markets, and would like to acquire assets abroad. To do so, these companies need the permission of the [Central Bank], which is difficult to get. Liberalization would make it much easier to purchase foreign assets," said Yekaterina Malopheyeva, vice president of research at Renaissance Capital.
 The primary reason for capital flight is an unstable tax system, said Potanin. He told journalists that Kasyanov agreed that there should be a legal limit on the tax burden. The group is preparing proposals on a "tax cap" that should be submitted to legislators in July, said Kakha Bendukidze, head of the UralMash-Izhora heavy machines group.
 In addition to foreign investment opportunities, Potanin called for a level playing field in terms of taxes.
 "If I remember correctly what [Yukos head Mikhail] Khodorkovsky said ... the PSA regime should not be more favorable than the national tax system," Potanin told reporters, as that would create an advantage for foreign investors denied to local companies. "[The national tax regime] is becoming civilized, normalized, and transparent ... when that happens PSAs won't be necessary."
 Alexei Mordashov, general director of steel giant Severstal, raised a number of issues concerning Russia's entrance into the WTO. He said that Putin had agreed to consider the union as "one of the sides in forming Russia's position in the WTO negotiation process.

TITLE: Abramovich Questioned In Sibneft Fraud Case
AUTHOR: By Igor Semenenko
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - An investigation into oil major Sibneft went straight to the top Tuesday when the Prosecutor General's Office summoned Roman Ab ramovich to answer questions regarding large-scale fraud and theft at the company.
 The questioning of Abramovich, who controls Sibneft through subsidiary companies, surprised many Kremlin watchers who say the tycoon is closely connected to presidential Chief of Staff Alexander Voloshin and therefore "untouchable."
 "If they are going after Abramovich, then this is big news; he was the one oligarch, with the possible exception of Alexander Mamut, who was left untouched by the anti-oligarch actions last year," wrote Troika Dialog in a comment Wednesday.
 NIKoil brokerage's political analyst, Alexei Kazakov, said that the questioning of Abramovich might be part of a Kremlin plan to keep the country's business barons in check.
 At an earlier point, it looked as if the new administration was mounting a campaign only against the two most rebellious of the oligarchs, the political chess masters Vladimir Gusinsky and Boris Berezovsky, Kazakov said.
 But later all other members of the business elite close to former President Boris Yeltsin have had to face a showdown with either the Prosecutor General's Office or President Vla di mir Putin.
 "It may be that scandals will continue until all the oligarchs take their turn with the prosecutors," he said. "There are signs of a systematic approach [to dealing with the oligarchs] - it was Abramovich's turn," he said.
 Other market players said the whole affair would likely disappear soon.
 These type of accusations have never led to anything in the past, so Sibneft's story did not get much attention this time," said Steven Dashevsky, oil and gas analyst with the brokerage Aton.
 "I do not think that there is a hidden agenda here," said Michael Khlebnikov, managing director of Hypo-und Vereinsbank Capital, in a telephone interview from New York.
 Whatever the outcome, the news of Abramovich's meeting with the prosecutor startled investors and caused Sibneft's stock price to do a sort of bungee jump. After falling 5.3 percent after the news broke Tuesday, Sibneft shares rebounded 5.6 percent to close at 37.5 percent Wednesday.
 Sibneft, like the market, shrugged off the incident.
 "Both cases have no legal basis," Sibneft spokesperson Alexei Firsov said on Wednesday, referring also to a previous investigation by the Tax Police that was ultimately resolved in Sibneft's favor.
 Prosecutors are investigating Sibneft's export deals with Kyrgyzstan and several other deals that went through the Black Sea port of Tuapse.
 "We did not have export contracts handled by the Tuapse port at all," said Firsov. "As for deliveries to Central Asia, this case has already been examined by the Tax Police and was closed due to lack of substance."
 Prosecutors are reportedly accusing Sibneft of not having paid from 12 million rubles to 14 million rubles ($350,000) in taxes on its export scheme to Kyrgyzstan, but the Prosecutor General's Office declined to comment Wednesday.

TITLE: Metals Major Strengthens Bus-Production Holdings
AUTHOR: By Alla Startseva
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Siberian Aluminum said Wednesday it was continuing its quest to monopolize Russia's once-mighty bus industry.
 Having acquired Russia's two largest bus factories, LiAZ and PAZ, and a major parts supplier over the last year, Siberian Aluminum will complete the acquisition of the Kurgansky bus plant in southern Russia from gas giant Sibur by the end of June, said Sergei Zanozin, head of Siberian Aluminum's bus holding Rusavtobusprom.
 The company is also in talks with the Ryazansky and Lugansky factories, and the final deal on acquiring the Moscow region's Golitsinsky plant will be signed by the end of the week, he said.
 With the growing list of assets, Russian Aluminum now has to figure out how to turn a profit while keeping cash-strapped towns and cities across the country supplied with buses for their transportation systems.
 The task is a big one.
 With some 80 percent of the nation's registered 627,000 buses so run down that they need to be scrapped for parts, municipal transport authorities are sitting on a time bomb.
 That's where Siberian Aluminum comes in. It has already created Ruspromavto, the holding company for its car, bus, engine and parts subsidiaries, and created a division for its bus units, Rusavtobusprom. Now it is setting up Rusavtoprom, a subdivision that will handle all sales and finance issues exclusively for Rusavtobusprom.
 The reason the company needs a special company to deal solely with sales is unique. Since the largest customers are municipal governments, and most municipal governments are broke, special financing has to be worked out to keep buses on the road.
 "We can produce whatever you want. We have enough production capacity and financial resources," Zanozin said Wednesday.
 "But who will buy it - this is the problem," he said.
 Zanozin, who is also PAZ general director, said the sales target for the bus unit is $200 million this year and $250 million next year, but there are two major factors - how many more bus-related acquisitions Siberian Aluminum makes and how much help the government gives it.
 "Without government support, we won't be able to manage it," he said.
 Rusavtoprom will be charged with figuring out how to create solvent demand. That is, getting major bus consumers - state-owned transport companies and municipal and regional administrations - to pay for what they buy.
 Asked about other acquisitions, Zanozin said, "We are interested in the whole Russian bus industry - every time we say we are interested in buying a company, the price of that company immediately doubles."

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: 'Political' Ford Loan
 

St. Petersburg (SPT) - The World Bank is set to give Ford Motor Co.'s factory near St. Petersburg a $100 million loan to help cope with the "significant" political risk in Russia, Bloomberg quoted the bank as saying Thursday.
 The plant, currently being built in the Leningrad region, is Ford's first in the former Soviet Union and is scheduled to roll out its first car next year.
 The loan, from the World Bank's private lending arm International Finance Co., will "give Ford comfort," an IFC official was quoted as saying.
 "Ford wisely is trying to include heavy-hitters with good political connections, thus diversifying the risk and involving the Russian government at the highest levels." Bloomberg quoted Ariel Cohen, a Russian expert at the Washington-based Heritage Foundation research group, as saying.
 
 
Ruble Still Sliding
 

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The ruble fell to a record low against the dollar on Thursday as the Central Bank abstained from intervention in the morning session and offered only marginal support on the Interbank market, dealers said.
 "Ahead of the start of a new month the Central Bank, as it often does, allowed the dollar to rise to begin the month at a new level," said a Commerzbank dealer.
 The ruble's weighted average for today settlement fell to 29.1433 per dollar in the key unified session of eight exchanges after 29.0873 per dollar on Wednesday.
 The Central Bank cut its official next-day rate to 29.14 rubles per dollar after a previous 29.09, based as usual on the results of the unified session.
 "The ruble is getting a bit more expensive now," said Moscow Narodny Bank dealer Vasily Ushakov.
 Dealers said they expected the ruble to fluctuate in the 29.13 to 29.20 per dollar range next week.
 Ushakov added that next week's bond auction, where the Finance Ministry would offer 5 billion rubles worth of paper, would worsen ruble liquidity on the foreign exchange market.
 
 
Reserves Keep Rising
 

MOSCOW (SPT) - The Central Bank said Thursday that the nation's foreign currency and gold reserves rose to an all-time high of $33.0 billion for the week ending May 25 after $32.9 billion on May 18.
 Reserves have risen some 18 percent since the start of the year. 
 The Central Bank rarely comments on the changes in its reserve level.
 
 
$1.2Bln Budget Surplus
 

MOSCOW (SPT) - Russia had a consolidated budget surplus of 69.9 billion rubles ($1.23 billion) in the first quarter, up from 36.3 billion rubles over the same period, the State Statistics Committee, citing Finance Ministry figures, reported Thursday. 
 The consolidated budget surplus was 20.4 billion rubles in March, compared to a deficit of 3.7 billion rubles in February and a surplus of 53.2 billion rubles in January. 
 Consolidated budget revenues totaled 515.6 billion rubles in the quarter, including 449.5 billion rubles in taxes, up from respectively 366.5 billion and 313.8 billion rubles in the same period last year, Interfax reported. 



TITLE: Vimpelcom Gets Heavy Backer
AUTHOR: By Elizabeth Wolfe
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Vimpelcom got its long-awaited strategic investor Wednesday as the powerful Alfa Group agreed to pay $247 million for a blocking stake in both Vimpelcom and Vimpelcom-R, the cellular operator's regional arm.
 Vimpelcom announced the deal along with its first-quarter 2001 financials, which showed the company beat expectations and returned to profitability for the first time since the end of 1998.
 The company posted a $5.1 million profit, compared with losses of $11.8 million in the same quarter last year. EBITDA rose to $27.9 million, from $11.2 million in 2000.
 Alfa Group subsidiary Eko Telecom Ltd. acquires a 25-plus-one stake in the country's No. 2 wireless operator for $130 million and invests $117 million in Vimpelcom-R, which translates into between 25 plus one percent and 42 percent of shares, depending on whether Telenor or Vimpelcom exercise their option to invest $117 million more into Vimpelcom-R, the company said.
 Vimpelcom-R is worth $55 million, according to Vimpelcom.
 Vimpelcom said that with Alfa comes a "strong, well-recognized Russian partner with significant resources and an established record" of doing business in Russia, as well as fresh funds for its GSM operators and regional expansion.
 The regions are a growing battlefield for operators, and Vimpelcom has been viewed as the lagger behind Mobile TeleSystems and St. Petersburg holding Telecominvest.
 While Vimpelcom's GSM license area - 70 percent of the country, or 100 million people - is the largest among cellular operators, regional expansion has been hampered by a cash shortage, as well as the all-important backing of a strong domestic partner.
 Political connections are considered by analysts as no less important than money, particularly when the Communications Ministry has irked the investment community with its unclear policies on license and frequency allocation.
 "Between $400 to $500 million will go towards regional expansion over the next three or four years, CEO and general director Jo Lunder, formerly head of Telenor mobile, said in an interview following a Thursday pow-wow with Norwegian journalists who flew in for the announcement.
 Lunder has high ambitions: "I think we have a very good starting point for being the leading national GSM operator in Russia some years from now."
 The company still lacks a GSM license for St. Petersburg, where MTS plans to start up this year. Vimpelcom applied for a license a year ago, which Lunder said his company will "fight for."
 "We need to include the Northwest in our national plans," he said.
 Since reports of negotiations with Alfa surfaced in January, observers have cheered the addition of a domestic partner and fresh cash to Vimpelcom. Though in the days leading up to the announcement, they grew cautious, saying their optimism depended on the terms of the deal and how diluted minority shareholders' stakes would be.
 In the end, minority shareholders will see their stakes diluted by some 13 percent, though analysts said that the advantages of new financing outweigh that.
 Vimpelcom had been expected to give up a majority of Vimpelcom-R, a fully owned subsidiary set up in 1998 to build its network in the regions.
 Though retaining a majority in Vimpelcom-R, Alfa gets control of the board of directors and the right to appoint a CEO. The candidate list for Vimpelcom's board includes Alfa Group chairman Mikhail Fridman and head of Alfa Eko Telecom Stanislav Shekshnya.
 Vimpelcom reaped the benefits of Wednesday night's double-shot of good news on Thursday morning when both United Financial Group and Renaissance Capital upgraded their recommendations from "hold" to "buy."
 In New York on Wednesday, Vimpelcom shares ran up 14.29 percent from $15 to $17.20.

TITLE: Train Fares Up 30 Percent Ahead of Summer Season
AUTHOR: By Lyuba Pronina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Traveling by rail just got more expensive.
 The price of train tickets rose 30 percent Friday - a move the government said it hopes will help stem endemic losses incurred by the nation's rail passenger service.
 "[The price hike] had to be done, Moscow Rail spokesperson Konstantin Pashkov said Thursday. "Without it, everything would have collapsed."
 The new prices will remain in effect at least through October and maybe through the end of they year, the Anti-Monopoly Ministry said. The ministry earlier this month allowed tariffs on passenger tickets to jump 30 percent on June 1 and cargo tariffs 17.5 percent June 5.
 The Railways Ministry, which has a monopoly on the nation's railroads, had asked for 33 percent rise in the cargo tariff.
 The new prices mean travelers now pay between 320 rubles and 700 rubles ($11 to $24) for a one-way trip to Moscow, while the cost of rolling to Vladivostok is now between 2,290 rubles and 4,500 rubles. 
 Despite the price hike, however, the ministry said its passenger service would still operate at a loss.
 According to its own data, the ministry lost nearly a billion dollars last year on its passenger service - 16 billion rubles on its long-distance operations and 11 billion from its suburban routes.
 "The tariff was asked for to help keep up with inflation," Pashkov said. "Ticket sales only cover 30 percent of the cost of carrying a passenger."
 Some people heard the news and rushed to get tickets, not knowing that the new prices applied even if tickets were purchased before June 1.
 Standing at the end of a queue at one of Moscow's Yaroslavsky station ticket windows, 8-year-old Anya said that she and her mother rushed down to get tickets for a trip to Vologda next month after hearing about the price hike on television.
 "My mother heard the news on television and said that we have to buy the tickets today."
 Aside from a few confused passengers, however, officials said business was normal.
 "It's difficult to monitor whether there is a surge, and it's unlikely that people will be buying up tickets because it's not always easy to plan your holiday far in advance," the press-service of the Railways Ministry said Thursday.
 "There has been no rush whatsoever," Pashkov said.
 Pashkov also said that despite financial constraints, preparations for the peak July-August season were well underway and 5 million rubles have been spent on the effort.
 "Today 20 percent of the capacity on long-distance trains remains unused ... The situation might change during the peak period in July and August, but by then we will have extra trains in service. We are ready for that," he said, adding that Moscow Rail was adding extra carriages to trains to accommodate the rise in passengers.
 As for companies shipping products by train, next week's jump in cargo tariffs is being taken in stride.
 "[The rise] has not in any way reflected on our scheduled flows," said Alexei Smirnov, senior vice-president of UniTrans, one of the country's largest freight-forwarding companies.

TITLE: Former Minister Has Visit With Prosecutors
AUTHOR: By Oksana Yablokova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - After two days of conflicting media reports, prosecutors on Wednesday finally shed light on their recent meeting with a former government official and prominent oil executive, who was hospitalized Monday after a visit to the Prosecutor General's Office.
 Andrei Vavilov, board chairman at Severnaya Neft, a tiny oil operator in northwestern Russia, came to the Prosecutor General's Office to discuss his company's legal wrangle over a contested oil tender, according to both prosecutors and Vavilov's spokesperson.
 But during his visit, Vavilov was summoned for questioning by military prosecutors investigating a case of large-scale embezzlement in the Defense Ministry, said Leonid Troshin, spokesperson for the Prosecutor General's Office, in a telephone interview Wednesday. At the time of the alleged embezzlement, 1995 to 1996, Vavilov served as deputy finance minister. Troshin declined to say whether investigators managed to question Vavilov before his hospitalization.
 A Severnaya Neft spokesperson denied that Vavilov was "summoned" or "questioned" by military prosecutors, saying that he had been feeling unwell before his visit to prosecutors and had planned to go to the hospital Monday anyway. "Andrei Petrovich [Vavilov] was not summoned and there was no questioning," spokesperson Yelena Prorokova said, adding that Vavilov was taken to the hospital from the Prosecutor General's Office and not from the military prosecutors' headquarters.
 Troshin said that Vavilov had come to Deputy Prosecutor General Yury Bi ryu kov's office to complain about the battle over a recent tender for the right to explore the coveted Gamburtsev Val oil fields in the Nenets autonomous district.
 Severnaya Neft was awarded rights to the fields in March, but rival companies cried foul and LUKoil, one of Vavilov's most bitter enemies, challenged the tender's legitimacy in court.
 The graft case prosecutors say Vavilov was to be questioned about Monday was opened last August, when military prosecutors decided to probe the misappropriation of $450 million in federal funds allocated to the Defense Ministry. The case resulted in corruption charges against the ministry's finance chief, Colonel General Georgy Oleinik.
 Kommersant quoted an unidentified source at Severnaya Neft as saying that investigators were interested in allegations that Vavilov helped rig the privatization of oil major Sibneft by funneling large sums of federal money to commercial banks backing the tender winners, companies linked to tycoons Boris Berezovsky and Roman Abramovich.

TITLE: Mailbox
TEXT: Dear Editor,
 It is not so much a fear of crime that gives me pause to return to Russia - it is the rip-offs! [In response to a letter about tourism by J.C. Rettaliata published May 25.] With its history and wonderful culture, Russia has the potential to attract its share of visitors.
 Let me say, however, that the minute I got off of the plane at She re me tevo Airport to travel on to Siberia, I was ripped off by the Russian tour company that organized my trip. I was told that a driver would meet me to take me from the international airport to the domestic airport in another part of Moscow. This cost me $80. I later found out that it would have cost just $5 for a van ride from one side of Sheremetevo to the other, since the international and domestic airports are right next to each other, separated only by the runways.
 In Siberia I ran into the same thing. Many Russians think that all Americans have a limitless supply of money. I do not have much money and saved for many years to fulfill my lifelong dream of traveling to Russia and Siberia.
 Don't get me wrong. I am not judging all Russians based on a few people. I still love Russia, but I have no desire to return. Had I not been ripped off numerous times by many people, I most certainly would have come back to Russia. It is a matter of getting all of the money you can out of each tourist, or treating them right and getting them to return. I think the latter leads to more tourism revenues in the long run.
 <i>Wayne Sharp
 Indianapolis, Indiana
 </i>
 <i><strong>Dear Editor,
 </strong></i>I am an American and have traveled extensively through Russia, spending a total of nine months on four separate occasions. I have never spent $425 a day in Russia. [Also in response to J.C. Rettaliata's letter of May 25] I doubt that I ever spent that much in one month!
 Russia is not only one of the most beautiful and diverse countries in the world, but it is also the most economical. Just last year, I paid roughly $13 a night at a hotel located near the Chistie Prudy metro station. I sat across from the Lubyanka at an outdoor cafe, enjoyed several beers and an ample meal with a friend and spent less than $15.
 In addition to the view, good food and cold beer, we also had a little Russian entertainment - young girls stood in front of the cafe and casually attracted the attention of male drivers. Those that pulled over, drove around the block and down the alley that ran parallel to the cafe. The girl then joined the driver and a while later returned to the cafe and gave money to a large, leather-clad gentleman at a nearby table. We found it ironic that this took place in the shadow of the formerly most-feared building in the world.
 But I digress. My point is that no one should be spending $425 a day in a country where American cigarettes are less than a dollar, a bottle of beer is less than 10 rubles, a traditional Russian meal for two can be found for less than five dollars and most tourist attractions are either free (the Lenin mausoleum on Red Square) or very affordable.
 Why is it that my Russian experiences differ so much from most tourists? I speak the language. Unfortunately, most Americans don't feel the need to learn a second language, and we get a reputation for arrogance because we just expect English to be understood in every foreign locale we visit. So when we travel, we gravitate to what we know, places where we expect English to be understood. But by doing so, we miss the whole point of traveling to another country. We don't mingle with the average Russian in such places, and we don't get to experience what it is really like to be away from home.
 These people spending $425 a day are missing the point. Do they attempt to take the metro, bus or trolley? Do they notice the big store beside the Bolshoi and browse? Do they go out to Izmailovo? I use Moscow as my example, but I have traveled all over Russia, including to St. Petersburg, Novgorod and Kursk. The prices in all these cities made me feel as if I had been transported back in time at least 50 years.
 My advice to travelers is learn a little of the language and venture off to places your friends at the Metropol won't. Take the metro while they pay a cabby $50 to go across town. Buy a <i>pirozhok </i>from a babushka as you pass by McDonald's. Haggle with the merchants at an open-air market instead of paying $100 for a <i>matrioshka </i>set of the American presidents at the mall.
 But the most important thing is to try to connect with the people. If they see you are attempting to communicate in their language, you will find that Russians are the warmest and most giving people in the world. You'll find yourself the guest of honor in a Russian home with a table spread with food better than any restaurant, and you'll be the audience at an impromptu concert of Russian folk songs with a guitar or accordion as accompaniment.
 Take my advice and you will go home with cherished memories rather than a suitcase of expensive gifts and Visa bills that will take a year to pay off. And you will have friends for life.
 <i>Jackie Slabaugh
 Canton, Ohio
 </i>
 <i><strong>Dear Editor,
 </strong></i>Next week, the Queen of the Netherlands will be visiting Moscow. She will have several meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin. As a Dutch national who has dedicated the last twenty months to collecting (generally horrific) evidence of Russian war crimes in Chechnya, I am ashamed that such a visit takes place at a time when Russian troops continue to detain, torture, murder, and &quot;disappear&quot; civilians in Chechnya on a daily basis.
 Vladimir Putin, as president of Russia and supreme commander of its armed forces, has ultimate responsibility for these crimes. As prime minister, Putin started the Chechnya campaign in September 1999. He then called it his &quot;historic mission.&quot; He promised the Russian people that Chechen rebels would not be safe anywhere and would be wasted even in their outhouses.
 Humanitarian organizations, such as Human Rights Watch, Memorial and M&eacute;d&eacute;cins sans Fronti&egrave;res have brought abuses by Russian forces in Chechnya to the attention of Putin and other Russian leaders. Putin, however, has consciously chosen to ignore these messages of alarm. Worse, he has promoted, decorated and publicly praised military officers who were involved in some of the most serious human rights violations that were committed.
 Violations committed by Russian troops in Chechnya amount to war crimes or even crimes against humanity. They are in no way less serious than those committed by Serbian troops in Kosovo before NATO's intervention there in January 1999. The international community then exerted diplomatic and economic pressure on the Yugoslav government and even staged a military intervention. The Yugoslavia tribunal in the Hague indicted then-President Slobodan Milosevic for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
 Human rights organizations have called for an international investigation into abuses in Chechnya. The European Union, the United States and other Western countries, however, refuse to go beyond their routine rhetorical condemnations. As a result, almost all the perpetrators of serious human rights violations in Chechnya walk free. Also, no attempt is made to establish whether Putin himself is responsible for the systematic abuses and the lack of a criminal investigation.
 The visit by the Dutch queen and crown prince should not take place. Putin has blood on his hands, and the privilege of meeting distinguished members of the Dutch royal family should not be given. The visit is also a slap in the face of the many thousands of Chechens who have been murdered and tortured by Putin's troops.
 <i>Diederik Lohman
 Director, Moscow Office
 Human Rights Watch </i>

TITLE: New Regime Rehabilitates the Kremlin Butchers of 1934
AUTHOR: By Irina Glushchenko
TEXT: Anyone who has purchased or rented an apartment in the last few years knows what a &quot;Stalin&quot; building is - as opposed to a <i>khrushchyovka. </i>A Stalin building is one that was built during the Stalin era, the period of totalitarianism and the Gulag. They were always built of cement blocks or bricks. They have high ceilings and even walls, good soundproofing and a thousand other advantages compared to the buildings that were thrown together during Nikita Khrushchev's thaw, when construction was done hurriedly and without proper oversight.
 In Stalin's time, new housing was built primarily for the Stalinist elite. Ordinary people huddled together in communal apartments or dormitories attached to factories. After Stalin, a separate apartment ceased to be an unattainable luxury, although little thought was spared for the quality of the buildings that were hastily constructed for the masses under Khrushchev. The main thing was just to build a lot of them and to build them quickly.
 A few years ago, real estate ads always referred to &quot;Stalin buildings&quot; in quotation marks. Now, I've noticed, the quotation marks have disappeared, as if some sort of instinctive embarrassment about using this word has been worn away. Today a Stalin building is a symbol of prestige and quality that signifies a certain desirable standard of living. For Russian <i>intelligenty, </i>the word &quot;Stalin&quot; by definition cannot mean anything good. Nonetheless, all of them want to live in &quot;Stalin buildings.&quot;
 Not long ago I was riding in the metro and noticed an advertisement for the famous Mikoyan Meat-Packaging Plant that bore the slogan: &quot;Supplier to the Kremlin Since 1934.&quot; And I started thinking.
 1934 was not just another year in Russian history. It was the year that Leningrad party boss Sergei Kirov was murdered, an event that is considered the starting signal for the worst period of Stalin's repression. Stalin initiated his major purge after some delegates to the seventeenth party congress tried to elect Kirov as party leader in place of Stalin. Kirov was murdered under mysterious circumstances, although few now doubt that Stalin's secret police carried out the dirty deed. After that, a witch-hunt began as party activists across the country were accused of being in on the plot to murder Kirov. Hundreds of thousands were arrested and summarily executed.
 And who was in the Kremlin then, enjoying the tasty snacks of this Moscow meat factory? The very people who were carrying out this purge. Vyacheslav Molotov, whose real claim to fame was that he later put his signature to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that plunged the world into war. Lavrenty Beria - the godfather of mass terror in the Soviet Union. Nikolai Yezhov, the actual butcher who supervised mass murder. Lazar Kaganovich, who systematically destroyed old Moscow.
 Anastas Mikoyan was involved in industry, not politics. He managed to avoid conflicts and didn't get in the way of the mass murderers surrounding him, although he was not directly involved in their crimes. As a result, he was able to outlive most of his colleagues, remaining a party leader until the Brezhnev years.
 Mikoyan was in charge of the food industry. He managed to import from America the latest technology for mass-producing meat cutlets, which he then sold for from three to five kopecks each. The name &quot;Mikoyan cutlets&quot; was still heard occasionally in the early days of Gorbachev's perestroika. Mikoyan really is a symbol of stability.
 Mikoyan's factories, naturally, did not supply five-kopeck cutlets to the Kremlin. For these clients, the factories turned out a line of first-class sausages, hams and other delicacies. The ad that I saw in the metro is harking back to this tradition.
 &quot;The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food&quot; is a landmark of the Stalin era, and it devotes considerable attention to Mikoyan and his factories. &quot;In capitalist countries,&quot; the book declares, &quot;as in pre-revolutionary Russia, consumers are cheated on a daily basis - either the price is too high or the weight or volume of the product is too low. In our country, all production is subordinated to the interests of the people. State standards and procedures have the weight of law and violations are severely punished. By contrast, in capitalist countries such standards - where they exist at all - are far from obligatory. Comrade Mikoyan has said: 'Anyone who produces poor-quality goods is an enemy of food production, an enemy of the people of this country.'&quot;
 The book does not stop to explain how &quot;enemies of the people&quot; are &quot;severely punished,&quot; but this was clear enough to people of that era. Mikoyan's colleagues saw to this aspect of the work.
 In those days, &quot;The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food&quot; was to be found in almost every home. And it really is an amazing book, richly illustrated with color photographs of artistically prepared dishes. As a child, I spent countless hours staring at the pelmeni, mushrooms, pies and other morsels, as well as studying the scientific chart on how to butcher a cow. The book is still useful today, although modern dietitians stress that it was by no means written for people trying to lose weight.
 And now, evidently, Mikoyan has become a suitable protagonist for advertising. The factory wants to build upon its reputation for reliability and quality - and, perhaps, to hint that it is not anything like those who ignore standards or &quot;cheat the people.&quot;
 Appeals to tradition are a well-worn form of propaganda. Those in power in post-Soviet Russia have mined this resource thoroughly for a decade now. First came appeals to the myth of an idyllic pre-revolutionary Russia. &quot;Traditional quality&quot; adorned practically every advertisement and old-fashioned hard signs appeared at the end of every word to signal tsarist quality. It was pounded into our subconscious minds that the Bolsheviks did nothing but spoil everything they laid their hands upon.
 Then there was a lot of emphasis on the &quot;Russian&quot; origins of various products. Although a closer look at the packaging reveals that <i>Zlato </i>butter is made in Argentina and <i>Pokrov </i>chocolate is made in a German-owned factor. <i>Doyarushka </i>butter is made &quot;according to traditional Russian recipes&quot; in New Zealand.
 Then, slowly but surely, the Soviet period began to be rehabilitated. At first there were just a few bright periods. Slogans like &quot;the taste you remember from childhood&quot; referred to the Khrushchev and early Brezhnev periods. After all, in subsequent years there was precious little to eat and we really did spend a lot of time remembering the tastes of our childhoods.
 Now, it seems to be Stalin's turn to be recast in a golden hue. And this really is something new - viewing the Stalin era as a time of triumphant prosperity. Apparently, this reflects a mood that is forming in society or - to be more precise - among the ruling class. Those who have prospered from the decade of reform and who now seek order and stability, even if it comes with in Stalinist tones. The new ads are directed toward these people, people who apparently are not appalled to be associated with the Kremlin heroes of 1934.
 
 <i>Irina Glushchenko is an independent journalist and theater critic. She contributed this essay to The St. Petersburg Times. </i>

TITLE: The Blair Juggernaut
AUTHOR: By Fareed Zakaria
TEXT: IT'S been a rough election season for Britain's ruling Labor Party. On the day that it released its campaign manifesto, televisions were buzzing with a more vivid image: Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott punching out a protester who had thrown an egg at him. Then, Tony Blair was accosted at one of his choreographed photo-ops by a woman who complained bitterly about the National Health Service. (More recently he squirmed through a tirade from a student about high tuition bills.) Another senior Labor minister, Jack Straw, was jeered while addressing a group of police officers. And after two weeks of these assorted embarrassments, the party's lead in the polls rose slightly.
 That the Labor Party is certain to be returned to power on June 7 is not surprising. A competent government presiding over peaceful and prosperous times is usually given a second term. What is striking about this election, and important beyond Britain, is the Conservative Party's helplessness. Whatever it says - cut taxes, cut spending, curb immigration, stay out of Europe - either backfires or fails to gather steam against the juggernaut that is Blair.
 Blair's success is rooted in New Labor's steadfast move to the political center. &quot;Frankly, we are nothing like the Labor Party of old,&quot; said Peter Mandelson, one of the Labor politicians most responsible for this shift. A senior Tory put it more bluntly: &quot;We are running against a Labor Party leader who is essentially a conservative.&quot; Its new manifesto moves Labor one more big step to the right by suggesting privatizing the delivery of public services. It's good policy but even better politics because it becomes even more difficult for the right to outflank Labor.
 But Blair utterly dominates the scene for another, broader reason: As a politician he is perfectly attuned to his age. Political scientists distinguish between two kinds of issues, &quot;positional issues&quot; and &quot;valence issues.&quot; The first are ones on which the public has divisive and incompatible views. (Think of policy toward the Soviet Union in the 1980s.) The second are ones on which voters broadly agree on goals and simply want to figure out the best way to achieve them (good environment, health care and public services).
 The mood of the British public and, indeed, most Western publics these days, is defined almost entirely by valence issues (&quot;valence&quot; means the ability to unite). With both sides embracing the market and no great foreign-policy divides, people want politics to be about pragmatic solutions to problems, not ideological blood feuds. Blair appeals in this atmosphere because he governs and campaigns not by engaging in political divisions but by transcending them.
 Not so William Hague. Hague, the young Tory leader, is a diminutive, balding bull terrier of a politician. He is disciplined, energetic, intelligent and eloquent. A superb debater, he has won almost every encounter with Blair in the House of Commons (which is why Blair won't debate him during the campaign.) Hague is a great politician - a great 19th-century politician. All his skills make him thrive in the traditional Westminster model of leadership.
 Some of his friends believe that Hague is by nature more open, inclusive and modern. But perhaps because he is so good at the fiery partisan battle, he has chosen to run a campaign that emphasizes divisions. He is emulating not George W. Bush's touchy-feely campaign but Bob Dole's angry, defensive one. (Memo to William: Dole lost, Bush won.) Except on Britain's future in Europe, none of Hague's pounding seems to be having much of an effect. And if Hague makes the final week of a losing campaign a referendum on Europe, he might discredit the anti-Euro line.
 Tony Blair's sanctimonious, post-partisan approach is easy to laugh off. In the wicked British rag Private Eye, the prime minister is parodied as the Vicar of Saint Albion, an earnest Anglican prelate who seems somewhat pained that his congregation doesn't plainly see that he is doing such wonderful things for them. But the last laugh may be on Blair's opponents because this attitude is the key to his popularity.
 We live in an age of affluence, and our politics is shaped by that reality. People demand good economic management, but beyond that they also want their politicians to sense that they are grappling with softer issues of quality of life and values. If the Cold War favored a Churchillian model of leadership, what people want now is competence and caring - half Alan Greenspan, half Oprah Winfrey. Clinton, Blair and Bush understood this, though Bush seemed more conscious of it during his campaign than in recent weeks.
 Mathew d'Ancona, one of the brightest young columnists in Britain, put it this way: &quot;The old question for politicians was, whom do you trust with your pocketbook? The new question is, whom do you trust with your kids?&quot;
 
 <i>Fareed Zakaria is editor of Newsweek International and a columnist at Newsweek. He contributed this comment to The Washington Post. </i>

TITLE: No Delay On Cleaning Up the Baltic
TEXT: IT was just last December that President Vladimir Putin flabbergasted the world by confessing his admiration for environmental activists in little rubber boats. &quot;I've always admired people who devote their lives to environmental problems,&quot; were his exact words.
 Given this, we are optimistic that Russia's recent refusal to endorse an international convention on eliminating persistent organic pollutants, or POPs, is merely - as officials have stated - a diplomatic hiccup that does not signal a reversal of the Kremlin's support for the treaty.
 Ironically, Russia last affirmed the treaty publicly in December, just about the same time the president was fanaticizing about a post-Kremlin career chasing whaling ships.
 The treaty, which has been signed by more than 90 countries already, including the United States and Canada, obligates signatories to eliminate a number of carcinogenic and other pollutants, most of which are by-products of waste incineration and industrial processes.
 For Russia, the implications of the treaty are anything but abstract.
 The Baltic Sea - Russia's window onto Europe - is among the most polluted bodies of water on the planet. In fact, the present treaty is the direct result of the 1974 Helsinki Convention to protect the Baltic Sea.
 The situation in the region, and particularly in the Gulf of Finland near St. Petersburg, has been correctly labeled a &quot;crisis.&quot; Fifty years of industry in the region, with the Soviet Union and Russia as the main culprits, has endangered the health of the more than 90 million people living near the Baltic, including the more than 4 million inhabitants of Putin's hometown, according to a report published by Greenpeace last month. Sweden and Finland have issued repeated health warnings over the last decade.
 Russian officials have said that their delay in signing the convention is purely procedural and that Russia will endorse it before the May 2002 deadline. Skeptics have speculated that the Kremlin is playing a diplomatic game in order to win Western assistance for covering the cost of implementing the agreement - a cost estimated at as much as $180 million over 25 years.
 We certainly hope that this is not true. Moscow will win much greater Western support by showing leadership on this issue and by exhibiting concern for its own citizens. Cleaning up the Baltic in partnership with other Baltic countries is a sound investment in a crucially important region of Russia. It is the kind of constructive partnership with Europe that Russia should be actively seeking out and embracing.

TITLE: Pulikovsky Was Simply Too Greedy
TEXT: THE first round of voting in the Primoriye gubernatorial election ended in a sensation: The young entrepreneur Sergei Darkin ended up in first place. This result was a serious blow to the concept of presidential representatives in the regions, since the super-governor of the Far East, Konstantin Pulikovsky, was the one who had insisted so firmly on removing the former governor, Yevgeny Nazdratenko.
 And why did they remove Nazdratenko? For the benefit of the long-suffering residents of the region? That's a good one.
 They did it in order to initiate another round of property redistribution. 
 It must be recalled that the present scandals in Primoriye stem from the competition between Pulikovsky's deputy, Gennady Apanasenko, and the acting governor, Valentin Dubinin - who had the temerity to run for the post without first securing approval from Khabarovsk, where Pulikovsky is based.
 Apanasenko's campaign boiled down to the slogan, &quot;The president supports him.&quot; Vladislav Surkov, deputy head of Vladimir Putin's administration, actually came to the region and announced: &quot;If Apanasenko is not elected, we will introduce elements of central administration in the region.&quot; It looked like he was a shoe-in.
 Khabarovsk's big mistake was that they didn't bother waiting until after the vote to begin divvying up the territory. Take, for instance, the local monopoly fuel supplier, Primornefteprodukt. This was the company that became infamous during the regional energy crisis for selling heating oil at three times the going price. When Pulikovsky's people began digging through the debris of Nazdratenko's mismanagement, they started with Primornefteprodukt, which - it turned out - was partially owned by Nazdratenko's son. Long before the elections, Primornefteprodukt was sold off to a company called Alyans, which has well-established ties to Pulikovsky's team.
 They also announced two candidates for the post of head of the regional arbitration court: Both were from Khabarovsk. The newly appointed director of the major local factory Bor is best known for his ties in Khabarovsk.
 Not surprisingly, local business circles became anxious. They could see what was coming. The head of the region's largest fishing company, a dinosaur even among our &quot;red directors,&quot; was the first to come out for Dubinin.
 That's when Konstantin Tolstoshein made his move. Tolstoshein was Nazdratenko's right-hand man who quickly resigned the moment that Pulikovsky showed up in the region. Now, however, with Dubinin on leave campaigning, Tolstoshein appealed to a Vladivostok court to be reinstated. The gambit worked, and Tolstoshein became acting governor. (It is interesting that the judges didn't even ask Tolstoshein what Pulikovsky had said to him that made him resign in the first place.)
 As soon as Tolstoshein was installed, all the governor's &quot;administrative resources&quot; were mobilized in support of Apanasenko. The former director of governor-controlled local television, who had been fired by Dubinin, was returned to his post. In short, Pulikovsky lined up with the most odious people in order to ensure his slice of Primoriye's resources.
 But in the end, Pulikovsky's eagerness was his downfall.
 As a footnote, I'd just add that the entire Russian Far East except for Primoriye is controlled by a mob boss known as &quot;Jam.&quot; Primoriye has always been controlled by one called &quot;Winnie the Pooh,&quot; who is know for the ferocious violence he has used to maintain his independence. They say that as soon as Nazdratenko was removed, Jam sent his people to the region and they promptly declared that the region's independence was finished. Local bandits understood that they too stood to lose if Apanasenko (the candidate &quot;supported by the president&quot;) won.
 There's nothing more to say.
 
 <i>Yulia Latynina is a journalist for ORT. </i>

TITLE: Taking American Culture East
AUTHOR: By Russell Working
TEXT: IT'S a Sunday afternoon and a group of bulky U.S. Marines and wiry Russian teenagers are taking their positions on a field at Gymnasia No. 2.
 A dozen people gather to watch. Parents snap photographs, dog-walkers pause, and children from a nearby apartment block climb up on some rusty FESCO shipping containers to get a better view. A drunk lurches over and gapes.
 Two teams, comprising both Marines and schoolboys, line up on the gravel, facing each other with a lemon-shaped ball between them. A hulking corporal named Wade Hickok shouts, &quot;Down. Set. Go!&quot; A kid hikes the ball to Hickok. There is a flurry of running, blocking, flailing arms.
 &quot;Smash the @#%*& Americans in the face,&quot; the drunk hollers.
 Hickok scrambles and throws the ball downfield. It spirals straight to a boy, but the young Russian - more accustomed to the foot-play of soccer than the hand-eye coordination of this strange sport - grabs wildly, and the ball thuds off his chest. All activity stops. The ball is returned to where it started, and the observers murmur in bewilderment. It is obvious that something momentous is occurring, but it is hard to say just what.
 Someday, when the Vladivostok Cossacks and the Moscow FSBeshniks fight it out in the first all-Russia Superbowl, the import of this moment will become clear. We are witnessing the birth of American football in the Russian Far East. Sports historians will try to piece together how it all happened - and when they track me down, I will say: &quot;Guys, the real credit goes to the U.S. Marine Corps. But if you insist, I will accept a footnote in the annals of football history.&quot;
 It happened like this. Last August, during a trip to the United States, I bought a football for my girlfriend's 14-year-old son, Seryoga. During our visits to Korea and the Philippines, he has grown addicted to watching gridiron on television, and I figured we could toss the ball around. But he and his friends wanted to get together a real game.
 I decided to send in the Marines. I dialed the U.S. Consulate and, as often happens when you randomly phone the Marines, reached a 196-cm, 105-kilogram former defensive end for Portland State University in Oregon. It was Hickok, who promised to round up some buddies for a bruising game. It immediately became clear that urgent deadlines for this column would keep me off the field. But the games have become an occasional tradition for up to 15 Russian boys and from two to four Marines.
 The Marines have drawn suspicion from the more xenophobic elements in town, especially when a Marine was shot after a barroom quarrel with a <i>krutoi</i> several years ago. Yet despite the appearance of the heckling drunk (who has no idea how close he came to a thrashing after he screamed racist epithets at an African-American Marine), the foreigners have drawn only admiration from the boys and gratitude from their parents.
 Hickok shrugs that he enjoys the games. &quot;Football has been important to me in my life,&quot; he says. &quot;I've learned a lot of things from football. And it's kind of interesting for me to go out and teach something that's important to me.&quot;
 Marine Ivan Valdez, 24, is a native Spanish speaker who grew up in Guatemala, so he sees another benefit for the kids in playing with Americans. &quot;They use English as a way of communication with us,&quot; he says. &quot;And they practice what they learn in school.&quot;
 Even Seryoga, who long refused to speak anything but Russian with me, has suddenly started spouting English since the football games began. He e-mails Hickok, and was even inspired to write a story that was published last week in a local newspaper.
 The games are two-hand touch - which means (for non-American readers) that instead of tackling the ball carrier, rugby-style, you stop him by whacking him with open hands. But still, things can get rough.
 &quot;A couple of the kids got cut up pretty good on the field, actually, because it's gravel,&quot; Hickok says. &quot;We're not playing tackle, but still, you know, with kids diving for the ball and trying to do their best, they tend to fall down sometimes. There are rocks and it's sharp, and it can be like grated glass. ... It's a shame they have to play on that instead of nice green grass.&quot;
 Then again, nobody ever said that making history was supposed to be easy. Just ask the Marines.
 
 <i>Russell Working is a freelance journalist based in Vladivostok. </i>

TITLE: Is There Such a Thing As Too Much Privacy?
AUTHOR: By Scott McNealy
TEXT: ANY company that doesn't properly safeguard people's personal information will suffer the same fate as a bank that doesn't safeguard people's money. It will go out of business. But privacy is not always desirable - and absolute privacy is a disaster waiting to happen.
 Take medical records. If you're in an accident, do you want an ambulance driver to be able to access your medical records online? I think you do. Do you want everybody to? No.
 Properly administered, the online environment offers more privacy protections, not fewer. Online, you can encrypt things and provide conditional access. You can know where your files are and who's looking at them through audit trails. Try that with a paper file.
 I know medical records are a hot button for a lot of people, and I agree they need to be protected. But it would be a mistake to lose sight of the real benefits of sharing information about ourselves. One of the chief benefits, to use a more routine example, is personalized service. In exchange for a little information, you can get an online experience that's more in tune with your interests and needs. I have agreed to let my car company, for instance, track my every move through GPS satellites. Some people might consider that an invasion of privacy, but I find it comforting to know that, should my air bag deploy, they know where I am and can send help.
 I'm convinced that we've barely scratched the surface on this one. Someday soon you could find yourself in a strange city and your Web-enabled wireless phone will be able to recommend a nearby restaurant based on your fondness for French, Italian or Mexican cuisine - and then make your reservation for you. It could even recommend a movie based on what you liked and didn't like in the past - and, by the way, it's playing three blocks away, starts in half an hour and only a few tickets are left, so would you like to purchase one now with your credit card?
 Those are just two examples of how specific needs will be met in specific circumstances - many more are possible. On the Internet, even more than in other areas of our lives, trust is the real currency. Squander what you have and you'll find out how hard it can be to get more.
 So far the industry has done a pretty good job of regulating itself, although it took some prodding from the watchdogs in the media. The media could also start rewarding companies who have learned how to offer both consumer protection and personalized service. Maybe some enterprising magazine will start publishing an annual list of the companies with the best policies and practices. The Privacy 500, perhaps.
 
 <i>Scott McNealy is chief executive of Sun Microsystems Inc. He contributed this comment to The Washington Post. </i>

TITLE: Global eye
TEXT: Your good Global Eye is sometimes reproached by sensitive readers for a propensity toward rhetorical excess - namely, the alleged misapplication of analogy, whereby a relatively innocuous phenomenon is compared and, by implication, equated with a far more heinous one. While this practice could be seen as serving a prophylactic purpose - warning against tendencies which, though embryonic at present, could, if unchecked, grow into the more monstrous shape being used for comparison - it is true that individuals of more delicate constitution might, like Solzhenitsyn's Rusanov, find such vigorous discourse to be &quot;strong meat.&quot;
 For example, we have at times ventured comparison between the conservative religiosity of the Bush administration and the harsh strictures of the Taleban, both of which are based on a primitive and highly aggressive understanding of religious faith. Some, however, find this analogy odious; there can be no connection whatsoever, they say, between the honorable men of the Bush administration and the repressive imams ruling Afghanistan.
 Therefore it is with some interest that we note a report in the Los Angeles Times, revealing that the biggest international supporter of the &quot;rogue state&quot; - which has been shunned even by hard-line Muslim brethren like Saudi Arabia and Iran - is, of course, the honorable Bush administration. Having already showered the Taleban with considerable taxpayer largess during his few months in office, the honorable president favored them again last week with a gift of $43 million: a reward for their promise to ban farmers from growing opium.
 Mr. Bush's jihad against drugs (there's no convert like a late convert, they say) obviously takes precedence over little things like Taleban's wanton destruction of venerated antiquities, their support of terrorism, their enforced badging of minorities, and the oppression of women at a level unseen on earth for centuries. What's more, Afghan farmers now face starvation; the Taleban has brought the country to such a ruinous state that there are no longer any market venues for legitimate crops.
 None of this dims their luster to those who see with the eyes of faith. In fact, there is much to praise - even much to <i>learn </i>- from the Afghan zealots, say Bush officials.
 &quot;The Taleban used a system of consensus-building,&quot; gushed Bush's representative, James Callahan, just back from a friendly visit to Kabul. It was not immediately clear if Callahan was referring to their use of the machine gun as the primary tool of consensus-building, or their system of &quot;faith-based solutions to social problems.&quot;
 But in pity of those delicate constitutions out there, we will make no odious comparisons.
 
 Straight Dope
 Nor will we offer any untoward comment on a second item that appeared this week: The United Nations Security Council reports that the Taleban are in fact <i>selling </i>opium, using the proceeds to fund their war and to train terrorists.
 Their richly rewarded &quot;ban&quot; on opium production is merely a ploy to keep prices high in a glutted world market, the UN says. Oddly enough, this fact was apparently known to the honorable Bush team <i>before </i>they made their generous donation to the holy warriors.
 Less restrained observers might therefore conclude that the <i>appearance </i>of drug-fighting zeal is all that matters to the honorable Bush administration; after all, the last time an honorable Bush was in the top echelon of government, the United States covertly used drug money to fund war and train terrorists in Central America.
 Cynics might even say the Taleban were actually being awarded for gamely taking part in a broader U.S. propaganda effort - the &quot;Drug War&quot; - aimed at curtailing civil liberties at home and fomenting profitable military conflict abroad. The most hardened cases might even remember that the Taleban began their ascent to tyranny with the active military and financial support of Cold Warriors in the Reagan-Bush years - Cold Warriors who have now returned to power in Washington.
 But you'll never hear that kind of nasty talk <i>here,</i> thank God.
 
 Rubber Soul
 In a setback for holy warriors everywhere, however, Imam Bush lost control of the U.S. Senate last week in one of the most spectacular political disasters in modern times. Republicans had pursued the Holy Trinity (control of the House, Senate and presidency) for almost 50 years; Bush lost it for them in just 125 days. His hard-right policies and goon squad tactics drove moderate Republican James Jeffords to abandon the Grand Old Party, giving control of the Senate to the Democrats.
 And the Democrats immediately showed their mettle. Just one day after Jeffords' announcement, the newly empowered progressives decided to - investigate the stolen election? derail the big tax cut for the rich? Nah. They voted to <i>confirm </i>one of Bush's most controversial nominees, Theodore Olson, as Solicitor General of the United States, chief advocate of the people before the Supreme Court.
 Olson's nomination had been deadlocked after he proved to be less than truthful in his sworn testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Olson originally denied having any involvement in the &quot;Arkansas Project,&quot; the multimillion-dollar campaign by rightwing journalists, private detectives and other panty-sniffers to dig up dirt on Bill Clinton. When billing records and the testimony of his own comrades showed that Olson was in fact hip deep in the Project mire, his nomination was put on hold pending further inquiries.
 But last week, with transfer of Senate power not yet in place, lame duck GOP leaders forced a vote on the nomination. Many thought the Dems would stand firm, delay the vote with a filibuster and launch a real investigation of Olson when they took control.
 Instead they folded without a fight. Although they cast a few token dissenting votes, without the threat of a filibuster the result was a foregone conclusion. Olson - who has spent most of his legal career trying to gut various civil rights protections for minorities - sailed to approval.
 &quot;This shows Bush we are not a rubber stamp,&quot; said liberal lion Ted Kennedy after the Democrat's abject defeat.
 Right, Ted, right; you're not a rubber stamp. You're a rubber <i>doormat.</i>
 Makes all the difference in the world.

TITLE: now that you're here, get out
AUTHOR: by Molly Graves
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: One of the first things visitors to St. Petersburg are often urged to do is get out of the city - not because of any shortage of sights, but because a feel for its imperial history is only enhanced by a trip to the parks and apalces of one of the splendid outlying towns.
 </i><strong>
Suburban getaways
 
 Not far from the St. Petersburg city center are a number of sites that make for excellent day trips or weekend excursions. The various scenic parks and former Tsarist palaces of Petergof, Pavlovsk, Pushkin, and others are popular getaways for both tourists and locals alike, and can provide a welcomed break from the city streets.
 If you really want to fight the crowds and get a peek inside these ornate eye-dazzlers, your best bet may be to arrange a tour - especially if you're planning your trip over the weekend, the most popular time to go. It's also not a bad idea to bring along some of your own snacks, as you may be faced with kiosk fare - if any at all - and prices will most likely be on the high end.
 And though most of the palaces did indeed suffer extensive damage at the hands of the Germans during World War II, fear not - they have since undergone (or are still undergoing) extensive restoration, with some being almost completely rebuilt in the process. However, to keep from doing even more damage, you <i>do </i>have to wear those rather silly-looking <i>tapochki </i>which are provided for you at the entrance.
 <strong>Costs </strong>Tours of individual palaces for foreigners range anywhere from $1 to $7, with the Russian price close to a dollar or less. There are discounts for students most places. Generally, you have to purchase separate tickets for admission to different sites, even at the same estate.
 

 <strong>
Petergof </strong>
 

 About 30 kilometers west of St. Petersburg on the Gulf of Finland lies perhaps the best known and popular of the St. Petersburg-area palaces, Petergof. Though originally created to serve as the royal stomping ground of - you guessed it - Peter the Great, parts of Petergof were later redesigned by Rastrelli for the Empress Elizabeth, and again readapted to suit the tastes of Catherine the Great. And while Petergof (German for &quot;Peter's Court&quot;) is the original name for the estate, which has recently been readopted, don't be confused if you also hear it referred to by its second Russian title - Peterdvorets (Peter's Palace).
 &quot;The Russian Versailles,&quot; as it is sometimes also called, is at its peak in the summertime, boasting sites such as the luxurious Grand Palace and Peter's smaller, cozier villa Monplaisir, all surrounded by a splendid park. Perhaps most famous of all the Petergof attractions are the rows of gravity-powered fountains - numbering over 140 in total - which spring to life from May through September.
 To get to Petergof take the train from the Baltic Station to Novy Petrodvorets (not Stary Petrodvorets). From there, take any bus except number 357 (five stops, the next stop after the church), about a 10-minute ride. Signs will direct you to the park.
 Additionally, there are various hydrofoils that leave for Petergof from in front of the Hermitage approximately every half hour, from about 9:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. A slower ferry also leaves from Sea Landing/Morskaya Pristan on Naberezhnaya Makarova near Tuchkov Bridge on Vasilevsky Island. The trip takes about half an hour and costs $9, not counting park fees.<i>
 Hours: The Petergof estate is open from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, with its museums open 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. The Grand Palace is closed Mondays and the last Tuesday of the month; Monplaisir is closed Wednesdays and the last Thursday of the month.
 </i>
 <strong>
Pushkin
 
 Located some 25 kilometers from the city center in a town named in honor of the famous poet, the estate at Pushkin was commanded built by Empress Elizabeth and Catherine the Great between 1744 and 1796. It is most famous for its Rastrelli-designed Catherine Palace, which many claim to be the most impressive of the palaces. Inhabited through 1917 by various royal residents, the estate was largely destroyed by the Germans during the second world war.
 Additional sights include the Alexander Palace, built by Quarenghi in the late 1700s, and perhaps even more impressive is Catherine Park and the surrounding grounds. Here, you can rent a boat and go padding on the Great Pond, or simply stroll around and take in the various sights - including the Chinese Pavilion; the Pyramid monument, which marks Catherine the Great's own pet cemetery; and the Ruined Tower, which was specially built to have that romantic, pre-ruined look.
 To get to Pushkin, take the elektrichka train from Vitebsk Station to Detskoye Selo Station. The trip takes about half an hour. A quick bus ride on bus number 370, 371 or 378 from outside Detskoye Selo Station takes you to within a short walk of the Catherine Palace.
 <i>Hours: Parks are open daily; the Catherine Palace is open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., and closed on Tuesdays and the last Monday of every month.
 </i>
 <strong>
Pavlovsk
 </strong>

 
Less than five minutes by train after Pushkin lies the Pavlovsk estate, best known for its impressive park and woods. Its Great Palace was designed by Charles Cameron in the 1780s by order of Catherine the Great for her son, the future Paul I, and was employed as a royal residence until 1917. However, while the palace is not to be ignored, arguably the nicest attraction at Pavlovsk is the grounds themselves: Featuring classical-style statues, meandering wooded paths and a number of small streams and canals, the quiet, meditative refuge of Pavlovsk's park are well worth the visit even if you've had your fill of palace touring.
 For Pavlovsk, take the train from the Vitebsk Station past Detskoe Selo to Pavlovsk Station. The Palace itself is very close to Pavlovsk Station, and any one of a number of buses - 370, 383, 383A, or 493 - will take you there. More simply, enjoy the short walk (about 2 kilometers) through the park grounds, which begin just across the road from the station.
 <i>Hours: Pavlovsk park is open daily; the Great Palace is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and closed Fridays and the last Tuesday of each month.
 </i>
 <strong>
Lomonosov
 
 Though named after the famous poet and scientist Mikhail Lomonosov following World War II, the estate at Lomonosov, located some 10 kilometers down the coast from Petergof, was actually built by Alexander Menshikov - who never himself saw it completed. The site was later adopted by Peter III, to be followed by Catherine the Great. Additionally, the main palace, the Oranienbaum, has the distinction of being the only one of the tsarist palaces which did not fall victim to Nazi occupation.
 Attractions include the Grand Palace, only part of which is open to visitors; Peterstadt, Peter III's small palace; and the lavish Chinese Palace of Catherine the Great. And to get an idea of how Catherine spent her free time, you can check out the Coasting Hill Pavilion, which once housed a wooden amusement slide specially constructed for royal coasters. 
 The train from the Baltic station to Petergof continues on to Lomonosov Get off at Station Oranienbaum I (not II), about an hour's ride from St. Petersburg. Hydrofoils also leave frequently from the Morskaya landing at Naberezhnaya Makarova (near the hotelship Petergof) and the Tuchkov Bridge on Vasilevsky Island, costing about $10.
 <i>Hours: Park open from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Grand Place open Wednesday to Monday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and closed Tuesday and the last Monday of the month.
 </i>
 <strong>
Gatchina
 
 And if you haven't yet had your fill of great palaces, some 50 kilometers to St. Petersburg's south at Gatchina lies the palace of Grigory Orlov - the lover of Catherine the Great. Originally constructed between 1776 and 1782, the palace was later subject to a complete overhaul as Paul I decided to turn it into his own medieval-style playground, complete with drawbridges.
 Trains and marshrutki (minibus taxis) to Gatchina run from the Baltic Station.
 <i>Hours: Open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday, closed Mondays and the last Tuesday of every month.
 

 </i><strong>
Kronstadt
 
 A closed town in Soviet times, Kronstadt, located on Kotlin island in the Gulf of Finland, is still a rarely-visited place, and makes for a surreal experience - not least because it is possible to get there by road! Connected to the mainland by a narrow strip of highway, Kronstadt can also be accessed by boat in summer, with hydrofoils leaving from the landing near the Tuchkov bridge (near the Petrovsky Stadium) every hour or so.
 The main attraction in Kronstadt is the massive cathedral, though unfortunately all that you will find inside is a pitiful Soviet museum. Otherwise, it makes an interesting enough place for a walk, with many strange photo opportunities to be discovered.
 <i>
If you would rather travel to Kronstadt by road, take bus 510 from the Chyornaya Rechka metro station. </i>

TITLE: inside private lives of writers
AUTHOR: by Simon Patterson
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: In such a writers' and poets' city as St. Petersburg, it is well worth checking out the literary museums which stand apart from the hundreds of others. The city boasts no fewer than seven &quot;apartment museums&quot; of famous authors, from Alexander Pushkin to Vladimir Nabokov.
 Most visited of all is probably the Pushkin Museum at Moika 12, but unfortunately the atmosphere of reverence means you get little feeling that someone actually lived there. While the writer died in the apartment in 1837, the museum was opened almost 90 years later, in 1925, and the apartment was reconstructed according to contemporary notes and recollections. Pushkin actually only lived here for five months, moving in on Sept. 12 1836. The highlight of the museum is probably the impressive library, extending to the ceiling and surrounding the walls - Pushkin owned over 4,000 books in 14 differrent languages.
 <i>12 Nab. Moiki, 312-19-62. Open daily from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., apart from Tuesday and the last Friday of the month.
 </i>
 The Dostoyevsky Mwuseum at Kuznechny Pereulok 5 is merely one of the many residences of the writer, as he lived at over 20 different apartments in the city. Strangely enough, Dostoyevsky lived in this apartment twice, in 1846, and from 1878 to his death in 1881. The area where he lived is what we think of today as being the &quot;Dostoyeskian&quot; part of St. Petersburg, with the action of Crime and Punishment taking place firmly in the neighborhood in which he lived. The Kuznechny Pereulok apartment was his last dwelling in the city, with his study apparently the way he left it, and a room with a range of glass-case exhibits detailing his works in pictures and documents. A walk around Sennaya Ploshchad, still as much a magnet for derelicts that it was in Dostoyevsky's time, will probably give you more of a feeling of the milieu of the writer than a visit to his old apartment.
 <i>5/2 Kuznechny Pereulok, 311-40-31. Open 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m, Tuesday to Sunday. 
 </i>A definitely Soviet feel remains in the Alexander Blok Museum at Ulitsa Dekabristov, where the writer lived from 1912 to 1921. There is a large, Soviet propaganda-style display devoted to the writer's narrative poem &quot;The Twelve&quot; that deals with the revolution. There is, however, an interesting display of his manuscripts, showing how he constantly rewrote and revised the three books of verse that are his crowning achievement. Ironically enough, the museum itself may now seem more archaic than the poetry it celebrates.
 <i>57 Ulitsa Dekabristov, 113-86-16. Open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Closed Wednesday and last Tuesday of the month.
 </i>
 The Anna Akhmatova Museum is probably the highlight of the literary museums, with truly engrossing exhibits, including the arrest order for Mandelshtam and a gulag edition of the great poet's works made by prisoners from bark and charcoal. The museum also frequently hosts exhibits, with a display of photographs from the '30s and '40s by Soviet writer and publicist Ilya Ehrenburg. 
 <i>34 Nab. Fontanki, 272-22-11. Open 10:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Closed Mondays and last Wednesday of the month.
 </i>
 The far more modest quarters of Mikhail Zoshchenko on Malaya Ko nyus hennaya make an interesting contrast, with a small two-room apartment, one room of which has been done up as an exhibition hall of his works. The miserable conditions in which the writer lived make it difficult to believe he was once one of the most celebrated Soviet writers. After the attack on him and Anna Akhmatova in 1946 by party functionary Andrei Zhdanov, he was no longer able to publish original work, and lived an increasingly straitened existence until his death in 1958.
 <i>4/2 Malaya Konyushennaya Ulitsa, 311-78-19. Open daily, 11:30 a.m. to 6:30 a.m. Closed Mondays and last Wednesday of the month.
 </i>
 The Nabokov Museum is obviously limited by the fact that the property was confiscated by the state immediately after the revolution, and thus nothing remains of the writer's possessions. The museum director, Dmitry Milkov, states that he has decided to take a different approach to the concept of literary museum, preferring it to be a venue for Nabokov-related or inspired cultural activities. See the article on the Apertif club on page vii for more on what the museum has been up to recently.
 <i>47 Bolshaya Morskaya, 315-47-13. Daily 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Closed Mondays and Tuesdays. </i>

TITLE: start your night with an aperitif
AUTHOR: by Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The great writer would turn in his grave, but nobody present seemed to care: The Aperitif Club party at the Nabokov Museum on May 18 drew about 150 trendy-minded visitors, who had come to watch Finland's Aavikko and the local Messer Chups, both performing in easy-going electronic styles.
 Entertainment also included a DJ set and an exhibition of photos themed around nightclubbing - shot by Sami Hyrskylahti, a Finn who has lived in St. Petersburg for the past five years or so, they demonstrated vividly how far the modest possibilities of the primitive Russian LOMO camera could be extended.
 Reopened after repairs earlier this year, the museum is located in the Nabokov family's mansion at 47 Bolshaya Morskaya Ulitsa, which the famous author - who spent most of his life in Europe - left in November 1917 for good.
 Although the club, which has functioned once a month after it had its opening on March 31, is &quot;closed,&quot; there was a chance to get in by buying a 200 ruble ticket. &quot;I believe a closed club is a club with the door ajar - not wide-open, but not locked,&quot; said Dmitry Milkov, director of the Nabokov Museum.
 He also admitted it was difficult to form a distinctive repertoire, as the club's specialty is presenting acts that seldom or never make it to St. Petersburg, but which are familiar enough around the country - as was the case with Montefiori Cocktail in April.
 The Italian easy-listening act was brought exclusively for the event from Moscow, where it came on tour.
 &quot;As we open only once a month, we need every event to be of a high quality - we can't afford to stage mediocre projects, because we'll lose money immediately,&quot; said Milkov.
 While some newcomers expected aperitifs to be served, the club's name is figurative. As Milkov put it, visiting the Aperitif Club, which closes at 11 p.m., is just the beginning of the night. Then visitors can choose the evening's main course.
 However, the best feature was the home-party feel and lack of barriers between bands and audience, with the performance taking place in the spacious room once occupied by the massive library that belonged to Nabokov's father.
 Despite a definite predominance of modern lounge styles in the club's events so far, Ilya Bortnyuk, the club's art director, said this was not intentional.
 &quot;There's no strict direction - it's a pure coincidence but it worked well,&quot; said Bortnyuk, who said a performance of Moscow's 4.33, Alexei Aigi's famed improvisation ensemble, was considered for some date in the future.
 The next gathering is expected to take place at the end of June.
 
 <i>The Aperitif Club can be contacted through its official Web site at www.aperitifclub.spb.ru. </i>

TITLE: the heart of clubs </strong>
AUTHOR: by Tom Masters
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: General excess, the unofficial motif of the White Nights, is most commonly indulged in outside, in the parks, on the streets and by the rivers and canals of St. Petersburg, where part of the magic is the lack of darkness.
 However, much continues to go on inside as well, and throughout June the city's night clubs remain as full as ever, and sometimes even provide a welcome break from round-the-clock sunlight.
 While Moscow earned a reputation in the mid-'90s as providing the last word in clubbing chic, frequently earning it comparisons to New York or London, St. Petersburg has never had such good press. Despite this, clubbing in this city is a far more democratic experience than it is in Moscow, with the vulgar excesses of New Russian night spots, although they exist, being far less in-your-face.
 While accessible and offering something for all, it has to be said that local clubs are all tailored to a fairly specific crowd, be it wealthy business people, poor bohemians or aspirant provincial youth.
 Tourists wanting to see &quot;real&quot; St. Petersburg night life will therefore have to visit several places to get anything like a representative sample of the wares on offer.
 <strong>For those who want to be seen in the right places</strong> and mix with the local <i>tusovka </i>(or &quot;in&quot; crowd), then Decadence, Hali Gali or Ostrov are the places to head to. All of them are as conducive to socializing as to dancing, and none is light on the pocket. Cheaper and more chaotically down-to-earth is Griboyedov, which has given itself the rather unnecessary additional title of &quot;Fashionable Club&quot; - unnecessary because the joint is managed by local ska gods Dva Samolyota, who keep fresh new music acts and DJs coming, who in turn keep the crowd happy.
 For those who like the <strong>stylish affectations of the nouveaux riches</strong>, why not drive your Mercedes to Plaza, Hollywood Nites or La Plage? The latter, way out in the styx as if specifically to ensure its clientele arrive in their brand new jeeps, has a predictable but rather unsuccessful beach theme. All of them are pricey playgrounds of the wealthy and, on occasions, the highly vulgar. Despite, or perhaps because of that, all three clubs attract some of Russia's most famous pop groups for &quot;exclusive&quot; (read expensive) post-concert shows. Bring your cell phone and bodyguard.
 Perhaps St. Petersburg's best night life offerings are the &quot;alternative&quot; clubs and bars, which tend to be <strong>cheap and cheerful,</strong> making up for what they lack in fake beaches by being fun. Try recently opened bar Cynic near the Moscow station where people dance on the tables and spill out into the street drinking beer on summer nights.
 In addition, most alternative clubs offer live music. Best known is the much-loved Moloko, which is down-at-heel, crowded and fun. Here, you have a constant rotation of new and better-known acts, as there also is at Manhattan/Kotyol, (at sometimes ear-splitting levels), Faculty and SpartaK. The latter, a former Lutheran Church now given over to a ropy arts cinema and two rock clubs, also has a wide repertoire and sometimes features big local stars. Fish Fabrique, one of the city's longest-surviving venues, still has a loyal arty-musical crowd. Situated in the same building as the famous Pushkinskaya 10 art complex, the club shows cult films as well as packing people into its bar. One curious location to see local bands is at the Zoopark Club, situated within the grounds of the St. Petersburg Zoo on the Petrograd Side. Here, you have to arrive at 7 p.m. to be admitted by the doorman, who will ask you if you know where you are heading. If you don't, follow those in the know past the sleeping lions and tigers. The door is then periodically opened throughout the night when you have had your fill of the live rock and folk bands.
 Faculty, St. Petersburg State University's official nightclub, completes the alternative club scene. Not long open, the student hangout is welcoming and friendly, not to mention cheap and often featuring good live bands.
 <strong>Club kids who seek the thrills of local electronic music</strong> may well be disappointed by the range on offer, with a few very notable exceptions. Mama, run by the management of the legendary mid-'90s Tunnel Club, is still a great place to go for the city's best drum'n'bass, progressive house and trip hop. A constantly revolving selection of DJs, which a recent visit proved were as good as ever, means that there is something for everyone, and the disused warehouse look, complete with damp walls with exposed brickwork, might have cost thousands of dollars to create were it not obvious that the venue came like that. Griboyedov also has techno DJs which revolve with live rock bands - an idea that works, although pretty much unheard of in the West. Also, watch out for the annual Vostochny Udar (Eastern Strike) raves, which have had very good press recently.
 The remainder of the city's techno clubs are rather a disappointment. The massive PORT, for example, which blasted on to the club scene but soon after fizzled, is reportedly full of provincials and, despite invited foreign and Moscow DJs, is not considered worthy of its glitz and door cover by local clubbers. The enormous Metro club is one of the city's most popular and has a young and affluent crowd that is friendly and relaxed. The lesbian security is a pleasant change, and the place is always packed, especially on Mondays which is student night.
 To look at St. Petersburg nightclubs' names, the impression is that people want to be anywhere but Russia - Saigon, London, Liverpool, Havana. However, with some exceptions there appears to be little in a name, save a perfunctory decor and some geographically specific drinks on sale. All tend to play rather generic eurodance and Russian pops, despite the pretensions to the exotic that their names suggest. Havana and Manhattan are exceptions - the former offers free entry to &quot;real&quot; Latinos with a passport on Wednesday, although a follow-up phone call to the management revealed that they themselves were not quite sure where you have to be from to qualify, while the latter has no visible link to Americana whatsoever.
 Clubs geared more towards <strong>meeting members of the opposite sex </strong>rather than dancing are also plentiful. While many of these clubs are crammed with beautiful women and foreigners walking around in a state of disbelief, many of the girls are, shall we say, looking for material reimbursement. Hollywood Nites, Marstall (Konyushenny Dvor) and Tribunal are well known for this, but interestingly enough it would appear that The National Hunt, which was once an exemplary hooker-joint, has apparently gone straight and kicked out all its sex workers according to our sources.
 The city's <strong>gay night life</strong>, long dominated by Club 69, a Western-style venture that is very popular with straight clubbers as well as male prostitutes, has become a little more democratic with the conversion of Greshniki to a gay club last year. Alongside the truly Soviet Jungle, Greshniki is a friendly place with appalling music but at times a great atmosphere. Lesbian clubbing is truly thin on the ground, with just two rather lack-luster venues, Caprice and Pyatnitsa, which has a lesbian night on Saturdays.
 Finally, if you want to see something truly <strong>unusual and sometimes disturbing</strong>, drop into Money Honey in Apraksin Dvor. This rockabilly time warp takes you back to 1950s America, with ridiculous teddyboys and their gelled hairstyles ruling the roost. You almost expect Fonzie to walk in at any moment, but Henry Winkler himself would probably look down his nose at this truly bizarre Russian curio.
 
 <i>Cynic, 5 Goncharnaya Ulitsa, M: Ploshchad Vosstainiya; Caprice, Ulitsa Krzhizhanovskogo, M: Propsect Bolshevikov; Pyatnitsa, 10 Moskovsky Prospect, M: Sennaya Ploschad/ Sadovaya. For all other addresses of clubs in this article, see The St. Petersburg Times club guide. </i>

TITLE: piotrovsky unveils catherine's treasures
AUTHOR: by Victoria C. Rowan
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: They don't make empresses like they used to. Catherine the Great arguably reigns supreme among history's monarchs as an audacious original: a German princess who pulled the throne from under her husband and crowned herself Tsarina of Russia, just days before he was murdered by her supporters. From 1762 to 1796, she ruled with smarts and moxie, influenced by her reading of the philosophers of China and the French Enlightenment. Although it may have been fashionable to discuss the inalienable rights of man, women's rights weren't even a bad joke yet, making Catherine's ambition and sexually liberated lifestyle all the more remarkable - and undoubtedly the reason why she inspired so many apocryphal legends. And while other autocrats came under siege, Catherine crushed rebellion and led Russia to international might.
 Hers being a time before nuclear arsenals and space programs were the status symbols of choice, Catherine II flashed her purchasing power as much to broadcast her country's robustness as to sate her whimsical appetites. <strong>Treasures of Catherine the Great</strong><i> </i>is a book that provides a teaser sampling of what she bought. 
 Edited by the director of the Hermitage museum, Mikhail Piotrovski, &quot;Treasures of Catherine the Great&quot; is more accessible than academic. But the real thrill is in seeing the over-the-top tchotchkes with which this colorful ruler surrounded herself. It is the 18th century equivalent of the ogling of celebrity residences featured in glossy magazines today. 
 &quot;The crown jewels were kept in the Empress's own private apartments, in her Diamond Room ... where Catherine received her friends surrounded by gems and precious jewels,&quot; Piotrovski writes. &quot;Guests could pass through a series of rooms each decorated in a different Oriental style, moving as it were from China to Turkey to Persia. From here the 'imperial museum' grew and spread. First came a Hanging Garden with a pavilion housing mechanical dining tables which could be raised and lowered by servants from below, avoiding the necessity of servants eavesdropping on private conversations - this was the Hermitage itself; then came the Large Hermitage, the Hermitage Theatre, the Raphael Loggias. ... Modest private rooms and a sumptuous museum: these two elements symbolize the two sides of Catherine's character.&quot;
 Catherine explained her compulsion to collect in no uncertain terms. &quot;It is not for the love of art; it is voraciousness. I am not an amateur. I am a gourmand.&quot; Being a woman of great learning, wit, and sensual tastes, she wanted her purchases to enhance her court's worldly reputation and bragging rights. Flipping the pages, one notices how remarkably un-Russian much of her collection was, and how closely it resembles the royal collecting trends of the period in Western Europe, such as the obsession with Antique art and fine paintings. Instead of aiming for a predictable crowd-pleasing blockbuster, however, the curators focused on the Empress' connoisseurship. The exhibit emphasizes Catherine's cameos and intaglios (carved gems), the Chinoiserie (a recent rediscovery in the Hermitage), and Tula ware, a specifically Russian, highly refined steelwork. The Empress bought so much so quickly, typically sight unseen, that new purchases would sometimes wait for years before being unpacked. In 1785 she wrote, &quot;My little collection of engraved stones is such that yesterday four men had difficulty in carrying it in two baskets filled with drawers containing roughly half the collection.&quot;
 Catherine had little patience for gratuitous pretense and assumed the Neo-Classical style for her own - as was the fashion of other &quot;Enlightened&quot; Western countries. Though extravagant by contemporary standards, Catherine's Neo-Classicism was decidedly restrained compared to the Baroque style preferred by Empress Elizabeth who preceded Catherine's husband, Peter III, on the throne. Not only did Catherine collect antique coins and medals, she liked to commission them to commemorate events in her life (conquering Crimea and getting inoculated for smallpox) and those of her military lovers, especially Grigory Potemkin. 
 In 1795, Catherine smugly exclaimed, &quot;All the cabinets of Europe are but child's play compared to ours!&quot; And thanks largely to the core collections she established, the Hermitage Museum still awes the world. The odd 21st century twist of fate is that while Catherine flaunted her <i>objets d'art</i> to demonstrate Russia's wealth to the Western world, today the Hermitage, like the rest of Russia, is in dire financial straits and needs to exhibit its treasures abroad to impress these same nations, this time in the hope of attracting cash.
 
 <i>&quot;Treasures of Catherine the Great,&quot; edited by Professor Mikhail B. Piotrovski, 255 pages. Thames & Hudson/Harry N. Abrams, Inc. $24.95
 Victoria C. Rowan is a cultural writer living in New York City. She also produces a literary variety show, &quot;Beyond Words: Stories on Stage.&quot; </i>

TITLE: festival mania ready to take hold again
TEXT: Perhaps the city's best promoted musical event, Stars of the White Nights, is running through all of June this year, beginning with the premiere of one-act ballets set to the music of Dmitry Shostakovich on May 30.
 Placido Domingo tops the list of celebrities appearing in the Gala concert on June 16. Domingo will also sing the role of Siegmund in the Mariinsky's premiere of Richard Wagner's &quot;Die Walk&uuml;re&quot; on June 19 and conduct Giuseppe Verdi's &quot;Aida&quot; the next day.
 Stars of the White Nights is also an opportunity to see the Mariinsky's most highly acclaimed performers, who make it to their home stage only a few times a year. Admirers of the velvety mezzo soprano Olga Borodina will have a chance to see her in the Gala concert on June 16 and then in &quot;Aida&quot; on June 20. Ulyana Lopatkina, who has just recovered from a leg injury, will be performing on June 1 in George Balanchine's &quot;Jewels&quot; and then on June 8 in Marius Petipa's &quot;La Bayadere.&quot;
 This month will also see a whole array of symphonic concerts worth attending. Violinist Vadim Repin will perform Beethoven's violin concerto on June 6 at the Mariinsky Theater, and Sibelius's violin concerto on June 9 at the Shostakovich Philharmonic Great Hall.
 The concert on June 21 at the Mariinsky will be devoted entirely to contemporary music. The company's choir and symphony orchestra will perform Sofia Gubaidullina's &quot;Passions After St. John&quot; and Tan Dun's &quot;The Water Passion After St. Matthew,&quot; written for the International Bach Academy in Stuttgart. Both works had their world premieres last year in Germany during the International Bach Festival, held to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the composer's death.
 Chinese-born Tan Dun, who now lives in Manhattan, is coming to St. Petersburg to conduct his own work. Contemporary music, argues Tan Dun, is not about the clash between avant-garde or the traditional, between East or West, or between simplicity or complexity. Instead, the composer believes that contemporary music is a quest for human roots. And for him personally it is a path to reconciliation between his own present and the past. On June 21, he will give us a demonstration.
 Those curious about the state of composing in the city of St. Petersburg have a concert to attend as well. Leonid Desyatnikov's opera &quot;Tsar Demyan&quot; is having its world premiere at 4 p.m. on June 20 at the Maly Drama Theater. A later performance will follow at 9 p.m. on June 23.
 <i>For ticket information, call the Mariinsky Theater at: 114-43-44. Links: http://www.mariinsky.ru/
 </i>
 <strong>
musical olympus
 </strong>
 With the exodus of Russian musical talent to better conditions abroad in full swing, Irina Nikitina goes against the stream. With her annual festival &quot;Musical Olympus,&quot; which runs from May 30 through June 5, Nikitina brings the world's most gifted young musicians to Russia.
 The festival, the sixth of its kind, brings together prizewinners of major musical contests around the world, including the Sibelius Violin competition in Helsinki, the Maria Callas Grand Prix in Athens, the Donatella Flick Conducting Competition in London and the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels.
 Through its relatively short history, Nikitina's Musical Olympus, launched in 1996, has gained impressive international recognition. The festival, along with Gergiev's &quot;Stars of the White Nights,&quot; is one of the only two Russian musical festivals to join the prestigious World Federation of International Music Festivals.
 One of the festival's strong points is its diversity and flexible structure in terms of genre. An example and highlight this year is Aidar Gainullin, who will be playing Astor Piazzola's Bandeon Concerto. Talented vocalists will make their presence, too. Look out for Canadian contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux (first prize at the Queen Elisabeth Competition), American baritone Nathaniel Webster (second prize at the ARD International Music Competition) and Romanian tenor Marius Brenciu (second prize at the Queen Elisabeth Competition).
 Younger stars will also be conducting the concerts. Nikitina has invited several winners of conducting competitions, such as Pablo Gonzales (Spain), Tugan Sokhiev (Russia) and Dorian Wilson (United States) - the latter's third Musical Olympus. &quot;There is a noticeable shortage of bright young conductors worldwide and in Russia in particular, so we devote maximum attention to the ones we can find,&quot; Nikitina said.
 The program itself will be very varied: Schnittke, Berlioz, Elgar, Dvorak, Rakh ma ninov, Ravel, Penderecki, Piazzola, Sibelius and Poulenc. Many of the works are very rarely performed in Russia.
 
 <i>For tickets and further information, call the Shostakovich Philharmonic at 311-73-33. 
 Link: http://www.musicalolympus.spb.ru/
 </i><strong>
message to man
 </strong>

 Russia's only international festival of documentary, animation and short non-documentary films kicks off on June 15 with &quot;Super 8 Stories by Emir Kusturica&quot; and runs through June 22 this year in the Dom Kino (House of Cinema) and&quot;Aurora, Rodina and Svet movie theaters.
 Initially established as a festival aimed at opening a way for Russian documentary makers to the international film scene, the 11th &quot;Message To Man&quot; still puts an emphasis on documentaries.
 Special screenings include a program devoted to European Documentary Films and a program of Union of German Documentary Makers. For the first time in its history, this year Message To Man is showing selected films from the Yekaterinburg Film Festival. All of the works were produced last year on both film and video.
 Other interesting screenings feature a retrospective of Alexander Sokurov's works, entitled &quot;Voice of a Lonely Man,&quot; a program introducing contemporary Israeli films, and a selection of films called &quot;Prominent French Actors in Short Films.&quot; A special screening called &quot;Films in the Context of Epochs: A Way of Encoding Reality&quot; will explore the influence particular eras may have on film directors' methods.
 
 <i>For further details, call the festival's organizing committee at: 230-22-00. Link: http://www.message-to-man.spb.ru/
 </i>
 <strong>
carnival week
 </strong>

 The word &quot;capital&quot; is frequently applied to St. Petersburg in various forms, but acquired yet another variant on May 27 when the city became the Carnival Capital of Europe. This honorable title is awarded annually by the Federation of European Carnival Cities, which is sending numerous delegates to attend the event. Pagan masters from England, Spain, Malta, Sweden, France, Germany, Denmark, Belgium, Bulgaria and many other countries are going to pay a visit in carnival week.
 The city's reign as carnival capital will last until June 3, with three carnivals being held during this period. The carnival fiesta kicked off at noon on the city's birthday, May 27, with a mass parade along Nevsky Prospect and all around town.
 On June 1 - also known as the Day for the Protection of Children - Vasilievsky Island will be hosting a chidren's carnival (noon through 8 p.m., near the Pribaltiiskaya hotel out toward the Gulf of Finland), while on June 3 the festivities are moving to the town of Pushkin.
 The 7th International Tsarskoye Selo (Pushkin) Carnival will sweep the town as usual: Featured is a carnival parade (starts at noon), a competition for the best carnival umbrella and the best carnival balcony, and even a dogs' carnival, as well as a festival of fireworks at 11 p.m.
 
 <i>For more details, call the information service number 050.
 </i><strong>master class
 </strong>
 The Master Class festival, running from June 6 to 16, is an annual event organized by the foundation of the same name, which describes itself as a movement aiming to promote and encourage a synthesis of all the arts.
 Since the festival's 1993 debut, St. Petersburg has seen an exhibition of lithographs by world-renowned tenor Luciano Pavarotti, ballet performances in the Mikhailovsky Gardens, an exhibition of contemporary sculpture on Ostrovsky Square, and much more.
 This year, Master Class will culminate in a 10-hour &quot;arts marathon&quot; (June 7, 11 a.m. through 9 p.m.), with artists, sculptors, and photographers from 20 different countries taking over Palace Square.
 The overall idea linking most of this year's projects is the 10th anniversary of the date when the city was renamed St. Petersburg instead of its Soviet-era title, Leningrad.
 Other highlights promise to be the open-air Master Class of Blacksmiths on Manezhnaya Square on June 12 (noon to 6 p.m.), and the next day's fashion show featuring designers Natalya Mekler, Maya Kuznetsova and Klavdia Smirnova at the Arts Collegium gallery (62 Liteiny Prospect). More Master Classes will be available from a team of art therapists from England, Holland, Finland and Russia, who will be getting together at 5 p.m. on Manezhnaya Square on June 10.
 
 <i>For more information, call the festival's organizers at 279-39-27.
 </i>
 <strong>
festival of festivals
 </strong>

 Movie lovers are bound to spend the last week of June (more precisely, June 23 to June 29) in the Dom Kino, Leningrad, Parisiana, Rodina, Molodyozhny and Spartak movie theaters - which means it is time for the 9th Festival of Festivals, featuring over 100 movies and a master class from Dutch director Jos Stelling.
 The latest hits include Jeanne LaBrune's comedy &quot;Tomorrow's Another Day&quot; with Nathalie Bay in the lead role; Patrice Chereau's &quot;Intimacy,&quot; winner of the Golden Bear award in Berlin; Marleen Gorris's take on Vladimir Nabokov's &quot;Luzhin's Defense;&quot; Renny Bartlett's story of one of Russia's greatest filmmakers, &quot;Eisenstein&quot;; Takeshi Kitano's thriller &quot;Brother,&quot; and Oxide Pang's &quot;Bangkok Dangerous,&quot; which tells the story of a deaf-mute hitman and his partner based in Bangkok.
 New Russian cinema is represented by Alexander Sokurov's &quot;Taurus,&quot; Andrei Nekrasov's &quot;Love and Other Nightmares,&quot; Oleg Kovalyov's &quot;The Dark Night,&quot; Yegor Konchalovsky's &quot;The Hermit&quot; and Sergei Bodrov Jr.'s &quot;Sisters.&quot;
 
 <i>Links: http://www.filmfest.ru/ </i>

TITLE: foreign students find new alma mater in petersburg
AUTHOR: by Thomas Rymer
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: They come from all over, drawn by St. Petersburg's reputation and character as an artistic center, looking for something difficult to find anywhere else - and at a reasonable price for good measure. But we're not speaking of tourists in this case. They're music students.
 The Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory, a name it took in 1944, was opened as the first musical institution of higher education in Russia in 1862 and while the list of renowned Russian graduates of the school includes composers Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Sergei Pro ko fiev and Dmitry Shostakovich, the violinist Jascha Heifetz, and conductors Yury Temirkanov and Valery Gergiev, a large number of foreign students have been coming to the school in recent years in order to access a rich and unique tradition.
 &quot;I think that the classical base of the education is much stronger here than in the West,&quot; says Nicklas Schmidt, a 25-year-old composition student from Denmark. &quot;I think that in Europe, the avant-garde approach has burned a lot of bridges to history. It's not as important to know the history of music as well there as it is here, where it's required that you have this basic knowledge.&quot;
 &quot;You get a stronger all-round musical education here, which is based on their strong traditions in music,&quot; adds Daniel Hill, 20, a pianist from Australia.
 The strong tradition at the conservatory, which is presently headed by conductor Vladislav Chernushenko, seems to stem in equal parts from the nature of the city itself and from the tradition of accomplished pedagogues at the school, stretching from the first rector, Anton Rubinstein - who also taught piano - to well-known instructors of this century, such as the venerable founder of what can be called the St. Petersburg school of conducting, Ilya Musin.
 Musin, who taught at the conservatory for 70 years before his death in 1999, pioneered a style of conducting emphasizing a more fluid and circular style, in contrast to the German style, which has a more choppy character. But what attracts students to the place where Musin taught is not only a preference for this style of performance, but also for the way it influenced the school's teaching method.
 &quot;From the standpoint of education, Musin introduced a very performance-based program, which is why students here work with an orchestra,&quot; says Darryl Ang, a 23-year-old from Singapore who studies conducting here. &quot;It's not an opportunity you really have at a German conservatory and, for that reason, the education here takes you a few steps forward, because you already have an instrument to work with.&quot;
 &quot;It's a good education in a musical sense because I came here more as a self-taught musician, so I lacked that foundation,&quot; Ang adds. &quot;They really push you, so for someone like me the system here is good.&quot;
 And conducting is just one discipline where the teaching tradition at the conservatory, and in Russia in general, is high. &quot;They just have a very good tradition here of musical education, which was refined during the Soviet times, Hill says. &quot;If you look around the world at the most respected institutions, there are Russian piano teachers, for example, everywhere.&quot;
 While most of the students agree that the education at the conservatory is strong, they also admit that studying as a foreigner in St. Petersburg can be somewhat daunting. 
 One of the major difficulties is the fact that Russian musical education is usually more formal at an earlier age, with preparatory musical education beginning at age five, and specialized education at schools where the students receive a broad musical education alongside standard school subjects. The Russian students, therefore, tend to enter the conservatory with a stronger musical grounding.
 &quot;Russians who enter the conservatory here can already play everything in their first year, they already have all the skills,&quot; says Nina DeWall, 20, who is from Holland and studies the violin. &quot;If I compare myself to a Russian violinist at this age, I'm very much behind in relation to technical skills, because so much of what I'm learning right now they already learned when they were 12.&quot;
 &quot;That's part of the reason they split up the courses here,&quot; Hill adds. &quot;Foreign students don't take the same courses the Russian students do because it's generally expected that they start out on a higher level than we do since they have already spent a number of years in schools that are geared toward music.&quot;
 But Nina Seriyogina, who graduated from the Moscow Conservatory, studied before that in musical schools in St. Petersburg and is Hill's piano instructor, says that the foreign students often manage to make up the ground. And she adds that, while foreign students gain from the particular character of studies in Russia, their Russian counterparts are able to gain from their presence as well.
 &quot;I think having foreign students here is good for our students, particularly given the economic realities of Russian life,&quot; Seriyogina says. &quot;Many of our students now don't have the opportunity to go and see other places, while earlier there were other obstacles to going abroad.&quot;
 &quot;When students come from abroad and from here have the opportunity to work and spend time together, they begin to understand that there are different views and approaches, not just to music but to looking at life in general.&quot;
 Aside from the difference in level of training, many of the foreign students are faced with another difficulty upon their arrival in the form of the Russian language. While the conservatory suggests that students take a four-month to one-year preparatory course, ostensibly to learn Russian, before beginning their standard course of study, this is not an essential requirement. For some of the students, this causes difficulties.
 DeWaal, who like Hill had a grandmother who was born in Russia, says that her progress in the language has not been as rapid as she had expected.
 &quot;I thought that after a year my Russian would be fluent because I thought that there wouldn't be that many people around who speak English,&quot; she says. &quot;But I immediately fell in with the group of foreign students and we end up speaking English all the time.&quot;
 The students generally say that the language barrier doesn't hinder their studies significantly, since much of the musical instruction takes place through example and most musical terminology is Italian. Nonetheless, it still presents problems at times. 
 Foreign students take a slightly different program - either being exempt form some courses like philosophy and history that the Russian students must pass, or being allowed to take them in later years.
 &quot;In composition, we tend to take more classes together with the Russian students, and that's been tough,&quot; Nicklas Schmidt says.
 &quot;For example, we studied polyphony together, and the language problem was more evident there.&quot;
 And Seriyogina says that it can present problems during individual instruction.
 &quot;An instructor can show a pupil what they mean by playing, but there is always some explanation involved,&quot; she says. 
 &quot;When I start work on a new piece with a student, the first session often doesn't involve any playing at all but, instead, just explanations and discussions about the nature of the piece. For this, there has to be some ability to communicate with each other.&quot;
 Aside from strict cultural and educational considerations, there is also an economic side to the attraction to St. Petersburg for foreign students. Tuition at the school is $4,500 per year, with some students, such as conductors, paying another $200 dollars to cover orchestra costs. Comparable programs outside Russia charge tuition four times as much.
 While the tuition fee is relatively low, the effect monetary concerns have on the school can sometimes cause concern with students.
 &quot;The admissions policy is a tricky question. Where the foreign students are concerned, I think that the economic situation in Russia has some effect on who is admitted,&quot; Hill says. &quot;There are certainly requirements for admission to the school, but I think that monetary considerations might ease these requirements on occasion.&quot;
 &quot;I think that being admitted and graduating are two different questions,&quot; Schmidt adds. &quot;They are trying to tighten up the exams for graduation so that they are back to where they were before, because I think they are aware of the importance of the level of their graduates to the reputation of the school.&quot;
 Economic questions not forgotten, most of the students return to the same themes when discussing the draw of the conservatory - the broad nature of the program, and the city itself.
 Jason Witjas-Evans, 23, earned a bachelors degree in 1999 in Ireland, where he studied the double bass. Having finished his undergraduate work, he was unsure whether he wanted to continue with the instrument, and was interested in both composition and conducting. He wished to continue his music studies, and decided that the St. Petersburg Conservatory was the most suitable to his varied interests.
 &quot;I started out here with composition classes, but during the course of the first year I was able to start working on conducting and, once I was able to have my double bass sent from Ireland, I began working with that as well,&quot; Witjas-Evans said. &quot;So here I found a place where I could explore each of these things as the freedom to switch between disciplines is much greater. I finally settled on the double bass, so now I'm focusing seriously on that.&quot;
 While most students react positively when they talk of their experiences at the conservatory, it is often the cultural situation in the city itself that sparks a positive reaction. The large number of concert venues and performances, along with the level of cultural activity in forms such as drama, creates an atmosphere that is clearly very conducive to studies in the fine arts.
 &quot;Tickets to most concerts here are relatively inexpensive - even more so for students - and prestigious people definitely come here to perform,&quot; Hill says. &quot;It's not a place where people come for money, but where they come to play on these stages, because there are so many famous stages here.&quot;
 &quot;The Mariinsky Theater is just one example, and the Philharmonic has many very big-name pianists who come to play.&quot;
 But the venues in the city are not just reserved for established musicians, as the students also often have the opportunity to work in them themselves.
 &quot;I just conducted a professional concert with a professional orchestra last night,&quot; Ang said. &quot;It has a lot to do with luck, but it also has to do with the place, because it's not so expensive to present a concert here in Russia.&quot;
 &quot;In England or America, they don't want to take that risk ... where's the money going to come from? By coming here, I've gained that opportunity, and there will be more to come.&quot;

TITLE: where the times likes to eat
TEXT: The restaurant scene in St. Petersburg has improved immeasurably over the past few years, and the business shows no sign of cooling off, with new places opening almost every week. While finding the best places to eat out is high on the agenda for every tourist, <br> it is no less an important matter for long-term residents of the city. In our desire to direct you to the finest eateries around, <br> The St. Petersburg Times put its collective head together and tapped into <br> a combined total of well over a decade's dining. 
I found out quite a lot about what might be described as &quot;upper-middle-class&quot; restaurants when I was on the jury for that category during &quot;The Best Restaurant in St. Petersburg&quot; competition last year. The rules stipulated that I and my fellow jurors had to eat our way through eight restaurants in 10 days, although no one believes me when I describe just how difficult that was.
 Some of them I had been to before, such as <strong>Koleso, </strong>which has stuck in my mind predominantly as quite a good a fish restaurant, and <strong>Borsalino, </strong>the Astoria hotel's coffee shop, which has remained a firm favorite.
 But I also discovered <strong>Poruchik Rzhevsky, </strong>which at the time had just opened and which was packed even on a Wednesday night. Poruchik Rzhevsky, very much an evening-out restaurant with a live band that adds a bit of Soviet kitsch, would be one of my strongest recommendations - if you're really looking to splash out, it includes some of the items on the menu of <strong>Count Suvorov,</strong> a much pricier joint to which it is attached.
 St. Petersburg is also well served by &quot;national cuisine&quot; restaurants, such as the excellent <strong>Tandoor, </strong>and the very different <strong>Pirosmani, </strong>a Georgian restaurant with a highly unusual interior design complete with tables entirely surrounded by water.
 Closer to our office, I have recently been introduced to <strong>Pizzicato, </strong>located in the House of Composers, which outperforms most of the other pizza venues in town, with excellent pasta, shashlik and fish dishes, and reasonable prices to boot. And on the rare occasions I'm feeling wealthy, <strong>Khristofor </strong>consistently provides good food to go with the nautical bar, fish tank and parrot - the management won't thank me for pointing out that some of the starters are easily big enough to make a main course unnecessary.
 I have also long been an admirer of the Concord catering branch of restaurants. <strong>New Island </strong>is on a ship that in summer plows the Neva river, which is terrific unless your dinner date happens to be late and you literally miss the boat; <strong>Na Zdoroviye! </strong>is on the Petrograd Side, and while I haven't been for ages I was impressed last time; the <strong>Old Customs House </strong>is the chain's most expensive and classiest restaurant last I looked; and the <strong>Stroganoff Yard, </strong>at the opposite end of the scale, is a much better place to sit and chat than it is to eat (the latter, along with the Idiot cafe, are the two worst places in the city for service, although the surroundings in both cases are attractive).
 
Speaking of surroundings, a great place to eat and fritter away money in the same evening is <strong>Taleon</strong>, whose restaurant interior is exquisite and which received high marks when we reviewed its Sunday brunch. There's a casino in the same building, so don't drink too much.
 
Again, if money permitted, I would repeat the unrepeatable experience of dining at the <strong>Noble Nest </strong>which I had in 1996 - a time lag making this an unreliable recommendation, although the memories have not dimmed (I still have the bill). For a more affordable (but not that cheap) taste of olde worlde charm, head to the small <strong>Staroye Cafe, </strong>which seems to have become a must-do stop for most visitors to the city.
 In the same vein, I also recommend <strong>Podvorye </strong>in Pavlovsk - go out of the station, turn right and it's five minutes away - which is an enormous wooden construction done in the style of a Terem house. Places like Podvorye are worth seeking out for the Russian culinary delights of pickles, mushrooms, black bread and kvas elevated to a fine art.
 

 <i>- By Barnaby Thompson
 </i>
The official Mariinksy restaurant <strong>Backstage</strong> makes a pleasant change from the usual fare on offer at theater eateries. The swish venue, facing the Mariinsky and overlooking the Kryukov Canal offers excellent modern European cuisine, worthy of a trip even if you don't have tickets to the opera or ballet. Its blend of silver service and graffitii-adorned walls also make it one of the city's best designed venues.
 French food without Parisian prices can be hard to find St. Petersburg, although there are many excellent French restaurants for gourmands with unlimited expense accounts. <strong>Bistrot Garcon</strong>, by the Moscow Station, is not cheap, but perhaps lighter on the pocket than most. Designed in the style of a Parisian bistro, Garcon boasts a French chef who prepares magnificent food from a very varied menu.
 Caucasian and Central Asian eateries are in abundance, and locals will be able to recommend you their favorite. Two on the upper end of the market are<strong> Kavkaz</strong> and <strong>Karavan</strong>. Kavkaz is the less expensive of the two, and lacks the lavish decor of the former. However, both offer excellent food. Try the vegetable cheburek at Karavan or the wonderful eggplant hors d'oeuvres at Kavkaz.
 
And putting flesh on the phrase &quot;to fish for your supper,&quot; <strong>Russkaya Rybalka</strong> is the place to do just that. You do the fishing, they do the cooking. And for a bargain $75, they even let you swim with the fish. Perhaps that adds flavor.
 
 - <i>By Tom Masters</i>
 

 A clear indication of the way the restaurant scene has changed recently is that, even with a weekly restaurant column, this newspaper is still unable to keep up with all the places that keep opening.
 <strong>Restoran</strong> on Vasilievsky Island deserves a special mention, with its very stylish, sparse interiors` and large fireplaces. The food is a Russian-European mixture, with the <i>zakuski </i>on offer a particular highlight. It is also not as expensive as you might think, more of a mid-price establishment, with a meal for two unlikely to exceed $50. If this doesn't seem particularly cheap, compare it to the Old Customs House across the street, which is likely to cost twice as much.
 <strong>Karavan-Sarai</strong> (not to be confused with Karavan) is one of the best of the new &quot;ethnic&quot; eateries, a strictly Uzbek restaurant, with its Old Samarkand interiors and rich, spicy fare, with items like horse meat on the menu, and lavish helpings of herbs and vegetables.
 A feature of dining here is that even a fairly modest beer bar will often have a surprisingly good kitchen, with the food related bars such as <strong>U-2 </strong>or <strong>Nemo </strong>always providing more than just snacks to wash down one's Botchkarov. Other excellent cafes/bars around the city include <strong>Gondola</strong>, with some of the best soup in town, and the <strong>Sennaya Ploshchad Traktir</strong>, with its hearty portions and beer snacks to die for. The milieu can get a bit dangerous, however, if the rougher denizens of the square wander in to spoil your meal.
 

 - <i>By Simon Patterson
 
 
Koleso, 2 Voznesensky Prospect.
 
Borsalino, 39 Bolshaya Morskaya Ul.
 Poruchik Rzhesky, 6 Ul. Lomonosova
 Count Suvorov, 6 Ul. Lomonosova
 Tandoor, 2 Voznesensky Prospect
 Pirosmani, 14 Bolshoi Prospect.
 Pizzicato, 45 Bolshaya Morskaya Ul.
 Khristofor, 27 Bolshaya Morskaya Ul.
 Old Customs House, 1 Tamozhny Per.
 Stroganoff Yard, 17 Nevsky Prospect
 New Island, Univeritetskaya Nab.
 Noble Nest, 21 Ul. Dekabristov
 Staroye Cafe, 108 Nab. Fontanki
 Podvorye, Filtrovskoe Shosse, Pavlovsk
 Backstage, 18/10 Teatralnaya Ploshchad
 Bistrot Garcon, 95 Nevsky Prospect
 Kavkaz, 18 Karavannay Ul.
 Karavan, 46 Voznesensky Prospect
 Restoran, 2 Tamozhenny Pereulok
 Karavan-Sarai, 1/38 Ul. Nekrasova
 Gondola, 150 Nevsky Prospect
 Traktir, 2 Moskovsky Prospect </i>

TITLE: vodka preserved
AUTHOR: by Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: It may come as a surprise for some that Russia, with its impressive history of drinking, was so slow in opening a museum devoted to the country's most popular drink, vodka.
 Russia counts among the world's top alcohol consumers, reaching a national figure last year of 14 liters of pure alcohol consumed per capita.
 But the idea of the world's first Museum of Russian Vodka is taking shape. It opened on May 31 at 5 Konnogvardeisky Boulevard, and is run by three co-directors - in Russia, three has traditionally been considered the ideal number for sharing a bottle.
 Sergei Chentsov, one of the directors and a doctor by profession, expressed surprise during a sneak preview that the museum is the first of its kind. &quot;There is a cognac museum, and a whiskey museum,&quot; Chentsov said. &quot;It is good finally to be able to give the Russian national drink its due.&quot;
 &quot;Russian vodka first emerged about 500 years ago, and it has since been deeply connected with Russia national character. The country's greatest people were well known for their love for vodka,&quot; he said.
 Occupying just two small halls, the museum's collection juxtaposes vodka bottles, glasses, posters and much other vodka memorabilia, some of which was donated by private collectors, some purchased from antique shops.
 Glass is fragile and empty vodka bottles don't normally last long - especially when a fair of amount of drink has been consumed - so the museum's curators were facing quite a challenge trying to prepare a historically representative exhibit.
 &quot;The problem with vodka-related items is that so little of them have survived and therefore it is so difficult to find things,&quot; Chentsov said. &quot;The collection will grow, but I must say that we are happy with what we've done so far: Some of the bottles date back to the 1860s, we have one of Russia's first models of home-distilled vodka apparatus used centuries ago, as well as New Economic Policy and World War II-era alcohol-related posters.&quot;
 The museum is yet to develop its price policy but its organizers say a ticket will cost approximately 20 rubles. Special vodka-tasting programs accompanied by folk singing will be available daily for additional fee. Those under 18 years old won't be allowed to participate.
 Remarkably, the museum's directors are planning to organize theme evenings for schoolchildren to give teenagers a better idea of history of drinking in Russia, as well as vodka's influence on the country's past. &quot;There have been battles lost owing to excessive drinking by Russian armies, from the Mongol/Tartar invasion onwards,&quot; Chentsov said.
 &quot;As Russia's youngsters start drinking at an earlier age these days, they should be introduced to the actual culture of drinking before they plunge themselves into drinking itself, and start buying whatever they can from suspicious kiosks.&quot;
 With over 33,000 Russians dying in 2000 from counterfeit vodka, the Vodka Museum's curators are also hoping that their vodka-tastings will help visitors learn to distinguish a quality product from forgeries - which are to be found in many stores. &quot;We are going to contact all of Russia's reliable vodka-makers and ask them to cooperate. Some of them have already agreed to join this project,&quot; Chentsov said.
 
 <i>The Museum of Russian Vodka, located at 5 Kon no gvardeisky Boulevard, opened June 1. </i>

TITLE: city staggers toward beer fest number 5
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg's brewers and bureaucrats say they have been gearing up since March for the city's annual beer festival, which will take place on Sunday, June 3.
 Running since 1997, the beer fest is the big day for St. Petersburg's leading producers such as the Baltika, Vena, Bavaria, Bravo International and Stepan Razin breweries, who are also joined by another four or five regional producers. Last year, approximately half a million people visited 7,600 street bars, cafe and beer tents, and downed more than 200,000 liters.
 While this may not compare with the Munich Oktoberfest - a two-week jamboree during which 6 million pairs of lederhosen sink close to 10 million pints, not to mention 830,000 sausages, 65,000 pork knuckles and 60 oxen - it easily surpasses numbers at many of the world's major beerfests, which are more geared towards elephant-stopping ales for hardened professionals.
 Several hundred million liters of beer - or &quot;liquid bread,&quot; as it is often called by Russians - are sold annually in St. Petersburg, which accounts for approximately one-quarter of the total production from the city's five biggest breweries. 
 In 2000, beer consumption in this city climbed to over 40 liters per capita, which is much higher than the corresponding figure for all of Russia but a lower statistic when compared to Western Europe, where over 100 liters a year per capita are consumed on average - quite a lot of it in the Czech Republic.
 The industry as a whole is one of Russia's hardiest and most successful, weathering the 1998 crisis with less trouble than other businesses and still tapping into an expanding market nationwide. Foreign companies have been able to jump on the beer wagon and rack up huge profits without putting a dent into each other's businesses, feeding a growing investment boom in local beer production. The fact that a bottle of Russian-produced beer costs about the same or even less than a bottle of Coca-Cola has also helped fuel demand.
 In its first three years, the beer festival was a two-day event, but in 2000 this was shortened to just the Sunday and restricted to Palace Square and the surrounding area, excluding St. Isaac's Square. While the decision is understandable - it reduces the cost and trouble of closing St. Isaac's Square to traffic, and paying for musicians, DJs and policemen - it is also a pity, since an automobile-free St. Isaac's proved to be an idyllic place to nurse a hangover on the second morning of the festival.
 Beer companies have also proved adept at the old marketing ploy of brand extension, and if you haven't been to Russia before, you may be surprised to find that for a country famous for its vodka, the varieties of beer on offer is bewildering.
 Baltika has always been famous for its numbered beers, which get stronger the higher the number. Its most recent addition is the non-alcoholic No. 0, perhaps in compensation for the highly destructive No. 9. The brewery's &quot;standard&quot; is probably No. 3, if what you're looking for is that cool lager on a hot day, while No. 4 and No. 6 are the most popular dark beers.
 But the other companies have been quick to get in on the act, producing lemon beers for the summer, Zenit beers when the local football team won the Russian Cup, and beers for practically any festival, anniversary or other celebration when they think they can get away with it. (It was a mercy that no one came out with a Pushkin beer for the great poet's 200th birthday a couple of years ago.)
 One curious fact concerning the way that Russian law deals with the beer industry is that the beverage is officially classified as a non-alcoholic drink. The Russian response to this is typified by an old saying that translates roughly as, &quot;Beer without vodka is like throwing money away.&quot;
 A potent illustration of this philosophy is the drinking game known as Climbing Mount Everest. The idea is to start off with a glass of beer, take a swig, and fill the glass back up to the top with vodka. Repeat until the liquid in the glass is clear, at which point you have climbed Mount Everest.
 Of course, once a drinker is up, he may well want to get back down. In order to do so, go through the same process in reverse - sip the vodka, refill with beer. However, The St. Petersburg Times accepts no responsibility for anything befalling anyone who is foolhardy enough to try this without oxygen and experienced guides.

TITLE: goethe institute goes operatic
AUTHOR: by Giulara Sadykh-zade
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The Goethe Institute, which has made a name for itself as one of the leading cultural organizations in St. Petersburg with a string of first-rate exhibitions, is turning its hand once more to contemporary opera this summer with Wolfgang Rihm's &quot;Jakob Lenz.&quot;
 Written in 1978, Rihm's work received its world premiere in Hamburg, Germany, and had subsequent performances in Austria, Switzerland and Britain before it established a firm place in the repertoire. But &quot;Jakob Lenz,&quot; which will be performed at the Lutheran Evangelical Church at 22-24 Nevsky Prospect on June 4 and 6, has never been staged in St. Petersburg.
 While the Goethe Institute is the brains behind the idea, and is also paying for the singers and conductor, as well as the scenery and costumes, it is the Formal Theater which is at the head of the production - finding singers and a production team, seeking sponsorship and dealing with the media. A third partner is the Pro Arte Institute, which is supplying its contemporary music ensemble for the opera.
 The opera's subject is based on the novella &quot;Lenz&quot; by Georg B&uuml;chner, a colorful and detailed description of the author's inner feelings and troubles and his sensitivity toward the world around him. The prototype for B&uuml;chner's hero was Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz, a leading proponent of the Sturm und Drang movement who lived in Germany in the 18th century.
 &quot;Our philosophy at the Goethe Institute is to bring to St. Petersburg's cultural scene the things we think it lacks,&quot; said Wilfred Eckstein, head of the institute's local branch. &quot;We decided that our musical program here should go in three directions: chamber music, authentic performance, and introducing the public to the best 20th-century German compositions. St. Petersburg is particularly short of contemporary music, and our first move to correct this was to support the 'Sound Ways' festival by bringing in German musicians.&quot;
 But, Eckstein explained, the Goethe Institute was looking for a bigger project, one that would bring Rihm to the fore of the city's musical life. &quot;We chose 'Jakob Lenz' because it is his most successful and most performed operatic piece.&quot;
 Three years ago, the Goethe Institute had a similar project - and a major success - with &quot;The Life and Death of the Cornet Rilke,&quot; an opera by Siegfried Matthus that was staged by The St. Petersburg Opera and its artistic head Yury Alexandrov. That opera was staged as part of the Stars of the White Nights festival, and went on to win a Golden Mask award.
 The Goethe Institute initially approached Alexandrov again to produce &quot;Jakob Lenz,&quot; but a renewal of the partnership stalled for budgetary and creative reasons, said Eckstein. &quot;We couldn't get a clear idea of what the company wanted to do with the piece.&quot;
 And then Eckstein went to see &quot;School for Fools,&quot; staged by the Formal Theater and director Andrei Moguchy, which had also picked up a Golden Mask. &quot;I felt immediately that this was what we were looking for, that Moguchy could understand the poet and the work's metaphysical aspects,&quot; he said.
 In &quot;Rilke,&quot; the solo parts were performed by German singers who were experienced in performing contemporary music, and who had already sung the work at various festivals. With &quot;Jakob Lenz,&quot; only the conductor, Malte Kroidl, is from Germany, while the rest are Russians.
 &quot;This is the main difficulty with the project,&quot; said Eckstein. &quot;But using German singers again would have been both problematic and too expensive. Furthermore, we wanted to ensure that this work would keep in place in the city's theatrical repertoire, rather than just have it staged a couple of times and forgotten, as was the case with 'Rilke.'&quot;
 Performing in &quot;Jakob Lenz&quot; are local singers such as baritone Andrei Slavny as Lenz - who is on stage for almost the full 75 minutes of the opera - tenor Fyodor Lednyev and bass Mikhail Antonov. &quot;At the auditions, Andrei Slavny was so confident when he sung parts of the role that we had no doubts,&quot; said Eckstein.
 &quot;Kroidl [the conductor] has experience of opera work in Germany, and has also assisted [Mariinsky Theater artistic director] Valery Gergiev on productions of Wagner's 'Rheingold' and Richard Strauss' 'Salome,'&quot; said Eckstein.
 &quot;As for the future, the opera will stay in the repertoire of the Formal Theater, and we hope to stage it in other places, such as the Winter Stadium or at Lenfilm studios.&quot;

TITLE: soviet choreography gets revival
AUTHOR: by Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Restoring ballets which have been ignored for decades is always a risky enterprise, as the resurrected work often lacks the vitality of the original. The Mariinsky Theater, well aware of the potential pitfalls, has courageously revived three ballets created between 1961 and 1974 to music by Dmitry Shostakovich by the choreographers Konstantin Boyarsky, Leonid Yakobson and Igor Belsky.
 Judging from the premiere on May 30, the three works have in fact stood the test of time, and can be seen as a missing link in the theater's repertoire.
 This is all the more remarkable considering the setbacks the Mariinsky faced in staging the ballets, with the rehearsal schedule constantly changing when this year's premiere of &quot;The Nutcracker&quot; was delayed by a month.
 The sets for &quot;The Lady and the Hooligan&quot; are yet to be completed - the stage design is limited to giant slides projected on the back wall. But the dancing more than compensated for this.
 Though Boyarsky's 1962 ballet, which was performed for the first time at the Mariinsky, seemed slightly under-rehearsed, the opening night was a clear success. Svetlana Ivanova is the ideal choice for the fragile, fearful and simple-hearted lady, while Ilya Kuz net sov as the Hooligan shows great potential, although he is still somewhat lacking in vigor.
 &quot;This piece has nothing old-fashioned about it,&quot; said Mariinsky dancer Igor Petrov, who was invited to assist in restoring the ballet. &quot;Having it in the repertoire will provide a valuable experience for younger dancers, just as it did for me.&quot;
 &quot;The Leningrad Symphony,&quot; choreographed by Belsky in 1961, was set to the first movement of Shostakovich's 7th Symphony, which was written and first performed during the Leningrad blockade. The ballet's premiere at the Mariinsky theater on April 14, 1961, was one of the most memorable events in the history of Soviet choreography.
 The well-rehearsed new version, with Darya Pavlenko and Vladimir Shishov in the lead roles, did not meet with the tremendous applause the original once enjoyed, as there is definitely room for further growth. However, the <i>corps de ballet </i>unveiled the tragic story of World War II heroes who never returned home with considerable power. An important element of the success was the brilliant performance of the Mariinsky Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Alexander Polyanichko.
 But perhaps the highest praise of the evening should go to Vaganova Ballet Academy instructor Alexander Styopin, responsible for the production of Yakobson's &quot;The Bedbug.&quot;
 Yakobson's one-act piece, set to a mixture of Russian songs and folk tunes, in addition to Shostakovich's music, makes a considerable departure from the Vladimir Mayakovsky play on which it is based. The ballet ends with an enormous bonfire, while Maya kov sky's piece doesn't stop there. The story's comic characters are shown through the poet's eyes, with Maya kov sky himself present on stage.
 Yakobson's legendary eccentricity and sense of the grotesque were both very much present, the dramaturgy of his work perfectly alive.
 Young Mariinsky dancer Alexei Semyonov triumphed in the role of Pri syp kin, bringing vigor, passion, and a fine sense of the comic to his character, which was once performed by the Vaganova Academy's Styopin himself.
 &quot;In my classes, I frequently turn to Yakobson's style to demonstrate gesture and movement,&quot; said Styopin. &quot;Sadly, this extremely talented choreographer is well-nigh unknown to Western audiences, and is now rather neglected in Russia.&quot;
 Given the Mariinsky's extensive touring schedule, audiences around the world will soon have the pleasure of becoming acquainted with some neglected legends of Russian choreography.
 
 <i>The Shostakovich ballets will be performed next on June 9. Call the Mariinsky ticket office at: 114-43-44. </i>

TITLE: bodrov takes director's chair
AUTHOR: by Tom Masters
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Sergei Bodrov Jr. has changed focus with his directorial debut, &quot;Sisters.&quot; People, he warns, who have come to see &quot;Brother 3&quot; will be disappointed by this more mature and contemplative film - and after the bombast and populist nationalism in 1999's &quot;Brother 2,&quot; it is quite likely that Bodrov's film will indeed attract audiences seeking a similar comic-violent mix.
 That said, &quot;Sisters&quot; does have themes in common with the two smash hits that turned Bodrov into new Russian cinema's youngest superstar. Two young girls, Sveta (Oksana Akinshina) and Dina (Katya Gordina), are forced into hiding by their shallow gangster-wife mother and her new Dagestani husband who has recently been released from jail and owes one million dollars to some even harder gangsters. The &uuml;ber-gangsters are planning to steal the girls to ensure that they receive their due - and receive their due they eventually do - in the Robin Hood-cum-Robocop fashion typical of the Brother films.
 The two girls are fiercely different and do not take well to being forced to be together. Without money or a place to live, the girls earn a living by working the St. Petersburg elektrichkas with some gypsies they meet. Sveta sells drinks on trains, while Dina plays mournful violin at suburban stations. The gangsters, of course, do not take long to catch up with them, but Sveta and Dina, against all odds (and aided by Sveta's hobby of training at the rifle range), consistently manage to outwit them in situations that are often very funny indeed. Sveta's marksmanship even shames that of Bodrov's own cameo character at a rifle range. Dina, the spoiled and capricious princess, takes a crash course in reality, while sharp-witted and resolutely old-Russian Sveta copes admirably for a 13-year-old.
 The tale is, like Brother, a look at the human side of gangster lifestyles that have fascinated Russian TV and film makers since the breakup of the Soviet Union. The most original thing the film can offer is a look at the family from the inside, a family that is aware that its wealth and status are both reliant on illegality, and seemingly does not care.
 The crux of the film is the fascinating relationship between the sisters. What begins with two worlds colliding ends, however, in understanding and the finding of common ground.
 For a first film, Sisters is confidently realized and doubtlessly a promising debut in what looks to be a dazzling career for Bodrov. The cast and acting are both strong, although Bodrov's own self-indulgent cameo serves to illustrate that Bodrov is not an actor of range, and that he may well be better suited to being behind the camera. Sisters can also be praised for its portrayal of the &quot;dregs&quot; of Russian society, which unlike Brother 2, manage not to stray into racial stereotypes (particularly impressive when it came to the gypsy scenes, where the gypsies are portrayed as largely sympathetic, without any knee-jerk horror).
 Ironically enough, the split in Russian society between the law abiders and the law breakers is one that seems to confuse Bodrov himself. Sisters has some wonderful, naturalistic acting and compelling dialogues between Sveta and Dina. However, these are instantly subverted by the gear change necessitated by gangster posturing and violence that crops up throughout an otherwise well-orchestrated and insightful film.
 The nagging question is why Bodrov, an intellectual who holds a Ph.D. in Venetian art, has decided to focus on violence both as a way of life and a way of solving problems. Let's see Bodrov execute a film without having to execute people, and then he'll really be onto something.


TITLE: chernov's choice
TEXT: The main intrigue of the weekend is the fact that the two most happenning bands in the city are playing on the same day and at exactly the same time.
 While the horn-driven sound of <strong>Leningrad </strong>will fill SpartaK for a show called &quot;The Day of Protecting Children From Idiotic Parents,&quot; the Brit-poppish <strong>Multfilmy</strong> will play the Lensoviet Palace of Culture.
 &quot;We arranged our concerts separately, and I was surprised when I saw we were playing on the same day,&quot; said Leningrad's Sergei Shnurov about the coincidence. &quot;It's not good for us and it's not good for them.&quot;
 Meanwhile, Shnurov is hosting his own show on the increasingly popular <strong>Radio Phantom </strong>- the name of the program which is on the retro Radio Nostalgie at night.
 Broadcast from Nostalgie's transparent studio on Nevsky, the show has Shnurov drinking vodka, talking with guests in his trademark foul language, answering phone calls and playing his favorite sounds.
 &quot;Its format is an antithesis to any radio format,&quot; says Shnurov.
 &quot;The most pleasant thing about this program is that we don't get a kopeck for it. The only payment we get is a bottle of vodka and a carton of juice.&quot;
 &quot;It should be like this. Everybody misses non-commercialism, including DJs and music business people,&quot; he says.
 The subjects for discussions which Shnurov chooses are &quot;tricky and even aggressive&quot; - this week's program was devoted to &quot;Whoredom in Show Business.&quot;
 The program &quot;Govorit i pokazyvayet Sergei Shnurov&quot; (Sergei Shnurov's Show and Tell) begins at midnight on Wednesdays and finishes around 1 a.m.
 While <strong>Sting </strong>is playing the Ice Palace on Sunday, the venue has announced more shows this year, with the <strong>London Royal Philharmonic Orchestra </strong>playing the Beatles on August 12 and <strong>Tom Jones </strong>performing on September 13.
 For some reason, Jones has never been to Russia, although he was seen as a safer alternative to Elvis Presley by Soviet authorities and his songs could be found on compilation albums of foreign artists.
 The <strong>Tindersticks </strong>concert has changed location for a third time. Thursday's news release claims the &quot;arch-miserablists&quot; will perform at TYuZ, the Theater of Young Spectators. The date, June 19, remains the same. 1,200 tickets will be sold.
 The U.K. sextet, which has a cult following in Russia, released a new album on May 21. Called &quot;Can Our Love...,&quot; it opens with the optimistically titled track &quot;Dying Slowly.&quot;
 The Tindersticks' first two albums were pirated in Russia a couple of years ago, but seem to be no longer available, although Soyuz Record Shop on Ulitsa Vosstaniya has the two officially-released versions - costing $18 and $20. No trace of the new album has yet been detected in the city.
 The band's official Web site is www.tindersticks.co.uk, but a better source is the unofficial www.tinder.org.
 
 <i>- by Sergey Chernov </i>

TITLE: grebenshchikov hits the volga
AUTHOR: by Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: &quot;With this act, our 'Territorium' period ends,&quot; says Akvarium's official Web site about the band's traditional summer concert, which will take place in St. Petersburg on June 21.
 &quot;Territorium&quot; was the compilation Akvarium put out in October last year, and which is still on the sales charts (however unreliable those may be in Russia). 
 &quot;'Territorium' was the best of what we did in the last millenium - now that's over,&quot; says Akvarium's Boris Grebenshchikov, who will be opening the band's Volga tour in Yaroslavl on June 3.
 &quot;Our current set is only formally linked to 'Territorium,' because promoters like to put down the name of the show on our posters - so that people don't think it will be the same as it was last year. But what's on the posters is pure deceit - we'll be playing at least five new songs that have been written this year and are being recorded for a completely new album.&quot;
 The &quot;Territorium&quot; compilation album was designed for the Western market, based on an idea suggested by Akvarium's Berlin fan and friend Christof Wachsmuth.
 &quot;Chris turned out to be a real <i>akvariumist </i>[member of the Akvarium community, analogous to deadheads] in the sense that he couldn't sell a coffin to a dead man,&quot; said Grebenshchikov. 
 &quot;He's released [CDs], he keeps them in boxes at home and he can't sell a single copy because he hasn't approached anybody. I respect that, it's our style.&quot;
 As for the last millenium's music, Grebenshchikov has won back the rights to Akvarium's classic albums from the Moscow-based label Triary.
 &quot;Triary was able to do whatever it wanted with them for eight years, and we [want] to celebrate the return of the rights to our own songs,&quot; says Grebenshchikov. He therefore plans to stop reruns of &quot;ridiculous&quot; compilations and have the albums remastered and rereleased in the original 1980s design.
 According to Grebenshchikov, the rereleases will start to appear by the end of the year and will be augmented by bonus tracks - previously unheard recordings made in the 1980s, which have been found lately in both the archives of former Akvarium producer Andrei Tropillo and Grebenshchikov himself.
 An ardent supporter of Napster, Grebenshchikov closely follows what happens on the international music scene, and claims to discover at least a couple of interesting new acts daily.
 &quot;Even though Napster has been shut down, I'm now using Win MX, which uses Napster's network plus 30 other servers - there's a lot of stuff there,&quot; he says. &quot;Today I was downloading Kings of Convenience, who are called 'the new Simon and Garfunkel' in certain circles. They sound similar, but the fun is that everything around has changed, and it's naturally a different music.
 &quot;Or take The High Llamas, who sound very similar to The Beach Boys - except they are Scottish and they are working in the year 2000. Their songs have the same harmonies but they are about different things - and the feeling is absolutely different. It's fantastic!&quot;
 As far as Akvarium's new album goes, the band has nearly finished three or four tracks. Alongside the noisy punk number &quot;Shumelka,&quot; the collection includes a track called &quot;500&quot; - which contains political commentary with some poetic generalizations.
 The song talks of war and growing nationalism, hints at the sunken submarine Kursk, and compares the Motherland to a pig (&quot;My Motherland like a pig eats her sons&quot;).
 &quot;Everybody says that it's gloomy,&quot; says Grebenshchikov. &quot;I understand why, but it only seems that way - the same way the song 'This Train Is on Fire' used to seem political. When I was writing it, I had no idea that it was a political song. A song writes itself.
 &quot;When I wrote '500' and saw the reaction ... everyone was shocked and dumbfounded. When a song makes use of such realities, it might well shock people. But why does the reality not shock people, when the song does? Everybody separates art and life. But there are no artificial phrases in the song, all the phrases have been taken from real life.&quot;
 &quot;For some reason, we close our eyes and don't react [to what's around us. But unless we start reacting, we'll stay in the deep shit we're in now,&quot; he says. &quot;You should admit that what is going on is not quite right, and once you admit it, you'll start to do something about it.&quot;
 
 <i>Akvarium in concert at the Lensoviet Palace of Culture on June 21. </i>

TITLE: dynasty confuses styles
AUTHOR: by Simon Patterson
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: When a place bills itself as a &quot;family restaurant,&quot; one expects it to be the sort of place you could take the kids. But when we walked into the elegant, but rather dull interiors of &quot;Dynasty&quot; on 11 Gorokhovaya Ulitsa, the hefty gentlemen with the mobile phones who were finishing their meals made us wonder if the management didn't have another type of family in mind.
 Certainly, there is little on the menu that would appeal to children. But bizarrely enough, all the tables in the place seat at least five, cutting down on the intimacy factor. The management have also hung balloons around the place, and put dolls everywhere, providing a vulgar and unnecessary contrast to the obviously well-thought out decor.
 My dining companion and I huddled around one side of a circular table, and consulted the extensive, but perhaps not particularly inspiring, menu. With a few exceptions, the fare is the standard Russian dining experience - <i>bliny, </i>herring salads, <i>borshch </i>and so on - but somewhat more expensive than the norm for such a standard selection. Certainly, the price range is more than one would expect for a family restaurant.
 We started with the <i>pokhlebka po-petrovski, </i>(145 rubles) a mushroom bouillon with pelmeni, and the gaspacio (115 rubles). My dining companion enjoyed her pokhlebka, finding it filling but not fatty, while I thought my gaspacio was rather dull, more watery than it should be, and far too low on the spicy factor it is supposed to have. It was probably a mistake to order the only clearly non-Russian soup on the menu, and no doubt I would have been better off sticking to the borshch or the <i>ukha.</i>
 We both ordered a glass of Georgian wine - I went for the dry <i>Saperavi, </i>while my dining companion chose the sweeter <i>Khvanchkara </i>(both 125 rubles). For some reason, the management has deemed it appropriate to charge 65 rubles for a half-liter of Nevsky beer, so I decided against it on principle.
 My dining companion chose <i>Petersburgskie Tainy, </i>or Petersburg Secrets (205 rubles), which sounded promising - beef with apricots in a plum sauce - but instead turned out to be rather dry, and not particularly tasty. What secrets they had in mind was difficult to say.
 I went for the <i>Tsyplyonok tabaka </i>at 215 rubles. This turned out to be no less than half a chicken, with a slight smoky taste, and also with a plum sauce on the side. Unfortunately, it was somewhat bland, and there was too much of it for one person to eat.
 Ultimately, Dynasty needs to re-think its strategy. Either it should be a more-reasonably priced family restaurant, or it should ditch the family idea altogether, balloons and all, and work a bit harder to justify its prices.
 
 <i>Dynasty, 11 Gorokhovaya Ulitsa, 110-67-53. Open 7 days, 12 p.m. to 11 p.m. Lunch for two with alcohol, 1,074 rubles ($37). Credit cards accepted. </i>

TITLE: with a little help from tequila
AUTHOR: by Simon Ostrovsky
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: New York-based band Interzona are making their Russian debut in St. Petersburg this Friday.
 On Tuesday evening in the Dobrolyot recording studio, located in the bowels of the Lensoviet House of Culture, Mike Danilin was recording the title song of the group's first three-track single album, &quot;Zhivaya Pulya&quot; (Live Bullet). Danilin and the two other band members, Misha Zilberman and Ed Kabatsky, arrived in Moscow from New York last weekend and are in Russia for the first time in over 10 years to record their new album with Tequilajazzz drummer Alexander &quot;Dooser&quot; Voronov.
 &quot;Dooser is an animal, musically speaking&quot; said Danilin, in between cuts. A New York-based musician who left the Soviet Union in 1990 to escape military service, he is accompanied by guitarist Zilberman, a movie critic for NTV international and a writer for the Village Voice, and Kabatsky, the keyboard player and electronics specialist.
 Interzona met Tequilajazz at a SKIF festival in New York in 1998 where both bands were playing.
 &quot;The guys are great,&quot; said Zhenya Fyodorov, TequilaJazzz's vocalist. &quot;Back in '98 I didn't like their music at all. Two years later, though, the development in their style was evident, and Dooser agreed to work with Mike right away.&quot;
 Interzona's music is best described as electronic new wave, a blend of the three musicians' varied taste. Concerts are played from a DAT recording with the live accompaniment of vocals, drums and guitar.
 
 <i>Interzona plays Fish Fabrique on Friday, June 1 and the following week on Thursday, June 7 at Moloko. Some of Interzona's music can be found on the Web at www.prodacrecords.com </i>

TITLE: Wahid Gets Warning From Army
AUTHOR: By Slobodan Lekic
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: JAKARTA, Indonesia - The military cautioned President Abdurrahman Wahid on Thursday against declaring a state of emergency to block his possible ouster as lawmakers set a date for his impeachment hearing. 
 The People's Consultative Assembly, the nation's highest legislative body, will convene a special session Aug. 1 to hear charges against Wahid for alleged corruption and incompetence, the head of the legislature said Thursday. 
 &quot;God willing, we will start the special session on Aug. 1,&quot; Assembly chairman Amien Rais said after meeting with party leaders. 
 Meanwhile, about 2,000 Wahid supporters gathered peacefully in front of the state palace, which was protected by soldiers and razor wire. Wahid's fanatical supporters on Wednesday had rioted in his home province of East Java and protested outside Parliament in Jakarta to show their anger at moves to oust him. 
 Wahid on Thursday declined to answer questions about his political future at the conclusion of a summit of leaders from the G-15 group of developing nations, which was held in Jakarta. 
 &quot;We don't like the questions to be dominated by domestic affairs,&quot; he said in English at a news conference. &quot;For that there will be another forum that we will prepare for you tomorrow.&quot; 
 Foreign Minister Alwi Shihab, one of Wahid's closest advisers, said the embattled leader had no intention of issuing an emergency decree and would try to negotiate an end to Indonesia's political crisis before impeachment proceedings start. 
 &quot;We still have two months,&quot; Shihab told reporters. &quot;A compromise can be reached within only one hour.&quot; 
 Coordinating Minister for Political, Social and Security Affairs Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a retired four-star army general, said he had repeatedly told Wahid &quot;not to issue an [emergency] decree in this kind of situation,&quot; the official Antara news agency reported. 
 &quot;The decree would make Indonesia's problems worse,&quot; said armed forces spokesperson Air Marshall Graito Usodo. &quot;We have told the president this and we have asked him not to declare it.&quot; 
 The assembly that will hold the impeachment hearing is made up of the 500-member Parliament plus 200 representatives from regional legislatures and social interest groups. 
 Wahid, a nearly blind 60-year-old Muslim cleric, has denied any wrongdoing. He will address the assembly at the impeachment hearing, and if it rejects his defense, he could be dismissed and replaced by Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri, the daughter of Indonesia's founding leader, Sukarno. 
 Megawati's associates said Thursday they would campaign hard for Wahid's removal.

TITLE: WORLD WATCH
TEXT: Holocaust Payments
 

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Holocaust survivor groups and officials in Israel on Thursday praised a German decision to start paying compensation to more than one million survivors of Nazi persecution and forced labor.
 The lower house of the German parliament ended months of argument on Wednesday by voting overwhelmingly to unblock a $4.5 billion fund and start immediate payments to survivors more than 50 years after the fall of Adolf Hitler's regime.
 Around six million Jews were annihilated during Hitler's Final Solution.
 Under the terms of the payout, people forced into ghettos or camps are entitled to around $7,000. Those made to work in factories are eligible to receive around $2,200.
 Some 1.5 million survivors of Nazi slave and forced labor programs are expected to receive payments.
 
 
Iran Tests Missile
 

TEHRAN, Iran (Reuters) - Iran announced on Thursday it had successfully test-fired a new class of homemade surface-to-surface guided missile, in the latest step in a weapons program that has alarmed the United States and Israel.
 State television broadcast pictures of the ballistic missile taking off from a simple launcher at a desert site to cries of "Allahu Akbar" (God is Great), and helicopter film of the impact crater.
 It said the Fateh (Victorious) 110, which uses "composite solid" fuel, was built entirely by Iran's arms industry.
 Iran last year test-fired a new version of its Shahab-3 ballistic missile, believed to be based on a North Korean design and said to have a range of 1,300 kilometers, making it capable of striking Israel.
 The Fateh 110 appeared far smaller - about twice the height of a standard army truck.
 Iran insists its program is strictly conventional and meant for deterrence, not offensive operations. 
 
 
Palestine Marks Death
 

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A gunman shot dead a Jewish settler in the West Bank on Thursday and Pa les tinians marked the death of their most senior official for Jerusalem by vowing to press on with their struggle for an independent state.
 The 63-year-old settler died of head wounds after being shot driving near the town of Tulkarm, hours after Israeli and Palestinian security officials failed at their second meeting in two days to staunch eight months of bloodshed.
 Palestinians mourned Faisal Husseini, 60, the official in charge of Jerusalem affairs with ministerial rank, who died during a visit to Kuwait. His visit had been a highly sensitive one, bitterly criticized by many Kuwaitis because of Palestinian support for Iraq during its occupation of Kuwait a decade ago.
 Arafat said he would cut short a visit to Brussels because of the death, which he said was a "great loss." 
 
 
Fighting Subsides
 

SKOPJE, Macedonia (Reuters) - Fighting between Macedonian forces and ethnic Albanian guerrillas subsided on Thursday, but the two sides squabbled over how thousands of civilians trapped in the battle zone should be evacuated.
 The contested village of Matejce, some 21 kilometers northeast of the capital Skopje, was quiet after the two sides exchanged machine-gun and mortar fire through the night.
 But some small arms fire and a short burst of artillery was heard further north, close to the village of Slupcane.
 A plan on Wednesday to evacuate some 8,000 civilians trapped in guerrilla-held villages with dwindling supplies of food and water was scrapped after each side accused the other of sparking a fresh bout of fighting.
 The government accuses the guerrillas of using civilians as human shields, but the guerrillas say civilians in the northern hills, most of them ethnic Albanians, fear mistreatment by Macedonian security forces if they do flee.
 
 
Genetic-Research Storm
 

BERLIN (AP) - Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder came out strongly Thursday in favor of certain kinds of genetic research, stoking an intense ethical discussion.
 Parliament's first major debate on the topic showed lawmakers torn between bio tech nology's promise and moral, as well as religious, reservations. But Schroe der made his clearest statement yet against imposing too many limits in the search for new cures for hard-to-treat ailments.
 His approach was met with hesitation from a wide range of lawmakers, some of whom warned that unbridled genetic research could lead to selection.
 Schroeder said lives could be saved by research on so-called stem cells, a sensitive issue because many are obtained from embryos. Some scientists are pushing for a change in the law to allow such research in Germany
 
 
Hostages Spotted
 

MANILA, Philippines (AP) - The military blockaded a 96-kilometer-long stretch of ocean Thursday after Muslim militants were reportedly seen holding hostages in a boat full of grenades. A general said that once the kidnappers were found, "the shooting will start."
 The United States has offered help to find the 20 hostages, including three Americans, who were snatched by Abu Sayyaf gunmen from a tourist resort island in the southwestern Philippines on Sunday, a military spokesperson said. 
 With the Philippine president vowing to crush the rebels, one of the leaders of the search, Brigadier General Romeo Dominguez, said his forces were on a "rescue and destroy" mission. 
 But finding the rebels - who have threatened to kill all the hostages if a rescue is attempted - has proven difficult, with troops chasing their trail among the islands strewn across the Philippines' southern Sulu Sea. 
 
 
Immigrant Tragedy 
 

VERACRUZ, Mexico (AP) - Relatives gathered Wednesday night at the airport in this Gulf Coast port to receive the bodies of 12 of the 14 Mexicans who died trying to cross the Arizona desert into the United States last week. 
 Veracruz state was stunned by the deaths. The tragedy has highlighted for people on both sides of the border the hardship of Mexicans driven to seek a better life in the north. 
 On May 19, the would-be immigrants crossed the U.S.-Mexico border into the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge in southwest Arizona. They drove for about 1 1/2 hours, then set out on foot. 
 They were faced with 110 kilometers of dry, bleak terrain and temperatures reached 115 degrees. It was the deadliest crossing at the border since 1987, when 18 Mexican men died in a locked railroad boxcar near Sierra Blanca, Texas. 



TITLE: Hobbled Snow Leads Sixers to 1-Point Win
AUTHOR: By Chris Sheridan
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: PHILADELPHIA - After finding out earlier in the day that his sprained ankle was actually broken, Eric Snow decided to take a huge risk and play anyway.
 Without him, the 76ers couldn't have won.
 Snow hit two jump shots in the final two minutes for Philadelphia's final four points, and the 76ers overcame another poor shooting performance by Allen Iverson to beat the Milwaukee Bucks 89-88 Wednesday night in game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals.
 The victory wasn't assured until Glenn Robinson missed a 3-meter jumper from the baseline and Ray Allen missed a tip-in at the buzzer.
 Iverson finished just 5-for-27, but Snow shot 7-for-9 in scoring 18 points as the 76ers added another chapter to their season-long story of overcoming whatever problems might occur.
 The series resumes Friday night at Milwaukee, where the 76ers will try to advance to face the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Finals.
 Dikembe Mutombo of the 76ers had his best game of the series with 21 points, 13 rebounds and 9-for-9 shooting from the foul line, while Aaron McKie added 15 points and had four of Philadelphia's 13 steals.
 The Sixers needed all they could get from those two as Iverson struggled from the field for the sixth straight game. Iverson missed his first seven shots, nine in a row later and his final three of the game.
 Robinson had 22 points, Allen added 20 and Sam Cassell had 18 for the Bucks, who allowed the 76ers to have two four-point possessions and one five-point possession by picking up two untimely flagrant fouls and one technical foul.
 Those 13 points ended up being huge for the 76ers, who shot just 37 percent from the field and turned the ball over 14 times.
 The Bucks led throughout the first half but lost their edge when Cassell picked up a technical foul and Robinson was charged with a flagrant foul in the third quarter.
 The 76ers scored four straight points from the line on both calls, then took an 85-82 lead with 3:49 left on a five-point possession as Tim Thomas flagrantly fouled Tyrone Hill, who made both free throws, and McKie converted an offensive rebound and drew Ervin Johnson's sixth foul.
 Milwaukee scored the next four points before Snow hit a wide-open jumper from 5 meters. Allen was then called for a questionable offensive foul, Iverson missed a drive and Thomas threw away a pass after Milwaukee grabbed an offensive rebound.
 With the clock ticking inside 35 seconds, Snow hit a 6-meter shot to make it 89-86.
 Milwaukee's Jason Caffey scored from the lane with 18 seconds left, and the Bucks fouled McKie with 13.9 left.
 The 76ers had made 25 of 26 free throws to that point, but McKie was short on both attempts.
 Milwaukee got the ball to Robinson for a good shot, but it wouldn't go -and neither would Allen's tip.
 The Sixers now have a 3-2 lead in the series, and teams that have taken such a lead have gone on to win 83 percent of the time.

TITLE: SPORTS WATCH
TEXT: Dental Records
 

SCRANTON, Pennsylvania (AP) - Ty Cobb's dentures will be on display at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York, until late fall.
 Karen Shemonsky of Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania, a baseball memorabilia collector, paid $8,000 for the dentures at an auction in 1999.
 Shemonsky said the false teeth, which once were owned by Barry Halper, a well-known baseball memorabilia collector, are part of an exhibit of 150 items from Halper's collection.
 "This is such a thrill," she said. "This was my dream. I always wanted to get them in Cooperstown."
 Although the dentures couldn't be part of the museum's exhibit on Cobb because they have nothing to do with baseball, they're sure to be noticed by thousands of visitors expected this summer, said Ted Spencer, Cooperstown assistant curator.
 
 
 
Pakistan Fights Back
 

MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) - Inzamam-ul-Haq struck a scintillating 114 as Pakistan fought back to end the first day of the second and final test against England on 370 for eight on Thursday.
 Inzamam, who came in with Pakistan struggling on 39 for two, played an innings more reminiscent of one-day cricket to transform the mood at Old Trafford.
 His fifth-wicket partnership of 141 with Younis Khan turned the game on its head after the touring team, who won the toss, had slipped to 92 for four just after lunch on a batting pitch.
 Pakistan, beaten by an innings and nine runs in the first test at Lord's, finished the day with useful partnerships of 53 for the seventh wicket and 49 for the eighth. Rashid Latif was unbeaten on 64 at the end of the day.
 Andrew Caddick, man of the match in the first test, and Matthew Hoggard both took three wickets. 
 
 
Fans Win NFL Suit
 

NEW YORK (AP) - Fans who had been required to buy a full season of games on NFL's Direct Ticket satellite TV package will now be able to purchase them on a week-by-week basis instead.
 The new policy is the result of a class-action lawsuit against the NFL that was settled last week.
 Under the agreement, which will cost the NFL more than $13 million in payments to subscribers, legal fees and administrative costs, a subscriber can purchase individual weeks for $29.99 each for the next two years - the last two years of the existing contract. A season package costs $129.99.
 The lawsuit was filed in 1997 as a class action. The two named plaintiffs will receive $1,000 each, while their lawyers will receive $3.7 million. Other subscribers will get between $8.33 and $20.83 in individual payments.