SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #773 (39), Friday, May 31, 2002
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TITLE: City Girl on Top of the Universe
AUTHOR: By Oksana Yablokova and Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: She's well-versed in weapons and hand-to-hand combat.
She's charming, loves Dostoevsky, orchids and dogs, and knows how to keep state secrets.
Oh, and she's the most beautiful woman in the world.
Oksana Fyodorova, 24, was crowned Miss Universe at a glitzy ceremony in San Juan, Puerto Rico on Wednesday, sweeping away 74 other contestants to become the first Russian to win the title.
The dark-haired, green-eyed St. Petersburger is also probably the first Miss Universe who's a ranking police lieutenant, with six months of detective experience under her belt.
Fyodorova, wearing a flowing white evening dress, made the pageant crowd roar Wednesday night when she was asked the final question: "What makes you blush?"
"When I say the wrong things!" Fyodorova replied.
Many of the other contestants said they didn't blush.
The 1.80-meter-tall Fyodorova was the only European among the five finalists at the pageant. The others were from Panama, China, South Africa and Venezuela.
She wins $250,000 in cash, as well as promotional contracts and a scholarship to the School for Film and Television in New York, where she gets a luxury riverside apartment for a year.
"I feel good. I haven't been this happy in a long time," she said in Russian at a news conference afterward, according to The Associated Press. "I am completely shocked. This is the first time my country has ever won."
Russian Yulia Kurochkina won the competing Miss World contest in 1991.
Fyodorova, a postgraduate student in civil law, already holds the title of Miss Russia 2001 and Miss St. Petersburg 1999. When she won the Miss Russia title, Russian television showed her in a drab green police uniform standing beside a giant portrait of President Vladimir Putin in her office. But she insists she has no connections to the president.
She said at the pageant that she has a 38-year-old boyfriend named Vladimir.
Fyodorova's win led television news programs throughout the day Thursday. On NTV, Vladimir Salnikov, head of the Interior Ministry University, proudly read excerpts from her school records: "Physically in good condition. Knows the rules for maintaining and firing weapons. ... Knows how to keep state secrets."
He boasted about her speed at taking apart and assembling a Kalashnikov assault rifle on RTR.
"All her students liked her," Yevgeny Protsenko, head of the civil law department where Fyodorova studies at the St. Petersburg Police Academy, said in an interview. "We had big hopes for her victory, because she is such a purposeful, persistent and charming girl."
He said Fyodorova is writing her dissertation on regulating privacy and security activities.
"I cannot say that her victory was unexpected. We believed in her," he added. "But on the other hand, it must have been tough competing with 74 countries."
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was the only politician to comment publicly on Fyodorova's victory.
"I welcome this. I was not surprised that a Russian won that contest," he said in London, where he was attending a conference on the weightier subject of capital flight and money laundering.
"Russians can win in all kinds of competitions, starting with mathematics and the Olympics, with young boys and girls, and all the way to beauty contests," he said, according to local news reports.
Fyodorova, an only child raised by her mother, was born in Pskov and moved to St. Petersburg at the age of 18.
She said in an interview last year that she feels most at home in the imperial capital.
"My grandparents lived in Leningrad and survived the blockade here," she said. "I think a genie cast his spell on me when I came here and I fell in love with this city."
She said she chose a career in law enforcement because it gave her confidence and discipline. She eventually wants to become a lawyer and mother.
"In Russia, a woman should not only be beautiful but also know how to stand up for herself," she said.
Marina Kruglova, vice president of the Miss Russia pageant, said Thursday that Fyodorova's grace and intelligence had helped her steal the judges' hearts.
"She was the most natural of all the girls, who stood on stage like Barbie dolls," she said.
Fyodorova, the 51st Miss Universe, takes the crown from Puerto Rican Denise Quinones.
Oksana Yablokova wrote for this report from Moscow.
TITLE: City Duma Sets Poll Date
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalyev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Ending an almost two-year struggle to chose a date for elections to the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly the Chamber Assembly on Wednesday passed an amendment to the City Charter setting out Dec. 14 as the date for the vote.
The vote brought to an end to an on-and-off-again battle between a group of deputies that supported the December date and another group that wanted the vote to be moved back to April, or even December of next year.
On Wednesday, Legislative Assembly Speaker Sergei Tarasov laid the blame for the stalemate on the Northwestern Presidential Representative's office, which is headed by Victor Cherkesov. Tarasov, who supported the amendment, said Cherkesov's office had put pressure on some lawmakers to block its passage.
"I will go on record as saying that, unfortunately, the Northwestern Presidential Representative's office made a strong effort to try to convince lawmakers not to participate in the voting at all," Tarasov said after the vote. "The United Russia faction, with the exception of one deputy - Arkady Kramaryev - didn't take part in the vote. It's shameful that the leading pro-presidential faction would take such a stanve such a position."
"Despite this, most of the factions supported the amendment for December elections ... . These elections are extremely important for the city's future [and] citizens have the chance to start preparing for the event," he added.
Representatives in Cherkesov's office denied the accusations. "This is just another baseless comment that can't be believed. He didn't mention any names or any specifics of what has been done, so there's absolutely nothing to comment on here," the spokesperson for the Northwestern Presidential Representative's office, Alexei Gutsailo, said on Thursday.
Kramarev, the only United Russia member to cast a vote, wouldn't say whether he had been pressured in relation to his vote. "Voting is such a personal thing, so I'd rather not discuss this," he said on Thursday.
Only 38 of the 50 Legislative Assemblies turned up for the vote on the ammendment, with 34 voting for and 4 abstaining. The Union of Right Forces (SPS) party also boycotted the vote.
Part of the impetus behind the desire of some deputies to move the elections back came as a result of a new Federal election law that will come into force in July of 2003.
According to the law, which was passed by the Federation Counsel on Wednesday, deputies to regional parliaments and local councils will be elected by a two-tier sytem. Under the law, 50 lawmakers in the legislature would have been chosen by district, where they would have had to garner at least 25 percent of the vote, while another 50 would be elected on the basis of proportional representation and party lists. If the elections had been scheduled for after the law came into effect, the number of deputies would have ballooned to 100 and the composition of power in the legislature would have been altered.
"From the point of view of the federal parties, it makes perfect sense to have elections based on the party lists, because it would create a system in which the parliament is more independent from local power. That's what we were trying to do, but it didn't work out," Alexei Kovalyov, an SPS lawmaker, said in a telephone interview on Thursday.
The two-year struggle to settle on the date has involved a number of different government bodies, including the Federal Election Commission. The discussion heated up last autumn, when the St. Petersburg 300 Year Anniversary faction, a pro-Smolny group, filed a draft to hold the elections this April. The draft wasn't passed and, at the end of April, Federation Counsel Speaker Sergei Mironov managed to convince a group of lawmakers to vote for December. Mironov said that holding the elections before the end of the year was vital.
"With the elections taking place in December, it helps avoid a situation where the city could actually have found itself without a legislative branch for a few months" Mironov said at a briefing April on 29, following a closed meeting with the Legislative Assembly lawmakers.
According to the City Charter, the powers of the current Legislative Assembly end on Jan. 6, exactly four years after the assembly's first session, following the 1998 parliamentary elections.
Prior to Mironov's visit, the parties and factions had been almost perfectly divided between those those supporting a date this December and those in favor off one of the two dates next year.
At the April briefing, Mironov said that, if the elections weren't held in December, the deputies' offices at the Legislative Assembly would have been sealed and the city would have lost its seat on the Federation Council. As Mironov occupies that seat himself, there was some urgency to his message.
"Mironov has proved once again that he keeps his word. At the meeting he said his faction would vote for the December date and it did," said Viktor Yevtukhov, a Legislative Assembly lawmaker from the Unity faction.
One political analyst said that the amendment almost didn't pass because of forgetfulness.
"Yevtukhov, who is also an adviser to the governor, made the gesture that decided the issue," said Alexei Musakov, the head of the St. Petersburg Center for Regional Development. "He didn't have his voting key with him and managed to get his vote registered by raising his hand instead. Thirty-three votes wouldn't have been enough to carry the ammendment"
"This was all just a game [run by] the governor's side. [St. Petersburg Governor Vladimir] Yakovlev wanted the election to be held in April this year, but it didn't happen," he said.
Yevtukhov says that the April date would have been his preference as well, and would have lessened the chance of candidates trying to buy their way into the assembly.
"It would have been better if we had had the elections in April of this year, but the United Russia and SPS factions voted against this because they wanted the election system to include party lists," Yevtukhov said in a telephone interview on Thursday. "To get the top positions on these lists costs money - the potential lawmakers' own money," he said.
"Plus, if the governor has a position I agree with him. I'm the governor's adviser," he added.
But not everyone was thrilled that the party-list option had been eliminated.
"To chose a [local] parliament according to party lists is the best way. Now those candidates who finish first in their constituency with only 12 percent of the votes cast still get everything. As for the people who voted for candidates from other parties, they are left without representation," said Boris Vishnevsky, a Yabloko faction member in an interview on Wednesday.
Smolny's stance on the whole question was, perhaps, simplest of all.
"Why are we discussing this question at all, whether the best date is in december or some time else. The law says that lawmakers are elected to a four-year term. If that term is ending, there have to be elections. There's no question here at all," said Alexander Afanasyev, the spokesperson for Yakovlev, in a telephone interview on Thursday.
TITLE: EU Grants Russia New Status
AUTHOR: By Torrey Clark
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The European Union announced Wednesday that it would finally recognize Russia as a market economy, a key victory for President Vladimir Putin in his drive to bring the country into the WTO and the global economy.
But Putin failed to convince European officials at a EU-Russia summit to make concessions over a bitter dispute surrounding Kaliningrad, the Russian enclave that will be sandwiched between EU member states when Poland and Lithuania join the union as early as 2004.
"I am delighted to announce to you today that we are going to grant full market status to Russia," European Commission President Romano Prodi told Putin at the start of the summit. "What we promise, Mr. President, we deliver."
Russia's market-economy status should be finalized by September or October, Prodi said later in the day. "Once the agreement is reached, we can move forward very quickly," he said. Obtaining market status from the EU, Russia's main trading partner, with about 35 percent of total foreign trade, could mean billions of dollars in additional revenues each year for Russian companies.
Putin welcomed Prodi's announcement, but turned much of his attention to the clash over EU travel restrictions on Russians going to and from Kaliningrad. "Without exaggeration, it can be said that our relations between the Europe Union depend" on the outcome of the Kaliningrad visa issue, which "touches the vital interests of Russians," Putin said.
Russia insists on the right of its citizens to travel overland between the region and the rest of Russia without visas. The EU has been equally firm that EU rules requiring Russian citizens to get visas must apply in Poland or Lithuania.
"Such problems exist not only in Kaliningrad, but in other countries," said Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar of Spain, current holder of the EU presidency. He was referring to the problems faced by Latin Americans who have dual citizenship with Spain, but are required to get Schengen visas.
Russia says a visa requirement could harm the regional economy. The European Union worries that Kaliningrad could become a point of entry for illegal aliens from both Russia and other former Soviet republics. It is also concerned about the high HIV rates and criminal activity in the impoverished region, where about 1 million Russians live.
"Now that we have buried the Cold War, it is very difficult to understand such an approach toward Kaliningrad," Putin said, in a reference to the arms treaty he signed with U.S. President George W. Bush on Friday and Russia's entry as a junior partner into NATO on Tuesday.
In the end, the European Union and Russia signed a declaration to continue searching for a resolution, saying it has a "significant meaning" for the development of a strategic partnership. The two sides also signed a declaration on the formation of a common economic space, with compatible rules and standards. Bringing Russia's laws into line will take four to five years, Prodi said.
Putin said he was pleased that the EU and Russia had decided on concrete tasks to resolve ahead of the next summit in Copenhagen in November.
Prodi's promise to give Russia market-economy status - which Moscow has sought for more than 10 years - comes just days after Bush sidestepped the issue at the U.S.-Russia summit. Bush had been expected to announce that the U.S. would grant Russia market-economy status, but instead he said a decision would be made by June 14.
"The Europeans were making a very strong public point that they want to be seen as a more reliable partner to Russia than the U.S.," said Christopher Weafer, head of research at Troika Dialog.
He added, "promising Russia market economy status so publicly, as the intro to the summit, seemed partly designed to diffuse the row over Kaliningrad."
The benefits of gaining market status from the United States or Europe are the same for Russia. Market economy status will give Russia a better standing in numerous trade disputes, in particular, anti-dumping cases. Such so-called discriminatory trade cases cost Russia up to $4 billion per year when one includes indirect costs, said Alexei Portansky, director of the WTO Information Office, a clearinghouse for information on the Russian government's WTO negotiations.
Russia is facing about 120 anti-dumping cases worldwide, the most crucial of which were filed by its major trading partners, Europe and the United States. The 16 anti-dumping cases brought in the EU against Russian goods cost up to $230 million per year, said Deputy Economic Development and Trade Minister Maxim Medvedkov, Interfax reported.
EU officials at a conference Tuesday night stressed that recognition of market-economy status would be contingent on Russia's bringing domestic energy tariffs in line with export prices and eliminating cross-subsidies - a possible hurdle ahead of the date named by Prodi.
Russia is working to comply but needs at least a decade "if we want at the same time to maintain a dynamically developing economy and not have serious social problems," Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref said Tuesday evening.
Once the European Union grants Russia market-economy status, Russia may be able to appeal existing anti-dumping decisions. It is also a significant step toward WTO accession. Government officials have repeatedly said that Russia will join only on standard terms, as a market economy, which would allow it equal trade status and a more level arena for fighting trade battles.
Staff writer Victoria Lavrentieva contributed to this report.
TITLE: Ex-Spy's Wry Side Begins To Shine Through
AUTHOR: By Valeria Korchagina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - For months after President Vladimir Putin came to power, the most often asked question among journalists and pundits seemed to be: "Who is Putin?"
Two years later, at least one of his traits is clear: Putin is a master of dry one-liners - a feature that experts say is typical for a career spy and a sure sign that the once bland-seeming newcomer has become used to being president.
Putin's sense of humor has made hundreds giggle in the past two weeks of high-profile diplomatic events where Moscow has been riding high, including the U.S.-Russia summit, the signing of the Russia-NATO treaty and the European Union-Russia summit this week.
"I see the name of a Mr. Engels from Germany on the list," Putin said on Monday, opening a congress of European audit institutions. "Thank God he came without Marx," he joked - playing on the once sacred names of Communism's founding fathers, Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx, and sending the audience into fits of laughter.
At the NATO meeting in Rome, Putin spooked foreign heads of state by suggesting the alliance's headquarters be renamed House of Soviets, since "soviet" in Russian can mean "council."
There are a number of reasons behind Putin's recent public displays of humor, according to psychologist Konstantin Babkin. Most importantly, after two years, Putin finally feels he is in the right place, doing the right job. That, combined with some image advice and the quick wits of a 15-year KGB veteran, can yield a laugh a minute.
"Their minds are trained to think differently and much faster, to assess a situation and quickly predict the outcome," said Babkin.
Apparently, all intelligence agents have a great sense of humor.
"I have never met a spy who didn't have one," said Maria Arbatova, a writer and psychologist.
During his time in the St. Petersburg mayor's office in the 1990s, Putin earned the reputation of a great joker, Arbatova said. And for years afterward, his staff entertained friends and relatives with "jokes from Putin."
Intelligence veterans confirmed that a sense of humor was one of the most highly valued qualities in their line of work.
"All of us who achieved any prominence in society have a great sense of humor - take Putin or me," said Yury Kobaladze, a retired major general of the Foreign Intelligence Service and formerly a Soviet spy in London.
"It is wrong to think that secret-service staff are all gloomy and stern," he said. "In the England department of the Foreign Intelligence Service, humor was key part of the job."
Regarding Putin, who was a resident in East Germany in the 1980s, Kobaladze said he was pleasantly surprised to see that a man from the Germany department - where "one would expect agents to be more reserved and pedantic" - proved to be such a joker.
Putin's sense of humor is appreciated even by comedians.
The president's jokes are not only funny, but spontaneous, said Gennady Khazanov, one of Russia's most famous stand-up comedians and Putin's long-time friend.
"I have enough expertise to say that 99 percent [of Putin's jokes] are improvisations," Khazanov said.
Khazanov agreed with Babkin that Putin had been reluctant to expose his sense of humor to the general public earlier, most likely because he had not yet adjusted to his presidential status.
"He never planned to become the head of state," Khazanov said. "He never tried to prepare himself for the job."
But once Putin begins to joke, "I always laugh, and I get his jokes much faster than those of some professional comedians," he added.
According to Arbatova, Putin's humor is also an indication of the state of his mental health.
"He is the first normal leader we have since Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev," she said. "Psychologists simply derive pleasure from looking at him. He is normal and that is obvious from the way he moves, he talks, his quick reactions."
Babkin believes that Putin himself is pleased with his ability to deliver a funny line.
"When he jokes, it's the child in him speaking. You can see a spark in his eyes. His facial expressions, or even the way he moves his head, suggest this," Babkin said.
Babkin predicted that, as Putin gradually moves into the presidential campaign for 2004 elections, more of his humorous side would come out.
"When he came to power, for many - including myself - it was totally unclear who he was," Babkin said. "Now the time has come when we are beginning to find out."
TITLE: Governor's Mouthpiece Hit With Libel Suit
AUTHOR: By Claire Bigg
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The Rosbalt news agency has filed a lawsuit for libel against Alexander Afanasyev, the spokesperson for St. Petersburg Governor Vladimir Yakovlev, and local television station Channel 5, representatives of Rosbalt said Thursday.
The charges were filed in connection with comments made by Afanasyev and Channel 5 journalist Yekaterina Dodzina broadcast in a report by the station in May.
According to Rosbalt Editor-in-Chief Tatyana Chesnokova, the report, entitled "The Incomplete Case Against Valery Malyshev," contained wrongful allegations made by Afanasyev and Dodzina, that the news agency "belongs to and serves the interests of the Northwest Region Presidential Representative" and was "intended to discredit city administration officials".
Afanasyev, she said, had accused Rosbalt of political persecution in the case of then-Deputy Governor Valery Malyshev, who was charged with bribery by the Northwest Region Prosecutor General's Office in July of 2001. Malyshev died of a stroke earlier this month. The charge against him has yet to be dropped officially.
Afanasyev maintains that the Northwest Region Prosecutor's Office, which has also filed charges against two other vice governors in Yakovlev's administration, is waging the campaign at the behest of Northwest Region Presidential Representative Viktor Cherkesov. He also says that Rosbalt's coverage of the investigations and charges has been biased, as a result of the influence of the presidential representative. Cherkesov's wife, Natalya Chaplina, heads the agency in the position of author and project manager.
Alexei Gutsailo, Viktov Cherkesov's spokesperson, declined to comment on Thursday, saying that Cherkesov was linked "only to a certain extent" to the news agency.
Chesnokova criticized Afanasyev for casting suspicion on Rosbalt, saying that the news agency's coverage has been unbiased and that Rosbalt "has only reported concrete facts concerning the Malyshev case."
For his part, Afanasyev says that the suit makes no sense to him.
"I can't understand why Rosbalt is offended," he said. "It would be a different matter if I had said it was linked to the Tambov crime organization."
Afanasyev is showing no signs of backing down, and says that he can back up his statements in court if need be.
According to Chesnokova, Afanasyev spoke to Rosbalt's legal expert a few days before the suit was filed and declared that his lawer, Andrei Borobev, "would have no difficulty in winning the case."
"I never just speak at random. If I say something, it means I can prove it," Afanasyev said on Thursday.
The lawsuit, filed with the Kuybishev District Federal Court, demands that Afanasyev and Channel 5 offer public apologies. The suit calls for the apologies to be broadcast on the station the same number of times that the original report was aired. The suit also asks for 1,000 rubles ($32) to cover court costs.
Afanasyev and Channel 5 are not alone in being involved in legal battles with Rosbalt. The agency also recently initiated a federal investigation into the Internet news Web site FLB, which it also accuses of publishing libelous information.
Baltika is one of Rosbalt's shareholders.
TITLE: Experts' Reviews Mixed on Results of International Blitz
AUTHOR: By Gregory Feifer
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Experts gathering on Thursday on the heels of three major international summits said the West's leading policy-making institutions must include Russia in a broad strategic framework if they want to successfully tackle the top global priority: terrorism.
Despite that general consensus, there was stark disagreement on specifics at the two-day conference on Euro-Atlantic integration, organized by the Washington-based Euro-Atlantic Institute of International Integration Studies.
Robert Hunter, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, said Russia had made a "fundamentally important grand strategic decision" to engage with Western institutions since Sept. 11. "That's something we in the West must honor so that the differences of the past will be erased," he said.
Hunter said the nuclear arms reduction treaty signed by presidents Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush and the Rome treaty boosting Russia's cooperation with NATO are steps in the right direction, "opening the perspective on the 21st century."
Sergei Rogov, director of Moscow's USA and Canada Institute, agreed, adding, "Maybe one of the reasons why [integration] failed in the 1990s was that we didn't have a common enemy," he said, speaking about the threat of terrorists.
But the economic agenda should get top priority, he said.
Strobe Talbott, head of Washington's Brookings Institution and Russia policy chief in President Bill Clinton's administration, said the progress made in recent weeks in the Russia-NATO relationship was a continuation of a path established in the 1990s, before the two sides fell out over NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999.
"I've been struck by the amnesia of commentators," he said in a video linkup from Washington. "But I understand the need for the [U.S. and Russian] administrations to emphasize what's new."
Most Russian participants conceded that Russia had no choice but to integrate. Deputy State Duma Speaker Vladimir Lukin, a former ambassador to the United States, said there were "endless debates and very big differences" concerning integration, but that "a choice must be made. My choice is that Russia should be part of a Euro-Atlantic civilization no less than the United States."
Lukin said Russia's decade-long policy of trying to balance U.S. power by advocating a multi-polar world and seeking cooperation with such states as China and Iran had led Russia nowhere. But Lukin went on to question some of the Western arguments for integration.
He said NATO will become increasingly useless in the future and that Russia's goal should be an "organic 21st-century power," like China is becoming.
Meanwhile, the European Union's decision to postpone discussion on future visa restrictions for Kaliningrad residents at its EU-Russia summit Wednesday riled some experts.
"It could lead to a crisis in relations if we don't agree on the issue," Lukin said.
TITLE: Moscow's India-Pakistan Efforts Stall
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - The Kremlin's bid to help steer India and Pakistan off the war path fizzled Friday as Delhi rejected President Vladimir Putin's offer to sit down to talks with the two nations' leaders next week.
"A trilateral meeting is unlikely to take place due to India's fundamental objections to this idea," Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov said Thursday.
A day earlier, Losyukov had announced that Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf had consented to talks on the sidelines of a summit of Asian countries set to begin in Kazakhstan on Monday.
Spokespeople at the Foreign Ministry and the Indian and Pakistani embassies said Thursday that it was not clear whether a lower-level bilateral meeting was possible during the summit.
After a week of bonhomie and promising agreements with Washington and the European Union, Putin's attempts to reassert Russia's role as an influential international player have run into an incomparably tougher diplomatic challenge: de-escalating tensions between Delhi and Islamabad - two nuclear powers sucked into a new round of violence in their 55-year-old dispute over Kashmir, the predominantly Muslim territory on India's northern border.
While Moscow played an important role in temporarily defusing the Kashmir powder keg some 35 years ago, now - stripped of its superpower status - Russia is hardly capable of mustering the financial and military resources necessary to secure any lasting détente.
"Without a doubt, Putin wants to show himself as a world leader. But this desire is not reinforced by Russia's actual capabilities or Putin's actual experience in the diplomatic arena," Yevgeny Volk, director of the Moscow office of the Heritage Foundation, said in an interview.
TITLE: Vena Brewery Doubles Production Levels
AUTHOR: By Andrey Musatov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The Vena brewery, one of St. Petersburg's largest, doubled its production capacity by completing a $27-million investment project in just under a year, raising its production of Nevskoye and Tuborg brands to a total of 24 million liters per year.
According to Barry Marshall, the general director of Vena, the work carried out by Danbrew, a subsidiary of Carlsberg Breweries, began in June 2001 with the building of new water-filtering, brewing, bottling and storage facilities.
Denmark's Carlsberg Breweries is one of two major shareholders in Vena, owning a 49.95-percent stake in the company. Carlsberg also owns a 50-percent stake in BBH, the second shareholder in the Vena brewery which owns the same 49.95-percent stake.
"The grounds for investment were created by the dynamic growth in the sales of Vena products," Marshall said at the press conference held on Tuesday. "In the second half of 2001, all the facilities at the brewery were working at full capacity and, because of that, last year was particularly hard for us."
In 2000, growth in production at Vena totaled 56 percent, rising to 71 percent in 2001. At present, Vena has a 13 percent market share in St. Petersburg and 6 percent in Moscow, giving it fourth and sixth positions in St. Petersburg and Moscow respectively.
"The production increase to 2.4 million liters makes Vena the leading brewery in premium beers," Marshall said. "According to analysts, it's the premium sector that will be growing most dramatically."
Marshall, however, didn't detail the company's future plans for development, only saying that the brewery and its shareholders will definitely continue to invest in the development of Nevskoye and Tuborg-production capacity.
In March, a general meeting of shareholders approved plans to get a credit from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), but Vena must first get permission from the local office of the Antimonopoly Ministry. According to Marshall, that permission will be given in the next few days.
The 82-million-euro credit (about $76.7 million) would be given for the term up to 2010. The company plans to spend these funds on refinancing earlier credits and improving its turnover funds.
TITLE: State Calls Shots In Stolichnaya Dispute
AUTHOR: By Alex Nicholson
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Tempers are flaring in the high-stakes brawl for global control of Russia's best-known brand of vodka.
The government, which recently renationalized the Stolichnaya brand, is now trying to prevent its production abroad. It is also asking Western distributors to boycott Soyuzplodimport (SPI), the private company that bought the rights to Stolichnaya and 42 other vodka brands in 1997 and, instead, buy from Soyuzplodoimport, the former Soviet vodka monopoly that was recreated this year to manage the brands the government has retaken, or intends to retake, from SPI.
"We are asking [distributors] to think about whether or not they're supplying real Russian vodka and proposing cooperation," said SPI deputy director Sergei Kosaryev, adding, "And how SPI can write 'distilled and bottled in Russia' on the label, I don't know."
Having been prohibited by the Agriculture Ministry from producing in Russia, SPI, the local division of Swiss-based international holding company SPI Spirits Group, now exports Stolichnaya out of its Latvijas Balzams distillery in Riga.
The government has argued that Stolichnaya made in Riga cannot be called "Genuine Russian Vodka," as the label claims, for geographical reasons.
SPI head Vladimir Loginov, a former deputy agriculture minister, said last week that, as long as Stolichnaya is being made in Latvia, he expects global sales to fall, and that letters courting foreign distributors had been dispatched.
In February, $40 million worth of SPI vodka was confiscated by Russian customs officials in Kaliningrad, where it languishes to this day.
SPI says that, since the chief raw ingredient - the spirit - comes from Russian factories, its vodka is the real thing.
"We aren't going to name the factories so that Loginov doesn't take administrative measures," SPI spokesperson Sergei Boguslavsky said. This, he added, has already happened.
Kosaryev confirmed that Tulaspirt - a major spirit exporter working with Latvijas Balzams - had recently dissolved its contract with the Riga factory in the light of the present situation.
The dispute has reached the United States, which accounts for the lion's share of Stolichnaya global sales, estimated at some $500 million.
SPI said over the weekend that the dispute had been brought to U.S. President George W. Bush's attention during his summit with President Vladimir Putin. In his presentation to the two presidents, Eugene Lawson, the president of the U.S.-Russia Business Council, told them the Stolichnaya situation demonstrated a clear violation of ownership rights.
Last month, SPI's U.S. lawyers lobbied the case in Congress. The fate of Stolichnaya in Russia, they argued, is proof it is not ready for membership in the World Trade Organization.
SPI appears undaunted by pressure from the government.
Allied Domecq, Stolichnaya's U.S. distributor, has repeatedly said it is happy working with SPI Spirits Group. And, locally, SPI will focus on transforming its trademarks owned by their two Russian distilleries, Talvis and SPI-RVVK, into national brands.
TITLE: Property Ministry Blamed for $500-Million Revenue Loss
AUTHOR: By Anna Raff
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Last week's sale of an oil company was an overlooked epilogue to Russia's history of privatization.
The process of transferring Eastern Oil Co., or VNK, from state to private hands was a tortured one that began in 1995 and only ended last Friday, when oil major Yukos acquired the last government stake of 37 percent. Yukos paid a premium of $400,000 over the starting price of $225 million.
The sale of VNK probably won't go down in history books in the same way that the loans-for-shares auctions in the 1990s did. But its sale was just as poorly handled, said Vladislav Ignatov, one of the 12 chief auditors at the chamber.
If you count from start to finish, the government lost out on $500 million from the sale, and most of the blame lies with the Property Ministry, Ignatov said in an interview.
While the Property Ministry's spokesman was unavailable for official comment, another ministry source brushed off Ignatov's accusations, saying the auditor has long complained about the way the ministry functioned.
Ignatov supervised the VNK audit, which was required in the run-up to the sale, originally scheduled for December but subsequently delayed. The Audit Chamber collegium approved the audit on May 21, and its conclusions are scheduled to be published this week.
The government's 37-percent interest in VNK was not properly managed, as a result of a flaw in the Property Ministry, Ignatov said. "Ministry officials are supposed to look after each piece of government property as if it was their own," he said. "When they figure out how to properly look after them, the government budget will receive what it's entitled to - revenues for the use of this property."
For example, 1996 was the last year the government saw dividend revenues from VNK. While low oil prices could explain this in 1997 and 1998, their comeback during the last three years didn't bring dividends, he said. By that time, Yukos had installed its own management.
"There are many cases where minority shareholders - with stakes smaller than ours was in VNK - had company assets frozen when the company failed to pay dividends," Ignatov said.
While Yukos spokesperson Hugo Erikssen conceded that allegations were made in a preliminary Audit Chamber report, Yukos submitted documents to the chamber that showed it was not artificially deflating profits. "If Ignatov made such allegations in public, then we will sue Ignatov," Erikssen said. "If The St. Petersburg Times makes such accusations independent of Ignatov, then we will sue The St. Petersburg Times."
VNK's privatization was difficult from the start. As planned, about 15 percent of the company was sold at a special cash auction in 1995. The next step should have been the sale of a 34 percent stake to the bidder that offered the most comprehensive investment program. Instead, the government - pressed to plug a billion-dollar gap in the budget - made an unprecedented move in putting 84 percent of VNK on the block all at once. In 1997, via its Tomskneft subsidiary, VNK was Russia's 11th largest crude producer. The sale was divided into a cash auction for 50 percent minus one share, and an investment tender for 34 percent.
The cash auction went reasonably well: 48.28 percent of the company was sold to companies affiliated with Yukos for $800 million. The two participants in the investment tender both recalled their applications at the last minute. Another tender was scheduled for January 1998, but no buyers were found.
By then, Yukos had gained a 54.78-stake in the company. The government was left with a 34-percent stake that no one particularly wanted as Yukos had control of the whole company. Ignatov said that, if the controlling stake had been saved for last, bidding would have been fiercer, and the final price much higher.
In December 2001, the controversy began when Ignatov asked State Property Fund head Vladimir Malin to delay the VNK sell-off until the audit, begun in October, was completed.
Ignatov said he wrote Malin a letter because he wasn't certain what the fund was selling. Yukos had taken Tomskneft assets, funneled them to five subsidiaries and then legally sold them to third parties. Yukos had returned these assets to Tomskneft's balance sheet as of May 14, and the sale was given the green light.
"These assets didn't completely disappear thanks to Yukos," Ignatov said.
According to Ignatov, former VNK managers had artificially inflated Tomskneft's debt to $120 million and threatened to take its assets by court order. Although government officials questioned its actions once they were brought to light, Yukos kept Tomskneft from losing its value, he said.
TITLE: City Intends To Trade its Name
AUTHOR: By Andrey Musatov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The city administration is planning to register and sell the rights to the use of an official city trademark for the coming St. Petersburg 300th-anniversary. It also intends to register some of the city's well-known images, such as the Admiralty spire, the angel on the spire of the Peter and Paul cathedral, the skyline of raised bridges on the Neva River and the Bronze Horseman statue.
According to Alexei Shoustov, an adviser to St. Petersburg Governor Vladimir Yakovlev, companies will buy the right to use the 300th-anniversary symbol as a demonstration of their desire to help the city prepare for the celebrations. At the same time, firms will attract new clients by using the symbols on the packaging for their products.
Shoustov said that he will be appointed director of the Center for the Preparation of Anniversary Events, a state-owned commercial organization set up by the city administration to manage the use of the city's symbols for advertising.
Answering a question as to who would have a greater interest in paying for the city advertising - the local administration or private firms - Shoustov said that the city will use some of its resources to promote the 300th-anniversary trademarks. Once the symbols have gained popularity, private companies will start using them.
"Our center is also going to finance the reconstruction of a few monuments in the city, and anyone buying products with the 300th-anniversary trademark will be putting their money into the reconstruction of the city," Shoustov said.
According to Sergei Arno, the coordinator of the project at the center, there are, at present, about ten companies that have already signed agreements on the use of the 300-anniversary symbol on their products. For the most part, they are companies producing toys, souvenirs and furniture.
For manufacturing firms, the price of the symbol will be $1,000, plus one percent charged on sales of products bearing the symbol. Both Arno and Shoustov refused to give the prices to be charged to retail firms, saying that they would be covered by a more complex calculation system.
The city has applied to Rospatent, the state patenting authority, to register these trademarks, in a process which is likely to take a year. According to Shoustov, the city is likely to use its administrative resources in order to accelerate the registration process. The situation is complicated by the fact that Rospatent has already received a number of applications for the registration of trademarks featuring images of the city.
"That is the main problem," Shoustov said. "Somehow we'll have to establish the structure for the use of these images."
He didn't explain, however, how the Center for the Preparation of Anniversary Events is planning to "establish the structure."
The activities of the center raise a number of other questions, to which officials have not yet given clear answers.
Elena Kholoupko, marketing director of Orimi Trade, one of St. Petersburg's leading tea suppliers, says that the main difficulty will be that some producers already have souvenirs in production, although the official symbol of the 300th anniversary was only designed and presented recently.
"We don't know if we can still sell our products which bear anniversary symbols," said Kholoupko.
According to Shoustov, an Orimi consignment of tea packaged in special boxes, bearing the logo "St. Petersburg 1703-2003" and featuring images of St Isaac's Cathedral, the Bronze Horseman statue, Smolny Cathedral, the Rostral Columns and the Admiralty, in the absence of an agreement signed with the Center, cannot be considered an official participant in the anniversary celebrations.
"We still have no official rules on how to deal with companies that are already using the city's images," he said. "But we are ready to negotiate with those companies, to think about how they might be able to use those images, and we might even sign agreements before the rules have been drawn up. These agreements will not lose their power when we adopt the official rules."
TITLE: World Bank Forecast for Russia Preaches Caution
AUTHOR: By Victoria Lavrentieva
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The World Bank has weighed in on the widening debate over how fast the government can realistically expect the economy to grow over the next several years, warning that, without a significant increase in capital investment, the rate will linger in the 1-2 percent range.
In its third-quarter assessment, released Thursday, the Washington-based development institution laid out four basic scenarios by which to gauge future gross-domestic-product growth through 2010. The two major factors determining how the economy develops, according to the bank, are oil prices and how well the government implements its reform program.
Based on these factors, the bank predicts an average growth rate of 1.5 percent in its most pessimistic scenario and 5.2 percent in its most optimistic. Another major factor helping to determine how well the economy is performing is the level of capital investment, as Russia, according to the bank, has reached full industrial-capacity utilization.
"Continued reforms will improve economic growth, whether the external conditions are favorable or not, but the investment needed to finance the growth scenarios are very high," the bank's top economist for Russia, Christof Ruhl, told reporters Thursday.
The World Bank estimates that, to achieve 5.2 percent-GDP growth in 2002-2010, fixed-capital investment needs to increase 17 percent annually. This is an enormous task for Russia, where there is virtually no money spent on modernizing outdated equipment at present.
Capital flight remains potentially the largest source of finance, having reached an annual average of between $20 billion and $22 billion in the last three years. "If only half of it had remained in Russia, this would increase domestic capital investment by 18 percent in dollar terms," Ruhl said.
The World Bank's forecast is close to that of the government, which has resisted pressure from the Kremlin to inflate its expectations.
Ruhl, the report's author, said he tries to view things realistically.
"No one believes, of course, that you can push up GDP by simply correcting figures. Also, it is not right to create false expectations," he said.
Under pressure from President Vladimir Putin, who recently criticized the government for lacking ambition, the cabinet moderately revised its three-year forecast for economic growth. GDP is now predicted to rise by 3.6 percent in 2002, 3.4 percent to 4.4 percent in 2003 and 5.6 percent in 2005.
But even the best scenario is not enough for Russia to catch-up with more developed countries, even Portugal, which has the lowest standard of living in the European Union.
Russia's standard of living has improved in recent years, with GDP per capita rising from $1,850 to $2,395 between 1998 and 2002, but it still lags far behind Portugal's $11,380.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Chain Store Expansion
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Agrotorg, which operates the Pyatyorochka supermarket chain, has opened its 100th store, on Bogatyrsky Prospect, Sergey Lepkovich, the director of the chain, said at a press conference held Thursday.
The chain now has 71 stores in St. Petersburg and 29 stores in Moscow. Agrotorg plans to increase the number of stores to 106 in St. Petersburg and 72 in Moscow by the end of the year.
The company also plans to open stores in Voronezh, Samara, Yekaterinburg, Nizhniy Novgorod and Volgograd. The chain's expansion to these cities, however, is only a long-term goal, there being no concrete business plan for the expansion as yet, according to Lepkovich.
The chain is currently growing at a rate of three to four stores a month in Moscow and Petersburg. By the end of the year, the company also plans to complete the construction of a $7-million logistics center, which will provide the chain with a greatly improved delivery infrastructure.
Agrotorg estimates that, in 2002, development expenses will be approximately $60 million. Revenues in 2001 totaled $212 million and this year they are expected to increase to $400 million.
Metal Duty Axed
MOSCOW (Reuters) -Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov signed a resolution Wednesday removing export tariffs on ferrous metals, the government said.
The measure is designed to cushion the impact on domestic producers of hefty new U.S. import tariffs on steel.
A wide range of iron and steel products will be exempt from export tariffs, but the resolution will not apply to ferrous-metals scrap.
Current export tariffs on ferrous metals range from between 3 percent and 5 percent of the customs value. Ferrous-metals scrap is liable to a 15-percent tariff, with a minimum charge of 15 euros ($14) per ton.
No. 1 Newspaper Stake
MOSCOW (SPT) - A Norwegian publishing holding is about to buy a 25 percent stake in Russia's biggest-selling newspaper, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Interfax reported Wednesday.
The newspaper has a circulation of 27 million per month, Interfax reported.
Admin Streamlining
MOSCOW (SPT) - As part of the government's plan to cut away administrative barriers to economic growth, the debureaucratization commission will clarify and may eliminate the functions of a number of government supervisory bodies, Interfax reported Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Kudrin as saying Wednesday.
Fire, sanitary and telecommunications inspection agencies will come under particular scrutiny, he said.
The government may also create a single body to supervise food production.
FDI Set to Rise
MOSCOW (Prime-Tass) - Foreign direct investment in Russia is set to significantly increase in the coming months as a result of improved political and economic stability in the country, Renaissance Capital said in a special research note.
"Foreign direct investment is finally picking up steam in Russia. As political and economic stability has taken hold in Russia and the asset markets have boomed, the perception of risk in Russia has fallen below the perception of reward," the Renaissance report said.\
TITLE: The EU and Russia: Close, but How Close?
AUTHOR: By Chris Patten
TEXT: THESE are heady days for Russia's relations with the West. The arms-reduction agreement with the United States, and today's decisions on a new relationship with NATO have set the seal on Russia's emerging role as a participant in our collective security.
Since World War II, the West has tended to view relations with Russia primarily in terms of the security agenda. Until recently, this was the only aspect of the relationship that mattered; and it is, of course, still extremely important today. But with the end of the arms race and the creation of a new relationship based on trust, this chapter in the long-running saga of superpower diplomacy is also coming to an end.
It is already clear that the issues we will be discussing with Russia are very different, and much more varied, than those that featured on 20th-century agendas. The opportunities are different; the things that bring us together and those that divide us are different; and the threats are different. So are the actors.
To begin with the threats, it is evident that we cannot combat terrorists with nuclear weapons. And military means alone can only take us so far. Nothing excuses terrorist violence. But we have to recognize that violence is more likely where there is economic and political alienation. We need new means if we want to find peaceful solutions to conflict. While seeking to prevent proliferation of weapons, we must also find ways to stop the men of violence from replenishing their finances, and we have to prevent them from crossing borders and operating with impunity wherever it pleases them.
These objectives impinge on a whole range of other policies and instruments that are already under discussion with Russia. They include movement of people and goods across our common borders; ways to combat international crime and reduce corruption.
The same mixture of instruments and policies applies to what we are trying to do on crisis management. Russia is keen to work with us as our security and defense capability develops, and its integration into many of the activities of NATO will certainly help this dialogue.
The EU is now present in all major international efforts to resolve conflict, including the Middle East, the Balkans and Afghanistan. Russia is increasingly keen to work with us on these issues, and we expect Russia to work with us to end the "frozen conflicts" in Moldova and in the South Caucasus that continue to strangle four small republics in Eastern Europe.
As the new security architecture falls into place, other aspects of Russia's external relations have already begun to move up the agenda. If I have to summarize in one word the reasons why the relationship between Russia and the EU is so significant, that word would be "proximity."
It is not surprising that our economies are complementary, nor that after enlargement, the EU will account for as much as half of Russia's trade. The sheer size of the economic potential and the enormous commercial importance of proximity is singularly impressive; it goes way beyond commercial relations. We share culture, history and tradition.
The enlarged Union will take this a further step forward as we include countries which have maintained very close links with Russia going back decades and even centuries. Some of our candidates were part of the Soviet Union; and we shall have 1.5 million Russians actually living within our borders. The cultural impact on our relations will go far deeper than just trade.
The Baltic will be a sea shared entirely between the EU and Russia. We have already created a special policy initiative that recognizes that. The priorities that we have identified for the Northern Dimension reflect the new issues that now top our policy agenda. The special situation of Kaliningrad is a particular priority. The EU is determined to do everything we can to ensure this unique part of Russia gets the full benefits of enlargement. And we have presented a package of ideas to smooth the introduction of Schengen visas that should have the practical effect of reducing the existing bottlenecks and administrative obstacles that make border crossings to and from Kaliningrad such an ordeal today. In addition we need to protect the Baltic against pollution; to start the mammoth task of cleaning up nuclear waste in Northwest Russia; and to combat illegal immigration and organized crime. These, too, are part of our "proximity" agenda.
There is one other economic issue that is absolutely central to Russia's decisions about what is sometimes called its "European choice." This is the concept of a Common European Economic Space. At the heart of this idea lies the notion that Russia would use the present economic reform program to make its own laws and regulations compatible with our own. How far this can be achieved will make a big difference in the attractiveness of Russia for EU investors and importers. The EU has already provided some 2.4 billion euros to support Russia's transition, and we are willing to continue this support in the future. However, we need to understand how far Russia is willing to go in this direction - how European does Russia really want to be?
It is obvious that Russia's decision will be enormously significant in defining what sort of relationship we can expect to have in the near and medium term.
A mature relationship requires a degree of sympathy and responsiveness by both partners to each other's concerns. That does not mean that we have to agree on everything, but it does mean that we should expect to be able to talk frankly and openly about any aspect affecting our policies.
These do not exclude questions about common values and shared principles. Our Partnership and Cooperation Agreement states in very clear terms that this dialogue should include the respect for democratic principles and human rights. That means that we should also be able to discuss things like editorial freedom, the treatment of religious minorities and our differences over human rights abuses and access of international humanitarian operators in Chechnya. And Russia will, I am sure, want to add its own items to this agenda.
To summarize, the coherent and achievable foreign policy agenda we are looking for should encompass the "soft" as well as the "hard" security issues; the whole range of proximity questions that will effectively determine the future stability of our continent; and the tricky questions about values that will give depth and meaning to the relationship of trust we are trying to build.
It is one thing to make political declarations and another to deliver. Our leaders should build on their close personal links with the Russian government, and above all with President Vladimir Putin himself. Personal chemistry is important. But it is very far from everything. The concrete details, the practical questions that need to be gone into before political decisions can be taken must first be sorted out at a lower level.
In conclusion, we share so much with Russia - much geography, in some respects too much history. The only sensible options for both of us is to make our relationship work as successfully as possible - economically, socially and politically. This is a really significant strategic partnership - a partnership enhanced by enlargement. The view of the Commission is that we should do all we can to make this partnership work and work well. There is no other sensible option. But a partnership involves traffic in both directions; it involves give and take; it involves understanding the other side's point of view. We understand that and I am sure our Russian colleagues will understand it, too.
Chris Patten is EU commissioner for external relations. This comment is excerpted from a speech he gave in Moscow on Tuesday.
TITLE: Priorities That Are Completely Off Kilter
TEXT: WASHINGTON - There are crates in Russia full of fences, surveillance cameras, motion sensors and other security tools, all purchased by the U.S. government as a gift to the Russian people - and lying unused. These supplies, provided under the Nunn-Lugar Act, were meant for security improvements at nuclear facilities; instead they sit unopened, gathering dust.
Why? The Russians say they can't afford to install the equipment. The Pentagon says it would be happy to help, but that this must be done by the book; Federal Acquisitions Regulations prevent the U.S. government from paying for work it can't inspect. The Russians counter they can't have the Pentagon snooping around "inspecting." So, stalemate.
The existence of the unopened crates was confirmed by current and former Nunn-Lugar officials, though no one would share much detail. And unopened crates are an exception: Nunn-Lugar has upgraded security around a third of Russia's weapons-grade uranium and plutonium; it has dismantled or destroyed more than 5,000 Soviet warheads, along with hundreds of ballistic missiles, bombers, submarines and silos.
But mindless bureaucratic roadblocks are also part of Nunn-Lugar and oddly there's no sign they are being swept away by the winds of Sept. 11.
This spring, for example, as preparations loomed for the Moscow summit, the Pentagon quietly "unplugged" its Nunn-Lugar work - because it wants more information about Russia's chemical and biological weapons programs. As Assistant Defense Secretary J.D. Crouch II testified before the Senate in March, one of the "emerging opportunities" for Nunn-Lugar work is that it "can be leveraged to increase transparency." In other words: We can take our ball and go home if the Russians don't like our rules. (Never mind that doing so hobbles the Bush-Putin arms control deal - Nunn-Lugar money has dismantled Russian weapons reduced under all recent agreements, and now it can't. So, the Kremlin will store nukes it would prefer to destroy.)
It's not enough to be able to cut up Russian nukes for pennies and to protect America from the clear and present danger of, say, unsecured plutonium? No, the Pentagon says, we need something extra.
Consider a facility in the Ural Mountains town of Shchuchye to destroy thousands of tons of sarin, the gas used in Aum Shinri Kyo's 1995 assault on the Tokyo subway - many trace Aum's sarin to Soviet stocks. Congress has allocated the money to build Shchuchye, but the Pentagon won't spend it. According to Jon Wolfstahl, a former Energy Department official, the Pentagon is using Shchuchye to "leverage transparency" by demanding 24-hour access to any facility of any kind anywhere in Russia (!) to look for chemical weapons - including, presumably, in Putin's sock drawer. With demands so extreme, it's hard to see how the Pentagon keeps a straight face.
All this monkeying around seems unforgivable in a post-Sept. 11 world. Where are the presidents of Russia and the United States? Why aren't they demanding harsh new security for bomb-grade uranium, pushing the destruction of sarin stocks, and opening those crates?
Laura Holgate, a former head of the Pentagon's Nunn-Lugar programs, says crate-opening compromises have been debated - such as having someone hold a day's newspaper up next to a newly installed fence and take a Polaroid - but to little result. "FAR rules were never designed to govern assistance to disarm a former enemy. Yet there's no authority to ignore them," says Holgate, who is now with the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a private group set up by Ted Turner and run by former Senator Sam Nunn.
The NTI will spend 250 million of Turner's dollars on nonproliferation work in Russia. But, the Pentagon warns, they'd better be careful - we don't want them subsidizing the Russkies! As Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary Marshall Billingslea - a former staffer for Senator Jesse Helms and avowed skeptic of the Nunn-Lugar work - told Congress, the NTI represents, among other things, a "challenge for the U.S. government." Yes, they can help, but they best not "wind up inadvertently subsidizing weapons programs."
Are we really resurrecting this long-dead "subsidy" argument? Let's be clear: gazillion-dollar cash drops to the Kremlin from the IMF? Yes, that subsidizes all sorts of marginal behavior, including war in Chechnya. But paying contractors to perform concrete jobs, like putting up fences and cutting up ICBMs - jobs the Russians have shrugged at and neglected for years? That's merely buying our own priorities. It frees up no new money for "weapons programs" because the Russians aren't spending any on this to begin with. (Intriguingly, candidate-for-president Bush got this right: He slammed IMF loans as subsidizing corruption, but praised the well-audited Nunn-Lugar work.)
Nunn-Lugar spending comes to about $1.3 billion annually - or, as Senator Richard Lugar noted in a March speech, less than three-tenths of a percent of the Pentagon's annual budget. Compare that to, say, the estimated $21.2 billion over 10 years in tax giveaways to the oil and gas companies Bush's party advocates - or the $7.6 billion the White House seeks for a national missile defense that probably won't work - and the administration's post-Sept. 11 priorities seem staggeringly off kilter.
Matt Bivens, a former editor of The St. Petersburg Times, is a Washington-based fellow of The Nation Institute [www.thenation.com].
TITLE: keeping traditions alive
AUTHOR: by Peter Morley
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: For the city's classical-music fans and opera and ballet lovers, June brings a feast of entertainment, as the Mariinsky Theater launches the tenth running of its internationally renowned festival, "Stars of the White Nights."
This year's festival is noticeably less glittering with international luminaries than last year's. In 2001, Placido Domingo returned to St. Petersburg - singing Siegmund in Wagner's "Die Walkure," conducting Verdi's "Aida" and taking part in a gala concert on Palace Square - Tan Dun conducted his own "Water Passion after St. Matthew," Yury Bashmet also made his Mariinsky conducting debut, and violinist Vadim Repin gave two concerts.
There is also less emphasis on new music: Last year, to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of J.S. Bach, Sofia Gubaidulina's "St. John Passion" was performed alongside Tan Dun's work, and "Tsar Demyan," a collaboration between five Russian composers, received its world premiere. In addition, one of the Mariinsky's staple ballets, Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker," received a radical overhaul from U.S.-based Russian artist Mikhail Shemiakin and young choreographer Kirill Simonov.
The corollary of all this, however, is that it allows the Mariinsky to get back to doing what some say it does best - its core Russian repertoire. Mariinsky Artistic Director Valery Gergiev seems to be returning to the Mariinsky's traditional strengths, possibly in preparation for next year, when the theater is expected to pull out all the stops for St. Petersburg's 300th-anniversary celebrations.
name-dropping
In terms of names, Gergiev - credited by some with almost single-handedly dragging the St. Petersburg classical-music scene out of the quagmire it was in at the end of the Soviet era - takes center stage. On June 23, the Mariinsky hosts a gala concert called "At Home With Maestro Gergiev." In this concert, Gergiev conducts, if not a galaxy, then a minor constellation of stars, including one of the Mariinsky's best-known voices, mezzo-soprano Olga Borodina, pianists Alexander Toradze and Sara Wolfensohn, and Bashmet, this time in his more familiar role as a viola player.
Conspiracy theorists might read a bit of mutual back-scratching into Wolfensohn's appearance, as her father is James Wolfensohn, the president of the World Bank - who spent a night socializing in St. Petersburg with Gergiev last July and seemed to be feeling the effects at a banking congress the next day. However, this is doing an injustice to a very talented and versatile pianist.
Maxim Shostakovich, the son of composer Dmitry and a great advocate of his father's works, will also conduct a concert, at 2 p.m. on June 2. The program is all Russian, consisting of Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony, Tchaikovsky's overture "Romeo and Juliet" and Mussorgsky's "Night on a Bare Mountain."
Two of the Mariinsky's own soloists will be highlighted during the month. Borodina, in addition to performing at the Gergiev gala, gets her own concert next Friday. In keeping with the Russian focus of the festival, the program promises arias from operas by Russian composers.
Borodina also features in a dramatic role, as the seer, Marfa, in Mussorgsky's "Khovanshchina" on June 26. "Khovanshchina" is a typical Mussorgsky epic, set in 17th-century Russia, that weaves politics, treachery and religion together and culminates in the self-immolation of a group of Old Believers, a group that split from the Russian Orthodox church as a protest against proposed reforms of texts and ritual in the mid 17th century.
The tenor Vladimir Glazulin will sing a solo charity concert - in aid of the "Child's Soul" foundation - on June 18 at the later-than-usual time of 8 p.m. Glazulin will also sing the part of Germann, the young officer tormented by love and cupidity in Tchaikovsky's "The Queen of Spades" on June 14.
the old and the new
The bulk of the festival - that is, the opera and ballet - comprises productions that for many people epitomize the Mariinsky. With three exceptions, the composers featured are all Russian, with Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky and Prokofiev featuring particularly prominently.
All the favorites are there, from the classical versions of Tchaikovsky's ballets "Swan Lake" (July 11, July 30) and "The Nutcracker" (July 27) to the recent successes of Prokofiev's ballet "Cinderella." (June 22) and Mussorgsky's opera "Boris Godunov" (June 24, June 27).
Gergiev seems to be in the process of overhauling many of the Mariinsky's core productions: Alexander Ratmansky's revival of "Cinderella" breathed new life into one of the theater's favorite ballets, and was rewarded at the annual Golden Mask awards - Russia's top prizes in theatrical arts - in Moscow on April 15, when Natalya Sologub brought home the Mask for best female ballet dancer.
The new production of "Boris Godunov," using Mussorgsky's original, 1869 version of the opera - which, ironically, the Mariinsky rejected when it was originally offered by the composer - opened on May 12 to rave reviews, for both the musical interpretation and for the set, designed by Viktor Kramer. Kramer, among his other credits, is the stage manager for next year's festivities.
The June 27 performance of "Boris Godunov" takes place at 10 p.m. at Vyborg Castle. The connection to Vyborg is, of course, Gergiev, who is one of the organizers of the Finnish-Russian festival "Saimaa," which overlaps with "Stars of the White Nights."
As ever, Prokofiev features prominently in the festival program. As well as the acclaimed production of "Semyon Kotko," (June 21), there will be concert performances of "The Love for Three Oranges," (June 16) and "The Tale of a Real Man," (June 20). Prokofiev wrote the latter to try to mend some fences with the Soviet authorities, and was duly "rewarded" with the Stalin Prize in 1940.
Shostakovich's opera "Lady Macbeth of the Mstsenk District" (June 2) is also of interest to students of political music history. It is based on Nikolai Leskov's short story of the same name, which tells the tragic story of a rural housewife, Katerina, who is driven by her harsh life to kill her husband, her father and, eventually, herself. The original version was hugely popular when it premiered in 1934, but then suffered a savage attack in Pravda in 1936, being accused of "petty bourgeois sensationalism." As a result, the opera went unperformed until Shostakovich revised it as "Katerina Izmailova" in 1963. The Mariinsky's performance on June 2 is a rare chance to hear a sadly neglected work.
The three exceptions to the Russian-composer rule are three productions without which no Mariinsky festival would be complete: Adolphe Adam's "Giselle" - ubiquitous in St. Petersburg during the summer - on June 23 and the same composer's "Le Corsaire" on Wednesday; Jules Massenet's "Manon," on Saturday at 8 p.m.; and Ludwig Minkus' "La Bayadere," which opens the festival on Friday.
"La Bayadere" promises to be a treat, with a reconstruction of Marius' Petipa's 1900 choreography by Sergei Vikharev, twice a Golden Mask winner: For his reconstructions of "Sleeping Beauty" in 1999 for the Mariinsky and for Delibes' "Coppelia" this year for the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theater.
Another odd exception is the Tallinn-based ancient-music group "Hortus Musicus," which plays at the Glinka Philharmonic on June 12 - an interesting decision, especially as "Sleeping Beauty" plays at the Mariinsky that night.
youth has its days
The Mariinsky Theater Youth Philharmonic Orchestra, under Italian conductor Gianandrea Noseda, will have its usual opportunities to prove that the orchestral future of the theater is secure.
The pick of its three concerts comes at Smolny Cathedral at 11:30 p.m. on June 21, when it will be joined by the St. Petersburg University Choir and Smolny Cathedral Choir for a performance of Rachmaninov's 1913 oratorio, "The Bells." This should provide an authentic White Nights experience, with the combination of the longest day of the year in the light-friendly Smolny Cathedral and Rachmaninov's music.
The 35-minute-long work, based on the poem of the same name by Edgar Allan Poe, brings out into the open a theme - bells and bell sounds - that runs through many of Rachmaninov's works.
Events start at 7 p.m unless otherwise stated. Keep an eye on Stages for details.
TITLE: chernov's choice
TEXT: The new location for the hip, grungy student bar Cynic has finally been announced. According to Cynic's owner, Vladimir Postnichenko, the popular, yet presently rather neglected, hangout will move to 4 Pereulok Antonenko, just off St. Isaac's Square.
Postnichenko says that the location, next to PORT Club, has a "good basement," big enough for two or even three rooms. One room is planned to be a quiet room intended for "intellectuals," to talk, while being able to keep an eye on the debauchery happening in the next room, which is intended to be more reminiscent of Cynic's trademark atmosphere of drunken fun. The intellectualization of Cynic is also planned to include a bookstore and a library.
Postnichenko plans to launch the new location by September. Meanwhile, the situation with the old Cynic remains critical, as the bar has received yet another demand to leave its current location by Monday. The building near Moskovsky Vokzal that Cynic occupies now is scheduled to be pulled down to provide space for a hotel.
However, Postnichenko says that the staff "pray that they can keep working here through the summer."
Red stickers promoting an event named Leningradsky Subbotnik - a hint that has something to do with the extraordinarily popular ska-punk band Leningrad, but offering little information - appeared in the city's subway system this week. Roughly translated as Leningrad Volunteer Day, it will be held on June 15 at 8 p.m. at Shalash Lenina, or Lenin's Cottage, at Razliv in the Leningrad Oblast.
The location is one of the most sacred spots for local Communists, as it is the cottage where Vladimir Lenin hid from the Provisional Government of Alexander Kerensky in summer 1917.
The open-air event is, in fact, the brainchild of Leningrad frontman Sergei Shnurov, who put the band on hold in February to further his career in the film industry, by composing, recording soundtracks and acting.
Subbotniki were introduced by Lenin in 1919 as unpaid work days, when Soviet citizens were supposed to clean up their factories or offices in a burst of revolutionary enthusiasm.
Fittingly, the event's slogan is "Uberyotsya kazhdy" ("Everybody will clean it up"), which, in Russian, has the slang meaning, "Everybody will get wasted." Shnurov says that the event should be "one global, massive drinking session."
However, there will be no live concert from Leningrad on the event - all of the music will be supplied by turntables, featuring Leningrad's tracks and old Soviet and Western pop and disco.
Despite the generally free nature of outdoor events, the promoters are planning to charge between 150 and 200 rubles for tickets ($4.83 and $6.45).
Meanwhile, Moscow-based Gala Records, Leningrad's former label, released a live video called "Cherep i Gosti" ("Skull and Guests"), documenting Leningrad's most recent, sell-out concert at Yubileiny Sports Palace, which took place on Feb. 16. The press release says that the video was banned from being aired on television, due to the "abundance of explicit words and excessively mad behavior of fans."
Shnurov says that the label, which signed Leningrad in 1999 when it was content to play underground clubs, is racing to make as much money as it can out of the band. He adds that he has had nothing to do with the release, whose track listing, for some reason, has the song order rearranged.
- by Sergey Chernov
TITLE: go czech out the musketeer's
AUTHOR: by Peter Morley
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: One of the less pleasing aspects of living out in the wastes of what is known as Vasilievsky Island is the amount of time that I have to spend traveling to work every day.
This usually means that, on waking up late, I have no time to prepare any food to take with me for lunch and, as a result, have often been reduced to going to MacDonald's or Pizza Hut. Both of these are very worthy institutions as far as they go, but, sometimes, a little variety would be nice.
This is where the rapidly expanding number of eateries that offer business lunches have been a godsend. For somewhere between 50 and 300 rubles ($1.61 and $9.68) - depending on the place in question - one is pretty much guaranteed two or three courses of decent, filling food.
With this in mind, I left our office, starving, early on Monday afternoon, in the company of our esteemed political correspondent, Vovka, in search of nourishment. Having passed on the aforementioned international establishments, we were ambling along Admiralteisky Prospect when we came across "U Mushketyora," or "At the Musketeer's," a Czech restaurant-cum-beerhall advertising a business lunch for 90 rubles ($2.91).
"U Mushketyora" is run by the same firm that owns Gambrinus, the long-established Czech place just off Ploshchad Vosstaniya. I would hope, though, that it has the beer on its menu in stock on a more regular basis than Gambrinus, given recent experiences with trying to order the latter's "Velvet" beer.
Anyway, "U Mushketyora" is a light, spacious pair of rooms with solid, dark wooden furniture, a check (sorry) floor, mittel-European-style chandeliers - for that authentic Prague feel - and a slightly menacing half suit of armor and various fencing swords on the wall in each room. At lunchtime, despite the cheap business lunch, it wasn't that busy, although this may be due to the fact that it only opened recently.
We picked a table by the window and perused the menu. Here we encountered a problem. Regular readers of this column may recall frequent references to the problems of being a vegetarian in St. Petersburg. The curse struck again here, as both of the main dishes on the business-lunch menu were meat, with not even a fish dish to provide a get-out clause for this pseudo-vegetarian. While I pondered the options, we ordered a juice each (12 rubles, $0.39).
I decided to order from the a la carte menu while Vovka went for the cheap option. For starters, I had fried cheese po-Prazhsky, at 85 rubles ($2.74), while Vovka had the business lunch's drzhovka polyovka. I couldn't work out what the cheese was, although I suspect that the suppliers had not had to look very far to find it. However, despite appearing small on the plate, there was actually a copious amount of it, fried in a sort of breadcrumb mix, and it was pretty good.
The drzhovka - apart from causing amusement with our attempts at pronouncing a typically Czech consonant string - also seemed to pass the test. A thick, brown soup containing cow stomach may not sound very appetizing, but it smelled good and disappeared pretty quickly.
Another thing about "U Mushketyora" that attracted us was the aromas wafting out from the kitchen. I don't know what they've got back there, but, whatever it is, it makes for good food.
For the main dish, I had pike-perch po-Labsky (175 rubles, $5.65), which was a thick, slightly spiced fish steak with a light cheese-sauce and, interestingly, almonds. I was intrigued as to how the almonds would go with the fish and was pleasantly surprised - the crunchiness of the nuts complemented the smoother, heavy texture of the fish nicely.
Vovka, meanwhile, was tucking into the Vengersky Takon - a Hungarian something, the something we couldn't work out - which consisted of a beef stew with some fresh French bread on the side. Again, not much comment was forthcoming, beyond confirmation that it was tasty.
After this, we sat and digested, helped along by a couple of cappuccinos, at 33 rubles ($1.06) each, before returning to the office. "U Mushketyora," we feel, is worth checking (sorry) out for a good, filling lunch at a decent price.
"U Mushketyora." 6 Admiralteisky Prospekt. Tel.: 315-8732. Monday to Thursday, 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. Friday, Saturday, 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. Sunday, 11 a.m. to midnight. Credit cards accepted. Lunch for two, without alcohol: 470 rubles ($15.16).
TITLE: masterful adaptation
AUTHOR: by Alice Jones
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Mikhail Bulgakov's epic novel "The Master and Margarita" is one of the best-loved - and most mysterious - works of 20th-century Russian literature. Bulgakov chronicles the chaotic consequences of the appearance in Moscow of the Devil and his entourage, mixing biting political satire, high comedy, deep philosophy and a stark retelling of the crucifixion of Christ that focuses largely on Pontius Pilate. It is a profound, exhilarating book, likely to keep the reader up into the wee hours.
Renowned Lithuanian director Jonas Vaitkus has been refining his stage adaptation of the novel for more than 30 years, and it finally premiered in St. Petersburg at Baltiisky Dom on Sunday. Watching the play is as intense an experience as reading the novel.
Although the production is something of a marathon at four hours, time - as in the novel - seems to have been manipulated to fly by, as the huge cast of over 30 actors - many of whom have more than one part - leap on and off the stage, performing with such zeal that it is easy to believe that they have actually been infected with a mystic, dark energy.
Baltiisky Dom has long been considered one of the most successful experimental theaters in the city, which makes it a good choice for this production. The joint Russian-Lithuanian production glorifies the theater's reputation, describing it as a "territory for experimentation ... a creative laboratory."
Vaitkus' interpretation stays close to the original, constructing the most important scenes with loving attention to detail. For the sake of dramatic coherence, he introduces the two eponymous characters at the very beginning of the play - in the novel, neither appears until part two - and incorporates the Pilate scenes by means of slick scenery changes. The production focuses on the sources of evil and suffering, seeing the novel as an "anatomy of the fall of man and [his] survival, of belief and unbelief."
To highlight the theme of belief, moving images of Woland - the name employed to describe the Devil for much of the book - and his cohorts are projected onto the backdrops, like a sort of diabolical Big Brother. As well as the ever-present forces of darkness and evil, archive footage of Russian historical figures and events also flash up at crucial moments to highlight the political significance of the work.
The spectacular visual aspects are complemented by a disturbing, jarring soundtrack, and sound is also used to great effect when Woland's voice booms out from a telephone and over the audience.
The whole production oozes slick, continental-European style from beginning to end. Woland (Alexander Lykov), in his sharp, white-leather suit, is a campy showman, delivering his lines at breakneck speed, appearing out of the audience and blowing smoke out of his transparent top hat.
His sidekicks - the cat-man Begemot, Koroviyev the "choirmaster," Azazello the assassin and Gella, the flame-haired vampire maid - act like glam-rock stars, with their head-microphones and all-singing, all-dancing routines. The quintet is wonderfully extravagant and seems to have wickedly tempting fun on stage. Gella, in particular, brings out what seems to be an overtly sexual interpretation of evil and suffering, as she shimmies around the stage like some demonic pole-dancer.
Their costumes, designed by Sofia Boyarer, are stunning, combining dramatic style with S&M undertones.
In contrast to all this high-buffoonery, the hunched figure of the Master (Vadim Yakovlev) is captivating through his unassuming air of quiet suffering. However, it is a shame that his partner, Margarita (Yekaterina Untilova), cannot provide a performance to match. Untilova was the least convincing character in the production, and failed to generate much sympathy from the audience.
One other decision seemed questionable: Woland's lengthy, clumsy soliloquy at the end could not be redeemed even by the energy of Lykov's performance.
Apart from these - albeit minor - complaints, this production is a true tour de force, a non-stop carnival that, like the novel, sets one's head spinning with its frantic pace and inspiring, thought-provoking concepts.
TITLE: nuclear policy unsheathed
AUTHOR: by Walter C. Uhler
TEXT: Notwithstanding histories by Stephen Ambrose and movies such as "Saving Private Ryan," the popularized Western notion that America's military played the predominant role in defeating Nazi Germany is incorrect. The Soviet Union's Red Army accomplished that awesome feat.
Yet the spoils of that victory - increased political legitimacy at home and the opportunity to enhance Soviet security through political control over the newly "liberated" states of Eastern Europe - were jeopardized as soon as the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Consequently, in August 1945 Joseph Stalin pleaded with Igor Kurchatov (director of the Soviet atomic bomb project) and others: "Comrades - a single demand of you. Get us atomic weapons in the shortest time possible. As you know, Hiroshima has shaken the whole world. The balance has been broken. Build the bomb - it will remove a great danger to us."
Now, thanks to The Kremlin's Nuclear Sword, Steven J. Zaloga's balanced and comprehensive examination of Russia's Strategic Nuclear Forces, readers are able to understand both the considerable costs and remarkable achievements associated with that undertaking.
Successful espionage in the United States significantly aided Stalin's crash program. Nevertheless, uranium deposits had to be located, mined and separated; reactors and reactor facilities built; plutonium produced; bomber and missile manufacturing plants constructed; long-range bombers designed, tested and manufactured; and ballistic missiles platformed, fueled, guided and armed. Atomic bombs and nuclear warheads needed to be designed, tested and deployed. Anti-aircraft guns, surface-to-air missiles, and jet fighters were required for defense.
The cost was staggering, as was the waste. Nevertheless, on Aug. 29, 1949 - some six years earlier than American intelligence had predicted - the Soviet Union detonated its first atomic bomb. Zaloga claims that possession of the bomb emboldened Stalin to support North Korea's invasion of South Korea in June 1950. Even before the invasion, however, the detonation provoked the administration of U.S. President Harry Truman's aggressive report, NSC 68, which, as John Lewis Gaddis has observed, "established a negotiating posture that required Soviet capitulation."
By relying on nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles to deter America, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was able to cut back on warships, tanks, troops and some types of planes. Nevertheless, America's massive deployment of nuclear weapons soon confounded Khrushchev's belief that deterrence could be maintained with bluster and a few barely operational intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). His bold attempt to redress this dangerous imbalance by placing intermediate-range missiles in Cuba nearly caused the nuclear war he sought to deter.
Khrushchev's humiliating retreat from the Cuban missile crisis led to his removal from office. But it also convinced his successors of the necessity of achieving "parity or superiority in strategic nuclear arms." Simultaneously, however, the Brezhnev years saw the defense industry acquire decision-making power over burgeoning missile programs that rivaled the power of Communist Party leaders and the military. Its parochial concerns about winning state awards influenced missile design decisions nearly as much as the need to respond to America's profit-driven innovation in missile technology.
For example, both the bureaus and the military resisted the development of solid-fuel missile propulsion and consequently, the production of lighter, more survivable mobile missiles. American analysts misconstrued this absence of survivable mobile missiles to mean that the Soviet Union was more concerned with launching a first strike, rather than deterring America's first strike with a survivable retaliatory force.
Some American alarmists, such as Richard Pipes, would write about "Why the Soviet Union Thinks It Could Fight and Win a Nuclear War." These alarmists fostered the hysteria about the "window of vulnerability" that helped elect President Ronald Reagan and sanction his administration's massive arms buildup. But Zaloga is very clear on this point: "Through most of the Cold War, it was exceedingly unlikely that either side would seriously contemplate initiating a nuclear war."
Zaloga also provides evidence to rebut those Americans who assert that Reagan's arms buildup, especially his Strategic Defense Initiative ("Star Wars"), caused the collapse of the Soviet Union by: (1) bankrupting it or (2) provoking Mikhail Gorbachev's destructive reforms. First, "the Soviet strategic nuclear forces were not a significant cause of the Soviet collapse." Second, Gorbachev "soon began to question whether competing in the arms race was really necessary."
Gorbachev deserves tremendous credit for attempting to end an insane arms race. By the mid-1980s, the danger of accidental nuclear war exceed the possibility of intentional nuclear conflict. Nevertheless, Zaloga is largely correct when he concludes, "it is easy enough to imagine the likelihood of a major war between the United States and the Soviet Union had the nuclear-deterrent forces never existed." It is a paradox that Russia's current leaders might reconsider in the wake of the current U.S. administration's Nuclear Posture Review.
"The Kremlin's Nuclear Sword: The Rise and Fall of Russia's Strategic Nuclear Forces, 1945-2000," by Steven J. Zaloga. Smithsonian Institution Press. 296 pages. $45.00
Walter C. Uhler has written about Russian and military history for numerous periodicals.
TITLE: dressing for future success
AUTHOR: by Larisa Doctorow
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The seventh annual fashion-design competition "The Admiral's Needle" got off to a strong start this week, building on a tradition of introducing the public and the fashion industry to over 3,000 young designers from St. Petersburg, Moscow, the rest of Russia and the former Soviet republics, as well as from abroad.
The first two rounds, held at the St. Petersburg University of Technology and Design at 18 Bolshaya Morskaya Ulitsa on Sunday and Tuesday, reduced the initial field of 158 candidates to 36 for the final round, which will be held this Friday in the Marble Hall of the Ethnographic Museum on Ploshchad Isskustv.
From these 36, the jury will select three winners, one in each of the competition's sections: "Project" - which is itself subdivided into "White World" and "Black and White" - "Pret a Porter" and "Avant-Garde." One of these three will then be awarded the Grand Prix as overall winner.
The overall winner receives a bronze-and-silver sculpture by Viktor Votsky that symbolizes the sewing industry. More importantly, he or she will also get two weeks work experience in fashion houses in France. The other winners receive direct entry to the University of Technology and Design, bypassing the tough entrance exams and studying free of charge. They also gain the right to spend three months at one of the university's partner design schools abroad. Additionally, a gala show of the winning design will be held at the Hollywood Nights nightclub on Nevsky Prospect.
The competition's goal - to showcase variety, fantasy, daring and individuality - has not changed since its inception and, judging by the designs on display at Tuesday's second round of competition, this initiative is bearing fruit.
The competition's aim to encourage fantasy was reflected in some of the entries' names. For example, the "Pret a Porter" included displays titled "Autumn Walk," "Deserters of Their Own War," "Sea Weeds," and "The Princess and the Pea."
Some of the combinations on display were equally bold, blending classic high fashion with folk motifs to create exciting new directions. The variety and richness of the designs was also dazzling, covering classic, gauffred sleeves and skirts; crocheted blouses; embroidered leather ensembles; black-and-white perforated dresses; and carpet-like sets decorated with fabric petals or loose threads. Color schemes tended to be either mild pastels or sharp contrasts, such as red-and-black or black-and-white.
It was also very encouraging that the designs were all tasteful - not aiming for shock value like a lot of modern designs - and were highly wearable, well-fitted and fluid, in particular in the "Pret a Porter" section. The impression given was that the designers have a real grasp of their metier and can become commercially viable.
After the show, the president of the jury, Paris-based designer and fashion-historian Alexander Vasiliyev, spoke enthusiastically about the entrants, some of whom are as young as 18.
Vasiliyev is the latest in a distinguished line of jury members that has included such international names as Paco Rabanne and Nadine Gelas, and Russian designers such as Vyacheslav Zaitsev, Tatyana Parfyonova and Lyuba Popova .
Vasiliyev noted that, as recently as two years ago, there was little Western interest in fashion with the label. "Made in Russia." Now, however, there is a surging interest in Russian talent. For example, Vasiliyev said, the Paris Opera engaged Russian designers for its production of "Don Quixote" that opened at the Bastille a few months ago.
Vasiliyev pointed out that careers abroad may beckon for many of this generation of designers. However, the number of advertisements, posted in the university's corridors, for temporary jobs in St. Petersburg, shows that local demand is also running high.
As well as the modelling shows, the competition also includes some important side-events, in particular workshops with well-known designers. Among these is Popova, a Moscow-born designer who now lives in Milan, where she is Dean of Fashion Design and Textiles at the NABA Art Academy, as well as a theatrical costumier and stage-designer. Another masterclass will be given by former jury member Gelas, the director of the Fashion University in Lyon, France.
TITLE: what the revolution said
AUTHOR: by Tom Gallagher
TEXT: From its former role as one of the most hotly debated events of the 20th century, the Russian Revolution has slipped to something of a historical curiosity at the beginning of the 21st. And not a nice curio either - more of a political Chernobyl; an event that teaches by negative example; a caution of what can happen when people tamper with the natural order of things in pursuit of noble-sounding goals.
All of this is understandable. The terror of the French Revolution, after all, set France so far back that an attempt at democracy was replaced by emperors. But once the idea of political equality was let loose upon the land, it would not go away, and it was only a matter of time before better efforts came along, and not only France, but much of the world came to see democracy as a standard and eventually as a human right.
While in today's world the disparity of wealth and power becomes increasingly obvious, it seems unlikely that the ideal of economic equality has disappeared forever - regardless of the damage that the Russian Revolution may have done it.
There is no shortage of words written about the February and October Revolutions, but much of it is polemic, and even the "objective" histories have seldom dealt with the common men and women of the time. But, in "Voices of the Revolution," Illinois University professor Mark D. Steinberg has attempted to open "a window onto what the revolution meant to ordinary Russians" by searching the State Archive of the Russian Federation - formerly the Central State Archive of the October Revolution - and publishing 132 resolutions and letters sent to political figures, institutions and newspapers during the revolutionary year.
The documents present widely disparate viewpoints, but as a whole they support the understanding that in 1917, "discontent ... coalesced around the idea of political and social power belonging to lower-class groups alone, an idea that only the Bolsheviks, among the major political powers, were willing to support and put into action."
Centuries of tsarist rule had created a lot of angry Russians and much of the writing is rough and colorful - even extending to "three-story cussing." A Baltic-Fleet sailor spoke for many in apologizing for any flaws in his revolutionary poem, "Dawn Has Broken," explaining himself as "completely unfamiliar with the rules of versification and far from literate. The accursed despot has not let me study since my childhood days."
Then came the beginnings of gnawing doubts, the fear that things might not have really changed very much at all, that the new boss might be the same as the old boss: The Duma, the formerly advisory parliamentary body that assumed power after the tsar, wanted to continue the tsar's war. Soldiers from the Caucasian front railed, "you are heroes of the rear ... the people may be ignorant and taken for dung, but now that we have freedom of speech ... we are perfectly capable of figuring out who is readying the noose for the working man's neck."
During the period of "dual power" of the Duma and the Soviets - the councils of workers, soldiers and peasants - the slogan of "All Power to the Soviets" gained resonance. The sentiment was phrased most piquantly at a July demonstration by an unidentified demonstrator who told Soviet Representative and Socialist Revolutionary Victor Chernov, "Take power, you sons of a bitch, when it is given to you."
And there were the issues of day-to-day life. In June, the Committee of Elders of the Petrograd Atlas Metal and Machine Factory lamented that "heavy drinking is flourishing. Men are drinking denatured alcohol, varnish and other such substitutes." Restaurant and cafe workers carried banners reading, "We stand for respect for waiters as human beings," and "Down with tips."
Although the revolution would ultimately devolve into the rule of a single party, "Voices of the Revolution" provides a sense of revolutionary support so broad that it was not just the 300 Bolshevik representatives to the Second Congress of Soviets who voted to take power in October, but 505 of the 670 total delegates. The combined representation of the socialist parties in the Constituent Assembly that the Bolsheviks dismissed in January 1918 was approximately 75 percent, which helps explain why, as Steinberg notes, "no popular upheaval took place against Bolshevik power. Even for those who did not approve of Bolshevik rule, it was one thing to condemn the Bolsheviks as usurpers, autocrats and enemies of true socialism and democracy, and quite another to take up arms against a socialist state."
Ultimately, the portion of this book most damning to the Bolsheviks is not that containing the letters or resolutions condemning it, but the glossary of newspapers and journals mentioned in the documents. There were 24 of them; 21 ceased publication in 1917 or 1918.
"Voices of the Revolution." By Mark D. Steinberg. Yale University Press. 404 pages. $29.95.
Tom Gallagher is a freelance writer living in San Francisco.
TITLE: a chance for youth to shine
AUTHOR: by Larisa Doctorow
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: As well as showcasing the established singers of the Mariinsky Theater, the "Stars of the White Nights" festival gives the theater's up-and-coming stars a chance to shine on the big stage.
To encourage young performers and to ensure a constant supply of well-trained young talent, the Mariinsky, on the initiative of its Artistic Director Valery Gergiev, created the Academy of Young Singers four years ago. The academy is now run by Konstantin Pluzhnikov, one of the Mariinsky's leading tenors. Larisa Gergiev, Valery Gergiev's sister, is its artistic director.
The logic behind the foundation of the academy can be seen by considering the demands placed on Mariinsky performers; The theater has an enormous operatic repertoire, embracing different styles from three centuries. In addition, the theater's singers are constantly in demand for tours and at festivals around the world - and, all the while, they must continue to work in their home city.
When the academy opened its doors in 1998, it had an initial intake of 25 students. Today, this number has swelled to 70. The latest set of aspiring young singers, all hoping to spend several years learning the secrets of the operatic art at the hands of Mariinsky soloists, auditioned earlier this month.
The cooperation between the academy and the theater is very close. Not only do the students perform on the same stage as their teachers, but they are also called upon to stand in for their teachers, should the need arise. As for their own parts, students are initially given small roles in the repertoire, moving on to principal roles later.
Since the academy opened, its singers have not just been impressing audiences in St. Petersburg: More and more often, they are being hired by productions elsewhere. Indeed, some of the academy's students are well on their way to stardom.
For example, the soprano Yekaterina Solovyova - having just returned from Warsaw, where she sang Tatyana in Tchaikovsky's "Yevgeny Onegin" - recently landed a dream contract to sing Mimi in the upcoming Broadway production of Puccini's "La Boheme," which will be directed by Baz Luhrmann of "Strictly Ballroom," "Romeo and Juliet" and "Moulin Rouge" cinematic fame. Another student, the bass Ilya Bannik, recently sang Fernando in a recent production of Verdi's "Il Trovatore" in Parma, Italy. And the tenor Daniil Shtoda sang Antonio in Prokofiev's "Betrothal in a Monastery" at France's Lyon Opera House.
This spring was also something of a triumph for the academy's singers. On May 8, at the Shostakovich Philharmonic, they put on a concert version of Bizet's "The Pearl Fishers" - which is rarely performed in St. Petersburg - and broke more new ground two days later, with Richard Strauss' "Ariadne auf Naxos" at the Mariinsky. Both performances were received with much critical acclaim. In the new version of Mussorgsky's "Boris Godunov," which opened to rave reviews at the Mariinsky two weeks ago, the lead role of Boris was sung by another academy student, the bass Yevgeny Nikitin.
The success of the academy's students gives its staff justifiable pride, and provides a ringing endorsement of its teaching methods. According to Shtoda, personal attention is what makes the academy special.
"Our teachers follow the development of the voice very carefully," he explains. "They will never allow me to sing something for which my voice is not ready, regardless of what I might think.
Anastasia Belyayeva, a lyric soprano at the academy, agrees. "If I want to sing something, first of all, I ask the advice of my teacher, Grayer Khanedaniyam," she says. "About 80 percent of [the academy's students] study with him."
Shtoda and Belyayeva, who both joined the academy when it opened in 1998, began studying there to complement their studies at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory. By primary musical training, neither is a singer: Belyayeva is a violinist, while Shtoda is a conductor.
Shtoda's reason for joining the academy is very simple. "It was the chance to perform at the Mariinsky," he says.
Belyayeva, on the other hand, decided to apply to the academy because she felt that she could better communicate her emotions with her voice than with the violin. However, studying the violin remains important to her.
"It gave me a lot. It helped me to understand that music is hard work. Only persistence brings results," she says. "It also helped me to understand that it is possible to be happy while having nothing but music."
The academy teaches its students to be realistic about their voices. "I know that I am a lyric tenor and that my repertoire is lyrical," says Shtoda. "With age, my voice may become stronger, and then I'll see. I will probably sing dramatic parts, but for now I prefer the bel canto repertoire."
Both Shtoda and Belyayeva are, for their age, experienced performers. Before Shtoda graduated from the Conservatory, in 2000, he had already appeared as a soloist at the Capella. His first operatic role, he says, was Elvino, in Bellini's "La Somnabula." More recently, he has appeared as Ferrando in Mozart's "Cosi fan tutte."
Belyayeva first performed at the Mariinsky four years ago, in the secondary role of Barbarina, in Mozarts' "The Marriage of Figaro." Now, in the same opera, she has the lead role of Suzanna.
How does she see her development over that period? "During our lessons, we try different things, for example, romances and arias," she says. "Something might seem too ambitious, but our level of mastery of it increases and, after several months, I feel that I am ready to do it."
Belyayeva is also happy with her voice: "The repertoire for a lyric soprano is great and I want to sing as much as possible."
To further their students' development, the academy insists that they participate in competitions. As Shtoda explains, "It helps us to get rid of fear. Being nervous is good - there is no creativity without it - but being afraid is something different."
"For example, when I participated in the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, I knew I had a good voice but, because I was afraid, I did not do my best," he says.
Now, explains Shtoda, things are different. "Thanks to frequent participation in various competitions, in Russia and abroad, my fear is gone," he says. "I enjoy being on the stage."
Belyayeva concurs. "Often, I am nervous at rehearsals or during the lessons when we learn something new," she says. "But, when I go out on the stage, a different life begins and my fear is dispelled."
Taking part in performances, concerts, and competitions and constantly having to learn new material demands a lot of time, planning and concentration.
"This is another thing we learn in the academy. Everything is done while you are young," Shtoda says. "Anyway, I like being busy. It is better than not having enough engagements."
The academy pays a lot of attention to langauge skills: Not only do the students take courses in several foreign languages, but special attention is paid to phonetics. This is one way to help students cope with the demands of singing in a foreign language.
Academy students are convinced that opera must always be sung in the original language, the way the composer wrote it. As Belyayeva says, "Even the best translation cannot transmit the emotions of the original, with its combination of music and the text of the libretto."
The hard work put in by the young singers is appreciated, not only by the public and by the critics, but also by the academy's founder. At a press conference in May, Valery Gergiev talked about the academy soloists' production of Rossini's "Il viaggio a Reims."
"It is good enough for us to show anywhere in the world - New York, Tokyo or London - without a doubt," he said. High praise indeed.
TITLE: Pakistan Calls On UN After Militant Raid
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: JAMMU, India - As tensions mounted between India and Pakistan, two militants stormed an Indian police camp in Kashmir on Thursday, killing three officers and wounding several others before being trapped by security forces.
Indian security forces said that the militants holed up in a camp building in the mountainous Doda region, exchanging fire with police until their capture.
This latest attack came just hours after Pakistan renewed a call, on Wednesday, for United Nations Security Council action in Kashmir, where a UN-sponsored plebiscite to determine the future of the region has been stalled for more than half a century by India.
"India reneged on that pledge after four or five years," said Pakistan's newly installed ambassador to the UN, Munir Akram, "and it is because of that unfulfilled pledge that we are at the pass in which India and Pakistan find themselves today."
Akram also said that the small team of 43 military observers and 22 civilian officials monitoring a cease-fire line between Indian and Pakistani forces in Kashmir should be greatly enlarged, to verify Indian accusations that Pakistan is sending militants across the line. The observer mission, set up in 1949, works mostly in Pakistan and is restricted by India to a minimal presence. The mission costs $6.2 million annually.
India has rejected any expansion of the UN monitoring mission for Kashmir, where the latest, and deadliest, round in a battle for autonomy, if not independence, for Kashmiris living under Indian rule has been going on since 1989. India also opposes mediation.
Although diplomats say that the council is not eager to take up this issue, Kashmir does remain on its books. Kashmir is, internationally, a disputed territory, and, should the threat of war grow, the old council resolutions - passed in 1948, 1951 and 1965 - are likely to be dusted off for review. Akram said on Thursday that the Security Council had the responsibility to do something if only to try to head off conflict.
Asked about the wisdom of Pakistan's recent missile tests, he said that in the last five months, India had tested five missiles of varying ranges. "Nobody objected," he said. "Why is it different when Pakistan tests?"
He defended Pakistan's decision not to agree to a doctrine of no first use of nuclear weapons. "We have not said we will use nuclear weapons," he said. "We have not said we will not use nuclear weapons. We possess nuclear weapons. So does India."
These words were followed by a redeployment of Pakistani forces to the Kashmir border on Thursday afternoon.
According to a report issued Thursday by a Pakistani television agency, Pakistan began moving troops from the Afghan border, where they have been aiding U.S. forces in the search for al-Qaida and Taliban fighters.
Quoting an unidentified Pakistan Army spokesperson, the report said that the forces were being shifted to Kashmir, where India and Pakistan already have massed a million troops.
(NYT, WP, AP)
TITLE: Iraq Agrees Formally To UN Program
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: UNITED NATIONS - Iraq has formally agreed to a six-month extension of the newly revamped UN oil-for-food humanitarian program, a UN official said Wednesday.
The program was created to alleviate the suffering of Iraqi civilians, living under sanctions imposed on Iraq after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. It allows Iraq to sell crude oil to purchase food, medicine and other humanitarian goods.
Iraq exchanged letters with the UN on Tuesday renewing a 1996 memorandum of understanding that established the program, said Benon Sevan, head of the program. The new phase took effect at midnight local time Wednesday.
To ease the flow of humanitarian supplies into Iraq, the council approved a new set of procedures that will allow Iraq to import everything except a list of goods with potential military uses. Items on the list would have to be approved by the Security Council committee monitoring sanctions against Iraq before Baghdad could purchase them.
Sevan told the UN Security Council Wednesday that the new system will do little to ease Iraq's humanitarian situation, as long as the oil-for-food program faces financial difficulties as a result of reduced Iraqi oil exports.
As of May 22, the shortfall in funds for the purchase of humanitarian supplies was over $1.8 billion, he said.
Sevan said that Iraqi oil exports had declined by nearly 500,000 barrels a day this year, largely because of a pricing policy enforced by the United States and Britain through the sanctions committee.
TITLE: WORLD WATCH
TEXT: Israel Raids Continue
JERUSALEM (AP) - Israeli troops seized three Palestinians in a pre-dawn raid on Thursday in the West Bank town of Hebron, the latest in a series of incursions intended to pre-empt Palestinian attacks, officials said.
Three tanks, about 20 armored personnel carriers and 20 jeeps entered Hebron at dawn and left several hours later, witnesses said. Palestinian security officials said that the three people arrested included a local leader of the Islamic militant group Hamas.
Israel is carrying out almost daily incursions into Palestinian areas in the West Bank. In most cases, the army faces little or no resistance, arrests several Palestinians and leaves shortly afterward.
While most of the Israeli incursions have been brief, troops remained in Bethlehem and surrounding villages for a fourth day Thursday, keeping residents in their homes as they searched for militants and weapons.
Libya Denies Deal
WASHINGTON (WP) - Libya denied on Wednesday that it had agreed to pay $2.7 billion to the families of Pan Am Flight 103 victims, casting doubt on the future of a deal announced on Tuesday by lawyers negotiating for the families.
In a statement issued by its United Nations mission, the Libyan government declared it "has no relationship" to the settlement deal, which the lawyers said they had reached with three senior Libyan representatives in Paris. The statement said that the Libyan government had never been "officially informed ... of what transpired at these meetings."
New York lawyers for Pan Am 103 relatives had announced on Tuesday that Libya had agreed to pay $10 million to each of the 270 victims of the 1988 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland. They said the money would be placed in escrow until U.S. and UN sanctions against Libya were lifted.
Chretien Cleans Up
TORONTO, Canada (WP) - Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien is reasserting his leadership and moving to clean up his government in response to ethics scandals.
Chretien has turned aside suggestions that he should resign, and has moved quickly to try to defuse the controversy. On Sunday, he demanded the resignation of the minister of national defense, Art Eggleton, following allegations that Eggleton awarded a government contract to a former girlfriend.
On the same day, Chretien removed Public Works Minister Don Boudria, after allegations that Boudria stayed at a luxury hotel that was owned by the president of a public-relations firm that received millions of dollars of contracts for federal advertising campaigns. Boudria was demoted to a leadership position in the House of Commons.
Hezbollah Fires at Jets
GHAJAR, Lebanon (Reuters) -Hezbollah guerrillas fired at Israeli jets near the Israel-Lebanon border on Thursday, showering fragments of anti-aircraft rounds on a northern Israeli village, security sources said.
The Lebanese sources said Syrian and Iranian-backed Hezbollah fired at Israeli jets that carried out mock raids over south Lebanese towns and villages and circled low over the coastal cities of Tyre and Sidon.
The Israeli Army said the planes were flying over Israel's northern Galilee when they came under Hezbollah anti-aircraft fire. The planes were not hit and the fragments landed on a town in upper Galilee, injuring none.
TITLE: Hasek Shows Red Wings How To Do It
AUTHOR: By John Marshall
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: DENVER, Colorado - Dominik Hasek criticized his teammates after consecutive losses in the Western Conference finals. He took matters into his own hands this time.
Hasek stopped 24 shots and Brendan Shanahan ended his scoring slump Wednesday night, leading the Red Wings past the Colorado Avalanche, 2-0, to even the series. Game 7 is Friday night in Detroit.
"The one thing about playing with this pressure, it makes you feel so good when you win the game," Hasek said.
After a 2-1 loss in overtime in Game 5, Detroit's second-straight defeat, Hasek said his teammates were making too many mental mistakes.
In Game 6, Hasek was spectacular at times in earning his fourth shutout of the playoffs this year and 10th of his career.
"They had their chances, but Dom came up big when he needed to," Detroit's Chris Chelios said.
"We are not happy going back to Detroit," Colorado goalie Patrick Roy said. "It is a big challenge, but it's been like this for us all year. We have a hard time making it easy on ourselves."
Shanahan had been criticized for his lack of production and was despondent after hitting a post in the final two minutes of Game 5, which Colorado won 2-1 in overtime.
He made up for it with 38 seconds left in the first period, with his first goal since Game 4 against St. Louis in the conference semifinals. Roy raised his glove, thinking he caught Steve Yzerman's shot from the slot, but the puck hit the ice and Shanahan chipped it in. Roy briefly tried to argue the call, then bent over and covered his mask with both gloves.
"We were lucky that the referees knew that the puck wasn't in his glove and didn't blow the whistle," Yzerman said. "It just hit his glove and went down, as opposed to just staying in there."
It was the first time Detroit scored the first goal in the series and the Red Wings' first lead in regulation since the third period of Game 1.
Darren McCarty made it 2-0 with 6:33 left in the second after Peter Forsberg couldn't get to a back pass by Martin Skoula in Detroit's zone.
McCarty beat Roy stickside from the left faceoff circle on the breakaway for his first goal since scoring three straight in the third period of Game 1.
Colorado coach Bob Hartley gambled in the second period when he asked the officials to check the width of Hasek's stick, but wound up losing a power play.
The officials said Hasek's stick was within the 10-centimeter limit, resulting in a bench penalty against Colorado that wiped out 1:23 of a power play.
Colorado had to move blueliner Pascal Trepanier to forward for Game 6 because of injuries to Mike Keane, Dan Hinote and Alex Tanguay. It got worse in the second period when forward Stephane Yelle went out with a sprained neck after a collision with Detroit's Steve Duchesne.
The winner of the series will face the Carolina Hurricanes in the finals. The Hurricanes won the Eastern Conference championship Tuesday night by beating the Toronto Maple Leafs 2-1 in overtime, capturing the best-of-seven series 4-2.
The franchise was 1-11 in playoff series before beating New Jersey, Montreal and the Maple Leafs this spring. Carolina became the first team since the 1985 Edmonton Oilers to win three straight series on the road.
TITLE: Nets Hold Out, Take 3-2 Lead
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: EAST RUTHERFORD, New Jersey - After letting a 20-point lead drop to one, the New Jersey Nets used a 20-1 run Wednesday to pull away from the Boston Celtics in the fourth quarter and claim a 103-92 victory.
The win gives New Jersey a 3-2 lead in the seven-game Eastern Conference finals.
"Game 3, as crazy as it may seem, may have been the best thing that happened to our ballclub. It showed us that no lead is safe," Nets coach Byron Scott said, referring to New Jersey blowing a 21-point lead in the fourth quarter Saturday - the biggest final-period blowup in NBA playoff history.
"Everything happens for a reason. We blew a 21-point lead, but I think we matured a lot from it. That was a defining moment for this franchise, and we came through with flying colors in Games 4 and 5," Scott said.
Jason Kidd was again the star of the show for the Nets, who got out to a big early lead for the third consecutive game. Kidd finished with 18 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists, and his jumper with 9:30 remaining started New Jersey on the game-clinching run.
By the time Keith Van Horn ended the 20-1 burst with two three-pointers, the Nets had turned a 74-73 lead into a 94-74 advantage with 5:36 left.
The former American Basketball Association franchise still needs one more victory to make it to the NBA Finals for the first time since entering the league in 1976. It will go for it Friday night at Boston in Game 6.
New Jersey, which led by as many as 26 in Game 3, showed once again that it appears to be the deeper and more talented team, getting 21 points from Kerry Kittles and 19 each from Van Horn and Kenyon Martin.
Paul Pierce scored 24 points for Boston, but none came in the fourth quarter, when the Nets switched to a full-court zone that Boston couldn't solve.
Erick Strickland hit two free throws with 10:50 remaining to cut Boston's deficit to 74-73, but a jump shot by Lucien Harris made it 13 straight points by the Nets, and Van Horn's two three-pointers sent the New Jersey's Continental Airlines Arena crowd into a frenzy.
It was a turnaround from what happened in the final 12 minutes of Game 3, when Boston outscored the Nets 41-16.
"I think it was a defining moment in the sense that we learned our lesson. People didn't believe in us, and we were back to where we were getting doubted," Nets forward Richard Jefferson said. "In Game 4, we had a good lead and they started to came back. Same thing here.
"In both games we were more resilient than we were in Game 3. We learned our lesson," he said.
TITLE: Safin Through to Third Round
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: PARIS - Second-seeded Marat Safin rallied for a 4-6, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3, 6-3 second-round win over Olivier Rochus at the French Open on Thursday.
The 193-centimeter Safin, who'd been bothered by a pinched nerve in his back, made a diving stab volley at match point and was covered with clay as he went to the net to shake hands with the 165-centimeter Rochus.
"Small guys have great touch. He's a very talented guy. I'm big, I have power but not touch," Safin said. "So it's split up."
Safin's fellow Russians, former champion Yevgeny Kafelnikov and fan-favorite Anna Kournikova, made an early farewell to Roland Garros when they both lost on Wednesday.
Kafelnikov lost, 7-6, 2-6, 6-4, 7-6, to Argentine Mariano Zabaleta in the second round, while Kournikova crashed, 6-4, 6-3 to Australian wildcard Christina Wheeler.
No. 5 Kafelnikov, the 1996 winner, bowed out for his fourth second-round exit in the Parisian grand slam tournament. Kournikova, without a title after seven years on the tour, sprayed wild shots around the arena in a sloppy display that contained 48 unforced errors.
Also on Thursday, Jennifer Capriati, Andre Agassi and Serena Williams all went through to the third round.
"It was making me a little mad that I couldn't hold my serve. We were going back and forth in the first set," Capriati said, after she lost her serve six times but still beat Amy Frazier 6-4, 6-3.
Fourth-seeded Agassi had a 4-6, 6-2, 6-1 lead when Spain's David Sanchez retired in the second-round match because of a blister on his foot. Sanchez had the foot taped after the second set, had trouble running down shots, and decided not to continue after losing the third set.
No. 3 seed Williams, again wearing yellow soccer socks up to her knees, needed 62 minutes to beat Dally Randriantefy of Madagascar 6-2, 6-3.
No. 11 Juan Carlos Ferrero didn't let a sore ankle stop him from defeating Nicolas Coutelot 6-2, 5-7, 1-6, 6-2, 6-0. Also advancing Thursday were No. 3 Tommy Haas, who beat Feliciano Lopez 6-3, 6-4, 6-4; No. 10 Sebastien Grosjean, who beat American James Blake 6-4, 3-6, 6-2, 7-5; Xavier Malisse, who beat No. 6 Tim Henman 6-2, 3-6, 7-6, 6-3; and unseeded Vincent Spadea, who beat Adrian Voinea 6-4, 4-6, 2-6, 7-6, 8-6.
No. 7 Jelena Dokic beat Conchita Martinez, 3-6, 7-6, 6-2; Chanda Rubin upset No. 16 Barbara Schett, 5-7, 6-3, 7-5; and Mary Pierce eliminated No. 32 Cristina Torrens Valero 6-3, 6-1.
(AP, Reuters)
TITLE: SPORTS WATCH
TEXT: Youth Lag
SHIMIZU, Japan (Reuters) - Teenage Russian striker Alexander Kerzhakov says he and his team mates are struggling to shake off jet-lag after arriving at their World Cup base.
"It's very hard to adapt at the moment, because we're not used to the time difference yet," the 19-year-old Zenit striker told reporters.
Kerzhakov, one of three exciting teenage attacking talents on the Russian squad, said the players were taking advantage of all the facilities at the National Training Center in Shimizu, where they have been practicing behind closed doors. "We're training twice a day but we've got lots of entertainment - television, computers, billiards and a cinema room," he said.
Kerzhakov is battling with 18-year-old Spartak Moscow striker Dmitry Sychyov for a place in Russia's attack alongside Vladimir Beschastnykh for their opening Group H game against Tunisia in Kobe on June 5. But his hopes were hit on Wednesday when he hobbled out of a practice match after hurting his right ankle in a challenge.
Kicking Off
SEOUL (Reuters) - Hosts South Korea declared Asia's first World Cup safe and secure on the eve of Friday's kick-off as ticketing problems and traffic jams frayed the nerves of players and fans.
Defending champions France, whose opening match against Senegal launches the world's biggest sporting event since the Sept. 11 suicide hijack attacks on the United States, fell victim to the traffic in the South Korean capital Seoul.
It canceled a final practice at Seoul's main stadium, venue for the opening match, fearing the trip in heavy traffic from its hotel would tire its players.
But, on the security front, South Korea, which is co-hosting the tournament with Japan, remained upbeat - despite fears of terrorism following Sep. 11 and of traveling hooligans from Europe.
"This is the World Cup of Safety," Prime Minister Lee Han-dong said, as his country completed its preparations for the first World Cup to be staged outside Europe or the Americas. "It will be a secure World Cup," he said.
Some 420,000 police will guard the month-long soccer extravaganza in South Korea. Fighter jets will scour the skies and anti-aircraft missiles have been deployed near stadiums to knock out any air attack.
Good and Gone
KOHAMA, Japan (AP) - While France must do without its star in Friday's World Cup opener, England apparently will have its top player on the field two days later.
The World Cup gets started with defending champion France playing Senegal in Seoul, South Korea. Midfielder Zinedine Zidane, the hero of the French win four years ago, is sidelined by a torn thigh muscle.
Still, France should have too much firepower for the World Cup newcomers from Africa. Even a Senegalese player recognizes his team is an underdog.
"There is no difference in France with Zidane or without Zidane. France is still a very good team," Senegal defender Aliou Cisse said.
England could be very good, too, especially if captain David Beckham is healthy. The English open Sunday against Sweden in the tournament's most difficult sector, Group F.
Beckham, who broke his left foot in a Champions League game April 10, fired in his trademark long-range shots at England's training camp Thursday and told coach Sven-Goran Eriksson he was ready to play.
"I wasn't that confident when I broke the bone. You don't know what's going to happen," he said. "But I always had it in my mind to get fit for the Sweden game so, touch wood, I'll be OK."
Doing Without
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - The void created by Roy Keane's expulsion from the Irish squad can't be filled by a replacement player, because the Manchester United midfielder's exit from the World Cup was not injury related, a FIFA official said Thursday.
Keane was cut from the Ireland squad last week after an expletive-laced exchange with coach Mick McCarthy over facilities and coaching tactics.
Reports suggested Ireland would try to call up another player to supplement its squad, but FIFA spokesperson Keith Cooper reiterated that replacements can only be drafted to cover injuries.
"Roy Keane has not been declared unfit, therefore he can't be replaced," Cooper said during a FIFA briefing in Seoul on the eve of the tournament's first match.
Needed at Home
MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Australia's Olympic 400-meter gold medallist Cathy Freeman said on Thursday that she was withdrawing from competition for the rest of the year to be with her husband, who has cancer.
"My husband has cancer. He has a massive tumor in the back of his mouth," Freeman told a news conference in Melbourne.
"He will be receiving treatment here in Melbourne and this means I will not be competing in Europe this year - I am not competing this year at all," she said.
Freeman, who married U.S. sportswear executive Sandy Bodecker in 1999, was expected to be one of the main drawcards at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester from July 25 to August 4.
After making her announcement, Freeman added that, if she was "really fortunate", she might be able to run in the 4x400 meter relay for Australia at Manchester, but immediately cast doubt on such an event.
"Probably at this stage, really, it is highly unlikely that I will be on the track at all, but we will just have to wait and see. But I will keep training and stay fit and I plan to return to competition as soon as I can," Freeman said.
Something Special
FAR HILLS, New Jersey (AP) - Nick Faldo, a three-time Masters and British Open champion, received a special exemption Wednesday to play in the U.S. Open.
Faldo was not exempt for the U.S. Open for the first time since 1987, and was not optimistic that the U.S. Golf Association would give him a free pass to Bethpage State Park in New York.
He joins three-time U.S. Open champion Hale Irwin as the only players to receive special exemptions to the Open, which will be played from June 13 to June 16 on the Black Course at Bethpage.
"I am absolutely delighted and am very much looking forward to playing at Bethpage," Faldo said. "Hopefully, I will have a great week, repaying the USGA by putting their invite to good use."
Faldo, who has six top-15 finishes this year, will be playing in his 60th consecutive major, the longest active streak in golf.