SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #865 (33), Thursday, May 8, 2003
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TITLE: Smiles and Sorrow as Veterans Recall End of War
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Pavel Afonin remembers it as a day of triumph, while Tamara Semyonova remembers the salutes fired from the guns in what was then Leningrad. Yury Yavloko remembers it as the day on which he learned to whistle through his fingers, while Nikolai Shashkin recalls the tears of those who had lost so many loved ones over the preceding four years.
Today, as it was in the Soviet era after 1945, May 9 - Victory Day - is one of Russia's most hallowed and solemn holidays - a day of remembrance for as many as 30 million Soviet citizens who lost their lives and a day of celebration of the country's triumph over Germany in what Russians call "The Great Fatherland War," or Velikaya Otechestvennaya voina.
While state holidays in the Soviet era meant a day off work for many people, who would just go through the motions of marking more political occasions, Victory Day remained close to people's hearts. For those who were alive at the time of the armistice, that day 58 years ago remains vivid in their memories.
Pavel Afonin was a 22-year-old captain in the Red Army fighting in Berlin itself when he heard the news that the war with Germany had ended.
"It was a triumph!" Afonin, now an 83-year-old professor at the St. Petersburg University of Military Engineering, said. "It was indescribable joy for people who had survived so much sorrow and loss."
"Soldiers and officers took out their guns and fired endlessly up into the air. They cried and hugged," Afonin added.
Like Afonin, other veterans of the war, their families and others who survived to see the end spoke as if with one voice of the day when they got the news as one of the happiest of their lives.
"It was a great day!" said Natalya Vasilyeva, now 89. "At the time, I was working as a cook in an air-force mess hall just outside Riga, Latvia. I remember how our pilots ran toward us, shouting: 'Victory, girls! It's victory!' ... There was no end to our joy."
But Vasilyeva, like many who spoke of the day, said that her happiness was only proportional to all of the sorrows that she had faced during the war. By Victory Day, it had been almost exactly four years since she had last seen her husband, Sergei, who was serving in the military, and three years since she had lost her 1 1/2-year-old son.
Vasilyeva and her son had been visiting her parents, who lived near the town of Kaluga, not far from Moscow, when the German attack on the Soviet Union began in June 1941. Unable to get back home, the two stayed in the village, which was ultimately overrun by the German Army later that year.
"The Nazis burned down the village where we were living, and wanted to kill all of the residents," Vasilyeva said. "However, one of them appeared to take pity on all of the crying women and children and left them alive."
Only three buildings survived the flames, so the villagers were forced to cram themselves into them to survive. The cramped living conditions brought with them the danger of disease and, in early 1942, Vasiliyevska's son died when there were no medicines left in the village to treat his illness. It was then that she chose to join the Red Army as a cook.
"It was hard work," she said. "We followed the pilots from base to base, cooked, cleaned, chopped wood and carried about 40 buckets of water each day."
Vasilyeva did not see her husband until New Year's Eve in 1946, as he was still serving in Germany when the armistice with Germany was signed.
For Sergeant Nikolai Shashkin, the eve of Victory Day had been an important one. Already a decorated veteran - he had been made a Hero of the Soviet Union for bravery in action in October 1943 - and wounded in battle a number of times, Shashkin celebrated his 22nd birthday at a military school where he was training to become an officer.
"We heard the news on the night of May 9," Shashkin, now 80, said. "The military students all ran outside - they were all excited. Some of us cried, because there was not a family in the country that hadn't suffered from the war."
Shashkin earned his decoration in fighting in the city of Melitopol, now in Ukraine. Badly outnumbered, he was one of a group of 13 soldiers who were ordered to storm and hold a system of trenches that were occupied by about 50 German soldiers.
"Our attack was sudden and quick, so we were successful, and the Nazis fled," Shashkin said. "Once, they realized just how small our group was, however, they counterattacked."
By the end of the day, Shashkin and one other soldier from the group were the only ones alive.
"We fixed the guns of our comrades all along the trenches and were running from one gun to another in order to maintain the fire and hold the position until our main forces arrived," he said. "And they finally did."
Because of the nature of the war with Nazi Germany, many of the most terrible memories of those four years belong not to the men who fought as soldiers, but to those who were forced simply to survive as civilians in a time of great shortages of foods and medicines.
Svetlana Pronberg, now 75, said that her most vivid memory of the war was from her childhood in the blockade, when she was 13 years old.
Before the war, her family had been neighbors with two elderly women, neither of whom had ever married. Pronberg said that the two women had a dog on which they showered affection.
"At the peak of the hungriest blockade winter of 1941 to 1942, my sister and I were almost dying from hunger," Pronberg said. "Then the two ladies brought us their dog. They said they could not eat the dog themselves, but they gave it to us so that we would survive."
"That dog saved us," she said.
In 1943, Pronberg, her mother and her sister were evacuated to a village in the Kirovskaya Oblast, 800 kilometers east of Moscow, where her father, a victim of the repression before the war, was working in a labor camp.
"I was so emaciated that I looked like an old woman. Even the boy who sat next to me in my school refused to sit too close," she remembered. "It was the little tragedy of my childhood, because the boy was very handsome and I liked him."
"Later on, though, when my body got back in shape, he fell in love with me anyway," Pronberg added.
The same class where the boy finally fell for her was where she first heard the news of the German surrender.
"We all ran outside and just shouted 'Hurrah!' endlessly," Pronberg said. "We danced, hugged and cried."
For many of those who had not been evacuated from Leningrad, their health had not recovered. But Nadezhda Samsonenko, 80, who lived and worked in the city through the 900 days, said the reaction was much the same.
"I remember that, when I heard about the end of the war, I was sick with a severe fever and was supposed to stay in bed," Samsonenko said. "But the illness didn't matter to me at the time. I jumped up and down on my bed, perhaps just a little out of my head. Then my friend and I went downtown to the Neva River embankment to join the widespread joy."
She said crowds of excited people were walking along the Nevsky Prospect until the morning. People sang songs, danced and hugged.
"Everyone was so happy that the nightmare had ended," she adds.
During the blockade, Samsonenko worked at the Bolshevichka factory, where she sewed hats and short jackets, and knitted mittens and socks for Soviet soldiers.
"Then we, young girls, would bring these clothes as gifts to the front lines," Samsonenko said.
She also remembers much more heart rending duties. During the hardest days of the siege, Samsoneko, then 22, helped to search the city's apartments for children whose mothers had died of starvation, sickness or from the bombardment.
"We brought them to special orphanages, where they were taken care of," she said.
Tamara Semyonova, now 70, who was also in Leningrad for Victory Day, best remembers the guns.
"On that day, the city saw the likes of a salute that it has never witnessed since," Semyonova recalls. "There is nothing that can compare with that day for me. We were so happy!"
Yury Yalovko, now 68, still a boy during the Leningrad blockade, remembers May 9, 1945, for a different sound.
"We were standing near Liteiny Bridge and watching the salute," Yavloko said. "Everybody was jumping around and whistling through their fingers. Suddenly, I discovered that I could make the same noise."
Yalovko lost 16 relatives during the blockade.
"My worst memory is that of my 25-year-old aunt being killed by a tiny bomb fragment during the shelling," he said. "She was running home to take her two young children to a shelter."
After his aunt's death, his grandmother and mother took the two children in to live with his family.
"I remember how each of us five children, living together, had a little knife, which we would use to cut our daily 125 grams of bread into tiny pieces, to make the eating process last longer," Yalovko said.
Tragically, both of the children that his family had taken in - aged three and five years, respectively -died of dysentery in the blockade.
Afonin, the 25-year-old sergeant serving in Berlin when the armistice was signed, said that the German capital also had much to do to rebuild.
"I think that many [Berliners] were themselves tired of Hitler and his regime and just wanted to live in peace," he said.
Afonin remained in Berlin until August that year, and one his fondest memories is not linked with the victory but with a defeat.
Not long after Victory Day, Afonin, who was leading a reconnaissance unit, was approached by a group of German men who suggested organizing a soccer match with the Russian soldiers.
"That was a little embarrassing," Afonin laughs. "Imagine, we, many already like we were in our forties, lost by an 8-0 score to the Germans."
TITLE: Signs Point to Soyuz Systems Error
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: STAR CITY, Moscow Region - A computer software error likely sent a Soyuz spacecraft into a rare ballistic descent that subjected the three men on board to chest-crushing gravity loads that made it hard to breathe, space experts confirmed Tuesday.
If that proves to be the case, it should be an easy repair and the two new residents of the international space station should have nothing to fear when it's their turn to ride a Soyuz capsule back to Earth this fall.
A cosmonaut whose own Soyuz landing two years ago was steep but not ballistic, Talgat Musabayev, said Russian space experts believe the problem was caused by software in the guidance computer that was installed in the Soyuz TMA-1 spaceship. It was the first time the new, modified spaceship had been used in re-entry.
Astronaut Kenneth Bowersox, the commander of the 5 1/2-month mission, said he and his crewmates knew what was coming when the computer display suddenly switched from a normal to a ballistic entry Sunday.
The capsule came in considerably steeper than planned, and the men endured more than eight times the force of gravity, double the usual amount.
"It was easier than I thought it was going to be," Bowersox told reporters at cosmonaut training headquarters outside Moscow. "There's a lot of pressure on your chest and when you come back from space, just one-G makes you feel heavy.
"So it's hard to breath and your tongue sort of slips in your head and toward the back of your throat."
Astronaut Donald Pettit noted: "For me, for a moment, it felt like I was Atlas and I had the weight of the whole world on my shoulders."
Their capsule landed nearly 500 kilometers off-target in Kazakhstan. Two hours passed before anyone knew where they were or how they were doing - indeed, whether they were even alive.
During a crowded news conference, the cosmonaut who was in charge of the Soyuz, Nikolai Budarin, said that no one on board did anything to trigger the backup computer program for a ballistic re-entry.
"It's for the specialists to figure out what was the cause," Budarin said. "Let's wait and see, but now I can say that it was not our own doing."
Budarin acknowledged, however, that the capsule's Kurs system was inadvertently activated while the Soyuz-TMA-1 was still in orbit. Kurs is used to automatically steer the capsule toward the space station for docking.
An Energia engineer said Monday that one of the two astronauts "pushed a wrong button" when the Soyuz was in orbit but insisted that this error could not have had any impact on the descent.
He said that the astronaut - whom he refused to identify - entered a command into the Argon onboard computer to activate Kurs.
Russian Mission Control detected the error and corrected it before any harm was done, he said.
Argon is located in the so-called instrument compartment that separates from the descent capsule to remain in orbit as debris. Thus, a wrong command entered into Argon could not have had affected the descent as the capsule has its own control system, the engineer said.
Bowersox, a test pilot who assisted Budarin during the descent, said he does not believe the crew made any errors, but acknowledged, "You just never know for sure."
"In these types of situations, everything happens fast, sort of a blur, and it's best not to be too positive," Bowersox said. "The tape recorders are much better at analyzing the truth than the humans are."
Pettit still looked weak and a little shaky. He had to be supported following Sunday's landing and could barely walk.
He said that he was glad to have some privacy at touchdown.
"We'd been prepared that the landing site was going to be a bit of a mob scene with lots of people and hustle and bustle and everything, and I was actually relieved to ooze out of the spacecraft and lay on Mother Earth and just have a solitude moment in which to get reacquainted," he said.
The astronauts actually had four hours by themselves; that's how long it took helicopters to arrive.
Pettit said being tall and skinny, and a first-time space flier, made his transition to gravity all the more difficult.
"I've had a little more trouble walking around than others," said the 75-kilogram, 1 meter, 80-centimeter, "but I guess I fall in both of those categories."
Bowersox and Pettit will recuperate at Star City for two more weeks before flying back home to Houston with their wives, who sat in on the news conference and beamed with pride.
They are the first NASA astronauts to return to Earth in a Russian spacecraft. The switch from a shuttle to a Soyuz ride was made following the Columbia disaster.
(AP, SPT)
TITLE: Refugees Facing Housing Pressures
AUTHOR: By Yuri Bagrov
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SLEPTSOVSKAYA, Southern Russia - A stone's throw from a refugee camp where thousands of Chechens live in flimsy tents, 180 new houses stand waiting for the most vulnerable families. But regional officials won't let them move in and have ordered an international aid group to tear the houses down.
Officials in the Ingushetia region say that Medecins Sans Frontieres built the houses without the proper permits. But MSF accused officials Tuesday of playing bureaucratic games as part of a campaign to force refugees to return to Chechnya against their will.
Ingush authorities, who handle refugee affairs, could not be reached for comment.
The group, known in English as Doctors Without Borders, also questioned Russian claims that refugees are returning voluntarily. In February, it surveyed nearly every family living in the tent camps - more than 3,200 in all - and found that 98 percent do not want to return to Chechnya. Nearly all said they feared for their lives.
"They are driving us out of Ingushetia," said Aslanbek Shalimov, who lives in a tent camp in the village of Sleptsovskaya, just meters from the empty houses. "It is easier to evict us from tents than from houses."
Chechnya has been wracked by violence since 1994, when Chechen separatists began a two-year war with Russian troops. That conflict ended in 1996 with de facto independence for the republic.
Russian forces returned in 1999 after rebels raided the neighboring Russian region of Dagestan and after apartment-house bombings in Russian cities killed more than 300 people.
Since last year, Russian officials have been encouraging refugees in Ingushetia to return to Chechnya as part of broader efforts to show that peace is returning to the region - despite daily fighting, frequent attacks on civilians and persistent complaints of kidnappings and killings by the Russian military.
In December, a camp in the village of Aki-Yurt was unexpectedly closed. Rights groups said 1,500 people were left homeless, but officials said that most left voluntarily and the rest were given alternative housing. Refugees and human-rights organization say officials have threatened to close the other camps and are using intimidation and blackmail to convince people to return.
The alleged pressure appears to be working, and the camps are steadily losing residents, Medecins Sans Frontieres said.
"If the flow of refugees returning to Chechnya is growing, it is because people are left without a choice," Anne Fouchard, a spokesperson for the group's French branch, said at a news conference in Moscow. "Forced return is a clear violation of fundamental rights of civilians subject to violence."
Ninety percent of those families who told the aid group that they don't want to return said that they have no alternative shelter, but the group believes it is only a matter of months before the camps are shut down. Gabriel Trujillo, head of MSF France's mission in Russia, said there are persistent rumors that two camps that together house nearly 1,000 families will be shut down in May.
Russian officials deny they are forcing anyone to return, but say the tent camps are no place to make a permanent home.
Aid groups agree, and that's why Medecins Sans Frontieres began building real houses last year. About 100 families who were living in makeshift shelters moved into the one-room structures, which, though primitive, are warm and dry.
But the latest batch of 180 houses, funded by the European Union and completed in January, have been standing unoccupied - "as if teasing us," Shalimov said. Plans to build another 1,200 houses are in limbo.
Medecins Sans Frontieres provided journalists with a copy of a letter from a local prosecutor informing the group that it must destroy the houses. The letter said that the group did not have construction permits.
Medecins Sans Frontieres refuses to comply with the destruction order and has been paying fines on the houses since March. The group insists that it had received permission from the government.
Meanwhile, the aging tents are providing increasingly inadequate shelter, MSF said. It said 42 percent of the tents leak, and five percent have no floor.
But refugee Raisa Shalimova, Aslanbek Shalimov's sister, said she is doing all she can just to hold on to her family's place in the camp.
"My house has been ruined there, and there is no room for us in the temporary shelters in Chechnya," she said.
TITLE: Kadyrov Wants Duties Transfer
AUTHOR: By Yuri Bagrov
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: VLADIKAVKAZ, North Ossetia - Chechnya's Moscow-backed leader Akhmad Kadyrov said he is pushing for the military to transfer its duties over to Chechen security forces, saying that reducing the military's presence in the republic will cut down on reports of human-rights abuses.
"If armored vehicles stop cruising the streets and the military return to the places in Chechen territory assigned to them, nobody will have any reason to accuse them of violating human rights," Kadyrov was quoted by Interfax as saying Tuesday.
The Kremlin has insisted that peace is returning to Chechnya and has touted a March constitutional referendum as a step on the path toward stability. But fighting persists and tens of thousands of troops remain stationed in the republic.
Itar-Tass reported Tuesday that 35,000 troops are currently in Chechnya, with combat troops making up about 45 percent of those. Some reports have put the number of troops considerably higher.
The federal troops suffer daily attacks by the outnumbered rebels, who rely on hit-and-run ambushes and mine attacks to inflict damage. Human-rights groups say that civilians often get caught up in federal responses, which include daily sweep operations aimed at flushing out anyone suspecting of aiding the rebel fighters.
TITLE: Russia, America End Poultry Trade War
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: WASHINGTON - The United States and Russia have resolved a squabble over health standards at U.S. poultry plants that had threatened American chicken exports to Russia, officials said.
Russian concern about sanitary issues at U.S. chicken plants was among the major topics at two days of discussions between Agriculture Minister Alexei Gordeyev and his U.S. counterpart, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman.
"We are pleased to have resolved the technical issues that have impeded our poultry trade," Veneman said in a statement. She said that Russian inspection of U.S. plants would be completed "without disruption of trade."
Gordeyev told reporters that a majority of the U.S. plants already have met required health standards and that inspections at remaining plants would be completed by July 1. He earlier said that 65 percent to 70 percent of U.S. poultry processing facilities have been cleared to ship product to Russia, and that he expects most of the U.S. plants to be found acceptable.
"Both sides have finally resolved all the differences ... The sanitary issues have been resolved," said J.B. Penn, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's undersecretary for farm and foreign agricultural services.
Penn said that U.S. poultry producers made some concessions to address some of the Russian concerns and that the Russian officials agreed to be more flexible on what procedures might be used to achieve certain sanitary standards.
The Russians agreed to conduct the inspections with the mutual understanding that plants may use "diverse approaches" on separation of work zones and temporary refrigeration in meeting Russian standards for safety and quality, U.S. officials said.
Russia is the largest importer of U.S. poultry. American producers shipped $586 million worth of chickens to Russia in 2001, but the amount dropped to $494 million last year when Russia briefly imposed an embargo on U.S. chicken imports because of the sanitation issue.
In the past, Russia bought more than 1 million tons annually of low-cost U.S. poultry. Now, poultry quotas restrict U.S. exports to Russia at 553,500 tons for May-December.
Analysts have speculated that Russia was trying to protect its own small poultry industry by holding U.S. plants to unrealistic standards - one of which would have required U.S. processors to erect a wall to divide slaughter and processing areas.
Veneman and Gordeyev met for two days and agreed to a number of steps aimed at increasing cooperation in agricultural cooperation.
Among the areas discussed were veterinary and sanitary activities, agricultural research and animal and plant genetics and biotechnology, officials said.
The two also agreed to form working groups that will meet regularly to improve cooperation in agriculture policy, agribusiness and investment and agricultural research and education.
(AP, Reuters)
TITLE: Kasyanov Calls for Restrictions On Piracy
AUTHOR: By Valeria Korchagina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov on Tuesday pledged to toughen efforts to curb copyright violations, saying the government would draft a set of amendments to combat rampant piracy.
"[Intellectual property] is one of those spheres where chaos rules and total lawlessness takes place," Kasyanov said at the opening of the first session of a special government commission created to find ways to combat piracy in Russia.
"This issue is seen by the public as negative and rightly so, since it never received much attention [from the government]," Kasyanov said.
Over the past decade, Russia has been frequently criticized for allowing intellectual-property violations to run unchecked on its territory.
Press Minister Mikhail Lesin, a member of the commission, said that as much as 80 percent of all music and videos for sale on the Russian market is produced illegally.
Sales of pirated goods over the past few years have reaped at least $1 billion - and as much as $5 billion - according to varying estimates by the Press and Interior ministries. Fifty percent of videos, 64 percent of audio products and 90 percent of DVDs that are sold in Russia are fake, the two ministries said.
Copyright violations on Russian territory have, in part, been blamed for the U.S. trade deficit with Russia, according to a recent U.S. State Department report. Washington says that Russia is the world's second-largest producer of counterfeit music and video products after China.
According to Kasyanov, copyright violators also injure domestic intellectual-property owners.
"The intellectual property created in previous years has been used within an unclear legal framework. The situation with law enforcement in this sphere is even worse," Kasyanov was quoted by Interfax as saying Tuesday.
The special commission, composed of government officials and experts working to deal with intellectual property rights violations, was launched last October.
By September, the commission will draft a set of amendments to the Civil Code aimed at setting a legal framework for protecting intellectual property in the country, Lesin said Tuesday.
"This would be the basis for the further work on laws since for now we must coordinate the laws on intellectual property and other related laws [with international agreements]," Lesin said on the government's official Web site, www.government.ru.
Lesin said that a range of measures would be drafted to minimize losses to copyright holders from piracy and to crack down on the sidewalk vendors who sell audio and video material from small stands along city streets or at markets. He was quick to reassure music buyers, however, that in designing the changes, their interests would be kept in mind.
Kasyanov also solicited suggestions from the holders of Russian copyrights, saying the commission's work would benefit from their views.
TITLE: $4 M Luxury Yacht Built for Putin Launched in Moscow
AUTHOR: By Ilya Khrennikov, Alexei Nikolsky and Anatoly Tyomkin
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: MOSCOW - A secretly built yacht intended for President Vladimir Putin took to the water late last month at the Moscow Shipbuilding Factory.
A source in a river-transport company said the motorized Pallada yacht was indeed Putin's. Neither the shipbuilders nor the presidential property department denied this. But whether the yacht was custom built for the president remains a point of contention.
The shipbuilding factory plans to mass-produce a series of identical ready-to-sail boats, so it is possible that the first one off the line was simply purchased for the president's use.
The shipbuilding factory's commercial director, Dmitry Mironenkov, would not confirm that the Kremlin's property department had placed an order for the first Pallada.
"The ethics of yacht-building dictate that we cannot comment on the details of the project without the client's permission," he said.
Mironenkov said that they received an order for the boat last July. "I can only reveal that this vessel was built in record time - not only to Russian standards, but to European standards, too."
Viktor Khrekov, spokesperson for the presidential property department, flatly denied having commissioned the boat for Putin.
"We have not placed any orders for yachts for the president," he said.
Though the cost of the yacht has not been released, Mironenkov said that the mass-produced version of the vessels would cost $4 million each. The company's web site says the boats were designed by Dutchman Guido de Groot, who previously worked for Citroen.
The Moscow Shipbuilding Factory specializes in motor-driven "super-yachts," measuring between 24 meters and 50 meters from bow to stern. The factory posted sales of 150 million rubles ($4.8 million) in 2002 and its order book stands at more than $40 million.
The Moscow River Shipping transportation and industrial group holds 71 percent of the factory, while 25 percent belongs to the Property Ministry.
At present, there is only one official presidential boat, the Rossia, according to the general director of the Moscow River Shipping Co., Konstantin Anisimov, whose firm manages the vessel.
The problem is, he said, that the Rossia "is old and not particularly comfortable for high-ranking guests." It was spruced up in Finland in 1994, "but the planning and the interior were designed to the tastes of [former President Boris] Yeltsin," he added.
Putin occasionally uses another ship, the Kavkaz, which belongs to the Federal Border Service, Anisimov said.
A fourth boat - a $3-million navy cutter called the Burevestnik - was commissioned by the Leningrad Naval Base to give Putin a suitable observation deck from which to watch some of the St. Petersburg jubilee festivities.
"Putin will be on board the Burevestnik for only a few hours, while surveying the parade in honor of the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg," said a source at Severnaya Verf, the shipbuilding firm that recently wrapped up the boat's construction, which took two years.
TITLE: City Gets New Link in Metro Chain
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: ST. PETERSBURG - The German-based Metro Cash & Carry consumer-goods chain opened its first wholesale supermarket in St. Petersburg last week, the total construction cost of the project amounting to 25 million euros. The supermarket has a retail area of 9,100 square meters and employs 450.
Metro said that the facility has already concluded contracts with over 1,200 suppliers, 60 percent of that number being Russian and 25 percent being located in St. Petersburg.
Natalia Sheludko, spokesperson for the Construction Committee of the City Administration, said that a second Metro supermarket is due to be opened in July, while the site for a third one was recently allocated.
Metro operates in 23 countries, with a world turnover of around 22 billion euros in 2001. Metro has three outlets in Moscow and plans to invest another 600 million euros in the development of its Russian shopping network by 2007.
TITLE: what russians made in paris
AUTHOR: by Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The exodus of the Russian artistic elite after the revolutions of 1917 is something of which even most people without a specialist art background are aware. However, very few Russians have much idea of what these emigre artists did when they reached their new homes.
Perhaps the most popular choice for the emigres was Paris: Artists who fled for the French capital in the early years of the Soviet era included Alexander Benois, Lev Bakst, Ivan Bilibin, Konstantin Korovin, Konstantin Somov, Boris Grigeriyev, Vasily Kandinsky and Marc Chagall. Naturally, therefore, "Russian Paris," the exhibition that opened in the Benois Wing of the State Russian Museum last week, focuses on works by artists who emigrated in the first half of the 20th century.
The exhibition's organizers deliberately limited the time-frame to the years between 1910 and 1950. The roughtly 80 artists whose works are featured deliberately chose Paris as their new home, rather than ending up there by chance, and the display aims to give a complete picture of the variety of styles and trends brought to the city at the time by the new arrivals.
"This exhibition isn't trying to prove that 'Russia is the homeland of the elephant,' meaning that the country produced everything," said Yevgeniya Petrova, deputy director of the Russian Museum, at the opening. "The goal is to introduce visitors to a whole layer of art that they never had the opportunity to encounter."
The extensive exhibition embraces 114 paintings, 20 sculptures and 62 drawings, with a relatively modest 30 items coming from the Russian Museum's own collection. The major contributor is Paris' Pompidou Center, which provided 42 works, the most ever allowed to leave the museum for a single display. The rest of the art comes from Paris' Museum of Contemporary Art and private galleries in France, Germany, Switzerland and the United States.
France got its first taste of Russian visual art at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1890, which included works by three Russian artists, Valentin Serov, Korovin and Filipp Malyavin. A couple of decades later, from 1909 to 1929, the "Russian Seasons," festivals of art forms from painting to ballet organized by emigre ballet impresario Sergei Diaghliev, enjoyed huge popularity in the city.
According to Russian Museum Director Vladimir Gusev, the new display includes works that are discoveries even for St. Petersburg specialists in the area, as major Russian museums contain almost no examples of the emigre art being showcased.
While some of the artists preserved their style after emigrating - for example, Silver Age artist Somov of St. Petersburg's World of Art artists group - most changed and developed their techniques as a result of the new influences they found abroad. The exhibition divides the careers of these artists into two halves - before and after emigration.
"The exhibition aims to show how the artists adapted to the new culture, and whence they got their inspiration," Petrova said. "It is thrilling to trace what remained of their roots and what they absorbed, and to compare the artists' styles before and after emigration."
Emigration was not a happy experience for every artist. For example, Alexander Benois, also a member of the World of Art group, never received nearly as much adulation in his 35 years abroad as he had had in his native country. Meanwhile, Ivan Bilbin, who arrived in Paris in the 1920s, returned to the Soviet Union shortly before World War II, but died during the Siege of Leningrad.
For Marc Chagall, however, emigration quickly brought international recognition and provided the impulse for greater artistic versatility. Chagall subsequently tried his hand as a theatrical designer, a book illustrator and even a stained-glass maker. Zurich's Fraumunster cathedral is the proud host of Chagall's marvelous stained-glass windows, on which he began work in 1967, aged 80. The series of five 1-meter-high windows are now one of the Swiss city's major highlights.
According to Gusev, the new exhibition could have been even more extensive than it is, which he attributed to the lack of available space.
"Our artistic plans take shape and develop much faster than we are able expand our territorial borders," Gusev said, hinting at a need for extra rooms to accommodate more projects.
"Russian Paris" launches a series of major displays focusing on Russian emigre art. The next two projects will be devoted to Russian artists in Germany and the United States, respectively.
TITLE: chernov's choice
TEXT: Leading local alternative-rock band Tequilajazzz, will play a gig in the unlikely setting of house club Par.spb on Friday.
The band, which uses the club as a rehearsal venue, will take part in Par's Victory Day party alongside DJs and other guests, but will play a full-length show, according to the club's management.
"We've been eager to work with live sound for quite a while," Par.spb's Oleg Bogdanov said. "It will be the first live concert at a venue after a long break and, if it's a success, we'll continue [to host live events]."
Tequilajazzz's gig will be its first local appearance since a gig at Red Club in February.
Meanwhile, local pop-rock band S.P.O.R.T. will mark its 10th anniversary with a concert at Red Club on Saturday.
The band, now an all-male, MTV-oriented quartet, was more fun in the early 1990s when it had two female singers, Natalya Kozlovskaya and Anna Stolyarova, who quit in 1995 and 1997, respectively. According to the group's official Web site, www.s.p.o.r.t.spb.ru, Saturday's concert will see Kozlovskaya and Stolyarova rejoining the band.
Front, the bunker rock club that was planning to reopen on April 30 after 3 1/2 months of repairs to mark its second anniversary, failed to do so because of construction workers who arrived late to re-lay the venue's floor. The opening has now been rescheduled for Friday.
Rumor has it that uber-popular ska-punk band Leningrad, which used to use the venue for rehearsals, will play, but Front would not confirm this when contacted this week.
"[Leningrad frontman Sergei Shnurov] will come, for sure, but he's unlikely to bring the band," a club spokesperson said.
The invitation-only opening will include two or three unannounced bands, while the venue will open to the general public on Saturday. For a while, the club, at 31 Ulitsa Chernyakhovskogo, will only be open on weekends. Call 340-9111 for more details.
Kvadrat, the city's longest-surviving jazz club, has been homeless since last year, arranging its concerts at jazz cafes such as Neo and (812). Now, it seems to have found a new location, at Red Fox, a small, two-room club that specializes in jazz and swing. Kvadrat's mainstream jazz nights take place at 8 p.m. on Mondays.
Red Fox, which has been around for 12 months, is located at 50 Ul. Mayakovskogo. Call 275-4214 for more information.
New York-based avant-garde ensemble Bang on a Can All-Stars, whose achievements include transcribing Brian Eno's "Music for Airports," rearranging it for acoustic instruments and performing the piece live in its entirety, will perform at Estrada Theater on Thursday.
"A fiercely aggressive group, combining the power and punch of a rock band with the precision and clarity of a chamber ensemble," The New York Times wrote about the six-piece band.
Don't miss Vyborg-based punk band PTVP at Orlandina on Thursday. The gig is a showcase for a new book of poetry ("Tekhnika Bystrogo Pisma," or "Speed-Reading Technique") by the band's frontman Alexei Nikonov, which will be published on the Internet at 8 p.m. that day. Check Nikonov's Web site at www.nehardcore.narod.ru
- by Sergey Chernov
TITLE: porn and lenin - good call!
AUTHOR: by Claire Bigg
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Fifteen years ago, opening a place like Zov Ilicha (loosely translated by the venue itself as Lenin's Mating Call) would have been absolutely unthinkable - just nurturing the idea could have brought serious trouble from the authorities. But post-Soviet Russia has long generated looser public and sexual mores, and Lenin's Mating Call, which gleefully mixes pornography and Soviet symbols, comes across as just another slice of Soviet kitsch, despite its obvious vow to shock sensitive - or Soviet-minded - souls.
Proof that Soviet-themed bars are no novelty, Lenin's Mating Call has replaced Kotletnaya, a bar that also exploited the Soviet kitsch theme, although in a much more affable manner than the new venue. Entering Lenin's Mating Call is, in itself, quite an mind-blowing experience, and I hope I won't spoil the surprise too much by saying that you get to hear the mating call in question and will be greeted by a hairy man dressed in a glittering silver undershirt. After entrusting your coat to this graceful apparition, you walk under a kind of barrier to enter the bar, thereby "bowing" to Soviet idols - there are even a few electronic counters totaling up the number of bows. In short, Lenin's Mating Call chooses to throw you head first into its crazy world.
Inside, a host of silvery statues of Joseph Stalin, Felix Dzerzhinsky and Vladimir Lenin can be found on the walls and windowsills, and even hanging upside down from the mirror ceiling. One of the bar's two rooms, which are both painted in red and black tones, also contain a few unsavory paintings featuring a toilet bowl - content included - and various phallic parallels with the Kremlin towers. But the main attraction at Lenin's Mating Call is definitely provided by the flat screens that play speeches by Soviet leaders interspersed with soft porn scenes.
We chose a table with a good view of the whole scene and were handed the menu by a smiling server dressed as a scantily-clad Soviet pioneer. Dishes at Lenin's Mating Call are divided into Soviet and anti-Soviet, and include such exotic dishes as live oysters, for 460 rubles ($14.80), and ostrich carpaccio, for 190 rubles ($6.10). Despite our initial, democratic intention to try two Soviet and two anti-Soviet dishes, my dining companion and I found the anti-Soviet menu a little more appealing and decided to throw the last remnants of political correctness out the window. For starters, my dining companion chose the anti-Soviet Greek salad with a light mustard sauce, for 150 rubles ($4.85), which was fresh and tasty. I chose the even more anti-Soviet tiger prawns and asparagus with a cold tomato and ginger sauce, which went for 290 rubles ($9.35), and proved delicious, despite the somewhat puny look of the asparagus. My dining companion went Soviet for mains with pan-fried beef fillet with eggplant and grated horseradish at 380 rubles ($12.25), but turned out to regret his choice, as the dish was quite bland and a little on the oily side. I ordered duck breast with honey-and-spice sauce served with wild rice, also 380 rubles, from the anti-Soviet menu, and fared a little better, although the meat could have been more tender.
There are a few interesting non-Soviet meals for two that we thought would be worth a try, such as an authentic German sauerkraut, complete with sausages, which goes for 890 rubles ($28.65), or alpine fondue, also 890 rubles. Most dishes on the menu are accompanied by a color picture, which makes choosing a lot more fun, and both these dishes looked appealing.
Lenin's Mating Call also has a good choice of imported tap beers, such as the Czech Pilsner Urquell, at 99 rubles ($3.20), or the German wheat beer Franzkiskaner, 130 rubles ($4.20). Unfortunately, a recent celebration forced my dining companion and I to pass on these delicious beers. Instead, we had healthy, home-made cranberry-and-cinnamon drinks, for 40 rubles ($1.30; this drink goes very well with the duck, by the way), and freshly squeezed carrot and apple juices, each 80 rubles ($2.55).
The dessert menu at Lenin's Mating Call is not bad either, and contains the divine - although rarely well-prepared - creme brulee, which goes for 140 rubles ($4.50). Well, this particular creme brulee, which, like most dishes in Lenin's Mating Call comes in a generous portion, was immediately and unanimously elected as the best in St. Petersburg, with its crunchy caramel crust and soft, slightly warm creme. Noticing our obvious delight, our server informed us that the chef is French and prepares the dessert according to a strictly French recipe.
So, if you are an amateur of creme brulee and porn, Lenin's Mating Call is the place for you, and a lot more surprises - be careful which button you press on going to the rest room, for example - unmentioned above await in this strange and sleazy venue. Sensitive souls and puritans of all kinds, however, are advised to stay well away from this den of sin.
Zov Ilicha. 34 Kazanskaya Ul. Tel.: 311-8641. Open daily, 2 p.m. to 2 a.m. Credit cards accepted. Dinner for two, without alcohol: 1,800 rubles.
TITLE: Local Karma Sees Alive-and- Quacking Ducks Past Dallas
AUTHOR: By Ken Peters
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ANAHEIM, California - The Mighty Ducks don't have to go far to find a kindred spirit as they make a run at their first Stanley Cup title. The World Series champion Angels play right up the street.
With the Mighty Ducks' game against the Dallas Stars tied in the third period Monday night, the video board at Anaheim Arena showed Scott Spiezio's dramatic three-run homer in Game 6 of the World Series. Next was a shot of the Angels first baseman sitting in a luxury suite holding his young son. The caption read, "Game 6 karma."
A few minutes later, defenseman Sandis Ozolinsh knocked a rebound past Stars goaltender Marty Turco with 1:06 remaining to give Anaheim to a 4-3 victory. The Ducks clinched the series 4-2 and advanced to their first Western Conference finals.
The Ducks, who swept defending Stanley Cup champion Detroit in the first round then knocked off the top-seeded Stars in the second, seem to be benefiting from an Anaheim "halo" effect.
Steve Thomas, acquired by the Ducks from Chicago at the March 11 trading deadline, and teammate Rob Niedermayer recently visited the Angels' clubhouse.
"Spiezio was kind enough to spend a lot of time talking with me and Rob," said Thomas, who had a goal and three assists in the clinching win over Dallas. "He's a real hockey fan. We were walking around the locker room, and I got to talk to Tim Salmon and Mike Scioscia."
"They're a great bunch of guys, and they can appreciate what we're going through, just as we can appreciate exactly what they went through last year."
Spiezio said Tuesday that watching the Ducks the previous night evoked memories of last October.
"To see those guys play was pretty awesome. I'm not a guy who will sit and watch every single hockey game, but when those guys came over here last year and rooted us on, I really paid attention to them this year," said Spiezio, who attended the hockey game on a day off with several teammates, including Troy Glaus, Brendan Donnelly and Benji Gil.
The Ducks next face the winner of the Vancouver-Minnesota series. The Canucks led 3-2 heading into Wednesday night's Game 6.
TITLE: Kings Imperious, Pistons Pumped in Game 1 Wins
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: DALLAS - Using baskets from all five starters to start an early 15-2 run, the Sacramento Kings turned Game 1 of their second-round series against the Dallas Mavericks into a rout.
They led by 20 points early in the third quarter, then cruised to a 124-113 victory Tuesday night.
"We knew exactly what we needed to do," said Kings center Vlade Divac, who had 14 points in 15 minutes. "It was beautiful."
Playing for the first time since eliminating Utah in five games last Wednesday, the Kings quickly proved they weren't rusty.
Chris Webber drove for an easy layup on the first possession and had 13 of his 24 points before the first quarter was over. The highlight was when he faked his way past Shawn Bradley at the foul line and went in for an uncontested dunk that put Sacramento up 13.
"Our guys were really ready," Sacramento coach Rick Adelman said. "We really had a flow going. It makes it hard to guard us when it goes that way."
Dallas got within six points late in the second quarter, finally generating the electricity expected from two of the league's three highest-scoring teams. But it didn't last.
The Kings were up 12 at halftime and made it 74-54 with 8:22 left in third on a dunk by Divac, drawing boos from a franchise-record crowd of 20,525. Many of them left early in the fourth quarter, already looking ahead to Game 2 on Thursday night.
Detroit 96, Philadelphia 87. Richard Hamilton scored 25 points and Chauncey Billups had to be helped off the court after his 24th point as the top-seeded Detroit Pistons beat the fourth-seeded Philadelphia 76ers on Tuesday night in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinals.
"It was tough," Hamilton said. "I ran to him and said, 'You all right?' You could see he was in some pain. Chauncey is a big asset to our team.
"I just got done talking to him in the training room, and said, 'Please tell me you'll be all right for Game 2.' Hopefully he'll be back."
Game 2 is Thursday night at The Palace. Pistons coach Rick Carlisle said he may not know until gameday whether Billups will play.
Allen Iverson, who led the league in scoring during the first round, had 27 points on 8-of-21 shooting for the 76ers. He averaged 34.8 points in the first round against New Orleans.
TITLE: Swedes Win, Russia Advances
AUTHOR: By Erica Bulman
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TURKU, Finland - Mats Sundin and Peter Nordstrom each had a goal and an assist to lift Sweden past Switzerland 5-2 at the World Ice Hockey Championships on Tuesday.
The Swedes' victory eliminated Latvia and assured Russia a spot in the quarterfinals.
In other games, Germany tied host Finland 2-2; Austria beat Ukraine 5-2; and Latvia beat Denmark 4-2.
The United States went 3-3 in the tournament - with all three victories coming in the relegation round - for its worst showing since 1998. But they played well enough to return next year, when the event will be the qualifier for the 2006 Olympics.
Mika Hannula scored the deciding goal for Sweden, taking a pass from Niklas Andersson and flicking the puck past goalie Lars Weibel for a 3-2 lead 3:37 into the final period.
Sundin opened the scoring 8:21 into the game, when Maple Leafs teammate Mikael Renberg sent him a clean pass from the right circle to the slot. Sundin then deked Weibel and scored the goal past Weibel.
Switzerland rallied with two goals from Martin Pluss against goalie Mikael Tellqvist, who was playing for the injured Tommy Salo. Sweden tied with a power-play goal from Dick Tarnstrom at 4:18 in the second period.
In the third period, the Swedes raised the level of the game a notch, and the tired Swiss players didn't have the energy to fend them off.
After Hannula's goal, Jorgen Jonsson and Nordstrom added goals for Sweden, which already had secured a place in the quarterfinals. But the victory put them in second place behind Canada in the Group F standings.
Sweden will play archrival Finland in the next round.
Latvia needed Switzerland to at least tie Sweden to advance.
The Swiss will play defending champion Slovakia, first in Group E ahead of the Czechs, who will play Russia. Canada, which defeated Russia 5-2 on Monday, will face Germany.