SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #749 (15), Friday, March 1, 2002
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TITLE: Finnish Group Arrives To Talk Trees
AUTHOR: By Torrey Clark
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Seeing Russia for its trees, Finnish Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen and a contingent of forestry-industry executives arrived Thursday for a three-day visit whose highlight will be the first Russian-Finnish timber conference.
Greenpeace activists, however, greeted Lipponen's arrival with protests in front of the Finnish Embassy. The environmental group fears Russia will lobby on behalf of timber companies rather than follow through on a $2.5 million TACIS project begun in 1999 - which had been supported by Helsinki - to establish national parks, including Kalevala by the Finnish-Russian border.
Kalevala is one of the few remaining stands of softwood taiga in Europe, as well as home to the Finnish national epic of the same name. "Kalevala," based on a collection of folk poetry, was first published in 1835.
Lipponen met with President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov in a run-up to the conference Friday. Kasyanov said Putin and Lipponen discussed bilateral relations, which he praised as "developing along the growth curve," Interfax reported.
"Russia and Finland are interested in developing and maintaining the relations that have formed between our two countries," Putin said in remarks on ORT television. "We have large-scale, promising projects. I hope we can construct our relations to have a very favorable effect on Russia's relations with the European Union and on Finland's position in Europe."
One potential project is the construction of an underwater gas pipeline through the Baltic Sea to Europe, with the involvement of Gazprom and Finland's energy major Fortum. The leaders were also expected to discuss relations between Russia and the European Union and fighting terrorism.
The visit's main focus will be on the forest industry, where Lipponen said "Russia and Finland have great potential for cooperation."
About one-fourth of the world's forest grows in Russia, and the country accounts for three-fourths of Europe's 15 million to 20 million hectares of pristine forests. The Greenpeace protesters at the Finnish Embassy were pushing for the creation of the 95,886 hectare Kalevala national park in the Republic of Karelia. The park would cover less than 1 percent of Karelia, which stretches from the Gulf of Finland to the Arctic Circle.
The founding of the park is set out in the 2001-2010 program for establishment of natural areas under a federal resolution in May 2001. Greenpeace says there is nothing to show for TACIS project $4.5 million budget to set up four parks, develop tourism and build a visitor center. A TACIS spokesman would not comment on Greenpeace's statements, except to say there had been some problems.
Greenpeace is protesting what they see as economic losses to Karelia if park isn't formed and temporarily protected forest areas are put up to chop. If logging is allowed in the park, a small group of local timber dealers will reap all the benefits, whereas a national park could provide Karelia with up to $700,000 annually within five years from tourism, Greenpeace, citing a study by the Karelia Scientific Center, said in a statement.
Major Finnish forest industry companies Stora-Enso, UPK Kummene and Metsäliito, whose top executives are in Moscow for the conference, have agreed to a moratorium on timber cut in the protected areas, said Tatu Torniainen, a senior adviser at the Finnish Agriculture and Forest Ministry.
The issue of parks is written into a general agreement on the development of the forest industry, which is expected to be signed by Kasyanov and Lipponen at Friday's conference. The draft agreement covers sustainable use of natural resources, developing investment and the forest products sector, a Finnish Embassy spokesman said in a telephone interview Wednesday. The two sides will not, however, discuss any particular areas or hectares, he said.
TITLE: Olympians Ponder Lessons of Salt Lake City
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: "I will never forget such an unusual Olympics," said Anton Sikharulidze, who - together with partner Yelena Berezhnaya - shared the gold medal for pairs figure skating with Canadians David Pelletier and Jamie Sale at the just-completed Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. Sikharulidze appeared at a press conference with returning local medallists and their coaches this week.
"Every morning when we woke up after that event and heard our names on television as part of all that controversy, we couldn't believe what was going on," he said.
When Sikharulidze and Berezhnaya entered the room, together with Yevgeny Plushenko, who won a silver medal in men's figure skating, reporters and guests stood up in tribute.
"It seemed that the world decided and accepted that the Canadian pair also deserved the gold," Berezhnaya said when asked about her attitude toward sharing the medal.
"We all want there to be more happy people on Earth, so let there be more of them," Sikharulidze added philosophically.
The pair's coach, Tamara Moskvina, commented that there is no way to eliminate subjectivity in figure skating.
"There should probably be some improvements to the system, but it can't be totally changed," she said.
Plushenko, however, took pains to say that the victory of Russian skater Alexei Yagudin in the men's singles competition was unquestionable.
"Alexei definitely skated better than I did at the Olympics," Plushenko said.
While neither the athletes nor their coaches agreed completely that this year's games were overly politicized, they still expressed concern.
"It is noticeable how much the Olympics become more and more commercialized with each games," said Plushenko's coach, Alexei Mishin.
"With each year, it turns into more of a show, attracting millions of dollars. And this is a cause for concern," Mishin said.
Despite the generally celebratory mood at the press conference, participants also used the occasion to draw lessons from the games.
"Russia should be a bit more skeptical about itself regarding the results of these games," said Valentin Mettus, head of the St. Petersburg Sports Committee.
"It is clear that over the last decade of financial crisis, Russian sports - especially for young people - have been stagnant. At this Olympics, we mostly relied on our traditional sports elite, especially in skiing," he said. "We are complaining that we faced unfair refereeing at the Olympics. If so, maybe this is even a good thing. Maybe it will become a powerful stimulus for us to think about improving the status of sports in this country," Mettus commented.
He added that the unusually large number of medals won by U.S. athletes is a result of the tremendous effort and financing made available to prepare them.
"What are we talking about? The budget for these Olympic Games was $2.5 billion and the entire budget for the city of St. Petersburg is only $1.5 billion. What can we do if there are only a handful of speed-skating tracks in this entire, enormous country?" Mettus said.
"We don't do anything to promote sports, even on television. All we see are ads proclaiming life with beer," he added.
Tatyana Menshikova, director of the St. Petersburg Children's and Young People's Skating School at the Yubileiny sports complex - where Sikharulidze, Berezhnaya and Plushenko trained - also lamented the lack of training facilities for young figure skaters.
"We receive calls all the time from parents who want to send their children to our school," she said. "But we can't accept even all those who are qualified."
She said that her school currently has 400 students and there are an additional 400 applications that cannot be accepted because of a lack of training space.
"We are calling on anyone who can provide help to the country's leading figure-skating school," Menshikova said.
It seems that finally officials are paying attention. Officials at the press conference announced that two new ice-skating schools will be constructed in St. Petersburg, with the first - in the Primorsky District - scheduled to be open next year.
TITLE: New Party Puts Blame on Jews
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - A group of nationalist politicians, military officials and Cossack leaders have formed a new party that calls for a better deal for ethnic Russians and explicitly blames Jews for stealing the country's wealth.
The People's Patriotic Party of Russia was created at a meeting of 187 delegates from 70 regions held Saturday in the Moscow region town of Moskovsky. Delegates included 12 Duma deputies, World War II veterans, army officers and representatives of the Cossack communities in southern Russia.
General Igor Rodionov, defense minister under former President Boris Yeltsin, was elected to head the new party. Leaders of the party, which plans to contest seats at the State Duma elections in 2003, said they will fight for "an independent Russia" free of the "foreign experience thrust upon us by the West."
Rodionov, a Duma deputy from the Communist faction, told the gathering that the People's Patriotic Party "considers the liberal democrats who are in power now our enemies," Interfax reported. "Liberalism has been and remains the most destructive force in Russia," he was quoted as saying.
Rodionov singled out Jews for criticism, saying that they control the majority of industrial enterprises and media. "They must return what they have looted in Russia and publicly repent to the Russian people for the crimes that Jewish terrorists and extremists have committed," he was quoted as saying. Rodionov could not be reached, but one of his aides referred calls about the new party to Vladimir Miloserdov, the head of its executive committee.
Miloserdov, the head of an ultra-nationalist organization called the Russian Party, was equally blunt, naming several former Communist and Soviet leaders such as Lev Trotsky and Yakov Sverdlov as Jews "who committed grave crimes against humanity in the 20th century."
"And add Yegor Gaidar to these criminals," he said Wednesday, referring to the head of the team of liberal economists who spearheaded economic reforms in Russia in the early 1990s. "He stole the savings of our older people and doomed them to the life of beggars. Look on the list of Russia's richest people and you will see no ethnic Russians among them," Miloserdov said.
Under federal law, inciting ethnic hatred constitutes grounds for denying a party's registration and can lead to the authors of the party's political program being prosecuted. But Miloserdov said he was not worried that his party would be denied registration by the Justice Ministry. "We don't blame the Jews, we blame the Zionists. Zionism is a sorrow of the Jewish people," he said. He said the party expects to be registered with the Justice Ministry in May.
Miloserdov said that eight leftist Duma deputies were elected to the party's presidium Saturday along with an envoy of former Krasnodar Governor Nikolai Kondratenko. Kondratenko, who set up a nationalist movement in southern Russia called Fatherland, is notorious for his anti-Semitic remarks.
The leaders of the People's Patriotic Party see the country's future in a redistribution of power and social benefits among the ethnic groups living in Russia. "In a bid to secure peace, social accord and justice in Russia, we propose to form state structures on a proportional basis from representatives of Russia's indigenous ethnic groups," Miloserdov said. "The same must apply to higher education: Today we have some ethnic groups where everybody has higher education, while other nationalities have only 20 educated people out of 1,000."
Although the party calls for the restoration of socialism and the renationalization of property, it has distanced itself from the Communist Party.
"We don't intend to take on the role or electorate of the Communist Party," Rodionov told the Rosbalt news agency earlier this week. "Although we are much more radical than the Communist Party, we plan to fight for power by parliamentary ways."
Miloserdov said that the main difference is that "the ideology of Communists is internationalism, and ours is patriotism with ethnic orientation."
Communist Party leaders were skeptical about the future of the new party.
"Their political prospects are miserable," Sergei Reshulsky, one of the most outspoken Communists in the Duma, said Wednesday. "They [the party's activists] don't understand the universal principles of creating parties. "Well, they want to try, let them try," he said. "People will laugh at them after all." Reshulsky could not say whether Rodionov, as a Communist Party member, would be punished for violating party discipline.
Political analysts also believe that the new nationalist party will quickly become marginal. "Nationalism proliferates when the state apparatus is very weak and when society goes through disturbances - and this is not the case in [President Vladimir] Putin's Russia today," said Yury Korgunyuk, a political expert from the INDEM Foundation. "And if the state authorities decide to employ nationalists for their own interests, they would choose more charismatic people than Rodionov and Miloserdov."
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Vice Governor Charged
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Vice Governor Anatoly Kagan, who chairs the City Hall Health Committee, was charged with misuse of budgetary funds and criminal negligence on Thursday, Interfax reported, citing sources in Governor Vla di mir Yakovlev's administration.
According to the news agency, Kagan is accused of misappropriating "a large sum" of budgetary money that had been allocated for the purchase of insulin. Kagan has been released on his own recognizance, after promising not to leave the city, according to Interfax.
Kagan is the third city vice governor in recent months to face criminal charges. The case of Vice Governor Va lery Malyshev on corruption charges is expected to come to courts in the immediate future.
Exhibition Opens
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The exhibition "Imperial Peterhof in Mos cow" opened on Wednesday at the Push kin Fine Arts Museum in Moscow, Interfax reported. At the opening, Deputy Culture Minister Natalia Dementieva called the event "a holiday for all Muscovites and residents of St. Petersburg."
The exhibition features oil paintings, sculptures, watercolors and table services from throughout the imperial period. It also contains personal items belonging to the tsars, including Peter the Great, Nicholas I and Alexander II. Many of the items are recent acquisitions being shown widely for the first time, Interfax reported.
Pskov Deputy Arrested
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Pskov Region Prosecutor Nikolai Lepikhin announced Thursday that a deputy in the regional legislature had been arrested in connection with the Feb. 21 murder of former Pskov Region Prosecutor Valery Aspiyan.
Lepikhin said that lawmaker Aleksei Bolshakov and his brother Valery had both been arrested and were being held pending further investigation. For now, however, the two men only face counts of premeditated bankruptcy in connection with the Pervomaiskaya Poultry Plant and with failure to pay the company's debts.
Lepikhin also denied that the dismissal of Deputy Prosecutor Alexander Zimanov was connected with the Aspiyan case.
TITLE: Oblast Sends Kokh to Federation Council
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalyev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The Leningrad Oblast Legislative Assembly on Tuesday elected Alfred Kokh, the controversial former head of the State Property Committee and the former head of the Gazprom-Media holding, to serve as its representative in the Federation Council.
Kokh's candidature was offered by a group of 17 lawmakers, and was approved by 29 of the body's 48 deputies. Leningrad Oblast Governor Valery Serdyukov's proposed candidate, Valery Safonov, received 12 votes.
Kokh's nomination and election came as a complete surprise to Serdyukov.
"This was an unexpected decision for the governor," said Alexander Veretin, the governor's spokesperson, on Wednesday. "It is true that [Kokh] has not even been to the Oblast in recent times."
"We expect that he will use his influence to support regional investment projects such as the Ust-Luga cargo port and the Baltic ferry. He could lobby the investment interests of the region in the Federation Council," Veretin said.
In a speech before the Oblast Legislative Assembly after his election on Tuesday, Kokh said that the development of the region's transportation infrastructure, including supporting the Transport Ministry's investment program, would be his top priority.
"I want domestic ports to make profits for Russia. The Baltic states shouldn't be getting these profits," Kokh said, according to Interfax.
Kokh, who turned 41 on Monday, graduated from the St. Petersburg Financial Economic Institute in 1983. In 1990, he was appointed head of the local administration of the city's Sestroretsky District.
In 1991, Kokh moved to the federal government as part of the team headed by then head of the State Property Committee Anatoly Chubias that oversaw the national privatization process. In 1996, Kokh was appointed head of the State Property Committee.
One year later, though, he resigned from the post in the face of a criminal investigation stemming from the controversial privatization of the Svyazinvest telecommunications company. Kokh's committee awarded a lucrative 25-percent stake in the company to a consortium headed by Vladimir Potanin, earning him the wrath of both Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir Gusinsky, who launched a massive media campaign against him.
Kokh then was named manager of the Montes Auri investment fund, which was also closely tied to the Chubais team.
In November 1998, Kokh made headlines with a controversial interview with a New York-based Russian-language radio station, in which he said that Russians had only themselves to blame for the country's economic crisis and political problems.
"They are so involved with themselves. They are still so delighted by their ballet and their classical literature of the 19th century that they aren't in any condition to do anything new," he said, incongruously using the third person.
"This long-suffering people suffers for its own guilt. Nobody occupied them, nobody conquered them, nobody herded them into prisons," he said. "They tattled on each other, jailed each other and shot each other in firing squads. That is why this people deserves to reap what it has sown."
In the summer of 2000, Kokh was once again in the center of controversy when he was appointed head of the Gazprom-Media holding and played a key role in the gas giant's takeover of Gusinsky's media properties, including the NTV television company.
Last October, Kokh left Gazprom-Media and return to Montes Auri. He also became a member of the board of directors of the Ust-Luga cargo port in the Leningrad Oblast. At the time, he said that he would focus on the construction project rather than being involved in politics.
The radio station Ekho Moskvy reported this week that Kokh has invested $10 million in the port "in cooperation with his partners." Officials at the port, however, denied this report Thursday.
"It is his public-relations campaign," said Olga Bedikova, a spokesperson for the port.
Bedikova said that the port's shareholders have invested a total of 300 million rubles (about $10 million) over the last year, including about 49 million rubles ($1.5 million) transferred from the federal budget.
The remaining 251 million ($8 million) were invested by the port's main private shareholders: Gramelinko Limited Co., the United Financial and Industrial Company, Denton Industries Inc., Interalonzo Holding Limited, Absolut Bank and Hendrex Holdings Ltd.
"Kokh is one member of the board, which includes many other people. There are other members who take care of financing, especially [the board's chairperson Deputy Transport Minister] Vladimir Yakunin," Bedikova said.
The Ust-Luga port project was begun in 1996 on the initiative of the Transportation Ministry and the Leningrad Oblast administration. The goal of the project is to divert the flow of Russian exports of commodities such as coal, timber and fertilizers away from ports located in the Baltic states.
According to the business daily Vedomosti, about 1 billion rubles ($32 million) has been spent on the project since 1996. About half that sum was spent on the construction of the coal terminal, which was officially opened on Dec. 27, 2001.
Local liberal politicians expressed skepticism this week concerning Kokh's election to the Federation Council.
"I don't know a single person who would vote for Kokh if they were in their right mind," said St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly deputy and Yabloko member Boris Vishnevsky on Wednesday.
"There are two possibilities. One is that his candidature was dictated by [the Kremlin] and the other is that his candidature was dictated by his money," Vishnevsky said.
Alexei Musakov, head of the St. Petersburg Center for Regional Development, said that Kokh's move into the Federation Council was most likely politically motivated.
"Kokh is an experienced person who understands that his fortune may turn 180 degrees in a moment. He understands that there is a group of people who will be the next political elite and he wants to secure his position," Musakov said.
TITLE: Chechen Service Hangs In Balance
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: U.S.-funded radio broadcasts in Chechen, which are due to begin this week, appeared to be in doubt on Tuesday as the State Department said it was discussing their future with Congress.
The Kremlin has objected to the planned Radio Liberty broadcasts and threatened to revoke the station's license to broadcast in Russia if the programming is deemed pro-separatist. The Chechen-language programming was mandated by Congress to start by Thursday. But a Senate source said Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage had written to the Broadcasting Board of Governors in December, asking them to hold off pending consultations with lawmakers.
State Department spokesperson Richard Boucher confirmed a letter had been sent but he offered no details. "This is a matter that has been discussed and continues to be discussed with the White House and with the Congress," Boucher told a news briefing. Asked if the broadcasts would begin as scheduled, he replied, "We'll have to see."
Sonia Winter, a spokesperson for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Prague, said that as of Tuesday afternoon, no directives had arrived to delay the launch of the Chechen programming. "We haven't been asked for any delay," Winter said. "As far as I know, we are proceeding as planned."
The Broadcasting Board of Governors, or BBG, - an official body that oversees U.S. foreign broadcasts - was scheduled to meet Tuesday afternoon. The discussions would include the Chechen broadcasts, BBG spokeswoman Joan Mower said. "My understanding at this point is that conversations are still going on between the State Department, Congress and RFE/RL," she said. "There is clearly a disagreement and they are talking."
Commentator Fred Hiatt, writing in The Washington Post, accused President George W. Bush's administration of kow-towing to President Vladimir Putin.
A senior State Department official, asked if the administration was seeking to avoid offending Russia, replied that Washington was anxious to avoid distracting the Kremlin from seeking dialogue with Chechen separatists.
Moscow fears the broadcasts in Chechen and two other languages of the North Caucasus could further fuel separatism in the region, but proponents say they would give unmatched coverage of local issues.
Boucher noted RFE/RL already broadcasts in Russian to the North Caucasus, where Russian is widely understood and spoken, but offered no argument for why Chechen should not be used. A Senate source said the broadcasting was mandated in language accompanying foreign appropriations bills for fiscal year 2001 and 2002, so it was not a legal statute. But he said the executive branch ignored such orders at its peril.
(Reuters, SPT)
TITLE: Disorderly Mariinsky Artists Refused Service by Finnair
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: HELSINKI, Finland - Finnair turned away nine members of the Mariinsky Theater who wanted to board a flight from New York to Helsinki because they engaged in a drunken brawl on the outgoing trip, airline officials said Wednesday.
The nine people, who were not identified, drank liquor from their own bottles and fought among themselves on a Finnair flight on Feb. 17 from Helsinki to New York, said Erkki Ahtee, the Finnish airline's director of flight safety.
They stopped only after the captain threatened to make an unscheduled landing, Ahtee said.
"When they tried to board our plane in New York on their scheduled return yesterday [Tuesday], we stopped them and checked all the others for bottles too," Ahtee said.
The airline also sent two Finnish police officers to accompany the other 200 members of the St. Petersburg group on the return flight to Helsinki, which arrived Wednesday without incident, Ahtee said.
"We want to ensure that other passengers are not subjected to this kind of behavior and make it very clear that our airline will not tolerate it," he added.
Members of the Mariinsky Theater were involved in similar rowdy behavior on a Finnair flight in 1999, Ahtee said. "In future, we'll be taking an extra close look at passengers from the theater before allowing them to travel with us," Ahtee said.
Last week, more than 80 members of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra were escorted off a United Airlines flight at Washington's Dulles International Airport for rowdy behavior en route from Amsterdam to Los Angeles.
"Despite reprimands and warnings from the flight crew, many of the musicians refused to sit down, talked loudly and threw objects around the cabin," reported the Washington Post, citing airline officials.
Sergei Chernyadyev, director of the Philharmonic, later apologized for the incident.
TITLE: Catholic Bishop Starting To See the Light
AUTHOR: By Angela Charlton
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - The leader of Rus sia's Roman Catholics, anxious and sleep-deprived after a harrowing few weeks, is starting to detect progress in his latest struggle with the Russian Orthodox Church.
Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz was invited to the Kremlin on Thursday - the Russian leadership's first positive overture toward Catholics since the Vatican upgraded its Russian presence to full-fledged dioceses this month.
And on Saturday, the pope - whose long-standing bid to visit Russia has been persistently rebuffed by the Orthodox patriarch - will lead Russian Catholics in prayer via a video link.
The Vatican's Feb. 11 decision met with impassioned opposition from the Orthodox Church, which accused Catho lics of poaching converts in Orthodox territory and threatening its own resurrection efforts after decades of state-sponsored atheism. The Foreign Ministry objected to the move, and Orthodox leaders warned it could jeopardize Pope John Paul II's drive to mend the millennium-old rift between their churches.
"It's all a misunderstanding," Kondrusiewicz, a Pole born in Soviet Belarus, told The Associated Press on Thursday. "A reaction was to be expected. But I didn't think it would be so strong."
He was encouraged after a Kremlin meeting with the deputy head of the president's domestic policy department. "I feel we have the full support of the presidential administration," Kondrusiewicz said.
The pope is intent on reaching out to Russia's 600,000 Catholics, a tiny minority in a nation of 144, million where two-thirds of the population consider themselves Orthodox.
Parishioners have come to Kondrusiewicz in tears recently, complaining that the indignant rhetoric by Orthodox leaders on national newscasts since Feb. 11 has made them afraid to practice their faith.
The stocky, excitable archbishop himself has spent the past 17 days deflecting criticism and trying to salvage conciliation efforts. "We need to talk and keep talking, on the highest levels," he said.
Orthodox leaders don't see it that way. Metropolitan Kirill, the church's chief of foreign relations, said contacts with papal representatives could be suspended because of the Vatican decision, and the Orthodox Church later refused to receive a Vatican envoy.
Kondrusiewicz would not say why the Vatican chose this month to elevate its apostolic administrations to dioceses.
Russian media have speculated that the Vatican has given up hope of a papal visit to Russia anytime soon and decided to abandon its conciliatory stance toward the Orthodox Church.
Other analysts, including Britain's Keston Institute, suggest the Vatican was encouraged by President Vladimir Putin's recent warm words toward the pope and decided the westward-looking Kremlin is distancing itself from Orthodox stalwarts, making it a safe time to expand the Catholic presence.
Putin told a Polish newspaper in January that he was eager to invite John Paul to Moscow soon, but added that the visit would hinge on a Vatican-Orthodox settlement.
Kondrusiewicz gave no credence to either theory. "The time had come, that's all," he said.
The Catholic Church establishes apostolic administrations only in "extreme situations" such as the volatile period around the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, and they are meant to be temporary, he said.
Kondrusiewicz insisted most Russians have "no problem" with Catholics and that Catholics aren't proselytizing in Russia.
Kondrusiewicz, 56, has faced discrimination for his beliefs since his teen-age years. He abandoned his studies at a teacher's institute in Belarus after local newspapers expressed alarm that a future Soviet educator regularly attended Catholic Mass.
He fled to the more liberal Lenin grad, where he received an engineering degree before entering a Lithuanian seminary at age 30. Fluent in several languages, he speaks Russian and English with the slightest of accents.
Kondrusiewicz will oversee the Russian side of Saturday's papal video link, which will also be shown in other European cities. Hours later, Kondrusiewicz will leave for Washington, where he will meet with Russian-American Catholics.
"The pope of Rome will come" to Russia, he said. Asked if it would be the current pope, Kondrusiewicz smiled. "The pope will come. I would hope it is today's pope."
TITLE: Russian al-Qaida Suspect Gives Moscow Interview
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Isachenkov
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - A Russian suspected by Belgian authorities of shipping weapons to the al-Qaida terrorist network showed up a few blocks from the Kremlin for a live radio interview Thursday - just as officials were insisting he wasn't in Russia.
Victor Bout, a former Soviet air force officer turned international businessperson, denied that he had been involved in smuggling weapons to al-Qaida. "I have never supplied anything to or had any contacts with the Taliban or al-Qai da," he said on Ek ho Moskvy radio.
"Never in my life have I done anything that would cause me to hide from anyone, nor have I ever had any problems traveling across Russia," said Bout. As he spoke, Interfax carried a report quoting Igor Tsyryulnikov, a spokesperson for Interpol's Russian bureau, as saying that Russian police had searched for Bout for several years. "We can say for sure that Bout is not in Russia," Tsyryulnikov was quoted as saying.
Earlier Thursday, Belgian prosecutors said they recently issued an international arrest warrant for Bout and that they believed he was in Russia. Jos Colpin, spokesperson for the Brussels prosecutor's office, said Belgian authorities had contacted Moscow about the search for Bout after forwarding the warrant two weeks ago.
Tsyryulnikov did not answer telephone calls to his office Thursday night. Russian police made no public comment and officials at the Russian Interior Ministry, which is in charge of the police, could not be reached for comment.
It was unclear where Bout went after the interview with Echo Moskvy, Russia's leading independent radio station. A station employee commented wryly that he did not leave his telephone number.
Bout claimed U.S. security services invented the accusations against him to cover up their own inefficiency.
"They have turned me into a bugbear," Bout said. "It is a good subject for a horror story or a comic, and it raises the question of the efficiency of all these security services ... that failed to avert the Sept. 11" attacks.
Bout, who UN reports have described as a prominent supplier of weapons to rebel groups in Africa, said he has been involved in air transport since 1992 but never dealt in arms. He said he ran cargo flights to Afghanistan.
On Feb. 7, Belgian police arrested an associate of Bout, Kenyan businessperson Sanjivan Ruprah, on charges of criminal association and holding a false passport. Officials said Ruprah was being investigated on suspicion of money laundering, not illegal arms trading.
Ruprah is reportedly providing U.S. authorities with information on weapons transfers to Afghanistan. Belgian officials have declined to comment on those reports.
Peter Hain, Britain's minister for European affairs and a leader in international efforts to clamp down on gunrunning to African rebels, told The Associated Press last week that Bout "undoubtedly" supplied al-Qaida and the Taliban with arms. He called Bout a "merchant of death."
Bout's air cargo empire, built on old Soviet aircraft, violated UN arms embargoes and delivered weapons to rebels in Sierra Leone, Congo, Angola and Rwanda, UN investigators said in a report last year.
His operations were originally based in Belgium, but he moved them to the United Arab Emirates in 1997 under pressure from the United Nations and Belgian law enforcement, the report said.
UN investigators have claimed Bout has at least five passports, but he said Thursday that he has only a Russian one.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: A&F Sells Out
MOSCOW (MT) - The Argumenty i Fakty weekly became the last major Russian newspaper owned by its journalists to sell out to an outside investor - its bank, Promsvyazbank - Izvestia reported Thursday.
Citing Nikolai Zyatkov, the newspaper's general director who also became editor in January, the report said the first stake was sold to the bank in November. After sales of two more stakes, it held a controlling stake.
Most Soviet-era newspapers, which were privatized by their journalists in the early 1990s, lost control to outside investors in 1996 and 1997.
Argumenty i Fakty is one of the highest-circulation papers in Russia and claims a print run of 2.9 million copies.
Neither the sum paid nor the size of the bank's stake was reported. Prom svyaz bank said it planned to keep the stake in the newspaper and would not interfere in its editorial policy, Izvestia reported.
CIS Summit
ALMATY, Kazakhstan (AP) - Leaders from 11 of the 12 member nations of the Commonwealth of Independent States began arriving in Almaty on Thursday for three days of talks.
The United States' increasing military presence in the former Soviet Union as part of its anti-terrorism fight is expected to top the agenda, which will be attended by President Vladimir Putin.
The leaders were expected to gather for dinner Thursday evening, before getting down to work Friday and Saturday.
Gazprom Announces
MOSCOW (SPT) - Gazprom announced Thursday that it has completed a long put-off valuation of the holdings belonging to its media arm, Gazprom-Media, and that it was now looking at how to structure the sale of all its media assets.
The gas monopoly said in a press statement that it would not make public the appraisal, conducted by Dresdner Bank investment vehicle Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein.
Gazprom-Media last April seized a controlling stake - 50 percent plus one share - in Media-MOST, the debt-ridden media holding founded by tycoon Vla dimir Gusinsky.
Critics said the move was orchestrated by the Kremlin and represented a crippling blow to free speech.
Gazprom said at the time that it aimed to unload its media assets in an open sale. The gas giant on Thursday said the sale would be closed to "maintain the confidentiality of future investors."
Belarus Trashes Reports
MINSK, Belarus (Reuters) - Belarus, under threat of U.S. sanctions over alleged illegal arms trading, on Thursday dismissed as "rubbish" reports it was selling arms to countries supporting terrorism, saying Washington had no evidence.
On Wednesday, the U.S. State Department hinted at possible sanctions against Belarus over reports it was involved in arms smuggling in breach of the United Nations sanctions and had trained Iraq's military personnel to work with S-300 missiles.
A spokesperson at the KGB security service said ministers had met U.S. officials to deny the reports but had failed to convince them that Belarus complied with all international regulations on arms trade.
"We are sorry that Washington doesn't listen to our arguments. Their accusations are not based on reliable facts and do not come from reliable sources," the spokesperson said.
"The Defense Minister, Leonid Malt sev, has said that it [the report] is rubbish."
TITLE: Projects Leading Industry Out of the City
AUTHOR: By Andrey Musatov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Although most of the projects are still in their early planning or development stages, a movement is afoot to relocate some of the city's old industrial dinosaurs out of the city center and convert the land and buildings they occupy to commercial and business usage.
A number of commercial-development companies are working on projects to convert and redevelop these areas and buildings, while others are pushing ahead with the development of the necessary infrastructure to allow more-modern industrial operations to establish themselves outside the city, where they will be better able to take advantage of existing transport structures.
The most ambitious of the projects is that being carried out under the aegis of the Becar construction and real-estate company, which was named by the City Property Committee (KUGI) in June as the official Territory Development Agency (ART) for a 100-hectare plot located on the Vyborgskaya Embankment. The area is bordered by the Vyborgskaya Embankment, Pirogovskaya Embankment, Finlyandsky Prospect, Bolshoi Sampsonievsky Prospect and Kantemirovskaya Ulitsa and contains about 350 buildings. The buildings are presently owned by about 15 industrial concerns, including such companies as the Dvigatel engine plant; diesel-engine producer Russky Dizel; Mezon, a radio-electronics parts producer; and fabric manufacturer Peterburgsky Tekstil.
According to information provided by Becar on the Vyborgskaya Embankment project's Internet site (http://art.becar.ru), the plan includes 11 smaller projects, six of which are for the construction of business centers, with a fitness center, residential building, plastic-recycling facility, a gas station and a city-administration building also in the mix.
The work on the entire 100-hectare plot will cost about $400 million and will take from five to 10 years to complete, according to Sergei Yablonsky, the president of the Stroimontazh construction holding company, which is also involved in the project.
The company announced that Becar has so far attracted only $35 million, which was secured through a loan from Russian Central Bank-owned Evrofinans bank. Stroimontazh itself has also secured $11 million from an unnamed foreign investor for the reconstruction of Petrovsky Fort, a business center in the area.
But according to Alexander Sharapov, the president of Becar, the project is commercially viable and will result in production-intensive concerns moving to more appropriate locations.
"The aim of the project is to help industrial concerns get out of the city center," Sharapov says. "The industrial companies located in the area only utilize about one-third of their production capacity because the machine technology they are using is too outdated to make their products competetive."
"The majority of firms prefer to operate one-story production facilities now," he also says. "That's why it's so difficult for companies operating in buildings constructed long ago to attract investment. To buy land outside of the city center, as did Coca-Cola and Gilette, is both cheaper and more efficient."
Sharapov said that the a good analog for the project is the London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC), which worked to regenerate the London Docklands, an area of 23 square kilometers stretching across parts of the East End Boroughs of Southwark, Tower Hamlets and Newham regions, between July 1981 and March 1998.
The closure of the docks in the region and the development of the area, which is larger than London proper, facilitated the establishment not only of office space, but also of recreational and residential areas.
Since 1981 the population of Docklands has grown by 68 percent, from 39,500 to 65,500.
Sharapov said that a move to more appropriate locations would offer a number of the industrial concerns located in the Vyborgskaya Embankment area a new lease on life.
"They have good potential and specialists who understand the needs of current industry," Sharapov said.
Land-use statistics indicate that St. Petersburg is far behind other major European cities, and behind Moscow, in the trend to move industry out of population centers. According to European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) research, 45 percent of land inside the St. Petersburg city center is occupied by industrial concerns, while this figure is about 35 percent in Moscow and about 10 percent in European cities of comparable size.
Becar's project on the Vyborgskaya Embankment is not the only one of its type. Analagous projects are also underway to replace industrial sites at 14 Obvodny Kanal and 14 Sofiiskaya Ulitsa under, the management of Peterburzhskaya Nedvizhimost, and to develop a business zone at the location of the former Stekvar glass-production plant located at 63 Piskaryovsky Prospect, a property being managed by Business Service, a subsidiary of Imperia Financial holding company, which specializes in real-estate investment.
The Sofiiskaya Ulitsa and Piskaryovsky Prospect projects were two of the first to focus on transforming industrial properties into light-commercial and business areas in the city, both launched shortly after the financial crisis of 1998
The project to develop a business zone at the Obvodny Kanal site is one of the most ambitious in the city and was launched in May 2001. The site includes 15 hectares of land that formerly belonged to the Novator plant, which produced military equipment. Novator put the value of the plant and land at $4.5 million and Peterburzhskaya Nedvizhimost, which is the managing company for the project is going to spend $1.2 million of its own funds over the next three years.
Peterburzhskaya Nedvizhimost is a subsidiary of the Leninets holding, which includes under its umbrella seven scientific and research institutes and five military-industrial sites, including Novator.
The flip side of the conversion of properties located within St. Petersburg is the movement to establish other locations on the outskirts of the city.
The Pulkovo-3 business zone, located near Pulkovo-2 airport just off Moskovskoye Shosse, the highway connecting St. Petersburg with Moscow, is one of the high-profile examples.
The city started work on creating an industrial infrastructure on the 36-hectare site in 1997, when the decision by Coca Cola and Gilette to set up operations just off nearby Pulkovskoye Shosse demonstrated the attractiveness of the area to major industry. The work on developing the infrastructure of the site is being financed with 300 million rubles ($10 million) from the city budget, and the work is slated to be completed by the end of the year.
The city decided to divide the area into 14 plots, nine of which were offered at auction last February. Five plots were sold, including the largest available - 2.28 hectares located along Pulkovskoye Shosse - which was sold for 420,000 rubles ($14,700) to Omni, a company affiliated with the Moscow-based Lenta retail company. Lenta plans to use the plot for construction of a cash-and-carry style supermarket, one of 10 it is planning to build in St. Petersburg
Megadekor purchased three other lots, totalling 2.2 hectares, one of which will hold a business center, while the other two will be used for a service station. Aeroportstroi, the city-owned construction company that built the Pulkova-1 and Pulkovo-2 airports, bought a 0.4-hectare plot.
An auction to sell off the remaining lots had been scheduled to take place Dec. 5, but was called off by the city Property Fund. Officials at the fund refused to provide a reason for the cancelation.
Another ambitious project of this type is North-West Technopark (NWT), which is located three kilometers from both Pulkovo airports, near part of the planned Ring Road. Finland's REIM Consulting, a firm with a considerable experience with projects of this type in Europe is acting as official adviser to the project.
REIM is a branch of the Lapeenranta, Finland-based REIM Group, which specializes in property-management and legal-consulting services. Presently the group operates real estate holdings in Europe worth about $1.6 billion.
Last week the heads of REIM Consulting and the Lemminkainen Construction Company announced a partnership agreement for cooperation in Russia.
Jussi Ovaska, the area manager for Lemminkainen Construction refused to discuss the company's plans for working on the North-West Technopark until all of the contracts have been signed.
But, according to a source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, the project will not only involve the construction of industrial and commercial facilities, but also a complete set of support services, including banking, a customs brokerage, a fitness center and a small hotel.
The source put the total cost of the project at $200 million.
According to Charles Voss, the executive director of REIM Consulting, the company expects to attract several industrial concerns to establish factories in the complex and upward of 7,000 people will be employed in the area.
"We are in negotiations with at least three European banks," Voss said. "Funding for the North-West Technopark project will be run through an investment fund to be set up by a number of Western financial organizations which have not been announced."
REIM Consulting is planning to lease out lots in the area, with an outside investment company building the factory on the lot to the specifications of the client. The plant facility will also be leased, with the suggested terms being from seven to 10 years.
"This provides a significant benefit to the tenant, because the tennant doesn't have to be tied to the construction or ownership of the buildings," Voss says. "This is not a necessary part of their production. They would much prefer to lease a factory built to their standards."
Voss says that that North-West Technopark has yet to sign contracts for the project because it's in the final process of getting approval from the city, a process that is going slower than he expected.
North-West Technopark has been in talks with the St. Petersburg Investment Tender Commission (ITK) since the end of November.
A source close to the negotiations who asked not to be named said that North-West Technopark had reached an informal agreement with ITK and that the project will be approved within the next week.
TITLE: Norex Files Suit Against TNK
AUTHOR: By Anna Raff
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Cyprus-registered Norex Petroleum on Tuesday filed a suit in a U.S. court, charging Tyumen Oil Co. and its owners with violence and racketeering in a takeover of a Siberian oil producer.
Norex - created with Canadian capital - is asking the U.S. District Court in New York for $2 billion in damages. Norex says it is filing suit in the United States because many of the defendants either reside there or are U.S. citizens.
"This is about a group of American citizens, sitting in their New York offices, exploiting the Russian system through massive corruption and profiting handsomely as a result," Phil Murray, president of Norex, said in a statement released Thursday.
TNK said in a statement that the lawsuit was nothing more than slander and blackmail.
"This lawsuit is part of Norex's ongoing campaign to discredit Tyumen Oil and its shareholders in connection with its unsuccessful efforts to gain control of Yugraneft," TNK said. "Norex has lost more than 20 trials and appellate proceedings in Russia related to this matter."
Last summer, No. 4 oil major TNK gained control of Siberian oil producer Yugraneft with the help of local courts in the Khanty-Mansiisk autonomous district. When Yugraneft was founded in 1992, Norex owned 60 percent and Chernogorneft had 40 percent. At the time, Chernogorneft was a subsidiary of Sidanko, but was later seized by TNK in a dispute with BP.
In 1999, a tug-of-war over the ownership of Yugraneft began.
Norex says that Chernogorneft failed to contribute to Yugraneft's charter capital and subsequently decreased TNK's share to 2.36 percent. TNK resisted and, in its turn, said that $5.8 million worth of know-how contributed by Norex was bogus.
A Khanty-Mansiisk court upheld TNK's claim last year, and Norex lost control of its Siberian subsidiary.
In a complaint filed with the court, a copy of which was obtained by The St. Petersburg Times, Norex lists an array of charges from bribery to extortion.
Norex claims that TNK officials "bluntly asked [Yugraneft general director Lyudmila] Kondrashina to betray the shareholders of Yugraneft" and "asked her how much money she needed" in order to do so.
TITLE: Government's Reforms Get Kudos From Kudrin
AUTHOR: By Torrey Clark
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - If by no other measure, the government's reform effort over the last two years can be called a success for bringing 400,000 new small and medium-sized enterprises above the radar, Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Kudrin said Tuesday.
"The shadow economy has started to shrink and is becoming more legal," Kudrin told an American Chamber of Commerce conference attended by leading economists and business figures.
"This is the most sensitive sphere to changes in the economy. And if the flow is increasing, it means we are doing the right thing," said Kudrin, who is also finance minister.
The right thing, he said, includes lowering the tax burden and weeding out administrative barriers through registration and licensing reforms, which he credited for drawing companies out of hiding.
"Implementing reforms is the most important component, the government's main task."
The country's so-called gray economy is often cited as one of the government's most vexing problems. According to various estimates, between 20 percent and 40 percent of the nation's gross domestic product takes place under the table.
Even so, the GDP growth was 5.1 percent in 2001 - one of the highest rates in the world - and is likely to stabilize at between 2 percent and 4 percent for the next several years, Yevgeny Yasin, head of the Expert Institute and one-time economic advisor to former President Boris Yeltsin, told the conference. The economy is functioning "perfectly normally," he said.
Yasin, one of the most respected economists in the country, in introducing a report his institute wrote together with AmCham and Big Five firm Ernst & Young, also said that foreign investment should grow by a healthy 5 percent to 6 percent this year.
Much of Russia's "foreign investment" is actually Russian cash being repatriated through offshore havens, a trend that is beginning to slow the explosion of capital flight that occurred in the 1990s. Kudrin said government reforms had managed to slow capital flight, which dropped by nearly a third to $17 billion in 2001 from $24.4 billion in 2000, under methodology used by the International Monetary Fund.
Central Bank Chairman Viktor Gerashchenko is less optimistic than Kudrin, saying recently that capital flight has grown to $4 billion a month since currency rules were changed last year to allow exporters to retain 50 percent of their hard currency earnings. Before, they were forced to sell 75 percent of their export revenues to the Central Bank for rubles.
But Kahka Bendukidze, head of United Heavy Machinery (OMZ), told the conference that currency regulations are a leading cause of capital flight. Because of stringent requirements, $5 billion in net profits leave the country through fake companies each year, said Bendukidze, who also heads the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneur's working group on the issue and has sponsored a draft law currently under review by the State Duma.
"This is equivalent to about $1 billion in annual losses to the federal budget," Bendukidze growled. He warned the government would suffer further as companies pull up stakes and register abroad.
Bendukidze called the current rules - in particular mandatory currency repatriation and sales and limits on investment abroad - a violation of property rights and a chill on the investment climate. It is a risk factor mentioned in every document used by investors and creditors when weighing their interests in Russia and thus pushes up the cost of borrowing by two to three basis points, he said.
Kudrin said the government was responding to such concerns and is putting the finishing touches on its version of a currency-regulation law aimed at "lifting a whole series of restrictions." It will be ready before the end of March, he added.
The U.S. Export-Import Bank - which gives loans and guarantees to foreign companies that do business with American companies, also gave the government the thumbs up, indicating it would soon offer long-term loans for exporters to Russia, said Paul Tumminia, Ex-Im Bank's director for the Commonwealth of Indpendent States and the Baltics.
Ex-Im bank currently offers only short-term insurance and medium-term loans and guarantees.
Tumminia said the bank is looking to boost its involvement in Russia from the $150 million that was authorized in 2001, which was down from $200 million in 2000. It also plans to diversify its portfolio, moving away from sovereign and sub-sovereign guarantees, which account for 40 percent of the bank's activity here, and boosting both structured and bank financing, which account for 4 percent and 1 percent, respectively.
The bank, an independent federal agency, has a list of 16 banks it will work with in Russia, and plans to expand this to 22, he said.
Tumminia, said that Russia has one of the lowest default rates of any country the bank does business with, excluding Inkombank and SBS Agro in 1998.
Additionally, U.S. Ambassador Alexander Vershbow said the United States is drafting projects to help spur growth among small and medium enterprises. Investments in Russia are less than 1 percent of all U.S. foreign investments.
Regarding another thorny issue for Russia - its huge foreign debt load, Kudrin praised his ministry's work in meeting and even prepaying its obligations. Sovereign debt was 50 percent of GDP at the end of 2001. It should fall to 40 percent of GDP by the end of 2002 and stay at that level for at least the next three years, he said.
The Finance Ministry will shift some external borrowing to the domestic market, Kudrin said, echoing recent statements by Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov.
Kudrin also defended the government's tough negotiating position with regard to its attempts to enter the World Trade Organization. One of the major concerns of domestic producers is that tariffs on imported goods will fall dramatically once Russia becomes a WTO member, making them less competitive.
But Kudrin said the average effective tariff on imported goods, which is currently 10-11 percent, and will actually rise to 16-17 percent during the WTO transition period. Thereafter, the government will push it down to 10 percent in the short term, with a commitment to match the United States and Europe with rates as low as 3-4 percent in the long term.
TITLE: Putin Tells Government To Help Small Business
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin asked the government Wednesday to prepare legislation that would simplify the taxation process for small businesses, less than two months after it went back on its word to support that sector of the economy.
Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref told reporters that Putin had asked the government to prepare the legislation before the end of March, Interfax reported.
The government announced at the end of last year that the development of small business was one of the country's strategic goals, only to go back on its word Dec. 29, when the Duma passed a bill that made small businesses liable to pay the social tax.
"This effectively doubled the tax burden for small business," said Andrei Nasonov, a member of the presidium of the Russian Entrepreneurial Organizations' Union, or OPORA, the country's largest small and mid-sized business lobby.
But the higher tax burden is only one side of the coin. The legislation passed by the Duma included an amendment to the Tax Code that created a whole new accounting procedure in addition to the existing one.
"It's known among the people as accountant genocide," Nasonov said.
According to Gref, Putin told the government to prepare the new legislation carefully to "simplify the way businesses are taxed, including social taxes, and make sure accounting red tape would be cut to a minimum."
Putin acted when the government faced pressure from lobby groups and even local governments, Nasonov said, adding that OPORA initiated Putin's decision when it sent an open letter to the president last week asking him to review the government's decision.
"You have to make changes when legislation contradicts the stated plan of the government to support small business and business in general," he said.
TITLE: Disegni's Owner Looking Past 'Setback'
AUTHOR: By Andrey Musatov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: As the battle involving the Disegni clothing chain winds up, General Director Harald Jonassen is getting back down to business.
The Disegni warehouse, stores and offices that were temporarily closed during a dispute last July have reopened, and new spring clothing is about to go on sale.
"The company went through a very difficult period," Jonassen said by telephone from France last Wednesday. "But the customers, I believe, are not concerned with all these legal problems. They are only concerned with the fashion, the product and the clothes."
Jonassen set up the Disegni company in December 2000. Two months later, the German investment company Quadriga Capital Russia, which was managing two European Bank for Reconstruction and Development funds in St. Petersburg, gave Disegni the first tranche of a $1.8-million investment. The EBRD, in return, received 48 percent of Disegni stock.
Previously, Jonassen - a U.S. citizen who was born in Norway - was part owner of another clothing company, Eldorado Group, which had sold the Disegni label under a contract with the American Disegni International firm. Eldorado was founded together with co-owner Ruben Kalashyan, who initiated a criminal case against Jonassen, accusing him of illegal management of the Eldorado company and asset withdrawal.
Last July, police investigators closed down and then conducted four raids at the main office of the Disegni chain. Although the criminal case over Eldorado is still in court, the arrest of Disegni assets has been revoked following appeals by Jonassen's lawyers. Jonassen can now resume Disegni's operations, while Kalashyan continues to run Eldorado.
Disegni had been unable to ship and merchandise its production for half a year, but now Jonassen is looking to make a fresh start at the chain's four outlets in St. Petersburg, and others in Moscow, Rostov-on-Don, Nizhny Novgorod and 19 other Russian cities.
"The first new shipment for spring starts next week, and I think we will prove to our customers that this was only a setback, and we'll come back stronger than ever," Jonassen said last week.
Jonassen said the business outlook is good, given the size of Russia's population, and he sees potential in all categories of the market.
"Every six months, every year, there are more people who start to make a little more money and need to dress well," he said. "I think the competition is not very strong in Russia yet ... at the moment, it's fairly easy to do our work."
In order to succeed, however, a company has to specialize in a relatively narrow segment, he said.
"One of the problems I've noticed in Russia is that the fashion industry is not visibly established," he said. "Many people just jump in and try to do something for everybody. That doesn't work, you have to focus, and the more narrowly you can concentrate, the better."
Disegni targets career women with clothing that aims to bridge the gap between expensive designer-label fashions and average-priced, mass-market gear. The targeted customers are aged 25 and older, mostly well-educated, proffessional women in their early 30s who are looking for classic, well-made and correctly proportioned clothing, but who also need clothing that is fashionable and fun.
"There are a lot of such categories, and there's lot of potential. It's still a wide-open market," Jonassen said.
TITLE: Auto Execs Come Out Against Russia's Accession to the WTO
AUTHOR: By Simon Ostrovsky
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Auto-industry representatives have thrown a hitch into WTO talks, arguing Russia should only enter the trade body if it can install protectionist import duties of at least 30 percent on foreign cars.
At talks with Russia's delegation to the World Trade Organization on Wednesday, industry leaders - led by Alexei Mordashov, head of metals giant Severstal - said that under no circumstances should tariffs be lowered to 10 percent to 15 percent, as WTO member countries demand.
The auto industry needs import duties of 35 percent to survive, a source close to Mordashov who declined to be identified said Thursday.
"In this we are in solidarity with the other auto producers," he said.
Severstal, which controls No. 3 car manufacturer Ulyanovsk Auto Factory, has joined the lobbying effort, in a rare alliance with competitor Ruspromavto - Siberian Aluminum's auto holding which controls No. 2 manufacturer GAZ - and No.1 maker AvtoVAZ.
"We have always supported Russia's accession to the WTO, but not just on any terms," said the source. "If the West doesn't come to that understanding ... then Russia doesn't really need to join."
The WTO delegation, led by Deputy Economic Development and Trade Minister Alexei Medvedkov, told Mordashov and representatives of Ruspromavto to draw up a 10-year investment plan for the industry by March 10.
"Once we have their proposals, we will be able to ask the government to approve their position and incorporate them into the [government] WTO entry policy," said ministry spokesperspon Konstantin Bogdanov.
The automakers want to raise import duties on foreign cars from 25 percent to between 30 percent and 35 percent and then gradually lower them to around 15 percent over the next eight to 10 years - which would allow the sector to develop enough to compete with foreign companies.
"Many foreign auto producers say 'we won't invest in your country if you don't protect your market,'" said the Severstal source. "Western companies won't have an interest in building cars here if it is cheaper to import them."
Alexei Likhachyov, a State Duma deputy from Nizhny Novgorod and a member of the WTO delegation, said the group would do everything it could to protect the interests of the automakers.
"We heard the wishes of the carmakers and auto-company owners directly and will do everything that we can to make sure that when we join the WTO, the conditions will be as beneficial as possible," he said in a telephone interview from Nizhny Novgorod. "Under no circumstances will there be a radical lowering of duties from 25 percent to 10 or 15 percent."
But the lobby's requirements make WTO accession more difficult since Russia is facing pressure from major car-producing countries. Official talks with the trade body are to take place at the end of June in Geneva.
"We're feeling pressure from Japan and Korea, but hopefully all that will be resolved in Geneva at the next talks," Likhachyov said. "Both sides are going to have to use their political resources to come to a compromise."
If WTO members do not agree on Russian import duties, entry to the trade body would be postponed, he said.
TITLE: Two Presidents, One Historic Opportunity
AUTHOR: By Lilia Shevtsova
TEXT: TRY to solve this puzzle: two world leaders are behaving like political twins. Both have chosen security and order as their priorities and have used war to consolidate society. Both prefer to avoid coalition-building and are fascinated by military might. Neither thought much about the highest office in the country beforehand and both were amazed to find themselves ascending to it. Both were brought to power with a helping hand from the family - in one case biological, in the other political. Finally, both are exploiting the threat of terrorism to resolve their respective country's problems and cement a new world order; while one talks of "the axis of evil," the other warns about "the arc of instability."
You've guessed it: Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin. They are very different and preside over very different countries, but paradoxically they are also very much alike.
Their similarities, however, provoke mixed feelings. It cannot fail to cause concern that the president of a country that is seen as a model of democracy is acting the same way as the leader of a country considered to be an elected monarchy with imperial pretensions. Bush's conviction that he knows how to solve other countries' problems looks very Soviet.
It should be a shock to Bush that Russian statists hold him up as an example to be emulated and complain that Putin is too soft a leader and may repeat the fate of Mikhail Gorbachev. Most worrying, however, is the fact that both leaders seem to believe that a new world order can be created on the basis of a "new" common enemy.
It may seem paradoxical, but of the two leaders, Putin may have more incentive to develop a pattern of leadership more appropriate to tackling the challenges of the 21st century. For, if Putin doesn't want to preside over stagnation, the only way forward is to try to change the rules of the game.
Unfortunately, the Russian president has failed to capitalize on the opportunity created by joining the international coalition against terrorism. He has been bogged down with handling irritants such as the ABM Treaty, and instead of developing a new vision of his country's national interests, he has been caught up in discussing relations with NATO - an organization that may be out of picture sooner than we think.
Now Bush has unwittingly offered Putin a new chance to demonstrate innovative leadership. By announcing his doctrine of unilateralist overdrive, Bush has provoked dismay not only in Russia but also in the rest of the world. Now is a golden opportunity to propose an alternative to the Pax Americana. Russia could do this together with those European countries that have become increasingly critical of the United States.
Bush has done a great deed by stirring things up in the swamp of international relations and forcing the world to react. If Putin, French President Jacques Chirac and other concerned world leaders now limit themselves to expressing resentment, then they deserve nothing more than to live in a world structured by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and company, and they should stop complaining.
The world desperately needs a new way of thinking about foreign policy that addresses the core issues facing the global system. A key element of that system is the U.S.-Russian relationship. In order to strengthen European security, reform the UN and its Security Council, combat terrorism, prevent nuclear proliferation, stabilize the world economy, handle energy and environmental problems - Russia cannot be ignored. However, in order to tackle these issues both leaders need to move beyond the traditional agenda of nukes, NATO, Jackson-Vanik etc. They need to stop thinking exclusively about contentious issues, and look also at areas where both can demonstrate that they have something new to offer the world.
Among such areas is military and economic cooperation in central Asia. When Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov announced that the U.S. presence in central Asia "is a positive factor for Russia," he signaled that Russia is taking the unprecedented step of acknowledging that in this part of the world, the United States is solving security problems that Russia is unable to handle alone.
Another area is Russia's role in diversifying the sources of energy products available to the United States and the West. Recent tension between the United States and Saudi Arabia has underscored the importance of having a major backup energy supplier.
Sooner or later, Russia will have to recognize the necessity of cooperating with the United States and Europe in the Caucasus, not only in resolving the conflicts in Nagorny Karabakh and Abkhazia, but also in finding a solution for Chechnya.
One more area of cooperation where the United States could play the role of broker is in helping Russia and Japan break their stalemate over the Kuril Islands and open new opportunities for Western investments into the Far East and Siberia.
The litmus test for a new, upgraded U.S.-Russian relationship will be Putin's ability to play a constructive role on Iraq. He has to walk a tightrope: he must prove that Russia is capable of influencing Saddam Hussein but at the same time ready to join a U.S.-led campaign against Iraq, if one is launched. Putin should recall the humiliation that befell the Kremlin during the Kosovo crisis, when Moscow tried to save Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, even after the Yugoslav people had had enough of him.
Its behavior after Sept. 11 demonstrates that, for the first time, Russia is playing the role of junior partner to another superpower. Washington has to show sufficient sensitivity and offer Russia a dignified framework for this role. This framework, however, will be effective only if it is based not on the "basis of mutual security interests," as Putin recently suggested, but on the basis of mutual values.
Do Bush and Putin have the imagination and courage necessary to make a breakthrough in the U.S.-Russian relationship - a relationship that could become the nucleus of a new approach to international relations in general? They have an opportunity to give it a shot at least.
As the May summit approaches, however, we are witnessing the same old game. Both countries continue counting warheads - an exercise that is taking up all their time and energy and will only leave both sides increasingly suspicious of each other. Moreover, the United States is concerned about demonstrating its hegemony and worries about cuddling up to Russia too much, while Russia is desperate to be treated as a great power, at least symbolically. It is hard to get over the impression of déjà vu. If the U.S. and Russian presidents fail to make a breakthrough this time, nothing apocalyptic will happen. The world will simply continue on much the same as it did in the last century, while Bush and Putin will continue to look like political twins - although of very different sizes.
However, this resemblance will most probably be a source of increasing concern.
Lilia Shevtsova, senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times. Most recently, she is co-editor with Professor Archie Brown of "Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and Putin: Political Leadership in Russia's Transition."
TITLE: Olympic Lessons for Our Whining Media
TEXT: "When you believe that the judging is biased, you must perform in such a way that your victory is absolutely incontestable." Russia's great figure skating coach Tatyana Tarasova made this observation when asked about the scandals at the Olympics in Salt Lake City.
I would offer Tarasova's words as an epigraph to stand atop the list of tasks now facing those who want a free and independent press in this country. Until now, our unfortunate champions of free speech have preferred to complain about the referees.
Take the National Democratic Conference, for example. This forum for liberal parties and human-rights organizations was held recently and in its clumsily written "Recommended Measures Necessary for Ensuring a Free Press" the conference concluded: "The policy of 'managed democracy' vis-a-vis the media has produced the following results: increased state control of the media at the federal and regional levels; widening inequality between state and non-state media organizations; lack of development or unbalanced development in the media and advertising markets; corruption of the media; destruction of the institution of the reputation of journalists and news organizations; disregard by official persons of critical publications in the press; citizens' reduced trust in the press as a source of reliable information"; and so on.
After reading this, how can you not recall the old Soviet limerick: "Our Mashka is a prostitute ... For this we condemn General Pinochet." The point is that the conference's diagnosis is on the money, but "controlled democracy" has about as much to do with the state of the press in Russia as the Chilean dictator had to do with Mashka's professional choices.
I've said it a hundred times, and I'll say it again: in the "democratic" era, our press developed as a branch of the shadow economy and a tool of the information racket. Of course, after decades of totalitarianism, the hundreds of parasitic flowers that blossomed on this rotting bog delighted the eye, although they had no relation whatsoever to what in the democratic world is known as a free and independent press. What people now remember as President Boris Yeltsin's remarkable tolerance was really nothing more than looking the other way. The result was a nasty little joke on the media, which was led to believe that lying and stealing under the president's patronage constituted normal relations between the press and the authorities.
Now the authorities' tolerance has dwindled, and our news organizations, almost without exception, find themselves defenseless in the face of state pressure. Just about the only argument in defense of the victims goes something like this: "Everyone breaks the rules, but only a select few are punished." Which is like saying that all the athletes take performance-enhancing drugs, but I was the only one who got caught.
The only positive development in press-state relations is that a powerful external impulse has finally forced the press to put its own house in order.
Consider a few examples. From 1998 to 2000, a group of researchers attempted to measure the extent of concentration of media organizations in the regions. The insurmountable problem encountered by the group was the lack of legal and economic transparency in the organizations themselves. This year, the Soros Foundation's Russian branch, where I currently run a program to support the press, plans to launch a "due diligence" program for media organizations. The idea is to help them run their business in conformity with current rather confused and confusing legislation. I have discussed this idea with dozens of media managers, and the reaction is always the same: "Get started!"
It has to be said in closing that there are problems with the judging as well. It wouldn't hurt our leaders to learn how to crack down on the press in strict adherence with internationally recognized norms. Then, we would finally have normal, adversarial relations between the government and the press.
Alexei Pankin is the editor of Sreda, a magazine for media professionals (www.internews.ru/sreda).
TITLE: Party Control or Vote Buying?
AUTHOR: By Boris Kagarlitsky
TEXT: THE country's leaders are taking great pains to improve the political-party system. Their approach is that of an animal breeder who focuses on improving the breed, or more precisely on making it larger.
Current legislation effectively makes small parties illegal. The law also turns parties exclusively into campaign machines, by holding out the threat of abolition, for refusal to participate in elections. If a party boycotts two elections - to protest the regular rigging of the results, for instance - it faces automatic liquidation.
Current law does not, however, allow parties to control their own deputies and organize their legislative agenda in the State Duma - the main reason for seeking a Duma seat in the first place, one would think.
Immediately following perestroika, when the phrase "independent deputy" was still a novelty, we constantly heard our deputies say: "I answer to no one but my constituents." In practice, this meant that they answered to no one at all, because voters had no way of controlling how "their" deputy voted.
While it is possible to monitor a deputy's position on the major issues, it is nearly impossible to figure out how he or she has voted in the hundreds of "secondary" and "technical" votes held every session.
(And I can just imagine thousands of voters staying up nights studying the Duma minutes to glean information about their representative's actions.)
It was the legislative branch's total lack of accountability that led in the early 1990s to talk of party lists and proportional representation.
We got both in 1993 - although in combination with a constitution that deprived the Duma of any real power.
The trouble, as it turns out, is that party deputies differ little from their independent colleagues. The Duma doesn't even have the institution of "party whips" - when members of each faction are responsible for ensuring that their colleagues vote, and that they do so along party lines.
At best we have Vladimir Zhirinovsky rushing around the Duma chamber with a stack of other deputies' electronic voting cards. 0The absence of parliamentary discipline creates fertile ground for corruption. Everyone knows that selling one's vote is a very profitable business, although not nearly so profitable now under Vladimir Putin as it was in the good old days when the Duma was continually approving new cabinets and discussing the impeachment of President Boris Yeltsin.
Proportional representation and party lists, moreover, have no meaning if parties cannot or will not control their deputies.
In Germany, from which Russia borrowed these concepts, a p0arty can simply recall a deputy and replace him with someone else from the party list. This allows parties to maintain firm control over their parliamentary factions.
At times, this has led to some curious extremes: Early in its history, the Green Party was so concerned about equality that it implemented a regular "rotation of cadres" in the Bundestag. No sooner had a deputy achieved some success in his new position than he was recalled and replaced with an incompetent novice. And as soon as the new deputy had learned the ropes, he too would come up for rotation.
Even with its obvious excesses, the German system is preferable to the practice of Russian parties, which treat the Duma as nothing more than a pasture where stout herds of free legislators can graze freely and fatten themselves up.
Russian law and parliamentary regulations not only give parties and voters no effective mechanism for recalling deputies, they do not even provide for the punishment of deputies - whether elected directly or via party lists - who decide to change factions.
We're not talking here about a politician's "freedom of choice." We're talking about defrauding the electorate and stealing votes. If my vote helps to elect a communist or a liberal, I have the right to assume that for the next four years he or she will behave - and more importantly, vote - as a communist or a liberal.
Of course, no one in Russia has any grounds for calling himself or herself a citizen, because of the simple fact that we have nothing in this country resembling a civil society.
We are consumers of politics. While it's still early to talk about civil rights in this country, our rights as consumers, at least, should be protected.
Boris Kagarlitsky is a Moscow-based sociologist.
TITLE: Russia's Sports Officials Miss Out on the Gold
TEXT: AFTER the scandals at the Olympics peaked Thursday with the disqualification of the women's 4x5K relay team, President Vladimir Putin weighed in with support for the country's athletes and criticism of the judging.
But aside from questioning the judges' impartiality, Putin said he was surprised by the "passive position" of Russian sports officials, and telephoned Salt Lake City to scold them.
The president had a good point.
Russian media tore into Russia's Olympic Committee and its representatives on the IOC for failing to lodge protests about perceived injustices prior to Thursday's disqualification, which was too outrageous to ignore.
One of the most frequently heard complaints concerned the complacent acceptance of the decision to award two sets of gold medals in the pairs' figure-skating competition. The Russians attended a second awards ceremony where they were forced to share first place with the Canadian pair.
"Russia's athletes felt the support of our Olympic committee only after undergoing much humiliation," RTR's Vesti said Sunday. "The committee was silent too long. And its disagreements with the judges ... seemed more ritual than substance."
That's certainly the way it looked when, in the heat of the scandal, IOC chief Jacques Rogge visited Russia House to meet with top officials. Instead of finding himself at tense, serious talks, Rogge was greeted by a grinning Leonid Tyagachyov, Russia's Olympic chief, who welcomed the important guest with typical Soviet-era sycophancy, calling his arrival a "cause for celebration." Needless to say, the meeting yielded no significant results.
Ultimately, the main victims were the athletes. In one move, the ski-jumping team was sent home early after performing poorly in its first event. Not quite a morale-booster for the beleaguered Olympians.
Tyagachyov and his colleagues tried to cover up their inaction with vitriol. Especially after their dressing down from Putin, they let loose the angry rhetoric, frothing at the mouth about "evil" and "injustice."
But instead of focusing on serious concerns that warranted investigation, such as the handling of drug tests for skier Larisa Lazutina and biathlonist Pavel Rostovtsev, the officials ranted on about everything - including losses that had more to do with poor coaching than biased judging, like the heart-wrenching defeat by the U.S. hockey team.
It would have been much wiser to address concerns formally and consistently from the very beginning. This might not have netted more gold medals, but at least the legitimate grievances of Russia's athletes would not have been undermined by the belated soapbox histrionics of their bureaucratic bosses.
This comment appeared as an editorial in The Moscow Times on Feb. 26.
TITLE: a festival 'to agitate souls'
AUTHOR: by Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: St. Petersburg's balletophiles are eagerly anticipating a 10-day visual spectacular, as the Mariinsky Theater's Second International Ballet Festival opens next week, determing to build upon the impressive success enjoyed by last year's debut. The festival runs from March 9 through March 18.
The festival - which came into being thanks to the efforts of indefatigable maestro and Mariinsky Artistic Director Valery Gergiev - strives, as Gergiev puts it, "to agitate souls." Primarily it is designed as a means to enable Russian audiences to see Western ballet stars, but it also showcases the best of the theater's own considerable talent. It also provides a counterweight to Gergiev's other brainchild, the "Stars of the White Nights" festival, which runs every June and is almost entirely devoted to opera and symphonic and chamber music.
This year's festival kicks off March 9, with Alexei Ratmansky's version of Sergei Prokofiev's 1945 ballet, "Cinderella." This is undoubtedly the most tantalizing item on the festival's menu. In the context of contemporary choreography, the name of Ratmansky - currently a soloist at the Danish Royal Ballet - is the only one of which Russia can boast.
Ratmansky - whose productions are frequently described as "intellectual choreography" - has worked with the Mariinsky before, staging "Poem of Ecstase," "Middle Duet," and "Doll Fairy" for the company in 1998, as well as choreographing "Dreams About Japan" and "Capriccio" for Moscow's Bolshoi Theater in 1997.
He was initially the preferred candidate to stage Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker" in tandem with cult artist Mikhail Shemyakin, but that version of the project did not come to fruition.
Like last year, the list of international stars appearing at the festival is impressive, featuring a number of foreign draws alongside such Mariinsky favorites as Andrian Fadeyev, Diana Vishnyova, Farukh Ruzimatov and Svetlana Zakharova. However, Ulyana Lopatkina will not be taking part as she is expecting a child.
Whereas the choreography in last year's event highlighted the glories of the imperial ballet and was heavily dominated by the venerable Marius Petipa, this year's festival provides much more stylistic variety, with works by Michel Fokine, George Balanchine, Leonid Lavrovsky, Kenneth MacMillan and John Neumeier.
March 13 sees the American Ballet Theater's Vladimir Malakhov - a graduate of the Bolshoi Ballet School and a former principal at the Moscow Classical Ballet - perform in MacMillan's "Manon." Also from ABT, Ethan Stiefel - whose refined performance of Balanchine's "Apollo" was one of the highlights of last year's festival - will dance as part of a Balanchine evening on March 15.
Malakhov will also dance with Vishnyova on March 10 in a Michel Fokine evening. The pair have danced here together before, forming a beautifully smooth duo and winning a deserved ovation for their breathtakingly dramatic performance of "Giselle" - plus a fragment from "Manon" - during last year's festival.
Five principals from the renowned Opera de Paris are also appearing at the festival: Nicolas Le Riche will dance with Svetlana Zakharova in Petipa's "Le Corsaire" on March 12, while Agnes Letestu and Jose Martinez will perform another Petipa masterpiece, "Swan Lake" on March 14. Furthermore, Manuel Legris will join Zhanna Ayupova in Leonid Lavrovsky's "Romeo and Juliet" on March 16, and Jean-Guillaume Bart will appear in both the Fokine and Balanchine evenings.
During the festival, the Mariinsky's own troupe will, on March 11, be showing off its latest "The Nutcracker" - which has sumptuous and sophisticated sets by Shemyakin - and a John Neumeier evening on March 17. One of the three one-act ballets on the latter program - "The Sounds of Empty Pages" - was created especially for the Mariinsky. Both the latest "The Nutcracker" and the Neumeier evening have received nominations for Russia's highest theatrical honor, the "Golden Mask" award.
The guest performers will also be featured at the grandiose gala on March 18 that closes the festival.
For ticket information, call the Mariinsky ticket office. Tel: 114-4344. Links: http://www.mariinsky.ru.
TITLE: the imperial russian panderers?
AUTHOR: by Gulyara Sadykh-zade
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The Imperial Russian Ballet was created eight years ago by Gediminas Taranda especially to participate in jubilee celebrations honoring Maya Plisetskaya. Since that time, the great ballerina has taken the troupe under her wing, and signs promoting the company in Moscow describe the one-time prima donna as "the president of the Imperial Ballet."
Moreover, if one looks carefully at the program for the company's Evening of Ballet, one can easily detect Plisetskaya's influence. In her day, Plisetskaya shone in many of these pieces - "The Swan," "Carmen," "Bolero." When this program was presented in Moscow, the company teased audiences in with posters highlighting Mariinsky Theater soloist Farukh Ruzimatov. However, this lure was less tempting when the company came to St. Petersburg, since audiences here can regularly see Ruzimatov dance in the far more distinguished environment of the Mariinsky.
The program that the company presented in two shows at the Opera Studio Conservatory was constructed on the foolproof principle of trying to appeal to the widest and least discriminating audience possible. As a result, it featured bright, short numbers to music by Saint-Saens and Bizet; lively Argentinean and Russian six-person dances with scarves flying about the stage; the ritualistic shuddering of pagan priests; and the broad skirts of Ravel's "Bolero." The only element of variety came in the form of the profound "Totem," set to music by Vyacheslav Artemov.
The program came to its apotheosis with Tchaikovsky's "Capriccio," in which the characters from all the previous numbers floated among ballerinas in white tunics.
But the evening began with "Sheherezade," the famous staging by Michel Fokine based on music by Rimsky-Korsakov. This naturally gave local audiences the chance to compare the work with the staging currently being presented in a far more ambitious and precise version at the Mariinsky. With its oriental odalisques, the whirlwinds of the slave dances, the orgy, and the pitiless "carnage in the harem" - when Shakhriyar forces his beloved Zobeida into the arms of the Golden Slave - this ballet is full of seething colors and unbridled energy, as well as exotic details and seething passions.
However, in the Imperial's version, Fokine's brilliant choreography was muted, seeming to verge on becoming a parody of itself. The impression of seeing a surrogate or an imitation was reinforced by the faded sets, the overacting of Yevnukh, the broad-shouldered and massive Shakhriyar (Gediminas Taranda), and the blonde and inaccessible Zobeida (Irina Surneva). It was cubic zirconium being passed off as a diamond.
However, the real disappointment of the program came after the intermission. Here, the choreographic works of the imperial ballet master Nikolai Androsov were interrupted by the Adagietto based on music by Mahler and choreographed by Maurice Bejart. This is one of the most expressive and densely constructed of Bejart's works, full of outstanding dance monologues, and it was created especially for the ballet master's favorite dancer, Khorkhe Donna.
In Ruzimatov's rendition, though, the piece seemed a mechanistic exercise, carried out with the care and precision of an animated mannequin. Not a single movement was animated by a genuine emotion. It seemed as if the dancer had grasped only the outer shell of the dance, tracing the outlines of Bejart's piece while ignoring as extraneous its profound underpinnings. Gone was the wrenching, self-abasing conversation between two parts of a soul being torn apart, a dialogue that is at times fully narcissistic and at others painfully suffused with self-doubt and the fear of death.
Ruzimatov next took the stage in the role of an Argentinean gaucho. As Taranda and Mikhailov amiably tapped their boots and flapped their wide breeches, Ruzimatov suddenly appeared in a tight leotard. Having performed a pair of completely incongruous leaps and turns that were taken from the dictionary of classical ballet - and therefore completely out of place in the wilds of Argentina - Ruzimatov acknowledged the applause of the naïve audience and left the stage, clearly satisfied with himself. After all, what does it matter if the integrity of a piece is destroyed by a few classical stunts done simply to please the crowd?
In the end, I decided to pass on the troupe's second appearance in town, at which it premiered a full-length, two-act ballet. I thought to myself, "Why should I spoil my mood and try my nerves when the essence of the Imperial Russian Ballet is already clear?" The company's level is appropriate only for the stage of some isolated rural village - and then only if that village doesn't have its own local amateur troupe.
TITLE: chernov's choice
TEXT: Deadushki, the popular local electronic band, is putting together something called Industry of Sound, a festival of independent experimental music that will take place at Red Club on March 7.
The all-night event will include Deadushki, Theodor Bastard, Zhelezny Klyk, Kokteil Bromtona, Dubsinth and Finland's Cleaning Women.
According to Deadushki's Alexei Rakhov, who combines musicianship with work as Red Club's co-promoter, the festival sprang up "by accident."
"We toured Finland [last year], and Cleaning Women are our friends, we stayed at their apartment there and decided to do a joint concert," he said this week. "On the other hand, local electronic musicians have been asking me to promote a sort of a festival, so all this came together."
According to Rakhov, the bar upstairs will host the noisier stuff, while more rock-related bands will play in the downstairs concert hall. The two stages will be used in turns: while a band is playing on one stage, another band will be setting up on the other.
Cleaning Women attract attention for the originality of their stage act, if not for their music. Band members dress, well, like cleaning women and perform on clothes driers with sensors attached. The result is listenable, even danceable, electronic music.
In addition to music, the event will feature a screening of "Mad Meat," a short film that uses Deadushki's 2001 album "PoRno" as its soundtrack.
Entrance fee will be 120 rubles.
Deadushki members Rakhov and Viktor Sologub both played with Stranniye Igry (Strange Games) and are now considering a possible revival of this seminal 1980s local band - the first ever to combine the ska style of British bands such as Madness with the Russian language.
Both of Stranniye Igry's original albums are going to be re-released as a single CD. Live recordings made at one of the band's reunion concerts in the 1990s are expected to appear as well.
Bigger, more established festivals will follow in April.
SKIF 6, the Sergei Kuryokhin International Festival - dedicated to the late local pianist - will take place at LDM from April 25 to 28. Traditionally, it blends diverse music genres - improvised music, rock and world music - and includes some unconventional theatrical performances (Derevo this year).
The festival's tentative lineup features the famous American guitarist Eugene Chadbourne, Germany's Peter Brotzmann, Britain's Songdog, Hungary's Kampec Dolorez, Israel-based pianist Slava Ganelin and dozens more.
For a more complete list check the festival promoter's Web site at http://republikavega.narod.ru.
In a more traditional vein, the sixth Fuzz Awards ceremony and concert has been scheduled to take place at Yubileiny Sports Palace on Apr. 19.
The seven acts to perform are Zemfira, Korol i Shut, Pilot, Total, 7B, Babslei and Butch. Special guests will include Leningrad's Sergei Shnurov, Splean's Alexander Vasilyev and Mashina Vremeni's Andrei Makarevich.
According to the editor of Fuzz magazine, Alexander Dolgov, the list is based on both critics' polls and the "current situation."
"It's clear that audiences are now mostly interested in Zemfira, Korol i Shut and Leningrad," he said. "So they all are on the bill."
Tickets cost 200, 250 and 300 and will be available in mid-March.
- by Sergey Chernov
TITLE: a veritable culinary treasure trove
AUTHOR: by Peter Morley
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: This week's insightful glance at the world of St. Petersburg dining was supposed to be written by our Canadian deputy editor, but he was so overcome after his great nation won some sort of ice-hockey something (he wasn't very articulate), that he cried off like a big baby, leaving muggins here to pick up the pieces.
So I and my hastily found dining companion - let's call him Shirc - had to find somewhere to review, fast, and where better to start than Liteiny Bridge? Okay, not the bridge, but we exited a car somewhere near the Bolshoi Dom, which is near enough.
Having rejected a couple of places, one for being too meat-based (one of us is a pseudo-vegetarian) and another of which was about to close and looked too boring, I was just about to pass out from hunger when Shirc suggested Sunduk, a place he knows near Cher ny shevskaya metro station.
One thing that I had discovered on my previous Petersburg sojourns is the plethora of decent, cozy little cafes in many neighborhoods. Since I hail from the culinary diaspora that is Britain, you can imagine how welcome it was for me to be able to walk in off the street and know more or less what I was going to get, instead of decoding a linguistic smorgasbord only to find that what I had ordered was goat's brains in a raspberry coulis.
The point is that some cafes - I suspect this movement has been inspired by the guidebook-ubiquitous Idiot - are now lifting themselves out of this all-encompassing bracket, and have begun to be noticed beyond their own locality, even making it onto the lists of visiting foreigners.
Sunduk fits - or at least should - into this category. It has enough quirks and individuality to elevate it above the mundane, and this is immediately apparent on entering. Sunduk means "trunk" or "chest," and the place presents itself as a veritable treasure-trove of bric-a-brac and assorted randomalia. Next to our table was a stage dummy, which looked straight out of a pantomime.
The fodder can be summed up in three words: good, copious, affordable. We both went for the salad-main combination, with liquid refreshment courtesy of Sokol at 50 rubles ($1.62). The salads were both plentiful and, pleasingly, were not smothered in mayonnaise, as is too often the case. The menu (a typographer's nightmare, but let that pass) claimed that my stary lesnik, at 60 rubles ($1.95) contained Danish blue cheese and indeed the salad did have blue cheese, although its Danishness was impossible to verify. Shirc's pikantny salad, at 70 rubles ($2.27) was, as he put it, a predictable but fine concoction of tongue, ham and assorted veg.
After we had devoured these, accompanied with some excellent, light brown bread (another novelty), the mains arrived. For 155 rubles ($5.03), I had sturgeon po-moskovsky, which meant it came with a mushroom-and-cheese topping, plus potatoes, with some fresh green beans (30 rubles, $0.99). The sturgeon was generally fine, although a bit overcooked in places, and left me wondering why more places don't serve it. Shirc plumped for the pork montekristo at 190 rubles ($6.16), which was stuffed with mushrooms and wrapped in bacon. The pork was lean and tasty and there was lots of it.
Shirc also had a side order of cauliflower (40 rubles, $1.30). The novelty of properly cooked vegetables as a side order was also impressive, and in toto the food was very well received.
Another plus point was the efficient service. And it's not every restaurant where the waitress strikes up a conversation with you about the bars you both hang out in.
Aside from the cheese, only one thing grated (sorry) about Sunduk: the 50-ruble extra per person for the live music. Then again, if hearing a Russian try to sing "Hotel California" in English, only to give up one line into the second verse, doesn't float your boat, then I guess there really is no pleasing you.
Sunduk. 42 Furshtatskaya Ul. Open weekdays 10 a.m. to 11 p.m.; weekends 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Dinner for two with alcohol and music, 750 rubles ($24.32). Menu in Russian and English. No credit cards.
TITLE: Israel Attacks Refugee Camps
AUTHOR: By Mohammed Daraghmeh
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NABLUS, West Bank - Backed by tanks and helicopter gunships, Israeli troops launched a major assault on two West Bank refugee camps Thursday, a first in 17 months of fighting. Nine Palestinians and an Israeli soldier were killed in heavy gun battles, and more than 90 Palestinians were wounded, doctors said.
The military said the Balata and Jenin camps were strongholds of Palestinian militants, and that Thursday's operation was intended to show that "there is no refuge for terror." A militia leader said his men would die rather than surrender.
The fighting came just hours after Saudi Arabia presented its new peace initiative at a world forum for the first time. Under the proposal, the Arab world would make peace with Israel in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal from the territories it occupied in the 1967 Mideast war.
Also late Wednesday, a Palestinian woman with an explosives belt blew herself up near an Israeli checkpoint. Dareen Abu Aisheh, a 21-year-old English literature student at An Najah University in the West Bank town of Nablus, was the second woman to do that since the fighting began in September 2000. Three Israeli policeofficers as well as two Palestinians who were in a car with Abu Aisheh were hurt in the incident.
Thursday's clashes brought the number of deaths on the Palestinian side in the past 17 months to 1,006. On the Israeli side, 288 people have been killed.
Israeli troops have repeatedly entered Palestinian towns and villages, but have largely stayed out of the 27 refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, many of them strongholds of militants.
Tanks cannot enter the narrow alleys of the crowded camps, and the military has not sent in large ground forces, apparently to avoid Israeli casualties. Referring to the gunmen's boasting that Israeli soldiers would not dare enter the camps, the army said in a statement that until Thursday's operation, "the terror organizations saw these refugee camps as a safe haven from the Israeli security forces."
Early Thursday, dozens of Israeli tanks surrounded the camp, and helicopter gunships flew overhead. Gunmen patrolling the outskirts of Balata alerted each other by mobile phones and began firing at the Israeli forces.
Israeli troops fired heavy machine guns from the tanks and helicopters, and at least two Israeli missiles hit Balata, plunging it into darkness.
Gunman Mohannad Sharaya, 23, said that at one point, he and six militiamen were seeking cover in an alley when Israeli troops from a hilltop post overlooking the camp aimed a laser beam at the group to guide their fire. Militiamen set off dozens of homemade bombs during the fighting.
Fighting in Balata continued throughout the morning. Three Palestinians - two gunmen and a civilian - and an Israeli soldier were killed. Palestinian doctors said more than 85 people were wounded in Balata, a majority of them gunmen.
Israeli tanks also entered the West Bank town of Jenin from three directions, Palestinians said, surrounding the refugee camp at the western edge of the town.
Palestinians said six Palestinian policemen were killed in exchanges of fire, and eight people were wounded, including several civilians. In one incident, fighting erupted outside the home of the Jenin police chief. Two of the chief's guards and his 24-year-old son were killed, witnesses said.
Ahmed Abdel Rahman, an adviser to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, accused Israel of trying to destroy hopes for peace. Asked about Israel's charge that the camps are strongholds of militants, Abdel Rahman said: "We cannot prevent the Palestinians from defending themselves and their land as long as there is occupation."
Israeli and Palestinian security commanders met Thursday to consider the situation in the Gaza Strip, said Gaza police chief Brigadier General Abdel Razek Majaidie.
On Tuesday, the security chiefs had a stormy meeting, trading demands and charges. The Palestinians asked the Israelis for a timetable for lifting the many roadblocks in the West Bank and Gaza, imposed shortly after the violence began. Israel told the Palestinians that they must dismantle the Fatah militias.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia raised its Middle East peace initiative for the first time in a world forum Wednesday night, while accusing Israel of "systematic terrorism" and trying to expel the Palestinians. Israel expressed disappointment, saying it had hoped for peaceful words-not confrontational language.
Saudi Arabia's UN Ambassador Fawzi Shobokshi was a late addition to speakers at a two-day open meeting of the UN Security Council on the Mideast, and his address was eagerly awaited because of the attention focused on Crown Prince Abdullah's proposal, floated in Saudi and American media this month.
TITLE: WORLD WATCH
TEXT: U.S. Admits Deaths
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - At least 15,000 cancer deaths in the United States were probably caused by radioactive fallout from Cold War nuclear-weapons tests worldwide, according to portions of a government study made public by USA Today.
The Health and Human Services Department study, which has not been published yet, also suggested 20,000 nonfatal cancers among U.S. residents born after 1951 could be linked to fallout from aboveground weapons tests, the paper said on Thursday.
USA Today said the study showed far more fallout than previously known reached the United States from nuclear tests done in the former Soviet Union and on several Pacific Islands by the United States and Britain.
Fallout from U.S. tests in Nevada also spread substantial amounts of radioactivity across a broad band of the country, the paper said.
When fallout from all domestic and foreign tests was combined, no U.S. resident born after 1951 escaped exposure, according to the study.
The estimates on radiation dispersal were based on complex computer analyses of weather patterns, population trends and other data that can gauge public exposure to fallout from aboveground nuclear tests, the paper said.
USA Today said data in the study showed global fallout blanketed much of the United States with heavy pockets in Iowa, Tennessee, California, Oregon, Washington and Idaho. Fallout from Nevada tests settled more in states such as Utah, Idaho, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri.
Prisoners on Strike
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) - More than a third of the detainees being held at this remote military outpost refused to eat their breakfasts Thursday, telling their captors their hunger strike was prompted by two guards who stripped an inmate of his turban during prayer.
A small number of inmates refused both lunch and dinner on Wednesday and more than a third declined breakfast Thursday, said Marine Major Step hen Cox, a spokesperson for the detention mission at Guantanamo. "The detainees informed the duty officer that the refusal to eat is in response to an incident that took place regarding a detainee two days ago on Tuesday," Cox said.
The detainee had fashioned a turban out of a sheet and was wearing it on his head during prayer. Two military guards ordered the inmate to remove the turban, but the inmate ignored the order, Cox said. When a translator made the same order, the inmate still refused. The two guards shackled the man and then stripped him of his turban. "The two guards followed the proper procedures," Cox said.
It wasn't immediately clear why the guards decided the turban had to come off; detainees have often been seen wearing their white towels on their heads.
The military says the 300 prisoners being held here are fighters of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network and the deposed Afghan Taliban regime that harbored it.
Since the prisoners arrived at this U.S. naval base in southeastern Cuba last month, officials have said the men pose a danger not only to the troops, but also to themselves.
TITLE: Kafelnikov Through To Quarters In Dubai
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Second-seeded Yevgeny Kafelnikov of Russia advanced to the quarterfinals of the Dubai Open on Wednesday after an hour-long second set, beating Sjeng Schalken of the Netherlands 6-1, 7-6.
"He is a tough opponent who will not give you many free points. I toughed it out, fought hard and was able to win the game," Kafelnikov said.
Kafelnikov cruised to a comfortable one-set lead in 26 minutes, but was broken in the second and fourth games of the second set. The Russian broke Schalken in the third and seventh.
In Acapulco, Mexico, Kafelnikov's compatriot Anna Kournikova, still seeking her first WTA Tour title, beat Italy's Tathiana Garbin 6-1, 6-2 on Wednesday in the second round of the Abierto Mexicano Pegaso tournament.
Top-seeded Yelena Dementieva of Russia also advanced, beating Argen tina's Maria Emilia Salerni 7-6, 6-7, 6-1.
In Scottsdale, Arizona, with her right ankle taped as a painful reminder, Serena Williams came away from her opening match at the State Farm Women's Tennis Classic unhappy with everything but the outcome, a comfortable 6-3, 6-3 win over qualfier Alina Jidkova on Wednesday night.
Williams, seeded third, served 10 aces, including a 184-kilometer-per-hour winner on set point in the first set. Jidkova broke Williams in the second set for a 3-3 tie and led 40-15 in the seventh. But Williams broke back and broke through again in the ninth game, winning the match with a forehand pass after Jidkova rushed to the net to get a drop shot.
Williams acknowledged feeling rusty and said she would spend Thursday working to improve her game before playing Nicole Pratt in the quarterfinals Friday.
"She wasn't really good at reaching out wide," Williams said. "She was good at moving the ball around and changing up the pace. She was really good at that, so I think I should have made a few more aces."
In San Jose, California, Lleyton Hewitt took his first step back since a first-round loss in the Australian Open with a 6-2, 3-6, 6-2 victory over France's Michael Llodra on Wednesday night in the Siebel Open.
Hewitt, the top seed, started the year with a serious case of chicken pox, which drained him. It showed when he struggled in the second set, but overall, Hewitt was faster and more agile than the hard-serving Llodra.
The 21-year-old Australian ultimately took the match by breaking Llodra, who overhit a return on match point. Hewitt only recently started playing again after his illness and disappointing showing in Melbourne.
"It more just hits you on the energy side - and I think everyone saw that at the Australian Open," Hewitt said about his chicken pox. "If it wasn't a Grand Slam, I wouldn't have been out there."
Third-seeded Andy Roddick defeated fellow American Robby Ginepri 6-4, 6-4 in the late match, in the process hitting a second-set serve clocked at 228 kilometers per hour.
TITLE: Garnett's 33 Helps Minnesota Past Lakers
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MINNEAPOLIS - Considering they have nearly identical records, the Minnesota Timberwolves should have no reason to be afraid of the L.A. Lakers.
The 'Wolves showed their mettle Wednesday night by beating the Lakers 112-101 behind Kevin Garnett's 33 points and 30 from Chauncey Billups, including seven straight 3-point shots.
Billups was motivated by Lakers coach Phil Jackson's statement before the game that the 'Wolves had a look of fear when they played the NBA's two-time defending champions.
"That's a little disrespectful for him to say that," Billups said. "This is basketball. You don't fear anybody. We respect that team, but we don't fear anyone in this league."
With the third-most victories in the league and a 39-18 record, Minnesota has every right to feel confident. When the Timberwolves get such a strong inside-outside game, they can handle anyone. Including the Lakers.
Billups, who also had 11 assists, nailed two 3-pointers in the fourth quarter to keep the Lakers from fighting back and extending their four-game winning streak.
Shaquille O'Neal led Los Angeles with 27 points, while Kobe Bryant was held to 20. The Lakers were visibly frustrated by the Wolves' defense, which held L.A. to 45.8 percent from the field.
"When we don't have our legs, we have to lean on our execution to get open looks," Bryant said. "We missed some open shots."
Trail Blazers 105, Wizards 101. Rasheed Wallace had 22 points and 14 rebounds as Portland pulled away with a 12-2 run in the fourth quarter against the Wizards. The Blazers have won seven straight.
Jahidi White was sidelined with a strained left shoulder, and backup center Brendan Haywood sat out with a sore left knee. Richard Hamilton scored 31 points for the Wizards, who are 1-8 since the All-Star break.
(For other results, see Scorecard)
TITLE: Kings' New Line Too Much for Penguins
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: PITTSBURGH - Jason Allison had a goal and two assists on Los Angeles' newly formed top line, and the Kings extended Pittsburgh's winless streak to eight games on Wednesday.
Allison and new linemates Adam Deadmarsh and Ziggy Palffy combined for six points after getting 10 the night before in a 5-1 victory at Columbus. Deadmarsh had a goal and an assist, and Palffy had one assist.
Janne Laukkanen scored twice on goals set up by Mario Lemieux, but the Penguins remained winless (0-5-1-2) since beating Atlanta on Jan. 26. Lemieux, playing in his first game since helping Canada win the Olympic gold medal, became the seventh NHL player with 1,600 points when he assisted on Laukkanen's first goal. He is fourth among active players with 1,601 points, trailing Mark Messier, Ron Francis and Steve Yzerman. Wayne Gretzky is thecareer leader with 2,857 points.
Goalies John Vanbiesbrouck and Roberto Luongo both played well before allowing just one goal too many.
New Jersey's Vanbiesbrouck played his first game since coming out of retirement Feb. 4, but the Devils lost 1-0 to the Eastern Conference-leading Philadelphia Flyers.
Vanbiesbrouck made 31 saves, but couldn't stop Simon Gagne, who scored at 7:59 of the second period.
In Florida, Luongo made 57 saves, yet his Panthers lost 3-2 to Detroit when Brett Hull scored on his 10th shot of the game with 0:48.5 left in overtime.
After the goal, Luongo was facedown on the ice for a few seconds while Detroit celebrated.
"What are you going to do?" Luongo asked. "It's a learning process. One day, it will pay off."
Luongo broke the franchise record for saves set by Vanbiesbrouck, who made 51 saves for Florida on Jan. 3, 1994.
Apparently, Vanbiesbrouck still has his skills.
"It was one of the better performances I've seen out of a goaltender this season," Philly's Jeremy Roenick said. "He should be commended for coming back and focusing. He showed his competitiveness by the way he played. He was fantastic."
Vanbiesbrouck's last game in net for the Devils was April 22 in a 4-3 win over Chicago. He did not see any action in the playoffs and retired after New Jersey lost Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final.
"I never questioned myself," Vanbiesbrouck said. "If I questioned myself, I never would have done this. I was confident."
When Philly's John LeClair was stymied twice in the third period, he threw his hands up, wondering what he had to do to score.
"I congratulated him," LeClair said. "He looked real sharp. He had a tremendous game. I know I could have had three or four."
Gagne beat Vanbiesbrouck with a shot between the pads.
"I still don't know how he slipped it in there," Vanbiesbrouck said. "It hit my stick, the inside of my pad."
Hull and the Red Wings were also impressed with Luongo, who frustrated them all night. "This is probably the best goaltending we've had against us this year," coach Scotty Bowman said.
Hull hit the post in the second period and was robbed by Luongo twice in the third. But Hull tried to play it cool - at one point respectfully tapping on Luongo's pads.
"That's the only one that was going in for me," Hull said of his game-winner. "It's frustrating to have all of those chances, but you can't let it show."
The last goalie to make 57 saves was Jeff Hackett, currently a backup goalie for Montreal. Hackett accomplished the feat while he was with San Jose in a 7-2 win over Los Angeles on Dec. 26, 1992.
(For other results, see Scorecard)
TITLE: SPORTS WATCH
TEXT: Olympics Rumble On
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's Olympic Committee head Kim Un-yong resigned on Thursday over a speed-skating controversy at the Winter Olympics, in which a Korean skater was disqualified from a gold medal, YTN television news reported.
The cable news network gave no details and did not say whether Kim would also quit as South Korea's delegate to the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
A week ago, Korea's Kim Dong-sung crossed the line first in the 1,500M men's short-track final, but was disqualified for impeding U.S. skater Apolo Anton Ohno. Ohno got the gold medal and the United States Olympic Committee got a deluge of e-mail threats from Koreans. South Korea's appeal of Kim Dong-sung's disqualification was rejected.
South Korean media, politicians and fans condemned Kim Un-yung for overruling the South Korean delegation's threat to boycott the Salt Lake City closing ceremony in protest.
Another Asset Gone
HOUSTON (AP) - The Houston Astros agreed to buy back the rights to the name of "Enron Field" and will call their ballpark "Astros Field" until a new sponsor can be found.
The team will pay $2.1 million for the naming rights, which Enron agreed to buy for $100 million over 30 years in 1999. Despite its bankruptcy filing in December, the financially beleaguered energy company was current on its ballpark payments through Aug. 31.
"Its time to move forward," Astros owner Drayton McLane Jr. said Wed nesday. "I am very happy that we have been able to reach this settlement and put this issue behind us."
At least seven companies with Houston ties have expressed interest in naming rights to the ballpark, McLane said. He said he hopes to reach a new agreement within two months.
Earlier this month, the Astros told the bankruptcy court that continuing to play at a ballpark named Enron Field was hurting the team because notoriety stemming from Enron's collapse and subsequent accounting scandal.
"Because the Enron name blankets the stadium, thousands of people who have been adversely affected by the Enron collapse are being reminded on a daily basis of this continuing tragedy," the team wrote in its Feb. 5 filing to the court handling Enron's bankruptcy case.
Enron declined to comment.
Jordan Has Surgery
WASHINGTON (AP) - Michael Jordan had surgery for the first time in his career Wednesday morning. Team physician Dr. Stephen Haas found and repaired torn cartilage in the 39-year-old forward's right knee, an injury Haas said was the result of normal wear and tear for an athlete of Jordan's caliber.
Jordan was placed on the injured list Tuesday, which requires him to miss a minimum of five games, including Wednesday night at home against Portland and home and away games against his former team, the Chicago Bulls.
Jordan turned the Wizards into one of the NBA's surprise success stories during the first half of the season, putting the team in position to make the playoffs for the first time since 1997.
But the Wizards (27-29) lost 105-101 to Portland, their sixth straight loss and eighth in nine games since the All-Star break. Jordan is averaging 24 points, five assists and 37 minutes - all team-highs that are hard to replace.
The knee was one of several injuries Jordan had to overcome when he began his comeback workouts a year ago. The injury initially was diagnosed as tendinitis, and he had fluid drained from the knee at least three times, most recently before a game in Miami on Saturday.