SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #692 (59), Friday, August 3, 2001
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TITLE: City Gets
Ready
For 2003
Sponsors
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalyev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Local, national and international businesses are poised to sign up to sponsor the city's 2003 tricentennial celebrations, as Governor Vladimir Yakovlev signed a decree this week setting prices for various levels of corporate sponsorship.
"Participation in the St. Petersburg 300 program is primarily an example of what business can do for its favorite city," said Sergei Lepkovich, general director of the Pyatyorochka chain of grocery stores, in a telephone interview on Wednesday.
According to Yakovlev's decree, a single "general sponsorship" will be available for $3 million. One "special sponsorship" will go for $1 million. "Honorary sponsorships" will cost $500,000. Ordinary sponsors will pay $250,000.
According to a representative of City Hall Fund 300, which is responsible for raising money for the event, about 50 Moscow and St. Petersburg-based foreign and domestic companies have expressed interest in buying a sponsor package at one level or another. Only two unspecified companies have definitely declined to participate so far.
Although the fund has refused to mention any specific company names so far, some firms have publicly expressed their interest in participating.
Maria Krivykh, a spokesperson for the German company Siemens in Moscow, acknowledged that her company was negotiating with the fund. She said Siemens viewed the event as a good opportunity to raise its image locally, since 2003 also marks the 150th anniversary of the company's operations in Russia.
"There are negotiations taking place at the moment," Krivykh said. "I would recommend that you wait until October, when [the company] forms its budget," she said in a telephone interview on Monday.
The Ford Motor Company also expressed a general interest and also said that it was too soon to say anything definite.
"We are interested in this celebration. St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast are where we built a factory, so this is a native city for us," Ford spokesperson Oksana Hartanyuk said in a telephone interview Tuesday from Moscow. "But it is too early to talk about it now. I would not expect anything concrete until next year."
Hartanyuk also said that Ford had received 10 offers to purchase sponsorships from various sources.
Local businesses surveyed by The St. Petersburg Times this week also expressed cautious interest.
"We haven't analyzed the situation yet," said Anna Maslobayeva, spokesperson for the local construction company Vozrozhdeniye. "I don't know about $3 million, but we are a company that is powerful enough to participate somehow."
Promstroibank is also looking for ways to participate in the celebration.
"Everything depends on the program, but since we don't know it yet, we can't say what [money] would be there. But in any case, we are going to do something significant," said Anatoly Morgunov, Promstoibank PR manager in a telephone interview on Wednesday.
"We are here, and we are not going to move anywhere, so we can't be indifferent to this event," Morgunov said.
The Pyatyorochka grocery-store chain has already offered to help Committee 300, the City Hall organization in charge of organizing the event, by publicizing the event through its stores and joint events.
Committee 300 is a separate municipal organization from Fund 300, which is in charge of fund-raising including the commercial sponsorships.
Yet another organization, the Federal Commission for the 2003 Jubilee, is chaired by President Vladimir Putin, a native son and former St. Petersburg vice mayor. This commission met in February to discuss its plans, after which Northwest Region Governor General Viktor Cherkesov announced that 40 billion rubles ($1.4 million) had been allocated by the federal government to fund preparations over a 2 1/2-year period.
According to the commission's plan, most of the money, about $1 billion, will be used to complete the ring road around St. Petersburg. The rest of the money will be used to renovate "major jubilee sites," including the Russian National Library, the Peter and Paul Fortress, the Naval Museum, the Hermitage and the Mariinsky Theater.
Vladimir Shitarev, head of City Hall Culture Committee told Interfax Tuesday that 11 million rubles has already been spent on the library, and the Mariinsky will receive 103 million rubles, making it the second-largest project after the ring road.
"I can't say exactly how much money the city will spend on the anniversary," said Alexander Afanasyev, Yakovlev's spokesperson, in an interview Wednesday.
"All the [city] budget money, except for the salaries for workers and officials, will be spent on this, because the preparation itself is work to make the city look good for the celebration, and that's what we do."
Leonid Romankov, a member of the Legislative Assembly tricentennial commission said that this year's budget includes nearly 40 million rubles for the event, although he was not able to say exactly what it would be spent on.
Asked about the commercial sponsorships, Afanasyev said, "I think there will be enough participants for us to gather the necessary number of sponsors." He declined to say what he meant by "the necessary number."
Moscow's 850th-anniversary festivities in 1997 cost an estimated $12 million. Stockholm, which is celebrating its 750th birthday next summer, is also operating on a $12 million budget.
TITLE: The 'KGB Files' Heading for TV
AUTHOR: By Kevin O'Flynn
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The man who brought Jack Nicholson, Sean Penn and Jim Carrey to Moscow this summer has a new project up his sleeve: a Hollywood-made television series about the KGB.
This time, however, they won't be the cruel psychopaths of Cold War movies or the megalomaniacs of James Bond films.
This time, they are the good guys.
Producer Bob Van Ronkel is currently putting together a multimillion-dollar television series tentatively titled "Files From the KGB." The series is planned to be filmed in Russia and it will use an almost all-Russian cast to show the world the swashbuckling adventures of what was arguably once the world's most feared intelligence agency.
"I thought it would be a success with the fascination in the U.S. with the KGB," said Ronkel, who said the series, filmed in English, will deal with the KGB's missions abroad in the style of television series such as "La Femme Nikita."
Ronkel, a California native, is currently in Moscow attempting to get an official seal of approval for the series from the Federal Security Service, a successor of the KGB.
He also wants to win the rights to use the official KGB badge for the series and to have an FSB consultant on hand during filming to double-check script accuracy.
The series will initially consist of 21 or 22 hour-long episodes costing about $200,000 each, he said. In comparison, the average hour-long action series in the United States costs upwards of $1 million.
"Files From the KGB" will, Ronkel insisted, depict Russia in a more positive light than the usual images of crime and corruption that flood Western television screens.
"It will be a lot more positive for Russia and the KGB," Ronkel said. "It's positive publicity for the FSB."
The proposal to create a television series that would extoll the virtues of an agency that, among other crimes, was complicit in the arrest of millions of people in Stalin-era purges is getting a lukewarm reception in some Russian circles.
"There is nothing positive about KGB activities," said Konstantin Preobrazhensky, a former KGB lieutenant colonel who is now a particularly harsh critic of the FSB.
"It [the series] may deceive the world. It may increase the number of people who will cooperate with the KGB," he said. "Is there any positive evidence about the Nazi police or North Korean intelligence?"
As for Ronkel's seeking FSB assistance to ensure accuracy, Preobrazhensky said that the FSB would only distort events.
"They would give him lots of false history," he said. "He would become a tool of the KGB to help the KGB to deceive the whole world."
Ronkel, who brought Nicholson, Penn and Carrey to Russia for the recent Moscow Film Festival, has no concerns that making a television series about the KGB might be considered inappropriate.
"When you do cop shows you don't do them beating Rodney King," said Ronkel, referring to the much-publicized incident in Los Angeles when a group of police officers was captured severely beating a black driver on home video.
"There are always people who'll protest," he said. "Hopefully it will be entertaining so that no one will be offended."
"It's not a documentary," he added. "I'm creating Hollywood television."
Ronkel said that he thought up the idea for the show on a flight to Moscow last year and has already found financing from Firestone Entertainment, the company that participated in the filming of "Onegin" with Ralph Fiennes and "The Believer," winner of this year's Sundance and Moscow film festivals.
He said he is still having trouble getting permission from the FSB, although he remains confident and has even written them a letter stating that he is not a member of the CIA, FBI or any other foreign government organizations.
Officials from the Federal Security Service could not be reached for comment about the series Monday.
The KGB, not surprisingly, was often depicted as a bunch of glorious heroes in the Soviet Union. Their glory period on the small screen came while Yury Andropov was head of the KGB with such programs as "Seventeen Moments of Spring," which showed KGB undercover activities during the World War II.
The film "The Sword and the Shield," which was also shot during that period, inspired Preobrazhensky and, supposedly, President Vladimir Putin to sign up to the KGB.
Some say that Andropov was a great admirer of James Bond and wanted to create a more exciting image of KGB agents at home.
Moscow-based film historian Viktor Lostov said that the image of the KGB agent has evolved in Soviet and Russian films from that of a Marx-reading idealist to a cynic who cares for nothing but himself.
While Ronkel is still waiting for an official response from the FSB, he is getting some comfort from assurances from well-connected friends in Moscow that at least one former KGB agent, Putin himself, would without a doubt be pleased with just such a project.
"If I got the rights and permission and if he approved I would love for him to star as himself," Ronkel said.
But, he added, "I'm sure I couldn't afford it."
TITLE: Local Unity Faction Says Good-Bye to Its No. 2 Man
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalyev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Viktor Yurakov, the dynamic and controversial second-ranking leader of the local branch of the pro-Kremlin Unity party, was dismissed from his post this week for what fellow party members claim was his excessive independence and enthusiasm.
The head of the local Unity party, Alexander Mikhailushkin, said in an interview Thursday that Yurakov had been removed because "he showed initiative."
"He shouldn't have given interviews to television on questions that [we] had not prepared [for discussion] yet," Mikhailushkin said.
The immediate cause for Yurakov's ouster was his unilateral nomination of Alexander Vatagin, a Hero of the Soviet Union laureate, as Unity's candidate for the State Duma seat vacated when Galina Starovoitova was murdered in 1998.
Vatagin's nomination came as a complete surprise to Unity officialdom in Moscow, which had planned to instruct the St. Petersburg branch to nominate Yury Solinin, the dean of the Philosophy Department at St. Petersburg State University.
Solinin still plans to run, but Vatagin has declined.
However, Yurakov has a long history of controversy within the party. He is, at least publicly, enthralled with President Vladimir Putin and used his party position as a platform for his near-religious fanaticism.
Yurakov became famous for his plan to distribute desk-sized busts of the president to government offices, a plan that was quickly nipped in the bud by Northwest Region Governor General Viktor Cherkesov.
But Yurakov's enthusiasm was undaunted by this setback, and he financed - through the local Unity office - the publication of 10,000 school ooks that quoted the UNESCO's Basic Rights of the Child and featured a young Putin as a model of virtue. The book describes Putin as the man who is "responsible for everything in your country." This book managed to slip by Cherkesov's office and into classrooms.
Such actions disturbed Putin so much that last fall he issued a public denunciation of the cult of personality that was emerging around him. Yurakov, however, ignored this appeal.
One source that asked not to be identified said that Yurakov was so active in his personal campaign to promote Putin that some Unity district branches wrote that his "wild activity ... defames the party line."
Yurakov's next scheme was a plan to produce and distribute 10,000 Mishka automobiles, named for Unity's mascot, the teddy bear. Although production has not begun, Yurakov had confidence in the project.
Mikhailushkin said Thursday that all the funding for the textbooks, the failed Putin bust program and the Mishka project all came from Yurakov's own pocket. Mikhailushkin emphasized that no Unity funding was used.
Yurakov is an influential person, Mikhailushkin said, and could have really started the Mishka car project if he had not been removed.
"With his influence, he could have gotten it done," said another source who declined to be named.
"[Yurakov] shows his respect to the president, but I can't comment [on Yurakov's dismissal] because this question is not within my competence," said Alexei Gutsailo, spokesperson for Cherkesov, in a telephone interview on Wednesday.
Yurakov said in an interview Wednesday that he would continue with the Mishka project.
"I feel confident," he said. "My main goal is to complete this plan.
TITLE: Environmentalists Claim LAES Is Unsafe
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Local environmentalists sent an open letter this week to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, as well as to Baltic-region governments, appealing to them not to support additional projects at the Leningrad Nuclear Energy Station, LAES, in Sosnovy Bor.
The ecologists from the Greenworld environmental group based in Sosnovy Bor - 80 kilometers to St. Petersburg's west- accused the plant's authorities of financial mismanagement and routine safety violations.
Greenworld's letter claimed, among other things, that the "wet" storage facility for spent nuclear fuel at the plant is currently 40 percent over its design capacity. It also claimed that there have been numerous incidents of theft of non-ferrous metals from the plant, including "important functional components for 40 operating safety control devices."
Greenworld further alleges that the telephone hotline to Moscow at the plant has been disabled and that drunkenness among workers is widespread. The report quotes the head of the Sosnovy Bor fire brigade as saying that "there have not yet been serious fires at LAES, which is just sheer luck." He said that about 140 fire-safety violations are registered at the plant each year.
Because of these problems and a generally lax safety culture at LAES, the report says that the West should cease providing financial support for LAES projects, especially a plan to prolong the lifespan of LAES's four RBMK-1,000 Chernobyl-type reactors.
Greenworld's report was primarily written by Sergei Kharitonov, who worked at the plant from 1973 until March 2000, and who is now a Greenworld council member.
LAES officials, while confirming some of the information in the Greenworld letter, insist that the plant is safe and that none of the violations are significant. They point out that LAES is inspected annually by the Russian State Nuclear Inspectorate, or Gosatomnadzor, and by official delegations from neighboring countries such as Finland and Norway.
"There has never been grounds for a scandal," LAES official Nikolai Yesaulov said in an interview. "Yes, we receive a list of recommendations every time, but these are nothing more than minor reprimands. Generally, the high level of the plant's safety culture has never been questioned."
The power of Gosatomnadzor to issue reprimands and follow through on their enforcement has been significantly reduced in recent months as a result of lobbying by the Nuclear Power Ministry, which is seeking to reduce Gosatomnadzor's authority.
According to LAES spokesperson Valeriya Nikitina, the plant is scheduled to be inspected by the International Atomic Energy Commission in 2002. The IAEC's last inspection of the plant was in 1996.
Kim Soderling, project manager of the Finnish Center for Nuclear Safety, or STUK, which monitors LAES, said that his organization will not comment on Greenworld's letter. "STUK doesn't take part in conversations of the Russian Federation's energy policy," he said.
Erlend Larsen, senior executive officer of the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority, wrote in a statement to The St. Petersburg Times that her organization "does not have a complete picture of the safety" at LAES and that "there are several areas where the safety is not internationally acceptable."
"The general Norwegian attitude is that all plants that do not meet an internationally acceptable safety level, including those with RBMK reactors, should be shut down," Larsen wrote.
Yesaulov confirmed Greenworld's information that LAES' "wet" storage facility is over capacity, but he insisted it was not a problem. "The measures we have taken to compress spent nuclear fuel are sufficient. All our steps have been approved by Gosatomnadzor," he said.
Sergei Bavykin, deputy head of Environmental Safety Department of the Sosnovy Bor municipal administration, agrees that LAES is safe.
"I do not have any reasons to doubt the plant's policy or its safety enforcement or to suspect the plant's management of any wrongdoing," he said. "It is not that the ecologists have provided falsified information but rather that their view of the situation is one-sided," Bavykin said.
The EBRD is not currently involved in or considering any projects with LAES, said Joachim Jahnke, EBRD vice president responsible for nuclear-safety programs.
In 1995, LAES received a 30 million euro ($26.45 million) grant to support several projects intended to improve plant safety. The money was allocated at a 1995 meeting of the Group of Seven leading industrialized countries, with several other countries later contributing, and the fund was administered by the EBRD.
"The 1995 donation was a short-term project which has already been accomplished," Jahnke said in telephone interview Wednesday. "We realize the sum was very small in comparison to the amount of work that has to be done, and it was never meant to solve all problems facing the station."
"Russia is presently de facto not in line with its obligations under the nuclear-safety agreement with the bank," he said.
The EBRD, however, remains committed to a dialogue with Russia to resolve this problem, officials said.
Many Russian and international environmental groups have called for Russia to follow the example of Western countries that have been dismantling their nuclear reactors in recent years.
Vladimir Slivyak of the Russian environmental group Ecodefense points out that Germany is committed to decomissioning all of its nuclear reactors by 2020. Sweden's nuclear industry will be shut down by 2010.
"The absurdity is that while the West is giving up nuclear energy because it is expensive and dangerous, Russia, which finds itself in a dire financial plight, is planning to construct new reactors," Slivyak said.
LAES supplies approximately 40 percent of the city's electricity. It employs over 10,000 people in a town of 60,000 and provides up to 80 percent of Sosnovy Bor's revenues.
The official Web site of LAES is http://www.laes.sbor.ru/. The complete text of Greenworld's letter is available in English and Russian at http://www.greenworld.org.ru.
TITLE: Salvage Operation May Destroy Evidence
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A group of veteran submarine commanders said Tuesday that current plans to raise the Kursk nuclear submarine are ill-conceived and will reduce the likelihood of ever determining the cause of the disaster that took the lives of all 118 people on board last August.
The plan, developed by Mammoet International, a Dutch underwater salvage company, calls for the submarine's first compartment, which was the most damaged during the accident, to be cut off and left on the sea floor for retrieval, possibly next year.
According to retired Admiral Yevgeny Chernov, who spoke to reporters Tuesday, the first compartment contains a large hole that would provide invaluable information to investigators.
Chernov - a former commander of the first Northern Fleet Submarine Flotilla and an outspoken critic of the Russian Navy for its handling of the Komsomolets submarine disaster in 1989 - called the damaged section "the only silent witness of the tragedy."
However, he stressed that the Mammoet plan may destroy this evidence.
"The information that can be garnered from that hole will be very little if it is damaged during the cutting process," Chernov said.
Mammoet, however, has claimed that lifting the first compartment would jeopardize the entire mission, since the section would probably break off and the torpedoes stored there could explode.
Chernov, however, claimed that his analysis indicates that the submarine could be raised intact and that the danger of an explosion was small.
"If that is so," he said, "why not lift up the whole sub? It may only mean that there is something to hide."
Submarine Captain Alexander Leskov, who also spoke at the press conference, said that the Kursk had most likely collided with one of the other Russian Navy vessels participating in the exercises last August.
"This may well be the very truth that some people want to hide," Leskov said.
The speakers said that no one could be certain about the cause of the disaster until the area around the hole in the first compartment is closely examined.
Andrei Vorobyov, a former military prosecutor who also spoke at the press conference, said that the investigating commission should insist that the salvage operation do everything possible to preserve this vital evidence.
Chernov said that the State Duma should demand that the present operation be halted.
Other experts and navy personnel brushed off Chernov's theories.
"These people don't know what they're talking about," said Igor Kurdin, the head of the St. Petersburg Submariners Club, a support group for navy submariners and their families.
Kurdin also said that the idea that the Kursk had collided with another Russian vessel was unlikely because no witnesses to that effect have yet surfaced.
"It looks as if some housewives decided to argue with some academics," said Gennady Sorokin, a spokesperson from the Rubin Central Construction Bureau which built the Kursk, commenting on the press conference.
"It is silly to think that so many experts who made the calculations for this operation are pursuing some sort of political aim to hide the truth," Sorokin said, adding that those calculations show that the first compartment would fall off if the submarine were lifted whole.
TITLE: Trouble Brewing Surrounding Upcoming Election in Belarus
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MINSK, Belarus - Belarussian opposition activists said Wednesday they fear that President Alexander Lukashenko will use force to stay in power regardless of results in September's presidential election.
Lukashenko declared Tuesday he expected mass protests if he wins. He said he was prepared to use troops to defend "not just myself, but my people and the state."
A coalition of Lukashenko's political opponents issued a statement Wednesday, saying that the comments "clearly defined [Lukashenko's] scenario for the election."
"It has become obvious that the current head of state is putting his stake on preserving power by force," said the statement signed by six opposition leaders, including Vladimir Goncharik, the presidential candidate of an opposition alliance.
Lukashenko extended his presidential term by two years in 1996 by pushing through a referendum that was seen as heavily rigged and was not recognized by most international organizations and Western governments, including the United States. Lukashenko's critics have accused him of ordering the disappearances of several opposition figures.
The U.S. ambassador to Belarus, Michael Kozak, said Wednesday that Washington would only recognize the results of the September election if observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe determine it was fair, Interfax reported.
Lukashenko on Tuesday claimed that the OSCE intends to misrepresent the election results in order to spark an uprising.
TITLE: Security Increased in Wake of Hijacking
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Stavropol police stepped up security in the southern Russian region Wednesday, a day after a Chechen gunman held a busload of passengers hostage for 13 hours.
Government officials also pledged that further measures would be taken to crack down on lawlessness in the Caucasus, while observers warned that state-sanctioned xenophobia would only increase in the region.
Stavropol's police chief, Alexander Sapunov, ordered that more plainclothes police officers be stationed at the region's airports and bus and train stations. He also instructed the police to bring out more bomb-sniffing dogs.
Police sources told Interfax that they detained on Wednesday "a considerable number of people from Interpol's and the federal police's most-wanted lists" during a regional sweep operation called Guest. The sweep is aimed at finding nonresidents.
Police emphasized that Chechens were among those detained.
Alexander Korobeinikov, deputy presidential envoy to the Southern Federal District, said Stavropol authorities would meet with the head of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, Nikolai Patrushev on Thursday to discuss plans to set up an anti-terrorism center for the North Caucasus Region and shore up existing law enforcement agencies, Interfax reported.
Meanwhile, more details emerged about the hostage crisis Tuesday that ended when commandos stormed the intercity bus and shot dead the hijacker in Mineralniye Vody.
Vladimir Kravchenko, the prosecutor general's representative in the region, said the hijacker, Sultan-Said Idiyev, most likely acted alone.
"We have established that the terrorist was alone this time," he was quoted by Interfax as saying. "We haven't found any accomplices."
The 39 people who had been on the bus were questioned by police late into the night Tuesday about whether Idiyev had any accomplices. Initially, police believed there were 41 people on the bus.
The passengers and driver were cleared of any suspicion and placed overnight in rooms in Mineralniye Vody's best hotel.
Police also searched for clues along the 110 kilometers of highway the hijacked bus traveled from Nevinnomyssk to Mineralniye Vody.
Idiyev's parents and uncle were flown from Chechnya overnight to identify the body.
"Nobody knew what he was up to, neither his mother nor me," said the uncle, Uvais Idiyev, on NTV television. "What he has done is a great disgrace."
Kravchenko said the relatives would be able to take the body back home with them.
Police said they found 1.5 kilograms of dynamite, two F-1 grenades and an AK-47 assault rifle on the body of the hijacker. A third grenade apparently went off when snipers shot Idiyev in the head and neck. The blast almost tore off one of his legs.
The explosives, which he was carrying in a cloth sack under his shirt, did not detonate. Bomb experts diffused them after the passengers, who were left with minor cuts and bruises, had left the bus.
President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday praised law enforcement agencies for successfully carrying out the rescue operation.
It remained unclear Wednesday if Idiyev had masterminded the hijacking and acted alone. His demand during the hostage crisis was that the police free a handful of Chechens held in Russian prisons.
Some media reports suggested that Idiyev's demands were unusual for a man who had a long criminal record that included murder.
Viktor Kazantsev, Putin's envoy to the Southern Federal District, hinted that Idiyev had ties to rebels in Chechnya.
Yevgeny Volk, a political analyst at the Heritage Foundation, said he was not so sure about that. "It could either be Chechen rebels demonstrating their power, or it may well be a provocation by the Russian secret services," Volk said. "There are many on both sides who benefit from tension in the region."
Either way, the hijacking would do nothing but increase tension in southern Russia, he said.
"The 'Chechen menace' will be seen as larger than it really is and strip Russia of any desire to resolve the Chechnya problem through political channels," he said.
TITLE: Khodyrev Changes Stripes To Run Nizhny Novgorod
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Nizhny Novgorod's former Communist boss Gennady Khodyrev was declared the winner in the region's gubernatorial election Monday, and he promptly announced that he was suspending his membership in the Communist Party.
Khodyrev, 59, took about 60 percent of the vote in a runoff Sunday, far ahead of the 28 percent garnered by incumbent Governor Ivan Sklyarov. Voter turnout was about 38 percent, and 10 percent voted against the two candidates.
In accepting his victory, Khodyrev, who most recently served as a Communist deputy in the State Duma, said that, although he had run on the Communist ticket, he was handing in his party card in order to serve as "a uniting governor."
"Considering the large political divisions in Nizhny Novgorod, I believe it would be proper to suspend my party membership for my term in office," Khodyrev told journalists, according to Interfax. Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov had given his blessing, he said.
Khodyrev said that in suspending his membership he was following the example of President Vladimir Putin and Sergei Kiriyenko, the presidential envoy to the Volga Federal District. Neither belongs to a political party.
Pro-Kremlin lawmakers and the presidential administration, which had both expressed concern last week about Khodyrev taking office, welcomed his decision to give up his Communist membership and said they could work with him.
Kiriyenko said in televised remarks Monday that Khodyrev's party membership had been the only obstacle to their chances of working together, adding that years ago Khodyrev had helped him get enrolled at the prestigious Plekhanov Financial Academy in Moscow.
Former Nizhny Novgorod governor Boris Nemtsov, who now heads the Union of Right Forces faction and warned of a "red threat" to the region last week, applauded Khodyrev's decision. He said Khodyrev had promised him after the first round to suspend his membership if he won.
The pro-Kremlin Unity party also pledged Monday to give Khodyrev its support. Interfax quoted an anonymous source in the presidential administration as saying that there were no plans to move Kiriyenko's office out of Nizhny Novgorod, a threat that an unidentified Kremlin source had promised last week to make good on if Khodyrev won.
Sergei Ivanenko, a Yabloko leader in the Duma, said the election illustrated the Kremlin-backed policy to impose "dirigible democracy" in Russia to be run by a "private union of communists and bureaucrats," Interfax reported.
Few expected that Khodyrev had a chance in the gubernatorial election when the first round of voting took place July 15. He surprised political analysts, and even himself, by taking the lead in that vote, analysts said.
Nizhny Novgorod has fallen from the high-flying times it enjoyed in the 1990s as an investment haven. The region was a showcase for Russia's liberal reforms under then-Governor Boris Nemtsov in the mid-1990s and was the country's No. 3 region for investment after Moscow and St. Petersburg. Under Sklyarov's leadership, however, the region fell to 13th place.
"The region stagnated for four years. Of course, it hurt the well-being of the population and, naturally, nobody liked it," Khodyrev told NTV.
Analysts agreed Monday that voters had not picked Khodyrev for his communist ideology. But some cast doubt on whether he would be able to stage an economic revival in his region.
"The elections in Nizhny Novgorod illustrate that the political model of reformists fighting against conservatives is already in the past," said Nikolai Petrov of the Moscow-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "The difference between Sklyarov and Khodyrev ... is not ideological ... it is a matter of personalities."
"Khodyrev, with all his plusses, remains a man from the past and has never appeared as a market defender," said Leonid Smirnyagi, a professor at Moscow State University. "He is a Communist with a human face."
Khodyrev, a native of Krasnodar, took his first job at the age of 16 as a lathe operator at the Gorky Machine-Building Plant. Later, in 1966, he graduated from the Leningrad Mechanical Institute with a degree in mechanics.
In 1983, Khodyrev was brought into the Central Committee of the Communist Party to work in its administrative department. From 1988 to 1991, he held both the post of regional Communist Party chief and the chairman of Nizhny Novgorod's legislative assembly. President Boris Yeltsin sacked Khodyrev in December 1991.
Khodyrev was elected a Duma deputy in 1995 and served as a Communist. He ran in Nizhny Novgorod's gubernatorial election in 1997 but lost to Sklyarov with 42 percent of the vote.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Bomb Injures Child
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - A small child was hospitalized and her mother and another middle-aged woman were injured after an explosion at 61 Kondratiyevsky Prospect in the Kalinisky District, Interfax reported.
According to the agency, the explosion was not an accident, resulting instead from a bomb tossed through the victims' window. The incident is currently being investigated by the FSB and the Department of Special Affairs from the St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast police. The names of the victims have not been released, Interfax reported
Baby Steps to NATO
VILNUS, Lithuania (SPT)- Lituania's parliamentary speaker, Arturas Pasulauskas, said Lithuaniua's acceptance into NATO is almost a fait accompli, based on discussions he had had with Zbigniew Brzezinski, former security adviser to U.S. President Jimmy Carter and a former professor at Columbia University.
"American politicians appreciate Lithuania's aspirations toward becoming a NATO member in 2002,"said Brzezinski in a recent interview with the agency, Interfax reported.
Kursk Delay
MOSCOW (AP) - Preparing the sunken Kursk submarine to be lifted is taking longer than organizers had hoped because divers must do much of the work by hand instead of using robots, the operation's commander said.
Divers continued work Wednesday on cutting holes in the Kursk's thick steel hull to which huge cables will be attached to raise the sub to the surface of the Barents Sea in mid-September.
"At the beginning of the operation we thought everything would be much quicker and smoother," Vice Admiral Mikhail Motsak was quoted as saying on the Strana.ru Web site late Tuesday.
Tobin Up for Parole
MOSCOW (AP) - A parole hearing for American Fulbright scholar John Tobin, who is imprisoned on drug charges, is scheduled for Friday, a court spokesperson in the Voronezh Region said Wednesday.
Tobin, who is serving a one-year sentence, becomes eligible for early release Thursday. A prison commission is to meet to consider his release and its recommendation will be reviewed by a city court Friday, the court spokesperson said.
Paroled prisoners are generally released on the day of the court decision if it reaches the prison during working hours.
Census Date Set
MOSCOW (AP) - Russia will conduct its first post-Soviet census in October next year, a government commission decided Wednesday, after having twice postponed it, apparently for lack of funds.
The nationwide population survey will take place Oct. 9 to Oct. 16, 2002, Tatyana Razbash, spokesperson for Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, told reporters after a meeting of the state census commission. The law requires a population report every 10 years, but the last census was in 1989.
At Wednesday's meeting, Kasyanov urged the parliament to adopt amendments to legislation needed to conduct the census, Itar-Tass said.
The census has been estimated to cost $120 million. The U.S. census in 2000, by comparison, cost about $3 billion.
Demographers, economists and other analysts have expressed concern at the lack of comprehensive data that a census provides, particularly given the jarring social and economic changes Russia has seen over the past decade.
TITLE: Deal Ends Bitter Takeover Fight
AUTHOR: By Anna Raff
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - BP, Alfa Group and Interros announced Thursday that they have struck an agreement that will once and for all close the book on a heated takeover dispute that has captivated investors around the world.
According to the agreement, Interros will sell its 44 percent stake in oil company Sidanco to New Petroleum for $640 million, and the Tyumen Oil Co. (TNK) will return oil producer Chernogorneft to Sidanco, company officials said.
New Petroleum is a recently formed holding that owns TNK. Its shareholders are Alfa Group, Access and Renova.
The deal values Sidanco at $1.5 billion, a far cry from the $5 billion it was valued at in 1997 when BP bought a 10 percent stake for $571 million.
The agreement effectively gives Alfa Group 84 percent of Sidanco, while BP keeps the 10 percent stake it already owns. The other 6 percent floats among various portfolio investors.
"In the past, we faced a lot of problems, including the loss of subsidiaries," said Dmitry Ushakov, general director of Interros. "Nevertheless, we are leaving Sidanco, we are leaving the board of directors. We wish TNK success in running the company."
Mikhail Fridman, Alfa Group's board chairman, beamed while accepting vigorous congratulatory handshakes just before the announcement of the deal.
Vladimir Potanin, the one-time Kremlin insider who controls the Interros holding, was noticeably absent. Interros' remaining assets include Norilsk Nickel and Rosbank.
Fridman and TNK, were catapulted into the international spotlight in November 1999 when they bought Chernogorneft - a Sidanco subsidiary located near TNK's operations on the Samotlor oil field at the time - for $176 million at a much-criticized bankruptcy auction.
Chernogorneft accounted for much of Sidanco's crude output.
BP shrieked foul, and the dispute made international headlines.
A month later, in December, TNK agreed to give Chernogorneft back in exchange for a blocking stake in Sidanco. But Alfa Group repeatedly missed deadlines to close the deal, and Interros went to the courts.
BP moved into the background and held to one line: We would like to see this conflict resolved.
BP spokesperson Peter Henshaw welcomed the agreement Thursday, saying that holding onto the 10 percent stake had been the company's priority. Despite the size of the stake, BP has a blocking vote on many managerial issues.
"BP welcomes these developments and believe they are strongly positive for all those concerned," Henshaw said.
"This is a long and difficult course we have steered," he said. "We look forward to the return of Chernogorneft to Sidanco."
Chernogorneft's production and revenues, which have long been part of TNK's books, are to be returned to Sidanco in a matter of weeks.
BP will continue to hold its blocking vote at Sidanco under a contract that expires in three years.
Without Chernogorneft, Sidanco's growth has languished compared to that of other Russian oil companies. With Chernogorneft, which produces about 128,000 barrels a day, Sidanco was Russia's eighth-largest company. After TNK took the subsidiary under control, Sidanco fell to 10th place.
Sidanco president Robert Sheppard said Thursday that once Chernogorneft is back, Sidanco's production will grow to 330,000 barrels a day.
While Fridman said it was too early to discuss the possible merger of TNK and Sidanco, the virtual buyout of the company as agreed upon Thursday was a move predicted by industry players since the Chernogorneft's bankruptcy auction in 1999.
Relief - at times sad, at times triumphant - was reflected in the faces of those gathered to announce the agreement in a hall with a glass wall overlooking the Kremlin in the National Hotel.
"We gave it our best shot and achieved a good financial result, not only for us but for our investors," said Ushakov of Interros.
The conclusion of the Chernogorneft saga should reflect positively on Russia's investment climate, said Valery Nesterov, an oil analyst at the Troika Dialog brokerage.
"We are often reminded of BP's problems with TNK when people talk about the experiences of multinational oil and gas companies in Russia," Nesterov said. "This puts the scandal in the past."
TITLE: Russia Modernizes French Fighter Jet in Pilot Project
AUTHOR: By Mikhail Kozyrev
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: MOSCOW - The MiG corporation and arms export giant Rosoboronexport are overhauling a French-made jet fighter for South Africa - the first time Russian manufacturers have been contracted to modernize a Western-built plane.
Rosoboronexport and MiG, together with South Africa's Armscor, are planning to unveil the revamped Mirage F1 at the Moscow Air Show later this month, according to a source close to organizers of the show.
MiG and Rosoboronexport confirmed the plan to show off the new Mirage, and said the plane belonged to the South African Air Force, but gave no further details.
The aircraft will be equipped with a Russian RD-33 engine, which is fitted on the MiG-29 as well as P-73 air-to-air missiles.
The Mirage F1 was developed and manufactured by French company Dassault in the '80s. South Africa bought scores of the planes and has been negotiating with Russian companies to upgrade them since the early '90s. The deal broke down, however, when the conditions of the deal were protested by both sides as the first consignments of equipment were being sent abroad. The project was frozen and negotiations were renewed only in the past year.
The Mirage F1 is one of the last aircraft of its kind in the South African air force, as the country has sold the majority of its fleet. The Russian-South African project, therefore, is aimed at demonstrating its engineering ability to third parties - states that do not have the means to replace their out-of-date military hardware, but can spend about $3 million to $4 million per plane on modernization.
Likely clients include countries in Latin America and Africa - which is where South Africa sold its old Mirages - and potential buyers include "pariah" states, which for political reasons are unable to apply directly to the Mirage's manufacturer but can try to modernize the aircraft with Russian help.
The concept of modernizing, however, is unclear, said Konstantin Makiyenko of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies.
The vast majority of such projects are aimed at improving in-flight equipment, and the aim is to turn aircraft into multifunctional warplanes capable of attacking ground targets. This is what foreign clients demand over increasing engine capacity or fitting air-to-air missiles.
But according to Makiyenko, Russia's priority at present is not so much to conclude modernization agreements as to demonstrate to potential buyers that Russian companies are capable of modernizing Western equipment.
"This is what our main competitors - the Israeli companies - are doing with Soviet and Russian technology," Makiyenko said.
TITLE: North-West GSM Bracing To Face Competitor
AUTHOR: By Andrey Musatov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Predictions by telecoms-industry specialists that the arrival of Moscow-based Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) will change St. Petersburg's cellular-communications market appear to be coming true.
North-West GSM, the region's only Global Mobile Standard service provider, is continuing to broaden service and tariff options for its subscribers ahead of the arrival of MTS this autumn.
MTS, meanwhile, voluntarily surrendered some of its 900 Megahertz bandwidth in Moscow and the surrounding region to the Communications Ministry, a move that industry analysts see as a trade in return for which MTS will receive clearance to move into the northwest. The ministry has been trying since last summer to free up some bandwidth in the capital to Sonic Duo, which has been granted the city's third GSM license.
At the end of May, MTS, which is Moscow's largest cellular provider, announced the $50 million purchase of Telecom XXI, which holds the second GSM license in the Northwest Region. The company plans to finish its network and begin operations in October.
While MTS General Director Mikhail Smirnov said at the time that the company didn't foresee a serious price war in the area, he did say that lower tariffs, along with a range of new services, were part of the company's plan.
North-West GSM appears to be following much the same strategy, rolling out new payment plans and services of their own. The approach is bearing fruit, as its subscriber base has jumped by over 55,000 in the last two months, with the total now standing at about 380,000.
In May, it rolled out the first of its new programs, signing up subscribers to new, 10-digit federal numbers with a connection cost of $50 and usage tariffs of $0.15 per minute.
In the middle of July, North-West GSM further altered its tariff plans, no longer signing up subscribers to its "basic" and "business" tariffs, but rather setting up a new billing system called "basic+" with the same connection fee as "basic" of $75, but charging tariffs between $0.17 and $0.25 per minute. Under the basic program, the tariffs had been from $0.22 to $0.33. Using the federal numbers, the company is also offering the "GSM-light" plan, with a $35 connection fee and tariffs from $0.08 to $0.32 per minute, depending on the time of day.
The company says that subscribers who signed up under the old plans can remain with the same services or switch to one of the new programs, and that the new "light" tariff program was created with those using prepaid cards in mind.
North-West GSM has also been adding services, including, the setting up of a new company information service along with an automated entertainment channel, which will feature jokes, according to the company's Internet site.
MTS has yet to announce tariff policies here, but has seen changes all the same. The company gave back 3.2 megahertz of bandwidth on the 900 megahertz frequency, but still holds the rights to use 11.4 megahertz in the capital.
Why they gave the bandwidth back remains an interesting question.
Smirnov said earlier this year that the company didn't really need the bandwidth and only reacted as it did last year to the ministry's attempts to grab some of it back "as a matter of principle."
MTS, which has American Depositary Receipts listed on the New York Stock Exchange, and must therefore report significant changes in structure to the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission, told the commission that the frequency had been returned so that the ministry could carry out research on the operations of providers in the cellular market. On Monday, Eva Prokofyeva, while not commenting on the rumors that Antimonopoly Ministry approval was conditional on handing over the bandwidth, said the move was based on the nature of the licensing agreement. "We gave the bandwidth back because the agreement only granted its use for a certain period of time," Prokofyeva said.
"We don't need the bandwidth," she added. "We want to have normal and rational relations with regulatory bodies."
TITLE: Cabinet Approves Privatization List
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW - Russia aims to privatize 300 firms in 2002, including Slavneft oil, and net 18 billion rubles ($614 million) from the sales, the same sum expected from privatization sales this year, a top government official said Thursday.
First Deputy Property Minister Alexander Braverman told a news conference that the cabinet had approved a list of firms for privatization in 2002 that includes the sale of a 19.68 percent stake in Russian-Belarus firm Slavneft in the second half of the year.
"We shall not hurry with the [privatization] process if it harms budget revenues," he said.
Braverman said that the government expected the sale of the stake to be very competitive because "one of the financial-industrial groups owns a 12.5 percent stake in the company" and may be interested in increasing it, Prime-Tass reported.
He did not name the group, or the price the government expected to fetch for the stake. But analysts said Thursday that 20 percent of Slavneft was worth no less than $200 million.
Among other companies to hit the auction block next year will be one of Russia's biggest steelmmakers, the Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Plant, and several ports, Braverman said.
He added that last week he had ordered the privatization of the state-controlled Norsi Oil refinery within three months in two auctions. The government will offer 40 percent at the first sale and 45 percent at the second one.
Braverman also said that the government will "definitely" sell a 6 percent stake in top oil producer LUKoil on the international market before mid-December this year.
- Reuters, SPT
TITLE: Though Quiet, Canadian Firms Are Here
AUTHOR: By Thomas Rymer
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Linda McDonald missed what she calls the "boom" period of Canadian business activity by just under a month, arriving at her post as Canadian consul general in St. Petersburg just three weeks after the August financial crisis of 1998. But, while she says that the Canadian face in business here may be a little harder to identify, the country's involvement in and commitment to economic activity in Russia's Northwest region continues and is growing.
McDonald, who's term as consul general ends this month, agrees that the similarities between Russia and Canada in terms of geography, resources and climate contribute to mutual interest, and she rejects the idea that institutional differences between the two have a countering effect.
"In fact, I think that our political and commercial similarities provide an excellent base for a lot of cooperative activities," she said in an interview last week. "For example, on the political side, the fact that we are both federal states is very interesting for Russia. They're very interested in what we do."
Over the last month, Canadian politicians have taken a great interest in Russia as well. Prime Minister Jean Chretien met with President Vladimir Putin in Moscow in mid-July, and Canada's ministers for labor, industry, intergovernmental affairs, transportation and culture all visited St. Petersburg during the month.
Plans are in the works for a Team Canada trade mission to come to both St. Petersburg and Moscow next year. The Team Canada concept, which involves a visit by Canada's prime minister, provincial premiers, territorial government leaders and, perhaps most importantly, as many as 400 businesspeople, would boost contacts and familiarize both sides with opportunities of investment and business in Russia's northwest.
"We were supposed to have a Team Canada visit in January of 1999, but it was postponed because of the financial crisis," McDonald said.
"Last year, when we brought [Minister for International Trade Pierre] Pettigrew to Moscow, it was almost like a substitute for Team Canada. He brought almost a hundred companies to Russia, and 60 or 70 came to St. Petersburg."
"They were only here for a short time, but I think that demonstrated the kind of interest there is in the market," McDonald said.
Such trips have yielded significant benefits in the past. After a Team Canada visit to China in January, over $3.3 billion in deals were announced. Sector-specific visits to the Russian northwest suggest that the approach pays off here as well.
"Recently we were very pleased to bring 11 companies to Murmansk to exchange views and develop ties with the Norilsk nickel and coal operations. I am absolutely confident that we will have millions of dollars of contracts there," McDonald said. "It will also probably lead to investment in equipment and definitely on the services side."
"From that group of 11, I know that there are already two or three that have joint ventures here, and the company will never have "Canada" in the title. It will look Russian and be Russian, but it will bring in Canadian technology and Canadian ways," McDonald said.
McDonald says that it is difficult to quantify Canadian investment in the region or even the number of Canadian companies doing business here because the Canadian government does not require them to register their activities.
However, she says that a reasonable estimate of the number of Canadian companies operating here is somewhere between 50 and 80.
"Our known investment is about $350 million, which isn't bad for a region where a lot of people think Canada has no presence," McDonald said.
Among the larger Canadian companies operating here are Pratt & Whitney-Rus, a joint venture that builds aircraft engines, which in June signed a deal to provide engines for a Kazan-based helicopter firm, Bombardier, and Chisolm Meats, a major Canadian food-processing concern.
Although McDonald notes that most Canadian firms doing business here keep a low profile, one prominent case has brought a harsh negative light on this market.
In a conflict that began last year, Chernogorneft, a subsidiary of Russia Tyumen Oil Co., has muscled out Norex, a Canadian firm, from participation in Yugraneft Corp., a joint venture formed by the two in 1992.
Chretien brought up the matter with Putin during his visit last month, and news of the case has spread through the Canadian media and the business community. While Yugraneft is not located within McDonald's region of responsibility, she says that such incidents create a negative perception of what is, in general, an improving business environment.
"The problem that we face is that here we are, trying to encourage Canadian companies to come to this market, and the perception of what is happening is almost more important than the reality," she said.
"Perceived illegal takeovers or companies trying to push their partners out doesn't sit well in Canada, as it does not sit well in most of the international business community."
Given the rising interest in the Russian market over the last year, McDonald hopes that incidents like this won't end up undermining positive developments and the opportunity for the city to raise its visibility in connection with the 2003 tricentennial celebrations.
"People are ready to listen. It's different than post-crisis. People are interested in Putin, and they think that it looks like a good change," McDonald said.
"But again, these bad news stories will overshadow the good news stories, such as those associated with St. Petersburg 2003.
TITLE: Cherkesov's Council Calls On International Business Bodies
AUTHOR: By Sam Charap
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Viktor Cherkesov, governor general of the Northwest Region, has called in St. Petersburg's two major foreign business associations to offer their advice in his effort to revive the region's economy.
In a letter to the local American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) and in an oral agreement with the St. Petersburg International Business Association (SPIBA), the governor general's deputies' extended invitations to participate in the Northwest Regional Expert Council on Economic Development and Investment, one of Cherkesov's pet projects.
The council was founded in April and met for the first time on May 15 with the stated intent of improving the region's investment climate.
The council has a two-tiered structure - the council itself and an advisory board of experts. The former is comprised of general managers of major Russian businesses in the region, such as the Baltika Brewing Company and steel producer Severstal, as well as representatives of the region's legislative and executive branches. The latter, to which AmCham and SPIBA have been invited, is a somewhat nebulous structure intended to provide the larger body with expert advice.
"We are very happy with this result," said Alexey Kim, executive director of AmCham, which received a letter confirming the governor's invitation today.
"The thing that is relevant to us is the investment climate in the region. And that's what we're going to be working on with them," Kim said in an interview on Thursday. "We will regularly submit to them information based on what is discussed at our committee meetings and about the concerns our companies have."
Kim said he expects the advisory board to meet regularly and to discuss issues of taxation and investment, which are of concern to foreign companies. The first meeting of the group has yet to be scheduled.
Natalya Kudryavtseva, the executive director of SPIBA, was pleased by the development, but was anxious to see her group's proposals discussed as soon as possible.
"We think that it will be a useful tool to improve the investment climate here, but we cannot tell you anything about the results until we see them. Now, we see their intention to do the right thing," she said.
According to Kudryavtseva, SPIBA has already submitted a number of proposals to Cherkesov's office, including changes to customs law, foreign-currency regulation, and tax legislation.
She said that Cherkesov's office would be sending SPIBA written confirmation of their invitation Friday.
TITLE: Blaze Leaves Major Firms Seeking Cups
AUTHOR: By Anna Lyudkovskaya
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: MOSCOW - The warehouse of the country's sole manufacturer of paper cups has gone up in smoke, leaving companies like PepsiCo, Coca-Cola and McDonald's falling back on reserves of their logo-bearing beverage receptacles.
The owner of the warehouse, Polarcup, is a subsidiary of the Finnish holding company Huhtamaki, which posted total revenues last year of $2.2 billion from about 200 enterprises in 34 countries.
Huhtamaki built its Russian warehouse and a neighboring factory in 1995 in the Moscow-region town of Ivanteyevko and currently works with international giants such as The Coca-Cola Export Corp., PepsiCo, Danone, Unilever and McDonald's.
The fire at the warehouse started last Wednesday and engulfed the 5,000-square-meter building.
"All the goods in the warehouse burned. All that was left standing were the walls," said Anatoly Pavlov, Ivanteyevko's fire chief.
So far there is no official version of the cause of the fire, but arson has not been ruled out, according to fire service representatives.
Not only did the Finnish company lose its inventory in the warehouse, but while extinguishing the blaze part of its factory was flooded. As a result, the factory is not working at full capacity, said Polarcup manager Viktor Kovnat. He declined to reveal the extent of the damage or sales figures for the company.
Huhtamaki notified its clients Friday that to meet its supply obligations it would have to import cups from its factories in Finland, Holland, Germany, Poland and Austria.
Some clients said they are seeking alternative suppliers.
"Possibly we will reach an agreement with Western factories. The main thing is not to have to rely on one supplier," said an employee with PepsiCo.
McDonald's was expecting its first delivery of cups Wednesday from Poland, having lasted the week on reserves.
The fire is Polarcup's second in as many years. Last year one of its facilities in the Czech Republic burned to the ground.
TITLE: After Ruling, U.S. Firm Says Will Continue With Appeals
AUTHOR: By Yevgenia Borisova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - U.S. company Sawyer Research Products has lost an appeal of the takeover of its facilities at the Gus-Khrustalny Quartz Glass Plant in the Vladimir Region, Sawyer's lawyer said Wednesday.
The Nizhny Novgorod Federal Court threw out the appeal Tuesday, said the lawyer, Anna Murray.
Sawyer plans to appeal to the top arbitration court as soon as the Nizhny Novgorod court releases the grounds for its verdict. Courts usually issue such statements within 10 days of a ruling.
"It must go to the very end. We are prepared to go to the court on human rights in Strasbourg," Murray said. "Here we are facing clear violation of our rights."
The dispute is creating a stir in U.S. business circles. The U.S.-Russia Business Council, which promotes U.S. investment in Russia, is calling it a key test of President Vladimir Putin's commitment to enforcing the rule of law.
Sawyer signed a 25-year lease with the bankrupt Gus-Khrustalny plant in 1997 under which it paid millions of dollars to cover the company's social debts and spent millions more putting its workshop No. 5 back into operation. Sawyer says it has sunk $7 million into the Vladimir Region plant.
But in May 2001, a Vladimir court found that Sawyer's contract was void in a lawsuit initiated by creditor ROEL Consulting. The court also ordered that Sawyer be reimbursed $1.5 million for lost investment, an amount the company says it has not received.
In early June, Sawyer representatives were barred from entering the plant's grounds.
Sawyer accused Vladimir regional officials of masterminding the takeover, a charge they deny.
But ROEL's lawyer, Dmitry Dorokhin, said last week that his client had initiated the lawsuit at the request of Vladimir officials. He suggested that the takeover had been orchestrated by Russians upset about losing a valuable asset to foreigners.
Sawyer replied that the plant was bankrupt in 1997 and would have been shut down if it had not stepped in.
Dmitry Vasiliev, former head of the Federal Securities Commission, said the contract wouldn't even be contestable if it weren't for widely interpretable law that was being used in this lawsuit. "The contract was signed according to the spirit of this law, however, there is still an issue if we talk about the letter of the law. That is why the case is still in court."
At issue is the 1992 law on bankruptcy. One section of the law states that after a bankrupt enterprise's arbitration manager draws up a plan for the plant, creditors must approve and "may introduce changes to the plan." However, another section states that the manager must "manage the debtor's property." The law neither explains the limitations of such management nor prioritizes any of its sections.
The arbitration manager of the disputed quartz plant drew up a plan under which the plant's workshops would be split into eight parts that would each become separate companies. In the end, though, only workshop No. 5 was leased out, and the others went bankrupt.
"The arbitration manager did not have the right to change the plant without the approval of the creditors," Dorokhin said.
Plant officials refused to comment about the case Wednesday.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Oblast Growth
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Investment in the Leningrad Oblast economy for the first six months of 2001 totaled 12 billion rubles (about $409.5 million), a rise of 37 percent over the same period in 2000, according to a report issued by the oblast administration's Economy and Investment Committee on Monday.
According to the report, the leading sectors in the rise were food, wood processing, paper products, construction materials and energy.
For the same period the volume of industrial production rose by 11.2 percent, with the greatest growth registered in machine production, which rose by 240 percent. Much of the growth was attributable to the Caterpillar-Tosno plant, which opened last year, the Viborgsky shipbuilding yard and the Transmash plant, which reopened producton after surviving dire economic straights last year.
The food-production sector grew by 70 percent, wood processing by 16.7 percent, and building materials by13.6 percent.
Among the less successful sectors were metal production where output fell by 15.2 percent and light industry, which fell by 7.4 percent.
Imports Take Jump
MOSCOW (SPT) - Imports in the first half of the year jumped 18.1 percent while exports rose 4 percent over the same period in 2000, the Economic Development and Trade Ministry said in a report released Thursday that was quoted by Interfax.
Exports totaled $51.4 billion for the first half, while $24.1 billion worth of goods were imported.
The import categories with the highest growth included leather shoes, up 200 percent, and cotton fabrics, clothing and alcoholic were all up 150 percent. Furniture imports rose 34 percent, Interfax reported.
Reserves Hit $36.2 Bln
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's foreign-currency and gold reserves edged up to a new post-Soviet high of $36.2 billion on July 27 from $36 billion on July 20, the Central Bank said Thursday.
The Central Bank has recorded an increase in hard-currency and gold reserves for 16 of the last 17 weeks, during which time reserves have risen $6.2 billion.
Sibir-Vnukovo Stalled
MOSCOW (Vedomosti) - A Moscow arbitration court has halted the merger of top airlines Sibir and Vnukovo after ordering the former to pay a debt of 4 million rubles ($136,000) to Vnukovo's former ticket agent, the company Yuridicheskaya Aviatsionnaya Sluzhba (Legal Aviation Service).
The court decision halting the merger until the debt is paid came into effect Tuesday.
When Sibir took on Vnukovo's debt obligations as part of the merger procedure it failed to settle with Yuridicheskaya Aviatsionnaya Sluzhba.
Sibir plans to dispute the ruling.
"The amount was for much less," said Mikhail Koshman, the head of Sibir's advertising and public relations department.
Final Mazheikiu O.K.
VILNIUS, Lithuania (Reuters) - The Lithuanian parliament on Thursday approved legislative amendments needed for Russia's Yukos to take 26.85 percent of Mazheikiu Nafta, the only oil refinery in the Baltic states.
Members of Parliament approved the amendments - allowing any investor to take more than 24 percent of Mazheikiu - on a 98-0 vote with nine abstentions, a parliament spokesperson said.
Late last month, the government approved the equity deal, concluded in June with Mazheikiu's U.S. operator Williams. Under the terms of the deal Yukos would inject $75 million into Mazheikiu and guarantee the supply of 4.8 million tons of crude annually over 10 years in return for 26.85 percent of the company and seats on the board.
Crude Tariff Cut
MOSCOW (Reuters) - A committee has ordered a cut in export tariffs on crude oil to 23.4 euros ($20.60) a ton from 30.5, Interfax quoted Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref as saying Wednesday.
The move had been expected, as the head of the Commission for Protective Measures in Foreign Trade had said last week that the tariff would be cut, although he had not given a precise figure. He had said the tariff would be around 23 euros.
The crude-oil export tariff is set in euros every two months and is pegged to the price of Russian Urals blend.
A decree sanctioning a lower tariff has to be signed by Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov and will come into effect a month after being published in the official government daily Rosiiskaya Gazeta.
Russia No. 2 in Oil
MOSCOW (SPT) - Russia remains the world's second-largest crude producer, according to statistics released Wednesday by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
Russia pumped 6.7 million barrels a day in the first quarter of this year.
Saudi Arabia leads the pack with 8 million barrels a day, and in third place is the United States with 6 million barrels a day. Iran, Norway and China follow.
TITLE: The New Populists
AUTHOR: By Tatyana Filippova
TEXT: THE ideologists of globalization might want to find a new public relations firm. As the street battles from Seattle to Genoa have demonstrated, the message of globalization is not exactly getting through.
The biggest surprise of the new millennium has been the rise of an anti-globalist resistance, which is both anonymous and ubiquitous. A new breed of radical has emerged with a call to arms as old as European modernity itself - the struggle against capital and capitalists, against the bourgeois levelling of culture and the savage vulgarity of the market.
For the student of Russian history, the anti-globalist movement presents a serious intellectual challenge.
There is something very familiar in the names of the anti-globalist organizations: Black Forest, Black Bloc, Class War, Marxism Lives. Georgy Plekhanov's Black Partition comes immediately to mind along with the heroic attempts of our Narodniki - a 19th-century populist movement - to become Russian Marxists with a human face. This proved a difficult task.
The appearance of the Narodniki in the 1860s and 1870s brought about a revolution in Russian values. The populists flatly rejected official ideology, the achievements of Russia's gentry culture and all notions of bourgeois "progress." They issued instead a call "to the people!" With these words the dissident social thinker Alexander Herzen addressed Russia's radical youth in his journal Kolokol, or The Bell.
For the populists, the people meant the peasantry, which became idealized in the consciousness of the intelligentsia. Action in the people's service was understood quite differently by those of varying radicalism. The Narodniki were only united, in fact, by a few core beliefs: that the bourgeois system was evil (according to this view, the West had diverged from the path of humanity's natural development); that the Russian peasant was a born socialist (hence the socialist transformation of mankind was to emerge naturally from the soil); and that the peasant community was the source of Russia's supreme social and moral values.
In everything else - tactics, forms of organizing and degrees of political radicalism - the Narodniki were extremely diverse. They held study groups, khozhdeniye v narod (going to the people, in the course of which young intellectuals canvassed rural regions and tried to incite the peasantry to rise against the system), and issued peaceful propaganda.
Over time these activities developed into secret, strictly disciplined terrorist organizations, such as the famous "Popular Will" group, which carried out the assassination of Emperor Alexander II in 1881. Because of harsh repressive measures and the nature of the populist movement itself, such anti-state terrorism led in the 1880s and 1890s to the creation of anarchist and socialist-revolutionary political parties.
It is by now axiomatic that political parties evolve to the right, while social movements evolve to the left. But the history of Western radicalism from the 1960s to the 1990s suggests another possibility. Unlike the Russian Narodniki, whose failure to reach the people led them to political terror, the European left has emerged from the underground existence of terrorists into broad movements relying on the support of the press and of public opinion. From this perspective it makes sense to view Ulrike Meinhof, leader of the German terrorist group Red Army Faction, as the granddaughter of Vera Zasulich, who shot and wounded St. Petersburg Governor Fyodor Trepov, then went on to co-found Russia's first Marxist organization.
Russian populism was the first response to the rise of capitalism in this country. An early, perhaps overzealous response. The advantages of industrial growth seemed all too clear to many, and the regime still had time to put it to use for its own benefit. Only later was the new economy seen as a fundamental threat to the traditional political culture of the ruling class. In the immediate aftermath of the 1861 emancipation of the serfs, the populists' nostalgic call to preserve the obshchina (the historical form of social organization in the countryside), to stop the faceless city from trampling rural culture, and to avoid the urban poverty then prevalent in Europe, were all regarded by progressive liberals as an attempt at shock tactics by the raznochintsy, the non-gentry provincial intelligentsia.
After the global catastrophes of the 20th century, brought about by the unmanageable consequences of industrialization, after the staggering price people have paid for the ignorance and ineptitude of the ruling elite, and the very fact that today 1 percent of the world's population controls 40 percent of the world's wealth - we are compelled to reconsider the legacy of the Russian Narodniki, which Lenin so resolutely ordered us to reject.
Russians are now among anti-globalism's multicultural army alongside Mexico's Zapatistas, India's rural communists, Marxist Muslims from the Philippines or the Maori Committee for Self-Determination in New Zealand. But Russians have their own beef with the globalization process and its institutions. The relations established by Boris Yeltsin's government with the World Trade Organization, European Union and International Monetary Fund have logically created a situation in which Russia has been left with mere scraps from the feast of human values.
But no matter how far the Russian anti-globalists raise their consciousness, to survive as a movement they must somehow resist the forces of decay. We've been through all this in Russia. A segment of the radicals who became Narodniki not for ideological reasons, but because of their involvement in what sociologists call "hate groups," quickly degenerated into a politicized, aggressive underclass. The builders of Russia's brave new world would feed on their enormous hate-driven energy.
A pogrom is a pogrom even if it begins beneath the banners of resistance to debt slavery, media pressure and the global policies of multinational corporations.
Tatyana Filippova is a historian and editor of Rossiya: Tretye Tysyacheletiye, a journal of social prognosis. She contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times.
TITLE: Vote King Lear As Your Man In the Duma
TEXT: AS I contemplate my twilight years, mulling over what to do with myself in my retirement, lurching around the office King Lear-like and screeching at the staff that they no longer respect me, my thoughts turn increasingly to questions of existence and mortality - or rather, immortality.
So I have decided that I have at least one golden opportunity to ascend to the pantheon of the famous and influential, and, with a bit of luck and some minor skullduggery, the filthy rich. I refer, of course, to the race to represent St. Petersburg's District No. 209 in the State Duma.
The idea came to me one night as I was idly leafing through a recent edition of this august organ, laughing at the way they had bungled the design on page 10, when my eye alighted on an "in brief" item listing the candidates for the next attempt to get someone elected in the district. And suddenly, inspiration struck. Why not run myself?
All right, there are some minor details of a nationality nature, but nothing that a little well-placed bl yad couldn't solve. And I might have to contend with the tactic that was employed in St. Petersburg for local parliament elections in 1998, when candidate Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov unexpectedly found himself standing against three other Ivan Ivanovich Ivanovs, one of whom was a woman. But I reckon they'd be hard-pressed to explain away the appalling coincidence of two or more Barnaby Thompsons running in the same election in St. Petersburg.
And once my ratings had soared far above those of my rivals, all I would have to do is stay alive until election day, and then - immunity from prosecution! Interviews on ORT! Chow with Zhirinovsky in the Duma canteen! Aides, chauffeurs, an unlimited mobile-phone bill, the ear of the people. ... Powwwerrrrr!
The only problem that I can see is what platform to run on. Given that previous contenders over the last couple of years have covered pretty much all of the political spectrum, there's not much room for maneuver. The business ticket has been done: Both Yury Shutov, languishing in prison awaiting trial on charges of masterminding a gang of hitmen, and Mikhail Zhivilo, who is sweating an extradition hearing to see if he'll have to face accusations of trying to assassinate Kemerovo Governor Aman Tuleyev, are - or were when they ran - businessmen. Nor can I play the red/brown card. It hasn't (yet) worked for Nikolai Bondarik, leader of the Russian Nationalist Party, or ex-Duma deputy Vyacheslav Marychev. Arms exports, ditto: Yury Savelyev, rector of Baltic State Technical University and a man who got in trouble for allegedly giving Iranians missile technology, is another failed candidate.
I can't campaign for employment (I'm for), because an unemployed man is already standing. For similar reasons, the causes of trade unionism, university students and lunatic royalism are all taken.
Perhaps I'll just do what Vladimir Putin did and not say anything at all about what I intend to do if elected. It took him from 7 percent to over 50 percent in about three weeks, so it's got to work for me. Quick, pass me my skis, judo costume, MiG fighter, bloody regional conflict, corrupt electoral officials and blanket media coverage.
Keep the inept opposition, though. I've already got one of those.
Barnaby Thompson is a former editor of The St. Petersburg Times.
TITLE: It Is Time for Business To Take the Leap
TEXT: THE city's 2003 tricentennial celebration is not as far away as some may think and, unfortunately, the process for organizing and funding this landmark event still seems decidedly shaky. Only just this week did Governor Vladimir Yakovlev sign the decree on corporate sponsorship for the event, and no doubt it will still be some time before potential sponsors are presented with a coherent and sensible plan to buy into.
And that is too bad because The St. Petersburg Times' informal investigation this week revealed an encouraging level of interest among local, national and international businesses that seem to understand that this is a unique opportunity for St. Petersburg. One that could not possibly come at a more propitious moment.
Our conversations with the business community, though, create the impression that the organization of the event is in a fairly chaotic state. Ford Motor Company, for instance, told us that it had been approached by 10 different organizations seeking sponsorship for tricentennial-related events. Obviously, only a profound level of commitment to the city could motivate anyone to navigate such a confusing maze.
The separate municipal organizations charged with organizing the event, on the one hand, and with funding it, on the other, need much closer coordination. The fund-raising committee will not be able to answer the legitimate questions of potential sponsors if it is in the dark about what is actually being planned. Even when signing up for a charitable cause, corporations have the right to know precisely what they will be getting for their money.
The business community, though, must also show some flexibility. Many of the businesses we spoke to claimed that it is still too early for them to decide how they will participate in this event. Several said that they wouldn't know for certain for another year. Such a counterproductive attitude, of course, prevents the city from properly planning the event, since it has no idea what resources will actually be available.
Only the local grocery chain Pyatyorochka expressed the desire to get to work on concrete projects immediately. We can only hope that more businesses, especially the biggest national and international firms, will realize that it may take a considerable leap of faith to get this project off the ground.
The fact is that it is not too early for business to make concrete commitments to this vital cause that will, we are convinced, give a crucial boost to the local business climate that could fuel growth for years to come. And if business keeps thinking that it is too early much longer, it will really be too late.
TITLE: Global eye
TEXT: Grapes of Wrath Need to unwind after a long day at the office jabbing cattle prods into the gonads of your political opponents? Then reach for a glass of smooth, mellow "Augusto Pinochet," the latest offering from Chile's famous vineyards.
Yes, in a miracle of modern marketing, the blood of thousands of murdered torture victims has been transformed into a cheap wine bearing the name of the man who ordered their deaths, The Guardian reports. This profitable piggybacking on infamy is actually the brainchild of the old dictator's son, Augusto Junior. Augusto Senior no longer has a brain, of course - or at least that's what his lawyers claimed in having the CIA-backed hard man declared mentally incompetent to stand trial for his horrendous crimes.
Junior plans to export vintage Pinochet to supermarkets in Florida, where they are already quite accustomed to ruthless hucksters trading on the name of a famous father. He also hopes to broaden the Augusto Pinochet brand to include everything from credit cards to beauty products.
Well, why not? "Disguise that bruise with Pinochet Rouge!" Kinda has a ring to it, doesn't it?
Secret-Agent Man And now for another installment of our long-running series, "Adventures in American Freedom."
Today's episode once again stars that legendary lawman and lover of liberty, Attorney General John "King Crisco" Ashcroft. Last week, Ashcroft's Justice Department agents put a journalist in jail for refusing to divulge confidential sources and turn over notes on the murder of a Texas socialite, USA Today reports.
What's more, Ashcroft had the reporter - part-time freelancer Vanessa Leggett - hustled away under the cover of darkness: the feds, for reasons unexplained, asked that her contempt hearing be closed to the public. The transcript of the hearing was then sealed; even the name of the judge who clapped her in irons is secret. What's more, the government says that if Leggett's attorney talks to the press about the case, he too could be gobbling jailhouse chow real soon.
Leggett has been digging into the 1997 murder of Doris Angelton, wife of Houston millionaire Robert Angleton. He was accused of hiring his brother Roger to do the deed. In February 1998, Roger committed suicide in jail; six months later, Robert was acquitted of ordering the hit.
The feds are now investigating Lucky Bob for unspecified reasons. (Not a very specific bunch, these G-men.) They wanted all of Legget's confidential info on the case because - well, just because, apparently. Some states have laws to protect journalists in cases like this; but as you might suspect, Texas is not one of them. So Legget now faces 18 months in stir if she fails to cough up.
Another job well done, General Crisco. Now crack open that bottle of chilled Pinochet and let's celebrate your great victory over the dark forces of, er, freedom.
Closing the Book Adventures in American Freedom, Part II: The Bush administration is quashing publication of a State Department history that details U.S. involvement in the mass murders that followed the violent overthrow of the Sukarno government in Indonesia in 1966.
Bush operatives are forcing hundreds of libraries around the country to return the book, which was approved for publication in April by, er, the Bush administration, AP reports. The volume draws on recently declassified documents outlining U.S. cooperation with anti-Sukarno rebels and the post-coup killing of almost 1 million opponents of the newly installed Suharto regime.
The book's unseemly outburst of truth is very ill-timed: Sukarno's daughter, Megawati Sukarnoputri, has just become Indonesia's new president. George W. has taken a real shine to the little lady, who assumed power through political maneuvering of dubious constitutionality and who, according to her own aides, remains notoriously disengaged from the duties of her office, eschewing policy meetings and briefing papers in favor of doing photo-ops and watching cartoons. What's not to like?
So Bush is now trying to put the kibosh on the historical facts, including U.S. payments to the aptly named Gestapu rebels who helped oust Megawatti's pop, and the State Department's supplying of hit lists to the Suharto killing squads. It might be a bit awkward, you see, when Meggy comes over for a nice White House dinner soon - bringing the usual shopping list of tanks, planes and cattle prods her military backers need to, you know, preserve democracy and all.
Of course, if anyone at table is rude enough to mention the record of murder and mendacity that has graced American-Indonesian relations for the past 50 years, Bush can always ease the tension by exercising that great prerogative of presidential power:
"Want to watch Bugs Bunny? I got my own movie theater downstairs!"
Damp Squib Remember the "successful" test of America's "missile-defense" system last month, when a prototype rocket shot down a mock warhead in flight? Remember the reams of triumphant PR from the White House and Washington's corps of sycophantic pundits? The test was "proof positive," they said, that "missile defense works." Opponents of Bush's $300 billion welfare program for wealthy defense contractors had been "morally disarmed" by this "resounding success."
It looks like the cheerleaders shook their pom-poms too soon. Last week, the Pentagon confessed that its Buck Rogers whizbangery had in fact been guided by a homing beacon placed on the target itself, Reuters reports.
The somewhat bristly brass insisted that the handy-dandy tracking device had only put their missile in the "general vicinity" of the target, but they also admitted that a "rogue state" launching a surprise attack would probably not include such helpful guides on their own warheads.
Undeterred by this dearth of deterrence, Bush and defense chief Donald "Darth" Rumsfeld are now finalizing plans for "projecting dominance through space," The Observer reports. Dub and Rummy are resurrecting Reagan's old "Star Wars" scheme of space-based laser weapons and a constellation of more than 4,000 lethal satellites - presumably to ward off "rogue aliens" like Jabba the Hut.
Sounds like a couple of old boys have been hitting the Pinochet a bit too much lately.
TITLE: music for television: the way ahead?
AUTHOR: by Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Rock is dead. Music for TV serials, on the other hand, is very much alive. Local guitarist Alexei Zubarev proves this point. After appearing as a member of Pierre Moerlen's Gong at a festival performance in April, Zubarev has put away his concert shoes and is now busy composing and recording music for television.
One of Zubarev's projects, called "Law," is a 24-episode serial directed in Moscow by Alexander Veledinsky. "Law" is a combination of crime, horror and melodrama.
In St. Petersburg, Zubarev composes for the romance serial "Time to Love," directed by Victor Buturlin.
"The TV serial is the genre that is developing the most at the moment," says Zubarev, 42, who gained underground fame as a member of the instrumental art-rock band Sezon Dozhdei in 1989 and then as the guitarist for Boris Grebenshchikov's BG Band and Akvarium from 1991 to 1997, for which he also orchestrated a number of tracks.
Zubarev's current band is a flexible ensemble called the Duty Free Orchestra, which grew from his solo work in 1995 and which performed on the local club circuit in 1998-99, opening for Peter Hammill on his second brief Russian tour in April 1998. It is based around Zubarev and producer Nikita Ivanov-Noman, and is described by them as an "association for soundtrack production and cognac tasting."
"There's life [in TV serials]. Capable directors are starting to work there, directors who have not yet been given money for full-length films," says Zubarev. "Some interesting life has emerged."
"For musicians, the genre is attractive in the sense that you fulfill a task that is interesting for you, and you don't have to work in the dumb and all-too-safe genre of radio format with 3 1/2-minute songs using a definite number of beats."
According to Zubarev, a soundtrack provides the opportunity to experiment, inventing unexpected forms and trying to make them work in the context of a film.
The Duty Free Orchestra's soundtrack works include, most prominently, Alexander Kiselyov's "Secret Ecology: The Story of Alexander Nikitin" in 1997, the award-winning documentary about the persecuted former naval officer and environmentalist.
Zubarev has released two solo albums, both in 1995, "International Lieutenant's Secret Notes" and "Water Rhapsody," the latter being instrumental versions of Akvarium's songs. He is not sure whether his current work will be released on CD.
"Of all the soundtrack music in the world, full-bloodied themes are only composed by people like [Ennio] Morricone, but he works on pictures that are on a completely different level," he says.
Zubarev believes Michael Nyman's soundtrack albums are of value only for connoisseurs.
"All the drawbacks of his method are evident when the music is issued as a separate soundtrack. It's almost impossible to listen to if you haven't seen the film itself, because it all starts to sound the same."
"Morricone works brilliantly, but he chooses films very carefully, because one can't write fine music that can become a popular soundtrack, if [the film] is not of matching quality. We haven't had films like this so far [in Russia]."
The practice of cramming songs by leading rock and pop bands into a soundtrack, as director Alexei Balabanov did with his hugely popular films "Brother" and "Brother 2," is a commercially successful ploy, but is "artificial," according to Zubarev.
"[Balabanov] does this quite consciously, in a pretty direct way," he says. "You can't use five songs by [Slava] Butusov [former frontman for '80s rock group Nautilus Pompilius] in a film - it's impossible. He has to justify this by making his main character a Butusov fan who walks around with a CD player at his side all the time. He might as well make him a member of a band."
While such directors as Balabanov tend to bring music to the fore, Zubarev argues it should be heard somewhere in the background.
"The ideal film music is not remembered," he says. "People remember only one melody from a very good film. The rest of the work sort of remains behind the screen. The genius of this work is that you only see the tip of the iceberg. The bulk of the music goes unnoticed, it holds the film together and merges with it."
Zubarev compares the place that TV series occupy nowadays to opera in Mozart's time. "Opera was full of life then: It was a popular art form and attracted investment. That's why there was a premiere every week," he says.
TV series are attractive for musicians from a creative and financial standpoint. But when will we hear some truly original and interesting Russian rock music?
"Only when people start buying licensed CDs costing from $20 to $25 with at least 500,000 copies will this music see a revival," says Zubarev. "But at the moment, musicians have no chance to earn anything with their music, not even bread with no butter."
"That's why it's unrealistic to expect any new music. We will have vomit instead of music for a long time yet."
Check out the Duty Free Orchestra's Web site at www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/perfect/600/
TITLE: arts news: blok, barbershop, sandcastles
AUTHOR: by Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Barbershop singing is back again in St. Petersburg. The Third International Festival "Barbershop Harmony" kicks off on Aug. 16 at the St. Petersburg State Cappella, with performances by American and Russian quartets and choirs, including New York's Big Apple Chorus.
The art of barbershop singing, introduced to Russian audiences two years ago, first emerged in England, though the date of its origin is unknown. Eventually, it was brought to the United States by emigrants. Nowadays, the barbershop genre has absorbed African-American musical traditions and has grown into a thrilling combination of music and drama.
Starting as a one-day happening at the Cappella on July 21, 1999, the festival has since grown into a week-long event, with concerts at a number of venues including the Shostakovich Philharmonic and Pavlovsk palace.
The program of the festival is varied, with spirituals, Broadway numbers and folk songs, along with the traditional barbershop repertoire.
This year's program also features a series of three master classes by the Metropolis Quartet, one of the most acclaimed barbershop groups in the United States. All master classes will be held at the Cappella between 10:00 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. on August 17, 18 and 21, and are open to the public.
For more information, call 315-6308 or 314-4495. For the schedule of the concerts, see next week's listings.
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Admirers of Alexander Blok's verse will mark the day of Aug. 7 - the 80th anniversary of poet's death - with an array of memorial events. Blok's memorial day starts at noon with a service at the Smolenskoye cemetery church and continues with Blok poetry readings at his apartment museum (57 Ulitsa Dekabristov).
On Aug. 10, the museum opens a memorial exhibition dedicated to the anniversaries of Alexander Blok and Nikolai Gumilyov, who both died in August 1921. On display will be posters and programs of poetry evenings dating back to 1920 and 1921, photographs, books and other historical memorabilia.
For more information, call the museum at 113-8627.
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Planning an outdoor event in St. Petersburg is always a risky business, as there is a pretty good chance of rain virtually any time of year. Still, the organizers of the International Sand Sculpture Festival have scheduled the event to run from Aug. 8 through 11 at the beach next to the Peter and Paul Fortress.
Fifteen teams from Russia, the United States, France, Netherlands, Italy, Latvia, Ireland, Finland, Poland and the Czech Republic will compete for prizes trying to reflect images of the world's most beautiful towns using nothing but sand.
The fruits of their efforts will be open to public viewing daily from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. For details, call the festival's organizers on 232-6368.
TITLE: chernov's choice
TEXT: With nothing of note coming in August (the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra playing The Beatles, and Finnish heavy-metal band Nightwish don't really count), our advice is to save money for September shows by such acts as Depeche Mode, Tom Jones and Robert Plant, should you like any of them.
Tickets for Coil's one-off performance in Moscow on Sept. 15 are already on sale. Coil, now including John Balance, Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson, Timothy Charles Lewis and Tom Edwards is the U.K. dark industrial band which emerged around the Psychic TV in 1983. The band, which writes solemn manifestos, calls itself "Archangels of KHAOS" and is described by Allmusic.com as "harsh, sleazy, fiery, ominous, wintry, trippy, aggressive, tense/anxious, detached, clinical, literate, eerie, bleak" just can't help being loved by Russians. Tickets cost (of course) 666 rubles and are available from FeeLee. Tickets can be ordered by calling (095) 252-0983.
There are also rumors about a possible appearance from either Moby or Blur in Moscow in September, but nothing definite.
Locally, the SpartaK rock club is not with us any more, as it was taken over by the nightclub Hollywood Nites last month, which plans to use the building for "student parties," according to reports.
The unique non-commercial cinema Spartak, also located in the former catholic church, stopped screenings last week but said it would return in December.
SpartaK used to be the only club capable of holding 1,000 fans and was a venue for more successful club acts such as Leningrad and MultFilmy.
The smaller second floor, whose bar was called Garkundel, was used for less popular and experimental acts.
The fate of the Zoopark club is also not clear. Though the staff of the venue has been on vacation since June, the club might be affected by the argument over the position of the director of the zoo, where the club is located, and there's a lot of doubt whether it will reopen its doors in September.
Autumn will show how the local club scene will look. Chances are that it will be mainly concentrated around the Moscow Station, with clubs such as Moloko, Fish Fabrique, Griboyedov, along with recent additions Cynic and Front, all being within a 15-minute walk from the station.
For some unknown reason, Psycho Pub, located close to the area, right off Nevsky Prospect on Fontanka, is managing to stay alive , even if it has no telephone and elementary conveniences. The place will host a punk festival called Hardcore Punk Attack on Sunday.
Headlined by P.T.V.P., it also features eight or so lesser known punk bands (see Gigs for details).
P.T.V.P., better known as Posledniye Tanki V Parizhe (Last Tanks in Paris), comes from Vyborg, and was a fixture at the TaMtAm club. The group is famous for its strong moral stance against the police, President Putin and the war in Chechnya. Also from Vyborg is the younger band Svinyi v Kosmose (Pigs in Space, which will also take part. Forty rubles will get you in.
- by Sergey Chernov
TITLE: mediocrity with style
AUTHOR: by Curtis Budden
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: I lived next door to Korona on Bolshoi Prospect for about six months, but never once dropped in for a visit. As I passed the restaurant every day I would look into the window, getting just a taste of the attractive interior and obviously upper-class clientele. Those furtive glances were enough to give me the impression that this place was too rich for my blood.
When you find such a place you do what all other good staffers at The St. Petersburg Times do - you wait for your next restaurant review to pop up.
My visit to Korona seemed to be a momentous occasion, surrounded by half a year of expectations and what turned out to be misconceptions.
The interior is restrained, though well-designed in a minimalist style. My dining companion remarked that it was "a post-Soviet approximation of good taste."
There are two dining rooms, one elevated and set off from the main hall. Though the restaurant is not that big, the tables are well-spaced, providing plenty of privacy. This, in addition to the quiet music, created a great atmosphere for conversation, where you don't need to shout to be heard nor do you have to worry about your fellow patrons eavesdropping.
A friendly waiter appeared right away with the menu, warning us that there would be a 35- or 40-minute wait because the kitchen was really busy.
Forty minutes turned into an hour, but the pleasant atmosphere distracted us from the ticking of the clock.
Since the menu was surprisingly affordable - a wide range of main courses from 95 to 175 rubles - we both decided to go with a couple of starters. I had the Italian salad (75 rubles), which turned out to be a tasteless mixture of ham, cheese, lettuce, and mayonnaise, indistinguishable from any other of the gamut of similar salads to be found waiting under the counter at your favorite corner bistro.
My friend started with the Olivier salad (65 rubles), saying that it was standard.
Upon finishing our salads the waiter immediately brought our warm starters. My companion chose the bliny with red caviar (130 rubles), which he said was pretty hard to mess up, but was not outstanding.
Having noticed their selection of Georgian dishes, I decided to try one of my favorites, khachapuri (65 rubles). I was sadly disappointed. The bread was extremely dry, while the cheese was far too salty. It was without a doubt the worst khachapuri experience of my life.
Fortunately, I can say that the main courses were a step up from the starters. I went with the natural beef kebab (155 rubles) and Idaho potatoes (20 rubles), while my companion tried the pork steak with garlic butter (160 rubles) and French fries (30 rubles).
My dish included two large beef kebabs and tasty Idaho potatoes that were thinly cut and sprinkled with several spices and the all-encompassing Russian zelen (greens). I ordered a creamy mustard sauce, which turned out to be a good complement to the plain beef. The best part of the meal was undoubtedly the Khvanchkara, a dry red Georgian wine (90 rubles for 100 milliliters). Unfortunately, the wine was chilled, but the hour-long wait gave it plenty of time to warm up to room temperature before my main course arrived.
As with the rest of his meal, my companion's pork steak was average, while the fries were a little overdone. He did comment, however, that the Borzhomi mineral water (45 rubles) was quite tasty. Unfortunately, we can't attribute that to the restaurant.
To top off our nearly three-hour visit, we decided to order dessert. My friend went with a cup of black coffee (25 rubles) and the day-night ice cream dish (55 rubles), which, as you probably could guess, is simply a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a scoop of chocolate ice cream, along with a little whipped cream.
I went with the Snega a la Rochelle (45 rubles), which was a scoop of vanilla ice buried under mounds of fluffy cream. On its own, the dessert wasn't bad, but it was certainly made better by the Hennessey V.S. cognac (180 rubles), which was served in a heated glass, a great touch to finish the night.
So Korona is certainly no crowning achievement, but it is a very nice place to get a mediocre meal, or as my friend pointed out, "It's post-Soviet food at a French pace."
Despite the delays and the generally tastefree food, the service was very good and the atmosphere was pleasant enough that we still enjoyed our meals and had a good time.
Korona is located at 33 Bolshoi Prospect on the Petrograd Side. Dinner for two with alcohol: 1,235 rubles ($42). Open around the clock. Tel. 232-5641. No credit cards accepted.
TITLE: humor used as tool of cognition
AUTHOR: by Masha Mondello
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The name of Alexander Genis is familiar to those in Russia who listened to shortwave radio in the 1980s and 90s. Together with Peter Veil, he covered culture for Radio Liberty, the U.S.-sponsored radio station that broadcast wafts of fresh air into the dying Soviet Union. His style combined subtle humor with deep insight into the cultural affairs of the world.
Veil's and Genis' program, a weekly dose of verbal shenanigans with serious subject matter, was as much fun to listen to as "Car Talk" on America's National Public Radio. And where "Car Talk" elevates a mundane interest in auto mechanics to the level of pure improvisational art, Veil and Genis made art criticism fun.
Red Bread is an English translation of Genis' essays, recently published in Moscow by Glas. The author, who left the Soviet Union in the 1970s and now lives in New York, dedicated much of his work to the interconnections, idiosyncrasies and resonances between Russian and American cultures.
Genis carries his propensity for joyful thinking into his writing. His sense of humor is not a joke - it is pervasive. Like spices in the hands of a good chef, it is hard to separate it from the final effect of his prose. It caresses your intellectual palate. He describes "Parking," for example, as "a piece of street marked off by invisible and incomprehensible borders in time and space, from the corner and until sunset."
Genis' friend, the late writer Sergei Dovlatov, described his theory of laughter as follows: "A sense of humor is a tool of cognition: If you are researching a phenomenon, find out what's funny about it, and it will reveal itself to you in full. This has nothing to do with professional comedy or a desire to entertain the reading public."
Alexander Genis' musings are about life. But this is an understatement: Real-life objects are not only the starting points of his contemplation; they are also its ultimate goal. He examines his subjects with such unflagging attention to the tiniest aspects of their being that one cannot help thinking of the various optical devices he must have used: microscopes, telescopes and possibly a magic lantern.
Everything that Genis touches becomes a cultural phenomenon: highways, bedrooms, gas stations, food, time and space itself. Like detective stories (and just as addictive), his books unravel the connections between all things around us, in a world where nothing is superfluous. In interpreting these objects of everyday life, however, Genis is looking not for deeper meaning, but for a wider one. It is a task that requires a certain distance from its object, an artist's step back from the canvas. Genis' perspective as an expatriate gives him just that. Instead of building an argument, he works like an impressionist painter, leaving the reader with a picture that is vivid and pleasing but whose exact components can never quite be defined.
This trait is put to work in his collection of essays about America, "USA From A To Y," excerpts of which are in Red Bread. Genis does not concern himself directly with abstractions like race, equal rights or the pursuit of happiness. Instead, with the assiduousness of an entomologist, he observes the physical features of American life, arranging them alphabetically for an encyclopedic effect: Airport, Bathroom, Car, Highway, Home, Kitchen, etc. Yet each of these objects is a vital piece in the jigsaw puzzle that makes up the bigger picture, complete with all the "big questions." Garbage, for example, becomes a theological matter, whereby recycling is a matter of "casting aside the straightforward course of progress in deference to a world of eternally repeating phenomena; where man and nature revolve in a whirling pagan dance." Instead of trying to restore order to the chaos of our existence, he rejoices at the excitement of each and every element of the cacophony.
Remarkably, out of 25 entries in this section, six have to do with cars. "Garage" is one of the best. Here, Genis describes the area that falls in the no-man's-land between house and barn, and becomes "a museum of unrealized hopes, collapsed plans, projects gone bust," where "each rusty tool, sewing machine, white elephant or water ski is a symbol of something that might have been, but never was." As such, Genis says, the garage acquires an otherworldliness that makes the strangest things possible and readily lends itself to mythmaking.
My favorite, though, is "Motel." Genis evokes Hitchcock: "The Romantic tradition has always credited innkeepers with a predilection for turning their guests into sausage meat." He also makes room for Lolita: "Here Nabokov musters all his bitter sarcasm: Banal to the point of tawdriness, the motel becomes Humbert's 'prison cell of paradise', where he dreams of stopping time."
The Russian counterpart of "USA from A to Y" in the book is the title story "Red Bread," subtitled "The Evolution of Russian Cooking." Quoting the French essayist Roland Barthes, Genis explains that "psychosociologically" a national cuisine can be understood only from without, for it is "invisible" for the people for whom it is their own. The essay is an invaluable survey of Russian cooking and its mutation into Soviet "cuisine."
Genis goes back to 17th century descriptions of Russian food by traveling Europeans: "In all of Europe there is no greater variety of freshwater fish." He makes shocking revelations, to wit: "Cheese was practically unknown until the middle of the 19th century." And he gives us a brief history of the Russian restaurant. Clearly an insider, Genis introduces us to the "gastronomic nihilism" of dissidents and the quasi-dissident Soviet intelligentsia, who "were often set apart by the indifference to food as a consciously chosen position.
Instead of explaining, Genis describes, and his avoidance of abstraction and controversy is one of his most endearing features. In a somewhat philosophical essay, "The View from the Window," he slips up on both counts in an uncharacteristically cliched jab at the shallowness of mass culture. He loses his wonderful precision and his comparisons leak from the realm of poetic images into logical judgments. Heidegger he isn't, but in the very imprecision of his logic lies the precision of an apt metaphor, which in the end redeems the essay and makes it utterly readable.
Quite fittingly, the final story of the book is called "Darkness and Silence." Genis' tribute to Taoism is in keeping with his reverence for the tiny details of the visible world. In his attentive mind they all add up to a big picture of infinite proportions. Like the stones in Genis' Chinese garden, the elements of this picture fall into place beautifully, as if by their own will.
"Red Bread" by Alexander Genis is published by Glas. 200 pages. Available on Amazon.com at $11.95.
Masha Mondello is a Moscow-born mother of three, who has lived in America since 1995.
TITLE: moulin rouge goes way over the top
AUTHOR: by Kenneth Turan
PUBLISHER: The Los Angeles Times
TEXT: "Etonne-moi" - astonish me - ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev famously encouraged poet Jean Cocteau, and "Moulin Rouge" follows his advice. Most of the time. A fever dream of musical spectacle, its dizzying visual and melodic panache is operatic by intention and excessive by design. This is a flabbergasting piece of work, nakedly out there, willing to risk looking foolish because it is so in love with the head-turning possibilities of the film medium. And, inevitably, foolish is what it sometimes looks.
Although it showcases excellent work from co-stars Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor as singing star-crossed lovers in turn-of-the-century Paris, "Moulin Rouge" is a film that can't escape the defects of its virtues. Over the top in all things, it's unwilling to differentiate between the delights of being cinematically outrageous and the drawbacks of having a plot that's as simplistic dramatically as the film is complex visually, of characterization that verges on cartoonish, especially in the minor roles, and of a weakness for the broadest, most exaggerated farce.
In fact, far from trying to escape these things, "Moulin Rouge" seems to consider them virtues. Director Baz Luhrmann, a gifted impresario in his own right, probably views his film's predictability as mythic and its cliched characters as archetypes. "We never heard from Baz to turn it down," one of the actors reported. "It was always, 'More! More!' " The director even sent a note to his cast reading, "I dare you to make me say you've gone too far."
It's a tribute to the powerful vision and blasting energy of Luhrmann and his creative team, especially production and co-costume designer Catherine Martin, that, more than simply being inclined to give this film the benefit of the doubt, we're almost compelled to put up with the bad for the sake of the good. "Moulin Rouge" does its best to be overpowering, to force us to embrace (as happened in his previous "William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet") even those excesses that seem questionable at first. What's good about this film is so exciting, it seems a shame to point out what isn't.
In "Moulin Rouge," Luhrmann doesn't have Shakespeare to provide poetry and ballast; he and co-screenwriter Craig Pearce have only themselves to fall back on. The blatantly melodramatic way the story and many of the performances are conceived is distancing, pulling us out of any sense of involvement. It stands in the way of one of the things Luhrmann and company most want to accomplish, which is to be emotionally potent as well as visually extravagant.
It's indicative of the fine work that Kidman and McGregor do, of the enthusiasm, abandon and skill they bring to their roles, that their characters engage us as much as they do. McGregor's Christian, the idealistic young writer on the loose in 1899 Montmartre, a.k.a. "the summer of love," is almost preternaturally naive and boyish. And Kidman, looking (in Martin and Angus Strathie's costumes) simultaneously glamorous, decadent and fragile, personifies with equal strength the part of Satine, "the most beautiful courtesan in all the world ... paid to make men believe what they want to believe."
More than act, they have to sing, for one of the notions behind "Moulin Rouge" is that when people's emotions get heightened, they have no choice but to burst into torrents of song. As to the lyrics, they're plundered, mixed and matched from what seems like the entire history of modern popular song. Sting's "Roxanne" becomes a tango, and Kidman's Satine is introduced singing a medley that mixes the show tune "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" with Madonna's signature "Material Girl." Yes, it's chaotic, but these characters are better off singing than dealing with "Moulin Rouge's" shopworn scripted material.
McGregor's Christian, who believes in truth, beauty, freedom and love above all else, is introduced with the oddly haunting Nat King Cole standard "Nature Boy" and a lyric that could stand as "Moulin Rouge's" theme: The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return. This number is immediately followed by a taste of what will be the film's most off-putting aspect, the fake-slapstick Keystone Kops antics of Christian's avant-garde neighbors, led by the diminutive Toulouse-Lautrec (John Leguizamo). This kind of willfully over-the-top characterization, the idea that overacting is an end in itself, is "Moulin Rouge" at its most irritating and purposeless.
Convinced that Christian is a poet after he breaks into the lyrics from "The Sound of Music," Toulouse-Lautrec decides he is just the person to write the painter's new play, "Spectacular Spectacular." To that end, Christian gets taken to Moulin Rouge, the club of the moment, where the Mephistophelean Harold Zidler (Jim Broadbent) runs the house and Satine, "Spectacular Spectacular's" potential star, entertains gorgeously.
Visualized by Martin, set decorator Brigitte Broch and supervising art director Ian Gracie as a kind of ultimate high-energy rave, this night is "Moulin Rouge" at its most overwhelming. Donald McAlpine's rich cinematography and Jill Bilcock's rapid, music-videoish editing, plus a whole lot of raffish cancan dancing, enable you to forget your troubles and pretend the film doesn't have any either.
"Moulin Rouge's" most memorable musical number takes place on that night as well. It's the "Elephant Love Medley," named after the elephantine structure where Satine's boudoir is housed, and it samples lyrics including the Beatles' "All You Need Is Love," U2's "In the Name of Love," Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You," Elton John and Bernie Taupin's "Your Song" and, hard as it is to believe, more.
Compared to words like those, it's no surprise that the plot that follows, involving a rapacious moneybags duke (Richard Roxburgh) willing to finance the show if Satine comes with the package, seems especially pedestrian. She in turn seems to have developed one of those persistent coughs that was apparently an occupational hazard for courtesans in the City of Light.
Finally, and probably appropriately, seeing "Moulin Rouge" is like being thrust into the middle of a loud and frantic party whether you want to be there or not. You can go with it or resist it, be exhilarated or worn out. But forgetting the experience is not one of your options.