SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #747 (13), Friday, February 22, 2002
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TITLE: Rebirth Nears for World's 'Eighth Wonder'
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Gem carver Sergei Kaminsky has spent the last 16 years recreating one of the world's greatest works of art, the mysterious Amber Room from the Catherine Palace in the suburb of Pushkin.
Together with about 50 colleagues, from carvers to art historians, Kaminsky spends his days crouched over a microscope, studying tiny bits of amber and fitting them into the vast mosaics that will someday form an exact replica of the lost treasure.
"I still love this work," he said. "I just have to wear my spectacles now."
It appears that the 23-year-long story of the resurrection of the Amber Room is finally nearing its happy ending. This week, the restorers unveiled two newly completed panels and a copy of one of the original Florentine mosaics, and announced that the entire project will be completed on May 31, 2003.
On that day, President Vladimir Putin and the German chancellor will cut the ribbon on the restoration, in a ceremony that will be part of the celebration of the city's 300th anniversary.
Even now, there are only two panels on the eastern wall and one of the four mosaics missing, as well as a few details such as bronze fixtures. The room already looks stunningly impressive.
"Contemporaries called it the eighth wonder of the world, and I'm sure that it will have the same reputation after the restoration," said Ivan Sautov, director of the Tsar's Palace state museum.
"Nobody ever made anything like this before or since," he added.
The Amber Room has been a symbol of Russian-German relations for nearly three centuries. King Fredrick William I originally presented the luxuriously decorated panels to Tsar Peter the Great in 1716. It was eventually completed during the reign of Frederick the Great.
The room was installed in the Catherine Palace, the favorite summer residence of Catherine the Great, where it remained until the town was occupied by the German Army during World War II. German troops then dismantled the room and shipped it away. At that point, the panels disappeared and have not been found since.
In 1979, the Soviet government allocated $8 million to begin the restoration. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the main funding for the project has been a $3.5 million contribution by Ruhrgas AG, the German gas giant that is the world's biggest customer for Russian natural gas and which owns a stake in Gazprom.
In 1997, one of the original mosaics, entitled "Smell and Touch," reappeared in Bremen, Germany. It was later returned to the Catherine Palace and is now on display next to the restorers' copy.
The restoration is a tedious, painstaking process in which tiny slices of amber are sorted according to their color along a spectrum from light yellow to a dark reddish-brown.
Each color-matched amber piece is then affixed to specially prepared wooden panels. The panels extend from the floor to the ceiling, which itself is decorated with Baroque paintings and gilded carvings.
"At first the restoration works went very slowly," said Tatiana Zharkova, spokesperson for the museum. "The experts had only a few pre-war black-and-white photographs of the room and a single color slide from 1917."
Artisans working on the project had to reconstruct the 18th-century techniques of working with amber and mixing it with honey and other substances in order to achieve the desired effects.
"Amber is one of the most capricious substances. Eighty percent of what we start with ends up in the trash," Zharkova said.
In all, 5.5 tons of amber were purchased for the project, all of it from the world's largest amber deposits near Kaliningrad. In addition, the museum is purchasing other precious stones from private collectors.
"To make one amber bas relief, we had to buy 10 stones from a Moscow collector for $1,000 each," Zharkova said.
The key to the work, though, is patience. Stone carver Radii Shakhayev has been working for nearly two years on the mosaic entitled "Taste," the last of the four to be restored.
He proudly shows a 15-centimeter figure of a woman, painstakingly assembled from 100 separate stone pieces.
"That took me three months to make," he laughs.
TITLE: Oligarchs Move for Control of TV6
AUTHOR: By Gregory Feifer
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - A businessperson who is part of a consortium negotiating with ousted TV6 journalists to make a bid for the station's broadcast license has announced the names of the other participants, some of the wealthiest and best-connected businesspeople in the country.
The Union of Right Forces, or SPS, is said to be behind the consortium negotiations, which appear to have the Kremlin's support. The consortium could be a convenient way out of a public-relations problem for a Kremlin fending off accusations of stifling press freedom.
After more than a week of speculation, Unified Energy Systems chief Anatoly Chubais, an SPS leader, confirmed on Tuesday that he is taking part. He said he is participating as a private individual.
Oleg Kiselyov, in an interview with Kommersant newspaper published Wednesday, named the others: Chukotka Governor Roman Abramovich, former MDM Bank Chairperson Alexander Mamut, Russian Aluminum director Oleg Deripaska, United Heavy Machinery head Kakha Bendukidze, Vimpelcom mobile operator President Yevgeny Zimin, MDM Bank head Andrei Melnichenko, AFK Sistema holding company Chairperson Vladimir Yevtushenkov and Siberian-Urals Aluminum Co. President Viktor Vekselberg. Others were still welcome to join, Kiselyov said.
A spokesperson for Kiselyov said Wednesday that Kiselyov had stepped down from his position as chairperson of metals holding Metalloinvest on Wednesday in part to work on the TV6 deal.
In the Kommersant interview, Kiselyov said the talks between the consortium and the group of former TV6 journalists headed by Yevgeny Kiselyov were reaching final stages ahead of a tender on March 27. A formal agreement could be reached next week, he said.
Yevgeny Kiselyov, speaking Tuesday on Ekho Moskvy radio, had refused to name members of the consortium.
Oleg Panfilov, head of the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations, and Andrei Ryabov of the Moscow Carnegie Center agreed that SPS was behind the initiative, seeing it as a way to demonstrate its liberal credentials.
"SPS is trying to save face," Panfilov said. "They supported the Kremlin too much in the past, especially during the takeover of NTV."
Ryabov said the consortium appears to have won the backing of President Vladimir Putin, despite some objections from officials close to him. "[Oleg] Kiselyov's interview ... isn't a coincidence," Ryabov said. "It shows they [the consortium members] feel bolder."
Ryabov said that while consortium members would try to preserve friendly relations with the Kremlin, they might push for increased independence in the long term. Panfilov disagreed.
"It's clear the investors are close to the Kremlin in varying degrees," he said. "There's no doubt that Abramovich, for instance, would not have become governor without the Kremlin's acquiescence."
TITLE: Liberals Pan Putin's Draft Citizenship Law
AUTHOR: By Oksana Yablokova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The State Duma has approved a new presidential bill that will dramatically toughen regulations for migrants and former Soviet citizens who want to obtain a Russian passport.
The bill, which increases the period of time a foreigner must live in Russia before being able to apply for citizenship from three years to five, scraped through Wednesday in the key second reading by 235 to 177 votes, with 226 needed for passage.
Although deputies rejected most of the 220 amendments submitted since the bill was approved in its first reading in October, those amendments that were passed made the bill more rigid than the original draft submitted by President Vladimir Putin and infuriated liberal Duma deputies.
Among the amendments to be passed is a requirement for foreigners seeking Russian citizenship to take exams in the Russian language and to demonstrate their knowledge of the Russian Constitution. They must also have a residency permit valid for the five years that they have spent in the country - something that most foreigners do not have. Another key amendment made from the first reading was that former Soviet citizens were taken off a list of categories exempted from the new five-year rule - a move that some deputies described as a "betrayal."
The exempted categories of people are: those married to Russian citizens for at least three years; those who have a child, biological or adopted, who is a Russian citizen; those who have "great achievements" or professional skills that Russia needs; and those who are granted refugee status.
People falling into these categories need only have resided in Russia for one year to apply for citizenship.
Liberals warned that the new legislation requiring residency permits will only succeed in increasing corruption among officials involved in processing citizenship applications. Boris Nadezhdin, deputy head of the Duma's Union of Right Forces faction, said the amendment will lead to the arbitrary rule of bureaucrats. The application period will increase from five to eight years, he added.
Regulations for obtaining a residency permit will be outlined in a bill to be considered by the Duma in March, said Tatyana Kholshchevnikova, a legal adviser to the Duma's committee on state structures.
Deputies supporting the bill defended the tougher regulations, saying ahead of the vote that the new measures are needed to prevent applicants with criminal ties from obtaining Russian citizenship.
"Russia is not a revolving door," Gennady Raikov, head of the People's Deputy faction, was quoted by Interfax as saying.
During the discussion on whether former Soviet citizens should be given the right to go through a simplified procedure of obtaining citizenship, Raikov's deputy, Vadim Bulavinov, went even further than his boss. He said that Russia should not be turned into "a vacuum cleaner hoovering criminals, scoundrels and beggars."
But it was the requirement for applicants to speak Russian that infuriated liberals the most.
Deputies from the Union of Right Forces in particular slammed the provision, saying that it offered no explanation of how Russian-language knowledge should be estimated or of who will examine the applicants.
"Under this criteria, Viktor Stepanovich Chernomyrdin would not get citizenship," Nadezhdin said, referring to the former prime minister infamous for mangling the Russian language.
"Since when have Interior Ministry officials become experts in the Russian language?" said Irina Khakamada, a deputy speaker in the Duma, in an interview with ORT television.
Kholshchevnikova described the Russian language provision as shameful.
"This is not like Russia, the country that slams Baltic countries for the same national language regulations," she said.
About 4 million ethnic Russians from other former Soviet republics are estimated to have immigrated to Russia over the past decade, The Associated Press reported. Despite that, Russia's population has shrunk by more than 4 million since 1993 and now stands at 144 million.
TITLE: Drunken Musicians Grounded
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: Musicians from two prestigious local institutions hit a sour note with alcohol-fuelled rowdyism on two separate flights to the United States, airline officials said on Thursday.
Members of the St Petersburg Philharmonic got drunk and disorderly on the first leg of an eight-hour transatlantic crossing from Amsterdam on Feb. 18.
"Despite reprimands and warnings from the flight crew, many of the musicians refused to sit down, talked loudly and threw objects around the cabin," the Washington Post reported.
The musicians were eventually turned off the United Airlines flight at Washington's Dulles International airport, but were allowed to resume their flight to Los Angeles the next day.
Just 24 hours earlier, members of a group from the Mariinsky Theater got into a fist fight after tippling tax-free liquor on a flight from Helsinki to New York, an airline official said.
"As they drank from their own bottles, a few of the group members got into some sort of dispute among themselves. We've had similar problems with this particular group before," Finnair flight-safety officer Sami Sieva said.
Philharmonic director Sergei Chernyadyev offered an apology.
"We sincerely regret, and apologize for, the actions of certain musicians which caused inconvenience," Chernyadyev said in a statement.
However, Philharmonic spokesperson Yekaterina Grebentsova said she doubted the incident was extreme as reports she has seen.
"All these talks seem to present some exaggerated rumors taking place on the background of a noticeably negative attitude toward Russia lately," she said. "Just look at the Olympics."
(Reuters, AP)
TITLE: Green World Activist Attacked
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Environmental activist Oleg Bodrov, head of the Green World ecological organization in the Leningrad Oblast town of Sosnovy Bor, was attacked and seriously injured this week by unknown assailants.
Bodrov was attacked from behind with a blow from a heavy object while on his way home from the Green World office at about 8 p.m. on Feb. 18. He suffered a concussion and remains in a local hospital.
Although no motive for the attack has been determined, Green World officials believe that it was connected to Bodrov's activism. The attackers did not attempt to steal Bodrov's money, mobile phone or other belongings.
"We believe that the attack was connected to Green World's public activities," said Sergei Kharitonov, a member of the organization.
Green World was founded in 1988 in Sosnovy Bor, the city where the Leningrad Nuclear Power Station (LAES) is located. The group's main purpose is to monitor the environmental impact of LAES. It also monitors the St. Petersburg Port, the Baltic Pipeline System, a Leningrad Oblast plant that processes radioactive metals and other environmentally sensitive sites.
"At various times, we have had conflicts will all of those institutions," Kharitonov said. "So any of them could be dissatisfied with our activities."
Police have launched a criminal investigation into the incident.
Alexei Pavlov, a lawyer for the St. Petersburg Ecological Human Rights Center who in providing legal assistance to Bodrov, also said that the incident does not appear to be a random attack.
"When people are attacked by drug addicts or alcoholics, they are normally robbed. Bodrov wasn't," Pavlov said.
Alexander Nikitin, a former naval officer who was tried and acquitted in a celebrated case concerning his environmental activities, said that the also considers the incident suspicious.
"Judging from the blow Bodrov received, the attacker was a professional. He didn't intend to kill, but knew how to inflict a serious wound," Nikitin said.
He added that he did not think that the culprits would ever be caught, but that he was encouraged by the public attention to the case.
TITLE: Activists Sue Over Nuclear-Waste Imports
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The controversy surrounding a consignment of spent nuclear fuel imported from Bulgaria last year is set to hit the courts, with environmentalists accusing the company that imported the fuel of exploiting a loophole in the law to bypass new safety requirements.
Greenpeace Russia has filed suit in a Moscow district court saying that the import of some 41 tons of spent nuclear fuel in November from the Kozlodui nuclear plant in Bulgaria is illegal and demanding that it be sent back. The consignment is currently being stored at the Krasnoyarsk Mining and Chemical Plant in western Siberia.
Greenpeace said the state-owned Tekhsnabexport company, which was responsible for the deal, did not submit its plans to ecological experts, as is required under a new law on importing spent nuclear fuel.
The law, signed by President Vladimir Putin in July, allows the import of spent nuclear fuel for reprocessing and storage, but stipulates that nuclear importers must present their plans for examination by the ecological department of the Natural Resources Ministry.
"The federal law demands that such industrial and business ventures undergo ecological examination before being implemented," said Vladimir Chuprov, a Greenpeace campaigner and one of the plaintiffs in the case. "Neither the contract nor the project were examined by ecologists, although Gosatomnadzor [the state nuclear safety watchdog] demanded this in November."
The Natural Resources Ministry's ecological department confirmed that Tekhsnabexport had not submitted its import plan.
"Nothing of that kind ever appeared here," said the department's deputy head, Marianna Novikova. "Well, there was a call from the Nuclear Power Ministry a month ago asking us to conduct an examination of the project, but nobody came and brought it to us."
But Alexei Lebedev, the head of Tekhsnabexport's project department, said that because the import deal was cut between Tekhsnabexport and the Kozlodui power station in 2000, the new law did not apply to the project.
At the time that the deal was struck, the import of spent nuclear fuel was illegal in Russia, but Tekhsnabexport went ahead with it in the expectation that a law allowing nuclear imports would be pushed through in 2001. So now to claim that the law does not apply seems a bit strange.
Lebedev said the Kozlodui deal falls under an inter-governmental treaty on nuclear imports that Russia signed with Bulgaria in 1995. This treaty cannot be overruled by subsequent legal innovations, he said.
"We cannot tell the Bulgarians to pay for the ecological examination because there wasn't anything about it in the original agreement," he said this week. "And the import contract for Kozlodui was signed in 2000, when legislation didn't demand the ecological examination of the venture."
Lebedev added that, according to the Civil Code, if the newly adopted law doesn't provide for changes to earlier signed contracts, the contracts retain their legal validity. And the new legislation on the nuclear imports does not demand such changes, he said.
The Nuclear Power Ministry also insisted that the spent nuclear fuel was imported legally. The Kozlodui contract was signed before the new law was introduced, and because the new law is not retroactive, it does not block old contracts, said Nikolai Shingaryov, the ministry's spokesperson.
"There was a special procedure for the import of spent nuclear fuel to Russia that was worked out in 1995," Shingaryov said. "Until the new procedure is introduced, we will follow the older one in our work."
The delay in updating safety procedures for importing nuclear fuel has left the new law in limbo, critics say.
Gosatomnadzor, which ordered Tekhsnabexport to undergo an ecological examination of the Kozlodui project, said that the temporary legal loophole allows nuclear importers not to follow its orders.
When Putin signed the new law in July, he ordered a committee to be formed to make recommendations on updating nuclear-safety procedures. However, this committee is yet to be set up, said Sergei Shcherbakov, the adviser to the head of Gosatomnadzor.
Sergei Mitrokhin, a State Duma deputy from the liberal Yabloko faction who is to serve on the presidential committee, said last week that the committee cannot start its work because the Federation Council is late in appointing representatives to it.
Shingaryov said the committee is expected to start working in March and will submit its recommendations to the government in April.
Lebedev said he expected the new procedures to be worked out by October. In the meantime, Tekhsnabexport would apply to the Justice Ministry with a request to clarify nuclear import procedures, he said.
The issue of nuclear safety was put back in the spotlight last week when Yabloko's Mitrokhin, together with two Greenpeace activists and three NTV cameramen, broke into the Krasnoyarsk plant where the spent nuclear fuel from Bulgaria is being stored. The break-in, which was broadcast in an NTV special report, was designed to show that the country's system of nuclear safety is not just poor but "nonexistent," Mitrokhin said.
Advocates of spent nuclear fuel imports argue that Russia could earn $20 billion over the next decade by importing some 20,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel. But opponents, spearheaded by Greenpeace, have protested the plan, saying that the environmental damage caused by the imports will outweigh the financial benefits.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Turkmen Exile
MOSCOW (Reuters) - A former Turkmen deputy prime minister has slammed President Saparmurat Niyazov from exile in Russia for opposing economic reforms and pursuing a one-man dictatorship.
Khudaiberdy Orazov, also a former central bank chief, told the daily Vremya Novostei he had been imprisoned for speaking out against strongman Niyazov, who has ruled Turkmenistan since 1985.
Orazov is the third senior Turkmen official in the last four months to flee Turkmenistan, saying he left the country as soon as he got the chance.
"By the end of the 1990s we were convinced that Niyazov did not want any reforms," Orazov told Wednesday's edition of the newspaper. "Not only because he did not understand the essence of them, but also because he feared losing his authority over his people, who might find independence from state dictatorship within a market economy."
Tajikistan Aid Heist
DUSHANBE, Tajikistan (AP) - Robbers broke into the office of a French humanitarian agency overnight and carried away a safe containing tens of thousands of dollars, Tajik police and officials of the agency said Thursday.
Three masked men beat the night guard and made off with the non-governmental organization's safe, the Tajik Interior Ministry press service said. The safe contained more than $50,000, according to employees of the NGO, the Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development.
The agency is organizing humanitarian aid shipments to Afghanistan and helping Afghan refugees camped out on islands on the Pyandzh River, which forms the Tajik-Afghan border.
The Interior Ministry has launched an investigation into the robbery, which occurred just 50 meters from the main police department in the capital Dushanbe.
Karimov and Bush
BEIJING (Reuters) - Uzbek President Islam Karimov will meet U.S. President George W. Bush in Washington on March 12, the White House said Thursday.
Karimov has allowed U.S. forces to be based in his country to help prosecute the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan.
In a statement released in Beijing, where Bush is nearing the end of a six-day Asian trip, the White House said Bush's Oval Office talks with Karimov would reflect the "new relationship" between the two countries since Sept. 11.
"The United States looks forward to deepening cooperation not only on security matters, but also on human rights and political and economic reform, all of which are essential elements of the robust and lasting relationship we hope to build with Uzbekistan and its people," the White House said.
Death Penalty
MOSCOW (AP) - President Vladimir Putin has no plans to lift a moratorium on the death penalty, despite a parliamentary appeal to resume executions because of soaring crime, a presidential spokesperson said Wednesday.
Putin has repeatedly said he doesn't intend to end the moratorium that Russia imposed in 1996 to gain entrance into Europe's leading human-rights body, the Council of Europe.
The president's position has not changed, spokesperson Alexei Gromov was quoted by Interfax as saying.
It was the first public comment from the president's office since the lower house of parliament appealed to him last Friday to resurrect the death penalty, saying the country's high murder rate is undermining confidence in the government.
TITLE: Russia To Wean Off World Bank Habits
AUTHOR: By Victoria Lavrentieva
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Nearly a year after undertaking a rethink of its relationship with the World Bank, the cabinet on Thursday approved a three-year plan of cooperation that slashes borrowing and weeds out expenses on intermediaries
The plan calls for Russia to reduce overall borrowing from the Washington-based organization by $400 million to $500 million a year, eliminate budget-substitution loans and overhaul the way the loans are used.
"We want to minimize the size of budget-substitution loans and prefer in the future to get financial support from the WB in the form of investment loans and infrastructure loans to reform the energy sector, in particular," Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Khristenko said after the weekly cabinet meeting.
Three plans were presented to the cabinet. One plan put a borrowing ceiling at $1 billion a year, including $800 million in investment loans and $200 million in guarantees from commercial risks. A second plan was the more conservative and was based on the assumption that Russia will not need to borrow anything from the bank after 2003. The cabinet chose a third plan that was a compromise between the other two.
"Our choice does not mean that Russia wants to cut its cooperation program with the WB, as we are still one of the largest shareholders of the bank and our cooperation can develop in many directions," Khristenko said.
"In the future we want to use WB money only for concrete projects, including infrastructure reform, legal reform, the computerization of the educational system, customs reform and tax-system reform," Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref was quoted by news agencies as saying.
There are currently 24 World Bank projects worth a total of $2.2 billion that are still being implemented in Russia - $1.2 billion of which has already been spent. Since 1992, the bank has committed $8.9 billion to Russia and approved $11 billion worth of projects.
"The old system of cooperation with the WB has proved to be not effective enough," Gref said. "Almost half of the approved loans were not used at all, and the rest were not spent very efficiently."
According to an Audit Chamber report issued last year, there are currently 20 groups (Project Implementation Units) with 455 employees - all Russians - charged with implementing WB projects in this country. These groups rang up $65.4 million in administrative expenses over the past five years, 63 percent of which went for salaries. This would come to roughly $20,000 per person per year.
"We consider this system of external managers to be wrong and think that Russian authorities should participate more actively in the managing process," Khristenko said.
There are three different types of systems used by countries that borrow from the World Bank. In the first, the government manages loans; in the second a single PIU manages all loans; and in the third, which Russia has been using, a different PIU manages each loan.
"The Russian government just has to decide which one is the best for Russia," a World Bank spokesperson said.
TITLE: Illarionov Attacks Debt Buy-Back Plan
AUTHOR: By Torrey Clark
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov's plan to increase domestic borrowing to stimulate the struggling financial sector is a mistake, President Vladimir Putin's top economic adviser said Thursday.
"The prime minister made an erroneous proposal that is not worth carrying out," Andrei Illarionov was quoted by news agencies as saying.
Kasyanov said at a meeting of top Finance Ministry officials Wednesday that the government should shift the focus of its borrowing away from Western capital markets toward the domestic market. He said increased domestic borrowing would help sterilize rubles, counteract inflationary pressure and act as an indicator of interest rates in the economy.
"This proposal was based on false assumptions, on false logic, and carrying it out would have negative consequences for the economy," Illarionov said.
The government is not yet in a position where it needs to borrow - the Finance Ministry's reserves have reached a comfortable 81 billion rubles ($2.6 billion) and the Central Bank's reserves are $36.8 billion - and Kasyanov said that the external -debt peak in 2003 is under control. Additionally, the 2002 budget foresees a surplus and the trade balance remains positive.
When the government borrows again - it plans to place Eurobonds worth $1 billion to $2 billion this year - external markets could offer better conditions than the domestic market
The government currently has 153 billion rubles ($5 billion) in tradable domestic debt outstanding. Its foreign commitments were between $132 billion and $134 billion at the beginning of the year.
Analysts said the downside is that, to attract buyers, domestic debt instruments would have to carry a fairly high coupon rate, above inflation at the very least. But if the government sets rates too high, it could attract too much money at the expense of the real economy.
Spiraling rates on government bonds in 1997 and 1998 fueled the 1998 financial crisis.
"This is still a highly debatable issue. There is the problem of crowding out - when the government borrows at high rates, private lenders aren't able to compete, like in 1997 and 1998. It has a very negative effect and slows overall economic growth," said Alexei Moiseyev, an economist at Renaissance Capital. "On the other hand, the economy needs a normal yield curve in the national currency, so borrowers and lenders have an inter-rate benchmark... . Also, liquid domestic government securities and an effective market would be able to provide banks a good instrument for managing liquidity, and this could have a good effect on inflation."
"The government doesn't need the money. It would only be to attract money from under mattresses," said Vladimir Tikhomirov, economist at NIKoil. "With inflation still fairly high, there are only two possibilities. ... If the rates are lower or equal to inflation rates, it would look like a government trick and create further mistrust. Or if the rates are high, it would create a heavy burden on the budget, which is not necessary now."
The Finance Ministry is nevertheless preparing to increase its presence on the domestic market, promising reasonable rates. On Wednesday the Finance Ministry place 4.6 billion rubles of government short-term bonds, or GKOs, at a yield of 13.9 percent.
While domestic borrowing remains a thorny issue, economists agree on the need to coordinate borrowing to avoid future debt peaks. The 2003, 2005 and 2008 peaks are the result of chaotic and uncoordinated borrowing in the mid-1990s.
"At this moment domestic-debt management and external-debt management are separate and quite independent. This should be changed," said Oleg Vyugin, chief economist at Troika Dialog.
The Finance Ministry has embarked on a plan to change that: Its proposal to create a single agency to oversee both domestic and external debt and risk management was approved by the government Thursday, with directions to work on certain areas.
"The point of combining domestic and external debt management is to ensure that funds are borrowed where the conditions are best, which doesn't happen now. Right now the budget sets out a plan for domestic borrowing and a plan for external borrowing. The other reason is to avoid having to resolve debt peaks," Moiseyev said.
TITLE: Country's Schools To Get PCs, Internet
AUTHOR: By Pavel Nefyodov
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: MOSCOW - If the Education Ministry has its way, by the autumn of this year, every child in every school in every village in the country will have access to a personal computer and the Internet.
On Feb. 28, the ministry will announce an open tender to install the computers, the second part of a nationwide project that is part of the broader Children of Russia program under the aegis of President Vladimir Putin and the Education Ministry.
The first stage, which came to a close earlier this year, saw the installation of more than 56,500 computers and 9,000 printers in 30,700 village schools in all seven federal districts. Now the rest of the country's schools are to be accommodated.
Equipment will be purchased for 10,000 schools, Irina Kuznetsova, the director of the Children of Russia program, said last week at the Infobiznez-2002 conference in Moscow.
The deliveries will include 90,000 computers and 6,000 to 8,000 pieces of additional equipment such as modems, printers and software. The equipment will carry a two-year guarantee.
Unlike the first stage, when each school received only one or two computers, schools will receive enough to organize entire computer classes.
Contracts with tender winners will be signed before May 20 and deliveries must be completed by October.
Russian companies Kraftvei IVK, Krok and Dell Systems of the United States won the first tender to install computers. The project was financed with 1 billion rubles ($32.4 million) from the federal budget and 1 billion rubles from the regions.
However, because of limited funds, Internet access will not be fully available, Kuznetsova said.
The total budget for the project is around 2.5 billion rubles ($80 million) - 1 billion rubles from the federal budget, 750 million rubles ($24.3 million) from the regions and another 750 million from municipal budgets, sponsors and the schools themselves.
Last year's participants learned a great deal from the first stage.
"No one had encountered this kind of project in the past," said Alexei Kudryavtsev, general director of Kraftvei, which installed computers in the Far East and Siberia. Receiving the government funds was not a problem last year, he said, but participants should expect some delay.
All of last year's participants acknowledged that they had problems servicing broken equipment - in particular because the schools did not know how to have it repaired. Some of the schoolteachers were ready to catch a plane and take their broken computer straight to Moscow, while others wrote letters complaining about the problems to the Education Ministry and the president.
TITLE: MiG Gets $50M Deal To Modernize Bulgarian Warplanes
AUTHOR: By Lyuba Pronina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Russian Aircraft Corp. MiG beat out four rivals to win a contract to modernize Bulgaria's fleet of MiG-29 fighters, the Bulgarian Defense Ministry said Tuesday.
The deal to upgrade the jets, 16 fighters and four trainers, could be worth as much as $50 million.
Bulgarian officials said by telephone from Sofia that the decision to award the international tender was made Monday after two months of deliberations. The other bidders were European aerospace giant EADS; Israel Aircraft Industries; Elbit Systems, also from Israel; and Belarus' Baranovichi plant.
MiG is contracted to upgrade between four and six jets this year at a price of 20 million to 32 million levs ($8.9 million to $14.3 million), said a Bulgarian Defense Ministry spokesperson.
The spokesperson said roughly half of the work will be performed at Bulgaria's Georgi Benkovski aviation repair plant.
The spokesperson said MiG itself would be responsible for getting the jets flight-ready, since only three are operational, but that it would subcontract out the work to actually modernize the fleet to NATO standards, including installing new navigation systems. She said MiG would choose a firm at a later date, but she did not elaborate.
That company, according to Maxim Pyadushkin, editor of Export Vooruzheny defense magazine, will likely be MiG Aircraft Product Support, or MAPS, a joint venture between German's DASA, MiG and Russian state arms-export agency Rosoboronexport.
"MiG should be congratulated," he said, adding that the company had been negotiating with Sofia since 1997, when the country first expressed interest in purchasing new Russian jets. The former Soviet-bloc country, now an aspiring NATO member, then turned its attention to the American F-16 before settling for a modernization deal with MiG.
"Bulgaria must have realized that it would still be cheaper to modernize the MiGs it already has," Pyadushkin said.
Winning the tender is the latest in a string of recent successes for the once-struggling former Soviet giant. After several meager years, the company last year secured nearly $1 billion in contracts.
MiG was not available for comment.
An official in the company said Monday that MiG was also close to a deal to modernize Slovakia's fleet of MiG-29s.
A Slovak Defense Ministry spokesperson said Tuesday that the country was looking to upgrade its fleet of 24 jets with the help of MiG in exchange for writing off some of Russia's $1-billion debt to the country.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Beer Output Up 21%
MOSCOW (SPT) - Russian beer production rose 21 percent year on year in January to 443 million liters, Prime-Tass reported the State Statistics Committee as saying Thursday.
Production is expected to increase 8 percent to 10 percent year-on-year in 2002 to more than 7 billion liters, according to the estimates of the Russian Brewers Union.
But the union said beer-output growth is likely to slow in the coming years to about 5 percent per year in 2003 to 2005.
LOMO Profit in Sight
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - On Wednesday, Arkady Kobitsky, general director of the Leningrad Optical-Mechanics Enterprise (LOMO), reported 2001 losses of 196.4 million rubles (about $5.4 million), according to preliminary information, up from 10.2 million rubles (about $360,000 by the exchange rate of that time) last year, Interfax reported.
He said that the main reason for the jump in losses was that the civil orders the company was filling were unprofitable, and military orders were not high enough to compensate.
He said that another reason was that a large amount was spent in 2001 on purchases to fill military contracts that are being or will be signed in 2002, and thus don't show on the books yet, according to Interfax.
Kobitsky said that a contract signed with India this month to supply guided artillery shells is one good example and that he expects the company to climb back into the black by May of this year.
Power Plan
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The board of directors of Lenenergo, the local electricity and heating utility, has approved a financial program for 2002 including $46.6 million of planned investment, Andrei Likhachyov, the company's general director said Tuesday, according to a report from Interfax.
He said that some of the projects involved in the program include the installation of a new automatic operating system, which will cost about $2 million; the reconstruction of the pumping facility located in the town of Dachnoye; improvements to the energy transfer infrastructure to the town of Svetogorsk town; and the completion of the TETs-5 Heating and Energy station TETs-5 in St. Petersburg (about $40 million).
Cigarette Production
MOSCOW (SPT) - Russian cigarette production rose 6.4 percent year-on-year but fell 32.4 month on month to 21.5 billion cigarettes in January, Prime-Tass reported the State Statistics Committee as saying Thursday.
Cigarette production had risen 10.3 percent year on the year to 374 billion cigarettes in 2001.
Auction Demand
MOSCOW (SPT) - Demand at this year's first FOREX auction for foreign investors with rubles stuck in S-type accounts totaled $95.17 million, Interfax reported the Central Bank as saying Thursday.
The Central Bank offered $50 million at the Feb. 19 auction. The cutoff price was 32.2 rubles to the dollar, while the average weighted price was 32.47 rubles to the dollar.
In 2001, the Central Bank held nine such FOREX auctions, selling a total of $500 million.
TITLE: Will Russia Ever Move Beyond Oligarchy?
AUTHOR: By Andrei Ryabov
TEXT: IN politics, this year is not likely to bear much resemblance to the first two years of Vladimir Putin's presidency - the distinguishing feature of which has been social stability against the backdrop of an ongoing struggle between members of the Yeltsin-era old guard and the St. Petersburg chekist proteges of the new president for key government positions and for influence over the head of state.
And there is good reason for this.
As the year kicked off, it was already clear that the economy could not develop further without the implementation of far-reaching structural reforms. Otherwise, social problems resulting from growing inflation and widespread wage arrears could undermine social stability. However, political and social groups with an interest in cardinal transformation of the socioeconomic and political system that took root under President Boris Yeltsin still lack serious clout.
Major corporations only really need market reforms insofar as they allow them to bolster their existing hegemony in the economy and strengthen their political influence. They are in favor of rationalizing and optimizing the state's social expenditures, and even now it is a source of irritation that the president continues to pay "political" wages and pensions. At the same time, these corporations seek to avoid competition both from the medium-sized business sector and from foreign firms.
Broad swathes of the population would prefer preservation of the status quo - combined with a more just redistribution of wealth to poorer sections of the population - to reforms. In particular, they are strongly opposed to the planned housing reform and the current abolition of tax breaks and other privileges affecting their interests.
All this makes even more pressing the imperative that the president form a political coalition based on a strategic consensus between the parties.
Continuing election-style policies of trying to keep everyone happy is becoming ever more difficult. Different groups within the elite are insistently reminding the president that it is high time for him to bite the bullet and openly declare his sympathies. The recent conflict between Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov and Unified Energy Systems CEO Anatoly Chubais over cutting off electricity to military bases can be viewed in this light.
Events in the international arena will push Putin to take a clearer stand on domestic issues. It is clear that further deepening of relations with the West, prospects for WTO accession, strengthening ties in the fight against international terrorism and attracting foreign investment depend both on the continuation of market reforms and the creation of a stable coalition of political forces supporting such reforms, as well as to a pro-Western foreign-policy course.
Support for the new direction in foreign policy will be sorely tested if the United States commences military operations against Iraq. In such an event, Putin will be faced with a tough choice between maintaining a pro-Western course at the price of surrendering the strategic interests of certain elite groups in the Middle East, and reverting to the foreign-policy tenets prevalent prior to Sept. 11 and, accordingly, to a deceleration of market reforms at home.
How will Putin respond to these challenges?
In effect, the president has two options. The first is to refrain from policies aimed primarily at maintaining high popularity ratings and to form a coalition for reform, relying on the most progressive social and political groups for support. Of course, even in this case only limited reforms, which do not encroach upon the corporate interests of major companies, will be possible. And in particular, given his current resources, Putin is unlikely to be able to make serious headway in establishing a more competitive business environment.
For the realization of this first scenario, the president will have to accomplish one particularly difficult task: the consolidation of his own team. The conflict between St. Petersburg chekists and members of Yeltsin's "Family" has gone too far for the opposing sides to reach compromise of their own volition. Furthermore, it would appear that other influential groups are being dragged into the conflict, such as Chubais' group, the "St. Petersburg liberals" (led by Dmitry Kozak and Dmitry Medvedev), Alfa Group, Yukos and Interros.
Reconciliation can only really be achieved if all parties involved come to the realization that they face a common threat - such as mass social unrest - or if the president adopts a proactive approach and pushes a compromise formula acceptable to all parties.
However, there is no serious threat expected this year of a magnitude sufficient to consolidate the elite. Furthermore, it would seem that Putin has no great wish for one or other group to emerge victorious, since a situation in which forces are more or less evenly balanced gives him more room for maneuver and for making his own decisions.
Furthermore, Putin probably fears that a radical shake-up in the top echelons of power could have a disruptive effect on social stability. A change of government in the coming months is only really on the cards if the country is gripped by a harsh financial or economic crisis that casts serious doubt on the effectiveness of the course being pursued by the president. In such a situation, candidates for the post of prime minister would be sought among those politicians with both a strategic plan of action and a team of professionals capable of implementing the plan.
Thus, the implementation of a consistent reform course this year will be problematic. Of course, reforms could be attempted without elite consensus, but this would be a risky strategy for Putin and one that he, as a very cautious politician, is unlikely to pursue.
Putin's second option is to continue maneuvering between different interest groups and centers of influence, on the one hand, and to keep on allowing policy to be dictated by public opinion. Under such a scenario, the possibility of furthering reform would be minimal, while the potential for conflicts between different elite groups to escalate would be considerable. In the short term, this policy could work and strengthen the president's position temporarily; but in the medium-to-long term he would lose. Putin would start to lose the trust of all the main parties to the conflict, just as happened to Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 and 1991. Under certain circumstances, disappointed elite groups might even start searching for an alternative candidate for the 2004 presidential election.
A third - and highly unlikely - scenario is a complete reorientation toward populism and the redistribution of national wealth to the poorest sections of the population. It is certainly the case that Putin's transformation into a "Russian Peron" would be welcomed by a significant portion of the population.
However, the president lacks not only the desire but also the necessary institutions to achieve such a transformation. The interests of the leading political groups and oligarchical clans are well represented in the Kremlin, and for these groups populism is acceptable only on the television screen and nowhere else. The presidential plenipotentiary representatives have failed to construct an executive chain of command linking all levels of the state apparatus in their federal districts. The current carve-up of national television channels will, it seems, lead to the concentration of these resources in the hands of the main oligarchical clans. And there is no evidence as yet that the recently formed Unified Russia party will provide a reliable buttress for presidential power; its functionaries, as before, prefer to consult with the presidential administration rather than take the initiative into their own hands.
Andrei Ryabov is scholar-in-residence at the Moscow Center of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He contributed this comment to The St. Petersbug Times.
TITLE: Riding the Freedom-of-Speech Trail
TEXT: NO sooner had the international conference "The Power of the Press and the Pressure of Power" concluded than I was called to St. Petersburg to another international conference, "Russian Journalism: Relations Between Owners and the State." When I got back to Moscow, I found an invitation on my desk to yet another international media conference scheduled for mid-March.
Russia has become the progenitor of a new type of tourism - let's call it "freedom-of-speech tourism" - whose heady growth has been driven by vigorous support in the Russian and foreign press. Human-rights organizations have also contributed by painting an apocalyptic picture of the repressions unleashed on free speech.
During their stay here, the free-speech tourists are herded to huge gatherings of a fairly stable cast of characters, some of whom maintain that conditions for journalists here have become intolerable, while others affirm that the press is moving steadily in the direction of normal market relations. When they return home, these travelers share their impressions of what they have seen and heard and tell of the heroic struggle being waged. Along the way, they give shape to the image of Russia as an ideal destination for free-speech tourism.
Business is booming. It's so good that the established tour companies, such as the Union of Journalists, are facing competition from upstarts like the Union of Right Forces.
Today's freedom-of-speech travel agencies have a special fondness for President Vladimir Putin. At the Union of Right Forces' conference, for example, Boris Nemtsov thanked the president for making the conference possible by his handling of NTV and TV6. This sort of thing would never have occurred to anyone during the Boris Yeltsin years.
But Putin is probably not capable of appreciating such expressions of gratitude. He most likely believes that he has done more in his brief tenure to bring relations between the press and the state in Russia into line with Western norms than his predecessor did in a decade.
Is he correct in this belief? Judge for yourself.
Yeltsin controlled the press like an autocrat. He stripped broadcasting frequencies from functioning state-owned companies by presidential decree and doled them out to private companies. The sovereign, that is, transferred crown property into the hands of the vassals who had won his favor.
When the new sovereign ran into trouble with his predecessor's favorites, he chose to litigate. This move was inherently absurd, as you cannot use legal means to regulate a situation that arose outside the law. You might as well challenge the decision of a mob of thieves in court. Nevertheless, from May 2000 to January 2002, the Kremlin patiently went through the motions of observing democratic norms and humbly bore the public abuse that followed.
Why did Putin bother, you might ask? After all, Yeltsin had already legitimized the quick, radical solution to these sorts of problems - by decree.
I suspect that the new Kremlin, spooked by the absence of serious opposition, decided to construct a system of checks and balances on its own. This would explain the choice of the least effective means possible for achieving its end.
You would think that the West would be overjoyed that Russia's eccentric, absolute monarch has been replaced by a predictable, constitutional monarch. And that it would take a neutral stand in the conflict between Russia's modernizing government and oligarchic television industry, which bears about as much resemblance to a free press as the atomic bomb bears to the peaceful use of atomic energy. Nothing of the sort. The West and our native "democrats" have taken the side of Yeltsin's vassals. From the perspective of free-speech tourism, the struggle to hang on to the remains of feudalism obviously seems a fascinating endeavor, and one that provides a particularly powerful thrill.
Alexei Pankin is the editor of Sreda, a magazine for media professionals (www.internews.ru/sreda).
TITLE: Do They Think We Are Idiots?
AUTHOR: By Boris Kagarlitsky
TEXT: WHAT does the government need housing reform for? Sure, we've heard the line about increasing efficiency and all that. But what's the real reason?
The more I watch the weary faces of bureaucrats as they explain to the populace that everything will work out in the end, the more I lose heart. The worst part is that they show no enthusiasm. How different things were when the oil industry was privatized. Back then, the suits at the State Property Committee had a gleam in their eyes. Svyazinvest provoked an information war and people were killed in the fight for the aluminum industry.
But who needs the housing sector?
No one, when you get right down to it. The sector is deeply in the red, and only a fool would dream of making any money there in the next 20 years. Yet the government's stubborn desire to carry out reforms does not derive from the sorry state of the housing sector, or even from ideological considerations. The real problem lies elsewhere. During the years of high oil prices the government handed out tax indulgences right and left. For two years now, public-service announcements have reminded us that we have the lowest income-tax rate in Europe. But people are not any more conscientious about paying their taxes.
For 10 years, business complained constantly that its taxes were too high. In northern Europe, on the other hand, taxes are significantly higher, yet companies manage to meet their obligations to the government and still turn a profit. This does not mean these corporations like high taxes. Nokia, for example, is currently trying to blackmail the Finnish government into changing its tax laws. But it never occurs to the Finns to cook the books and stop paying taxes altogether.
Some companies in Russia - often foreign ones - that operate above board, without double-entry bookkeeping, have proven that this approach can work here, too. It should be noted that these companies are usually among the most efficient.
Widespread tax evasion would be impossible if the government were not itself complicit - that is, if the government were not deeply convinced of the injustice of forcing business to give something back to pay for social programs. The possibility of tax evasion constitutes an illegal subsidy which the government extends to Russian business at the expense of the public. This subsidy can also be taken away for bad behavior, i.e. political disloyalty.
Back in the days when petrodollars were gushing in, the government tried to legalize a part of this unofficial subsidy. Tax rates were cut to the bone, after which the bureaucrats reported higher rates of tax collection. Budget revenues did in fact rise, but for another reason entirely: The economy was growing and export earnings, which are hard to hide, were up. But all good things must pass. By early 2002, the government revealed that its fiscal policies had created a sizable hole in the federal budget.
The budget gap has to be closed, and fast - without raising taxes, of course. And the billions of rubles currently spent on housing would really do the trick. But in that case the populace would suffer -the same populace that received little or no benefit from earlier budget experiments. The propagandists' argument about the people receiving "assistance" from the government does not stand up to scrutiny. If water and gas are flowing through the pipes, and the heat comes on from time to time in the winter, then someone has already paid the bill. That "someone" is the taxpayer. No one is planning to give the people a tax rebate.
As for competition, cooperatives and condominiums can already hire private firms to service their buildings, but this is not cost-effective because they gain access to housing subsidies when they go through the public sector. Hence the repeal of subsidies is essential to promoting competition. Judging by the polls, however, the population still prefers low housing costs and no competition to competition but paying through the nose.
The main problem affecting the state of the country's housing is not the lack of competition, but the lack of investment. By regularly putting its revenue sources in private hands, the government has lost the wherewithal to invest in housing. We are promised that after reforms are completed, revenue will start flowing in from the private sector. That is, if renovating entryways and replacing broken light bulbs becomes more profitable than oil fields and contraband weapons, for example.
As they say in Odessa: Don't make me laugh!
Boris Kagarlitsky is a Moscow-based sociologist.
TITLE: What Is the Future for National Television?
TEXT: RUSSIAN television has entered a new period of transition. Under President Vladimir Putin, we have seen the agonizing end of the post-Soviet period in media development - when the state's monopoly on ideology was over, but major media, television in particular, continued to survive on subsidies either from the government or from powerful businessmen.
Today, the situation is changing, as illustrated by: the destruction of Vladimir Gusinsky's NTV and the dramatic events surrounding TV6; the growing role of state television; and the fact that a number of smaller stations have begun turning a profit, proving that TV can be a profitable business.
Along with these changes, the past year has seen a significant shift in television ratings. As recently as the start of 2001, the country had three uncontested top channels - the generously subsidized ORT and RTR and privately owned NTV, which also did not live by its means - followed by a group of rapidly developing second-tier channels.
Now, however, the top slots are dominated by only two stations, both of them state-owned. These nationwide behemoths, ORT and RTR, have big mouths to feed: On the one hand, they gobble up tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars in state funds; on the other, they eat up nearly half of the industry's advertising market, depriving commercial stations of vital revenue. Their editorial policies also tend to be very much in sync with the official line of the Kremlin.
Under these circumstances, it seems there are three possible routes the media can take.
The most troubling scenario is the further concentration of media resources in state hands - hardly in line with the Kremlin's democratic declarations. A second alternative amounts to a relapse into the 1990s, with the rise of a new generation of oligarchs, who might be loyal to the Kremlin today but could easily fall out of favor if interests begin to clash. Hardly a recipe for stability.
The third option is to drastically reduce the government's presence on the media market - for example, by leaving only one state-run television station - and to significantly restrict, or eliminate altogether, state media's right to run commercial advertising. Ultimately, only this option could help ensure - albeit gradually and at a cost - the development of top-notch television that is independent both financially and politically.
If market forces were let loose on the media industry, we, the viewers, would certainly have to get used to lower-quality broadcasting than we see on stations that aren't forced to count their pennies. But independence comes at a price - and that includes both cutting costs and tempering the political ambitions of media bosses.
This editorial originally appeared in The Moscow Times on Feb. 14.
TITLE: bg back in the goldfish bowl
AUTHOR: by Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Akvarium has just released a new CD -the band's first album of new material since 1999's "Psi" - and will be celebrating with a concert, including several guests, at the Yubileiny Sports Palace on Friday.
"Sister Chaos" ("Sestra Khaos") was released Feb. 15 on Moscow's Soyuz label. The contract with Soyuz, one of the staples of Russian music industry, was signed in December and also includes the rights to 20 albums from Akvarium's back catalogue, which the band won back from its former label Triarios (now Musical Express) last year.
"We chose Soyuz because we had a feeling that it won't break up in the next six months," says Akvarium's founder Boris Grebenshchikov. "Secondly, [we think] that they will want to sell [the album], that it will be available. To me, this has always been the most essential thing - that people in Siberia and Vladivostok or wherever be able to buy it."
Grebenshchikov argues that "Pentagonal Sin" (Pyatiugolny Grekh) - 2000's collaboration between Akvarium and several local rock and pop singers, put out under the collective name Terrarium - was a flop because Kvadro, a lesser-known Moscow label, did not promote it. For the new album, Akvarium tried to capture the spirit of the times by concentrating on songs written - or, in two cases, finished - in 2001. During the recording sessions, which extended from January to December last year, the band originally tried working with producer Andrei Samsonov and mixing the recordings in a London studio with Paul Kendall, but ended up producing the album by themselves in St. Petersburg.
The result is an impressive 40-minute album that starts with the harsh, angst-laden song "500" and ends with the tranquil "Northern Flower" (Severny Tsvet), featuring very diverse tracks in between - notable among them the surreal "Leg of Fate" (Noga Sudby) and the ironic reggae number "Rastas From the Provinces" (Rastamany iz Glubinki).
While poetic images abound, the album startles every now and again with references to the reality of contemporary Russian life, including, for instance, references to Gazprom and Lukoil.
"I know the realities behind [such references], but I operate with the language that people speak in the streets. Or rather, that language operates with me," says Grebenshchikov. "There's no attempt to put down any of these organizations. The thing is that they are part of some puzzle, some picture that I am as free to interpret as anyone else. Only I won't ever want to interpret it."
"Sister Chaos" also contains contributions from two talented world-music artists. "Ford the River" (Vbrod) and "Leg of Fate" feature young Uzbek singer Sevara Nazarkhan, who records on Peter Gabriel's Real World label. "Northern Flower" features a duduk, the traditional Armenian woodwind instrument, played by the internationally renowned Djivan Gasparyan, who said that he would be interested in recording with Akvarium when he played in St. Petersburg last November. Gasparyan is expected to take part in Friday's show.
The show will be Akvarium's first solo concert at Yubilieny since 1995, when the band celebrated its 25th anniversary with a show featuring numerous members from its 1980s lineups. Since then, the band has performed mainly at the smaller Lensoviet Palace of Culture and, occasionally, at the Oktyabrsky Concert Hall.
"I have warm feelings for Yubileiny because I recall [the fall of] 1986," says Grebenshchikov, referring to the band's eight sold-out concerts there from Oct. 28 to Nov. 2 that year, just as Soviet rock was emerging from the underground during perestroika.
When he is in the city, Grebenshchikov searches the Internet for new music from bands such as Sisters of the Dawn and Nickelback. Surprisingly, he is an advocate of Napster-like file-sharing programs, his favorite being Win MX.
Almost all of Akvarium's recordings are available as MP3s on the Internet, in keeping with Grebenshchikov's unorthodox view that his "music must be free." Five of the new album's eight tracks were posted on the Internet even before the CD was released.
Since saxophonist Oleg Sakmarov took a sabbatical from the band in November to join Vyacheslav Butusov's new outfit U-Piter, Akvarium's lineup now includes six members. In addition to Grebenshchikov, who sings and plays guitar, the band consists of keyboardist Boris Rubekin, violinist Andrei Surotdinov, bassist Vladimir Kudryavtsev, percussionist Oleg "Shar" Shevkunov and drummer Albert Potapkin. All of them joined the band in the 1990s.
According to Grebenshchikov, flamboyant guitarist Alexander Lyapin, who played with Akvarium in the 1980s and rejoined briefly in 1997 and 1998, will join the band for three songs on Friday.
Akvarium will play the Yubileiny Sports Palace, 18 Pr. Dobrolyubova, 119-5614, at 7 p.m. on Feb. 22. Tickets cost 300 rubles and are on sale now. The album "Sister Chaos" is out on the Soyuz label. Akvarium's official Web site is www.aquarium.ru.
TITLE: two stars take us to their lieder
AUTHOR: by Peter Morley
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: German baritone Matthias Goerne and Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes are two glittering gems in today's younger generation of performers, having, individually, sold out concerts in major venues around the world. They have performed with the best orchestras and conductors around and released recordings ranging from Bach to Britten, to tremendous critical acclaim.
What a shame, then, that the St. Petersburg Philharmonia's Shostakovich Hall should only be about two-thirds full to hear the two together give a performance of Brahms lieder on Tuesday night. Andsnes later said that "it is a very intimate art form, lieder don't draw huge audiences. In fact, I would rather have played this program in the small hall of the Philharmonia [where he gave a solo recital as part of the Arts Square Festival on Jan. 2], because I think it is more suitable for that kind of concert."
Those who were absent missed a performance of such intelligence, control and intensity that even St. Petersburg's infamous concert-coughing brigade was largely silenced. Indeed, Goerne remarked that "the reaction was good ... It was not silence in a boring way," and Andsnes noted "the quality of the audience ... There is an openness, and a need for music. And an understanding also."
Performing a concert of lieder - a completely foreign art form - to a St. Petersburg audience is a huge challenge, and both Goerne and Andsnes commented that the audience should have been provided with Russian translations of the texts, as Goerne had requested.
Goerne took up residence from the start in the curve of the piano (which, surprisingly, was fully open), and his presence dominated the concert, expressing physically as well as vocally the passions and emotions in the music. The repeated cry of "Wo ist er nun?" ("Where is it/he now?") which punctuated "Der Strohm, der neben mir verräuschte" ("The storm which raged around me"), delivered with blistering intensity, brought Goerne almost to the front of the stage, leaning out into the audience, questioning and riveting them to their seats. Just before, at the end of "Ach, wende diesen Blick" ("Ah, turn away this gaze"), he seemed to stagger and appeared momentarily to be on the verge of falling.
The second half of the concert moved toward the later stages of Brahms' life and opened with the concert's centerpiece, one of Brahms' last and most personal works, the "Vier Ernste Gesänge," or "Four Serious Songs," based on biblical texts. Here, Goerne refrained somewhat from his physical movements, preferring a simpler approach, drawing the audience into the mind of a composer who knew that he was writing some of his last pieces. Goerne does not have a big voice, but it is extremely expressive and clean from the bottom to the top of his range. Technically, his control of these extremes is superb, with no loss of clarity or diction at either end.
Although such concerts are about two musicians, the accompanist is often relegated to a secondary role. Having convinced St. Petersburg before of his solo ability, this time Andsnes amply showed his chamber-music prowess. "I've never understood the distinction, actually, between a solo performer and a chamber musician," he said. "It's the same great music, and I love the opportunity to work so closely with great musicians."
The almost telepathic rapport that the two demonstrated was artistry of the highest order, and Andsnes has the rare ability to make himself almost invisible while accompanying. He did not put a finger wrong throughout the concert: His dynamic control was absolute, and his voicing, especially in thicker textures, was a delight. In such an acoustic, where it is very easy for chamber music to become swamped by lower resonances, Andsnes displayed total control of the left hand, even with octave-doubled basslines.
The concert was catharsis, insightful and challenging from beginning to end. The duo finished with "Lerchengesang," ("The Lark's Song"), and it demonstrated in miniature what makes this such an exciting partnership. The vocal part sits high, and Goerne's control of the higher register was breathtaking. Andsnes' accompaniment was exemplary, turning the piano into a harp through the arpeggiated chords. An astonishing, perfect end to an almost perfect concert.
TITLE: chernov's choice
TEXT: In addition to the looming concerts by Marc Ribot y Los Cubanos Postizos and Hurlements d'Leo mentioned in this space last week, some more Western artists will visit the city over the next couple of months. Their dates were announced - either officially or not - this week.
First, posters appeared advertising a show by Chris de Burgh, that ladies' favorite who brought us one of the last millennium's worst songs with "Lady in Red." He will play appear at the Ice Palace on the eve of Women's Day, March 7.
Deep Purple, the U.K. hard-rock band whose best days were back in the 1970s, will return to Russia yet again. The current lineup is Ian Gillan (vocals), Jon Lord (organ), Ian Price (drums), Roger Glover (bass) and Steve Morse (guitar). Purple's local show will take place at the Ice Palace on March 17.
Goran Bregovic, a Yugoslav composer responsible for about two dozen film soundtracks, will come with his Weddings and Funerals Orchestra. Bregovic has been a big hit in Russia lately, primarily because of the music he wrote for Emir Kusturica films. He will play at the Lensoviet Palace of Culture on April 7.
Bregovic will be followed by a welcome return of Armenia's duduk master Djivan Gasparyan, who played two highly successful shows in town last November. Gasparyan will play with his seven-piece band, plus six guests from Russia, Italy, France and Israel, at the Lensoviet on April 10.
American singer Diamanda Galas, who boasts a four-octave vocal range that she uses to sing about such subjects as AIDS, torture and Satan, will perform at a yet-do-be-decided venue on April 21.
However, even after these names, special mention must be made of Manu Chao. The former lead vocalist of the French band Manu Negro reappeared on the scene a few years after the band split in 1984.
His acoustic songs about outsiders and resistance, sung in a mixture of Spanish, French, Portuguese, English and Wolof (a language spoken in Gambia, Mauritania and Senegal) made him a superstar in Europe and Latin America.
He also has hoards of fans in Russia, where his both albums - 1998's "Clandestino" and last year's "Proxima Estacion: Esperanza" - have been picked up by record pirates. The date is May 19, and the venue is yet to be announced.
Cynic, the most original night spot that has emerged in the city in the last year, has always been on the verge of being shut down, but now the situation is getting serious.
According to the management, the club was ordered to get out of its building at 4 Goncharnaya Ulitsa by Feb. 11. However, Cynic was still functioning as this issue went to press. The building's owners plan to tear the place down and build a hotel instead.
Cynic's demise would indeed be quite a loss for the city, as the place has become a mecca for club musicians, alternative-minded students and all kinds of partygoers over the last year.
Meanwhile, the two jazz-rock oriented clubs that opened last Saturday - Drive Mad Club and Eklektika Art Club - have folded already, as the promotor of both places is unhappy about poor attendance and has chosen to "take a timeout."
- by Sergey Chernov
TITLE: bango breakfast nearly bang on
AUTHOR: By Robert Coalson
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: This review marks the continuation of The St. Petersburg Times' tireless quest to find the perfect breakfast. Spurred on by visions of stacks of pancakes, Belgian waffles, fat omelets oozing with cheese, ham and eggs with runny yolks, piles of toast slathered in butter and bottomless cups of coffee that are miraculously refilled whenever they are less than two-thirds full, we are in the process of scouring the city for the ideal way to start the day.
Well, at least that's how we started out. Now we have begun thinking more modestly, looking rather for a good breakfast instead of hoping for perfection.
Our quest took us this week to the unlikely venue of Koko Bango, a strip club just off Nevsky that has a man in a sandwich board standing on the street all day inviting passers-by to stop in. I often pass this way on my way to the office in the morning, and he invariably invites me in for breakfast. This week, I took him up on it.
Koko Bango is a tiny place, about ten booths set in a room about the size of a railway car with a runway for strippers down the middle, less than an arm's length away, if you know what I mean. When we arrived, the place was empty, and we were vulgar enough to put our coats and bags on the empty runway as we settled into our seats. Things got off to just a bit of rocky start when the waiter brought us the dinner menu and drinks list. She seemed genuinely surprised when we requested the breakfast menu, but soon regained her composure and produced a single, typed list of reasonably priced dishes.
The breakfast menu at Koko Bango is basic, but adequate. The small selection of simple dishes makes one wonder why their chef can't manage to serve breakfast anytime. Essentially, the place serves three types of omelet, three fried-egg dishes (yaichnitsi), three types of toasted sandwich and three types of bliny. And coffee and tea. Juice is not on the breakfast menu, but we asked and they brought it anyway.
The prices seemed eminently reasonable, with nothing more than 35 rubles ($1.16) and the bliny and sandwiches going for just 15 rubles ($0.50). However, check your bill carefully before you pay. We carelessly ended up with a number of mysterious 55-ruble ($1.83) items on our bill, which we didn't notice until it was time to write this article.
That having been said, the breakfast was quite satisfying, although nothing like the perfect morning spread described above. My dining companions went for the ham-and-cheese omelet and the omelet with tomato and onion, both for 35 rubles. I opted for the fried eggs with bacon for 30 rubles.
The two-egg omelets were actually fluffy and showed that they had been made with milk and beaten thoroughly. However, the chef was unforgivably miserly with the cheese. My three fried eggs were excellent, though be warned that the bacon was quite salty enough without any additional seasoning at the table.
Both of my dining companions then went for the bliny, which were adequate, but unremarkable. The surprise of the day was my mushroom, cheese and onion sandwich for 15 rubles. This was actually a Western-style sandwich with bread on the bottom and on top, which had been toasted on a sandwich grill. This dish, though, missed perfection because of the same cheese deficit that crippled the omelets.
The coffee, at 15 rubles a cup, was quite good and, by the time we had sent the waiter back and forth three or four times, she figured out that we wanted a steady stream of caffeine to jump-start our day.
Koko Bango's breakfast was passable, but by no means ends our quest. There was no toast, which is a big minus. They don't start serving until 9 a.m., which is too late to qualify for perfection. You can't get hash browns or any other potato companion for your eggs, and don't even bother dreaming of any dishes requiring maple syrup.
But for fried eggs and coffee, quickly and conveniently, Koko Bango is fine. And the experience is only enhanced by imaging how the ceiling tiles around the dancers' poles got so badly dented and scratched.
Koko Bango, 3 Kazanskaya Ulitsa, 318-4989. Open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 a.m. Breakfast served from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Breakfast for three, 715 rubles ($23.83). Menu in Russian only. Credit cards accepted.
TITLE: the city as you have never seen it
AUTHOR: By Alice Jones
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Opened two years ago on the 6th Liniya, the Art Gorod Gallery is a tiny treasure that is not nearly as well known as it deserves. It has recently expanded, opening a new, larger exhibition space on Bolshoi Prospect while turning the original gallery into an arts and crafts store.
Art Gorod's latest exhibition, entitled "The City Through Artists' Eyes," is an excellent introduction to the gallery, as well as an eye-opening examination of St. Petersburg. In bringing together more than 100 pieces by 30 of the city's most respected artists, gallery director Sergei Gavrilov's goal is to break through a static vision of the city.
"When people come to this city, they are shown only the cliches and tourist sights, like St. Isaac's Cathedral, the Bronze Horseman and Palace Square," Gavrilov explains. This exhibition is designed to help visitors and locals alike to get to know the city, "to look beyond the well-known facades."
Thus, the exhibition features many paintings of unidentified apartment buildings, dilapidated courtyards and other iconographic images that we all know but cannot name or identify. Alongside these works, hang more recognizable views of landmarks like the Moika River, the Fontanka and the Summer Garden, but all depicted in the manner of "estrangement," compelling the viewer to see anew, to look at familiar sights from a very unfamiliar angle.
This juxtaposition of famous and anonymous, fantasy and reality, the unseen familiar and the familiarly unseen, enables to see our surroundings "through the artist's eyes." Gavrilov hopes that this new perception will reveal the "true soul" of St. Petersburg.
Many of the paintings in the exhibition distinguish themselves through their striking use of color. "Agile" (the artistic name of painter Georgy Teplov) and Irina Virulya carve out heavy, dark views of narrow alleyways and archways. Their smoking chimneys strongly evoke Dostoevsky's Petersburg.
The works by Paul Veshev - whose use of bright, primary colors recalls stained glass windows - stand in stark contrast and are far removed from the pale blues and creams usually used in local cityscapes. Renowned local artist Nikolai Tsvetkov's fantastical mix of texture and color in "Carnival" presents the city as a piece of colorful fabric. In addition to these striking colors - somehow right despite their contrast to the expected snowy landscapes and wintry skies - many of the artists glory in the burnt oranges and golds and powerful wind and rain of a St Petersburg autumn.
The most fascinating elements of the exhibition are, however, the paintings that depict the Petersburg of myth and imagination. Alexander Perepelitsyn's "Sphinx" and Yevgeny Yumatov's "Summer Garden" capture perfectly the mysticism of the city, weaving together symbols of the past with the present. Lilya Kupriyanova enters fully into the realms of fantasy, with clowns and hot air balloons floating above the Neva.
Gavrilov treasures these contrasting styles and views, arguing that only such an ensemble can successfully convey the "ever-changing beauty" of the city.
"Some artists see the city as a flower. Some as a woman. Some as a great flood. ... But they all see through to the heart of the town," he says.
Gavrilov is planning a similar series of exhibitions as part of the build-up to the city's 300th anniversary in 2003. In this light, perhaps Igor Ganzenko's "Cyclist" best captures the purpose of the series in its fast-paced, breathless race through the architectural wonders of the city and beyond into the future.
"The City Through Artists' Eyes" is at the Art Gorod Gallery's new exhibition space until Feb 28. 47 Bolshoi Prospect, Vasilievsky Island. See listings or call 327-7527 for more information.
TITLE: Colombia Starts War on FARC
AUTHOR: By Andrew Selsky
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: FLORENCIA, Colombia - Colombian warplanes began bombing a vast rebel territory Thursday and amassing 13,000 troops nearby, after the president canceled peace talks and decided to retake the region from leftist guerrillas, the military reported.
President Andres Pastrana formally ended Colombia's three-year peace process Wednesday night, just hours after guerrillas hijacked a domestic airliner and kidnapped a senator onboard. Pastrana set a midnight deadline for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, to abandon the zone in southern Colombia that he gave to the rebel group in 1998. The military said it was mobilizing more than 13,000 soldiers from bases located on three sides of the guerrilla safe haven.
Troops in camouflage uniforms guarded a highway Thursday morning leading from the southern city of Florencia to the rebel zone, about a three-hour drive to the west. They said they were awaiting possible orders to move into the zone. The army's second-in-command, General Euclides Sanchez, said a "large-scale" and potentially bloody operation was under way to recapture the zone, involving the army, air force and marines. "It's dicey, and we will surely suffer casualties, but we have a moral obligation to win this war," he told local radio.
The United States has been providing training, equipment and intelligence support to special Colombian army counternarcotics units. But Sanchez said there was no U.S. role whatsoever in Thursday's offensive against the FARC.
Military warplanes and helicopters bombed "85 strategic points within the zone" overnight and the operation was continuing, armed forces spokesperson Consuelo Garcia said. More than 200 air attack missions have been flown, the military said. The military was reportedly bombing rebel installations, including camps, warehouses and airstrips.
The rebel haven is sparsely populated, with about 100,000 residents spread out over five counties, a 40,000-square-kilometer area. Television reporters inside the guerrilla territory said the rebels had largely disappeared from view. Broadcasts showed many residents leaving the area. There were no official reports yet of ground clashes or troops entering the rebel area.
However, there were clear signs of a troop buildup. Three planeloads of counterinsurgency troops were seen setting down Thursday morning at Florencia's airport. Colonel Nelson Rocha, the head of an army engineer's battalion based on the road to the safe haven, said he was preparing to move heavy equipment into the area to destroy guerrilla airstrips.
Colombia's civil war pits the FARC and a smaller rebel group against government troops and an outlawed paramilitary militia. Roughly 3,500 people, most of them civilians, die every year in the fighting. The U.S. government has labeled the FARC a terrorist organization, leaving open the possibility it may provide direct counterinsurgency aid.
Pastrana's announcement was greeted enthusiastically in Bogota, where drivers honked their horns to show their approval. "This peace process didn't make sense because of the actions of the guerrillas," said Jaime Tapia, a shopkeeper. "It doesn't matter if there is a war. We are already at war."
The president's decision came shortly after four rebels, in civilian clothes and armed with handguns, forced an Aires Airlines flight to land in southern Colombia. Camouflage-clad rebels met the plane on a two-lane highway near the town of Hobo and whisked away the hijackers and Senator Jorge Gechen Turbay, 50, president of the Colombian Senate's Peace Commission. The other 29 passengers and crew were freed unharmed.
The highly organized hijacking infuriated a country fed up with peace talks, that have done little to bring an end to Colombia's 38-year-old civil war. It was also to be the last straw for Pastrana. "It's not possible to sign agreements on one side while putting guns to the heads of innocent people on the other," he said.
TITLE: Bush Praises China, Seeks More Reform
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: BEIJING - U.S. President George W. Bush praised China on Thursday for its "strong support" for the war on terrorism as he arrived for talks with President Jiang Zemin that officials in both governments hoped would lead to a long-sought deal limiting Chinese sales of weapons technology to countries hostile to the United States.
After an initial meeting between the two leaders, no substantive agreements were announced, with the nonproliferation deal as a notable omission, though Bush said he hoped a deal was still possible. "My government hopes that China will strongly oppose the proliferation of missiles and other deadly technologies," Bush said after the talks.
On the final leg of his week-long tour of east Asia, Bush also planned to press China to expand political and religious freedoms in the two-day talks, which will also focus on arms proliferation and the war against international terrorism. Returning to the country where his father was once the top U.S. diplomat, Bush was greeted with a ceremony at the Great Hall of the People featuring a white-gloved honor guard.
At the news conference with Jiang after a private meeting, Bush noted he had arrived on the 30th anniversary of the beginning of President Richard Nixon's groundbreaking visit to China. "Our ties are mature, respectful," Bush said. "We discussed a lot of issues, starting with terrorism. We recognize that terrorism is a threat to both our countries, and I welcome Chinese cooperation in our war against terror. I encourage China to continue to be a force for peace among its neighbors.
Jiang also gave an upbeat assessment of the meeting, speaking of "many common understandings" and "many important results" in his meeting with Bush. He said he had an in-depth discussion with Bush over the U.S. war against terrorism and hinted that the nascent intelligence cooperation between the two sides would grow in the future. As part of Beijing's policy to improve ties with the United States, China has provided intelligence information for the war on terrorism.
Jiang accepted Bush's invitation to visit the United States in October.
U.S. officials said Bush planned to press the Chinese leader for additional rights for dissidents and greater religious freedoms. During a news conference on Wednesday with President Kim Dae-jung of South Korea, Bush said he had used an October meeting in Shanghai to tell Jiang in very personal terms about his Christian faith. He said he had told Jiang he hoped that the Chinese leader, as the "president of a great nation, would understand the important role of religion in an individual's life."
China has told U.S. officials that it plans several overtures to Washington in connection with the visit, including the release of prominent political prisoners in coming weeks. The arms-control agreement that was discussed Thurs day is an example of the difficulties the United States has had in its negotiations with China. Under the agreement, which has not been implemented, China pledged to stop its export of missiles and related technologies and establish a plan to stop further exports. In exchange, the United States agreed to begin processing licenses for commercial space cooperation, including the launching of U.S. satellites by China.
Away from the negotiations, Jiang was the life of the party at a joint banquet on Thursday, cutting a rug with three of America's leading ladies. But a jovial Jiang saved his best act for Bush, serenading the U.S. president in Italian - backed up by a Chinese accordionist.
After a Western meal featuring cream of Chinese wolfberry and lily soup, Jiang and the accordionist took Bush by surprise with the Italian aria "O Sole Mio" after dinner was done. "He was kicking up his heels and singing songs," White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer said. "It really was just a delightful touch."
Jiang also danced with Laura Bush, Condoleeza Rice and the wife of U.S. ambassador Clark Randt as a People's Liberation Army band played such American favorites as "The Eyes of Texas Are Upon You" and "Moon River" among other tunes.
(WP, Reuters)
TITLE: WORLD WATCH
TEXT: Afghan Famine Feared
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A food crisis in northern Afghanistan is reaching alarming proportions, and increasing numbers of children are suffering from severe malnutrition, the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said Thursday.
The international organization said prospects for this year's harvest looked bleak because large numbers of people had sold land and livestock to survive, while many remaining local farmers said they had no hope of planting this year.
"In northern Afghanistan, a new disaster is in the making and can only be averted by immediate and unrestrained action," MSF Operational Director Christopher Stokes said.
German Shootings
FREISING, Germany (AP) - A recently unemployed young German shot and killed two ex-bosses Tuesday, then took a taxi to his old high school and killed the principal and himself as hundreds of students ran for cover. The man, believed to be 22, carried two pistols and two pipe bombs as he apparently settled old scores. None of the more than 400 students was injured.
Police said the violence began about 8 a.m. when the man, whose identity was not made public, walked into the packaging company in Eching and shot his former boss, 38, and a foreman, 40. Both men died at the scene. He then took a cab 18 kilometers to Freising where he began the assault on his former school.
The man walked into the school shooting, then set off a pipe bomb. Witnesses said he entered the school office and asked for his former word-processing teacher. When told the teacher was not at school, the man fatally shot the principal and wounded another teacher in the cheek, police said.
BJP Dropping Votes
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) fared badly in elections in India's biggest state Uttar Pradesh, exit polls showed on Thursday, denting its credibility during a standoff with Pakistan.
Exit polls by Zee Television and state television Doordarshan put the socialist regional Samajwadi Party ahead of the BJP, which controlled the outgoing state assembly, after a third and final round of voting. An exit poll by Aaj Tak showed the BJP only narrowly ahead.
However neither party was projected to win enough seats to form a government alone, paving the way for a hung assembly and a messy and protracted period of haggling to form a coalition.
A poor show in Uttar Pradesh would not topple the national BJP-dominated coalition government, but it would dent Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's credibility. Control of Uttar Pradesh, with its 166 million people, has long been seen as key to control of the country.
Rome Plot Foiled?
ROME (Reuters) - Four Moroccans arrested in Rome with a seemingly harmless cyanide compound could easily have created a lethal, odorless gas capable of killing large numbers of people, scientists said on Thursday.
Italian police sources said the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation was working closely with them to track the suspects' movements. They hope to establish whether the men had links to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network.
"We're very interested in these guys, in finding out exactly what they're part of and who they are linked to. We want to know how capable they were," said a U.S. official.
TITLE: Favorites Survive on Late Goals
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: LONDON - Late goals from Ruud van Nistelrooy and Patrick Kluivert save both Manchester United and Barcelona from embarrassment in the Champions League on Wednesday, as the two giants snatched 1-1 draws in the second group phase of the Champions League
Van Nistelrooy converted a penalty deep into injury time to give United a heart-stopping 1-1 draw at Nantes that kept it in first place in Group A, ahead on goal difference of defending champion Bayern Munich, which drew 0-0 away to Boavista.
Barcelona stayed on top in Group B after Kluivert hit a stunning late equalizer in the 82nd minute to earn a 1-1 draw with Roma, while Liverpool fired blanks in a 0-0 stalemate with Galatasaray at Anfield that injured England midfielder Steven Gerrard left on a stretcher.
On Tuesday, eight-time winner Real Madrid got a late goal from Argentine substitute Santiago Solari as the Spanish powerhouse kept its perfect record with a 1-0 victory over Porto.
Also in Group C, Greek side Pana thi naikos beat the Czech Republic's Sparta Prague 2-0 to leap from last place to second in the group with four points.
United looked destined for a shock defeat at the La Beaujoire stadium Wed nesday, after their defensive frailties came back to haunt them when Viorel Moldovan struck at nine minutes.
The United rearguard was pulled hopelessly out of position to allow the striker, who scored in Romania's 2-1 victory over England at the 1998 World Cup, an easy goal from close range.
It was the French club's first goal of the second phase, after 1-0 defeats to Boavista and Bayern, and it looked good enough for three points after van Nistelrooy missed a hatful of chances at the other end as United's lone striker.
But after United manager Alex Ferguson switched to a 4-4-2 formation by putting on Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, the Dutchman notched his 28th goal of the season after a blatant handball by defender Mario Yepes, who was promptly sent off.
"I thought we were a bit lucky with that one," Ferguson said afterwards. "We're pleased to get a point."
United and Bayern have five points apiece and are favorites to reach the quarter-finals, with both sides facing Wednesday night's opponents again next week - only this time with the home-field advantage.
United's feelings of relief were echoed at the Nou Camp after Bar ce lona fell behind on a 58th-minute strike by Roma's Christian Panucci, who won this competition with Barca's archrivals Real Madrid in 1998.
Slack defending allowed the Italian defender time to control Vincent Candela's free-kick before wheeling round to strike his shot past goalkeeper Jose Manuel Reina.
Barca dominated possession, but was not rewarded until the closing minutes when Kluivert, steered home a superb volley.
The draw kept the Spanish side in first with five points, two ahead of Roma and Galatasaray, while Liverpool is languishing in last place with two points.
Liverpool was left to curse its luck after missing chances and hitting the woodwork as it laid siege in vain to the Galatasaray goal.
Gerrard left the pitch with a groin injury, raising fears he will at least miss Saturday's Merseyside premiership match-up with Everton.
Real Madrid, which relinquished the Spanish Primera Liga lead to Valencia over the weekend, was saved by Solari's 83rd-minute blast from outside the penalty area on Tuesday, giving the Spanish titlist nine points out of nine.
In the 63rd minute, Porto almost scored when a floated freekick by Bra zi lian defender Deco was met by defender Ricardo Silva and the ball bounced twice on the Madrid crossbar.
In Prague, Giorgos Karagounis and Michalis Constantinou scored to put Panathinaikos back in the running for a spot in the quarterfinals.
It was Panathinaikos' first win in the second phase, and Sparta's second home loss.
Karagounis scored first in the 39th minute, firing a powerful drive from 10 meters that Sparta goalkeeper Petr Cech failed to grasp. The Greek had another chance in the 60th, but his low shot went wide.
In the 71st minute, Constantinou capitalized on Sparta's mistake to make it 2-0.
In Leverkusen, Germany, Ulf Kirs ten scored the equalizer in the 90th minute as Bayer Leverkusen drew with Arsenal.
Kirsten got a leg on German international Bernd Schneider's long lob, which traveled at least 40 meters downfield and took a bounce, and then stunned the English team by rifling it in from close-range.
Robert Pires scored for the English in the 56th minute.
Arsenal was left with 10 players after Ray Parlour's 67th-minute ejection, but seemed to have the match under control until the German team suddenly came alive. The two teams face each other again next week in England.
In Turin, Italy, French striker David Trezeguet hit a post and captain Alessandro del Piero squandered a penalty kick as Italian league leader Juventus was held to a goalless draw by Spain's Deportivo.
Del Piero, the imaginative Italian forward who is Juventus' specialist from the penalty, earned the possibly decisive penalty in the 72nd when he rushed into the Spanish area on a fast counterattack and was fouled.
Del Piero kicked an angled ball tothe right of Deportivo goalkeeper Francisco Molina, who dived and managed to deflect the ball past the post with the tips of his fingers.
TITLE: SPORTS WATCH
TEXT: Venus Rises
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - Top-seeded Venus Williams rolled past Anna Kou r ni ko va 6-2, 7-6 Wed nes day and advanc ed to the quarterfinals of the Dubai Women's Open.
Williams, who has won three tournaments this year, next plays Anas tasia Myskina. Williams already is assured of overcoming Jennifer Capriati next week for the top ranking on the WTA tour.
"I am excited to become the new world No. 1, and I have worked hard for it," Williams said. "I hope I can keep it. But my priority is the Grand Slams."
Kournikova, 88th in the world, said she needs more time to regain a top 10 ranking.
"I am happy with my game, and I am just getting there," Kournikova said. "Give me some more time to get my top rankings back. I need to play more tournaments."
Favorites Fall
CARLSBAD, California (Reuters) - Australia's Peter O'Malley scored a surprising 2-and-1 win over top seed Tiger Woods in the first round of the World Match Play on Wednesday at the La Costa Resort and Spa.
In a day of major shocks to the top seeds, No. 2 Phil Mickelson was also eliminated, losing 3 and 2 to John Cook, and third seed David Duval was beaten by Kevin Sutherland on the 20th hole.
The defeats mark the first time in four years that the top three seeds have each lost in the opening round.
Ranked 68th in the world, O'Malley's invitation into this week's event only came after Jose Coceres and Thomas Bjorn decided not to play.
But the Australian took control of the match early with a birdie at the par-five second hole.
However, after back-to-back bogeys on the fifth and sixth holes that put him behind, O'Malley made amends by stringing birdies together on the eighth and ninth holes and made the turn at 1-up.
Woods parred the first 12 holes before a bogey at the 13th when he missed a three-meter par putt attempt and fell 2-down to the Australian.
After halving the 14th with pars, Woods' ball was inside O'Malley's on the 15th green, but it was O'Malley who converted from five meters to win the hole and go 3-up.
Woods birdied the 16th with a eight-meter putt to win the hole, but O'Malley drained another three-meter putt at the 17th for birdie to close out Woods.
Talking Discipline
LONDON (Reuters) - Arsenal chairperson Peter Hill-Wood is planning to hold talks with manager Arsene Wenger over the club's poor discipilnary record after admitting that it was "unacceptable"
Midfielder Ray Parlour became the 12th Arsenal player this season to be dismissed when he was shown a red card in a Champions League tie against Bayer Leverkusen on Tuesday, a statistic that worries Hill-Wood.
"Some of the time we have been a bit unlucky, but you can't say that all the time.
"It is an issue we need to tackle. Our players are not behaving well enough on the field at the moment I am afraid to say," Hill-Wood was quoted as saying in Thursday's Daily Star.
Another worrying statistic for Hill-Wood is the 44 red cards that Arsenal have collected since Wenger became manager at the club 5 1/2 years ago.
"It is unsatisfactory and unacceptable, and I have spoken to Arsene about it before and I am certainly going to talk to him again.
Celtics Swap
BOSTON, Massachussetts (AP) - The Boston Celtics, with an eye toward to the wide-open Eastern Conference playoffs, acquired veterans Rodney Rogers and Tony Delk in a five-player trade with Phoenix on Wednesday.
Boston sent rookie Joe Johnson and veterans Randy Brown and Milt Palacio - along with their upcoming first-round draft pick - to the Suns.
"This deal came down the pike yesterday, and we quickly became very interested," Celtics general manager Chris Wallace said. "This provides some spark for us for the rest of the regular season, and they should make us an even better playoff team."
Meanwhile, Nick Van Exel's prospects of being traded were dealt a blow when he refused to waive enough guaranteed money to satisfy the Celtics, who were prepared to make a deal with Denver.
Van Exel had said that he would forfeit some of his guaranteed $26.5 million over the final two years of his contract, which runs through the 2004-05 season.
"We've made our big deal," Wallace said.
Happy Haas
MEMPHIS, Tennessee (Reuters) - Top-seed Tommy Haas was pushed all the way before finally moving through to the second round of the Kroger St. Jude in Memphis.
The German, seeking his second title at The Racquet Club after winning here in 1999, came through 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 against Jan Vacek of the Czech Republic on Wednesday.
"The first match is always the toughest one," Haas said afterwards. "So long as you come through it, you've always got a chance after that."
In the women's draw, second seed Lisa Raymond breezed into the third round, crushing Hungary's Zsofia Gubacsi 6-1, 6-1.
She was joined by fellow American fourth seed Alexandra Steven's who did not have things all her own way in beating Korea's Cho Yoon-jeong 6-2, 4-6, 6-3.
Haas, who won four titles in 2001 and reached the semifinals of the Australian Open in January, looked to be in full control of the match after taking the first set.
Not Gone Yet
MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota (AP) - Signaling that baseball was prepared to back off its attempt to fold the Twins, owner Carl Pohlad said Wed nesday he intended to sell the team, and commissioner Bud Selig gave the plan his blessing.
"I believe that our fans in the upper Midwest want the Twins to continue to play here," Pohlad said. He added that "may best be achieved" by a sale, which would require the buyer to keep the team in Minnesota.
The Twins and Montreal Expos turned out to be the targets, but baseball's contraction plan was stopped by a Minnesota judge who ordered the Twins to fulfill their Metrodome lease this season.
"I encourage the process and am hopeful it will produce a number of potential investors who are dedicated to preserving major league baseball in Minnesota," Selig said in a statement that was released in coordination with Pohlad's.