SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #820 (85), Friday, November 15, 2002
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TITLE: Moscow Appoints New Chechen PM
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday appointed a young businessperson who was once deputy governor of the Moscow region as the new Chechen prime minister, a move that keeps the republic's financial flows out of the hands of ethnic Chechens.
Mikhail Babich, 33, replaces Stanislav Ilyasov, whom Putin recently promoted to the post of federal minister in charge of the reconstruction of Chechnya, the presidential press service said.
Babich, who currently is a deputy governor of the western Ivanovo region, will take up the post of prime minister in Akhmad Kadyrov's government on Friday, Interfax reported.
The announcement of the appointment came a day before the State Duma was to discuss a constitutional referendum on Chechnya, for which Putin gave the go-ahead at a meeting with pro-Moscow Chechens in the Kremlin on Sunday.
Analysts said the decision to pick Babich was the latest signal that the Kremlin, while giving its blessing to the constitutional process and formation of state structures in Chechnya, intended to keep a tight grip over the republic.
"Although the constitutional process will strengthen the role of the local authorities over the republic's economy, all financial flows will be controlled from Moscow," said Alexei Makarkin, an analyst from the non-governmental Center of Political Technologies think tank. "This is one of Moscow's strongest tools for maintaining control over Chechnya."
However, he said, the Kremlin will allow a number of ethnic Chechens to have a say in the process of building an elected government, which will in turn discourage a large part of the population from siding with the rebels.
Russian and pro-Moscow Chechen politicians have for some time been floating plans to hold a referendum on elections and a Chechen constitution, which would distribute powers between Grozny and Moscow. The plans gained a new urgency after last month's Moscow hostage raid, which the Kremlin says was carried out with the approval of Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov, who was elected the republic's president in 1997.
"The constitutional process was an inherent part of the Kremlin's scenario for Chechnya: to subdue large-scale rebel resistance, to edge the legitimate Chechen president, Aslan Maskhadov, out of the political field, and to clear the arena for new, elected officials," said Shamil Beno, a foreign minister in the government of the late Chechen President Djokhar Dudayev.
"The Moscow raid occurred just in time to implement a vital stage of the Kremlin's Chechnya program," he said. "[The Kremlin] linked Maskhadov to the hostage takers, defaming and disposing of him."
The Central Election Committee said Tuesday that it will assist the Chechen elections commission prepare for the referendum in the spring, and for local elections in December 2003.
Makarkin said the referendum and subsequent elections will help pro-Moscow Chechen officials shed their image as being the Kremlin's puppets and give them some real authority.
"All officials in Chechnya are currently appointed and can be dismissed at any minute," he said. "The real power in Chechnya belongs to the military, while local officials can only approach them with suggestions and recommendations."
Moscow, meanwhile, remains cautious because power will inevitably shift to ethnic Chechens after elections, while the appointment of Babich and promotion of Ilyasov, both non-Chechens, will help it keep a degree of control over the republic, analysts said.
Ilyasov, who was named Chechen prime minister in 2001, had frequent disputes with the Kremlin-appointed head of Chechen administration, Kadyrov, over staffing issues. Kadyrov persistently pushed for the assignment of ethnic Chechens over Russians to influential positions in his administration.
Babich served as a military officer in Grozny in 1995, Ilyasov was quoted by the Kommersant newspaper as saying. He held high-ranking positions in several meat-processing and textile enterprises, before becoming a deputy governor in the Moscow region and then in Ivanovo.
Kommersant said Babich faced criminal charges at one company for allegedly misusing revenues earmarked for the Pension Fund, but the case was later dropped.
Babich said he was innocent and said the investigation had been initiated by a former high-ranking Interior Ministry officer who had financial interests in the Moscow region.
Beno said the political steps to bring order while keeping Chechnya under Moscow's control might prove effective, at least in the short term. However, if pro-Moscow Chechen officials fail to meet the population's expectations after a few years, separatism will once again rear its head, he said.
TITLE: Irritable Putin Offers Reporter Circumcision
AUTHOR: By Andrei Zolotov Jr.
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin's diatribe against radical Islam at a press conference in Brussels ended in embarassment when he rounded out his reply to a French reporter with a crude joke, inviting anyone wishing to be circumcised to come to Moscow, where the operation would be done in such a way as to make sure that "nothing grows back."
The scandalous comment, made late Monday, was immediately picked up by non-state Russian media but elicited a delayed reaction in the West due to translation problems.
In response to a Le Monde reporter, who questioned Russia's use of anti-personnel land mines and fragmentation bombs in Chechnya, Putin began, rather calmly, by saying that Chechnya was a "complex conglomeration of problems." He reiterated that the separatist movement in the republic was overtaken by radical Muslims and terrorists who filled the vacuum of power.
"No one can accuse Russia of suppressing freedom," Putin said. "Russia de facto gave full independence to the Chechen republic [in 1996]. In 1999, we had to pay for it. Wide-scale aggression against Russia, in the republic of Dagestan, took place under the slogan of creating a caliphate [Muslim theocracy] ... by tearing apart territories of the Russian Federation. What does that have to do with Chechnya's independence?"
People who inspire and finance Chechen fighters are "religious extremists and international terrorists," he continued. But Russia is only the first line of defense, he said, because "the radicals" have wide ambitions and "speak about the creation of a global caliphate."
As he became increasingly impassioned, he began to go through the categories of all those who are under threat from radical Muslims.
"They speak about the necessity to kill Americans and their allies. I think you come from a country that happens to be an ally of the United States - you are in danger," Putin said in addressing the French reporter.
"They are talking about the need to kill all kafirs [infidels], all non-Muslims, or Crusaders, as they say. If you are a Christian, you are in danger!"
"But if you decide to reject your faith and become an atheist, you are also subject to liquidation according to their way of thinking. ... You are in danger!"
"If you decide to become a Muslim, even that won't save you. Because they consider traditional Islam also to be hostile to the goals they advocate. Even in that case you are in danger!"
All of Russia's main television channels carried Putin's remarks to this point, showing EU foreign and security-affairs boss Javier Solana and Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who flanked Putin, growing visibly uncomfortable. It was not clear whether their unease reflected what The Associated Press said was intermittent translation by Putin's interpreter, or the blunt substance of Putin's remarks, which broke Western taboos of political correctness.
Then Putin went on to make a tasteless joke, which was edited out of footage shown on state-controlled Channel One and Rossia television and out of the presidential press service's report.
"If you want to go all the way and become a Muslim radical and are ready to get circumcised, I invite you to Moscow," Putin said. "We are a multi-confessional country, we have experts in this field, too. I will recommend that they carry out the operation in such a way that nothing grows back."
Non-state NTV and TVS television carried Putin's remarks in full, as did Kommersant. "The day that seemed to begin as well as possible, ended in a big scandal," the newspaper said.
Kommersant and Western news agencies said that Putin's remarks were followed by silence in the hall. The exact meaning of Putin's words was not immediately understood due to the intermittent translation, and the Western media picked up the story only Tuesday when The Associated Press provided a translation from an audiotape, AP reported.
EU spokesperson Jonathan Faull described Putin's comments as "entirely inappropriate," AP reported. Gunnar Wiegland, another EU spokesperson, said Putin used "decidedly less robust" language when speaking on the war in Chechnya and Islamic fundamentalism during meetings with EU leaders.
Gazeta.ru, an Internet publication, said Putin's aides explained his outburst by saying the president was tired and angry over being grilled on Chechnya.
Monday was not the first time Putin had used strong language to express his belief that the Chechnya war is part of a global offensive by Islamic fundamentalism. But it came at a time of frayed nerves in Russia in the aftermath of the hostage crisis in Moscow.
Tensions between Russia and Denmark over a Chechen congress held in late October in Denmark, which currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, are just one example of the differences between Russian and European approaches to the problem of Chechnya. This week's EU summit was moved to Brussels because Putin had refused to travel to Copenhagen.
Just before the question about Russia's use of force was posed to Putin, Denmark's prime minister had to answer an unpleasant question on why the Chechen congress was held with a grant from a Danish governmental organization, and why its participants were issued visas with record-breaking speed, Kommersant reported.
Putin's main message appeared to be that Europe should see radical Muslims' true goals, even when they are couched in democratic language.
"If the so-called 'freedom-fighters' terrorize us and threaten to take over nuclear and other vital facilities, ... we will either have a common interpretation of such activity, or we will have a problem," Putin said. "I only want to warn you that you should not create any loopholes for these people. Anything, even the smallest trifle that's to their advantage, is perceived by them as a weakness and will be used by them against those who demonstrate this weakness."
TITLE: Rights Abuses Rise Since Theater Siege
AUTHOR: By Yevgenia Borisova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - At a State Duma hearing shunned by top security officials Thursday, lawmakers and law-enforcement authorities conceded that no physical or economic security was being provided for Chechen refugees returning home and that abuses by the military were steadily replenishing the rebels' ranks.
Also Thursday, the International Red Cross said two of their Russian drivers had been forced out of their truck at gunpoint outside Grozny and kidnapped.
"No one would deny that human rights are being violated there," Deputy Prosecutor General Sergei Fridinsky told the meeting of a special Duma commission on Chechnya.
Asked how many criminal investigations have been opened into rights violations during mopping-up operations, he said, "About 15."
"Up to 5,000 troops are used in a single mopping-up operation," he said. "To say that someone should be looking over the shoulder of every single person is not logical."
Aslanbek Aslakhanov, Chechnya's representative in the Duma, said there were no mop-ups without abuses.
"I have grounds to open a criminal case for abuse on every single mopping-up operation," he said. "The problem is that we allowed them [the Russian law-enforcement bodies] to work with the 'bandits' using 'bandit' methods."
Human-rights organizations accuse the army of abuses such as robbery, rape and kidnapping civilians for ransom during mop-ups. In March, General Vladimir Moltenskoi, at the time the commander of the federal forces in Chechnya, issued Order No. 80 instructing soldiers to treat civilians politely and provide lists of detainees to local administrations. But little has changed since then.
Fandas Safiullin, a Duma deputy from Tatarstan, said the Chechen population's trust in the federal authorities has been destroyed, due to mistreatment.
"And since the trust is lost, the support for the rebels will only grow," he said. "There were about 3,000 rebels at the beginning of the campaign. Now, we are told that up to 15,000 have been killed, while about 3,000 remain. That means these 15,000 rebels supported us in 1999. We made them into rebels."
Duma Deputy Arkady Baskayev, a general who has participated in the Chechnya campaign, said there has never been more than 2,000 people in the rebels' ranks, but agreed that the volatile situation in Chechnya was turning civilians into rebels.
"The youth - and several generations - have grown up seeing that the government does not want to resolve the problem by paying compensation for destroyed housing, creating jobs or completing Chechnya's restoration program, and that naturally replenishes these [rebel] groups," he said.
"Kidnapping has became more frequent," Dzhabrailov said, adding that 31 Chechen civilians have disappeared over the past 10 days "as a result of unlawful actions by federal forces."
In the latest abduction, the Red Cross said two of its drivers were grabbed Wednesday afternoon while traveling in a convoy of two trucks and a Land Cruiser, after delivering aid to Grozny.
Masked assailants stopped the convoy and forced the drivers - Alexander Panov and Musa Satushiyev - out of their vehicle, but let the other drivers continue with their journey, Vincent Lusser, a Red Cross spokesperson in Moscow, said.
It was not clear who was behind the kidnapping.
The Red Cross has required its foreign staff to be accompanied by armed security guards, but Russians working for the Red Cross have not been subject to the requirement.
"We never had any indications that our national staff would be targeted," Lusser was quoted as saying.
Human-rights activists said Thursday that complaints about harassment have shot up nationwide since the theater attack.
"Starting Oct. 24, the number of complaints to human-rights organizations has been steadily growing," Svetlana Gannushkina, head of Grazhdanskoye Sodeistviye, told a news conference in Moscow. She said Moscow-based Chechens have been fired from their jobs and their children kicked out of schools.
TITLE: Suspect Arrested in Book Theft
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The prime suspect in last week's thefts of a first edition of Isaac Newton's most important work and at least one other valuable book from St. Petersburg libraries was detained by police on a train from St. Petersburg to Astrakhan on Tuesday.
A first edition of Newton's "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica," ("Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy"), published in 1687, and a 1913 illustrated edition of poems by Russian Futurist Konstantin Bolshakov, "Le Futur," ("The Future") were stolen from the Russian National Library on Nov. 6.
Newton's work is regarded as the cornerstone of modern physics as, in addition to the British scientist's famous laws of motion, it describes one of the discipline's most fundamental laws - the law of universal gravitation. Experts estimate that there are under 200 copies of the work in existence, and copies can fetch as much as $200,000 at auction.
On the same day as the Newton theft, said Likhomanov, an 1813 edition of English philosopher Robert Owen's "A New View of Society" was stolen from the reading room of the library of the Russian Academy of Sciences, also in St. Petersburg. Police suspect that the theft was committed by the perpetrator of the National Library theft.
National Library official Anton Likhomanov said Tuesday that two people came to the library and submitted passports, along with identification cards identifying them as postgraduate students at Kuban University, in Southern Russia. Passports and identity cards are needed to obtain a pass to the library.
The pair ordered the two books and never returned them, he said, adding that the passports turned out to be fake.
"It's not the first time this has happened. Old editions of Newton's works disappear from libraries all over the world," said Likhomanov, adding that the thieves may have stolen to order.
When searching the suspect, police officers found an identity card in the name of Natalya Korolyova, a post-graduate student at Kuban University - allegedly the same card that she submitted at the library, according to the St. Petersburg police press service.
According to the police, the suspect's real name is Svetlana Danilina, and she is from Saratov, Central Russia. She was detained under article 164, part 1 (theft of special cultural valuable objects) of the Russian Criminal Code.
Among Danilina's belongings, officers also found a list in English of 16 valuable editions, including works by Newton and Galileo. However, according to Viktor Pantaleyev, the head of the city police's Special Department No. 12, which deals with antique thefts, none of the missing books were found.
According to Yelena Nebogatikova, the deputy head of the Russian National Library, a Culture Ministry commission that examined the library after the theft put forward recommendations to tighten security at the institution. At present, security at the library is limited to passes that readers receive on entering the library and that they are supposed to return, with a stamp from the department visited, on leaving. The library employee who checks the passes also has the right to search visitors' bags. The library has no hi-tech security equipment.
Meanwhile, representatives of the St. Petersburg State University's Gorky Library said Wednesday that another copy of the Newton book had been taken from the library. Police did not confirm the theft.
TITLE: City Duma Vote Facing Another Legal Challenge
AUTHOR: By Claire Bigg
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Just one week after the campaigning for the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly elections got underway, the date for the elections, set for Dec. 8, has been called into question.
The City Charter Court received an inquiry on Tuesday calling for the judges to rule whether the date is in line with the City Charter. The charter states that the elections should be held on the third Sunday in December, while Dec. 8 is the second Sunday.
"I don't want to comment on the case prior to the handing down of the decision of the court," City Charter Court spokesperson Olga Tulsanova said Thursday.
"The court's first session will be held next Tuesday, but I don't know how long the court will take to reach a decision," she said.
The reason for shifting the elections stems from the fact that Russia's Constitution Day, on Dec. 12 will be an official holiday. The Wednesday holiday has led to the work week being shifted, making Dec. 15 - the third Sunday in December - a work day. So that the vote could be held on a day off, the Legislative Assembly moved the date forward by a week.
"Is the decision of the Legislative Assembly to set a date for the elections which differs from that sit out by Articles 24 and 80 of the City Charter legitimate, and does it have force if the necessary amendments haven't be made to the City Charter?" the Fontanka.ru news Web site quoted the inquiry document, which was submitted by a municipal administrative body, as saying.
Politicians and analysts are describing the inquiry as an attempt to disrupt or, perhaps, even cancel the December elections.
"This all looks like an attempt to make the elections fall through, although I don't know who is behind it," said Mikhail Amosov, the Yabloko faction leader in the Legislative Assembly. "But the date has already been fixed and I don't really foresee the elections being cancelled now."
Should the court rule that the date for the election was set improperly, it could cause a bit of a scramble in the assembly.
In order to save the date, at least 34 legislators would have to be on side to pass ammendments to the City charter before the Dec. 8 election date.
Alexei Musakov, who heads the St. Petersburg Center for Regional Development, agreed with Amosov that the elections are unlikely to be called off.
"My background is in law and, in my opinion, the elections won't be cancelled," Musakov said Thursday. "Even if the Charter Court should decide that the election date should be moved and says that the decision is beyond appeal, the elections will take place anyway."
As to who is behind the filing of the inquiry, Musakov was more specific.
"I think that this inquiry comes from political forces that are traditionally in oposition to the governor, like the Union of Right Forces (SPS)/Yabloko partnership, or groups with similar political outlooks."
"Most of the cases the Charter Court has heard have been moves against the governor that are filed in response to decisions he has taken that went against the interest of opposition political groups," he said. "I think that the problem here originates from the situation at the TRK-Peterburg television station, which is in the hands of Smolny. Electronic media are generally the most efficient tools in election campaigns. The fact that these are completely monopolized by pro-governor political groups doesn't please SPS/Yabloko."
The SPS/Yabloko electoral bloc has already been complaining that the city administration has been disrupting their campaign.
"The city authorities are exerting a degree of administrative pressure on deputies of the bloc," Amosov was reported by Interfax as saying at a press conference on Tuesday.
"They disband demonstrations, they try to censor advertisements on both commercial and free television channels, and they are interfering with the work of the district electoral commissions," he said.
TITLE: One Dead, Two Wounded After Shooting
AUTHOR: By Claire Bigg
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: One man was killed and another two, including a police officer, were wounded Wednesday evening when two armed men opened fire in a city police station.
33-year-old Senior Lieutenant Oleg Ulakov was on duty at a Kalininsky district police station at 38 Ulitsa Karpinsovo when, at around 9:30 p.m., the assailants, 29-year-old Andrei Novikov and a 31-year-old, whom the police identified as I. Kochkov, entered the room. The men, who were armed with a Winchester rifle and a Makarov pistol, opened fire, wounding Ulakov in the leg.
Ulakov returned fire, killing Novikov and severely injuring the other.
"Ulakov received one gunshot in the leg but managed to draw his pistol. He fired nine times. One assailant was killed, and one is currently in hospital in critical condition," said Pavel Rayevsky, the head of the press service of the Interior Ministry Administration for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast.
Rayevsky said that one of the two assailants entered the room briefly, took a look around, and then left. Ulakov said that he was carrying a bag that looked suspicious. The two men both entered shortly after, masked and armed.
According to Rayevsky, the attack was organized by a criminal group.
"The assailants wanted to take Ulakov's gun. They were part of a criminal group that needed weapons. It is not as easy as one might think to purchase weapons," he said.
Ulakov is currently in the Military Medical Academy, where doctors described his condition satisfactory.
The case has been transferred to the City Prosecutor's Office and a criminal investigation has been opened.
TITLE: Paper Survives Threats, Murder, Success
AUTHOR: By Natalia Yefimova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: ELISTA, Kalmykia - For a tiny opposition newspaper in an autocratic republic, Sovietskaya Kalmykia Segodnya has survived a great deal: a shut-out by local printers and distributors, threats, arson and, most harrowing of all, the brutal murder in 1998 of its editor, Larisa Yudina.
For more than 10 years, the newspaper has relentlessly criticized Kalmykia's authorities, especially its powerful millionaire president, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who has kept a tight rein on the republic since 1993. As a result, the paper has had a slew of troubles.
Now, some fear the paper may face a paradoxical new threat to its well-being - getting too close to power itself.
During Kalmykia's recent presidential race, Gennady Yudin - Yudina's widower and the paper's editor since her death - ran as a vice presidential candidate alongside Baatr Shondzhiyev, a Moscow banker who managed to force Ilyumzhinov into a runoff, but lost with a gaping 20-percent lag in the second round.
Liberal politicians once close to the Yudins have criticized the alliance, saying it undermined attempts to unify the opposition and exploited Yudina's name for one candidate's political gain.
"We presumed that Sovietskaya Kalmykia would be a common mouthpiece for the opposition," said Ivan Ryzhkov, a Yabloko member who had worked with the newspaper since the mid-1990s, but supported a different contender in the Oct. 20 elections.
In the weeks after Yudin teamed up with Shondzhiyev, the paper effectively became the pair's publicity vehicle.
"They started using Yudina's name. ... [That was] dishonorable," said Ryzhkov, adding that the shift toward a single candidate could hurt the paper's reputation as an independent news source.
Yudin, who, by his own admission, is "no politician," has defended his decision.
"To have a hand in getting rid of Ilyumzhinov is a worthy cause in itself," says Yudin, 59.
Yudina had exposed corruption in Ilyumzhinov's entourage. The person convicted of organizing her murder was a former aide to Ilyumzhinov who shortly before had been prematurely released from prison, where he was serving time on a manslaughter charge.
Yudin does not believe his alliance with Shondzhiyev will compromise the paper. "Our readers will stay with us," he said.
While Yudin acknowledges the natural tension between political or financial "sponsorship" and editorial freedom, he is also keenly aware of the need to scrape together funding for the paper, which has survived the past several years on Western grants.
And funding was something Shondzhiyev could provide. In the run up to the elections, Sovietskaya Kalmykia's circulation jumped twentyfold to 60,000 and salaries for the five-person staff shot up.
This relative comfort was a far cry from the two years following Yudina's murder, when local reporters were so frightened to be associated with the paper that teams of journalists from across the country traveled to Elista in shifts to keep it running.
Prior to Yudina's death, the paper's staff was regularly harassed. In 1994, when the pressure began, the Yudins woke up one night to find the apartment filled with smoke. The outside door had been doused with gasoline and set aflame. Between 1994 and 1997, Yudin recalled, the newspaper's offices were forced to move eight times. He himself lost his job with the local statistics committee.
But the June 1998 killing drew such public scrutiny to Sovietskaya Kalmykia that the worries about security abated.
"I sometimes think Ilyumzhinov should give me bodyguards. God forbid I get in a car accident or something," said Valery Ulyadurov, a reporter who filled in as editor during the election campaign.
Ulyadurov was sure that, after election-time passions cooled down, things at the paper would return to normal: Funding would dry up, and the "distribution network" would shrink back to half a dozen unemployed grannies.
Even during the campaign, the staff continued creating issues in a cramped two-room apartment occupied by journalist Anatoly Savinov and his seven relatives, including four children. Official kiosks refused - as they have for years - to sell the paper and Elista's printing house declined to print it.
"I did not want to print this dirty newspaper. It brings nothing positive to the republic. This isn't journalism, it's nothing but black PR," said Gennady Lidzhiyev, general director of Dzhangar printers, whose predecessor was reportedly fired for agreeing to print Sovietskaya Kalmykia. Since then, the paper has had to print in neighboring regions, first in Volgograd, now in Stavropol.
Yudin said the paper's critical, often negative tone is a necessary response to the pro-Ilyumzhinov propaganda oozing from the rest of the media in the republic.
"We are forced to write these things because no one else does," Yudin said. "Obviously, it's all true; otherwise, they would have sued the pants off us long ago."
Besides the predictable stress of supporting an opposition candidate, the election campaign put an emotional strain on Yudin in some unexpected ways. Days before the poll, NTV television aired a film on Yudina's murder, the federal investigation ordered by then-President Boris Yeltsin and the convictions that many - including Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky - say stopped short of finding those who ordered the hit. The film, most of which had been shot in 1999 and 2000, included footage of Yudina's bruised naked body lying on a morgue table - it was the first time Yudin had seen his wife's corpse.
For Yudin, who is no more a journalist than a politician, it is his wife's memory that has kept him dedicated to the newspaper.
"It's tempting to look for funding, but it's frightening to think that whoever gives it will dictate his own rules," Yudin said, his brow furrowing.
"I just don't know what's better. ... Larisa believed the newspaper should always be in opposition to the powers that be, before Kirsan and after."
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Going to Court
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The City Prosecutor's Office has turned over the criminal case against Vice Governor, and former head of the city administration's Health Committee, Anatoly Kagan to the city courts, Interfax reported Thursday.
Kagan is charged with abuse of office resulting in severe consequences and with negligence. The charges were brought on March 1 this year for abuse of office and on July 25 this year for negligence.
The charges were based on the result of an investigation by the local Audit Chamber last year, which found that Kagan had signed an agreement in March 2000 with a local firm called Kovi-Farm to purchase insulin for 9.3 million rubles ($300,000 at the time). The Audit Chamber found that the price stipulated in the contract was 2.6 times the prevailing market rate. The financial damage brought to the budget was evaluated at around 6 million rubles ($209,132 at the time).
Kagan was dismissed from his post in March this year.
Stairwell Attack
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The president of the St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast Federation of Trade Unions, Harry Lysyuk, was attacked in the stairwell of his home on Wednesday evening.
The federation told Interfax on Thursday that Lysyuk was returing home after work when he was attacked by four unknown assailants.
Lysyuk received a concussion and numerous injuries, but was not robbed, Interfax reported.
Siberian Train Hits Bus
MOSCOW (AP) - One woman was killed and seven people were injured Thursday when a train collided with a bus on the outskirts of the Western Siberian city of Novosibirsk, emergency officials said.
The accident occurred at a rail crossing, and investigators were trying to determine who was at fault, said a duty officer in the regional branch of the Emergency Situations Ministry.
One of the injured, a 15-year-old boy who was riding the bus, was in grave condition, the duty officer said.
Prisons Emptying
MOSCOW (AP) - The number of inmates in Russia's prisons has dropped by more than 17 percent over the last two years, Justice Minister Yury Chaika said Thursday.
Chaika said the prison population had decreased from 1.1 million to 905,000, Interfax reported. He also said officials had cut in half the number of people in crowded pre-trial detention facilities.
Supreme Court chief judge Vyacheslav Lebedev said in a meeting with President Vladimir Putin on Thursday that 15,000 people on average are now arrested each month, in contrast to 23,000 in the first half of the year, Interfax reported.
OSCE Border Reports
MOSCOW (AP) - The commander of the Federal Border Guards on Thursday called for the closing of a European observer mission on the Russian-Georgian border, saying its calm reports gave the world a false impression of the situation there.
"I don't know what ends it serves, but they give information that assuages fears," Colonel General Konstantin Totsky said at a news conference.
Totsky said the mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe did not have enough personnel on the ground to understand the true situation.
TITLE: Baltika Puts a Kosher-Beer Plan on Tap
AUTHOR: By Alex Nicholson
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Baltika fans in the Holy Land could soon be quaffing kashrut-compliant beer, as Russia's No. 1 brewer prepares to go kosher.
Rabbi Berl Lazar, one of Russia's two chief rabbis, was given a personal, two-hour tour of Baltika's sprawling St. Petersburg plant by company president Taimuraz Bolloyev two weeks ago, and they discussed the certification of Baltika's many labels.
Lazar, who says that there is growing interest in kosher certification among domestic producers, was full of praise for Bolloyev.
"Though he himself is not Jewish, he has had a very close relationship with the Jewish community, and he took us in like best friends," Lazar said in a telephone interview Wednesday.
"He believes very strongly that the kosher certificate will upgrade production as well as the beer itself and the image of the company," he said.
Baltika spokesperson Alexei Kedrin said that an existing beer or beers would be certified and it would be aimed at foreign markets. Unsurprisingly, the main market for kosher beer would be Israel, which, with 15 percent of exports, is Baltika's second-largest export market after Latvia, Kedrin said.
"Israel is home to over a million Russian-speaking Israeli citizens, who believe very much in their own beer," Lazar said.
With Baltika's exports expected to grow to 10 percent of total output this year, the Israeli market will be worth about $11 million, according to Renaissance Capital beverages analyst Natalya Zagvozdina.
Rabbi Isroyal Zelman, a former head of the kashrut department at the main Moscow synagogue, said that certification makes sense for Israel's market. "People in the Holy Land are often very careful about choosing only kosher foods," he said. "Some will only eat products after their dear spouse has checked it 20 times."
Part hygiene, part call to holiness, the kashrut are dietary laws that determine exactly what can and cannot be consumed, as well as how food should be prepared.
Not that beer, or indeed vodka, offers many opportunities for violations of the kashrut laws. The basic ingredients for both are kosher, and only certain exotic brews with additives and flavorings raise kashrut issues.
"Many religious Jews drink beer and vodka knowing that they are more or less kosher, regardless of who makes them," said Alik Kalmyk, deputy head of the Russia-Israel Chamber of Commerce.
"Kosher certification is always a plus with the consumers, however," he said.
Only 5 percent to 7 percent of Jews in Russia keep kosher, partly because of a lack of kosher produce, said Rabbi Lazar. "Kosher production in Russia is something new. It only really began in the past year to year and a half."
Lazar has been pushing for kosher goods in Russia, and helped set up a company called Kosher Russia earlier this year to offer certificates. Kosher Russia is currently processing about 50 applications from local companies.
So far, applicants pay only for the hourly rate of the rabbis and kashrut experts involved.
"It won't be making any profits for a few years, and we may just keep it as a service to Russian companies," Lazar said. "But if there is a strong interest, this could become a source of income for the Jewish community."
The certification process that Baltika will have to follow is as such: A rabbi will check the plant and ingredients used in production and offer recommendations on what needs to be done to make the products kosher. Once the plant complies with the suggestions, it will be certified.
From then on a Mashgiach - a person trained in kashrut laws - is usually present whenever kosher production is rolling. "Only he can open the factory," Lazar said.
Baltika has not set a date for shipping its first kosher beer.
Coors was one of the first U.S. beers to go kosher in the early 1990s, and it says sales have jumped. Some smaller beer makers have always been kosher, such as the California-based Shmaltz. The brewery offers a line called Hebrew - The Chosen Beer with brands such as Genesis Ale and Messiah Stout. Messiah Stout is marketed as "The beer you've been waiting for."
TITLE: New Bank Laws Ease Controls on Currency
AUTHOR: By Victoria Lavrentieva
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The cabinet on Thursday gave the thumbs-up to a long-awaited plan to insure private bank deposits and gave preliminary approval to a new law liberalizing currency controls.
The law on deposit insurance will now hit the State Duma, and the cabinet expects it to be passed before April. No timing has been given for the currency law, which the cabinet will discuss again in two weeks.
Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref said that there will be a transition period of a year and nine months after the deposit law is passed for the Central Bank to decide which banks qualify for the insurance.
Banks would have to receive new licenses, after which they would pay up to 0.15 percent of average assets remaining on accounts each quarter to an insurance fund supervised by the Central Bank.
"We are planning to open the system for those banks that meet the requirements starting from Jan. 1, 2005," Prime-Tass quoted Gref as saying.
In 2007, the government is to stop providing a 100-percent state guarantee on deposits with Sberbank, which holds about 70 percent of the country's savings.
Before 2007, up to 95,000 rubles ($3,000) would be compensated to Sberbank depositors from the insurance fund, said Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Ulyukayev.
"The rest will be compensated by the government if the amount in the deposit is higher," Interfax reported him as saying.
After the law comes into effect, deposits of up to 20,000 rubles ($637) in member banks will be covered 100 percent, while deposits of between 20,000 and 120,000 rubles will be covered 75 percent.
The highest possible payout is 95,000 rubles.
"After 2007, we will be able to speak of equal competition among state-owned and private banks," Gref said.
Also Thursday, the cabinet gave preliminary approval to a bill that lowers the mandatory amount of hard-currency revenues that exporters must sell to the Central Bank from 50 percent to 30 percent, starting July 1.
Mandatory sale of a portion of exporters' currency revenues is to remain in place until 2007.
"After 2007, the government won't be able to influence inflow and outflow of capital into and out of the country," news agencies quoted Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Kudrin as saying after the cabinet meeting.
Kudrin, who is also finance minister, said that the bill would significantly liberalize companies' capital operations and the rights of Russian residents to open bank accounts abroad.
At the same time, the Central Bank would reserve the right until 2007 to introduce account regimes that would require keeping 20 percent of currency earnings on special accounts in case of macroeconomic instability.
"I am confident that we will not need to introduce such measures in the coming years and will lift the remaining restrictions in 2007," Kudrin said.
TITLE: IMF Warns of Excessive Dependance on Oil
AUTHOR: By Victoria Lavrentieva
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Three years after Russia received its last loan from the International Monetary Fund, the organization Thursday warned that the state remains too dependent on revenues from oil.
The IMF said in its first quarterly report on Russia that the government has, so far, been largely unsuccessful in steering the economy toward non-commodity sectors.
"We don't see any immediate problems in the economy, but the country remains highly dependant on the natural-resources sectors, primarily oil and gas," Poul Thomsen, head of the IMF's Moscow office, said at a news conference.
He added that "some of the reforms which are important for the investment climate still lie idle."
The IMF said in the report that the government needs to push forward reforms in the banking and finance sectors, restructure its natural monopolies, streamline civil services and liberalize trade in the context of entering the World Trade Organization.
The government cut off its lending program with the IMF in 1999, but the fund continued to issue annual economic reports. Like the World Bank, the IMF is launching a Russian-language Web site, www.imf.org/moscow to make the new quarterly reports public.
The World Bank has been operating a Russian Web site since August 2000 ,and issued its first quarterly report in October 2001.
"Russia's output now is mainly driven by consumption, which is supported by significant wage increases and investments in the oil sector," Thomsen said. He said that this trend could create problems for the economy in the long term.
High levels of consumption cannot be maintained without investments into producing sectors, Thomsen said. "So far, investments in non-commodity sectors remain very low or even show signs of declining," he said.
Furthermore, while high oil prices have helped increase wages and accumulate over $47 billion in hard-currency reserves, they have also created problems for the ruble and inflation.
The IMF said in its report that the inflation rate is expected to be 14 percent in 2002, well above most other former Soviet republics.
"Current exchange-rate policy, aimed at preventing the fast appreciation of the real ruble-exchange rate, makes it difficult to control monetary base and bring down inflation," Thomsen said.
The IMF said that the government's target of 10 percent to 12 percent inflation in the 2003 federal budget is not ambitious enough. The report also said that the Central Bank should make its policy more flexible.
TITLE: KamAZ Opens New Foreign Truck Plant
AUTHOR: By Simon Ostrovsky
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - KamAZ will open its third plant abroad this month at a former repair shop for military equipment in Kiev, the No. 1 truckmaker said Tuesday.
The plant has already begun producing a few batches of trucks, KamAZ spokesperson Fagim Viganshin said.
The plant, which is owned by the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, will eventually have a capacity of only 200 trucks per year, "but it's the principle of the matter that's important," he said.
"We're opening yet another foreign plant, and there is a possibility for expansion in the future," Viganshin said.
The trucks will be made under license from KamAZ, which already has one plant in Kazakhstan and another in Azerbaijan.
Analysts said that beginning production in Ukraine, even with such small numbers, was a good move for KamAZ.
"Ukraine knows how to protect its automakers, as it proved when it put tariffs up on AvtoVAZ cars this year," said Yelena Sakhnova, an analyst at United Financial Group.
No. 1 carmaker AvtoVAZ's sales fell 40 percent in Ukraine this summer when Kiev imposed a 32-percent import duty on some of the company's models. The duty has since been lifted.
"Having a production base in the country will protect KamAZ if the government ever raises tariffs on trucks," Sakhnova said.
"I really doubt that they started production there to save on labor costs with such a small capacity," she added.
Ovanes Oganisian, an analyst at Renaissance Capital, said that the plant was a good idea because KamAZ needs to strengthen its presence on the Ukrainian market.
KamAZ's board of directors also said Tuesday that they would meet Friday to decide whether to call an extraordinary-general meeting to vote on a new board of directors.
KamAZ's board is also expected to discuss participation in the Belarussian-Russian BelRusAvto consortium.
The consortium so far includes KamAZ and its main rival, Minsk Auto Plant, which have agreed to jointly develop diesel engines.
KamAZ is to launch production at its new diesel engine factory in December.
TITLE: Russia Close to Bottom in Two World Economic Rankings
AUTHOR: Simon Ostrovsky
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Russia is one of the most investor-unfriendly places in the world, according to a recent ranking.
The country took 135th place out of 156 on the Index of World Economic Freedom, compiled by the Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal, with an overall score of 3.7, remaining unchanged for three years.
The index, released Wednesday, scores countries in 10 different categories, including trade and monetary policy, government intervention in the economy, banking and property rights.
Russia ranked below Yemen and was only 11 places higher than North Korea. CIS members Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine ranked higher than Russia.
Estonia was the highest former Soviet state in the ranking, in sixth place, tying with the United States and Denmark and above both Britain and Australia. Hong Kong was first and Singapore was second.
Russia fared poorly on another ranking published earlier this week, the World Economic Forum's competitiveness study.
The country came in 64th place out of 80 in the growth-competitiveness index, which forecasts growth for the next five to eight years, and 58th out of 80 in the microeconomic-competitiveness index, which rates company development and business climate.
In the growth-competitiveness index, Russia came in below Argentina but above Vietnam. In the microeconomic index, Russia was below Botswana but above Jamaica.
The United States came in first place in both categories, while Finland was second in both. Taiwan was third for gross competitiveness, but 16th for microeconomic competitiveness.
Countries were ranked in categories such as macroeconomic stability, legislation and regulation and technological development using economic data and a survey of 4,800 corporate chiefs around the world.
Although Russia has performed well in economic terms, the study says, poor legislation and social institutions have held the country back.
Russia's macroeconomic indicators are high, and the country was in third place for the budget category and sixth in per capita income growth.
But Russia was in 75th place for property-rights protection and 74th for auditing standards. The country was in 73rd place for its banking system and business ethics.
Russia's position has not shifted greatly, having occupied 54th in 2000 and 63rd in 2001, with 22 new additions to the list over the past two years.
The country should not expect to get a higher rating in the future, said Yevgeny Gavrilenkov, chief economist at Troika Dialog.
"Slow reforms that were supposed to change the structure of the business environment were rated correctly; the little headway that was made is easily explained by the growing export of natural resources," Vedomosti quoted Gavrilenkov as saying.
Alexei Vorobyov, an analyst at Aton, was critical about such reports in general. "These reports are based on subjective information collected by means of survey from unverifiable sources, so they cannot be accurate," he said.
TITLE: Commission to Bail Out 10,000 Farms
AUTHOR: By Yevgenia Borisova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The federal commission established to bring about the financial renaissance of Russia's ailing agricultural sector unveiled sweeping new plans Wednesday for restructuring the debt of at least 10,000 of the country's insolvent farms.
"Our goal is that all these farms ... will start the restructuring next year," Agriculture Minister Alexei Gordeyev said after the meeting, the commission's first. "But the whole process will take up to 10 years or even longer."
The commission was set up to put into practice the law on the financial revival of agricultural producers, which was passed in the summer. There is a lot to revive - an estimated 45 percent of the country's farms are unprofitable, according to Agriculture Ministry statistics.
Gordeyev said that the commission approved the general outlines of the restructuring plan, which include a minimum of five years' debt vacation and four years for restructuring the main debt. Farms that successfully pay their debts under the proposed plan would have all penalties for missed payments waived. Such penalties often make up as much as half a farm's debt.
According to ministry figures, the amount of money owed by rural producers to suppliers, natural monopolies, various government budgets and nonbudgetary funds, such as the Pension Fund, reached 280 billion rubles ($8.8 billion) at the beginning of the year, of which 170 billion rubles was overdue. Most of the debts have been accumulated during the past eight years, Gordeyev said.
Agricultural sales totaled just 291 billion rubles last year.
"The worth of the issue, I believe, is not less than the amount now being paid out of the federal budget to support agricultural producers [25.5 billion rubles]," Gordeyev said. "For agricultural producers, this financial revival law is no less significant than the law on the budget for 2003 around which we have been having such strong debate."
All requirements for prospective applicants will be prepared by the Agriculture, Finance and Tax ministries and the Federal Bankruptcy Service and submitted to the government by Dec. 10, he said.
Farms taking part in the program will be divided into five different categories, he said without elaborating.
Under the law, only farms that have not been taken to court by their creditors would qualify for restructuring. They must submit their restructuring plan to the regional commission, which must include representatives of bodies to which a farm jointly owes at least 75 percent of its debt. The plan must be approved unanimously. If the farm does not fulfil the plan or if a creditor files for bankruptcy, the plan could be terminated.
The new restructuring law is believed by experts to be more friendly to producers than previous ones, which offered far shorter payment periods and lacked penalty waivers.
TITLE: Credit Suisse Takes Major Loss
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: GENEVA - Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse on Thursday reported the worst quarter in its 146-year history - a third-quarter loss of 2.1 billion francs ($1.4 billion).
Credit Suisse, the second-largest Swiss bank, blamed the performance primarily on slumping revenue, credit provisions and a significant loss in its insurance operations, but said that it expects "sound" profitability next year.
The result compares with a loss of 299 million francs (then $200 million) in the third quarter a year earlier. The bank warned that it expects a loss for the full year, against a profit of 1.59 billion francs (then $951 million) a year earlier.
The results were in line with analysts' predictions. Credit Suisse shares were up 6.8 percent at 28.8 francs ($19.80) by mid-morning local time on Thursday on the Zurich exchange.
On Tuesday, Credit Suisse's main rival, Switzerland's largest bank, UBS, reported a third-quarter profit of 942 million Swiss francs ($654 million), up from 903 million francs ($627 million) in the same period last year. UBS said that the positive results were due to its firm grip on costs and its relative freedom from bad loans.
Credit Suisse said 1.4 billion francs ($937 million) of its third-quarter loss were caused by low investment income in its insurance business, which includes the Winterthur insurance company.
Earlier this year, Winterthur's balance sheet had to be propped up with a capital injection of 1.7 billion francs (then $1.14 billion).
The group said that it anticipates a recovery in Winterthur results in the fourth quarter because the impact of lower equity valuations on the insurer's investment portfolio should decrease "significantly."
Losses at the group's U.S.-based Credit Suisse First Boston investment-banking unit were 426 million francs ($285 million), the company said.
But it said measures to slash costs - which included 2,300 job cuts - were working at CSFB.
In the first nine months of 2002, CSFB reduced expenses by $2.4 billion, or one quarter.
Credit Suisse said that the private banking and Swiss corporate and retail banking units together posted a profit of 304 million francs ($203 million).
"Credit Suisse Group's third quarter results were clearly unsatisfactory," incoming joint chief executives Oswald Gruebel and John Mack said in a joint statement. "While the Group's core businesses remain strong, our financial performance must improve."
TITLE: Kaliningrad: A New Start
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Frolov
TEXT: AT their latest summit in Brussels, Russia and the EU clinched a landmark deal on transit to and from Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave soon to be surrounded by the territory of EU member states. That deal will have a strong positive impact on the future of Russia-EU relations and will usher in a new era of close cooperation on some very sensitive issues.
Just four months ago, Russia-EU talks on the subject were at an impasse, and could have been fittingly described by Leslie Nielsen's famous retort from the Hollywood movie "Airplane" to the question "Surely, you can't be serious?" "I am serious, and stop calling me Shirley!" Few people believed a solution could be found.
President Vladimir Putin was criticized in Europe for elevating the Kaliningrad issue, a "second-tier problem" in the words of one prominent German lawmaker, to the forefront of the Russia-EU political agenda. Some members of the Moscow political elite, safely in possession of multiple-entry Schengen visas, were also quick to blame Putin for "orchestrating an artificial crisis" with Europe. They were proved wrong.
Putin's healthy political instincts allowed him to see clearly that,when more than 1.5 million Russian citizens, who annually travel between Kaliningrad and the rest of Russia, face serious, sometimes insurmountable, difficulties in traveling to another part of their own country, that country has a problem. He stood up for the interests of his compatriots against heavy political odds.
The agreement on Kaliningrad is a victory for pragmatism, common sense and long-term thinking. It is a win-win for both sides. There have been no concessions on the core interests of Russia, the EU or candidate countries.
Russia demonstrated the ability to heed crucial EU concerns with regard to maintaining effective controls over the Union's external borders and demonstrated readiness to work closely with the Europeans on combating trans-border crime and illegal migration.
The EU, under the guidelines of the Seville summit, has been able to find sufficient flexibility within the Schengen acquis to accommodate the unique situation of Kaliningrad, where transit through future EU territory will occur from one part of a third country to another part of the same country, and where the imposition of a strict visa regime could be painfully disruptive.
Russia and Lithuania worked hard not to upset their excellent bilateral relationship while the Kaliningrad issue was being resolved.
The solution on Kaliningrad will not be a throwback to the past. There will be no "transit corridors," "sealed trains" or Berlin-style "airlifts." It is oriented toward the future and offers the prospect of a much closer Russia-EU relationship.
The deal envisages a carefully calibrated sequence of steps, each taking us further toward a gradual lifting of all visa requirements between Russia and the EU.
In the short-term, until July 1, 2003, Lithuania will be able to apply its national regulations for border controls in such a flexible manner so as not to disrupt the existing pattern of passenger transit by rail. People traveling by car will have to obtain Lithuanian visas, as has been the case since 1995.
For the mid-term, starting July 1, 2003, the EU, having made the necessary adjustments to its legislation, will introduce a Facilitated Transit Document scheme, which will apply to all forms of land transit of Russian citizens to and from Kaliningrad.
There will be two types of FTDs. One will be a long-term, multiple-use document valid for frequent trips by car, bus and train. It will be issued at Lithuanian consulates, but through a considerably less stringent procedure than regular visas.
The second one - a Facilitated Rail Travel Document - will be available for those Russian citizens who usually make one round-trip a year by train, the most affordable means of transportation between Kaliningrad and Russia that currently exists.
This will not be a visa. It will be issued by Lithuanian authorities at the border on the basis of passport information provided in advance by the Russian authorities. Holders of FRTDs will not be able to get off the train during transit. Russian citizens, particularly those living in other regions of Russia, will not have to make costly trips to Lithuanian consulates prior to boarding a train to Kaliningrad.
Since both documents will be available only to Russian citizens, more stringent passport controls will be introduced by Russia and Lithuania at the border to make sure no unauthorized persons enter Lithuanian territory. Naturally, Lithuania will retain its sovereign right to refuse entry to those persons whom it does not want to see on its territory, as is the case today.
For the long-term perspective, a visa-free, high-speed transit train option will be seriously explored through a special feasibility study to be launched in 2003 and completed as soon as possible. Such a train will essentially satisfy all of Russia's needs for passenger transit to and from Kaliningrad, but the decision on this option will have to await Lithuania's accession to the EU.
And finally, Russia and the EU have agreed to work toward the goal of a general mutual visa-free regime for all their citizens. By agreeing on this long-term vision, the EU leaders strongly stated their conviction that Russia is an integral part of Europe.
This agreement has become possible because Russian and EU leaders have been able to take a long-term view and to think in strategic terms. Solving the visa problem will help intensify Russia-EU cooperation on addressing the region's social and economic issues. It will deepen cooperation between Russia and the EU in law enforcement, border management, customs, transportation and environmental protection.
It's a new start.
Vladimir Frolov is a deputy staff director of the foreign affairs committee of the State Duma. The views expressed are the author's own.
TITLE: Siege Sends A Message To Investors
TEXT: HUNDREDS of U.S. and Russian political and business types were set to gather at Harvard University last Thursday for the latest on the annual merry-go-round of conferences devoted to investing in Russia.
One of the keynote speakers was German Gref, the economic development and trade minister who, if last month's U.S.-Russia Business Council conference in Washington was any guide, was expected to list the government's achievements and promise that everything is being done to make Russia a good place to do business. Gref has a right to be proud, and there's no reason to doubt that he believes what he says, but investors need look no further than the government's handling of last month's hostage crisis to see some of the obstacles they still face.
The government's approach to freeing the roughly 800 people held hostage at gunpoint in a Moscow theater says far more about its ability to function in a coordinated manner and its commitment to accountable, open government, than all the talk about the rule of law and the vertical structure of power.
The day the siege was ended, we saw the successful execution of a plan to gas the theater and send in FSB special forces to eliminate the Chechen hostage-takers. But then we watched in agony as limp hostages were carried out of the theater and dumped in buses and ambulances. Dozens were dead by the time they reached city hospitals.
Why, we wondered, were there so few medical personnel on the scene and why were doctors so unprepared? Why were they not told what gas was used?
As Sergei Parkhomenko, the editor of Yezhenedelny Zhurnal, spelled out in last week's magazine, the job of caring for the freed hostages had been left to Moscow city authorities, but they were never briefed, even in the final hours, on the kind of operation for which they were to be ready.
Moscow city officials said they prepared for several possible outcomes, from a bloody firefight with many wounded, to an explosion destroying the theater and burying hundreds under the debris, but they learned about the gassing operation only after the fact.
This all may seem to have little bearing on how business is done, but investors should take note, because an absence of coordination between government agencies and between federal and local authorities, ambiguity regarding agencies' roles and responsibilities, and a low level of accountability pervade the government as a whole.
It is this, the importance of open government and administrative reform, that investors should have impressed upon Gref and Co. in Boston and should impress on them here at home.
TITLE: Putin Stands Defiant - and Yet Deferent
AUTHOR: By Pavel Felgenhauer
TEXT: AFTER many months of protests, Russia approved a British-American UN Security Council resolution that will apparently soon serve as legal backing for a U.S.-led military intervention to oust Saddam Hussein. Other long-time critics of U.S. plans for regime change in Iraq - France, China and Syria - also voted yes. But, of all those countries, Russia has most to lose if an American viceroy replaces Hussein in Baghdad.
Syria is an Arab country that has been one of Hussein's most bitter enemies, and the fall of Hussein and the disintegration of his regime would surely be applauded in Damascus.
France and China have profited in recent years, by selling Iraqi oil on contracts granted by Hussein. But, if the fall of Hussein and the opening of Iraq triggers a serious fall in oil prices, France and China may benefit as their oil import bills shrink.
Russia will, surely, lose either way. It will no longer have Hussein's oil-export contracts, while low oil prices will wreck its budget. Still, unlike the French, the Russians did not seriously participate in the wrangling in the UN to try to defend their vital national interests. It seems Iraq is fully off the Kremlin radar screen, while Chechnya and the aftermath of the Moscow hostage-taking fully absorb President Vladimir Putin's attention.
Today, Russia somewhat resembles 1950s France - a troubled country, its great-country status shattered and sinking deeper into oblivion as it is engaged in unwinnable colonial quagmire wars.
Meanwhile, Russia is losing what influence it had in the Middle East. Moreover, this week Putin performed a humiliating climb-down on Kaliningrad, accepting the right of the EU to issue Russian citizens so-called "simplified travel documents"- visas in all but name.
Next week, in Prague, a NATO summit will announce a new wave of alliance expansion. All three former Soviet Baltic republics - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - will join.
Putin seems to have no time or strength left to counter the "NATO threat," though all in Moscow know this has been nonexistent since the end of the Cold War. The Chechen rebels have demonstrated their ability to send large, heavily armed attack units into the center of Moscow, and next time they may take over not a theater but, say, the Kurchatov nuclear institute - also not far from the Kremlin. It's clear that the Kremlin is facing a grave choice - to begin negotiations with rebels and eventually succumb, accepting Chechen independence, or to face new mega-terrorist attacks on nuclear and other strategically important soft points.
This week, in Brussels at the Russia-EU summit, Putin stressed that rebels are planning to "kill all non-Muslims" and that Russia and the West should act together to prevent "big trouble."
Putin's call for a joint crusade merely upset politically correct European leaders who, as a German diplomat told me, "agreed to disagree" on Chechnya. The Russians in turn refused to sign a prepared memorandum in Brussels. This summit that had been planned to enhance ties with Moscow ended with both sides even more distrustful than ever: Europeans are again uncertain - maybe Putin is after all an Asian despot bent on violence? - while in the Kremlin, many suspect the West is aiding the Chechens, because it wishes to disintegrate Russia.
Pavel Felgenhauer is an independent defense analyst.
TITLE: st. petersburg discovers genoa
AUTHOR: by Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: What associations does the word "Genoa" conjure up? The two most likely answers are probably Christopher Columbus, who "discovered" America, and virtuoso violinist Niccolo Paganini. Now, however, St. Petersburgers have a good opportunity to learn more about the city in northwest Italy and, in particular, about its art. All it takes is a visit to the State Hermitage Museum.
"Genoese Art: Paintings and Drawings from the State Hermitage Museum and Genoese Museums" is the name of a new exhibition that opened this week and is slated to run through Jan. 20 next year. The exhibition focuses on works from the period from the 16th century to the 18th century, and comprises 25 pieces from Genoese collections, plus another 15 paintings from the Hermitage.
The exhibition is actually a response to a display of 29 works from the Hermitage that was shown in Genoa's Palazzo Ducale from March through July this year. The current exhibition at the Hermitage is supported by Genoa's Palazzo Ducale, Regional Foundation Christopher Columbus, Palazzo Bianco and Palazzo Rosso. The project is also being sponsored by the Russian Embassy in Italy and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
According to Vladimir Matveyev, the Hermitage's deputy director, the exhibition is the largest display of Genoese paintings and graphic works ever shown at the museum.
"Genoa was one of the leading arts centers during the Renaissance, and the city is still famous for its Renaissance palaces, churches and monasteries," said Alberto Gio, the deputy mayor of Genoa, before the exhibition opening on Tuesday. "Some of the engravings depict splendid panoramic views of and over Genoa, and it is possible to form an impression of the city."
Gio also pointed out venerable ties that exist between Genoa and St. Petersburg, noting that the connection first emerged back in 1723, when Italian ambassadors were introduced to Peter the Great.
During the first half of the 18th century, Genoa became a flourishing artistic center, home to noted artists such as Bernardo Strozzi, Gioachino Assereto, Domenico Fiasella, Gregorio de Ferrari, Luca Cambiasco, Giovanni Battista Paggi and Alessandro Magnasco.
"Over the course of its 1,000-year history, Genoa has been an important trading and merchandise center and a key seaport, but the cultural discourse in our city has been just as intensive," said Anna Castellano, the head of the Genoese commission "Genoa - Cultural Capital of Europe 2004."
According to Tatyana Bushmina, one of the exhibition's curators from the Russian side of the partnership, the works from Italian galleries were selected in order to complement the Hermitage collection, while providing an overall impression of the whole Genoese artistic school. "For example, we chose early works by Bernardo Strozzi, to be displayed alongside later works by the artist that we already have at the museum," Bushmina said.
In addition, the curators are aiming to introduce new names to Russian audiences. The Hermitage's collection of Genoese art is rather modest, numbering a mere 30 items, largely because none of the Winter Palace's former inhabitants - the Russian imperial family - ever collected paintings and drawings specifically by Genoese artists.
According to Bushmina, all of the works that came were originally part of bigger collections of Italian art. "Some paintings are taken from Count Stroganov's collection, which was handed over to the Hermitage in 1917," Bushmina explained, referring to the appropriation by the Bolsheviks of art from formerly private collections. Additionally, she said, "some works were purchased by Catherine the Great."
Clario di Fabio, the director of the Palazzo Bianco museum in Genoa, sounded very enthusiastic on Tuesday about the collaboration with the Hermitage. "I have to admit that Genoa's museums envy their counterpart in the Hermitage," he said. "Alessandro Magnasco's 'Society in Albaro Gardens' is a very precious work, which almost never leaves our museum, but we are very happy to see the painting in St. Petersburg."
Like many other representatives of the Genoese school, Magnasco spent many years working in other artistic centers, namely Florence and Milan, but then returned to his alma mater. "Society in Albaro Gardens" was one of the last works that this fabulous artist completed.
Links: www.hermitagemuseum.org
TITLE: disco's back, in the u.s.s.r.
AUTHOR: by Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Although held in the middle of the working week, the Wednesday-night parties at popular bunker-located club Griboyedov have been a huge hit, and draw a larger crowd than Friday nights. The reason is DJ Redisco and his "U.S.S.R. Disco" sets, which mix classic disco with old Soviet tunes from the 1960s and 1970s, which are currently enjoying a revival.
DJ Redisco - real name Denis Medvedyev - found fame as a member of Dva Samaliota, the ska-influenced band that manages the artistic side of Griboyedov.
Medvedyev took his pseudonym - which sounds like the Russian word rediska ("radish") as well as a fusion of "retro" and "disco" - from his childhood. "Kids mocked me by chanting 'Deniska rediska;' it hurt a lot," he says.
His interest in spinning vinyls stems from his pre-Griboyedov days in the mid-1990s, when Dva Samaliota ran the music program at now-defunct techno club Nora.
"My responsibility was booking DJs, and I was curious to try it myself," he says. "I found out that it's not technically difficult, and it allows me to do something interesting."
"It used to be a hobby, but then I got a taste for it, and now it's become my main job," says Medvedyev, who performed seven times over the past two weeks. "I earn a substantial portion of my income by spinning records."
Using his collection of old Soviet records, Medvedyev supplied grooves to "Diskomport," the Dva Samaliota-hosted show on short-lived techno radio station PORT FM in 1997.
"I wanted to use non-specialist vinyls - not techno, but other material, although at first, they played anything in clubs, so there is some tradition," he says. "Then I discovered that you can create a mood and influence the public, as with anything creative."
Medvedyev has developed some different techniques compared to techno DJs. "First, I deal with songs - it's very important that people don't lose the beat between songs," he says. "But I incorporate some scratching to show that I also use turntables."
Searching for rare old records in second-hand shops and through classified ads is exciting, according to Medvedyev, who has amassed a huge collection of Soviet pop music. "It's like mushrooming, or fishing - you never know what you'll find," he says.
To preserve his vinyl - which starts to hiss noticeably after 12 months of intensive use at parties - Medvedyev makes back-up copies on CD, and only uses high-quality needles for playing in clubs. However, digital recordings can't compete with the warm sound of vinyl at parties.
"I tried using CDs or minidiscs, but it wasn't right," he says. "First, the sound of vinyl has a charm, even if it hisses, and you can feel the record with your hands, unlike a CD, where there's no personal contact. It has a certain magic."
Like any cool Soviet teenager, Medvedyev sneered at Soviet pop, preferring underground rock and Western New Wave, but time has changed his mind.
"At first, it sounded like a kitsch joke but, as time passed, it turns out to have a lot of positive energy. Times have changed; it's become trendy," he says. "[Soviet pop] has a positive vibe that you can't find in rock. It has soul and heart. It seemed a bit cheesy, but the political undercurrents have vanished. It presses different buttons in a person from contemporary styles. People act differently - they sing along, dance traditional dances. There's a certain mission to it."
Medvedyev has an original theory about Soviet pop. "I was told that, since the 'sexual revolution' was forbidden in the Soviet Union, the energy of the sexual chakra, swadhistana, was manifested in the heart chakra, anaharta, so it has a higher vibe than Western music from the same time. It was like a sublimation of sexual energy into a higher level."
While Griboyedov crowds mainly consist of trendy young people, Medvedyev's sets suit just about any audience. Recently, at a disco in the Leningrad Oblast village of Volosovo, around 100 people over 30 were happy dancing to music from their youth.
Medvedyev has also been invited abroad. "They probably think it has some cultural value," he says.
The current interest in Soviet pop has become a trend, says Medvedyev, who recently met a DJ from Omsk, Western Siberia, who has a similar repertoire. "This area of Soviet aesthetics - playing guitar and singing in the courtyard, sitting on benches and drinking cheap wine - is being reborn all over the country," he says.
Medvedyev quit Dva Samaliota, with which he played saxophone and, later, keyboards, in March. One reason was his re-evaluation of pop music.
"It seemed like something profound and serious but, later, it became clear that there are strong entertainment and utility aspects to it," he says. "I wanted a break. Now, I am trying to work out what I want to do with music."
DJing, he says, "doesn't pretend to be meaningful. It's clearly all about dancing."
DJ Redisco plays Griboyedov on Wednesday and PAR.spb on Thursday.
TITLE: chernov's choice
TEXT: Dva Samaliota will dedicate a plaque to the memory of the late underground poet Oleg Grigoryev on Friday. The local ska-influenced band played a fundraising concert at a Moscow club in June and commissioned artist Oleg Kotelnikov, a friend of Grigoryev's, to create the plaque.
Grigoryev set a trend in contemporary urban folklore known as "sadistic verse" with an early poem about the hanged "electrician Petrov" that spawned a wave of anonymous rhymed black humor. However, his legacy is bigger than that poem, as he left a large body of work, both funny and tragic. Semi-forbidden during the Soviet era, he finally got some official recognition just before his death in April 1992.
Grigoryev's fans include luminaries such as local music legend Boris Grebenshchikov. "I only saw him once, but he evoked the warmest feeling in me," said Grebenshchikov. "I admire [his poetry], because he is one of the few genuine poets."
The ceremony will take place at the Free Arts Foundation at Pushkinskaya 10 at 3 p.m.
Rapper Gonzales comes to St. Petersburg - a few months after techno-punk diva Peaches, with whom he recorded and performed, discovered the city. Like Peaches, Gonzales was born in Canada, but lives in Berlin and puts out his records on German electronica label Kitty-Yo.
Also like Peaches, Gonzales, whose real name is Jason Beck, had little success at home and found more grateful audiences in Europe, making charts there with "Let's Groove Again" in 2000.
"I'm living as a wandering Jewish MC in new Berlin. It's the hardest place to be for who I am," he said to Motion publication. "That's a big part of it. Canada doesn't have any culture. It's an alienated place. You can look at that as really positive. I could create my own thought. And now I'm a wandering Jew around Europe, finding different crews and stuff. I'm not hanging out with the same people I was 5 years ago, or 12 years ago."
His albums include "Gonzales ueber alles" (2000) and "Presidential Suites" (2002).
Gonzales will appear at Red Club on Saturday, some time after midnight.
Local Afro-Carribean band Markscheider Kunst will headline a reggae and ska event at PORT Club on Sunday. Called "Reggae-Ska Navodneniye," or "Reggae-Ska Flood," the affair is part of a city administration-backed series as part of St. Petersburg's forthcoming 300th-anniversary celebrations. It will feature around seven bands - although none of them are as good as Kunst - video screenings of some international acts, and DJs working in the aforementioned styles. Note that the event officially starts at the unlikely time of 5 p.m.
Later this month, Kunst will take part in the sixth-anniversary concert at Moloko. According to the band's frontman, Sergei Yefremenko, the event, also featuring Tequilajazzz, will - intriguingly - be called "Tequila Kunst Markscheider Jazzz" (Moloko, Nov. 29).
Other local joys over this weekend include Volkovtrio and Leonid Fyodorov of Auktsyon. Although the two have collaborated quite a lot over the past few years, this time they will perform separately. The instrumental band, which blends jazz and rock in a unique way, will appear at Fish Fabrique on Friday, while Fyodorov will play solo at Orlandina on Saturday.
--by Sergey Chernov
TITLE: coming soon, to a street near you
AUTHOR: by Tobin Auber
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Last week's trip to the high-class sushi restaurant Shyolk ("Silk") left our faultless reputation for small-minded, penny-pinching meanness in tatters. Yes, the food was great, but the sweet-and-sour experience of paying over four bucks for a soup (!) was harrowing. The poor reviewer that paid $20.50 for a portion of eel and rice was a broken man, waking up in the dead of night, bathed in cold sweat, as he recalled with horror that he'd even left a tip.
Action was needed. We had to review an eatery in keeping with our usual, miserably low budgetary standards. If we couldn't eat out for under 100 rubles ($3.15) a head, we would have to admit that we were no longer up to the task.
Our ears pricked up, therefore, when we heard that a new (and very cheap) fast-food chain had appeared on the scene. Called "Blin!Donalt's," and aimed at cornering the local niche of other fast-food joints (no prizes for guessing which one), it promises "astonishingly low prices." A promise guaranteed to whet our appetites.
A drawback, however, was its location on Sveltanovsky Pr., over a dozen kilometers to the north of the city's center. But it was just too appetizing - we even heard a vicious rumor that they do borshch with smetana for 10 rubles.
In the interests of economy, our scout went out there on foot, and the report was more than encouraging. The borshch really did cost 10 rubles, and the solyanka was a piffling 12. It's news like this that has us studying bus-route maps, going without food for several days as a warm-up, and trying to organize discounts on the metro for a group outing.
The first thing that strikes you on arriving at Blin!Donalt's is the scale of the undertaking. Three vast rooms designed to cater for 10,000 diners a day, games for the kids and a beer hall for the bigger kids; uniforms, peaked caps, packaging and decoration in gaudy reds and yellow; leaflets, advertising materials, special offers ... If first results are anything to go by, the chain is already a hit - on the night we were there, the place was heaving with other people in search of a 12-ruble portion of pelmeni. The Blin!Donalt's news sheet distributed at the restaurant promises that a Blin!Donalt's will be opened in every neighborhood in the city by the end of 2003, and that the chain's food-production facilities can already cater for a total of 30 restaurants.
The Russian take on fast food, however, may take some getting used to. The menu is broader than most burger joints, with other subtle differences to be noted by the careful observer. At an average Western chain in St. Petersburg, your server usually greets you with a smile (albeit through gritted teeth) and has your order for you on a tray quickly. Here, you're greeted with a blend of bemusement and confused indifference. A tip Blin!Donalt's could take from another major fast-food chain is to take the order in full and then put it together, rather than going on a five-minute excursion every time a dish is ordered.
I started with the solyanka, which was tasty and generous, if not overly hot. The sea salmon in aspic starter (18 rubles) also hit the mark, as was the mors fruit drink (4 rubles).
The real disappointments, however, were the bliny. The fillings were fresh and well-prepared, but the pancakes themselves were an unmitigated disaster, with the consistency and freshness of old wallpaper. Getting to the meat (14 rubles), mushrooms (16 rubles) or cabbage (12 rubles) within involved slicing through this envelope, putting the plastic cutlery through a grueling test. The restaurant hasn't been open for long, but the cement mixer used to make these things really needs some fine-tuning.
The "fish nuggets" (21 rubles), on the other hand, were immensely filling in crunchy breadcrumbs, and the fries were hot, fresh and perhaps better than those at another major fast-food chain, even if the portions were not overly generous. For dessert, the cranberry dumplings (12 rubles) would fill the gaps in the most demanding of appetites, although we suspect that Mr. Blin!Donalt had been at work with the cement mixer again.
Judging by the scale of the undertaking alone, it looks as though Blin!Donalt's is here to stay. There is, however, room for improvement - although feeding three people for a grand total of 135 rubles, in our books, is a flying start.
Blin!Donalt's. 60 Svetlanovsky Pr. Open 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Menu in Russian only. No credit cards accepted (surprise). Dinner for three: 135 rubles ($4.25).
TITLE: wandering opera finds a home
AUTHOR: by Larisa Doctorow
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: As the new theater season got underway in October, one company was looking forward to moving into a permanent home.
The St. Petersburg Opera, which opened its 16th season last month, has, at long last, found a building of its own, at 33 Galernaya Ulitsa. Renovation work is proceeding apace, and the new stage will host its first performances in early May 2003.
The building, a former mansion belonging to Baron von Dervis, has long been a fixture on the local arts scene. At the end of the 19th century, Vsevolod Meyerhold presented his studio productions there and, later, when the mansion was redesignated a concert hall, artists such as Fyodor Chaliapin and Leonid Sobinov graced its stage.
Since then, the classic building has preserved its beautiful interiors. Especially noteworthy are the Morisco drawing room, Crimson and Maple reception rooms and its Winter Garden.
While waiting for completion of the renovations, the troupe performs in various venues, including the Yusupov Palace, the Hermitage Theater, and Dom Kochnevoi at 41 Naberezhnaya Reki Fontanki.
The St. Petersburg Opera, which today numbers 40 singers and 40 musicians, was founded in 1987 by Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory graduate and former Mariinsky Theater stage director Yury Alexandrov as an opera laboratory, where ideas could be tested before being taken to a large, established venue. However, years of rapid growth have brought the company to the point where, today, it is a full-scale company in its own right.
The theater now has a repertoire of 15 productions, by both Russian and Western composers. Some works have been brought out of obscurity and introduced to the city's audiences for the first time; others are brushed-up, refreshed versions of established classics.
While the theater's playbills feature well-loved operas such as Tchaikovsky's "Yevgeny Onegin" and Mussorgsky's "Boris Godunov," the company's main strength lies in rare, or forgotten, works, such as Donizetti's "Rita" or "The Bell." Domenico Cimarosa, an Italian composer who worked in St. Petersburg in the 18th century, is also featured, with "The Secret Marriage." Another discovery has been "The Falcon," by 18th-century Ukrainian composer Dmitry Bortnyansky.
For the city's tercentenary celebrations next year, the theater is set to stage the modern-day world premiere of Donizetti's opera "Peter the First." The work was thought to be lost after a few performances following its premiere in Venice in 1819 but, after three years of research, Alexandrov succeeded in tracking down material. The score has been reconstructed, and preliminary work for the premiere has already begun.
Since the company's inception, Alexandrov has retained complete control, staging all the productions himself, and personally selecting both soloists and musicians. Some soloists have gone on to build major operatic careers, including Vladimir Galuzin, now an international star and recognized as a leading interpreter of the title role in Verdi's "Otello," and Mariinsky soloists Edem Umerov, Yevgeny Ulanov and Sergey Dreid.
The theater is now known as one of the most innovative in Russia, and is often invited to perform at festivals both at home and abroad, including trips to Switzerland, Finland and Greece - as well as touring the United States every year.
Although Alexandrov is now firmly a part of the opera establishment, he continues to use the St. Petersburg Opera to put on new, bold stagings, which are often controversial, even shocking. Examples include Olga Larina in "Yevgeny Onegin" swinging above the stage in a male costume; the boyars in "Boris Godunov" sitting semi-naked in a banya; and Lisa, in Tchaikovsky's "The Queen of Spades," pulling a sled across the frozen Neva in blockade-era Leningrad. This willingness to experiment garnered the company a Golden Mask, Russia's top theatrical honor, in 1998, for "The Ballad of the Life and Death of Cornet Kristof Rilke."
In a recent short stay in the city - between staging Mozart's "Don Giovanni" in Vilnius, Lithuania and leaving to stage Verdi's "La Traviata" in Kazakhstan - Alexandrov spoke with The St. Petersburg Times.
q:Is it accurate to say that you place staging on par with music when you introduce a new opera production?
a:Music is the foundation of my staging. I try to express my thoughts, my attitude towards the musical material. We have produced several shows where this is particularly obvious, for example, "The Queen of Spades," which reflects the disappearing 20th century. Every scene in the opera is set in a different time.
I refuse just to illustrate a musical text. Art can be - and should be - different. The public should be exposed to different things.
q:What do you say to people who think you depart too much from Tchaikovsky's original?
a:What I have departed from is the traditional positive, romantic character. I produced a piece about a cheat, a boor, an impostor - one of those who proliferated in the 20th century. Why not talk about it?
q:You trained in the traditions of Stanislavsky. Have you now abandoned his methods?
a:No. I think the stage director is like a surgeon, who has to perform routine operations, as well as rare ones, depending upon the theater, upon the place. If I stage "The Queen of Spades" in the [United] States, I do a classic version, because people there are not familiar with our problems and my task is to make them clear. But, if I stage it in St Petersburg, where there are at present three traditional "Queens," then I have the right to express myself, because I think our public knows the opera.
q:In your staging of "The Marriage of Figaro," Figaro climbs on to the countess's bed with his boots on. Could such a thing ever happen? Don't you ignore the social frames of the characters' behavior?
a:The opera depicts a crazy world. The approaching revolution breaks all social norms. Many people pass by the countess's bed, including a procession of ordinary people carrying a revolutionary flag.
q:Do you consider the St. Petersburg Opera to be a repertory or a stagione [seasonal] theater?
a:Repertory, because, for me, the troupe is important. If I stage something in my theater, it is not to achieve my own ambitions, but to raise the singers' vocal and psychological qualities. I can stage any given production somewhere else if need be.
q:What will change when you move to your own building?
a:A lot. Not having your own theater means that other places dictate how and what to do. One day you perform in the Yusupov Palace on a 5-meter-wide stage and, the next day, at the Alexandriinsky Theater, where the stage is 20 meters wide. I have to adjust all the time.
Now we can work on the spiritual impact and the content of our shows. Projects will be thought through very seriously, with special attention given to vocal needs.
q:Why did you become interested in "Peter the First"?
a:Because I adore Donizetti. He was the first composer whose operas I produced on a big stage. When, by chance, I heard that he had written an opera called "Peter the First," I wanted to see it. And, when I was told that was not possible because the scores were lost, my ardor doubled. For three years, I was looking for it and now I have the score in my hands. It has nice ensembles, resembling music from "L'elisir d'amore."
q:Will you show it in Italy?
a:Yes. The company will have an extended tour to Italy, and will perform in many cities: Milan, Turin, Bergamo and others. But it will be difficult - I have to stage [Puccini's] "Turandot" for the Arena di Verona at the same time.
q:Which of your productions do you like most?
a:Every work has sense to it. I liked [Stravinsky's] "Mavra" at the Mariinsky; I liked to work on "The Marriage of Figaro" there. You know, after you have staged over 120 shows, it is hard to choose one. There are now seven of my productions in the repertoire of the Mariinsky. They are all different. They were born under different circumstances, but each one has something special.
Now, I want to take more time staging new shows, to reflect, to prepare before I actually begin. For example, I've recently staged "Don Giovanni" twice, first in Verona and then in Vilnius, and I was surprised to see how they differ. Life goes on; you reflect that in your productions. But I don't believe in eternal, everlasting shows. They have to die, naturally.
q:Are there any Western stage directors whom you admire?
a:What I see now in Western theaters lacks ideas. In Moscow, I saw "Turandot" staged by Francesca Zambello. I liked it, because at least it has ideas. I was curious to see it now, because this summer I am doing "Turandot" in the Arena di Verona. I won't do anything exotic. I know the audience there well, and don't want to shock people.
But I have some ideas that I will try to implement there. The Italians will be watching what I am doing very attentively, because I am the first Russian to put on an Italian opera there. The challenge is even greater, given the fact that the previous staging was done by Francesco Zefferelli.
TITLE: goodnight, mr. tom
AUTHOR: by Kenneth Turan
PUBLISHER: The Los Angeles Times
TEXT: Half a century ago, James Stewart, at that point the most beloved of Hollywood leading men, decided it was time for something completely different.
In a series of bitter, disturbing, early-1950s westerns directed by Anthony Mann - "Winchester '73," "The Naked Spur" and "The Man From Laramie" - Stewart began playing ruthless loners bent on revenge, men capable of rages so terrifying that to experience them is to forget that the sentimental Stewart of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" (1939) and "It's a Wonderful Life" (1946) ever existed.
Stewart's chilling about-face inevitably comes to mind when watching his modern equivalent, Tom Hanks, identically turn himself inside-out (or is it outside-in?) in director Sam Mendes' brooding, powerful, exquisitely made "Road to Perdition," playing a Depression-era gangland executioner so skilled and implacable he's known as the Angel of Death. Hanks' Michael Sullivan is a man of few words and less inflection, capable of freezing his rivals with hard looks from impenetrable eyes as well as disconcerting his two young sons with the weight and solemnity of his presence.
It is a lean and deadly performance, one of Hanks' best, and because it is free of mannerisms and has the feeling of coming from an unexpectedly dark and deep place, it makes Sullivan's savage pursuit of a bloody revenge particularly scary and convincing.
It is also unnerving because Hanks remains Hanks, a person with whom we instinctively connect, no matter how bloody his trade.
And so, although his milieu is violent, Sullivan's story is finally an emotional and personal one.
It's the story of the unavoidably difficult relationship between fathers and sons, both biological and surrogate, a touchy connection a character sums up by insisting, "It's a natural law: Sons are put on this earth to trouble their fathers."
Mendes, in only his second feature (following 1999's Oscar-winning "American Beauty"), tells this surprisingly resonant story with the potent, unrelenting fatalism of a previously unknown Greek myth.
This is classic albeit somber filmmaking, restrained and all of a piece, by a director who believes film can tell adult stories in an adult manner, who knows the effects he wants and how to get them.
"Road to Perdition's" excellent cast sees to it that all the ramifications of the story play out as they're intended. Paul Newman, who gets nothing but better with age, is riveting as a cold-blooded man of business weighing his legacy against his feelings for a surrogate son. Jude Law brings the right amount of strangeness to a killer whose main drive is to photograph his victims, and Stanley Tucci has an effective cameo as Capone cohort Frank Nitti. And Hoechlin, one of more than 2,000 who tried out for the part of young Sullivan, effectively creates a character who gets under his father's skin.
For people who make studio films, opportunities to work on serious projects with sizable budgets are rare, and "Road to Perdition" has obtained the services of what is, in effect, an all-star team of behind-the-camera personnel, starting with graceful cinematographer Conrad L. Hall.
A two-time Oscar winner (including one for "American Beauty") and a nine-time nominee, Hall has crafted, without seeming to try too hard, a series of beautifully bleak, unforgiving Midwest-in-winter vistas that use the dark colors of nightmare to recall the loneliness of Edward Hopper canvases.
Recreating the meticulous sense of 1930s atmosphere that Richard Piers Rayner brought to the graphic novel are production designer Dennis Gassner and costume designer Albert Wolsky, a two-time Oscar winner, for "All That Jazz" and "Bugsy."
The evocative score was written by Thomas Newman, and giving the film its stately pace is editor Jill Bilcock, who last did Baz Luhrmann's very different "Moulin Rouge" (2001).
"Road to Perdition" worried a great deal about the details, to the point of having fabric specially woven, aged and dyed so costumes had the proper weight for the period. But that doesn't mean emotion was neglected. Because it is so careful with its effects, the film's ability to create feeling sneaks up and surprises.
It is a story with the will to move us and the ability to do whatever it takes to make that happen.
TITLE: digging deep into afghanistan
AUTHOR: by Frank Smyth
PUBLISHER: The Washington Post
TEXT: Any egomaniac with an audience can do a live stand-up in an alleged combat zone these days, but Jon Lee Anderson is a war correspondent's journalist. On Sept. 11, 2001, while most Americans were still either looking up or glued to their television sets, Anderson sent an e-mail from southern Spain to his editor at The New Yorker in Manhattan. "I am guessing you never made it to the office. I hope everyone at the New Yorker is OK," he wrote. "I feel like I should be heading for Afghanistan, which I fully expect to be flattened any day now."
The result is "The Lion's Grave," an insightful book of dispatches that are different in focus from, but reminiscent, in their on-the-ground style, of the late Ernie Pyle's reporting from North Africa during World War II. In London, Anderson bought a portable satellite phone, which he used to file his reports from Central Asia over the ensuing months. A pack of hundreds of other reporters descended upon the region in late 2001, but Anderson, who had been covering the country since the days of the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, was nearly the first journalist to reach Afghanistan after Sept. 11. All but one of these dispatches previously appeared in The New Yorker weekly, but much of the writing remains prescient.
"The sight of women, or at least discernibly human creatures in feminine clothes, is about the only thing that relieves the harshness of the landscape. This visible part of Afghan society is unremittingly male, as is the land, which is drab and muscular," writes Anderson. "Barefoot boys walk back and forth through beds of harvested rice, turning the grains with their toes to dry them in the sun ... . Lambs are tethered next to men with long knives who slaughter them and hang the carcasses from hooks, hacking them into a steadily diminishing mess of blood and meat and bone and fat by day's end. Grain and vegetables are weighed in tin scales that are balanced with stones."
Anderson also gives his readers a window on himself. The book's narrative journalism is framed by contemporaneous e-mails that either begin or end every chapter. Most were sent by Anderson via laptop (with a special bullet-proof casing) and satellite phone to his editor, Sharon DeLano. Some e-mails show the hardships of prolonged frontline reporting. "Our compound has mud walls and mud floors and mud everything," he tells DeLano. "Outside, there is a large dirt patio with two hole-in-the-floor latrines, a vigilant mongrel dog, and - as of yesterday - a scorpion in the washroom."
Other e-mails reveal another side of a correspondent who is apparently not afraid of talking back to men with guns: "One [Afghan combatant] asked for a cigarette. I gave him one, but chided him, since it was Ramadan, and Muslims are not supposed to smoke [or eat or drink] during the daylight hours. Then another man came up and demanded a cigarette and I could see that the whole group of ten or so fighters were planning on doing this. So I said, No more."
"A third mujahideen, a burly man with a large PK machine gun slung over his shoulder, leered at me and grabbed me between the legs, hard. Then he darted away and laughed. I followed him and kicked him in the rear end, twice. This made his comrades roar with laughter, but he didn't think it was so funny, and he pointed his gun at me, then lowered it. I began cursing him in English and he raised the gun at me again and I could tell that he was cursing me too, in Dari. We had something of a standoff."
The book, as its title suggests, revolves around the murder of Ahmed Shah Massoud, "The Lion of Panjshir," the Northern Alliance commander who was killed by two Arab men posing as journalists two days before Sept. 11. Anderson convincingly ties the assassination to Osama bin Laden, who, like Anderson himself, apparently expected an American retaliation on Afghan targets in response to Sept. 11. In the only new reporting in the book, Anderson explores bin Laden's former home base south of Jalalabad, where he introduces readers to a heavily armed American named "Jack," a 46-year-old former U.S. Army Green Beret from Fayetteville, North Carolina, who claimed, "I have no official relationship to the U.S. government."
The strength of "The Lion's Grave" goes beyond its character profiles to its effective navigation of the crisscrossing lines of Afghan politics. Anderson already knew the country and its players, not only the late Massoud but also many lesser-known Afghans, including noncombatants. Like the dispassionately illuminating biography of Che Guevara that largely earned the correspondent his name, this book captures a time and a place that no one who reads it will forget. The text is interspersed with black-and-white images by Magnum photographer Thomas Dworzak that depict austere Afghans, usually in a cold landscape. For anyone tired of instant journalism, this book reflects an older art.
The Lion's Grave: Dispatches from Afghanistan. By Jon Lee Anderson. Grove. 244 pp. $24.
Frank Smyth is writing a book on the 1991 Iraqi uprisings against Saddam Hussein.
TITLE: the word's worth
AUTHOR: by Michele A. Berdy
TEXT: One of the fun parts of Russian is "word formation" - taking a root and adding a variety of prefixes and suffixes to get separate, but related, meanings. This is a nice trick, and one we can't do easily in English, which is derived from a number of languages so that even related words don't necessarily bear much resemblance to one another.
Take the root word for "to think," myslit, and the noun "thought," mysl. Russians are good thinkers; way back in the early days of the collective consciousness, they paid a lot of attention to the subtleties of the thinking process. Of the two main words for thinking in Russian, myslit leans more in the direction of "to reason, to make sense of," while dumat can go the other direction to mean "dreamy contemplation." Note that Oblomov lezhal na divane i dumal o svoyem detstve (Oblomov lay on his couch and thought about his childhood), while Rodin's "The Thinker," - in his pose of contemplation, rather then reverie - is Myslitel.
Mysl, a thought, gives us some useful expressions. U menya etogo i v myslyakh ne bylo (it never even occurred to me); nado sobratsya myslyami (I've got to gather my thoughts); ot odnoi tolko mysli ob etom menya toshnit (just the thought of it makes me sick.)
Put the letter "s" in front and you get smysl, which means "sense, meaning." Net smysla seichas vstrechatsya s partnyorami - my dolzhny snachala razobratsya c byudzhetom. (There's no point in talking to our partners right now, we've got to figure out the budget first.) This gives us useful notions such as zdravy smysl (common sense) or pryamoy i perenosny smysl (translation: "literally and figuratively").
Or add the prefix "u," which has the general sense of insertion, to the notion of thought and you get umysel (intention, design - i.e., what's inserted in the thought beforehand). Ya vizhu v ego deistviyakh zloi umysel - mne kazhetsya, chto on khochet nas rassorit. (I see malicious intent in his actions - he wants us to have a fight.)
Similar to this is zamysel, a plan, design or scheme. Forma zdaniya otrazhayet zamysly avtora - ono okrugloye i raspolozheno vysoko na kholme, kak gnezdo. (You can see the intent of the building in its very form: it's rather round and stands high on the hill like a nest.)
Domysel is "conjecture" - the thought you think your way up to (do). In Russian, it's usually used in the plural: Ty ne znayesh chto on sobirayetsya delat. Eto tolko tvoi domysly. (You don't know what he plans to do. You're just guessing.)
When you add the prefix "vy," which has the sense of "movement outwards," you get vymysel, "invention, fabrication, a flight of imagination." Sounds good to me - a fantasy is a thought that bursts out from reality, right? However, in Russian the connotation is usually negative, as in the phrase: etot rasskaz - chisty vymysel (that story is pure fabrication).
We can bring the thought back down to earth in promysel, which has the sense of an activity that sustains life, from hunting (okhotnichy promysel) to various forms of industry: kustarny promysel (cottage industry), gorny promysel (mining). Promyshlennost (industry) and promyshlennik (manufacturer) are derived from this as well.
However, promysl maintains the archaic meaning of "care," which, with a bit of religious stretching, is a kind of derivative of life-sustaining activity, I suppose. It means "providence," as in promysel Bozhy neyispovedim. (God works in mysterious ways). You won't find this in many texts - it is very archaic language. Today you would say puti Gospodni neyispovedimy.
Michele A. Berdy is a Moscow-based translator and interpreter.
TITLE: Agassi Loss Hands Top Ranking to Hewitt
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: SHANGHAI, China, - Australia's Lleyton Hewitt clinched the year-end world No. 1 ranking without lifting a racket on Thursday, as his only rival for the top spot, Andre Agassi, slumped to a 7-5, 2-6, 7-6 defeat to Juan Carlos Ferrero in the Tennis Masters Cup.
Agassi fought for his life in the Chinese sea port but could not outlast the Spaniard and prevent Hewitt from finishing the year as world No. 1 for a second successive year.
As if to underline his new status, in the next game on court, Hewitt saw off the challenge of Marat Safin, 6-4, 2-6, 6-4, to send the Russian home from the tournament without a win.
The American needed to win the $3.7 million season-ending tournament to stand a chance of becoming the oldest player to end a year at the top of the pile but, having already lost to Jiri Novak in his opening Gold Group match, he needed to win to stay alive in the contest.
Agassi's disappointment was palpable afterwards as he struggled to describe his feelings.
"I don't think it would be possible [to explain] really," he said. "I wouldn't know how to communicate it."
But he looked ill at ease and distracted as he gave away the opening set, netting a backhand on Ferrero's third set point.
A different Agassi roared on to the court for the second set, though, and he reeled off the first four games to put himself firmly in charge.
Pummelling groundstrokes, stepping in to searing returns and stretching the Spaniard with angled serves and volleys, he thrilled the Chinese crowd at the New Shanghai International Expo Centre with some textbook tennis to level the match.
The pair stood toe-to-toe for the third set, Agassi hitting harder and harder, and Ferrero retrieving for all his worth.
Agassi saw a glimmer of light in the ninth game when he earned two break points, but he missed the first with a flicked backhand off a drop shot and Ferrero saved the second with an ace, before holding on in admittedly shaky fashion.
The American showed no such nerves, shoving winners into the corners of the court with his double-handed backhand and firing forehands past Ferrero's reach.
Once more, Ferrero forged ahead 6-5 by holding serve, to heap the pressure on Agassi. Once more, Agassi proved himself up to the task, staving off one match point and forcing a tiebreak with a thunderous forehand winner down the line.
He nosed ahead in the tiebreak, but allowed Ferrero back into the game and a forehand fired long gave Ferrero three more match points at 6-3.
Agassi fought them off with some lion-hearted rallying, but immediately netted a forehand to give the Spaniard his fifth match point. Ferrero needed no heroics on that one as Agassi tamely threw in a double fault.
Despite the American's immense disappointment, he insisted on looking ahead. "Next year, I will approach with expectations of it being better," he said. "The key will be consistency."
Earlier on Thursday, Switzerland's Roger Federer downed Novak, Agassi's conquerer from Wednesday, 6-0, 4-6, 5-2, to qualify for the second round. The result meant that Agassi had to win against Ferrero to have any chance of ending the year as world No. 1.
In other action on Wednesday, Carlos Moya beat Hewitt 6-4, 7-5, and Albert Costa downed Safin, 3-6, 6-4, 6-3, ending the Russian's tournament aspirations.
"I thought I played a lot better tonight than I did last night," said Hewitt, who beat Costa on Tuesday. "He's playing unbelievable tennis right now. It's definitely not a bad loss losing to Carlos Moya."
(Reuters, AP)
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BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Belgium rolled out the red carpet for its two favorite daughters on Wednesday, as Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin entertained their fans in a good-natured exhibition match.
The in-form Clijsters, who won the WTA Tour Championships on Monday with victory over world No. 1 Serena Williams, continued her recent success as she trounced the waif-like Henin for the second time in less than a week 6-1, 6-4.
But the quality of tennis was not high on the agenda on Wednesday.
French-speaking Henin, ranked fifth in the world, got into the party mood by accepting a prolonged kiss and a single red rose from her fiance, Pierre-Yves Hardenne.
Flemish-speaking Clijsters also had her moment in the spotlight, although her boyfriend, men's No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt, was otherwise occupied in Shanghai for the Masters Cup.
Clijsters, 19, was pleasantly surprised when a flurry of flowers was thrown her way. But the flowers were soon forgotten as the world No. 4 focused her attention on another present - a wrinkly shi-tzu puppy.
Despite the one-sided scoreline, Henin - Wimbledon runner-up in 2001 - wowed the crowd with her bold and blistering passing shots during the first set.
But a missed smash in the fourth game allowed Clijsters to break and roar away with the first set.
With the match slipping away from her, Henin upped the tempo and dazzled her fans with a succession of outlandish shots.
Thoroughly enjoying the on-court exhibition, the crowd made their own contribution to the festivities by bursting into a spontaneous Mexican wave.
Henin joined in, but Clijsters simply shook her head and laughed. She was having fun but not enough to risk losing.
Clijsters is also likely to be the last player to ever beat Henin, because the 20-year-old will become Justine Hardenne when she marries her fiance on Sunday.
TITLE: Thrashers No Longer Last After 3-2 Win Over Sharks
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ATLANTA - Get this: The Atlanta Thrashers aren't the worst team in the NHL anymore.
Slava Kozlov scored with 2:41 remaining in overtime, giving the Thrashers a 3-2 victory over the San Jose Sharks on Wednesday night and only the second three-game winning streak in franchise history.
Atlanta is 4-1-1 in its last six games, after starting the season with nine straight losses. The Thrashers now have 10 points, one more than the Buffalo Sabres.
"I think we have this thing turned around now," said Pasi Nurminen, who made 22 saves and has been in goal for all four of Atlanta's victories. "It's been a different team the past few games. The team is working real hard now - very solid defense, no big mistakes."
Kozlov's third goal of the season was set up by Andy Sutton, who circled behind the net and almost back to the blue line, before flipping a pass in front. Kozlov's quick backhander was stopped by Evgeni Nabokov, but the rebound came right back to Kozlov, who snapped a wrist shot into the net.
"Andy made it happen," Kozlov said. "He beat three guys. They just followed him and I was in front of the net."
Owen Nolan forced overtime by scoring for San Jose with just 2:40 left in regulation. Scott Hannan's shot from the blue line was stopped by Pasi Nurminen, but the puck slipped through the goalie's legs as Mike Ricci hacked at it several times.
Nolan appeared to get a stick on the puck after it already had crossed the line, but he was given credit for his sixth goal.
It wasn't enough for the Sharks, who lost their third in a row to remain last in the Pacific Division. The game opened an eight-game road trip for San Jose.
The Thrashers went ahead for the first time when Shawn McEachern broke a 1-1 tie with 9:40 remaining.
San Jose's Patrick Marleau scored the first goal at 4:33 of the second period. He broke in with Teemu Selanne on a 2-and-1, snapping a shot over Nurminen's blocker. It was Marleau's third goal of the season and 100th of his career.
Ilya Kovalchuk evened it up for the Thrashers on a breakaway. He took a pass from Dany Heatley at center ice and beat Nabokov with just 50 seconds left in the second period.
Then, just past the midway point of the third, McEachern put Atlanta ahead. Daniel Tjarnqvist's shot through a screen was blocked by Nabokov, but he lost sight of the puck as it skidded to his right. McEachern banged in the rebound for his fifth goal.
Dallas 6, Washington 1. Scott Young scored after just two minutes for the Dallas Stars and Bill Guerin netted twice in a comfortable victory over the Washington Capitals on Wednesday.
Pierre Turgeon got Dallas's second marker midway through the opening period. After Kip Miller closed the gap with a goal just under five minutes into the second period, Guerin put the Stars up 3-1 with a tally at 13:26, then added another with just one second remaining in the stanza.
They were Guerin's sixth and seventh of the season.
Brenden Morrow made it 5-1 early in the third, with Jere Lehtinen capping the scoring.
Philadelphia 1, Florida 1. In Philadelphia, the Flyers knew they had something going when they scored first, but they got no more in a tie with the Florida Panthers. The Flyers have yet to lose when scoring first this season, the only NHL team that can make that boast.
Rookie Pavel Brendl got the Flyers on the board with a backhander 2:29 into the second frame, with assists going to Donald Brashear and Marty Murray.
A Sandis Ozolinsh slapshot from the point banked off Kristian Huselius and into the Philadelphia goal to knot it at 1 for Florida.
TITLE: SPORTS WATCH
TEXT: Lazio on Market
MILAN, Italy (Reuters) - Serie A club Lazio was put up for sale by struggling Italian company Cirio on Wednesday as part of an emergency restructuring, after the canned foods maker was declared in debt default last week, the company said.
Trade in Cirio shares has been suspended for the past six sessions on the Milan stock exchange, which demanded more information on how Cirio would sort out its finances after failing to repay holders of 150 million euros in unrated bonds last Wednesday.
The Rome-based company was officially declared in default on the bond later last week.
Cirio has operations in Brazil, Portugal, Greece and South Africa, but its highest profile investment is its 51 percent stake in Rome-based Lazio, which earlier this year shed star defender Alessandro Nesta and striker Hernan Crespo as it sought to revamp its own shaky finances for 48 million euros.
Despite the team's fame, it was unclear how much financial interest it would attract, given its problems and a wider crisis plaguing other Italian soccer teams, weighed down by slumping pay-television revenues and expensive player contracts.
Giants Hire Alou
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - To handle their veteran team, the San Francisco Giants on Wednesday turned to an old pro: 67-year-old Felipe Alou.
Alou, the former Montreal manager and a bench coach for Detroit last season, was excited by a return to the Giants. "I'm going back home to where I started and, hopefully, I'm going to end it right there," he said.
Alou agreed to a three-year contract and becomes the oldest manager in the major leagues. He was 691-717 in 10 seasons managing the Expos.
Alou played for the Giants from 1958 to 1963 as part of a 17-season major league career in which he hit .286 with 206 homers and 852 RBIs. He also spent 1970 and part of 1971 in the Bay area playing for the Oakland Athletics.
"We're obviously thrilled we're able to welcome Felipe back," said General Manager Brian Sabean. "Everybody in baseball realizes what he's done in the game. It's thrilling because he's a Giant at heart."
"He calls himself a baseball soldier in conversation," he said. "He's more like baseball royalty to us."
Srichaphan To Serve?
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - The rising career of Thai tennis star Paradorn Srichaphan could be put on hold if he's required to serve in his country's armed forces next year.
Paradorn, who reached a career-high rank of 16 on the ATP tour last month, will report for boot camp April 7, as required by law, his father and coach, Chanachai Srichaphan, said.
"The law is law, which everyone has to be abide by. There is no exception," Chanachai said.
The 23-year-old player might not have to serve. The country's lottery system allows some candidates to avoid the draft. All Thai men aged 20 to 23 are required to report to a military camp to fill a limited number of draft openings. Usually, there are more men than jobs.
Paradorn has become a sensation in Thailand, going from obscurity to the top player in Asia. He started 2002 ranked No. 126 and finished the season at No. 18. Over the last six months, he beat top-ranked Lleyton Hewitt and No. 2 Andre Agassi.
The Thai government rewarded him with a diplomatic passport, and the national Thai Airways gave him 3 million free air miles. Residents of his hometown, Khon Kaen, presented him with a gold racket on Monday.