SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #891 (59), Friday, August 8, 2003
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TITLE: 11 Candidates To Run for Governor
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The City Election Commission (CEC) announced on Tuesday that it had registered 11 of the 13 applicants who submitted all the necessary documents and lists of signatures by July 31 to run in the Sept. 21 elections for governor - but not before there were some disputes over who counted as a real voter and who didn't.
To be registered, candidates had to provide either a 7.5-million-ruble ($248,000) deposit or a list of signatures endorsing their candidacy from at least 37,000 eligible voters - one percent of all those who may cast ballots in the election.
The CEC handed over portions of the lists to the city police, who were charged with determining whether the signatures submitted actually represented people eligible to vote.
The police findings that, on some of the lists, more than 25 percent of the signatures - the prescribed limit - had been declared invalid, brought angry reactions from some of the candidates.
Mikhail Amosov, the head of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly, was one of the disgruntled, after police said that 35 percent of the signatures in the batch of his lists that they checked were found wanting. Amosov said that he had personally tracked down 60 cases in which the police erred in disallowing signatures, including that of his own sister. The police made the ruling after saying that she did not give her proper address along with her signature.
"I was told my sister doesn't live in that building, although I can confirm that she does," Amosov said at a briefing on Tuesday, the Rosbalt news agency reported.
He also gave another example, that of Yury Nesterov, a State Duma deputy, who, the police said, provided completely different passport data along with his signature than the information they had for his passport. Amosov brought Nesterov along to the briefing to provide proof.
"A dead soul found in my files of signatures came to life again" Amosov said, referring to Gogol's novel about a man who goes around purchasing the ownership rights to deceased peasants in order to take mortgages on them.
He also complained that the police had ruled out signatures gathered in a building at 19/21 Botninskaya Ulitsa, which they said does not exist. He brought proof that the building is actually there.
According to Dmitry Krasnyansky, the deputy head of the CEC, all but one of the remaining applicants to run had been registered after the CEC performed a follow-up investigation on the police results.
Krasnyansky said that the CEC working group's investigation determined, for example, that only 19 percent of Amosov's signatures could be ruled out, and that the corresponding figure for Vice Governor Anna Markova was about 9 percent.
The police had reported that 29 percent of Markova's signatures were unacceptable.
"When I checked Markova's signatures myself, I found that 31 percent [sic.] of her signatures were not valid," Krasnyansky said at a briefing at the Itar-Tass offices on Wednesday. "Thus means that about 348 of the 996 signatures checked [by the CEC] weren't allowed by the working group, which said that the police had no means by which to determine whether they are valid or not."
Officials at the Central Election Commission, the CEC's equivalent at the federal level, said on Wednesday that the City Election Commission will file an inquiry with the city Prosecutor's Office asking for an investigation of Markova's signatures.
Krasnyansky said that the signatures were those of military students who are not officially registered as living in St. Petersburg, and that they were ultimately approved on the basis of a letter sent to the Election Commission from the military academy at which the signatures were collected.
He said that the difficulties encountered with verifying the signatures was part of a larger problem with the registration requirements.
"Personally, I would say that it is a bad practice to gather signatures. Most of them are always fake and everybody knows it. How many of you signed in favor of a candidate during recent weeks?" Krasnyansky said, following with a chuckle after none of the journalists gathered answered.
Krasnyansky said that one of the biggest discrepancies between the results provided by the police and those from the CEC were in the case of Sergei Pryanishnikov, the owner of SP Company, a local company that produces and distributes pornographic films. He said that the police examination had indicated that 40 percent of the signatures were invalid, while the CEC's figure was a mere 2 percent.
The CEC ultimately refused to register just one candidate, Rashid Dzhabarov, a businessperson, after it determined that 44.9 percent of the signatures he submitted were invalid. Another candidate, Gennady Vasilenko, a member of Business Development Party, withdrew his candidacy on Tuesday.
Two of the candidates, Valentina Matviyenko, the presidential representative to the Northwest Region, and Konstantin Sukhenko, a deputy in the Legislative Assembly, were registered immediately after they paid the 7.5-million-ruble deposit, Krasnyansky said.
Even though the CEC had revised many of the findings of the initial examination of the lists, Krasnyansky took the time on Wednesday to compliment the police on their effort.
"The police have done an overwhelming amount of work in managing to check so many signatures in such a short period of time. There have never been so many candidates before, and there were further difficulties as a result of changes to the election laws," he said.
Krasnyansky speculated that one reason for the large number of negative rulings may be that Russia is in the middle of exchanging people's old internal passports for new ones, and the police may simply not have had sufficient time to update their databases.
But Mikhail Utyatsky, the head of the St. Petersburg Police Passport and Visa Department, which was responsible for carrying out the examination of the lists, said that police databases are up to date, and that the numbers provided to the CEC were accurate.
"We have already started receiving accusations about the work on the signatures through the media," Utyatsky said at Wednesday's briefing. "We had over a hundred employees working on signatures ... and found many signatures signed with the same pen or those not in accordance with the [official] database."
Krasnyansky said that he had recommended that the Central Election Commission file inquiries with the City Prosecutor's Office in relation to some of the phony signatures, but had yet to receive an indication that this would actually happen.
"My request was registered," he said.
According to the Criminal Code, those found guilty of falsifying signatures are subject to a prison term of up to four years.
WHO'S WHO
. Mikhail Amosov
Legislative Assembly deputy (Yabloko)
. Sergei Belyayev
Former head of Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport
. Anna Markova
St. Petersburg vice governor
. Valentina Matviyenko Presidential representative to the Northwest Region
. Sergei Pryanishnikov
Erotic-movie producer
. Pyotr Shelisch
State Duma deputy (All Russia)
. Konstantin Suchenko Legislative Assembly deputy (Independent)
. Alexei Timofeyev
Legislative Assembly deputy (Sport Russia)
. Oleg Titov
Flight attendant, Pulkovo Airlines
. Vadim Voitanovksi
Legislative Assembly deputy (Sport Russia)
. Viktor Yefimov
Head of the First Pasta Factory (Conceptual Unification party)
TITLE: Director: VTsIOM Facing Pressure
AUTHOR: By Oksana Yablokova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Leading independent pollster VTsIOM is under threat of a government takeover aimed at least in part at silencing growing public opposition to the Chechen war in the election season, its director said Tuesday.
Yury Levada, who is regarded as the country's top sociologist, said his All-Russian Center for Studying Public Opinion is currently being reorganized into a joint-stock company and within two weeks will be appointed a board composed of government officials.
"Formally speaking, the procedure is impeccable. But in real terms this operation is scandalous, stupid, arrogant and dishonest," Levada said at a news conference. "It means the destruction of VTsIOM, of its structure and of its activities."
He warned that surveys released under VTsIOM's name in a month or two would have nothing to do with research carried out by his team.
"The task of our persecutors is to stop VTsIOM from being VTsIOM and forcing the current administrators to leave," he said.
VTsIOM, a state-owned agency that has operated independently for much of the past decade, is widely recognized as one of the most reputable national pollsters. Founded more than 15 years ago during perestroika, it has been credited with providing some of the most accurate and reliable surveys on a range of political, economic and social issues, including a monthly poll on Chechnya.
Levada said that, until now, he and his team have never had a problem with VTsIOM's status as a state organization, even though they have not received any government funding for years and had to rely on revenues generated from "commercial research orders."
"It appears that VTSiOM is being reorganized into a joint-stock company but somehow behind our backs, without us," Levada said.
He said that the new board, which will decide what surveys to carry out, will include officials from the State Property and Labor ministries and the presidential administration. None of the VTSiOM's researchers or executives have been asked to join the new board.
Levada said that VTSiOM's troubles started about six months ago, when he learned that the State Property Ministry had decided to change the agency's status. He said he was told at the time that the changes were a mere formality.
But after a while his suspicions were raised. Levada said that he has held talks with dozens of State Property Ministry officials over the past half year and believes the original order came from higher up.
State Property Ministry spokesperson Alexander Parshukov refused to comment about VTsIOM on Tuesday.
Levada said the powers-that-be might be displeased with VTsIOM's polls on Chechnya, which he called "unpleasant reading for people wanting to continue the war."
"A majority of the population believe the war must be stopped. In our July survey, even those who see the Chechen rebels as international terrorists, even those who support the president, want the war to end," he said.
The survey, which was released Tuesday, found that support for the war had fallen to 28 percent, while 57 percent favored a negotiated settlement with the rebels. VTsIOM polled 1,585 people in 40 regions.
Levada said that the government had no reason to be upset about VTsIOM's polls on President Vladimir Putin and the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, which are showing strong public support for both. He said, however, that some politicians have accused VTsIOM of purposely releasing low numbers with the intention of sabotaging their parties' election chances.
"Those people don't seem to understand that our capital is own reputation," he said. "We are not answerable to anyone, but we have never been told to be answerable."
But with State Duma elections in December and the presidential vote next March, there are "people who would like a clear-out of the informational fields," he said, adding that, in 15 years, VTSiOM has never received an official letter of disapproval or complaint over its work.
TITLE: Vote May Signal Change for Women in Politics
AUTHOR: By Sandra Upson
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Although it is located only 160 kilometers away from the border with Finland, where the posts of both president and prime minister are presently occupied by women, the distance between St. Petersburg and its neighbor with regard to gender equality in politics is much greater.
As is the case throughout Russia, the city's political scene has historically been almost exclusively the domain of men, but the Sept. 21 elections to fill the post of governor may be a first step to changing the situation. Of the 11 candidates registered to take part in the campaign, two - Valentina Matviyenko, the presidential representative in the Northwest Region, and St. Petersburg Vice Governor Anna Markova - are women.
The two are presently running first and second in public-opinion polls, with 54 and 8.1 percent, respectively.
Another local female politician, Zoya Zaushnikova, one of only two women in the city's 50-seat Legislative Assembly, said that the popularity of Matviyenko and Markova is a sign that traditional attitudes toward women in politics in the city are changing.
"People are tired of the croneyism in politics and realize that women are better at certain things," Zaushnikova said in a recent interview. "For instance, they are typically more economical, pragmatic, and flexible, and bring their own abilities and talents to politics."
But the number of women involved in Russian politics tells a different story. While the two women in the Legislative Assembly represent only four percent of the chamber's total membership, the numbers are not much better in the State Duma, where only just under 8 percent of the 450 deputies are women.
There also appears to be a degree of tokenism involved, as Markova was the only female vice governor under Vladimir Yakovlev, who left the governor's post in June to take a position as deputy prime minister in the government of Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, and Matviyenko was the only deputy prime minister under Kasyanov before moving to her new post in the Northwest Region in March. Tellingly, another woman, Galina Karelyova, was named to replace Matviyenko.
Women also tend to be assigned responsibilities that deal with what are considered to be traditionally female spheres. Markova, who served on the city's police force before entering government, is an exception, as she is responsible for emergency situations in the city. But women have generally been shunted off into posts dealing with "feminine" issues. The only female member of the Soviet Union's highest political body, the Politburo, was Yekaterina Furtseva, who was a member under premier Nikita Khrushchev and was given the social-care portfolio. This tradition was continued with Matviyenko, who, as deputy prime minister, was responsible for overseeing the Health, Education and Culture ministries. Karelyova replaced her in the same portfolio.
According to Irina Khakamada, a deputy speaker in the State Duma and co-chairperson of the Union of Right Forces Party (SPS), women run into opposition when they address topics in spheres traditionally dominated by men.
"When women, instead of men, address issues concerning war, security, or army reforms, they face great difficulties," Khakamada wrote in an email interview, pointing to her own experience in trying to comment on defense issues in the Duma. "They start buzzing and yelling, believing that women are not able to speak about such topics."
Present attitudes toward areas that should be off limits to women are particularly interesting given Soviet military history - particularly during World War II, where female involvement was substantial. Unlike other countries, women occupied front-line positions in the Red Army, with female snipers and dive-bomber pilots well-known examples.
As in the West, however, women were quickly moved out of these positions after the war - the combined effect of a return to conservative values and the emphasis placed on motherhood in a country that had lost over 25 million people in the fighting.
The trend since the collapse of the Soviet Union has not been promising for women in politics, as the percentage of females in the State Duma has actually fallen since 1993.
Analysts say that certain realities in Russian culture still combine to maintain the status quo and make it difficult for women to move into higher office. Long-held stereotypes that women are not intended for politics, as well as the idea that women with serious career goals sacrifice the opportunity to have a good home and family life, are still dominant on the social landscape.
"To work normally at the same level as men, women have to face and reject a different set of expectations and responsibilities: Of being a wife, a mother," City Duma Deputy Zaushnikova said. "And, even if they are willing to throw all this away, it is much harder culturally for Russian women to do so."
Leonid Kesselman, a political analyst at the Sociology Department of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, agreed.
"It's even more complicated for a woman to enter politics here, because she is not always taken seriously enough," Kesselman said in a recent interview. "It's much more difficult for her to impose her own priorities and to oppose society's."
Kesselman added that the degree of emancipation of Russian women is lower than that in Europe.
The obstacles faced by women are practical as well as cultural. It is difficult enough that it is still considered unusual for women to choose to pursue political careers, but it is even harder financially for women to run a political campaign.
"The largest obstacles that women have to face are the lack of the practical and economic means to run for government, but another factor is that they don't believe in their own strength," SPS spokesperson Yelena Dikun said in a recent interview.
According to Zaushnikova, "Women themselves are more conservative about their own roles, and are not very willing to enter into the political sphere."
Should either Matviyenko or Markova win the gubernatorial race, she would become only the second female governor in the Russian Federation, the first being Valentina Bronevich, who held the top job in the administration of the tiny Koryak Autonomous District in Russia's Far East.
"Being governor is a very serious responsibility, and if St. Petersburg does end up with a female holding that position, it will be impossible to say that she is not responsible for and capable of wielding that power," Bronevich, who lost a reelections bid in 2000 at the end of her four-year term, said by telephone this week. "I did not experience any discrimination in my time as governor and, when we are working, no one really notices whether someone is a man or a woman."
Russia's constitution not only contains a clause guaranteeing equal rights for women, but also calls on political parties to take what are considered women's issues into consideration in their platforms. As in other areas, however, this is not enforced and, at a meeting of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women in 2002, concerns were focused on the weak enforcement of otherwise supportive Russian legislation and the fact that sexual discrimination is not expressly prohibited.
Khakamada wrote that a big factor in generating more support for women in politics will be their ability to move into high-profile political positions and to demonstrate their abilities there.
"Politics is not considered to be for women," she wrote. "Therefore, the success of women at higher ranks will help all of society, and Russian society will begin to form a more equitable impression of a woman's abilities, namely that women, too, can succeed in politics."
Bronevich's comments suggested that there may be no other option.
"I wouldn't go so far as to say that men actively support women in government," Bronevich said. "They are more concerned with working with each other and worrying about their own affairs."
TITLE: A Weekly Meeting To Try To Stop a War
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Rain or shine, sleet or snow, members of the St. Petersburg branch of the Soldiers' Mothers Organization gather at the corner of Nevsky Prospect and Malaya Konyushennaya Ulitsa on late Thursday afternoons to protest against the war in Chechnya.
This Thursday, it was under a steady rain that the women, bearing placards reading "Forgive us Russia! Forgive us Chechnya!" or "Let's Protect Our Sons" stood at the corner from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. trying to bring their message to the public.
"Our goal is not to necessarily change someone's opinion about the war," said Yelena Vilenskaya, a co-chairperson of the Soldiers' Mothers Organization in the city, as she and her colleagues staged their picket on Thursday. "We come here because we have a need, a personal responsibility, to say that we are against that war."
The first person to turn to speak to the small group of protesters turned out to be a German tourist named Gisela Wicke, who did so with obvious interest.
"I organize similar meetings in Germany, but they are against the war in Iraq," Wicke explained to the women through one of the volunteers, who spoke English with her. "It must be very difficult to stand up against the war in Chechnya here, in Russia But it's good that people have such right here, and I wish them success."
The first St. Petersburg pickets against the war in Chechnya started almost immediately after the first war broke out in the troubled republic, in 1994. They have been held every Thursday here again since the outbreak of the second war, in 1999.
Groups of people from various public organizations such as Memorial, the Soldiers' Mothers, Civil Control, as well as some smaller groups, including local anarchists, also join the picket, with some coming on Thursdays and the others turning up at the same spot on Sunday afternoons.
Zoya Kulakova of the Soldiers' Mothers, an organization that focuses on issues of military service for young men - ranging from illegal recruitment to hazing and brutality - said that the reactions of passersby vary significantly.
"Some come up to us and shout that we are 'betrayers', that we are 'against our Motherland,'" Kulakova said"Others even go so far as trying to push the women around."
"People ask us 'Why should we ask forgiveness from Chechnya?'" she added.
Vilenskaya says that the protests serve as "perfect barometers" of the population's mood with regard to the war. From her own observations, she says that only about 30 percent of Russia's people are against the war in Chechnya, while the majority still support military action there.
"It has become worse during the second war in Chechnya, during which many people have become perverted by the fighting and now just go there to fight for the money," she said.
If Vilenskaya is right, then Thursday seemed to be an unusual day, as most people stopping did so to offer support for the picketters' message.
"I'm one of those who think that the war in Chechnya is shameful and who doesn't want our soldiers to go there to kill and to be killed," said Eleanora Polskaya, 47, who even came and joined the picket.
Polskaya said that her home life is a perfect example of how charged the issue can be.
She said that her husband used to be against the war but, as the casualties in Chechnya continued to mount, he turned in favor, leading them to argue constantly.
"We almost got divorced over it," she said.
According to Irina Flige, the head of the historical branch of Memorial in St. Petersburg, who also often attends the pickets, the attitude of people to the war in Chechnya changed noticeably after the tragic events at the Theater Center na Dubrovke last year in Moscow, when more than 700 people were taken hostage by Chechen terrorists, who demanded an immediate stop the war in Chechnya.
"After those events people started to react to our meetings with more understanding. More people said that the war should be brought to an end," Flige said.
But Vilenskaya said that, in her opinion, the number of pro-war people has been on the rise.
"It seems to me that opinion only negotiations could have solved the situation with regard to Chechnya," she said.
TITLE: Popov Picks Up Reins As Kadyrov Gets Ready
AUTHOR: By Yuri Bagrov
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: VLADIKAVKAZ, North Ossetia - Pro-Moscow Chechen leader Akhmad Kadyrov on Tuesday named a temporary replacement while he runs for president in a regional election.
Kadyrov turned over his duties to Chechen Prime Minister Anatoly Popov, his office said.
Kadyrov said he made the move to stop speculation that he was using his position to influence the Oct. 5 election.
"I don't want to give grounds for talk that I'm using or could use my administrative resource," he was quoted by Interfax as saying.
Kadyrov registered with the regional election commission Monday, becoming the 10th candidate to put his name on the ballot. He said that he had chosen to run as an independent despite receiving the support of several political parties.
The Kremlin has described the presidential vote as an important stage in a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Chechnya, following a March referendum approving a regional constitution and the announcement of an amnesty for rebels who disarm.
Critics have said lasting peace will be impossible without negotiations with separatist leaders. The Kremlin has rejected talks, calling the separatists terrorists.
The Kremlin says it will not back any candidate, but the pro-Kremlin United Russia party supports Kadyrov, who fought against Russia during the first war in Chechnya before switching sides.
Kadyrov has headed Chechnya's Moscow-appointed administration since 2000. He became acting president after the constitutional referendum in March.
Meanwhile, Federal Migration Service chief Igor Yunash said on Monday that all Chechen refugees in Ingushetia will be guaranteed a vote in the October election and that all those currently living in tent camps will be relocated by fall.
Yunash said that transport will be provided for the refugees in Ingushetia to travel to neighboring Chechnya to vote, Itar-Tass reported. He said no decision had been made whether to set up polling stations in Ingushetia itself, as was done for the March referendum.
He also said that the return of refugees wishing to go home will be completed by fall, but added that those wanting to stay in Ingushetia will be accommodated in rented housing.
Some 86,000 Chechen refugees are estimated to live in Ingushetia, about 18,000 of them in tent camps and the rest with relatives or in rented apartments.
Humanitarian organizations say most refugees don't want to return, fearing for their safety. Refugees and human-rights groups say officials are using intimidation, blackmail and other threats to persuade people to return. Russian officials deny the accusations.
TITLE: Ivanov Calls for Swift UN Action Over Government in Iraq
AUTHOR: By Anna Dolgov
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov on Thursday called for a new UN resolution on Iraq that would speed up election of a sovereign Iraqi government and would recognize the U.S.-appointed Governing Council as an interim ruling body. A new resolution by the UN Security Council would help clear the way to a political settlement in the country, Ivanov said.
"Within the framework of this process, it would be possible to recognize the temporary Governing Council as a temporary organ of authority, which jointly with the United Nations should ensure the adoption of a new constitution and holding of democratic elections within an agreed timeframe," Ivanov said in comments on the Foreign Ministry's Web site.
"The sooner such a resolution by the UN Security Council is adopted, the more chances the international community will have in overcoming the current heavy crisis that Iraq is going though," Ivanov said.
The United States has been seeking UN approval for the 24-member Governing Council, and Russia's promotion of a new resolution may help strengthen the drive. But at the same time, Russia has long pushed for the United Nations to eventually replace the United States as the leading foreign player in Iraq, and its proposed resolution seems aimed at achieving that.
Ivanov's appeal, which backed a similar call made by France earlier this week, came as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State William Burns was holding talks in Moscow on the situation in Iraq and on other Middle East issues.
Burns refused to predict whether Washington would support or object to Ivanov's proposal, but stressed that the United States and Russia would continue to work closely on "ways in which we can further strengthen the Governing Council and take the whole process forward."
Russia, along with France and Germany, has reportedly contemplated sending peacekeepers to Iraq if the United Nations is given a bigger role there. But while Washington is likely to welcome a more international force, it is unclear whether it would be willing to yield some of its influence to the United Nations.
TITLE: Cosmonaut Set on Space Wedding
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - International Space Station cosmonaut Yury Malenchenko is going forward with plans to get married while in orbit, ignoring officials' advice to wait until his return to Earth, a space official said Tuesday.
Malenchenko had promised officials to put off his marriage until his scheduled return in October, but then changed his mind, and said he would proceed with the Aug. 10 wedding - which is to take place on Earth while he is in orbit, said Russian Aviation and Space Agency spokesperson Sergei Gorbunov.
Gorbunov said that the agency's chief, Yury Koptev, had received an invitation to the wedding from Malenchenko's American bride, Yekaterina Dmitriyev, who lives in Texas. He said that Koptev was not planning to attend the reception, which is to be held at a Houston restaurant.
Malenchenko himself will not be present at the wedding and will be represented at the ceremony by a lawyer. The cosmonaut can also call his bride on a special phone from the space station, but this must be done during time slots officially allocated for contacts between the crew and their relatives, Gorbunov said.
Gorbunov had previously said that Malenchenko had promised to drop his plans for a space marriage after officials told him the plan presented a web of legal complexities. On Tuesday, Gorbunov said that the space agency was not going to argue with Malenchenko any more.
"He wants it, and he will have it - that's his problem," Gorbunov said.
Malenchenko, an air force colonel, has not given a reason for wanting to get married at such a distance, but some observers accuse him and his fiancee of seeking publicity.
The cosmonaut told space officials of his marriage plans when he was already in orbit, angering the air force chief, Colonel General Vladimir Mikhailov, who reportedly said that a "cosmonaut mustn't behave like a movie star."
As a military officer, Malenchenko is considered the holder of state secrets under Russian law, and can marry a foreigner only after getting special permission from his superiors, Gorbunov said.
"It's an obligation a person takes when he joins the military, a voluntary restriction of freedom," Gorbunov said. "And he didn't even bother to tell anyone about his intention."
The secrecy rules could theoretically force a person to wait for five or even 10 years to get such permission.
Malenchenko, who blasted off to the station in late April together with U.S. astronaut Edward Lu, had quietly arranged to have his tail coat and wedding ring flown to him aboard a Progress cargo ship that arrived at the station in June.
Malenchenko and Dmitriyev were issued a marriage license last month in the state of Texas, which allows weddings in which one of the parties is not present.
TITLE: Russia Angry at U.S. Citizenship for Kalugin
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - The Foreign Intelligence Service said Wednesday that granting U.S. citizenship to a former KGB general is proof that he betrayed Russia.
Retired General Oleg Kalugin, who ran the KGB's counterintelligence department from 1973 to 1980, received U.S. citizenship earlier this week. He has been critical of his former agency since retiring in 1990, and has been living in the United States for years.
Foreign Intelligence Service spokesperson Boris Labusov said Kalugin could only become a U.S. citizen if he provided in-depth information about his KGB activities to the U.S. authorities.
"A person seeking U.S. citizenship must prove that he carries no threat," Labusov said by telephone. "The only way for a former intelligence officer to do that would be telling about his work for the Soviet intelligence service."
In June 2002, the Moscow City Court found guilty Kalugin of treason and sentenced him to 15 years during an in-absentia trial conducted hastily before such trials were prohibited by a new law.
The court found Kalugin guilty of giving away state secrets in his U.S.-published book "The First Directorate," which described his 22-year KGB career and included information about Americans who worked as Soviet agents.
Kalugin said that his book gave only a "general description" of events during his career at the KGB. He said that the court had failed to prove his guilt and described the trial as an act of revenge by his former colleagues - one of whom is President Vladimir Putin.
Putin has publicly called Kalugin a "traitor," and Kalugin has said that he has no intention of returning to Russia as long as Putin is in power.
TITLE: Police Raid Local Offices of Paper Giant
AUTHOR: By Angelina Davydova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: In what officials at Ilim Pulp called the latest chapter in a battle with tycoon Oleg Deripaska's Base Element holding over the ownership of some of its subsidiaries, officers from the Special Task Force Unit of the St. Petersburg police staged a raid of Ilim's St. Petersburg offices on Tuesday. The police search ended on Wednesday evening, with investigators carting off a number of documents and copies of computer files.
Ilim representatives say that they will file a suit with the Prosecutor's Office protesting the raid.
The warrant the police showed Ilim stated that the purpose of the raid was to search for evidence in an investigation into document forgery at the company.
According to Svyatoslav Bytchkov, an Ilim Pulp spokesperson, about 50 police officers arrived at the company's offices on Tuesday morning. He said that the deputy head of the St. Petersburg Department of the Interior Ministry, Sergei Bashkin, who is the chief officer in the investigation, presented a search warrant stating that the police were looking for initial draft versions or samples of the document in question, as well as technical devices the company could have used in its production.
The document in question rescinded power-of-attorney privileges from a representative of the Federal Property Ministry ahead of a shareholders meeting at the Bratsk forestry complex in the Irkutskaya Oblast on April 21.
At the meeting, Bratsk shareholders approved a motion to amalgamate shares in Ilim Pulp's various holdings into one basic issue, a move the company was making in preparation for a public offering of its stock. The company has yet to announce a timetable for the offering.
Following the meeting, the Property Ministry said that its representative, Alexander Krivenkov, had been instructed to use the ministry's blocking share, which was established by the power of attorney, to vote against the move. The ministry says that it had not been given sufficient time to gather information an make an assessment of the proposal. After Krivenkov's power of attorney rights were revoked, he was not even registered as a shareholder at the April meeting.
Alexander Semyonov, the senior assistant to the prosecutor in the Irkutskaya Oblast, said in an interview with Vedomosti on Tuesday that a criminal investigation into allegations that Ilim Pulp forged the document started at the end of April.
Ilim Pulp, which employs 49,000 people, is Russia's largest pulp and paper holding, producing 61 percent of all Russian pulp and 77 percent of all cardboard. The company is among the world's 10 largest companies in terms of industrial pulp production and forestry stock owned. Ilim Pulp's revenues in 2002 were $974 million, with profits after taxes of $74 million.
The holding announced the stock-amalgamation plans in March, but was immediately confronted with claims from Base Element that the latter held controlling stakes in pulp and paper mills in Kotlas and Bratsk that were included in Ilim's plans. Ilim Pulp says that it owns a 92.85-percent stake in the Kotlas plant and an 85.3-percent stake in the Bratsk mills.
However, Continental Management, an affiliate of Base Element, says that it holds 83 percent of the Bratsk stock and 61 percent of that in Kotlas.
The fight between over the mills has actually been going on for 1 1/2 years, ranging from legal proceedings to armed confrontations.
Bytchkov believes that Tuesday's raid was just the latest move by Base Element against Ilim.
"The official reason for the search is just being used by our opponents, Base Element, as an instrument of pressure," Bytchkov said.
Alexander Ampilogov, a Continental Management spokesperson, and the Property Ministry press service both refused to comment on the raid on Thursday.
Bytchkov said that part of the basis for the complaint against the search was that the documents confiscated could not be related to the criminal case against the company. He said that they were related to Ilim's commercial activities or were private staff files.
"Some of the documents are confidential," Bytchkov said.
TITLE: Alfa Group Grabs Stake In Cellular Operator
AUTHOR: By Simon Ostrovsky
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Alfa Group sparked talk of a shake-up in the mobile telecoms market late Tuesday after announcing the addition of a blocking stake in No. 3 mobile operator MegaFon to its holdings, which feature a similar stake in No. 2 Vimpelcom.
The acquisition caught market watchers off guard. Just a day before, MegaFon had unveiled new tariffs undercutting competitors. Local media portrayed the move as the start of a price war, and Vimpelcom Vice President Nikolai Pryanishnikov characterized it as "dumping measures."
"This is a favorable opportunity to strengthen our position in one of the most dynamic sectors of the Russian economy," Alfa chairperson Mikhail Fridman said in a press release.
Alfa, which gained the 25.1 percent stake by purchasing consulting and venture-capital firm LV Finance, did not reveal how much it had paid.
Troika Dialog analyst Yevgeny Golossnoy estimated the fair value of the MegaFon stake to be between $250 and $350 million.
"But, in reality, I don't think Alfa would pay that much," he said.
The burning question, though, is what Alfa will do with its stakes in rival mobile operators. Analysts said that a merger between the two companies could make sense for Vimpelcom as it fights to overtake No. 1 operator MobileTeleSystems. However, they cautioned that MegaFon and Vimpelcom shareholders may not approve of such a deal.
Nordic telecoms group TeliaSonera is MegaFon's largest shareholder with 39.4 percent, and St. Petersburg telecoms holding Telecominvest owns 31.3 percent. Norwegian Telenor owns over 25 percent of Vimpelcom.
Key players on the mobile market, who wished to remain anonymous, said a merger was unlikely.
"Although there are clear long-term benefits from creating a mega company able to better compete with MTS, the immediate implications for Vimpelcom's minority shareholders are not clearly positive ... [a merger] is not likely to be straightforward," investment bank Renaissance Capital said in a research note on Wednesday.
Vimpelcom Vice President Valery Goldin said that it was too early to comment on the possibility of a mega-merger.
"The deal has not been finalized, it has simply been announced," he said.
Alfa needs approval from the Anti-Monopoly Ministry to close the deal.
Troika's Golossnoy said that it was more likely that Alfa was likely for influence over Vimpelcom's competitor, MegaFon, than for a merger. Another possibility, he said, was that Alfa may want to sell Vimpelcom, cleaning up on the investment that it made in 2001 at about $15 a share, and shift attention to MegaFon.
Renaissance Capital suggested that Alfa's interest in the privatization of countrywide telecoms holding Svyazinvest as another possible driver for the MegaFon purchase.
"[It] provides Alfa with a strong negotiating position," the bank said.
It could also get Alfa a higher valuation for its stake in regional operator Vimplecom-Regiony during negotiations with Telenor if Vimplecom-Regiony and Vimpelcom are merged as planned, Renaissance went on to say.
Telenor refused to comment on the deal. A spokesperson for Alfa's telecoms wing was not available on Wednesday.
TITLE: Abramovich's Spending Spree Continues With Veron, Cole
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - Roman Abramovich has spent nearly $100 million on new players since he bought the London soccer club Chelsea, after two new signings announced on Wednesday.
Manchester United's Juan Sebastian Veron will join Chelsea for an initial Pound12.5 million ($20 million) and another Pound2.5 million depending on his performance in the coming four seasons, Agence France Presse reported. The deal came hot on the heels of a Pound6.6-million signing of West Ham's Joe Cole.
Chelsea earlier snapped up England fullback Wayne Bridge for Pound7 million, Blackburn's Irish winger Damien Duff for Pound17 million, Real Madrid's Cameroon midfielder Geremi for Pound6.9 million and West Ham's Glen Johnson for Pound6 million.
AFP quoted Arsene Wenger, manager of Chelsea rival Arsenal, deriding Abramovich's spending spree.
"Chelsea must buy a new team coach as well, to get everybody on," he said.
Back in Russia, RIA Novosti reported that Abramovich plans to finance the building of a new stadium in Moscow.
"A stadium will be built for clubs in the capital that do not have their own pitch," the agency quoted him as saying in Chukotka, where he played host to British journalists. "In Moscow there is only one stadium of a high, European standard - Lokomotiv - and the new stadium would be intended for two to three teams."
Vedomosti on Wednesday quoted an anonymous official at City Hall as saying that Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, who called Abramovich's purchase of Chelsea tantamount to "spitting" on Russian sports, was aware that unnamed Russian businesspeople were interested in investing in a new stadium.
"Abramovich's surname was not mentioned, but it was hinted that he was the one being discussed," said the official.
"If Abramovich really wants to put money into Russian sport then Yury Luzhkov welcomes this initiative," Vedomosti reported Moscow City Hall spokesperson Sergei Tsoi as saying. "However this does not change Luzhkov's opinion of Abramovich's purchase of Chelsea."
TITLE: No Light at the End of the Chechnya Tunnel
AUTHOR: By Anne Nivat
TEXT: To hear Russian officials, what's happening in Chechnya is not a war, it is a phase in an antiterrorism operation that has reached such a point of "normalization" that control was switched last week from the Federal Security Service, which handles war operations, to the Interior Ministry. After all, the Russians say, the Chechen people rebuffed the Islamic separatists by voting overwhelmingly in March to remain part of Russia, and they will vote again in October, this time for a Chechen president.
Chechens agree - but in their own way.
"What's happening in this country is not a war," they say. "It is much worse than a war, with many more civilian casualties."
I hear this repeatedly on buses, in markets and during conversations wherever I travel in this tiny, battered republic. For them, the switch to the Interior Ministry is merely cosmetic - the soldiers and checkpoints remain - and the coming election won't be a fair one.
But these voices are not being heard in the rest of Russia: The Kremlin has so restricted news coverage of Chechnya that outsiders have little idea what is happening there. (To get into Chechnya, I had to disguise myself as a Chechen woman, wearing a scarf and long skirt, and pray that I wouldn't be questioned closely at checkpoints.) Chechyna intrudes upon Russians' minds only when rebels attack outside the republic - as they did last Friday, when a truck bomb exploded in Mozdok, 55 kilometers across the border from Chechnya, killing at least 50.
Grozny, the Chechen capital, has been a ruin since the Russians invaded the first time, in 1994. The only repaired buildings are the ones housing government offices. Suicide bombings are frequent. Shootings occur nightly, and raids for rebels take place daily. Soldiers are everywhere, and so are members of a militia belonging to the Moscow-appointed head of the local government, Akhmad Kadyrov, who isn't popular but hopes to win the presidential election.
Electricity and water services are sporadic. Schools aren't in session because there are no teachers. The few jobs available involve working for the Russians, and most Chechens won't take them for fear of being considered collaborators. There is an atmosphere of stalemate: The Russians and the rebels can't negotiate, and neither side can win.
For their part, the rebels say that the fighting will not end soon.
"And we are ready for it," said an aide to a rebel field commander I met in a village in neighboring Ingushetia, used by the rebels as a rear base. "Since we have split up into mini-groups of five, our units are very flexible. We need less than three days to reunite with our commander. So far, the Russians have been very good at pretending things are going well for them. We will do our best to destroy that claim."
Among the Russian troops, low morale is rampant. About 100 Russian soldiers die here every month, the government says.
"We are here only for the big money they are paying us," Private Andrei Kosnikov, 23, muttered as he examined my car at a checkpoint near Grozny. Near the entrance of his base someone has written: "We are tired of killing the Chechen people for nothing. Our pay is blood money!"
The soldiers have also been forced to contend with a new trend: Suicide bombings and other attacks committed by young Chechen women. Nineteen women were among the separatists who took 700 people hostage at the Theater Center Na Dubrovke in Moscow in October.
"My sister went for her own jihad," explained a 19-year-old woman, conservatively dressed in a headscarf and cloak, whose sibling was a perpetrator of the theater attack. We spoke in the kitchen of a relative's house in the countryside, as her family has lived as nomads since their house in a village southwest of Grozny was dynamited by the Russians in revenge for her sister's actions.
"She sought revenge by escaping to paradise," the woman told me. "And I am willing to do the same if nothing changes."
Her friend, 21-year-old Tamara, added: "We women are now acting because nobody else is reacting and no one cares about Chechnya."
Terrorist acts are signs of desperation and, as the situation in Chechnya stagnates, suicide attacks by young Chechen women, and others, will continue. Lyoma Sharmurzayev, the director of Lamaz, a nongovernmental group based in Ingushetia, told me that he believed that the only solution was to build up some sort of civic forum, a non-state organization that would seek a way of mediating this conflict that would involve a broad representation of the civil society. So far, he has been unable to convince either the Russian authorities or the rebels to consider it.
The Chechens with whom I've talked are longing for an end to the war, but their sympathies are clearly with the separatists. Although at the start of the fighting in the early 1990s there were Russian supporters here, that support was driven out by hatred as the war dragged on. It seems as if there is not a single family who has not lost someone in the conflict. The Chechens now consider the Russians invaders who are incapable of following the rules of war by making efforts to spare civilians.
Is there hope for peace anytime soon in Chechnya? On this trip, at least, I haven't seen any - and for the Chechens, the Russians' claim that a presidential election will put an end to the fighting is as dubious as the war itself.
Anne Nivat is author of "Chienne de Guerre: A Woman Reporter Behind the Lines of the War in Chechnya." She contributed this comment to The New York Times.
TITLE: Something's Rotten in (Dis)United Russia
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalyev
TEXT: Following the goings-on within the United Russia party at both the federal and local levels over the last couple of weeks has led me to one conclusion - "Chaotic Russia" would really be a more appropriate and accurate name.
If the statement "Boris Gryzlov, the leader of the party and also Russia's Interior Ministry, has been touring Russia's regions drumming up support for his organization," confuses you as to which of the organizations he heads I am speaking of, don't worry - it seems to have Gryzlov a little bewildered as well.
Half the time he is wearing his party-leader hat, talking about Unity's preparations for the December State Duma elections, while the other half of his time has been devoted on his ministry's efforts in ridding the country's law enforcement agencies of so-called "werewolves", law-enforcement slang for cops who have gone over to the dark side.
The confusion may have finally gotten to Gryzlov, as United Russia has been busy in the Northwest Region taking care of some werewolves of its own.
The party's discovery of the three troublesome members - St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly Deputy Konstantin Sukhenko, Leningrad Oblast Legislative Assembly Deputy Andrei Nelidov (also the former head of the United Russia faction in the assembly) and Lev Dmitriyev, the deputy head of United Russia's Leningrad Oblast Council - led to them each being bounced from the lists over the last two weeks. They were all sent packing for being renegades - for not supporting candidates in September's gubernatorial elections in both the city and the oblast that had been endorsed by the party's general council.
Nelidov's transgression was to choose as his favorite for the Leningrad Oblast's governor's seat Vadim Gustov, who held the post before the incumbent, Valery Serdyukov, and went on to serve as a deputy prime minister in the post-economic-crisis emergency government of Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov. Nelidov mobilized the resources of the United Russia branch in the Gatchina District of Leningrad Oblast to work for Gustov against Serdyukov, who has the blessing and backing of the party's national organization.
Sukhenko was cast aside after committing the even more fatal sin of actually trying to run for the post of St. Petersburg governor himself. Dmitriyev was shown the door after charges that he had been carrying out "systematically destructive work to undermine the organizational unity" of the party's regional branch.
It's hard for me to figure out how politically effective it will be for the party with a bear as its symbol to have become so carnivorous in its dealings with party members who don't strictly follow the electoral line. On the one hand, moving against prospective alternative power bases within the party is pretty standard behavior right now within the country as a whole (does the name Mikhail Khodorkovsky ring a bell?). The party leadership seems justified in the moves from a purely Machiavellian perspective.
On the other hand, kicking members out for these types of offenses provides the electorate with a bit of insight into just how dis-united United Russia seems to be. The party is the result of the amalgamation of two former parties - Unity and Fatherland-All Russia - and Nelidov has said that the current crisis is linked to an internal power struggle between the members of the two sides ahead of December's State Duma elections. In other words, the bears have started eating each other.
Nelidov held a briefing for the press last Thursday after his expulsion, and was doing some roaring himself.
"I am of a generation where the words 'expelled from the party' carried some serious weight," Nelidov said, almost screaming in anger. "It's usually drug addicts, thieves and criminals who are being expelled from the party. What should I tell my children when they hear this news?"
The fact that he was making a direct reference to the behavior of the Communist Party during the Soviet era should raise at least some concern within Unity's ranks (or should I say "cadres"?).
Sukhenko's comment after being expelled - "At least I can say what I think from now on" - bore the same, familiar echo. If the pressure on him was that strong to say the right thing at all times, then the Unity Party must be a pretty authoritarian organization. Chalk another victory up for the power vertical.
This shouldn't come as a surprise from a party led and organized by people with a long record of occupying positions of power. It was probably also inevitable that the bears would start to eat each other when it came time to decide who would be allowed to get closest to power.
TITLE: bikers get ready to rumble
AUTHOR: By Michael Bernstein and Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Thousands of motorcycles will roar into St. Petersburg on Friday to attend the three days of the annual Bike Show hosted by Moscow's Nochnyye Volki, or Night Wolves, motorcycle club.
The arrival of the bike enthusiasts and their vehicles will be followed by a weekend of choreographed explosions, post-apocalyptic creatures, airborne stunts - and plenty of leather, music and beer.
The Seventh Night Wolves' Bike Show is being held in St. Petersburg for the first time, in honor of the city's 300th birthday. The event will mostly be taking place at the Kasimovo Aerodromem some 12 kilometers northwest of the city.
The three days will feature a stunt program of ramp-launched jumps, drag racing and mounted javelin throwing, competitions in trick riding, arm-wrestling, boxing and slow riding, as well as two all-night rock concerts.
In addition, judges will award prizes for the best custom-made bike, the best tattoos and the best bike artwork. Also on tap are several beauty contests, including those for Miss Bike Show, Miss Breasts and Miss No Breasts.
The Night Wolves were founded two decades ago as an analog to the United States' Hells Angels. Back then, the Wolves were a ragtag group of motor cycle riders who, like the Angels, worked as bodyguards for rock musicians. In the case of the Night Wolves, formed during the Soviet era, the concerts were underground and usually illegal.
Since those early years, Russian motorcycle culture has grown with leaps and bounds. Once an event that attracted only 5,000, this year's bike show is expected to host as many as 100,000, most of whom will camp in tents on the field outside the aerodrome.
With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the membership of the Night Wolves chose to soften the group's image and reconsider its mission. The group publicly swore off drugs and violence, and even helped to build a school outside Moscow.
*******
St. Petersburg 2003 Bike Show program
Friday:
. 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.: Arrival at Kasimovo Aerodrome.
. 8 p.m.: Concert by Russian rock groups
. Midnight to 6 a.m.: Laser-and-stunt show based on the Mad Max films, including performances by DDT and other rock groups.
There will also be a live concert including a competition between St. Petersburg's and Moscow's best DJs and a dance marathon organized by Moscow's Sexton club.
Saturday:
. 10 a.m. to midday: Competitions, including motocross at 11 a.m.
. 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.: Motorcycle column visits St. Petersburg for sightseeing
. 3 p.m.: Bikeing competitions
. 6 p.m.: Special program presented by the Parachute Sport Federation
. 7 p.m.: ProAm boxing rating fights between athletes from St. Petersburg and Moscow, presented by the Russian Northwest Boxing Federation.
. 8 p.m.: Rock concert
. 10 p.m.: Tattoo contests
. Midnight to 7 a.m.: Rock concert, dancing marathon and DJ competition (see Friday)
Sunday:
2 p.m.: Rock concert
3 p.m.: Closing ceremony
4 p.m.: Motorcycle column leaves for Moscow
Kasimovo Aerodrome is located along Vyborgskoye Shosse, 12 kilometers beyond the GAI station, past Purgolovo. For more information and a map of how to reach the site, visit www.bikeshow.ru
TITLE: stereoleto ends on eastern note
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Brothers Shuya and Yoshihiro Okino - a.k.a. Kyoto Jazz Massive - blend jazz, bossa nova, Latin and house, as many artists do now. But the energy and quality of their music have made them something of a legend in their native Japan.
On Saturday, a performance by the Okinos - who are well known as DJs, producers, club runners and remixers - will crown the Stereoleto festival, the series of extremely successful all-night parties that has been running every Saturday since June 26.
In St. Petersburg, Kyoto Jazz Massive will play as DJs, while trying to incorporate wide genre of music, the duo wrote in a recent e-mail interview from Tokyo. The questions and answers were translated by Kyoto Jazz Massive's manager, as the Okinos do not speak English.
Yoshihiro has fond memories of performing in St. Petersburg last year.
"It was one of my memorable and favorite DJ gigs," he wrote. "I thought the crowd was very receptive and open-minded [to the] music."
Shuya, the older of the brothers, used to be the creative director of Mondo Grosso, Monday Michiru and many other Japanese acts, as well as having another project called Cosmic Village.
Like many other artists on the Munich, Germany-based Compost Records label, to which the Kyoto Jazz Massive is signed, Yoshihiro is a record-collecting addict, and has a massive collection of Latin and Braziliana records. In addition, he owns a record shop called Especial Records in Osaka.
The brothers' regular club nights in Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto have been in existence since the early 1990s, and their concept of playing a full spectrum of old and new sets was - and still is - a similar concept to regular jazz-orientated club-nights like the Mojo-Club (Hamburg), Bar Rhumba, the old Talking Loud days at Dingwalls (London), or Into Somethin' (Munich).
Based in different cities - Shuya in Tokyo, Yoshihiro in Osaka - the brothers see each other only when DJing together as Kyoto Jazz Massive, but remain in constant contact.
Despite coming from a country with a rich indigenous musical tradition, Kyoto Jazz Massive claims not to pay much conscious attention to tradition.
"[We] don't intend to follow the tradition - but we may be doing it unconsciously. Japanese music pays [a lot of] attention to melody/harmony," the Okinos wrote.
According to the Okinos, it is Kyoto Jazz Massive's melodic inclinations that make the duo sound different from the other acts working in the field.
"[The difference is] the focus on melody, fusing different genres of music (jazz, soul, Brazilian, etc.) and our goal is to make an album [to which] people will listen years after and still find it fresh," they wrote.
As for their favorite artists, the Okinos named Bugz in the Attic, the U.K.-based collective of DJs, musicians and producers, formed in Richmond in 1996 and boasting its own record label - BitaSweet Records - a studio - The BitaSuite - and a production company.
According to them, what is typical in Japanese artists' approach is blending different genres - "perhaps the element of cross-over - fusing different genres of music, beats and rhythm."
Japan has never really been as famous as a center of pop or rock music as it is for traditional, experimental and, now, electronic music. The reason, according to the Okinos, is "The language problem. Also, Japanese rock and pop are heavily influenced by (if not imitating) American and European rock and pop."
The hi-tech industries for which Japan is renowned have been also instrumental in bringing Japanese electronic artists to the forefront.
"In general, [we] think advanced technology and instruments help to enhance music productions - faster, easier, with more variation of sound," the Okinos wrote.
Although signed to a German label, and operating extensively in Europe, Kyoto Jazz Massive claimed it has bigger ambitions.
"We are not limiting [ourselves] only to Europe - we always have a global audience in our mind," the band wrote.
As for the future of music, the brothers wrote: "As music goes in cycles, the trend will shift from electronic (techno) to [a] more organic, soulful sound. Jazz and world music (ethnic) will continue to fuse."
Kyoto Jazz Massive plays on Saturday at the Stereoleto festival at the Molodyozhny Theater, 114 Nab. Fontanki. M: Tekhologichesky Institut. For information, call 315-4919 or 110-6138. Links: www.compost-records. com, www.stereoleto.spb.ru
TITLE: chernov's choice
TEXT: The new club Stary Dom, which opened in June only to decide to take a break the following month, reopens this week with a rare local club appearance by Akvarium on Tuesday.
According to an insider, the forthcoming concert will, in fact, be a dress rehearsal for Akvarium's performance at a rock festival at Liepaja, Latvia, scheduled for Aug. 16. The band, which has not reassembled since its members went on vacation in late June, will not arrive in St. Petersburg until the morning of the concert.
It is very likely that Akvarium will perform with a jazz section, in line with the band's newest style, defined on its most recent album, "Pesni Rybaka" ("Fisherman's Songs").
After a few changes, the section's lineup has settled down as a trio of locally well-known jazz musicians, featuring Fyodor Kuvaitsev on clarinet, Alexander Berenson on trumpet and Igor Timofeyev on saxophone.
Kuvaitsev plays with the Dixieland-style Alexei Kuvaitsev Jazz Band, while Timofeyev frequently plays the local jazz club route with his own band, Bright.
Berenson, who is known for playing with Igor Butman and Oleg Lundstrem Band, first played with the then-semi-legal Akvarium in 1984.
Akvarium's further plans include two concerts at the club B2 in Moscow on Aug. 29 and 30. The band's frontman, Boris Grebenshchikov - known as the "Godfather of Russian Reggae" - is scheduled to appear at a reggae festival at Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium, along with reggae legends Lee "Scratch" Perry and Mad Professor, also on Aug. 30.
Local pop combo S.P.O.R.T. will stage a "Ringo Party" at Moloko this Saturday to celebrate the birthday of its drummer, Denis Sladkevich.
"It's more fun to celebrate birthdays with concerts at clubs than to sit at home," Sladkevich, known to many simply as Ringo (see p. iii), said this week, adding that that, apart from playing drums, he will probably sing for the occasion.
Sladkevich, who started with the band Mladshiye Bratya in 1986, has since played with Solus Rex, Never Trust a Hippie, Pep-See and Prepinaki. Apart from S.P.O.R.T., he now plays with avant-rock band Volkovtrio.
S.P.O.R.T., which Sladkevich helped to form in 1993, celebrated its 10th anniversary with a concert at Red Club in May, when the band was joined by Pep-See, Spitfire, Leningrad's Sergei Shnurov and Tequilajazzz's Yevgeny Fyodorov. The concert's grand finale, in Real Video format, can be downloaded from the band's official Web site, www.s.p.o.r.t.spb.ru.
The band, which so far released two albums, has written material for the third and is currently looking for a record company.
- By Sergey Chernov
TITLE: the discreet charm of burzhui
AUTHOR: By Greg Walters
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: It's hard to tell if the management of Burzhui - which means "bourgeois" in Russian - is being sarcastic. A red-and-black striped French changing screen stands by the door; items on the menu bear capricious titles like "Money Bags," "Ocean Cruiser," or "Green Paper Money." Are they going for a West European motif, or poking fun at overblown 19th-century European aristocratic culture? In either case, the food itself makes Burzhui worth a visit. And the ambience - though unsure of itself - is rather pleasant once you get used to it. One wall is covered with a suitable selection of 18th and 19th-century art, and the table settings and furniture are tastefully done.
The menu is French - sort of. Rather, it's as if the chef has heard detailed descriptions of French food, but never actually tried it. The result is French food through a Russian lens. And although it is still generally quite pleasing, regardless, those with finely tuned tastes for European cuisine should beware: If you're looking for authenticity, Burzhui is not your best bet.
Scanning the menu, I think I decided on the "Burning Delight" (180 rubles, $6) as an appetizer before even looking at its description. What actually came was, in fact, delightful, although perhaps not inflammably so. The "burning" part was, I think, supposed to refer to the paprika sauce doused liberally over cooked green beans, yellow peppers and small, well-done strips of beef. But for this long-time lover of habanero sauce, the paprika categorically failed to burn anything, even though it was probably about as spicy as food gets in this neck of the woods.
Next up, the onion soup (145 rubles, $4.80) was perhaps the evening's most blatant near miss at French cooking. It was delicious in its own right, however - piping hot, with parmesan cheese and onions, and the croutons floating on top were mysteriously both soaked through and yet impervious to sogginess. The cheese wasn't in a thick top layer, as one generally finds it, but mixed throughout in a thick and vaguely salty bisque - which would likely have raised a few eyebrows in Paris. Regardless, it was a delightful change from the standard borshch.
The main course, veal medallions in a cheese sauce, (315 rubles, $10.50) was the big winner of the evening. The meat was medium-well-done, fatless, juicy, touched up with just a hint of salty soy sauce, and appetizingly arranged around a small pile of parsley. The cheese sauce, although splashed artistically and appealingly over the medallions, was, however, a bit bland, and neither complimented the flavor of the meat nor added to it, which a good sauce should. Still, as someone used to the mysterious and ubiquitous Russian maslo, found in pirozhki and blini all over the city, I was quite pleased at the change.
I had high hopes for desert. The "Avignon" (190 rubles, $6.30) was billed as "pear, port, honey, cinamon and biscuit, topped in chocolate." What came, though, was both a surprise and a bit of a disappointment. It was visually impressive: fanned slices of warm pear in a port sauce, lying next to a dense brown biscuit on which a scoop of Italian ice was balanced, along with a bizarre crown perhaps best described as gourmet cotton candy made from honey and cinnamon. Impressive: yes. But, tasty? No. In this case, considerably more care seems to have been given to the structural design and visual aesthetic - which, of course, had to be destroyed in the actual eating process. The flavor was surprisingly bland.
After an espresso (60 rubles, $2) and a glass of house Concha y Toro (120 rubles, $4) topped off the evening, I felt poorer but satisfied. And that, ultimately, is the verdict on Burzhui. It's a good meal in a pleasant setting, if you can afford it. If you can't, there are probably other cheaper options available around town, a number of which don't make sacrifices in the way of quality.
The location - one block from St. Isaac's Square - was probably chosen to cater to high-end clientele coming down from St Isaac's cathedral looking for a bite to eat. But the restaurant seems to have a kind of repellant effect on potential customers. The place was empty for my entire stay, and all three couples who walked in turned around and walked right back out. Only one even stayed to look at a menu - the other two bolted as if they'd entered the wrong bathroom. So those looking to give Burzhui a try probably shouldn't waste time doing so: judging from the crowd reaction, the place might not be there long.
Burzhui. 6 Pochtamtskaya Per. Tel.: 311-1829. Open daily, 11 a.m. until the last guest. Menu in Russian and English. Credit cards accepted Dinner for one, with alcohol: 1,010 rubles ($33.60).
TITLE: curtain comes down on mariinsky fest
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The Mariinsky Theater's Stars of the White Nights festival wrapped up on Tuesday with the final performance in a symbolic short season by New York City Ballet, back in St. Petersburg after a break of more than 30 years.
New York City Ballet's tour was one of the festival's most eagerly anticipated events, as the company was returning to the home town of one of its co-founders, legendary Russian choreographer George Balanchine, to perform his ballets on the stage on which he made his debut. That knowledge clearly influenced the troupe's inspired, dedicated performances: The dancers moved as if Balanchine himself was watching - as if it was all set up for them to show him what they could do with his choreography.
The troupe opened its tour on July 30 with an all-Balanchine evening, including the choreographer's most famous works, "Serenade" (1934) and "Symphony in C" (1947), both of which have been part of the Mariinsky's repertoire since the early 1990s. The audiences had apparently been looking to draw comparisons, and what they saw was overwhelming.
Both "Serenade" and "Symphony in C" provided a striking difference to the Mariinsky's meditative, thoughtful, poetic interpretations. The New York company's corps de ballet, almost digitally synchronized and with easy, confident movements, was at the top of its form. Veteran dancer Darci Kistler was all magnetism and power, while the impetuous Wendy Whelan, the undoubted star of the tour, was lightning personified, her every movement razor-edge precise and as swift as an arrow.
"Serenade," in particular, had a totally different flavor to the Mariinsky production. It radiated sensuality and vigor, and the athletic dancers were much more earthly than their Russian counterparts, who typically look fragile, weightless and angel-like in the roles, nothing like flesh and blood. The Americans dance the piece like humans, whereas the Russians are more like the Wilis - the souls of virgins who die before marriage - from "Giselle." In the July 28 performance, Mariinsky Artistic Director Valery Gergiev, conducting the orchestra, produced the promised "windy" tempi, and the dancers rose to the challenge.
Balanchine is as much a cult figure for New York City Ballet as his fellow choreographer Marius Petipa is for the Mariinsky. The New York company's chief ballet master, Peter Martins, said before the tour that some dozen dancers who worked with Balanchine for many years are still working with the company, helping to preserve the purity of his dancing style.
July was perhaps the happiest and most exhausting period in years for local ballet lovers. Before New York City Ballet, John Neumeier's Hamburg Ballet and the Royal Ballet from London's Covent Garden had taken over the Mariinsky stage, all during a heatwave with barely any air conditioning in the theater. The abnormal heat and airless conditions made audiences sweat and gasp for air - and wonder how the dancers could take it. Martins, however, laughed off the problem.
"Sweat is healthy for the dancers, and air conditioning is bad for them," he said at a press conference before the first performance. "On the other hand, once the performance is over, and you go to your hotel, you have your air conditioning."
While New York City Ballet played on its obvious connection with the Mariinsky, both the Royal Ballet and the Hamburg Ballet chose special repertoire for the tour. The former brought Anthony Dowell's edition of perennial favorite "Swan Lake" and Frederick Ashton's "A Month in the Country," which provide an opportunity for balletic appreciation and sublime British humor all at once.
Hamburg Ballet's Neumeier said he was thrilled to be able to show his "Nijinsky," which he created in 2000 for the 50th anniversary of the death of Vaslav Nijinsky, one of the 20th century's greatest dancers, who was a Mariinsky soloist before joining Sergei Diaghilev's Les Ballets Russes in 1924.
American choreographer Neumeier, who worked with the Mariinsky in 2001, and received a prestigious Golden Mask award for his "The Sounds of Empty Pages," to music by Alfred Schnittke, said he would enjoy returning to the theater as a choreographer.
"My own working environment is very organized and dedicated, so the somewhat chaotic Mariinsky was quite a departure from what I am used to," Neumeier said in an interview during this year's tour.
"A lot of my energy had to be spent on just bringing people together, but that wasn't the most important thing," he said. "I have designed a ballet for this company, and my parental feelings by far overwhelm the managerial disappointments. So, as I am back here, I think I could work here again. I know it would be difficult, but I didn't close the door."
Mariinsky supremo Gergiev spoke about this year's festival with pride and much optimism for the future. When he set up the festival in 1992, it featured a modest 14 performances. This year's running was a tremendous 90-day marathon with up to four performances a day at different venues, including appearances by some of the world's top performers and ensembles, such as tenor Placido Domingo, pianist Kristof Eschenbach, soprano Renee Fleming, conductor Esa Pekka Salonen, mezzo-soprano Olga Borodina, violinist Vadim Repin, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Zubin Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic orchestra, Philippe Herreweghe and the Orchestre des Champs Elysees and Collegium Vocale Gent - many of whom Gergiev refers to as his personal friends.
In addition, Gergiev said, the long list of Russian companies that joined to the traditional foreign sponsors suggests that the domestic market is developing a substantial appetite and taste for classical-music-based events.
"This festival confirms that the artistic values that seemed eternal 20 years ago and appeared overturned 10 years ago are winning back in their rightful place - in society and in the popular imagination," he said at a recent press conference.
Included on the original program were New York's Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and China's National Ballet, neither of which actually appeared. However, Gergiev said these were postponements, rather than cancellations.
"World events were the major obstacle," he said. "With the beginning of the war in Iraq, some people were uncertain about their travel plans. Then there was the SARS epidemic in China. ... We would have loved to have had the [Chinese] National Ballet, but thought it would be safer to postpone the tour."
Chinese culture will, however, make an appearance at the theater, with a performance of Chinese classical and folk music by the country's Central National Orchestra on Aug. 23.
The festival may now be over, but the Mariinsky's season continues through Aug. 22. In addition to more performances of its most recent additions to its operatic repertoire - Tchaikovsky's "The Enchantress" on Wednesday and Anton Rubinshtein's "The Demon" on Aug. 18 - the ever-active theater will be unveiling yet another premiere on Aug. 16 and 17. This time, it is the turn of Rimsky-Korsakov's "The Golden Cockerel" in a provocative rendition in the style of traditional Japanese kabuki theater, featuring an array of the theater's younger vocal talents. Olga Trifonova, Ilya Bannik and Larisa Yudina were all discovered through and nurtured at the theater's Academy for Young Singers.
Links: www.mariinsky.ru
TITLE: artistic abstraction and mythology
AUTHOR: By Andrei Vorobei
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: "This is an event of world significance," was how State Hermitage Museum Director Boris Piotrovsky welcomed the opening of the latest exhibition in the museum's new 20th-century wing, the General Staff Building, at the beginning of July.
Indeed, "Cy Twombly at the Hermitage: 50 Years of Works on Paper," a display of works by one of the most fashionable - and expensive - living abstract artists, will be shown at European museum giants like Munich's Pinakothek der Moderne and Paris' Centre Georges Pompidou.
The exhibition brings together 80 drawings, monotypes and paintings on paper from across the artist's career. Twombly was born in 1928 in Lexington, Virginia but, unlike his famous artist contemporaries and friends Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, has spent most of his career in Europe, moving 1957 to Italy, where he has lived ever since.
The American-period works on display at the Hermitage form a minor part of the exhibition, but are, nonetheless, important, as they give an understanding of the roots of Twombly's graffiti-esque scribblings.
Twombly became a link between the two continents, and was one of the pioneers of abstract expressionism in Europe, but his early Italian-period works represent quite a broad set of artistic experiences. Sometimes, he produces sexually charged fantasies like the series "Untitled" (1961-1963), which is often compared with graffiti in a public restroom. In other cases, he involves dense, complicated systems of various signs, like the numbers and letters in the series "Bolsena" (1969).
The 1970s and 1980s marked a new stage in Twombly's career, a most fruitful and significant period during which he created the masterpieces that brought him fame and international recognition. It was also the period that the ancient culture of his adopted home began to provide a challenge to his abstract paintings, giving him new mental food. The works on show at the current display - "Plato" (1974), "Mars and the Artist" (1975), "Orpheus" (1975), "Pan" (1975), "Nimphidia" (1981), "Proteus" (1984), "Victory" (1984) - are linked by being suffused with references to the Mediterranean "enormous complex of memories and sensations," in the phrase of French social and literary critic Roland Barthes. All of them take their inspiration, titles and subjects from Greek or Latin history and mythology, and Twombly scrawls words or phrases on the surfaces of the works.
To borrow another phrase from Barthes, Twombly's works present "a kind of representation of culture. These historical actions are not depicted; they are evoked through the power of the Name. What is represented is the inter-text, which is this circulation of earlier (or contemporary) texts in the head (or the hand) of the artist."
In this sense, having begun to quote and make references, Twombly's thinking became post-modernist in his abstract painting. Works from this period such as "Apollo" and "Venus" (both 1975) can be seen in terms of a paradigm, a concept loaned into semiotics from linguistics. These two exciting works - real gems of the current show, where they are hung facing each another - can be seen as two paradigms, inspiring a whole range of associations that are reflected on their surfaces.
This "slightly dated erudition," as British author Simon Schama writes in the exhibition catalog, combined with the artist's "aristocratically easy attainments in botany" in his works of the 1990s, make it seem as though Twombly also followed one French symbolist precept: "Gently touch everything; cut only flowers."
"Cy Twombly at the Hermitage: 50 Years of Works on Paper" runs through Sept. 21 in the General Staff Building. Links: www.hermitagemuseum.org
TITLE: the word's worth
AUTHOR: By Michele A. Berdy
TEXT:
Zvukopodrazheniye: Onomatopeia.
You don't have to live long in Russia to discover that animals here speak Russian. Not only does your friend's cat understand Brys! (Scat!) and dog understand Lezhat! (Lie down!), they "speak" differently - or at least the Russian transcriptions of their sounds differ from English. I've always wondered if this is just because we use the sounds we have available in our language to describe, say, the mooing of a cow, or if the sounds we have hard-wired into our heads in our languages actually determine what we hear.
Luckily for those who have American and Russian feline families, cats are bilingual, albeit Russian cats are slightly more sensuous than their English-speaking cohorts. They say Myau-myau (meow meow) and mur-mur (purr-purr), expressed by the verb murlykat (to purr). You can also use the verb urchat, which can refer to both a feline and a well-running machine: Dvyzhok urchit (The motor is purring!).
Dogs, however, speak a slightly different dialect. Growling dogs say R-r-r (Grrr), big ones bark as Gav-gav or Av-av (woof woof, bow-wow), and little dogs yap tyav-tyav. Since living in Russia and becoming a conspiracy nut (the Byzantine politics encourage it), I'm convinced that there is a secret law stipulating the presence of at least one very small, incredibly annoying yapping dog in every apartment building. In addition to yipping and yapping at 250 decibels day and night, if you go to pet them, they can take your finger off. On menya tsapnul! (He nipped me!). By the way, Russians also use the word for barking to describe a reprimand: Chto s shefom segodnya? Kak tolko ya voshyol, on na menya gavknul. (What's wrong with the boss today? As soon as I walked in, he chewed me out.)
Crows caw kar-kar; geese don't honk in Russian, they say ga-ga-ga. Birds chirp (chirikat) chik-chirik, ducks say krya-kyra (quack quack), and chickens cluck ko-ko-ko. A rooster's paean to dawn in Russian is Kukareku! (Cock-a-doodle-doo!). Russian bees don't buzz, they make the sound Zh-zh-zh. Horses neigh I-i-i, and when they walk down the street, their hooves make the sound tsok-tsok (clip clop). Russian frogs say kva-kva, and clearly would not understand a word of their American relatives, who croak or say "ribbit." Pigs might also have some cross-cultural misunderstandings: Russian pigs say khryu-khryu, while American or British pigs oink. Khrushka is the name of Winnie-the-Pooh's friend Piglet, and also a good word to describe any untidy or ice-cream smeared child.
Humans sounds are also expressed differently in Russian and English. The sound of a sneeze - an exuberant Ah-choo! in English -is the dignified Ap-chkhi! in Russian. And apparently we snore very differently. To snore in Russian is khrapet, and the sound you make is khrap - which sounds to me far more like the racket of a noisy sleeper than the sonorous "snore."
Gun sounds are also a bit different in Russian. A large gun makes the sound Ba-bakh! (Bam!) and a pop-gun goes Paf! or Pif-paf (Bang bang!). For machine guns, we switch the order of the letters around: in Russian it is Tra-ta-ta; in English it's Rat-tat-tat.
However, in both Russia and English the ability to imitate any machine sound is clearly part of the genetic code contained in the Y-chromosome. I cannot make a convincing motor or gun sound to save my life, but have been woken up at the dacha by what I thought were the sounds of a foreign invasion, only to find three 5-year old boys playing war under my window. Tra-ta-ta! Ba-bakh!
Michele A. Berdy is a Moscow-based translator and interpreter.
TITLE: a slice of (un)reality in the north
AUTHOR: By Larisa Doctorow
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: In the middle of the 1990s, St. Petersburg entrepreneur Sergei Gutsait was approached by several local tour operators, suggesting that he create a tourist village to serve as a magnet for cruise ships travelling the popular waterways north of St. Petersburg.
Today, this settlement, which accepted its first boatload of tourists in 1997, has assumed its final shape: Verkhniye Mandrogi is an idealized representation of a traditional Russian village as it might have looked during the 19th century. At the height of the tourist season, between 700 and 2,000 people disembark daily at the village, set on a bend in the Svir River some 300 kilometers northeast of St. Petersburg.
The "real Russian village" that the tourists are eager to see would not necessarily chime with the descriptions of villages in, for example, the works of Gogol or Dostoyevsky. Instead of Gogol's derelict shacks are brightly painted, intricately ornate wooden houses that only a few of Russia's richest peasants could have afforded a century back; in place of Dostoyevsky's drunken peasants is a community of artists who - during the day at least - are entirely sober; the impenetrable muddy tracks depicted in nearly all bucolic 19th-century novels have been replaced by neatly kept, sandy roads.
Behind the houses are orderly vegetable gardens, orchards and open terraces, beyond which stretches out the abundant forest. The village also includes a windmill, a market selling locally grown produce, a rustic-style inn and restaurant, cafes and bliny bars, and the inevitable souvenir shops. And there are some more esoteric attractions - such as a baby bear, a handful of elk, and a small quail farm producing meat and eggs for the village's restaurants - as well a museum of vodka that includes 2,500 different sorts of Russia's favorite alcoholic drink (a two-hour visit with unlimited sampling costs $15).
A major attraction is the "folkloric" dinner (between $8 and $15, depending on the restaurant), featuring mainly local produce, such as mushrooms, berries, quail and fish, and including a wide selection of wines, beers and, of course, vodkas.
Verkhniye Mandrogi's main draw, however, is the "town of craftspeople" that forms the central part of the settlement - and gives visitors the opportunity to engage in some traditional Russian bartering for some ultra-traditional Russian souvenirs. The "town" is, in reality, a large, two-storey building that houses workshops of weavers, embroiderers, painters, sculptors and other artists.
Visitors are also invited to try their hands at the crafts, and many end up taking their own works home with them. Most famously, national media outlets showed President Vladimir Putin, during a visit to the village in August 2001, painting a matryoshka and throwing a clay pot. In gratitude for the publicity the presidential visit afforded the village, Putin was given his own house there by the administration.
The mostly young artists and craftspeople - whose presence during the summer triples the village's winter population of 42 - are drawn mainly from St. Petersburg, and come to Verkhniye Mandrogi for the summer navigation season, with many returning year after year. Their task is to continue some traditional Russian crafts, some of which were recently on the verge of dying out.
The workshop devoted to producing matryoshki features a protrait of the inventor of the nesting wooden doll, Sergei Malyutin (1859-1939). Often seen as an age-old Russian craft, matryoshki actually only date back to the end of the 19th century. Around 1889, Malyutin produced a representation of a healthy, smiling peasant girl in a headscarf holding a black rooster. Since then, the matryoshka has firmly established itself as a symbol of Russia and - as a visit to any souvenir stall will confirm - includes a massive variety of subjects, from traditional figures to presidents of the United States to figures from popular culture such as Harry Potter.
The workshop that produces plates and dishes made of painted plywood is packed with colorful items. St. Petersburg artist Ulyana Popova, for example, makes items from tempera, and then varnishes them. Fifteen different types of painting on wood can be found in European Russia - mainly around Tver and Arkhangelsk - with color schemes and designs ranging from gold backgrounds to simple red-and-white schemes to multicolored masterpieces.
Vasily Shpilka, from Lvov in western Ukraine, has spent his last six summers working at Verkhniye Mandrogi, and his wooden panels, figures and reliefs can be seen on many of the village's houses. Shpilka works with birch, pine, fir and linden woods; as he says, "Whatever the elks leave untouched, I pick up."
Lace-making and weaving workshops also occupy an important place. The lace makers are mainly graduates from art colleges in St. Petersburg, and have all spent time travelling around northern Russia collecting samples of traiditional laces and weaving techniques. Now, they create items using the same technology used in the area in the 19th century, often on machines that have survived from the era.
Prices for the items produced by the resident craftspeople range from about $8 for a small wooden figurine or matryoshka to as much as $600 for an intricate painting with an embroidered frame.
Verkhniye Mandrogi's general director, Alexei Zyukin, said that, while much has been accomplished, the village's management is far from resting on its laurels.
"We're starting work on a larger, 150-room hotel, to be built in stages, and a new road is being built that will shorten the trip from Podporozhye," he said. "We're also planning a church, but that should be on the water and is not so easy to achieve."
How To Get There.
Murmansk-bound trains stopping at Podporozhye, 30 kilometers from Verkhniye Mandrogi, leave Moscow Station daily at 5:50 p.m., arriving at Podporozhye at 11 p.m. Call Verkhniye Mandrogi (164-6331) on arrival for a car. The return trip leaves Podporozhe at 11:53 p.m., arriving in St. Petersburg at 5 a.m. One-way train tickets cost 300 rubles (about $10).
Buses leave from the Central Bus Station, 36 Nab. Obvodnogo Kanala every night at 10 p.m. and midnight. The journey takes about five hours, and costs 150 rubles one way (about $5). Return buses leave Podporozhye at 12:45 a.m. and 2 a.m. Call 166-5777 for information.
The easiest way - also the longest - is by cruise ship from the St. Petersburg River Port, 195 Pr. Obukhovskoi Oborony. Tel.: 262-0239. Agencies like Solnechny Parus (55 Ul. Vosstaniya, tel.: 327-3525) and Russkiye Kruizy (51 Nevsky Pr., tel.: 325-6120) run trips of varying lengths. The shortest, at two days/three nights, goes to Valaam Island in Lake Ladoga. It costs 4,600 rubles (about $153) per person, including all meals and excursions. A longer cruise, to Valaam, Kizhi (also in Lake Ladoga) and Petrozavodsk, takes four days/five nights and costs 8,000 rubles (about $265) per person all inclusive. Other trips, going as far as Moscow, take nine days/10 nights, and prices start at 13,000 rubles (about $433) per person. Most cruises stop at Verkhniye Mandrogi on the return journey, although some to Moscow make the stop on the outbound journey.
Where To Stay.
Verkhniye Mandrogi's 12-room hotel charges 40/30 euros per night for double/single rooms. Meals cost extra: breakfast is 8 euros, lunch 12 and dinner 20.
Where To Eat.
At least three riverside houses have first floors that can serve as dining areas for groups. There is also an open-air dining area that can seat over 300 people. The bliny bar is priced on a par with the hotel restaurant, which is the only year-round eatery in the village and seats about 20. Meal costs are usually included in tour prices.
TITLE: if pushkin wrote thrillers ...
AUTHOR: By Richard Lourie
PUBLISHER: New York Times Service
TEXT: Recently back from Moscow, I can attest to Boris Akunin's wild popularity with Russian readers. The stacks of his detective novels on sidewalk vendors' tables melted away before my eyes. On the metro's long, slanting escalators, every 12th face was masked by the distinctive black-and-white covers of his books. In fact, Akunin, whose real name is Grigory Chkhartishvili - cause enough for a nom de plume - and who previously translated Japanese literature for a living, has said of the origins of his own career: "I decided to write the kind of detective novel that respectable ladies wouldn't be ashamed to read in the metro." (His wife, a covert fan of the genre, used to cover hers in brown paper.)
The secret of Akunin's success is timing. The Russians have always lacked a middle - a middle ground in politics, a middle class, a middlebrow form of literature. The lack of a stabilizing center has made for some dramatic oscillations in their history, but these days they have had it with drama and color, preferring to experiment, at least for now, with such exotic notions as making money and leading normal lives. This includes reading for distraction and entertainment instead of for "the truth" as once promised by both the regime and the underground. Also, for a variety of reasons, Russians are interested in reconnecting with the prerevolutionary past, whose image was so distorted by Soviet propaganda.
Akunin's novels fill all these needs. They are set in a Russia ruled by czars and written in a tongue-in-cheek 19th-century style. Each chapter is subtitled (the first, for example, is one "in which an account is rendered of a certain cynical escapade") and the detective at the center of the story is referred to as "our hero," devices that readers will find either amusing or annoying, depending on their taste.
Aside from these tics, Akunin's prose is clean and swift, pausing only to set a scene with a few well-chosen details before resuming the hairpin curves of the action. If Pushkin had tried his hand at detective fiction, it might have turned out something like this. In fact, the narrative's combination of impulsive passion and cool ratiocination, with its touches of self-mockery and the demonic, suggests the early years of the 19th century rather than the period in which the novel takes place. ("The Winter Queen" is set in fin-de-siecle Russia, according to a press release, and in 1876 according to the author.)
"Our hero" is Erast Petrovich Fandorin - young, handsome, athletic, versed in foreign languages and Eastern breathing techniques. The only son of a good family whose fortunes took a disastrous turn, now orphaned and without funds or social position, he has decided to make his career in the police, where his supervisor doesn't see much of a future for him - not least because the mere sight of a slit throat can turn him green. But that, like nearly everything else, proves to be an illusion in this tale where the loyal turn perfidious, while the perfidious prove unsuspectedly loyal.
The action opens on a day in mid-May that "combined the freshness of spring with the warmth of summer." Russia has only a few years left before the assassination of Alexander II begins the dark slide to war and revolution. Society's rebellious Robespierres, a police official explains, are already "weary of educating the peasants - a job so long and tedious that an entire lifetime is not time enough. The bomb, the dagger and the revolver are far more interesting. I am expecting large-scale bloodshed in the very near future."
But the bloodshed that opens this tale - and launches Fandorin's career - could not be less revolutionary. A rich young man has killed himself in Moscow's Alexandrovsky Garden, having spun a single cartridge in a revolver's chamber, pulled the trigger and lost at a game said to have been thought up in the Klondike gold fields and therefore called American roulette. (As a bon vivant remarks, it's "a shame the Americans thought of it before we did.") The suicide note ostensibly explains the young man's motive: "Your world nauseates me, and that, truly, is quite reason enough." He has left his fortune to Baroness Margaret Astair, a British educator famed for her world-wide organization of progressive orphanages, which will shift the action for a time to England.
To Fandorin's supervisor, the case presents no interest apart from the question of why the new generation holds life so cheap that it has made even suicide a fashion. Fandorin, who is both intuitive and deductive, senses that there's more to this death than meets the eye. "There's some kind of mystery here, I swear there is! ... Yes, that's it precisely, a mystery!" Fandorin's hunch leads him into a maze of beauty, danger and deception where he encounters Amalia Bezhetskaya ("a veritable Cleopatra with a dense mane of hair and immense black eyes, her long neck set in a haughty curve and a slight hint of cruelty evident in the willful line of her mouth") and a mysterious organization named after the fallen angel Azazel - whose name formed the title of the book in the original Russian - each of whose members is "a knight of the new humanity" in competition with the political activists, whose "bloody revolution ... will set mankind back by several centuries."
Akunin is quite adept at the three-card monte of plot manipulation. When an ally suddenly turns enemy, blindsiding hero and reader, precipitous action is bound to ensue. Fandorin is frequently in extreme peril, in cliffhangers that are both stylized and exciting - if only our hero could reach the derringer hidden in his boot ... .
Akunin keeps a delicate balance between archly toying with the conventions of the genre and employing them to create that mixture of curiosity and anxiety known as suspense. That spell can be broken if the reader is too often reminded that he is reading a book; then the illusion of life loses its fullness and becomes like one character's "dark silhouette against the window," which "looked as if it had been cut out with scissors and pasted on gray paper."
In a work of this sort, translation plays an even more important role than usual. It's one thing if the author is intentionally reminding the reader that this is language, not life; quite another if the translator does so inadvertently. This sin is not committed by Andrew Bromfield, who is developing into one of England's finest translators from the Russian. Still, he occasionally settles for the dictionary definition or the literal rendition, as when he has a Russian say "I invite you," when what is meant is "It's on me; I'm treating."
Will Akunin's success travel? Predicting the book market is notoriously tricky, but my guess is that goodly numbers of readers will find this a saucy and insouciant tale of derringers and derring-do.
"The Winter Queen." By Boris Akunin (trans. Andrew Bromfield. 244 pages. Random House. $19.95.
Richard Lourie is the author of "Sakharov: A Biography."
TITLE: 'seabiscuit' could prove to be a firm favorite
AUTHOR: By Kenneth Turan
PUBLISHER: The Los Angeles Times
TEXT: Life, it's been truly said, has more imagination than we do, and the astonishing story of Seabiscuit proves that absolutely.
No novelist or screenwriter would dare come up with the phenomenal incidents and flabbergasting twists of fate that marked the life of this, the original little horse that could, events that turned a disgraced animal nobody wanted into, author Laura Hillenbrand claims, "the subject of the most newspaper column inches in 1938 ... the year's number one newsmaker," besting Hitler, Mussolini, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and even Clark Gable.
The saga of Seabiscuit resonated then as now because it's not just the story of a horse - albeit an animal with more personality than many people - whose encounter with War Admiral, an equine Darth Vader, is still considered the greatest race in thoroughbred history. It was heard on the radio by one out of every three Americans, including Roosevelt, who kept advisors waiting so he could listen.
Seabiscuit's tale is also that of the most improbable of trios, owner Charles Howard, trainer Tom Smith and jockey Johnny "Red" Pollard, three troubled, almost broken men who came together as if it had been preordained, as if they were the reunited pieces of a long-shattered mold. "Recognizing the talent dormant in the horse and in one another," Hillenbrand writes, "they began a rehabilitation of Seabiscuit that would lift him, and them, from obscurity."
But what happens when a story that seems made for the movies actually gets turned into one? Can Hollywood improve on or even do justice to a tale whose indisputably real events sound as if they were dreamed up expressly for the screen? How do you print the truth, to paraphrase the famous line from "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," so that it doesn't feel like a legend?
That's the challenge met with uneven results by "Seabiscuit," written and directed by Gary Ross from Hillenbrand's exceptional book, a deserved fixture on bestseller lists for nearly two years. It's an honorable effort, best when the horses are on the screen, less sure-footed with its humans and fated to find more favor with newcomers who have not read Hillenbrand's book or seen the excellent PBS documentary. The film's great frustration is that it has taken this superb true story and made it feel too much like a movie. A well-crafted movie, but a movie nevertheless.
Given how profligate with dramatic events the fates were with Seabiscuit, it's not in the cards for any one motion picture to fit in all those incidents. Even at a running time of 2:21, the film leaves out memorable things, including one of the horse's three epochal runs in the Santa Anita Handicap and some of the tragedies that marred jockey Pollard's startling life. The book's fans will miss the full dramatic arc, the rich texture of reality the movie lacks but, to a certain extent, that may have been unavoidable.
What "Seabiscuit" does find time for is a self-conscious attempt to place the horse in the context of its time, as Ross makes extensive use of voice-over to open the story and to gradually broaden its scope as it unfolds.
Employing vintage black-and-white photographs and narration read by historian David McCullough, "Seabiscuit" uses lines like "for the first time in a long time, someone cared" to explicitly connect the way the country's spirits were raised both by the New Deal and by a horse newspapers were calling "America's ultra-ultra equine."
This is a good idea, but the film relies on it too often. And McCullough's voice, which practically screams "PBS documentary," is an intrusive distraction from another medium that detracts from the story and underlines the obvious in a way other parts of the film come to echo.
What is most cinematic, and most successful, about "Seabiscuit" is the way its numerous horse races were designed (by former jockey Chris McCarron, winner of 7,141 races over 28 years), photographed (by John Schwartzman) and edited (by William Goldenberg).
According to the press material, director Ross, a horseracing fan, held a race meeting every morning at 11 for two months before the start of shooting. It was time exceptionally well spent, as the film, using resources ranging from a mechanical mount known as an equicizer to a specially built camera car called the Mobile Technocrane Vehicle to 50 real horses (including 10 standing in for Seabiscuit), beautifully re-creates everything from Tijuana's brutal racing scene to that celebrated match race. Placing us on the track, making us viscerally feel what those races were like with 450-kilograms-plus animals thundering along at 65 kilometers per hour, is something film can do better than any other medium, and it's hard to imagine it being done better than it is here.
It's at least an hour before Seabiscuit appears in his own film, and that time is taken up cross-cutting among the stories of the three men who will steer his fate.
Howard (Jeff Bridges) is introduced first, an entrepreneurial young man who arrived in San Francisco with the proverbial 21 cents in his pocket and ended up one of the country's wealthiest automobile distributors. Played by Bridges with a heartiness a bit too reminiscent of his work in "Tucker," Howard begins by saying, "I wouldn't spend more than $5 on the best horse in America" and ends up, through a combination of tragedy, happenstance and the encouragement of his wife (Elizabeth Banks), being Seabiscuit's owner.
About the horse's trainer, Smith, described by a reporter as someone who "says almost nothing, constantly," a lot less is known. Nicely played by Chris Cooper, who knows how to do taciturn, Smith was the original horse whisperer, a font of ancient equine wisdom who was much more at ease with animals than he ever was with humans.
The last piece of the puzzle was Pollard, a journeyman jockey who had a 6-percent winning percentage before he hooked up with the horse he called "Pops." Tobey Maguire with dyed hair captures the resilient toughness and the sentiment of this unlikely hero, a man who loved poetry, hated to lose and had secrets of his own. It isn't the actor's fault that Maguire lacks Pollard's haunted look, a product of alcoholism (which the film doesn't mention) and hard knocks that made the jockey look 50 while he was still in his 20s. The ups and downs these men share with a horse the racing establishment had written off as lazy and incorrigible will not be revealed here, but they all point to a theme articulated more than once by Howard.
"You don't throw a whole life away because he's banged up a little," he says at one point, echoing Tom Smith, then adding later: "Sometimes all somebody needs is a second chance. A lot of people out there know what I mean."
If "Seabiscuit" has a problem, it's visible in those phrases and others like it. They're too much on the nose, they push a good idea a little too hard, they soften and Hollywoodize an already emotional story in ways that are counterproductive. When added to the old-fashioned glossiness of the cinematography and the sentiment inherent in Randy Newman's music, they make a story that actually happened seem somehow less than real.
With a tale so emotional it just about makes you weep, what's needed is not the little extra nudge it gets here but a more pulled-back, levelheaded sensibility, a contrasting cool grittiness that would increase the story's effectiveness by reminding us that it is the truth. What "Seabiscuit" wants is more of the sense of dramatic authenticity brought by the casting of three-time Kentucky Derby-winning jockey Gary Stevens as Pollard's fellow jock George Woolf and less of the hokum typified by William H. Macy as the cutesy composite radio announcer "Tick-Tock" McGlaughlin.
Yet it can also be argued that like Seabiscuit himself, who often did better than expected despite carrying more weight than his competitors, this film does enough things right to survive its missteps. It is not as exceptional a film as the reality deserves, but with a story this strong and races this expertly re-created, it squeezes out a victory by being as good a movie as it needs to be. On some days, that is enough.
"Seabiscuit" is showing at Avrora, Kolizei and Mirage Cinema.
TITLE: 12 Perish in Baghdad Blast, Raids Continue
AUTHOR: By Andrew England
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BAGHDAD, Iraq - A massive car bomb exploded outside the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad on Thursday morning, killing at least seven people and wounding 28, many of them seriously, a hospital official said. A rescue worker said up to 12 people were killed.
Shortly after the blast, young Iraqi men stormed the embassy gate and began destroying pictures of Jordanian King Abdullah II and his late father, King Hussein. They shouted anti-Jordanian chants, but were quickly dispersed by American forces and Iraqi police.
The bomb was believed to have been planted in a minibus parked outside the walled embassy compound and detonated remotely. Many cars were gutted and two bodies were seen still sitting in the vehicles.
An American tank was parked outside the embassy compound, located on the west edge of Baghdad. Soldiers in armored vehicles and Humvees cordoned off the area.
Mandoh Gaahi, who witnessed the explosion, said the blast shook buildings and broke windows hundreds of yards away.
Two of the dead were still inside the shells of two cars. One mangled vehicle could be seen on top of a building next to the embassy.
A Sudanese man working as a waiter at the embassy said about 30 people inside heard the explosion and many of them suffered minor injuries. He was bleeding from the left side of his face. One wall of the embassy compound was blown down.
Tensions between the neighboring countries have been high because of Jordan's support for the U.S.-led war on Iraq. Many Iraqis are resentful that Jordan dropped its support for Saddam Hussein after the 1991 Gulf War, and allowed U.S. troops to use its soil as a base during the latest war.
King Abdullah II last week granted "humanitarian asylum" to two of Hussein's daughters, whose husbands took refuge in Jordan but were lured back and killed by Hussein's regime in 1996.
In Tikrit, U.S. forces captured a suspected leader of Hussein's loyalist militia after storming a workers' hostel in a series of pre-dawn raids that netted four men suspected of plotting attacks against coalition forces, the military said.
The man, who was identified only by his nickname, "The Rock," allegedly organized cells, paid guerrilla fighters and armed them with rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47 assault rifles for attacks on U.S. forces in Hussein's hometown of Tikrit and surrounding areas, said Lieutenant Colonel Steve Russell, commander of the 22nd Infantry Regiment's 1st Battalion, which executed the raids.
Two men believed to be former Iraqi generals who organized guerrilla attacks throughout Iraq were also captured in raids in a village south of Tikrit, along with an additional suspected Fedayeen militia ringleader, Russell said. He said he could not name them or say where they were captured.
Each raid increases the pressure on Hussein by triggering a chain reaction of tips leading to operations that further eat away at the remnants of the dictator's support network, Russell said.
"We are eroding all of the support of the former regime and, as we continue to do so, it just collapses," he said.
TITLE: Schwarzenegger Announces His Bid for Governor
AUTHOR: By Erica Werner
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LOS ANGELES - Arnold Schwarzenegger ended the suspense Wednesday and jumped into the race for California governor, instantly becoming the best-known of the declared candidates seeking to replace Democrat Gray Davis in a recall.
The surprise announcement by the "Terminator" actor, a moderate Republican, capped a day of fast-paced developments in one of the most unpredictable political races in recent history.
Earlier, Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein had ruled out a run, labeling the election "more and more like a carnival every day." And political commentator Arianna Huffington declared she would run as an independent.
Schwarzenegger, 56, announced his decision during a taping of "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," calling it the toughest he's made since deciding to get a bikini wax in 1978.
"The politicians are fiddling, fumbling and failing," he said. "The man that is failing the people more than anyone is Gray Davis. He is failing them terribly, and this is why he needs to be recalled and this is why I am going to run for governor."
Schwarzenegger's advisers had said in recent days that he was leaning against putting his name on the Oct. 7 election ballot because of opposition from his wife, journalist Maria Shriver.
Schwarzenegger told Leno that he's not afraid of Davis allies attacking him as "a womanizer" or "a terrible person." "I know that they're going to throw everything at me," he said.
Davis' campaign committee responded by saying Schwarzenegger was merely the latest in a long list of people who have declared their intent to run, noting that Hustler publisher Larry Flynt is among them.
"The more candidates who join, the greater the likelihood that a small minority of voters will be controlling California's future," read a statement from Californians Against the Costly Recall, which was speaking for the governor.
The statement also reminded voters of the cost of a special recall election, estimated by the secretary of state's office at $67 million - "money which would be better spent on our schools and our children."
Former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, another moderate Republican, has said he would enter the race if Schwarzenegger did not, and polls have shown Riordan would be a stronger candidate than the actor. Riordan had been assembling a campaign team on the assumption Schwarzenegger was out; his spokesperson, Lisa Wolf, said Wednesday that he had no immediate comment.
Schwarzenegger said he made the decision over the last few days and kept it a secret from everyone - even his own advisers said they didn't expect it. Speculation was so intense that his advisers had to twice squash media reports that the actor was not running.
Even Schwarzenegger's appearance on "The Tonight Show" was tinged with suspense.
"Well, Jay, after thinking for a long time my decision is ...," he began to tell Leno before the TV screen showed a "Please Stand By" sign. When the picture finally returned, he said: "That's why I decided that way."
When the actor finally confirmed he was running, "The Tonight Show" audience in Burbank erupted in whoops and cheers.
Feinstein's decision not to run gave a big boost to Davis, while frustrating some Democrats who wanted her to run to ensure the governorship would remain in the party's hands if Davis lost.
"After thinking a great deal about this recall, its implications for the future, and its misguided nature, I have decided that I will not place my name on the ballot," Feinstein said in a statement.
"I deeply believe the recall is a terrible mistake and will bring to the depth and breadth of California instability and uncertainty, which will be detrimental to our economic recovery and decision-making," she said.
The recall election is yet another setback for Davis, who has seen his popularity plummet as the state grapples with a record $38-billion budget deficit.
It also is the latest force to bedevil Californians, who in recent years have endured an energy crisis, the collapse of the dot-com economy and a federally mandated cutback in one of the state's main water supplies. Residents now face the prospect of higher car taxes and college fees to close the state's budget gap.
Davis is the first California governor to face a recall, and would be only the second governor in U.S. history to be removed from office if the effort succeeds.
Analysts from both parties believed the governor's chances for survival would have dramatically diminished if Feinstein, who tops polls as California's most popular politician, was on the ballot as an alternative.
TITLE: Halladay First to 16 as Toronto Triumphs
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ST. PETERSBURG, Florida - Roy Halladay became the first 16-game winner in the majors, pitching his third complete game of the season as the Toronto Blue Jays beat the Tampa Bay Devil Rays 7-3 Wednesday.
Halladay (16-3) gave up nine hits, struck out six and walked none. The right-hander lost his previous start 5-0 to Anaheim last Friday, snapping a personal 15-game winning streak that tied the team record set by Roger Clemens in 1998 and was one short of the AL mark.
"I don't know what Cy Young looked like, but he ain't got nothing on Doc," Blue Jays manager Carlos Tosca said.
Halladay threw 108 pitches in his eighth career complete game.
"It's been a lot of fun," Halladay said. "I think it's coincidental more than anything, just with the team scoring a lot of runs for me. It's nice."
The Blue Jays got a scare in the first when Halladay was hit near the right ankle by Aubrey Huff's comebacker.
"He said it wasn't bothering him, but we watched him real close to make sure that he wasn't altering his mechanics," Tosca said. "He's an animal. I can't say enough things about him."
Halladay said his leg was never a problem.
"It wasn't pain," he said. "It felt like muscle fatigue. It was fine. It went away."
Dave Berg and Bobby Kielty each hit a two-run homer for the Blue Jays, who avoided a three-game sweep. Josh Phelps also connected.
"He's pretty much one of the studs in the league," Berg said of Halladay. "Every time he pitches you feel like there's a good chance of you winning."
Berg's homer gave Toronto a 3-2 lead in the fifth. Kielty's shot made it 5-2 one inning later.
Tampa Bay starter Joe Kennedy (3-9) allowed five runs and seven hits over 5 2-3 innings. He entered 6-0 against the Blue Jays.
Kennedy has struggled since returning from a left shoulder injury on July 9. In his past six stars, the left-hander is 0-4 and has allowed 28 runs over 28 2-3 innings.
Devil Rays manager Lou Piniella said he is considering whether to drop Kennedy from the rotation. He was the team's opening day starter.
"I'm going to give it some thought here over the next day or two," Piniella said. "If he does go in the bullpen, it's not a demotion. It's to help us and at the same time to get himself back on track."
Kennedy is winless since May 13.
"I can pitch," Kennedy said. "I'm just not getting the results now. It's just a matter of time."
Chicago White Sox 4, Kansas City 3. Bartolo Colon scattered three hits over eight shutout innings before back pain forced him out of Chicago's 4-3 victory over the Kansas City Royals on Wednesday.
The Royals rallied for three runs in the ninth, but it wasn't enough as the White Sox cut Kansas City's lead in the AL Central to one game.
Roberto Alomar homered for the first time since he was traded to the White Sox, and Carlos Lee homered and drove in another run.
"[Colon] did his job," said catcher Sandy Alomar, who also had an RBI. "A guy that wins big games, a guy that wants the ball when the game's on the line, that's Bartolo."
And no doubt about it, this was a big game. After sweeping the Royals in Kansas City last week, the White Sox took two of three at home. Chicago is a major league-best 15-5 since the All-Star break, and has made up six games on Kansas City.
The teams won't meet again until September, when they'll play seven of their last 10 games against each other.
"These games are meaningful, don't get me wrong," Royals first baseman Ken Harvey said. "But they're not that much that we're going to bang our heads."
No, but they might when they think of how dominating Colon (10-9) was. He allowed his first two batters to reach base, hitting Aaron Guiel with a pitch and walking Joe Randa. But he settled down after that, retiring 11 straight before Harvey led off the fifth with a single past a diving Joe Crede.
Colon rebounded quickly, getting the next nine outs. When he got Raul Ibanez on a called strikeout to end the seventh, the crowd of 25,348 gave him a standing ovation as he walked back to the dugout.
"He was unbelievable," Royals manager Tony Pena said. "He was untouchable for seven innings. My boys tried to do the best they can."
But they had little luck until Colon's back tightened up. Colon began feeling some twinges in the seventh inning, and started the eighth by giving up back-to-back singles to Harvey and Desi Relaford.
After Angel Berroa grounded into a double play, Sandy Alomar asked Colon if he could finish the inning.
"I felt pretty good after the guy hit into the double play," Colon said. "I said, 'I can go for one more.' And that's what I did."
(For other results, see Scorecard.)
TITLE: Hewitt Bounced, but Agassi, Roddick, Federer Move On
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MONTREAL, Canada - Former world No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt was upset in the second round of the Canada Masters, losing 7-5, 6-7 (6-4), 7-5 to Max Mirnyi on Wednesday.
Hewitt has lost four of his last nine matches, including a first-round exit as the defending champion at Wimbledon. His ranking has dropped to No. 5 in the world.
Those reaching the third round included Andre Agassi, Andy Roddick, Wimbledon champion Roger Federer and French Open winner Juan Carlos Ferrero.
Agassi waited through a 1 1/2 -hour rain delay, then made quick work of Russia's Nikolay Davydenko 7-6 (6-3), 6-2. The top seed is trying for his fourth title at this hard-court tuneup for the U.S. Open, which starts Aug. 25.
His next opponent will be Simon Larose of Canada, who beat Jose Acususo 7-6 (7-5), 1-6, 7-5.
"This is something I dreamed about when I was 12 or 13, and I watched him play when he had long hair," Larose said, referring to Agassi. "I remember saying: 'One day, I'll play against him.' Now, that day is here."
Larose, who's ranked 314th, upset three-time French Open champion Gustavo Kuerten in the first round.
Agassi beat another Canadian, Frederic Niemeyer, in his first match.
"You enjoy the competition and the challenge of it," said the oldest No. 1-ranked player in ATP Tour history. "I've played a lot of Davis Cup matches where the crowd has been very relevant and others where it hasn't been."
In other action, Roddick topped Juan Ignacio Chela 7-6 (8-6), 6-2, Federer beat Greg Rusedski 6-4, 6-3, Ferrero defeated Younes el Aynaoui 6-3, 6-4, and 2002 Wimbledon runner-up David Nalbandian ousted Tim Henman 6-4, 6-4.
Vince Spadea eliminated Arnaud Clement 6-0, 6-7 (7-5), 7-5, and Paradorn Srichaphan ousted Daniel Nestor of Canada 7-5, 6-4.
The man who lost to Ferrero in the final at Roland Garros, Martin Verkerk, could have set up a rematch, but lost to Karol Kucera 7-6 (10-8), 7-6 (6-3).
Federer's next opponent will be 16th-seeded Tommy Robredo, who defeated Wayne Black 6-0, 6-2.
In Carson, California, Kim Clijsters moved closer to replacing Serena Williams at No. 1, beating Emilie Loit 6-1, 6-1 in 50 minutes Wednesday in the second round of the JPMorgan Chase Open.
Clijsters raced through the first set in 21 minutes, with Loit offering her only resistance in the sixth game. She fought back from love-40 on her serve to force three deuces, but then netted a backhand to give Clijsters a 5-1 lead.
In the second set, Loit had three break points on Clijsters' serve, but couldn't convert any of them and fell behind 3-1. She had four chances to hold on her serve in the next game, but Clijsters hit a backhand winner for a 4-1 lead. Loit trailed triple match point on her serve and lost when she netted a backhand.
Clijsters is on the verge of overtaking the injured Williams as the world's top-ranked player. Williams had knee surgery Friday and will be out up to two months, meaning she won't be able to defend her U.S. Open title.
Clijsters could gain the top spot for the first time in her career if she wins the tournament, beating certain players along the way. But she says being No. 2 is satisfying, too.
"I don't think ahead or plan ahead," she said. "I'm already happy with how far I got. When you're so close, it's always very motivating to keep doing well. It's never been a goal of mine. I'm not going to think differently now because I'm so close to No. 1."
Four seeded players were eliminated Wednesday. No. 5 Jelena Dokic lost to Svetlana Kuznetsova 4-6, 7-6 (7-5), 6-3; ninth-seeded Elena Dementieva was beaten by Virginia Ruano Pascual 6-3, 5-7, 7-5; No. 12 Eleni Daniilidou lost to Nicole Pratt 6-2, 6-7 (7-5), 6-3; and No. 15 Alexandra Stevenson quit with a strained right shoulder while trailing Viktoriya Kutuzova 6-3, 3-3.
Dokic, who has reached just one semifinal this year, led 4-1 in the second-set tiebreaker before unraveling with several unforced errors.
"My head just went off. I got a bit nervous," she said. "I should have won the match. It was just mental. After she won the tiebreaker, she had an easy time in the third set."
Other winners: No. 8 Amanda Coetzer, No. 10 Meghann Shaughnessy and No. 16 Francesca Schiavone.
Second-seeded Lindsay Davenport defeated Barbara Schett 6-3, 6-1 in a 54-minute night match.
The players competed with loud music, cheering and chanting from a U.S. Open soccer match going on in the stadium across the way. The tennis crowd was sparse and quiet.
"I heard the goal a couple of times, the music - it was kind of crazy out there," Davenport said. "It's going to take a few years to build this event up."
Davenport wasted her first match point when she missed an easy smash. She laughed it off, but needed two more match points before closing out Schett.
"I was trying to hit it in the air and I lost it in the lights, so I backed up. I lost complete track of where the court was," the three-time major champion said.
TITLE: Stanley Cup Gets Tour Of Moscow
AUTHOR: By Carl Schreck
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - If you could spend one day with one of the world's most famous trophies, what would you do?
For Sergei Brylin, a center with the NHL champion New Jersey Devils, the answer was simple: Show it to as many people as possible.
As part of an NHL program in which each player on the championship team is allowed to have the Stanley Cup for one day, Brylin raced around Moscow on Tuesday showing off hockey's most celebrated prize. His parents' apartment, a TV studio and a city lawmaker's office were just some of the stops along the way.
It was only the third time that the cup - the oldest professional sports trophy in North America - had been on Russian territory.
In 1997, Russian star and current State Sports Committee head Vyacheslav Fetisov, Slava Kozlov and Igor Larionov were its hosts in Moscow as members of the Detroit Red Wings. In 2002, Red Wings Larionov, Sergei Federov and Pavel Datsyuk had the honor.
This year's championship gave Brylin his third Stanley Cup. He was on the Devils' championship teams in 1995 and 2000, but both times he spent his day with the cup quietly with friends and family at his home in New Jersey. This time, he decided to bring it back to his homeland.
"It's always special to have the cup," Brylin said. "I thought it would be great for my family, friends and fans in Russia."
After arriving from Prague, the cup spent its first day in Moscow with Brylin's New Jersey teammate Oleg Tverdovsky before being handed over to Brylin at 7:30 a.m. at the Renaissance Hotel. It left Wednesday morning for Stockholm.
But the NHL wasn't about to trust Brylin - or any other player - completely with the cup.
The NHL Hall of Fame sends escorts wherever the cup travels, and for security guards Mike Bolt and Walter Neubrand - who are accompanying the cup on its current European tour - cup security is serious business.
Working alternating shifts, Bolt and Neubrand shadowed the cup like secret service agents, constantly reminding people how to properly lift the cup and scanning for any potential accidents.
In the past, the cup was handed over to the winning team, which could do whatever it wanted with it. But the carelessness with which 1994 champions the New York Rangers handled the cup forced the NHL to change its policy.
"They dropped it several times and did lots of damage to it," Neubrand said.
Bolt said there are very few restrictions on what the players can do with the cup, noting that common sense by the players is generally enough to protect the cup from damage. There are only two taboos.
"They can't take it to strip clubs, and they can't take it to casinos," he said, citing concern for the image of the cup and the NHL.
Luckily for the cup's integrity, there were no such stops on Brylin's packed itinerary.
In the span of 12 hours - with the help of a one-car police escort - Brylin appeared on ORT's morning talk show "Dobroye Utro," went to his parents' Khimki apartment, stopped in at his fitness club for a little party with friends, received a medal from Fetisov at a ceremony attended by other Russian sports stars, visited a corporate sponsor, spoke at press conference at the Izvestiya offices and met with Moscow City Duma Speaker Vladimir Platonov.
On several occasions throughout the day, Sovetskoye Shampanskoye was poured into and consumed out of the cup's bowl, which according to Brylin can hold seven bottles of champagne, or 17 beers by Bolt's count.
Russian swimming great Alexander Popov was on hand for the medal presentation and took the opportunity to raise the cup over his head.
"That was an incredible honor," said Popov, who added that he follows hockey and is a fan of any team with Russians on the roster.
Brylin said he liked that other Russian athletes were lifting and drinking champagne out of the trophy that he and his teammates earned.
"I think it's great," he said. "It shows people that even though we're athletes from different sports, we're all Russians."
The medal ceremony was also swarming with young boys in blue and red CSKA hockey jerseys jostling for position to get close enough to touch the cup.
"I'm so happy I got to see it," said Maxim Volkov, 12, who was sporting several autographs on his jersey. "To win the Stanley Cup is the dream of every hockey player."
Brylin also created excitement anytime he was seen lugging the cup on the street.
"Look, the Stanley Cup!" an employee at the restaurant Yolki Palki exclaimed to no-one in particular while on a smoke break near the Izvestia building on Pushkin Square.
After the final meeting of the day with Platonov at 6 p.m., Brylin was visibly exhausted.
"I had thought about doing another quiet day [with the cup], but you have to try everything once," Brylin said of the day's hectic schedule. "Maybe if we win it again, I'll make some adjustments."
After a banquet with family and friends, Brylin and the cup threw perhaps their final party together at the club "Stone," which features pink fur on the walls of its VIP room.
"Every time you have the cup, you think that maybe it will be the last time you get it," Brylin said between autograph and photo-op sessions with party attendees. "In our business there's always a chance you'll get traded to a bad team," he said. "Hopefully, I'll stay with New Jersey. They're always pretty good."