SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #801 (66), Friday, September 6, 2002
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TITLE: Fires, Local Officials Blowing Smoke
AUTHOR: Claire Bigg
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: While the city's residents were dealing with the heavy haze that descended over St. Petersburg on Thursday, officials at Smolny and from the Leningrad Oblast were mostly busy with arguing over which fires were responsible for filling the city with smoke.
While the smoke has already wafted into the city center a few times in the last few weeks from the fires burning around St. Petersburg, the density raised significantlly on Thursday, causing problems with visibility for automobiles and aircraft and concerns about attendant health risks.
Interfax quoted city traffic officials as saying that the onset of the heavy haze had lead to an increase in the number of accidents on city highways, as a result of visibility that was reduced in some cases to 10 meters or less, while Pulkovo Airport was cancelling incoming flights.
The fires in the Leningrad Oblast have spread to cover an area of 2,000 hectares, but oblast representatives say that these fires are not responsible the smoke blanketing the city.
"The smoke is coming from fires in districts within St. Petersburg itself, such as the Pushkin and Pargolovo districts," said Valentin Sidorin, the head of the Leningrad Oblast administration press service. "The nearest fires burning in the Leningrad Oblast are over 80 kilometers away, so there's no way that this smoke is reaching St. Petersburg."
Sidorin said that a good part of the problem was the result of Smolny's actions, saying that St. Petersburg was not treating the question of the fires seriously enough and that the city was reluctant to cooperate with the oblast administration, adding that the oblast had a lot more experience in putting out these kind of fires than St. Petersburg.
According to Sidorin, over 2,000 people were actively involved in fighting the fires in the oblast on Thursday, with the help of two helicopters and of 1,000 fire fighting vehicles, such as bulldozers, tractors and fire trucks.
The oblast figures were countered on Thursday by those from Vladislav Stulevsky, an official with the Northwest Region Emergency Ministry's press service, who said that 1,000 people were involved in firefighting activities, with only 291 vehicles at their disposal.
Although the Leningrad Oblast press service has issued a number of statements over the past week saying that the fires were under control, Stulevsky said that "the number of vehicles and personel is largely insufficient to put out the fires."
Peat fires, which burn 5 to 7 meters under ground level, are particularly dangerous, as they are not always visible, and are consequently difficult to put out. Such fires must first be located by air patrols, following which firefighting personel must dig them up with bulldozers before they can be extinguished.
Smolny representatives seemd more interested on Monday with discussing the origins of the smoke than the diffiulties in putting out the fires that were causing it.
"The oblast claims that the smoke is originating from fires here, but this is a lie. There aren't any fires burning in St. Petersburg that would be able to produce this much smoke," said Alexander Afanasyev, the spokesperson for St. Petersburg Governor Valdimir Yakovlev.
"The oblast is claiming that the closest fire burning on its territory is over 60 kilometers away from St. Petersburg," Afanasyev added. "In reality, a report from an air patrol that was issued on Saturday shows that there are fires in the Lomonosov, Kirishsky and Gatchina districts, all three of which are located in the Leningrad Oblast. These districts are all within 15 kilometers the city."
According to Afanasyev, the few locations where fires are burning in the outskirts of St. Petersburg are small and under control.
Despite their inability to agree on the origins of the smoke, the city administration and the oblast say they are taking action to work more closely together in fighting the blazes.
In an emergency meeting on Thursday, headed by Vice Governor Anna Markova, the local Emergency Commission will provide assistance to the Leningrad Oblast in putting out the fires, in the form of vehicles and equipment, including a helicopter equipped with a water tank.
As for hopes of the smog clearing quickly, weather forecasts for the next few days aren't favorable, with predictions saying that wind levels will be slight.
"There will generally be little change in the next few days, and we do not expect any rain until the middle of the month," said Georgy Ivanov of the Department for Hydrometeorology and Environment Monitoring.
While not commenting on the degree to which the smoke was a health risk, Ivanov said that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air had increased. Interfax reported it to be between two and three times the usual level.
For his part, Afanasyev was playing down the health risk. "Breathing the smoke is definately unpleasant, but it is nothing catastrophic."
TITLE: Refugees Return, But Find No Homes Left
AUTHOR: By Yevgenia Borisova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: GROZNY - Kulimat Magomadova did not like living much in the muddy Znamenskaya refugee camp in northern Chechnya. But at least she and her family had food, a large tent over their heads and a bathroom at night.
Magomadova, a 38-year-old Chechen mother, rues the day she agreed to move back to Grozny voluntarily in a government program to bring refugees home. She and other relocated refugees said that, on their return, they have faced hunger, unbearable housing conditions and a curfew that bans night-time use of outdoor toilets - the only ones available.
"We have nothing to eat and my children have no money to buy materials for school," Magomadova said. "My door has been repaired so badly that the doorframe could collapse any minute. I am afraid to go out."
She lives with her six children and bedridden husband in a tiny, 10-square-meter room in a five-story dormitory at 119 Mayakovskaya Ul. The dormitory is one of 15 buildings that the government hastily repaired in Chechnya for the return of refugees. About 12,000 people have moved into the buildings in Grozny, Argun, Gudermes and other cites.
Magomadova's dormitory is typical of the housing fixed up by the Federal Migration Service, which used its own funds and money raised from the sale of Chechen oil. There is no electricity or water. Most buildings lack toilets and baths, and they are locked shut at night. Chechen authorities say the lockdown is necessary to maintain order, but it also means no going to the toilet between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m.
Food is scarce after the United Nations cut off supplies in late July to protest the kidnapping of a leading humanitarian-aid official, Nina Davydovich, the head of Druzhba. Relief workers only deliver tanks of drinking water.
Anna Idrisova, whose job is to keep an eye on the 906 people residing in the dormitory on Mayakovskaya Ul., said Magomadova and the other refugees who relocated to her building at the beginning of July have only received one delivery of food since arriving. That food was supposed to last 20 days.
The Federal Migration Service is supposed to give former refugees 15 rubles ($0.47) worth of food a day but, since the beginning of July, each resident has received only 30 rubles ($0.95) worth of food, Idrisova said. "I also haven't been paid for my work," she said.
She said 796 people had been brought to live in a neighboring dormitory at 111 Mayakovskaya Ul. But the building remains unfinished after unpaid construction workers laid down their tools. All 796 people have vanished to "God knows where," Idrisova said.
One of them, Zura Tepesheva, said she has rented an apartment for her family of eight. She borrows the rent of 500 rubles ($15.80) a month from relatives. "But this cannot go on for long," she said.
Some former refugees said they have accumulated several thousand rubles in debt, and have no idea how they will pay it back.
An official at the migration service in Grozny acknowledged Wednesday that there had been a delay" in the distribution of food and other supplies. He blamed it on a decision made by Moscow in February to demote the migration service to a branch of the Interior Ministry.
"It takes time to adjust to this reorganization," said the official, who asked not to be identified.
He would not specify when the delay occurred and exactly how much food and other aid was still owed to refugees.
He said deliveries were resuming and the next shipment would reach Grozny soon.
Residents in a dormitory at 21 Ul. Novatorov said they were receiving bread every day from the migration service - a half-loaf per person. That was all the food they were getting.
Roza Yusupova, 40, said that when the migration service did deliver other food, it was often of poor quality.
"The migration service gave us some canned goods recently, but the meat was bad and we threw it away," she said. "The condensed milk had black spots under the lid. We ate it anyway because there is nothing else to eat."
Former refugees said that while housing conditions were intolerable, fear for their own safety was sometimes of greater concern. They spoke of beatings and robberies on the streets and during routine dormitory checkups.
Grozny television reported Sunday that residents of the Ul. Novatorov dormitory were awoken Aug. 31 by a loud banging on their building's door. Several armed men in uniform stood on the street demanding entrance for an inspection. Terrified residents refused, and the men fired on the building before leaving.
The identities of the men was unknown, according to the report.
Residents of the dormitory at 98 Ponyatkova Ul. in an isolated, shelled-out corner of the city face more difficulties than some. Their isolation means they have almost no opportunities to try to earn a little money on-the- side trading.
"We live much worse here than in Znamenskaya," Zulpa Makhtiyeva, a mother of five, said Saturday. "Sometimes, there were seasonal temporary jobs there. We were given food regularly, as well as shoes, clothes and laundry soap.
"Here, we have shortages in everything. This is the third day that we have no water," she said.
Refugees living in other Chechen cities said their situation was much worse than in Grozny. In Argun, residents said they were trapped in military cleansing operations almost as soon as they returned home last year.
"We have been promised food and security and compensation for our lost houses," said Alik Magomirzayev, 55, who lives with his family of seven in one room. "Instead, we have almost no food. We don't even have bed linen. When we complain, we are called bad names."
Magomirzayev said he had sent a daughter and son to live with relatives to ensure that they would eat. He said the migration service had not provided a shipment of food since June 7.
Ruslan Dzhabrailov, director of the Bart refugee tent camp in Karabulak, Ingushetia, said many of the people who returned to Chechnya were coming back and asking for a tent. His camp houses 3,716 refugees.
"I have been told not to accept them," he said. "I have a lot of pity for these people, but I can't help. They have apparently been deceived about being fed and living in decent conditions.
"After listening to the stories of those who have gone back, we know it is too early to return."
Magomadova, who lives in the dormitory on Mayakovskaya Ul., is at the end of her rope but she has no place else to go. Her house in the Grozny suburb of Pervomaisky was destroyed in fighting in 1999.
"All I get is 70 rubles [$2.22] a month for each of my six children," she said. "Do you think it is possible for eight people to survive on 420 rubles [$13.30] a month"?
"It was much better in Znamenskaya. At least we had something to eat," she said.
TITLE: Putin Puts Yet More Pressure on Georgia
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW - Russian President Vladimir Putin turned up the heat on Georgia on Thursday, accusing leader Eduard Shevardnadze of lacking the political will to root out Chechen rebels.
In a message to the Georgian leader, Putin repeated he was ready to send the Russian military to help in joint action against Chechen guerrillas in Georgia's lawless Pankisi Gorge who were sowing "death and destruction" against Russia.
Georgia's refusal of past offers of help had allowed Chechen rebels to build a "bridgehead" on Georgian territory from which they launched raids into Russia, Putin said.
"The Russian President underlined that political will was necessary for effectively crushing the nest of terrorism in the Pankisi Gorge," the Kremlin press service said in a summary of Putin's message.
Putin's tough tone and his charge that Shevardnadze lacked the commitment to crush the rebels, significantly sharpened the war of words with Tbilisi which has also affected Moscow's relations with Washington.
His message indicated he was unimpressed by Georgia's claims to have brought the gorge under control during a special operation in late August by 1,000 interior ministry troops.
But it also indicated Putin's frustration at being unable to solve the protracted conflict in separatist Chechnya which is costing the lives of Russian service personel daily. In one incident alone on August 19, 119 service personel were killed when their helicopter troop carrier was downed over Chechnya.
Putin made only a cursory mention of Georgia's security sweep in the gorge, saying only he hoped it would result in "terrorists" being rounded up and disarmed.
But Russia's deputy chief of staff, General Yuri Baluyevsky, on Wednesday gave a clearer indication of Moscow's view, dismissing the Georgian interior ministry operation as a "sham."
Georgian troops say they have so far detained three people, including an Arab. Shevardnadze has said several dozen Chechen guerrillas may still be in the gorge.
"In theory, the possibility that one or more al-Qaida representatives is in the Pankisi Gorge cannot be ruled out," Shevardnadze's spokesperson, Kakha Imnadze, said Thursday. "Georgian Security Ministry officials are working on this problem methodically, in close cooperation with the U.S. special services."
Shevardnadze ruffled feathers in Moscow last May when he persuaded Washington to send military experts to help shape Georgia's ragged armed forces for anti-rebel action.
After months of goading by Moscow and the start of a U.S. program to train anti-terrorist forces, Georgian police last week launched what was billed as a drive to rid the gorge of militants and criminals. But Shevardnadze said that before the campaign began, authorities gave militants ample warning to get out in order to avoid bloodshed.
Georgian police have detained seven people in the gorge, including a man described as an Arab carrying a French passport and six criminals, according to Paata Gomelauri, a spokesperson for the Georgian Interior Ministry.
On Thursday, Gomelauri pronounced the operation a success, and said that, in addition to arresting people, police were confiscating illegal weapons. As a sign that Georgia is reasserting control over the territory, Gomelauri said a Georgian school would soon open in place of the Arabic one that had been operating.
Shevardnadze has pointedly kept at arms' length offers of joint military action from Georgia's former Soviet master.
Putin told Shevardnadze Russia was seriously concerned at the "significant number of armed Chechen fighters and international terrorists" in the gorge.
"Fighters based on Georgia's territory, continue to sow death and destruction on Russian soil," he said. "In this situation ... Russia has every right to insist on Tbilisi taking exhaustive measures to end the activities of bandits in the gorge."
Saying Georgia's strategy of "gently squeezing" the guerrillas out of the gorge had not worked, Putin said the time had come now for "purposeful, decisive and concrete action."
(AP, Reuters)
TITLE: Author Denies Working With Putin
AUTHOR: By Valeria Korchagina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The second of a trilogy of books about President Vladimir Putin hit the shelves Wednesday, with its author, Oleg Blotsky, insisting that the president did not have a hand in putting together his rather glowing biography.
Blotsky revealed that the only editorial interference in the manuscript of "Vladimir Putin: The Road to Power" came from Putin's wife, Lyudmila, who corrected some misinformation about German sausages.
"Lyudmila Alexandrovna only read the parts where she was quoted," he said Wednesday. "She corrected one name and pointed out that I was wrong in saying that sausages were sold by weight [in East Germany] when they were sold by rounds."
Blotsky said Putin did not even read the draft, while his wife's only request was not to write in any detail about the couple's two daughters, Maria, 17, and Yekaterina, 16. "The family is very protective of the children," he said.
As a result, the book does not contain any photographs of the girls' faces later than 1997.
"The Road to Power" follows Putin's career from 1975, when he joined the KGB, to the end of 1999, when he became the acting president of Russia. The first volume, "Vladimir Putin: A Life Story," appeared in January and described earlier periods of the president's life.
Blotsky said he had not received a single ruble for writing the book, and that all proceeds from Russian sales will be donated to a children's hospital. He would earn all his money from Western publishers, he said.
Translations of the new book have already been ordered in nine countries, said Oleg Toni, the head of the Baltic Construction Company, a financial group that covered the book's publishing costs.
Among other things, "The Road to Power" describes Putin's work as a spy in East Germany and as a deputy to former St. Petersburg Mayor Anatoly Sobchak. Blotsky said his research met with understanding and cooperation from the Putins, but that the Foreign Intelligence Service raised objections.
"With those guys I had to struggle a lot; they wanted to protect the name of every member of their staff mentioned in the book," he said, adding that a couple of the names included are not pseudonyms.
Blotsky said the final part of the trilogy is in the works but that it will not come out before November next year.
TITLE: Rau Breaks Ground On Novgorod Trip
AUTHOR: By Frieder Reimold
TEXT: NOVGOROD, Central Russia - German President Johannes Rau laid a wreath Thursday at a cemetery for Wehrmacht soldiers from World War II, joined by the Novgorod governor. It was the first time a high-ranking Russian official had accompanied a German president to such an event.
The presence of Governor Mikhail Prusak at the somber ceremony reflects the close cooperation between Russians and Germans, who have been seeking to preserve war graves in the region since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
A Russian and a German officer together laid the wreath with flowers in the colors of both countries' flags at the Pankovka cemetery, on the outskirts of Novgorod, about 250 kilometers southwest of St. Petersburg.
The German army, or Wehrmacht, was in the area for about two years during the siege of Leningrad, but left the area when the siege was broken in 1944. In the Soviet era, the graves were left in disrepair and a portion of the cemetery was turned into a garbage dump.
But, in 1992, German veterans' organizations were allowed back into the area to search for war dead and have restored the cemetery. It originally housed 700 Germans, 1,000 Spanish fascist troops and others who fought alongside the Nazis, but the cemetery has since been expanded with another 4,000 soldiers, mostly from the Wehrmacht, whose bodies were found in the area.
Karl-Wilhelm Lange, president of the Federation for German War Graves, who was accompanying Rau on the trip, said Russians and Germans were cooperating well in the area - telling each other when they find bodies of fallen soldiers from the other side.
German presidents have visited such war graves in Russia before but, up to now, without the accompaniment of any prominent Russian official.
Rau said at a later news conference that he was moved by the ceremony and acknowledged the Russian suffering in the war, which killed an estimated 27 million citizens in the Soviet Union.
"There is almost no Russian family without losses in the war," Rau said.
Earlier, Rau laid a similar wreath at the official Russian war memorial in the area.
The trip has also included several meetings with younger Russians, including those who have studied in Germany, and Rau expressed hopes that "rising numbers of youth exchanges will bring down the numbers of necessary peace conferences."
Before returning to Germany later Thursday, ending his four-day state visit, Rau visited local churches - one of which was razed to the ground during the war but is being rebuilt with the help of German industry.
Rau met with President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday. The two called for increased economic cooperation between their countries. On Wednesday, Rau said, in a speech to university students, that closer ties also meant having common values, and expressed concern over the military campaign in Chechnya and crackdowns on free expression.
TITLE: Krasnoyarsk Race Set To Go Down to Wire
AUTHOR: By Andrei Zolotov Jr.
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Krasnoyarsk votes for a governor Sunday in a tight race that observers predicted would go into a runoff.
The winner will take over an office left vacant when Governor Alexander Lebed died in a helicopter crash in April.
"It's a very interesting campaign and the most unpredictable one we have ever had," said Vyacheslav Nikonov, director of the Politika think tank. "There are three very strong candidates, each with his own resources, and a confrontation between two powerful oligarch groups. Three super-professional PR teams are working on the campaign, and the Kremlin is keeping its mouth shut."
Alexander Uss, the speaker of the Krasnoyarsk legislative assembly, was in the lead with 24 percent of the vote, according to the most recent opinion poll, conducted by Comcon. Taimyr Governor and former Norilsk Nickel head Alexander Khloponin took 19 percent, while Krasnoyarsk Mayor Pyotr Pimashkov had 14 percent. In total, 15 candidates were in the running.
Sergei Komaritsin, a sociologist and the editor-in-chief of the Vecherny Krasnoyarsk newspaper, cast doubt on the opinion poll on Thursday. He said the difference between the three leading candidates was negligible and a runoff was likely.
"The main question concerns 12 to 15 percent of the voters who have not yet decided on a candidate," he said by telephone from Krasnoyarsk.
Nikonov agreed, saying the differences between the candidates fell within the opinion poll's margin of error.
Late last month, prominent Krasnoyarsk businessperson Anatoly Bykov threw his support behind Uss, who is seen as Russian Aluminum's candidate. Bykov had been a bitter foe of the aluminum giant.
Khloponin is thought to be backed by Interros, which controls the region's biggest plant, Norilsk Nickel. Pimashkov is the popular mayor of the regional capital.
Nikonov said that a fourth candidate, Communist State Duma Deputy Sergei Glazyev, also had a chance of getting into a runoff.
Worries surfaced in recent days that Uss and Pimashkov might be removed from the ballot over lawsuits filed by other candidates. But some of the cases were dismissed Thursday and others were postponed until after the vote.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Fire Fatality
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - A 30-year-old man died and three people were injured as a result of a fire at Moskovsky Vokzal on Thursday.
The fire, which started at 11:20 a.m., eveloped the third floor of one of the railway station's buildings. The building contained a hostel for passengers on the third floor. About 80 square meters of hostel sleeping space and 200 square meters of corridor were destroyed.
About 100 firefighters were called to the scene to put out the blaze, the St. Petersburg branch of the Emergency Situations Ministry reported.
All of the people inside the building were evacuated, and booking offices located on the first floor were closed. Trains arriving at and departing from the station continued to run.
Actor Killed
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Boris Lapin, an actor who held the title of honored artist of Russia, was found dead in his apartment at at 4 Aprelskaya Ul. on Wednesday night, Interfax reported.
Initial police reports, quoted by Interfax, suggest that Lapin had been strangled, although he also had signs of having received a number of blows to the face.
Helicopter Crash
MOSCOW (AP) - Prosecutors said Thursday they were investigating top military officials for alleged negligence in connection with the August crash of a transport helicopter in Chechnya that killed at least 119 people.
Chief Military Prosecutor Alexander Savenkov said that, in addition to a general investigation into the crash, his office had opened a separate investigation into alleged violations of flight rules leading to the death of two or more people, Interfax reported.
Meanwhile, Interfax reported there were 152 people on the flight to the Khankala military base instead of the 147 listed in official documents. The report, citing an unnamed source, suggested the unlisted people were most likely killed.
Blair To Visit
LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair will travel 0to Russia next month for talks with President Vladimir Putin, a senior British government source said Thursday.
Blair, who is due to travel to the United States on Saturday to discuss Iraq with U.S. President George W. Bush, is expected to visit Moscow in the early part of October.
Censorship Plea
MOSCOW (AP) - Prominent writer Viktor Yerofeyev called on President Vladimir Putin on Thursday to intervene and quell growing campaigns against writers by groups that claim their work is immoral.
"The persecution of writers is a scandal," Yerofeyev wrote in an open letter published in the Vremya MN newspaper. "Many competent people are not happy about those who come out against free, modern literature and through this build a political name."
Yerofeyev's letter came after complaints by a pro-Putin organization, Moving Together, prompted Moscow authorities to investigate author Vladimir Sorokin and to summon writer Kirill Vorobyev for questioning on charges of disseminating pornography.
TITLE: Space Officials Give Pop Singer the Boot
AUTHOR: By Simon Saradzhyan
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The saga of U.S. pop singer Lance Bass and his hopes of flying into space on a Russian rocket seemed to come to an abrupt end Tuesday when the Russian Aviation and Space Agency announced that it was tired of waiting for him to pay up and evicted him from the cosmonaut training center.
But sources in the Russian space industry said that the 23-year-old 'N Sync singer still has a chance to blast off on Oct. 28 and become the youngest person ever in space.
The Russian Aviation and Space Agency, or Rosaviakosmos, said Tuesday that it had walked out of negotiations after Bass' sponsors had missed one too many deadlines for paying his $20-million ticket.
"We ran out of patience, he should leave," Rosaviakosmos spokesperson Konstantin Kreidenko said in a telephone interview. Kreidenko said that his agency would send a 150-kilogram container with equipment and personal belongings for the international space station's permanent crew instead of Bass.
Bass was told to pack his bags and leave the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, outside of Moscow, where he had been training since July, Kreidenko said.
The spokesperson said that it was "improbable" that Rosaviakosmos would allow Bass to resume training and fly even if he makes the payment in the next few days. However, Kreidenko refused to say whether Rosaviakosmos director Yury Koptev had already officially terminated the contract that Bass signed with Rosaviakosmos and Rocket Space Corporation Energia in July.
The reason Rosaviakosmos would not comment on Bass' contract is that there is still a chance he could join the crew, an Energia official said in a telephone interview.
The official, who asked not to be identified, said that Energia's managers have been patient with Bass because they realize that "raising money from sponsors could be a complicated business." However, Energia's patience will also run out, if Bass has not paid by the end of the week, the official said.
Bass was required to transfer the first payment within five working days of when the contract was signed. He has been granted several extensions, each accompanied with grave warnings that he would be ejected from the crew if he missed another deadline, but no money has yet been transferred.
David Krieff, a Los Angeles television producer who plans a series about Bass' trip and is gathering sponsors, insisted that the negotiations have reached a final stage and that it makes little difference if Bass is away from Star City for a few days. "The truth is that we simply need to finalize delivery of the funds so that everyone is comfortable and he'll be back in the saddle again," Krieff said, The Associated Press reported.
A senior official at Amsterdam-based MirCorp, which was set up by Energia to draw foreign investment into Russia's manned space-exploration program and helped to organize Bass' training, also said Tuesday that Bass remains on the crew.
MirCorp managing director Gert Meyers, speaking by telephone from Amsterdam, said that he has strong hopes that negotiators, representing Rosaviakosmos, Energia and Bass, will "reach a solution" on Wednesday. He said Bass himself is confident that "he can pull it off."
Bass had just returned to Russia on Sunday after spending a week at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston with the two other crew members, Russian Sergei Zalyotin and Belgian Frank de Winne.
A Star City official, speaking on condition that he would not be named, said that his center "has ended all relations" with Bass and he should not have come back to Star City from Houston.
The official and Kreidenko complained that Rosaviakosmos and the Gagarin center have had to pay for Bass' training and manufacture of a spacesuit and seat for him in the Soyuz-TMA space capsule.
A Russian space-industry source, who is close to the team of Russian negotiators, said in a recent interview that the Russian side might be willing to wait before deciding whether to eject Bass from the crew.
"We have time to wait and see, since the other option is not pressing," the source said, referring to Rosaviakosmos having no one else to send instead of Bass and its only option being to replace him with a cargo container.
Kreidenko said that Bass' failure to pay has taught Rosaviakosmos that it is best to deal with those who pay for their trips out of their own pocket, as American Dennis Tito did in April 2001 and South African Mark Shuttleworth did in April 2002.
A U.S. space expert agreed. "These recent developments seem to be telling us that the multiple-sponsorship business plan requires much more preparation if it is to be viable," James Oberg, a Houston-based spaceflight-operations expert and commentator on space policy, wrote by e-mail Tuesday.
"The only thing that was not in short supply was an endless stream of promises and excuses, and in the end everyone learned that they had no cash value," wrote Oberg, who has been a consultant on commercial Soyuz passenger projects.
TITLE: Gazprom Promotes Move to Gas Vehicle
AUTHOR: By Anna Raff
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Former Gazprom CEO Rem Vyakhirev tried not to breathe too deeply on his way to the gas monopoly's headquarters in southwest Moscow.
Usually a landmark visible for kilometers, the blue-and-white skyscraper disappeared into the thick smog that covered most of Moscow on Tuesday.
"I don't know how you people live here," Vyakhirev said. "I feel lucky that I only have to come into the city once in a while."
It was in this manner that Vyakhirev opened the latest meeting of a federal commission whose members hope to convince Russians to start filling up their cars with natural gas instead of gasoline.
In addition, the group plans to submit to the State Duma this fall a bill that would encourage the use of "blue fuel," by offering tax breaks to drivers and operators of propane-butane filling stations.
Vehicles that run on natural gas emit a fraction of the carbon gases and particles released by traditional cars and trucks, and supporters say widespread use of clean fuels would decrease the amount of air pollution gasoline-powered vehicles contribute to Russia's atmosphere.
Most engines that run on natural gas-based fuels adhere to European emission standards. This is one option for the country's automobile manufacturers, who are under pressure from Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov to start producing cars that adhere to these standards.
Converting cars to gas would not come cheap: Investment is to total 3.86 billion rubles ($122 million) from 2003 to 2005. Roughly 20 percent is expected to come from the federal budget. During this period, the number of vehicles equipped to run on natural gas is supposed to double to from 35,000 to 40,000.
Gazprom, the world's largest natural-gas producer, has a vested interest in seeing demand for its core product increase. The movement, however, has its fair share of enemies. U.S. oil companies, until recently, have lobbied to keep alternative sources of fuel under wraps.
Russian companies are no different, said Viktor Stativko, deputy head of Gazprom's transportation department.
Since its inception in 1994, the commission has tried to get legislation passed. In the 1990s, a law that would have removed many barriers to widespread natural-gas use in transportation went through six hearings in both the lower and upper chambers of parliament.
The bill, however, was a victim of unfortunate timing and a powerful oil lobby, Stativko said. Former President Boris Yeltsin was supposed to sign off on the bill in November 1999, but didn't.
"No one really knows why he didn't," Stativko said. "We weren't that disappointed. As you see, we're still hard at work, and we have been given the impression that [President Vladimir] Putin approves. This time we should be more successful."
A LUKoil spokesperson said that the industry doesn't plan to lobby this time around. "We have no problem with the draft bill," she said. "We are well aware of the pluses and minuses of using natural gas as a fuel for cars."
In contrast to 1999, LUKoil now has big plans to diversify into natural-gas production. The company said in February that it wanted to increase gas production 14 fold to 70 billion cubic meters in 2010.
TITLE: German President Links Trade to Values
AUTHOR: By Burt Herman
TEXT: MOSCOW - German President Johannes Rau said Wednesday that Russia's hopes for increased economic cooperation with Europe should be based on a common set of values, expressing concern over the continuing campaign in Chechnya and crackdowns on media freedom.
"Those who want to participate in unrestricted European cooperation, whether as a partner or a member of the European Union, must also identify with European values," Rau said in a speech to university students at Moscow's State Institute for International Relations.
"Therefore, we follow with great attention the conflict in Chechnya and the development of press freedom and freedom of opinion in Russia."
Rau, on a state visit to Russia, also warned against actions, carried out in the name of the worldwide war on terror, that could give further fuel to those who promote hate.
"Those who really want to conquer international terrorism must take care, through political means, that the prophets of violence have the ground pulled out from under them," he said.
"Poverty and exploitation, squalor and lawlessness allow people to doubt. The disregard of religious feelings and cultural traditions take away people's hope and dignity," he added.
International criticism of Russia's continuing campaign in Chechnya has been muted since the Sept. 11 attacks and Moscow's support of the anti-terror campaign.
President Vladimir Putin has portrayed the war in Chechnya as part of the global fight against terrorism.
Rau met with Putin on Tuesday. The two spoke to young Russian managers who have trained in Germany and discussed widening economic cooperation.
As a goodwill gesture, Putin said that Russia had paid back its Soviet-era debt to Germany earlier than had been planed this year because of the floods there.
Moscow repaid 175 million euros earlier this year and another 175 million euros were due to be paid by the year's end, but Putin said that the sum already had been sent by the end of August.
Russia was able to make the early payment because of an unexpectedly good harvest caused by the hot summer, German officials said.
Putin also expressed hope that the early payment would bolster Russia's credit rating.
Still, Putin said there was room for improvement in the German-Russian relationship, noting that Germany ranked only at No. 5 in direct investment in Russia.
In his speech Wednesday, Rau also underscored the importance of allowing a strong civil society to develop in Russia along with economic prosperity.
Rau sought to reassure Russia that it should view EU expansion positively.
Russia is concerned about what this will mean for its Kaliningrad enclave, which is surrounded by future EU members Poland and Lithuania.
Russia wants residents to be able to travel overland to Russia without having to obtain visas, but the EU has refused to exempt Kaliningrad residents from visa requirements.
"Expansion and deepening of the EU are also in Russian interests," Rau said.
"It brings political and also security stability in Europe, economic chances and the firm establishment of a common canon of values."
TITLE: Free-Market Trials for Power Set To Begin
AUTHOR: By Alla Startseva
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - More than 100 of the country's largest energy consumers and producers are set to begin simulated trading on Russia's first free market for electricity.
The newly created Trade System Administrator, or ATS, Russia's first independent, nonprofit wholesale regulator, will begin testing the new system in a two-month exercise beginning Monday, ATS head Dmitry Ponomaryov said Wednesday.
"We are turning a real page in the reform of the electricity market," said Ponomaryov, who is also the head of the Russian Trading System.
The ATS was created last November to allow suppliers and consumers to deal directly with each other and negotiate price and supply agreements independently of current wholesale-regulator FOREM, through which the government controls prices.
"The only thing needed to start real trading in January is final government approval," Ponomaryov said.
Ponomaryov said that the first, two-week stage, which begins Monday, will focus on testing software and hardware, as well as the wholesale energy-market model as a whole. Key in this stage is developing the communication link between the ATS and the System Operator - another unit of the national electricity network recently created as part of the ongoing restructuring of Unified Energy Systems, Ponomaryov said.
The second stage, which starts on Sept. 23, will focus on actual trading and will involve major consumers, FOREM members and large regional energy companies. During this stage, futures traders will have their first experience in live trading.
Ponomaryov said that, although many questions remain as to how exactly it will function, the trial period will allow the ATS board to adjust its market model and regulations and submit them to the government for final approval.
Issues expected to be developed during the trial period include regulations concerning market access, forming dispatcher schedules, establishing a system of price bidding, introducing real-time regimes and working out procedures for two-party agreements.
According to the reform plan for the industry signed by Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov last year, the ATS will initially handle between 5 percent and 15 percent of all wholesale-electricity trades and, by 2004, when FOREM is to be shut down, it will handle the whole market. At first, no company will be able to buy more than 30 percent of its total electricity needs via the ATS.
Until 2004, the Federal Energy Commission will continue setting prices through FOREM, while on the competitive market, there will be two sectors - direct agreements and the spot market.
On the spot market, trading sessions will be held each hour and participants will prepay for next-day electricity in the morning, and producers will be paid for next-day delivery in the evening.
Direct agreements, however, are what most participants are interested in, although they will need ATS approval.
"As a large consumer, direct agreements are the most important for us, as they allow for long-term planning," said Yevgenia Harrison, a spokesperson for Russian Aluminum.
TITLE: Local Entrepreneurs Hold Roundtable on WTO Accession
AUTHOR: By Angelina Davydova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Were Russia to accede to the World Trade Organization, competition on the Russian market would be greatly intensified, having a major effect on the quality of goods and services, according to participants in a roundtable discussion in St. Petersburg on Thursday.
The discussion focused on the effect that accession would have on local businesses, and attracted numerous entrepreneurs and managers from St. Petersburg, as well as Togo Issa, a representative of the African republic of Mali's economics ministry. Issa was on hand to report on the results of his country's accession to the WTO seven years ago.
"The main question now is not whether we join the WTO or not - that's already clear from the government's declarations on accession," said Tatyana Chesnokova, the chief editor at the Rosbalt news agency. "The main question is whether it will be possible to join the WTO with a minimum losses and maximum profit."
Many of the participants said that, due to the poor condition of production facilities and their general neglect, Russian enterprises would be unable to cope with the "wave of imports" that would appear on the local market on accession. Yevgeny Smirnov, the general director of the shipyard Nevsky Zavod, went as far as to say that "We do not have a tradition of producing high-quality goods."
According to research on WTO accession carried out by the Russian Academy of Sciences and the National Investment Council, only 25 percent of Russian companies believe themselves to be ready to compete on local markets, while only 9 percent feel confident about competing on the world market. Just 10 percent of Russian enterprises believe that they are ready for WTO accession.
Club 2015, a think tank for economic and financial research based in St. Petersburg, has also done research on the effects of accession, and says that local businesses will benefit from higher levels of mobility. A Club 2015 statement distributed at the conference said that "For successful competition in a global economy, information, capital and labor mobility - both horizontal and vertical - are absolutely essential, as is the ability of enterprises to innovate and flexibly change organizational structures."
Some, however, argued that local businesses had little to fear from accession. "The import tariffs won't change drastically," said Grigory Islentyev, the general director of Vermont, a management consultancy. "At present, they are about 15 percent and, after joining the WTO they will be around 10 percent - in any event, only half of import tariffs are paid legally. Inflation and changes in currency exchange rates will have a much more serious impact on us," he said.
Boris Beilin, the general director of Bigfilter, a local firm producing oil filters that exports 40 percent of its goods, said that, "Every foreign manufacturer that wants to come here has already done so, so we've got nothing to be afraid of."
Chesnokova pointed to the experience of other countries. "Some countries from the former U.S.SR., like Moldova, Georgia and the Baltic States, have already joined the WTO and they don't want to leave it," she said.
Togo Issa was positive in his assessment of the benefits for his country resulting from accession.
"The investment climate in the country has improved and we have started to export processed materials and finished goods, rather than just raw materials," he said. He also said that local businesses had grown stronger from the increased levels of competition.
Issa admitted, however, that there were limitations to the extent to which Russia and Mali could be compared. "We do not have any of the natural resources or technologies that you have," he said.
TITLE: Former Slavneft Boss Faces Charges
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW - Moscow law-enforcement agencies have opened a criminal investigation into the June seizure of oil company Slavneft's office, a company spokesperson said on Wednesday.
Former Slavneft president Mikhail Gutseriyev led three busloads of armed guards into the company's head office June 27, apparently intending to regain control of the company.
Savtar Azimov of the Zamoskvorechye police precinct, in which Slavneft's headquarters are located, said a group of people involved in the June 27 incident were being investigated for vigilantism, but would not confirm whether Gutseriyev was among them.
"We have cases like these, when people try to take the law into their own hands, coming in all the time," Azimov said by telephone on Wednesday.
Azimov declined to name organizations involved in similar criminal cases, but said Slavneft was by far the biggest.
Gutseriyev could not be reached for comment, but he was quoted in Vedomosti on Wednesday as saying that he knew nothing about the case. "No one has called me in for questioning," he said. "But I'll give a statement if need be. I'm not guilty of anything."
Gutseriyev was fired in April amid allegations that he used his position to finance his brother's unsuccessful campaign for the presidency of the republic of Ingushetia. The standoff was resolved days later after the government - which owns almost 75 percent of the company - intervened.
"There are no political motives at work here," Azimov said.
The case has been handed over to central Moscow's investigation department, where law enforcement officials have seven to 10 days to complete their investigation, Interfax reported.
Police officials will decide whether to press charges after the investigation has been completed.
Slavneft's new president, Yury Sukhanov, was under criminal investigation when elected. Authorities were looking into Slavneft's sales of crude and oil products to offshore companies at allegedly cut-rate prices. That case has recently been closed.
Sukhanov is preparing the company for what is supposed to be a transparent and fair sale scheduled for the end of the year, when the government will sell nearly 20 percent of its stake.
(AP, SPT)
TITLE: Fundamentalist Silence Not Golden for West
AUTHOR: By Fareed Zakaria
TEXT: IN one of his legendary moments of brilliance, Sherlock Holmes pointed the attention of the police to the curious behavior of a dog on the night of the murder. The baffled police inspector pointed out that the dog had been silent during the night. "That was the curious incident," explained Holmes. Looking back over the past year, I am reminded of that story because the most important event that has taken place has been a nonevent. Ever since that terrible day in September 2001, we have all been watching, waiting and listening for the angry voice of Islamic fundamentalism to rip through the Arab and Islamic world. But, instead, there has been ... silence. The dog has not barked.
The health of al-Qaida is a separate matter. Osama bin Laden's organization may be in trouble, but - more likely - it may be lying low, plotting in the shadows. In the past, it has waited for several years after an operation before staging the next one. Al-Qaida, however, is a band of fanatics, numbering thousands. It seeks a much broader following. That, after all, was the point of the attacks of Sept. 11. Bin Laden had hoped that, by these spectacular feats of terror, he would energize radical movements across the Islamic world. But, in the past year, it has been difficult to find a major Muslim politician, party or publication that has championed bin Laden's ideas. In fact, the heated protests over Israel's recent military offensives and American unilateralism have obscured the fact that over the past year the fundamentalists have been quiet and in retreat. Radical political Islam - which had grown in force and fury ever since the Iranian revolution of 1979 - has peaked.
Compare the landscape a decade ago. In Algeria, Islamic fundamentalists, having won an election, were poised to take control of the country. In Turkey, an Islamist political party was soon to come to power. In Egypt, Hosni Mubarak's regime was terrorized by groups that had effectively shut down the country to foreign tourists. In Pakistan, the mullahs had scared parliament into enacting blasphemy laws. Only a few years earlier, Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini had issued his fatwa against the novelist Salman Rushdie, who was still living under armed guard in a secret location. Throughout the Arab world, much of the talk was about political Islam - how to set up an Islamic state, implement Islamic law and practice Islamic banking.
Look at these countries now. In Iran, the mullahs still reign but are despised. The governments of Algeria, Egypt, Turkey and (to a lesser extent) Pakistan have all crushed their Islamic groups. Many feared that, as a result, the fundamentalists would become martyrs. In fact, they have had to scramble to survive. In Turkey, the Islamists are now liberals who want to move the country into the European Union. In Algeria, Egypt and elsewhere, they are a diminished lot, many of them re-examining their strategy of terror. If the governments bring them into the system, they will go from being mystical figures to local politicians.
Many Islamic groups are lying low; many will still attempt terrorism. But how can a political movement achieve its goals if none dares speak its name? A revolution, especially a transnational one, needs ideologues, pamphlets and party lines to articulate its message to the world. It needs politicians willing to embrace its cause. The Islamic radicals are quiet about their cause for a simple reason. Fewer and fewer people are buying it.
Don't get me wrong. This doesn't mean that people in the Middle East are happy with their regimes or approve of U.S. foreign policy, or that they have come to accept Israel. All these tensions remain strong. But people have stopped looking at Islamic fundamentalism as their salvation. The youth of the 1970s and 1980s, which came from villages into cities and took up Islam as a security blanket, is passing into middle age. The new generation is just as angry, rebellious and bitter. But today's youth grew up in cities and towns, watch Western television shows, buys consumer products and has relatives living in the West. The Taliban holds no allure for them. Most ordinary people have realized that Islamic fundamentalism has no real answers to the problems of the modern world; it has only fantasies. They don't want to replace Western modernity; they want to combine it with Islam.
Alas, none of this will mean the end of our troubles. The Arab world remains a region on the boil. Its demographic, political, economic and social problems are immense and will probably bubble over. Outside the Middle East, in places like Indonesia, the fundamentalists are not yet stale. But you need a compelling ideology to turn frustration into sustained, effective action. After all, Africa has many problems. Yet it is not a mortal threat to the West.
Nor does it mean, alas, the end of terrorism. As they lose political appeal, revolutionary movements often turn more violent. The French scholar Gilles Kepel, who documents the failure of political Islam in his excellent book "Jihad," makes a comparison to communism. It was in the 1960s, after communism had lost any possible appeal to ordinary people - after the revelations about Stalin's brutality, after the invasion of Hungary, as its economic model was decaying - that communist radicals turned to terror. They became members of the Red Brigades, the Stern Gang, the Naxalites, the Shining Path. Having given up on winning the hearts of people, they hoped that violence would intimidate people into fearing them. That is where radical political Islam is today.
For the United States, this means that there is no reason to be gloomy. History is not on the side of the mullahs. If the terrorists are defeated and the fundamentalists are challenged, they will wither. The West must do its part, but above all, moderate Muslims must do theirs. It also means that the cause of reforming the Arab world is not as hopeless as it looks today. We do not confront a region with a powerful alternative to Western ideas, just a place riddled with problems. If these problems are addressed - if its regimes become less repressive, if they reform their economies - the region will, over time, stop breeding terrorists and fanatics. The Japanese once practiced suicide bombing. Now they make computer games.
It might be difficult to see the light from where we are now, still deep in a war against terrorists, with new cells cropping up, new forms of terror multiplying and new methods to spread venomous doctrines. But at his core, the enemy is deadly ill. "This is not the end," as Winston Churchill said in 1942. "It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is the end of the beginning."
Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International and a columnist for Newsweek, contributed this comment to The Washington Post.
TITLE: The Stand on Kaliningrad Is Ignoring Our Own Interests
AUTHOR: By Igor Leshukov
TEXT: THE visa controversy between Russia and the European Union over Kaliningrad was the chief focus of public attention and discussion this summer, as the prospect of EU accession for Lithuania and Poland will soon mean that the Kaliningrad Oblast will be surrounded by members of the Shenghen zone - a unified visa area that mandates strict border controls and includes most EU member states. This will mean that all Russians commuting between Kaliningrad and the Russian "mainland" will need first to obtain Shenghen transit visas.
Due to its obsession with the subject of NATO expansion - first into former Warsaw Pact states and, most likely in the near future, into former Soviet republics - EU enlargement was largely ignored as an issue by Moscow, despite warnings by a number of experts that the ramifications of this movement would present greater challenges.
The Kremlin, when it finally realized that the process is inevitable, reacted hysterically.
A steady stream of Moscow polemic has branded the requirement of transit visas as totally unacceptable, with Russian politicians angrily declaring that the right of Russian citizens to move freely from one area of Russian territory to another cannot be subject to decisions made by EU bureaucrats. Russian government officials promised, with bravado, that they will not allow Kaliningrad to become subject to an EU "blockade" and embarked on tough negotiations with the European Commission. Moscow has brought intense pressure on Brussels and select EU capitals - Paris and Berlin in particular.
As a Russian citizen, I should and probably would welcome the determination of my country's government to defend the interests of its people, if not for a number of other facts that come into play here.
First, the European Union is Russia's main trading partner (in economic terms, many times more important than either the United States or the CIS) and cooperation with the EU is a question of strategic importance for us. Russia can never hope to regain a level of respect and importance proportional to its size and legacy without economic recovery. To a certain extent, this point has been addressed by President Vladimir Putin's administration, with economic questions being the top concern of the current government. Good relations with the EU are of great value to Russia in numerous respects - Europe represents an attractive market for Russian goods, an immense source of both investment and know-how, a useful broker in helping Russia gain WTO membership, the only real political alternative to U.S. hegemony, etc. While it is indeed the case that the questions with respect to transit between Kaliningrad and the rest of Russia are issues that need to be solved, they are minor questions in the context of Russia's broader interests in relation to the EU. Perhaps the use of threats and militant rhetoric as diplomatic tools is acceptable for a country attempting to pry concessions from a stronger side, but one has to realize that this is not the way that relations based on partnership - the very relations we need with Europe - are built.
Second, for the average Russian, Kaliningrad is a trophy of war that was turned into a Russian province and military base. We do not think about it as the historic capital of Prussia, the city of Immanuel Kant and, prior to the war, one of the most beautiful locations in the Baltic region. Any reminiscence of this history of the region was systematically destroyed. We target Nazi Germany with accusations of intentions of the same ilk. All Russian history textbooks say that Hitler wanted to deprive the Soviet people of their cultural heritage and was planning to raze Leningrad - the "Cradle of Bolshevism" - to the ground. These intentions are characterized as "criminal." We, however, did it ourselves to a German city and are now strangely free of any feeling of shame or guilt. The Germans make no claims for the return of Koenigsberg, yet Moscow's rhetoric concerning territorial integrity is almost paranoic. The EU has proven to be extremely effective as a peace project - a framework within which national identifications, and some of the conflicts that they can generate, have been tempered by the consciousness of being European. The Kremlin fails to realize that the integration process in Europe also provides us with a unique opportunity ultimately to close dirty and bloody chapters in our common history. Instead, some of the intellectuals in Duma are heading in the opposite direction, proposing we pry open another sordid chapter from Soviet history - the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact - as a means to penalize Lithuania for lack of loyalty to its former master.
Putin has defined the visa dispute with Brussels and Vilnus as a test for EU-Russia cooperation. I agree with his assessment, but in a sense entirely different from that implied by Russian politicians and expected by the Russian public. The big stakes are not in the satisfaction of Moscow's ambitions to settle the controversy on its own terms. The big stakes are in Russia's ability to demonstrate on the international stage that it is becoming a normal country with appropriate and responsible political behavior. The big stakes lie, in particular, in Russia's integration with Europe, where it belongs due to its history, culture and, most importantly, its strategic interests.
It is unfortunate that Russia appears to be determined to fail this test. The Kaliningrad dispute will be settled, but the Soviet political instincts will be shown to be alive and relatively well.
Igor Leshukov is the director of the Institute of International Affairs, St. Petersburg, a private think tank. He contributed this comment to the St. Petersburg Times.
TITLE: rebuilding a cultural institution
AUTHOR: by Mikhail Fikhtengolts
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: The Mariinsky Theater's recently concluded season was played out to the accompaniment of a stormy dispute over the planned reconstruction of the theater's main building.
U.S. deconstructionist architect Eric Owen Moss' design for the new building has drawn vicious criticism since its adoption by the State Construction Committee, Gosstroi.
Mariinsky Artistic Director Valery Gergive favors Moss' design over what he sees as a more conservative design by a group of Russian architects, headed by St. Petersburg's Oleg Romanov. In addition, Gergiev says, having Moss' name attached to the project would make it easier to attract international sponsorship for the project.
Gergiev recently spoke about the problems facing the theater and the planned reconstruction.
q:Recently, St. Petersburg and the Mariinsky have, for many people, become synonymous, particularly in the run-up to the city's 300th anniversary next year and with the Mariinsky planning to play such an active part in the celebrations. Would you say that the link between the two is that close?
a:No, I wouldn't. For the last 15 years, if you look at the cultural situation in the city, we've lived a fairly aloof existence, almost like the Vatican. When I think about it, I always recall the most difficult period for the theater, at the end of the 1980s. When I first went to Covent Garden, in 1988, and heard Verdi's "Othello" with [German conductor] Carlos Kleiber and Placido Domingo, I thought that there was absolutely no way that we could reach that standard, despite the fact that there are world-famous musicians in Russia.
Just one year later, we were already planning Domingo's trip to Leningrad. I didn't tell anyone about it because, in view of the catastrophic conditions here, such a project would have been regarded simply as a utopian dream, and the only reaction it could have provoked would have been laughter.
Again, a couple of years later, when we were planning to reconstruct Andrei Tarkovsky's production of "Boris Godunov," the only thing we heard was contemptuous laughter. I met the then chief conductor of [Moscow's] Bolshoi Theater, Alexander Lazarev, who, on hearing of my big plans, slapped me on the back and said: "I hope I won't feel embarrassed for you." I replied: "You won't."
Now, the critical stage has passed, but the distance between Russian theaters and the rest of the world remains very great. That's why I think that the main thing for us to do, without pushing too hard or too fast, is to work calmly toward removing the structural and disciplinary differences that exist between our theaters and the theaters of the rest of the world, if I can put it that way. I can tell you, in all honesty, that, knowing the creative potential of the Mariinsky, I am not envious of any other theater in the world. But, in terms of organization and financing, we have to look to the West.
q:Western theaters are structurally more independent and less reliant on the authorities. In your work on the reconstruction of the Mariinsky Theater, you must have appreciated that difference.
a:Certainly, in Europe and America, the management of a theater can be more independent in making decisions, while here we are always subordinated to someone. Working on the reconstruction of the theater, I've been faced with an absolutely insane bureaucratic apparatus.
An enormous number of people receiving minimal wages have some involvement in the reconstruction of both theaters, in Moscow and St. Petersburg. You can imagine the reaction of these clerks when papers pass through their hands with figures such as $200 million or $150 million on them! And they have the power to cut the project off at its roots, quietly and unnoticed. Even though I know all of [Russia's] political elite, I am not strong enough to break through that wall - a wall that, essentially, simply hasn't been broken through. And, because of the position that the Mariinsky is in, it can't give the right people bribes or give them presents, which are essentially bribes as well.
There are a lot of obstacles in the way and we're going to go through a lot more grief. Despite the fact that a lot is being written about the reconstruction of the Mariinsky, and despite the fact that it's being talked about a lot, I can't make any positive predictions for the project, because I can't rule out the possibility that we might end up going through one of the worst-case scenarios.
q:Nevertheless, the reconstruction of the Mariinsky has, in a paradoxical way, stirred up the embers of the eternal debate on modern architecture in the country.
a:The situation concerning the reconstruction is genuinely tragicomic. Everyone understands that contemporary architecture here is terrible or almost non-existent. And the Mariinsky has given birth to a debate on an unprecedented scale on the subject - a debate that hasn't been taking place for eighty years. So I think that this discussion, and Eric Moss's plans for the reconstruction have been one of the Mariinsky Theater's most impressive productions. As a result of the poverty of our architectural conceptions, it should come as no surprise that, at the Vienna Biannial, it was the plan for the Mariinsky's reconstruction that represented Russia ... .
We're going through a difficult process: We're learning how to resolve issues such as the reconstruction of one of the best theaters in the country, while Munich, Birmingham or, let's say, Rotterdam, learnt how to do it thirty years ago. I'll take the risk of saying that a great deal is dependent on the stance that the authorities take.
q:Getting back to the reconstruction of the theater, what is your personal attitude to Moss's designs?
a:I'll be prepared to continue the discussion on that subject next season but, for now, I don't want to focus attention on Moss. He shouldn't be the lead character in this story - it is a new architectural style in St. Petersburg that should play the lead.
The problem with our city is that we don't want to build something new, we want to restore. Of course, you can keep restoring architectural treasures endlessly, but will that make us leaders in the world's cultural sphere? The answer is a resounding no.
While everyone was talking about Moss, I had time to meet with almost ten of the greatest people of our time. I became much better grounded in architecture, and had enough time to look round and see what's happening in the world. Soon, I'll even be ready to define the direction for the discussion on the reconstruction of the Mariinsky.
One thing is certain: we'll never choose a bad plan, because we love the Mariinsky. We know the theater and its needs from the inside, not the people who can decry Moss's design from on high for hours on end. So, we'll choose the design that seems most attractive and interesting for us from the point of view of the development of the theater. It would be stupid for St. Petersburg and Moscow not to use the great theater names that are the Mariinsky and the Bolshoi in order to achieve our aims.
q:The Mariinsky Theater "name" relies, first and foremost, on its powerful troupe. In making the final decision on the reconstruction, to what extent will that decision be based on the opinions of the artists of the theater?
a:I'd go as far as to say that the opinion of our artists is almost the most important factor because, despite the difficult conditions of our work, they have remained faithful to the theater for many years. The stars of the Mariinsky, past and present, form the collective common sense that will prevent us from making a mistake in our choice.
But, of course, I always take into consideration the advice of [State Hermitage Museum Director] Mikhail Piotrovsky and other representatives from the artistic elite that forms the cultural image of St. Petersburg. Nevertheless, I'll always focus on the Mariinsky's artists - after all, they will have the task of bringing the theater to life after its reconstruction.
TITLE: the start of big things
AUTHOR: By Peter Morley
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: On Friday, the Grand Cascade at Peterhof hosts what should be one of the year's most spectacular events, and the start of what is planned to be one of the most ambitious charitable programs ever.
A line-up of international soloists - soprano Yelena Prokina, mezzo-soprano Larisa Dyadkova, tenor Dmitry Korchak, bass Paata Burchuladze and violinist Viktor Tretyakov - will join the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, a 150-member choir, and conductor Yury Temirkanov, in a program including Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto and Mozart's Requiem.
The concert is the first in a project called "1000 Cities of the World," being run by the international charitable program "Zvezdy Mira - Detyam" ("Stars of the World - to Children"), which has been set up by former concert pianist Vladislav Teterin and is supported by, among others, President Vladimir Putin, Pope John Paul II, UNESCO and U.S. President George W. Bush (the third concert is slated for Washington's Capitol Hill next year, and the Bush family should be in attendance).
The second concert in the series takes place on Sunday at Castel Gandolfo, Italy - the Pope's residence - and sees Mariinsky Theater Artistic Director Valery Gergiev conduct a line-up including opera's "first couple," Romanian soprano Angela Gheorghiu and her husband, Italian tenor Roberto Alagna.
The concerts aim to give disadvantaged children from across the world the chance to experience and get involved in culture at its highest level, explained Teretin on Wednesday. For this reason, children are at the forefront of Teretin's concerts (he has previously organized eight such grand events in Moscow, attracting stars of the caliber of soprano Monserrat Caballe).
Teretin was inspired, inter alia, by what he saw as the neglect the children suffered in a Japanese children's home when he was on a concert tour there.
The idea is not to raise money for the children, says Teretin: "I don't give them money, I give them the opportunity to catch that fish," he explains cryptically.
The concert starts at the Grand Cascade, Peterhof, at 7 p.m. on Friday. Call 167-1761 for ticket information.
TITLE: chernov's choice
TEXT: The joint anniversary party thrown by Tequilajazzz and Fish Fabrique, held this year on Thursday, traditionally marks the time when the local club scene starts reviving after the summer.
St. Petersburg's top alternative band and its favorite venue celebrated their ninth and seventh birthdays, respectively, with a concert/drinking session.
The talk of the town this week is Sergei Shnurov's show at Lensoviet Palace of Culture on Saturday.
Though advertised as a solo affair, it is expected to include Shnurov's band, Leningrad, members of ska-punk band Spitfire - just back from a brief tour of Finland - and a bunch of folk musicians.
The most anticipated live debut this week is Iva Nova, started by three members of the all-female folk-punk group Babslei who quit the band earlier this year. The new group will play full-length concerts at Moloko on Saturday and Fish Fabrique on Sunday.
The ephemeral Sputnik Club, which promotes concerts by St. Petersburg bands in Finland, and vice versa, returns to the scene with a concert at Moloko on Saturday. Finland's Staufenbiel Brothers and Cosmo Jones Beat Machine will play. The style is described as "rhythm and blues."
After some of its members help Shnurov on Saturday, all of Spitfire plays Red Club that same night. The same group, plus a couple of members of Markscheider Kunst, will appear at the same place as the St. Petersburg Ska-Jazz Review on Sept. 14.
The new club Boom made itself known to local club-goers with a concert of the urban-folk band La Minor in late August.
Boom used to be located far from the usual club scene, on Okhta (on the right bank of the Neva River) but ceased to exist three years ago. Now, the same management has reopened it at 50 Nab. Reki Fontanka, five minutes from Nevsky Pr.
La Minor vocalist Slava Shalygin compares the place to the, sadly, now-defunct Cynic, adding that the band had to play unplugged, as the club has no sound system.
The club is now open Friday, Saturday and Sunday, between 7 p.m. and midnight, but plans to go to a nightly schedule around Sept. 20. However, in October, the place will possibly become members-only. "Because the place is small and won't be able to hold everybody," said a Boom spokesperson.
Meanwhile, La Minor is recording some new songs. According to Shalygin, six songs have so far been finished, though the band's live repertoire now features only two of them, being mainly based on the debut album, 2000's "Blatnyak." "We don't want to reveal them before we have the whole new set of songs," he said.
La Minor will play Red Club on Friday and Griboyedov on Saturday.
- by Sergey Chernov
TITLE: i think i'm turning japanese
AUTHOR: by Claire Bigg
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Those of us who happen to live and/or work in the area around Bolshaya Morskaya Ul. have been intrigued by the recent appearance of greenish, opaque glass panes, simply adorned with the letter V, on the site of what used to be the restaurant "Po-Barabanu," opposite the local McDonalds.
Only recently did we discover that V stands for Viktor, and that Viktor stands for a swish restaurant full of the aforementioned greenish, opaque glass. But it was when we discovered that Viktor was advertising "French-Japanese" cuisine that our curiosity was really piqued, and we decided that we had to give it a try.
On entering Viktor earlier this week, I immediately had the feeling that the Japanese part of the menu would be more prominent than the French part - a disappointment for a native of France like myself (not to mention to my dining companion, who recently had the honor of spending a fortnight in that country).
To the right as we went in, Viktor has a small room, with a few low tables, comfy seats and a bar, behind which a Japanese employee was bustling around. This room has a more informal dining atmosphere than the second, larger room, which is to the left as you enter, behind a small waiting room.
This second room houses half a dozen tables (made from the aforementioned greenish, opaque glass). In the middle of the room, a swing hangs from the ceiling over the wooden floor, in which some meticulous hand has drilled holes and planted tufts of artificial grass. At this point, I completely gave up on the search for cultural influences to pigeon-hole.
First impressions of the menu confirmed my suspicions: Viktor is basically a Japanese restaurant, with an extensive choice of 30 different nigiri dishes (the sort that comes wrapped in seaweed), ranging in price between 1 u.e. and 8 u.e. - for the uninitiated, u.e., or conditional units, are basically a way for restaurants to price their food in dollars without specifically doing so - and an equally impressive choice of nurimaki dishes (the type not wrapped in seaweed, which are referred to at Viktor as rolls), priced between 4 u.e. and 8 u.e. Most of the dishes on offer are fish-based, but the latter category includes a few vegetarian option, ranging from 2 u.e. to 4 u.e.
We did manage to find a few vaguely French dishes on the final two pages of the menu. These included roast veal languette with Roquefort cheese and sea scallops (21 u.e), and lamb ribs with mango sauce (22 u.e.). In the course of our hunting, we did track down a few cross-cultural culinary monstrosities, such as escargots with teriyaki sauce (13 u.e.), frogs' legs with black caviar (21 u.e.), and "new style" sushi with tuna, foie gras and black caviar (a modest 25 u.e. for a dish that sounded more "New Russian" than "new style"). We, however, decided to pass on these options.
The menu also illustrates another aspect of Viktor. Its descriptions seem to be aimed at those who know their sushi (although the knowledgeable wait staff can fill in any gaps for non-initiates). This is further illustrated by the apparent lack of any Western cutlery - chopsticks are the order of the day.
My dining companion, a fierce fish-o-phobe, ordered chicken in teriyaki sauce (13 u.e.) and nurimaki sushi with avocado (3 u.e.). The chicken was good enough, although nothing to rave about, and came with rice and an abundance of finger-licking sauce. The sushi also produced a positive reaction.
I decided to go for the whole Japanese, and chose the regular sushi combination (or, for anyone still thinking in French, a prix fixe menu), which includes a salad, meso soup, tuna nurimaki sushi and seven different nigiri sushi: tuna, spicy tuna, salmon, spicy salmon, eel, yellowtail, and clam. The soup, a fish bouillon with tofu and seaweed, was tasty, although not particularly original, while the salad, a mix of cabbage leaves, cucumber and tomato, was fresh and light. The different sushi were neatly presented, with fresh, moist fish, but the menu does require a large appetite and a fondness for raw fish. I found the clam slightly sickly.
If the food is mainly Japanese, the wine list is almost entirely French, with a large selection of both reds and whites. We ordered white by the glass, a 2000 Cote de Duras and a 2001 Undurraga (both 2.4 u.e. for 50 milliliters), and were pleasantly surprised by the quality. For an aperitif, we had a delicious Japanese plum wine (4 u.e.).
After all this, my companion was still feeling peckish, so we decided to share an orange sorbet (5 u.e.), which came in a frozen coconut on a plate of ice cubes. The colorful, smooth sorbet was as delicious as it was beautiful, but, unfortunately, the coconut was too frozen to be edible and obviously just served as a recipient.
Our extremely efficient and helpful server, whose care was actually on the verge of falling into obsequiousness, was quick to bring us the bill, which we both found was way over what we would usually spend on a good meal. Nonetheless we decided that it was worth it, and that the carefully designed interior and peaceful music had filled us with a pleasant numbness. We walked out of Viktor satisfied, sated, and feeling indeed very smart.
Viktor, 13 Bolshaya Morskaya Ul. Open daily, noon to 11 p.m. (weekdays), noon to 1 a.m. (weekends). Menu in Russian and English. Credit cards accepted. Dinner for two with alcohol: 2,750 rubles ($87).
TITLE: artists lead finnish invasion
AUTHOR: by Sami Hyrskylahti
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: An enterprising group of young Finns has managed to do what most of the rest of their compatriots can only dream about: They have retaken a part of Karelia.
Well, almost. While there are still strong currents in Finnish public opinion that demand that Russia return Karelia and other areas that it took from Finland during the Northern War of 1939 to 1940, the young artists in question have taken a more realistic, small-scale approach.
With some financial help from Finland's Education Ministry and the Finnish Consulate in St. Petersburg, they have, for the third time, rented an historic wooden house in the village of Repino, on the Gulf of Finland, with the aim of reviving Finnish cultural traditions there.
Although the house - known as Villa Golicke - may look modest, it was actually a center of Finnish cultural life between World War I and World War II. It attracted attention largely due to Finnish-Swedish writer Tito Colliander, whose St. Petersburg-born wife, Ina, owned Villa Golicke.
Colliander knew the village then as Kuokkala. Later, the Russians renamed it Repino, after the great Russian painter Ilya Repin, who lived nearby at his dacha until he died. Nevertheless, this summer, the atmosphere of Colliander's stories - in which he remembers Villa Golicke being frequented by "all kinds of artists" - has returned.
"We wanted to have a summer resort, where Finnish and Russian culture could meet," says one of the project's organizers, Antti Kauppinen, 25, who is a student of cultural studies and Russian in St. Petersburg. Moreover, says Kauppinen, Repino is the perfect place for the project, due to its history of multiculturalism.
"Karelia has always been a neutral territory - kind of an 'in-between' land," says Kauppinen. "Finns, Slavs and Baltic peoples have all lived here. Even when it was part of Finland, the area had a strongly Slavic feel."
The Karelian isthmus, with its gorgeous landscape and abundant wildlife, was one of Finland's most beautiful and lively regions. However, after World War II, Finland's southeast border, which previously ran just 40 kilometers north of Leningrad, was pushed back to its current position, 200 kilometers from St. Petersburg.
"This location is especially interesting, because [Finland's] cultural elite used to travel here," explains Anna Hakkinen, 26, another of the organizers. Hakkinen, who studies journalism and Russian in St. Petersburg, also wanted to raise awareness of the whole region in Finland.
"Finns know very little about Russia and are not really interested in it, and the same is true with Karelia," she claims. "Actually, very few people in Finland understand how big an influence this area was on the roots of modern Finnish culture."
Although Finns and Russians share a lot of common history, interaction between the two groups these days is still very weak. Antti Nykyri, 26, knew that some of his ancestors came from Russia, but his visit to Russia this summer was only his second. Nykyri, a sound designer, found it inspiring to take a break from home.
"Here we have people from different professions and the possibility for different artists to meet each other," he says. "Here we have a lot of time and space - actually, [a Russian] understanding of time is very healthy for a while."
The main idea of the project is to create links between Finns and Russians. Alla Shamkova, 23, a Russian film student and producer, stayed at Villa Golicke for the second time.
Shamkova, who moved to St. Petersburg 2 1/2 years ago from Novosibirsk, says that her first two local friends were Finns, with whom she studied at cult film director Alexander Bashirov's private school. The links have borne real fruit, such as a festival of Russian music and film in Helsinki last April.
The region itself reflects the changing times: What used to be a favorite summer spot for St. Petersburgers suddenly became a sleepy part of independent Finland after the revolution; what was, after the war, an aging favorite destination for Soviet tourists is today transforming itself into one of the most high-prestige parts of the area around St. Petersburg.
Just opposite Villa Golicke, Lengzateplostroi is building a complex of 42 huge townhouses called Derevnya Konsula ("Consul's Village"). And, whereas Colliander described having to ask his neighbors for food, Repino is now home to massive, 24-hour supermarkets. (There's even a dish called "New Russian's Breakfast" at some of the trendy neighborhood cafes.)
Despite the increasing number of Finns visiting the area, Kauppinen is sure that the region's future lies with Russia, not Finland.
"Where there was darkness, now there is interest," he says. "The fate of this area is bound to St. Petersburg's economic development."
TITLE: an artist's response to terror
AUTHOR: by Aliona Bocharova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: How do you react to an event like Sept. 11? For one local artist, the answer is simple - by painting.
Next Tuesday, one year - minus one day - after the terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Gennady Zubkov will open his exhibition "Made in America.: Before and After Sept. 11," to commemorate the tragic events of last fall.
The exhibition will take the format of a series of paired paintings, representing the U.S. before and after the terrorist attacks. The catastrophe that Zubkov portrays has nothing to do with the usual, terrifying images - burning skyscrapers, ruins and wreckage - so familiar from the television; rather, he depicts a universe aimed at evoking keen emotions that at once cause pain and lead the viewer to a kind of calm resignation in the face of eternity.
The idea for the project came about quite by chance. Even before Sept. 11, Zubkov was already planning a series of works - to be called "Made in America" - to share the impressions of the country that he had formed from a few visits.
Zubkov's understanding of his subject changed after Sept. 11: "I could not paint the United States as I had done before," he said in a telephone interview on Wednesday. When he returned to his work, Zubkov reinterpreted some of the canvases of U.S. cities that he had painted previously.
As a master of form and color - "Form and Color" is also the name of the artistic group that he founded in St. Petersburg in 1995 - Zubkov breaks down the images, gives them new color palettes, enlarges them dramatically (an idea inspired by the scale of last fall's events), and boldly inscribes messages on the canvases.
"I compiled these huge canvases from a few small ones, and used various painting techniques in order to show how things are torn apart," he said.
The emotions expressed in Zubkov's paintings - enhanced by his personal feelings for his numerous friends in New York - deal with universal sorry, and a universal understanding of the harm and destruction caused by the violence that, according to Zubkov, is hidden somewhere inside every human being. In some of his works - such as "The Angel of Grief and Sorrow" and "Cain and Abel" - Zubkov deals with biblical stories of forgiveness and humans' responsibility to conquer the evil inside them.
However, Zubkov sees some hope for the future. As he said, "This ruined world is, nevertheless, being restored." The paintings reflect this: Despite the deconstructionist techniques used, the works give the impression of a solid, harmonic composition, full of peace and beauty.
"Numerous artists around the world consider it their duty to respond to this tragedy - not of a single country, but of the whole universe," commented Yevgeniya Zimnukhova, a spokesperson for the exhibition's organizers and the general director of the SWASH Foundation for Cultural Programs non-profit organization, on Wednesday, "It is important that a Russian artist also joined them and shared his attitude toward these events. For us, it is a chance to express our thoughts and our sorrow, as his works correspond to them fully."
Zubkov says that "the exhibition is free of any political context." Every human being, regardless of nationality, will understand and support the artist's protest, as it is human nature to protest against violence.
TITLE: clancy back on familiar ground
AUTHOR: by Janet Maslin
TEXT: "Red Rabbit" is the third of Tom Clancy's Cold War novels to incorporate the word red in its title, after "The Hunt for Red October" and "Red Storm Rising." But in this elaborately detailed account of an assassination plot against Pope John Paul II in the early 1980's, red tape is at least as important to Clancy's storytelling as the red menace.
Not much in "Red Rabbit" seems to happen without meetings, evaluations and analyses of protocol. It's a book well suited to those who find protocol sexy, and this author is one of them.
In the face of world events that undermine the monolithic simplicity of Cold War thinking, Clancy has dialed backward through history to find more accommodating times. So here we are in the salad days of Jack Ryan, the author's three-star protagonist (Harrison Ford, Alec Baldwin and Ben Affleck have all played him on screen). Clancy frequently grouses here that Hollywood never gets spy stories right.
Jack is 32 in "Red Rabbit," despite the senior sound of his reflections. ("Funny how people slept late on Sunday but frequently not on Saturday." "He hated cutting grass, having learned as a child that however much you sliced it down, the goddamned stuff just grew back in a few days to look scraggly again.")
He has already been a marine and saved the British monarchy in "Patriot Games." He has made money on Wall Street, as evidenced by his acumen about a nice new coffee company named Starbucks, but he made his millions "only as a hobby, babe," as he tells his wife, Cathy. He is also a historian and has arrived in London to work for the CIA while working on a military biography.
"His language was literate - he'd learned his grammar from priests and nuns for the most part, and his word mechanics were serivceable - but not particularly elegant." That goes for Clancy's style as well as it does for Jack's, though it ignores the knowledgeable swagger and clear narrative that lure Clancy's readers into the world of bureaucratic espionage. The plot of "Red Rabbit" happens to be largely uneventful and unsurprising. But 600-odd pages of the author's tough-guy company is its stronger selling point anyhow.
Clancy makes a sharp-eyed observer and an emphatically opinionated tour guide through the colliding worlds that he describes. When "that union hothead," as the Soviets regard Lech Walesa, is threatening Poland's stability through the rise of Solidarity, the new Pope John Paul II has written a letter of protest.
"If the government of Warsaw persists in its unreasonable repression of the people, I will be compelled to resign the papacy and return to be with my people in their time of trouble," the letter declares, thus infuriating Yuri Andropov, who was chairperson of the KGB then. The book's basis in real events is intriguing, more so than the mustache-twirling villainous dialogue ascribed to Andropov. ("So, Karol, you threaten us, eh?")
The morally threadbare Russian ideologues who covet power have contempt for religion and secretly appreciate the perks of capitalism (their salient traits here) see a solution to this problem. Soon encrypted messages about the pope's security ("Priest engages in predictable public audiences and appearances which are well known in advance") are being passed among K.G.B. operatives, and the title character intercepts them.
Red Rabbit is Capt. Oleg Zaitzev, a highly placed communications expert with an apparently exotic quality for a Russian: a conscience. And he cannot keep this heinous information to himself. With great furtiveness, he slips a note to Ed Foley, the CIA's top Moscow operative, who works with his wife, Mary Pat. She rises in the ranks in the CIA in other Clancy books. But for now she cleverly hides her abilities, as her husband notes admiringly, by playing the dumb blonde.
"If you find this interesting, wear a green tie tomorrow," Zaitzev signals Foley, indicating that the book's cloak-and-dagger activities are not overly complex. Though its particulars are technical and intricate, most of the book's story describes a simple plot to spirit the Zaitzev family to the West in exchange for his knowledge of the assassination scheme. Promises of Disney World and Western merchandise are meant to cement this deal, while also showing the Zaitzev family the error of their country's ways. "No child has ever had reason to dislike life in America," Mary Pat assures the defector.
"Red Rabbit" is largely a receptacle for such pronouncements, as Clancy drives 20-year-old nails into the coffin of the Soviet regime. "If Americans were so foolish, why were Soviets always trying - and failing - to catch up with them?" he asks rhetorically, since "Red Rabbit" is full of flag-waving answers to that question. Jack Ryan applies his business experience to global politics when he observes: "Look at the U.S.S.R. as a takeover target, like we did at Merrill Lynch. The assets are worth a lot more than the parent corporation, because it's so badly run. This isn't hard stuff to figure out."
While Zaitzev begins asking himself questions like "Where did the legitimacy of the state come from?," the Foleys chalk up the small, everyday failings of Russian life. For its inability to understand things similarly, the American press also comes under fire, like the self-important correspondent for The New York Times for whom "'liberal' was a word that meant 'good guy.'" Manipulating such characters is great fun for the espionage insiders: "Sophisticated as they purported to be, the newspapers didn't catch on to much unless you presented it to them with French fries and ketchup," goes the thinking at the CIA.
In London, while he treads water in a lull between other, more dynamic books of Clancy's and before he "gets another attaboy" for his 11th-hour bravery in this one, Jack Ryan remains a charismatic figure. Sir Jack, as he is sometimes known thanks to an honorary knighthood, is still smart and well informed, still able to hold readers' attention with his analytical powers. When he goes to a concert and admires the string section, "Ryan wondered how the hell you ran a bow along a string and made the exact noise you wanted to." With that emphasis on machismo and precision, he's still a good guy to know.
TITLE: a city in russia's heartland
AUTHOR: by Larisa Doctorow
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Saratov - "Yellow Mountain" in Tatar - lies on the Volga, halfway between Moscow and Astrakhan, about one hour's flying time from Moscow, or 1,000 kilometers from St. Petersburg. Beside the rich evidence of the city's long and dramatic history, the distinctive mix of river and steppe landscapes in the region make Saratov a worthwhile destination.
Saratov today has a population of more than one million, yet retains a distinctly provincial feel. Its small airport can't handle larger planes, but does have the advantage of being a mere 20-minute drive from the city center. The drive provides the first glimpse of the steppe: a vast, flat expanse speckled with forests, stretching out under an even vaster sky.
Saratov was founded in 1590 by Ivan the Terrible's army, as a defensive stronghold following the conquest of the Tatar khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan. Over the next 100 years, the settlement moved back and forth across the river, due to various natural disasters and the destruction wreaked by the peasant revolt led by Stenka Razin in 1670.
The oldest surviving part of the city is focused around Museinaya Ploshchad, formerly Sobornaya Ploshchad. The Museum of Local Culture and Customs - the Kraevedchesky Museum - is housed in a yellow-and-white building, built in Russian Classical style at the beginning of the 19th century, that once belonged to the great-uncle of Nicholas II's reformist prime minister, Pyotr Stolypin. The poet Mikhail Lermontov also stayed there in the mid 1830s - his grandmother's estate was in the Saratov region, and Lermontov wrote a poem called "The Plague in Saratov" - and a memorial plaque commemorates the event. Today, the museum organizes exhibits reliving the forgotten chapters of local history, such as the German settlements in the Middle Volga region, or Stolypin's time as governor of Saratov.
But the square's main attraction is the 17th-century Troitsky Cathedral, a white-trimmed brick edifice in the Moscow Baroque style. (Locals point out that the building's lines resemble a ship.) The cathedral's very existence today is remarkable - most similar buildings were shut down or destroyed in the 1930s. The cathedral is surrounded by one of the city center's many parks.
Moskovskaya Ulitsa, which runs from the railway station to the Volga, is one of Saratov's main streets and, since 1912, has been home to the city's university. Today, 12,000 students study on the campus of four imposing, richly decorated Art Noveau buildings. Many well-known Russian scientists studied and worked there, including botanist and geneticist Nikolai Vavilov, whose theories of the origins of plants eventually led to his arrest and death in the purges of the 1930s.
Nemetskaya Ulitsa - nicknamed "Saratov's Nevsky Prospekt" - is remarkable for its dynamism, compared with the slower pace of life of the rest of the city. It has been turned into a pedestrian zone, and boasts a large number of cafes, shops and restaurants.
Most buildings on Nemetskaya Ulitsa date from the second half of the 19th century. The most interesting of them is the Conservatory, now named after Russian tenor Leonid Sobinov, a neo-Gothic building with a steep roof and pointed window arches. The Conservatory is a local landmark, and often features on posters and books. Built in 1912, it was Russia's third such institution, after the ones in Moscow and St. Petersburg. (In this respect, it corresponded to the city's status: In 1912, Saratov was the third-largest city in the Russian empire, with a population of 240,000).
The street's name, which means "German Street," reflects the importance of German settlers in Saratov and the surrounding area, dating back to the first period of colonization in the mid-18th century under Catherine the Great.
At one point, about 800,000 descendants of the Volga Germans lived in and around the city and, until 1941, there was a separate German Republic, with its capital, Pokrovsk - now called Engels - just across the river from Saratov. Another big German town, Katherinenstadt - now known as Marx - is only 60 kilometers away.
The Volga Germans included industrialists, scientists, musicians and architects - including those who built the university and the conservatory. One of Russia's best-known composers of recent years, Alfred Schnittke, was born in Engels in 1934.
At the beginning of World War II, half of the Volga Germans were exiled to Siberia and Kazakhstan; few returned. Since the 1980s, most of the rest have emigrated to Germany. The Catholic St. Klementy Cathedral on Nemetskaya Ulitsa - now a cinema - is a reminder of this lost past.
Another important square is Teatralnaya Ploshchad. Under the Soviets, military parades and other public gatherings were organized here. Its two main buildings are the Opera and Ballet Theater - named, somewhat bizarrely, after radical author Nikolai Chernyshevsky - and the Radishchev Museum of Fine Arts, Saratov's principal museum.
The museum - named after 18th-century radical writer Alexander Radishched, who was born and grew up in Saratov - was founded by Alexei Bogolyubov - Radishchev's grandson - and opened in 1855. It was the first fine-arts museum in Russia outside Moscow and St. Petersburg. A spacious building, it exhibits works by major Russian and Western European artists.
Bogolyubov donated 550 works from his own collection to the museum; other works came from the State Hermitage Museum, the Russian Museum, and private collections. As a result, the museum has one of the best collections outside the two capitals. It possesses a number of paintings by Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin and Viktor Borisov-Musatov, both celebrated painters who were born in Saratov. Unfortunately, the museum is presently closed for repair.
The Volga is, of course, a major feature of Saratov, and big villas have been built along its steep banks, overlooking the water; many of these have been built by New Russians in the past few years. However, it seems that Saratov's New Russians are not wealthy enough to put flotillas of powerful, chic yachts onto the river; it is more typical to see a lonely fisherman rowing along the still waters.
Today, the traffic on the Volga, immortalized in 19th-century literature as the backdrop for vacationers' summer dalliances, is gone, and the river is surprisingly quiet, almost deserted. There are no passenger boats, and no merchant ships to speak of - just the occasional dinner-and-dancing boat for merrymakers. Saratov's main pier has been privatized, and turned into an electronic-goods supermarket called "El Dorado."
Around Saratov, the Volga strongly resembles a lake and, from the air, looks like a chain of lakes studded by islands and connected by numerous channels. Since the completion of the dams that created the Volgogradsky Reservoir, down river from Saratov, in 1961, the river has become passive. The water level is raised or lowered a few meters each day by the dam operators, which gives the river's beaches a strangely tidal look. Although the current is barely visible, locals say that this is deceptive - high winds can whip up the glassy surface into sizable waves.
Dacha land begins just a few minutes outside the city center. The forested islands offer sandy beaches for holidaymakers. Years ago, many Saratov businesses built small hotels for their staff. Although these have dwindled in number, the surviving establishments welcome visitors for a very modest fee. Kitchens are put at the disposal of the visitors, and boats bring over supplies from the town.
Once, the whole region was a frontier zone, an outpost of the Russian Empire that attracted runaway serfs, religious dissidents and anyone else on the run from the authorities. When uprisings broke out, they could easily find recruits in this hotbed of sedition. The movements led by Stenka Razin, Ivan Bolotnikov and Yemelian Pugachyov were times of great drama for Saratov and the Middle Volga.
Traces of this past show up not only in Saratov, but in the surrounding area. Occasional Muslim cemeteries along the roads are reminders of the Tatar settlements that have been part of the landscape for centuries.
Three hundred kilometers northeast of Saratov is the town of Pugachyov, originally called Mechetnaya in recognition of its Tartar origins, and then known as Nikolayevsk from 1835 until the revolution. Founded in 1764 by the Old Believers on the deep, winding river Irgiz, the place was once famous for its rich monasteries. (Unfortunately, these are now dilapidated, although efforts are being made to restore them.)
It was in one of the monasteries that Pugachyov got his start. From 1773 to 1775, he ransacked this part of Russia. From 1918 to 1919, the same dusty, provincial town was home to another popular revolutionary hero, Vasily Chapayev. Chapayev's house of the time has been turned into a museum. It is a small, one-story wooden dwelling. The museum staff has been confused by the events of the past decade or so: It prefers to keep its opinions to itself and let the visitors make their own sense of the photos on the walls showing Chapayev and his fellow Bolsheviks.
Back in Saratov, the authorities are less equivocal about the heroes and villains of the past. This is particularly the case for Pyotr Stolypin, for whom the governorship of Saratov from 1903 to 1906 was the launching pad to his appointment as prime minister. Stolypin is remembered by a plaque on the downtown mansion where he lived, and the Academy of Political Education - called the Higher Party School under the Soviets - is also named after him. As well as all this, a statue of Stolypin - by Moscow sculptor Vyacheslav Klykov, who designed the monument to Marshal Zhukov near Red Square in Moscow - was unveiled just across from the Radishchev Arts Museum on the corner of Pervomayskaya Ulitsa and Ulitsa Radishcheva in March 2002.
How to get there. There are no direct flights from St. Petersburg, but there are two daily flights from Moscow's Domodedovo airport.
The best rail solution is an overnight sleeper from Moscow's Paveletsky Station. Business-class tickets include full dinner and breakfast.
Where to stay. Saratov has one five-star hotel, the Astoria, and two four-star hotels, the Slovakiya - near Museinaya Ploshchad and the Volga embankment - and the Olimpiya. There is also the two-star Hotel Saratov, which has survived in the center since the 19th century.
Where to eat. Saratov is not a gourmet's paradise. Restaurants are best found along Nemetskaya Ulitsa and along Moskovskaya Ulitsa close to the railway station. Local taxi drivers give a thumbs up to Zvezdnoye Nebo ("Starry Heaven"), part of a casino complex near the railway station, which is decent and moderately priced.
TITLE: Zimbabwe Refutes Blame for Food Crisis
AUTHOR: By Ravi Nessman
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: HARARE, Zimbabwe - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe denied on Thursday that his country's controversial seizures of white-owned farms had contributed to the massive hunger crisis that threatens half his people with starvation.
"It's absolute nonsense," he said in a rare interview with foreign journalists. He described the redistribution of the farms to blacks as an important program for uplifting his country's poor.
"If anything, it's the only way you can empower people to produce, not just enough for subsistence, but more, to enable them to enjoy life and to enable the country also to continue to export maize," he said.
Zimbabwe faces its worst hunger crisis in a decade, with an estimated 6 million of the country's 12.5 million people at risk of starvation, according to the World Food Program.
The WFP has blamed the crisis on a terrible drought that hit during the growing season, and on Mugabe's land-redistribution program.
Last month, 2,900 white commercial farmers were ordered to leave their land, though some had crops in their fields. Many have disobeyed the order and about 300 were arrested. Most were freed on bail but have been forbidden to return to their farms before trial.
Mugabe said Thursday that white farmers, some of whom own several large farms, would be allowed to keep one farm of "appropriate size."
"We have said and sworn that no one should go without land, but they want much more, greedy, greedy, greedy colonialists. We cannot satisfy their greed," he said.
However, many of those being evicted only owned one farm, and many of those were relatively small, farm leaders have said. Critics have charged that the best farms have gone to politicians, military and police officers and Mugabe supporters instead of the poor.
Earlier Thursday, state-run radio said that Mugabe vowed that the white farmers who had defied eviction orders would be forced out. "Time is not on their side," Mugabe was quoted as saying.
Zimbabwe has been wracked by political unrest for more than two years, when the fledgling Movement for Democratic Change party began to pose the first real challenge to Mugabe's rule since he led the country to independence from Britain in 1980.
Human-rights activists have accused Mugabe of using food as a political weapon, by keeping government aid out of opposition districts and making recipients show ruling party membership cards before they could receive corn.
Mugabe strongly denied that.
"Everyone who needs food will be fed regardless of politics, religion or any other persuasion, the same way as the government runs its system of education. We don't say that because your children belong to this party your children must not go to school," he told journalists after meeting with WFP head James Morris. "We don't go that far with our politics."
Mugabe also confirmed his country's agreement with the WFP to accept the shipment of genetically modified corn donated by the United States. Zimbabwe will mill the corn before distributing it to ensure that it is not planted, he said.
TITLE: Arab States Line Up Against Possible U.S. Military Action
AUTHOR: By Sarah El Deeb
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: CAIRO - Arab states declared their allegiance to Iraq on Thursday, with a gathering of foreign ministers saying that U.S. threats against Baghdad were threats against the whole Arab world.
Though some Arab governments have pressed Baghdad to accept the return of UN weapons inspectors to resolve the crisis, the statement adopted after two days of talks between Arab League foreign ministers made no mention of inspectors. Instead, it praised Iraq for trying to revive its dialogue with the United Nations.
The resolution was a diplomatic victory for Baghdad, which has been looking for international support against the possibility of a U.S. attack to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
In the final statement, the ministers registered their "total rejection of the threat of aggression on Arab nations, especially Iraq, reaffirming that these threats and any threat to the security and safety of any Arab country are considered a threat to Arab national security."
Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri applauded the resolution, telling reporters that all the Arab governments had expressed their "total rejection of the aggressive intentions of the United States."
The U.S. administration of George W. Bush says Hussein must go, because of his alleged drive to develop weapons of mass destruction, and it is considering military action but says it hasn't made a decision yet.
Thursday's statement applauded Iraq for its "initiative to renew dialogue with the United Nations," calling for an end to UN trade sanctions imposed to punish Iraq for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
The UN-Iraq dialogue has been deadlocked over the issue of the inspectors, who must confirm whether Baghdad has eliminated its weapons programs before sanctions can be lifted. Iraq has prevented them from entering the country for nearly four years.
Iraq says that it is ready to discuss a resumption of inspections, but only in talks that will also deal with ending the sanctions and restoring the government's sovereignty in northern and southern Iraq.
The United Nations has said the return of inspectors must be the priority. Secretary General Kofi Annan declined last month to hold further negotiations with Iraq until it accepts the resumption of the inspections.
League spokesperson Hisham Youssef said that the issue of a return to inspections was indirectly mentioned in the final communique when it referred to the need for full implementation of the UN resolutions.
Youssef said that the foreign ministers had been persuaded that Iraq was working toward that goal and because Iraq wanted the United Nations to address its concerns the inspectors could act as spies and that the inspections might never end.
"We believe these Iraqi concerns are legitimate," Youssef said.
"The return of the inspectors is an important step ... and serious discussions are under way between Iraq and the United Nations right now," league Secretary-General Amr Moussa said at a news conference after the communique was released.
"Iraq has asserted that she has no plans for rearming, especially with weapons of mass destruction," Moussa said.
Moussa said that taking military action against Iraq would "open the gates of hell in the Middle East."
Nabil Shaath, the Palestinian planning minister, told reporters that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon could use the attack as an excuse to crack down even more on the Palestinians.
A leading Iraqi newspaper owned by Hussein's son urged the league Thursday to adopt a clear stand against the United States.
The newspaper Babil said that Washington was "attempting to target Iraq as a first step toward controlling the whole Middle East region."
Syrian Vice President Abdel Halim Khaddam said Thursday that a U.S. attack on Iraq would have "disastrous consequences, not only for Iraq but in the entire region and beyond." Khaddam spoke after talks in Paris with French President Jacques Chirac.
France and several other U.S. allies in Europe have come out against an attack on Iraq. The strongest backer of the United States has been Britain, and Prime Minister Tony Blair meets with Bush over the weekend.
TITLE: Argentina Ends Streak in Shocker Over U.S.
AUTHOR: By Jim O'Connell
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana - Thirty years after the Soviet Union proved the United States could be beaten in Olympic basketball, Argentina made a more impressive statement in the World Championships.
For the first time since NBA players started representing the United States in international competitions, a U.S. team was beaten.
Argentina's 87-80 victory over the United States on Wednesday night in the second round of the World Championships wasn't an elimination game, but it ended any doubt that the rest of the world has caught the country where the sport was invented.
"I think it was very clear that that team understood what it would take to beat us. Their body language, the way they attacked, the way they played together," U.S. forward Antonio Davis said. "All that relates to winning."
Since NBA players became eligible to represent the United States for the 1992 Olympic qualifying tournament, the record was 58-0. Argentina ended the streak with a convincing win, unlike the Soviet Union's controversial 51-50 victory at Munich, Germany, in 1972.
The United States never led, tied the game only once, trailed by as many as 20 points and never got closer than seven points in the second half.
"I'm embarrassed to be on the team that took the first loss. We can still go out and win the gold medal, but we're still 'that' team," Paul Pierce said.
"The only thing we can do is go out and play hard the rest of the games and get the gold medal," Pierce said.
The other quarterfinal matchups are: Argentina-Brazil, Puerto Rico-New Zealand and Germany-Spain.
A driving layup by Emanuel Ginobili, who will play for the San Antonio Spurs next season, gave Argentina a 52-32 lead with 1:14 left in the half. Pierce hit a 3-pointer to cut the deficit to 64-57, the closest the U.S. team would get.
A shot-clock violation and a turnover by the United States were answered with driving layups by Ginobili and Hugo Sconochini that made it 76-63 with 5:55 left. Not long after that the Argentine players leaped and hugged each other on the court at Conseco Fieldhouse.
"They have better talent, they have better training, but I think we played better today," Argentina's Luis Scola said.
Ginobili led Argentina with 15 points. Pierce led the United States with 22.
Yugoslavia 110, Turkey 78. Peja Stojakovic and Milan Gurovic each scored 16 points as Yugoslavia (4-2) kept alive its chance to defend its title, but it will be the first team to face the United States since the loss to Argentina.
Mehmet Okur, who has signed with the Detroit Pistons, led Turkey with 21points, while Hedo Turkoglu, who plays for Sacramento, added 20.
Puerto Rico 89, Angola 87, 2OT. Jose Ortiz hit a shot in the lane with 0:00.9 left in the second overtime to give Puerto Rico (5-1) the win and the top spot in its group.
Had Puerto Rico lost, it would have dropped into a three-way tie for second behind Spain with Brazil and Yugoslavia. The tiebreaker would have had the order Yugoslavia, Puerto Rico, Brazil, meaning Puerto Rico would have played the United States in Thursday's quarterfinals.
Spain 84, Brazil 67. Pau Gasol had 23 points and 11 rebounds as Spain (5-1) bounced back from its only loss of the tournament. Gasol, the NBA's rookie of the year last season with the Memphis Grizzlies, was 10-for-13 from the field.
Marcel Machado had 25 points for Brazil (4-2), which was held 20 pointsbelow its scoring average for the second straight day.
Germany 103, Russia 85. Dirk Nowitzki, an NBA all-star with the Dallas Mavericks, and Marko Pesic each scored 17 points to lead Germany (4-2) to its first quarterfinal berth in the World Championships.
Zakhar Pachoutine had 28 points for Russia (2-4), which won the silver medal in the last two championships.
New Zealand 94, China 88. Phil Jones scored 33 points and New Zealand (3-3) rallied from a 24-point deficit to continue its deepest advance in the World Championships.
Yao Ming, the NBA's No. 1 draft pick by the Houston Rockets, scored 27 points and did not miss a shot for China (1-5). He was 8-for-8 from the field and made all 11 free throws.
TITLE: Williams Pounds Seles, Makes Semifinals
AUTHOR: By Howard Fendrich
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW YORK - Venus Williams reduced her U.S. Open quarterfinal against Monica Seles to something akin to an instructional video.
Want to see aces at more than 175 kilometers per hour? Check. Some forehand winners? OK. Sure-handed volleying? There you go.
The two-time defending champion simply had too much in every department and beat Seles 6-2, 6-3 Wednesday night to join younger sister Serena in the semifinals, putting each one victory away from a third consecutive all-Williams Grand Slam title match.
Venus, trying to become the first woman to win three straight U.S. Opens since Chris Evert took four in a row from 1975-78, plays 10th-seeded Amelie Mauresmo next. Mauresmo came back to beat Jennifer Capriati 4-6, 7-6 (7-5), 6-3.
The other women's semifinal will have top-seeded Serena - who lost to Venus in the 2001 Open final and beat her for the titles at the French Open and Wimbledon this year - against Lindsay Davenport. They won Tuesday.
Defending men's champion Lleyton Hewitt and two-time Open winner Andre Agassi set up a semifinal showdown with victories Wednesday. Hewitt beat No. 20 Younes El Aynaoui of Morocco 6-1, 7-6 (8-6), 4-6, 6-2, while Agassi fought back to defeat No. 32 Max Mirnyi of Belarus 6-7 (7-5), 6-3, 7-5, 6-3 at night to get to the Open semis for the eighth time.
Agassi had to get past Mirnyi, known as The Beast for his 195-centimeter frame and fierce serve, which produced 19 aces. The tiebreaker was the first set Agassi had dropped in the tournament.
Two hours into the match came a game that had a bit of everything - seven deuces, four break points, two double faults, two brilliant passing shots by Agassi, and a game-ending ace at 198 kilometers per hour.
While Mirnyi did eventually hold serve, the damage was done: Agassi had worn him down. Agassi broke Mirnyi next time to go ahead 6-5 and then served out the set at love. One more break, to 3-2 in the fourth set with a forehand winner, put Agassi in complete control.
Williams set the tone against Seles by breaking serve in the opening game with a backhand drop shot. She finished with 23 winners to six for Seles and won the point on 17 of 20 trips to the net.
"I don't think Monica played her best today. I know she was expecting to play better," Williams said. "Being so windy out here made it more difficult."
"She just served too well," Seles said. "I couldn't read it at all."
Capriati blamed herself for the loss to Mauresmo.
"It hurts. Definitely hurts. Just a lot of expectation, a lot of pressure put on myself," Capriati said, her eyes red. "There's a fine line, there's a balance. That's not good either, to just want it so bad."
She used the words "nervous" and "tight" to describe her play. Later, responding to a question, she added, "Well, I think 'getting tight' is basically saying you choked."
Capriati generally prefers to play quickly, stepping up to the baseline right away to serve or return. Throughout the match, Mauresmo appeared to do what she could to disrupt that, often waving her hand to indicate she wasn't ready for the next point.
That's not all that bothered Capriati, who twice asked the chair umpire if the rock music playing on the speakers between games could be turned down. She also appeared to be thrown off by Mauresmo's tendency to change the pace during points.
Now, like at Wimbledon, Capriati is shut out of a Grand Slam's semifinals.
"This has kind of been a new pressure that I've felt - coming off being No. 1 and having such a great run," she said. "Human beings are the only ones that go over and over and do the same mistakes over and over. We never learn."
TITLE: A's Rewrite History Books With 20th Straight Victory
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: OAKLAND, California - The Oakland Athletics knew what they were doing all along, honest. By letting an 11-run lead slip away, they merely set themselves up for their most improbable ending yet.
The Athletics won their AL-record 20th straight game Wednesday night, blowing that huge edge and then beating Kansas City 12-11 on pinch-hitter Scott Hatteberg's home run in the bottom of the ninth inning.
"We really got lucky to come out of this one on top, but we've been getting a lot of luck. We don't question it," Hatteberg said.
The AL West leaders broke a three-way tie for the longest winning streak in AL history with the 1906 Chicago White Sox and the 1947 New York Yankees.
The major league record of 26 consecutive victories was set by the New York Giants in 1916.
A crowd of 55,528, the largest ever for a regular-season game at the Coliseum, saw the A's take an 11-0 lead after three innings. Even after the Royals rallied, Oakland found a way to win.
"I know it was a record-breaker, but I don't want to watch this one on film too much," A's manager Art Howe said.
As the Athletics' celebration moved from the field to the clubhouse, groundskeepers yanked the bases from the dirt, got Hatteberg to sign them and sent them off to the Hall of Fame.
A young fan who caught the winning home-run ball traded the souvenir to Hatteberg for a bat and a handshake.
"It's some kind of magic right now," Hatteberg said.
The Athletics won in the bottom of the ninth for the third straight game.
"Something like that sends chills up your back, but I don't want four games like this," starting pitcher Tim Hudson said. "With the attention that we've got, and the way we've been playing, this is obviously playoff-type baseball."
Down 11-5, the Royals scored five times in the eighth, capped by Mike Sweeney's three-run homer. Luis Alicea's two-out single in the ninth tied it.
Hatteberg hit his solo homer with one out in the bottom half. He leaped and jogged around the bases as the A's rolled out a big banner high above centerfield that read "20."
Arizona 7, Los Angeles 1. Randy Johnson threw a three-hitter to earn his 20th victory, stemming Arizona's slide in the NL West with a 7-1 victory over Los Angeles on Wednesday.
Johnson struck out eight to pass Bert Blyleven and move into fourth place on the career strikeout list with 3,705.
Johnson (20-5) joined teammate Curt Schilling (21-5) as the only 20-game winners in the majors this season. He even added a two-run double in the eighth inning.
Johnson moved past Blyleven's 3,701 strikeouts by fanning the side in the sixth inning. Johnson trails only Roger Clemens (3,887), Steve Carlton (4,136) and Nolan Ryan (5,714).
New York Mets 11, Florida 3. Rey Ordonez slapped an intended pitchout for a go-ahead single and Mike Piazza homered as New York beat Florida.
The Mets won consecutive games at Shea Stadium for the first time since July 22-23. New York broke its NL-record 15-game home losing streak Tuesday night in the second game of a doubleheader.
Pedro Astacio (12-8) allowed three runs on six hits in six innings for the win.
In other games, it was New York Yankees 3, Boston 1; Minnesota 3, Seattle 2; Anaheim 4, Tampa Bay 2; Baltimore 8, Texas 2; Cleveland 9, Detroit 3; Toronto 6, Chicago White Sox 2; Colorado 2, San Francisco 1; Atlanta 6, Pittsburgh 0; St. Louis 10, Cincinnati 5; San Diego 5, Houston 1; Montreal 8, Philadelphia 5; New York mets 11, Florida 3; and Chicago Cubs 3, Milwaukee 0.
TITLE: Sychyov's 'Golden Boy' Tag Tarnished
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW - Three months ago at the World Cup, he was the only bright spot of a dim tournament for Russian soccer.
Now, 18-year-old striker Dmitry Sychyov - once dubbed the golden boy of Russian soccer - has been banned by the Russian Professional Football League (RPFL) for walking out on defending champion Spartak Moscow, after a contract dispute; been dropped from the national team; and been called a liar and a traitor by his manager and Spartak fans. He has even been accused of being under the control of a mafia gang from the Moscow Oblast town of Podolsk.
"We found there was no evidence to support Sychyov's request to annul his contract with Spartak, thus we had no choice but to ban the player for four months," Vitor Marushchak, the head of the RFPL's disciplinary committee, told reporters after a four-hour hearing behind closed doors on Wednesday.
Marushchak said, however, that when the ban is lifted Sychyov will be free to play for any club in Russia or abroad.
"It's a FIFA mandate that we can't prevent a professional player from practising his trade," he said.
The sorry saga began Aug. 16 when Sychyov, who only joined Spartak in December, wrote to the club saying he wanted to annul his contract. Later, the player wrote to the disciplinary committee of the Russian Football Union saying that he had not received $10,000 promised by the club and that he had been forced to quit by "strong psychological pressure" put on him by Spartak after he refused to sign a new contract.
Spartak immediately called for Sychyov, who, before the World Cup signed a contract tying him to the club until 2006, to be disqualified from playing as punishment for his attempts to break his contract.
In an interview with Sovietsky Sport on Monday, Spartak manager Oleg Romantsev said no payment of $10,000 had been agreed to with Sychyov.
"None of it is true," he said. "We haven't made [such payments] to players at any time. ... There is nothing written in [Sychyov's] contract about that."
The club hinted in a press release that "dark structures" were behind Sychyov's decision, while media reports said his father, Yevgeny, was responsible.
"Certain people wanted to earn money through Dima," Spartak technical director Alexander Shikunov was quoted as saying on the club's web site last week. These people had suggested previously that Spartak sell the player abroad for a lucrative fee and split the transfer money with them after the World Cup, Shikunov said. He did not identify the people in question.
The biweekly Novaya Gazeta went further on Thursday, alleging that Sychyov and his father were being manipulated by a Podolsk mafia group.
"One of the agents working with Dima officially said that he wouldn't work with him anymore as there were too many people involved, too much money and he wanted to live a bit longer," Spartak security manager Alexander Meitin told the newspaper.
Quoting unnamed sources, Novaya Gazeta said members of the Podolsk gang had often been seen with Sychyov and would accompany him to collect his wages. It reported that Sychyov is now holed up in a boarding house controlled by the Podolsk mafia just outside Moscow.
Sychyov has not played a game since the scandal broke. New Russia coach Valery Gazzayev did not pick him for the national team's friendly against Sweden on Aug. 21 and dropped him from the squad for Russia's first Euro 2004 qualifier against Ireland on Saturday.
TITLE: SPORTS WATCH
TEXT: Koreans Get Together
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - A 49-member North Korean soccer delegation arrived in South Korea on Thursday for an exhibition match this weekend as part of reconciliation efforts on the divided peninsula. The North Koreans - 21 players, six coaches and 22 officials and journalists - are playing the South for the first time in 12 years.
The inter-Korean friendly in Seoul on Saturday, is a prelude to the North's participation in the Asian Games at South Korea's southern port city of Busan from Sept. 29 to Oct. 14.
The two sides will use a "unification flag," with an image of the whole Korean peninsula, instead of their national flags during the match. They will also sing "Arirang," a traditional Korean folk song, instead of their national anthems.
Ronaldo Lifts Shirt Sales
MADRID (Reuters) - Real Madrid has already begun to recoup its 45 million Euro ($44.87 million) investment for Brazilian World Cup winner Ronaldo with record sales of the number 11 shirt bearing his name.
The first official Ronaldo shirts, costing 72 euros ($71.78) a time, went on display at club outlets at exactly the same time as the player's presentation to the media on Monday and staff say they sold the first one just 10 seconds later. "We didn't even have time to put them on the hangers," said sales chief David Tello.
"From first thing in the morning people were asking when the shirt was going to be put on sale and we had to give out tickets so they could reserve their place in the queue," he said.
Italian TV Deal
ROME (Reuters) - Debt-ridden Italian soccer clubs have agreed a new three-year rights deal with state broadcaster RAI, accepting a potentially big cut in rates to keep their sport on public television, RAI has said. The accord ended weeks of bickering between the two sides, but does not resolve continuing arguments over pay-per-view deals with private TV stations that have delayed the start of the 2002-2003 season.
Under the terms of Wednesday's compromise, RAI said it would pay soccer clubs 62 million euros a year for highlights of Serie A games and live transmission of Italy's domestic cup competition.
This represented a 27 percent drop on last season's fees, but the clubs could earn an additional 13 million euros a year.