SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #863 (31), Friday, April 25, 2003
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TITLE: New Law Would Move Yakovlev Early
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The Legislative Assembly took a first step toward speeding up Governor Vladimir Yakovlev's exit from office, prompting an angry reaction from City Hall representatives and, in what was described as an ironic statement, the suggestion, from Yakovlev himself, that he might leave even earlier.
With 28 lawmakers voting for, two voting against and one abstaining, the Legislative Assembly on Wednesday passed in first reading a draft law that would move the next elections for governor ahead to coincide with State Duma elections scheduled for December. The vote to move the gubernatorial elections, which are presently scheduled to be held in May 2004, was by open ballot - a rarity in the assembly.
According to Article 1 of the draft, supporters of the legislation say that moving the vote is their attempt "to use St. Petersburg budget money in an effective way."
In a note attached to the draft, Konstantin Sukhenko, who heads the United Russia faction in the chamber and authored the legislation, argued that shifting the date makes sense not only in economic terms.
"The resulting combination [of the two votes] will allow [us] to avoid the expenditure of extra financial resources on organizing the elections to choose St. Petersburg's governor," he wrote. "Further, the move to unite the election dates would reduce voter absenteeism [when citizens do not participate in elections,] because, among other reasons, [elections] are held so often."
With regard to the economic benefits, Sukhenko told news agency Interfax that the savings for the city budget would be about 15 million rubles ($470,000).
Moving the gubernatorial elections forward is not a new idea. In 1999, Yakovlev himself proposed that the elections be moved to correspond with those for the State Duma, citing largely the same economic considerations. Legislation to move the vote appeared to have been passed by the Legislative Assembly, only to be struck down by the Supreme Court. The court cited voting violations - that the voting key of a deputy who was not even in the chamber at the time had been switched on to cast the deciding vote - in annulling the decision.
According to Sukhenko, there will be no questions for the Supreme Court this time around, as the draft is in accordance with a new version of the federal election law that was passed on June 12, 2002. The new article in the law allows the election dates to be shifted to coincide, as long as the new date does not extend or reduce the term in office in question by more than a year.
At least one official at City Hall was outraged by the initiative.
"The governor signed a four-year contract with St. Petersburg residents when he was elected and, if he wants to reduce this term, it should be on his initiative, not someone else's," Alexander Afanasyev, Yakovlev's spokesperson, said in a telephone interview Wednesday. "What if somebody hires a guard to look after his garden until Sunday, but then the person shows up and says that he will only work until Thursday? What about the rest of the week?"
Afanasyev then read out a number of press reports from September 1999, when the ill-fated last attempt was made to move the gubernatorial vote - quoting a number of deputies who were opposed to the idea then, saying that "the same lawmakers who were against the governor's idea in 1999, saying that it was illegitimate, are now pushing it forward."
"The same mouths end up giving different answers at different times," Afanasyev added. "It is either the case that they have become more determined, or I've just become so feeble-minded that I can't understand any of this any more."
Yakovlev's response was less severe, saying that he was "surprised that they are in such a rush" during an interview with Channel 5 television on Wednesday, adding coyly that "[the deputies] are suggesting that I leave office in December, but maybe I've already decided to leave even earlier."
While the Legislative Assembly is solidly behind moving the elections ahead, one faction, Yabloko, which opposed the move in 1999, also opposes the move this time, saying that following a different schedule than that set out in the City Charter is a dangerous precedent.
"There are not sufficient grounds for changing the election date," Mikhail Amosov, the head of the Yabloko faction and one of the two deputies to vote against the draft law, said in an interview on Wednesday. "Yakovlev is not leaving yet, so he can still work. I am for sticking to the City Charter."
Igor Rimmer, formerly a member of pro-governor United City bloc, but who recently jumped ship to the United Russia party, was present for Wednesday's vote, but did not take part. Although he said that he favored the move, he boycotted the vote because it was carried out as a roll call. Votes in the assembly are usually carried out by secret ballot.
"I am against blackmail of any kind, so that's why I didn't vote," Rimmer said in an interview Wednesday. "But I support the idea because the city can't operate in an unstable situation. [City Hall] authorities have to work, and they are not able to these days."
The author of the bill, Sukhenko, was even harsher with his judgment of the situation on Wednesday.
"A negative end is better [for the governor] than a nightmare with no end," Sukhenko said in an interview.
Second reading for the bill is scheduled to take place after a two-week period, during which lawmakers are allowed to offer amendments.
TITLE: Yukos and Sibneft Creating Oil Giant
AUTHOR: By Catherine Belton
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Russia's richest man could barely control his glee - not only did he beat some of the world's largest oil companies to the punch, but he made himself a member of their exclusive club in the process.
As expected Tuesday, a visibly jubilant Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky joined his Sibneft counterpart Eugene Shvidler in announcing the largest deal in Russian corporate history, a $15-billion union that will see the new company leapfrog over the likes of British BP, U.S. ChevronTexaco and French TotalFinaElf into the No. 2 slot in the hydrocarbon universe.
In a hastily arranged news conference, conspicuously short on detail for a deal of such magnitude, the two executives spoke only briefly and refused to answer questions, saying that many details of the tie-up had yet to be hammered out.
But it was enough to out the worst kept secret in the market - Khodorkovsky and Roman Abramovich, Sibneft's largest shareholder, were joining their oil fortunes.
"The new industrial giant, with its huge industrial and financial potential, will become even more efficient, moving closing to our strategic goal of becoming a leader of the global energy market," said Khodorkovsky, who will be chief executive of the new company, while Shvidler will chair the board.
Khodorkovsky said that combining the forces of the two fastest-growing domestic oil companies would create a new powerhouse that could tackle some of the most complicated upstream projects in Russia, such as tapping new oil fields in East Siberia and on the Caspian Sea shelf.
The new company, YukosSibneft Oil Company, will own the second-biggest oil and gas reserves in the world after ExxonMobil, with 19.4 billion barrels of oil and gas equivalent, and will be No. 4 in terms of production, pumping 2.3 million barrels of crude per day, the companies said in a joint statement. The combined company will have an estimated value of nearly $36 billion, making it by far Russia's biggest company, although its daily output will still be dwarfed by Gazprom, which produces the gas equivalent of 9 million barrels of oil a day.
The haste of the merger was apparently a result of Khordokovsky's - and perhaps the government's - determination to prevent another supermajor from gaining access to Russian oil reserves, which are second only to Saudi Arabia's. In January, BP agreed to pay the owners of TNK $6.75 billion to combine both companies' Russian holdings and split ownership of the new company 50-50.
Sibneft long ago declared itself for sale if the price was right, and most analysts predicted it was only a matter of time before Abramovich and other shareholders sold out to either TotalFinaElf, Royal Dutch/Shell or ExxonMobil, all of whom were reportedly interested.
But Khodorkovsky trumped all suitors, and the reaction from the government suggested that he may have been encouraged to keep Sibneft in Russian hands.
"This new company is the flagship of the Russian economy," said Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, who was among the slew of senior officials to hail the deal Tuesday, according to news agencies.
"There is no doubt that the enlargement of the companies will benefit both the state and private owners," he said. "It means winning new positions on the international market."
YukosSibneft will also control 2,500 filling stations and 10 refineries in Russia, Lithuania and Belarus.
Under the terms of the complex cash and stock deal, which is expected to take a year to complete, Sibneft's core shareholders, which are thought to own an 87-percent stake, will get $3 billion in cash for 20 percent of Sibneft up front. The other 67 percent will be swapped later for shares in the new company at a ratio of .36125 percent for every 1 percent of Sibneft stock.
That would leave Sibneft's core shareholders with a minority but blocking stake in the new company of 26 percent, sources close to the deal said. Yukos, including minority shareholders, meanwhile, would retain 71 percent.
The rest would belong to investors who hold the 13 percent of Sibneft shares traded on the stock market. These minority investors, however, will not get the same deal as Abramovich and the other core Sibneft shareholders, as terms for the swap of their shares have yet to be drawn up. YukosSibneft promised, however, that it would make them a "fair offer" after consulting with an "internationally recognized bank."
A source close to the deal said that the companies felt forced to go ahead with Tuesday's announcement, despite not having finalized the details of the deal, in order to stave off the wave of rumors about the merger. The source said that the fact that both companies have American depository receipts that trade on Westerns exchanges made the legal requirements of the merger especially complex.
TITLE: Berezovsky Claims a Stake in YukosSibneft
AUTHOR: By Catherine Belton
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The list of shareholders in Russia's new and only oil supermajor includes disgraced oligarch Boris Berezovsky - at least according to the man himself, making the $15-billion merger between Yukos and Sibneft a potential political hot potato.
"I think the deal was a good move," Berezovsky said by telephone Wednesday from London, where the former Kremlin powerbroker who helped President Vladimir Putin come to power is now fighting extradition on fraud charges he claims were engineered to silence his opposition to Putin.
Berezovsky insisted that he still controls a stake in Sibneft, the company he created and then bought from the government for $100 million in a loans-for-shares deal in 1996.
He declined to identify the size of his stake, saying only that he is "a shareholder in Sibneft," and as a result he would also be a shareholder in the new YukosSibneft, which controls the second-largest reserves in the world.
His comments came on the heels of reports from a source close to Sibneft that the decision to merge was partially aimed at coming up with cash to buy out Berezovsky's stake.
A source close to Millhouse Capital, the London-based company that holds the assets for Roman Abramovich and other key Sibneft shareholders, said on Tuesday that Berezovsky had been in a hurry to raise cash to fund a political fight against the Putin administration ahead of December's State Duma elections, which are followed in March by the vote for president. But Berezovsky denied on Wednesday that he was looking to cash out. It remains unclear, if his claim is true, how much of the initial $3 billion cash payment he stands to receive.
Sibneft on Wednesday denied Berezovsky had any ownership stake. "It's my understanding that Mr. Berezovsky is no longer a shareholder," a Sibneft spokesperson said.
Sibneft's opaque ownership structure has long been a thorny issue for investors, mainly because of Berezovsky's repeated claims of ownership. He was often on the receiving end of insults from Sibneft's minority shareholders, who accused him of siphoning off profits through a network of offshore companies.
After the 1998 financial crisis, Sibneft embarked on a campaign to turn around its shoddy reputation for corporate governance, saying it was consolidating profit centers into the company. But, unlike Yukos and LUKoil, which both took major steps toward transparency last year by publishing a breakdown of their beneficial owners, Sibneft has continued to keep investors in the dark.
If Sibneft is to be believed, its only "core shareholders" are one-time Berezovsky protege Abramovich, who is now the governor of the desolate Chukotka region, and the company's current CEO, Eugene Shvidler. Core shareholders now own 93 percent of Sibneft, according to the company's Web site.
The source said that Berezovsky holds his Sibneft stake via Millhouse Capital, in which he has a 37-percent stake, while Abramovich owns 52 percent. A spokesperson for Millhouse on Wednesday would neither confirm nor deny these figures. Neither would Berezovsky.
Khodorkovsky has been rumored to be eyeing a move into politics and has already launched a number of campaigns to push Russia into a closer partnership with the United States. He recently said that he would step down as Yukos CEO in 2007 - just a year before presidential elections, which, assuming Putin wins re-election in March, will be an open field. He has also admitted that he is personally financing the liberal political factions Yabloko and Union of Right Forces this year, while another Yukos shareholder intends to spread the company's influence as wide as possible by funding the Communists.
These are the three parties Berezovsky has said he is attempting to unite in opposition to the Kremlin.
Analysts said Wednesday, however, that, although somewhat murky, the Yukos-Sibneft tie-up did not look as if it was ruffling any political feathers, especially following the praise for the deal from Kasyanov and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin.
"If Berezovsky really is a shareholder in Sibneft, he has been in the shadows as far as running the company is concerned," said Konstantin Reznikov, oil and gas analyst at Alfa Bank. "He will be even more of a minority shareholder in the consolidated company."
TITLE: Army Opts for Slow Variant of Reforms
AUTHOR: By Simon Saradzhyan
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The federal government on Thursday opted for the Defense Ministry's vision of military reform - an incremental expansion of volunteer service - over a fast-track, cheaper plan put forward by liberal lawmakers. But it balked at providing sufficient funding, which threatens to stall, if not derail, the much-needed reform.
Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov and his ministers approved the plan in its entirety, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov told reporters after the closed-door Cabinet meeting.
The plan calls for replacing all conscripts with professional soldiers at so-called permanent readiness units in both the armed forces proper and other forces by 2008. Only after these 209 combat units, which range in size from border guard posts to airborne divisions, are manned with a total of 170,000 professional sergeants and soldiers, will the Defense Ministry and other so-called power agencies consider cutting compulsory military service from two years to one, according to the plan described by Ivanov.
The cut should be accompanied by the cancellation of some of the numerous existing conscription exemptions, and those conscripted would spend half a year acquiring skills and another half a year serving in non-combat units, the minister said.
The four-year plan, which will be formally considered by Kasyanov and President Vladimir Putin in June, would cost 135 billion rubles ($4.4 billion) to implement over four years, Ivanov said. The bulk of this sum would be spent on reconstructing barracks and paying wages.
He said that the sum was calculated on the basis of the findings of a taskforce of experts from government agencies and an independent think tank that visited each of the 209 units to analyze the costs of transforming them into a fully professional combat-ready force.
In speaking to reporters, Ivanov did not specify whether the Cabinet tentatively endorsed the proposed cost.
However, according to Boris Nemtsov, the leader of Union of Right Forces, or SPS, who attended the meeting, the Cabinet is not prepared to spend more than 50 billion rubles ($1.6 billion) and Kasyanov made that clear.
A four-paragraph account of Thursday's meeting posted on the government's official web site does not specify how much Kasyanov's government would allocate for the military reform.
Kasyanov told his Cabinet that the program needs to be considered and formally endorsed in early June so that the government can allocate money for it when it drafts the 2004 federal budget, the Web site said.
Nemtsov said SPS will continue to "battle with military bureaucrats" in the hope of convincing the government and the Kremlin to opt for its own plan, which provides for conscripts to serve only six months.
Under the SPS plan, the 1.1 milllion-member armed forces proper could be transformed into a professional army in just three years at a cost of 91 billion rubles ($2.95 billion), Nemtsov told reporters after the Cabinet meeting.
He argued that the "military bureaucrats'" plan would cost too much and take too long to implement, adding that the Defense Ministry cannot and should not be expected to reform itself.
TITLE: Youth Held in Yushenkov Case Released
AUTHOR: By Oksana Yablokova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - A Moscow student detained Wednesday in the Sergei Yushenkov murder case was released Thursday on condition he not leave the city.
Artyom Stefanov, 20, denied he killed Yushenkov and said that he barely remembered the incident eight years ago between the lawmaker and his father that investigators said they suspected could have served as a motive.
"I knew that he was a Duma deputy and heard on television last week that he was killed, and that is it," Stefanov said by telephone from his home Thursday.
Investigators said that they believed Stefanov could have killed Yushenkov to avenge his father, Alexander Stefanov, whose health deteriorated when he spent six months in jail in 1995 for sending Yushenkov a threatening letter. The elder Stefanov had been enraged by Yushenkov's critical remarks about the military operation in Chechnya.
Investigators also claimed that Artyom Stefanov resembles the police composite sketch of the killer.
But one of Stefanov's friends said Wednesday that they had been together shortly after Yushenkov was shot dead near his home on April 17. While Stefanov was in custody, the alibi was confirmed, lawyer Pavel Astakhov, who is representing Stefanov, told Interfax.
Stefanov was arrested early Wednesday and held in the Tushino pre-trial detention center until released Thursday.
"We decided that keeping Stefanov in custody is pointless and released him on condition he not to leave the city," Deputy Prosecutor General Vladimir Kolesnikov said, Interfax reported.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Coming Back
MOSCOW (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair will fly to Moscow next week to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin said on Thursday, with talks expected to focus on a post-war settlement in Iraq.
Russia and Britain, both permanent members of the UN Security Council, have been at odds over the US-led war.
Moscow opposed any resort to war in Iraq, while Britain dispatched troops to help the invasion force which toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Holy Flame Flight
MOSCOW (SPT) - The Holy Flame from Jerusalem's Holy Sepulcher will be flown to Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral on the night of Orthodox Great Saturday for the Easter service, the Moscow Patriarchate said.
The flame - seen by Orthodox Christians as the church's greatest miracle - will be part of the unprecedented international Orthodox prayer for peace in the Holy Land.
The project is headed by presidential envoy to the central federal district, Georgy Poltavchenko, and co-sponsored by the Moscow Patriarchate and the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem. Organizers said that NTV television would broadcast the ceremony in the Holy Sepulcher on giant screens in central Moscow at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday.
Koreans on the Run
MOSCOW (SPT) - Police have opened a countrywide search for more than 200 North Koreans who have disappeared from labor camps in the Russian Far East, Interfax reported Thursday.
The North Korean government sent 1,500 laborers in 2002 to Russian logging camps and agricultural projects as a part of its effort to repay its national debt, the report said, citing the regional police.
Many of them subsequently fled to other Russian regions and became illegal migrants, police said.
Losing Leaders
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - United Petersburg, the pro-governor faction in the Legislative Assembly, dissolved itself on Wednesday, after faction leader Yury Rydnik on Saturday dropped an appeal of a City Court ruling that he should lose his seat as a result of electoral-law violations
The leadership of the pro-governor United City bloc - of which United Petersburg was a part - also came under question on Wednesday as Sergei Tarasov, the former speaker of the Legislative Assembly, refused a nomination to head the bloc, Interfax reported.
Tarasov was quoted as saying thah the bloc would continue to exist and that a new leader would be chosen before the next Legislative Assembly session, scheduled for next Wednesday.
TITLE: Celebrations for 300 Set To Be Spectacular
AUTHOR: By Claire Bigg
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: While the city's birthday falls on May 27, which is a Tuesday this year, the major official events to mark the day for the 300th anniversary will be held on the following Saturday, May 31. The biggest events on the program, including a carnival on Nevsky Prospect and a grandiose water festival on the Neva River, are scheduled on or around the Saturday.
President Vladimir Putin, who will also be hosting a weekend summit that will include leaders from 45 other countries, will open the main official ceremony, which will be held on Dvortsovaya Naberezhnaya, beside the State Hermitage Museum.
In keeping with the theme of the event, Putin will be called upon to take part in a tradition handed down from the last two centenary celebrations.
"During the city's 100th and 200th anniversary, the tsar opened the festivities and was given medals to lay on the grave of Peter the Great," Irina Ushakova, the spokesperson for the Tsarskoselsky Fund for Cultural Development, a governmental organization that is organizing some of the largest 300th-anniversary events, said in an interview on Thursday. "This year, the rite will be performed again, apart from the fact that there won't be a tsar, but a president."
But the official opening ceremony will just be the beginning, Ushakova said, as, in particular, the banks of the Neva between the Palace, Birzhevoi and Troitsky bridges will host some of the biggest events of the celebrations, including two water shows - the first for the official guests present at the opening ceremony and a second for the general public later in the evening.
Both shows, which are being put on by Aquatique Show International, a French company famous for organizing large-scale water spectacles around the world, will feature fountains, music, fireworks and, in another echo of earlier celebrations, a parade of ships along the Neva representing the city's history.
In what might come as a pleasant surprise to the - according to recent opinion polls - growing number of city residents who feel that the holidays are being geared too heavily toward providing a party for political elites, the second show will likely be the most impressive.
"The first water show, which starts at 6 p.m., is basically designed for the presidents and the official guests. But it is only one hour long, and it will still be light outside, so Aquatique won't be able to display its complete program," Ushakova said. "The second water show will start at 11 p.m. and also last for an hour but, because it will be darker, the show will feature extra lighting effects, as well as huge water screens."
For the performances, the beach at the Peter and Paul Fortress will be home to an amphitheater, where a large military choir composed of singers from the Leningrad Military District and the Leningrad Military and Navy Base will perform, as will singers from military choirs from the U.K., the Netherlands, France, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, Finland, Belorussia, Ukraine, and Moscow. To add to the visual effect, the Neva embankments and the Strelka, at the tip of Vasilievsky island, will be decorated by Eduard Kochergin, chief artist at the Bolshoi Drama Theater.
"The embankments of the Neva will be adorned with many different historical decorations, crests and garlands, as was the case during the city's 100th and 200th anniversaries," said Ushakova.
Another large-scale event that is bound to attract throngs of spectators is the carnival on Nevsky Prospekt, which will be held on the previous Sunday - May 25.
Also organized by the Tsarskoselsky Fund for Cultural Development, the carnival is scheduled to start at 1 p.m. on Ploshchad Vostaniya and move along Nevsky Prospect and through Palace Square before ending its procession at the Strelka.
In what has become a carnival tradition, Governor Vladimir Yakovlev will have his tie cut off in Palace Square before the parade moves on.
"The [carnival] procession will include 40 floats, each one decorated differently, some with orchestras," Ushakova said. "The theme this year is Peter the Great, so all of the decorations will be related to this theme."
TITLE: Population Down Since 1989
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: According to figures from the State Statistics Committee, the census recently completed in Russia revealed that the population of St. Petersburg, estimated by the census at 4.67 million, has dropped by 6 percent since the last census was taken, in 1989. Over the same period, the population of Moscow increased by 17 percent - to reached 10.35 million - according to the committee.
Nikolai Kirichenko, the spokesperson for the City Hall Health Committee, said that a number of factors were behind the drop here, but that the chief factor was the age of the population.
"It is largely because a full third of St. Petersburg's population is of none reproductive age," Kirichenko said in a telephone interview on Thursday. "In this regard, we are the oldest city in Europe."
But Kirichenko said that the demographic situation was improving, saying that the number of births registered in the city had been on the increase since 2,000, with 30-percent more births expected in 2003 than were registered in 2000.
TITLE: Report: $1.4-Billion Fighter Deal Inked
AUTHOR: By Lyuba Pronina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Indonesia plans to buy 48 Sukhoi fighter jets from Russia, the Associated Press quoted Indonesia's military chief General Endriartono Sutarto as saying in Moscow on Thursday.
Sutarto, who was accompanying President Megawati Sukarnoputri on a trip to Russia this week, was quoted as saying that Jakarta would purchase an initial batch of two long-range Su-27s and two Su-30s for delivery this year and at least another 44 planes over the next four years.
"We have decided to buy these jet fighters and ideally we need four squadrons of 12 planes each," Sutarto said.
Talks on a possible jet deal began in 1997, but were put off after the Asian financial crisis.
"So, if some parties are shocked by the purchase I would have to say that this did not happen all of a sudden," air-force commander Air Marshal Chappy Hakim told AP in Jakarta.
AP reported that the deal had been signed Wednesday in Moscow, but Russian officials could not confirm the report, and defense specialists were skeptical that Jakarta could afford to pay the estimated $1.4 billion price tag for the 48 jets.
Sukhoi chief Mikhail Pogosyan refused to comment Thursday, and his spokesperson, Yury Chervakov would only say: "This year promises us a range of contracts that will considerably extend the geography of our deliveries. Indonesia does not have our jets yet, and this is a big event for us."
The only concrete contract signed this week was for delivery of two Su-27SKs and two Su-30MKs, which will be delivered before the fall, said a source close to the negotiations.
However, although the purchase of another 44 jets had been discussed in negotiations, the Indonesians only signed a letter of intent for eight additional jets, with part of the payment to be made in commodities, mainly palm oil, the source said.
Rosoboronexport, the state-owned arms export agency, also declined to comment on the deal.
Although Russia and Indonesia have signed an agreement on friendship and Megawati has given encouragement to Russian businesses of all types to expand trade with her country, the focus of Megawati's visit was the arms between the two countries, with jets dominating on her shopping list, though an interest in helicopters and armored vehicles has also attracted attention.
On Wednesday, she toured a Sukhoi testing ground in the Moscow Oblast town of Zhukovsky and watched the performance of a Su-27.
TITLE: Central Bank Ousts Stock-Market Chief
AUTHOR: By Victoria Lavrentieva
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The Central Bank on Thursday essentially fired the head of MICEX, the country's largest stock market by volume, just two months after the head of RTS, Russia's benchmark bourse, was forced to resign over a feud with the Federal Securities Commission.
At its annual meeting Thursday, MICEX shareholders opted not to renew the contract of Alexander Zakharov, who had run MICEX since it was founded in 1992, and replaced him with Rosbank Deputy Chairperson Alexander Potyomkin.
As a non-commercial organization, MICEX is not required to disclose information about its shareholders, but it is widely believed that the Central Bank is the largest, with more than 20 percent. The rest is split among six banks, including Rosbank, but the Central Bank has ultimate control over the exchange and its policy.
"Despite efforts by MICEX to distance itself from the Central Bank, it should not forget who the boss is," said Alexei Vorobiyev, an economist at Aton brokerage. "[Appointing Potyomkin] just shows that the Central Bank wants to keep an eye on the exchange."
Denis Rodionov, senior analyst with Brunswick UBS, said it was obvious that the new team at the Central Bank, which joined Chairperson Sergei Ignatyev after his appointment last year, wanted to entrust MICEX to someone with whom they are well acquainted.
Potyomkin served as deputy chairperson of the Central Bank in 1996-1998 and is a close associate of Andrei Kozlov, who took up the post of first deputy chairperson last year.
"We only hope that MICEX won't become like the RTS - another victim of a misunderstanding with the Federal Securities Commission," Vorobiyev said.
Former RTS chief Ivan Tyryshkin resigned at the end of February over a dispute with the FSC, which threatened to withdraw the market's license for ignoring a new regulation requiring exchanges to identify trades as either on-market or off-market. Tyryshkin was replaced by his deputy Vladislav Streltsov at the end of February.
Potyomkin told reporters Thursday that he was surprised by his appointment, but that he already has a plan of action.
"First of all, is the modernization of trading and clearing activities at the exchange," Interfax quoted him as saying. "In line with Russia's joining the World Trade Organization, stock exchanges and market players should be ready to open their markets and face competition from foreigners."
TITLE: From Two Questionable Tenders to Top Spot
AUTHOR: By Catherine Belton
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The $15-billion merger deal between Yukos and Sibneft is being hailed as a new dawn for Russian business, the birth of a Russian powerhouse big enough to stand eye to eye with the biggest players in the global economy.
Supporters say the new domestic heavyweight will have enough economic and political clout to budge government policy in its favor - and its combined market capitalization of $35 billion should lure a flood of cheap foreign credits to finance an expansion that will only add to its power.
Not bad for two companies cherry-picked from the wreckage of the Soviet oil industry - and bought in rigged auctions just eight years ago for a combined total of $259 million.
Before then, the forces behind the two companies - Yukos founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Sibneft creator Boris Berezovsky - guaranteed each other, through their respective banks, to make sure they each got their preferred slice of the privatization pie in the notorious loans-for-shares scheme at the end of former President Boris Yeltsin's first term in office.
After the two failed to seal that partnership in a merger that was planned prior to the 1998 economic implosion, when world oil prices were plummeting, both companies embarked on parallel turnaround strategies.
Key to the resurrection of both companies was U.S. oil-services giant Schlumberger, which both brought in to boost production, while simultaneously hacking costs and improving shoddy corporate governance practices - all moves that led Yukos and Sibneft to emerge quickly as the darlings of the domestic market, Russia's fastest-growing, most rapidly modernizing companies.
Tuesday's announcement came amid reports Sibneft was trawling for a deal to sell a strategic stake to an international supermajor. And, at first glance, analysts say, it seems like a pre-emptive strike by Khodorkovsky to keep Russian oil in Russian hands after BP's landmark tie-up with TNK in January. It also fits in well with Khodorkovsky's drive to beat the global oil barons at their own game.
But some analysts questioned whether the deal was engineered to authorize big cash payouts to core shareholders of the company ahead of a possible downturn in global oil prices following the war in Iraq - and the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections.
"It looks like the smart money is leaving the company," said James Fenkner, head of research at Troika Dialog. "Khodorkovsky is Russia's most brilliant businessman, and Abramovich is usually not far behind. This is going to be a big payout."
Sibneft core shareholders, including tycoon Roman Abramovich, will receive a massive cash payout of $3 billion for 20 percent of their company. Yukos, too, intends to pay out healthy dividends to its shareholders, the largest of whom is Khodorkovsky, with some 36 percent, before the merger is completed.
"It seems there is a lot of smoke and mirrors. There are too many unanswered questions for such a merger," Fenkner said.
If the deal is not just a way for key shareholders to milk their companies for cash, then big challenges stand ahead of Khodorkovsky and company if YukosSibneft is to become an authentic supermajor.
"Now, the key thing for the company is to find a way to diversify out of Russia into the global business," said Stephen O'Sullivan, head of research at United Financial Group.
That would mean a big leap from Yukos' and Sibneft's core businesses of pumping out cheap crude and sending it onto global markets, analysts said.
But most analysts agreed that forming the company under one name would build a company of a size that could attract the international loans needed to fund such an expansion.
Neither side would comment this week on what exact plans the company might have for international expansion, saying it was too early in the game.
Vladislav Metnev, who tracks the industry for Khodorkovsky's Trust and Investment Bank, said the deal could help strengthen Yukos' bid to push into vast untapped reserves in eastern Siberia - a strategy that had seemed in jeopardy after state-owned companies Gazprom and Rosneft said they would join forces to lead the development of the largely untapped region.
"I don't think that Rosneft and Gazprom are going to be able to match the buying power and the cash-generating possibilities of YukosSibneft," Metnev said. "This merger can help ensure them a leading role in developing east Siberia."
Analysts were divided, however, on whether the new company, which would be the country's second-largest taxpayer, would have enough clout to win its way with the government on key issues such as loosening the grip that Gazprom, the country's largest taxpayer, has on the gas market.
And at least one analyst, Alfa Bank Chief Strategist Christopher Weafer, said the only reason Yukos and Sibneft agreed to merge at all was because neither could find a foreign buyer willing to pay their asking price, which was higher, he said, than the $1.8-per-barrel valuation BP paid for its stake in TNK.
TITLE: The War Is Over, But What's Next in Iraq?
AUTHOR: By Dilip Hiro
TEXT: LONDON - U.S. President George W. Bush's vision for a postwar Iraq was founded on the dreams of exiles and defectors who promised that Iraqis would shower U.S. troops with flowers. Now, with the crowds shouting, "No to America; no to Saddam," and most Iraqis already referring to the U.S. "occupation," the U.S. administration seems puzzled.
The truth is that the exiles had been in the West so long that they knew little of the reality inside Iraq; the defectors, in search of a haven from the cruel regime, told the eager Americans anything they wanted to hear. Now that these illusions have been shattered, U.S. policymakers might do better to consider the history of the region. In particular, the dogged nationalism of the Iraqis that forced imperial Britain's departure in 1932; and, more recently, the events in 1979 after the downfall of the secular regime of the shah of Iran.
A big argument among U.S. officials had been over the future of the secular Baath Party, with the pragmatists advocating a mere "head transplant" of the top leadership while keeping the body intact, and the ideologues proposing outright destruction. Events, however, ignored the debate in Washington, and the Baath disappeared altogether. So too have the military and most of the police.
This vacuum is reminiscent of what happened in Iran in February 1979. The 440,000-strong military of the pro-American shah disintegrated quickly, as did the police force and the Savak, the notorious secret police. Into that vacuum stepped the Islamic Revolutionary Komitehs, run by Shiite clerics operating from the local mosques. The Komitehs took over not only law enforcement but also such essential chores as distributing heating oil to households in wintry Tehran. Many groups took part in toppling the shah; but it was the countrywide religious network and the unified actions of the mullahs that enabled them to become his successor.
A similar pattern has emerged in Iraq, particularly in the Shiite-majority south and the Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad. Over the centuries, as members of a community that was discriminated against and repressed, the Shiites learned to find comfort in religion and piety to a much greater extent than the ruling Sunnis. In recent decades, Shiite clerics devised clandestine networks of communication that even former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's spies failed to infiltrate. Eschewing written messages or telephones, they used personal envoys who spoke in code. In the wake of Iraq's collapse, this messenger system has proved remarkably efficient.
It didn't take long for Najaf, the holiest place of Shiite Iraq, to became the nerve center. Shiite mullahs around the country were told to set up local committees to organize the affairs of their neighborhoods. This included collecting looted property and returning it to the owners, public or private; securing water plants, electricity substations and hospitals; and establishing defense committees with uniformed personnel, bearing Kalashnikovs, at checkpoints.
The Shiites, however, are not uniform in their outlook. Religious loyalties are divided between Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sestani, an Iranian-born cleric living in Najaf, and the Tehran-based Ayatollah Bakr al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Yet they are united in their demand, endorsed by predominantly Shiite Iran, that the Americans leave soon. The supreme council has a 10,000-member army, armed by Iran, and controls many Iraqi towns near the Iranian border. By contrast, the Free Iraqi Forces loyal to Ahmad Chalabi, leader of the U.S.-sponsored Iraqi National Congress, has only about 600 soldiers at arms.
The Pentagon made a show of airlifting Chalabi's troops into the April 15 assembly of Iraqi politicians convened by the American pro-consul, retired Lieutenant General Jay Garner. But the attendance of a mere 80 delegates (the supreme council, previously part of the American-sponsored official Iraqi opposition, boycotted), along with a noisy anti-American protest by 20,000 demonstrators, showed the weakness of Washington's hand.
Chalabi, with the Americans' support and perhaps money at his disposal, may gain some backing at the enlarged gathering scheduled for later this week. But, contrary to his Pentagon backers, the CIA's longtime assessment of him remains solid: although he is a Shiite, he lacks any constituency inside Iraq. Nor is he likely to inspire new followers. Had he joined the hundreds of thousands of Shiites who made the pilgrimage to Karbala this week he might have enhanced his standing. But, apparently, he couldn't be bothered.
Compare this luxury-loving, highly Westernized banker (who was convicted by Jordan in absentia of embezzlement and fraud) with Ayatollah Khomeini, the ascetic Iranian Shiite cleric who shunned worldly goods and led a popular revolution that overthrew what was the most powerful regime in the Middle East. It is an illustration of the difference between a regime change achieved by the people and one imposed by a foreign military power.
So might another Khomeini rise from the ashes? Given the complex ethnic and sectarian mix of Iraqi society, it is unrealistic to expect that any single Iraqi leader would be acceptable to the population at large, even temporarily. The antipathy between Shiites and Sunnis, now quiescent in the face of a common occupying power, existed even before 1638, when the Sunni Ottoman Turks took control of Mesopotamia and made the Sunnis a ruling minority - a position they maintained until last week.
Then there are the Kurds. They were introduced into the Iraqi equation by the British, who, seeking oil, in 1920 snatched the Kurdish-majority province of Mosul from Turkey and attached it to Mesopotamia, calling the new entity Iraq. As an Indo-European tribe, the Kurds stand apart from the Semitic Arabs. Although they embraced Islam, they retained their mother tongue, which is akin to Persian. Thus the ethnic identities of Kurds and Arabs remain separate.
Still, it is not hopeless to imagine the three factions being bound by nationalism. In 1920 Iraqis of all political hues and ethnic backgrounds rose up against the British; the colonial government had to call in troops from the Indian Army to quell it. By the time they restored order, 6,500 people were dead, all but 500 Iraqi civilians. The 1920 revolt is the crucible in which Iraqi nationalism was formed. That unity showed its durability during Iraq's armed conflict with the predominantly Shiite Iran in the 1980s. To the complete surprise of the Iranians, Hussein managed to retain the loyalty of the Iraqi Army, where Shiite conscripts formed a majority.
Thus the only viable solution for the transient Iraqi authority is likely to be a collective of three leaders - one Sunni, one Shiite and one Kurd. But Washington would be ill advised to establish that tripartite government. Iraqis would more readily agree to outside interference only of other Muslim states, either through the Arab League or the United Nations.
It would be paradoxical, if not downright insulting, to see officials from Arab League countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia helping Iraqis on to a democratic path. So the United Nations, with strong representation from such secular democratic Muslim countries as Turkey, Malaysia and Bangladesh, would seem to have the best chance of success. This, of course, is the last thing the U.S. administration wants. But if it truly hopes to see a liberated Iraq, stepping down as power broker might be the only option.
Dilip Hiro, author of "Iran Under the Ayatollahs" and "Iraq: In the Eye of the Storm," contributed this comment to The New York Times.
TITLE: Anniversary Announcements, Birthday Blues
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalyev
TEXT: A quick course in translation: Whenever you here a phrase like "we're going to find our own, new solution," spoken in Russian, simply translate as "We're trying to reinvent the wheel," and then move on.
I came across a beautiful example of this phenomenon earlier this week while scanning a local news Web site. Apparently, local officials are working on a system for the upcoming 300th-anniversary celebrations whereby people suffering medical emergencies at public events will be transported to hospitals by helicopter (how they plan to land helicopters around a city blanketed by streetcar cables is one answer that escapes me.) This is because, despite the fact that President Vladimir Putin's administration says that the foreign delegations coming to the city at the end of May will, for the most part, travel around the city by water, there will still be throngs of black cars with blue flashing lights on top zooming around and fouling up traffic.
It is interesting that one of the anniversary celebration's prospective guests - U.S. President George W. Bush - himself gets around Washington much of the time by helicopter. This, I'm guessing, is for reasons of security, time and, hard to believe, so that presidential motorcades don't create greater difficulties for millions of cars, including emergency vehicles, that are already forced to deal with traffic conditions in the U.S. capital. Here, the government is just trying to keep the unfortunate (including the injured) masses out of the way of the invited guests.
Announcements like these, unfortunately, have been the norm during the lead up to a city birthday party that doesn't seem to be aimed at the heart of the city at all. I get confused whenever I hear government officials say that they are trying to make the celebrations as comfortable for St. Petersburg residents as possible. Putin doesn't live here any more and none of the invited guests, as far as I can determine, ever have. Which residents are they talking about?
Are they talking about the residents of the city center who, according to a report from Interfax, will have a tough time finding a bank machine working because the St. Petersburg police are limiting the number of people - including armored-car drivers that carry the money to ATMs - that will be allowed to carry weapons during this period? So, I guess, if somebody needs cash during this time, they will have to go to Kupchino, for example.
Are they talking about salespeople? I doubt it, after reading the entire proposal with regard to cash flows here during the holidays: "In order to reduce the number of armed security guards collecting and delivering money in the area, a number of bank machines will be closed and exchange points and stores will be required to hold on to cash receipts for a longer duration."
Maybe the residents they mean are the ones who make their livings by sticking up the stores. The police-department statement didn't mention whether or not they would be able to keep their weapons.
No. I think that the residents they mean are those same locals who seem to understand perfectly what the real story is. According to an opinion poll published this week, 59 percent of the respondents said that they thought the celebrations were being held only for the political elites. No wonder an even larger 72 percent said that they thought preparations for the event were badly organized.
I think that the easiest way to take the "Happy" out of someone's "Happy Birthday" is to tell that person that the people closest to them aren't even invited. Meeting George W. Bush, French President Jacques Chirac or German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder would be interesting, but I would rather see my friends and family on my birthday.
TITLE: What Is Behind Oil Deal?
TEXT: A bad case of deja vu or is it really happening for a second time? Five years after they first announced a merger to form a "world-scale and world-class" company, Yukos and Sibneft are at it again. And they have plenty of high-level cheerleaders in the government egging them on.
No sooner had it been announced than Alexei Kudrin was calling the merger "a very positive step" that "other Russian companies have a lot to learn from." And Mikhail Kasyanov, not to be outdone, was talking excitedly about the new YukosSibneft as a "flagship" of the Russian economy.
Heady talk, but without wanting to spoil the party it does seem worth penetrating the euphoria and taking a look at what exactly is driving the deal.
At one level, it is pretty clearly a pre-emptive strike by Yukos to prevent another international oil major joining forces with a Russian player a la BP-TNK. But while the BP-TNK merger earlier in the year had clear business synergies, such synergies are far from obvious in this deal, as the two companies' assets don't seem particularly complementary.
Also, for Yukos, which has been Russia's corporate governance and corporate-responsibility poster boy for the past few years, the merger with Sibneft surely carries reputational risks.
After all, 18 months ago Sibneft engaged in a murky insider deal that provoked a storm of negative publicity; and less than six months ago, the company was at the center of the scandalous Slavneft privatization auction.
(Let's hope in this respect that the merger leads to the Yukosization of Sibneft rather than the Sibneftization of Yukos.)
In fact, the deal looks like a thoroughly Russian affair: driven by the Kremlin's political agenda (no more major foreign deals in the oil sector, at least until after March 2004); by Mikhail Khodorkovsky's dogged determination to be the biggest kid on the block; and by the Sibneft core shareholders' desire to cash in ($3 billion in Roman Abramovich and Co.'s back pocket is not at all bad) and ride on Khodorkovsky's coattails.
But the commercial foundations of the deal look somewhat shaky.
For Khodorkovsky, however, this may not be uppermost in his mind. After all, he recently announced his intention to step down as CEO in 2007, and he has been working very hard to raise his public profile of late - everything from countless TV appearances and lavishly funded philanthropic activities, to announcing publicly which political parties he will be financing in the upcoming parliamentary elections.
Let's face it, being CEO of the gargantuan YukosSibneft could serve as an ideal springboard for launching a political career.
TITLE: la minor ready to light up again
AUTHOR: by Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The long-awaited new CD from increasingly popular St. Petersburg band La Minor is a rare case of a genuinely "difficult second album," a term music journalists more often use in an ironic or even mocking sense to refer to a band's silence after a successful debut.
"Chto-to Sigareta Gasnet" ("The Cigarette Keeps Going Out") is finally set for release a full 18 months after La Minor debuted with "Blatnyak," and will be showcased with a big concert at Red Club on May 4.
Although the cover of "Blatnyak" said the next album would comprise original material, "Chto-to Sigareta Gasnet" still concentrates on old urban-folk songs, primarily from the repertoire of late Soviet blatnyak (prison-folk) guru Arkady Severny.
"There is still a lot of material not written by us that we'd like to record," La Minor singer Slava Shalygin, who formed the band in 2000, said this week. "Second, we don't have enough of our own material for a full album. There are other considerations, too. We're saving [our songs] for the future."
The new album, currently being mixed in a studio, contains 12 tracks, from a 19th-century Russian robbers' song to "Dzhaz-Bolelshchik" ("Jazz Fan") by vintage Soviet singer and band leader Leonid Utyosov to such Severny gems as "Komisionny Reshili Brat" (We Decided to Hit a Second-Hand Store) and "Zhil Ya V Shumnom Gorode Odessa" (I Lived in the Noisy Town of Odessa).
According to Shalygin, La Minor aimed at less known songs for the second album, and the whole band chose the material collectively.
"We usually sit and discuss what we'll do and what we won't because, for me, it's probably the lyrics that are interesting, while for musicians it's the music," he said. "So, we try to do something that suits everyone in the band, so nobody would feel uncomfortable. At the same time, the song has to be good."
Shalygin said La Minor has a supply of rare, exclusive material thanks to the band's contacts with Moscow-based urban-folk collectors.
Like "Blatnyak," "Chto-to Sigareta Gasnet" was recorded at St. Petersburg's Calypso Studios and released on local label Kapkan. According to Shalygin, the whole disc was recorded over just three days earlier this month.
Shalygin started his music career in the early 1990s fronting psychobilly band Navigators, which played at the pioneering underground TaMtAm club. Quitting the music scene after Navigators split in the mid-1990s, he returned with the unlikely sound and repertoire of La Minor in 2000.
"I wanted some live sound with old rhythms," Shalygin said. "I can tell the difference between the sound of live instruments and a person working with a mini-disc. I mean, when you have live instruments, it conveys the appropriate mood."
Because of its approach and background, La Minor is a black sheep in the camp of prison folk, or "Russian chanson," a term referring to the venerable French tradition that was adopted by the genre's poppier performers to make the Russian version sound more respectable.
Although La Minor's CDs are filed under "Russian chanson" at local record shops, the band performs at rock clubs and is rarely, if ever, heard on popular urban-folk-oriented radio stations. Likewise, the band did not appear at the huge Arkady Severny Memorial Festival at Ice Palace last month.
"[Promoters] are reluctant to invite us to such events, probably because there's too many people in the band," Shalygin said. "For them, its easier to work with mini-discs. They put on a mini-disc and sing along to it. We are not prepared to do that."
Apart from Shalygin, La Minor includes Sanya Yezhov on bayan, Yegor Komarov on saxophone, Sergei Pavlov on guitar, Max Temnov on double bass and Pyotr Ketlinsky on drums. Two of the tracks on "Chto-to Sigareta Gasnet" also employ a guest balalaika player.
Having established itself on the local scene, La Minor has performed more and more concerts in Moscow lately, mostly at underground clubs like Kitaisky Lyotchik Dzhao Da and O.G.I. The band's summer touring plans include a trip to Krasnoyarsk, which is likely to become the band's first Russian venue outside St. Petersburg and Moscow.
Although yet to appear in Russia outside the country's two biggest cities, La Minor has already enjoyed success in Western Europe, where it has toured three times. However, unlike most Russian rock bands, the audiences at whose gigs tend to be dominated by Russian expats, La Minor's concerts have mainly drawn native listeners.
"They all dance and shout for more," Shalygin said. "It's all fun."
La Minor has performed locally only a few times this year, which they started with a four-week European tour.
"We just didn't arrange any local dates before we left," Shalygin explained.
The band embarks on another four-week, 16-date tour, covering Belgium, France and Germany, on May 5
La Minor plays Red Club at 8 p.m. at May 4. Links: www.la-minor.narod.ru
TITLE: mariinsky ready for musical overload
AUTHOR: by Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The Mariinsky Theater's Stars of the White Nights festival, which kicks off on May 5 with a performance of Andrei Konchalovsky's rendition of Prokofiev's opera "War and Peace," is unarguably Russia's top annual classical-music event. However, even by the standards of the festival and the driving force behind it, Mariinsky Artistic Director Valery Gergiev, this year's eleventh running of the festival is extraordinary, stretched out to three months from its usual one, and incorporating a mind-boggling number of events of the highest artistic intensity.
"Russia should not be off the international musical map," Gergiev said last week. "When I was a student, St. Petersburg was visited by six to seven orchestras a year. Now, it is our turn to do the same for new audiences."
No other festival in Russia - and few around the world - can think of inviting the pantheon of star acts that Gergiev's festival typically assembles. Over the festival's history, the list of participants of undoubtable international star status has included tenor Placido Domingo, bass Paata Burchuladze, conductor Riccardo Muti and his orchestra of Milan's La Scala Opera House, conductor Esa Pekka Salonen, pianist Alfred Brendel and composer Tan Dun, who conducted his own "Water Passion According to St. Matthew" at the Mariinsky in 2001.
Gergiev's international connections also help: In addition to his duties at the Mariinsky, Gergiev is principal conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra - which plays at the Mariinsky on June 7 and 8 - principal guest conductor at New York's Metropolitan Opera - the orchestra of which plays on May 31 - and a regular with a host of other ensembles. In 2000, for example, Gergiev organized a concert by the La Scala orchestra, with Muti conducting.
"I could have prepared several Mahler symphonies during the time I spent taking care of the arrangements," Gergiev said then, commenting on how difficult it was to organize the La Scala tour to Russia, the first to the country for the company in over a decade.
This year's program splits broadly into two parts. In May and June, opera performances and symphonic concerts dominate, while, in July and early August - the festival wraps up on Aug. 5 - the Mariinsky stage is handed over to international ballet companies. As well as the Mariinsky, other venues for the event will be the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory, the Shostakovich and Glinka philharmonics, and Smolny Cathedral. In July, several concerts will take place in Vyborg, on the Finnish border, and in Ivangorod and Narva, on the Russian and Estonian sides, respectively, of the Narva River, which divides the two countries.
After two performances of Prokofiev's opera "War and Peace" on May 5 and 6, Vadim Repin joins the Mariinsky Theater Orchestra to perform Glazunov's Violin Concerto on May 7. The following day, Gergiev - also at the helm of the first three evenings - conducts the World Orchestra for Peace in a program of works by Richard Strauss, Stravinsky and Prokofiev.
Other highlights in early May include Kristof Eschenbach performing with the Sinfonietta Cracowia on May 14 at the Glinka Philharmonic, while charming soprano Anna Netrebko will be sure to pack the same venue the following day.
Zubin Mehta conducts the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in a performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 3 on May 18, before early-music guru Philippe Herreweghe arrives for two mouthwatering concerts on May 21 and 24, the first conducting the Orchestre des Champs Elysees in Beethoven's Symphonies No. 5 and No. 7 and the second a performance of Bach's Mass in B Minor with the Collegium Vocale Gent, which Herreweghe founded.
On June 6, the Mariinsky gives the Russian premiere of respected theater director Lev Dodin's take on Anton Rubinshtein's opera "The Demon," which was shown earlier this year at Paris Le Chatelet Theater.
June also sees a complete performance of Wagner's operatic tetralogy "Der Ring des Nibelungen," one of Gergiev's pet projects. Following the success of the stagings by Moscow director Vladimir Mirzoyev of the third and fourth parts of the cycle - "Siegfried" and "Goetterdaemmerung" - in December, the Mariinsky asked Mirzoyev to re-stage the first two parts - "Das Rheingold" and "Die Walkuere" - as well, to replace the versions by Johannes Schaaf and Gottfried Pilz, respectively. Mirzoyev's stagings of the first two parts premiere on June 13 and 14, with the final two operas on June 16 and 18.
The ballet feast gets under way with the Hamburg, Germany-based John Neumeier Ballet performing Neumeier's "Nijinsky" on July 8 and 9, "The Seagull" on July 11, 12 and 14, and "La Dame aux Camelias" on July 15. Then comes the Royal Ballet from London's Covent Garden, which will bring several shows, including "Swan Lake," "Romeo and Juliet" and "A Month in the Country" from July 18 to 28, before the New York City Ballet wraps up the whole festival with performances of ballets by Georges Balanchine and Jerome Robbins, among others, from July 30 to Aug. 5.
Some of the Mariinsky's brightest opera and ballet stars, including mezzo-soprano Olga Borodina, tenor Vladimir Galuzin, bass Nikolai Putilin, soprano Anna Netrebko and dancer Igor Zelensky, will be lining up alongside the international guests. Mariinsky prima ballerina Ulyana Lopatkina, who has missed the past two seasons due to a foot injury and the birth of a daughter, Maria, is expected to return to the stage at a mammoth gala concert on May 30.
While organizing the festival is titanic work, Gergiev has given himself a tremendous amount to do professionally as well - in June alone, for example, he is scheduled to conduct 22 times. However, he is cautious about what Borodina calls his "endless avalanche of energy."
"Frankly, I don't feel like I have superhuman energy," he said. "My potential is not limitless. I need [time] to get into a composer, to immerse myself in his work and be inspired by the emotions, intensity and nuances of color of a particular work. This is [the source of] the field of energy we create on stage."
The full schedule can be found at wn.mariinsky.ru. Tickets can also be bought through the site.
TITLE: chernov's choice
TEXT: This weekend's SKIF7 festival, which opened on Thursday and runs through Sunday, will attract most of the city's regular club audiences to LDM, so at least one club has chosen to take a break.
Moloko, the leading underground rock club, won't open on Friday and Saturday, as its director, Yury Ugrymov, admits that not only the public but also the club staff will head to SKIF. The club will reopen only on Sunday, when it will host a gig by the all-female folk-punk band Babslei.
As expected, the festival's schedule has already slightly changed. As of Thursday, there won't be Tuvan throat singing at SKIF, as the Kyzyl, Tuva-based Huun-Huur-Tu failed to arrive. The other losses - such as 5nizza, a pop duo much-hyped in Moscow but rather meaningless - are not that important. If you're there, keep your eye on handwritten announcements on the walls that are supposed to include the most recent changes.
Highlights, however, remain the same: U.S. saxophonist Charles Gayle (Friday), Iranian traditional singers/ players (Saturday), and Dutch drummer Han Bennink and Damo Suzuki's Network, the band led by the ex-vocalist of Can, the seminal Krautrock band active in the 1970s and 1980s (both Sunday). Damo Suzuki's Network is also scheduled to play a concert at Red Club on May 1.
According to his philosophy, Suzuki gathers a new lineup of local musicians (he prefers to use the term "sound carriers") wherever he goes to play, to capture the spirit and mentality of the place in a practice that he calls "instant composing."
The Network's Russian lineup includes double bassist Vladimir Volkov and guitarist Slava Kurashov of Volkovtrio, drummer Boris Shaveinukov, saxophone player Nikolai Rubanov and tuba player Mikhail Kolovsky of Auktsyon, and bassist Ilya Komarov of Ne Zhdali and the Russian-Swiss band Les Halmas. Volkov, however, won't take part in the band's performance at SKIF.
Front, the city's third bunker club (after Tunnel and Griboyedov), which has been taking a break for repairs since Jan. 15, was planning to re-open with a bang on April 30, its second anniversary.
However, it won't, with the management explaining that the club will have to undergo a few more visits from the city's various commissions before it opens. According to information this week, the club now hopes to throw a re-opening party on May 9. Luckily, Front now has a telephone, and updates can be obtained by calling 340-9111.
Other notable events include hip-hop/alternative-rock band Kirpichi at Red Club on Friday and The Dead Brothers (a Swiss band inspired by death and funerals) at the same location on Saturday.
There are also a couple of Swedish hip-hop acts touring the city this weekend (Par.spb on Saturday and Red Club on Sunday), if anybody is interested.
Finally, local urban-folk sextet La Minor will play a rare concert at the intimate setting of Griboyedov club on May 1 and throw a launch party/concert for its long-awaited second album on May 4, before embarking on yet another European tour, the band's fourth, the very next day. See article, p. ii.
- by Sergey Chernov
TITLE: beating the drums for congo
AUTHOR: by Eric Bruns
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Following Tuesday's coverage of the exploding popularity of sushi restaurants in the city, I am happy to have had the chance since then to explore yet another non-indigenous cuisine - this time, African - rearing its head in St. Petersburg. Tucked away behind Ploshchad Vosstaniya by the Oktyabrsky Concert Hall, Congo is well worth a diversion off the well-beaten Nevsky Prospect path. The atmosphere and dishes offered are quite a departure from other establishments around, but Congo pulls it off without offending traditional sensibilities. It takes you on an exhilarating tour of the cradle of civilization, but never really gets dangerous - something like a safari without visa requirements.
According to one of my dining companions, the decor is authentic African, as judged by his experience with artist friends from the Republic of Congo. The floor and walls consist of flat, tiled stones, but the overall impression is of dark wood, comprising the furniture, adjoining posts, overhead beams and ubiquitous statues. The entrance room is bright and stylish, with a large window looking onto the street, and is an amiable place to enjoy a drink or quick lunch. For longer visits, however, the real treat lies in the more subdued back room, with low wooden tables and benches covered with large leopard-print pillows.
My dining companion and I barely had a chance to sip a bottle of "Africa Classic Ruby Cabernet" from South Africa and, at 570 rubles ($18.20), the cheapest red wine offered, when two friends, intrigued by our destination, joined us. The wine (as well as our friends) proved an excellent complement to the meal. A round of Borzhomi mineral water for 50 rubles ($1.60) per 0.5-liter bottle helped wash it all down.
Two of our extended gaggle began with the "Nguni Salad" for 90 rubles ($2.90), which was just as the menu describes - light and exotic, with avocado, coconut, mango and tomatoes under a coconut-lemon sauce. One of them could not contain his excitement upon savoring the first forkful, exclaiming "My God, the mango is fresh, not canned!"
My companion with friends from Congo started with the "Okavango Salad" for 165 rubles ($5.25), consisting of squid in a nut marinade with fresh vegetables. He was similarly impressed - the calamari was soft, yet crisp enough to avoid the all-too-common chewing-gum feel that comes with it. He commented that the Okavango River in Botswana does not contain squid but, even if not strictly reflecting the dishes' origins, the plentiful African names on the menu roused our interest.
I began with "Fried Calamari" for 160 rubles ($5.10) that, although apparently from the freezer, was also prepared perfectly. It came with two large leafs of lettuce, a slice of lemon and tartar sauce on the side.
In a gesture presumably aimed to keep the more traditional St. Petersburg diners in familiar territory, my main course came at the same time as the squid. Standing out on the menu, "Odnugozonanangana" for 380 rubles ($12.15) is defined as a "place where young lamb went and never returned." That place, apparently, is Congo's kitchen. The dish consists of juicy lamb spare ribs in a brown sauce, served with croquettes, zucchini and eggplant. Although I found the lamb itself a bit too gristly for my taste, it should be noted that each main course automatically comes with a garnish that complements the dish.
As I was finishing off the lamb, my first dining companion received his "Zebu in the Masai style" which consisted of a "beef steak in a spicy Masai pepper sauce, served with vegetables and fries" for 240 rubles ($7.65). A bit of research revealed that the Masai are a warrior tribe in Kenya whose lives center around herding cattle. So far, so relevant. Further digging, however, revealed that they rarely eat the meat but instead drink blood drained from the cow's neck at regular intervals. As with the absence of squid in the Okavango River, such a sauce was (thankfully) absent from the steak that, on the contrary, was prepared well-done in absence of a cooking preference. The vegetables consisted of jalapeno peppers, broccoli and green peas, but only the peppercorns on the steak were spicy, not the sauce.
The remaining two in our quartet were happy enough humming along with "Kus-Kus [Couscous] Chicken" for 180 rubles ($5.75) and "Sebba" pork kebab for 200 rubles ($6.40). The former deserves especially high praise, consisting of incredibly tender chicken pieces that seemed to have fallen off the bone as a sacrifice to my dining companion's gastronomic delight.
Unlike the rest of the menu, the dessert section looked rather tame, so we opted for African coffees instead. The "Cafe Kenya" for 112 rubles ($3.60) is simply an espresso from a French press, but the "Cafe Congo" for 125 rubles ($4.00) is described as an "authentic African recipe with hot chocolate, salted and served with caramel." A sip of this bizarre brew might make you feel like you've stuck your head well outside the safari caravan window. The predominant salty flavor makes the mix unlike any coffee we had tried before, begging us to return to get to know it better. The service throughout was similarly a treasure worth a repeat visit. Follow the tram tracks to Ulitsa Zhukovskogo and you'll see what I mean.
Congo. 57 Ul. Zhukovskovo. Tel.: 275-9954. Open daily, noon until midnight; Friday and Saturday, noon until 2 a.m. Menu in Russian only. No credit cards. Dinner for four, with alcohol: 2,682 rubles ($85.75).
TITLE: the word's worth
AUTHOR: by Michele Berdy
TEXT: Razgovlyatsya: to break the Lenten fast after the midnight Easter ceremony.
Orthodox Christian Russians celebrate Easter with the most joyful and colorful religious service of the year, feasting, and celebrations with family and friends. The season actually begins with the last pre-Lenten splurge of Maslenitsa, which was first a pagan holiday to celebrate the rebirth of the warming sun and then morphed into a Mardi Gras of bliny (crepes) served with 40 days worth of butter and sour cream. Then Lent, called Veliky Post (literally "the great fast") in Russian, since it is the strictest of all the many fasts in the Orthodox calendar: no alcohol (except a bit of Kagor, a sweet church wine), milk, eggs, or meat, and fish only on a few special occasions. Postnoe maslo is vegetable oil (that is, not butter); some people even use postny sakhar, unrefined sugar, since bone ash (an animal by-product) is used in the refining process. Russian conveniently groups all "forbidden" foods in the phrase skoromnaya pishcha, that is, food not to be eaten during a fast. Today vegetarians revel in these 40 days, since restaurants now offer Postnoe menyu (a Lenten menu) for the observant.
In Russia's northern climes, Palm Sunday is Verbnoe Voskreseniye - Pussy Willow Sunday. It is considered "beneficial" to beat someone with a branch of pussy willows, though it is supposedly the willows themselves doing the beating: Eto ne ya byu tebya! Berba tebya byot! (It's not me beating you! It's the pussy willow!). This is the start of Strastnaya nedelya (Passion Week) in which each day is called Veliky: for example, Velikaya Pyatnitsa (Good Friday). In observant Orthodox homes, it is a torturous week: even stricter fasting combined with the temptations of shopping for and cooking the delicacies for the Easter feast. The main delights are paskha (sweet potted cheese) kulich (a round yeast sweet bread), but also the full array of food and drink proscribed by the Lenten fast.
It has always been a mystery to me that both Passover and Easter are Paskha in Russian (the former often called Yevreiskaya Paskha) since you'd think the belief in Easter - the resurrection of Christ - is precisely that which differentiates Jews from Christians. But remnants of this exist in English as well in a word of the same derivation: paschal refers to both holidays (and the paschal lamb is served on both tables).
Late Saturday night before Easter, families attend the long midnight service, which culminates in the Krestny khod (procession of the cross): the congregation circles the church three times (symbolizing the disciples' search for Christ's body, which was not in the tomb). When Easter day is finally here, you greet your neighbor with Khristos voskrese! (Christ is risen!), to which he replies Voistinu voskrese! (Truly He is risen!). This exchange is accompanied by three kisses, and is called khristosovatsya.
Usually families gather to break the long Lenten fast immediately after the service. This midnight snack is called razgovlyatsya, and was, before the revolution, one of the few meals where servants and masters shared the same table.
Russians don't have Easter bunnies (nor can I explain to them why we do), but they do have colored Easter eggs. And they have egg rolling contests, which are called katat yaitsa. Another game is bit yaitsa - egg-cracking contests, in which the opponents smash their eggs together and the "winner" is the one whose shell remains whole. These games are played with krashenniye yaitsa - colored eggs - but never with pisanki - the elaborately decorated Ukrainian and Western Slavic Easter eggs. These are so dear they were once a synonym for "beloved" or "beautiful," as in the phrase Pisanka ty moya.
Michele Berdy is a Moscow-based translator and interpreter.
TITLE: city students take top honors
TEXT: Four students from the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory took top honors at the Ninth London International String Quartet Competition last week, carrying off both the jury-awarded first prize and the audience prize voted for by the public, which snapped up all the seats at the British capital's presitigious Wigmore Hall for the final round.
The members of the Atrium String Quartet will split the Pound28,000 ($44,500) first-prize money between them, but the non-financial awards are probably more important. The top prize includes an invitation to record a CD for the EMI Classic label's Debut series, and the quartet stayed in London after the competition for that purpose. The CD will be released in December. The prize also includes masterclasses and a concert tour of Western Europe.
"The atmosphere was electric," said competition Chairperson Neville Abraham. "I thought [the Russians] were very brave when I heard they were going to perform the Shostakovich Quartet No. 5, but they carried it off and convinced the jury and the audience."
"After that, one of the musicians, Dimitry [Usov, the quartet's viola player], made a short, but moving, speech in English, which endeared them to the audience all the more," Abraham said.
The competition, widely regarded as the world's most important for fresh talent in the field, was founded in 1977 by legendary violinist Yehudi Menuhin, who presided over it until his death in 1999. The pre-competition selection process is long and arduous. Applicants have to send in CDs of their performances and, this year, only 12 quartets were invited to participate in the final rounds.
The Atrium String Quartet was this year's only Russian entry, and the first from the country to win the top prize in the history of the competition. Second prize went to Britain's Johnson Quartet, while third place was awared to the Biava Quartet from the United States.
The Atrium String Quartet was founded in St. Petersburg in 2000, since when it has established a successful reputation in the city. As well as Usov, the quartet consists of Alexei Naumenko and Anton Ilyunin (first and second violin, respectively) and Anna Gorelova (cello). The quartet has already enjoyed success in a number of international competitions, including the Cremona String Quartet Competition in Italy, where it took second place in April last year.
Just after their return from London, Ilyunin and Gorelova teamed up to field questions from Larisa Doctorow.
q:What were your hopes before your departure for the London Competition?
a:We were confident that we would at least get into the finals. We have a good deal of experience and, although our repertoire is large, we know it very well.
We play 21 quartets, mostly Mozart, Tchaikovsky and Brahms. We try to embrace composers of different countries and eras. In our repertoire, Russian music doesn't take a leading position. Recently, we noticed that we don't have enough German Romantics, like Schubert or Schumann. We also play Shostakovich and Beethoven.
q:What about modern music, be it Russian or foreign?
a:In the London Competiton, the quartet by French composer Henry Dutilleux was part of the compulsory program. It was hard at the beginning, but, we liked it very much once we'd mastered it. We play music by Yury Falik, our professor from the [Rimsky-Korsakov] Conservatory. We've recorded his seventh and eighth string quartets. It's great music and we want to draw attention to it. We play Shostakovich's fifth and seventh. We think you have to master the classical repertoire, and then you can experiment with contemporary music.
q:How long does it take you to learn a new piece?
a:Usually, about two or three months - that's just to learn the material. But, to perform it artistically, takes much longer. Normally, we work on several pieces at the same time, not just one.
q:Would you say your musical tastes lean more towards the classics?
a:Mostly. We sometimes hear of quartets that specialize in modern music. They sound great, but often, when they try to play the classics, they're lost.
q:Do people at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory know that you've won?
a:Of course, our colleagues and fellow students all know. It was a shock, because there are a lot of competitions and students participate in a lot of them, but it's not that often that someone returns with the first prize, especially at such a prestigious event. It's the first time that a Russian quartet has been awarded the first prize in London.
When we looked at the list of previous winners, we got dizzy. The best quartets in the world were on the list.
q:I understand that the jury and the public were particularly impressed with your performance of Shostakovich's fifth.
a:It's our favorite quartet and it was also the composer's favorite. We feel, when we play it, that he helps us. We learned it some time ago and now, on the stage, there's a strong element of creativity. I would even go as far saying that there's an element of improvisation when we perform it. We speak to each other through music. It is 35 minutes long without interruptions, and the audience gets very involved. It ends suddenly. There are many places where the composer could have ended it, but he finishes it rather unexpectedly, and there's a long silence before the audience realizes and begins applauding.
q:What have you recorded on your compact disc? I understand that it's the first time that the winning quartet has been given this privilege.
a:Yes. It's the EMI Debut Series. We did Mozart's Quartet [K.] 421 in D minor. Also, Tchaikovsky's third, which is not a standard quartet, but more like a small symphony. We like it very much. And Shostakovich's seventh. The competition chairperson, Neville Abraham, wanted the Tchaikovsky because we're Russian. The head of the recording studio was present at the competition concerts and, later on, he told us that we were one of his favorite ensembles, along with a quartet from Denmark. The Danes didn't get into the final three, so he put his hopes on us. He wanted to record us even before we won.
q:How would you describe the other participants in the competition?
a:The American ensemble, which took third place, was very strong - stronger than the British ensemble that took second place. But the problem with the Americans was that they are very strong individuals but, when they try to blend together, the result isn't that great. The British group was more coherent. We were surprised that so many of the competing quartets were composed exclusively of female players. We're used to seeing mostly male ensembles.
q:Do you think your victory will encourage students here to form more quartets?
a:I doubt it. It's very hard work and you have to be together all the time. We also went through some difficult times, but we try to keep our private lives separate from the quartet. We are all friends and we want to play in the quartet. Quartets play here very irregularly. There used to be a subscription in Maly Hall of the Shostakovich Philharmonic for quartet performances, but it doesn't exist anymore.
In the United States, every orchestra has its own quartet but, in Russia, their number is pitifully low.
q:What are your plans now?
a:[Cellist] Anna [Gorelova] has to pass her exams at the [Rimsky-Korsakov] Conservatory. In July, we are going to Melbourne to participate in yet another competition. We hope it will be our last. We want to do it because, although it is not as prestigious as the London competition, Australia has a strong tradition of quartet playing. At the competition, there were two quartets from Australia. The jury will be different. We want to make contacts, to show ourselves off.
In May, we go to Leipzig to record a compact disc. Then there are plans for concerts here at the Glinka Philharmonic next season, and another in the Glazunov Hall of the Conservatory. We expect to tour with concerts, because it is a part of the winners' package. We were so shocked that we didn't even pay attention to what was included in the first prize.
TITLE: Team Effort Sees Mavericks Past Trail Blazers in Game 2
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: DALLAS - Dirk Nowitzki knew he couldn't keep doing it alone. Steve Nash and Michael Finley made sure he didn't have to.
With each member of Dallas' Big Three coming through in the clutch, the Mavericks withstood a career-best 45 points from Bonzi Wells and beat the Portland Trail Blazers 103-99 Wednesday night to take a 2-0 lead in their first-round series.
Nash had 11 of his 28 points in the fourth quarter, Nowitzki scored 25 and Finley added 17 as the Mavericks moved halfway to winning their best-of-seven matchup. Game 3 is Friday night in Portland.
This was more like what Dallas expects from its trio of stars, unlike Game 1 when Nowitzki had 46 points, a career best and team playoff record, and Finley and Nash combined for 23.
"That game was one for the ages in Mavericks history. We can't expect him to do that every night," said Nash, who was 5-of-6 on 3-pointers and had eight assists. "Tonight was more indicative of the balance we need."
The Trail Blazers have lost nine straight playoff games dating to 2000 and are in jeopardy of getting swept out of the playoffs for the fourth time in five years.
"Being down 0-2 is really tough, but we're definitely going to try to get this thing to come back to Dallas," said Wells, who broke Clyde Drexler's team playoff record of 42 points. "We're not going to give up."
The Blazers proved that in this game, going up by four early in the fourth period after trailing throughout the second and third quarters. Even with the Mavs making 10-of-14 shots in the final period, Portland still tied the game at 98 with 0:48.2 left on a three-point play by Dale Davis.
Then Nash hit a 3-pointer over Davis with 0:29.7 left, even if replays showed his toes were on the line. Finley soared for a rebound of a missed free throw by Wells on the other end, leading to two free throws by Nash with 14.5 seconds left.
The Blazers' last gasp ended when Rasheed Wallace and Jeff McInnis missed hurried 3-pointers. Eduardo Najera snagged the final rebound and dribbled out the clock to the joy of a crowd of 20,356, a team record for the second straight game.
"We knew this would be a lot tougher than Game 1," Finley said. "They battled for all 48 minutes. We knew we had to keep our composure and stay together as a team, and that carried us through."
Philadelphia 90, New Orleans 85. Coming off a brilliant 55-point performance in the series opener, Allen Iverson had 29 and Kenny Thomas had 17 points and 16 rebounds, leading the Philadelphia 76ers to a 90-85 victory over the New Orleans Hornets on Wednesday night.
The 76ers lead 2-0 in the best-of-seven Eastern Conference quarterfinal. Game 3 is Saturday in New Orleans.
"The guys knew what they had to do to get over the hump," Iverson said. "It makes it that much easier on me, takes more pressure off me and lets me concentrate on the defensive end."
Derrick Coleman had 12 points and six assists and Keith Van Horn added 11 points for the Sixers. Thomas, Van Horn and Coleman - Philadelphia's starting frontcourt - scored 11 points combined in Game 1. They got 40 Wednesday night.
David Wesley had 24 points and Robert Pack 15 for New Orleans. Jamal Mashburn scored 14, but he had only one point after chipping a bone in his right middle finger and dislocating it. He sat out the final 6:49.
Detroit 89, Orlando 77. Tracy McGrady scored 46 points, but five Detroit Pistons scored in double figures as they beat the Orlando Magic 89-77 Wednesday in Game 2 to even their first-round playoff series.
"I can't win it by myself," McGrady said. "I'm pretty sure they should understand that, but I give Detroit credit for really shutting those guys down."
McGrady's teammates, led by Andrew DeClercq's nine points, combined for just 31 points.
Richard Hamilton had 30 points one game after scoring 28 in his playoff debut. Detroit's Chauncey Billups had 15, Corliss Williamson added 13 and Cliff Robinson scored 10.
Ben Wallace validated the NBA Defensive Player of the Year award he won earlier in the day - for the second straight year. Wallace made two come-from-behind blocks in the first several minutes, and finished with 16 rebounds, three steals, three blocks and 10 points.
"I thought I was going to have to lead the way, but the guys were already ready," Wallace said. "We just played with a lot of energy."
TITLE: Wild Rallies Past Avalanche Into Round 2
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: DENVER - Andrew Brunette scored 3:25 into overtime and Manny Fernandez stopped 43 shots as the Minnesota Wild won their first playoff series with a 3-2 victory over Colorado on Tuesday night.
"Every player put heart and soul into it," said Marian Gaborik, who scored Minnesota's second goal. "The feeling is something that I don't have words for right now. I don't know. It's just unbelievable."
Several Wild players said before the series that they would be happy with just one victory against the two-time Stanley Cup champions. Minnesota coach Jacques Lemaire even said after Game 4 that his team had no shot at winning the series. Yeah, right.
The Wild won three straight games - the last two in overtime - to become just the eighth team in league history to come back from a 3-1 deficit with two victories on the road.
"We knew we weren't going to give an inch. No way, not anywhere," said Sergei Zholtok, who had two assists. "We have been battling and there were a lot of times we were on the line, but we found a way."
The Avalanche wound up getting knocked out in the first round for the first time in five years because they let another opponent hang around.
Four times in the last five years, Colorado had to play a Game 7 after blowing a 3-1 lead. The Avalanche won three of those series, with the only other loss coming against Edmonton in 1998 - the last time Colorado didn't make it past the first round.
"We didn't put them away in Game 5 and this is what happens," Colorado's Joe Sakic said.
The odds weren't on Minnesota's side. Of the 193 previous teams that trailed a series 3-1, only 16 came back to win. Just seven did it with two road wins.
It didn't matter to the Wild. It stuck to a defensive style and rode Fernandez's hot glove to win three games in Denver after going 0-6-2 here in three years.
"We had a chance to put a team away and we weren't able to do it," Avalanche coach Tony Granato said. "When you give an opportunity and then you play a seventh game, anything can happen. And it proved tonight."
Brunette scored the winner after Zholtok lost the puck between two defenders just inside Colorado's blue line. Brunette skated in on the left side, held the puck, then switched to his backhand before flipping a shot over Patrick Roy.
"I was going to shoot from out, but I didn't think I would have a great shot," said Brunette, who also had two assists. "I didn't think I could beat him, so I tried to go to old faithful."
The Avalanche had plenty of scoring chances, but they couldn't get past Fernandez and the Wild kept counter punching.
Sakic put Colorado up 2-1 with 6:45 left in regulation, one-timing a pass from Alex Tanguay on a power play for his sixth goal of the series.
The crowd was still cheering strongly when Gaborik tied it on a power play with 4:28 left. Gaborik knocked in a rebound after Roy stopped Brunette from the right circle.
Colorado's Peter Forsberg opened the scoring 6:16 into the second period, knocking in a rebound after Fernandez stopped Sakic's wrister.
Pascal Dupuis tied it just 1:22 later on a power play, circling around the net to slip a backhander past Roy on a rebound. Roy stopped Zholtok on the first shot, but couldn't cover it.
(For other results, see Scorecard.)
TITLE: SPORTS WATCH
TEXT: World Warm Up
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Tomas Vokoun made 36 saves to anchor the Czech Republic to a 2-1 win over Russia on Tuesday night in front of 11,500 fans at the Ice Palace in the final friendly game before the start of the IIHF World Ice Hockey Championships, which start in Helsinki this Saturday.
At 3:05 of the third period, Oleg Saprykin finally scored against the Nashville Predators goalie, who stood on his head all night. Back to a 1-goal deficit, the young and hungry Russian team upped the pressure, outshooting the Czechs 13-6.
With 1:19 left in regulation, Czech Martin Richter was sent off for high sticking. Russian coach Vladimir Plyushchev pulled goalie Maxim Sokolov for an extra skater. The Russians mounted a number of attacks without losing possession, but failed to tie the game before the final siren.
The Czechs opened the scoring at 15:34 of the first period. Carolina Hurricanes forward Radim Vrbata capitalized on a mistake by Russia's line and made a quick feed to fellow Hurricane Josef Vasicek, who beat St. Petersburg native Sokolov with a wrist shot.
The Czechs controlled the momentum in the middle period and Vrbata connected with Vasicek one more time to extend their lead to two at 25:49.
The win broke a nine-game losing streak for the Czech national team against the Russians.
Canada Triumphs
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Team Canada shut out Slovakia 3-0 in the gold-medal game at the International Ice Hockey Federation U18 Championships on Tuesday night in Yaroslavl.
In the third-place game, Alexander Ovechkin and Evgeny Malkin scored two goals each to lead Russia to a 6-3 victory over the United States.
Ovechkin and Kazakhastan's Konstantin Pushkaryov topped the tournament scoring, with 9 goals each.
Switerland and Kazakhstan were relegated to the IIHF division 1.
Moscow Meet Mooted
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Moscow is to host a major track-and-field meeting in September with a total purse of $2.4 million, organizers said on Wednesday.
A statement issued by Russian sports-marketing firm Sportima and Britain's Stellar Group Limited said the Moscow Challenge would take place at Luzhniki Stadium on Sept. 20.
It said Moscow's influential mayor, Yury Luzhkov, backed the event at the stadium, which can hold more than 80,000 and was the focal point of the 1980 Olympic Games.
Organizers hoped the new event could boost the city's chances in its bid to stage the 2012 Olympic Games.
"Let us not forget that Moscow will soon be in the running for the right to stage the 2012 Olympic Games," the statement said. "The Moscow Challenge, which it is hoped can be turned into an annual event, will persuade many that Russia's capital is ready to host the largest international top-class events."
Organisers said they expected United States sprinters Maurice Greene and Tim Montgomery and British sprinter Dwain Chambers to take part along with Russian athletes, including pole vaulter Svetlana Feofanova.
The event would include men's events at 100, 800 and 1500 metres along with the triple jump and women's competitions for 100, 400 and 800 metres plus long and high jump and pole vault.