SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #837 (5), Friday, January 24, 2003
**************************************************************************


TITLE: Bloc Rallies Against Kremlin
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: In choosing the name Yediny Peterburg ("United Petersburg") for their new bloc in the Legislative Assembly, 17 deputies in the chamber were apparently looking for a combination of the names of the three factions that all but one of them represent. 
 
But the members of the pro-Smolny Nash Gorod ("Our City"), Yediny Peterburg ("United Petersburg") and Gorodskiye Raiony ("City Districts") might also have been looking for a name that would be an obvious counter to the pro-Kremlin United Russia (Yedinaya Rossia) faction in the assembly as well.
 Vladimir Yeryomenko, the only independent in the new bloc, who broke ranks with the Communist Party faction in the assembly last week, said at a press conference on Thursday that the new bloc had been formed "to protect the city from outside intervention," undertaken, according to the bloc, by an alliance formed around the United Russia faction. Yeryomenko left the Communist faction after most of its members supported the candidacy of Vadim Tyulpanov for assembly speaker last week.
 The outside intervention, according to the United City members, is the work of a group of people in the Kremlin, who are looking to replace Governor Vladimir Yakovlev before the next presidential elections, which are scheduled to take place in March, 2004. The next gubernatorial elections are scheduled for May of the same year.
 "There is a political movement to put a new governor in place [before the] presidential elections, and the center of this pressure comes from within the presidential administration," Yeryomenko said Thursday.
 He said that President Vladimir Putin's administration would like to see Tyulpanov help install a more pro-Putin governor at Smolny before the presidential vote, but that the plan could backfire, as Yakovlev would likely be able to swing more votes.
 "Tyulpanov said that he is loyal to the president, but he is playing a game against the president, and he doesn't even realize it," Yeryomenko said.
 Neither Yeryomenko nor other members of the United City bloc would identify the supposed conspirators at the Kremlin.
 "St. Petersburg was always an independent city," said Sergei Andenko of the City Districts faction, and a member of the new bloc. "We aren't for Yakovlev, we are for a united city, which should exist in the name of its citizens, and our goal is to defend it from outside powers out that are attempting to gain power here."
 "We don't know for certain the names of those involved in this but, as soon as we do, I will make them public. I am not afraid of anything."
 The presidential administration could not be reached for comment on Thursday.
 While the 17 members of the new bloc don't hold enough votes to pass legislation through the 50-seat parliament, they number enough to prevent a two-thirds majority in the assembly, meaning that the bloc could stymie any attempt to push through a law that the governor has vetoed.
 The bloc's ability to prevent measures that it opposes from garnering two thirds of the votes in the chamber is particularly important in relation to the question of gubernatorial elections.
 "It would be impossible to change the City Charter without [the bloc]," said Mikhail Amosov, the head of Yabloko faction, in a telephone interview on Wednesday.
 The City Charter would have to be amended to shift the date of the vote.
 The now bloc would also be able to impede the work of the assembly by preventing the establishment of a quorum. Certain votes require a quorum of 34 members to be present and registered. The remaining deputies at present would total 32, with one member, Yury Shutov, unable to attend sessions as he is in prison awaiting trial. Amosov says, however, that this is really nothing new.
 "In some situations, they will be able simply not to register for the votes. In this way, [they could] prevent some bills from being passed," he said, "This bloc has existed [de facto] for quite a while, and was visible during voting on the speaker question. All they have done now is made it official."
 Amosov said that, even though anti-governor factions hold more seats, the situation in the assembly is difficult for them as, apart from their opposition to many of Yakovlev's initiatives, there is a wide variance in the alternatives that they favor.
 "There is a very big distance between the [policies favored by] United Russia and Yabloko, for instance. Although we are in favor, unification with [the Union of Right Forces, or SPS] hasn't become a reality yet," Amosov said. "It is a case where we are very compatible, but SPS is still to young for such a marriage."
 Sergei Tarasov, who was defeated by Tyulpanov for the speaker's post, said that United City would use its numbers to protect its interests.
 "Our bloc is in the minority, but there is nothing scary about this," Tarasov said Thursday. "Seventeen deputies won't be enough to solve any questions, but it will be enough to block anything the other side tries to force through."
 One of the first practical tasks ahead of the United City bloc is the looming competition for seats on vital assembly committees, such as those responsible for drafting new legislation or for dealing with budget issues, according to Victor Yevtukhov, another member of the new bloc.
 "We don't know yet if we will try for one of the vice speaker's posts. There are a limited number of positions and a large number of likely candidates," Yevtukhov said in a telephone interview on Wednesday, "As for the posts chairing the legislation and budget committees, we will try to get them. It will be impossible to [vote on] these questions without us, so they will have to negotiate with us."
 While the bloc is made up of legislators who support it, City Hall itself is being careful in its comments for now.
 "Everything depends on what they do. First, they have to establish a presence," said Alexander Afanasyev, the governor's spokesperson, in a telephone interview on Thursday, "The question of professionalism in relation to lawmakers is a difficult one. It's a dilemma. They might say that they are professional, but they can end up selling themselves at some point all the same."

TITLE: Court Throws Out Hostage-Crisis Suits
AUTHOR: By Natalia Yefimova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - A Moscow court on Thursday rejected three lawsuits filed against City Hall by relatives of hostages who died as a result of last fall's theater seige, slashing the hopes of other plaintiffs seeking some $60 million in compensation for their pain and suffering.
 
Judge Marina Gorbachyova postponed ruling on the remaining 21 lawsuits in the batch, saying the plaintiffs had not appeared in court, but their lawyers said the claims were identical, so the verdict would be the same across the board.
 "In this case, a ruling on one lawsuit is sufficient to understand how the rest will be decided," lawyer Igor Trunov told reporters outside the Tverskoi District Court, just off Tsvetnoi Bulvar.
 Trunov added that his legal team would likely appeal the decision and would push ahead with the rest of the 60-odd suits filed against the city by former hostages and their relatives.
 The six plaintiffs whose damage claims were rejected Thursday said that money - a combined $4 million - was not the main issue.
 Above all, the plaintiffs said, they wanted somebody to be held accountable for failing to provide proper medical treatment to the freed hostages, and for allowing the Chechen gunmen who held them captive to enter the city.
 Of the approximately 800 people in the theater, 129 died, all but a few of them from the effects of a narcotic gas used to knock out the hostage-takers when commandos raided the building, killing all 41 attackers.
 "Moscow must take some kind of responsibility. You let those terrorists slip by you," said Alexander Khramtsov, who lost his father, a musician from the theater's orchestra.
 "You should have provided adequate medical care. Why were 400 people taken to Hospital No. 13? There's only a 50-person staff there," Khramtsov told the city's lawyers, his voice trembling.
 The plaintiffs and their lawyers repeatedly complained about the judge's rudeness and accused the court of being biased, since part of its funding comes from City Hall.
 "We were prepared for this ruling," said Zoya Chernetsova, a single mother whose only son, Danila, 21, died after the raid. "Our courts are on the government's payroll. If she ruled otherwise, the judge would be risking her career and the rest of her life."
 "I think we should be included in the Guiness Book of World Records for the shortest court case in history - six days for 24 lawsuits," lawyer Lyudmila Trunova said during a recess in the courtroom, where journalists outnumbered plaintiffs and defendants.
 The judge did not explain the legal basis for her ruling, but is expected to do so by the middle of next week, Trunova said.
 The city has denied responsibility for the plaintiffs' suffering.
 Its three-person legal team argued that the federal anti-terrorism law cited by the plaintiffs' lawyers - which says that terror victims can seek damages from the government of the region where a terrorist attack took place - does not cover pain and suffering. 
 However, eager to demonstrate a human face, the city's lawyers said Moscow would be willing to pay out at least part of the material damages sought by plaintiffs who had been incapacitated or left without a bread winner.
 Those claims, ranging from about $1,500 to $150,000, were spun off into a separate case last week at the plaintiffs' request, and will be considered at a later date.
 Although the law on fighting terrorism absolves law-enforcement officials of responsibility for damages resulting from counter-terrorism operations, lawyer Andrei Rastorguyev said the plaintiffs could file a claim against the federal government on the basis of other legislation.
 "As for me, personally, I wouldn't care a lick which level of government pays me compensation, federal or municipal," he said.

TITLE: Whistleblower Pasko Set Free
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: VLADIVOSTOK, Far East - Military journalist and whistleblower Grigory Pasko was released on parole Thursday for good behavior after serving more than two thirds of his term, and he said he would seek a full acquittal.
 
Pasko was sentenced to four years in prison in December 2001 for illegally attending a meeting of top military commanders and making notes there. A military court said he intended to pass the notes to Japanese media with which he had worked.
 The journalist and his supporters insisted that the sentencing was punishment for his reporting on environmental abuses by the navy, which included dumping radioactive waste into the sea. Pasko has steadfastly maintained his innocence and, following his conviction, refused to ask for a pardon, as that would have been tantamount to admitting guilt.
 A court in the Far East town of Ussuriisk freed Pasko, based on a petition from his lawyers that was endorsed by the prison, said defense lawyer Anatoly Pyshkin. Pasko left the prison Thursday afternoon.
 "We are going to work to achieve the full exoneration of my good name," Pasko told reporters outside the prison. "We're going to do everything to ensure that this criminal case is recognized as a falsification - that is, as it actually is."
 "We won in almost all civilian courts. However, as soon as the case falls into the hands of the military justice system, we are witness to a mockery of the law and common sense," Pasko said.
 Pasko's wife, Galina Morozova, was visiting Berlin on Thursday to meet with lawmakers and human-rights activists. She said Pasko had filed a disciplinary complaint about his prosecution to the head of the military chamber of the Supreme Court and a complaint to the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
 "I've already called home - we are all in a state of euphoria," she said. "We will be for a few days, but we have to be conscious that our fight goes on."
 Interfax quoted an unnamed official in the Justice Ministry as saying prosecutors were considering whether to protest the decision to release Pasko, but Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov said that would not happen.
 "Having studied the question of Pasko's parole, we came to the conclusion that it would not be expedient to protest the judge's decision," Ustinov was quoted by Interfax as saying.
 Pasko's saga dates back to 1997, when he was arrested by Federal Security Service agents. International human-rights advocates have championed his case since then, dubbing it an encroachment on press freedom.

TITLE: New Book on Siege Gets A Hot Finnish Response
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The Russian edition of "The Leningrad Blockade and Finland: 1941-1944" by Nikolai Baryshnikov, which was released less than a week before this Monday's 59th anniversary of the lifting of the blockade, offers a different take on Finnish involvement in the 900-day siege - a view that has angered some Finns.
 
While the "Great Patriotic War" with Nazi Germany from 1941 to 1945 remains possibly the most significant historical event in the Russian consciousness, and the "Winter War" of 1939 and 1941 following the Soviet invasion of Karelia is still a sore spot in history for some Finns, Finland's role in the Leningrad blockade has largely been ignored by both sides.
 Finnish historians have generally treated their country's role in the blockade, holding the lines to the north of the city, as the mere result of a just war to return the territory of Karelia that the Soviet Union took from it two years earlier. Russian historians have focused mainly on Nazi Germany.
 Baryshnikov's study, based on years of research in both Finnish and Russian archives, covers the topic of Finnish involvement in depth, and challenges the view that the Finns merely wanted to win back their former territory. Baryshnikov says that the Finnish role in the blockade had aggressive goals, and made a significant contribution to the city's suffering.
 "It's a myth that the Finnish troops halted their advance at the river Sestra - the earlier border with Finland," Baryshnikov said. "In some places, they moved further, and stopped only because the Finnish army was concerned about suffering a massive number of casualties."
 "It also stemmed from the fact that a large number of Finnish soldiers refused to go any further," he added.
 Another common theme in coverage of the topic is the role of Marshal Carl Gustav Mannerheim, the head of the Finnish armed forces, who is portrayed as a figure who tried to ease the situation in Leningrad, where 1 1/2 million people died from hunger, disease and bombardment. Many attribute the lack of artillery and air bombardment from the Finnish side to feelings of nostalgia for the years he spent in St. Petersburg as a young officer in the Tsarist army.
 But Baryshnikov's book offers evidence that he says shows that Mannerheim clearly supported German plans to destroy the city.
 "Baryshnikov's research offers proof that Finland was wasn't leading a so-called 'separate' or 'defensive' war, as Finnish historians describe it, meaning a war aimed regain its territories," said Johan Beckman, the director of the Johan Beckman Institute in Helsinki, the publisher of the work, at a presentation of the book Wednesday. "Instead, he shows that Finland was taking part in an aggressive war in cooperation with Hitler, with the purpose of destroying the Soviet Union and, in particular, Leningrad."
 "The 'separate war' concept was the brainchild of Finnish propaganda," Beckman added. "Finland's participation in the blockade is one of the most terrible moments in Finnish history."
 Baryshnikov backs up his claims using quotations from speeches made by Finnish military figures and government members, as well as information published in newspapers at the time.
 One example is a written statement by Vaeino Voionmaa, the chairperson of the Finnish Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, on June 30, 1941, before the blockade had even begun.
 "All of this is taking place under the name of a defensive war, but it's already clear that it's an aggressive war ... Now, the talk is about total participation in Germany's crusade," he wrote.
 According to Beckman, Finnish political authorities have been relatively supportive of the work. Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja attended the presentation of the work in Helsinki in December.
 But the book has caused controversy among a number of historians and public organizations in Finland.
 One of the leading Finnish historians on the topic, Timo Vihavainen, of the University of Helsinki, labeled Baryshnikov's work as "a book built on Stalinist propaganda stereotypes," in a review printed in the newspaper Helsinki Sanomaat. Vihavainen says that he believes that Finland joined the war against the Soviet Union for two major reasons: the desire to recover its territory, and because it was forced by Germany to take part
 "[Baryshnikov] is a representative of the Stalinist approach to the war that exists in some circles in Russia," Vihavainen said in a telephone interview from Helsinki on Thursday. "Baryshnikov also misunderstood some of the language in his research in the Finnish archives."
 But Beckman says that there have 
 At the same time, other Finnish historians, like Helge Seppaelae, agree with Baryshnikov's main points, Beckman said.
 "It's hard for such small nation to admit that it had something to do with causing such a tragedy," Beckman said.
 Beckman says that his interest in publishing the book was to provide a better understanding of the history. He said that the book will ultimately appear in English, Finnish and Russian editions.
 "The book is unique in the sense that it, for the first time, strongly shows a different picture of the war, which Finns should also know and consider," Beckman said.
 Russian veterans of the Winter War with Finland agree with Beckman.
 "Both the Finnish government and Mannerheim himself are guilty in that war," said Boris Pokhodzei, the chairperson of Soviet-Finnish War Veterans Union.

TITLE: SVR Denies Helping CIA in North Korea
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - The Foreign Intelligence Service, or SVR, denied Tuesday that it had cooperated with the CIA on monitoring North Korea's nuclear program.
 
The SVR's press service said that a report in The New York Times about a deal between the two intelligence agencies "does not correspond to reality."
 The New York Times reported Monday that, in the early 1990s, SVR agents installed secret nuclear-detection equipment inside the Russian Embassy in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, at the request of the CIA. The equipment was designed to pick up emissions of the isotope krypton, which would signal that North Korea had resumed plutonium reprocessing at its Yongbyon nuclear reactor, the newspaper said.
 "We proceed from the fact that some forces in the United States have deliberately fabricated this publication at a time when Russia is making intense efforts to help defuse the tension around North Korea's nuclear program," the SVR said in a statement.
 Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov spent three days discussing ways out of the crisis with officials in Pyongyang. He traveled to Beijing on Tuesday and returned to Moscow on Wednesday.

TITLE: Jordan Prepares To Leave NTV
AUTHOR: By Andrei Zolotov Jr.
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - NTV General Director Boris Jordan, who had been keeping a public silence since Gazprom-Media's board of directors fired him as the holding's CEO last Friday, made it clear on Tuesday that he had arrived at a peaceful settlement with his employers at Gazprom, and will go quietly from NTV.
 
"Gazprom, which is the controlling shareholder, has stated its intention to change management in the television company," Jordan said in a statement he read to a packed room of reporters. "The shareholders have this right. After the shareholders expressed their position, I consider it impossible to stay on as NTV's general director. I state my readiness to leave the general director's post and hand over the reins to the person named by the shareholders."
 Suggestions last Friday by an NTV spokesperson that Jordan's removal was politically motivated and violated his contract were perceived by many in the media community as an effort to strengthen Jordan's position in the bargaining for compensation by indicating that he was ready to create a scandal. Media insiders put the range of the bargaining at $10 million to $75 million.
 In a sign that Jordan received what he wanted, he steadfastly refused all attempts by journalists to get him to speak about any political motives behind his removal, or to predict the future of NTV or who his successor would be - either referring questions to Gazprom or saying he does not want to politicize the situation.
 "I am not a political scientist, and do not consider that today it would be right for me to comment on future elections," Jordan said in response to a question on whether his removal was connected to a plan to ensure NTV's loyalty ahead of parliamentary and presidential elections. "So far, I am general director of NTV and in no way do I want to lead NTV into some political brawl. First of all, I am a businessperson."
 He also refused to comment on the concern over his removal that was expressed last week by U.S. State Department spokesperson Richard Boucher.
 "Mr. Boucher is an important man who works for the American government," Jordan said. "In my position - just as it would be with some Russian official - I don't consider it right to comment on this situation."
 Jordan said he stands by his channel's coverage of the October hostage crisis and corruption in Kazakhstan, which were cited by Russian media as likely reasons for his ouster.
 "Not just [the theater siege] and Kazakhstan, but also our reports on Chechnya, Iraq, Sept. 11 - I am proud of NTV news service's work as a whole," Jordan said. "I think that, professionally, it has performed in a very dignified way, not only over the past two years, but also before my time. And I hope, I think, that it will remain the same in the future."
 It was in the same room at the Interfax news agency that Jordan faced an equally large, but much more hostile, group of Russian and foreign reporters on April 3, 2001, the day Gazprom appointed him to run NTV instead of Yevgeny Kiselyov.
 Then, Jordan began changing the tide of hostile public opinion by presenting the image of a hands-on, politically neutral Western manager. In a break from the ritual of Interfax news conferences, he gave a slide presentation to show the depth of NTV's financial crisis and his plan to improve its finances.
 He said he came from a country where the "independence and precision" of television were the norm.
 On Tuesday, Jordan reported on what he considered to be his success - retaining NTV's editorial independence and turning it around financially.
 "In those two years, we managed to turn NTV into a profitable business," he said. "Last year, NTV's profit, without taking into account Gazprom's funding, was more than $15 million."
 However, Alexander Dybal, the chairperson of Gazprom-Media's board, said in an interview with Vedomosti that Gazprom-Media management had made some strategic decisions without consulting the shareholders. Dybal, who replaced Jordan as Gazprom-Media CEO, said an audit would be done.
 Jordan, who denied Dybal's charges, said he also took pride in organizing Gazprom's buyout of former NTV owner Vladimir Gusinsky's remaining shares in the media companies he had founded and putting together a Western-type holding "out of an assortment of sundry assets."
 "I have fulfilled all my obligations before the company as well as before the society: I ran NTV as a business and the channel's editorial policy was independent," Jordan said.
 One two-year-old promise that he and Gazprom have not kept is to sell the media companies to an outside investor. Jordan's predecessor as Gazprom-Media general director, Alfred Kokh, quit in October 2001 and, later, said he had done so because he had lost hope that Gazprom would sell the holding any time soon.
 Since last September's deal with the government-connected bank Evrofinance was announced, which Jordan reportedly had initially opposed, the talk of a sale to a foreign investor has been forgotten.
 Jordan said he is convinced Gazprom will fulfill the conditions of his contract, but said the terms were confidential. Kommersant newspaper reported Tuesday that, most likely, Jordan got somewhere between $15 million and $20 million for a quiet departure.
 Jordan said he sent a letter to Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller on Tuesday, saying he is ready to step down. It was not clear Tuesday how long Jordan will remain at NTV, although Jordan said he expects it may take up to two weeks to finalize the decision.
 Once he leaves NTV, Jordan said he is planning to go on vacation with his family. He said he has barely seen his fourth child, who was born while he was busy running NTV.
 But then it will be back to business for Jordan, who said he is not disillusioned about doing business in Russia. "I remain as optimistic as I was in 1991, when I came to do business in Russia," he said.

TITLE: NTV's New Boss a Man With a Gray Background
AUTHOR: By Andrei Zolotov Jr.
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - New NTV head Nikolai Senkevich lacks a track record - either good or bad - in television, business and politics, and arguably his only claim to fame so far is his father, longtime television personality Yury Senkevich.
 
So Gazprom's abrupt decision to pick the 34-year-old medical doctor - who most recently served as deputy head of Gazprom's information department - as the new NTV chief sent shock waves through the media community Thursday. 
 "It's an extraordinary decision, although he seems to be bright and nice," said Anna Kachkayeva, a media analyst with Radio Liberty. "Let's wait and see. But it's one of those stories that turns into a joke before it even begins. I can hardly imagine a dentist, for example, as the head of CNN."
 Senkevich acknowledged shortly after his appointment Wednesday that he has little experience in television. He fills a post vacated by U.S. financier Boris Jordan, who quit a day earlier.
 "My experience is not rich as far as television work is concerned, although I do have some," Senkevich said in televised remarks. He was shown in an NTV office with Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller and Alexander Dybal, who heads Gazprom's information department and replaced Jordan as chief of NTV's parent company, Gazprom-Media, last week.
 Dybal invited Senkevich to work as his deputy soon after he himself came to Moscow from St. Petersburg two years ago, and he said Wednesday that Senkevich was familiar with Gazprom-Media's operations.
 "I think [Senkevich] has more than 30 years of television experience because he has been observing his father, who is known to the entire country, since his birth," Dybal said.
 The joke has some truth to it. Yury Senkevich - a deep-voiced navy doctor who comes from several generations of doctors - made headlines in 1969, when he was picked as the Soviet crewmember for a trip across the Atlantic Ocean on Thor Heyerdahl's famed Ra reed boat.
 He then began anchoring the weekly television show "Travelers' Club," which gained enormous popularity for offering a positive view of the outside world.
 Nikolai Senkevich graduated from Moscow's prestigious School No. 45 in 1985 and gained a medical degree from the Semashko Medical Institute in 1993. He started his career as a pulmonologist - a lung specialist - at the Pulmonology Research Institute. 
 For a while, he ran a small publishing house specializing in popular medical publications and authored a number of medical articles aimed at the general public. One of them, about hemorrhoids, was reprinted Thursday by Kommersant.
 Gazprom only picked him to head NTV at the last minute Wednesday. Senkevich said Miller had unexpectedly offered him the post just hours before he was formally introduced to NTV officials.
 NTV staff said Thursday that they were unsure what to expect under Senkevich.
 "All I can say at this point is that I feel like a state construction official in the zone of permanent earthquake," said Savik Shuster, NTV's deputy head of news.
 Senkevich told reporters Wednesday that he had anchored a little-known program on Moskovia, a second-tier Moscow regional television channel. That prompted speculation in media circles that Senkevich might be connected with Moskovia's owner, Federation Council Senator Sergei Pugachev, who reportedly once considered buying a stake in NTV.
 A highly placed Moskovia source denied this Thursday, saying Senkevich had anchored a program produced and placed by a Gazprom-owned media company.
 A woman who answered Senkevich's old telephone number at the pulmanology institute described him as an "arrogant type."
 "We were happy to get rid of him," she said, before hanging up.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>Brodsky Contest
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (Reuters) - St. Petersburg has picked a shortlist of 24 sculptures competing to honor poet and native son Joseph Brodsky, the Nobel literature prize winner thrown out of the Soviet Union in 1972.
 Experts selected the sculptures from more than 100 submissions as part of celebrations marking the city's 300th anniversary. Entries from Bangladesh, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Russia and the United States portrayed the poet in a cafe, atop a suitcase, or by one of St. Petersburg's many embankments.
 The winning design will be selected in October.
 
 
<b>Armitage on Chechnya
 </b>

MOSCOW (AP) - The United States is working "very closely" with Russia "about the process of designating some Chechen terrorist groups as foreign terrorist organizations," U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said Thursday.
 Armitage, who is in Moscow for talks primarily on U.S.-Russian cooperation in counterterrorism, spoke about Chechnya as he fielded a range of questions on Iraq, North Korea and U.S.-Russian relations during an interview with Ekho Moskvy radio.
 "Anyone who kills civilians for political aims is anathema to us," Armitage said. 
 
 
<b>Court of Honor
 </b>

MOSCOW (AP) - Several generations of Russian human rights activists appealed to Czech President Vaclav Havel on Thursday to support the establishment of a "court of honor for European politicians" to bar government officials who have violated rights, encouraged xenophobia or fueled interethnic strife from entering other European countries. 
 The group said it was encouraged by the example of Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko, whom 14 European Union member-countries have prohibited from entering their territory. 
 The signatories include three aging activists who held a bold demonstration on Red Square in August 1968 to protest the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia: Larisa Bogoraz, Viktor Fainberg and Pavel Litvinov. After unfurling their banners, the protesters were promptly arrested, jailed and sent into internal exile.
 Although they did not want to present a list of those they would like to see barred from Europe, they cited such as examples as former President Boris Yeltsin, who unleashed the first Chechen war; current President Vladimir Putin, who launched the second; and Ulyanovsk's governor, General Vladimir Shamanov, who was accused of tolerating widespread human rights abuses during his tour as a top commander in Chechnya. 
 
 
<b>Zakayev Appeal
 </b>

LONDON (AP) - Chechen rebel envoy Akhmed Zakayev has urged European countries and the United States to intervene in the Chechen conflict.
 "Two or three years ago, we could have settled this conflict ourselves, Russia and Chechnya, with the political will to do so," Zakayev told a meeting of about 50 people Wednesday in a room of the House of Lords reserved by two governing Labor Party peers.
 "Things have gone beyond that. Russia and Chechnya are simply not capable of sorting it out alone," he said. "We consider the EU, the United States, must intervene. Whatever our political status, Chechnya is an integral part of Europe, the responsibility for what happens there is a European responsibility." 



TITLE: Illarionov Attacks UES Policies
AUTHOR: By Angelina Davydova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Electric-energy rates are currently too high, according to Andrei Illarionov, economic advisor to President Vladimir Putin, speaking at a press conference on Tuesday. 
 
As a result of the high rates for electric power, industrial production costs have increased immensely, leading to slower-than-expected industrial growth and even to contractions in certain economic sectors, he said. It was the electric-energy sector itself that had seen the most dramatic fall, Illarionov said. 
 The Russian population spends about 5.5 percent of the country's gross domestic product on electric energy, while in the U.S. the same expenditure only amounts to 2 percent of GDP. In the states of the European Union, from 1.5 to 2.5 percent is spent on electricity This means, Illarionov said, that rates in Russia are overpriced by about 250 percent.
 The high tariffs result in high production costs, making locally produced goods noncompetitive, he added. 
 Russia's economic results for 2002 turned out to be worse than expected, with industrial growth only reaching 3.7 percent, instead of the predicted 4.5 percent, and comparing poorly with the 11-percent growth of 2000. 
 Illarionov said that, as a consequence of this poor performance, Russia has slipped down to tenth place in a comparison of the CIS countries, only managing to outpace Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, according to data released by the State Statistics Committee on Tuesday.
 The last quarter of 2002 even brought a decline in several sectors, such as electric power and machine-building, while the oil, fuel and metal sectors had improved, Illarionov added.
 Although electric-power production fell in 2002, the sector brought in an income of $17 billion, a figure that surpasses both Russia's repayment of external debts, Illarionov said. 
 Illarionov, who is widely seen as the chief critic of Anatoly Chubais, head of the Russian energy-utility monopoly UES, accused Chubais of running the company down. 
 &quot;When Chubais came to UES, the company's capitalization on the RTS amounted to $13.6 billion, while, by Jan. 20, it had fallen to $5 billion, although the RTS index grew by 48 percent during that same period,&quot; Illarionov said. 
 In view of the increase in electric-power rates, he said, UES should, in reality, be valued at $16 billion to $17 billion. 
 Commenting on the package of bills dealing with energy-sector reform that is being prepared for reading in the State Duma, Illarionov said that the latest amendments to the reforms have been improvements. 
 &quot;First, the draft law now suggests that power companies in energy-isolated regions should be vertically integrated. Second, the Federal Network Company should remain independent from RAO UES&quot;, Illarionov said.
 Sergei Vasilyev, a member of the Federation Council and head of the state's Financial Markets Committee, also present at the conference, said in an interview that &quot;there's little likelihood that power rates are going to go up following energy-sector reform - the experience of such reforms in 19 countries shows that they usually go down.&quot; 
 Vasilyev said that the reforms won't have a strong affect on St. Petersburg, as the region has a surplus of energy. 
 &quot;Lenenergo produces more than the city consumes and that stabilizes the situation,&quot; he said. 
 &quot;Our main problems are decay at the networks and the substations, with the loads constantly changing - some enterprises are cutting back on their power consumption, while household consumption is gradually increasing. There's a great need for investment in the distribution networks,&quot; Vasilyev said.
 &quot;We should have carried out reforms in the energy sector at the end of the 1990s. The power sector is the core of any economy, but it's being gradually destroyed by mishandling and non-payment,&quot; he said.

TITLE: Dollar Loses Out to Euro In Central Bank Reserves
AUTHOR: By Torrey Clark
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - With the dollar steadily declining and U.S. interest rates at record lows, the Central Bank is shifting its gold and hard-currency reserves away from the dollar.
 
&quot;We reconsidered our investment instructions at the end of last year in favor of other currencies. We are diversifying,&quot; Reuters reported Central Bank Deputy Chairperson Oleg Vyugin as saying Thursday.
 The Central Bank has traditionally held most of its reserves in dollars. 
 &quot;Returns on dollar instruments are very low now. Other currency instruments offer higher returns,&quot; Vyugin said. The new instructions allow the Central Bank to invest in pounds and Swiss francs, as well as euros and dollars. 
 The Central Bank is likely to buy, or has already bought, pound-denominated instruments, given current rates of return, said Alexei Moiseyev, chief economist at Renaissance Capital.
 The dollar had a negative real rate of return in ruble terms last year, compared to the euro's 15-percent gain, according to consulting group Unicon/MS. One of the world's worst performing currencies over the past year, the dollar has lost close to 20 percent against the euro, amid growing fears of war with Iraq.
 &quot;If you look at one-year [London interbank lending] rates, the euro is at 2.7 percent, the pound is at 3.9 percent and the Swiss franc is only 0.7,&quot; while the dollar is 1.5 percent, Moiseyev said.
 Vyugin said that dollars now account for more than 50 percent of gold and foreign-currency reserves, which are now at $48.1 billion, but did not reveal a target proportion. 
 After the Sept. 11 attacks in America, then Central Bank head Viktor Gerashchenko said that the bank would maintain reserves in roughly the same proportions: about 80 percent in dollars, 5 percent in euros and the rest in gold. 
 Since then, the percentage of euros held in reserve has remained less than 10 percent of total currency, although the percent of currency in the total reserves has increased. 
 &quot;Diversifying makes sense,&quot; said Peter Westin, an economist at Aton brokerage. &quot;Another issue is what proportion they should have.&quot; 
 In order to match reserves to trade and debt, the Central Bank would need only to move about $5 billion of its currency reserves away from dollars, said Chris Weafer, chief strategist at Alfa Bank. Given that most of Russia's exports are natural resources, about 80 percent of trade is in dollars, less than 10 percent of trade is in euros and another 10 percent is in other currencies, he said. 
 But, as the Central Bank plans to hedge against a further fall in the dollar and increasing euro-denominated trade, the impact could be more serious, Weafer said.
 &quot;Vyugin may have poured a little oil on the fire, but the dollar is falling because of the possibility of war with Iraq,&quot; Moiseyev said.

TITLE: State Duma Called Up on Cell-Phone Deal
AUTHOR: By Larisa Naumenko
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Much to the consternation of its rivals, who say they were left out of the loop, the country's No. 2 cellular operator, Vimpelcom, got a new &quot;corporate&quot; client this month - the State Duma.
 
This month, Beeline gave all 450 Duma deputies access to its network and a Motorola Talkabout 191 handset with which to do so. They will also each get a direct city phone number and monthly credit of $100 to pay for the services. 
 Meanwhile, MTS and Megafon representatives are questioning how Vimpelcom won this sweetheart deal without a tender.
 According to legislation governing such procurement orders, a tender should have been held, experts said.
 If an order's value exceeds 2,500 minimum monthly wages, or 1,125,000 rubles ($35,400), either an open or closed tender must be held, said Andrei Khramkin, a procurement specialist at Moscow's Higher School of Economics.
 The minimum monthly wage - currently set at 450 rubles - is a standard unit of measurement used in legislation. 
 Providing a $50 phone and a $100 credit to 450 deputies makes for a deal worth some $67,000 in the first month alone, thus surpassing the $35,400 threshold for tenders.
 Procuring equipment or services without a tender requires the approval of the Economic Development and Trade Ministry.
 Oleg Kovalyov, head of the Duma's self-regulation and organization committee, said in a telephone interview on Thursday that Duma representatives met with representatives of MTS and Megafon, but that the companies wouldn't accept the Duma's terms. 
 The Duma went with Vimpelcom, Kovalyov said, because the company offered to sell them Motorola handsets for $50 each - a cut rate. The Talkabout 191 normally sells for a sticker price of $95. 
 &quot;We did this to help deputies who live only on their salaries to pay for their cellular phones,&quot; said Kovalyov. 
 Yeva Prokofyeva, a spokesperson at MTS, said that the company did receive a telephone call from a State Duma representative in late September or early October asking what tariff plans they could offer State Duma staff. 
 MTS met with Duma representatives but never heard back from them, Prokofyeva said. 
 &quot;If the tender is going to happen, we will be glad to take part in it,&quot; Prokofyeva said. &quot;If not, we will file a letter with the prosecutor's office to look into the case and see if the law has been violated.&quot;
 Megafon, for its part, remembers a similarly vague inquiry that was never followed up. 
 &quot;We have received no official invitation from the State Duma to participate in any tender. We only received a written request about our tariff plans,&quot; said Roman Prokolov, spokesperson for Megafon's Moscow branch.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>GHE Sale Disputed
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The City Administration has filed suit in the St. Petersburg Arbitration Court against St. Petersburg Evaluation Company, which valued a 40.37-percent stake in the Grand Hotel Europe at 32.88 million rubles ($1 million), Valery Nazarov, head of the city's State Property Management Committee, said at a press conference on Thursday. 
 Nazarov said that the stake, sold by the city to the Swiss company GHE Holding AG in October 2002, had been severely undervalued. If the court rules in the city's favor, the contract could be broken, Nazarov said.
 Prior to the deal made in October, GHE Holding held a 48.5-percent stake in the five-star Grand Hotel Europe, part of the Kempinski Hotel and Resorts Group.
 
 
<b>Monitoring the Gulf
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is to lend $5.4 million to the fund for the construction a maritime-navigation safety system designed to reduce the risk of collision in the Russian sector of the Baltic Sea, the bank reported in an official statement on Thursday. A massive surge in tanker traffic is being projected, the statement said.
 The loan is being made to the St. Petersburg Maritime Port Authority, and has been guaranteed by the state-owned Russian Bank for Development. The project is the EBRD's first investment in the Russian port sector, the director of the EBRD's Transport Team Ricardo Puliti said in an official statement on Thursday. 
 The five-year loan will allow for the completion of the second phase of a regional-navigation safety system in the Gulf of Finland. The total cost of the second phase is estimated at $9.3 million. 
 The EBRD loan will be used to construct steel towers to house radar and communications equipment for monitoring shipping flows. 



TITLE: Black Market Deals In Stolen MTS Data
AUTHOR: By Larisa Naumenko
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - In one of the largest thefts in Russian corporate history, leading Russian cellphone operator Mobile TeleSystems said Tuesday that someone had stolen a database containing private details of what is estimated to be more than 5 million of its clients.
 
The database - which includes names, addresses, home phone numbers, passport details, individual tax numbers and other personal information that can be used for identity theft - is being sold on the black market for just $60.
 MTS spokesperson Yeva Prokofyeva said that the company's security service didn't discover the theft of &quot;part of the client database&quot; until earlier this month. The database appears to date back to September, when the company had 5.5 million subscribers.
 NTV television reported Tuesday that a compact disc of the database hit the black market in November with a price tag of $1,500. Now, however, street vendors are selling copies for just 2,000 rubles ($62) - the apparent result of increased sales volumes after an aggressive, unsolicited e-mail marketing campaign by black marketeers.
 MTS has ruled out the possibility that a hacker could have broken through the firewalls of the company's computer network to steal the data, Russian media reported. Prokofyeva would not confirm or deny that, saying that an internal investigation is still under way. She told Vremya Novostei, however, that an internal security breach had been ruled out.
 Vedomosti reported Tuesday, citing unnamed MTS officials, that the company is exploring whether someone in one of the government's security services was behind the caper.
 Prokofyeva said that MTS &quot;has no information&quot; that would make the company suspect law-enforcement or security officers, who were granted legal access to mobile-phone operators' proprietary data during the Dubrovka theater hostage crisis in October.
 Officials at Moscow city police Department R, which fights information-related crimes, refused to comment Tuesday. Calls to a similar department within the Interior Ministry went unanswered, but a spokesperson for the ministry's internal-affairs department said that the matter was not being investigated.
 Reached by telephone Tuesday, a spokesperson for the Federal Security Service declined to comment on the Vedomosti report. The official noted, however, that MTS had made no official statement regarding possible involvement by its officers in the crime.
 Security forces were able to eavesdrop on phone calls coming in and out of the seized theater under a regulation called SORM, or System for Operational-Investigative Activities.
 MTS has not officially notified its subscribers - who now number close to 7 million - about the theft of the database, Prokofyeva said.
 She said that MTS's security and legal departments are analyzing how the data may be used by others for personal gain.
 Data on clients of Russian cellular phone operators have been stolen and used in identity thefts before. One MTS subscriber, for example, was recently defrauded out of some $60 by someone who used the subscriber's passport details to ring up charges on a new account registered in his name.
 &quot;The situation is negative, but MTS subscribers should not panic,&quot; said Anton Pogrebinsky of ACM Consulting, which tracks the mobile market.
 &quot;There are a lot of similar databases ... that contain personal information similar to that in the MTS database,&quot; he said.
 Several years ago, MTS rival Vimpelcom's database of 100,000 users was stolen and made available on the black market.
 Internal databases of various federal and municipal agencies - including the police, traffic inspectorate and departments monitoring private business activity - are widely available for prices as low as 150 rubles ($5).
 Police officials say that it is difficult to prosecute people who reproduce such databases because there are no laws defining the activity as a crime.
 Buying such databases is not illegal and the harshest penalties for pirates is a fine or suspended sentence.

TITLE: Exchange Range Broadened
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The St. Petersburg Stock Exchange reopened trade in commodity futures on Urals oil on Jan. 15. 
 Urals oil is currently traded on European markets and its price is set monthly by the Economic Development and Trade Ministry.
 
The St. Petersburg Stock Exchange has introduced two types of oil future, one covering the tax on gas and oil extraction and another on the export duty to be paid on the oil. 
 According to the Tax Code, these two rates are set by the government, based on the average price for Urals oil on European markets.
 Prior to the 1998 financial crises, commodity future for sugar, grain, fuel oil and gasoline were traded on the St. Petersburg Stock Exchange. 
 In six days, 114 transactions involving Urals futures have been completed, involving 1,075 contracts. The value of the transactions amounted to 1 million rubles ($30,000).

TITLE: Quantum ComPutin
AUTHOR: By Gideon Lichfield
TEXT: THE other day, a small group of Russia-watchers who had become momentarily bored with talking about Russia asked me to explain quantum computing. This used to be one of my specialties as a science journalist, but the looks on their faces told me that I was making no sense at all - until I said that a good analogy to a quantum computer is President Vladimir Putin. By the same token, if you have trouble understanding Putin, maybe you can make sense of him as a quantum computer.
 
In a normal computer, the memory is made up of a huge array of &quot;bits,&quot; tiny switches that are either off or on, and thus represent either zero or one in the memory. In a quantum computer, they are replaced by quantum bits, or &quot;qubits.&quot; A qubit is an even tinier switch. It could, for instance, be something like an atom in a magnetic field that only allows the atom to point in one of two directions. When you observe it, it will always be pointing in one of those directions - so, like a normal computer bit, it will represent either zero or one. But, when you're not observing it, it drifts off into something called a &quot;superposition of states.&quot;
 This is a hard thing to describe. It doesn't correspond to the categories of everyday experience. Those categories are the &quot;classical&quot; states, zero and one. They are the only descriptive labels we have. Any interaction with a qubit, any attempt to observe it, &quot;collapses&quot; the quantum state: brings it back to zero or one. What's more, until you do observe the qubit there is no way to tell which result you will get. Look now, and it's zero; look again, and it could be one. In between times, a qubit in a superposition of states seems somehow to be both zero and one, and neither, and somewhere in between.
 However, the superposition does determine the probability that the qubit will be zero or one when you look. One way to learn something about the superposition, therefore, is to repeat the same test on the same qubit many times. Sometimes you'll get zero; other times, one. How often you get each result allows you to piece together some knowledge of the superposition - that is, of what the qubit is really like.
 Putin is rather like a qubit. Some people in the West look at him and see a total Zero: a reactionary, authoritarian enemy of human rights, browbeating the media and carrying on a vicious war in Chechnya. Others see a great One: a reformer who supports free-market economics and has shifted Russia's geopolitical stance firmly toward the West. Some find this puzzling. They think he has a moral double standard, or is schizoid, or irrational.
 In fact, the real Putin, like a quantum superposition of states, does not correspond to the categories of everyday experience. Not Western everyday experience. The West is used to classical labels like reformist and reactionary.
 Putin's observable behavior, like a qubit's, can fall into either category. That leaves some people with the unnerving feeling that he is somehow both reformist and reactionary, and neither, and somewhere in between. The truth is that, just as zero and one are inadequate markers for the true nature of a qubit, reformist and reactionary are poor concepts for the true nature of Putin.
 People who have observed him for a while, like scientists observing a qubit, have seen him in one state or the other enough times to piece together some knowledge of what Putin is really like. They understand that both kinds of behavior are perfectly self-consistent aspects of the same person. Putin sees market reform and rapprochement with the West as being in Russia's interests, because he believes that statist economics and non-alignment would hinder her development. He also sees a powerful central government, merciless crackdown on rebellion and limiting of dissent as being in Russia's interests, because he believes that too much liberalism would threaten her integrity and ability to function. Sometimes this combination of factors produces zero; other times it leads to one.
 The difference between quantum computing and quantum comPutin is that our categories for observing a qubit are constrained by the laws of physics, which are immutable. You cannot directly observe a superposition of states without collapsing it into zero or one, and the result of the observation is inherently unpredictable. Our categories for observing Putin, though, are constrained only by preconceptions, which can be broken. We don't need to collapse him into a reformer or a reactionary. It is possible to look directly at the heart of the Russian state, observe its true nature and make some predictions about its behavior as a result.
 Endnote: If this helped you understand quantum computing, you are a Russia specialist. If it helped you make sense of Russia, you are a physicist. If you merely found it baffling, I apologize for the inconvenience.
 
 <i>Gideon Lichfield is the Moscow correspondent of The Economist. He contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times. </i>

TITLE: Broadcasting On a Familiar Wavelength
TEXT: WITH the abrupt firing of Boris Jordan, it is again clear where Vladimir Putin's Kremlin stands on the role of national television.
 
True, there may have been many reasons for firing Jordan, a Russian-American who was appointed general director of NTV after Gazprom's takeover in April 2001 and of Gazprom-Media later that year. He had what seems to have been a less-than-trusting relationship with his boss, Gazprom-Media board chairperson Alexander Dybal, who says Jordan would not even let him into NTV studios. Last month, NTV stepped on Gazprom's toes by airing allegations of corruption in Kazakhstan's oil and gas dealings. Insiders say Jordan's business-only approach to running NTV was his undoing. He didn't play the game.
 But Jordan's Washington Post interview reinforces what seemed obvious: The Kremlin was not amused by NTV's coverage of the October hostage crisis and sent a message to Gazprom to get rid of him.
 Boris Jordan makes a lousy poster boy for a free press or, for that matter, for fair business practices, if you look back at his role in the tainted privatization schemes of the early 1990s. But he turned NTV around financially and, against expectations, upheld his promise that NTV would continue to report the news independent of the Kremlin.
 How funny it is that, less than two years after Jordan played the villain in a fight for NTV that captured the world's attention, a U.S. State Department spokesperson laments his departure by saying that under his direction &quot;NTV has grown into one of the most lively, vibrant and independent voices on the Russian airwaves.&quot;
 Jordan's real mission, though, was to restructure NTV so that Gazprom could sell it as part of a plan to rid the gas monopoly of noncore assets. But Gazprom has dragged its feet, and it is now clear that NTV will stay under state control at least through the March 2004 presidential election. So much for the hope that at least one national television station in Russia could be run as a real business, striving for financial independence to guarantee its political independence.
 The main question now is who will be chosen to shepherd NTV through the election season and whether NTV will join Channel One and Rossia in unstintingly promoting the incumbent to the exclusion of other candidates.
 Putin's reaction to NTV's coverage of the Moscow theater siege shows how suspicious he is of independent media. He sees it not as an institution essential for a democratic society but as an instrument that should be used to serve the state. We predict the Kremlin will tolerate only a loyal and obedient NTV until Putin is safely installed for another four years, but we would like to be proved wrong.

TITLE: More Colors Make City Duma Blander
TEXT: I RETURNED from a six-month working hiatus in Denver, Colorado this month to discover that the old neighborhood sure has changed. By &quot;neighborhood&quot; I mean the corridors and offices of the Legislative Assembly, my beat as a journalist here before I left and once again, now that I have returned.
 
What a difference six months can make.
 My first day back at Mariinsky Palace came as a bit of a surprise, as the December elections seem to have strengthened the presence of two colors there: red and black. The red was provided by the Communist Faction - the first in the history post-Soviet history of the local legislature. The black was courtesy of the suits worn by some of the new members' assistants, who looked a lot more like security toughs to me.
 Seeing former deputy Leonid Romankov, one of the last assembly's most eloquent speakers and effective deputies, sitting at the back of the chamber, provided a vivid reminder of some of the color the chamber had lost. The news of Romankov's loss in his district to Yury Savelyev - one of the new &quot;reds&quot; - had saddened me when I heard it. Now, I wonder if it's not better for him that people don't associate him with some of the members of the new crew.
 Yury Rydnik, the head of Balt-Uneximbank, is another of the newcomers and a striking contrast to Romankov. His stature was enough to draw the reporters to him, but he was hard pressed to string together even a few words to comment on the session's results. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt for now. He's new and probably still a little bit shy when dealing with the public. Taking care of all of that money (some of it the city's) probably didn't leave him time to get out much. He was good enough at taking care of the money that the people of his district decided to put him in charge. Who knows - it might help open him up a little.
 The defeat of Mikhail Brodsky - a well-respected economist - represents another loss for the assembly. His replacement, Vladimir Kucherenko, if the Web site Kandidat.ru is to be believed, is a victory for the black suits. The Web site reports that he was involved in &quot; ... signing shady real-estate deals in the Vyborg District that led to hundreds of people joining the ranks of St. Petersburg's homeless.&quot;
 Whether or not the report is true is more of a question for the city prosecutor than for me, especially considering the fact that I don't even live in Kucherenko's district.
 I was never naive enough to believe that the Legislative Assembly was some perfect, sacred place, but I don't remember feeling as disturbed by it as I do now, and I wonder what changed most while I was gone - me or the city.
 Some people have branded me a &quot;whiner&quot; since my return. I saw the words &quot;F**K YOU&quot; spray-painted on the side of a truck on the Belarus border as I was re-entering the CIS, and I kind of get the feeling that this is the approach people here are adopting, so anyone who goes against it must be simply a &quot;whiner.&quot;
 The &quot;whiners,&quot; it seems to me, are the ones who question things enough that people start thinking about changing them. I don't want to overdramatize the question, but whiners brought down the Berlin wall.
 I think whiners add color - something of which I'm noticing less in the Legislative Assembly.

TITLE: on the frustrations of fame
AUTHOR: by Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: Running an internationally renowned symphony orchestra is, surely, never an easy task, but Yury Temirkanov, the principal conductor of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra since 1988, says that the job has been at least 15 times more difficult since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
 
&quot;It used to be the case that talented musicians came here from all over the fifteen Soviet republics,&quot; he says. &quot;Now, nobody comes.&quot;
 What really frustrates Temirkanov is that, as the orchestra's artistic director, he now finds himself responsible for what was previously curated and provided by the world's largest country, geographically speaking. Assuming the new responsibilities was not quite what he was looking for.
 &quot;Of course, I can arrange enough foreign tours for the orchestra to add substantially to [its members'] $30-something monthly wage,&quot; he says. &quot;But I can't get apartments for my musicians, no matter how talented they are. Come to think of it, I can't get them any accommodation at all.&quot;
 Temirkanov now spends most of his time outside Russia, in particular in Baltimore, Maryland, where he is principal conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. As a result, he understands artists who have left &quot;Mother Russia&quot; for good.
 &quot;I would never force anyone to stay,&quot; he shrugs. &quot;People who say that musicians aren't Russian just because they choose to live somewhere else are thinking at the same level as the local police department. They don't understand that being patriotic and living far from your beloved country is not a contradictory situation.&quot;
 In addition to his St. Petersburg commitments, Temirkanov has been working for over 20 years with London's Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and has conducted many other top ensembles, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and the National Orchestra of France. Nevertheless, he says, when asked how far his musical tastes influence the repertoires of the various orchestras he has led, he never tried to be a fully versatile conductor.
 &quot;Maybe I am not very good at my job, but I can only conduct music I really love,&quot; he says. &quot;If I conduct something of which I'm not fond, I feel as though I'm lying to the audience.&quot;
 One aspect of this selective nature is his reluctance to conduct music written later than Shostakovich and Prokofiev.
 &quot;Nowadays, composers tend to construct music, to invent it, rather than just give birth to it,&quot; he says. &quot;New music often feels like a creature of the mind. Perhaps that's the reason it doesn't touch me emotionally.&quot;
 Even when not at the podium, Temirkanov finds it hard to switch off his conducting mind at concerts, and admits that he derives litle pleasure from listening to music.
 &quot;Eventually, I began to understand what my old friend [the late actor] Andrei Mironov tried to tell me when he said he never enjoyed watching movies,&quot; he says. &quot;You destroy the pleasure by automatically registering all the faults, failures and slightest inaccuracies. Only a genius, like [conductor Herbert von] Karajan or [pianist Sviatoslav] Richter, can make you forget it all and just drown, get completely carried away.&quot;
 Temirkanov dates the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra's first concert as long ago as 1803. The current plight in Russian culture, he believes, is largely due to negligence and ignorance of such traditions.
 &quot;Nourishing an artistic or any other dynasty is like breeding horses,&quot; he says. &quot;You have to remember the founder, and see his strong qualities in subsequent generations. After [the revolutions of] 1917, we thought that any slob could quickly become a member of the intelligentsia. That was a big mistake.&quot;
 &quot;The Revolution turned things upside down, society was completely mixed up,&quot; he adds. &quot;There was so much confusion and chaos that, in cultural terms, Russia had to start again from the beginning, from nothing.&quot;
 With this in mind, Temirkanov founded the Arts Square Festival, the fifth running of which finished earlier this month, to help rectify the situation by restoring one of Russia's most venerable traditions - winter seasons abundant in concerts, balls and parties.
 On a lighter note, despite his dedication to St. Petersburg, Temirkanov says he can not think of a piece of music that fully reflects the spirit of the city.
 &quot;[St. Petersburg] is far too sophisticated; it's enough to say that it's one of very few cities in the world originally built to be its country's capital,&quot; he says. &quot;Other capitals just became capitals historically. St. Petersburg was meant to be the capital.&quot;

TITLE: when paris and tom waits collide
AUTHOR: by Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: After last year's foreign affairs, Tom Waits-influenced group Billy's Band is returning to the big time in its home city.
 
The band has played hundreds of gigs around St. Petersburg over the past couple of years, but has only now released its official CD debut. &quot;Parizhskiye Sezony&quot; (&quot;Paris Seasons&quot;) features 14 tracks written during the band's four-week tour to Paris in October and November.
 &quot;We had plenty of free time in our first two weeks there, which allowed us to write and finish the songs from the drafts we had,&quot; says frontman Vadim &quot;Billy&quot; Novik, who sings and plays double bass. &quot;That's why it's slightly permeated by Parisian motifs.&quot;
 Billy's band officially formed in August 2001, and first became popular locally covering Tom Waits songs. Novik - whose voice, even when not singing, sounds not unlike Waits' - first heard the U.S. troubador in 1999.
 &quot;When I first heard Waits, I wondered how someone with no voice, no musical ear and no good musicians can create something that grabs your heart. So I decided to try, too,&quot; says Novik, who was in a band from 1990 to 1995, but quit when he &quot;lost faith in [his] abilities.&quot;
 &quot;Tom Waits gave me a new lease on life,&quot; he says.
 Although the trio, which also includes accordion player Anton Matezius and guitarist Andrei &quot;Ryzhik&quot; Reznikov, has previously recorded two albums, its previous releases - 2001's &quot;Being Tom Waits&quot; and, as V.V. Novik and Billy's Band, last year's &quot;Nemnogo Smerti, Nemnogo Lyubvi&quot; (&quot;A Little Bit of Death, a Little Bit of Love&quot;) - were home-produced CDRs.
 Even so, Billy's Band has no recording contract, so &quot;Parizhskiye Sezony&quot; is self-released, and currently only available at the band's concerts. Despite interest from Moscow indie label BAd TaStE, home to all sorts of off-the-wall acts, the group declined the offer.
 &quot;It's a great company, with great people,&quot; says Novik. &quot;But the conditions they offered us weren't what we wanted.&quot;
 The recording sessions took place Nov. 18 and Nov. 19 at Neva Records, a cheap studio used by many local bands, and were funded by money raised by selling a huge television set that the band was given at the June rock festival &quot;Okna Otkroi&quot; (&quot;Open Your Windows&quot;).
 Although most of the band's repertoire is in English, the new CD is almost exclusively Russian-language, except for four instrumentals and the track &quot;Damned&quot; - whose lyrics are limited to a repetition of the title.
 From the first track, &quot;Ulichny Vals&quot; (&quot;Street Waltz&quot;), sung from the perspective of a little girl begging on the street, the album incorporates some twisted, Tom Waits-esque humor.
 &quot;It's pseudo-social,&quot; says Novik. &quot;Why 'pseudo'? Because how can a little girl can sing in a voice like this?&quot;
 &quot;My songs on the album are about nostalgia, an unfulfilled dream; they refer to the times I lived in Kupchino [in the south of the city], to my cheerless life there,&quot; he says. &quot;The song '200 Kubikov Agdama' [a reference to cheap strong wine] is about Kupchino. Paris aggravated the feeling.&quot;
 Billy's Band originally made its name as a bar band, playing in all kinds of cafes and pubs as often as six nights a week. Now, it tends to play clubs and small theater venues. In recent shows, the band has even introduced elements of drama to its performance.
 Despite, or maybe because of, a hectic schedule, the band's members insist that they did not rehearse until getting to Paris in the autumn, when they had a chance to work on new material without St. Petersburg's usual distractions.
 &quot;Usually, musicians rehearse and then play a concert, but we managed without rehearsals,&quot; says Novik. &quot;When I asked the guys to play with me, I had a policy. I said, 'Guys, I don't want this to be a burden on anybody. Let's see what happens; it's all good.'&quot;
 The band still appears at local Irish pubs Mollie's and Shamrock a couple of times each month, but can now be more selective about bookings. &quot;It's always nicer if you can choose,&quot; says Novik.
 Famous for its witty improvisations, Billy's Band often strays from its regular set when playing at its favorite bar, Purga, on Nab. Reki Fontanki, to cover some Russian pop hits in its trademark eccentric manner.
 &quot;We can perform totally crazy covers of [Russian] hits there, in our own style, which we call 'funeral Dixieland,'&quot; says Novik. &quot;For example, [female pop duo] Tatu's 'Nas Ne Dogonyat' sounds very amusing when we play it.&quot;
 Future plans include a live album - tentatively called &quot;Otkrytka Ot&quot; (&quot;A Postcard From&quot;) - because, as Novik says, &quot;many people who've seen us say that what they hear on record doesn't fully correspond to what they see live.&quot;
 
 <i>
Billy's Band showcases &quot;Parizhskiye Sezony&quot; at Red Club on Friday at 8 p.m. </i>

TITLE: chernov's choice
TEXT: Tatyanin Den </strong>(&quot;Tatyana's Day&quot;), the open-air daytime affair promoted by student newspaper Gaudeamus at Kirov Stadium on Saturday, turns out to be more than just a showcase for Multfilmy, which is headlining the event.
 
Officially kicking off at 1 p.m., the proceedings will get underway with some comic acts, while the bands (see Gigs for the full list), will be on stage from around 3 p.m.
 Multfilmy, of course, will appear nearer the end, which, according to promoter Oleg Vorobyov, is officially 6 p.m. but is likely to be as late as 8 p.m.
 Vorobyov is also trying to soothe anxious weather watchers with a forecast for Saturday of between 6 and 8 degrees Celsius - and by saying that people can &quot;warm up&quot; with drinks from the stadium's bar.
 Some new albums are slated to get their live premieres this week, notably &quot;Parizhskiye Sezony&quot; (&quot;Paris Seasons&quot;), the first official release from <strong>Billy's Band </strong>(see article, this page).
 The concert, at Red Club on Friday, will be the only chance to buy the disc, which is unavailable in record stores as the band is aiming to retail it itself.
 For the older generation, local rock dissident <strong>Mikhail Boryzkin,</strong><i> </i>of funk-rock band Televizor, showcases both his new solo release, &quot;Perekryostok&quot; (&quot;Crossroad&quot;) and the band's 1990 album, &quot;Mechta Samoubitsy&quot; (&quot;The Suicide's Dream&quot;), which is out on CD for the first time.
 Borzykin calls his concert at Orlandina on Saturday a &quot;tvorchesky vecher&quot; - an untranslatable term meaning that he will appear solo, equipped with his keyboards and synthesizer, and will probably answer questions submitted on paper by the audience. 
 Burnt-out 1970s rockers continue to plague the city this week in the shape of <strong>Ken Hensley, </strong>formerly the keyboardist in sometime locally popular British band Uriah Heep, who plays the Oktyabrsky Concert Hall on Saturday.
 The 50-year-old Hensley, a frequent visitor to Russia since the early 1990s, last played St. Petersburg in September but, this time, will appear with a full symphony orchestra in a set involving local guitarist Sergei Bolotnikov.
 Ironically, Hensley will be followed by his former band in February, for a highly dubious affair on Feb. 22 dubbed &quot;International Rock Legends&quot; that involves Smokie, Slade and Sweet.
 It seems safe to assume that, in this context, &quot;Slade&quot; presumably means &quot;Slade II,&quot; without the band's two songwriters, Noddy Holder and Jimmy Lea.
 The great rock 'n' roll swindle will continue in March when the <strong>Dead Kennedys </strong>make their first ever Russian tour - but without the band's singer and main songwriter, Jello Biafra.
 The band's other members won a legal battle against Biafra, claiming that he underpaid them in royalties and did not promote the back catalogue well enough.
 Subsequently, in 2001, they reformed the band with a new singer, and are now happily rocking all over the world using Biafra's band name and songs.
 The group will play at the Palace of Youth (LDM) on March 8.

TITLE: back in the u.s.s.r. - only better
AUTHOR: by Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The recently opened cafe Kuvert may have a French word for its name and napkins bearing the image of Paris' Notre Dame Cathedral, but that's about as far as its French connection goes.
 
Instead, when my two dining companions and I entered the eatery on the corner of Gorokhovaya Ulitsa and Kazanskaya Ulitsa, we were greeted by smiling, friendly staff and a live Russian band playing &quot;Sunshine Reggae.&quot; The group - consisting of two guitarists and a keyboardist and playing popular songs - was exactly the sort of vocal-instrumental ensemble that was an almost inevitable feature of nicer restaurants in the Soviet Union. Despite the choice of material, the band seemed to be in a blues mood, making the song sound more like a lullaby.
 &quot;This place feels like Yalta,&quot; sighed one of my companions, recalling his holidays in the popular Crimean resort during the Soviet era. Indeed, Kuvert felt like a trip back to our Soviet childhoods - but not in a nasty way. Rather, it promised to be a relaxing trip down memory lane, so we decided to stay and roll back the years.
 Kuvert's menu is not the most extensive that you will find, but quite a few dishes sound delicious (some interesting English translations notwithstanding). I, for example, was tempted by the &quot;gratinated juicy pork in red wine sauce&quot; (144 rubles, $4.50), and the &quot;finnish salmon medallions&quot; (147 rubles, $4.60). Budget-conscious diners may also be tempted by the weekday-only business lunch, at just 80 rubles ($2.50).
 One companion and I both ordered mixed salads (68 rubles, $2.15) for starters, a standard mix of chopped salad leaves, tomatoes, radish and bell peppers, with either mayonnaise or oil dressing. Both of us went for the version with oil, which turned out to be sunflower oil - something the taste of which I had almost forgotten, and couldn't remember be being used in restaurants since, well, the era of which Kuvert reminded us. It seemed we were getting just what we wanted.
 The third member of the party started with pike-perch soup (56 rubles, $1.75), which he declared delicious, although he expressed a desire for more fish. Judging from what we saw, however, we thought the soup contained plenty.
 Meanwhile, one of the singers anounced the next song, which he dedicated to &quot;the charming Olga.&quot; &quot;God, it's definitely like Yalta,&quot; sighed my companion, his nostalgia visibly growing.
 It seemed to be infectious, as my other companion was soon also reminiscing. &quot;I remember that song,&quot; she smiled. &quot;It was playing one day when I went with my mom and her second husband to see my grandfather at his dacha. It was warm and sunny. I had a stomach ache, and granddad was painting the shed pink. I was in primary school then.&quot;
 For real hard-core Soviet thrill seekers, Kuvert's main courses include kasha (25 rubles, $0.80) - the porridge equivalent that was a staple of Soviet canteens 15 years back - made with milk and butter or, alternatively, from buckwheat or millet. Perhaps inevitably, one of us recalled the day he joined the Soviet youth organization, the Pioneers. &quot;God, they took us to Razliv [the village on the Gulf of Finland where Lenin's cottage is located,&quot; he said. &quot;It was April, and freezing cold, but we had to take off our coats and hats to get our Pioneers ties. They couldn't untie the knot on my hat, so I had to leave it on.&quot;
 We decided to pass on the kasha, however. My female companion ordered a whole baked trout in sesame sauce, served with carrots and potatoes ($182 rubles, $5.70). She was very happy with her choice, although the sauce contained some delicious mushrooms rather than the promised seeds. &quot;The trout is best at the spinal cord, but biting through that bit is difficult,&quot; she said.
 My mutton chops in rosemary sauce (147 rubles, $4.60) were mild without being bland and, thankfully, not overcooked ad chewy (as might have been expected in a true Soviet establishment). However, the best dish we chose was the veal in cherry sauce (160 rubles, $5), a hearty portion of mouthwatering, tender meat that made us all want to come back for that dish alone.
 By now, the band was singing &quot;Tombe la neige,&quot; and we realized we wanted dessert. Our server steered us toward the Black Forest gateau (59 rubles, $1.85), which one companion acknowledged as &quot;just great - a lot better than the one in Idealnaya Chashka.&quot; I can never resist a homemade apple pie, and Kuvert's take on the dish (48 rubles, $1.50), with a hint of cinnamon, served warm and soaked in mild vanilla sauce, was just as it should be.
 Soon, it was time to leave. We all agreed that Kuvert's wait staff deserve high praise for being prompt, helpful, genuinely friendly and relaxed. They also seemed to enjoy their work - a rare case among servers here, whose smiles, all too often, seem tense and artificial. We had a good time reliving parts of our past - something that many of the currently chic &quot;Soviet style&quot; places can probably not achieve, no matter how hard they try.
 
 <i>
Kuvert, 27/26 Gorokhovaya Ulitsa. Tel.: 314-0718. Open 24 hours. Menu in Russian and English. No credit cards. Dinner for three, without alcohol: 1,063 rubles ($33.40). </i>

TITLE: rebuilding pavlovsk on the quiet
AUTHOR: by Larisa Doctorow
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Sergey Gutzait is a high-profile personality in Pavlovsk, the small, picturesque St. Petersburg suburb famous for its palace and park. Best known as an entrepreneur and owner of the celebrated Podvorye restaurant - which numbers President Vladimir Putin among its many VIP guests - Gutzait's community work goes largely unnoticed. Few realise that Podvorye runs a soup kitchen that feeds several hundred locals every week; or that Gutzait is the driving force, financially and administratively, behind an extensive program aimed at restoring Pavlovsk's former glory.
 
Pavlovsk is named for Catherine the Great's son, Paul I, who made it his home. For most of the 19th century, Pavlovsk was a popular summer residence for noble families and also attracted a number of cultural figures: Johann Strauss, Jr., the &quot;King of the Waltz,&quot; conducted the local orchestra for 10 years in the mid-19th century; later, musicians, including Tchaikovsky, Glazunov and Fyodor Shalyapin, gave concerts; and artists including the Bryullov brothers, Alexander and Karl, and the sculptor Pyotr Klodt frequently worked here. Among the architectural highlights of Pavlovsk's park is a classical yellow pavilion with white columns. Designed in 1800 by Scottish architect Charles Cameron, the pavilion, known as the Music Hall, was a venue for high-profile musical and dance evenings. Restoring the pavilion was one of Gutzait's first local projects.
 &quot;During the war, [the pavilion] was destroyed,&quot; he says. &quot;Later, it was restored, but fell victim to neglect and, ultimately, deteriorated.&quot;
 &quot;The park administration asked me to help. I restored it, maintain it and, on weekends since 1998, we organize charity concerts, in which [Rimsky-Korsakov] Conservatory students participate.&quot;
 Gutzait's latest restoration project is the Marienthal Palace, or &quot;Tsar Paul's Bastion,&quot; in the middle of what was the town's cluster of 15 major residences. The palace is recognized by UNESCO as part of Russia's cultural heritage. When the local administration lacked the means to restore the building, Gutzait stepped in.
 &quot;I want to rebuild this area and turn it into a cultural and educational reserve,&quot; Gutzait says. &quot;We've started clearing away the rubbish, restoring the original layout of the park, and finding the former mansions' foundations.&quot;
 &quot;When it was built, the fortress commanded the valley, the river was navigable, and the tsar arrived by boat. It was his favorite place in Pavlovsk, and he treated it as a real fortress, with guards, cannons and moats. After Paul was murdered, it housed charitable institutions.&quot;
 Today, the building is a colossal ruin, and Gutzait faces an immense task. The bastion suffered several fires and, subsequently, decades of neglect; the main doors are missing; there are no windows; piles of garbage abut the formerly stuccoed cracked brick walls and the once-proud towers are mere skeletons.
 &quot;I understand your shock,&quot; Gutzait says. &quot;When I was asked to rebuild it a few years ago, I refused; I am not crazy. But I know that, if nothing is done, in two or three years, the building will deteriorate beyond repair, and I cannot accept that. The project will take 20 or 30 years to complete and, although I don't have money to spare, I decided to take it on nonetheless.&quot;
 &quot;Previously, I didn't care about helping but, now, I want to. The restoration project won a national competition for rebuilding Russia's small towns, which means I can get $50,000 in federal money. For that, I have to prepare a lot of documents, which is a long, difficult and expensive task. I have two professionals working fulltime on financial estimates, planning permission and so on.&quot;
 Although the team missed the Dec. 1 deadline for federal funding for this year, the outlook for assistance is good. However, Gutzait has reservations.
 &quot;I'm ambivalent, to be honest,&quot; he says. &quot;If I get official help, I will have to hire a contractor, who will want $10,000, when I can get the same work done for $1,000. I'm not interested in deals like that; I want to prove that it is possible to be as honest with federal financing as with my own money.&quot;
 Even without federal help, the project is dependent on the generosity of local authorities, an area in which Gutzait sees positive developments.
 &quot;The attitude to philanthropy has changed in the last five years; it's much better now,&quot; he says. &quot;I must say that the administration's attitude toward my project is good now. In the historic area designated for restoration, building a new villa or apartment building is not allowed, which is a big help.&quot;
 Architectural restoration is only a part of Gutzait's larger plan to breathe new life into Pavlovsk. The greatest beneficiary of his work so far has been the school that he created five years ago on the model of the pre-Revolutionary Tsarskoye Selo lycee founded by Alexander I in 1811 as a school for the nobility.
 &quot;Our school is named after Prince Alexander Gorchakov, who was chancellor of Russia and foreign minister for two decades, and who, along with Pushkin, was among the first to graduate [from Alexander I's school],&quot; he says. &quot;Creating this school is the backbone of the area's rehabilitation.&quot;
 &quot;It's a boarding school that provides eight years of free education for boys from the age of ten. At present, we have 19 students and, from September, we will have 40,&quot; he says. &quot;To be admitted, [boys] have to have high IQs, be in good health and come from intelligentsia families. The parents should support our ideas. We are looking for romantic families, for whom the idea of serving the people, the country means something. The original lycee's motto was 'For the Common Good,' and we follow it.&quot;
 &quot;I was approached by several well-off people who wanted to create a school for the political elite. But, in their case, the school would serve as advertising for their business, and I couldn't agree. I think you have to be involved in either philanthropy or business.&quot;
 In the 19th century, the main school building was one of three summer houses owned in the area by Alexander Bryullov. Today, after restoration, which Gutzait financed and oversaw, it is a cosy, two-story building in the middle of a copse of trees, with a tower on one side. The lower floor houses a dining room, kitchen and reading rooms, with the two-person bedrooms on the second floor.
 &quot;We provide a very good education,&quot; Gutzait says. &quot;As well as the standard subjects, the children study music, languages and dance. They all play musical instruments; they learn to debate; they write pieces that we publish; they study philosophy, history and even cooking.&quot;
 &quot;Once a year, they go abroad and, twice a year, they travel around Russia. The trips are all educational, and I pay for them. I see them becoming people of the world, cosmopolites, comfortable with other people and cultures.&quot;
 Meanwhile, the reconstruction continues. Two neighboring buildings are being renovated to accomodate the new intake in September. A few hundred meters away is a wooden house in which the teachers live, which Gutzait's investment has converted from a crumbling wreck into modern apartments. Two other buildings belonging to the school - including the former residence of Pavlovsk's first commandant, P.A. Rottasta - are also under repair.
 Gutzait's philanthropy is taking place in a uniquely Russian context, in which everything depends on good faith and property rights are suspended.
 &quot;Nothing is privatized,&quot; Gutzait says. &quot;The buildings are completed, teachers and students live here, classes are going on - and we don't yet have the documents letting us do the restoration.&quot;
 Does he not fear someone trying to wrest the school from his control and profit from his charitable investments?
 &quot;It's in my nature to take these risks; many people don't understand it,&quot; he says. &quot;But, after all, what am I risking? It's not my children's life.&quot;
 &quot;I admit that, in theory, I will never own these buildings but, practically, I don't think anyone will say, 'He has no right to be here.'&quot;
 &quot;We've already had one revolution,&quot; Gutzait says. &quot;Expropriation and its consequences were devastating. But, even if the worst should happen, the buildings will stay, which is the most important thing. So we will continue renovating, rebuilding and recreating the park, cleaning away the garbage and improving our school.&quot;

TITLE: a tolstoy speaks, and russia listens
AUTHOR: by Celestine Bohlen
PUBLISHER: New York Times Service
TEXT: Tatyana Tolstaya, best known as a short story writer and an essayist, began writing her first and only novel in 1986. By the time she finished, 14 years later, her country had changed dramatically, and it is continuing to change. But in a way that is very Russian, it has also stayed very much the same.
 
So when &quot;The Slynx,&quot; a highly literary novel that tracks the history of Russian culture by way of fantasy and allegory, came out in Moscow in 2000, she was pounced on by readers seeking confirmation of clues that could apply to the present just as easily as they could to the past. Was the blast that sets the stage for the book's strange wintry landscape, inhabited by mutants, mice and the mythical, menacing Slynx, a reference to the nuclear accident at Chernobyl, which took place in 1986? Or was it the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917? Is the book's opening tyrant - a grotesque midget whose full title is Fyodor Kuzmich, Glorybe, the Greatest Murza, Long May He Live - a mutated version of one of Communism's last tsars? Or is he a tiny version of Boris Yeltsin? Was the tyrant that follows him, an obvious caricature of a clean-living KGB colonel, an allusion perhaps to Russia's current president, Vladimir Putin, or to one of his Soviet predecessors?
 Sitting in the offices of Houghton Mifflin, the book's English-language publisher, Tolstaya, 51, recalled how she had to dispel any notion that she was somehow able to predict the latest twists of Russian history. &quot;I didn't foresee anything,&quot; she said, laughing at the thought. &quot;I just sat down to write.&quot;
 If, in the process, reality emerged - or rather a template that fits the relationship Russians have to their rulers - then so be it. &quot;It always comes down to patterns,&quot; she said. &quot;When they invented fingerprinting, criminals tried to remove their prints by burning them or cutting them off. Yet they always grew back. If there is a pattern, it will come back - maybe in Russia more than anywhere else, because it has collapsed so many times. Maybe less so here in the States, because here the society is so young.&quot;
 The book has sold well - 200,000 copies by an official count, although Tolstaya suspects that the real number may be twice that. Her favorite story is of a reader who spotted her in a restaurant, went home to print the book off the Internet and brought up a stack of papers for her to autograph.
 Tolstaya has carved out another space for herself in Moscow. She is a co-host of a popular weekly television show, &quot;School for Scandal,&quot; on which guests - politicians, actors, television personalities - are interviewed, and then, after they have left, dissected by the two hosts.
 &quot;The idea is to take off their masks and then discuss them,&quot; Tolstaya said. &quot;Some people say that it is unethical, but this is what everyone does in their kitchens. It is what the reviewers do. We are just admitting it.&quot;
 Tolstaya's forte, viewers say, is her humor, but sometimes, they add, her wit takes on a caustic, contemptuous edge - as when she makes her now-well-known observations about American life - from the culture of political correctness to the stubborn recalcitrance of underprepared college students.
 She has also emerged as something of a &quot;state intellectual,&quot; a peculiarly Russian concept meaning an unofficial member of the government team. Unlike some other Russian intellectuals, Tolstaya is indeed an open supporter of the Putin &quot;regime,&quot; as she herself calls it, although she has resisted its attempts to enlist her in its various causes. &quot;He is holding the empire together,&quot; she said, &quot;unlike Yeltsin, who was a drunkard, irresponsible, and didn't control anything.&quot;
 As her novel suggests, however, Tolstaya is convinced that Russian rulers are never in fact as powerful as they seem, or as their people wish them to be. &quot;The one on top has the aura of power, but less real power,&quot; she said. She added later, &quot;Putin is responsible but not powerful enough.&quot;
 Her support for the Putin government does not stop her from criticizing what she sees around her: the creeping censorship that has appeared on the main government television channel, the unchecked corruption and the failure to deal with social injustice. &quot;Frankly,&quot; she said, when asked to describe being back in Moscow, &quot;it is disappointing, sometimes frightening and irritating.&quot;
 Perhaps for these reasons, she claims her public role suits her. &quot;I am interested in the subject which is Russia,&quot; she said. &quot;I don't think people are fools, and I think they deserve a good attitude and smart entertainment. I have enough energy to insist on saying what I think.&quot;

TITLE: 'i spy' is nothing to behold
AUTHOR: by Elvis Mitchell
PUBLISHER: New York Times Service
TEXT: It's a novel notion. No, not turning an old television series into a feature film, as the director Betty Thomas and her team have done with &quot;I Spy,&quot; but rather shoehorning two actors who are born scene-stealers - Eddie Murphy and Owen Wilson - into a buddy comedy.
 
The casting is as absurd as a remake of &quot;Shaft&quot; starring Reese Witherspoon; it's funnier in the concept than in the execution. In this case, there are far more laughs in the idea of Murphy and Wilson fighting to upstage each other than there are in the movie. It's freakish, too, for this kind of grandstanding to be happening in a film derived from a television show that was based on chemistry and the two stars falling in love with each other's styles. The chemistry in the film, however, is like combining hydrogen and oxygen; and here the product is as bland as water.
 The slim plot and its predictable third-act twist involves the theft of the Switchblade, the newest example of U.S. stealth-plane technology, by evildoers. That's the word used by the spy boss, McIntyre (Bill Mondy, whose static-cling hair suggests the producer Brian Grazer). McIntyre assigns the bumbling special agent Alexander Scott (Wilson) to retrieve the stolen plane from the evildoer Gundars (Malcolm McDowell, who also sports a mucho-mousse hairdo). Scott is hooked up with the megalomaniacal boxing champ Kelly Robinson (Murphy). When he isn't blowing kisses to his upper arms, which are tattooed with his 57 knockouts, Robinson is sending opponents to the mat with a flurry of uppercuts. The president himself phones Robinson and asks the champ to go to Eastern Europe with Scott, serving as part of Scott's cover, so that they can infiltrate one of Gundars's huge parties and find out where the Switchblade is hidden. &quot;We can't find it, because we can't see it,&quot; Scott explains to Robinson.
 Thomas can be quite good with actors: She calmed Murphy down to a slow burn in the 1998 &quot;Dr. Dolittle&quot; remake; he relaxed enough to coast on straight-man star presence. But staging action scenes isn't her thing, to put it mildly. The martial sequences seem as tacky as the surveillance equipment that the second-string spy Robinson has been given. 
 As the frenetic boxer, Murphy is so pumped up and fast-talking, you wonder why he hasn't been given a drug test before he steps into the ring. Murphy has every reason to be proud of his physique; the 41-year-old star could pass for a 25 year old. And he still has the energy of a kid, although his steady patter can be wearying - you think he must be doing it to stay awake. His Robinson, with his posse of alternately jittery and arrogant sycophants, is a parody of egomania.
 Wilson's light, high voice and stoner's politesse are an intriguing contrast to his surfer's good looks and busted-nose profile; he looks as if he has spent more time in fights than Robinson has. His molasses-slow (and sweet) cadence masks the venom in his patter; there's an insult hidden in almost every line he speaks.
 The few amusing moments feel recycled from old Murphy sketches. Thomas tries to use the put-on ironies that she exploited successfully in &quot;The Brady Bunch Movie&quot; by giving Scott and Robinson another nemesis: the superspy Carlos, Scott's dashing colleague, who gets first crack at the great gear and choice assignments. As played by Gary Cole, Carlos - with his shoe-polish black hair and ponytail - is a Euro-trash version of Steven Seagal. His vanity is outdated, in contrast to Robinson's hip-hop heat. But the small touches aren't enough to rescue &quot;I Spy.&quot; The old show took something negligible and made it sui generis; this version is just plain generic.
 

 <i>
&quot;I Spy.&quot; Barrikada, through Feb. 5; Crystal Palace, through Feb. 1. </i>

TITLE: a journalist on top of the world
AUTHOR: by Sam Thorne
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: As a holiday destination, the North Pole might not possess the same popular appeal as Paris or Venice, but for journalist and The St. Petersburg Times contributor Christopher Pala, it was a logical choice. Following several visits to the Arctic with adventure-tourism groups, Pala devised an expedition whereby he and his fiancee would be dropped off by helicopter at the pole and spend a week &quot;riding the polar treadmill&quot; - in other words, they would ski to the pole every day, pitch a tent there and drift away on the constantly moving Arctic ice pack while they slept. Pala called it the First Expedition to Nowhere.
 
As it transpires in his entertaining book &quot;The Oddest Place on Earth: Rediscovering the North Pole,&quot; Pala is not alone in experiencing the pole's amatory allure: During his various Arctic adventures, around which the book is structured, Pala witnesses three couples getting married on top of the world. Apart from adding new meaning to the term &quot;white wedding,&quot; &quot;The Oddest Place on Earth&quot; claims to be the first book &quot;to chronicle the transformation of one of the most remote places on earth into a new Mecca for adventure travelers.&quot; This image of the North Pole as a vast playground for adrenaline junkies is borne out by Pala's accounts of polar parachute jumps, balloon trips and scuba dives, which have a certain novelty value but tend to diminish the pole's mystique. Fortunately, Pala counterbalances these tales of contemporary high jinks with engaging chapters on the history of Arctic exploration - particularly Russia's largely unsung role in it - and quirky descriptions of life at the pole, in which Pala's enthusiasm for the place shines through.
 In his book, Pala describes several expeditions to the North Pole, all of which follow roughly the same format. Flying out of Khatanga, about midway along Russia's Arctic coast, Russian jets carry tourists to a drifting base near the pole, where they land on a runway of ice just three feet thick. From this base camp, helicopters then ferry people to and from the pole itself. All the expeditions take place in April, when the temperature rises to an average of minus 20 degrees Celsius near the pole and the ice is still strong enough to support a 35-ton cargo jet.
 Pala's first view of the Arctic ice pack is from one of these giant airplanes: &quot;It was all ice, white as cake icing and as level as the sea it covered. But not uniform: ridges, large and small, brought to mind the hedges of the English countryside - or giant mole tracks. &quot;Between them lay ice fields, smooth as ironed sheets. Fresh cracks, born of the conflicting pressures of winds, tides and currents, revealed lines of water that stood out like Chinese lacquer.&quot;
 On top of such illuminating descriptions of the Arctic scenery, Pala brings to life the odd little communities that congregate at the North Pole every April - grizzly polar explorers turned tour guides, a steady trickle of tourists (mostly European and American outdoorsy types), a lone Japanese man who skis the Arctic in an apparent bid to earn the love of a woman back home and, last but not least, the Russians who staff the bases, resolutely keeping to themselves and spurning the hi-tech, freeze-dried provisions of their clients in favor of vodka and raw fish. 
 He also includes plenty of facts and figures. Readers may be surprised to hear, for example, that the pole does not actually exist as a fixed point - it moves around in a circle (hence &quot;The First Expedition to Nowhere&quot;). Another nugget for trivia fans is that, contrary to popular myth, Eskimos don't rub their noses in greeting - they pull them.
 By far the most absorbing sections of &quot;The Oddest Place on Earth,&quot; however, are those dealing with the pioneers of Arctic exploration: men such as Salomon August Andree, a visionary Swede who died trying to fly a balloon to the pole, and the Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen, who vanished for three years in the Arctic before bumping into English explorer Frederick Jackson near the remote island of Spitzbergen - a meeting that Pala contends was far more extraordinary than the more famous encounter between Henry Stanley and David Livingstone in the depths of Africa.
 There is plenty of coverage, too, for little-known Russian polar explorers such as Ivan Papanin, who in 1937 led a four-man Soviet team that established a floating base on the ice near the North Pole and drifted south for eight months to points as far as Greenland. Incidentally, even at the pole, the men were unable to escape the absurd strictures of Soviet life: Three members of the expedition were ordered by Moscow to form a Communist Party cell at their camp - the fourth was allowed to join as a Bolshevik sympathizer. 
 Pala also wades into the long-running debate about who was the first person to stand at the North Pole. Dismissing the oft-doubted claims of early 20th-century American explorers Robert Peary and Frederick Cook - both of whom claimed to have landed on the North Pole in the early 20th century, Peary in 1909 and Cook in 1908 - he argues the case for 24 obscure Soviet scientists who landed at the pole on April 23, 1948.
 Pala has filled &quot;The Oddest Place on Earth&quot; with a great deal of diverse material and information, and consequently the book is something of a patchwork affair, made up of abridged histories, second-hand accounts, synopses of other books and extended versions of newspaper and magazine articles by Pala himself. The book also suffers from a lack of photographs, or even a map to give readers some idea of where unfamiliar places such as Franz-Josef Land or the New Siberian Islands are located.
 Despite its faults, &quot;The Oddest Place on Earth&quot; is a readable and wide-ranging introduction to one of the planet's least known regions. The book will appeal particularly to those who enjoy tales of human endurance in adverse conditions - and for everyone else, it will at least make the St. Petersburg winter seem a little less grueling by comparison.
 
 <i>
&quot;The Oddest Place on Earth: Rediscovering the North Pole.&quot; By Christopher Pala. Writer's Showcase. 322 pages. $17.95. </i>

TITLE: the word's worth
AUTHOR: by Michele A. Berdy <i>
TEXT: Ne mai mesyats: </i>it's sure not May, it's freezing outside; it's the middle of winter; it's not springtime (a jocular expression to describe cold weather).
 
Every winter, the first cold snap and heavy snowfall seems to take the Russian communal-services crews by surprise. Every year Russians joke, <i>&quot;Vnezapno prishla zima&quot; </i>(winter came unexpectedly), parodying the authorities, who say this every year to explain why only 10 out of 2,500 plows were ready to clean the roads in, say, mid-December, when one might expect a snow flake or two. Actually, I understand the communal services guys: Even if you see the thermometer is at minus 30 degrees Celsius, when you walk out the door you're still not prepared for the searing pain of your first breath of frigid air, or the way your skin burns after even a short walk. 
 This kind of weather is called <i>diky kholod </i>(bitter cold) or <i>sobachy kholod </i>(intense cold). Colloquially, you can also say, <i>&quot;Na ulitse kholodryga&quot; </i>(It's freezing outside) - <i>kholdryta </i>is a word coined from <i>kholod </i>(cold) and <i>drozhat </i>(to shiver). Or you can say, &quot;Na ulitse dubnyak!&quot; This is from the word <i>dub </i>(oak) and verb <i>zadubet </i>(to become stiff, i.e., as an oak). The connection with cold is simple: leave a wet washcloth on the balcony where it is -30 C and, in about half an hour, <i>&quot;tryapka zadubeyet&quot; </i>(the washrag is frozen stiff). 
 You can also step out the door and exclaim &quot;Oi, kolotun kakoi!&quot; - from <i>kolotit, </i>to shake or shiver. Alternatively, you can stay inside and say, &quot;Na ulitse nosa ne vysunesh&quot; (you can't even stick your nose outside) or <i>v</i> <i>takuyu pogodu khoroshy khozyain sobaku iz doma ne vygonit </i>(it's not fit outside for man or beast, literally, &quot;a good owner wouldn't put out his dog in weather like this). These last two expressions can be used to describe any miserable weather. 
 When you spend a bit of time in the freezing cold you can say, <i>&quot;Ya drozhu (tryasus) ot kholoda&quot; </i>(I'm shivering) or <i>&quot;Poidyom domoi! U menya zub na zub ne popadaet&quot; </i>(Let's go home! My teeth are chattering). To which your friend might reply, <i>&quot;A ty kak dumal!? Ne mai mesyats&quot; </i>(What did you think? It's sure not May). 
 If you spend a long time in the freezing cold you can say, <i>&quot;Ya zamerz kak sobaka, kak poslednyaya svoloch, kak tsutsik&quot; </i>(literally, I'm as frozen as a dog, the last scoundrel, and a nonsense word that sounds like something frozen). Or you can say, <i>&quot;Ya prosto sosulka&quot; </i>(I'm an icicle). 
 If you spend a really long time in the cold, you might have to say, <i>&quot;U menya ruki potreskalis&quot; </i>(my hands are chapped) or <i>&quot;U menya litso pokrylos tsypkami&quot; </i>(my face is chapped or my skin has cracked from the cold). If you are outside for a really, really long time, you might have to say, <i>&quot;U menya ruki otmorozheny&quot; </i>(my hands are frostbitten). 
 Inevitably, though, when we are finally reconciled to the freezing weather, the temperatures rise 30 degrees overnight in a mid-winter <i>ottepel </i>(thaw). The streets are filled with <i>slyakot </i>(slush), a word that sounds like the mess that it is. And if that's not bad enough, after a day of slush, everything will freeze up again. 
 This gives us <i>gololeditsa </i>- or is it <i>gololyod? </i>These two words confuse Russians as much as us foreigners. Both mean &quot;icing over&quot; but, to be exact, gololeditsa refers only to ice-covered or slippery roads, and gololyod refers to anything covered with ice: <i>gololyod na vetkakh i provodakh </i>(the branches and telephone lines were covered with ice). 
 Which really means: stay inside. 
 
 <i>
Michele A. Berdy is a Moscow-based translator and interpreter. </i>

TITLE: France, Germany Resist Calls for Iraq War
AUTHOR: By John Leicester
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: PARIS - Countering blunt talk of war by the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush, France and Germany on Wednesday insisted that they are committed to a peaceful solution to the Iraq crisis.
 
&quot;War is not inevitable,&quot; French President Jacques Chirac told a historic joint session of the French and German parliaments. &quot;The only framework for a legitimate solution is the United Nations.&quot;
 The statement - made during a ceremony marking 40 years of reconciliation between the once-hostile countries - came as the top U.S. military commander declared that American forces could remain in a high state of readiness for months if necessary.
 But General Richard Myers, chairperson of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned that American troops were nevertheless poised for action.
 &quot;We're ready now. The Iraqi regime should have no doubt,&quot; he said in Washington.
 After a joint meeting of the French and German cabinets, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said that the countries &quot;are entirely in agreement to harmonize our positions more closely in favor of a peaceful solution of the Iraqi crisis.&quot;
 Chirac said that both countries agreed that any decision to attack Iraq should be made only by the UN Security Council, after UN weapons inspectors have reported their findings.
 &quot;For us, war is always the proof of failure and the worst of solutions, so everything must be done to avoid it,&quot; Chirac said.
 France, one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, hinted this week that it could use its veto power on the issue, while Schroeder has made plain that Germany will refuse to back an Iraq-war resolution in the council.
 Britain - the closest U.S. ally on Iraq - has said that it would prefer Security Council support. But Prime Minister Tony Blair said Wednesday that his country would back a U.S.-led war without United Nations support if any countries imposed &quot;unreasonable blockage&quot; of a Security Council resolution.
 Chirac said that France, which holds the current Security Council leadership, and Germany were working closely &quot;to give peace the utmost chance.&quot;
 Though Germany has no veto power, the country will assume a key role in Iraq-war diplomacy when it takes over the council leadership in February.
 In that position, Germany plans on asking chief weapons inspectors to provide the council with an additional report on Iraq's cooperation, diplomats at the United Nations said.
 The move is likely to deepen divisions among the council, as the United States is trying to block inspectors from issuing further reports after one scheduled Monday, which the Bush administration sees as a crucial benchmark after two months of inspections.
 France and Germany are also key members of NATO, which is currently discussing a request from the United States to provide backup should war break out in Iraq.
 Chirac and Schroeder announced a series of initiatives to bring the former enemies even closer, including a plan to grant French and Germans shared nationality.
 Schroeder said that he and Chirac agreed that dual nationality would be offered &quot;in the long term&quot; to Germans and French who live in the other country. They did not provide other details.

TITLE: Parties Face Talks for Coalition In Holland
AUTHOR: By Toby Sterling
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands - Dutch politicians on Thursday began what could be months of bargaining to form a coalition after elections that put centrist parties back in control and relegated an anti-immigration party to the far-right fringe.
 
The Christian Democrats edged out a resurgent Labor Party by a 44-42 margin in the 150-seat parliament in Wednesday's vote, ensuring that Jan Peter Balkenende will remain prime minister for a second term.
 But, lacking enough support from like-minded pro-business parties, Balkenende appeared to have little choice other than to strike a deal with his party's traditional center-left rival, Labor.
 Queen Beatrix, who oversees the process of forming a government, was to meet her political advisers for a first round of discussions Thursday before seeing the heads of each political party, probably on Friday.
 Balkenende, 46, refused to consider another alliance with the anti-immigration party of murdered populist Pim Fortuyn, blaming its internal chaos and power struggles for the collapse of his first government after just 87 days in office.
 The road to a coalition pact with Labor looked long and bumpy.
 &quot;If you talk about finance, welfare, education and health care, we have great differences,&quot; Balkenende said after Wednesday's vote. Reaching an agreement with Labor couldn't be done quickly - if it could be done at all, he said.
 Although the two parties have governed together before, most recently in the late 1980s, there was no guarantee that they could come to terms again. After the 1977 election, they negotiated for six months before abandoning the attempt.
 One point of conflict was over foreign policy. Although it had not been a campaign issue, Labor Party leader Wouter Bos said in a post-election speech that he would &quot;work to head off a war with Iraq.&quot; Balkenende's previous government had pledged to offer the United States logistical support in the event of war.
 Bos said an alliance of the two major parties was inevitable, and that Balkenende shouldn't waste time while the country suffers from the global economic downturn.
 &quot;Other coalition possibilities are mathematically possible, but they would be extremely unwise. The voter has spoken very clearly: the only stable, two-party government is the Christian Democrats with Labor,&quot; Bos said.
 Balkenende was a largely unknown political researcher and part-time university lecturer on Christian philosophy when he was chosen leader of his deeply divided Christian Democratic Alliance a few months before the 2002 election.
 Earlier, he held executive positions in a Christian television and radio broadcasting station and served on the municipal council of Amstelveen, a town outside Amsterdam.
 With his rimless glasses and haircut, he liked to joke about his resemblance to the movie character Harry Potter.
 Balkenende says that his task is to restore confidence in government following the massive protest vote against the political elite last year expressed in the support for Fortuyn's party.

TITLE: Relatives Mourn Victims of Powerful Mexican Earthquake
AUTHOR: By Lisa Adams
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: COLIMA, Mexico - Vicente Rodriguez sat beside his mother's coffin, barely noticing the crews noisily shoveling away the remains of homes leveled by a powerful earthquake that killed at least 25 people in Mexico.
 
&quot;I did what I could to save her, but it was useless,&quot; he said as friends and relatives embraced him at an outdoor memorial for 83-year-old Maria Rodriguez Macia.
 Rodriguez, 53, was already in mourning, praying for a deceased friend at a neighbor's home Tuesday night, when the 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck, shaking the walls, cutting power and causing the earth to ripple like water beneath him.
 Like thousands of others, he ran outside, stumbling several blocks down the darkened streets to find both his mother and sister trapped beneath a mountain of earth, metal and stone that had been their humble adobe house.
 &quot;I was able to get my sister out, but couldn't find my mother,&quot; Rodriguez said. &quot;She was trapped behind her and, by the time I got to her, she no longer had a pulse.&quot;
 Maria Rodriguez was one of at least 25 people killed in the quake, which injured 300 people and damaged or destroyed thousands of homes.
 One of the worst-hit areas was Colima's historic downtown, where adobe houses built 50 to 100 years ago were pulverized. On Filameno Medina street, where Rodriguez's mother lived for more than 75 years, three of the 25 houses crashed to the ground, reduced to piles of dirt and cement.
 Others were rendered uninhabitable after the quake ripped away large chunks of brick and tore cracks that stretched the lengths of plaster walls.
 President Vicente Fox toured the neighborhoods Wednesday, promising to help rebuild the houses from newer, stronger materials that would withstand the force of future quakes.
 In nearby Guadalajara - Mexico's second-largest city - bells from one of the colonial city's ancient churches fell from the tower and dozens of homes partially collapsed.
 The quake on Tuesday evening also rocked Mexico City, 480 kilometers east of the epicenter, sending frightened residents fleeing into the streets. But damage in the Mexican capital was limited to minor cracks in several buildings.
 Mexico's national seismological service put the quake's magnitude at 7.6. The U.S. Geological Survey calculated it at 7.8.
 The earth continued to shudder on Wednesday. As 79-year-old Jose Guadalupe Barbosa began to point out where the quake had cracked cement walls and tore away brick from his home and furniture store, the building began to shudder from the force of a 5.8-magnitude aftershock.
 &quot;Get out, quick! It's another one!&quot; a neighbor yelled.
 At least 10 other tremors ranging in magnitude from 3.9 to 4.5 shook the Colima area following Tuesday's quake.
 Surrounded by several of her children and neighbors, Maria Cristina Zamora, 53, sat in a white plastic chair under the searing sun Wednesday, worried that any further jolts would bring her tin roof down on top of beds and stoves already blanketed with bricks and dirt.
 &quot;They say the government is going to bring help,&quot; said Zamora, who some days earns as little as $5 from her job selling tortillas and secondhand clothes in downtown Colima. &quot;I hope so, because I have no money.&quot;
 In California, aid began pouring in Wednesday from Mexican migrants hailing from Colima, which in 1995 suffered a magnitude-8.0 earthquake that killed 49 people and injured at least 100. Nearly half the estimated 50,000 migrants from Colima live in Southern California, according to the Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles.
 Zamora's next-door neighbor, Ana Maria Hernandez, 53, said that she would happily accept government aid to fix the cracked and weakened walls of her two-story brick and cement home. But she said that she wouldn't be too concerned if the help never arrived.
 &quot;We are accustomed to getting ahead through our own efforts,&quot; she said, adding, &quot;I thought, when the earthquake hit, it was going to be the last day of my life. The important thing is that we are alive and healthy and have the strength to keep on living.&quot;

TITLE: Iraq Steps Up Criticism of Inspectors
AUTHOR: By Hamza Hendawi
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BAGHDAD, Iraq - Only days after agreeing to give UN weapons inspectors better cooperation, Iraq has launched a campaign to discredit them, using visits to a private farm and a mosque to stir up public outrage.
 
The inspectors their searches Thursday, fanning out to the chemical and explosives company QaQa, a site 10 kilometers south of Baghdad that has been inspected frequently.
 They also dropped in at the medical and science colleges of Baghdad's al-Mustansiriya University and a fiberglass-tubing factory south of the capital, according to the Information Ministry.
 The inspectors returned to Iraq in November, armed with a stringent UN resolution empowering them to look anywhere in Iraq for evidence of weapons of mass destruction. 
 Faced with U.S. threats to disarm President Saddam Hussein's regime by force if it doesn't surrender its weapons, Iraq pledged Monday to UN chief inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei that it would do more to facilitate the work of the inspectors.
 The two men are to report to the Security Council next Monday about Iraq's compliance.
 Iraq's government-controlled media have been criticizing the inspectors for weeks ever since Saddam accused them, in a Jan. 6 speech, of spying.
 However, the level of opposition to the inspectors appeared to rise Wednesday - only two days after the promise of greater cooperation.
 After a UN inspection team paid an unannounced visit Wednesday to the Baghdad Technology Institute, several dozen students carrying T-squares and hastily scribbled protest signs poured out in protest.
 The inspectors have made at least a dozen visits to colleges in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq since November without any such protests. It is assumed that the Wednesday protest was state-sanctioned because unauthorized public demonstrations are unheard of in Iraq.
 Later Wednesday, Iraqi authorities brought the owner of an abandoned chicken farm and a mosque preacher before foreign journalists, who listened as the pair expressed outrage at the inspectors' behavior.

TITLE: Serena Rallies To Make Yet Another Final
AUTHOR: By Phil Brown
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MELBOURNE, Australia - Blisters, a big deficit and two match points couldn't derail the &quot;Serena Slam.&quot; 
 
Now only her sister stands in Serena Williams' way. 
 Serena rallied from two breaks down in the final set to beat Kim Clijsters 4-6, 6-3, 7-5 in the Australian Open semifinals Thursday and set up a fourth straight major final against her sister, Venus. 
 &quot;I'm a fighter,&quot; Serena said. &quot;I didn't come all these miles to lose.&quot; 
 Serena beat Venus in the finals at the French Open, Wimbledon and U.S. Open last year. One more win means she will be the first woman to hold all four major titles at once since Steffi Graf nine years ago. 
 Venus started another big day for the Williams sisters by beating Justine Henin-Hardenne 6-3, 6-3. 
 &quot;Venus is actually playing a little better than me at this tournament,&quot; Serena said. &quot;I've just got to pull something out of my back pocket to be able to go onto the next level.&quot; 
 She said the two probably won't talk about the final in advance. 
 &quot;I don't like to bring my work home,&quot; she added. 
 Serena struggled to hold up her end, bothered by blisters on her right foot and a flurry of unforced errors. 
 Trailing 5-1 in the final set, Williams held serve and then saved two match points - one with a volley winner to end a long point - before breaking Clijsters' serve. 
 &quot;I really didn't think I'd win it at that stage,&quot; Williams said. &quot;I just kept fighting, one point at a time. Next thing I knew, the match was over.&quot; 
 Williams held again to make it 5-4. Clijsters then committed five straight faults to go down 0-30 and Williams eventually broke again to even the match. Williams then held serve to go up 6-5. 
 Williams broke Clijsters' serve at love to win her 27th straight Grand Slam match, throwing her arms in the air in celebration. 
 Williams struggled early. With a chance to even the first set at 5-all, she doubled faulted on the final two points to lose it. She had 22 unforced errors in the set. After her sister arrived to cheer her on, Williams took advantage of tentative play by Clijsters to win the second set. 
 There was a nine-minute delay with Clijsters leading 2-1 in the third set when Williams needed an injury timeout to have blisters on her right foot treated. 
 Williams hopped around during the rest of the match, bothered by the foot. 
 Clijsters saved a break point to go up 3-1 then took control when Williams hit a forehand wide for yet another unforced error to make it 4-1. Clijsters held her serve the next game and appeared on her way to her second straight win over Williams. 
 Clijsters beat both Williams sisters to win the WTA Tour Championships last November but couldn't close the deal against Serena this time. After rallying to win a three-set match against Emilie Loit in the first round, Williams rolled into the semifinals, losing only 15 games in her last four matches. 
 Earlier Thursday - at 12:47 a.m. - Andy Roddick finally overcame Younes El Aynaoui 4-6, 7-6 (7-5), 4-6, 6-4, 21-19 in a 4:59 match to reach his first Grand Slam semifinal. 
 &quot;Strategy was out the door; it was just pure fighting,&quot; the ninth-seeded Roddick said. 
 At 19-19, Roddick handed his racket to a ball boy to play the next point, then staggered to the corner of the court and plopped himself down, gasping air. 
 &quot;I think that was a really cool moment,&quot; Roddick said. &quot;Whatever crazy number we were at, still kept some humor about the game.&quot;
 The fifth set was the longest in the Open era (which started in 1968), taking 2:23 alone - or 0:21 longer than Andre Agassi's quarterfinal victory over Sebastien Grosjean lasted in its entirety.

TITLE: Pacers Pair Show All-Star Class
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: INDIANAPOLIS - Isiah Thomas is going to the All-Star game as the coach of the Eastern Conference team, and Jermaine O'Neal showed Wednesday night why he'll likely be joining him in Atlanta. 
 
O'Neal had a rare triple-double with 18 points, 10 rebounds and 10 blocked shots, and made the winning three-point play with 0:03.2 left as the Indiana Pacers beat the Toronto Raptors 101-98 Wednesday night. 
 The win means Thomas will coach the East in next month's All-Star game in Atlanta. The coaches are determined by which team has the best record in the conference as of this coming Sunday. Detroit's 92-83 loss to Philadelphia allowed Indiana to clinch the best record. 
 &quot;I was more excited about them losing and putting a little more distance between them,&quot; Thomas said. &quot;It's a great honor. Not many people get a chance to coach an All-Star game. I'm very excited about it.&quot; 
 O'Neal set career and Pacers records for blocked shots. He had four blocks in the first half, and three each in the third and fourth periods, to tie the franchise record, set by Darnell Hillman in the ABA. 
 Said O'Neal: &quot;The last few games, I've really started to feel good and I feel my timing is coming around. I'm really starting to feel good out there.&quot; 
 
 <strong>
New Orleans 103, Washington 94. </strong>With 16 first-half points, Michael Jordan finished with 18 and surpassed Wilt Chamberlain as the NBA's third all-time scorer. He passed Chamberlain's total of 31,419 points with a minute left in the first half when he dribbled laterally with his back to the basket and drilled a fallaway jump shot from the right elbow. 
 
Jordan downplayed his scoring mark. 
 &quot;It summarizes the effort I've given throughout my career. But the thing about stats is they define you when you're 10 or 20 years past the game,&quot; Jordan said. &quot;While you're playing, what matters is wins ... Their defense really kind of got us baffled in the second half and we were not able to get into the rhythm we wanted to get into.&quot;

TITLE: Coach Gruden Center of Attention at Super Bowl
AUTHOR: By Eddie Pells
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SAN DIEGO - The view from the end zone told it all on Super Bowl media day.
 
Warren Sapp had a nice-sized group around his table. Same with Keyshawn Johnson. Ronde Barber, Brad Johnson and Keenan McCardell were practically doing one-on-ones. Everybody else was talking to Jon Gruden. 
 This is, after all, Gruden Bowl I - time to talk about the coach's awkward offseason move from the Oakland Raiders to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers - the teams that meet Sunday for the NFL title. 
 &quot;I don't try to relive the whole thing,&quot; Gruden said. &quot;Sometimes, change is inevitable. Things have gone well since then. Hopefully, we can all continue to have a nice life.&quot; 
 They are all having nice lives - especially this week. 
 Gruden, the 39-year-old wondercoach, got a raise and expense-paid move to the place where he spent his childhood, Tampa, Florida, to coach the team he always adored, the Buccaneers. 
 Davis got a king's ransom by NFL standards - two first-round draft choices and two seconds, plus $8 million in exchange for a guy who will never play a down. 
 Bill Callahan got Gruden's old job. 
 The whole gang made it to the Super Bowl - Davis and Oakland for the first time in 19 seasons and the Bucs for the first time ever. 
 As the story goes, Gruden began to chafe after four years under the yoke of the strong-willed, eccentric Raiders owner. Gruden had one year left on his contract after last season and made it known he wanted an extension and a raise or he wanted out. Gruden also wanted more say in personnel decisions. Davis has always made those calls with the Raiders. Gruden got tired of the perception that Davis was the &quot;real&quot; coach of the team, a stereotype every Raiders coach has fought over the years, thanks to the owner's constant presence at practices and in the locker room. 
 Soon after Tampa Bay fired Tony Dungy last season, they thought they had Bill Parcells to replace him. Parcells reneged. So, the Bucs turned to Davis and asked him about Gruden. The negotiations never took off. Tampa's coaching search meandered on, with Marvin Lewis, Ralph Friedgen and Steve Mariucci getting into the mix. But, eventually, the search came back to Gruden. The Bucs went back to Davis, made a deal, and McKay says there are no regrets about giving up so much to get him. 
 &quot;If you find the guy who fits your team, and exactly what your needs are, then you've got to get that guy. Period,&quot; McKay insists. 
 Now reviled in Oakland, and loved in Tampa, Gruden insists he has only respect for Davis, and only good memories about his days with the Raiders. 
 &quot;I don't like getting into the whole thing,&quot; he said. &quot;My contract was running out. I got traded. Hopefully, in four or five years, we'll all be friends.&quot;

TITLE: SPORTS WATCH
TEXT: <b>Marlins Hook Catcher
 </b>

MIAMI (AP) - The cost-conscious Florida Marlins expanded their payroll Wednesday by signing 10-time All-Star catcher Ivan Rodriguez to a $10 million, one-year contract. 
 "It was clear to me that this was a special opportunity. It was close to being a no-brainer," Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria said. "When you're dealing with a great and special opportunity and a special player, there are no parameters." 
 Rodriguez played 1,479 games with the Texas Rangers, hitting .303 with 215 homers and 829 RBIs and gaining a reputation as one of baseball's best catchers. 
 The Rangers refused to offer the 31-year-old Rodriguez salary arbitration last December in a payroll-slashing moving. Rodriguez received a $2-million severance payment from the team as the end of his previous contract. 
 
 
<b>Russia Dumped
 </b>

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Russia has been expelled from the 2003 World Cup qualifying tournament following an investigation into the eligibility of three South African-born players, rugby union's world body said on Wednesday.
 The International Rugby Board ruled that the Rugby Union of Russia was unable to provide sufficient proof that the players were entitled to represent Russia in two World Cup qualifiers against Spain last year.
 The Spanish Rugby Union had issued a complaint relating to the three players after Spain narrowly lost to Russia over two legs in October and November. 



TITLE: Oilers Reliving Past Glories, Andreychuk Rescues Tampa
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: EDMONTON, Alberta - It has been a long time since the Edmonton Oilers had the Detroit Red Wings' number. 
 
But Eric Brewer's goal 1:42 into overtime gave the injury-riddled Oilers a 4-3 win over the Red Wings on Wednesday night. 
 The victory, Craig MacTavish's 100th as the Oilers' head coach, enabled Edmonton to take five out of six points from the defending Stanley Cup champions this season. 
 Brewer took a pass from rookie Jason Chimera in the slot and fired a wrist shot into the top corner of the net over goaltender Curtis Joseph. 
 Brett Hull scored his 699th career goal, but that didn't stop the Red Wings (26-13-7-2) from losing their second in a row for the first time this season. 
 Hull needs one goal to join the 700-goal club. Wayne Gretzky (894), Gordie Howe (801), Marcel Dionne (731), Phil Esposito (717) and Mike Gartner (708) are the only players to score more. 
 Igor Larionov and Kris Draper had the other Red Wings goals. 
 
 <strong>
Tampa Bay 2, Montreal 2. </strong>Dave Andreychuk added to his NHL career record of power-play goals just in time. 
 
His 255th was scored unassisted with 55 seconds left in regulation as the Tampa Bay Lightning rallied for a 2-2 tie with the Montreal Canadiens on Wednesday night. 
 Andreychuk was falling forward as he snapped a shot over the right shoulder of Jose Theodore while the Lightning had a 6-on-4 skating advantage. 
 &quot;It's not one that I saw go in,&quot; Andreychuk said. &quot;I was just trying to stop the puck along the boards. I was going to go back down low, but the [defense] gave me a chance to go out front with it.&quot; 
 
 <i>
(For other results, see Scorecard.) </i>