SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #839 (7), Friday, January 31, 2003
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TITLE: New City Duma Bloc Bares Its Teeth
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The relatively calm and productive atmosphere that characterized most of the first month of the new four-year term in the Legislative Assembly came to an end on Wednesday, when all 17 members of the newly formed United City bloc failed to show up for the chamber's scheduled weekly session.
 
The no-shows reduced the number of deputies present to 29 - five short of the number to form a quorum - in a move that deputies of the bloc, which is made up largely of supporters of Governor Vladimir Yakovlev, said was calculated to block an attempt by other deputies to lock them out of the leadership of the assembly's most important committees.
 In particular, they said that they were standing up to an attempt by deputies from the pro-Kremlin Unity faction to establish control over the legislature.
 "We have a situation where a majority party and a minority party have appeared at the Legislative Assembly and, as has happened before, the majority is trying to expropriate the whole chamber for itself," Vladimir Yeryomenko, a member of the United City bloc, said in a telephone interview on Wednesday, referring to the situation in Tsarist Russia's last State Duma, in 1917. "They are acting according to the principle 'winner takes all,' and it shouldn't be this way."
 "I'm opposed to allowing the Kremlin, the Presidential Administration have a remote-control device for operating the Legislative Assembly," he added.
 But Vadim Tyulpanov, the Legislative Assembly's speaker and a member of the United Russia faction, which was set up by members of the St. Petersburg branch of the federal Unity Party, was outraged by the absences, and called for sanctions against the missing deputies.
 "This is premeditated sabotage of the Legislative Assembly's activities," Tyulpanov said in a statement from his press service on Wednesday. "The only way to prevent this type of occurrence is to return to discussing a rule allowing the assembly to deny the [monthly] financial benefit for those members who neglect their obligations here."
 It is unlikely that Tyulpanov's suggestion would force many of the deputies to attend, however, as a regular monthly financial benefit is about one fifth of the members' monthly salary of 12,000 rubles ($375). The roughly $75 penalty is affordable for most of the deputies, and they are especially unlikely to give in on the question of the committee posts, which carry serious political clout in the chamber.
 "This whole thing flared up after the group that united around [United City bloc leader Yury] Rydnik started demanding posts on commissions and committees," said Boris Vishnevsky, a Yabloko faction representative, in a telephone interview Thursday. "This is the usual kind of trading off that could have been solved after a certain amount of negotiation."
 Two weeks ago, Victor Yevtukhov, another member of the United City bloc, said that the pro-governor group wanted the chairperson position on two of the assembly's most important committees - finance, which is responsible for working on the city budget, and the judicial, which is responsible for writing and amending draft legislation.
 The two posts for the United City bloc had been seen by many as part of a deal that would see the anti-Yakovlev factions in the assembly gain two vice-speakerships.
 The likelihood of the deal falling through led the United City members to go AWOL on Wednesday.
 For his part, Yakovlev said that staying away from the chamber was not a method that the United City bloc invented themselves.
 "Wrecking the quorum is a method of parliamentary battle that was first used by Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces factions in 2000, when [the deputies] kept blocking avote for a new date for 2000 gubernatorial elections," Yakovlev said at a press-conference Thursday, Interfax reported.
 The events to which he referred actually took place in October 1999, when the assembly passed a law moving the elections ahead from May 2000 to coincide with State Duma Elections in December 1999. The decision, later overturned by the Russian Supreme Court, cam at the end of a months-long campaign that involved incidents of falsification of voting results by pro-governor factions, and even the first - and, so far, only - fight in the history of the assembly. 
 As tensions ran high, Sergei Nikeshin, a member of the pro-Yakovlev Petersburg Regions faction, attacked two other deputies during the Oct. 6, 1999 assembly session, kicking one of them, Anatoly Krivenchenko, a member of the Yury Boldyrev bloc, in the groin.
 The fight started after Krivenchenko and Mikhail Amosov, the leader of the Yabloko faction, tried to stop Nikeshin from switching on the electronic voting system, which had been ordered turned off by acting Speaker Yury Gladkov.
 Yakovlev's spokesperson, Alexander Afanasyev, said it is unlikely tempers will run as high during this struggle.
 "It's not good to fight, and they won't this time, because the people who were fighting then have become very respectable people, who have changed their views completely," Afanasyev said Thursday. "We don't need to worry about them hitting each other. What's going on now is the normal practice for our deputies, who prefer to vote with their legs, by running away."
 "I think it makes sense to refer to them as ostriches," he added.
 Even though he was calling for some sort of penalty to be adopted for the absentee members, Tyulpanov says that he understands that some sort of compromise has to be found in the next while if the assembly is to function properly.
 "It is understandable that a certain group of Legislative Assembly deputies, who sit to the right of the entrance to the chamber, do not agree with the way the different forces have been arranged after my election," Tyulpanov said in his statement. "I understand that the parliament will have to be steered out of this collapse, so we will continue political consultations and, over the next week, we will definitely reach a compromise."
 But a source close to the Legislative Assembly said that United Russia was more likely to try to swing some of the members of the United City bloc that to work toward any kind of compromise.
 "There will be a quorum next Wednesday, but [United City] won't end up leading any of the commissions or committees," the source said Thursday, on condition of anonymity. "We are talking about four or five people who will pass over [to the United Russia side]."

TITLE: Chechnya Critic Quits Over Referendum Plan
AUTHOR: By Natalia Yefimova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Lord Frank Judd, a European human-rights official who has spent three years monitoring the military campaign in Chechnya and has been one of its staunchest critics, announced Thursday that he would resign to protest Moscow's refusal to postpone a referendum in the war-shattered republic.
 
"My analysis remains absolutely clear. A valid referendum cannot take place by 23 March," Judd, who reported on Chechnya for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, said in a statement. Judd had called for the delay after a visit to Chechnya last week, saying that voters were insufficiently educated about the upcoming referendum, and that the security situation prevented proper preparations for it.
 "Were the referendum to go ahead for the planned date, I would have failed to persuade the Russian auhorities to accept my analysis. In those circumstances, I would have no alternative but to resign," Judd's statement said.
 A day earlier, the PACE session now under way in Strasbourg, France, passed a resolution on Chechnya that called for tighter security, greater transparency and guaranteed voter access during the March 23 plebiscite, but did not include Judd's recommendation to postpone it - handing a diplomatic victory to Russia.
 The planned referendum has been touted by federal authorities as a sign that life in Chechnya is returning to normal despite daily violence, thousands of refugees and miserable living conditions in much of the republic. The plebiscite will give Chechens a chance to vote on a local constitution to determine the republic's relationship with Moscow. 
 A frustrated Judd told reporters that, during Wednesday's vote on the resolution, he had been so concerned with an amendment submitted by the Russian delegation that he failed to notice the omission of his call for a postponement.
 "I believe this was a grave and inexcusable error of judgment on my part," said Judd, who co-chaired a joint working group of PACE and the State Duma.
 PACE, Europe's top human-rights watchdog, will review Judd's resignation request Friday, with a final decision to be made Wednesday, Interfax reported.
 Russian officials either welcomed or simply respected Judd's decision to step down, and applauded PACE's rejection of his proposal to defer the plebiscite. 
 "Judd will be asked to stay on. But we say, 'Good riddance!'" Duma Deputy Dmitry Rogozin, who heads Russia's PACE delegation, told Interfax. "He's been disoriented lately: When he comes to Chechnya, he no longer tries to get reliable, objective information; instead, he seeks out particular information that seems to fit into an existing mold."
 Rogozin had criticized Judd earlier this week, saying that "if PACE continues pressing for another date for the referendum, Russia will raise the issue of replacing Lord Judd as the assembly's rapporteur on Chechnya." 
 Rogozin said Wednesday that he believed Judd was under political pressure, possibly from Chechen rebel representatives such as Akhmed Zakayev.
 "Lord Judd is a respected politician. If he made such a decision, it is his choice and must be respected," Ingushetia's president, Murat Zyazikov, told Interfax. Zyazikov praised Judd for his objective assessment of the refugee situation in Ingushetia, which neighbors Chechnya and has absorbed thousands of people who have fled the republic.
 "I think the main reason for Judd's resignation was that political time in Chechnya has gone forward and he can't keep up," presidential aide Sergei Yastrzhembsky told reporters in Washington.
 Yastrzhembsky's comment was a clear reference to the changed political climate since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, after which Russia revved up its efforts to cast the Chechnya war as part of global fight against terrorism. Yastrzhembsky was on an official visit to give the United States information backing up Moscow's request that Washington designate several Chechen militant groups as international terrorist organizations.
 Despite PACE's ultimate endorsement of the referendum date, Wednesday's resolution said it was "unlikely" that the necessary conditions would be met in time and included harsh language on the republic's human rights situation.
 "The assembly remains distressed by the number of killings of politically active individuals, by repeated disappearances and the ineffectiveness of the authorities in investigating them, as well as by the widespread allegations and indications of brutality and violence against the civilian population in the republic," the resolution said. 
 "The Russian authorities seem unable to stop grave human-rights violations in Chechnya. The assembly deplores the climate of impunity which consequently reigns in the Chechen republic and which makes normal life in the republic impossible."

TITLE: Chechen Refugees Facing Different Fear
AUTHOR: By Jim Heintz
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SLEPTSOVSKAYA, Ingushetia - A year after fleeing Chechnya to get away from marauding men with guns, Khava Saltamatova now fears different men - the ones who come to her tent in a refugee camp with promises of help. 
 
"They come from door to door and say, 'We already have trucks to take you back whenever you're ready,'" Saltamatova said. "They say there are new apartments waiting for us in Chechnya."
 And the men, whom she refers to only as "they," say something else that sounds both generous and ominous "There will be assistance for 2,000 of us." About 4,000 people live in her camp, and the implication is that those who wait too long will be left with nothing.
 Promises that sound like threats are the latest phase in Russia's efforts to get refugees in Ingushetia to go home, even as the fighting in Chechnya continues.
 More than 100,000 refugees are estimated to be in Ingushetia - the equivalent of about 25 percent of the republic's native population - and their massive presence and sprawling tent camps are a visible reminder of Russia's failure to end the war in Chechnya. 
 Last year, officials closed down one camp and refugees said soldiers fired volleys outside another.
 Apparently stung by criticism, Russia has backed off from such methods, and has promised no one will be forced back to Chechnya, say refugees and human-rights officials. But Russian and Ingush authorities have not disavowed a statement last year that the camps will be closed, and the Kremlin is clearly eager to have as many as possible back by March 23, the date for a constitutional referendum portrayed as a major step toward restoring order and undermining the Chechen rebels.
 "Now, the government is being more sophisticated, more professional," said Aslanbek Dakhkilgov, an official of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Ingushetia who monitors conditions in the camp.
 Some of the men making the promises that Saltamatova and other refugees worry about emphasize professionalism, making their pitch sound like a job recruiter urging someone up the career ladder, a potentially powerful inducement for a man crushed by the endless tedium of refugee life.
 "We tell them that job placement is guaranteed," said Vakha Naliyev of the Ingush Migration Service, who works in a camp just up the road from Sputnik. "There are no kind of threats ... We propose that they return."
 His colleague, Isa Saralayev of the Chechen Migration Council, an arm of the Kremlin-backed Chechnya administration, appeals to a sense of civic duty, saying a mass return of refugees could influence Chechnya's future for the good.
 The men who urge the Chechens to go back also warn them about the possible cutting off of the natural-gas lines that warm the tents. In one camp, the gas lines feed a communal kitchen where women and children gather to chat and bake mounds of bread and sweet rolls that they proudly thrust at visitors.
 The refugees hear those warnings as threats, but Saralayev says it's just a precaution in case the owners of the land fail to deliver the gas.
 Ingush President Murat Zyazikov says gas, electricity and water have never once been cut off. But refugees say some camps have suffered sporadic outages.
 Eliane Duthoit, the UN humanitarian-affairs coordinator in Ingushetia, notes that both Russia and the United Nations agree that refugees should not be forced back, "but what we need is a common understanding of what those words mean."
 Also, refugees living at a derelict dairy just outside the Ingush capital, Nazran, say authorities have refused to register many of them, making them ineligible for small welfare payments and raising fears they could be driven away from their so-called "spontaneous settlement."
 Zyazikov says that about 64,000 Chechen refugees are in his republic. UN agencies put the figure at about 103,000. 
 The refugees doubt the promises they hear from their mysterious visitors. Rosa Murtazaleyeva, a dairy-farm resident, said she had heard from relatives that refugees who had returned were getting food aid only every few months, rather than regularly, as promised.
 Nor do they feel assured of a place to live. Usam Basayev, a worker for the human-rights group Memorial in Ingushetia, said refugees had been told of families in Grozny that were ready to take them in but, when Memorial's Chechen workers checked with these families, "nobody knew anything about it."
 Although an average 500 people a month are returning to Chechnya, according to UN figures, most refugees appear determined to stay put, fearing broken promises and violence.
 "At least in Ingushetia, no one is trying to exterminate me," said refugee Saithassan Astamirov.
 Ali Mutsuyev spoke passionately of wanting to see his homeland restored but, when asked if he would go back to participate in the referendum, he snorted and swept his arm around his cramped room at the dairy farm. "We've already participated," he said. "We're here."

TITLE: Kuchma Succeeds Putin in CIS
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Isachenkov
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: KIEV - Leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States elected Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma as chairperson of the loose alliance of former Soviet republics Wednesday, the first time a Russian president has not been chosen to head the CIS since its creation in 1991.
 
Kuchma was unanimously elected the group's chairperson after Russian President Vladimir Putin nominated him during an informal CIS summit.
 The move, which Putin said was at first resisted by some of the leaders at the sparsely attended gathering, was clearly aimed to dispel fears of Russian domination of the alliance.
 "Russia has made a mistake" by always chairing the CIS since its creation, Putin said. He said rotating the chairperson was vital for boosting public trust in the CIS in member states.
 Putin said that when he first made the proposal at the previous CIS summit last fall, it met stiff resistance from several leaders who argued it would weaken the Commonwealth. Putin said he again brought up the proposal Wednesday without preliminary warning and managed to convince those leaders who were reluctant to accept the idea.
 The appointment followed Kuchma's proposal at the previous CIS summit to sign a free-trade agreement between CIS countries. Kuchma said Wednesday that the agreement should be ready for signing at the next summit, set for September in Yalta, Ukraine.
 Plans for free-trade zone that would remove trade barriers between member states have dominated the CIS agenda since its creation, but they have never been implemented.
 Attempts at forging closer economic ties have been hampered by the stark differences between the sizes of the members' economies and their levels of development, as well as broad fears that Russia might seek to dominate the organization.
 Wednesday's summit suffered from the lowest attendance in many years, with only eight of the 12 presidents showing up. The presidents of four Central Asian countries - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan - stayed away and sent envoys.
 Uzbek President Islam Karimov said he had to make an official visit to Spain that had been planned long ago, Kyrgyzstan's Askar Akayev said he was busy preparing for a constitutional referendum in his country on Sunday, and Kazakhstan's Nursultan Nazarbayev sent a letter saying he was busy at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, which ended Tuesday.
 Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov has rarely attended past CIS summits, but the absence of Akayev and Nazarbayev, who have missed few of the meetings, was highly unusual.
 Nazarbayev has been a proponent of closer economic ties between the CIS states, and Akayev has followed a similar course. In contrast, the Uzbek and Turkmen leaders have continuously resisted the proposals for tighter economic ties and other cooperation.

TITLE: Rector Quits Anniversary Fund, Questions Remain
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Citing other commitments as the rector of the St. Petersburg Humanitarian University of Trade Unions, Alexander Zapesotsky stepped down from his post as general director of the St. Petersburg 300th Anniversary Assistance Fund on Wednesday.
 
The board of trustees for the fund, which was created by Governor Vladimir Yakovlev to raise money for projects associated with the city's 300th anniversary, which falls on May 27, announced that Zapesotsky's post would be split into two separate jobs.
 The board of trustees, headed by Yakovlev, named Gulnara Sharazykova, the general director of the daily newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, as the fund's general director, with responsibility for handling technical and legal matters for the organization, while Boris Kiselyov, a former deputy in the Legislative Assembly, was appointed as the fund's chairperson, responsible for representative functions, including fundraising.
 Despite rumors that Zapesotsky had been bounced from the job because of his inability to attract more funding from prospective corporate sponsors, Yakovlev said that the decision to leave the post was Zapesotsky's own.
 Kommersant daily quoted Yakovlev on Thursday as saying that Zapesotsky had asked to be relieved of the post so that he could concentrate on "his main job."
 Alexander Afanasyev, Yalovlev's spokesperson, said that the change in leadership at the fund "had nothing to do with any kind of scandal."
 "It was Zapesotsky's own decision," Afanasyev said on Thursday. "Besides, it is common for an organization to need one type of person at a particular stage, but a different person at another."
 He said that Zapesotsky will continue to be connected with the jubilee preparations, acting as a sort of ambassador for the event while abroad on business trips.
 "My presence in that position is pointless at the present stage," Zapesotsky told Komsomolskaya Pravda in an interview published on Tuesday. "The position was in need of strong organizers, who were free of other commitments."
 In the middle of last year, Zapesotsky cited figures in the range of $20 million as the fund's goal for contributions but, according to comments by Vice Governor Irina Potekhina on local channel Inform-TV, at present, the fund has collected only $3 million.
 In his comments to Komsomolskaya Pravda, Zapesotsky said that a major reason for the disparity between the two figures was that many projects are being handled by private groups, without funneling the money through the fund.
 Potekhina said that, aside from the $3 million in the fund at present, more than 100 agreements had been signed with sponsors.
 She said that Zapesotsky "is leaving the fund in good working condition," and that the board of trustees remained satisfied with his activities as general director.
 Among the general sponsors of the anniversary celebration are local power utility Lenenergo, Baltic Construction Company St. Petersburg, and German gas company Ruhrgas. According to figures from Komsomolskaya Pravda, those three companies alone had donated $3 million for the jubilee.

TITLE: Passport Fraud Case Cracked
AUTHOR: By Oksana Yablokova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The Interior Ministry said it has broken up a racket in which hundreds of passports were sold to non-Russians in the Samara region.
 
Sergei Sarzhan, former head of the passport office in the village of Bezenchuk, is suspected of selling 409 passports to citizens of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia and Central Asian countries last year for $1,200 each, the ministry said.
 Under the scheme, several pages were torn out of a holder's old Soviet passport and replaced with new, stamped pages stating that the holder had lived in Russia since before 1992 - thus qualifying him for Russian citizenship, said Gennady Yegorov, head of the visa and passport department of the Samara regional police. Then the Soviet passport was replaced with a new Russian one bearing all the necessary watermarks, stamps and signatures.
 "The only thing that was illegal about the new passports was the mere fact that they were issued," Yegorov said.
 He said the scheme was uncovered during a countrywide check by the Interior Ministry's officials last fall.
 Sarzhan, the suspected mastermind of the scheme, has been relieved of his duties and stripped of his rank as police major while an investigation is conducted, the Interior Ministry said.
 Yury Ivashkin, deputy head of the Interior Ministry's visa and passport department, said it was the biggest case of passport fraud uncovered last year. In all, police found that some 700 passports had been illegally issued in 40 regions, Ivashkin said. 
 He called the Samara case atypical, saying usually the passport seeker tries to con passport officials by presenting fake documents. "Such papers were often issued in Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan," he said.
 Ivashkin added that passport officials are supposed to verify the authenticity of the documents through the Foreign Ministry but some do not.

TITLE: Murdered Governor's Dealings Face Probes
AUTHOR: By Catherine Belton
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MAGADAN, Far East - Inside the sumptuous offices of former Magadan Governor Valentin Tsvetkov, who was brazenly gunned down by unknown hitmen on Moscow's Novy Arbat last fall, hangs a print of a Cold War-era poster showing a Soviet peasant woman, finger to lips, whispering the warning "Ne Boltai" - the Russian equivalent of the English saying "Loose Lips Sink Ships."
 
Under the iron grip of Tsvetkov, a rambunctious businessperson turned state official nicknamed "The Bulldozer," people took care to heed those words.
 But, since his killing, tongues are beginning to wag.
 Under pressure from Moscow officials who say they want to use investigations into Tsvetkov's murder to purge the Far East region of deeply embedded crime, local law enforcers have opened at least 104 criminal investigations, many of which target illegal transfers of budget funds into enterprises headed by members of Tsvetkov's administration.
 With gubernatorial elections in this resource-rich region slated for Sunday and one of Tsvetkov's chief deputies, Nikolai Dudov, a leading candidate in the 12-person race, Magadan big business is split about its former boss. His past dealings have become part of the election campaign.
 As administration officials are busy fending off broadsides trickling into the media about alleged insider deals conducted by Tsvetkov's team, supporters say Tsvetkov was a tough man of principle and that, if budget funds were spent inappropriately, they went toward creating state enterprises that boosted industry and not into his pocket.
 Critics, however, say that he misued the money to creat his own business empire and to push out local private entreprenuers.
 They say Dudov is running to defend that empire of gold, fish and alcohol from the hands of the rival frontrunner, Magadan Mayor Nikolai Karpenko.
 The next governor will have to take action to level the playing field between the state and private business.
 "Now it is very important that the next governor changes his relation to the economy to create conditions equal for all," said Vladimir Butkeyev, Magadan's representative in the State Duma.
 "There was no market economy here," he said.
 For Magadan residents that's important because much more investment is needed in a region with the highest unemployment, alcoholism and suicide rates in the country.
 Far from the regional capital, in the freezing north, people are being forced to abandon villages that the local government can no longer afford to provide with electricity, heat and schools.
 As gold prices soar, waiting in the wings to see if the new governor is a man with whom they can do business are powerful financial-industrial groups.
 A delegation from Vladimir Potanin's Norilsk Nickel recently visited the Natalkinskoye gold deposit, one of Magadan's biggest, with almost 250 tons in proven reserves and up for a production-sharing agreement this year.
 Norilsk Nickel expanded into gold when it bought the Polyus mine in Krasnoyarsk late last year.
 Already in the region is St. Petersburg-based metals company Polimetall, which is affiliated with MDM Group.
 Polimetall owns the Dukat silver mine, which sits atop the world's third largest silver deposit, after wrestling control away from Canadian company Pan American Silver in a controversial legal tussle with the help of Tsvetkov in 2000.
 Now, it is eyeing other gold deposits, but it hasn't made any big moves yet.
 Local businesspeople say Tsvetkov may have hindered major investors from coming into the region.
 "The trouble is, over the last few years, there's been no major investment," said Mikhail Kotov, the founder of Magadan fishing group Seawolf.
 "Tsvetkov was very much afraid that a big finance group would come in and lessen his influence on the economy. He wanted just one business: his own region."
 But, although none of the results of the investigation into Tsvetkov's killing have yet been made public - a question about which local law-enforcement agencies refused to be interviewed - the lines of inquiry associated with his economic activities are fueling a growing chorus of dissatisfaction with his attempts to monopolize the business sphere at the expense of entrepreneurs.
 A leading voice is Kotov's. He says that out of a total of 12,000 tons in quotas last year to catch pollack, Tsvetkov gave 8,000 tons worth $3.6 million for free to a state-owned enterprise headed by his chief adviser on fishing instead of selling the quota in a tender.
 The company paid just $100,000 in taxes to the budget, he said.
 Law-enforcement agents have opened a criminal investigation into the possible misappropriation of millions of dollars worth of state funds via the company.
 Sitting squarely behind the desk of his former boss, acting Governor Vyacheslav Moskvichov said revenues from the catch have been earmarked to buy two fishing vessels for the state company.
 The company was set up to provide needy residents with fish.
 "People are trying to revise Tsvetkov's record as governor. He was an extraordinary man and did a great deal to improve the region's economy," he said.
 "We have no electricity cut-offs, no heating failures here like in Kamchatka and Vladivostok."
 Also under attack are moves Tsvetkov made to spend part of a 7.3-ton loan in gold from the federal government aimed at supporting the gold industry on a state-owned vodka monopoly headed by a relative of one of his chief advisers.
 Moskvichov said that was not a "serious" violation. Repayments on that loan worth $87 million have been delayed many times over.
 One of the few major foreign investors to remain in the region, Canada's Kinross Gold Corp. said when it refused to send gold extracted from its Magadan Omolon mining company to that new refinery because it charged twice the market rates, Omolon was suddenly hit with a slew of tax and safety checks.
 "We hope the next governor will have a more hands-off approach to businesses," said Kinross vice president John Ivany.
 Deputy Magadan Mayor Vladimir Pecheny, a close aide to Karpenko, said: "The next governor has to create equal conditions for all businesses and attract more investment."
 The trouble is that most Magadan residents are so inured to hardship that no one believes campaign promises anymore.
 "The next governor will probably take what he likes for himself. Nothing would surprise me now," said Olga Strelnikova, a street seller setting up her clothing stall in the freezing cold on Magadan's central street, Ulitsa Lenina.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>Theater Suit Grows
 </b>

MOSCOW (AP) - Twenty more victims of last October's theater siege plan to join a lawsuit seeking compensation from the Moscow city government, bringing the total number of plaintiffs to 81, their lawyer said Thursday.
 Lawyer Igor Trunov said he had also filed an appeal with the Moscow City Court on behalf of three victims whose lawsuits were rejected last week by Judge Marina Gorbachyova of the city's Tverskoi District Court.
 The Tverskoi court began considering the first 24 lawsuits on Dec. 3.
 Trunov would not say how much compensation his clients are seeking, but before the addition of the 20 new victims the amount was about $60 million.
 
 
<b>U.S. Gets Information
 </b>

MOSCOW (AP) - Kremlin aide Sergei Yastrzhembsky has handed the United States additional information to back Moscow's efforts to get Washington to designate some Chechen militant groups as international terrorist organizations, Interfax reported Thursday.
 Yastrzhembsky, President Vladimir Putin's top spokesperson on Chechnya, presented the evidence to U.S. officials during a visit to Washington, Interfax reported. It said Yastrzhembsky said the United States was prepared to put the groups on the State Department list of terrorist organizations.
 "We see willingness on the part of our colleagues and partners from the United States to continue and complete this work," Yastrzhembsky was quoted as saying in Washington. "The work has progressed very far, but it takes time to thoroughly examine all the materials."
 
 
<b>One Missing in Fire
 </b>

MOSCOW (AP) - A pipeline ruptured in the Penza region, spilling some 10,000 metric tons of oil and sparking a fire that left one person missing and injured two others, emergency officials said Thursday. 
 The Druzhba pipeline broke late Wednesday near the town of Kuznetsk, Emergency Situations Ministry spokesperson Olga Bervenova said.
 The fire was extinguished less than two hours later, but one person was missing and two were injured with burns, including one who was hospitalized, Bervenova said. She said the oil that leaked from the pipeline covered about 1,000 square meters of ground, she said.
 The flow of oil through the ruptured section was cut off, ministry spokesperson Viktor Beltsov said.
 
 
<b>Putin on Vatican 
 </b>

MOSCOW (AP) - President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia "is in favor of developing a political dialogue with the Vatican," expressing hope for cooperation despite tense relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church. 
 "We are convinced that, on several questions, our bilateral relations will contribute to resolving complex issues of the modern world order," Putin told the Vatican's new top representative in Russia, papal nuncio Archbishop Antonio Mennini, during a Kremlin reception for new ambassadors.
 "On several questions, including the important and acute question of terrorism, our position practically coincides with the Vatican's," Putin said.
 When Mennini arrived in Russia earlier this month, he said he hoped relations between Russia and the Vatican "can develop with joint trust and cooperation." 



TITLE: President Makes Power Priority
AUTHOR: By Alla Startseva
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Amid fears that coming elections may stall much needed reforms, President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday told the Duma to make power-industry and housing-sector restructuring a priority this spring.
 
&quot;The housing and communal services sector is in ruins,&quot; Putin was quoted by RIA Novosti as saying at a meeting with Duma Speaker Gennady Seleznyov. &quot;This should galvanize local and regional authorities and the government to change things.&quot;
 While acknowledging the Duma's overloaded timetable, Putin said that it must consider the two packages of draft laws - power and housing - as interconnected and critical to the Russian economy.
 He said that he hoped for the &quot;collective intelligence and wisdom of the parliament.&quot;
 The housing and power reforms have become highly politicized, as the run up to parliamentary and presidential elections coincided with winter frosts and breakdowns in the utilities networks in 38 regions this year.
 Both packages, which raise technical as well political issues, were passed by the Duma in the first reading late last year. But they have since gotten stuck before reaching the crucial second reading.
 Putin's publicized talks with Seleznyov sent a strong message about the Kremlin's desire to see power and housing reforms move forward. 
 Power reforms, which envisage overhauling the industry and restructuring power monopoly Unified Energy Systems, have been the subject of two years of political debate involving Duma factions, the cabinet, presidential-economic advisor Andrei Illarionov, various business groups, and UES management and shareholders. The result - a tug-of-war that no one group has had the power or political will to win. 
 After the president's first such public push, the pro-Kremlin centrist majority in the Duma appears much more likely to push the controversial power bills to, and through, a second reading.
 The second reading is expected to go ahead on Feb. 12. Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, scheduled to report to the Duma on housing reform that day, is expected to publicly throw his weight behind the power bills during his appearance.
 Putin made Kasyanov personally responsible for pushing the bills through the Duma when lawmakers refused to vote on them in December. 
 But whereas the problems with power reforms have resulted from too many vested interests, the problem with housing reforms is that they are a political hot potato. 
 Deep-reaching housing reform has raised the specter of serious social upheaval, which few want to take responsibility for, especially in the run-up to elections in a country where over 30 percent of citizens live below subsistence level.
 Underlining the politically-charged nature of the issue, irate deputies canceled a housing discussion earlier this month when Kasyanov sent a deputy to speak on his behalf.
 At the Duma's official request, Kasyanov agreed to appear in person on Feb. 12 to answer for this winter's heating shortages, report on the government's measures to prevent such problems in the future, and discuss housing reforms. 
 The most recent package of housing-reform bills does little more than divide the right to regulate public-utility fees and housing rents between the federal government, the regions and cities.
 Seleznyov said last week that &quot;under the pressure of the cabinet, the parliament approved incoherent housing-law bills in the first reading.&quot;
 Reforms are already past due: The utilities and housing infrastructure is about 60-percent obsolete and the number of breakdowns has increased geometrically, reaching one breakdown per kilometer of the central-heating system, or 30 times higher than in the West.
 According to different estimates, between $2 billion and $17 billion is needed to modernize the sector, a sum which far exceeds the federal budget's capacity.

TITLE: Finance Minister Offers Tax Relief With Reforms
AUTHOR: By Torrey Clark
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said Wednesday that the government wants to get rid of the sales tax next year and later slash VAT and social taxes in an ongoing reform drive to provide much-needed tax relief to consumers and businesses.
 
The proposals will be submitted to the government Saturday for discussion at a cabinet meeting Feb. 6, Kudrin said. However, he noted, they are still open to discussion.
 Speaking to the country's most influential business people at a session of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, or RSPP, Kudrin said that he agreed overall with a raft of tax proposals they had sent to the government.
 &quot;The main goals are basically the same. The main disagreements arise regarding the timing and the pace of reforms,&quot; Kudrin said. &quot;Businesses don't want to wait three years; they're asking to move faster. This requires further examination in our efforts to balance all interests.&quot;
 Kakha Bendukidze, head of the RSPP's tax working group and general director of United Heavy Machinery, pressed the need for faster reform.
 &quot;The [government's] ideology seems to be that 2003 has passed, let's not do anything in 2004 and if you behave well in 2005, we'll fill the pool with water so that you can jump into a full, not empty, pool,&quot; Bendukidze said. &quot;This approach is unacceptable. Either we believe that lowering taxes is good, so let's discuss how do it now, or believe it's harmful and let's not.&quot;
 Kudrin said that ongoing tax reforms should lower the country's tax burden by up to 1.5 percent of gross domestic product next year. He said that the tax burden in 2003 will reach 30.7 percent of GDP, down from 32 percent to 34 percent between 1999 and 2000. The Finance Ministry earlier put the tax burden in 2002 at 32.9 percent.
 Speaking of future cuts, Kudrin said that value-added tax should be trimmed in 2006 from 20 percent to 17 percent or, if 2003 and 2004 go well, to 15 percent. He said that the government would discuss a proposal to lower VAT from 2005.
 Bendukidze argued in favor of a 14 percent to 15 percent rate starting in 2004, adding that he'd rather get rid of VAT - and its attendant problems, such as difficulties getting VAT-export reimbursement - altogether.
 &quot;But we need to weigh all these proposals from the point of view of filling the budget coffers,&quot; Kudrin said.
 Nonetheless, Kudrin said that the government is pushing to axe the sales tax starting Jan. 1, 2004.
 &quot;This duplicates VAT, so we should cancel it,&quot; Kudrin said. The regions have fought to maintain the sales tax of up to 5 percent, which they have the right to set and collect.
 The government also plans to annul the road tax and the tax on sales of foreign currency starting in 2004, Kudrin said.
 Part of the government's plan is to shift the structure of the tax burden away from consumers and labor, he said.
 Regarding the unified social tax, Kudrin said that the government would look at first lowering the minimum annual salary at which the regressive scale kicks in from 100,000 rubles ($3,140) to 75,000 rubles in 2004 or 2005, and then possibly lowering the tax rate.
 The unified social tax starts with a 35.6-percent rate and regresses to a 2 percent rate. The government estimates that the effective tax rate is 30 percent.
 The RSPP proposed lowering the rate to 25 percent to 27 percent starting in 2004, in part by cutting out the compulsory medical-insurance component of the tax, Bendukidze said.
 Kudrin supported another of the RSPP's suggestions, to allow voluntary health-insurance payments to count toward the unified social tax.
 The government next week will also discuss an RSPP proposal to allow businesses to postpone profit-tax payments if investing in industry, although tax benefits shouldn't be reinstated, Kudrin said. &quot;I'd even prefer to lower the tax rate,&quot; he said.
 Kudrin warned that the government couldn't move too fast. While the government will work to lower government expenditures by 1 percent of GDP per year, it can't slash too deep yet, Kudrin said.
 Up to 2 percent of GDP over the past three years has come from high oil prices and the sector's ripple effect through the whole economy, he said.
 &quot;We must understand that this 2 percent may not always appear, and our goal is to bring expenses down to this reality,&quot; Kudrin said. &quot;As much as we'd like to speed up the process of cutting taxes, we can't cancel or suspend a whole series of budget expenses.&quot;
 A government budget commission on reducing expenditures is to present its proposals by April 1, he said.
 Bendukidze said that one thing more important than dickering over rates is predictability and taxpayer bang for the buck.

TITLE: Kasyanov Takes Control at State Companies
AUTHOR: By Alexei Nikolsky and Alexander Bekker
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: MOSCOW - Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov on Tuesday plucked control of the country's 66 state-owned firms from the Property Ministry in a move intended to combat corruption in the bureaucracy.
 
Previously, the State Property Ministry issued representatives with directives on how to vote at shareholder and board meetings. Now, under Resolution 91-r, such orders will come from Kasyanov himself or deputies acting on his behalf.
 A highly-placed official in the Property Ministry contended that little will change, since key positions were always &quot;agreed over the phone with the White House.&quot;
 For the 18 companies given highest priority, Kasyanov will personally approve the appointments of those who vote the government's stake. The list includes Aeroflot, Alrosa, Transneft, Vneshtorgbank, Gazprom and Unified Energy Systems.
 The resolution &quot;sets boundaries on the free will of state representatives,&quot; said Alexei Volin, deputy head of the presidential administration.
 &quot;It is much harder to buy the prime minister than it is an employee at the Property Ministry, and this is exactly the reason that decisions are to be adopted at a higher level,&quot; said an official who helped to prepare the resolution, adding that the decision will also help to implement the government's concept for management of state property.
 But senior Property Ministry official Alexander Borodin said that the list of companies under the control of the prime minister could fall by a third. Borodin said that state representatives rarely ignore directives and that corruption is a far less pressing problem than it was in the nineties.

TITLE: Boeing Shrugs Off Poor Results in Russia
AUTHOR: By Lyuba Pronina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Aeroflot's decision to give Airbus the lion's share of its new orders, along with a global slump in aircraft demand, has not dampened Boeing's spirits.
 
The U.S. aircraft manufacturer has called 2002 a good year for the company on the CIS market.
 &quot;Despite Aeroflot's decision, we still hold 80 percent of the CIS market for foreign jets,&quot; the president of Boeing in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States, Sergei Kravchenko, told reporters Tuesday.
 Late last year, Aeroflot approved a multimillion-dollar deal to upgrade the 27 foreign jets in its 100-plus fleet. By 2005, the carrier will fly 18 new Airbus 319/320s and nine Boeing 767s.
 At the moment, Aeroflot operates 11 Airbus 310s, 10 Boeing 737s, four 767s and two 777s.
 &quot;We are very disappointed by Aeroflot's decision; however, we respect their position. We're absolutely confident that our cooperation with Aeroflot will continue in many ways,&quot; Kravchenko said.
 He said that Boeing not only controls a larger share of the CIS market - 72 aircraft against Airbus' 19 - but it also has more models.
 Last year, Boeing delivered two DC-10 cargo planes to Aeroflot and another two 737s and two 767s to Transaero. Also, three 737s went to Kazakhstan's Air Astana, one 767 to Ukraine's Aerosvit and one 737 to Georgia's Air Zena.
 Kravchenko said that, this year, Boeing expects Kyrgyzstan to receive a few 757s.
 Boeing delivered a total of 381 aircraft worldwide last year, or 56 percent of global airplane deliveries. Rival Airbus delivered 303 jets last year.
 Boeing signed contracts for aircraft worth $21.2 billion last year and expects to deliver between 250 and 300 jets this year, while Airbus received $24.3 billion in orders.
 &quot;The post Sept. 11 crisis has been protracted. Our expectations that it would soon be over were not justified,&quot; Kravchenko said, adding that he hopes that by the end of this year there will be signs that the industry is on its way to recovery.
 The fall in aircraft orders lowered Boeing's need for titanium from Russia's Verkhnyaya Salda Metals Production Association, or VSMPO, according to the metals company. However, neither company would provide figures on titanium deliveries.
 Boeing extended its contract with VSMPO last year for another five years and ordered more value-added products. VSMPO accounts for 25 percent of titanium deliveries for Boeing's commercial jets.
 Kravchenko said that Boeing is in talks with Russian Aluminum, but he did not say when a contract between the companies might be expected.
 Boeing has continued to invest in its engineering center in Moscow, increasing its staff to 362 last year. Kravchenko said that at least one-third of 777s were designed in Moscow.

TITLE: Promising Growth Prediction Released
AUTHOR: By Victoria Lavrentieva
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The government expects economic growth to hover around last year's 4.1-percent expansion or even decline. But the world's largest bank is more optimistic.
 
In its annual market report released this week, Schroder Salomon Smith Barney, Citigroup's European investment arm, said that Russia will outperform even the world economy in coming years.
 SSSB forecasts show the economy growing up to 4.5 percent this year and up to 5 percent in 2004. Niclas Sundstrom, a Russia analyst with the company, called this a &quot;solid, although not spectacular, short-term growth path.&quot;
 Sundstrom said that a mix of external and domestic factors would drive growth of the country's gross domestic product this year. &quot;External factors include export revenues, primarily from oil and gas, while on the domestic side the main drivers will be real-income growth and retail trade,&quot; he said by telephone from London on Wednesday.
 Government figures do not accurately account for all economic activity in the country, other analysts noted, saying that the State Statistics Committee underreports production by small and medium-sized businesses.
 Eric Kraus, chief strategist at Sovlink investment bank, expects the country's GDP to grow 5 percent to 6 percent this year.
 &quot;Growth will be driven largely by domestic demand, with the fastest growth coming in the services sector and the manufacturing of disposable consumer goods,&quot; he said.
 But Marcin Wiszniewski, a London-based Russia analyst for Morgan Stanley, said that lingering structural constraints put a ceiling on the country's prospects for sustained, long-term growth.
 SSSB said that over the next 1 1/2 years, progress in implementing structural and economic reforms is likely to be &quot;more than now generally expected, but also less than what optimally could be wished for.&quot;
 Sundstrom said that the country's health is closely linked to the world oil markets and that moderate rather than high oil prices are in Russia's best political and economic interests.
 Oil companies would prefer higher prices because they bring higher profit. But floods of hard currency from oil export sales put pressure on the ruble to appreciate, and a stronger ruble makes exports from other sectors of the economy more expensive, hurting those companies' chances to grow to their full potential.
 &quot;Historically, Russia has done mostly poorly when oil prices have been high; and, traditionally, it has been more difficult to pursue institutional reforms when oil prices have been high,&quot; Sundstrom said. Oil prices within the $18 to $22 per barrel range are optimum, he believed.

TITLE: Gref Sees Solution to Graft in Cyberspace
AUTHOR: By Yevgenia Borisova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - In what could prove to be a ground-breaking step toward rooting out corruption, the Economic Development and Trade Ministry is proposing that government agencies be forced to post all internal information short of state secrets on the Internet.
 
The draft regulation, which will be debated by the cabinet next week, is aimed at cracking down on bribery and other wrongdoing in customs, the police and the 54 other state bodies, the Economic Development and Trade Ministry said. The bodies involved include the 24 ministries as well as a couple of dozen committees, services and other agencies.
 The regulation lists 51 categories of sensitive information that the agencies would have to publish on their official web sites, said Economic Development and Trade Ministry spokesperson Galina Bronnikova. She refused to elaborate further on the regulation's requirements, saying that they would only be made public if the cabinet approves the draft at its Feb. 6 meeting.
 The regulation, which would have to be signed by Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov to take effect, is in a package of legislation that Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref is putting together as part of a three-year drive to reform government agencies, Bronnikova said. The main plank of the legislation is a new law on giving the public access to information about the activities of state agencies, which is expected to be sent to the cabinet in March.
 The proposal ordering agencies to post information about their activities on the Internet is riling state agencies, and 30 of them - with the State Customs Committee and the Nuclear Power Ministry in the lead - are calling for substantial revisions, Bronnikova said.
 &quot;Most of the proposed amendments to the regulation change the wording to prevent financial information about tenders and information about the members of tender commissions from becoming public,&quot; she said.
 Tenders for ministry contracts are a sensitive issue. Tender commission members sometimes get kickbacks worth up to a quarter of the contract's value from the winning bidder, officials familiar with the situation said.
 The State Customs Committee and Nuclear Power Ministry declined to comment on the regulation.
 &quot;We can debate our issues with the government, but once the regulation is signed, we will follow it,&quot; said customs committee spokesperson Sergei Omelchenko.
 Nuclear Power Ministry spokesperson Nikolai Shingaryov said that it would be premature to comment &quot;while the document is still being prepared.&quot;
 Both agencies have been repeatedly accused of corruption in the Russian media. Nuclear Power Minister Yevgeny Adamov was fired in 2001 amid an investigation by the State Duma's anti-corruption commission into allegations that he continued to engage in business activities after becoming a minister in March 1998 and that he abused his authority by appointing business associates to key positions.
 According to the customs committee's own figures, the number of corruption cases in customs shot up by 15 percent last year. The committee said last week that 243 criminal cases were opened and 201 customs officials were found to have assisted businesses in covering up violations.
 Georgy Satarov, who authored a study into corruption at the INDEM think tank last year, called the proposed regulation and law &quot;an extremely significant step&quot; toward fighting corruption.
 &quot;There can be no doubt that making such information transparent is one of the main ways to prevent corruption,&quot; he said. &quot;It is very important but only a small part of the big task that we need to undertake.&quot;
 Mark Levin, who tracks corruption at INDEM, said that broad measures must be taken to fight corruption. &quot;Institutions and organizations that give birth to corruption must be reformed, the number of the doors to knock on to register and to close businesses must be reduced, and the tax system must be drastically simplified,&quot; he said.

TITLE: Golden Telecom Joins Subsidiaries
AUTHOR: By Angelina Davydova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Golden Telecom has merged two affiliated companies, Sovintel and TeleRoss, into its own structure, Stan Abbeloos, Golden Telecom Chief Operating Officer said at a press conference on Wednesday. Following the merger, Golden Telecom will provide hard-line services and Internet connections to corporate customers, while its Russia-On-Line brand will continue to provide Internet services to private customers.
 
Until recently, Goden Telecom held a 50-percent stake in Sovintel, a hard-line telephone company operating in St. Petersburg and Moscow, as well as a 100-percent stake in TeleRoss, which provides Internet services all over Russia, marketed as Russia-On-Line. In late 2002, Golden Telecom acquired the remaining 50-percent stake in Sovintel from Rostelecom, Abbeloos said.
 Sovintel has 1,200 corporate subscribers in St. Petersburg and had a turnover of $17.7 million in 2002, Sergei Savchuk, the director of Sovintel's St. Petersburg office said. TeleRoss provides Internet services to 13,000 private clients in St. Petersburg.
 By uniting the affiliated companies, Golden Telecom hopes to increase its profits through economies of scale and synergy. Abbeloos said that it is hoped that Golden Telecom's annual turnover will double to $320 million in 2003. 
 The merger follows another major restructuring in the local telecommunications sector, when the Comincom and Combellga telecoms, which also provide hard lines and Internet access, combined to form Combellga in late, 2002. Analysts believe that consolidation is a result of increased competition and the advantages to be gained by offering a wide range of services within one entity.
 Golden Telecom Company - operating under the name San Francisco Moscow Teleport until 1993 and Golden Telesystems between 1993 and 1998 - was founded in 1983 by George Soros and other American investors in order to market telecommunications services in the USSR. 
 The company created a number of affiliated companies in Russia and the other countries of the CIS, including Moscow Telephone Connection and Sovintel, owned jointly with Rostelecom.

TITLE: Turner Steps Down as AOL Loses $99Bln
AUTHOR: By Brian Bergstein
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW YORK - With Ted Turner leaving, AOL Time Warner Inc. is moving even further from its roots as it plots its turnaround after a year that saw an astonishing $99 billion in losses.
 
Turner, the maverick cable-TV mogul who founded Turner Broadcasting and CNN before selling out to Time Warner in 1996, said Wednesday that he will resign as vice chairperson in May to focus more on his philanthropy.
 His exit coincides with the recently announced departure of chairperson Steve Case, the America Online co-founder, and other recent moves that have replaced the key architects of the $106-billion merger with a team picked by new chief Richard Parsons.
 Whether Turner - who owns 3.4 percent of the company and is its largest individual shareholder - will remain on AOL's board will be determined in the next few weeks, spokesperson Mia Carbonell said.
 Turner was not available for comment, she said. But, in a statement, Turner was optimistic &quot;the company will be able to move forward and reach its true potential.&quot;
 AOL Time Warner executives were eager to look forward after announcing a staggering $45.5-billion charge in the fourth quarter to account for the media conglomerate's plunging value. That included a $10-billion charge to reflect the lower value of AOL's cable assets.
 Analysts had been expecting that AOL take a goodwill writedown but were surprised by its enormity. It meant that in the three months ending Dec. 31, AOL lost $44.9 billion, or $10.04 per share, compared with a loss of $1.8 billion, or 41 cents per share, in the fourth quarter of 2001.
 However, revenue rose 8 percent to $11.4 billion, and AOL said that without the one-time accounting markdown it would have earned 28 cents per share. Analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call had been expecting earnings of 28 cents per share and $11.2 billion in revenue.
 The announcements were made after the markets closed Wednesday. AOL stock - which has fallen nearly 80 percent from its highest level after the merger was announced - fell $1.86, or 13 percent, to $12.10 in afternoon trading Thursday.
 Other than federal accounting investigations, the biggest question over AOL Time Warner remains the performance of the AOL online division. Time Warner's media properties - which include HBO, CNN, Warner Music, Time and People magazines and blockbuster film franchises like &quot;Harry Potter&quot; and &quot;Lord of the Rings&quot; - have been the bright spot.
 In fact, it took double-digit growth in AOL's cable, TV networks and movie divisions in the fourth quarter to make up for a 6 percent drop in revenue from the online division.
 Parsons said that he was pleased with the company's overall fourth-quarter performance and pledged to &quot;run each of our businesses as well or better than before, with a continued major focus on stabilizing and revitalizing America Online.&quot;
 Executives said that they expect 2003 revenue to grow &quot;in the mid-single-digits&quot; and earnings before taxes, depreciation and amortization to be essentially flat. Analysts had been forecasting roughly 5 percent growth in revenue for 2003.
 AOL Time Warner this week sold its 8.4-percent stake in Hughes Electronics Corp., the parent company of the DirecTV satellite service, for $800 million as part of a plan to reduce debt to $20 billion by the end of this year.
 AOL also plans an initial public offering for its cable division, and analysts have speculated that AOL will sell its book-publishing division and the Atlanta Braves, the baseball team Turner brought to the media empire.
 The massive goodwill writedown disclosed Wednesday comes on top of a $54-billion charge AOL took in the first quarter to account for the company's stock decline. That move gave AOL the biggest quarterly loss in U.S. business history.

TITLE: Pilots Find Fault With Business Plan at UA
AUTHOR: By Dave Carpenter
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: CHICAGO - United Airlines' new business plan is being met by harsh opposition from its unions - turbulence that threatens its turnaround effort in bankruptcy.
 
As CEO Glenn Tilton prepared to present the new strategy Thursday to UAL Corp.'s board of directors, the pilots' and flight attendants' unions described its plans for a new discount carrier as tantamount to a breakup of United.
 Pilots' union chief Paul Whiteford pledged on the eve of the meeting to fight the plan &quot;by every lawful means available to us&quot; - sentiments echoed by the flight attendants' union.
 United declined to publicly release details of the new plan, which it said is aimed at transforming the company into &quot;a successful and aggressive competitor for the long term.&quot; It has said only that it intends to launch a discount carrier and wants to have a leaner work force and $2.4 billion less in annual labor costs.
 But the flight attendants' union said that this calls for the eliminating of anywhere from 20 percent to 40 percent of United's flights and that a spin-off carrier be created with a separate set of lower-paid employees.
 &quot;The plan to form a separate, start-up carrier by siphoning off United's best assets may be a good plan for a new start-up carrier ... but it will be the demise of United Airlines,&quot; said Greg Davidowitch, head of the flight attendants' group.
 &quot;Why would, or why should, current employees give up thousands of jobs and other cuts to fund the start-up of a new carrier that will only benefit corporate executives and others while it competes with us and drags us down even further?&quot; he said Wednesday night.
 The world's second-largest airline, which has posted heavy losses since mid-2000, filed for Chapter 11 federal-bankruptcy protection on Dec. 9. It is required to compile a new business plan in the first 120 days of bankruptcy to show its lenders how it intends to return to profitability.
 Whiteford, who also has a board seat, chided the management of the majority employee-owned company for its approach.
 &quot;Inexplicably, in the seven weeks since United filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, senior management has locked the pilots out of the process and refused to engage in any meaningful negotiations over our future,&quot; Whiteford said Wednesday. &quot;Instead, they appear to be proposing a plan to break up United Airlines by giving United routes, aircraft, and other assets to another company - with a whole set of new managers and employees.&quot;
 United defended the plans for the new carrier in a statement Wednesday night.
 &quot;We believe that a low-cost carrier, fully integrated into a global hub-and-spoke network for the first time, will be a critical and dynamic element in United's future strength,&quot; the company said, pledging to continue to work with the unions on its restructuring.
 Numerous industry experts have expressed skepticism about United's intention to launch a separate discount airline, which CEO Glenn Tilton first disclosed last month as a way to compete with Southwest Airlines. But United contends that the market has changed since earlier such efforts failed. Delta Air Lines also is establishing a discount carrier this year.

TITLE: U.S. Economy Slows to Modest 0.7-Percent Growth Rate
AUTHOR: By Jeannine Aversa
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON - The U.S. economy slowed dramatically in the final quarter of last year, growing at an annual rate of just 0.7 percent as consumers turned cautious in the face of war worries, a rollercoaster stock market and a stagnant job climate and increased their spending by the smallest amount since 1993.
 
The meager rise in gross domestic product in the fourth quarter of 2002 came after the economy grew at a respectable 4 percent rate in the third quarter, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.
 GDP measures the total value of goods and services produced within the United States and is considered the broadest barometer of the economy's health.
 &quot;The rollercoaster ride continues as the economy just cannot sustain solid growth,&quot; said economist Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors. &quot;Growth is up, growth is down, the economy's growth is all over the town.&quot;
 The performance - weaker than the 0.9-percent increase analysts were predicting - gave the fourth quarter the distinction of being the worst quarter for GDP in 2002. It also marked the weakest showing since the economy actually shrank at a 0.3-percent rate in the third quarter of 2001 as the country was mired in its first recession in a decade.
 On Wall Street, stocks sagged. The Dow Jones industrial average was off 44 points and the NASDAQ was down 5 in early trading.
 Although the economy ended 2002 on a sour note, for all of 2002 the economy grew by a decent 2.4 percent. While that marked a big improvement over the tiny 0.3-percent rise registered in 2001, it was still considered weaker-than-normal growth for the U.S. economy.
 The economy, knocked down by a recession that began in March 2001, has been struggling to get back on sure footing. Economic growth has been uneven, with a quarter of strength, followed by a quarter of weakness. That has presented challenges for U.S. President Bush, who wants to get the economy back to full throttle and doesn't want economic woes to linger as he gets ready for his 2004 re-election bid.
 To help jolt economic growth, Bush has offered a 10-year, $674-billion tax-cut proposal. Democrats have their own, smaller-scale plans.
 Commerce Secretary Don Evans said that the GDP report underscores the need for congress to enact the president's plan and shows &quot;that our nation's economy is not yet growing at its fullest potential.&quot;
 The Federal Reserve decided Wednesday to hold a key interest rate at a 41-year low of 1.25 percent, with the hope that that will spur consumers and businesses to spend and invest more, bolstering economic growth. The Fed slashed interest rates a whopping 12 times, starting in January 2001, and with the last rate reduction coming in November 2002, in a bid to energize the listless economy.
 Consumers have been virtually the sole source of support keeping the economy going.
 But in the fourth quarter of 2002, they grew tired. Consumer spending, which accounts for two-thirds of all economic activity in the United States, rose by a rate of just 1 percent in the final quarter of last year. That was down from a brisk 4.2-percent growth rate in the third quarter and marked the worst showing since the first quarter of 1993.
 All of the weakness in consumer spending in the fourth quarter reflected a sharp cut in spending on &quot;durable&quot; goods, big-ticket manufactured products such as cars and appliances. Consumers reduced such spending at a 7.3-percent rate. That was a big turnaround from the astounding 22.8-percent rate of increase in the third quarter and marked the largest cutback in spending on durable goods since the first quarter of 1991.
 Economists were predicting that consumers would lose some of their appetite for spending in the face of worries about a possible war with Iraq, a lackluster job market and a turbulent stock market.
 In other economic reports from the Labor Department, workers' wages and benefits grew by 0.7 percent in the last three months of 2002, following a 0.8-percent gain in the previous quarter. And, new claims for unemployment benefits last week rose by a seasonally adjusted 14,000 to 397,000.
 For the economy to regain stability, a sustained turnaround in business investment is necessary, economists say.

TITLE: Russia's Slippery Path Between Oil and U.S.
AUTHOR: By Stephen O'Sullivan
TEXT: IRAQ appears to be on a collision course with the United States. The response to this week's report from chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix will indicate just how imminent this collision is but ,in any case, the interests, real or perceived, of the United States - regime change, weapons of mass destruction, oil - have received considerable publicity in recent weeks.
 
Less is heard about Russia's interests in Iraq, why they exist and what form they take. Certainly few issues expose the contradiction at the heart of Russia's political establishment more than Iraq. On one side is a nationalist clique that has argued for the lifting of sanctions and the revival of the arms trade with Iraq. On the other side are ranged President Vladimir Putin's political and economic advisers, who have long realized that breaching sanctions would have led to political and economic isolation. The costs for Russia of supporting the present Iraqi regime have increased after Sept. 11, 2001, and the government has accordingly adopted a pragmatic balancing act in its Iraq policies.
 Russia, and particularly the Russian elite, take an interest in Iraq for two reasons. The first is political and perhaps dates from a reluctance by some to accept that the world has moved on from the Cold War days of the Soviet Union. The grandstanding in relations between the United States and Russia, of which Iraq became a part, during the Yeltsin era typified this reluctance.
 The Putin presidency has been marked by a much more pragmatic approach toward relations with the west. Russia's interests in Iraq are largely economic and commercial, although at the strategic level its interest in Iraq is indistinguishable from its shared interest with the West in Middle East stability and the defeat of terrorism. Old style Soviet Arabism which underlay the historic relationship with Baathist Iraq has gone for good - not least because of the strong Russian-speaking community in Israel created by the mass Jewish emigration from the crumbling Soviet Union.
 The more cooperative relationship between the United States and Russia, however, has not meant Russia giving the United States carte blanche to act on Iraq without the approval of the UN. The Security Council is one of the last vestiges of superpower status and aspiration, certainly for four of the five permanent members. Hence, ensuring its involvement in decisionmaking is important for Russia. However, it is also important that it is willing to take those decisions and why I do not believe that, in the final analysis, Russia would veto a UN resolution on Iraq. Not only would it set the country at odds with the United States, it would reduce the influence of the one body where Russia has a voice equal to that of the United States. Here are Russia's fundamental external interests ,which cannot be outweighed by specific interests (strategic, economic and commercial) in Iraq, and still less mere nostalgia for lost power. Putin's famous pragmatism is based on a recognition of these realities
 The second reason why Iraq is of interest is economic. As a pariah state, its very isolation allows countries willing to deal with it more opportunities and leverage than in a more normal competitive environment. By virtue of being willing to deal with Iraq when the United States and Britain are not, whether dressed up as &quot;engagement&quot; or as good commercial practice, Russia ought to have a head start in the country whenever normal commercial relations resume. Only 24 of Iraq's 73 known oil fields are currently being developed, with the remaining 49 available as investment opportunities.
 This economic rationale must have assumed that, when sanctions were lifted, for whatever reason, the same people would be running the important sectors of the economy, principally oil. Sept. 11, 2001 and the Bush administration's focus on Iraq has removed that certainty. It would still be reasonable to assume that many of the same people will remain in power, but the question remains whether a future Iraqi government would honor interests developed with its predecessor regime.
 Russia's strategy, while not necessarily designed to cope with a leadership change, may still be successful. While the Iraqi National Congress has said it will review any deals to determine whether they are in the Iraqi people's interests, LUKoil's Western al-Qurna deal may well pass that test. Of more concern are statements that the United States will have &quot;a big shot&quot; at Iraqi oil and hints from U.S. officials that any relationship with the Hussein regime will be viewed in a negative light in a post-Hussein Iraq. All the more important, then, that the widely-believed bargain between the United States and Russia (Russia's tacit acceptance in the UN of the need for change and U.S. support for the protection of Russian interests in a post-Hussein Iraq) should be real. Certainly statements by Russian oil executives suggest that such an implicit agreement exists.
 Russia's commercial interests are threefold: oil, debt and oil-for-food. The direct oil interests have the brightest prospects, with LUKoil's Western al-Qurna field the best of them. This is a contract for the development of a 7.8 billion-bbl field in southern Iraq signed in 1997. It has been a contentious development all round, with Iraq demanding that LUKoil proceed with the project in defiance of sanctions and LUKoil refusing to do so. This culminated in the seemingly temporary loss of the license by LUKoil in December. While this has been reversed as the Iraqis realized that alienating one of their major allies was the wrong thing to do at this stage, it illustrates the unpredictable nature of seemingly secure contracts in Iraq.
 Debt is the second main issue. Russia has inherited all of the Soviet Union's external financial claims and liabilities. It is now spending up to $10 billion a year servicing Soviet-era debts, but the Soviet-era claims these are almost all irrecoverable. The debts of oil-rich Iraq are a rare and important exception, as their face value amounts to perhaps $8 billion with interest on top. So the main Russian interest is to get these loans repaid and then resume arms sales to Iraq while also potentially becoming a major foreign player in Iraq's oil and gas sector.
 The oil-for-food deals - cargoes exported under UN auspices to finance imports of food and medicine - in which Russian companies play a major role, have become a pervasive and, in the view of many, corrosive influence on policies on Iraq. Numerous trading companies with links to individuals and groups in Russia have been used as off-takers by the Iraqis, who have been able to reward both individual companies and interest groups in Russia, as well as the country itself, for support on sanctions, etc.
 The issue for Russia and its interests in Iraq is whether a new Iraqi regime honours those interests. Whatever the agreement between Russia and the United States over Iraq (which both sides would probably rather not see aired publicly), a post-Hussein regime in the country may have a different view of the matter. Russia - like its oil companies - will need to tread a fine line between protecting its interests through relations with the Hussein administration and the threat of damaging its interests in a future Iraq by allowing those relations to become too close.
 
 <i>Stephen O'Sullivan, head of research at United Financial Group in Moscow, contributed this comment to The St Petersburg Times. </i>

TITLE: Let's Start Naming Names, With Putin First
TEXT: I'M not a fan of Vladimir Putin at all. Fortunately, for private citizens and, most of the time, journalists, the days when we were only able to make comments like this without the fear of negative consequences around a kitchen table, complete with a bottle of vodka and an ashtray full of smoldering Belomorkanal cigarette butts, are gone.
 
But it appears that this is only the case for ordinary St. Petersburgers. Local politicians, it seems, have been returned to the kitchen table, so to speak. For them, the president and his administration have become the new equivalent of &quot;Jehovah&quot; - the name that may not be spoken.
 A few recent examples:
 &quot;It is not him. It is the people around him,&quot; said Alexander Afanasyev, the spokesperson for Governor Vladimir Yakovlev.
 &quot;Let's not name any names. This is a very long story and a very difficult point to discuss,&quot; said Legislative Assembly Deputy Vladimir Yeryomenko.
 &quot;Let's not discuss this topic, it's going to be solved without asking us,&quot; said Sergei Tarasov, the former speaker of the assembly.
 The topic? The installation at the Legislative Assembly of a new, anti-Yakovlev speaker as just one of a number of signs that the governor's chances at being allowed to run for a third term - a subject that has come a close second to the city's 300th anniversary in monopolizing his public statements over the last six months - are being undercut by Putin and his administration. The candidacy of Vadim Tyulpanov was openly supported by local members of the pro-Kremlin Unity Party, of which he is himself a member. Everyone knows who Afanasyev means when he says &quot;him.&quot;
 The Kremlin's involvement seems to have played a big part in sparking the formation of a pro-Yakovlev bloc - United City - in the assembly. The new bloc gave us a little taste of how serious they were in the fight on Wednesday, when they neglected to turn up at the assembly. Thus prevented a quorum from being formed and, as a result, scuttled plans to name the heads of a number of vital committees - positions it appears that they would have been denied.
 While they are flexing their muscles in the assembly, United City members don't dare badmouth the Kremlin. They would sooner blame Dobby, a character from the latest Harry Potter movie, whose likeness to Putin has prompted threats of court action - than name the president himself.
 But Dobby has nothing to do with this mess. It is Putin.
 Putin has been waiting for his chance to get back at Yakovlev for years. It was Putin, then a deputy mayor under Anatoly Sobchak, - as was Yakovlev - who branded Yakovlev a &quot;Judas&quot; for running against his boss in 1996. It seems that Putin has a good memory and now, with the advantages that being the biggest kid on the block brings, he's going to sort things out.
 But it is not safe for politicians here to just come out and say it. How, after all could such an honest and respectable figure as Vladimir Putin be involved in such a dirty St. Petersburg political battle?
 This, you must remember, is the same man who is acclaimed for his excellent work. This, for example, is the man who announced this month that he had managed to find $600 million for the completion of a flood-protection barrier for the city. When the media and politicians here talked about this story, we didn't hear the phrase &quot;certain circles around the president.&quot; All the credit went to him. No mention was made of the &quot;certain circles around the president&quot; and in the St. Petersburg government who had been involved in negotiations with the EBRD to get the money before Putin was even elected.
 Don't get me wrong here. I'm not championing either Yakovlev or his attempt to be allowed to stand for a third term. What I am championing is a move away from the stealth-like character of the way decisions and careers continue to be made here. By dancing around naming the president as the one behind the moves to ensure that Yakovlev won't stay, those on the governor's side are just buying into the stealth system.
 But do they have much of a choice?
 On the same day that they chose Tyulpanov as the new speaker, the Legislative Assembly re-elected Sergei Mironov, a Putin ally, as its representative in the Federation Council. Five of the members present cast their votes against the president's choice in what was a secret ballot. A comment made by one lawmaker, in between puffs on his cigarette, after the vote, said it all for me.
 &quot;It would be interesting to see what would happen if they found out who they were.&quot;
 I wonder whom he meant by &quot;they&quot;?

TITLE: all the fun of the circus
AUTHOR: by Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Fresh from a European tour including gigs in Austria, Poland and Slovenia, local band NOM brings its mix of rock music and circus-style theatrics back to St. Petersburg with a show at Faculty on Friday.
 
Like the tour, the concert will be based on NOM's eighth, and most recent, album, &quot;8 u.e.,&quot; which was released in late December and showcased at Red Club on Jan. 2.
 Released by indie Moscow label SoLyd Records, which has put out all NOM's albums since 1998, the 12-track &quot;8 u.e.&quot; is the band's take on commercialism. The album's title indicates this - &quot;u.e.,&quot; short for &quot;uslovnaya yedinitsa,&quot; (&quot;conditional unit&quot;) is the standard Russian euphemism for dollar, used to avoid listing prices explicitly in the U.S. currency.
 &quot;The idea was to take a look at today's commerce, so it's commercial from NOM's stylistic point of view,&quot; says the band's bassist and singer, Andrei Kagadeyev. &quot;Its cover is designed like the big checked bags that everyone carries here.&quot;
 &quot;It's also 'commercially' easier to listen to - we used disco and Neue Deutsche Welle [German 1980s new wave]. So it's different, but the basic conception is still the same.&quot;
 The band, which is notorious in certain quarters for its on-stage theatrics, has developed a new live act to accompany the new material. As usual, the live shenanigans are based on the eccentricities of Ivan Turist (real name Yury Saltykov), the band's goggle-eyed showman and second vocalist.
 &quot;He's a unique character, and most of what happens [on stage] is connected with him,&quot; Kagadeyev says. &quot;Anyway, it's a rock perfomance, with masks and costumes.&quot;
 Although some articles cite The Residents as NOM's biggest influence, Kagadeyev, whose early interests were Led Zeppelin, King Crimson and, later, avant-garde jazz, says the band's members knew nothing about the theatrical U.S. band when they started out in 1987.
 &quot;Later, we heard them, and saw certain parallels,&quot; he says. &quot;It's probably because we share that dilettante approach to music. They weren't professional musicians either, but painters who attempted to express their views [through music.] We probably had some similar musical ideas at some point, but it wasn't related [to The Residents].&quot;
 NOM played as a quintet until 1998, when two members - including Kagadeyev's brother Sergei - quit to form another band, also, confusingly, called NOM, which folded in 1991. Since then, it has played as a trio, with Kagadeyev and Turist joined by Nikolai Gusev, an older-generation musican who became famous as a member of pioneering ska band Stranniye Igry and, later, electronic new-wave band AVIA.
 Gusev's keyboards and computers have become more important to the ever-eclectic NOM since he first worked with the band as a studio session musician.
 &quot;Our music might have become more electronic but, stylistically, this album has ska, it has disco - partly parodied - it has Neue Deutsche Welle, like DAF and Kraftwerk,&quot; Kagadeyev says. &quot;But it's all interpreted; even when we play hard rock, it is filtered through us. All our records are different, depending on what we were interested in at the time. Eventually, it probably led us to our own style.&quot;
 The band's eight-album back catalog starts with its debut vinyl outing, 1991's &quot;Brutto,&quot; but excludes 1998's &quot;Euro&quot; - which was released by the other NOM.
 &quot;Essentially, that was my brother's attempt to go solo. It had different goals, which is why I don't include it,&quot; Kagadeyev says. &quot;It was an attempt to enter big show business, but it failed.&quot;
 Although the band uses additional musicians for studio work when necessary, it mainly performs live as a trio.
 &quot;It's become easier, and we've become more mobile,&quot; Kagadeyev says. &quot;Of course, when we play live, we use sequencers and electronic effects, so our sound has become richer. Previously, when we played with live drums in poorly equipped clubs, it sounded worse.&quot;
 However, on special occasions, such as its 15th-birthday gig last April, or on European tours, the band is joined by its expressive former vocalist, Alexander Liver (real name Dmitry Tikhonov), who now lives on the France-Switzerland border and sings bass in the chorus of the Geneva Opera. Kagadeyev says that Liver is in constant contact with the band, even contributing to the songwriting.
 Kagadeyev says that NOM's European tour, from which it returned this week, was a usual club affair of the sort that the band undertakes a couple of times a year, in winter and spring, travelling in its own bus. In August, the band will perform at the massive Pepsi Sziget rock festival in Budapest, Hungary.
 
 <i>
NOM plays Faculty at 9 p.m. on Friday. Links: www.nomzhir.spb.ru </i>

TITLE: construction and cocktails
AUTHOR: by Charles Hoedt
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Armed with chainsaws, hammers, chisels, drills and bottles of hot water, 10 teams from around Europe started work Wednesday on their creations for the ice-sculpture competition on the frozen beach of the Peter and Paul Fortress.
 
Their cold, shiny artworks will go on show to the public on Saturday in another of the competition's special features - one of the world's largest inflatable constructions.
 The teams taking part in the competition come from eight countries, including Sweden, Finland, the Czech Republic and Germany in addition to Russia. Due to language and visa problems, the German team contains only one native German.
 &quot;It will be hard to finish my sculpture on time,&quot; says German artist Christoph Rossner. &quot;But, on the other hand, I love working alone.&quot;
 The competition's central theme is &quot;Vzglyad&quot; (&quot;The Look&quot;). In line with this, Rossner, who studied at St. Petersburg's Mukhinskoye Art Academy, has designed a 2-meter high sculpture combining a huge eye, the sun and an angel.
 Rossner won't be all on his own, however, as he will have help from two young Russians.
 &quot;We've never made an ice sculpture,&quot; says 16-year-old Alexander Gavrilin, of St. Petersburg's School No. 631. &quot;However, we'll do everything we can to help [Rossner].&quot;
 The ice for the competition - more than 60 tons of it - has been imported from Sweden. The large cubes are made from frozen water from the Tornio River, which forms part of the border between Sweden and Finland.
 &quot;The water of the Tornio is very clean, which is why the cubes are so transparent,&quot; explains Svetlana Hedstr&ouml;m, a representative from the Swedish province of Norbotten, which enjoys a long-standing tie of friendship with St. Petersburg.
 The Ice House, which cost $500,000 to bring to fruition, is a present from Sweden to St. Petersburg, one of the first of many that the city will receive from around the world for its 300th anniversary.
 According to Hedstr&ouml;m, the idea for the competition derived partly from the traditions of building in ice of both Sweden and Russia
 Since 1990, the Swedes have built an ice hotel every year at a location some 250 kilometers north of the Artic Circle that has become a major tourist attraction. The hotel is equipped with all the modern amenities - a movie theater, restaurant, bar, sauna, and even a church. Last week, Shakespeare's &quot;Hamlet&quot; premiered in its ice theater.
 The first ice building erected in St. Petersburg was built over 250 years ago on the orders of Tsarina Anna, who ruled Russia from 1730 to 1740, to punish one of her courtiers, Prince Mikhail Golytsin who, in 1739, married an Italian Catholic of whom the tsarina disapproved. Anna ordered Golitsyn to spend his wedding night in an elaborate ice palace built on the frozen Neva River in the harsh winter of that year. The palace was decorated with statues, furniture, a garden with an orchard, and a bathhouse - all made of ice.
 This year's Ice House will feature a bar made of ice by Swedish artists, at which visitors can enjoy vodka - chilled, of course - in glasses also made of ice. Every morning, children, the disabled and war veterans will be invited to admire the sculptures while, from 10 p.m. every night, the Ice House is available for hire by firms wanting to throw special parties. 
 The Ice House itself was built by Lindstrand Balloon, a British company that uses its experience gained from manufacturing hot-air balloons to create innovative inflatable buildings that are easily transportable and - as demonstrated by the Ice House earlier this week - can be set up in a couple of hours.
 &quot;The Ice House is the biggest balloon building we've ever made,&quot; says Lindstrand Balloon Vice President Keith Goffin. &quot;Normally, we make smaller ones, for example, for supermarkets to store food at busy times, such as Christmas.&quot;
 The Ice House, which covers 600 square meters, can hold 250 people.
 To compensate for St. Petersburg's unpredictable weather, a special system has been installed to keep the temperature in the Ice House at a constant temperature of between minus 5 and minus 8 degrees Celsius so that the artworks will not melt - even if, as recently, the thermometer creeps above zero. In the next few days, however, anticipated temperatures of -20 C will mean that the system will not be tested.
 Most teams taking part also participated in the city's sand-sculpture festival, which, like its winter counterpart, was organized by St. Petersburg's City Museum Foundation.
 
 <i>
The Ice House is open daily from Saturday through March 15, from noon to 10 p.m. Tickets cost from 100 to 300 rubles. </i>

TITLE: chernov's choice
TEXT: Reports circulating this week suggest that <strong>Moloko, </strong>arguably the city's finest underground rock club, will be shut down before long.
 
According to Moloko's Yury Ugryumov, the district department of the City Property Committee, which owns the building, refuses to renew its rental agreement with the club, meaning that the club will have to leave its premises.
 &quot;It won't happen immediatedly,&quot; Ugryumov said. &quot;If the situation can't be resolved positively, we'll stay here for about three months.&quot;
 Ugryumov said the reasons for the non-renewal of the contract are unclear. &quot;When we asked them why, they said there had been complaints. When we asked to see the complaints, they couldn't produce them,&quot; he said.
 Two Legislative Assembly deputies wrote letters supporting the club, but got no replies, &quot;as though they were swallowed by quicksand,&quot; said Ugryumov, adding that the club has never previously had any problems in its six-year history.
 The new, better-ordered <strong>Cynic </strong>seems to have regulated its once semi-spontaneous gigs. According to the bar's owner, Vladimir Postnichencko, concerts will now be held mostly at 9 p.m. on Saturdays. This week will see pop-rock act Nameless. play the venue.
 <strong>Nordfolks </strong>gig at Red Club on Friday will, according to the group's singer/accordionist, Andrei &quot;Figa&quot; Kondratyev, actually be a gig by the re-formed Skazy Lesa, Kondratyev's Russian-language project that, unlike the Irish folk-based Nordfolks, explores Slavic roots.
 &quot;No one knows about it; it will be a surprise,&quot; said Kondratyev by phone on Thursday from his home, where the band was rehearsing.
 &quot;We have a new set. It will be great, with lots of people [on stage,&quot; he said, adding that Auktsyon's percussionist, Pavel Litvinov, will probably take part.
 Meanwhile, Nordfolks' future does not look bright. &quot;Nordfolks is going bust. It's shutting up shop,&quot; Kondratyev said, with a laugh.
 Pop duo <strong>Tatu </strong>is apparently set to realize the impossible dream of generations of local rockers, according to BBC Radio 1 - to top the British charts.
 Tatu - or, rather, t.A.T.u., in its official international spelling - is set to hit No. 1 in Sunday's singles charts, according to midweek figures. The single, &quot;All the Things She Said&quot; (the English-language version of &quot;Ya Soshla s Uma,&quot; the group's first hit), sold 21,000 copies on Monday alone.
 Russian media outlets are enthusiastic about the group's success in the land of the Beatles. However, Russia is merely returning to its homeland a Western invention, manufactured pop - taken to extremes. The act has already found opponents who label it a &quot;pedo-pop&quot; group.
 &quot;It has been reported that Tatu's creator, Russian Ivan Shapovalov, came up with the idea for the act while researching porn on the internet,&quot; notes Sky News.
 Meanwhile, the quick-witted site Gay.com shows signs of doubt with an article called &quot;Is Tatu's Lesbian Image Manufactured?&quot; &quot;In Russia, rumors are circulating that girl duo Tatu's lesbian image may be manufactured,&quot; it says.
 Tatu's success is only meaningful for Russian pop manufacturers, not true creative artists. And, in any case, the British pop charts have long been devoid of anything remotely interesting.
 
 <i>- by Sergey Chernov </i>

TITLE: a good bet for sports fans
AUTHOR: by Thomas Rymer
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: There are a number special, tender - for some people, even &quot;holy&quot; - days that cry out for a specific character in the restaurant chosen for their observance. They call for a romantic atmosphere - a setting that provides a feeling of intimacy and warmth.
 
Super Bowl Sunday is not one of these days.
 For a self-confessed and unrepentant North American sports addict living in St. Petersburg, events like the Super Bowl - the National Football League's championship game - engender a bittersweet combination of feelings. The game is at once a connection with home and a reminder of how far away that home is. The fact that the kickoff time for the game means that it is played here on what is already Monday morning (almost 3 a.m. this year) is one of the big differences. The constant comments from non-North American friends and acquaintances that this is not &quot;real football&quot; - or <i>nastoyashchy futbol </i>in its Russian rendering - is another reminder of the fact that you are a little outside the mainstream.
 While you learn to get used (or at least reconciled) to these things, the search for a place to watch the game that will feel at least close to the way it does at home is an annual event. This year, I set out with a few friends to try out a new venue in the city - the Vegas casino and bar.
 To be fair, I should mention that I had already been to Vegas a couple of times, and had found it to be a good venue, if a little on the spacious side, to watch a game. On this occasion, we had not reserved a table in advance, so the size of the bar area and the two big-screen television displays made the size of the sports bar there a big plus.
 Pulling a few tables together in view of one of the screens, my companions and I settled in to survive the inevitable hype from a steady parade of analysts and commentators that always accompanies the game. We also managed to grab ourselves a drink, with all but one of the people in our group opting for beer - a decision strongly influenced by the fact that we had managed to get our hands on some &quot;Eurovegas,&quot; little promotional coupons that were each worth a free draft beer.
 While sipping our beer and munching on the complimentary <i>sukhariky </i>- garlicky little crouton snacks - we watched the first half of the game, using the menu as a welcome diversion from the inane commentary during the breaks in play.
 In keeping with football-watching fashion, we ordered three plates of wings (190 rubles, $5.95 each) for our group of five. One member of the group opted to grab an order of calamari (90 rubles, $2.80) to munch as well. The calamari, deep fried in a corn-meal breading and served with a spicy mayonnaise-based sauce were excellent, managing to avoid the common pitfalls of being too greasy or too rubbery. The wings drew a mixed review. I, perhaps having been overly influenced by flashbacks of home, was a little disappointed not to get a basket of seriously deep-fried wings smothered in sauce. Instead, each order contained seven good-sized marinated wings that had been done lightly and were served with sliced cucumbers, peppers and tomato on the side. We had ordered the wings ostry (hot) and discovered that this meant that each order was served with a side of sauce (20 rubles, $0.65) that would better be characterized as mildly spicy. While the wings weren't done the way I would have hoped, they were good, and I was alone in my criticism as the rest of the group gave nothing but positive reviews while digging in.
 Having skipped dinner, one companion and I opted to follow with something a little more substantial. She opted for the BLT sandwich ($150 rubles, $4.70), which turned out to follow the Russian <i>buterbrod </i>tradition in laying the ingredients - fresh lettuce and tomatoes and bacon that was done perfectly - out on a single slice of toasted bread, served with a generous side of fries.
 My burger - a bacon cheeseburger (280 rubles, $8.80), to be exact - was one of the best I've had in St. Petersburg, marred only by the common local difficulty with finding a good, proper hamburger bun. The burger itself was thick and juicy, with a layer of bacon hidden under the melted cheddar cheese and also including a generous portion of fries.
 All in all, the experience, if a little pricey for simple sports-bar fare, was good. The menu this time was special for the Super Bowl, but most of what we had is on the regular bar menu, which carries a good array of starters, dinners and deserts.
 Particularly if you're looking for the chance to place a bet or two or duck out to a gaming machine or table during a break, Vegas is a good option for grabbing a bite while watching the game.
 
 <i>
Vegas, 6 Manezhnaya Pl. Tel.: 110-5000. Open 24 hours. Menu in Russian and English. Credit cards accepted. Dinner and snacks for five: 1,180 rubles ($37). </i>

TITLE: conducting - it's in his blood
AUTHOR: by Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: While no successful musical career can be said to be preordained, it is fair to say that Mariss Jansons was almost born with a conductor's baton in his hands.
 
The son of renowned conductor Arvid Jansons, Mariss, a Russian citizen of Latvian origin, was born in Riga in 1943. He says that, as soon as he could walk, his choice of toys was a hint of what would come.
 &quot;Even as a toddler, I fantasized about conducting an orchestra and, in fact, the baton, rather than toy soldiers, automobiles, or a ball, was one of my favourite toys,&quot; Jansons says.
 The &quot;toy&quot; evolved over time into a much more serious thing, and the results have been impressive. Jansons, the driving force behind the internationally acclaimed Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and a regular with the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, is one of only three Russians - alongside conductor Yevgeny Mravinsky and violinist David Oistrakh - to be awarded membership of the Musikverein, the prestigious Viennese international music society that has boasted Mozart and Beethoven as just two of its renowned members.
 When Jansons was three, his mother gave him a model of a theater, just one example of a childhood surrounded by music and the theater.
 &quot;I spent whole days at the Riga Opera theater, where my parents worked, and I could never imagine myself being anywhere but in the theater,&quot; Jansons recalls. &quot;Nobody ever said anything like 'why don't you become a conductor?' I just became one naturally and have never had any doubts or regrets.&quot;
 &quot;My father never actually gave me conducting lessons, but I talked with him about it so often and witnessed so many rehearsals.&quot;
 While Jansons says his father never played a real role in his musical education, the list of figures who became his mentors is remarkable: Nikolai Rabinovich at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory, Yevgeny Mravinsky at the Shostakovich Philharmonic and Herbert von Karajan, the late director of the Berlin Philharmonic, one of the greatest conductors of the 20th century.
 Working with Karajan was Jansons' first foray into working abroad, and his first experience of the difficulties involved in getting permission from the Soviet government to do so.
 In 1968, while on tour in the Soviet Union with with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Karajan gave a masterclass, and Jansons was one of twelve young conductors who took part. Karajan was so impressed that he invited Jansons to study with him in Vienna. The Soviet government initially refused the request, citing ideological reasons, but culture officials argued that, since a conductor of Karajan's stature had seen something in Jansons, this type of talent should be encouraged - as long as the state was in control of the program under which he would go to Vienna. The government found its opportunity in the form of an official, state-sponsored cultural-exchange program, whereby an Austrian dancer came to Leningrad's Vaganova Ballet Academy and Jansons went to the Vienna Academy of Music.
 Jansons' year-long stay in Vienna also provided more contact with Karajan. The Austrian was in rehearsal for an opera festival in Salzburg, sessions to which Jansons managed to get an invitation through Karajan's assistant. 
 &quot;I spent all day, every day with [Karajan], from early morning until very late in the evening,&quot; Jansons recalls. &quot;It was an incredible experience.&quot;
 The difficulties with going abroad continued in 1971, when Jansons won the second prize at Berlin's Karajan Conducting Competition. As part of the prize, Jansons was invited to spend a year studying with Karajan. Again, the Soviet authorities balked.
 &quot;Three years later, I found out that Karajan wrote a very angry letter to the then Soviet culture minister, [Yekaterina] Furtseva,&quot; Jansons said. &quot;He was extremely outraged.&quot;
 Jansons says that, although the complete state control over every foreign trip was unnerving, such difficulties never moved him toward what could be considered a dissident stance. When he accepted an offer to become principal conductor of Oslo's Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1979, he says he never thought of it as a chance to escape the Soviet Union.
 &quot;If I had not been able to work abroad at the time, perhaps it would have crossed my mind but, as it was, I was able to go work there and still work in Leningrad.&quot; Jansons said. &quot;I know some of my colleagues chose to stay abroad, but some of them were really forced to emigrate. I wasn't, which is why I didn't.&quot;
 &quot;I am not, and never have been, a dissident. Thank God, I never found myself in a situation where I felt like my oxygen was being cut off [by the state] - not allowed to go anywhere, and basically locked inside the country.&quot;
 Now 60, Jansons seems to be busier than ever. He saddened Pittsburgh music lovers last year by announcing that he would not be returning for a third term at the helm of the orchestra - before accepting two new posts, starting in 2004, as principal conductor of both the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. The latter is particularly suited to Jansons, as the Concertgebouw is especially renowned for performing the works of Mahler and Bruckner, two of the conductor's favorite composers.
 &quot;The Concertgebouw has a venerable tradition, so I don't have any plans to reform it,&quot; he says. &quot;I've performed with the orchestra many times, but it will take at least a year of being their principal conductor before I can say more.&quot;
 &quot;Amsterdam and Vienna are maybe Europe's most musical cities, with intense concert schedules and packed concert halls every day,&quot; he adds. &quot;It is a thrill to conduct there; they have seen so much. The Concertgebouw's two halls host an unbelievable 735 concerts every year between them.&quot;
 Globally, however, pulling in an audience for classical-music concerts is becoming a problem.
 &quot;It's a problem for almost all countries. The question is, how to attract a greater share of young people,&quot; Jansons says. &quot;The world is looking for forms and ideas. I admire the British idea of the Proms, in London, which brings in crowds of youngsters. They generate so much energy, and create an atmosphere.&quot;
 &quot;But this is an exception. During the [regular] season, young audiences aren't interested in [classical music].&quot;
 Another worry is the oft-expressed opinion that audiences &quot;don't understand&quot; classical music. Jansons, who runs an annual contemporary-music festival, &quot;Ultima,&quot; in Oslo, says the word &quot;understand&quot; should not be applied to music in the first place.
 &quot;You can say you don't understand a language,&quot; he says. &quot;But people perceive music through their souls, not their brains.&quot;
 &quot;Generally, I think contemporary music enjoys more and more attention every year,&quot; he says. &quot;My festival is a good example. only 200 people came to the first event; now, we get full houses.&quot;
 Despite encouragement of contemporary music from critics, finding funding for it is a problem, which distresses Jansons.
 &quot;I find it tragic that there is less and less space for idealism in a world where financial issues predominate over virtually everything else,&quot; he says.
 Russian audiences, however, are even more depressing for Jansons, who says that today's concert goers have no sense of music, compared with their pre-Perestroika counterparts. The problem is now so bad that the Shostakovich Philharmonic has resorted to inserting a note in its programs asking audiences not to applaud between movements and to switch off cellular phones.
 &quot;It's obvious that they need time, but what people are brought up with these days in musical terms is alarming,&quot; Jansons says. &quot;I switched on my television the other night, and saw countless ads for Nikolai Baskov singing with Montserrat Caballe. Sadly, most Russians don't watch television critically; they just accept what they see. It's a question of quality. I don't mind the advertising, but presenting singers [like Baskov] as 'international stars' is just dishonest.&quot;
 &quot;We have to be very careful about what people see,&quot; he says. &quot;For example, when I worked in Oslo, I was asked by the Japanese government to record some works by Grieg with the orchestra.&quot;
 Jansons was initially surprised, and told the Japanese that most good recordings already exist. He was stunned by the depth and simplicity of the answer he received: &quot;We want to give our children Grieg performed by Norwegians in Norway, the way it should sound; when we need Beethoven, we'll ask German orchestras.&quot;
 &quot;They give this music to schoolchildren as part of musical eduction in schools, because they want them to develop a good taste for music,&quot; Jansons says. &quot;This is how it should be done.&quot;
 Despite having worked with many internationally famous orchestras, Jansons has never performed with any of them in Russia - mainly because no promoter is willing to risk losing money on such a venture.
 The situation is ironic, says Jansons, given that, during the 1960s and the 1970s - the time of the Iron Curtain - the world's most acclaimed orchestras all performed in St. Petersburg. One season might see concerts by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Phildelphia Symphony Orchestra and the New York Symphony Orchestra.
 &quot;Just compare that to the financial Iron Curtain that makes Russian audiences suffer today,&quot; he says, with noticeable bitterness.
 To date, the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics are the orchestras with which Jansons has the best rapport and understanding.
 &quot;They adore the music, they are eager to play,&quot; he says. &quot;Everyone strives as hard as in a solo recital, or as if it were their last concert&quot;
 &quot;There are many highly professional orchestras that get all the notes right, but music is more than just the score,&quot; he says. &quot;The score is not the goal, it's what you use to reach the goal. The goal is the atmosphere.&quot;
 True musicians, Jansons says, have to go past reading the score for the music to soar and create the atmosphere.
 &quot;It may seem that all musicians have to love music but, in reality, this is not always the case. What [musicians] look for in a conductor in not detailed instructions, but an imaginative approach.&quot;
 According to Jansons, the conductor is the link between the composer and the musicians, who perceive the music through the conductor's feelings and ideas.
 &quot;The musicians have to trust and follow you,&quot; he explains. &quot;You can call it energy or hypnosis; you transform the music through your eyes, head, arms, fingers - your whole body. If you don't have this talent, no technique can save you, no matter how excellent.&quot;
 Like most internationally renowned conductors with a packed concert diary, Jansons has very little spare time to listen to music.
 &quot;When I turn on music at home, it's almost always because I am learning a new work, looking for something to rehearse with the orchestra, or to familiarize myself with a piece I had forgotten,&quot; he says.
 Jansons' life changed after his worst theatrical experience, during a performance of Puccini's opera &quot;La boheme&quot; in Oslo in 1996, when he suffered a heart attack and collapsed. He felt a horrendous pain in his chest about seven minutes from the end, but continued conducting, only to lose consciousness two minutes later. The musicians in the pit latter recalled that, for a few moments after collapsing, Jansons' right hand was still gesticulating, giving directions to the orchestra.
 &quot;I realized that the situation could have been worse,&quot; Jansons says. &quot;But it was very traumatic morally.&quot;
 Subsequently, Jansons took a six-month break to recover in a clinic in Switzerland, returning to the podium in Cardiff, Wales, because, he says, &quot;I simply couldn't go straight back to Oslo; the venue had to be somewhere quiet.&quot;
 &quot;At the first rehearsal, I was very cautious and self-controlled. I tried not to overwork myself physically, but I felt I wasn't being natural,&quot; he says. &quot;Fright dominated everything, and every moment of that hour and 15 minutes seemed to last forever.&quot;
 &quot;During the break, I told my wife that I either conduct as normal, or just leave the stage, as it makes no sense to approach the music half-heartedly. So I forgot about watching myself, and went on conducting in full swing. So far, it's been the right solution.&quot;
 Jansons' busy schedule forced him to quit teaching at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory in 2000, after 30 years service. St. Petersburg concert goers now see him conduct only a few times per season. However, when asked why he returns to St. Petersburg these days, Jansons gives a short, yet complex, answer - &quot;just to be at home.&quot;
 
 <i>
Mariss Jansons next conducts in St. Petersburg on May 24 at the Shostakovich Philharmonic, in a program of works by Dvorak, Witold Lutoslawski and Richard Strauss. </i>

TITLE: the end of a ballet era
AUTHOR: by Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Natalya Dudinskaya, one of the last surviving legends of Soviet ballet, died aged 90 on Wednesday
 
Both on stage and in life, Dudinskaya was the personification of joie de vivre. No other dancer could compare to her lightning-fast cascades razor-edge precise steps. Her dancing technique was once labeled &quot;choreographic bel canto,&quot; a reference to the classic Italian vocal school demonstrated at its best by singers such as Maria Callas. 
 She brought power, passion and a fiery temperament to her interpretations of classical-ballet roles: a regal Aurora in &quot;Sleeping Beauty,&quot; a magnificent Odile in &quot;Swan Lake,&quot; a tormented Nikiya in &quot;La Bayadere,&quot; and a flirtatious Kitrie in &quot;Don Quixote.&quot; One of her favorite roles was the title part in &quot;Cinderella,&quot; in a staging designed for her by her husband, renowned Soviet choreographer Konstantin Sergeyev.
 Dudinskaya's talents were also acknowledged by the state. A People's Artist of the Soviet Union, she was also awarded four state prizes by the U.S.S.R.
 A festive-looking dancer, Dudinskaya possessed an avalanche of energy and will. Her perfectionist character and devotion to ballet earned her a reputation as a zealous, even fanatical, workaholic. The same qualities also made her a merciless critic and a demanding mentor at the Vaganova Ballet Academy, where she taught from 1964.
 Dudinskaya was born in Kharkov on Aug. 21, 1912. The daughter of a ballerina, she was born to be a dancer, and her career at the top began as soon as she graduated from the Vaganova Ballet Academy in 1931. Due to her status as a favorite student of Agrippina Vaganova - &quot;Iron Agrippina,&quot; the legendary teacher who revolutionized Russian ballet in the 1920s to make it conform more to the new, Soviet expectations - Dudinskaya did not have to wait long for the plum roles.
 She made her debut at the State Acadmic Opera and Ballet Theater - now the Mariinsky Theater - the year she graduated. During her first season, she appeared in the title role in &quot;Swan Lake,&quot; instantly drawing attention and captivating audiences with her talent and fiery temperament. For the next 21 years, until 1962, Dudinskaya performed all the classical repertoire with the company, from whose history her name is an inseperable part.
 Dudinskaya's friends compared her career with an inextinguishable firework. No obstacle, it seemed, could wipe the jubilant smile off the dancer's face, and no challenge was too intimidating for her.
 &quot;I always avoid thinking about depressing things,&quot; said Dudinskaya, who described herself as an easy-going optimist. &quot;Rather, I concentrate on the bright, positive sides.&quot;
 Dudinskaya loved all the attention she got. Crowds of admirers waited outside her house, and outside the theater when she danced. It became impossible for her to walk the streets of St. Petersburg without being recognized.
 Dudinskaya enjoyed a uniquely long stage life - an incredible 35 years - at the State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater, which was renamed the Kirov Theater in 1935, staying faithful to her alma mater, despite the temptation of a move to Moscow. In her forties, she looked half her actual age, dancing with 20-year-old partners of her choosing, including greats such as Rudolf Nureyev.
 &quot;After [my] graduation, our prima ballerina, the great Dudinskaya, approached and and said she would like to dance 'Laurencia' with me,&quot; Nureyev later wrote. &quot;It was like a fairy tale.&quot;
 Even when her stage career finished, Dudinskaya could not leave ballet or the theater, where she began teaching in 1951. She stopped teaching at the Vaganova Academy only in 2001. Her most famous student - also her favorite - was current Mariinsky dancer Ulyana Lopatkina.
 &quot;[Dudinskaya] was very attentive; she never forgot us, even long after graduation,&quot; said Mariinsky dancer Irina Zhelonkina, who also graduated from Dudinskaya's class. &quot;She was always interested to know how we are, and was ready to give us all her support, whenever we needed it.&quot;
 Dudinskaya was seen as the uncrowned queen of Russian ballet, for her regal, noble spirit and lack of arrogance, and for her combination of elegant grace and almost masculine strength of will. Her judgements were straightforward and sharp. &quot;I don't mind fresh interpretations of classical ballets, but they shouldn't turn into a destruction of an exisiting piece,&quot; she once said, when asked about the Mariinsky's attempts to stage new versions of classical works.
 &quot;Ballet is my life and my heart&quot; was a phrase Dudinskaya repeated like a mantra. Yet she had another passion - music - that was just as strong; she even suggested arrangements of certain musical works.
 &quot;When you look through the scores of various ballets that Dudinskaya danced, you sometimes see notes in the margin indicating 'Dudinskaya's variations,' meaning she adapted some of the dance [music] to her tempo,&quot; said Makhar Vaziyev, the head of the Mariinsky's ballet division. &quot;She was an artist of rare talent, whom it will be impossible to replace. We often hear pompous phrases said about people but, in Dudinskaya's case, no praise is high enough.&quot;
 
 <i>
Dudinskaya will be buried on Saturday afternon at 3 p.m. at the Literatorskiye Mostki Cemetery - also the last resting place of Turgenev and Blok - alongside Sergeyev, her husband. Members of the public can pay their last respects at a viewing on Saturday at 10 a.m. in the Mariinsky Theater's White Foyer. </i>

TITLE: an exhibit for the dissident 'in crowd'
AUTHOR: by Aliona Bocharova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg's nonconformist artists have long been proud of the city's tradition of dissident, alternative art. However, &quot;Colors and Words,&quot; an exhibition in memory of Joseph Brodsky that opened Tuesday at the Alexander Blok Apartment Museum, produces more of an impression that the contemporary &quot;left&quot; scene is searching for a non-existent connection to - and reflected glory from - a bygone age.
 
The exhibit features works by Nikolai Dronnikov, a Moscow artist who - like Brodsky - emigrated in 1972, although Dronnikov went to Paris and Brodsky to the United States.
 The opening of the exhibition on Tuesday was characterized by a feeling of a meeting of 1970s-era &quot;kitchen intellectuals&quot; - an informal gathering held, for security reasons, in someone's kitchen, at which dissidents could express their ideas freely among themselves.
 Dronnikov's speech, in which he cited emigrants and dissidents from the 1970s, further reinforced the impression that the exhibition is aimed at the dissident &quot;in crowd.&quot; For non-initiates, the connection between Blok and Brodsky may not, at least initially, be clear.
 &quot;Well, both of their names start with 'B',&quot; said Galina Savelyova, head of the museum, with a smile. &quot;Besides, they are two of the most significant poets of the beginning and end of the 20th century.&quot;
 The central exhibition space is devoted to 35 etchings of Brodsky.
 &quot;I have done over a thousand portraits of Brodsky,&quot; Dronnikov said. &quot;I met him for the first time in 1965 at one of his first public performances, at a gathering at the home [in Leningrad] of my friend Alexander Ginzburg.&quot;
 Ginzburg, another well-known Soviet dissident, was imprisoned three times while living in the Soviet Union and finally managed to emigrate to Paris in 1979. He established the first <i>samizdat </i>magazine in Leningrad and was the first to publish Brodsky.
 All the etchings are drawn from life, and depict Brodsky reading his poetry at literary evenings on visits to Paris from the 1970s through the 1990s. Some feature Brodsky's hand holding a cigarette; another shows his tired eyes closed under his glasses. Dronnikov wrote descriptions of his works with a brush on separate plaques. A particularly penetrating one reads: &quot;Brodsky declaimed his poetry droningly and swinging a bit, like an old Jew at the Wailing Wall.&quot;
 &quot;The main goal of the exhibit is to catch a moment and enliven history,&quot; said Arsen Mirzayev, the exhibit's curator. &quot; Dronnikov drew portraits of many prominent figures such as Alexander Solzhenitsin, Vladimir Vysotsky and Mstislav Rostropovich - and he never made them pose.&quot;
 
 <i>
&quot;Colors and Words&quot; runs until Feb. 28. See Exhibits for details. </i>

TITLE: the word's worth
AUTHOR: by Michele A. Berdy <i>
TEXT: S pribambasom: </i>said of someone who is slightly mad, loony, flakey, nutty or has a screw loose.
 
There's nuts, and then there's nuts. That is, someone can be a bit eccentric, outright strange or stark raving mad. They can be nuts about scuba-diving or nuts about Mary. Lucky for us, Russian allows us a full range of expressions to describe every kind of human madness, from the benign to the certifiably insane.
 <i>Vchera vecherom ya poznakomilsya s devushkoi. Vpode nichego, no, po-moemu, s privetom </i>(I met a girl last night - she seems OK, but I think she's a little flakey). <i>S privetom </i>describes a rather mild form of eccentricity or strangeness. You can also say <i>s pribambasom </i>or <i>s pribabakhom.</i> 
 If someone's behavior is really noticeably odd, you might say in Russian, <i>on vedyot sebya nenormalno </i>(he's behaving strangely) or <i>on vedyot sebya neadekvatno, </i>a phrase that can be either colloquial (he's acting oddly) or part of a medical chart (his affect is inappropriate). You might say this of a guy who laughs merrily after learning that he didn't figure his taxes right for the last five years, and the fine is 37 times his total yearly salary. 
 <i>U nego sdvig po faze </i>(he's slipped a gear, gone around the bend, flipped) is a nice phrase to describe someone who's a bit off. <i>Ty videl, chto on sdelal? On pokrasil svoyu komnatu na rabote v yarko-oranzhevy tsvet. Po-moemu, u nego sdvig po faze </i>(Did you see what he did? He painted his office bright orange. I think he's flipped). 
 If someone behaves quite strangely on a regular basis, you might say of him, <i>navernoye, v detstve ego uronili </i>(he must have been dropped on his head as a baby) or <i>v detstve golovkoi udarilsya </i>(he must have hit his head when he was a baby) - which expresses about the same level of nuttiness as the English expressions &quot;not playing with a full deck, not having all one's marbles.&quot;
 When someone has really and truly flipped, gone crazy, come unglued, gone nuts or gone batty, Russian slang gives a plethora of verbs: <i>Ty chto - spyatil? Svikhnulsya? Choknulsya? Chekanulsya? Sbrendil? Opupel? Sdvinulsya? Rekhnulsya? Obaldel? Okhrenel? </i>(Are you out of your mind? Are you nuts? Have you completely gone around the bend?). Or you can ask, <i>ty chto - sovsem bolnoi, chto li? </i>(Have you completely lost your mind?). 
 Another handy word is <i>oduret, </i>which has the sense of being stupefied: <i>My sideli do tryokh nochi, i on bez kontsa rasskazival pro svoyu pervuyu zhenu. Ya prosto odurela </i>(We sat up until three in the morning, and he kept telling me endless stories about his first wife. I was completely brain dead). 
 If for some reason you don't like any of these Russian verbs, you can just put your thumb against your temple, fan out your fingers and rotate your hand downward. Or hold your index finger to your temple and rotate downward.
 If you are mad about some activity, you can say in Russian, for example, <i>ya pomeshan ha rok-muzyke </i>(I'm nuts about rock and roll) or <i>on povyornut na kompyuternykh igrakh - on igraet s utra do nochi! </i>(He's crazy about computer games - he plays them from morning until night.) And if you are mad about a person, you can say, <i>ya skhozhu po nei s uma </i>(I'm crazy about her) or <i>ya bez uma ot nego </i>(I'm mad about him). 
 If someone says, <i>ya ot neyo s uma soshyol, </i>pay attention to the context. This can mean either that he loves her (she drives him crazy) or he hates her (she drives him crazy). Which probably says something important about the human psyche, but don't ask me to explain: <i>ya ot vsego etogo odurela!
 </i>
 <i>
Michele A. Berdy is a Moscow-based translator and interpreter. </i>

TITLE: Bush: Iraq is 'Deceiving, not Disarming'
AUTHOR: By Ron Fournier
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON - Building a case for war against Iraq, U.S. President George W. Bush said that he has fresh evidence that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein seeks to &quot;dominate, intimidate or attack&quot; with weapons of mass destruction that he could share with terrorist allies. He pledged to &quot;fight with the full force and might of the United States military,&quot; if necessary, to disarm Iraq.
 
&quot;A future lived at the mercy of terrible threats is no peace at all,&quot; Bush said Tuesday in a State of the Union address delivered before congress and broadcast live around the world.
 For the first time since the Sept. 11 attacks transformed him into a wartime president, Bush faced the United States amid serious questions about his leadership. Most Americans don't approve of his handling of the economy, polls show, and only a bare majority support his policies on Iraq - an area where the president enjoyed support of more than 80 percent a year ago.
 The first half of Bush's hour-long address was devoted to domestic policy, a reflection of his desire not to let Iraq overshadow a presidential agenda geared toward the 2004 re-election campaign. The heart of Bush's package is his $674-billion plan to revive the economy and a $400-billion, 10-year proposal to overhaul the Medicare health-care program for the elderly, sprinkled with initatives to combat AIDS and produce energy-efficient cars.
 After an address interupted 77 times by applause, Democrats criticized Bush.
 &quot;Tonight, the president used all the right rhetoric, but he still has all the wrong policies,&quot; said Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle.
 Senator Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, said that he would introduce a resolution requiring Bush to present &quot;convincing evidence of an imminent threat&quot; before sending troops to fight Iraq.
 &quot;Instead of rushing down the path to war with Iraq, the American people deserve a full debate,&quot; Kennedy said in a written statement.
 Top Republican congressional leaders sounded eager to get to work on Bush's legislative agenda. &quot;We're about to get this ball rolling,&quot; said House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois. &quot;We're ready to go,&quot; agreed Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee.
 Bush offered no new evidence to support his charges against Iraq, but said that Secretary of State Colin Powell will go to the UN Security Council on Feb. 5 to present the U.S. case.
 &quot;We will consult, but let there be no misunderstanding: If Saddam Hussein does not fully disarm for the safety of our people, and for the peace of the world, we will lead a coalition to disarm him,&quot; Bush said. Key allies, including France and Germany, oppose military action in Iraq and want Bush to give UN weapons inspectors more time.
 Hoping to sway reluctant allies, Bush presented a laundry list of Hussein's alleged offenses, some of them newly revealed to the public. He said that intelligence sources have reported that thousands of Iraqi personnel are at work hiding documents and materials from the UN weapons inspectors.
 Specifically, Bush said that Hussein has not accounted for up to 25,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 500 tons of sarin, mustard gas and VX nerve agent and upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical weapons.
 &quot;If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning,&quot; Bush said.

TITLE: With Artest Suspended, Pacers Lose
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana - The Indiana Pacers lost Ron Artest - and their 14-game home winning streak.
 
Tony Parker scored 28 points and five of his San Antonio teammates reached double figures as the Spurs beat Indiana 106-97 on Wednesday night to drop the Pacers to 21-2 at home.
 But the Pacers' biggest loss came before the game, when they learned the NBA suspended Artest for four games for a run-in with Miami coach Pat Riley and for making an obscene gesture toward the crowd Monday night.
 &quot;I'm very disappointed with the league's ruling,&quot; Artest said. &quot;I don't think the suspension comes close to going with my actions. I thought I might get a fine, but not a game. I don't think four games is fair at all.&quot;
 The ruling came just 2 1/2 hours before the start of the game.
 &quot;We're getting tired of it. They wait until just about two hours before the game to disrupt our game. But, we're going to bounce back,&quot; said Jermaine O'Neal, who had a season-high 31 points for Indiana. &quot;They could have called earlier. It doesn't take all day to decide on how many games you're going to suspend a guy.&quot;
 Stephen Jackson had 18 points and a crucial steal that held off Indiana in the fourth quarter. The Pacers trailed by as many as 17 in the period, but cut the deficit to six before Jackson's steal and dunk made it 100-92 with 1:22 to play.
 Tim Duncan was in foul trouble for San Antonio and failed to get his 32nd double-double of the season, finishing with 12 points and nine rebounds in 24 minutes.
 David Robinson had 12 points and nine rebounds in his first game after spending three on the injured list because of a sore lower back.
 O'Neal had 10 rebounds for the Pacers, recording his sixth straight double-double. Reggie Miller added 19 points.
 &quot;We can't sit here and say that because he didn't play is the reason that we lost, or we didn't have energy,&quot; Indiana's Al Harrington said of Artest. &quot;They made shots and a lot of us missed shots.&quot;
 
 <strong>
New Jersey 86, Washington 78. </strong>In East Rutherford, New Jersey, Kenyon Martin had 19 points and a career-high 21 rebounds, and Anthony Johnson led the Nets on a game-changing 11-0 run.
 
Johnson had 10 points and five assists after Jason Kidd left in the third quarter with a strained groin.
 
 <strong>
Utah 95, Portland 71. </strong>In Salt Lake City, the Jazz won the first of seven games without suspended coach Jerry Sloan behind Karl Malone's 20 points and 11 rebounds.
 
Matt Harpring finished with 21 points to help the Jazz end Portland's five-game winning streak.
 Sloan was suspended by the NBA earlier Wednesday for pushing an official in the first quarter of a win at Sacramento the night before.
 
 <strong>
Orlando 113, Cleveland 108. </strong>In Orlando, Florida, Tracy McGrady returned from a one-game absence to score 31 points, grab 12 rebounds and hit three crucial foul shots in the final 13.7 seconds.
 
McGrady, who scored at least 30 points for the sixth consecutive game, missed Sunday's loss at Boston to be with his fiancee as she gave birth to their daughter.
 
 <strong>
L.A. Lakers 99, Phoenix 90. </strong>In Phoenix, Kobe Bryant scored 14 of his 40 points in the fourth quarter as the Lakers snapped the Suns' 11-game home winning streak.
 
Shaquille O'Neal added 25 points, 11 rebounds and six assists to help the Lakers beat a Pacific Division rival on the road for the first time this season.
 
 <i>
(For other results, see Scorecard.) </i>

TITLE: Dallas Wins as Turco Takes Unbeaten Run to 12 Games
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: DALLAS - Marty Turco came within 4:34 of his sixth shutout of the season, but the Dallas Stars' goaltender said the late Calgary goal scrubbed no luster from his 24th victory of the season.
 
Turco made 28 saves to stretch his career-high unbeaten streak to 12 games, and Jere Lehtinen scored two goals to send the Stars to a 4-1 victory over the Flames on Wednesday night.
 &quot;That didn't bother me one bit,&quot; Turco said of Scott Nichol's re-direct off the leg of Dallas defenseman John Erskine ended Turco's bid for his 11th career shutout. &quot;It was a good effort to try and prevent the goal, so I have no problem with it.&quot;
 Turco set the tone just three minutes after the opening faceoff when he stopped Jerome Iginla on a breakaway, and Turco went on to improve his record to 24-9-9.
 &quot;We're pretty focused right now and Marty's playing well,&quot; Stars coach Dave Tippett said. &quot;We're coming together pretty well as a team but we've got a long way to go.&quot;
 Turco is a reserve on the Western Conference All-Star team, joining teammates and starters Mike Modano and Bill Guerin.
 A native of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Turco has won all nine starts against Canadian teams this season and is 9-0-3 in his last dozen games overall.
 Sergei Zubov and Stephane Robidas added goals for Dallas, 12-1-3 in its last 16 games and 18-2-3-1 at home this season.
 Robidas scored his first goal since Oct. 4, 2001, when he was with the Montreal Canadiens.
 Roman Turek stopped 22 shots for the Flames, 4-3 losers at Phoenix on Tuesday night and 3-7-1 in their last 11 games.
 Both teams played their final game before the All-Star break.
 Dallas leads the Western Conference with 72 points. Calgary is last in the conference with 44 points and needs a fast finish over the final 30 games to make the playoffs.
 Lehtinen notched his 20th from the slot at 2:15 of the second period for the game's first goal, and scored into an empty net with 57 seconds remaining.
 Zubov made it 2-0 at 17:28 of the second period with his sixth of the season on a shot from center point that got through a screened Turek.
 Robidas scored from the right point at 6:33 of the third period on a shot that pinballed off the skate of Calgary defenseman Micki DuPont and by Turek.
 &quot;I just took a shot and got a lucky bounce,&quot; Robidas said. &quot;It's a longtime since I scored. I was happy that luck was on my side. I'll take it.&quot;
 
 <strong>
Anaheim 3, Ottawa 2. </strong>The Ottawa Senators are staggering toward the All-Star break after dominating the NHL for the last 2 1/2 months.
 
Steve Rucchin scored the go-ahead goal with 5:12 remaining and Paul Kariya had a goal and an assist for the Anaheim Mighty Ducks on Wednesday night in a 3-2 victory which gave the Eastern Conference-leading Senators back-to-back losses for the first time since Nov. 8-9.
 Adam Oates also scored and Petr Sykora had two assists for the Ducks, who have won six of their last eight. The victory ended Anaheim's seven-game winless streak against Ottawa, which included five straight losses.
 &quot;We played a real patient game against a real patient team,&quot; Anaheim coach Mike Babcock said.
 Jean-Sebastien Giguere finished with 25 saves, matching Patrick Lalime, who earlier this month duplicated Giguere's feat of posting three consecutive shutouts.

TITLE: Dokic Comes Back To Reach Round 3
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TOKYO - Second-seeded Jelena Dokic overcame a 5-0 deficit in the first set to beat Indonesia's Angelique Widjaja 7-6 (7-4), 6-4 on Thursday in the second round of the Pan Pacific Open.
 
Dokic, playing her first singles match of the year after skipping the Australian Open, broke Widjaja's serve in the sixth game of the first set and went on to take the next three games to set up the tiebreaker.
 &quot;It was a bit difficult because this was my first match,&quot; Dokic said. &quot;I haven't played in three or four months, but I felt that even if I lost the first set I could have come back.&quot;
 Dokic, currently eighth in the WTA rankings, looked more comfortable in the second set, when she broke the 68th-ranked Widjaja in the final game to win the match in 1:20.
 &quot;I just tried not to make many mistakes,&quot; said Dokic, who had a bye in the first round. &quot;The surface here is a bit different and takes some getting used to.&quot;
 American Lindsay Davenport, who lost in the fourth round of the Australian Open to Justine Henin-Hardenne and is seeded No. 3, cruised to a 6-4, 6-4 win over Iva Majoli of Croatia to advance to the final eight.
 &quot;It was nice to get the first match out of the way,&quot; Davenport said. &quot;It was a pretty routine match. I served well and we had some good volleys&quot;
 Davenport, who also had a first-round bye, is bidding for her third title in the event, after 1998 and 2001.
 Davenport had surgery on her knee in January of 2002.
 &quot;The knee is 100 percent,&quot; Davenport said. &quot;Now it's just a question of getting back to the level I was playing at before the surgery.&quot;
 Davenport will face Tanasugarn in the quarterfinals, while Dokic will play Raymond. Top-seeded Monica Seles will meet Krasnoroutskaya.
 The Toray is Asia's only top-tier tournament, but many big names have been forced to sit out due to injury. Defending champion Martina Hingis is recovering from an ankle injury, Jennifer Capriati is recuperating after eye surgery and Anna Kournikova pulled out after suffering back spasms in the Australian Open.
 In Milan, Italy, Richard Krajicek overcame Radek Stepanek 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (15-13) Wednesday to reach the Milan Indoors quarterfinals.
 The 1996 Wimbledon champion last entered an indoor tournament in November 2000, having been sidelined 20 months after elbow surgery.
 Krajicek, a wild-card entry, plays eighth-seeded Jarkko Nieminen in the round of eight. Nieminen got past Anthony Dupuis 7-6 (7-4), 2-6, 6-4.
 In other action, third-seeded Younes El Aynaoui was upset by Andrea Gaudenzi of Italy 7-5, 6-3, defending champion Davide Sanguinetti made short work of Giorgio Galimberti 6-2, 6-4, and Martin Verkerk served 23 aces to beat Thomas Enqvist 6-3, 6-4.
 Galimberti was a last-minute replacement for sixth-seeded Fabrice Santoro, who pulled out citing fatigue from the Australian Open.

TITLE: SPORTS WATCH
TEXT: <b>Barca Rebound
 </b>

LISBON, Portugal (Reuters) - Barcelona notched a 1-0 friendly win over Benfica late on Wednesday, a day after the departure of the Spanish club's coach Louis van Gaal.
 Barcelona midfielder Gaizka Mendieta settled the victory with a 25-meter free kick in the seventh minute. The Portuguese side pushed hard to equalize in the second half, but Barcelona held on.
 "We scored one goal but I believe that, in terms of the chances available, we ended up tied," said caretaker Barca coach Antonio de la Cruz.
 Van Gaal agreed to part ways with the club on Tuesday after the board voted to terminate his contract and bring an end to his second spell as Barcelona coach.
 It is 12th in the Spanish first division, three points above the relegation zone. A successor to van Gaal is expected to be appointed by the weekend.
 
 
<b>Sather Takes Over
 </b>

NEW YORK (AP) - New York Rangers President and General Manager Glen Sather took over as coach of the team Thursday, one day after he fired Bryan Trottier.
 The coach who led the Edmonton Oilers to four Stanley Cup titles will now be behind the bench for a team on course to miss the postseason for the sixth straight year.
 Sather, who will coach the Rangers for the rest of the season, has other intentions.
 "We're making the playoffs," he said Thursday from the team's suburban practice rink.
 Sather dismissed Trottier on Wednesday night just 54 games into his rookie season as coach. The 60-year-old Sather is the third GM to take over for a fired NHL coach this season.
 Sather ranks seventh on the NHL list for career victories. The Rangers might have to make the playoffs, something they haven't done since 1997, to help Sather keep his GM job in New York.
 "If we fail, which I'm not thinking about, then I'm going to take the brunt of it," he said.
 This is Sather's third NHL coaching stint. He led the Oilers from the 1979-80 season until the 1988-89 campaign. He also coached the club in 1993 and 1994. He has a coaching mark of 464-268-110.
 Sather became the Oilers' GM in 1979 and built a dynasty that won four titles with Wayne Gretzky and current Rangers captain Mark Messier.
 After Sather gave up his coaching duties, he and Messier won the Stanley Cup again in 1990.
 Trottier won four Stanley Cups during his Hall of Fame playing career with the New York Islanders, but his highlight with the Rangers was merely a three-game winning streak.
 
 
<b>Woodgate Moving?
 </b>

NEWCASTLE, England (Reuters) - Newcastle United has agreed to a fee for Leeds United's England defender Jonathan Woodgate, the two Premiership clubs said on Thursday.
 "We have agreed a fee with Leeds. The completion of the transfer is subject to the player agreeing personal terms," a Newcastle spokesperson said.
 No further details were given on the deal that paves the way for a second major sale by cash-strapped Leeds in 24 hours, after England striker Robbie Fowler completed a $9.88-million move to Manchester City on Thursday.
 Confirming the agreement, Leeds said: "We have agreed a fee with Newcastle for Jonathan Woodgate and Jonathan will be speaking with Newcastle this evening to agree personal terms."