SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #889 (57), Friday, August 1, 2003
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TITLE: 14 Candidates Submit Voters' Lists
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The registration deadline for the Sept. 21 St. Petersburg elections came and passed at 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, with 14 candidates managing to submit all of the necessary documents and signatures in order to run to replace departed Governor Vladimir Yakovlev.
 
Most of the candidates left the submission of the 37,000 signatures from voters necessary to be registered until the last minute. On Wednesday evening, it still appeared that only one candidate - Presidential Representative in the Northwest Region Valentina Matviyenko - would manage to meet all of the requirements, which would have meant that the election would have to be moved back until at least one more candidate was found.
 But the arrival of Pyotr Shelisch, a State Duma deputy, on Thursday morning - with 41,000 signatures in hand - meant that the threat of postponement had been avoided.
 Vice Governor Anna Markova arrived shortly afterward, with over 42,000 signatures.
 The City Election Commission actually had to stay open an hour later than expected to wait while the last of the candidates to arrive, businessperson Rashid Zhabarov, numbered the pages containing his signatures. Zhabarov had arrived at 5 p.m., but had to stand in the corridor outside the office for another two hours adding the required numbers.
 Besides Matviyenko, the only other candidate to submit signatures on Wednesday had been Alexander Gabitov, a council member from municipal district No. 62 and the son-in-law of State Duma Speaker Gennady Seleznyov, with about 40,000.
 Matviyenko submitted a list of 130,000 signatures.
 But more than half of Gabitov's signatures had already been ruled as invalid by the end of the day, meaning that he did not have the necessary number and threatening a postponement of the vote.
 "In this case, we would have to extend the term for candidates to collect signatures and move the election to a later date," Dmitry Krasnyansky, the deputy head of the City Election Commission (CEC) said at a briefing on Wednesday. "I don't know why it is that, with this number of candidates, only two of them have submitted signatures to be registered."
 "It is probably because it is more difficult now, since the new election law introduced criminal charges with penalties of up to four years in prison for falsifying signatures," Krasyansky said.
 Matvieyenko wasn't taking any chances with signatures and was registered immediately on Thursday night, as she left a deposit of 7.5 million rubles (about $248,000) on Thursday afternoon.
 Candidates have the option of submitting the signatures or providing the deposit, which CEC officials said will be transferred back to Matviyenko's election campaign account once the validity of the signatures she submitted has been verified.
 Markova, who early polls show to be running in second place in the young race - well behind Matviyenko - commented that she has had little to do since the City Charter Court ruled the City Hall Administrative Committee, of which she used to be the head, out of existence on July 17.
 "A number of employees have already been transferred to two other committees that were recently set up within the City Hall management office," Markova was quoted by Interfax as saying on Thursday. "I'm actually sitting around with no work to do and haven't received a single document to sign for a few days."
 The validity of the signatures and the methods for accumulating them was the topic of discussion with the press for many of the candidates on Thursday.
 Sergei Pryanishnikov, pornographic-movie producer and distributor said that he had collected a little more then 40,000 signatures, coming from "all types of people."
 "We have even one person born in 1911," Pryanishnikov said in an interview on Thursday.
 But he said that he was still worried about the question of the signatures' legitimacy.
 "There is a lot of dirty campaigning in the city these days, so the only way to have been absolutely certain that they all were valid would have been to physically to check them all myself," Pryanishnikov said.
 Sergei Belyayev, the former head of Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport, said that he had also gathered just over 40,000 signatures.
 "I preferred to get people's support by gathering signatures instead of paying the deposit," Belyayev said on Thursday. "I will use the deposit for the campaigning and give what's left to charity."
 A poll of 1,006 voting-age St. Petersburg residents taken by the Agency of Social Research on Sunday said that Matviyenko would be the first choice of 40.9 percent of all respondents, with Markova in second place with 7 percent.
 The leader of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly, Mikhail Amosov, is in third place, with 3.4 percent, while 8.3 percent of those polled said that they would vote against all candidates. The margin of error for the poll was 3.3 percent.
 Krasnyansky spent the day providing information about those candidates filing for September's vote, but his most interesting revelation may have been about an event that took place as part of an earlier campaign.
 He said that, during one of the city's previous election campaigns, the City Election Commission found out that an employee for one of the candidates had managed to collect 500 signatures in just two hours in a district of private cottages in St. Petersburg.
 Krasnyansky said that the interest of the CEC had been raised by the fact that an employee of one of the candidates had managed to gather 500 signature in just over two hours in a small district on the city's outskirts.
 "We really became interested in finding out who this person was," he said.
 "Eventually, we not only discovered that the woman was 85 years old, but also that she had been dead for five years."
 Krasnyansky used the story to illustrate the point that actions of this type would bring serious charges according to the new election law passed May 2002.
 He also said that city police had been called on to check 20 percent of the signatures handed over by each of the candidates.
 Krasnyansky said that this added up to about 7,405 signatures, and that the discovery of 25 percent or more of the signatures being invalid would result in a candidate's application being rejected by the commission.
 The CEC has five days to decide to register or reject a candidate
 Krasnyansky also said that the City Election Commission has filed a complaint with the local office of the Federal Press Ministry against Novaya Gazeta and the Stringer newspaper for publishing articles the CEC believes are biased in favor of particular candidates.
 He did not say which candidates the publications had been showing bias toward or against.
 According to amendments passed to federal election law in June, media outlets that are found guilty of breaking the law more than twice during the election campaign can be closed by a court decision for the duration of the campaign period.

TITLE: School Unlocks Mysteries of Eastern Femininity
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Tatyana does not fit the stereotype that comes to mind in association with the word "geisha." But when the 31-year-old St. Petersburg lawyer, who describes her relationship with her husband of four years as "happy," began to feel that some of the passion had gone out of their relationship, she says she started to look for ways bring back a little bit of the spark.
 
"Our home life had became a bit too ordinary, and I realized that, if we didn't introduce anything new and different in our relationship, we could end up cheating on each other," Tatyana said.
 Tatyana found the something new and different for which she was looking in the form of the Geisha School, which opened in St. Petersburg two years ago and offers women a range of courses based on Oriental traditions aimed at helping them increase their appeal to men. The women, including professionals like Tatyana, who works in an industry that has not traditionally been a feminine domain - particularly in Russia - come to the school looking to take a step in the opposite direction.
 "In the school, we reveal to women ancient secrets helping them to be happy, to be a real woman, to be able to charm any man and, more importantly, how to keep passion in their relationships over the long term," said Larisa Bogdanova, the school's director.
 According to Bogdanova, contemporary couples often suffer from certain malaise that has a negative effect on intimate relations - sexual and otherwise - between the partners.
 She said that the majority of the school's students are women aged 35 and over.
 "This period is especially dangerous for women," Bogdanova said. "It's a time when natural feminine beauty begins to fade, and relationships lose their interest, while the husband has achieved a certain level of social and financial status and becomes the targets of younger women, who are often looking to try to get everything at once."
 The interior of the school, which is located on 13aya Liniya on Vasiliyevsky Island, blends a number of Eastern motifs, with soft music playing in the background of a room with soft-colored pink walls, featuring a dark red sofa covered with cushions and candles ringing the students. A large, two-sided rocking-chair and Japanese fans add to the decor.
 Bogdanova says that, despite the school's name, it differs from a traditional Japanese geisha school in that it is aimed at modern European women who wish "to be both exciting lovers and precious wives for their husbands for as long as possible."
 She said that the courses help women to realize her feminine power, to understand the sophisticated mechanisms in relationships with men and how to use their own sexual energy.
 "The Geisha school's classes include "female practices" - covering gender philosophy as it relates to sexuality, the "art of charm," "secrets of touch," "oriental eurhythmics and grace" and "development of female sexual muscles."
 One woman who attends the classes said that students have to be careful with their newly learned techniques.
 Natalya, a 31-year-old lawyer, said that the "art of charm" classes ended up creating a comical, if not uncomfortable, incident at work. She says that at one point, during serious negotiations with one of her firm's clients, she decided, for fun, to try out her new techniques on the unsuspecting business.
 "I came in and smiled at him having that secret image in my head ... He stood up astonished and kept just standing there for quite a while," Natalya says. "My boss gave me a puzzled look. 'This is our lawyer,' he finally said, in an attempt to get the conversation back to the subject of business."
 Natalya said that before she began attending the Geisha courses she was shy and had difficulty even making eye contact with men in whom she was interested.
 "Not any more," she says. "Now, I seem to be able to attract attention of men whom I have no intention of attracting," she said.
 Thus, while she was standing outside a store recently waiting for her husband, who had ducked inside to buy something, a strange man came up to her and unexpectedly kissed her on her shoulder.
 "This type of thing never happened to me before," Natalya said.
 Her husband, with whom she has a 10-year-old son, apparently doesn't mind.
 "He says that the fact that other men find his wife desirable makes him feel proud," Natalya said.
 Some of the courses, those dealing with muscle development being the most obvious example, focus on the overtly mechanical side of eroticism and sexual activity. The class involves teaching women exercises and introducing them to devices which can be used to give them more control over their pelvic muscles and make them stronger.
 One woman, Angelika, 30, said that she first heard of the Geisha School from her gynecologist, who told her about the classes for developing these intimate muscles there.
 But Bogdanova says that what often sounds to be purely mechanical is not always the case. The art of erotic massage, she says, is an excellent example.
 "Even when massage is performed correctly from a technical standpoint, it won't be exciting if it done in a cold manner," Bogdanova said. "But if the woman manages to put enough emotion, passion and sexual energy into the touching, she will achieve the desired effect."
 The classes at the school are generally small, usually with two to four students with the women practicing massage techniques on each other.
 Bogdanova also stresses attentiveness to their husbands and boyfriends in the classes. Her approach to the subject is like a return to past generations.
 "It's very important that a woman give her husband at least a 10-second kiss before he leaves for work, and shows up to meet him at the door when he comes back," Bogdanova said. "It makes a man feel good for the whole day and, as research has shown, can even reduce the risk that he will be in a car accident."
 Bogdanova, whose has degrees in both biology and psychology, does says that she is not just promoting a passive, 1950s-type version of proper womanhood, but one that is much more aggressive and active. She says that women should not only try to impress their spouses, but other men as well.
 She says that shutting themselves off from other men "is not right, because they may also lose the interest of their husbands. It's not that women should have lovers, but they can have admirers," she said.
 Larisa Sokolova, a teacher at the school, said that most of the women who enroll are working women with higher education. While she says that one of the reasons for this is the $450 price tag for a 10-session course, she says that these women also tend to be more aggressive and active in their lives and are open to new ideas and approaches.
 Bogdanova notes that the situation here differs from that in a similar school in Moscow, where the majority of the students are housewives.
 "Half of our students are married, while the other half are not and are searching for their second half," she said. "So we also teach them how to go about that search more successfully."
 In addition to the regular classes, the school also organizes monthly evenings around an ethnic theme of some sort, including Arab, French, Indian, Slavic or Japanese variants. The evenings teach the women how to prepare a sensual evening for their partners, ranging from performing a French fan massage, an Arab belly dance, preparing an erotic Indian meal or playing the part of an obedient Japanese girl.
 Tatyana said that she learned how to give an erotic foot massage at one of the evenings. After first trying it out on her husband, who had been skeptical about the courses at first, he came around.
 "He ended up asking if they also had these classes for men," she said.

TITLE: Biggest Cell Providers Offering Pray Phones
AUTHOR: By Kevin O'Flynn
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Until this month, cellular-phone users could only download erotic pictures, catch up on the latest stock prices and see tomorrow's weather forecast. But now they can deal with matters more spiritual by listening to religious services that are being targeted directly at the Orthodox believer.
 
With a simple punch of three buttons, you can listen to a priest relate the church's view on thorny theological problems or find out where the nearest monastery is. Press a few more numbers and, for about $0.40, you can find out whether you are allowed to eat meat or fish on a certain day or continue to fast.
 Vimpelcom's Beeline and Mobile TeleSystems both introduced Orthodox channels earlier this month in Moscow. They were soon followed by No. 3 cellular-service provider Megafon. 
 "It's for those who regularly go to church and those who know little," said Vimpelcom spokesperson Artyom Minayev. "How long is the fast? What saint's day is it?"
 The Russian Orthodox Church has no quibbles with the new services.
 "We only welcome anything that helps people get to know Orthodox culture better," said Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, the deputy head of the Moscow Patriarchate's external-relations department.
 He added that there are lots of charlatans giving false advice on Orthodox beliefs and practices.
 At least one telecoms analyst doubted whether the services would pay off, saying that Orthodox believers tend to be suspicious of cellphones. 
 "Many Orthodox Christians don't like mobile phones and see them as something from the devil," Yevgeny Itsikhon, the general director of the telecom analyst firm Sotovik, told Dow Jones.
 Chaplin laughed when he heard this. He said that he and most of the other priests in the Moscow Patriarchate have and use cellular phones.
 Chaplin said that he had heard of a priest who was warning of the evils of the Internet and cellular telephones, but this was not church policy.
 All the cellular-phone Orthodox services have been blessed. The Beeline service was blessed by Archpriest Dmitry of the St. Mitrofanov Cathedral of Voronezh in Moscow; Megafon's was blessed by Metropolitan Vladimir of St. Petersburg. Megafon is the national network that grew out of local cellular provider Northwest GSM.
 Megafon is the only provider that offers callers the option of receiving erotic pictures or information on religion.
 "Among our subscribers are different categories of people, and they all have different interests," a Megafon spokesperson said. "We are aiming to provide varied services that will satisfy the interests of all subscribers."


TITLE: Moscow Prosecutor Forced To Resign
AUTHOR: By Oksana Yablokova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Moscow Prosecutor Mikhail Avdyukov resigned Thursday after the General Prosecutor's Office found his office had covered up or fabricated evidence in 9,000 crimes, including at least 43 murders.
 
Hours after Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov accepted the resignation, he fired Avdyukov's deputy Yury Sinelshchikov and reprimanded another deputy, Anatoly Zuyev, along with four district prosecutors for failing to properly oversee investigations, a Prosecutor General's Office spokesperson said.
 The shake-up in the Moscow city prosecutor's office has the markings of a populist move ahead of December's parliamentary elections and the presidential vote in March.
 "The cover-up of crime has reached massive proportions," Prosecutor General's Office spokesperson Natalya Vishnyakova said in televised remarks. "Beside this, serious flaws were found in the work of every executive in the Moscow prosecutor's office."
 She said that an investigation by the Prosecutor General's Office found that city prosecutors had failed to properly investigate 9,000 crimes. She did not give any timeframe for the cases.
 "Following our investigation, 15 criminal cases have been opened against police officers on charges of fabricating evidence," Vishnyakova said.
 She said that 1,000 cases have been reopened, including 43 murder investigations, 60 incidents involving death-causing injuries and 50 thefts.
 In a report of its investigation, parts of which were leaked this week, the Prosecutor General's Office said Moscow investigators have registered a number of deaths as accidental despite clear evidence to the contrary, such as badly mutilated bodies. Officials often do this to improve their district's crime statistics and to minimize the number of unsolved cases.
 The prosecutor's office also said it has documented cases of investigators pressuring victims of assault or robbery into withdrawing their complaints.
 Vishnyakova said that her office has received numerous complaints from Moscow residents and State Duma deputies about the unsatisfactory work of the prosecutor's office and city police.
 Avdyukov made no public comment about his dismissal on Thursday. Calls to his office went unanswered.
 Sacked Deputy Prosecutor Sinelshchikov said federal prosecutors were looking for scapegoats to blame for the capital's high crime rate on the eve of elections. He also complained that the city prosecutor's office was overworked and understaffed.
 In an apparent attempt to prevent his dismissal, Sinelshchikov said on Wednesday that the Prosecutor General's Office findings were unfair and biased, and he even appealed to President Vladimir Putin in an open letter.
 "The long-running conflict between the Prosecutor General's Office and Moscow prosecutor's office has reached its culmination, Sinelshchikov wrote in the letter, carried by Gazeta. "The report contains a lot of unconfirmed statements and distorted facts."

TITLE: Iraqi Embassy Says $3M Stolen From Safe
AUTHOR: By Anna Dolgov
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - The Iraqi Embassy said on Tuesday that masked gunmen broke into the diplomatic compound overnight and stole more than $3 million in cash from a safe.
 
The money had been brought to the embassy to pay staff wages and stipends to Iraqi students studying in Moscow, a Moscow police official said on condition of anonymity. 
 The embassy, tucked away on a narrow street in central Moscow, has been working with a skeleton staff since Ambassador Abbas Khalaf left in early June for U.S.-ordered consultations in Baghdad. The front gate is guarded by a lone Russian police officer, and the few remaining embassy officials have been taking turns staying in the building overnight, said an embassy official who gave his name as M.A. Rajab, an attache in charge of the political and cultural sections.
 The embassy accountant was on watch when the robbery took place, he said.
 "Between 1:30 and 2 a.m., three masked thieves broke through the back door of the embassy," Rajab said.
 "They knew the accountant was guarding the embassy. They broke the door, threatened him with a gun and a knife, punched him, hit him in the head and stomach and forced him to open the safe in the accountant's room."
 Rajab said that about $3 million and smaller amounts in rubles and euros were in the safe, which the thieves swept clean. No record of the serial numbers of the bills was kept.
 After recovering from the shock of the attack, the accountant telephoned other embassy employees, he said. They notified the guard at the front gate, who was unaware that anything out of the ordinary had happened, and called the police.
 A police spokesperson said that the embassy call came in at about 6 a.m.
 Rajab did not explain why so much time had passed before the robbery was reported.
 He suggested that the robbers were familiar with the embassy layout, its lowered security measures and the large amount of cash that was being kept there.
 "We don't usually keep that much money around," he said. "My personal view is that the thieves were familiar with the building."
 He said that he suspected that some former visitors to the embassy carried out the robbery.
 "The people who work here are trustworthy. We cannot accuse anybody, it's not fair," he said.
 The accountant suffered a bleeding nose and minor bruises, and an ambulance was called to treat him.
 Police have opened an investigation into the robbery.
 Meanwhile, a Russian official familiar with the embassy said that most of the mission's Iraqi staff were packing their bags, and that new officials were expected to arrive next month. 
 Some embassy employees have already turned in the diplomatic license plates for their cars and are driving with plain white plates, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
 Rajab did not elaborate on his plans, and it remained unclear whether he was headed for Baghdad or some other destination or planned to remain in Moscow. Other embassy employees refused to comment.
 Khalaf's plans were not immediately clear. Interfax, citing an unidentified embassy source, reported on Tuesday that he might have decided to abandon his diplomatic career but still return to Moscow in a personal capacity.

TITLE: Record Set In Police Drug Bust
AUTHOR: By Oksana Yablokova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Moscow Oblast police seized 220 kilograms of pure heroin on Wednesday in the country's largest heroin bust ever, Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov said.
 
With help from Federal Security Service agents and sniffer dogs, police found the heroin secreted in a hidden compartment in a KamAZ truck in the Orekhovo-Zuyevo district of the Moscow Oblast, Gryzlov said in televised remarks.
 He said that police stopped the truck as it was heading toward Moscow.
 "During a search of the truck, a cache disguised as an extra gas tank was found behind the driver's seat," Gryzlov said.
 "This is the largest amount of heroin ever confiscated by the Interior Ministry," he added.
 Gryzlov said that the confiscated heroin was enough for about 1.1 million doses.
 NTV television said that the heroin had a street value of $3 million.
 The KamAZ driver and two passengers, all natives of Tajikistan, have been arrested, and a criminal investigation has been opened, police said.
 Much of Russia's drugs enter through the country's loosely controlled borders with Central Asia countries, and Tajikistan is considered the main country of transit for heroin from Afghanistan.
 The seizure came a day after President Vladimir Putin said that he expected quick results in the war on drugs from the federal anti-drug agency he created in March.
 "No other country has such a well-staffed and a well-equipped agency," Putin was quoted by Interfax as saying Tuesday during a meeting with senior army and police officers.
 The anti-drug agency is headed by Viktor Cherkesov, earlier a colleague of Putin's with the FSB and his former representative in the Northwest Region, and staffed with investigators from the now-disbanded Tax Police.
 "We expect your work to be efficient and bring results. These results should be presented to the public," Putin said.
 The anti-drug agency could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.

TITLE: Berlusconi Suggests Putin Meet With Pope in November
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Isachenkov
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Tuesday that he and President Vladimir Putin were working intensely to ameliorate the tense relationship between the Vatican and the Russian Orthodox Church, and suggested that Putin could meet with Pope John Paul II when he travels to Italy in November.
 
"Both of us are trying to do all we can so that relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Vatican move forward toward cooperation and mutual understanding," said Berlusconi, who was on a one-day visit to Moscow.
 "I hope that, during his visit, President Putin would be able to meet with His Holiness," he added.
 Putin did not comment on the prospect of meeting the pope, which would be a symbolically significant gesture.
 The Russian Orthodox Church resents what it claims are Roman Catholic attempts to poach converts in Russia, and has resisted the pope's often-expressed desire to visit the country.
 Berlusconi's visit also covered bilateral relations and closer Russian relations with the European Union, which Italy currently chairs.
 At the start of talks in the Kremlin, Berlusconi said that, at the most recent EU summit, "the EU stressed the importance of giving a new impulse to development of trade and economic relations with Russia. I received a mandate to move it forward."
 On his previous trip to Russia in February, Berlusconi said that he would promote the creation of a Russia-EU consultative body and possibly even a permanent council. Putin said that he hoped that Italy's EU presidency would bring "positive shifts" in the relationship.
 "We are following the situation in the European Union, and seeing the emotions flying high in the European structure, including the European Parliament," Putin said Tuesday.
 "We strongly hope that these internal political passions and political controversy, which are natural for democracy, will not hamper the positive development of relations between Russia and the European Union," he said.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>Sudan Frees Crew
 </b>

MOSCOW (AP) - Sudanese authorities have freed the crew of a Russian helicopter after a flurry of diplomatic activity by Moscow, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
 The Mi-26 cargo helicopter was detained on July 21 by Sudanese authorities, who doubted Russian claims that the craft was on its way to Congo as part of a United Nations mission. Sudanese officials accused the crew of involvement in a rebellion in western Sudan. 
 On Tuesday, the crew members - who, according to their company, were being held in an officers' club in the capital, Khartoum - were released, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. It said they were staying at the Russian ambassador's residence, and would soon return to Russia.
 
 
<b>Overzealous Dog
 </b>

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Chelyabinsk man paid the price for training his guard dog too well when the snarling animal held off paramedics long enough for him to die of heart failure.
 The ferocious Staffordshire bull terrier kept doctors at bay as they tried to approach the middle-aged patient Wednesday.
 "Doctors and the man's wife tried to approach the man for a long time, but the dog was furious and would not allow it," Chelyabinsk city police chief Andrei Rudomyotov said by telephone. "The doctors had to call the police, and our officers shot the dog but, by the time the doctors could get in, the patient was dead."
 
 
<b>High-Rise Suspect
 </b>

MOSCOW (SPT) - A 34-year-old German national has been arrested for allegedly throwing his Russian girlfriend out of a fifth-floor window to her death, police said on Tuesday.
 The suspect, whom police identified only by his last name, Adler, was detained at about 7 p.m. on Monday in southern Moscow, after the body of his 34-year-old girlfriend was found earlier in the day at the same address.
 Investigators suspect Adler pushed the woman out of the window in a drunken brawl, a police spokesperson said.
 She said Adler is being held at the southern Moscow police department's pre-trial detention center.
 
<b>Not a Fan
 </b>

LONDON (Reuters) - Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin was so outraged at the anti-communism of film star John Wayne that he plotted to have him murdered, according to a new biography of the American icon.
 "John Wayne - The man behind the myth" by British writer and actor Michael Munn says there were several attempts in the late 1940s and early 1950s to kill the actor.
 In the first attempt, two Russian assassins posing as FBI agents tried to kill Wayne in his office at Warner Brothers studios in Hollywood.
 But the plot was uncovered and the would-be killers captured, the book says, citing several sources, including director Orson Welles.
 The book says the Soviet plots were cancelled after Stalin's death in 1953, by his successor Nikita Krushchev, who was a fan of the larger-than-life star of more than 100 films.
 "That was a decision of Stalin during his last five mad years. When Stalin died I rescinded that order," the book quotes Krushchev as telling Wayne during a private meeting between the two in 1958. 



TITLE: Local Firm Leading Russian Robot Race
AUTHOR: By Angelina Davydova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg-based electronics company New Era on Wednesday showed off two recently developed robots, the result of the only humanoid-robot project in Russia.
 
The robots, ARNE and ARNEA, are male and female. Each is 123 centimeters tall and weighs 61 kilograms They are capable of walking independently and avoiding obstacles, can distinguish and remember objects and colors, can follow up to 40 separate commands, and can even talk. The androids run on electrical power, using wireless accumulators, allowing them to work independently for up to one hour.
 Unlike their human counterparts, there are no obvious physical differences between the male and female androids - apart from their color - though the company intends to make further amendments to the robots' appearance in the near future, according to New Era General Director Gennady Lokotkov.
 The project was launched two years ago by New Era in cooperation with students from the St. Petersburg State Polytechnical University.
 &quot;It is the only project developing androids, i.e., robots that resemble human beings, in Russia now,&quot; said Alexander Yakovlev, head of the Robot Technical Sector for New Era. &quot;We copy human attributes - our robot moves and behaves like a human. In the future, our robots could be used in households to care for children or elderly people, or for security purposes, working in dangerous areas.&quot;
 While android robots are rare, mainly because of the small number of applications suitable for them, other kinds of robots, such as manipulators (a moving seizing hand, a carriage or a cube on wheels) or automatons, are widely used in various industry and space projects.
 The most important tasks facing the project now, Yakovlev said, are the enhancement of the walking algorithm (to make the robot steadier and not fall back at the slightest nudge), development of hand functions (to teach the robot how to seize and hold objects), the upgrading of sight and, the most difficult task of all, the development of artificial intelligence.
 The project is funded by the company using financing from its main fields of activity - producing electrical equipment. New Era was created in 1993 out of the ashes of Era, a Soviet-era enterprise that manufactured and repaired electrical equipment for the ships of Baltic Fleet.
 In 1996, New Era received a two-year EBRD loan, which, according to Lokotkov, helped to modernize production. After that, it began cooperation with Russia's major ship-building enterprises (which account for 22 percent of all company's sales), gas and oil companies, aluminum plants, pulp and paper mills and the Railroad Ministry.
 In June, New Era signed a six-year, $200-million contract with Gazprom, under which it will supply middle-voltage units and components for compressor stations. Another large contract is for electrical equipment for an atomic-power station in Iran, while it has recently manufactured and installed electrical equipment for local water utility Vodokanal.
 The company had $16.2 million in sales and $3.2 million in profits in 2002, and is planning to up sales to the $30-million mark in 2003. 
 Lokotkov said creating an android robot is not as quixotic as it might seem, as the development process can lead to the creation of new technologies.
 &quot;It will be easy to apply technologies, developed in the process of creating a robot, in energy, military or other sectors in the future,&quot; Lokotkov said.
 But, for now, ARNE and ARNEA are only shown at international conferences and exhibitions - their debut appearance in in Russia was during the St. Petersburg Navy Exhibition in late June.
 &quot;Soon, robots will be part of people's everyday lives - they will be easy to buy and use, and will be treated as living domestic appliances. It's important to develop people's psychology regarding their attitude towards these new participants in our life,&quot; he added.
 While ARNE and ARNEA are the only android projects in Russia, there are a number of similar projects abroad, mostly in Japan and the United States. According to Yakovlev, Japan's Honda has been working on an android project for 15 years, while Sony produces the robot-dog AIBO and human-like robot SDR (Sony Dream Robot), a 30-centimeter-high-toy, which walks, talks, remembers faces and avoids obstacles.
 In July, New Era competed in RoboCup, the World Robot Soccer Cup, in Padova, Italy, taking 11th place. Companies including Sony, Fujitsu and Sun, took part in the competition, 183 teams in all, with 64 in a Simulator League, played by computer programs simulating robots' movements. The New Era team, also represented in this league, was the only Russian team in the competition.
 Other leagues had robots on wheels or four legs.
 &quot;Some of the players look like small iron cubes on wheels, while others are just 40 centimeters tall. They recently started the android league, although the requirements are very basic - it's considered excellent if a robot kicks a ball, or balances on one foot,&quot; Yakovlev said.
 RoboCup organizers are hoping that, by 2050, a robot squad will be able to challenge a human soccer team.

TITLE: The Yukos Conflict and Putin's Second Term
AUTHOR: By Sergei Markov
TEXT: The conflict surrounding Yukos is multifaceted, and I would like to look at its causes, mechanisms and possible consequences.
 
First, and most importantly, the battle for President Vladimir Putin's second term has already begun. Political commentators have long predicted such a battle, but it seems we got the timing wrong. We thought that it would commence only after the presidential election in March 2004, and that Putin would not let things get out of hand before that date, so as not to impede his victory. At the earliest, we predicted the possibility of a skirmish occurring at the start of 2004, between the parliamentary and presidential elections, if United Russia flopped in the State Duma elections. However, it seems that politicians read what commentators write, and someone decided, as often happens, to steal a march. The battle for Putin's second term is both for the program and for the team that will implement that program. It is also about who will succeed Putin. The president himself does not wish to violate the constitution and stay on for a third term.
 Today, there are two main bureaucratic groups. The most oft-used monikers for these two groups are the Family and the St. Petersburgers. These monikers, however, shed light only on the origin of the groups, while obscuring the essence of their differences. It would be more accurate to label these groups as the business-oriented and the state-oriented parts of the bureaucracy. These labels encapsulate the difference in aims, ties and style of the two groups. <i>Siloviki</i> and businesspeople such as Rosneft CEO Sergei Bogadanchikov are part of one of these groups, but not the central part. In the Yukos affair, war strategy is dictated not by the silovik executors, but by statesmen with their vision of the country's future.
 Most visible is the battle involving Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Over the past few months, a myth has built up about Khodorkovsky's strategic plans - formed with the active involvement of Khodorkovsky himself. According to this myth, Khodorkovsky will control a majority in the next State Duma through sponsoring single-mandate candidates and through his people in Yabloko, the Union of Right Forces and the Communist Party. There will be a shift to a de facto parliamentary republic (the constitution contains the foundations for such a shift) and then Khodorkovsky will become prime minister. A variation on this is that Khodorkovsky will not join the government, but control it, building up his political base and winning the presidential election in 2008. I think this is a myth and nothing more because, for Khodorkovsky, it is much better and preferable to be the universally respected CEO of one of the largest corporations in the world than to be prime minister, under fire from all sides. However, the myth persists, and its proponents can cite numerous facts to back up their theory.
 The group close to the president, which expected that its ideas would become the basis of Putin's second-term program and that they themselves would make up the backbone of his team (which, in 2008, would become the next president's team), has tried to nip Khodorkovsky's political-rise scenario in the bud. These people, like most of us, witnessed the period of de-facto oligarch rule and the little good it did the country. In their view, they did not initiate the conflict, but, rather, Khodorkovsky breached the rules of the game between the state and big business that were established in 2000. Those who consider themselves defenders of the state's interests saw in Khodorkovsky's activities the desire of the oligarchs to regain power.
 In the conflict, the issue of big business' role in Russia has come to the forefront. And, here, there are some contradictions.
 Written all over the Yukos affair is the bureaucracy's desire not to allow other big Russian corporations to follow in the footsteps of TNK, which, in essence, sold its business to BP. The high-profile (and long-planned) flight of Roman Abramovich's capital from the country was also supposed to spur the state-oriented part of the bureaucracy to action.
 From this perspective, Khodorkovsky's attempts to garner support from the West (as Vladimir Gusinsky tried to do before him) will not help him and only exacerbate things. In order to reduce the pressure, Khodorkovsky should resolve his problems on home turf.
 Second, there are objective contradictions in Putin's relations with big business, and the president has yet to take a firm position one way or the other. He has, on a number of occasions, pointed out that big business stifles competition, has an interest in state institutions remaining weak and corrupt and generally behaves in an unpatriotic manner. However, if Russia wants to be able to compete in the global economy, then it is major corporations that will have to take the lead. It is also worth noting that major corporations are in the vanguard regarding corporate management and putting tax and labor issues on a more legal footing.
 Business has now appealed to the president to sign a social contract. This is a clear sign of the weakness of business. Its weakness lies not in seeking compromise, but in failing to see that such a contract has long existed. The problem is that business has systematically violated it. The transformation of society was able to take place on the basis of this fundamental social contract. A decade or so ago, the population agreed to state property being transferred into private hands for a song, on the understanding that the private owners would be more effective. In other words, property was put into private hands on the condition that private owners would do a better job of developing the economy than the communists with their planned economy. If business thinks that it can do what it likes with its money and is under no obligation to society, this is a violation of the social contract.
 Breaching this contract is the main reason for private property's lack of political legitimacy in Russia. And a lack of legal legitimacy, in the final analysis, is just a consequence of this. In the chaotic conditions of the Yeltsin era, there was no one to remind business of the obligations it had taken upon itself in return for the assets it got. However, with the restoration of Russia's statehood and the bureaucracy, such politicians emerged. Thus, Putin has some understanding for the pressure his bureaucracy puts on big business. Paradoxically, Yukos has gone further than others toward accepting the social contract by demonstrating greater social responsibility.
 But, the president cannot fail to realize that handing complete power to the siloviki is dangerous - after all, the country needs economic development, not repressions.
 The solution is not to complain to the president about the behavior of the siloviki (he can see things perfectly well himself), not to sign a non-aggression pact with the siloviki (only business needs this), but for business to acknowledge its responsibilities to the country. The president will not support those businesspeople who insist on their social irresponsibility, but undoubtedly will help those captains of industry who develop the economy for the good of the country.
 Everyone is now concerned with how the crisis will be resolved. Central to any solution is to ensure that no one emerges as outright winner. Victory for the siloviki would be dangerous as, if Yukos falls, hundreds of interregional, regional and local companies will go the same way. However, the authorities will never admit their error and that an oligarch is right. They have backed down once too often in the not-too-distant past. But both sides in the conflict have taken the bit between their teeth and are escalating the crisis. Therefore, I think that, with the collective efforts of the government, the presidential administration and other business and bureaucratic groups in concert, it will be possible for the conflicting sides to come to some kind of weak compromise, although the root causes of the crisis will not be removed. This means that a new conflict will be inevitable.
 The root causes are: ongoing uncertainty about Putin's second-term team and program; the gradual growth in the influence of people whom Putin brought to power and who demand better positions and resources; the absence of a fundamental social contract for the development of the country, recognized and adhered to by a majority of the population and the main elite groups; private property's lack political and legal legitimacy; the huge gulf between the law and actual economic practice; lack of clarity regarding the big business' development and role.
 For the optimists, I would add: Without crises, there can be no development. Let's hope that these problems will be resolved swiftly and painlessly.
 
 <i>Sergei Markov is director of the Institute of Political Studies and chairperson of the Civic Committee on Foreign Affairs. He contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times. </i>

TITLE: Business Complicated as Usual at City Hall
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalyev
TEXT: It seems that my initial feelings that the battles that have characterized the relationship between City Hall and the Legislative Assembly would evaporate after the Kremlin managed to engineer former Governor Vladimir Yakovlev's exit from Smolny and install Alexander Beglov as a caretaker were wrong.
 
I had thought that a sense of harmony and calm would come during Beglov's tenure, which will end, the Kremlin hopes, with the victory of its candidate, Valentina Matviyenko, in the Sept. 21 gubernatorial elections.
 But the sense of unity - forgive the pun - that I expected to arise out of the fact that Beglov, Matviyenko and the majority of deputies in the Legislative Assembly share backing from the same quarters has already developed a crack.
 The crack is in the form of a turf battle - again, forgive the pun - over who will have a say in deciding who is granted land by the city for commercial development.
 This is a business issue in more than one respect. As anyone who is familiar with the process will tell you, handing over land to developers in the city generates revenues not only for the city budget, but also for the pockets of those who are charged with parceling it out.
 &quot;I can get any piece of land anywhere I want it,&quot; Novaya Gazeta quoted an anonymous representative of a major construction company as saying last week.
 The row was touched off in April, when the Legislative Assembly moved to grab a bigger slice of the process of handing out land by overriding a Yakovlev veto of a law that would increase the number of spots for assembly representatives on the city Investment and Tender Commission (ITC), the body for handing out land for commercial development. The law will bump the number of assembly spots on the commission to five, up from the present two, while reducing Smolny's representation from 11 to five. One seat will also go to a representative of the local administration in the area where the plot of land under question is located.
 At the same time, the law will reduce the number of City Hall representatives.
 The assembly's intent with the new legislation is clear. &quot;We have to stop the out-of-control situation that exists in relation to the activities of the ITC,&quot; Vladimir Voitanovsky, a deputy with the Sports Russia faction and one of the authors of the law, said at a briefing in June. &quot;Construction in the city proceeds in a chaotic manner, with commercial buildings going up in courtyards and parks and very close to residential buildings.&quot;
 Voitanovsky has a point, which is backed up by the hundreds of complaints that St. Petersburg residents have filed about the question with both the Legislative Assembly and City Hall.
 But Beglov, who is rumored to be a chief candidate to run the City Hall Property Committee under Matviyenko, should she win, is not ready to surrender City Hall's supremacy in this field. In concert with a number of construction firms, he has filed a suit with the City Charter Court and is writing a complaint to Matviyenko, in her role as (vacationing) presidential representative in the region, saying that the new law contradicts federal legislation.
 So Acting Governor Beglov, the head of the St. Petersburg branch of the United Russia Party, and Legislative Assembly Speaker Vadim Tyulpanov, the head of the St. Petersburg union of the allies of United Russia, find themselves on opposite sides of the land quarrel. It must make for interesting party fund-raisers.
 The construction companies, for their part, have chimed in with warnings that the law will hurt their industry, scaring off investment and pushing up prices for commercial real estate. They say that the addition of the extra lawmakers will end up slowing down the process.
 But Beglov's motives come into question when you consider that his own complaint is slowing down the commission's work at present. What the law is supposed to do is slow down the alleged flow of money into the pockets of the closed group that monopolized the land-tender work in the past.
 This is a financial turf war, not a political one.

TITLE: club provides sapphic haven
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Triel claims to be the first lesbian club not just in St. Petersburg, but in the whole of Russia. 
 
The club - also known as Tri El or LLL - has been keeping a low profile since first opening on May 4 last year, and came to more public prominence only last month, when photocopied posters advertising a concert by avant-rock band Rtut appeared all over the city center.
 According to Triel's promoter, Irina Inozemtseva - described on the club's Web site as its ideologist - the organizers decided to work in secret because they were unsure about the public reaction a lesbian club might provoke.
 &quot;They were afraid that somebody would come and smash the windows,&quot; she said in a telephone interview this week.
 For the first 12 months of its existence, therefore, the club advertised itself through the grapevine and lesbian Web sites.
 &quot;But then [the organizers] realized that there would be no real aggression&quot; toward the club, Inozemtseva said.
 Inozemtseva was previously known for her lesbian parties, called LesbiPARTY'ya, at the Coco Bango club on Kazanskaya Ulitsa. The parties were shut down in July last year, after the club changed hands and its new owners did not want their venue to be associated with lesbian nights.
 Although there is nothing new about an occasional lesbian night at a gay club in Moscow or St. Petersburg, a completely lesbian-oriented club operated by a lesbian team is something Russia has, in all probability, never seen before.
 &quot;The club was conceived as the place for women of every sexual orientation - lesbians, bisexuals and heterosexual women,&quot; Inozemtseva said. 
 The club looks cosy, with a bar room near the entrance, a bigger room with tables, a stage and a DJ booth and a chill-out room. 
 The bar is cheap, with snacks and beer on tap costing between 30 and 40 rubles ($1 and $1.30), although more expensive drinks are available, including both alcoholic and non-alcoholic cocktails. 
 Currently, the club is holding a small exhibition of lesbian-themed artworks by Luka Basyrov. (Basyrov's painting &quot;Triel,&quot; which the artist gave to the club, is on p. i.)
 &quot;We don't care about the orientation of people who come to [the club],&quot; Inozemtseva said. &quot;The only thing is that men are allowed only on Thursday and Friday, to make it more convenient for the girls who don't like to have men around. It's quite strict.&quot; 
 Triel hosts late-night lesbian strip shows and transvestite shows, some of the performers in which used to work at the now-defunct Club 69, the former premier local gay hangout. Thursday nights tend to be devoted to live concerts. 
 &quot;We prefer female bands, of course, but there are terribly few female bands in the city,&quot; Inozemtseva said. 
 &quot;Many lesbian performers refuse to play at our club, because they think people would get the wrong idea about them, even though everybody knows everything about them anyway,&quot; she said.
 Of the acts that do perform, the most popular is Greta &amp; Little, an acoustic duo of singer/songwriter Greta on guitar and flautist Little. Female duo Stupeni is scheduled on Sept. 10, while folk-punk group Iva Nova, formed by ex-members of all-female trio Babslei, has promised to perform in the near future.
 The best-known act to perform at Triel so far has been Kolibri, the local artsy pop band fronted by three women, who played at the club's first-anniversary party this May.
 In musical terms, Inozemtseva said, songs by Nochniye Snaipery, the local female-fronted rock band, are a big hit at the club, as are those by Zemfira. Tatu, the duo presented as &quot;teen lesbian&quot; that is currently hugely popular in the West, is mainly despised as being &quot;fake.&quot;
 Alhough the original meaning of the club's name has been lost, Inozemtseva said there are plans to start a non-profit organization called LLL, which would be an abbreviation for &quot;Liberty to Lesbian Love.&quot; 
 The club's social activities include free consultations with psychologists from TsaPLya (the Lesbian and Bisexual Women's Psychological Center), which opened last year.
 For its visitors, Triel publishes a club magazine called &quot;Temnaya&quot; (&quot;Lesbian&quot;) edited by Inozemtseva, which contains a &quot;girl-of-the-month&quot; photo competition, concert and party reviews and free classified ads. The publication is available from the bar staff.
 &quot;It's simply good there, and very egalitarian,&quot; Alina, a frequent visitor to the club, said. &quot;It's most fun on Saturdays, because there are lots of girls there.&quot;
 &quot;The last time I was there, it was a surprise to see Rtut, which has an absolutely experimental sound,&quot; she said. &quot;To see them at a lesbian club, where they prefer dance music, was really great. And the girls loved it.&quot; 
 
 <i>
Triel is located at 45 5-aya Sovetskaya Ul. M: Ploshchad Vosstaniya. Tel. 110-2016. Lesbian strip and transvestite shows, Fri.-Sat.; occasional concerts, Thurs.; dance parties. Women only, except Thurs. and Fri.; closed, Sun. Mon., Tues., 5 p.m.-midnight (free entrance); Wed., 9 p.m.-6 a.m.; Thurs., 7 p.m.-midnight; Fri., 9 p.m.-6 a.m.; Sat., 9 p.m.-6 a.m. Pool on week-days, 80 rub./hour. Entrance 50 to 150 rubles. Links: www.triel.hotmail.ru </i>

TITLE: nyc ballet ends 30-year absence
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: New York City Ballet, the biggest and arguably the best ballet company in North America, ended its long absence from Russia with the opening of its short season at the Mariinsky Theater last week.
 
The internationally acclaimed troupe, in St. Petersburg through Aug. 5, has brought three programs with works by the three choreographers - Georges Balanchine, Jerome Robbins and Peter Martins - whose ballets make up most of its more-than-150-work repertoire.
 Martins, the current chief ballet master, says his company's visit to St. Petersburg is of historical importance.
 &quot;We will be performing in one of the most important theaters in the history of art,&quot; he said at a press conference before Wednesday's opening night.
 &quot;[The Mariinsky ] was also where our founder [dancer and choreographer] Georges Balanchine started his career, and we want to show that his art is alive and well and thriving still,&quot; he said. &quot;My world is not Wagner, my world is Tchaikovsky, [choreographer Marius] Petipa, and this is their home, too, so this is where ... my world started.&quot;
 The troupe opened its season on Wednesday with an evening of Balanchine's ballets, including &quot;Serenade&quot; (1934) - the choreographer's first new work after moving to the U.S. - &quot;Symphony in Three Movements&quot; (1972) and &quot;Symphony in C&quot; (1947). Unusually for a visit by a touring ballet company, Mariinsky Artistic Director Valery Gergiev conducted the Mariinsky Theater Orchestra for the occasion.
 &quot;When Gergiev conducts, it is windy but always exciting,&quot; Martins said on Wednesday.
 Gergiev added that the two have agreed to joint performances late this year at New York's Lincoln Center, New York City Ballet's home.
 On Saturday and Sunday, the troupe will perform Robbins' ballets &quot;Interplay&quot; (1945), &quot;Dances at a Gathering&quot; (1969) and &quot;Glass Pieces&quot; (1983).
 Robbins and Martins shared the post of chief ballet master at the company after Balanchine died in 1983. Martins has been in sole charge since Robbins' death in 1998.
 However, the current tour features only one of Martins' ballets - &quot;Hallelujah Junction&quot; (2001), set to music by U.S. minimalist composer John Adams - which will be shown with Balanchine's &quot;Concerto Barocco&quot; (1941), &quot;Agon&quot; (1957), and &quot;Western Symphony&quot; (1954) on Monday and Tuesday.
 Wednesday's all-Balanchine program will be repeated as a matinee on Saturday and on Sunday evening.
 New York City Ballet was founded in 1948 by Lincoln Kirstein, who first came up with the idea of creating a United States-based ballet company focusing on modern works, and Balanchine, whom Kirstein invited to turn his dream into reality. Although the pair had met in London in 1933, and Balanchine moved to the U.S. the same year, the project to 15 years to come together.
 On Wednesday, Martins recalled that, after good performances, Balanchine came backstage to tell the dancers that &quot;Tchaikovsky was there watching them.&quot;
 &quot;What we would like to be happening [on the current tour] is that one could say that Balanchine was there watching us when we performed,&quot; he said.
 The New York City Ballet season marks the end of this year's 11th running of the Mariinsky's annual Stars of the White Nights festival, which this year expanded to a mind-boggling 90-day marathon as the theater's contribution to St. Petersburg's 300th anniversary.
 Gergiev said Wednesday that the festival, which in previous years has lasted just one month, has been a Herculean task for all involved.
 &quot;I am not prepared to give you the figures now, but millions and millions of dollars have been put into making this festival possible. The fact that the festival has taken place confirms the new, much higher level of stability in Russia - in all terms,&quot; he said, adding that he saw the more generous sponsorship the festival attracting this year as a sign of changing attitudes toward culture in the country.
 
 <i>
For an interview with New York City Ballet principal dancer Darci Kistler, see p. viii. Links: www.mariinsky.ru, www.nycballet.com </i>

TITLE: chernov's choice
TEXT: Jay-Jay Johanson's</strong> gig last week was probably the peak of open-air festival Stereoleto, the series of parties running every Saturday from June 26 through Aug. 9. 
 
The Swedish electronic crooner, who proved to be madly popular in Russia judging from the reaction of the audience, said that it was only his second performance in the last three years - the first being in Moscow the night before.
 The strong and surprisingly loud show, which was mainly based on Johanson's most recent album &quot;Antenna&quot; but included some new material, was limited to just 45 minutes. 
 Some suggested that the limitation stemmed from the capacity of the hard disks of the Apple Macintosh laptops manned by two computer operators who were providing all the music.
 The security was strengthened so that nobody tried to get over the fence, and the ticket prices were raised to 500 rubles ($16.60) at the door from the initially quoted 400 ($13.30).
 This Saturday will see Stereoleto's Italian night, with Rome-based nu-jazz musician <strong>Nicola Conte</strong> performing both live - with his band High Five 5tet - and as a DJ. 
 Conte's music incorporates a wide range of styles, ranging from 1960s jazz to bossa nova to Brazilian to psychedelic sitar themes, plus updated arrangements and gentle use of electronics. 
 &quot;Bumer&quot; (Bimmer), the long-awaited crime thriller featuring music written by <strong>Sergei &quot;Shnur&quot; Shnurov</strong>, of controversial and hugely popular band Leningrad, will open at the Avrora cinema this week. 
 The soundtrack, featuring some new material from Shnurov, was scheduled to be released last month, but has not yet been seen in the city's record outlets.
 Meanwhile, with the elections for the city's governor upcoming, young people wearing T-shirts with the slogan &quot;Shnur for the Governor&quot; gathering signatures on behalf of Shnurov have been seen around the city this week.
 Shnurov, who was on his way to Latvia, where Leningrad will perform this Friday, was not available for comment, but Seva Andreyev, the band's percussionist, dismissed the rumors of Shnurov running for a governor.
 &quot;It's nonsense, nobody has been running for anything,&quot; he said by telephone on Thursday.
 After a performance in Jurmala in Latvia, Leningrad will go to Sochi and then to Moscow, where the band will play at Nashestviye, the country's largest open-air rock festival, which this year has been turned into a purely radio-based event because of the terrorist attacks at the Krylya rock festival at the Tushino Airfield in July.
 Leningrad is scheduled to play from Nashe Radio's Moscow studio at 5 p.m. on Sunday.
 
 <i>- By Sergey Chernov </i>

TITLE: not exactly a capital success
AUTHOR: By Peter Morley
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: This week, in an attempt to prolong my vacation mood, I went to Amsterdam, a new establishment on Gagarinskaya Ulitsa named after the Netherlands' capital city, from which I had flown back to St. Petersburg a few days previously. However, although Amsterdam claims to be &quot;a little corner of Amsterdam in St. Petersburg,&quot; the self-styled brasserie is distinguished more by being, well, almost indistinguishable from most other European-style cafes in the city center.
 
In fairness, this may be because Amsterdam only opened very recently, and has yet to find its niche or individual atmosphere. For example, when my dining companion and I walked in, one of the first sights to greet us was a long-haired guy in a T-shirt engaging in what could charitably be described as singing while accompanying himself on a guitar; his female accomplice, meanwhile, was doing things with ribbon-bedecked batons that would probably be more appropriate to cheerleaders at an NFL game. Our fears were somewhat allayed, however, by a young woman, apparently the administrator, who turned to us with a bright smile and said perkily, &quot;Don't worry, it's only an audition.&quot; From her tone, it sounded as though future regulars at Amsterdam will be entertained in somewhat different style.
 Reassured, we took seats at one of three tables on the uppermost of Amsterdam's three levels, directly over the bar, whence we enjoyed a vantage over most of the rest of the place. There are also a couple of tables located immediately by the bar, while the main room is on the mezzanine level, and contains about six tables. Visually, Amsterdam is impressive, in an understated, vaguely minimalist way. Although not particularly original, it does have a few interesting features, such as the stylized cast-iron bicycle next to our table.
 I suspect that Amsterdam's owners want to be able to advertise it as intimate and cosy but, for the moment, it just feels small scale. This is reflected in the modest menu, which includes half a dozen starters (all priced under 100 rubles, $3.30), a couple fewer similarly priced soups, and about 10 main courses that will set you back between 100 and 200 rubles ($3.30 and $6.60) apiece. I could not see any wine on offer, with alcoholic refreshment provided by a standard range of beers and spirits. The menu does list an Austrian beer made with hemp, although I passed on this temptation, as did my companion; instead, we ordered a bottle of Borzhomi mineral water (40 rubles, $1.30), a Coke and an apple juice (20 rubles, $0.65 each).
 I started out with the salmon tartar (80 rubles, $2.65), which came in a sizeable portion, although the component with most taste was probably the salad garnish, as the tartar itself was bland and fairly nondescript. My companion, meanwhile, ordered a starter called &quot;East India Company,&quot; named after the former Dutch trading monopoly of the same name. This turned out to be a plate of warmed shrimp still in their shells. Despite her initial apprehension at dealing with the fiddly process of shelling the shrimp - she said that, with the heads removed, they reminded her of cockroaches - my companion was soon devouring them with some gusto.
 For mains, I had another salmon dish, this one called &quot;Neo-Gothic&quot; (175 rubles, $5.74), which certainly deserved full marks for presentation, if nothing else. It came in foil in a shape that represented either a ship or some large fish, depending on the vantage point. The salmon came on a bed of boiled-potato slices and under a sauce including cheese and mushrooms that had obviously just come from a tin. Still, it was tasty enough, although the &quot;Mekhiko&quot; potato (25 rubles, $0.80) I ordered as a garnish was a major disappointment, comprising nothing more than half a boiled potato, wrapped in foil and drizzled with creamy dill dressing, plus a vaguely spicy sauce that bore a suspicious resemblance to the Baltimore kebab ketchup available in any local store.
 This sauce - which had also accompanied my starter - showed up again as the <i>pikantny</i> element in the side-dish of baked vegetables (40 rubles, $1.30) my companion ordered, and which she said she could, in fact, have done without. Her choice of entree was the &quot;Chicken Mango,&quot; featuring two good-sized pieces of the meat stuffed with the said fruit. She enjoyed the dish, although the presentation - it came on a flat wooden platter, as did my &quot;Neo-Gothic&quot; - caused some problems, as much of the sauce for the chicken ended up on the table.
 We rounded off with portions of creme brulee ice cream (for me) and chocolate ice cream (for her) at 45 rubles ($1.50) each, as well as a good espresso (30 rubles, $1.00) for me.
 To say that Amsterdam has nothing in particular to recommend it is probably unfair, as it has only recently opened and still seems to be searching for an individual style and clientele. I would like to think that it could become a pleasant place to relax with friends and a couple of drinks. Improvements certainly should be made in the service - although our server did once manage to show that she had a sense of humor - and the food. Getting rid of the preponderence of canned ingredients and the Baltimore ketchup would be a start. And where is the Dutch speciality of fries with mayonnaise?
 
 <i>
Amsterdam. 25 Gagarinskaya Ul. Tel.: 273-1995. Open daily, noon to 11 p.m. Menu in Russian only. No credit cards (yet). Dinner for two, without alcohol: 710 rubles ($30.25). </i>

TITLE: nyc principal taking it all in her stride
TEXT: Few people who knew Darci Kistler when she was young would have predicted that she would make a successful career as a world-famous ballet dancer.
 
The New York City Ballet principal, the youngest of five children and the only girl, took on her brothers at many sports - including skiing, water-skiing, swimming, tennis and dirt biking among others - before, at 8 years old, she was given a pair of pointe shoes as a present and turned to a more typically young girl's hobby.
 Kistler's new-found interest blossomed, and she joined New York City Ballet as a member of the corps de ballet in April 1980, becoming a soloist in 1981 and a principal dancer the following year. 
 Her vast repertoire includes principal roles in George Balanchine's &quot;Serenade,&quot; &quot;The Prodigal Son,&quot; &quot;Agon,&quot; &quot;Apollo,&quot; &quot;Concerto Barocco&quot; and &quot;A Midsummer Night's Dream;&quot; Jerome Robbins' &quot;In G Major,&quot; &quot;In the Night,&quot; &quot;Andantino,&quot; &quot;Gershwin Concerto&quot; and &quot;Piccolo Balletto;&quot; and Peter Martins' &quot;Adams Violin Concerto,&quot; &quot;Viva Verdi,&quot; &quot;Symphonic Dances,&quot; &quot;Stabat Mater,&quot; &quot;Delight of the Muses and &quot;The Sleeping Beauty&quot;.
 Kistler, in St. Petersburg this week with the NYC Ballet for performances at the Mariinsky Theater's Stars of the White Nights festival, spoke with Staff Writer </i><strong>Galina Stolyarova</strong><i> about her recipe for success, which involves a passion for dance, no regrets and being a chameleon.</i>
 
 q:<i> If it was up to you what to dance here in St. Petersburg, what would you choose? What would you prefer to dance at the Mariinsky?
 </i>a: If it was up to me, it would be exactly what I am dancing, &quot;Serenade,&quot; because it is Mr. Balanchine's very early work, done in 1934, it's his first original ballet in the United States. &quot;Serenade&quot; was done for his first students of the School of American Ballet. I think we are all students. And, of course, the music by Tchaikovsky, who Balanchine felt so close to. Nothing could be more perfect to bring to St. Petersburg than Balanchine and Tchaikovsky.
 
 q:<i> When did you decide to become a ballerina?
 </i>A: I really remember it very well - at the age of eight. At that time, I had already known I wanted to be a ballerina - I think because I like the privacy and something I can jump in to, and then rely on myself only, 100 percent. There is something you can continually learn and grow. It appeals to me that, no matter how many years you have danced, there is always something you can work on. I love music, and I like the theater life, that collaboration, when everybody is putting in. It is collaboration - between the dancers themselves and the ballet master - and yet it is self-sufficient. It is a community, but it is all about work , about what do you and not about how well you speak. I like that.
 
 q:<i> You grew up as the only daughter in the family of five children. Did it influence your desire to dance?
 </i>a: Even when I was eight, I realized I wasn't going to be able to keep up with my brothers. They were - and still are - very talented athletes, they were so good in what they did, so I wanted to do something well too. And probably because my world, my environment, was so masculine, I was fascinated to have that femininity. When I was eight, I got my first pointe shoes, and it really had something to do with beauty. What could be more beautiful that a pair of those tiny shoes with ribbons?
 
 q:<i> What do you like about being a ballerina?
 </i>a: I enjoy the process, all aspects of it. I like the classroom work no less than actually performing on stage. And I like the medium of the classroom. It is not enough to be a performer, you need to be a classroom dancer too. It is really hard to be yourself on stage, to achieve the necessary ease and freedom without liking the classroom work. It needs to be a combination of the two.
 Some people choose ballet careers because they are competitive, they are all about achieving their goals. It was never really an agenda for me. 
 I don't need to be inspired to do my work, and don't look for any external sources of inspiration. I don't turn to other people to get an impulse to work. It is all inside me. If you have a good imagination, this is your inspiration. 
 My life has changed since I was sixteen, but my professional attitude hasn't. When I am there, I don't have a husband, I don't have a child. When I am in studio, nothing else matters.
 q:<i> Is there anything you regret you haven't danced?
 </i>a: I am very level-headed. I like what I am doing at the time.
 
 q:<i> You were the last ballerina whom Balanchine invited to join the troupe before he died. What was precious to you about working with him personally?
 </i>a: I was someone who just started over, without having a particular ambition, a goal. Everything I ever wanted was to dance.
 What was particularly precious was that he encouraged me to be myself. He would say that, when dancing &quot;Swan Lake&quot; I shouldn't pretend to be [legendary emigre Russian dancer] Natalya Makarova, or imitate her, or imagine her. He would say, be who you are.
 I am not the one who thinks, &quot;Oh, I wish Balanchine was there for longer.&quot; He <i>is</i> still there, and his ballets are. In my opinion, it was a joy for him to have a young girl who was only interested in dance and wanted nothing from him. I didn't want to be his friend, I didn't want to be loved by him, to come to his house, etc. I didn't demand attention.
 
 q:<i> You have been lucky to dance tailor-made productions - prominent modern choreographers, including Jerome Robbins [co-chief ballet master of the company after Balanchine's death from 1983 until he himself died in 1998] and Peter Martins [co-chief ballet master with Robbins, now chief ballet master], designed ballets for you. Which choreographer is most sensitive to you?
 </i>a: I am very chameleon-like, and it is probably why I have managed to have such a long career. Whatever ballet I dance is my favorite, whatever partner I am on stage with is my favourite. But it is kind of my job. It is the whole package. What my husband [Martins] did was absolutely beautiful but I don't want to emphasize my husband.
 I don't have any favorites in [my] repertoire. What I like about New York City Ballet is versatility. You perform absolutely different things every night. I have been doing my job for twenty-some years, and there is such a variety that I haven't never been bored. I can't even imagine ever getting bored.
 
 q:<i> What else does it take to have a long career in ballet?
 </i>a: Just being in the moment and listening to the music. Music is the key. There is jazzy music, there is a sublime music, and you need to be into it completely. It is a wonderful experience, and I feel very grateful for being part of it.
 
 <i>
Darci Kistler dances next on Saturday at noon and on Sunday at 7 p.m. at the Mariinsky Theater.</i>

TITLE: modern-art fest is wayward
AUTHOR: By Andrei Vorobei
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The sixth running of the biennial modern-art festival &quot;Dialogues&quot; kicked off at the Manezh on Friday. The low turnout for the opening suggested that the event has still to shake its reputation for predictability and a strange participant-selection policy, a reputation partially justified by this year's showing, although there are some pleasant surprises.
 
&quot;Dialogues,&quot; celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, enjoys a position as the only regular festival of contemporary art in the city. However, apart from the exhibition's title, nothing remains of the original idea of inspiring artistic dialogue between artists from the states collectively formerly known as the Soviet Union and their counterparts from the West. Time has shown that fruitful artistic discourse is the result of a confluence of mutual interests, rather than of agenda setting, and, according to curator Larisa Skobkina, &quot;Dialogues&quot; should now be seen as referring to dialogues between artistic media.
 The exhibition showcases works by artists from 19 countries in traditional media such as painting, drawing, photography and sculpture, as well as more contemporary formats, such as video and digital imaging. The artists present, meanwhile, are dominated by two groups: Finns and students. The first group includes all the artists who took part at the modern-art biennial in Turku, Finland, that took place two weeks ago; the second is represented by a number of engaging university-based projects, one of which is the multimedia installation entitled &quot;Oblomov's Room&quot; by Ernst Jurgens and Christian Herrmann from the University of Applied Sciences in Deggendorf, Germany.
 &quot;You can be certain that we are not going to reconstruct a 19th-century room, but rather an interpretation of Oblomov's state of mind,&quot; Jurgens wrote said at the exhibition opening, referring to the central character, often seen as the ultimate incarnation of the &quot;superfluous man,&quot; a stereotyped character in 19th-century Russian literary, in the novel of the same name by Ivan Goncharov.
 Another student project is the video installation &quot;Anhalt-Petersburg Konnektion (APK)&quot; by a joint team from the design department of Der Hochschule Anhalt, Germany, and St. Petersburg State Economics and Finance University, playing on the connections between the city and the German province from which Catherine the Great hailed. This interesting detail, however, is not enough to save what is essentially a quite bulky and tedious work. 
 Many artists present have become permanent fixtures at &quot;Dialogues&quot;. This group includes Moscow's renowned Prigov Family Group, with its video-performances, or Finnish artist Henry Grahn, with his installations.
 According to Skobkina, the curator, this year's &quot;Dialogues&quot; is the first that gives wide representation to artists from other former Soviet Republics and, specifically, from Kyrgyzstan. However, this is not necessarily a good thing - the large section of the show that is devoted to these artists is its most dissonant point, and raises the question mentioned above of whether it actually has a proper selection policy. It is quite likely that visitors could be fooled into thinking that this section happened to left over from a previous exhibition of 1970s art from the republics of the former Soviet Union; certainly, it is a surprise to see the works listed in the current &quot;Dialogues&quot; catalogue.
 As for the surprises, the crux of the show are the works by scandalmongering Czech artist Milan Knizak that are the first on display as visitors enter. The &quot;game of the artist&quot; - in a purely postmodern tradition - is to &quot;create new arrangements (pictures) again and again by pulling and shifting,&quot; Knizak has said. For example, his &quot;Three Graces&quot; digitally manipulates different interpretations of one of the most famous images in classical art - the best known being Antonio Canova's sculpture - and &quot;damages&quot; them, producing one of the most interesting examples of this game. The works on display, executed in different media and from different stages in Knizak's career, would do justice to a solo exhibition, and provide one reason to visit the festival.
 Among the quite considerable photographic section of the show, the &quot;pairs of conceptual photographs&quot; by Spanish artist Manuel Lopez Alonso are a noticeable standout. Although simple and engaging both in terms of the subject matter and the works' titles, Lopez Alonso is &quot;trying to make people think.&quot;
 The festival's closing event will be a conference at 3 p.m. on Saturday at which visitors can share their impressions, and the artists will discuss their works. It will be followed by the presentation of a paper on Moscow video artists and a performance by Italian artist Pierpaolo Koss that promises to be interesting.
 
 <i>
&quot;Dialogues&quot; runs through Sunday at the Manege. Links: www.manege.spb.ru</i>


TITLE: the word's worth
AUTHOR: By Michele A. Berdy <i>
TEXT: Aga</i>: Yup, sure, uh-huh 
 
One of the puzzles and pleasures of Russian is all the muttered sounds that represent agreement, surprise, pain, astonishment, delight, displeasure - that is, every emotion known to mankind, expressed by a laconic <i>mmm</i> or <i>m-da</i> or <i>aga</i> or <i>oi</i>. 
 It's even more perplexing when you find them in a Russian text, and you struggle to figure out if the heroine's <i>ai-ai-ai</i> is a cry of pain, pleasure or disdain. But these little interjections are very useful. One magic day, your friend returns from a hot date and you find yourself opening your mouth and exclaiming <i>Nu?</i> Which translates directly as: Well? But really means: So what happened? How was it? Did you like him? Did he like you? Are you going to see him again?
 One of my favorite interjections is <i>aga</i>, which is a rather low-brow sign of agreement, something like yep, sure, you got it, uh-huh in American English. - <i>Ty kupil khleb?</i> - <i>Aga.</i> (Did you pick up bread? - Uh-huh.) 
 Another good interjection to know is <i>fu</i>, a kind of all-purpose expression of disdain, disgust or displeasure. <i>Ty chital statyu v Izvestiyakh? Fu! Gadost! Nenavizhu kompromat!</i> (Did you see the article in Izvestia? - Yuck! Disgusting! I hate smear articles!) When you use it to refer to a bad smell or something revolting, in English you say Phew! P-U!
 <i>Mmm</i> is to Russians what Hmmm is to Americans - a response that can mean &quot;I'm thinking about it,&quot; &quot;I agree,&quot; &quot;I'm not sure,&quot; or &quot;I'm not really paying attention to what you're saying, but I'm trying to seem like I'm listening.&quot; This is good to use on the phone with the kind of annoying caller who wants to tell you his life history before getting to the point of his call. Depending on the tone of voice and context, <i>m-da</i> can express irony, doubt or a kind of exasperated fatalism. You can translate it as humph; huh; hm; well, well; or ahem.
 <i>Ai-ai-ai</i>, said with a wag of the head, means &quot;shame on you,&quot; and is expressed in English as tsk tsk. <i>Brys! Fu!</i> or <i>Kysh!</i> are what you shout at your cat when she's on the countertop and about to dive into your chicken dinner. In American English we shout Shoo! or Scat!
 In both Russian and English you express extreme cold the same way: <i>Brr! (Brr!) Ei!</i> is close to Hey! And, like Oh!, <i>Oi!</i> can express any emotion, from surprise, amazement, joy, irony, doubt, sorrow and pain, although pain is usually expressed as &quot;ouch&quot; or &quot;ow&quot; in English: <i>Oi! Kakoi prelestny kotenok</i>. (Oh! What an adorable kitten.) <i>Oi! Bolno!</i> (Ouch! That hurts!) 
 And then there's <i>Au</i>, which is both a call for someone you are looking for, or a response to the call. For example, when you walk in your colleague's room and say Sasha! he can respond with <i>Au</i>, pronounced as a diphthong. In English you might say, &quot;Here I am.&quot; or &quot;Yes?&quot; But when you get separated from your fellow mushroom hunter in the woods, you call out <i>Auuuuu!</i>, elongating the syllables and letting them float on the wind. (This reminds me of what we used to call out at the end of a game of hide and seek as children, when we finally gave up finding Danny or Billy: Ally-ally-home free! Stretching out all the words.) 
 When translating <i>Au!</i>, ignore the dictionary suggestion &quot;You-hoo!&quot; In fact, take out your thickest marker and cross it out. Even though it's close in sound, trust me - no one has used this in English except as a joke since 1942. Most of the time we just shout out the person's name, making the syllables last a few seconds: A-a-a-a-lex! Not as universal as <i>Auuu!</i>, but it does the trick.
 
 <i>
Michele A. Berdy is a Moscow-based translator.</i>


TITLE: study casts censure on reforms
AUTHOR: By Elizabeth Larsen
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Business in Russia was looking pretty peachy this spring. GDP was rising, inflation was sufficiently low, the ruble was gaining steadily, the country's balance of payments was strong, and the stock market was booming.
 
However, in July, much of that changed, when prosecutors launched an inquiry into how Russia's richest person, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, acquired part of his empire. The arrest of Platon Lebedev, one of the tycoon's closest business associates, set off an anxious storm of debate over whether the government intended to revise privatizations dating back to the early 1990s, when state resources were snapped up by a well-positioned batch of businesspeople who came to be known collectively as the oligarchs. 
 Some praise these oligarchs for their capitalist instincts, which enabled them to emerge the victors in the Darwinian world of those early auctions, called &quot;the sale of the century&quot; by many people.
 By definition, they argue, privatization is messy but, as a way of reducing the state's role in the economy, it played an invaluable role in helping push Russia beyond its communist past.
 Others take the opposite approach: The government had the opportunity to divide state wealth more fairly among its citizens and, had reforms been better conceived, the oligarchs would not have been allowed to pocket swaths of state property for themselves.
 Marshall Goldman, a professor emeritus of economics at Wellesley College in the eponymous town in Massachusetts, assistant director of Harvard University's Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies and an advisor to former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, falls firmly into the latter camp.
 His latest book, &quot;The Piratization of Russia: Russian Reform Goes Awry,&quot; is a testament to his longtime argument that Russia could have - and should have - done more to see to it that ordinary people were not left behind by the hastily envisioned new market economy. 
 True to type as an old Cold Warrior, Goldman is the Doubting Thomas of doubters with respect to the intentions of Russian leaders. He has consistently cast doubt over President Vladimir Putin's electoral promise to establish a &quot;dictatorship of the law&quot; as well as his larger commitment to democracy.
 Given the implications of the Lebedev case, Goldman's distrust is well founded, and his book, which reopens historical rights and wrongs with the very word &quot;piratization,&quot; is well timed. 
 Goldman is fiercely critical of Putin's favored relationship with the oligarchs - relations that Putin had promised would be no closer than those he has with, say, bakers or shoe repairers.
 Having chased Vladimir Gusinsky and Boris Berezovsky, his most outspoken critics, into exile, Putin has done nothing of the sort with respect to Roman Abramovich and Oleg Deripaska, two other oligarchs who have steered clear of mainstream politics. And, until Khodorkovsky of Yukos began openly financing two liberal political parties, the Union of Right Forces and Yabloko, that rival Putin's pro-Kremlin United Russia bloc, Khodorkovsky also enjoyed a great deal of autonomy.
 &quot;As long as Putin is seen to be tolerating or favoring his own set of oligarchs at the expense of his critics,&quot; Goldman writes, &quot;and where the rule of in-laws remains more important than the rule of law, there can be no true change.&quot; 
 And, if the book advocates anything, it is change - in law, in policy priorities, and in understanding the events that have taken place during the past 10 years in Russia. 
 Around the time of Russia's 1998 financial crisis, critics of the administration of then U.S. President Bill Clinton began to ask &quot;Who lost Russia?&quot; as they sought to assign blame for the country's seemingly stalled democratization. 
 Goldman would ask that question a bit differently: Who is responsible for Russia's losses? He wants to establish who pilfered, purloined, and pirated Russia, and who is going to pay to right those wrongs.
 To many people, this may seem to be hopelessly backward-looking at a time when many are moving forward with business in Russia, letting bygones be bygones as far as privatization is concerned.
 But it is a fair question and, if the end result of the government's case against Yukos is a revisitation of the way assets were originally divvied up, this otherwise historic question suddenly skyrockets in relevance.
 Steve Forbes, the editor of Forbes business magazine, was recently quoted by local tabloid Argumenti i Fakty as saying, &quot;In the West, business is successful when it provides services to the population. In Russia, meanwhile, businesspeople have prospered for several years by robbing the government and the population.&quot;
 Goldman argues that the population has been robbed for too long: &quot;If there is to be any change, something must be done to force those who benefited unfairly from the breakup of the state to pay a fair price for what they have acquired.&quot;
 It's a rhetorical proposition, to which Goldman, unfortunately, adds no recommendations of his own. 
 Goldman lambastes the group that he calls &quot;the nomenklatura oligarchs&quot; - Soviet-era factory directors or senior government ministers who used their privileged posts to take ownership of the factories they ran or the mineral deposits for which they held licenses after the breakup of the Soviet Union. 
 U.S. robber barons, like steel magnate Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, who built his Standard Oil into a family dynasty, have nothing in common with Russia's oligarchs, though parallels are often drawn, Goldman argues.
 Unlike Carnegie and Rockefeller, who created companies that added value to the economy, oligarchs created nothing and, instead, pocketed what was not rightfully theirs. 
 The two groups further differ, Goldman says, in that the robber barons did not create barriers to entry that now plague small and medium-sized business owners in Russia, as oligarchs seek to keep their choke holds on various sectors.
 Goldman is categorically critical of everybody who played a part in the privatization process - nomenklatura oligarchs, &quot;upstart&quot; oligarchs, the mafia, the engineers of privatization, Western advisors, the Central Bank, Mikhail Gorbachev, even Soviet and tsarist-era bureaucrats - for the historical precedents they left behind. 
 The &quot;upstart&quot; oligarchs, as a rule, engaged in private business activity before it was conditionally legalized by Gorbachev in 1987 and, therefore, enjoyed a flying start through their underground business connections with factory managers and consumers.
 These are the Gusinskys, the Berezovskys, the Khodorkovskys, whose biographies the former Washington Post Moscow bureau chief David Hoffman catalogued in his recent book &quot;The Oligarchs.&quot;
 These men, Goldman says, are the most &quot;interesting.&quot; 
 Goldman doesn't miss a chance to criticize Yegor Gaidar and Anatoly Chubais, two of the architects of the immediate transition to a market economy, known as shock therapy. 
 These men, together with Western advisors Jeffrey Sachs and Anders Aslund, clung to an academic principle called the Coase Theorem, which suggested that the way property rights were initially handed out held little importance, because those rights would trade hands countless more times.
 The thinking was that it doesn't matter who grabs control of a given car factory or nickel mine because, once a company is privatized, market rules kick in and stockholders will ultimately oust incompetent owners and directors.
 In a chapter titled &quot;Who Says There Was No Better Way?&quot; Goldman outlines an alternative model along which Russia might have designed its reform - along the lines of the Poland's innovative system, conceived by that country's Privatization Minister Janusz Lewandowski. 
 Lewandowski's scheme called for 15 National Investment Funds (NIFs) that operated as mutual funds. Rather than distribute holdings equally across the board, Lewandowski ran an auction that allocated a 33-percent share of stock in each company being privatized to one NIF, granting each fund a 33-percent holding in each of 34 companies and a 1.9-percent holding in each of 478 companies.
 Fifteen percent of the remaining stock of each company went to staff and management and 25 percent to the state, which in turn invested 15 percent of its shares in social and pension funds.
 This structure allowed the funds to hold control over the factory director - and it managed to revive small business and enable start-ups to flourish. As a result, Poland's middle class has blossomed, while Russia's has remained a faint presence.
 Goldman rues this lack of a middle class and the small entrepreneurs that account for its foundation in other countries.
 He reprints a diagram by Yabloko party leader Grigory Yavlinsky of the myriad bureaucratic steps necessary to open a legal business. Yavlinsky claims it takes 1,346 days to get through the maze.
 And it's not just small-time Russian businesspeople who face these hurdles. General Motors needed 157 official certificates before it could launch a joint venture with AvtoVAZ in Tolyatti. Such an enormous quantity of red tape, Goldman stresses, must be done away with.
 Small business development requires government support in providing credit, mortgages and investment capital.
 Goldman credits Putin with simplifying the tax structure, making headway on land reform and initiating commercial bank reform, but tempers his flattery. 
 &quot;There will only be an effective check on wanton oligarch and government abuse when there is a critical mass of property owners, businessmen and an independent middle class determined to protect themselves and their property from arbitrary seizure or extortion by the state, monopolistic oligarchs and criminal groups,&quot; he writes.
 &quot;Laws alone, without public pressure to enforce them, will seldom be effective.&quot;
 So, while real change must come from the top, real pressure for change must come from the people.
 Examples of civic groups effectively lobbying the government, however, are rare. But perhaps that is changing.
 A recent poll by the independent ROMIR agency indicates that a critical mass of Russians may side with the government and against the long-reviled oligarchs.
 Nearly 80 percent of 1,500 people polled said that the privatization of the 1990s should be revised. Almost 90 percent said they believe all significant wealth in the country was amassed by illegal means. 
 Russia is not a static country; it continues to evolve and, as that happens, it falls on the entire system to learn from - and perhaps correct - the mistakes of recent history, as Goldman describes them - and ensure that subsequent reforms do not go awry. 
 
 <i>
&quot;The Piratization of Russia: Russian Reform Goes Awry.&quot; By Marshall I. Goldman. Routledge Press. 289 pages. $19.95 (paperback).</i>
 

 <i>
Elizabeth Larsen is a U.S. State Department Young Leaders Fellow for Public Service.</i>


TITLE: down's syndrome actor's career on the up
AUTHOR: By Rebecca Reich
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - Fame came unexpectedly to Russia's newest film star at the recent Sochi film festival. Born with Down's syndrome, Sergei Makarov never got the chance to go to acting school. In fact, he never went to school at all. 
 
There were precious few options for the mentally disabled in the Soviet Union, and the thought that Makarov might someday join a successful theater troupe - much less star in an award-winning film - never crossed anyone's mind.
 Then Makarov's life turned around a month ago when the Kinotavr festival gave four prizes, including the top Golden Rose, to &quot;Starukhi&quot; (&quot;Old Women&quot;), the debut film by Gennady Sidorov. In the film, Makarov, 37, plays a disabled man from an impoverished village in the north whose mother runs off and leaves him in the care of a handful of grumpy old women. With the publicity that followed, the film drew nationwide attention to a question long swept under the Soviet rug: What to do about the mentally disabled? 
 Many of the 2,000 children born in Russia every year with the extra chromosome that causes Down's syndrome - also known as Down syndrome - are orphans, having been given up by their parents at birth to a lifetime of institutionalization that has undergone almost no practical reform since the Soviet Union fell apart.
 &quot;I have some very frightening footage from American institutions from 1968,&quot; said Sergei Koloskov, head of the Down's Syndrome Association, which played a key role in Makarov's onscreen success. &quot;When I show people footage from Russian institutions today, I say: 'Look, there's no difference. The only difference is 40 years.'&quot;
 The Down's Syndrome Association tries to bring Russia up to date on a daily level by overseeing some 1,000 families through about 30 parent support groups, including 300 families in Moscow. Another active advocate of the rights of people with Down's syndrome is the charity Downside Up, which provides educational programs for children and training for their teachers. But Koloskov is also bent on changing policy from above. &quot;There's an enormous gap between what the government says it will do and what it does in practice,&quot; he said. 
 While several new laws guarantee education for children with Down's syndrome, Koloskov's research has found that the situation hasn't much changed since Makarov was a boy. In addition to there being no governmental control over local &quot;internats&quot; - the system of children's homes is in charge of nearly half a million children - old Soviet appointees are reluctant to put the new legislation into effect. 
 Conditions are worst for the 29,000 children deemed moderate to severe cases and thrust into institutions under the Labor Ministry, Koloskov said. &quot;These are not educational institutions. There are absolutely no teachers, or at least very few. They relate to the children as they would to animals or little beasts: On the outside they look like people, but inside they don't feel or think anything.&quot; 
 Compared to the average Russian with Down's syndrome, Makarov has led a charmed life. Instead of giving him up, his mother, Saima Makarova, kept him at home and tried to encourage his dramatic talents. &quot;He always had a leaning toward the theater, toward imitation,&quot; Makarova said in a recent telephone interview. 
 But it wasn't until Makarova came across a newspaper ad for the Arts Center at the Down's Syndrome Association that things began to go her son's way. 
 &quot;One way that these people can realize themselves is through creativity, because their emotional side is more developed than their intellectual side,&quot; Koloskov said. 
 In addition to running workshops in dancing, painting and music, the Arts Center opened a drama troupe in 1999 called the Theater of Simple Souls, and Makarov became a member. 
 The idea for the theater originated with its present director, Igor Neupokoyev, who had been acting professionally for 12 years. Although Neupokoyev volunteered for the Down's Syndrome Association before taking on the troupe and to this day receives no pay, he insisted that his goal is not charity but a new kind of art.
 &quot;I wanted to do a Gogol play, and it seemed to me that they were best fit to play his works,&quot; Neupokoyev said. &quot;They don't even have to act, because they are ready-made Gogol types as soon as they put on 19th-century costumes.&quot;
 But Neupokoyev's choice of repertoire had an added significance. Instead of producing one of Gogol's comic plays, he adapted a short story from the novel &quot;Dead Souls&quot; about a one-armed, one-legged veteran named Captain Kopeikin who travels to the capital after the war of 1812 to demand a pension from the emperor, only to get carted out of the city, peg-leg and all. 
 &quot;The main idea is that an invalid is playing an invalid,&quot; Neupokoyev said of his decision to cast Makarov as Kopeikin. &quot;Gogol's story takes place nearly 200 years ago, and the situation hasn't changed. The government is divided from the people, and between them is an abyss.&quot;
 Getting his troupe up to performance level was more of a challenge. Several of the actors had trouble memorizing lines, and money for sets and materials was scarce. But two years later, Neupokoyev's efforts began to pay off. The show was filmed for the Kultura television channel and shown at the Cannes film festival. And, after 3 1/2 years, &quot;Captain Kopeikin&quot; went on stage. 
 When film director Gennady Sidorov asked Makarov to star in &quot;Starukhi,&quot; or &quot;Old Women,&quot; Makarov was only too happy to agree to the two months of harsh filming conditions in a small village in the north. &quot;He feels himself to be an artist,&quot; Neupokoyev said. 
 But no one expected the film to go as far as it did, least of all Neupokoyev. &quot;When they called me and told me to go turn on the TV [for the Sochi awards], I didn't even turn it on. I didn't think it would be anything important,&quot; he said. 
 It was only after the interviews and articles began piling up that Neupokoyev realized how far things had come. 
 The award was a great step forward for Makarov. &quot;He acted and acted, but when he was judged and told that he was acting well, he began to feel much more serious about it,&quot; his mother said. 
 The triumph, however, was more than just personal. Makarov became a poster-boy for Russia's forgotten community of mentally disabled patients. &quot;He knows that he's been of use to others. He understands that it's about more than just him,&quot; Makarova said. 
 But public relations breaks like Makarov don't come around too often for the Down's Syndrome Association. While Koloskov is able to raise money for his programs from foreign organizations and private donors, his primary goal is to see that the federal government sticks to its promise to care for the mentally disabled. 
 &quot;I don't think it's a question of money. It's a question of human rights,&quot; he said.
 In an upcoming association report on nationwide violations, he will demand once again that the government account for the laws it passes.
 Koloskov is confident, though, that the winds are beginning to turn.
 Neupokoyev is not so sure. At least in Gogol's story, he said, Captain Kopeikin got an audience with a minister. &quot;I think that today an invalid would never be received by an official. Today, all an invalid can do is go through the metro cars and ask for a few kopeks.&quot;

TITLE: Pope, Bush Take Stands Against Gay Matrimony
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: VATICAN CITY - The Vatican launched a global campaign against gay marriages Thursday, warning Catholic politicians that support of same-sex unions was &quot;gravely immoral,&quot; and urging non-Catholics to join the offensive. The announcement came just one day after U.S. President George W. Bush said during a press conference that Americans should respect homosexuals, but that he wants to make sure marriage is defined strictly as a union between a man and a woman.
 
The Vatican's orthodoxy watchdog, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, issued a 12-page set of guidelines with the approval of Pope John Paul II in a bid to stem the increase in laws granting legal rights to homosexual unions in Europe and North America.
 &quot;There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God's plan for marriage and family,&quot; the document said. &quot;Marriage is holy, while homosexual acts go against the natural moral law.&quot;
 The Vatican document, &quot;Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons,&quot; sets out a battle plan for politicians when confronted with laws or proposed legislation giving homosexual couples the same rights as married heterosexuals.
 It also speaks out strongly against allowing gay couples to adopt, saying children raised by same-sex parents face developmental &quot;obstacles&quot; because they are deprived of having either a mother or a father.
 &quot;Allowing children to be adopted by persons living in such unions would actually mean doing violence to these children, in the sense that their condition of dependency would be used to place them in an environment that is not conducive to their full human development,&quot; it said.
 The document says Catholic politicians have a &quot;moral duty&quot; to publicly oppose laws granting recognition to homosexual unions and to vote against them if proposals are put to a vote in legislatures.
 If the laws are already on the books, politicians must speak out against them, work to repeal them and try to limit their impact on society, it said.
 &quot;To vote in favor of a law so harmful to the common good is gravely immoral,&quot; the document said.
 The document doesn't provide for specific penalties for Catholics who fail to oppose such laws, saying only that the lawmakers had a &quot;moral duty&quot; to vote against them.
 The issue is particularly charged in the United States, where some lawmakers in the House of Representatives have proposed a constitutional ban on gay marriages to counter state laws granting legal recognition to gay unions.
 &quot;I believe in the sanctity of marriage,&quot; Bush said Wednesday, &quot;I believe a marriage is between a man and a woman, and I think we ought to codify that one way or the other.&quot;
 U.S. government lawyers are exploring measures to enshrine that definition in the law, the president said.
 Still, he urged Americans not to ostracize gays.
 &quot;I am mindful that we're all sinners, and I caution those who may try to take the speck out of the neighbor's eye when they got a log in their own,&quot; the president said, invoking a biblical passage from the Gospel according to St. Matthew.
 &quot;I think it is very important for our society to respect each individual, to welcome those with good hearts, to be a welcoming country,&quot; Bush said.
 His remarks offered a sop to conservatives who were angered earlier this month after he distanced himself from a House proposal for a constitutional ban on gay marriage. Representative Marilyn Musgrave was the main sponsor of a proposal to amend the Constitution to read: &quot;Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman.&quot; It was referred on June 25 to the House Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution.

TITLE: Willis Beats Johnson for Florida Win
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MIAMI - Rookie sensation Dontrelle Willis achieved two impressive feats Wednesday night. First he helped the Florida Marlins fill Pro Player Stadium, and then he beat Randy Johnson. 
 
Willis had a little help from Arizona second baseman Junior Spivey, who made an errant throw that allowed two runs to score in the sixth inning. That was the difference as Willis and the surging Marlins beat Johnson and slumping Diamondbacks 3-1. 
 The showdown of showcase left-handers drew a crowd of 37,735 - much more than the Marlins projected, and their largest turnout since July 14, 2001. Nearly half the tickets were purchased Wednesday in anticipation of a pitching gem, and that's what the fans got. 
 &quot;If you're not a fan of baseball watching that game, you're not going to be a fan,&quot; Willis said. &quot;It was just fun to watch.&quot; 
 The crowd also saw the Marlins win their sixth game in a row and complete their first-ever series sweep of Arizona. The Diamondbacks have lost nine consecutive road games, a team record. 
 In a battle of the ages, the 21-year-old Willis (10-2) gave up four hits in seven innings. The only run scored by the D-Backs against the D-Train was a homer by the second batter he faced, Alex Cintron. 
 The 39-year-old Johnson, making just his third start after missing 2 1/2 months following arthroscopic knee surgery, was almost as good. Johnson (1-4) allowed four hits in six innings but gave up two runs - both unearned - in the pivotal sixth. 
 Arizona led 1-0 when Florida loaded the bases loaded and one out. Miguel Cabrera hit a grounder through Johnson's legs to Spivey, who appeared to have an easy double play. 
 Spivey stepped on the bag but then threw low and wide to first for Arizona's third error. The ball got away from first baseman Shea Hillenbrand, and two runs scored. 
 That was too many for the Diamondbacks to overcome. They've been outscored 13-9 while losing five of seven. 
 &quot;One mistake changed the outcome of the ballgame, and I take the blame for it,&quot; Spivey said. &quot;That was a mistake that shouldn't happen.&quot; 
 Cabrera drove in two runs for Florida, including an insurance run with a two-out single in the eighth. 
 The Marlins, who remained one game behind NL wild-card leader Philadelphia, improved to 6-0 on their homestand. They've swept back-to-back series for the first time since the end of the 2000 season. 
 Willis finished with eight strikeouts to four for Johnson, leaving a gap of 3,700 in their career totals, but said he wasn't fazed by facing the five-time Cy Young Award winner. 
 &quot;I'm a pretty relaxed guy,&quot; Willis said. &quot;No matter how people blow it up, I still have to throw strikes.&quot; 
 
 <strong>
Chicago White Sox 15, Kansas City 4.</strong> Jose Valentin hit three home runs in the first five innings, and there were plenty of other Chicago White Sox players doing serious damage, too. 
 
Paul Konerko hit a grand slam and drove in a career-high six runs as the White Sox routed the Kansas City Royals 15-4 Wednesday night. 
 Chicago set season highs for runs, hits (19) and home runs (six). 
 &quot;It was one of those days where you see pitches to hit and you don't miss them,&quot; Valentin said. &quot;I didn't try to hit three out, but it happened. It was a great game for me.&quot; 
 The White Sox won their third in a row and improved to a league-best 11-2 since the All-Star break. They pulled within two games of AL Central-leading Kansas City, the closest they've been to first place since April 8. 
 Valentin hit a solo home run in the second inning and three-run home run in the third, both swinging left-handed off Kansas City starter Runelvys Hernandez. 
 The switch-hitter then homered right-handed to lead off the fifth against reliever Jeremy Affeldt. It was only his second home run of the season swinging right-handed. 
 Konerko hit a grand slam in the seventh, singled home a run in the sixth and had a sacrifice fly in the third. Carlos Lee and Ordonez also homered for the White Sox, while Miguel Olivo had a career-high four hits. 
 
 <strong>
N.Y. Yankees 8, Anaheim 0.</strong> Roger Clemens pitched his first complete game in more than three years, shutting out Anaheim on five hits and leading the New York Yankees over the Angels 8-0 Wednesday night. 
 
The victory ended a string 104 consecutive regular-season starts without a complete game for Clemens, (10-7) - the longest such drought in Yankees history. 
 The shutout was the 46th of his 20-year career and first since June 29, 1999, against Detroit. His previous complete game came on May 28, 2000, when he lost to Pedro Martinez and the Boston Red Sox. 
 Still throwing 147-kilometer-per-hour fastballs, Clemens earned his 303rd career victory. He walked one and struck out five, increasing his career strikeout total to 4,053.

TITLE: Slusareva Retains Crown on First Day of Cycling's Worlds
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: STUTTGART, Germany - Olga Slusareva of Russia won the women's points race on the opening day of the World Track Cycling Championships on Wednesday.
 
Germany's Stefan Nimke delighted home fans when he rode to gold in the men's 1-kilometer sprint, while Switzerland's Franco Marvulli retained his 15-kilometer scratch-race title.
 Slusareva waited until the final third of the 24-kilometer, 84-lap race, and then took points in all of the last six sprints to rack up a total of 27 points and beat Edita Kubelskiene of Lithuania (19) and Cuba's Yoanka Gonzalez Perez (16) to secure her third consecutive points world title.
 Points races are mass-start events with sprints-for-points at predetermined intervals.
 Nimke, who won a silver medal in the 2000 Olympics but has been hampered by a back injury since, upset an elite field to win the men's time trial, covering 1,000 meters in 1:01.225. One of the first riders to go, he then watched as the rest of the field failed to match his time. 
 Three-time champion Shane Kelly of Australia was second in 1:01.356, with France's world-record holder Arnaud Tournant, who was sidelined for six months this winter with a herniated disc, finished third in a time of 1:01.644. 
 Defending champion Chris Hoy of Britain finished out of the medals in fourth place in 1:01.704, while Olympic champion Jason Queally could only manage ninth place. 
 &quot;I felt really good, and knew I'd go near to the 1:01 mark, and the result of the race proved it,&quot; Nimke said after pulling on the rainbow-coloured jersey awarded to cycling world champions. 
 &quot;But I'm surprised to have won,&quot; he said. &quot;It was hell having to wait so long for the last rider, but then I knew when Hoy was slower than me that I'd got gold.&quot; 
 In the scratch race, Switzerland's Marvulli waited until the last two laps before going for gold, chasing after late attacker Alexander Gonzalez of Colombia and going past him in the final lap to hold off the chase of the main field. 
 He crossed the line five meters ahead, with Robert Sassone of France taking second and Jean-Pierre Van Zyl of South Africa third in a close sprint. 
 Marvulli, who won gold in Denmark last year when the discipline made its debut at the world championships, covered the 15 kilometers at an average speed of more than 50 kilometers per hour. 
 The scratch is an individual race covering 15 kilometers for men. A neutralized start is followed by a flying start and riders who are lapped are eliminated from the race. 
 Marvulli had not even been entered in the scratch until teammate Alexander Aeschbach was hit by a bus on Monday.
 
 <i>(Reuters, AP) </i>

TITLE: Buying Players Burgers Costs Utah's NCAA Progam Dear
AUTHOR: By Doug Alden
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Utah basketball coach Rick Majerus never saw a crime in buying a hamburger for a player as they discussed personal matters. 
 
The NCAA didn't either, but the fact that Majerus didn't bother checking on it bolstered the organization's feeling there was a lack of compliance in the school's athletic program, which was placed on three years' probation Wednesday. 
 Majerus was a little baffled by the punishment. 
 &quot;I don't think anybody ever said we gained a competitive advantage because 'I had that hamburger with Majerus,'&quot; he said. &quot;Or in recruiting, somebody would say 'Hey, if I only become a Ute I'll be able to go to Crown Burger with Majerus.'&quot;
 The sanctions handed down by the NCAA Committee on Infractions could have been much worse. The Utes may still participate in postseason tournaments and bowl games, no restrictions were placed on TV appearances and they only lose one men's basketball scholarship for the next three seasons. 
 Committee chairperson Tom Yeager said most of the infractions, which included Majerus' springing for meals as well as some academic fraud on the football team, were relatively minor and did not warrant more serious penalties. 
 &quot;These were not five-course steak meals at the finest restaurant in town,&quot; Yeager said. 
 Still, the committee found a &quot;lack of institutional control,&quot; noting the basketball staff &quot;failed to foster an environment of compliance.&quot; 
 The academic fraud was an athletic department tutor providing two football players with a paper for a writing class in 1999. The paper was discovered, the tutor was fired and the athletes failed the course. But the school did not report the violation to the NCAA, Yeager said. 
 University officials accepted the punishment, relieved it was not more serious. 
 &quot;This has been a very painful, but yet a very constructive process for the university,&quot; university president Bernie Machen said. &quot;As a result of this process we have improved our compliance procedures while maintaining a quality program which emphasizes academic success and academic and athletic excellence.&quot; 
 The NCAA accepted the university's self-imposed sanctions, including cutting one men's basketball scholarship for the 2004-05 and 2005-06 seasons, and added one scholarship penalty for 2006-07. 
 Other than the incident involving two football players, there were no academic violations or wrongdoing involving boosters. 
 &quot;Those are very scary areas for an athletic director and I feel our staff was very diligent in those areas,&quot; athletic director Chris Hill said. &quot;That doesn't discount that I own these responsibilities and that's my job.&quot;
 The bulk of the NCAA's concerns with the basketball team centered on meals that Majerus bought for players - a rule that has been changed to allow for such meals as long as each one is documented. 
 The report said Majerus told the NCAA he thought meals he bought for players at local restaurants were allowed because he lives in a hotel near the university. Coaches are allowed to host athletes for home meals. 
 Had the meals been held in Majerus' hotel suite, he said they would have been OK. Majerus described the meals more as meetings, when he would discuss personal matters, such as academics or an upcoming church mission, and give advice. 
 &quot;The circumstances involving the meals was of no pertinence to the NCAA,&quot; Majerus said.

TITLE: SPORT WATCH
TEXT: <b>Amstrong Again
 </b>

GRAZ, Austria (AP) - Just two days after wrapping up a record-tying fifth straight Tour de France victory, Lance Armstrong edged an Austrian field to win a 59-kilometer race. 
 The American finished the Altstad-Kriterium - 55 laps on a course through Graz - in 1:34:40. 
 The 31-year-old Texan pulled away from the field on the 50th lap, and narrowly beat runner-up Berhard Eisel. 
 
 
<b>Bryant Case
 </b>

EAGLE, Colorado (AP) - Kobe Bryant and the woman who accused him of sexual assault had some consensual sexual contact in his mountain resort suite, but prosecutors will argue the woman did not consent to intercourse, ABC News reported Wednesday. 
 Citing unnamed sources, the network also said the 19-year-old woman was in Bryant's room for less than a half hour, and that Bryant later gave inconsistent statements to Eagle County authorities. 
 The woman suffered physical trauma in the vaginal area, the Rocky Mountain News reported Thursday, citing law enforcement sources close to the investigation. 
 
 
<b>Ronaldinho Stars
 </b>

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New signing Ronaldinho scored one goal and set up the other to guide Barcelona to a 2-0 victory over defending European champion AC Milan in a pre-season friendly on Wednesday.
 The Spanish giant went ahead after 10 minutes when a deft flick by the Brazilian set up Portuguese winger Ricardo Quaresma, who left Alessandro Nesta and Paolo Maldini flat-footed before firing past the helpless Dida in goal.
 Barcelona added a second goal five minutes into the second half after Milan, warming up for the Italian Super Cup against Juventus in New Jersey on Sunday, made 10 substitutions at halftime.
 Ronaldinho, who joined the club from Paris St Germain earlier this month, volleyed the ball home from 25 meters thanks to a wicked deflection off compatriot Roque Junior.
 
 
<b>True to His Name
 </b>

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Former Spartak Moscow striker Vladimir Beschastnykh has signed a 2-1/2-year contract with Russian first division club Kuban Krasnodar. 
 Officials from Kuban, in fourth place in its division, said the club was looking for an experienced striker to help it win a promotion to the Premier League
 Beschastnykh was released by Fenerbahce earlier this month after an unsuccessful stint with the Turkish Super League club. 
 The 29-year-old, Russia's all-time leading scorer with 26 goals in 71 internationals, has not played for the national team since last September's Euro 2004 qualifier against Ireland. 
 Beschastnykh, who made his name with Spartak, has also played for Germany's Werder Bremen and Spain's Racing Santander.
 
 
<b>Lemieux Carrying On?
 </b>

PITTSBURGH (AP) - Mario Lemieux, the dominating scorer who has seen the team he owns fall on hard times since his surprise comeback 2 1/2 years ago, was expected to announce Thursday he will return to playing for the Pittsburgh Penguins for the 2003-2004 season.
 After the Penguins traded most of their veteran players late last season and launched their most ambitious overhaul since Lemieux was drafted 19 years ago, it seemed likely the sixth-leading scorer in NHL history would retire again. 
 However, Lemieux began working out six weeks ago and he intends to resume his usual on-ice conditioning program next month.