SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #805 (70), Friday, September 20, 2002
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TITLE: Report Slams City Fire Actions
AUTHOR: By Claire Bigg
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The St. Petersburg Prosecutor's Office has accused the St. Petersburg administration of fiddling while parts of the city were burning.
An investigation into this summer's blazes carried out by the office concluded that the St. Petersburg administration violated federal fire-safety laws. The violations hindered the fight against the blazes, and allowed new fires to flare up, a report by the office said.
"Because of the absence of preventive measures against peat fires on the territory of St. Petersburg, and unsatisfactory organization of fire safety measures by officials of the St. Petersburg administration ... there were a whole series of peat and grass fires at the beginning of September,'' stated the report, a copy of which was obtained by the St. Petersburg Times.
The prosecutor's office sent the results of the investigation to St. Petersburg Governor Vladimir Yakovlev a week ago.
The report said the federal law on fire safety states that preventing and tackling fires is one of the government's most important functions.
The investigation revealed that only one tanker was dispatched to the Vyborg District's Sosnovka Park, where peat fires had spread to cover 300 square meters.
The territorial administration of St. Petersburg's Nevsky District put out peat and grass fires in the same way, by hosing them down, the report says.
Peat fires burn 5 meters to 7 meters under ground level and need to be dug up by bulldozers before being put out. Most of the fires that affected St. Petersburg this month and last were peat fires. They are particularly dangerous as they are not always visible and can trap passers-by.
Up to 3,000 hectares in the city and the oblast that surrounds it were on fire simultaneously during the last two months, filling the air with thick smog that forced Pulkovo airport to cancel incoming flights for one day. No buildings or human lives were harmed.
All forest fires have since been extinguished, with only a handful of peat fires in the oblast still burning Thursday, after several days of rain this week.
The prosecutor's office slammed City Hall's reluctance to cooperate with the Leningrad Oblast, saying the city administration had made a late response to requests for it to lend the oblast fire-fighting vehicles.
Requests to City Hall from Vladimir Kirillov, the oblast's first vice governor, for vehicles to help fight blazes in the oblast's Lomonosovsky, Kirovsky and Gatchinsky districts were mostly ignored.
The Commission for Emergency Situations, which is headed by St. Petersburg Vice Governor Anna Markova, answered on Sept. 5, five days after the request was made, by granting three of the 13 vehicles for which the oblast asked. The vehicles were allocated only to the Lomonosov district.
"The city turned down the oblast's proposition to fight the fires together,'' said Valentin Sidorin, head of the Leningrad Oblast government's press service. "It is important to cooperate, because fires can easily spread between the oblast and the city areas. The St. Petersburg administration began dealing with the fires only after the federal authorities' local administration told them to do so. It has to understand that extinguishing fires is not our task alone.''
It is not the first time that the city administration and the Leningrad Oblast have clashed over questions of fire safety. When a thick smog descended on St. Petersburg between Sept. 3 and Sept. 6, city and oblast officials were arguing over which fires caused the smoke.
Despite City Hall finally helping the oblast toward the beginning of September, relations still appear strained.
"Most of the fires that were burning this summer were located in the oblast's territory, not in St. Petersburg," said Alexander Afanasyev, the governor's spokesperson.
"That is why blaming the city administration for coordinating poorly with the oblast just doesn't make sense. The fires were their problem, not ours,'' he said Thursday in a telephone interview.
Afanasyev said he did not know if Yakovlev had read the prosecutor's office's report.
"I don't know if the governor has received it,'' he said.
"The results of this investigation seem somewhat exaggerated to me. And wanting to determine the guilty party is not constructive, in the case of a natural catastrophe.''
Nonetheless, the prosecutor's office has resolved that City Hall must explain why it breached fire-safety laws and wants those guilty of negligence to be accountable.
"The administration has one month to consider our report, and to take action on the listed shortcomings,'' prosecutor's office spokesperson Yelena Ordinskaya said Thursday.
"Our statements are founded and well researched. The administration will not get away with it; we know the law, and the administration has violated it.''
TITLE: Group Discovers Terror Victims
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: TOKSOVO, Leningrad Oblast - Human-rights group Memorial believes it has discovered the secret main burial site for the northern capital's about 40,000 victims of Stalin's Great Terror in 1937 to 1938.
Members of the St. Petersburg branch of the group say the remains of about 30,000 victims are buried near the town of Toksovo, about 30 kilometers north of St. Petersburg, which at the time of the killings was called Leningrad.
"The little round hole in the back of this skull shows where the bullet that killed this teenage boy entered," Memorial member Miron Muzhdaba said Wednesday, as he removed darkened human bones from a meter-deep pit.
"Most of the about 20 skulls we have found here in the last month have similar holes in the same part of the head," he said. "The bullet holes mostly match the .45 caliber of the military issue Colts used by the NKVD."
It was the NKVD secret police, once known as the Cheka and later as the KGB, that carried out summary sentences and executions of so-called enemies of the people during the Great Terror. The families of those who were shot were usually told that their loved ones had been sentenced to 10 years in prison without the right to send letters.
As Muzhdaba spoke, artillery shells exploded in the surrounding forest. The grave is located on an army firing range that has been in use since the end of the 19th century.
"The range made this area very convenient for NKVD," Muzhdaba said. "The executions were carried out as secretly as possible. The NKVD hoped the firing on the range would somehow hide the murders."
Starting with evidence from people who lived in villages near the grave site in the 1930s, Memorial took about five years before they dug up the first victim's remains in August.
Memorial tracked the witnesses down through ads in newspapers. The villagers remembered how they were scared as, every night, black vans, known as chyornye voronki, or "black ravens," arrived at the range and stopped with their headlights on. After that the residents heard random shots.
The Federal Security Service, or FSB, the KGB's successor organization, either ignored Memorial or withheld information when the group demanded to know where the victims are buried.
No comment was available from the St. Petersburg FSB on Thursday.
According to witnesses, the vans were most active in 1937 and 1938. The period from Aug. 5, 1937, to Nov. 16, 1938, is officially known as the Great Terror.
The killings are also known as the Yezhovshchina after NKVD head Nikolai Yezhov who, with Stalin and Leningrad party boss Andrei Zhdanov, launched the campaign of terror.
The purges of the late 1930s followed a purge centered in Leningrad after the assassination of Zhdanov's predecessor, Sergei Kirov, in 1934.
Official records say 39,488 people from Leningrad and the Leningrad Oblast were executed through those years. Between 1930 and 1936, almost 7,000 people vanished.
People were taken from their homes, often in the middle of the night, to the NKVD headquarters at 4 Liteiny Prospekt, today the city police and FSB headquarters. Many of the victims were executed in the cellars and it is their bodies that Memorial believes were dumped at Levashyovo, a site that was identified only in 1992.
The people whose remains are at Toksovo are believed to have been driven there and shot at the range.
Ida Slavina, now 80, lost her father in 1938. In February that year, Ilya Slavin, 53, a law professor, was executed after being accused of planning to kill Zhdanov.
His wife, Esfir Slavina, 52, was arrested in April 1938 as the wife of an enemy of the people and exiled to Kazakhstan. Ida Slavina, who was 16 at that time, remained alone.
"Before the war most people wore special badges indicating how well they are prepared to defend the country. My father practiced at a firing range so that he could wear the badge of a Voroshilov sniper," Ida Slavina said in a telephone interview.
Almost all the staff of the Leningrad State and Law Institute, where her father worked, were repressed, and the institute was closed, she said.
"Indeed, they needed to destroy the law in order to organize lawlessness," she said.
"Those were terrible times," Slavina said. "Most of the population was still under the influence of propaganda and believed that there were real enemies of the people. Even when we stood in long lines to deliver parcels to our fathers and mothers, many of us seemed to believe some kind of mistake had been made with our own relatives, but that the other victims really had done something bad."
"I was completely sure my parents, who used to sing Communist songs to me as lullabies, were innocent," she said.
During the interview, she started to sing some of the Communist songs that she remembered as her lullabies, but struggled to hold back her tears from the bitter memories they evoked.
Slavina said she had contradictory feelings in 1954 when her father was rehabilitated, and "everybody who had not said a word before started saying what a good man he was."
Slavina said she has seen her father's NKVD file and knows that he was executed in NKVD buildings in St. Petersburg, but she doesn't have a clue where he was buried.
"Although my dad died only a few months after his arrest, they kept lying to me that he was alive until 1955," Slavina said.
"None of the archive documents I saw had any information about his grave," she said.
Irina Flige, director of Memorial's historical branch, said the FSB used to say all those who were repressed were buried at Levashovo.
However, the results of KGB questioning of those who drove the chyornye voronki in 1937 and 1938 indicated there were not more than 8,500 thousand people taken there.
"This information leads to the conclusion that there were other places where victims were executed and buried," Flige said.
Flige believes that the majority of the remaining 30,000 victims were buried at the Rzhevsky firing range near Toskovo. However, she said the assumption requires more investigation. Thus, at the moment, nine skeletons have been sent for medical examinations that will determine the age and sex of the dead, as well as the year they died and the cause of death.
"Most of the remains that we have found were piled on top of each other. There are at least several thousand people buried here," Muzhdaba said.
No signs of any clothes worn by the dead, except the remains of shoes, have been found.
Muzhdaba said the remains could not belong to Nazi victims, because the German army didn't reach that area during World War II.
Many of Memorial's roughly 100 members and volunteers who have participated in the excavations in Toskovo lost relatives during Stalin's purges.
"My great-grandfather, who was a priest, was repressed in 1937," Muzhdaba said. "It's quite possible that he is buried on the Rzhevsky range."
"I shiver when we drive along the road leading to the range," Muzhdaba says. "It's crazy to imagine what the people in those vans felt, realizing that they were on the way to their death."
Flige said Memorial has sent another request to FSB for official information on the Toksovo grave.
"If we receive a positive answer from them, we'll just make this place a memorial and stop the excavations," she said. "If not, we'll have to continue the works next summer and find a way of proving what is there."
TITLE: Ivanov: Russia Is Ready To Strike Pre-Emptively
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW - Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said Moscow was prepared to unleash preventive strikes on militants in Georgia, and that he would give U.S. officials evidence of a terrorist presence across Russia's southern border.
"If we see that bandits are headed in our direction and only 10 to 15 kilometers are left before the border, should we wait for them to cross the border, kill someone and disperse?" Ivanov, who is on a trip to Washington, said on television Thursday. "Naturally, in this situation we will take a preventive action to protect our security and lives of our citizens."
Ivanov's statement drew an immediate angry response from Georgia. Dzhemal Gakhokidze, deputy chief of President Eduard Shevardnadze's Security Council, warned that a Russian operation in Georgia would amount to an "aggression and an international crime."
Ilya Shabalkin, a spokesperson for federal forces in Chechnya, said Thursday that soldiers were battling several dozen rebels who had crossed into the region from Georgia, Itar-Tass reported.
Sergei Livantsov, a spokesperson for the regional Border Guards headquarters said that a Russian patrol spotted a dozen gunmen in southern Chechnya near the border with Georgia and called for an artillery strike, the Interfax-Military News Agency reported.
President Vladimir Putin ordered the military last week to draw up plans to strike suspected Chechen rebel bases in Georgia's lawless Pankisi Gorge. He said the strikes would be carried out if Chechen rebels cross into Georgia while being chased by Russian forces.
Ivanov appeared to take the strike plan one step further in saying Russia would strike rebels on Georgian territory if they were considered a threat.
"If we see that from Georgian territory, they are attempting or preparing an attack, then nobody is going to wait until they get to the border, disperse and start blowing up houses," Ivanov said.
Ivanov reiterated a call for a "security zone" of 20 kilometers to 45 kilometers to be established on both sides of the Russian-Georgian border and demanded that Georgia immediately extradite 13 rebels detained recently near the border.
Ivanov, who is currently in Washington with Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, said he and his colleague would use meetings with U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell to provide "tons of proof" of terrorist activity in Georgia.
The meetings are part of a series agreed on in May between U.S. President George W. Bush and Putin to improve the two countries' cooperation in security.
Federal Security Service head Nikolai Patrushev echoed Ivanov's comments Thursday and said Russia will use force to "neutralize" terrorists in Georgia.
"We have proof that international terrorists are hiding in Georgia," Patrushev said before the opening of the summit of security chiefs from the Commonwealth of Independent States in Chisinau, Moldova.
(AP, SPT)
TITLE: EU Softens Stance Over Enclave Visas
AUTHOR: By Simon Saradzhyan
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The European Union's executive body said Wednesday it will consider allowing visa-free travel to Russian citizens going between the Kaliningrad exclave and the rest of Russia in sealed, high-speed trains.
The European Commission also suggested giving facilitated transit documents to frequent travelers, to allow multiple trips through Lithuania and Poland after they join the EU in 2004.
Silvia Kofler, a spokesperson for the European Commission in Russia, said the fact that the EC was willing to soften its demands indicated a "step forward" in what has become a bitter visa dispute between Russia and the EU.
President Vladimir Putin has demanded that Russians be granted visa-free travel to and from Kaliningrad once it is surrounded by EU member states. At the moment, Russians only need an insert in their internal passports for transit through Lithuania and a voucher for Poland. Citizens of EU countries do not require visas to travel within the union.
The technical feasibility of the train option will not be studied until after Lithuania and Poland are admitted, the European Commission said Wednesday in a statement. The proposal faces an uphill battle, as EU officials have said that passengers would jump off the trains.
The EC said facilitated transit documents, or FTDs, would be issued by Polish and Lithuanian consulates at low or no cost. Russian government agencies would compile lists of frequent travelers and submit them to the consulates.
"You could call it a Kaliningrad pass," European Commission President Romano Prodi said in televised remarks.
However, as in the case with visas, consulates would be able to reject applications. Also, from 2005, travelers would no longer be able to use internal passports and have to obtain foreign travel passports to apply for FTDs.
Russians who do not qualify for FTDs would have to get foreign passports even before 2004.
Kaliningrad Governor Vladimir Yegorov welcomed the EU announcement as a step forward.
However, Dmitry Rogozin, Putin's envoy in negotiations over Kaliningrad, said the EU and Russia remain far apart on the issue.
Only 30 percent of Kaliningrad residents have foreign passports, and it would cost half a billion rubles to issue such passports to the rest by 2004, said Sergei Zolotukhin, a deputy in the Kaliningrad regional parliament.
He said 960,000 people traveled between mainland Russia and Kaliningrad by rail last year, and another 520,000 went by road. He also said Russia should win an EU guarantee before 2004 that the train option would be implemented.
EU foreign ministers will meet in Brussels on Sept. 30 to consider the proposals. They will then be discussed at a EU-Russia summit in November.
Lithuania's Foreign Ministry announced Wednesday that it would accept the proposals.
TITLE: Police Name Two Staravoitova Suspects
AUTHOR: By Yevgenia Borisova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Police have named two suspects wanted in connection with the murder of State Duma Deputy Galina Starovoitova four years ago.
The feisty democrat was gunned down on Nov. 20, 1998 on the staircase leading to her apartment on Kanal Griboyedova.
First deputy head of the country's criminal police Mikhail Nikiforov said Thursday at a news conference that two men named Musin and Stekhnovsky are suspected of participating in Starovoitova's slaying. Nikiforov did not give first names of the suspects nor their role in the murder.
He said only that Musin is wanted internationally and Stekhnovsky within Russia. St. Petersburg police refused to elaborate, saying that the case is not "of the local level."
Several murder suspects have been named since the assassination, but none of them have been brought to trial. The investigation is headed by the Federal Security Service.
Ruslan Linkov, Starovoitova's assistant, who survived after being shot three times in the neck and head in the same attack in which Starovoitova was killed, repeatedly insisted in St. Petersburg press that local Governor Vladimir Yakovlev and State Duma Speaker Gennady Seleznyov should be questioned in connection with the murder, but neither have been summoned by investigators.
Yury Shmidt, lawyer for the murdered politician's sister, Olga Starovoitova, said Thursday that the case seems to be stuck and that Thursday's revelation does not give any information to the public.
"Every half a year, the investigation is extended. Now they say they found some suspects and pronounced their names," he said in a telephone interview.
"But, look, Musin, Mukhin, or Blokhin, or Zaitsev - whatever names they announce, they don't say anything. If they said that some bigwig is involved, that might mean something. They should at least say who these people are and what their motives to kill might be."
In November last year, Shmidt and Olga Starovoitova asked the FSB for information on the case or at least the grounds for the repeated extensions of the investigation.
After the FSB refused, the pair went to the district and city court and recently reached the Constitutional Court, Shmidt said.
"We hope that in October, the Constitutional Court will look into the case. We will consider it a victory if the Court rules that we have the right to their information," he said.
Nikoforov on Thursday also named suspects in the murder of St Petersburg deputy governor Mikhail Manevich, who was killed by a sniper in Aug. 1997.
But, Nikiforov said the suspects - Kalyagin and Maksimov - are believed by the prosecution to have both been murdered right after they killed Manevich.
TITLE: Dec. 8 Elections Confirmed
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Lawmakers at Wednesday's session of the city parliament finally decided on Dec. 8, as the date for elections of a new legislative assembly.
Forty-two lawmakers voted for a law on the election drafted by Legislative Assembly Vice Speaker Vadim Tyulpanov and lawmaker Vitaly Kalinin. No votes against the date or abstentions were registered.
The choice of a date for the legislative elections had been at the center of heated arguments within the assembly, between the deputies supporting elections in December and those in favor of postponing them to 2003.
Wednesday was the assembly's last opportunity to determine an election date. After Sept. 19, the task of choosing a date would have passed to the Election Commission, which would have meant the elections could not be carried out before the end of January.
TITLE: Police: Racism Is A Public Problem
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Stopping racist murders is a job not only for the police, but also for the public, Mikhail Vanichkin, head of the police in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast, said at a news conference Thursday.
Speaking after the murder of an Azeri watermelon vendor by a group of skinheads last Friday, Vanichkin called the murder an act of extremism.
"Skinheads are more a socio-political problem than a problem of the police," he said. "At present, young people have no ideology, they don't have anything to do in their free time."
The first deputy head of the country's criminal police Mikhail Nikiforov said at the news conference that problems linked to the rise of extremism are addressed differently in each region, and it is no coincidence that the issue was discussed at an Interior Ministry gathering in St. Petersburg, celebrating 200 years of the ministry's founding.
The killers of father-of-eight Mamed Mamedov, 53, recorded the crime on a videotape. Police say they have identified all those responsible and that the tape will be key evidence in their conviction.
TITLE: Half Putin's Orders Are Being Ignored
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - When President Vladimir Putin barks an order, the government only springs into action about half of the time. And many of the orders he made last year remain unfulfilled.
The findings by the presidential administration's oversight agency shatter a widespread belief that the tough-talking Putin is also a tough administrator who always gets things done. Red tape and a lack of understanding about how to implement the orders were the main barriers blocking their fulfillment, the Main Control Directorate said.
While Putin is nowhere close to Josef Stalin in spurring his people into action, he is well ahead of former President Boris Yeltsin.
Only 48 percent of the 543 direct orders handed to certain officials last year were promptly fulfilled, the directorate said in a report released on the president's Web site this week. Another 328 direct orders remain unfulfilled.
Putin also signed 1,013 presidential decrees, of which 787 have been fulfilled, the directorate said. Eighty-three percent were carried out in a timely manner.
The report did not measure the effectiveness of the implementation.
The directorate said 81 percent of Putin's orders in 2001 have been fulfilled, a large increase from 54 percent in 1999, when a disgruntled Yeltsin sacked and replaced a seemingly endless line of officials.
Although Putin has demanded much better performance, he remains no match for Soviet leaders, said Andrei Neshchadin, an economist who worked in the Communist Party's Central Committee. He said less than 5 percent of all orders from above went unfulfilled before Mikhail Gorbachev came to power.
Neshchadin, who now heads the Expert Institute with the Union of Russian Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, said the crux of the problem lies in incompetence.
"Many bureaucrats come to their offices from universities and therefore lack professional field experience," he said by telephone Tuesday. "They often don't understand the problems that they are called to resolve and are unable to clearly formulate the task for proper implementation."
Another hindrance is a dubious distribution of power and responsibility between the ministries, he said.
"For example, only in Russia are pensions decided by three agencies - the Economic Development and Trade Ministry, the Labor Ministry and the Pension Fund," he said. "This means that every document has to be coordinated by officials in each one in a process that delays the fulfillment of an order and results in an enormous volume of paperwork."
It is common for ministers and their deputies to become so burdened with paperwork that they end up delegating to subordinates who, in turn, are reluctant to take responsibility, he said.
Red tape is nothing new in Russia, and many consider it a normal part of the government. Peter the Great is even said to have once issued a decree ordering his officials to carry out his other decrees.
In Soviet times, the bureaucratic system was the most streamlined under Stalin, said Anvar Amirov, an analyst with the Panorama think tank. "When his successors tried to replace terror with economic incentives as the driving force for managing the country, the power structure weakened immediately," he said. "After all, this process killed the Soviet Union."
For centuries, middle and low-ranking bureaucrats were not held accountable to the public, causing them to neglect their work and use their offices for personal wealth, said Yury Korgunyuk, an expert with the Indem think tank. "Even a very strict ruler cannot oversee the whole state apparatus by himself," he said. "It needs control not only from above but also from outside."
He said he believes Putin is doing a good job in getting the most important things done.
"Having control over potential threats to his power is what makes him strong," Korgunyuk said. "Putin secured his power by reforming the Federation Council and installing his representatives in the Russian regions."
TITLE: Bass Fiasco Likely To Delay Launch
AUTHOR: By Simon Saradzhyan
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - U.S. pop star Lance Bass's failure to come up with cash for an October flight to the international space station will probably delay production of the Soyuz-TMA module, a senior Energia official said.
"There will probably be ... a disruption of the schedule" of production for the Soyuz module, which costs $10 million to build and another $55 million to launch, the official said, on condition of anonymity. Bass, of boy band 'N Sync, would have paid about $20 million for the space trip.
The official said Energia, which has already built a module for the Oct. 28 flight, would be hard-pressed to come up with the financing to build another in time for the next scheduled flight, in April.
He said state funds account for only a small part of the money that Energia spends on producing the modules, while the bulk comes from Energia's own profits.
He said he hoped Bass would be able to find cash to resume training and prepare for the April flight.
Energia and the Russian Aviation and Space Agency are currently in negotiations with several individuals and organizations on the possible purchase of a ticket on the 2003 flight, officials said.
Rosaviakosmos spokesman Sergei Gorbunov confirmed that talks were under way but denied news reports that Pepsi is involved in them. Interfax reported that Pepsi planned to spend $35 million to organize a television show and send its winner to the international space station on board a Soyuz craft. "We have not received any proposals from Pepsi," Gorbunov said.
Pepsi was among the U.S. firms that Bass's managers approached for sponsorship, The Washington Post reported.
Pepsi refused to comment Tuesday.
Bass's failure to pay taught Rosaviakosmos that it is best to deal with those who pay for their trips out of their own pockets, as South African Mark Shuttleworth did in April this year and American Dennis Tito did in April last year, Rosaviakosmos spokesman Konstantin Kreydenko said.
TITLE: Russian Census Will Also Count Foreigners
AUTHOR: By Natalia Yefimova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Foreign nationals visiting or living in Russia will be covered by the nationwide census next month just like their Russian neighbors, in part to help the government design its migration and labor policy, officials from the State Statistics Committee said.
"Foreigners will be surveyed in the same way as Russians, except for those who are here less than a year. For them, there is an abbreviated questionnaire covering only demographic data like sex, age, citizenship and the purpose of their visit," a spokesperson for the committee's census department said Friday.
A day earlier, the head of the committee met with diplomats from 64 countries and asked them to help disseminate information about the census, which will take place Oct. 9 to Oct. 16, in their communities.
"Right now migration flows go practically unmonitored. We don't even have exact figures on the number of foreign nationals now living in Russia," committee head Vladimir Sokolin said in a statement prepared for Thursday's meeting.
Sokolin said national demographic trends, particularly the steady decline in population, indicate that Russia will need to import labor in the coming years.
"That means the government must develop the right migration policy, which would make living and working in Russia attractive to foreigners," he said.
The lion's share of Russia's foreign population is made up of migrants from former Soviet republics such as Ukraine, Belarus and Azerbaijan, while the second-biggest group of foreign nationals comes from Asia, most prominently China, Korea and Vietnam, according to the committee spokesperson, who asked that her name be withheld.
She and Sokolin both said census-takers would survey foreign nationals not only in their homes but at dormitories, hotels and markets, many of which are staffed by migrants from Moscow's Soviet-era dominion. Interpreters from non-Russian-speaking communities would be recruited to help, they said.
Sokolin acknowledged that one big problem was illegal immigration, which has raised serious concerns in Moscow recently. Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov highlighted it as a problem in a closed speech to lawmakers last week, and the issue has become a major stumbling block in Russia's negotiations with the European Union over travel to and from the Kaliningrad exclave.
The spokesperson from the State Statistics Committee said estimates of the number of illegal migrants in Russia range from 5 million to 15 million. The country's official population at the start of this year was about 144 million.
Moscow's deputy police chief, Viktor Cherkashin, said Monday that 4,122 illegal migrants have been deported from the capital since the start of the year, Interfax reported. This figure includes 212 Vietnamese and Chinese nationals deported last week, he said.
But government officials are trying hard to assure Russians and foreigners alike that they have nothing to fear from taking part in the census. The questionnaires are anonymous and no one will be asked to present identification documents when completing them.
"No foreigners, especially illegal migrants, need to worry about any sort of punitive measures as a result of the census," Sokolin said.
TITLE: Referendum Restrictions Introduced
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - After three failed votes, hours of vitriol and a good deal of political arm-twisting, centrist and liberal lawmakers managed on Wednesday to push through a bill introducing restrictions on nationwide referendums.
In doing so, the Kremlin-backed majority in the State Duma slapped down Communist plans for holding a referendum on such sensitive issues as the sale of land and utility-tariff hikes - a plebiscite that threatened to spark public discontent in the runup to parliamentary elections in 2003 and presidential elections in 2004.
The new bill, which passed in a preliminary first reading, bans nationwide referendums within a year before presidential or parliamentary elections. The ban does not apply to a possible referendum on relations between Russia and Belarus. The legislation, which required a minimum of 300 votes, scraped by with a count of 304-133 after falling a few votes short in each of three earlier rounds of voting.
The bill's proponents criticized the Communists' planned referendum as "political manipulation" aimed at promoting a populist agenda ahead of elections.
Vyacheslav Volodin, head of the Fatherland-All Russia faction and one of the bill's authors, argued that it was dangerous to combine a referendum with an election campaign, warning that this would "skew the expression of citizens' will" and lead to a year of mudslinging and underhanded campaign tricks.
The Communists and their allies from the Agrarian group, who unanimously opposed the bill, called it "immoral" to stop the public from voicing its opinion and to pass far-reaching legislation that had been tailored to deal with a particular situation.
TITLE: $3 Bln Oil Pipeline Gets the Green Light
AUTHOR: By Aida Sultanova
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SANGACHAL, Azerbaijan - U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham joined the presidents of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey on Wednesday for what he called "one of the most important energy undertakings" - the start of construction on the Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline.
The pipeline from Azerbaijan's Sangachal terminal, 40 kilometers south of the capital Baku, to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, has been under discussion for eight years. When complete, it is expected to reduce dependence on Persian Gulf exporters and Russian pipelines.
Abraham, Azeri President Heidar Aliyev, Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer and Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze, whose territory the pipeline will cross, participated in Wednesday's groundbreaking ceremony.
"This project guarantees peace, security and stability in the region and still further, unites three countries and three peoples," Aliyev said at the opening ceremony.
The 1,760-kilometer pipeline, which will be operated by BP, will carry Caspian energy resources - the world's third largest - to a Turkish port en route to Western markets.
It has won strong support from the United States, which is eager to find a more stable energy source outside the sway of the Middle East. Aliyev said Wednesday that U.S. help in championing the pipeline had been crucial.
"This project is one of the most important energy undertakings from America's point of view, as well as for this region," Abraham said Tuesday at a meeting with Aliyev.
Reading a letter from U.S. President George W. Bush, Abraham said during Wednesday's ceremony that the project would increase the world's energy security and strengthen the sovereignty and independence of the nations involved.
"Although it will be some time before the first barrel of oil flows through this pipeline, it has already made a significant contribution to the future of this region," Bush said in the letter.
Abraham said that the project could serve as a model for further endeavors, adding that it opened the door to investment in this impoverished region.
Construction of the pipeline, estimated to cost about $3 billion, is to be completed by early 2004, and the first oil is expected to flow through it a year later.
Experts expect about 349 million to 421 million barrels of oil to move through the pipeline every year.
Fuad Akhundov, a spokesman for Aliyev's administration, told Russia's Ekho Moskvy radio that the pipeline is expected to bring $100 million per year to the regions it passes through.
The project "is no longer a legend and has become a reality," Sezer said at the ceremony. "Now we must make a new legend come true."
Shevardnadze, whose small country is heavily dependent on energy from Russia, declared the project to be "Georgia's main achievement in the past 10 years, since it declared independence."
Georgia is particularly eager for new energy sources, given the new low point reached in its relations with Russia.
TITLE: 300 Attend Congress For Female Enterprise
AUTHOR: By Angelina Davydova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg played host this week to the 50th International Congress of the Association of Female-Entrepreneurs, which ran from Sunday to Thursday, attracting 300 participants from 60 countries. The congress focussed on the work of female entrepreneurs and ways to develop international cooperation between them.
The congress, which was held at the Tavrichesky Palace and the Grand Hotel Europe, included roundtable discussions on business development in Russia, international business communication practices and attracting investment to Russia.
The focus was, for the most part, on small and medium-sized business as, according to Ludmila Chubatyuk, the president of the Women and Business Association, women entrepreneurs predominate in the small-business sector. At present, Chubatjuk said, 30 percent of small businesses in Russia are managed by women.
"[The small-business sector] was the first place female entrepreneurs began working, because their starting point at the beginning of economic reforms in Russia was worse than that of their male colleagues - women had fewer opportunities in the privatization process and they didn't have enough access to financial resources," she said.
According to the statistics of the Center for the Analysis of Public Opinion, under 10 percent of women held top positions in the U.S.S.R. At present, according to the State Statistics Committee, women occupy 18 percent of the leading positions in enterprises, although they account for 53 percent of the population. On top of that, women account for 69 percent of the registered unemployed.
Chubatjuk also said that women entrepreneurs are most often to be found in trading companies, domestic services, pharmacies, hotel management, tourism and education. In St. Petersburg, for example, 80 percent of the founders and directors of local tourist companies are women.
Speaking on Thursday, Lyubov Sovershayeva, the deputy presidential representative for the Northwest Region, gave details of the results of research carried out by the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Science into public opinion concerning women in business.
When asked why women can't manage a business successfully, 22 percent of respondents said that women can't manage anything at all and are not cut out for business. Another 22 percent expressed sympathy for women, saying that, among other factors, it's more difficult for them to get support from officials or receive credit at banks. twelve percent said that it's more difficult for women to receive sufficient education, and 21 percent claimed that relatives and friends often prevent women from getting involved in business.
The Association of Female Entrepreneurs unites 1.5 million female entrepreneurs and was founded in 1945. Its main objective, according to the association's president, Leyla Khayat, speaking Thursday, is to promote entrepreneurial activity among women worldwide.
TITLE: Banks Begin to Import More Cash Euros than U.S. Dollars
AUTHOR: By Torrey Clark
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Driven by popular demand, banks imported more euros than dollars in July for the first time since cash euros became available, the Central Bank said on its web site, Monday.
Banks in July imported $573 million in cash dollars, 25-percent less than in June, and $701 million in cash euros, according to the Central Bank. Euro imports took off in June and July, growing 106 percent and 125 percent in the first two months of summer.
Ever since the cash euro became available in January, Russians have wondered whether they should shift their savings into euros. Russians are believed to hold more cash dollars than anyone but Americans. With hard currency so close to their hearts, Russians tend to react quickly to any news that could affect the exchange rate.
"Russians seem to play currency roulette," said Richard Hainsworth, CEO of the bank-rating agency RusRating.
Despite almost half of all imports coming from the euro zone, the economy remains highly dollarized, whether because of habit or because dollar-denominated raw-materials exports exceed euro-denominated exports.
As the euro-dollar exchange rate moved toward parity in July, for the first time since February 2000, top government officials urged Russians not to panic or rush to switch their money into euros.
The July increase shows that not everyone paid attention to the government's soothing words.
People appeared to sell off some of their dollar savings in favor of euros, as banks' dollar purchases ($819 million) exceeded sales ($690.6 million) for the first time in 2002. Meanwhile, banks' sales of euros jumped to $638.59 million in euros to individuals in July, up 67 percent from $381.85 million in June, a 55.6-percent increase from May.
"The weakening of the dollar led to more demand for euros, and that coincided with the summer holidays," said Peter Westin, economist at the Aton brokerage, a sentiment echoed by bankers polled Monday.
Nikolai Kashcheyev, an analyst at Trust and Investment Bank said that institutions may have bought euros in preparation for a rush on the currency.
TITLE: Going Into Iraq With an Army of Inspectors
AUTHOR: By Rolf Ekeus
TEXT: FOR seven years, a United Nations team of inspectors under my direction uncovered biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs in Iraq by scouring financial records, tracking down imported equipment, searching laboratories and bases, and accounting for every one of the more than 900 Scud missiles that the Soviet Union had provided to Baghdad. The Iraqi government did its best to conceal most of this dangerous infrastructure.
Our experience from those years proves beyond doubt that Iraq has the ambition and ability to acquire weapons of mass destruction. But it also shows that international weapons inspectors, if properly backed up by international force, can unearth Saddam Hussein's weapons programs. If we believe that Iraq would be much less of a threat without such weapons, the obvious thing is to focus on getting rid of the weapons. Doing that through an inspection team is not only the most effective way, but would cost less in lives and destruction than an invasion.
The question is whether weapons inspections can provide credible assurance to an international community anxious to disarm Iraq. On that, there is considerable debate and disagreement. But many people underestimate the sophistication of inspections and the experts who devoted themselves to this challenge.
Take Iraq's biological weapons program, often cited as evidence of Baghdad's ability to deceive weapons inspectors. In his speech to the UN General Assembly on Thursday, U.S. President George W. Bush attributed the successful uncovering of the bioweapons program to the fortuitous defection of a senior Iraqi weapons official in 1995. In this case, the president does not appear to have been well briefed. In fact, in April 1995, four months before the Iraqi official defected, UN inspectors disclosed to the Security Council that Iraq had a major biological weapons program, including a sizable production facility. In later reports in June and July, the inspection team, known as the UN Special Commission on Iraq, or UNSCOM, added details about Iraq's research into weapons that could spread anthrax, botulism, aflatoxin and gas gangrene. The defection of an Iraqi weapons official, a son-in-law of Saddam Hussein, in August provided some additional confirmation and prompted the Iraqi regime to make some more admissions, but the inspectors learned few new details.
The discovery of Iraq's bioweapons program was the work of smart inspectors, not a godsend. One example of many discoveries shows the detective work involved. By examining letters of credit issued by Iraq's central bank, UNSCOM found a Western company that had exported a spray-drying system to Iraq. The piece of equipment is common in agriculture. But when we interviewed them, puzzled company officials said the Iraqi importer wanted to use it to mill particles so small they would stay suspended in the atmosphere. That set off alarm bells, because the only reason to do so would be to make sure that particles could be inhaled. There is no civilian reason to do that with this piece of agricultural equipment. To find other corroborating evidence, UNSCOM searched normally innocent institutions such as hospitals, university labs, health centers and veterinary centers, and slowly a picture emerged of a major weapons program. UNSCOM profited from breakthroughs in genetic analysis to discover traces of biological weapons in samples obtained earlier at suspect facilities. If, in the face of Iraq's total denial and noncooperation, the inspectors could find that kind of carefully concealed activity, that should give us reason to trust a renewed UN inspection system.
UNSCOM had other successes as well. In 1995, we found out about missile guidance systems Iraq had smuggled in from Russia the same year, even as inspections were going on. With inspectors in hot pursuit, Iraqi officials tried to avoid detection by throwing the equipment into the River Tigris, but UNSCOM divers were able to fish it out. This case is proof that Iraq not only concealed, but tried to reconstitute prohibited weapons programs.
Using documentation of Soviet Scud missiles delivered to Iraq in the 1980s, including serial numbers of and data about individual missiles, engines, warheads, fuel pumps and guidance systems, while taking advantage of Russian and former East German experts with detailed knowledge of Scuds, inspectors were able to account for more than 900 missiles. The destruction of the missiles that still remained after the two earlier Gulf wars was then certified by UNSCOM.
The UN inspectors also found that Iraq was more advanced in its pursuit of nuclear weapons than it had admitted or than was widely believed. Iraq had obtained practically the entire design of a nuclear explosion device, and appeared to have mastered most other technical aspects of the production of nuclear weapons. It had not managed to acquire enough fissile material for a nuclear device, though. To remedy this, Iraq had embarked on expensive efforts to enrich uranium. This capacity was also dismantled by inspectors.
In similar fashion, UNSCOM found and destroyed stockpiles of chemical weapons, such as mustard gas and the nerve agents sarin and VX. The inspectors also demolished large quantities of these chemical weapons munitions, including rockets and bombs.
In all these endeavors, UNSCOM benefited from intelligence support, including images provided by U2 spy planes that regularly flew over Iraq.
For a while, notwithstanding obstacles, the inspection regime worked. Then, in 1998, Hussein started systematically blocking inspectors from entering certain sites that were under suspicion. The five permanent members of the UN Security Council were divided about how to react. The inspectors withdrew and U.S. and British planes were sent to bomb Iraq in Operation Desert Fox. In the four years since, there have been no UN inspectors in Iraq.
Thanks to the work of UN inspectors, not much was left of Iraq's once massive weapons programs when inspections halted. The question now is how much Baghdad has managed to acquire since then. Because of Hussein's clandestine techniques, little can be proven. Assessments can be made on what is possible and what is probable. A strong case can be made that Iraq, with access to considerable financial resources from oil sales since 1998, is making extensive efforts to rebuild its capabilities in weapons of mass destruction. Given his proven recklessness and boundless ambitions, Hussein is again posing a threat to the peace and prosperity of the Gulf region and beyond.
With his UN speech, Bush has opened the door for the UN to send in inspectors again. If the UN now says it wants to send in inspectors, Bush would be hard-pressed to say no to an organization he sought to spur to action. But the door might not be open long. The United Nations should take this opportunity to create a system of coercive or armed inspections in order to guarantee access to suspected weapons sites, as proposed by Jessica T. Mathews and others from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
How should a UN inspection regime be reconstituted to prevent Iraq from blocking inspectors and sowing discord among the five permanent members of the Security Council? The answer lies in a radical strengthening of the inspection system, based on the existing and largely untested UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, or UNMOVIC. The inspectors should be backed up by an inspection implementation force positioned in neighboring countries and possibly in some parts of Iraq. Such a multinational force, preferably under an American commander, should be mandated by the Security Council.
Any obstruction by Iraq should be met with immediate reaction. The head of the inspection team, the executive chairman of UNMOVIC, should be given the exclusive authority to call upon the military backup forces for support if inspectors are blocked. No prior approval by the Security Council should be required. The force commander would be responsible for military operations in each situation. The goal of such an arrangement would be to deter Iraq from a policy of obstruction and force it to give up its notorious efforts at intimidation.
Bush is right to be concerned about Iraq. There are strong reasons to believe that Hussein has designs on the Persian Gulf's oil resources and that he seeks unchallenged leadership of the Arab world. The only way Hussein can fulfill his ambitions is to back them up with intimidation of his neighbors. For that, weapons of mass destruction are the preeminent tools.
Bush is also right to be worried about what we don't know about Iraq's weapons. Maintaining the status quo cannot be an option. All the more reason to turn to inspectors to eliminate these tools. If we live in fear of not knowing what Iraq possesses, the only alternative is an invasion of Iraq, which would carry high risks for innocent Iraqi civilians, American and other international forces and the stability of the region. But the United Nations must ensure high quality inspections, strengthening their presence and guaranteeing access by providing inspectors with robust military backup so they can carry out their mission in full.
Rolf Ekeus, chairman of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and former Swedish ambassador to the United States, served as executive chairman of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) on Iraq from 1991 to 1997. He contributed this comment to The Washington Post.
TITLE: Keep Iron Felix on the Scrapheap of History
TEXT: MOSCOW Mayor Yury Luzhkov has a mixed track record when it comes to beautifying the city. Many Muscovites heaved a sigh of relief when Luzhkov decided to pull down the boxy Intourist hotel on Tverskaya Ulitsa. At the same time, many wrinkle their noses whenever word breaks that Luzhkov is in talks with his favorite sculptor, Zurab Tsereteli, whose mammoth tribute to Peter the Great on the Moscow River is widely considered the ultimate monument to bad taste.
But two Luzhkov characteristics are indisputable - he's a populist, and he's stubborn. When he puts his mind to something, he gets it done. That bodes ill for those opposed to Luzhkov's surprise announcement Friday that he wants to resurrect the towering statue of secret-police founder Felix Dzerzhinsky outside the former KGB (now FSB) headquarters.
Luzhkov on Friday said that the statue's return would not mean a return to the past. Maybe. But why glorify the man who set up the Soviet Union's first concentration camps and initiated the Red Terror - the man whose reputation as a ruthless, fanatical communist earned him the name Iron Felix?
Luzhkov chose to look at Dzerzhinsky's more positive achievements: "We should remember that he solved the problem of homeless children and bailed out the railroads." Wait a minute. Surely, Dzerzhinsky was contributing to the problem by arresting or killing hundreds of thousands of parents.
Just four years ago, Luzhkov fiercely opposed a vote by the Communist-dominated State Duma to re-erect the statue (and, as mayor, he has the final say in what statues go up). So why the volte-face?
Luzhkov must be trying to curry favor with somebody - perhaps with the FSB, where Dzerzhinsky, like the 15-ton statue, still looms larger than life. Some media reports have suggested Luzhkov wants to restore the statue as a 50th birthday present to former KGB agent Vladimir Putin, who celebrates his half-century on Oct. 7.
Under his presidency, the FSB has emerged as a force to be reckoned with. Moreover, Putin has been attentive to the Soviet past, restoring the Soviet national anthem and the Soviet Red Banner as the official armed forces emblem. On becoming prime minister in 1999, he ordered that a plaque commemorating Yury Andropov be returned to the wall of the KGB's old Lubyanka headquarters.
Lubyanskaya Ploshchad may look empty without Iron Felix, but perhaps a better idea would be to erect a monument to victims of Soviet-era repression, as human rights activists have long wanted.
Luzhkov argues that the crowd of 10,000 people who toppled the statue after the failed 1991 coup attempt had nothing against Dzerzhinsky himself, but were protesting against the social order. However, the statue is a potent symbol of the worst aspects of that social order, and as such, certainly should not be restored to a position of any prominence on the city's skyline.
TITLE: bringing moscow to piter
AUTHOR: by Aliona Bocharova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: As a general rule, the contemporary artistic life of every city revolves around a few arts centers that serve, simultaneously, as barometers and trend-setters. In St. Petersburg, Pushkinskaya 10 would be one of these; its Moscow equivalent would probably be the Art Squat at 13 Baumanskaya Ul.
Now, those familiar with the St. Petersburg insititution have the chance to see works from the Moscow version at "V Rabochem Poryadke" ("Work in Progress"), an exhibition of works by the Moscow "art squatters" that opened last week at the Dmitriy Semenov Gallery.
The Art Squat at Baumanskaya 13 is often compared to Pushkinskaya 10. Apart from any superficial similarities - both, for example, are named after and referred to by their geographical location - both centers serve as workshops and exhibition space, and both unite alternative, young artists, regardless of their preferred techniques and artistic schools.
This is obvious at the exhibition. The works from the art squat differ enough to allow viewers to form a distinct impression of each artist, even though the number of works on display is not large.
Gallery owner Dmitriy Semenov personally chose the works on display from the artists' portfolios, thereby showing their "work in progress." Given the reputation of St. Petersburg artistic circles as somewhat arrogant, it might seem a bit unusual for one of the city's private galleries to be seen to be supporting Moscow artists. However, Semyonov says that he was guided in his choice by his personal artistic preferences, which he describes as "modern and diverse art."
Moreover, the gallery's minimalist tidiness - with the exception of a rather simple, delicate 19th-century malachite oven in the corner - gives the exhibition a calm dignity that neutralizes any accusations of kitsch that could be leveled at some of the works.
Not all of the squatters are new to St. Petersburg viewers. At the Dmitriy Semenov Gallery two years ago, Valery Koshlyakov, a hip artist famous for his paintings of antique architecture on huge cardboard panels, mounted a personal exhibition that garnered him immediate plaudits from the local cognoscenti. In the same gallery earlier this year, Alexander Sigutin, who plays around with classical modernism, exhibited some works in a Suprematist style. Additionally, Yury Shabelnikov's "Fat Series" - paintings and texts imprinted on pieces of fat - were shown at the "Art Against Geography" exhibition, one of the most significant exhibitions of contemporary Russian art in recent years, at the State Russian Museum's Marble Palace in 2000.
This time, Shabelnikov is presenting a new series called "Soldiers of Labor," inspired by his visits to metal-processing plants in Taganrog, a port on the Azov Sea about 75 kilometers west of Rostov-na-Donu. The series consists of mighty PVC blocks with giant machine tools representing an industrial mythology that evoke an almost apocalyptic fear.
Two artists, Vladimir Anselm and Alexander Savko, approach the issue of fascism from quite different angles. At the exhibition opening, Savko's brutal, yet moving series, "Teletubbies, Haende Hoch!" was the center of attention. In his pictures, Savko pastes the features of the Teletubbies - characters from the British kids' television series of the same name that is also currently running in Russia - onto photos from Nazi Germany. The silly, helpless Teletubbies are portrayed as being hung, shot, imprisoned or examined by the Nazis, yet they follow their typical behavior patterns as well - smiling, waving their hands and rolling their eyes in amusement. This juxtaposition makes the works farcical and comic, but Savko's manipulation of his material bring his personal enmity for the Teletubbies to the fore, and moves the tragic content - such as any sympathy for them - into the background.
Savko does not deny his intentions. "It has been proved that the Teletubbies hamper children's mental development," he says. "In fact, the show has already been banned in some countries."
By putting the Teletubbies in an alien, hostile context, Savko emphasizes what he calls the "oligophrenic" nature of their behavior - the idiotic behavior of the mentally ill - and how it cuts against the atmosphere that he portrays.
The youngest art squatter, Sergei Shekhovtsov, is showing a series called "Mochalki" ("Loofahs"). In this, he combines references to 1960s pop art - with pictures of naked, flirtatious young women on blatantly painted plastic - with spraying techniques and ultra-bright colors that recall the 1980s retro-styles that have recently been fashionable. Like Savko's Teletubbies, these fake ladies, with their mincing manners, make viewers smile at their absurdity.
While the art squatters keen sense of the absurd and of irony unites them, each of them nevertheless has a unique, easily discernible artistic style. As Shekhovtsov notes with a smile, "It is impossible to stay serious when the world around you is completely absurd."
This attitude helps the art squatters deal with problems that they recently had with their lodgings. "Our group is not registered officially," says Shekhovtsov. "Its illegal existence, so to speak, has been bothering the authorities recently, and we are being forced to move."
"V Rabochem Poryadke" is at the Dmitriy Semenov Gallery, 62 Liteiny Pr. The gallery is unmarked, so call 164-5323 beforehand for details.
TITLE: multfilmy going back to basics
AUTHOR: by Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Although only six months have elapsed since its last album, "Superprize," local band Multfilmy is already releasing a follow up.
The 40-minute, 13-track album, entitled "Vitaminy" ("Vitamins") is the third for the band, which draws its influences from contemporary Western pop, and contains seven brand new songs, alongside six that were written during the past five years but never released.
"We've collected our most upbeat songs [for the album]," says Yegor Timofeyev, the face of the band, who sings and plays guitar. "The songs are pretty childish, sort of college rock."
While Multfilmy spent two years laboring on its debut album, which finally appeared in 2000, the new disc was recorded in one take, over two hours.
The album was recorded at the Nashe Radio studio in Moscow in mid-July, a day after Multfilmy had been the guest on TVS Television's live program "Zemlya-Vozdukh" ("Surface to Air") at the same premises.
"They have glass booths with different radio stations' program directors inside, the musicians play on stage, and they discuss them - it's that kind of show," says Timofeyev.
For the recording, Multfilmy had to install additional equipment in the studio, which has only eight channels; the band - which arrived complete with a horn section - needed at least 16.
The process was observed from behind the sound-proof glass by some of the band's hardcore fans, who had been specially invited.
The recorded material was then mixed, and the track order changed.
"It's practically a live album, but it's more difficult at a concert - we would have to play all the songs without a break," says Timofeyev. "Here, we could fiddle with knobs, and readjust processors and amplifiers after each song."
According to Timofeyev, this way of recording has its own advantages - apart from being quicker, it means that the artist does not have time to worry about things.
"What's bad in the studio is that you record [an album], then mix it, and then you think that you did everything wrong," says Timofeyev. "This way, you can't worry that much - we did what we could, because we couldn't do it better."
"When you're in a studio, you always want to add something, some honks, some whistles, some noise," he says. "Here, you get only one chance to do what you want, and that's it."
As a result, says Timofeyev, this album has a simpler sound. "There are no elaborate compositions that demand work in a studio. It's transparent, artless and simply performed," he says.
"Actually, this album should have been our first one. We overdid [the debut], but now our suppressed desire to record an ultimately simple record has probably been fulfilled," he says. "No frills - without producers, without anything. It came as it came."
The album opens with a voice criticizing the band, using every showbiz cliche, such as a "lack of distinct hit material" and "non-professionalism."
According to Timofeyev, the voice belongs to Yury Aksyuta, the executive producer of Moscow's station Hit FM, and is culled from the TVS Television program.
"It's a good start for an album. I think it's funny," says Timofeyev. "People who have listened to it get the joke."
Timofeyev says he was not afraid of oversaturating the market by releasing the second album in just six months.
"What market?" he says, laughing. "Whoever wants to buy, buys; whoever doesn't, doesn't. We don't have a 'one-album-per-year' scheme like big bands. Real Records [the band's label] doesn't care about us that much."
"Recently, they called and said, 'Our promo department thinks you don't need television advertisements [for the album]," he says. "We said, 'No, we need them.' [The label said,] 'OK, if you need them, then fine.'"
Timofeyev, who claims he wrote five new songs in one day last week, says he is planning to release yet another album in winter or spring.
"Vitaminy" will be premiered at B2 in Moscow on Thursday. According to Timofeyev, the local premiere will take place in October, although neither a date nor a location have been set yet.
"Vitaminy" is out on Real Records on Sept. 25. Links: www.multfilmy.ru
TITLE: chernov's choice
TEXT: Red Club will celebrate its first anniversary over this weekend, with a concert by the band that played at the club's opening last year. Deadushki, the electronica band fronted by ex-members of the seminal ska band Stranniye Igry (Strange Games), Viktor Sologub and Alexei Rakhov, will play on Friday.
Red Club's other highlight this weekend is Saturday's show by U.S. singer and guitarist Tav Falco and his backing band, Panther Burns.
Falco was born Gustavo "Tav" Falco Nelson in 1945 in a family with roots in southern Italy, but grew up in the backwoods of rural Ar kan sas. He formed his band in 1979.
Falco's biography claims that he enjoys an "unapproachable cult-like status." His repertoire includes obscure rock'n'roll, tangos, sambas, mambos, ballads, and obscure pop standards.
The same night, another event will take place at Mirage Cinema - the movie theater that is now also home to a nightclub. Germany's Golden Boy - a.k.a. Stefan Altenburger - will offer his rehashed version of 1980s synth pop at the party, which is aimed at a supposedly "trendy" crowd.
The multi-media party will also feature screenings of the 1982 U.S. movie "Liquid Sky." Directed by Soviet emigre Slava Tsukerman, the low-budget film went unnoticed when it was released, but attained cult status just a few years later as an epitome of the "pre-AIDS, decadent 1980s."
The plot has invisible aliens coming to Earth (New York, to be exact), looking for heroin, but soon discovering the human pheromones, released in the brain during orgasm, to be preferable to the drug. Soon, they start killing a nymphomaniac model's partners during sexual acts as soon as the partners reach a climax.
Tsukerman made the film only three years after arriving in the U.S., and the movie's bad dialogues added much to the movie's perverted appeal.
In mainstream jazz, the city's biggest venue, the Jazz Philharmonic Hall, opens yet another season - its 14th - at its main hall this week. For the two-night opening on Friday and Saturday, Japanese band Haponiyasu is brought in. Haponiyasu's style is described as a blend of jazz, Latin and Japanese traditional music.
Meanwhile, the much smaller Kvadrat, the city's oldest jazz club, may close its doors for an unknown period, because the cafe at which Kvadrat promotes jazz concerts and jam sessions on Mondays is planning some repairs. Call 322-2404 for details.
This week will also see concerts by Tito and Tarantula, the band that became famous due to its contributions to the soundtracks for Robert Rodriguez's "Desperado" (1995) and "From Dusk Till Dawn" (1996). The tex-mex band plays two concerts, the Gorky Palace of Culture on Thursday and Hollywood Nites on Friday.
- by Sergey Chernov
TITLE: fine japanese, without the sushi
AUTHOR: by Eric Bruns
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Just as a catchy pop tune spreads through a city's airwaves and takes over its radio stations, the restaurant chain Yakitoriya, which specializes in Japanese cuisine, is infecting Russia.
Having completed its colonization of Moscow recently, a few months ago, the chain turned its attention to St. Petersburg, opening one of the city's latest explosion of sushi-chic eateries on Ploshchad Ostrovskogo, just behind and to the right of the statue of Catherine the Great and her lovers off Nevsky Pr.
As with all such trendy places, calling ahead to reserve a place is a wise decision. Unfamiliar with this custom, however, our trio - who like to think they know a thing or two about sushi - were offered three stools at the bar. But, as a sign of the excellent service to come, a bit of insistence secured an enclosed, private table for six in the corner.
The atmosphere at Yakitoriya is largely a modern construction of traditional Japanese decor, with bamboo and wooden lamps hanging from the ceiling, black lacquer place settings, and an aquarium of brightly-colored fish recessed in the wall over our shoulders. The atmosphere is interrupted only intermittently by six televisions above the bar continually broadcasting the latest news from Fashion TV (something that has itself been a bit of a fashion in St. Petersburg lately).
But, in breaking with the city's proclivity to dress tall, blonde Russian staff in traditional Japanese kimonos, all of the chefs - and roughly half of the other employees at Yakitoriya - are Japanese, more ably filling the robes and customary headbands.
While we pored over the extensive menu - 23 types of sushi, with three assortments; 12 selections of sushi-maki; 12 sashimi; 14 salads; nine appetizers; six soups; 22 shashlyks; 22 hot dishes; and 10 desserts; each item accompanied by a picture and Russian and English descriptions - our server patiently waited by our side for several minutes, an unexpected token of consideration.
We decided to attack the heart of the establishment directly, by ordering the mega "Sushi-sashimi assortment Ship," for 800 rubles ($25.30); a sample of the restaurant's namesake, "Chicken Yakitoriya," skewered on a stick, barbeque-style for 30 rubles ($0.95); a more conservative "Chicken fried with tofu" for 180 rubles ($5.70); a mandatory round of "Miso soup" for 60 rubles ($1.90); as well as several smaller dishes ranging from 80 to 130 rubles ($2.50 to $4.10) - including a requisite order of "California Roll" and "Spicy Tuna Roll," each for 125 rubles ($3.95) in the sushi-maki section.
As it turned out, the sushi and sashimi were nothing special, lacking in both flavor and freshness, for which the ginger and wasabi could not compensate. They were immaculately and appetizingly presented on a "Ship," but looked much more substantial in the picture on the menu. Likewise, the "California Roll" and "Spicy Tuna Roll" failed to inspire many accolades.
Having said that, you would do well by venturing into other, less-glamorous areas. I usually visit Japanese restaurants hunting for raw fish but, on this occasion, I was happy to explore other aspects of Japanese cuisine.
The "Chicken fried with tofu" was much more respectable, although a bit plain. When you usually cannot expect much from "Miso soup," our portions had a little extra something, in the form of some unusual, yet delicious, little berries swimming among the seaweed, tofu and green onions.
I found my greatest satisfaction, however, in the "Squid stewed with vegetables" for 130 rubles ($4.10), and the chicken dish bearing - and fully deserving - the designation of a restaurant chain, the Yakitoriya. Both of these were tender and well-flavored. We could not contain ourselves in praise of these two dishes.
All of this was accompanied by half-liter glasses of draught Japanese Kirin beer, for 140 rubles ($4.40), and a small vessel of sake - or rice-wine - in ceramic thimble-sized cups, for 120 rubles ($3.80).
The restaurant has an excellent selection of aperitifs, imported beers (none are Russian), wines, liqueurs, cognacs, juices, carbonated drinks, teas and coffees. We were sorry not to have tried the green tea, but were happy enough with the beer and sake.
As sushi restaurants continue to headline St. Petersburg's elite (for which read: expensive) dining scene, I find Yakitoriya's tune playing around in my own subconscious, albeit without the sushi lyrics.
Yakitoriya. 5/7 Ploshchad Ostrovskogo. Tel.: 315-8343. Open daily, 11 a.m. until 6 a.m. Reservations recommended. Menu with Russian and English descriptions with pictures. All major credit cards accepted. Dinner for three, with alcohol and tip: 3,400 rubles ($107.50).
TITLE: the city in black and white
AUTHOR: by Jennifer Davis
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The build-up to the celebrations for St. Petersburg's 300th anniversary is already approaching fever pitch. Countless exhibitions, festivals, concerts and renovation projects are underway, both to celebrate this city's remarkable history - and make it a more desirable destination for tourists.
"Black & White Petersburg," an exhibit that opened this week at the Museum of the History of St. Petersburg, is one such event. However, unlike several of the vague publicity stunts currently promoting the city's heritage and hospitality, "Black & White Petersburg" is a stark and honest journey from the city's founding to the present.
A mixture of graphic art and photography, "Black & White Petersburg" is the brainchild of three partners: Ludmila Lipskaya, from the Luke & A Gallery of Modern Art in London; Alexander Kitayev, a prominent St. Petersburg photographer; and Yulia Demidenko, of the Museum of the History of St. Petersburg.
"St. Petersburg is the historic capital of both Russian engraving and photography," says Demidenko. "The original plan was to show color artworks as well, but eventually we chose to exhibit only black-and-white graphic and photographic images of the city. In both these art forms, there is always a pause - whether purely technical or otherwise - before the image is revealed."
"This pause gives the artist an opportunity to dwell on his creation," she says. "Besides, the duality of black and white symbolizes the spectral, metaphysical nature of St. Petersburg."
Initially planned as part of a visual program to show images of St. Petersburg in London, the St. Petersburg city administration's 300th-Anniversary Committee decided to first unveil the exhibit in St. Petersburg as a part of the preliminary anniversary festivities. "Black & White Petersburg" will travel to London in mid-March 2003, and then to Vienna in September.
After founding St. Petersburg in 1703, Peter the Great immediately commissioned artists to create engravings of his new capital, to promote it in Europe.
"During the Petrine era, engravers were frequently reproducing the images of a city that did not exist outside Peter's vision," explains Demidenko. "Hence the mythology of 'St. Petersburg the ghost city,' a city that was not there."
As St. Petersburg expanded, so did the number of graphic artists depicting its new landmarks. These early engravings, including fascinating aerial views, portray a logically planned, contemporary city - even as St. Petersburg struggled to flourish amidst a backdrop of hostile elements, uncooperative terrain, and a conspicuously small population.
With the advent of photography in the mid-1800s, printmaking was deemed inferior and engravers fell from favor. Early photographs from the exhibition evoke the decaying imperial splendor of Russia's fading monarchy, and segue into more desolate representations of Petrograd and a besieged Leningrad.
In the 1960s, graphic art enjoyed a renaissance and, in tandem with photography, grew as a means of depicting both the official glamour of Soviet life and its seamy side: crumbling facades in the historic city center; wild, overgrown courtyards; and bundled-up pedestrians making their way on a cold winter day.
"During this period, photographs were sometimes rendered on special paper with new techniques, so that they might resemble graphic art," says Demidenko. "While, at the same time, engravers and lithographers began to use photographs in their work, imitating the features that had, early on in the history of photography, been attributed to technological imperfections or inept camera operating."
However realistic and objective the images featured in "Black & White Petersburg" may seem, Demidenko credits these artists with creating and maintaining a specific mythology and "iconography" of this city.
"The engravers and photographers featured in this exhibition did more than merely record a real city and its changes over time," she says. "They conjure up a haunting image of St. Petersburg."
"Black & White Petersburg" runs at the Museum of the History of St. Petersburg, in the Peter and Paul Fortress, through Oct. 30.
TITLE: leningrad, moscow, vienna ...
TEXT: Sunday's concert at the Shostakovich Philharmonic was highlighted by a rare performance by tenor Vladimir Atlantov, who was an idol of Soviet audiences at Moscow's Bolshoi Theater before he left for Vienna in 1978.
During his visit to St. Petersburg, Atlantov - who comes from the city - also gave a master class in the packed auditorium of the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory, and talked with Gyulyara Sadykh-Zade about his career and the trials of being an opera singer.
q:How was it that you came to settle in Vienna?
a:It just so happened that my first contracts were with the Vienna Opera Theater. ... Somehow, Vienna is the heart of Europe - from Vienna, you're a stone's throw from every European city. Apart from that, Vienna is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, with a wonderful atmosphere, with musical traditions, and at the same time it's absolutely safe.
q:You left the stage five years ago, almost totally unexpectedly, finishing your career at the height of your powers. Why?
a:Yes, that was a tragedy for my agents - contracts, agreements and plans for the following few years were all broken. But I don't regret it, because I really needed a break. To tell the truth, I had grown tired of the stage, of the constant presence of certain people around me, the types who always hang around famous personalities. I had had enough of the hotels, the eternal traveling, life on wheels or on the wings of a plane. Now I'm relishing being at home, going for walks, or going out hunting - I'm wrapped in my own private life, as it were.
Sometimes, arriving somewhere on a tour, I didn't even go out in to the city, and didn't see the sights. It was because I'd get very nervous before performances. I was terrified of catching a cold; God forbid that my voice would fail and that a show would have to be cancelled. You just couldn't let that happen. I could not allow myself the risk and I had no right to fall ill - that would have meant losing the fee, cancelling the show and even paying compensation. Now, I love to travel, and to rediscover for myself the places where I have been.
q:You left the Bolshoi when you were at the height of your fame. What were the reasons behind that decision?
a:They were basically internal and spiritual. Yes, the public was very kind to me and I will cherish and value the audience's love for me to the end of my days. But there was something else. In the mid-1980s, I could already sense the development of the situation in which the Bolshoi Theater now finds itself. When I started to talk seriously about this, I remembered that I didn't get any response within the theater or in the offices of the Culture Ministry. I understood that I wasn't in step with the times, and that I wasn't speaking to the right people. My suggestions turned out to be ahead of their time.
q:What was your relationship like with [Bolshoi Theater director Boris] Pokrovsky, before he was "removed"?
a:No one "removed" Pokrovsky. It was the same with me. Pokrovsky left of his own accord, and I left of my own accord. But why did Pokrovsky leave? It was because they took the "chief" out of his title and he became simply "the director of the theater." But no one took away his right to be a director; no one said, "No, you can't stage that!" It was only because the ministry took away his privilege of directing the theater that he left.
There isn't an opera house in the world that has a "chief director." ... All over the world, opera houses operate under a system of fees and contracts. That is the very system that I wanted to introduce at the Bolshoi in 1985 and 1986.
Apart from that, I did not agree with the appointment of [Alexander] Lazarev as artistic director of the theater, because I didn't think that his personal or creative qualities qualified him for such a high post. After [Yevgeny] Svetlanov, it was difficult for me to accept Lazarev in that position. Svetlanov - now there was a man whose personality measured up to being the artistic director of the Bolshoi Theater. What is happening at the Bolshoi now was unforeseeable, but I predicted it 20 years ago.
I had proposed introducing a new management system that, in short, would have allowed the existence of singers at the Bolshoi to be changed. It's logical: if someone sings well, you should raise his pay; if he sings poorly, then you should lower it. A flexible evaluation system should have been brought in then. I suggested a trial: when Atlantov is singing, sell the tickets not for three rubles, but for 10 rubles - have a look and see if the people still come.
We had such great voices and we were young, full of strength and we wanted to work - it was criminal not to try to use our potential. We were capable of a lot. I knew that when we managed to get across the border, and the foreigners were stunned. And, in all that time, the only thing out of my repertoire that I sang was [Cavaradossi in Puccini's] "Tosca," and that only because [soprano Galina] Vishnevskaya insisted that Pokrovsky stage "Tosca" for her. Can you call that a normal attitude by a director toward his singers? Yes, we sang an everyday repertoire. You got to sing in old productions, and we were grateful for that. But to put a production on especially for a singer, to play to that singer's advantages - no, there was none of that.
q:How was it, that your career never linked up with the Mariinsky Theater?
a:It used to be that the fate of an artist was decided by an order. An order came from the Culture Ministry to send me to Moscow, and there is no reason to criticize that order. But I was born in Leningrad and lived through the siege.
[In my fifth year at the Conservatory], the Mariinsky asked for me to be assigned to it. At that time, there were vocal competitions which I managed to win. People noticed me at the Ministry and Yekaterina Alexeyevna Furtseva decided that I should sing at the Bolshoi. I refused, but in vain: they simply transferred me by order, and that was it.
q:Did you go through some trials in your youth, as your voice developed its characteristics?
a:Absolutely! Trials and tears - it was awful. I came home after lessons and wept. I couldn't get anything right. But then, I tried to take control of myself, I said to myself: Volodya, things have to change. Think of the future. I began to get into the essence of my vocal problem, comparing my singing with the sounds of the great voices that I was listening to on record.
The greatest, in my opinion, was and remains [Enrico] Caruso - I think that no one has surpassed him since. He freely commanded such a broad range that it was easy for him to hit the highest notes. In the low registers, his voice almost sounded like a baritone's. ... In our era, I think that Placido Domingo is close to perfection. I can't find a single blemish of any kind in his voice nor his style of singing.
q:You're known as a dramatic tenor, but in your singing, a melancholic lyricism always breaks through, literally dragging tears out of listeners. How did you manage to develop that effect?
a:The tenor timbre is extremely erotic. And the more eroticism there is in a voice, the more it moves the public, especially women. I noticed that when I was still a young man, I heard a recording with [Mario] del Monaco. I listened and thought: If that can move me so powerfully, then what must women be feeling? And the proof is that 10,000 women came to del Monaco's funeral.
The basis of this powerful force is that the tenor timbre, essentially, is a mating call - I tried to master it, imbue my voice with eroticism, even copy del Monaco. Judging by the applause with which the public rewarded me, I had a certain amount of success.
TITLE: how to get onto sesame street
AUTHOR: by Megan Merrill
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - American Martin Robinson had brought his fuzzy purple puppet all the way to Moscow from New York - the doll that would assist him in casting one of five young Russian men in a television role. They listened to him intently, their serious expressions hidden by puppets of their own.
"That was great. I liked your technique, your position," said Robinson, who is the puppeteer who plays the characters Telly and Snuffleupagus on the U.S. children's show "Sesame Street." The young men nodded, listening intently to the more experienced puppeteer.
"But it [you and your puppet] was like two talking heads," Robinson continued. "There was no movement. Puppets work best when they're moving."
To demonstrate, he picked up his own puppet, Telly, and moved about the room, reciting lines from the audition script.
"I didn't sleep last night. I was counting the stars," Telly bellowed. "But I only counted three. Maybe tomorrow night I'll count more!"
By the end of the day, one of the five puppeteers would be cast as Kubik, one of the main characters on "Ulitsa Sezam," the Russian version of "Sesame Street."
"Ulitsa Sezam" began filming its third season this week, after a hiatus of nearly three years.
But despite the long break and the introduction of a new production company, DIXI-TV, the show's list of characters, as well as the cast that plays them, will remain the same - with the exception of the puppeteer who plays Kubik, who is no longer with the show.
Robinson, in Moscow to cast and train the new Kubik puppeteer, promises that the third season of "Ulitsa Sezam" will be nearly identical to the first two.
"We have an obligation to the children of Russia not to jar them with a huge change," he says, adding that "Ulitsa Sezam's" young viewers will not notice any break in the continuity between the show's third season and the first two.
He also stresses that "Ulitsa Sezam" is more than just "Sesame Street" in Russian translation.
"Written and produced by Russians, it has its own characters, stories and methods to prepare Russian preschoolers for school," he says. "To think of the international co-productions as carbon copies of the U.S. production would be very wrong. It's all written locally, and very much with the country's people and the country's needs in mind."
Like the U.S. "Sesame Street," "Ulitsa Sezam" uses plot, characters, animation, short documentary films and song to improve young children's cognitive skills, literacy, creative thinking and social skills.
The show is set in a dvor, or courtyard, where eight-year-old music student Katya plays with the dvor's kindly caretaker, Tyotya Dasha, or Aunt Dasha.
The duo is joined by three main puppet characters: Kubik, the boy scientist; Businka, a girl who loves to dance; and Zeliboba, a furry blue dvorovoi, or courtyard spirit.
All of the puppets are Muppets created in the Jim Henson Muppet Workshop. Robinson trains puppeteers for all of the international versions of "Sesame Street" on how to use the Muppets. He also occasionally helps to cast puppeteers, as with Kubik, and said that he takes great pains to make sure his casting choices are appropriate.
"I rely very heavily on my interpreter, and not just to interpret words," Robinson says. "I rely on her to tell me if something is funny, if the diction is good, if there's a regionalism to the accent - things that as an outsider I'll never know. She's my liaison not just to the language but to the culture."
Ginger Brown, senior producer at the show's international headquarters in New York, the Sesame Workshop, has read the "Ulitsa Sezam" scripts and said she saw in them a uniquely Russian character.
"What they [Russians] think is important is that every child can appreciate other children, in the regions and in the world," Brown says. "There's a unique appreciation of music and the arts, and for hard work. They model that in their films and productions."
"But there's always a sense of play and of humor," she says. "The humor is essentially Russian."
"Ulitsa Sezam's" third season is remarkable, according to Brown, because it includes an unusually large amount of original, Russian-produced content: 70 percent. Only 30 percent of the show's scripts has been taken from libraries of U.S.-produced material, such as segments with Bert and Ernie - only here they're known as Vlas and Enik.
Brown added that the Sesame Workshop, which reviews the scripts for all international versions of "Sesame Street," will attempt to ensure that "Ulitsa Sezam" reflects Russian - not American - cultural values.
"If there's a disagreement, the Russians are always right," she says.
The show's scripts are written with help from Russian experts in fields such as child development and early education. The Ministry of Education also participates in choosing show themes.
"What the Ministry of Education feels a child in Russia needs to get ready for school is really advanced, more advanced than in other countries," Brown says.
She says that the Ministry of Education has backed "Ulitsa Sezam" since it began production in 1994, and that its support has been of "incredible value."
But "Ulitsa Sezam" has traveled a bumpy road to reach its third season. The first season took two years to prepare, in part due to the extensive research involved, and in part due to bureaucratic problems in getting funding from USAID and the Soros Foundation. The fact that both the Russian economy and broadcasting industry were in difficulty didn't help either.
By the time "Ulitsa Sezam" was ready to produce its second season, three years after the first, personnel changes at the original production company, Video Art, prompted a switch to a new company, a change Brown calls "labor-intensive."
The second season hit the airwaves in 2000 and various television stations have been airing reruns ever since. Brown said the third season will hit the airwaves later this fall, this time with DIXI-TV producing and Nestle providing funding.
"Ulitsa Sezam" will air weekly on STS beginning in November.
TITLE: english title, german contents
AUTHOR: by Andrei Vorobei
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The recent passing of the 20th century has brought with it the inevitable attempts to try to sum up its results, and to determine the place and role of man - in the broadest sense of the word - during that period.
One artistic expression of this philosophical quest is "Man in the Middle," an exhibition of more than 70 works of 20th-century art from the collection of Deutsche Bank that opened last weekend in the State Hermitage Museum's Alexander Hall.
According to Dr. Ariane Grigoteit of Deutsche Bank, the exhibition's curator, the exhibition is dedicated to 20th-century man, what he looks like, and how he identifies himself. The last century was rich in different understandings of man, his role in history and his value: starting from a complete denial of his value - for example, the racial theories of Nazi Germany and, later, the Soviet Union - and finishing by acknowledging all his natural rights, the right to be himself, and the right to be different (first seen in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights).
Taking into account the exhibition's contents - which do not quite reflect these ideas - it is possible to make two statements in order to clarify the ideas that underpin the exhibition; statements that can help to eliminate a certain confusion that stems from a problem with the title, which is used not quite appropriately.
First, the exhibition portrays an image of 20th-century man, but not his role. In this sense, the title can be interpreted as man being in the center of human imagination, or man as an object in focus.
Second, the exhibition mainly reflects German takes on the question - the overwhelming majority of works present are by German or German-based artists.
According to the director of the State Hermitage Museum, Mikhail Piotrovsky, there is more than one reason for this German bias. Apart from the fact that the works are drawn from a German collection that initially focused purely on local art, 20th-century Germany was the place where man's destiny was decided. In terms of the above-mentioned image of man, this is true for the first third of the century.
Despite its German contents, the exhibition's title is given in English. According to Grigoteit, this reflects another feature of the 20th century - English as an international language.
The early part of the exhibition - the 1910s to the 1930s - begins with pre-war German Expressionism. The key work here is Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's "Bahnhof" ("Station").
This expressionism, which was a part of the more general Modernist movement, looked to "express" man, and man's subjective experience in a world of radical changes wrought by progress - industrialization, mechanization and rationalization. The nervousness and fear of the years immediately before and during World War I - fear of social disintegration, apathy, and the hopelessness and insecurity of man's position - are reflected in many brilliant drawings, paintings and sculptures by renowned Expressionists such as Kaethe Kollwitz, Ernst Barlach, Max Beckmann, Gabriele Muenter, Emil Nolde and Oscar Kokoschka. The expressive drawings of Erich Heckel, such as "Toeter Soldat" ("Dead Soldier"), from 1915, mark the border between that epoch and the post-war era.
Following this is the utopianism of the inter-war years. This was the time of the Weimar Republic - the "Golden Twenties" - and it is full of contradictions. On the one hand, there is the depression of Karl Hofer's "Arbeitslose" ("Unemployed"); on the other, there is Alexej Jawlensky's "Sonne-Farbe-Leben" ("Sun-Color-Life"), and the libertarianism, individuality, hedonism, cynicism, cabaret culture of the republic reflected in works by Elfriede Lohse-Wachter, Rudolf Schlichter and others. Somewhere in between is the reflection, the social criticism of urbanization and the anonymity of urban society in Otto Dix's triptych "Grosstadt" ("Big City"), the satirical drawings of George Grosz and Karl Hubbuch, and Oscar Schlemmer's stylized watercolors.
The catastrophe of World War II produced a new artistic question: "Can art be possible after Auschwitz?" As a result, art turned toward abstractionism, and away from a concrete image.
At this level, there are drawings by Joseph Beuys. However, Beuys was famous for the art of performance, and his drawings refer only to Beuys - not to man. Furthermore, he represents a post-modernist paradigm, in which there is no image of man; the drawings, therefore, while nice to look at, are not in themselves meaningful.
Here, man is implied in things that are created for consumption. That was the consumer age, marked by the dawn of advertising technologies; the engaged works by Sigmar Polke and Georg Baselitz merely confirm this.
The rest of the exhibition is dedicated to the end of the 1980s and the 1990s, a time characterized by pluralism in artistic movements as globalization took hold. In this part of the exhibition nothing is clear, evident or indisputable. Such works ought to be displayed in art galleries before being shown in museums; a certain amount of time has to pass before it is possible to assess their influence on future generations, and before their artistic value and contribution to the development of art becomes clear. Along with that, it will be possible to extract an image of man at the end of the 20th century.
This is the Hermitage's first such "problem" exhibition. Since the Hermitage is going to create a 20th-century art-history department, such an exhibition "is a good attempt at working with modern art," according to Piotrovsky.
A variety of programs and educational resources is running in conjunction with the exhibition. In the Hermitage's Lecture Hall, the Goethe Institut is showing a retrospective of rare and outstanding films on the same theme. Another event to note is a lecture by Munich University Professor Hans Beck, the renowned sociologist and critic, on "Dialectics of Individualization and Globalization of Modern Life," in the Hermitage Theater at 4 p.m. on Thursday.
"Man in the Middle" runs through Dec. 15. Film screenings take place every Sunday at 6 p.m. Links: www.hermitage.ru
TITLE: Bush Team Pushing Quick Vote on Iraq
AUTHOR: By Matt Kelley
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON - The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush sharpened its push for a quick congressional vote authorizing possible military action against Iraq, drafting a strongly worded resolution for delivery to lawmakers Thursday.
Three senior White House aides familiar with the draft said it would give Bush maximum flexibility to confront the threat posed by Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, including an explicit O.K. to use military force. One of the officials said the resolution would adopt much of the same language found in the 1998 law calling for a regime change in Iraq.
As administration officials laid the groundwork for any Iraqi campaign, U.S. officials at the United Nations worked to reconstruct an anti-Iraq consensus shattered by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's offer Monday to let UN weapons inspectors return after nearly four years. The UN Security Council was to discuss plans for inspections at a session Thursday.
Secretary of State Colin Powell gave Bush a progress report Wednesday on U.S. efforts at the United Nations. Powell was due back at the White House on Thursday for more strategy talks on the administration's next moves with wary allies, a senior White House official said.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday that Congress must act before the Security Council does.
"Delaying a vote in the Congress would send a message that the U.S. may be unprepared to take a stand, just as we are asking the international community to take a stand and as we are cautioning the Iraqi regime to consider its options," Rumsfeld said.
The Iraq resolution is expected to win overwhelming support from both parties in the House and Senate, possibly within two weeks. Although some prominent Democrats have called for caution, both Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt said they supported Bush.
Russia and France, two of the five Security Council members with veto power, were against any new UN resolutions concerning Iraq, as were Arab countries. Rumsfeld and Bush dismissed Saddam's latest offer as a ploy to stall for time.
"He's not going to fool anybody," Bush said after meeting with congressional leaders Wednesday.
While UN officials in New York prepared for the inspectors' return, U.S. and British officials began working on a new UN resolution aimed at authorizing use of force should Baghdad fail to comply with Security Council resolutions.
Western diplomats said the U.S.-British draft likely would include new instructions for weapons inspectors and a timetable for disarmament that would be tighter than one laid out in an existing resolution passed in December 1999.
TITLE: WORLD WATCH
TEXT: German Election
BERLIN (Reuters) - The German election race, which has seen Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder make a dramatic comeback as floods and war fears have distracted from a sluggish economy, is headed for a photo finish on Sunday, new polls indicated Wednesday.
Pollsters said the outcome was too close to call. A survey taken by the Forsa institute found Schroeder's Social Democrats (SPD) at 40 percent compared to 38 percent for Edmund Stoiber's conservatives.
A rival poll by the Allensbach Institute registered support for Stoiber's Christian Democrats at 37.3 percent, just ahead of the SPD at 37 percent.
When the votes for their preferred Greens or Free Democrat coalition partners are taken into account, the two camps are still neck-and-neck.
OPEC Keeps Restraints
OSAKA, Japan (Reuters) - OPEC on Thursday agreed to maintain severe restraints on oil production for the fourth quarter to keep crude prices riding high, cartel ministers said.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries kept supply limits on hold despite worries among consumer nations about the impact of high energy costs on the world economy.
Cartel cutbacks, in place since January, have combined with the threat of a U.S. war against Iraq to push benchmark U.S. crude close to $30 a barrel - a setback for industrialized powers trying to sustain a shaky economic recovery.
N. Korean Checks
TOKYO (AP) - North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has pledged fully to accept international inspections of his country's nuclear facilities, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Thursday.
Koizumi, in a speech, said Kim vowed the North will observe international arrangements related to its suspected nuclear weapons program when the two met Tuesday in Pyongyang.
North Korea did not say in a joint statement released after the summit whether it would accept International Atomic Energy Agency inspections. Japan has asked the North to do so.
Papon Leaves Prison
PARIS (AP) - Frail, but now a free man, wartime collaborator Maurice Papon walked out of prison Wednesday and into a storm of public outrage after judges ruled him too old and sick to finish his 10-year sentence for helping send Jews to Nazi death camps.
To victims of France's wartime regime and their families, the decision by appeal court judges to release 92-year-old Papon erased the huge moral victory they had won in 1998 when Papon was convicted for complicity in crimes against humanity for his role in deporting 1,690 Jews to Germany. Most died there.
Papon's lawyers hailed his release as "a great victory." Jewish groups accused France of turning its back on Holocaust victims.
Kashmir Tension Rises
SRINAGAR, India (AP) - Bomb squads and demining teams were mobilized Thursday ahead of a campaign visit by the leader of India's main opposition party to Kashmir, where Islamic separatists have threatened violence to disrupt local elections.
Local officials said tight security was put in place for Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi, who was scheduled to address a rally at a cricket stadium in the summer capital of India's only majority Muslim state.
Islamic separatists active in Kashmir since 1989 have been blamed for a series of attacks in recent weeks apparently intended at derailing local elections that began Monday
TITLE: New-Look SKA Aims For Playoff Prestige
AUTHOR: By Christopher Hamilton
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: With a new coach, new and returning players, and massive injections of finance and optimism, local ice-hockey team SKA has its sights set on making the league playoffs this year.
As the team prepares for its season home opener this weekend - it has already completed three road games - against powerhouse team Avangard Omsk, the only thing about which it can have cause for complaint is its schedule: Three of its first four games are against three of the league's strongest clubs.
Two of those are already past, and both resulted in a loss for SKA: 4-1 to Dinamo Moscow, and 2-1 to northern neighbor Severstal Cherepovets. In the middle, however, the Petersburgers picked up their first win, 2-1 over Molot-Prikamye Perm.
Predicting how the Northern Capital's Army team will fare in Russia's Professional Hockey League this season is difficult, but things have certainly improved for a team that has struggled the last three seasons, barely avoiding relegation from the PHL's top division, the Superliga.
The Superliga is made up of 18 teams, and there is a huge gap between the top half-dozen teams - which have a solid financial standing and have been able to attract the best players - and those that simply can not afford to keep up.
"When you look at it, there are four or five really strong teams in the league," head coach Nikolai Puchkov said at a pre-season press conference. "We are no worse that anyone else, so our goal is to fight for one of the last playoff spots."
The 72-year-old Puchkov, who was named head coach last spring, has spent most of his hockey career with Sokol Kiev, and is seen as a great motivator known for getting the maximum out of his players.
During the off season, Puchkov reworked SKA's roster, creating a mix of older, more experienced players, and young talent, moving up from team's local farm teams - SKA-2, Inorzhets, and Spartak.
Puchkov also brought back two team leaders - center Alexei Koznev and defenceman Marat Davydov. Koznev, who spent last season with Avangard Omsk, will once again serve as team captain.
Latvian national team goaltender Sergei Naumov, who also joined the side, has already demonstrated his capabilities this season against Molot-Prikamye and Severstal.
"The stalwarts are helping out the young rookies. We've got a great team that works together and that's the most important thing," said Puchkov. "I'm not going to put together a plan of winning points. Our goal is simple. We're going to go out on the ice and try to win every match."
SKA President Boris Vinokurov was open about this year's budget, which is nearly $5 million - nearly twice last year's budget.
According to team spokesperson Viktor Mukovoz, Lenenergo remains the team's general sponsor, but the team has additional support from founding stockholders Tyumenenergo, RAO EES Rossiya, Petrotrest, Parnas-M, SU 6 Lendorstroi 2, and SG-Trans.
At the season opener - which starts on Sunday at 5 p.m. at the Yubileiny Sports Palace on Ul. Dobrolyubova - local fans will likely also cheer some ex-SKA favorites: goalie Maxim Sokolov and forwards Maxim Sushinsky and Ilya Gorbushin. Sokolov and Sushinsky are the only two Petersburg natives who also play on the Russian national team.
Of the 17 matches that SKA will play at home this season, 13 will be in the Ice Palace on Pr. Bolshevikov, three at the Yubileiny, and one at the SKA Ice Palace, on Zhdanovskaya Ul. Tickets cost between 50 and 100 rubles ($1.60 to $3.20). Season tickets for matches at the Ice Palace cost 1,200 rubles ($38).
TITLE: AL West Set To Go to the Wire After A's Tie Angels for Lead
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW YORK - Eric Chavez and the Oakland hitters were more than glad to make up for a rough outing by Barry Zito. Zito managed to get his league-leading 22nd victory and the Athletics, boosted by four home runs, beat Anaheim 7-4 Wednesday night to tie the Angels for the AL West lead.
Chavez and Jermaine Dye hit back-to-back homers and Ray Durham had a three-run shot during a six-run fourth inning. Mark Ellis connected earlier at the Coliseum.
"It was big," Chavez said. "We haven't been able to pick up our pitchers very often. They've carried us all year and it's nice to return the favor."
The Angels and Athletics both have 10 games left, including Thursday afternoon's wrap-up of a four-game series.
Zito (22-5) gave up four runs and seven hits in 5 1-3 innings. He also walked four.
"Our guys showed we're not going to go down easy," Zito said. "I didn't have my best stuff but they came out and weren't worried about being down 4-1."
Chad Bradford threw 2 2-3 scoreless innings in relief of Zito. Billy Koch, who gave up Tim Salmon's winning home run in the 10th inning Tuesday night, pitched the ninth for his 40th save.
"It's nice to give Zito a win when he wasn't really his best," manager Art Howe said. "We were right back in the game with two swings of the bat. It took every little ingredient to get it done."
San Francisco 7, Los Angeles 4. At this stage in the season, a two-game lead seems pretty big to the San Francisco Giants. Pitcher Russ Ortiz hit a tiebreaking homer as the Giants beat Los Angeles on Wednesday night, putting their old rival in bad shape in the only real race remaining for a postseason berth. The four-game series ends Thursday night.
"It goes without saying that tomorrow night's game is a must-win for us," the Dodgers' Eric Karros said.
Each team has 10 games left. If the Giants win Thursday, the Dodgers' position will be desperate.
"We really needed this win," Ortiz said. "I was scratching and clawing as much as I could to keep us in the game."
At Los Angeles, Ortiz (13-10) won his fifth straight start. He hit his second homer of the season and the fourth of his career against Robert Ellis (0-1), leading off the sixth for a 4-3 lead.
"I saw a fastball and swung at it. It wasn't anything more than that," Ortiz said.
Down 7-3, the Dodgers rallied for a run in the ninth on Brian Jordan's RBI single off reliever Robb Nen's glove with two outs. But Nen struck out Karroswith two runners on.
New York Yankees 7, Tampa Bay 1. Emergency starter Jeff Weaver pitched neatly into the eighth inning, Alfonso Soriano got his 200th hit of the season and New York cut its magic number to two for clinching the AL East.
Weaver replaced David Wells, who was scratched because of a stomach virus.
Soriano had a pair of RBI singles and became the first Yankees player to reach 200 hits since Derek Jeter in 2000.
Yankees center fielder Bernie Williams did not play because of mild inflammation behind his left knee. He aggravated the injury on the artificial turf at Tampa Bay on Tuesday and most likely will miss a couple of games.
Shane Spencer started in right field for New York but exited after hurting his left hamstring again.
Arizona 10, San Diego 3. At Phoenix, Greg Colbrunn hit for the cycle, including a pair of two-run homers, and scored four times as the World Series champion reduced its magic number to five for clinching a second straight NL West title.
Colbrunn went 5-for-6 to set a career high and tie a club record for hits.
Rick Helling (9-11) won for the first time in seven starts, and rookie lefty Oliver Perez (3-4) saw his winless streak reach eight starts.
TITLE: Dokic, Clijsters Scrape Into Quarters
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TOKYO - Defending champion Jelena Dokic struggled through a 6-2, 7-6 win Thursday over Lina Krasnoroutskaya to reach the quarterfinals at the Toyota Princess Cup.
Second-seeded Dokic, who had a first-round bye, lost her focus and patience as a series of unforced errors allowed the 18-year-old Russian back in the second set at Ariake Colosseum.
Dokic dropped the first two games of the set, and threw her racket down once and shouted in frustration as she tried to find the form that took her to the semifinals of the Brazil Open last week.
Dokic broke back in the sixth game and forced a tiebreaker, which the 19-year-old Yugoslav won 7-5.
"The first match is always the toughest one to come back and play," Dokic said. "I did well here last year, so for the first match I'm happy."
She next faces seventh-seeded Tamarine Tanasugarn, who beat Clarisa Fernandez 6-4, 6-4.
Kim Clijsters overcame dropping a second set 6-0 to beat Svetlana Kuznetsova. They were tied 5-5 in the third before third-seeded Clijsters won the 11th game when Kuznetsova's forehand return fell long, and broke serve to win 7-5.
Clijsters faces another Russian, Elena Likhovtseva, in the quarterfinals.
Also Thursday, American Amy Frazier cruised to a 6-4, 6-3 victory over Anna Smashnova, who won the title in Shanghai last weekend, and Nicole Pratt ousted Ai Sugiyama 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 to set up a match with No. 1 Serena Williams on Friday.
"I have to serve well and pick up and return her serve well," Pratt said about facing Williams. "If I can do that, I think I have a 50-50 chance of winning the point."
In Quebec, top-seeded Silvia Farina Elia of Italy advanced to the quarterfinals of the Bell Challenge on Wednesday, beating Laura Granville of the U.S., 6-1, 6-4.
Defending champion Meghann Shaughnessy, seeded fifth in the WTA Tour event, lost her second-round match, falling 6-4, 6-4 to Switzerland's Marie-Gaianeh Mikaelian.
Second-seeded Yelena Dementieva of Russia also was eliminated, while third-seeded Magdalena Maleeva of Bulgaria reached the quarterfinals. Germany's Angelika Roesch beat Dementieva 7-6 (7-0), 6-7 (1), 6-4, and Maleeva defeated Anousjka van Exel of the Netherlands 6-4, 2-6, 6-3.
In first-round matches, seventh-seeded Yelena Bovina of Russia beat Canada's Jana Nejedly 6-1, 6-4, and eighth-seeded Meilen Tu of the United States topped compatriot Brie Rippner 2-6, 7-6 (7-3), 6-1.
TITLE: Ewing To Play With Jordan?
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON - Patrick Ewing in a Washington Wizards uniform, playing alongside Michael Jordan? It probably won't happen - but it could.
Ewing, introduced Wednesday as a Wizards assistant coach, said that if Washington needs an extra center during this season, he would consider playing, especially if owner Abe Pollin asked.
"I'm here as an assistant coach. [But] if Mr. Pollin comes to me and says, 'Here's a 10-day [contract],' I wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth," Ewing said.
He retired Tuesday, ending his NBA career after 17 seasons, 15 with the New York Knicks.
"This is one of the hardest decisions that I've ever had to make. I'm still torn," Ewing said. "Yesterday, I was so happy to get that press conference over with, and it took me forever to say that I'm retiring from playing. I've been playing basketball so long, and I still enjoy doing it."
Wizards coach Doug Collins said Ewing joined the franchise to assist him from the bench - not on the floor.
"When you've played for 17 years, you can go through withdrawals," Collins said. "If he can be teaching, the transition is going to be much easier."
Ewing will become the Wizards' fourth assistant coach, joining John Bach, Larry Drew and Brian James.
"I've always felt that Patrick was a great teacher," Collins said.
Ewing won't just work with the team's big men. He'll help coach longtime rival Jordan, if Jordan plays this season.
"I'm going to get on him the way he got on me," Ewing said.
Ewing's Georgetown lost to Jordan's North Carolina in the 1982 NCAA championship game. And Ewing's Knicks were knocked out of the NBA playoffs five times by Jordan's Bulls.