SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #869 (37), Thursday, May 22, 2003
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TITLE: Kremlin Pair Put Spins on Jubilee
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Sergey Yastrezhembsky, best known as the Kremlin's spokesperson on Chechnya, and Valentina Matviyenko, the presidential representative in the Northwest Region, briefed the local press on the situation on the eve of the city's 300th-anniversary celebrations on Wednesday.
But, while Matviyenko's comments generally stressed the successful completion of most of the preparations, Yastrezhembksy spent most of the press conference countering what he described as an "information war" waged by the press to spread "horror stories" about the jubilee ahead of the event.
Yastrezhembsky went so far as to compare the situation here with that he faces in his usual work in the Kremlin.
"Unfortunately, on the eve of the celebrations, with regard to the intensity of trading in rumors about the 300th anniversary, the city has managed to outstrip Chechnya," Yastrezhembsky said.
In particular, Yastrezhembsky criticized the media for portraying the event as being geared almost exclusively to federal and international officials; reports that St. Petersburg's traffic police had been ordered to revoke from 60,000 to 70,000 driver's licenses for minor violations, in order to east the traffic situation in the city; or that local police have been asking people who live along the routes from Pulkovo 2 Airport that will be used by official foreign delegations to vacate their apartments during the celebrations.
"The roads and courtyards that have been reconstructed in St. Petersburg will serve the city's residents - not VIPs - while there are 2,700 events on the calendar for the celebrations, and VIPs will participate in only seven of these," Yastrezhembsky said.
Yastrezhembsky continued through a laundry list of criticisms and rumors that have been leveled at the jubilee, debunking or offering an explanation for each.
For example, he quoted one newspaper report that "the city will be under the power of 40,000 police and federal-security officers," countering that the actual number will be about half of this. He added that the French City of Evian, which will host a meeting of G-8 country leaders at the beginning of June, plans to have 16,000 police officers on duty for the event.
"The security measures here are in line with international standards, especially considering that St. Petersburg will be hosting 45 heads of state or government," Yastrezhembsky said.
Yastrezhembsky also dismissed a rumor that the metro would be closed for the celebrations, while offering a correction on another - that 138,000 people with registered firearms in the city had been required to hand their weapons over to the police.
"The truth is that, during police investigations of the guns and their owners, 2,000 of them were fined for various violations" he said.
Yastrezhembsky has not been alone in criticizing the 300th-anniversary rumor mill. Governor Vladimir Yakovlev - perhaps only partly tongue in cheek - has suggested that a book of the 300 most interesting rumors should be published once the festivities have ended.
For her part, Matviyenko chose to focus on the state of preparations ahead of the official opening of the events on May 23.
"There has been an enormous amount of work done," Matviyenko said at Wednesdays press conference. "The city hasn't witnessed reconstruction and road work of this scale for a very long time."
Matviyenko said that the 40 billion rubles ($1.3 billion) that had been allocated for the work from the federal budget has allowed for significant improvements to be made at the city's international airport and railway stations and the renovation of numerous historical sites and monuments.
TITLE: Putin Looking To Mend Russia-U.S. Relations
AUTHOR: By Simon Saradzhyan
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin informed U.S. President George W. Bush on Thursday that Russia is ready to work with the United States on all fronts, the strongest personal signal from Putin yet that he is eager to mend ties that were strained over Iraq.
"There is more substance that unites us than questions that we differ over," Putin wrote in a message delivered to the White House on Thursday by Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, according to the Kremlin press service.
In his message, Putin said that he was looking forward to holding talks with Bush in St. Petersburg and noted that the entire international community benefits from U.S.-Russian cooperation, which enhances global stability and security.
Ivanov held 20-minute talks with Bush and U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, who "assessed the conversation as very positive and warm," Itar-Tass reported from Washington. There was no immediate official reaction from the Bush administration.
Ivanov was the first top Russian official to visit the White House since the Iraq war began. Putin's chief of staff, Alexander Voloshin, visited in February, during the diplomatic wrangling that preceded the invasion.
The official agenda of Ivanov's three-day visit is consultations on strategic arms, possible cooperation in development of anti-missile defense and the fight against terrorism. In reality, however, the trip offers Putin an opportunity to have his close confidant try to patch up relations behind closed doors in Washington ahead of the presidents' meeting in St. Petersburg on June 1.
Russia has been gradually softening its tough stance on Iraq ever since Putin announced in early April, while fighting in Iraq was still going on, that Russia did not want to see the U.S. defeated.
After seeing the U.S.-led coalition win the war, Moscow decided not to flatly reject Washington's suggestion that Russia forgive Iraq's $8 billion debt. Instead, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin agreed at a meeting of G-8 finance ministers last week for the debt to be settled through the Paris Club. Finally, after weeks of diplomatic pressure from the United States, Russia agreed to vote in the UN Security Council on Thursday to lift the sanctions on Iraq.
These steps have not gone unnoticed by the Bush administration, and the St. Petersburg summit will offer an opportunity for the two leaders to demonstrate that their personal relations have not suffered over the war in Iraq.
However, Bush and Putin plan to sign no major agreements at the summit, which demonstrates that Russia needs to be more proactive if it wants relations with the United States to develop further, according to Michael McFaul, a Stanford University professor and well-known Russia expert.
Whether it is economic projects in Iraq or anti-missile defense, it is the Kremlin that should be pushing the agenda since the White House is less interested in whether Russia is involved in these spheres, McFaul said in a interview with Gazeta.ru displayed on the Internet new source's Web site Thursday.
In addition to the government, Russian companies should also be more active in trying to win deals in Iraq, according to Ivan Safranchuk of the Center for Defense Information. Even if the Kremlin received pre-war guarantees from the White House that its economic interests would be honored in postwar Iraq, Russian companies would still need to fight for concrete contracts, Safranchuk said.
There are two spheres, however, where the White House needs the Kremlin's assistance, and they are the ongoing fight against terrorism and nonproliferation, according to Graham Allison, director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University.
Russia can use its influence to try to prevent Iran and North Korea from becoming nuclear powers, Allison was quoted in Thursday's issue of Kommersant as saying. The United States should also assist Russia in boosting security at its nuclear arsenals and facilities to prevent theft, he said.
Russia is expected to receive a substantial part of the $20 billion that other Group of Eight members pledged to spend on non-proliferation over the course of 20 years at their June 2002 summit in Kananaskis, Canada, Vladimir Orlov, the head of the PIR-Center, said at a press conference Thursday. Allocation of this sum is to be discussed at the G-8 summit in France on June 1-3.
TITLE: Prosecutor Calls On CEC Boss To Leave
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The St. Petersburg Prosecutor's Office sent a request to the City Election Commission (CEC) on Tuesday requesting that Alexander Garusov be replaced as the head of the commission. The Prosecutor's Office request was based on the fact that, contrary to requirements in federal election legislation passed in February, Garusov does not possess a post-graduate, or higher, degree in law.
"According to Article 29.12 of the [election] law, the heads of regional election commissions in the Russian Federation must possess a post-graduate degree or a Ph.D. in law," the Prosecutor's Office's document read. "But, according to information from the City Election Commission, Alexander Garusov has neither." The request said that action should be taken immediately, with the CEC called on to replace Garusov at its next meeting.
Garusov graduated from the Leningrad Maritime Construction Institute in 1969.
The request is the second time Garusov has come under fire in as many weeks. Last week, the St. Petersburg Audit Chamber filed a report with the City Prosecutor's Office stating that an investigation of December's elections for the Legislative Assembly had turned up numerous violations of federal election laws. The most serious charge leveled in the report was that of 10-million-rubles (about $322,500) that had been used illegally by local television channel TRK Peterburg and three vice governors.
The City Prosecutor's Office, however, says that the current request has nothing to do with last week's report and that the inquiry into Garusov's educational background was initiated as a result of a request from Natalya Yevdokimova, a Yabloko lawmaker in the assembly.
"Our job is to ensure that federal legislation is followed at the local level," Yelena Ordynskaya, spokesperson for the City Prosecutor's Office, said in a telephone interview on Wednesday. "Although the Prosecutor's Office is responsible for sending such a request [to the CEC], it was initiated after a number of representatives of different governmental structures and local lawmakers filed inquires of the same type as Yevdokimova's"
Ordynskya could not provide information on inquiries other than that filed by Yevdokimova.
Representatives of the City Election Commission say that they are aware of the Prosecutor's Office's request, but have not yet received the documents.
"We have a person who is in charge of the commission, although he is on sick leave at the moment, but we have yet to receive the request, so there's nothing to discuss so far," Dmitry Krasnyansky, a lawyer with the CEC, said in an interview on Wednesday. "As soon as we receive the request. we'll look though it."
Krasnyansky said that it is the responsibility of the Central Election Commission in Moscow to appoint a new chief at the local commission.
Yevdokimova said the reaction from the City Prosecutor's Office took her by surprise, since she sent her request to the federal Prosecutor General's Office.
"I sent it about month ago and received an answer, signed by a deputy prosecutor general, saying that Garusov could remain in his position until next March, when his four-year term expires because, at the time he was chosen, there were no regulations requiring a certain education," Yevdokimova said in an interview Wednesday.
Yevdokimova said that the story has taken a few new turns since the initial reply.
"I was perfectly satisfied with the answer, but then this request came from [City Prosecutor General Nikolai] Vinichenko, Garusov fell ill and, now, there are rumors that he is about to submit a letter of resignation," she said.
Vladimir Yeryomenko, a former member of the pro-governor United City bloc in the Legislative Assembly, who now sits as an independent, said that the latest move against Garusov is just part of a larger campaign by other political groups that are striving to establish control over the election commission, which has widely been seen as under the control of Governor Vladimir Yakovlev in recent years.
"This is all part of a larger state of constant psychological pressure on the Central Election Commission from all of the structures looking to make sure that their representatives are in place on the City Election Commission, including Yabloko, the presidential representative's office and others," said Yeryomenko.
"It is quite likely, as we all know, that the next [gubernatorial] elections will be held as early as this autumn," he added.
While analysts agree that the situation surrounding Garusov's tenure at the CEC is, in all likelihood, related to jockeying for position ahead of the next gubernatorial elections, some criticize the manner in which some sides are trying to achieve their objectives.
"I just feel like we've seen this all before," said Leonid Kesselman, a political analyst at the Sociology Department of the Russian Academy of Science. "There is a limited number of scenarios for getting rid of certain people that we just see used over and over again. It's like these people have no imagination at all."
TITLE: 1703+300 = 2003
TEXT: May 23 Jubilee Opening
Noon Gala opening ceremony of the Marble Palace Marble Palace
4 p.m. "St. Petersburg Faces," an exhibition of amateur photography Central venues. Call Kodak in Moscow at (095) 929-9166 for more details
5 p.m. "300,000 Free Photographs for Residents and Guests of the City," an anniversary-event presentation by Kodak Central venues
6 p.m. Anniversary Week Opening Ceremonies Ice Palace
May 24 Grateful Descendants
10 a.m. Wreath-laying ceremonies Piskaryovskoye Cemetery (Pr. Nepokoryonnykh, M: Lesnaya) and other memorial locations
10 a.m. Unveiling of a monument to Peter the Great Plaza in front of Sampsonievsky Cathedral, Sampsonievsky Pr. M: Vyborgskaya
11 a.m. Opening ceremony of Phase One of the St. Petersburg Tercentenary Park Tercentenary Park, 157 Primorsky Pr. M: Staraya Derevnya
1 p.m. to 6 p.m. "The Diamond Ring of St. Petersburg," steam-engine trips to the suburban residences of the tsars at Pushkin Call the Central Museum of October Railways at 168-6891 for details
2 p.m. Gala opening of St. Petersburg Ice-Cream Festival Ploshchad Ostrovskogo
6 p.m. Opening of "Raduga" ("Rainbow"), the fourth international drama festival for children and teens Bryantsev Theater of Young Spectators. 1 Pionerskaya Pl. M: Pushkinskaya. Tel.: 112-4068
7 p.m. Official reopening after restoration of the Alexander Column Palace Square. M: Nevsky Prospect/Gostinny Dvor
8 p.m. Performance by Joseph Hasen, Director of the Royal Carillon School of Belgium Peter and Paul Fortress. M: Gorkovskaya. Tel.: (812) 238-0511.
8 p.m. Solo concert by Alexander Rozenbaum Palace Square
May 25 Festival on Every Street
Noon Open house at the Vaganova Ballet Academy Vaganova Ballet Academy, Ul. Zodchego Rossi. Tel.: 312-1702
1 p.m. Third International Jubilee Carnival and Parade Nevsky Prospect
2 p.m. Opening of an exhibition devoted to the life and works of Carlo Rossi Flag Pavilion, Kirov Central Park for Culture and Recreation, Yelagin Island. M: Krestovsky Ostrov/Staraya Derevnya. Tel.: 239-1010
2 p.m. to 11 p.m. "St. Petersburg Silhouette" fashion show Palace Square
4 p.m. to 6 a.m. International Festival St. Petersburg 300 Years. Kremlin-sponsored rock festival featuring Splin, Mumy Trol, Ruki Verkh, Diskoteka Avariya, Nochnye Snaipery, Ivanushki International and more. Kirov Stadium
5 p.m. Arrival of "Gift of Youth," a sailing ship from Gdansk, Poland Neva River
May 26 City of Promise: Celebrating the Sciences
10 a.m. Grand reopening after renovation of the Russian Academy of Sciences Russian Academy of Sciences, 5 Universitetskaya Nab. M: Vasileostrovskaya. Tel.: 328-3784
11 a.m. Grand opening of the University Labyrinth Complex, attended by rectors/presidents of the world's leading universities, dedicated to George Soros St. Petersburg State University, 7 Universitetskaya Nab. M: Vasileostrovskaya. Tel.: 327-7471.
3 p.m. Grand opening of the exhibition "St. Petersburg 300" Lenexpo, 2 Nalichnaya Ul. M: Primorskaya
4 p.m. to 6 a.m. International Festival St. Petersburg 300 Years. Second day of the government-sponsored rock festival Kirov Stadium
2 p.m. "Apple Orchard," a tree-planting ceremony for apple trees, an anniversary gift to St. Petersburg from Helsinki Tercentenary Park
7 p.m. to 11 p.m. "White Nights on Palace Square," an outdoor classical-music concert dedicated to the anniversary Palace Square
May 27 City Day
10 a.m. to 10:45 a.m. The laying of wreaths at the Bronze Horseman Ploshchad Dekabristov. M: Sennaya Ploshchad/Sadovaya
11 a.m. to 11:20 a.m. The laying of a commemorative medal on the sarcophagus of Peter the Great by the governor of St. Petersburg, Vladimir Yakovlev Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral, Peter and Paul Fortress
11:30 a.m. to noon Unveiling of a commemorative emblem for the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg Gosudarev Bastion, Peter and Paul Fortress
10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Orthodox Church service in honor of the anniversary St. Isaac's Cathedral
1 p.m. to 2 p.m. Governor's review of the Cadet Corps Palace Square
2 p.m. Gala opening of the new Main Gate of the State Hermitage Museum on Palace Square State Hermitage Museum
3 p.m. Grand reopening of renovated historical parts of St. Petersburg State University St. Petersburg State University.
5 p.m. Gala opening of the Mikhailovsky Garden Mikhailovsky Garden
5 p.m. Grand opening of the Engineer's (Mikhailovsky) Castle Engineer's (Mikhailovsky) Castle
5 p.m. to 11 p.m. International Festival St. Petersburg 300 Years. Third day of the government-sponsored rock festival. Kirov Stadium
7 p.m. to 11 p.m. "Chapel Choir," a gala concert of choirs Kazan Cathedral plaza
9 p.m. Water show on the Neva River Neva River
Midnight Hiro Yamagato laser show Neva River, Vasilievsky Island Spit
TITLE: Law Puts Millions in Jeopardy
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - A new law on obtaining Russian citizenship has created a pile of red tape that threatens to leave more than a million Russians stateless when their Soviet passports are annulled Jan. 1.
About 1.5 million Soviet citizens who returned to Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union could be stranded without citizenship and benefits after an ongoing passport exchange program ends, Vladimir Shumov, the head of the Kremlin's citizenship directorate, was quoted as saying by Izvestia on Thursday.
The problem is rooted in a Kremlin-backed law on citizenship that was passed last June. President Vladimir Putin lambasted the law in his state of the nation address last Friday.
The law requires those applying for Russian citizenship to obtain at least 15 stamped documents from various government agencies, said Yevgeny Bobrov, a lawyer with the nongovernmental Forum of Migrants Organizations. To get the first document, the applicant must be the citizen of some country - which the Soviet-passport holders are not.
TITLE: Confusion Over Staravoitova Remarks
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Two days after saying in an interview that a former Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) deputy had been directly involved in the murder of her sister, liberal State Duma Deputy Galina Starovoitova, Olga Starovoitova said that she would no longer talk to journalists about the case, claiming that many of her comments had been misinterpreted.
In an interview with Ekho Moskvy Radio on Monday, Olga Starovoitova said that the deputy had been responsible for ordering the assassination of her sister in the staircase of her apartment building in November 1998.
"One of the organizers of the assassination received an order from one of the people mentioned in the investigation as an unidentified person, who was a State Duma lawmaker from the LDPR faction," Olga Starovoitova said in the interview.
"I know from unofficial sources that the person who ordered this is currently living abroad, in Europe," she added. "These type of orders are not made in writing, so, unfortunately, there's no way to prove it."
At the same time, Starovoitova stated that the anonymous LDPR deputy had nothing personal against her sister and "probably got the order from somebody else."
Starovoitova's comments drew an immediate response from LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who said that LDPR deputies had nothing to do with the assassination and said that he, personally, was "very sympathetic in relation to Galina Starovoitova."
"I'm sorry, very sorry for her. I'm very sorry, but any revolution dies inevitably, as all these [people] die who had been provoking all of these unnecessary, anti-Russian revolutions," Zhirinovsky said in an NTV interview on Monday. "We're for discussion, we're for freedom, we're for the law, for the constitution."
"This is all the democrats' fault," he added. "Olya should calm down and not think of the LDPR in a negative way to avoid any problems for her in the future. We've got to make it better for us to live, to make it better for everyone."
On Wednesday, Starovoitova said that her words had been twisted to give the impression that she had named the former LDPR deputy by name.
"In some publications, my words were put in a strange context," she said in a second interview with Ekho Moskvy Radio, on Wednesday. "[It is] absolutely unacceptable that such a wide range of publications quoted anonymous sources, naming as if they were certain, people who are allegedly linked to the case."
"The only sensible way to behave now is to stop answering questions from journalists about the investigation until I have finished going through materials of the case," she said.
The daily newspaper Izvestiya identified the former deputy as Mikhail Glushchenko, who was a member of the State Duma Geopolitics Committee.
Ruslan Linkov, the leader of St. Petersburg branch of the Democratic Russia party, who was Galina Starovoitova's assistant and was wounded in the fatal attack on her, says that he understands Olga Starovoitova's reaction, since she did not name any names. While he said that he knows about which former deputy she was speaking, he also refused to provide a name. However, Linkov's description of the individual was very specific.
"This is a former deputy from the State Duma of LDPR faction from 1996 to 1999, who was one of the leaders of [the local] Tambov [organized crime] group, had close financial relations with the LDPR leader and a friendship with Governor Vladimir Yakovlev and State Duma speaker [Gennady Seleznyov]. Currently, he lives in Marbella, Spain, where he has a villa," Linkov said in a telephone interview Thursday.
TITLE: Teens Spend Billions on Booze
AUTHOR: By Oksana Yablokova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - With children smoking their first cigarette at age 11, drinking their first beer at age 13 and trying drugs at age 14, teenagers are spending a staggering $8 billion per year on alcohol, tobacco and drugs, according to a new study by the Education Ministry.
Education Minister Vladimir Filippov said taxes on tobacco and alcohol should be hiked to discourage teenagers from smoking and drinking - and then later turning to drugs.
The study of 5,000 youths from 88 regions found there are 900,000 drug addicts among youths between the ages of 11 and 24. At least 4 million more young people in the same age group have tried drugs at least once.
Half of the respondants aged 11 to 13 were familiar with different kinds of drugs and their effects, while the amount swelled to 80 percent among 16-year-olds.
According to the Health Ministry's latest statistics, some 6.5 million Russians have experimented with drugs, and 2 million of them are hardened drug addicts. Independent experts believe the real number of drug users is much higher.
Andrei Gerish, the Education Ministry official who conducted the study, said Tuesday that the number of drug users has slumped since 1997 but still remains alarmingly high.
"There is no cause for optimism. The numbers are huge, and they are not declining," Gerish said.
He said that 80 percent of the respondents in the survey said they regularly drank, usually beer, while 50 percent said they smoked.
Of the $8 billion spent on drugs, alcohol and cigarettes, $2.5 billion is spent on alcohol, Gerish said.
He could not provide figures for drugs and cigarettes.
Filippov recommended the tax hikes after reading the report Monday. He said that the government should reclassify beer as an alcoholic beverage and consider slapping restrictions on beer advertisements.
Beer is not recognized as an alcoholic beverage and is widely available to teenagers. The ministry study counted beer as alcohol.
Sergei Politykhin of the No to Alcohol and Drugs foundation said it was encouraging that the education minister had addressed the issue but expressed doubt if any measures would follow.
"There is no commitment to the problem in the government," Politykhin said.
For a start, he said, it would make sense to start enforcing existing restrictions on the sale of alcohol and tobacco to children under 18.
TITLE: Stolen Phone Data Now on Sale
AUTHOR: By Angelina Davydova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Telephone databases containing personal information on more than 3.9 million cellular and fixed-line subscribers in St. Petersburg have been stolen, local operators admitted this week. While the private information on fixed-line subscribers has been available for purchase on CD-ROM and over the Internet for several years, this theft, according to analysts, is one of the largest ever leaks of information on cellular subscribers in Russia.
CD-ROMs containing information on 1.3 million St. Petersburg subscribers of cellular operator Megafon, 500,000 local subscribers of Mobile TeleSystems (MTS), 120,000 subscribers of Delta Telecom, and 15,000 of Fora Communications, as well as data on 1.9 million Northwest Telecom fixed-line subscribers and 100,000 subscribers of the fixed-line operator Peterstar, have been available since the end of 2002. It is only recently, however, that the advertising of these databases has become widespread on the Internet and by means of unsolicited e-mails.
The databases contain the telephone numbers, names, passport numbers, addresses and contact telephone numbers of subscribers, allowing searches through the information to be carried out by using any of the indicators.
Alexander Volkov, Director of the Northwest branch of Megafon, said in an official statement released earlier this week that the company has not found any evidence of the unsanctioned transfer of information regarding client databases since the middle of 2002.
"We are now taking measures to investigate the possibility that some information on our company subscribers has appeared on the Internet. We're also cooperating with the police on this issue," Volkov said.
Yelena Myshko, spokesperson for Megafon's Northwest Branch, said in a telephone interview on Thursday that no concrete results of the investigation are available for the time being.
According to Aelita Davydova, the spokesperson for MTS St. Petersburg branch, the company is also investigating the database theft. "The existing protection system of our telephone databases excludes the possibility of unsanctioned access to the information. However, the fact that all telephone operators have been affected by the theft, should also attract the attention of law-enforcement agencies."
"The availability of the databases on the Internet and CD-ROM has been known about for several months now. Although we do not consider this theft to be a case of the highest priority, we are continuing the investigation process," the press service of the FSB said on Thursday.
"People don't appear to be particularly concerned about the leak of information - subscribers did not rush to change their telephone numbers at once," the FSB press service said.
Anton Pogrebensky, a senior analyst at the ACM-Consulting company, also maintains that the theft of the cellular databases won't have a drastic affect on the mobile-communications market. "It has always been possible to get information of this kind, it's just become even more accessible now."
"Such thefts have also happened in Moscow - the databases of Vimpelcom subscribers and Moscow subscribers of MTS have been available. After a while, however, these scandals seem to have been forgotten, and they haven't led to any great numbers of clients leaving these companies," he said.
Earlier this year, MTS said that one of its databases, containing information on about 5 million of its subscribers, had been stolen, copied and then sold on the black market.
In 1997, databases with information on Northwest GSM (now Megafon), Delta Telecom and fixed-line St. Petersburg subscribers appeared. Northwest GSM blamed one of its dealers for disclosing information on clients who had subscribed through the dealer in question.
"This time, all operators have been affected by the leak, which means that none of them are likely to lose their customers," Pogrebensky said.
"Subscribers need mobile communications, and they're not going anywhere in a hurry."
In contrast, Pogrebensky believes that rumors that certain companies are having problems with billing systems, with clients being overcharged, have been a serious problem.
TITLE: Number of Web Surfers Up 350,000 Per Month
AUTHOR: By Larisa Naumenko
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Russians are flocking to the Web like never before, with more than 350,000 new surfers venturing into cyberspace each month, according to a new survey.
The number of adults who have used the Internet at least once in the last six months has jumped from 8.8 million in September to nearly 12 million now, according to the author of the survey, Russkiye Fondy, a shareholder in Rambler Internet Holding.
And Deputy Economic Development and Trade Minister Andrei Sharonov predicted that the number could hit 20 million by 2005.
With roughly 11 percent of the adult population having experienced the Web, Russia would have ranked No. 22 in the world in terms of Internet penetration, just above Argentina and Brazil, but behind Spain and Italy, as of September 2002, according to a Public Opinion Fund survey using the Nielsen/Net.Ratings method. In absolute numbers, Russia was No. 11 in the world in September, just ahead of Australia and Spain and just behind Brazil and Britain.
Russkiye Fondy said that the study released this week was designed so that advertisers could better gauge the demographics of the country's virtual community, identifying usage trends by age, gender and region.
"Studying the interests of the Internet audience is an important way to increase the efficiency of advertising and a significant driver of the creation and development of new Internet projects," said Yelena Binas, vice president at Russkiye Fondy.
Men dominate the Russian Internet two to one, according to the survey, with most male surfers in the 25 to 34 and 20 to 24 age groups, or 23 percent and 17 percent of the entire audience, respectively. The trend is similar for women, with female users between the ages of 20 and 24 accounting for 12 percent of total users and those between 25 and 34 accounting for 10 percent.
In terms of how people use the Web, the survey revealed a couple of general trends, Binas said. The positive is that more people are interested in family-related issues, such as children and health, while the negative is the increasing interest in pornographic sites and decreasing interest in culture, she said.
Surfers from St. Petersburg prefer information on telecommunications, weather, real estate and personal hobbies, the study said.
TITLE: St. Petersburg Rating Raised
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: ST. PETERSBURG - The international rating agency Fitch Ratings has upgraded its long-term foreign and local currency rating for St. Petersburg from BB- to BB, placing the city at Rating Watch Positive. According to anagency statement released on Monday, this alteration results from the recent upgrade of the long-term foreign and local currency ratings of Russia from BB- to BB+.
"St. Petersburg directly benefits from Russia's good macroeconomic performance, as its budget revenue is by and large made up of taxes. The dynamic and vibrant economy of the city has made it resilient to unfavorable changes in national tax legislation and tax-sharing arrangements with the federation that have been ongoing since 1999," the statement said.
"Debt-reduction policies pursued by the city until 2001 saw total debt, including guarantees, fall to 29 percent by the end of 2001. In line with the budget targets for 2003, the total debt ratio will not be higher than 26 percent."
Fitch analysts believe that these ratios will decrease if the budget revenues exceed projections and debt limits, including guarantees, are not fully used. However, Fitch has some concerns about the consequences for the city budget of the abolition of sales tax in 2004.
Along with St. Petersburg, Fitch Ratings also upgraded the long-term foreign and local currency ratings of Moscow to BB from BB-.
TITLE: Ominous Silence to Federal-Reform Questions
AUTHOR: By Nikolai Petrov
TEXT: AN attentive reader of last weeks address from President Vladimir Putin might note that it mentions neither federalism nor federal reform directly. The federal districts come up once in passing, presidential envoys do not get a mention at all and the Federation Council itself gets a nod only when the president addresses his audience. And barely a word is spoken on municipal reform.
There is something mysterious in this pattern of omission, especially if one takes into account that, at the end of April, literally right before the address was penned, the president met with all his envoys and with the leaders of the Federation Council. At the first meeting, having thanked all his appointees for their work, Putin described the tasks they still faced - which included introducing stricter oversight of state spending and switching regional parliaments to the party-based distribution of seats. At the second meeting, he noted the Federation Council's importance as a filter for flawed laws, the passage of which was "dictated by local or corporate interests."
One possible explanation for dropping federal reform from the long presidential list - which included military, administrative tax, economic, land and pension reform, as well as reform of the natural monopolies and communal housing - could tentatively be dubbed the "phenomenon of the Sahara lumberjack." The old joke goes like this: After its victory in an international wood-chopping competition, a team from the Sahara desert is asked how they could have won, given that there are no forests in the Sahara. One of the team members, eyes lowered, responds: "There are no forests now."
The same idea is expressed a little more harshly in the saying, "You don't discuss rope in a house where someone hanged himself." In other words, federal reform has come to its logical end - the dismantling of federalism, "keeping the state in one piece despite its immense size," re-establishing its unity. As a result, the Russia of the president's address appears to be a tightly centralized state.
Another explanation is also possible: Federal reform continues but, since it is directed first and foremost against independent regional leaders, specifically against those - as a recent United Russia conference showed - on whom the Kremlin is placing its bets, the authorities decided not to "spook the geese" before the elections. In this case, when the president says that work to delineate powers between the center and the regions, as well as "to create viable and financially secure local government," has only just begun, it can be considered a veiled threat.
These explanations are not mutually exclusive and the truth most is likely to be found in some kind of combination.
I would like to draw attention to another aspect: Federal reform as it was being implemented was only partially about relations between the center and the regions. It was primarily about power. And more about power at the national level than at the regional level. It is no coincidence that Putin's presidency began precisely with this. By creating federal districts that he fully controlled, Putin set the stage for taking control over the military, security and law-enforcement bodies - first, in the regions, then, in Moscow. In this sense, the changes of leadership in the Defense Ministry and the Interior Ministry in spring 2001 and the personnel shake-ups in the remaining "power structures" this spring are links in the same chain, which began being assembled three years ago, in May 2000. One can even see a similarity between the creation of the districts "from nothing" and the creation of new special services - the Financial Monitoring Committee and, now, the State Committee for the Battle Against Narcotics - headed by former colleagues of the president.
Putin's trademark style of working with personnel is to create new institutions that, initially, duplicate the functions of existing ones and, subsequently, take power away from them.
The recent replacement of Viktor Cherkesov with Valentina Matviyenko, like Sergei Ivanov's transfer from the Security Council to the Defense Ministry two years ago, could be evidence that the federal districts have, to a large extent, served their purpose. At least their initial purpose, which required the personal participation of generals loyal to Putin. Even if this is the case, the districts will most likely not disappear, but the day-to-day work with personnel - particularly in the regional power structures - will be carried out at the level of the deputy presidential envoys, while the envoys themselves become more like figureheads. Time will tell.
Overall, it is evident that, while the public part of the federal reform - i.e. the implementation of Dmitry Kozak's projects through the work of the government and parliament - has floundered, the less publicized "presidential" part, involving the establishment of total control over the power structures in Moscow and the regions, has been moving forward steadily.
Take, for example, the past year: The Tax Police - who had been well fed by the governors ahead of elections - were replaced by Viktor Zubkov's "financial intelligence service" and Viktor Cherkesov's anti-drug agency. At the same time, in every city and hamlet, the presidential envoys were given supervisory offices, as well as coordinating centers masquerading as so-called public reception points. Moreover, these receive autonomous funding from specially created funds. On these points the president's address was silent.
Nikolai Petrov, the head of the Center for Political and Geographical Research, contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times.
TITLE: Jubilee Spending Makes Theory of Relativity Seem Simple
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalyev
TEXT: IF I had to pick one word to describe Russia, I think that the word would be "priceless." Now, before anyone accuses me of going off on a patriotic tangent, let me explain what I mean by the word in this case: Especially when it's a case of a government-financed project, it is often virtually impossible here to find out exactly what something costs. My frustration at this comes both from the difficulties it poses in my work as a journalist and from what I feel is a reasonable interest as a Russian taxpayer.
How much, for instance, is being paid for the sod that they are laying around the Hermitage and the Kazan and St. Isaac's cathedrals in recent days? Watching the birds trying to lift the pieces of sod in search of grass seeds underneath, I found myself wondering how much we were paying in order to witness their confusion.
Last spring, I recall that the local media was full of cheer and reports of the fact that, to finance preparations for the city's 300th anniversary, about $1 billion in total was being transferred from the federal budget. Among the projects that the money was supposed to support was the completion of the eastern part of the Ring Road (not yet complete), to renovate the city's flood-protection barrier (remains in pretty much the same condition) and to repair and reopen the flooded stretch of the metro line between the Ploshchad Muzhestvo and Lesnaya stations (I don't know about the water, but the line is still closed). What these projects have in common is that they would mean a genuine improvement in the quality of life of ordinary citizens.
From what I can see, the effect of the $1 billion has been mostly cosmetic, a facelift to make the city look, in the opinion of many locals, more attractive to foreign bigwigs coming for the celebrations.
The biggest questions that we have heard have been from a number of Kremlin and justice officials about the efficiency - and even legality - of the way the money has been spent. The Northwest Region Prosecutor, for example, said earlier this spring that about $15 million has been misspent.
Given the spending habits of governments here, the amount - which is only about 1 1/2 percent of the total money involved - doesn't disturb me that much. It's pretty standard around here. What is most annoying is that they won't tell us where and on which projects the violations occurred. This lack of specifics is the case just about anywhere you look.
I'm happy that the city's railway stations have all been renovated, and a new one has even been added. The Federal Railway Ministry says that the price tag was 7 billion rubles (about $226 million). But it's impossible to find out, for instance, what the cost of the work was on Moskovsky Vokzal.
Fine. Maybe I'm trying to be too specific. But what about Tuesday's announcement by Valentina Matviyenko, the presidential representative in the Northwest Region, that the Finance Ministry is ponying up the money to ensure good weather in St. Petersburg during the days of the celebrations. Here, again, she won't tell us how much of our money this is going to cost.
The only explanation that seems feasible to me in this case is that, because aircraft from the Russian Air Force will be used in the project, the secrecy has something to do with state security.
Seeking help, I turned to the Internet, where it took me a few minutes to find out that one hour of flight time for a MiG-29 fighter, for example, costs $5,500. It's still hard to guess at a total cost, since I don't know how much time they'll have to spend in the air. If it's eight hours a day for, let's say, three days, the total cost for the 10 jets Matviyenko said would be involved would be about $1.32 million. All of these calculations only work if my guesses are right on how much flying time is involved, the information on the number of jets from Matviyenko is accurate and there are no other costs I have neglected to consider. The chances that I've met all of these conditions are virtually nil.
So, as an ordinary taxpayer, I'm right back where I started - unable to determine how much of our money has been spent. Barring an offer of employment from the Federal Audit Chamber (unlikely), I'll probably never know just how much the (promised) good weather cost.
I'm not saying that there haven't been positives involved. Recently, a friend, who lives on Pereulok Antonenko, just a few meters away from St. Isaac's Square and the Hotel Astoria, where U.S. President George W. Bush will stay for the celebrations, complained about the spending.
"Look out of my window," he said. "This huge pile of garbage in the center of the courtyard has been there for two years and I can't do anything to convince local communal services to take it away."
The next day, he decided to get his piece of the celebration pie and called some friends at NTV, asking them to report on the sorrowful state of courtyards located along the roads of federal significance.
Within a day, the garbage was gone, supporting his claim that "fear of Kremlin reactions" is the only pressure that works here.
While I'm glad that the garbage is gone, it doesn't help me much. There's no way I can find out how much it cost.
TITLE: beet poet really digs his roots
AUTHOR: by Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Eccentric Seattle-based singer/songwriter Jason Webley caused quite a stir in Moscow when he played a series of club gigs there last year. This week, the troubadour who never misses an opportunity to celebrate vegetables - "Vegetables are great. They feed us. They go away. They come back," he says - plays three concerts in St. Petersburg.
At his Moscow gigs, Webley handed out coin-filled plastic bottles for audience members to rattle, decorated the stage with large papier-mache vegetables and threw the occasional carrot into the crowd. The most memorable event was an open-air concert at a construction site at which a crane lowered onto Webley's head a massive papier-mache beetroot that the singer subsequently set on fire.
"I like [the audience] to be part of the show, not just spectators," he said in an email interview this week. "I like them to be involved with their voices and their bodies. I like them to become hot or cold, to really experience something.
Webley's promoters say this year's tour includes a 5-meter long carrot for a gig at Moscow's B2 club that will probably come to St. Petersburg as well.
Webley deliberately keeps his background obscure: His Web site contains no biography, and he declined to talk about it in the interview, saying he was more interested in the history of his work.
Instead of a biography, Webley's Web site lists all of his concerts with links to fan reviews. A magazine review, meanwhile, decribed him as one of those performers who "try to be like Tom Waits," whose name also appeared on posters for the St. Petersburg shows. However, Webley denies that this is the case.
"I don't try to sound like Tom Waits," he wrote. "I often try to avoid it. I guess I don't do so well."
Apart from Waits, Webley cited Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen as influences, and said that he listened to a lot of punk, as well as folk, classical and Eastern European music. In Russia last year, he was given recordings by Vladimir Vysotsky, and said he had enjoyed listening to the late, gravel-voiced troubador since then.
"He's great," Webley wrote. "I wish I had discovered him earlier. I remember, when I first started playing on the streets in Seattle, occasionally someone from Russia would come up to me and say, 'Ah! Vysotsky!' but it wasn't until I came to Russia last summer that I actually heard his music. I've been listening a lot since. I especially enjoy his earlier solo guitar and vocal work."
Apart from his own songs, Webley performed a Russian song, "Shar Goluboi" ("Blue Ball"), in Moscow last year.
"I also recorded another Russian song, 'Moroz Moroz,' ['Frost, Frost'] last winter," he wrote. "I studied Russian briefly in high school but have never used it. It has been nice to begin to remember a bit of it."
Webley has released three albums, "Viage," (1998), "Against the Night" (1999) and "Counterpoint" (2002).
"'Counterpoint' was all about opposites," he wrote. "Broken cups, full cups. Tomatoes and carrots. Shovels and train tracks. It was also a study in music tradition. Melodies recur in new shapes over and over. There are twelve songs, one in each key, each song moves through he circle of fifths."
"I have a newer [album] being born in my head," he wrote. "It is sort of the inverted retrograde of my first album. I take all the old songs and play them backwards and upside down."
Webley said his success in Moscow came as a surprise.
"There is a fundamental difference in aesthetic in Russia," he wrote. "[In the United States], I have a lovely cult following who appreciate my work. Perhaps in Russia it has a broader appeal."
Jason Webley plays JFC Jazz Club at 8 p.m. Wednesday; Kapitan Morgan casino at midnight Thursday (see gigs for location details); and Red Club 10 p.m. on May 30. Links: www.jasonwebley.com
TITLE: different time zone, same sound
AUTHOR: by Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Washington D.C.'s top ska-jazz band, Eastern Standard Time, comes to St. Petersburg to play two concerts at local underground clubs this week.
Ska-jazz traces its roots to 1960s Jamaica. Performers play jazz arrangements of ska songs, or add ska beats to jazz standards - EST performs Charlie Parker's "Barbados" - while often writing original material.
EST founder member James McDonald, who plays drums and sings, wrote in an e-mail interview last week that, despite initially not being interested in jazz, he eventually found that "this music 'works' for me," and discovered correlations between the two styles.
"They both deal with very universal feelings, yet present them in a myriad of ways," he wrote. "At heart, they are both very honest styles of music. They are also both very expressive ... subtle, yet strong; simple, and yet often complex, but not in the conventional sense."
McDonald wrote that, despite the style's history, EST is "not overtly trying to copy a 1960s style" but that the time lag since ska jazz appeared actually helps the songwriting process.
"We simply aren't old enough to have experienced any of the culture and socio-political situations [that] originally gave birth to the styles of music we emulate," he wrote. "So we merely use the recipe employed by bands of that time as our framework, and pour our own musical and cultural experiences into it."
McDonald's listening preferences include a lot of 1950s and 1960s exotica, lounge and Latin music, as performed by acts like Louis Prima, Henry Mancini, Les Baxter, Perez Prado, Al Caiola and Martin Denny. He wrote that this "contributes a great deal" to the feel of EST's music, without stifling it.
"We're not trying to be a [1960s] review band," he wrote. "I think that our approach allows us to keep the music flexible and fresh, but still be rooted in a mid-century feeling."
When playing live, EST concentrates on its own material, but decides the set list for each show based on the audience or venue.
"We usually play about 30 percent cover material," he wrote. "Customarily, we choose covers that are relatively obscure, but we temper that by approaching any potential covers with the questions 'Is this a good song?' and 'Can we bring something to this?' in mind."
EST has been invited by local counterpart St. Petersburg Ska Jazz Review, with which it toured in Germany in 2001 and the United States late last year. McDonald wrote that the St. Petersburg band is "top notch;" it will join EST for jam sessions at the end of its gigs here.
Eastern Standard Time plays Fish Fabrique at 9 p.m. on Wednesday, and Moloko at 7 p.m. on Thursday. Links: www.easternstandardtime.com
TITLE: chernov's choice
TEXT: While Paul McCartney will play an open-air concert on Moscow's Red Square on Saturday, St. Petersburg's Palace Square will be occupied the same day by Alexander Rozenbaum, the city authorities preferred singer of gangster and macho army songs. A cynical observer might be tempted to point to this as indicative of the differences between the two cities.
In any case, McCartney chose to come to St. Petersburg first, flying in on Thursday for what was described as a "private visit" ("no photographs, no autographs" one representative said, only half joking; most of the city's photographers were present Thursday).
McCartney's first day included visits to the State Hermitage Museum and the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory, which asked him to accept an honorary doctorate. He was given a leather-bound certificate expressing the conservatory's wish to make him a Doctor Honoris Causa - not the actual document, despite what the press say - after which Valentina Matviyenko, presidential representative in the Northwest Region and touted by many as the city's next governor, presented him a formidable-looking book about the city.
McCartney was charming, though. His brief speech began in Russian, reading "privet, ya rad byt zdes" ("Hi, I'm happy to be here") from a note before switching to English. Matviyenko then spoke for about three times as long as the former Beatle.
On Friday, McCartney is due to officially inaugurate the work of a charity called the Menshikov Foundation at the Menshikov Palace Manege. The U.K.-registered charity operates in St. Petersburg to help musically gifted but deprived children. That evening, he goes to Moscow for a 2 1/2-hour, 33-song concert on Saturday expected to draw 50,000 fans.
The long arm of the Kremlin can also be seen in the quashing of local group DDT's plans for a huge rock festival at the Kirov Stadium on May 31. Although posters for the event listing an impressive array of bands appeared recently, they were quickly removed as a different, even larger event spanning four days - May 25, 26, 27, 29 - sponsored by various federal ministries took over the venue.
At a Moscow press conference this week, the band voiced its anger about an "ongoing war betwen rock and pop" and a "spit in the face of St. Petersburg rock" that sees acts like Ruki Vverkh and Mumii Troll playing instead of real Russian rockers - such as DDT.
Meanwhile, the main attractions on the city's club scene this week are two U.S. acts, Seattle-based singer/songwriter Jason Webley and a ska-jazz ensemble Eastern Standard Time from Washington, which both start playing local clubs on Wednesday. The two are very different, but both seem to be good to watch. See articles, page ii.
- by Sergey Chernov
TITLE: philharmonic assembles chamber stars
AUTHOR: by Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A new chamber-music festival organized by renowned Yury Temirkanov kicks off this weekend.
"St. Petersburg Assembly," which runs through June 5, is the latest in a seemingly endless series of events that the city's cultural institutions are running to honor the city's 300th anniversary.
"It would be strange if [the Shostakovich Philharmonic] was a mere spectator during the 300th-anniversary celebrations," Valentina Azovskaya, director of the Glinka Philharmonic, the Shostakovich Philharmonic's chamber hall, said at a press conference in April. "We're happy to give this present to the city's citizens."
The festival features six concerts by top European muscians, including Swedish mezzo-soprano Ann-Sophie von Otter, Britain's Lindsay String Quartet, Russian violinist Viktor Tretyakov, French male soprano Fabrice de Falco and Spanish guitarist Pepe Romero, who plays the first concert in the Glinka Philharmonic on Sunday. Romero, awarded the title of Knight of the Order of St. Isabella by Spanish King Juan Carlos in 2000, represents arguably the world's most renowned dynasty of guitarists.
The festival also includes an evening of classical jazz performed by Russian musicians - the country's top saxophonist Georgy Garanyan, pianist Denis Matsuyev, double-bassist Andrei Ivanov and the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra.
"St. Petersburg Assembly" culminates on May 28 with a ball hosted by Temirkanov, also in the Glinka Philharmonic, a marvelous 18th-century mansion with superb acoustics for small-scale music making. Designed by Bartolomeo Rastrelli, the mansion belonged to the family of Prince Vasily Engelhardt before the revolutions of 1917, and frequently played host to balls and meetings of Europe's first philharmonic society. The ball aims to revive the tradition of high-society entertainment in the historic building.
"Naturally, it will be a very musical ball, but don't expect me to reveal the secrets beforehand," Temirkanov said at the press conference. "I will keep the guests guessing until the last moment."
The Shostakovich Philharmonic is also preparing a giant gala concert to be held sometime around Tuesday's official City Day. However, that performance will be for a much more elite audience at the Konstantinovsky Palace in Strelna, the imperial palace in the suburb of Strelna, 10 kilometers southwest of St. Petersburg, restored as a presidential residence for the 300th anniversary.
Links: www.assembly300.ru, www.assembly300.com
TITLE: shh! nobody mention r***y m****n
AUTHOR: by Thomas Rymer
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The first time he noticed that a Latin-American restaurant - La Vida Loca - had opened on Gorokhovaya Ulitsa, our arts editor, bless his warm little heart and twisted sense of justice, decided that I should be the person to write the review.
I say "warm heart" because this individual is aware of my own penchant for spicy foods, particularly of the Latin-American variety. I say "twisted sense of justice" because he is also aware of my strong dislike for a certain singer whose song of the same name as the restaurant drove me virtually insane with its omnipresence on local airwaves about three years ago (for reasons of decorum, we decided that it would be better not to mention Ricky Martin here by name.)
The history that led to this review now explained, I'll move on to what turned out to be an interesting and thoroughly enjoyable dinner.
Making our way down into the restaurant's below-street location, my dinner companion and I were pleased by the generally warm and low-key atmosphere and, at the same time, intrigued by what appeared to be Latin-American dance lessons taking place right in the middle of the dining room. Grabbing a cozy little spot in the corner we perused the menus, which are written in Spanish and Russian, and watched with interest as, one by one, new people arrived to join in the dancing display. A glance at the restaurant's Web site (www.lavidaloca.restaurant.ru) confirmed that the lessons are regular events at La Vida Loca.
The site also describes La Vida Loca as St. Petersburg's first Cuban restaurant, complete with Latin-American staff and a menu that offers a variety of dishes not only Cuban in origin, but from the rest of Latin America, including Mexico. Although our server was Russian, leading to a few interesting moments as we worked our way through selections being made in the first language of none of the participants, our host's accented Russian and the occasional jumps from Russian into Spanish in the conversations around us confirmed the site's claim.
The menu offers a broad selection of dishes and, in what will be welcome news to those who prefer tamer fare, includes some standard, non-spicy options.
My companion and I decided to go the cocktail route with regard to drinks, my Pina Colada (110 rubles, $3.55) was exactly what I had expected and had been craving, while her Faego Liquido (85 rubles, $2.75) was an interesting combination of pineapple and lemon juices, rum and beer, and drew rave reviews.
Turning to the list of soups and the like, I opted for the standard chili (100 rubles, $3.25), which was a generous portion of a more-soup-like combination of beans, ground beef and spices that, at first, seemed to me more tangy than spicy. Then, I discovered the Jalapeno peppers within and the whole dish exploded wonderfully.
My companion, who has been on a bit of an avocado kick of late, was pleased to discover the cold avocado soup (130 rubles, $4.20) on offer, and was delighted by the creamy, lightly spiced concoction she received.
Moving on, my companion went with the bacon, pineapple and noodle salad (80 rubles, $2.60) which was also a good-sized portion with the home-made noodles and other ingredients joined by tomato and peas in a light, creamy sauce. It also got a thumbs up.
I opted for the quesadillas with dark chicken meat (90 rubles, $2.90), which featured two of the flour-tortilla concoctions filled with melted cheese and the chicken, sliced into smaller wedges. While the dish was a little on the salty side for my taste, the presentation makes it a perfect dish to share, which might help to soften this criticism.
For our mains, I stuck with tradition and went with the beef burritos (190 rubles, $6.15), three flour tortillas rolled around a filling that included peppers, tomatoes and a variety of spices that were (if, again, a bit on the salty side) wonderful. The burritos were covered with a tasty cheese sauce that brought the whole combination together.
Taking a more conservative tack, my companion decided on the steak with french fries (180 rubles, $5.80), which she deemed to be fairly standard and, in essence, nothing more or less than advertised.
Altogether, La Vida Loca is a nice, reasonably priced addition to St. Petersburg's Latin-American dining scene. More simple and intimate than some of the other, higher-priced options, it certainly fills a niche in the market. While the most expensive offering is tiger-prawn enchilladas, at 390 rubles, $12.60, the remaining dishes are all below 200 rubles in price and offer a fair variety, including a good number of vegetarian options. While I am by no means versed on the subject, the cigar section of the menu also seemed reasonable. The arched brick ceilings, simple tables and decorations and friendly, informal service were all what we were seeking just to have an easy, relaxing dinner.
Further, although we didn't take the opportunity, it appears to be an ideal spot if you are looking for a little Latin-American dance instruction and - best of all - the proprietors of La Vida Loca appear to also shun the song of the same name. I think that it is either because they prefer more authentic Latin-American numbers or, friendly as the place is, they simply felt my pain.
La Vida Loca. 39 Gorokhovaya Ul. Tel.: 318-6050. Open daily, noon to 11 p.m.. Menu in Spanish and Russian. Credit cards not accepted. Dinner for two with alcohol: 965 rubles ($31.30).
TITLE: russian museum takes its turn
AUTHOR: by Andrei Vorobei
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Sunday was a red-letter day at the State Russian Museum. In one day, the museum opened a new garden, reopened a palace and unveiled two exhibitions.
"We are trying to give people more choice," said Russian Museum Director Vladimir Gusev. "When people have a choice, they become less aggressive."
Despite the inclement weather, many people turned out to plant cherry trees in Mikhailovsky Garden, closed for repairs since last summer. The planting was part of the Cherry Forest arts festival, most of the action of which took place in Moscow. In St. Petersburg, where two of the festival's concerts were held, city residents and special guests donned Chekhovian-era clothes and planted cherry-tree saplings.
At the same time, in the Russian Museum's Benois Wing, not far from the Mikhailovsky Garden, the exhibition "St. Petersburg. Portrait of the City and its Citizens" was opened. This huge project comprises over 500 artworks from the 18th to the 20th centuries that reflect the history and life of the city and its inhabitants in many different art forms and genres, including painting, drawing, sculpture, decorative art and coins. Most of the works on display are usually kept in the Russian Museum's storerooms - i.e., they are not part of the museum's permanent collection - so visitors have a unique opportunity to see artworks that are rarely, if ever, shown. Although most of the items are of historical, rather than artistic, interest, there are a few real gems that rarely see the light of day, such as Pavel Filonov's "Trikotazhnitsy na zavode krasnogo znameni""("Textile Workers at the Red Banner Factory"), Malevich's "Portret udarnika" ("Portrait of a Shock Worker") and Konstantin Simun's "Stakan" ("The Glass").
As this suggests, the best way to approach the exhibition is historically. The curators have carved up 300 years of history into a number of independent topics bound together with a weakly marked chronological contour. Therefore, the theme "St. Petersburg's Foundation" is reflected in some of the earliest topographic and city maps from the beginning of the 18th century, leading onto axiomatic prints and etchings by Alexei Zubov on the topic "The Neva River and its Embankments and Canals" and Mikhail Makhayev's famous cityscapes from the second half of the 18th century, before switching to "Avenues and Streets," with the Ivanov brothers' lithograph of Vasily Sadovnikov's drawings "Panorama of Nevsky Prospect" from the 1830s. Further on come Sadovnikov's amusing "City Types" and the theme "Coutyards," expressed in Mstislav Dobuzhinsky's works from the end of the 19th century and the begining of the 20th century, which adjoins "Imperial St. Petersburg," depicting life at the Russian imperial court. "Commercial, Industrial, Revolutionary Petrograd," "The Siege" and "Soviet Leningrad" are followed by "City of Culture," which is mainly represented in paintings, starting with works by some of the first graduates of the Academy of Arts in the middle of the 18th century, then through portraits of well-known 19th-century literary, musical and theatrical personages and finishing with portraits of some of the key Soviet-era cultural figures, such as composer Andrei Petrov and former State Hermitage Museum Director Boris Piotrovsky, father of present Hermitage Director Mikhail Piotrovsky.
One art form conspicuous in its absence is photography. However, lovers of this genre were compensated by the opening of another exhibition, "St. Petersburg Through the Lens of a Camera" at the Stroganov Palace, which opened after long-term renovation on Sunday.
The Stroganov Palace, a branch of the Russian Museum, is in itself a fascinating place to visit. The building's color, decor and Stroganov coat of arms from the time of its construction by Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli have all been restored, as have its highlights, the Putti Room - which gets its name from its Renaissance-style decorations of baby angels and cherubs - the Arabesque room, Giuseppe Valerian's decorated ceiling, and Andrei Voronikhin's semi-chandeliers on a mirror wall - the only ones of their kind in St. Petersburg - in the dining room.
The photographic exhibition includes over 100 works by 29 contemporary St. Petersburg photographers, reflecting their outlook on the life of the city and its architecture. In complete contrast to the recent exhibition with a similar theme at the Rumyantsev Mansion (see "examining a city's anatomy," May 16), the photographs capture a static facade, a photogenic black-and-white city in which defects become a sort of beauty and in which there is no place for man, for "motion and emotions." They refer primarily to palaces, archways, columns, churches, wrought iron, bridges, granite and gilding.
In this sense, the series of pictures by Georgy Shablonsky - the Rostral Columns, the crosses on the Church on the Spilled Blood, the Bronze Horseman and Shostakovich Philharmonic Artistic Director Yury Temirkanov - is the very heart of the exhibition's theme, and also the most likely to appear in glossy tourist guides to the city. Stanislav Chabutkin's "Kanal Griboyedova" and the fences and quays of Alexander Sokolov and Alexander Florensky continue this trend, but to a lesser extent. Another theme, less clearly marked but more attractive, is the games played with the city's architectural background that appear in Alexander Kitayev's illusive "Den Goroda" ("City Day") and reach an extreme in works by Andrei Chezhin. Chezhin's series "Escher Spaces" creates objects using fragments of St. Petersburg buildings, following Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher, best known for his spacial illusions and impossible buildings based on repeated geometric patterns. In another series,("Nevskaya Kupel" ("Nevsky Font") Chezhin makes St. Petersburg sink into the water that is so much a part of it. In contrast, what Chezhin makes in a lab, Vladimir Antoshenkov finds in the real city in his works "Vzlet" ("Flight") and "Kirpichnoe capriccio" ("Brick Capriccio"). The same approach can be seen in Valery Degtyarov's fascinating "Arfa" ("Harp"), featuring a stairwell that assumes the form of the eponymous instrument.
"St. Petersburg. Portrait of the City and its Citizens" runs through August in the Russian Museum's Benois Wing. "St. Petersburg Through the Lens of a Camera" runs through June 20 at the Stroganov Palace. Links: www.rusmuseum.ru
TITLE: hermitage through the ages
TEXT: Filmmaker Alexander Sokurov's latest work, "Russky Kovcheg" ("Russian Ark"), is a record-setting 96-minute tour through Russian history shot in a single take at the State Hermitage Museum last year.
The film was recorded using the latest high-definition digital technology (some of which was created especially for the shooting of "Russky Kovcheg") and subsequently transferred to video without any editing. Despite these technical achievements, Sokurov prefers to emphasize the artistic value of the critically acclaimed $2.5 million project, which was produced by Russia's Hermitage Bridge Studio and Germany's Egoli Tossel Films.
The action in "Russky Kovcheg" unfolds as its main character, French aristocrat Marquis de Custine, the author of a scandalously critical memoire about life in Russia in the 19th century, takes a 1 1/2-kilometer walk through the Hermitage, encountering historical figures from the 18th century to the present day. Among the characters de Custine encounters are Peter the Great - who actually died before the Hermitage was built - Catherine the Great and current Hermitage Director Mikhail Piotrovsky.
The film uses the Hermitage to juxtapose art from various epochs, in line with Sokurov's idea of breathing life into what is normally a mere display.
The 51-year-old Sokurov is best known for his controversial 1999 film "Molokh," a very personal study of the relationship between Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun, and for 2001's "Taurus," about the last days of Vladimir Lenin's life. He is also the author of several documentaries.
Sokurov spoke recently with Staff Writer Galina Stolyarova about cinema, dictators and the importance of art.
q:Why did you choose to shoot "Russian Ark" in a single take?
a:You can find nearly everything in the movies - intrigue, drama - but nothing about the nature of time, which is what I'm trying to capture. Doing the film in a single take was a tool, an instrument. It suited our goal of understanding time. This was the only reason for deciding to shoot the film nonstop.
The Hermitage is one of my favorite places in St. Petersburg. It is one of the major reasons why I still live in the city. An ark is a place where one can survive and hide. As long as we have the Hermitage, we have a refuge. We are safe.
q:In the Bible, Noah's Ark was a refuge. Does the title of your film reveal an escapist bent? Are you seeking refuge from reality?
a:The film is as open as it could be. Reality does frighten me sometimes - as it probably does all of us - but, more than that, the film isn't calling for audiences to lock themselves up in the museum and ignore life, however brutal it can be. Yes, there is a certain biblical allusion, and art can help us survive life's upheavals, just like Noah's Ark helped [its passengers] to survive the flood. But what is meant here is temporary refuge, and not escapism. Art can help us to find inspiration and the energy to fight on.
The idea of shooting a film like this one arose more than 10 years ago, when the most popular associations with Russia were with the war in Chechnya and the new mafia. I wanted to change that vicious stereotype and suggest a powerful alternative.
q:Do you agree with Dostoevsky that beauty - specifically that of Jesus Christ sacrificing his own life for the sake of mankind - can save the world?
a:It is difficult for me to agree, although I think about his words often. The reality is that his sacrifice hasn't been enough to stop wars, hatred and evil. Unfortunately, Dostoevsky's words are often misinterpreted, suggesting that what he meant is aesthetic beauty. There is a tendency to interpret these words either too abstractly or too literally, which distorts the idea and doesn't reflect the potential of the idea.
q:You have excluded several major historical events, including the revolutions of 1917, from the film. Your critics say that the director of a historical film should be objective, and that you are not.
a:Yes, my film is very subjective. Perhaps that is its weak point. But I am not a historian and not a judge. I have excluded the October 1917 coup because it is the part of my country's history that I am ashamed of. It was my shame that would not allow me to include this part of history in the film. I cannot roll back the decades and change history, but I can shoot a film with specific rifts that I, as a director, consider necessary and grounded.
q:Will you resume work on your series about the despots of the 20th century that began with "Molokh"?
a:Yes, we are now working on the third film of the series. I know that many people think the series is intended to show that tyrants are always punished in the end - a punishment that comes in various forms - but that is not my goal. I do not consider myself a judge or arbiter and do not want my films to serve as illustrations of the justice done to dictators. My goal is to show their human side.
We have to understand the human aspect of building a cult of personality, otherwise we will never be able to avoid them in the future. Cults of personality are not built by generals or elite clans. They are built by the whole people, and could not survive without the support of the masses. But people need to learn to separate the person from the myth. The next part of the tetralogy is devoted to Japanese emperor Hirohito, and takes place in 1945. We are going to start filming next year.
Hirohito's reign was nothing like as turbulent as Lenin's or Hitler's. He ruled for 60 years, died peacefully and was buried as a hero. When audiences see the whole of the tetralogy, which shows cults of personality emerging and thriving in very disparate countries and cultures, they will be able to pick out the common elements that form them.
q:What are your feelings toward the dictators? Why have you chosen to depict them at their weakest moments?
a:What I feel isn't hatred or revenge. Rather, it is compassion. I'm not interested in pronouncing a verdict. My goal is to explore a person, to see and understand his motivation, ulterior motives and emotions. And I focus on the situations in which the human sides of these people are exposed.
q:Do you believe that art can heal?
a:Yes, but it only helps those people who are capable of understanding it, and their number is far fewer than one might assume at first glance. Art requires spiritual energy and effort. Your soul should be speaking to the work of art. It is usually accepted without argument that all people have souls. I believe that some of them do not. There are people who cannot love, cannot sacrifice themselves. They can probably measure the material or even aesthetic value of a work of art, but not its spiritual value. But the potential value of art is immense. It can reconcile you with mortality and inspire you to live on and make your dying day come as late as possible.
q:Do you agree with filmmaker Peter Greenaway, who has said he believes that the fusion of love and death are the only major issues truly worth making films about? Would you add anything to this shortlist?
a:Life, and life first and foremost. In my opinion, love and death are integral parts of life. There are issues more powerful than death. I believe that the purpose of art is to illustrate the beauty of life and help viewers or readers believe in that beauty.
Every artist creates his own mirror or, rather, reality. His world. And the greater the artist's talent, the more believable are these realities and worlds. The biggest mistake one can make is to conclude that the world of art is a world of illusions. This is just not true. Art is sometimes much more realistic than life. And it should be taken just as seriously.
TITLE: matrix's sexy stunts, reloaded
AUTHOR: by Kenneth Turan
PUBLISHER: The Los Angeles Times
TEXT: Let's start with all the things "The Matrix Reloaded" is:
. The highly anticipated sequel to one of the most influential, admired (four Academy Awards) and popular (nearly half a billion dollars in worldwide theatrical gross) of films;
. The first part of a simultaneously shot two-picture conclusion to the original (the second part, "The Matrix Revolutions," comes out in November) that together cost upward of $300 million and has taken four years to come to the screen;
. An elaborately choreographed, rigorously stylized science-fiction epic rife with cool heroes, intriguing villains and eye-widening action set pieces that show us the money in no uncertain terms.
Saying what "The Matrix Reloaded" isn't turns out to be a lot less complicated: It's simply not as satisfying as the original.
Even the return of stars Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne and Carrie-Ann Moss, as well as writer-directors and conceptual godfathers Larry and Andy Wachowski, can't change that.
While that reality might be predictable - and, to a certain extent, unavoidable for the follow-up to a film that changed the face of what we expect from this kind of escapist entertainment - it's still a disappointment and one that illustrates the limitations of cool as a defining and sustaining style.
Yes, the Wachowskis had more money and more complex effects to play around with this time but, on the debit side, what could possibly compensate for the loss of the you've-never-seen-this-before excitement the first one delivered. Another built-in source of frustration is that, while the first "Matrix" was enhanced by the classic drama of the making of the hero Neo from humble clay, and the third one will presumably have the drive of a powerful can-humanity-be-saved? conclusion, middles are, almost by definition, less compelling and trickier to make involving.
There are several characters, like Jada Pinkett Smith's warrior Niobe, who seem to be embedded here for greater use in Part 3, and there's less at stake in the film's outcome because we know the story doesn't really end here. Good intentions and great effects notwithstanding, in dramatic terms this is basically an expensive place holder, a rest stop where the narrative can catch its breath before moving on.
The Wachowskis, to their credit, are clearly aware of these pitfalls, and they do everything in their considerable power to mount a vigorous counterattack. Their strongest weapon, now as always, is the power and complexity of their vision, their belief in and passion for the alternative universe they have created and nurtured to the smallest detail like twins creating their own private language. Theirs is a world real enough to walk around in, real enough to have spun off a concurrent short film collection called "The Animatrix," and that makes a considerable difference.
Another weapon is the cleverness of the trilogy's originating concept, the notion that the real world is a computer-generated dreamscape, a virtual reality concoted by machines to distract us while our bodies are being plundered as an energy source less troublesome than Middle Eastern oil.
As the first film concluded, Neo (Reeves), after being anointed by Morpheus (Fishburne) and loved by Trinity (Moss), came to accept his position as the One, a human destined to liberate his species from artificial-intelligence bondage. But if that was going to be easy, a three-part movie wouldn't be necessary.
"The Matrix Reloaded" begins with the gang returning to the underground city of Zion, where all the world's already-freed humans live, but where not everyone is convinced that Neo is the One or even that the prophecies are real. Making things that much more urgent is that the machines have sent an attack force of 250,000 nasty Sentinels who will reach Zion in 72 hours and attempt to destroy these pesky rebels once and for all. In an attempt to stop the attack, Neo must reconsult the prophesizing Oracle and follow her maddeningly murky directions while fending off attacks from all kinds of inhuman individuals up to no good, including Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving), who has returned with even greater powers.
In telling this story, the Wachowskis once again lean on the things that made the first one so successful, though there is now a sense that, not realizing you can have too much of a good thing, they're in danger of leaning on them too hard. There is, for instance, now so much style evident in clothing and accessories, it sometimes seems that what this whole movie is about is having the right sunglasses.
There are also more characters whose names come with associations from mythology (Persephone, Niobe), Japanese cinema (Mifune), European history (the Merovingian), and the Old Testament (Zion, Nebuchadnezzar), the last of which underlines how much of an unacknowledged Christ figure the anointed Neo is made out to be, complete with a battle-hardened John the Baptist in Morpheus.
Also worth noting is the Wachowskis' extensive (and welcome) use of color-blind casting. Starting with Fishburne and Pinkett Smith, a good half-dozen key heroic roles are taken by African American actors, and that doesn't include cameos from boxer Roy Jones Jr. and Harvard scholar Cornel West.
Without the newness of the concept as a lure, "The Matrix Reloaded" increasingly relies on elaborate action and new villains (Monica Bellucci as Persephone, Lambert Wilson as the Merovingian, Adrian and Neil Rayment as evil twins) to keep us interested. On the combat side, there is a stirring battle involving cars, trucks, motorcycles and martial arts on a replica of the Harbor Freeway. Also on tap is a much-talked-about scene where Neo takes on something like a hundred replicas of scheming Agent Smith.
Yet, just as these computer-generated replicas feel more mechanical than threatening, the intentional coldness of "The Matrix Reloaded" also does not wear well. Though it suited the original "Matrix" and remains a good match for this film's Zen philosophizing, its limitations become more apparent as its reach is stretched over a second film.
If a concept is to sustain itself over a multipart story, it must make an emotional connection, and this "Reloaded," especially with stars cast for their lack of affect and affinity for blankness, cannot do that. Perhaps sensing this, the Wachowskis have attempted to put more texture into "Reloaded," giving us an extended glimpse into life in Zion and throwing in a candlelit love scene between Neo and Trinity free of charge. It's a good try, but doomed. Whether anyone likes it or not, everyone is finally a prisoner of this aesthetic of cool.
An example of a comparable trilogy that managed to avoid this pitfall is, obviously, "The Lord of the Rings." "The Two Towers" potentially had similar middle-child problems, but its use of characters like Miranda Otto's Eowyn and the troubled Gollum to involve our feelings made a considerable difference. It's typical of "Reloaded's" core difficulty that when a character sneers at a rival, "still using all the muscles except the one that matters," he's referring to the head, not the heart.
"The Matrix Reloaded" is showing now at Avrora, Leningrad, Kolizei and Mirage cinemas.
TITLE: Mass Death Toll in Algerian Earthquake
AUTHOR: By Hassane Meftahi
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ALGIERS, Algeria - The most devastating earthquake to hit Algeria in two decades struck east of the capital on Wednesday, killing as many as 800 people and injuring more than 6000.
Rescuers feared that whole families were buried in the rubble as apartment building walls collapsed and falling trees crushed cars in Wednesday's quake. Hospitals were swamped with the injured.
"What is worrying is that we still have many people under the rubble," Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia told French RTL radio in an interview Thursday morning.
Television footage showed helmeted rescue workers digging furiously through the wreckage of apartment houses and homes in a desperate search for survivors. One man said that he saw panicked people jumping from a hotel window.
"I saw the earth tremble. I saw people jump from the window of the hotel," Icham Mouiss of Boumerdes told French television station LCI.
The quake was deadliest in towns in the vicinity of Thenia, near the quake epicenter. Thenia is about 40 miles east of Algiers, the capital of this North African nation.
The quake hit about 7:45 p.m., cutting electricity in some neighborhoods of Algiers and causing panic throughout the city. About 10 aftershocks rippled through the area in the hours that followed. Tremors were said to have been felt as far away as Spain.
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), which monitors quakes around the world, said that the tremor had a preliminary magnitude of 6.7. Algerian officials put it much lower at 5.2. The cause of the discrepancy was not immediately clear.
USGS officials said that it was the strongest earthquake to hit the North African nation since a pair of quakes hit the northwestern city of Al Asnam in October 1980, killing some 2,500 people. Several quakes have hit Algeria since, but none with a death toll as high as Wednesday's.
One of the most stricken places was Rouiba, a relatively properous city some 20 miles from the eastern edge of Algiers.
Hospitals in Algiers and other towns were finding it almost impossible to cope.
In Bourmerdes, people were swarming to hospitals with injuries or to seek news of loved ones. Bodies were piling up outide hospitals and patients were being treated in the open air.
"Its an apocalyptic sight," said one radio reporter in Reghaia, east of Algiers.
The earthquake was the latest tragedy to visit this country, where an Islamic insurgency has killed some 120,000 people over the last decade.
In November 2001, more than 700 people were killed in flooding around the capital, with most of the deaths in Bab el-Oued.
(AP, Reuters)
TITLE: UN Passes Resolution On Postwar Iraq Regime
AUTHOR: By Edith M. Lederer
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: UNITED NATIONS - In a victory for the United States, the UN Security Council overwhelmingly approved a resolution on Thursday giving the United Nations' backing to the U.S.-led administration of Iraq and lifting economic sanctions.
The resolution passed by a 14-0 vote, with Syria - the only Arab nation on the council - absent.
John Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador, said that after more than a decade of being frozen out of the world economy by sanctions against former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's regime, "it is time for the Iraqi people to benefit from their natural resources," a reference to the country's vast oil wealth.
The final resolution represented a compromise, after France and Russia pushed for a stronger role for the United Nations. But it left the underlying goal of the United States and its allies intact: Washington and London, as occupying powers, remain firmly in control of Iraq and its oil wealth "until an internationally recognized, representative government is established."
With the immediate lifting of sanctions, oil exports are expected to quickly resume, said Pakistan's UN Ambassador Munir Akram and other council diplomats.
There are 8 million barrels of Iraqi oil in storage points at the Turkish port of Ceyhan, one of Iraq's two export terminals, that can be sold immediately, diplomats said.
Ahead of the Thursday morning session, the three staunchest opponents of the U.S.-led war on Iraq - France, Russia and Germany - announced they would back the resolution. That left Syria's vote the only one in doubt.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell had expressed hope for a unanimous 15-0 vote but Syria didn't show up for the vote.
The near-unanimous approval for the resolution marks a turnaround for the council, whose unity was shattered over the war. In an acrimonious debate earlier this year, Russia, France and Germany succeeded in blocking a U.S.-backed resolution seeking authorization to attack Iraq.
Council members had made clear that they didn't want another debacle over a postwar resolution.
In the two weeks since the United States introduced it, the text of the resolution saw more than 90 changes. The final version gives the United Nations a stronger role in establishing a democratic government than initially envisioned, and the stature of a UN special representative in Iraq is increased.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who attended the council meeting, has promised to quickly appoint a representative, and speculation centered on UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Sergio Vieira de Mello, who has Washington's support.
The world body did not get the lead role that France, Russia and Germany would have liked.
France, which had led opposition to the U.S. war in Iraq, was concerned that the resolution would give the United States too much power, and French Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere noted that the resolution "is not perfect."
TITLE: Indonesian President Decrees Six Months of Martial Law
AUTHOR: By Lely T. Djuhari
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BANDA ACEH, Indonesia - Indonesia's military intensified attacks on the separatist guerrillas of Aceh province on Wednesday, firing rockets at rebel bases and ordering troops to shoot arsonists on sight.
Aceh military commander Major General Endang Suwarya said that soldiers killed 10 rebels on the third and bloodiest day of the assault. Separatists put the death toll at 13, including 10 civilians, while the Indonesian Red Cross reported 10 deaths.
"We need to take urgent steps. We want this problem finished quickly," Suwarya said, referring to the rebellion in the mountainous oil and gas-rich province of 4.3 million people.
Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri signed a decree Sunday authorizing six months of martial law and ordering 30,000 government troops to crush about 5,000 poorly armed guerrillas in the oil and gas-rich region.
That allowed Suwarya to order his men to shoot arsonists after unidentified men burned about 180 schools in recent days. Each side accused the other of the arson. Suwarya also said that authorities could arrest local journalists or close down media organizations if they quoted rebel sources in their reports.
Indonesian military chief General Endriartono Sutarto toured Aceh's capital of Banda Aceh Tuesday, directing troops to fight rebels of the Free Aceh Movement, known as GAM, "till your last drop of blood."
"Chase them, destroy GAM. Don't talk about it, just finish them off," he said. "If they want to surrender, then don't kill them. But if they persist, you only have one job, destroy them."
Rebel spokesperson Sofyan Daud insisted that the guerrillas will remain in control of their bases in the province of 4.3 million people.
"We will fight back hard," he said by satellite telephone from an undisclosed location.
The wounds inflicted by the military "will hurt for a long time and create a new generation of rebels," Daud said. "It's going to be a drawn-out war."
In her first remarks about the offensive, Sukarnoputri said that she ordered the operation with a heavy heart and urged the country to back her.
"I hope this action will be understood and supported by all the Indonesian people, including those groups working for democracy and human rights," said Sukarnopitri, a nationalist leader whose father was Indonesia's first president.
World leaders, meanwhile, urged Jakarta to resume peace talks to end the fighting. Talks in Tokyo last weekend broke down when rebels rejected Jakarta's demands that they lay down their weapons and accept autonomy instead of independence.
At least 12,000 people - many of them civilians caught in the crossfire- have been killed in the province, 1,200 miles northwest of Jakarta, since 1976, when the Free Aceh Movement emerged to challenge Indonesian rule.
Human rights groups urged the government to protect civilians and warned that the offensive could lead to new abuses by Indonesia's military, which already has a long record of abuse in Aceh
On Wednesday, troops shot and killed three other insurgents elsewhere in the province, including one on a beach resort - a popular surfing spot - near the provincial capital of Banda Aceh, the military said.
Also on Wednesday, three helicopters fired rockets at suspected rebel bases on two islands close to Banda Aceh, said air force Colonel Nazirsyah, who goes by a single name.
Earlier, troops moved into the northern rebel strongholds of Bireun and Pidie, which have seen the worst fighting and arson.
Northern Aceh is home to several natural gas fields tapped by U.S. oil giant ExxonMobil. Production has so far been unaffected by the fighting.
A Dec. 9 cease-fire accord signed in Geneva envisioned autonomy, rebel disarmament and military withdrawals. Neither side carried out its end of the deal.
The Acehnese claim that the central government has been breaking its autonomy promises for decades. They say that Sukarno, the country's first president and the father of the current president, broke such a promise that was supposed to have been Aceh's reward for helping spearhead Indonesia's fight for independence from the Dutch during the 1940s.
Aceh has a distinct language and culture and its people practice a stricter brand of Islam than the rest of Indonesia. Huge reserves of oil and gas in the region fuel desire of locals for independence.
TITLE: Spurs Profit From Mavs' Technival Problems
AUTHOR: By Chris Sheridan
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SAN ANTONIO - Tim Duncan's 32 points and the Spurs' early 24-for-24 free-throw shooting were too much to overcome Wednesday night as San Antonio defeated the Mavericks 119-106 in Game 2 of the Western Conference finals.
The Spurs evened the series with Game 3 set for Friday at Dallas. Perhaps that will be the night that a low-key officiating crew is assigned to the game.
Following a Game 1 that featured 72 personal fouls and 98 free throws, notoriously hot tempered referee Joey Crawford called four technical fouls in the first 10:11.
Two of the techs came in rapid succession during a timeout when Nelson tried to engage Crawford in a staredown. Assistant coach Del Harris was tossed by Crawford late in the second quarter after he walked onto the court.
"[Nelson] walked up to half court. I never told him to sit down because that's not my job to tell him to sit down. I told him to go coach his team, and he said 'No, I'm not going to.' So I hit him with one," Crawford told a pool reporter. "I said 'Go coach your team.' He said 'I'm staying right here.' So, bang, I threw him.
The Spurs went to the line 28 times in the first half and made 26, with Malik Rose going 13-for-14 while shooting a majority of the technicals.
The second half consisted of little more than waiting to see if any more individual technical fouls would be called - none were - and whether the Mavericks could make an improbable comeback with assistant coach Don Nelson Jr. running the team.
They got within eight, but no closer.
Rose finished with 25 points, Tony Parker had 19 and Stephen Jackson 17. San Antonio made 37 of 45 free throws.
"It is tough being in a situation where you're up so much and are trying to play the clock out, basically," Duncan said.
"We talked about trying to win the game instead of sustain the lead," he said.
Michael Finley led the Mavericks with 29 points and Dirk Nowitzki had 23.
Things started going poorly for Dallas midway through the first quarter - and they quickly got much worse.
Nowitzki was called for his second foul with 7:39 remaining in the period for slapping at the ball as Duncan went up for a shot. Nowitzki turned to Crawford to complain, and Crawford immediately gave him a technical.
Jackson made the ensuing foul shot to give the Spurs an 11-7 lead, and Nelson took a risk by leaving Nowitzki in the game with two fouls.
With 4:49 left in the first, Bernhardt whistled Nowitzki for his third personal - a questionable call as Nowitzki defended Rose under the basket. That forced Nelson to remove Nowitzki from the game, and Nelson was gone himself with 2:46 left in the quarter.
TITLE: Senators Stave Off Elimination, Extend Series to Game 7
AUTHOR: By Ira Podell
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: EAST RUTHERFORD, New Jersey - Defenseman Chris Phillips scored 15:51 into overtime to lift the Senators to a 2-1 victory Wednesday night and force a Game 7 on Friday in Ottawa. It was the second straight game the Senators fought off elimination.
Vaclav Varada was trying to hit the loose puck in front of Devils goalie Martin Brodeur, but all he was making contact with was the New Jersey goalie. Trailing the play, Phillips found the loose puck behind Varada and fired it into the net.
Patrick Lalime kept the Senators alive in the extra session by fighting off several New Jersey flurries. The biggest threat came from Brian Gionta, who was stopped on a 2-on-1 with Patrik Elias.
New Jersey, trying to reach the Stanley Cup finals for the third time in four years, has never lost a series in which it led 3-1. The Senators have never advanced this far in the playoffs in their 11-year history.
The Senators, 4-0 in overtime in the postseason, filed for bankruptcy and were late with players' paychecks during the season. Now they have squared the series.
In making 30 saves, Lalime looked more like the goalie who held opponents to two goals or fewer in 11 straight playoff games than the one who yielded 10 goals to the Devils in three consecutive losses after Game 1.
Brodeur made 32 saves for New Jersey and has allowed just nine goals in nine home playoff games.
New Jersey, on its first two-game losing streak of the playoffs, tied it in the third period when Wade Redden was off for cross-checking.
On the power play, Scott Niedermayer sent the puck behind the net to Jeff Friesen. He tried to slide the puck in front, but it bounced off Senators defenseman Karel Rachunek, kneeling in front of him.
The puck caromed into the pads of Lalime and out to Nieuwendyk, who slid it back between the goalie's pads at 2:41 for his 60th playoff goal. The Devils are just 3-of-21 on the power play in the series.
Ottawa took a 1-0 lead with a power-play goal. The Senators failed on their first 20 power-play attempts of the series before rookie Jason Spezza scored in Game 5 to seal Ottawa's 3-1 victory on Monday.
The Senators were 1-for-23 when Radek Bonk put the Senators in front.
Brodeur failed on a clearing attempt, and Hossa worked the puck over to Bonk in the left circle. Bonk sneaked a shot between Brodeur's pads.
Both teams had early chances that were turned away either by the goalies or the posts.
Devils defenseman Colin White sent a fluttering shot from the left point that got through and hit the crossbar less than four minutes in. White also took the blame for leaving the front of the net clear on the winning goal.
Jamie Langenbrunner hit the post in the third period as he was seeking his first goal of the series for New Jersey after getting seven in the first two rounds. Hossa also found the crossbar after deflecting a shot in front late inthe third.