SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #905 (73), Friday, September 26, 2003
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TITLE: Prosecutor's Office: Putin Innocent
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Neither President Vladimir Putin nor his representative office in the Northwest Region have broken election laws, the Northwest Prosecutor's Office says.
 
The finding flew in the face of complaints by candidates in the St. Petersburg gubernatorial elections and local politicians that top officials, including Putin, have campaigned for Valentina Matviyenko, the presidential representative in the Northwest Region.
 The Prosecutor's Office said Tuesday there are no grounds to bring to court the question of a Sept. 2 meeting between Putin with Matviyenko about the city's problems. Matviyenko was officially on vacation at the time.
 "My frank wish is that you will win the elections," state-owned television channels Rossia and Channel One showed Putin as saying at the meeting. "But I ask you to work with these questions, not taking into account any commitments [you have] linked to the election campaign. Work on the [city] budget 2004 as much as you can." 
 On Thursday, Anna Markova, City Hall vice governor and the only other candidate left in the race with Matviyenko, which will go to a second-round runoff on Oct. 5, filed a lawsuit in the Supreme Court against Putin, Markova's lawyer Vitta Vladimirova said.
 But the Prosecutor's Office representatives insist the president did nothing wrong.
 "Because the meeting was initiated by the president to implement the plenary powers in the district subordinated to Matviyenko, there could be no claims in relation to Valentina Ivanovna," Vladimir Zubrin, head of the office, said Tuesday.
 Markova's lawyers say Putin violated Article 48.8 of the election law, which says "Persons working as category A staff ... are banned from election campaigning on television and radio channels and in printed media outlets, except when the person is registered as a candidate for a State Duma seat or for other elected positions."
 "The term 'category A staff' no longer exists under the law," City Prosecutor Nikolai Vinnichenko said Tuesday. "Unfortunately, we have many contradictory laws, but the Prosecutor's Office does not have to resolve this issue." 
 Vladimirova said Vinnichenko is playing with words in election legislation that are intended to give the voters an opportunity to express their preferences without undue outside influence.
 "Legislators have done everything possible to limit the authorities so that voters can make up their own minds," Vladimirova said. "Everybody understands it, but the president breaks the law and his example is followed by other officials, such as Interior Minister [Boris Gryzlov].
 "We don't intend to prosecute a Russian citizen called Vladimir Putin. We want him, as president, to explain why he does not trust St. Petersburg citizens to decide by themselves who to vote for. If he doesn't, we want him to say why to the public."
 Meanwhile the prosecutor's have also said no offense was committed by Matviyenko's deputy Mikhail Motsak, who had been accused by Alexei Timofeyev, a Legislative Assembly Sports Russia faction lawmaker and another gubernatorial candidate, of pressuring Leningrad Oblast officers whose military bases had been used to collect signatures in favor of candidates other than Matviyenko.
 Timofeyev said complaints sent by him in August to the City Election Commission and the local prosecutor's office were the same month handed over to the presidential representative's office with an order to conduct an investigation.
 "Basically this means Motsak was asked to investigate himself," Timofeyev said. "I imagine Motsak standing by a mirror in his office slapping his own face."
 Prosecutor Zubrin admitted that Motsak had meetings with the officers.
 "We don't know if some elements of campaigning for one of the gubernatorial candidates took place within these meeting," he said. "There was no evidence and that's why we refused to open a criminal case."
 Matviyenko denied any involvement of her staff in the campaigning and last month described Timofeyev as "not a real candidate who tries to mess up the elections."
 But other matters have received far more attention from the Prosecutor's Office, which has initiated nine criminal cases in relation to the election law violations. Law enforcement representatives have mentioned a case against a members of Markova's election headquarters, who published an article "insulting the credibility of M. Motsak."
 City Prosecutor Vinnichenko said other charges are being laid against the head of a printing house that allegedly printed negative campaign materials about one candidate. Another charge has been filed against a journalist who printed negative articles about Matviyenko.
 "Charges have been laid against him and a national arrest warrant was issued," he said.
 "This is rather a desire to do something to be noticed by high rank officials, then an intention to make the elections cleaner," Yevgeny Volk, head of the Heritage Foundation, said in a telephone interview from Moscow on Thursday. 
 "It is rather hard to draw the line between what is legal and illegal [when authorities campaign for candidates]. As to the serious breach of election laws when Putin said he would vote for United Russia at their recent congress, it will all depend on how the election commission and the opposition would react on that."
 "[Gennady] Zyuganov, [the Communist Party leader] has already said he will ask a court to rule on that, but taking into account the level of how courts are dependent on authorities it is clear they will allow a candidate supported by the administration to get away with it, as was the case with Matviyenko."


TITLE: Pardons at Center of Renewed Argument
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin pardoned Olesya Suldina just eight months after she stabbed to death a man who attempted to rape her after a drinking binge in a southern Samara region village. 
 
The man ripped off the shirt and bra of the 23-year-old woman and was trying to pull down her pants when she grabbed a knife and stabbed him in the stomach, according to court records. The woman, a resident of Karabikulovo near the city of Samara, got two years in prison.
 Putin pardoned Suldina on March 8 for the International Women's Day holiday. 
 But now her case is taking center stage in a vigorous debate about how to pardon inmates. 
 Regional pardon commissions say it is their job to put forward to the president the names of those deserving to be released. But Anatoly Pristavkin, the president's adviser on pardons and perhaps the country's leading expert on the issue, says the Justice Ministry, which oversees prisons, should have a say in the matter.
 The current procedure, established by Putin in 2001, bestows the power to recommend prisoners for pardoning to special regional commissions composed of local figures, such as university professors, artists and athletes. 
 Under this system, Russia frees only about 200 inmates per year, even though its prisons are notoriously overcrowded. France, by comparison, pardoned some 3,500 prisoners last year, mainly by cutting their terms, Pristavkin said.
 Pristavkin said the Justice Ministry should be allowed to draw up recommendations that focus on certain groups of inmates, such as women or veterans of the Afghan War.
 "This would expand the opportunity for the president to pardon. More people would receive pardons, and this would be better for all of us," Pristavkin said in an interview Wednesday. "Kindness will save the world."
 But when the Justice Ministry tried to do just that, it stirred up a hornet's nest. As an experiment, the ministry compiled a list of 97 women - including Suldina - whom it considered eligible for pardons, and Putin pardoned them on March 8. 
 But the test appears to have been flawed. To the surprise of many regional pardoning commissions, the list included people whose crimes they deemed too serious to be considered and who never asked for a pardon, said Robert Tsivilyov, head of the pardons department in the presidential administration, which coordinates the regional commissions. These people include Suldina and 37 women who served time for drug dealing.
 "It was completely horrible, of course. The president was misled," Tsivilyov said in an interview.
 Pristavkin retorted: "A pardon is not a clear-cut issue." 
 The label "drug dealer," for example, is often slapped onto people who resort to selling drugs after failing to find work. Pristavkin recalled the case of Sergei Dotsenko from a remote far eastern village who was sentenced to 12 years in prison for growing cannabis. He had exchanged some of it for two cups and some fabric, so his wife could sew a new dress. Dotsenko held numerous awards for his 20-year career as a tractor driver but had not been able to land another job when his employer went bankrupt. 
 Tsivilyov argued that the current system should not be amended because the Justice Ministry would not be overseen by the public and this could lead to corruption. "Who would decide how to handle a pardon petition, whether to submit it to a [ministry] official or to a commission?" he said.
 Tsivilyov said that before 2001, some prison wardens forced relatives of inmates to pay 6,000 rubles to consider a pardon petition and send it to the presidential pardons commission in Moscow. 
 The presidential pardons commission collected petitions from wardens across the country and reviewed them before forwarding a list to the president.
 Now regional commissioners visit prisons regularly and can collect the petitions on the ground, Tsivilyov said. "The root for corruption was removed," he said.
 Eduard Kondratov, deputy head of the Samara pardons commission, agreed that the Justice Ministry should have no say. "This could open a loophole for corruption or the release of anyone at someone else's will," he said.
 Pristavkin said that as a safeguard against this, Tsivilyov's department should be allowed to review the Justice Ministry's recommendations.
 A working group was set up in December to find a consensus on who may decide on inmates' eligibility before the president signs off on pardons. At its latest session Monday, the group appeared to agree that the Justice Ministry should be able to recommend prisoners and that the 2001 presidential decree that set up the current system should be rewritten, Pristavkin said.
 The ministry currently passes petitions from inmates to regional pardons commissions. Commissions select the most-worthy candidates and forward their names to regional governors, who then send them to the Kremlin pardons department. The department and six other offices of the presidential administration screen these recommendations, and the president ends up pardoning one or two out of every 10 people nominated by the regional commissions. 
 Since 2001, regional commissions have recommended the release of 2,100 inmates. Putin has pardoned 297 of them, including the 97 women under the March 8 decree, said Sergei Nikulin, an official who oversees pardons at the Justice Ministry.
 When Pristavkin headed the presidential pardons commission, the rate was about the same, except a surge in 1999 and 2000 when then-President Boris Yeltsin pardoned all those who had been sentenced to death, Nikulin said. Yeltsin did so because Russia had joined a European convention that outlaws the death penalty.


TITLE: Chechnya Becoming Fashionable in West
AUTHOR: By Matt Bivens
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: WASHINGTON - Toward the end of a conference here in which speaker after speaker had laid out pessimistic, ghoulish takes on Chechnya, Georgetown University professor Peter Reddaway rose to ask: Are there no Russian government representatives present, who might care to comment?
 
There were, of course. A trio of dark suits had arrived together, stood conspicuously apart clutching Styrofoam cups of bad coffee during the conference registration, and provoked knowing remarks about KGB surveillance. In the silence following Reddaway's suggestion, a stage whisper could be heard: &quot;Paging the three <i>SVRovtsy</i> in the third row!&quot; (The SVR is Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service.)
 Down in that row, the three men sat unmoved. Lawrence Uzzell, the editor of the Washington-based Chechnya Weekly and like Reddaway a long-time gimlet-eyed observer of Russian politics, was talking to them. As the conference moderator shrugged and began to move on, Uzzell jumped to his feet. Indicating the three with a game show host's theatrical flourish, he proposed that &quot;the record show&quot; there were indeed Russian government representatives in the hall and they were indeed declining the opportunity to comment. Laughter all around.
 It has been that way for two weeks now. Chechnya was long a non-issue in Washington. Now it is suddenly - and, for the Kremlin, embarrassingly - relevant. Film festivals, exhibits, full-page newspaper advertisements and protests revolving around the war will dog President Vladimir Putin's heels as he visits New York and Washington this week.
 Hard-core Chechnya-watchers have seen their ranks swelled overnight by movie stars, senators and big-name human rights groups. Putin's ally-turned-enemy, political intriguer Boris Berezovsky, is also stirring things up from his London exile. Even the U.S. State Department, for the first time in more than a year, has offered a stark eve-of-summit reiteration of its harshest criticisms of the war - one that brought an immediate and angry response from Moscow.
 It's hard to say what all this noise means for this weekend's summit. 
 Neither Putin nor George W. Bush have proven easily swayed by high-brow photo exhibitions or a few small anti-war vigils. So the grim situation in Chechnya seems likely to remain a footnote to an agenda focused squarely on the Middle East, from America's occupation of Iraq to Russia's cooperation with Iran in building a nuclear plant.
 In particular it's hard to judge the significance of the State Department's critique. In this White House, Russia policy is concentrated in the hands of Condoleeza Rice and the National Security Council she heads. 
 &quot;This [concentration of Russia policy in the NSC] is a big, big change from the Clinton days, when despite the common view that [Deputy Secretary of State] Strobe [Talbott] did everything, there were actually lots of political appointees in all of these places that 'played' on Russia,&quot; said Michael McFaul, an associate professor at Stanford University.
 McFaul, who has co-authored a book about U.S. policy toward post-Soviet Russia that comes out next month, listed some of the Clinton-era officials who influenced Russia policy: Cabinet-level members like Defense Secretaries William Perry and William Cohen, Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, National Security Advisers Samuel Berger and Anthony Lake, and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright - and also their various deputies focused more on the former Soviet Union, including David Lipton at Treasury, Talbott of course at State but also Stephen Sestanovich, Ashton Carter at the Pentagon and others.
 These days, decision-making about Russia is far more narrowly focused, McFaul said. &quot;[Rice] and [her deputy at the NSC] Thomas Graham are the only political appointees working on Russia that I can think of off-hand,&quot; he said, adding that Secretary of State Colin Powell has never had much influence on Bush's Russia policies.
 Rice, a Russian-speaker and scholar of Soviet history, entered office cool toward the Kremlin and critical of its war in Chechnya. But after al-Qaeda's attacks two years ago on New York and Washington, the White House softened its criticism of Putin's war.
 So when the State Department comes out with a blast - as it did last week when Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Steven Pifer testified before Congress - it's hard to know whether this reflects new thinking, or simply State Department thinking.
 &quot;The daily reality for the people of Chechnya has been bleak and deteriorating,&quot; Pifer testified. He laid much of this at the door of Chechen terrorist groups. But he insisted not all Chechen resistance could be considered terrorists, and he slammed Russia's conduct of the war.
 &quot;Credible human rights organizations&quot; continue to report &quot;atrocities, disappearances, torture and extrajudicial killings committed by Russian federal forces.&quot; Chechens picked up in raids disappear, often permanently; in some cases corpses are later found. &quot;Disappearances continue on virtually a daily basis.&quot;
 Ben Nighthorse Campbell, a senator from Colorado, called this &quot;the picture the Kremlin does not want us to see - a wasteland dotted with mass graves, villages depopulated of men - young and old - and unspeakable crimes committed against civilians.&quot;
 The Foreign Ministry rejected Pifer's testimony as &quot;thoroughly biased and tendentious.&quot; Even Putin himself was roused to dismiss Pifer as a &quot;mid-level diplomat&quot; in need of reprimand.
 In New York, Putin was met Thursday morning by a vigil held in the park across the street during his address to the UN General Assembly. Organized by Amnesty International USA and Medecins sans Frontiers, it protested Russian rights abuses.
 Full-page ads about Chechnya have run over the past two weeks in top U.S. dailys, including The Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. 
 Some were bought by Berezovsky and signed by him, by human rights activist Yelena Bonner and others, and questioned Putin's commitment to democracy and rule of law.
 Others referred to a three-day roaming film festival about Chechnya held last week in Washington, this week in New York and next week in Moscow. 
 The festival itself has been a surprise hot event, with evening showings rapidly selling out, leaving disappointed crowds out front.
 In Washington, one evening's showing was held at, and in cooperation with, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Jerry Fowler, staff director of the museum-affiliated Committee on Conscience, said his committee had for three years now listed Chechnya as a region with the potential to sink into genocide.

TITLE: Kadyrov To Get an Easy Run
AUTHOR: By Yevgenia Borisova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The last potential serious rival to Akhmad Kadyrov, the Kremlin-appointed head of the Chechen administration, was removed from the Chechen presidential race Thursday.
 
The Supreme Court upheld an earlier ruling by the Chechen Supreme Court invalidating Moscow-based businessman Malik Saidullayev's candidacy in the Oct. 5 election.
 The six candidates that remain are either little-known in Chechnya or are Kadyrov's marionettes.
 The Chechen Supreme Court ruled Sept. 11 that 89.9 percent of the 2,000 signatures in support of Saidullayev's candidacy that were checked were invalid.
 They were checked at the request of Nikolai Paizullayev, another candidate, who works in Kadyrov's press office.
 The court invalidated most of the signatures on the grounds that people did not write &quot;Chechnya&quot; as part of their address and did not give their age, Interfax reported Thursday. 
 Another violation was that some people collecting signatures for Saidullayev did not give their addresses, the report said. They may have feared retribution for supporting Kadyrov's rival.
 Saidullayev filed 13,600 signatures in August to register his candidacy. To be on the safe side, he also put up 4.5 million rubles ($250,000), the other option for registering a candidacy.
 But Nadezhda Selyanina of the Prosecutor General's Office said that once Saidullayev's signatures were accepted, he was supposed to have filed an appeal for the signatures to be invalidated and for his candidacy to be registered on the basis of the money he put up, Interfax reported.
 A source on Saidullayev's campaign staff said they were unaware of this.
 &quot;We thought that if the collateral was provided, it would just work,&quot; the source said. &quot;The electoral system is just completely set up in such a way that you can't win against the will of Moscow.&quot;
 Earlier this month, two other major candidates were persuaded to pull out of the race.
 Businessman Umar Dzhabrailov withdrew after meeting with presidential administration staff, and State Duma Deputy Aslanbek Aslakhanov withdrew after President Vladimir Putin offered him a position as an adviser on Chechnya issues.
 The Moscow Helsinki human rights group has changed its plans to send 300 observers to the election.
 &quot;It is not an election but a farce,&quot; Lyudmila Alexeyeva, head of the group, was quoted by Interfax as saying Wednesday. The OSCE also has refused to send observers.
 About 560,000 people, including about 30,000 federal troops permanently based in Chechnya, are eligible to vote.
 Chechen refugees residing in Ingushetia will also be able to cast ballots, the Chechen elections commission said. For them, polling booths will be set up at the border between the two republics.

TITLE: Nakhimov Inquiry Set for Extension
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The federal court of the Petrograd district asked the district prosecutor's office to extend its investigation into the abuse of cadets at the Nakhimov college in February.
 
&quot;The prosecutors made several mistakes when deciding against opening a criminal case over the incident,&quot; said Ella Polyakova, co-chairwoman of the St. Petersburg Soldiers' Mothers human rights organization, referring to information from the case lawyer, Sergei Nasonov.
 According to the information, prosecutors ignored a medical report on the cadets' abuse, did not follow procedures for checking complaints, and did not properly investigate.
 The elite Nakhimov navy college of St. Petersburg was investigated several times in February after the parents of the three teenage cadets complained to Soldiers Mothers that their sons were systematically being beaten up by a group of their classmates.
 Sergei Karyazin, 14, Andrei, 14, and Vladimir Sobolyev, 15, - all first year Nakhimov students - said that since the fall of 2002 they and other classmates were beaten up, humiliated, blackmailed for money; and had even been sexually harassed by classmates.
 For instance, Papulov said that for three days last November, a group of about 20 cadets, headed by the four leaders, beat him up every night, until once he lost consciousness for half an hour and almost died. Papulov was left with bruises on his temple and the back of his head.
 A federal navy commission, which inspected the school in February, rejected the complaints, saying it found no evidence to support them. 
 However, military prosecutors for the Leningrad Military District, who did their own investigation, In March confirmed that cadets had been beaten and that the school's authorities had not taken sufficient steps to end the abuse when informed of it.
 On May 16, the Petrograd district prosecutor's office refused to open a criminal case because of a lack of evidence.
 The parents of the abused cadets, who eventually left the college, disagreed with that decision. They appealed to the Petrograd district court, which decided to resume inquiries.
 The judge said the prosecutors office had not spoken to all the witnesses, and other evidence was not detailed enough. The court was also dissatisfied with other parts of the investigation.
 &quot;We consider the decision of the Petrograd district court on resuming inquiries as our victory,&quot; Polyakova said.
 When the incident became known to the prosecutors and mass media, the abused side thought the college officers, including the head of the school, Rear Admiral Alexander Bukin, would be held responsible for the unhealthy atmosphere at the college.
 However, Leningrad Military District prosecutor Igor Lebed said Thursday there were no legal proceedings against the college officers.
 The abused cadets said they were targeted because they were good students and refused to obey an &quot;order&quot; issued by the abusers.
 The order said that a real Nakhimov <i>piton</i>, or student, &quot;should ignore studies, smoke, drink alcohol, and breach discipline.&quot; 
 According to Marina Sobolyeva, Sobolev's mother, in early February her son, who spoke at that meeting, was beaten up to the point of being concussed and he had his injuries to his spine.
 She said the abusers put a bucket on his head and hit it with their boots. When he lost consciousness they threw him against the radiator and hit his spine.

TITLE: Putin Wants New Law on Citizenship
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: President Vladimir Putin has introduced a bill that would make it easier for residents of other former Soviet republics to acquire Russian citizenship, softening a strict law that has drawn strong public criticism.
 
The presidential legal amendments, which were released Wednesday, waive some of the tough conditions for getting Russian citizenship that were contained in the citizenship law which went into force in July 2002.
 The law requires applicants to spend at least five years in Russia, pass a Russian language exam and have a job to receive citizenship. The older law required only a three-year residence and no language test.
 Proponents of the new law said the previous rules were too lax and fueled crime, while critics warned that the new legislation would speed up Russia's population decline by slowing down immigration.
 In a letter to the State Duma explaining the need for the amendments, the Kremlin said that some of the new rules &quot;unjustifiably complicated&quot; naturalization for emigrants from the former Soviet republics who have long resided in Russia.
 Putin's amendments propose that former Soviet citizens who were officially registered in Russia as of July 1, 2002 receive Russian citizenship without the five-year residence restriction, language exam, proof of financial solvency and a residence permit. The easier rules will apply to those who file their naturalization requests by Jan. 1, 2006.
 Citizens of former Soviet republics who served on a contract in the Russian armed forces for at least three years can also receive Russian citizenship waiving the regular requirements. The provision reflects the military's hopes to beef up the armed forces by recruiting volunteers from the former Soviet republics.
 Under Putin's proposals, a softened naturalization procedure will also apply to those residing in Russia who are married to a Russian citizen for at least three years and those incapable of working, but who have children who are Russian citizens.
 The amendments also provide easy naturalization for World War II veterans and liberalize some other procedures of acquiring citizenship.

TITLE: German Media Giant on Way
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - German media giant Axel Springer has set up a subsidiary in Moscow that will launch a number of new titles in the next two years, reportedly including Newsweek and Forbes.
 
&quot;With around 145 million inhabitants and a growing middle class, Russia is a very interesting market with big potential,&quot; Axel board member Andreas Wiele said by e-mail from Berlin on Thursday.
 Irina Silayeva, the executive director of Axel Springer Russia, said the publisher will publish several glossy magazines as well as &quot;more serious journals.&quot; 
 &quot;We are planning to occupy that niche where we can be the first. We want to be leaders, since they get the highest revenues,&quot; she said.
 Both Wiele and Silayeva refused to go into detail, with the former saying &quot;we don't give any comments on supposed projects.&quot; Silayeva did say, however, that all publications would be in Russian and that the company plans to launch its own titles and acquire the rights to publish existing international ones.

TITLE: Chubais Maps Out Russian Leadership
AUTHOR: By Angelina Davydova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Anatoly Chubais, UES chief executive, caused a stir Thursday by calling for a new Russian empire.
 After receiving an honorary doctorate, cap and robe from his alma mater, the St. Petersburg State University for Engineering and Economics, Chubais spoke to university teachers and students, focusing on Russia's mission in the 21st century.
 
Speaking more as a political leader and former official than as a businessman, Chubais surprised many listeners by declaring Russia's aim to be the construction of a liberal empire.
 &quot;No other country in the world has traveled the fantastic route that Russia has traveled. Having lost 13 million people during the civil war, another 20 million due to political repression, and 30 million during the Second World War, Russia still managed to create an empire, which, counting all the East European countries and countries under the influence of the Soviet Union, occupied half the world,&quot; he said.
 &quot;Neither Alexander the Great, nor Tamerlane, nor Napoleon could even dream of such a conquest. All conflicts in the 20th century were nothing but conflicts between Russian and U.S. allies,&quot; Chubais also added.
 The great standoff between capitalism and socialism was resolved, however, in the former's favor. &quot;We were thrown from a bridge into the water, sank to the bottom, but managed to swim up. I still don't understand how we escaped national disaster in the early 1990s, when we had neither an economy, nor a state,&quot; Chubais said, remembering his Cabinet days.
 &quot;For 12 years now we've had right-wing policies and have developed a right-wing ideology,&quot; said Chubais, one of the leaders of the Union of Right Forces political party.
 Answering what he views as the most pressing question of &quot;where to now?&quot; Chubais said that there are four schools of thought, none of which provide a satisfactory scenario of Russia's development in the next few years.
 &quot;The first is a return to the USSR. The second inspires national patriotism. The third, the Eurasian school, although it forms a detailed analysis of the current situation, fails, however, to provide any concrete answers. The fourth school harks back to tsarist times, to 1917 before the Revolution... but I can't criticize this one because my own brother is one of its leaders,&quot; Chubais said.
 &quot;The ruling power mixes everything up by combining the Soviet national anthem and the Russia flag, Lenin's mummy in Moscow and... the family of Nicholas II in St. Petersburg.&quot;
 Chubais admits that, although the idea of making money will never become a national idea in Russia, basic values such as private property and freedom have already become established here and should be kept and protected.
 Unlike many local researchers and academics, Chubais believes that Russia is living through a stage of postindustrial growth and thus must deal with problems created by the new formation. Such problems include the changing role of the family, more women working and, as a result of this, a lower birth rate and an aging population, which prompts reform in healthcare, the social and defense sectors.
 A leading role for Russia can not be ruled out in Chubais' view. &quot;Russia should become a leader and create a liberal empire,&quot; he said, meaning mainly the CIS countries. UES has recently entered the electric power sector in Georgia and it plans to expand further into Armenia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan.
 Besides speaking on more general issues, Chubais also talked about reforming and restructuring the energy sector in Russia. Incidentally, also on Thursday, the UES Committee on Strategy and Reform approved requirements for international utility companies to submit bids to manage the Northwest Combined Heat and Power Plant outside of St. Petersburg.
 The requirements are now less stringent than they were in August. Now tender hopefuls should show revenues of at least $7.5. billion and not $10 billion as earlier stipulated, and manage a generator with a capacity of not less than 5,000 megawatts rather than 10,000 megawatts.
 According to UES, 30 utility companies in the world meet these requirements, while only 12 met the original requirements.
 Chubais also said that the tender would be announced in late 2003 or early 2004. &quot;The investors should be not only professionals in the energy sector, but also strategic investors,&quot; he said on Thursday.
 A total investment of $227 million is needed to complete a second 450 megawatt combined-cycle gas turbine and some heating networks and to improve efficiency at the plant, preparing it for competition that will be introduced gradually into Russia's coming market in the near future, according to UES.
 Northwest Combined Heat and Power Plant is now 47-percent owned by UES, with another 14 percent owned by Lenenergo, the UES subsidiary that serves St. Petersburg and the surrounding region. 
 The first generating unit of the plant was launched in Dec. 2000 with three more - each with a capacity of 450 megawatts - in the works. According to UES, between 1993 and 2001 the company invested $617 million into the power station.

TITLE: Summit Projects Murmansk Pipeline
AUTHOR: By Valeria Korchagina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Russian crude may start flowing regularly to the United States as soon as 2007, Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref said Tuesday.
 
A new deepwater port in Murmansk and a giant, possibly private pipeline to supply it with Siberian crude could be built by 2007-08, Gref told the second annual U.S.-Russia energy summit in St. Petersburg.
 Frustrated by bottlenecks in national pipeline monopoly Transneft's network, the nation's top five private oil producers last year joined together to push the $4 billion Murmansk project, which could export as much as 2.4 million barrels per day directly to the United States - five times as much as now.
 The project has yet to receive official government approval, and many Western officials have expressed concern that it would be delayed indefinitely, but Gref said Tuesday that &quot;the project is a priority.&quot;
 Proponents of the project, such as Yukos chief Mikhail Khodorkovsky, say the project is a win-win situation for everyone. It would be a key to the U.S. drive to reduce its dependence on Middle East oil, while boosting Russia's share of the global market and fattening the government's budget revenues by billions of dollars per year.
 Gref, however, said that before work on the pipeline can start - sometime in 2005 - several key issues need to be resolved, including ownership structure, although he did not rule out the possibility of private ownership of the pipeline.
 &quot;And there is another question we would like to have an answer for: Is the American market ready to receive Russian oil, and if so how much?&quot; Gref said, addressing his counterpart, U.S. Commerce Secretary Donald Evans.
 Later, Evans told reporters that Washington does not plan to pressure U.S. companies in any way regarding Russian oil. Instead, he said, market mechanisms should be allowed to work.
 Evans did note, however, that it is much quicker and cheaper to ship crude to the U.S. East Coast from Murmansk than from the Persian Gulf - nine days versus 32, according to Khodorkovsky.
 ExxonMobil is also eager to boost production in this country. The company said Tuesday it was finally ready to begin work on Sakhalin-3, which could prove to be the most lucrative of the Sakhalin shelf projects - all of which, apart from the Shell-led Sakhalin-2, are either still in the exploration stage or simply dormant.
 Despite the absence of any earth-shattering deals similar to BP's $7.7 billion play earlier this year for half of TNK, Gref said the two-day summit left no doubt that when it comes to Russian oil and gas, the Americans are surely coming. &quot;It takes decades to build bridges... There are 350 bridges in St. Petersburg, and we are building the 351st, which is probably the most important one,&quot; he said. &quot;If you cannot see it now, just wait five or 10 years.&quot;

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>Baltika Now Kosher
 </b>

MOSCOW (Reuters)-Russia's top brewer, Baltika, which in July sent its first consignment of nonalcoholic beer to Iran, is continuing its march across the Middle East with plans to ship kosher beer to Israel, the brewer said Tuesday.
 Israeli border guards made final checks at the Baltika plant on Tuesday, just before the first shipment was to depart, Baltika said in a company statement.
 "The conclusion of the contract became possible largely due to the certification of conformity with Kashruth accorded to Baltika beer by the Israeli rabbinate after successfully passing through the approval process in early 2003," Baltika said.
 Ten of Baltika's 11 brands have been certified as kosher, the exception being its "Jubilee" brew, the brewer's press service said.
 
 
<b>Web Plus Investment
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Web Plus, a 100-percent subsidiary of Telecominvest, intends to invest $1.7 million in St. Petersburg's telephone system over the next three years, said general director Andrei Shirenko at a press conference Thursday, Interfax reported. 
 The main clients for Web Plus hard lines would be small and medium-sized businesses with up to five lines who already use the company's other services.
 Web Plus has provided Internet services since 1996 and IP telephony since 1999. The company serves 7,000 subscribers with ADSL lines.
 
 
<b>Sky Link Buys Delta
 </b>

MOSCOW (SPT) - Sky Link will acquire a 23.5-percent share in Moskovskaya Sotovaya Svyaz from Rostelecom and 43.12 percent in St. Petersburg's Delta Telecom from Severo-Zapadny Telecom, Sky Link general director Yury Dombrovsky announced to Interfax Tuesday. 
 The Delta Telecom shares include "24.5 percent of voting shares and some privileged shares," the director said.
 Russian Development Corp., a U.S. company, owns 32.9% of Delta Telecom. Both Delta Telecom and MSS are NMT-450 analog operators, while Delta Telecom has also branched out into the IMT-MC-450 digital standard. 



TITLE: S&P: Who Owns $85 Billion?
AUTHOR: By Alex Fak
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Almost 70 percent of all private ownership in Russian companies, around $85 billion, is not publicly disclosed, Standard & Poor's latest study finds.
 
Another study, released on Wednesday by the Russian Institute of Directors, shows that while companies release a lot of information, they tend to stay mum about data pertaining to their directors and share ownership.
 Wimm-Bill-Dann became the most open company this year, according to S&P, far outpacing MTS, which topped the rankings in 2002. &quot;The rating is well deserved,&quot; David Yakobashvili, WBD's chairman, said in an e-mail. &quot;Seven of our 11 board directors are independent.&quot;
 S&P's exhaustive &quot;Transparency and Disclosure&quot; survey, which polled public information available on the 45 largest companies with a combined market capitalization of $147.2 billion, or 95 percent of the country's total market value, said transparency had increased to 39 percent, up 5 points on last year.
 The rate compared favorably with companies in Latin American countries, but lagged well behind the United States and Britain, where the disclosure rate hovers around 70 percent.
 S&P said it approached its analysis from an international investor's perspective, relying only on public information in the form of annual reports, web sites and regulatory filings.
 The biggest gap in disclosures concerns remuneration for directors and managers, as well as data on shareholder rights and financial information. Information about a firm's operations is the most readily available.
 When it comes to information available to the investor, &quot;financials are at the top,&quot; said Roland Nash, chief strategist at Renaissance Capital. But S&P found financial information one of the hardest kinds of data to obtain. Only 28 percent of firms disclosed those numbers.
 As for nondisclosure of ownership, it is &quot;dramatically worse&quot; in Russia than in Western countries, said Julia Kochetygova, director of the governance services division at S&P and one of the authors of the survey. The share of nondisclosed private stock has risen by 2 percent since last year.
 Kochetygova said murky ownership is a particular problem for foreign investors. While insiders often know who the real owners are, international investors are often out of the loop.
 The report concludes that the telecommunications sector is &quot;the most transparent Russian industry.&quot;
 Nadezhda Goloubeva, telecom analyst at Aton brokerage, said that industry has been blessed with low barriers to entry and products based on services, not resources. Selling service allows companies to compete on quality, and as increased competition tightens profit margins, firms are forced to enter the capital markets, which prize transparency, Goloubeva suggested.
 Individual rankings came under some criticism, particularly in regard to Rostelecom, ranked third on the list, 10 points above NYSE-traded Vimpelcom.
 For instance, Golden Telecom, ranked 18 points below Rostelecom, is a more transparent company, said Olga Zhilinskaya, telecoms analyst at Renaissance Capital.
 &quot;Golden Telecom has announced a specific business strategy. The strategy is well known by investors and shareholders. Rostelecom doesn't have any strategy yet. They were saying they were going to publish it a long time ago, but so far, we haven't seen it,&quot; she said.
 The Institute of Directors survey, like that done by S&P, also found more transparency in telecoms. But it is particularly the mobile sub-sector, not telecoms overall, that provide greatest transparency for analysts, Zhilinskaya said. &quot;S&P probably has different priorities because it normally makes debt ratings,&quot; which evaluate factors differently than equity analysts would, she said.
 The Institute of Directors survey, which polled 65 companies, including giants Gazprom, Sibneft, Yukos and LUKoil, shows that no firm did worse in corporate governance than last year-and many did better. However, Igor Belikov, the institute's director, said there has been only a &quot;slow positive increase.&quot; Most firms polled do not make their annual reports public, while information is released in a haphazard way.
 The report says there is little difference in transparency between companies listed as A1 or A2 on MICEX and RTS and those listed lower. According to the Federal Securities Commission, listed companies are required to disclose various corporate governance information. 
 &quot;The sanctions simply don't work,&quot; Belikov said. &quot;Imagine the maximum fine for A1-listed companies [for failing to disclose particular numbers] is $500. For a whole company, that's just ridiculous.&quot; He blasted MICEX, which paid for part of the S&P study, for talking much but not enforcing disclosure.
 FSC rules only exist in draft form and have not yet come into force, countered Anton Lobanov, head of the listing department at MICEX

TITLE: Base Element Rules Out Report of RusAl Buyout
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: News that Roman Abramovich, the billionaire owner of Chelsea football club, had sold his stake in top aluminum firm Russian Aluminum to his partner was shot down Thursday by the purported buyer.
 Base Element, which owns 50 percent of RusAl, is controlled by another tycoon, Oleg Deripaska. The company's official web site Thursday posted an announcement saying that &quot;the statements made in the [Sept. 24 Vedomosti article] do not reflect reality.&quot;
 Vedomosti quoted a source close to shareholders of Abramovich's investment vehicle Millhouse Capital as saying that the 50-percent stake in RusAl had been sold to Base Element.
 Abramovich, 36, the governor of Chukotka, a remote icy region in the Far East abutting Alaska, hit the international headlines in July when he bought London's Chelsea football club.
 In August, Abramovich said he might sell some Russian assets, but dismissed rumors he planned to pull out of the country altogether.
 &quot;We are selling some things and buying other things. I don't feel like doing business outside Russia,&quot; Abramovich was quoted by his spokesman as saying.
 Press reports have suggested that Abramovich, one of the country's richest men with good political connections, could dump his Russian interests ranging from oil to pig farms after the arrest of another billionaire.
 Police in July arrested Platon Lebedev, a key business ally of the country's richest man, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, head of oil major Yukos. Lebedev was charged with theft of state property in a 1994 privatization deal.
 Abramovich began selling his assets last spring, when Millhouse sold a 26 percent stake in flagship carrier Aeroflot to National Reserve Bank for an estimated $135 million. Following that, Abramovich-controlled Sibneft signed a merger agreement with Yukos. According to the agreement, Sibneft's 92 percent stake is transferred to Yukos, while Sibneft's stockholders get 26.1 percent of Yukos and $3 billion.
 RusAl has said it aims to become the world's top aluminum producer in about a decade. It is currently the world's second-largest primary aluminum producer. 
 
 <i>(Vedomosti, Reuters, MT, Interfax) </i>

TITLE: Kremlin Slip-Up an Omen For More Defeats
AUTHOR: By Nikolai Petrov
TEXT: The gubernatorial election in St. Petersburg has not produced the expected result for the Kremlin. Despite its best efforts, including the prominent deployment of President Vladimir Putin, presidential envoy Valentina Matviyenko (who had at her disposal all the administrative resources of the city administration and the presidential envoy's office) was unable to prevail in the first round. 
 
Having notched up 48.91 percent of the vote, she goes into the second round, where she will run against Vice Governor Anna Markova, who garnered 15.89 percent of the vote. The first time Putin dispatched Matviyenko - then deputy prime minister responsible for social issues - to run for governor of his home town was in 2000. 
 She entered the fray, but was unable to provide serious competition to then Governor Vladimir Yakovlev and so was withdrawn from the race on the decision of the Kremlin. This time round, it seemed that everything had been taken care of. A three-year war of attrition waged by the presidential envoy's office and law enforcement agencies had taken its toll on Yakovlev and his team. Yakovlev, having failed to secure a majority in the city legislature, was unable to get its permission to run for a third term. 
 The Kremlin did not wait for Yakovlev to serve out his second term but instead lured the governor into early &quot;retirement&quot; by appointing him a deputy prime minister in the federal government - thus paving the way for early elections. This was done especially to ensure that the election campaign would fall in the summer months when it would be impossible for &quot;undesirable&quot; candidates to raise their profile. Also, the Kremlin went to great lengths to make sure that none of the numerous federal politicians who had at one time or another set their sights on the governorship of the northern capital threw their hat into the ring. 
 Meanwhile, Matviyenko's appointment as presidential envoy was timed to give her maximum exposure in the runup to and during the pompous and extravagant St. Petersburg 300th anniversary celebrations. With Yakovlev's departure, the city administration joined the Kremlin and the presidential envoy's office in backing Matviyenko's candidacy. The media, the City Election Commission and law enforcement structures were all put to work. 
 The number of visits made by federal ministers bearing lavish gifts for the city of one sort or another increased considerably. And a few weeks before the vote, the heavy artillery was wheeled out in the form of Putin's high-profile endorsement of Matviyenko. 
 As election day drew near, in the absence of any real competition, efforts were primarily focused on getting the vote out. It is worth noting that the 20-percent turnout threshold for validating the election is the lowest level permitted by law. 
 The colossal efforts undertaken, however, were not sufficient to ensure a clear victory for Matviyenko, although they did result in her going through to the second round with by far the largest share of the vote. Under other circumstances, 48.91 percent of the vote would be an extremely impressive result, but not when one considers that all the Kremlin's resources and influence were thrown behind Matviyenko. 
 The extremely low turnout (29 percent), significantly lower than it was in 2000 at the last gubernatorial election, also gives rise to disagreeable - from the Kremlin's perspective - thoughts. Even special measures, such as the laying on of extra gratis suburban trains, were of little help. Furthermore, the protest vote was extremely high: Eleven percent of those that took the trouble to cast their vote cast it &quot;against all candidates.&quot; 
 The St. Petersburg election is one of the final tests of the model of &quot;managed democracy&quot; prior to to the parliamentary and presidential elections - and it has demonstrated the extent to which the Kremlin has lost all sense of proportion. In a situation where there was a strong and sympathetic candidate, the Kremlin's relentless onslaught has been completely counter-productive. 
 Yes, the average St. Petersburg voter differs significantly from the average Russian voter: Inter alia, he or she is more democratic, better educated and more demanding. Nevertheless, if the relevant lessons from the St. Petersburg experience are not learned now, the Kremlin will face many more humiliating defeats and Pyrrhic victories in the forthcoming State Duma elections and the presidential election in March of next year. 
 
 <i>Nikolai Petrov, head of the Center for Political and Geographical Research, contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times.</i>


TITLE: Journalists Let Officials Abuse Free Speech
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalev
TEXT: &quot;Could you have imagined we'd end up in a situation like this years after we stood up to this kind of thing in 1996?&quot; a friend said while he and I were sitting at media headquarters as results were tallied Sunday night after gubernatorial elections. 
 
No, I couldn't have. Back then, Nevskoye Vremya fired me and several other journalists after we went public on the paper's unbalanced coverage of the election battle for City Hall between Mayor Anatoly Sobchak and his deputy Vladimir Yakovlev. I had hoped our stance on freedom of speech in this city would be an example for others.
 I hoped the results of our protest would not be short-term but would persist; we treated it as just a brick in the road to a real democratic society. 
 Time has shown that that road is broken beyond repair. The Soviet mentality, which is lodged solidly in the heads of a lot of local and national reporters, lets them surrender their rights to behave as real journalists to become ones that pander to the authorities. 
 This has become obvious in the fall of 2003 in St. Petersburg. Last week Vladimir Litvinenko, head of gubernatorial candidate Valentina Matviyenko's election headquarters, gave a press conference where a colleague of mine was unable ask a question about the financing of the presidential representative's election campaign. 
 &quot;Wait a bit. They still have two or three planned questions on their list,&quot; another colleague said to him. &quot;On the list? Which list?&quot; I whispered thinking the journalist was joking.
 The colleague opened his jacket and took out several pages with text on them. &quot;Take a look,&quot; he said. 
 The list was of the questions I just heard from at least five reporters within the last 20 minutes.
 That was a shock for me. My conclusion could only be that the whole press conference was staged from its beginning till the end.
 In his answer to one of these questions Litvinenko had demonstrated his excellent historical and political education by including in the same sentence line &quot;Catherine the Great and the president of England.&quot; At least I got a laugh out of it.
 My colleague finally managed to ask his question, but it looked like his was the only question not on the list. And this was very bad, of course, because Litvinenko did not know much about it, even though its subject, Matviyenko's campaign financing, was mentioned as one of the matters to discuss in the announcement about the media conference.
 At &quot;Implementation of the Constitutional Right to Information in Modern Russia,&quot; a conference held in St. Petersburg this month, journalists who are still professionally diligent admit that federal authorities have left almost no place for them in the country to talk freely to the public.
 On Tuesday, Novaya Gazeta quoted Radio Liberty and Gazeta journalist Viktor Shenderovich saying he did not expect the abasement of the national media to happen so fast.
 &quot;The times of Gostelradio [State Television and Radio] have returned. I didn't think this could happen so quickly. I thought it would start getting colder, but the Ice Age has come practically instantaneously,&quot; Shenderovich said at the conference. 
 Vladimir Kara-Murza, a journalist for RTVI television company that broadcasts to Russians living abroad, said the media, in fact, is already not allowed to present negative news for the audience. 
 &quot;It is just impossible to find out from federal television channels what is really going on in the country. News No. 1 in all the federal channels is who [the president Vladimir] Putin met and what he said ... Many regional channels supply their unused reports to us. 
 &quot;These are about strikes by state workers, about widespread electricity cuts. In these [reports] the country is seen absolutely different to the one presented on federal channels,&quot; Kara-Murza said. 
 Listening to what Shenderovich and Kara-Murza said, I am glad to admit the road to a real democratic society is not completely abandoned yet. Though there are few hands left to resume its renovation. 


TITLE: city gains theatrical honors
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The European Theater Festival, which kicks off at the Maly Drama Theater on Saturday, is perhaps the grandest international drama-theater event that St. Petersburg has ever witnessed.
 
St. Petersburg was chosen to host the 12th running of the European Theaters Festival, which continues through Oct. 30, by the Union of European Theaters. The offer came after an invitation from Lev Dodin, artistic director of the Maly Drama Theater - Theater of Europe, or MDT, one of only two Russian companies that are members of the prestigious theatrical union.
 &quot;The union now comprises theaters of different calibers, types of management, styles and philosophy,&quot; Dodin said. &quot;Every year, one of the member troupes of the union organizes and hosts the festival in its hometown.&quot;
 The Union of European Theaters was founded in 1990 by renowned Italian director Giorgio Strehler, who died in 1997, and currently includes 20 companies from 13 countries. One of Strehler's own productions, a take on Carlo Goldoni's &quot;Arlecchino,&quot; will be presented during the festival by Teatro Piccolo from Milan, Italy.
 Since 2000, the union has been led by the Hungarian director Gabor Gambegi. 
 The event opens on Saturday with a performance by the MDT's Chekhov-based production &quot;A Play Without a Name,&quot; which won a Golden Mask, Russia's top theatrical award, in 1998.
 The list of guests features the cream of the crop of European theater. Eleven internationally renowned troupes are bringing top productions from their permanent repertoire to St. Petersburg.
 The festival will assemble highly acclaimed companies such as Teatro Piccolo, Paris' Theatre Odeon, Sweden's Dramaten Theater, the National Theater of Finland, Poland's Stary Teatr, Spain's Teatre Lliure, Hungary's Katona Jozsef Theater and Romania's Bulandra Theater.
 The MDT's dramatic contribution to the festival will be three of its own shows: &quot;A Play Without a Name&quot; and Chekhov's &quot;Uncle Vanya&quot; (both directed by Dodin) , and Lyudmila Petrushevskaya's &quot;The Moscow Choir,&quot; directed by Igor Konyayev.
 &quot;We are extremely happy to say that not a single company refused our invitation in the first place, and there have not been last-minute cancellations,&quot; said Dina Dodina, who is responsible for international projects at the MDT. &quot;It is a very important sign of recognition both for our theater and for the city of St. Petersburg.&quot;
 The Maly Drama Theater was invited to join the Union of European Theaters in 1992, and in 1998 was honored with the prestigious status of a Theater of Europe. Only two other companies - Teatro Piccolo and Paris' Odeon - hold the status of Theater of Europe.
 The upcoming festival is part of St. Petersburg's official jubilee programme to mark the city's 300th anniversary.
 Four local venues - the Maly Drama Theater, Baltiisky Dom, Lensoviet Theater and Theater on Liteiny - will host the shows.
 The festival offers an impressively diverse repertoire, bringing together Euripides' &quot;Vacchantes&quot; (a joint production by the Katona Jozseph Theater, the National Theater of Finland and the National Theater of Northern Greece), William Shakespeare's &quot;Twelfth Night&quot; (International Confederation of Russian Theatrical Unions, Moscow), Jean-Baptiste Moliere's &quot;Tartuffe&quot; (Katona Jozseph Theater), Samuel Beckett's &quot;Catastrophe&quot; (Odeon Theater), Carlo Goldoni's &quot;Arlecchino&quot; (Piccolo Teatro) and Eduardo de Filippo's &quot;Filumena Marturano&quot; (National Theater of Finland).
 All productions will be shown in the native language of the performing theater, with Russian subtitles provided.
 &quot;I am very touched to see my long-cherished dream coming true. I am awaiting the festival with the greatest anticipation,&quot; Dodin said. &quot;We will have the world's greatest directors bringing their troupes and best shows to St.Petersburg.&quot;
 
 <i>
Keep an eye on Stages for details of performances. Links: www.baltichouse. spb.ru, www.mdt-dodin.spb.ru</i> 


TITLE: can this floor also be a ceiling?
AUTHOR: By Andrei Vorobei
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Dutch graphic artist Maurits Cornelis Escher needs little introduction to Russian audiences. They have long been familiar with his legacy through numerous reproductions of his work in books, catalogs, calendars, postcards and other day-to-day objects. However, at the same time, it is possible to say that Russians know the artist's works better than the man behind them. A new exhibition, &quot;M.C. Escher at the Hermitage,&quot; at the State Hermitage Museum has arrived to fill in this knowledge gap.
 
The exhibition contains works from both periods - before and after 1937 - into which Escher's work is commonly divided. Born in 1898 in Leeuwarden, the capital of Friesland province in the northern Netherlands, Escher lived from 1923 to 1935 in Italy and Spain, where he visited the stunning 13th-century Alhambra Palace in Granada. The interlocking Moorish geometric designs of the palace are seen as one of the main influences on Escher's later style. This period is less well known to a wide audience. The exhibition contains many works from Escher's time in Italy, which mainly consist of the observation and preservation of local scenes - both landscapes and city architecture.
 Recognition arrived when Escher started experimenting with and manipulating reality after returning to the Netherlands in 1937. There, he began to create his famous engravings with enigmatic, boundless and unreal worlds and processes; geometric and abstract spaces inhabited by beings that were not so much strange as sympathetic. This world was built up in an artist's studio, and with only a rich and paradoxical imagination for help.
 Most of Escher's works fall into two categories. The first and more common is metamorphoses, or the complete transformation, modification or transition of one form into another. If in pieces such as &quot;Fish and Frogs&quot; (1949) or the &quot;New Year's Greeting Card&quot; cycle (1952) it is a simple game in one dimension, then in works like &quot;Reptiles&quot; (1943) and &quot;Magic Mirror&quot; (1945) the transformation consists of objects being transformed through different dimensions - from a two-dimensional plane to three dimensions and back again. The 4-meter-long &quot;Metamorphosis II&quot; (1939/ 1940) - reckoned to be the longest woodcut in existence - can be seen as a visual aid for this principle.
 The second category is that of a plurality of points of view existing simultaneously in one work. Interesting examples of this at the current exhibition include &quot;Relativity&quot; (1953), &quot;Ascending and Descending&quot; (1960) and &quot;Waterfall&quot; (1961). Using this approach and manipulating different standpoints, Escher generates a fascinating, infinite set of dimensions in one work.
 However, for all his experimenting, Escher manages to avoid chaos - to be more precise, he organizes it. A common theme through all of the works on display is a feeling of process - sometimes quite monotonous, but perpetual movement. The key, it seems, is in the regularity of the movement, which is the one thing that brings order to this artificially created chaos. But before reaching this order, he casts doubt on our norms and traditional ideas of the world, both social and physical. 
 As Escher once said: &quot;Can you be certain that it is impossible to eat your cake, to feel its taste, and at the same time to leave it untouched?&quot;
 

 <i>
&quot;M.C. Escher at the Hermitage&quot; runs through Nov. 30. Links: www. hermitagemuseum.org </i>

TITLE: chernov's choice
TEXT: The Dutch jazz program, part of the ongoing <strong>Window on the Netherlands</strong> festival, ends this week with a series of events outside the usual club route.
 
The largest of all will be a joint project with the local SKIF festival, which promotes an annual three-day music marathon focusing on contemporary improvised and world music.
 Although SKIF is normally held in spring, this week's event - called Dutch SKIF - will take place at LDM (Leningrad Palace of Youth) this Saturday. It will host five Netherlands-based acts.
 Kiev-born pianist <strong>Misha Mengelberg</strong>, who grew up in Holland and co-founded Instant Composers Pool in 1970, an organization whose aim is to promote improvised music in Holland, will appear solo. According to Paris Atlantic magazine, his playing is in the tradition of Thelonius Monk (and before him Duke Ellington and Count Basie).
 <strong>Yuri Honing Trio</strong> is best-known for its treatments of pop and rock hits, including ABBA, Police, Bjork and Green Day, as well as its own compositions, while <strong>Dalgoo</strong> is said to adapt narrative techniques from literature, cinema, theater and dance to sound.
 Led by double bass player Meinrad Kneer, it will base its performance on stories, poems and diaries by local absurdist author Daniil Kharms (1905-1942). Last but not least, there will be <strong>VeDaKi</strong>, an Amsterdam-based quartet of two Russians, one Senegalese and one Indian - who all add their own cultures to the band's improvization.
 According to the promoters, Dutch musicians will also jam with members of such local bands as Auktsyon, Volkovtrio, Markscheider Kunst and ZGA. 
 Featuring noted local double-bass player Vladimir Volkov, VeDaKi will also appear at Estrada Theater to perform a full-length concert, while Misha Mengelberg will play in duo with Yuri Honing at JFC Jazz Club. Both concerts are on Friday.
 Yuri Honing Trio and Misha Mengelberg will appear again in a concert with <strong>Willem Breuker Kollektief</strong> at the Drama Academy Student Theater on Sunday.
 The Dutch festival will close with Dalgoo performing at JFC on Monday.
 Although <strong>Wine</strong>, which writes in English and pursues the &quot;true&quot; British style, appears to be alone in St. Petersburg, there is a small Anglophile movement in Moscow, which spent this summer performing regularly at its own, rather strange club floating on a boat on the Moskva River.
 Closed until the next summer because of the end of the navigation season, the club, where Wine and its Moscow counterparts such as Mother's Little Helpers and Blast played, released a CD compilation called &quot;The Boat Radio 2003&quot; last Saturday. Wine provided three tracks, &quot;Dipsomania,&quot; &quot;Real Traveller&quot; and &quot;Bredaloser.&quot; Check www.radiotheboat.com.
 Wine will play at Fish Fabrique on Friday, Moloko on Oct. 8 and Purga on Oct. 11.
 <strong>Chufella Marzufella's Greblya</strong>, which played a fine concert at Manhattan/Kotyol last Saturday, appears to have become similar to The Rolling Stones in their late 1960s, psychedelic mode rather than earlier Stones - which they resembled previously.
 Greblya's songs, written by frontman Pavel Ryabukhin in Russian, are often inspired by St. Petersburg's southern district Kupchino, where Ryabukhin grew up. The band will play at Griboyedov on Friday.
 
 <i>- By Sergey Chernov</i>


TITLE: a cafe serving food for arts sake
AUTHOR: By Peter Morley
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Fine art and fine dining would seem to be an obvious combination. But art and a budget-conscious cafe? Art Bufet, which opened recently in the same building as the local branch of the Artists Union of Russia, proves that it is possible.
 
First, let it be said that Art Bufet is not Ermitazhny Restoran, nor is it somewhere like Il Grappolo, which has works by modish, usually foreign, artists adorning its walls. However, this is not a bad thing. After all, you don't necessarily want upmarket prices and fawning waiters every day of the week.
 So a friend and I dropped in to Art Bufet for a work-oriented lunch this week. The place is laid out at just below street level in two rooms on Bolshaya Morskaya Ulitsa toward St. Isaac's Square. (It should be noted that its location makes it extremely convenient for employees of this newspaper.)
 The first room is decorated in dark-blue shades with twisting floral designs, while the second room has more of a Raphaelite Loggia feel to it, with an impressive ceiling that seems to have been done in conscious imitation of the Sistine Chapel. This is all set off, somewhat bizarrely, by the strains of Radio Studio, but I guess you can't have everything.
 I started out with the Kapri salad (49 rubles, $1.60), which was billed as vegetables and beans. It turned out to include fresh, crisp lettuce and celery, plus olives, tomato and hard-boiled-egg wedges as well as the beans. This all came with a light, piquant-esque sauce and - mercifully - very little of the dill that often plagues Russian salads.
 My companion passed on the starters, and ploughed straight into a main course of monastery-style pike-perch (<i>sudak po-monastyrsky</i>; 77 rubles, $2.50). He enjoyed this, especially the combination of sauce, mushroom, onion and half a hard-boiled egg on top of the fish, as well as the rustic-style potato slices that covered the whole concoction. However, he said, the fish itself was a bit on the bland side.
 I found no real problems with my main course, the Bavarian-style pike-perch (<i>sudak po-bavarsky</i>; 65 rubles, $2.15), which had been nicely cooked with a hint of a delicate flavor that I enjoyed while being frustratingly unable to pinpoint exactly what it was. The only letdown was what was billed as potato croquettes (30 rubles, $1), but which turned out to be neither croquette-shaped nor even tasting much of potato. 
 Service, while not spectacular or even in any way smiling, was efficient and unfussy, and delivery times for dishes were, while not exactly lightning fast, nothing to complain about either.
 A previous visit to Art Bufet also confirmed that their <i>vareniki</i> stuffed with mushroom and potato are also extremely good. And vegetarians should take note that they are not the only meat-free option on the menu, as there is also an interesting baked-eggplant combination on the starters list that could probably do double duty as an entree if ordered with a side dish.
 (Vegetarians should also note that only one of the two versions of the vareniki - the one with smetana - is meatless, as the other one comes with a meaty sauce. Nevertheless, they seem to be homemade, and I found them to be very pleasant and extremely filling.)
 
 <i>
Art Bufet. 38 Bolshaya Morskaya Ulitsa. Tel.: 314-1906 Open daily, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Menu in Russian only. No credit cards Lunch for two, without alcohol: 311 rubles ($10.20). </i>

TITLE: glass artists reflect the times
AUTHOR: By Darja Agapova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg has become a veritable hotbed of Scandinavian art in the last few months, and it seems as though the stream of exhibitions, performances and video screenings by Nordic artists for the city's 300th anniversary is not going to dry up any time soon.
 
The latest event - &quot;Reflections in New Nordic Light,&quot; which opened at the museum of the Mukhina Art Academy on Sept. 18 - is dedicated to works in glass. The exhibition is being held under the auspices of the Nordic Council of Ministers and features artists from Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, Norway and the Faroe Islands.
 Of all the countries represented, Sweden is the only one that has its own long-standing tradition of glass art. Archeologists excavating Viking burial sites have turned up glass goblets from the 9th century, while glass manufacturing has been practiced in Stockholm since 1648 and the Kosta and Orrefors brands are known all over Europe. However, in terms of contemporary glass art, Sweden has been outstripped by Denmark, which owes this status largely to Per Steen Hebsgaard, the curator of the current exhibition. An artist, restorer and discoverer of new glass-art talent, Hebsgaard has made experimenting with new techniques the signature attribute of his studio. All the works on display have their roots in his workshop.
 Many of the artists have their works on permanent display at the Copenhagen Museum of Contemporary Glass Art, which was opened in 2001 in a space formerly occupied by an underground water reservoir - from where the museum drew its other name, &quot;Cisterns.&quot; The choice of such a romantic milieu for contemporary glass art is revealing, since it aspires to revive the ancient, poetic attitude to the craft and the material alongside encouraging technical innovations.
 The old mythology of glass goes back to the four Greek elements - earth, air, fire and water - and a combination of images of a fiery smithy, sparkling ice and crystal waters. The process of glass production resembles witchcraft - the colors clarify only after backing, so an artist has to foresee the result. According to the exhibition catalog, glass &quot;is a mixture of substances that represents in itself a commitment to the time we live in, and may become recollection and prediction at the same time.&quot;
 In this sense, a noteworthy feature of the exhibition is that most of the works on display are untitled, showing that the plastic and color qualities of the objects are more important for the artists than the conceptual part, maintaining a tradition that runs through the history of glass art. Moreover, some works on display resemble traditional <i>objets d'art</i>: Trondur Patursson's big blue &quot;whale&quot; - the work is untitled - resembles a Chinese screen; another untitled composition by Jorn Larsen recalls a sacred Buddhist mandala sign; while Frans Widerberg's &quot;Model for Newcastle University&quot; echoes the <i>ecorche</i>, the flayed figure used by artists or medics to learn anatomy that was a well-known sculptural form in the 18th century. Some works are made in a traditional, wall-hanging picture style, only made of glass.
 The location of the exhibition, which makes excellent use of the museum's historic interiors, underlines the main problem of glass art - the connection between tradition and innovation. Seeing various glass objects made by contemporary artists displayed in faux-Renaissance patios and halls decorated with grotesque plafonds - not to mention among the museum's own collection of historical glass - prompts reflections on the genealogy of this kind of art. Originally, it was emancipated from ecclesiastical decorations, then from applied art, and today most artists independently exhibit objects that are entirely unusable but also demonstrate both technical innovations and a quest for new forms.
 It would be difficult to find a better location for the exhibition than the museum, officially known as the St. Petersburg Art-Industrial Academy's Museum of Applied Arts. The academy is known by the sobriquet Mukha, referring to the sculptor Vera Mukhina (1889 - 1953), for whom it was named in the Soviet era. It was founded in 1879 by Baron Alexander Stieglitz, the prominent financier and manufacturer, and is seen as an active laboratory of recasting old traditions in a contemporary mold. The museum was intended to be the most essential part of the audacious education experiment, and its superbly rich collection of artworks was destined to serve as a guiding light and provide practical patterns for artists.
 
 <i>
&quot;Reflections in New Nordic Light&quot; runs through Oct. 11. </i>

TITLE: step back in time near peterhof
AUTHOR: By Larisa Doctorow
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: You don't have to go far to get away in spirit from St. Petersburg and feel that you are somewhere deep in the Russian hinterland. Just 3 kilometers - a 10-minute bus ride - from Peterhof's world-renowned parks, fountains and palaces is the picturesque village of Nizino, which is set on a hill with small vegetable plots climbing up its slopes in patchwork fashion.
 
The village has a small cemetery, outcrops of flowers and two broken benches. Beyond the cemetery, the tin roofs of the village can be seen through the crowns of poplar trees.
 The hill is crowned by the church of St. Tsarina Alexandra Martyr, which is currently being restored at the parishioners' initiative after 50 years of neglect. The church was completed and inaugurated in 1854 for Alexandra, wife of Nicholas I, and was later the preferred church of Nicholas II, the last tsar. Religious services continued until 1940, and resumed in 2002. The church is open on Saturdays and Sundays.
 The church was built by Andrei Shtakenshneider, St. Petersburg's leading architect of the 1840s and 1850s, who also designed the Mariinsky and Nikolayevsky palaces, as well as numerous civil and ecclesiastical buildings around Peterhof.
 Across from the church is the Belvedere, a majestic, elegantly proportioned palace completed in 1848. The palace is set on Babigon hill, which at 20 meters is a good lookout over the surrounding area. The area was originally settled by Finns, and local place names bear witness to this connection; for example, the area was originally called Papigontu (Popova Gora in Russian). Royal attention led to architectural development in the 1840s, when Shtakenshneider turned it into a &quot;playground for courtiers.&quot;
 Shtakenshneider's Belvedere, a yellow-and-white edifice set against a background of green fields and distant trees, was a central piece in a large ensemble. Its grey, granite columns, richly decorated front staircase and dramatic setting give it the air of an antique temple, and it is described in superlatives by old tourist guides. The palace is enclosed in a horseshoe-shaped courtyard that also contains a low yellow-and-white building that could have been the servants' quarters. 
 The Belvedere is two kilometers away from the main road between St. Petersburg and Peterhof. The path to it runs along two canals flanked by ancient linden trees, whose interwoven branches create a canopy above the water's surface. Further on along both banks of the canals, meadows spread out over what was - 150 years ago - a carefully planned area seeded with various grasses and herbs. The tall trees fencing off this landscape seem to cut if off from the rest of the world.
 Another feature of the ensemble is nearby Meadow Park, another creation by Shtakenshneider, who was also a master of landscape architecture. Although discussions are underway about restoring the park to its original glory, they are a far cry from the present reality of the park's deplorable state.
 The park was originally planned as a &quot;composition&quot; in green, yellow, red and orange foliage created by bushes and trees that take on different colors in autumn. The park, which is between 400 and 800 meters wide, occupies some 85 hectares, of which 18 are taken up by its 10 ponds, which make the park feel vast. The water reflects the sky and the trees, creating another, parallel universe.
 Meadow Park is at its best in the early weeks of autumn, when the foliage turns golden. The first construction along the path is the ruins of the Rose Pavilion, completed in 1848 to a design by Shtakenshneider. The Arabesque-motive laden pavilion was set between two ponds, and comprised a gallery, a three-storey tower, an inner, Mediterranean-style courtyard with a mosaic floor, sculptures and vases, and a wide terrace. All that is left now is the ruins of a brick wall, a few granite slabs and a fallen column.
 Further on are a mill, the Nikola Village House, bridges and a few sluices. A walk along these canals reveals the beauty of what remains of Meadow Park, and is well worth making the trip.
 
 <i>
Meadow Park can be reached by bus No. 277 from Novy Petergof railway station, which is served by suburban trains from St. Petersburg's Baltiisky Station. Buses also run from Baltiisky Station to Peterhof (60 rubles, $2 one way). Alight near the Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral, and head away from the Gulf of Finland toward Babigon Hill. Cross Ermler Prospect and carry on walking. </i>

TITLE: russian films on the up once again
AUTHOR: By Tom Birchenough
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: When Russia celebrated its National Day of Cinema on Aug. 27 Alexander Golutva, deputy Culture Minister responsible for the sector, said that he hoped that, after a long pause, the country would soon again have &quot;films of which we can be proud.&quot;
 
As it turned out, he did not have long to wait. Only days later, at the Sept. 6 closing ceremony of the Venice Film Festival, top awards went to Andrei Zvyagintsev for &quot;Vozvrashchenie&quot; (&quot;The Return&quot;).
 &quot;The Return&quot; may not be released in Russia until next month, yet international success already looks assured - so expect protest from local critics if &quot;The Return&quot; is not chosen as Russia's submission for the foreign-language Oscar, with a real chance of winning.
 While awaiting the release of &quot;The Return,&quot; there are other Russian films to watch for. Alexander Sokurov's &quot;Father and Son&quot; (winner of the FIPRESCI international critics' prize at the Cannes festival this year) is already on limited local release, though it may tax the patience of all but the most devoted fans of the veteran festival director.
 Lacking the technical genius of his &quot;Russky Kovcheg&quot; (&quot;Russian Ark&quot;) or the stronger emotional currents of his earlier &quot;Mat i Syn&quot; (&quot;Mother and Son&quot;), it is set in an unnamed city (using Lisbon exteriors). Its central relationship - even disregarding the homoerotic themes that many Russian and foreign critics saw despite the director's protests - is equally remote.
 For viewers who find Sokurov's interpretation of the theme too cerebral, Boris Khlebnikov and Alexei Popogrebsky's &quot;Koktebel&quot; is a small gem - in the very best sense of the term - which rightly brought the pair the Special Jury Prize at the Moscow Film Festival in June.
 &quot;Koktebel&quot; is their feature-length debut and has similarities with &quot;The Return.&quot; Both depict rural settings and the subtleties of often unspoken emotions, as well as achieving a high technical quality on modest budgets.
 Named after the Crimean resort &quot;Koktebel&quot; is a road movie in which the relationship between father and son emerges slowly as they travel south from Moscow through a rural landscape bathed in autumnal hues.
 First seen being thrown off a railway freight car, the pair travel slowly, regularly stopping to earn money from odd jobs. Son (Gleb Puskepalis) and Father (Igor Chernevich) - as they are described in the titles - show a rare sensitivity in their interaction, especially Puskepalis, playing a child driven by hardship and his father's weaknesses toward a wisdom far beyond his 11 years of age.
 Strong performances from the two leads and supporting cast are enhanced by Shandor Berkeshi's photography, which uses unexpected angles and long shots to subtly illustrate the film's theme of flight as a metaphor for the son's development as a character. 
 If &quot;Koktebel&quot; has a shortcoming, at least to viewers not drawn fully into its emotional dynamic, it's a certain lack of pace which might make it seem slightly too long (at 100 minutes running time). 
 Alluding to this, Moscow festival jury member Agnieszka Holland presented the directors with a pair of scissors along with their prize. However, this highly impressive, and moving, debut has more profound impact than Sokurov's (in fact shorter) work: a more than worthy start to what should be a fruitful film season.

TITLE: bruce not an almighty success
AUTHOR: By Kevin Thomas
PUBLISHER: The Los Angeles Times
TEXT: Jim Carrey may have it all - formidable comic gifts, physical grace, good looks and charm - but &quot;Bruce Almighty,&quot; his latest collaboration with director Tom Shadyac, is not so mighty. As a showcase for Carrey it's sufficiently surefire that it will satisfy his loyal fans, who will doubtless be thrilled to see him doing all-out physical humor again. Yet &quot;Bruce Almighty&quot; remains an instance of what might have been.
 
The problem is not so much the basic premise of Steve Koren, Mark O'Keefe and Steve Odekerk's screenplay, which has Carrey playing a frustrated Buffalo, New York, newscaster given godly powers, but rather one of tone and scale. A glimpse of Frank Capra's &quot;It's a Wonderful Life&quot; on a TV set connects it thematically with &quot;Bruce Almighty&quot; in that Carrey, like Jimmy Stewart, is a man in need of discovering his true worth. But unlike &quot;Wonderful Life,&quot; &quot;Bruce Almighty&quot; is a fable overwhelmed by special effects and outsized spectacle.
 The film is stubbornly synthetic and mechanical. The combination of standard establishing shots of Buffalo (in reality a highly atmospheric city with splendid architecture), overly familiar movie sets and scenes shot in Los Angeles and San Diego makes for a jumbled, jarring and overall highly artificial production design. &quot;Bruce Almighty&quot; often does not seem to be taking place in the real world, and that's a serious drawback if you're trying to create an elaborate fantasy.
 Carrey's Bruce Nolan has a lot going for him: a locally high-profile job; a devoted, gorgeous live-in lover, Grace (Jennifer Aniston), who runs a day-care center; and a tasteful apartment in an old brownstone. But just as he considers his residence &quot;mediocre,&quot; he has come to resent his work and craves a job as a news anchor. When he's denied his chance, losing out to a smarmy rival (Steven Carell), he goes berserk on the air, with more disasters to follow.
 Cursing God for his rotten luck, he is suddenly confronted by Morgan Freeman, who convinces him that he is in fact God and will transfer his almighty powers to Bruce while he takes a much-needed vacation. A caveat: It's a Presbyterian universe out there, and the one thing Bruce can't alter is free will.
 It's only natural that Bruce would want to exact revenge and have fun with the divine powers at his disposal. Shadyac and Carrey (who teamed on &quot;Ace Ventura: Pet Detective&quot; and &quot;Liar, Liar&quot;) amusingly convey the delicious thrill at evening scores and discovering his seemingly limitless magical gifts. But Bruce, who's only human after all, gets carried away and acts selfishly, single-mindedly determined to make good on his dream of becoming the next Walter Cronkite, remaining oblivious to the value of his gift for making people laugh.
 The writers come up with some inspired touches. Bruce wills the moon to come closer in order to create a more romantic atmosphere with Grace, not realizing that this will cause a tsunami in Japan; nor is he aware that answering everyone's prayers with a &quot;yes&quot; (via e-mail), creating 400,000 lottery winners in the Buffalo area alone, could end up causing a riot.
 Along with a droll Freeman and a lovely, down-to-earth Aniston, there is stalwart Philip Baker Hall as Bruce's kindly boss to head the supporting cast. Tony Bennett turns up as himself, singing &quot;If I Ruled the World&quot; at a posh supper club, and Sally Kirkland is a friendly diner waitress who serves Bruce a bowl of tomato soup, which he finds he can part like the Red Sea in a first test of his new powers. But this is, first to last, Carrey's show, and he makes the most of it in some classic comic set pieces - in particular one where he turns the news anchor into a blubbering fool.
 Movies in which the hero's angst is actually responded to by God are always a tricky business. Audiences are tempted to ask why this particular person should grab God's attention and be granted some special wish or gift. In regard to &quot;Bruce Almighty,&quot; the gimmick works better when Carrey's comic gifts are on full display, neither competing with razzle-dazzle special effects nor being ensnared by the film's more sentimental homilies about miracles residing within the individual.
 As a result, an unevenness of tone, which becomes manipulative in effect, echoes and compounds the unconvincing look and feel of the entire film. While &quot;Bruce Almighty&quot; does end on a modest &quot;Candide&quot;-like note, the getting there is too strained to be much of a pleasure.
 
 <i>
&quot;Bruce Almighty&quot; is currently showing at Avrora, Crystal Palace, Kolizei, Leningrad, Mirage Cinema and Parisiana. </i>

TITLE: the kremlin's hand in chechnya
AUTHOR: By Robin Munro
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A new book on Chechnya presents evidence suggesting that Kremlin manipulations, not Chechen terrorism, were behind the start of the second war in the republic in 1999.
 
&quot;Der Krieg im Schatten&quot; (&quot;The War in the Shadows&quot;) was released recently in Germany as the war was about to enter its fifth year.
 Edited by Florian Hassel, the Moscow correspondent of Frankfurter Rundschau, it has contributions from German, Russian, Chechen, British and American authors who discuss various aspects of the bloody conflict.
 Hassel argues that truth was the first casualty of the war.
 &quot;The history and run-up to the second Chechnya war is laced with lies: lies by the rebels, but above all the lies of the Kremlin, the Russian military and the secret services. They have lied and continue to to an extent that it is difficult for Western citizens to understand.&quot;
 While the official cause of the war is that it was a reaction to continuing terrorism and rebel leader Shamil Basayev's invasion of Dagestan in August 1999, the book presents evidence that the war started for similar reasons to the first: the Kremlin wanted a &quot;small, victorious war,&quot; in this case to help Vladimir Putin get elected president.
 Hassel reports meeting in October 1999 five Dagestani policemen who had briefly fought against Basayev's troops in the mountains.
 &quot;Basayev's attack on Dagestan was apparently organized in Moscow,&quot; said one policeman, Elgar, who watched the Chechens retreat from the village of Botlikh on Sept. 11. &quot;Basayev and his people went back comfortably in broad daylight with about 100 cars and trucks and many on foot. They used the main road to Chechnya, and were not fired at by our combat helicopters. We received express orders not to attack. The Chechens even had time to quietly make a video recording of their retreat.&quot;
 Inside Chechnya, several people separately gave similar descriptions of how Basayev's convoy arrived in their town, Mesketi.
 &quot;On Sept. 11, about 1,000 men, without any haste pulled up on the road behind the mosque,&quot; Mesketi farmer Ali Abdulayev told Hassel. &quot;Basayev was in front. There were Chechens, Russians, Arabs, Tajiks, Uzbeks and Africans. The whole column was accompanied by Russian helicopters. They did not attack Basayev and his men, but seemed to be escorting them. Instead, one day later the Russians began to bombard us.&quot;
 Tomas Avenarius, Moscow correspondent of the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, also writes of Chechens astounded by the apparent benign attitude of the Russian military toward the rebels.
 Based on a visit to the Chechen village of Serzhen-Yurt in early February 2000, Avenarius reports that a rebel training camp run by Khattab just outside the village had continued to operate for months after the war began without being attacked. The houses of Serzhen-Yurt, however, had been under bombardment since the end of August 1999 and many civilians had been killed. The rebels left, with all their weapons and jeeps, only at the beginning of 2000.
 The book also examines the apartment bombings of 1999 that killed hundreds of people in Moscow and elsewhere and drove public opinion firmly into the war camp.
 Citing material presented to State Duma Deputy Sergei Kovalyov's commission, which looked into the bombings and the contentious finding of sacks filled with white powder in the cellar of a Ryazan apartment building, the book supports allegations that the Federal Security Service was behind the blasts.
 The FSB says the bombers placed bags of explosives in the cellars of the high-rise buildings and used time-delay fuses to blow them up. Achemez Gochiyayev, the purported leader of the bombers, however, said that he had rented the storerooms at the request of a childhood friend and FSB officer. Gochiyayev says he understood only after the first explosions that the cellars were being used to store explosives.
 The commission set lawyer Mikhail Trepashkin, a former FSB officer, on the trail, who said he found out who the FSB officer was who had misled Gochiyayev, Hassel writes.
 Two other suspects sent a letter to the commission, dated July 28, 2002, in which they said they had helped carry out the attacks but did so because they had been told that the targets would be military or secret service buildings, not civilian apartment buildings.
 Despite such opportunities to clarify the circumstances of the bombings, those willing to investigate found official barriers at every step, Hassel writes.
 One suspected motive for the murder of commission member Sergei Yushenkov in April is opposition to the commission's work.
 Other chapters of the book are written by Tageszeitung correspondent Klaus-Helge Donath, human rights lawyer Miriam Kosmehl, Chechen journalist Musa Muradov, Los Angeles Times correspondent Maura Reynolds, Russian philosopher and culture critic Mikhail Ryklin; Jens Siegert of the Heinrich Boell Foundation and Thomas de Waal, co-author of &quot;Chechnya: Calamity in the Caucasus.&quot;

TITLE: the word's worth
AUTHOR: By Michele A. Berdy <i>
TEXT: <i>Ruchishcha:</i> big hand, paw, mitt.
 
There are a lot of words in Russian that we non-native speakers use and translate without really thinking about where they come from. We all know that <i>chudovishche</i> is a monster, but we probably don't register that the root word is <i>chudo,</i> &quot;miracle&quot; or &quot;wonder.&quot; 
 So how did a miracle turn into a monster? All through the wonder of word formation. Russian lets us take a word and, by adding suffixes, either turn it into something big and (sometimes) nasty, or small and (usually) sweet. 
 To make something big (and sometimes nasty), you add either <i>-ishche</i> or <i>-ishcha,</i> depending on whether the word is masculine, neuter or feminine. <i>Chudo</i> is something miraculous, marvelous, wondrous. <i>Chudovishche</i> is something miraculous and enormous - originally a huge magical being. With a bit of linguistic fine-tuning over the ages, it has become &quot;a monster.&quot; 
 <i>Pismo</i> is a plain old letter, but the (somewhat uncommon) word <i>pismishche</i> is an enormously long letter. <i>Ruka</i> is a hand; <i>ruchishcha</i> is an enormous hand, a paw or mitt. <i>&quot;Ya ne mog otkryt banku, no on vzyal yeyo svoimi ruchishchami i srazu otkryl!&quot;</i> (I couldn't open the jar, but he took it in his paws and opened it right away). 
 Another suffix that indicates size is <i>-ina,</i> here usually without a negative connotation: <i>ryba</i> is a fish, <i>rybina</i> is a whopper. <i>&quot;Mama. My s papoi poimali takuyu rybinu. Vsyo derevnyo mozhno nakormit!&quot;</i> (Mom. Dad and I caught a huge fish! It's enough to feed the whole village!) 
 If you want your fish (or whatever) to be small and cute, you add a different suffix: <i>-ik, -chik, -ok, -yets, -ka, -ushka, -ishka</i> (with all kinds of variants, like -<i>yushka</i> and <i>-yshka</i>, to accommodate those nasty spelling rules we all hate to learn). <i>Ryba</i> is a fish; <i>rybka</i> is a little fishie. <i>Stol</i> is a table; <i>stolik</i> is a small table or an end table. If <i>pismishche</i> is an enormously long letter, <i>pismetso</i> or <i>pisulka</i> is a short little note. 
 Often these diminutive forms imply &quot;cuteness,&quot; or the speaker's affection for the subject. <i>Domik</i> is a little house or cottage, with the sense of something sweet about it. <i>Gorodok</i> is a small town in a nice sense. When you call <i>paren</i> (guy, boy) <i>parenyok</i> or <i>parnishka,</i> you probably mean he's small and that you are rather fond of him. <i>U Iry khoroshy parnishka</i> (Ira has a wonderful boy). Or take <i>starik-starichok</i> (old man), <i>starukha-starushka</i> (old lady), <i>brat-bratets</i> (brother), <i>sestra-sestrichka, sestryonka</i> (sister). In all these cases the speaker might want to imply that they are small or young, but he might just be letting you know that he is fond of them. This is hard to convey in English, as we don't have much to work with other than &quot;little.&quot; <i>Kazhdy vecher starushka vygulivayet svoyu starenkuyu sobachonku v parke</i> (every evening the little old lady walks her ancient little doggie in the park). 
 The exception to the above rule about &quot;small and cute&quot; is when something is small that should be big. Then the suffixes <i>-ishka/o</i> and <i>-yshka/o</i> imply small size, but they can also convey a bit of the speaker's contempt. <i>Gorod</i> is a city; <i>gorodishko</i> is a small city usually with the connotation of &quot;nowheresville.&quot; <i>&quot;Ona ne znayet, kak sebe vesti v svestkoi kompanii. Ona vsyo zhizn prozhila v kakom-to zakholustnom gorodishke.&quot;</i> (She doesn't know how to behave in high society. She spent her whole life in some hick town.) 
 And when you are talking about children, you pretty much always use the diminutive form. Children don't have hands (<i>ruki</i>), fingers (<i>paltsy</i>) or feet (<i>nogi</i>); they have <i>ruchki, palchiki</i> and <i>nozhki</i>. They are always, by Russian definition, small and adorable.
 
 <i>
Michele A. Berdy is a Moscow-based translator and interpreter. </i>

TITLE: Virus Cripples U.S Visa Computers
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON - A virus seriously disrupted computer systems at the State Department, including the database for checking every visa applicant for terrorist or criminal history. The outage left the U.S. government unable to issue visas worldwide for nine hours.
 
The virus crippled the department's Consular Lookout and Support System, known as CLASS, which contains more than 15 million records from the FBI, the State Department and U.S. immigration, drug-enforcement and intelligence agencies. Among the names are those of at least 78,000 suspected terrorists.
 State Department spokesman Stuart Patt said the &quot;Welchia&quot; virus did not affect any data on the name-checking system, and the agency's classified computer network - used to send its most sensitive messages and files - was not affected. Service to some consular offices in Asia was restored within 11 hours.
 Welchia is an aggressive infection unleashed last month that exploits a software flaw in recent versions of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows software.
 &quot;To prevent the worm from spreading to our worldwide network, we closed off the department's intranet unclassified system,&quot; Patt said. &quot;The visa name-check is part of that.&quot;
 Patt said Wednesday that any backlog of applicants waiting to be checked against the system had already cleared. &quot;There will be possibly some people whose visas will be delayed for a few hours or maybe by a day,&quot; he said.


TITLE: Aide's Diary, Swearing Center Stage at Kelly Enquiry
AUTHOR: By Robert Barr
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LONDON - The inquiry into the death of a British government weapons adviser has produced little as vivid as two diary pages and an obscene remark. 
 
In those pages, the prime minister's former communications chief confided some of the rage that drove a feud between the government and the BBC, and ended with the apparent suicide of biological weapons expert David Kelly. 
 Alastair Campbell wrote that he was &quot;steamed up,&quot; and so was Secretary of Defense Geoff Hoon. Prime Minister Tony Blair was cautious, concerned about &quot;natural justice,&quot; but Campbell dreamed of doing something unprintable to a BBC reporter. 
 And, once Kelly testified about his role in the affair, Campbell lamented that he had &quot;predicted it would be a disaster and so it proved.&quot; 
 Lord Hutton, a senior appeals judge, is probing the circumstances of Kelly's death, including the way the government went about publicly identifying him. 
 The two diary pages, examined on Monday by the tribunal, start on July 4, when Hoon told Campbell a Ministry of Defense employee had come forward to say he had talked to Gilligan. 
 Hoon's &quot;initial instinct was to throw the book at him, but in fact there was a case for trying to get some kind of plea bargain. Says that he'd come forward and ... intel went in late, but he never said the other stuff. It was double-edged but [Hoon] and I agreed it would f*** Gilligan if that was his source,&quot; the entry said.

TITLE: California Governor Debate Turns Rowdy
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SACRAMENTO, California - The most-anticipated debate of California's recall campaign quickly turned into a shouting match Wednesday among four of the five leading candidates seeking to replace Governor Gray Davis, forcing the moderator to repeatedly chide them for straying from the subject.
 
Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante, a Democrat, came under fire for taking millions of dollars in Indian casino money. Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger was criticized for supporting a divisive ballot initiative nine years ago that would have prevented services for the children of illegal immigrants. State Senator Tom McClintock was told he had the facts backward on the economy, and independent Arianna Huffington was hit for barely paying income taxes.
 Throughout the debate, moderator Stan Statham of the California Broadcasters Association had to coax the candidates to stick to the subject. At one point, Statham said he was dizzy from the quick, loud and aggressive banter.
 &quot;Cruz, Arianna, Cruz, Arianna, Cruz, Arianna,&quot; Statham said as Bustamante and Huffington parried on the issue of business and taxes.
 Meanwhile, Green Party candidate Peter Camejo stayed above the fray, saying, &quot;I'm trying to be respectful to everyone here.&quot;

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>Guantanamo Probe
 </b>

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is looking into security procedures at its main prison for terrorism suspects after the espionage-related arrests of two men stationed there.
 Defense officials said Wednesday that a third service member also was being investigated in the security probe at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, base. That Navy member has not been arrested, officials said.
 The arrests of an Air Force translator and a Muslim Army chaplain - both were stationed at the Cuban base and have ties to Syria - have shaken Defense Department officials. About 660 suspected Taliban or al-Qaida members are being held at the high-security base.
 
 
<b>Headscarves Allowed 
 </b>

KARLSRUHE, Germany (Reuters) - Germany's top court said Wednesday that a Muslim woman teacher can wear a traditional headscarf in school, ruling on an issue that is causing controversy across Europe. 
 The Federal Constitutional Court said school authorities in the southern city of Stuttgart had been wrong to bar Afghan-born Fereshta Ludin from a teaching job. It said there was no law prohibiting teachers from covering their heads. 
 The ruling opened the way for Muslim women teachers across Germany to cover their heads while at school unless the country's federal states have laws expressly forbidding religious symbols in the classroom. 
 
 
<b>No Stoning of Woman
 </b>

KATSINA, Nigeria - A single mother facing death by stoning for adultery had her sentence overturned by an Islamic appeals court Thursday in a case that has sparked international outrage.
 A five-judge panel rejected the sentence against 32-year-old Amina Lawal, saying she was not caught in the act of adultery and she was not given "ample opportunity to defend herself."
 
 
<b>New Murder Suspect 
 </b>

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - In an abrupt about face, police freed one suspect and arrested another Wednesday in the stabbing death of Foreign Minister Anna Lindh. 
 Authorities would not say why the 35-year-old drifter picked up last week was let go, but they said evidence against the new suspect was stronger than anything they had before. 
 Police would only say the suspect was arrested without incident in Stockholm. 
 The investigation first centered on a suspect held for a week after prosecutors said there was "reasonable cause" he stabbed Lindh in a crowded department store Sept. 10. 
 
 
<b>Clinton Book Recall 
 </b>

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Senator Hillary Clinton's publisher on Wednesday demanded the recall of the Chinese language printing of the senator's autobiography, calling it an inaccurate version which omits several passages critical of the country's human-rights record.
 In a tersely worded statement, Simon &amp; Schuster said the Chinese edition of "Living History" included unauthorized changes and demanded government-owned publisher Yilin Press remedy the issue by publishing an unaltered version. Yilin has yet to reply to the request.
 At issue are 10 pages in the book, where the Chinese publisher deleted passages detailing Clinton's views on China and her travels there. 



TITLE: Brazil Sends Warning With Norway Rout
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON - Brazil can consider itself fortunate it probably won't have to play the United States in the next round of the Women's World Cup. Or should that be the other way around? 
 
&quot;I don't think the U.S. wants to get us, either, right now,&quot; 18-year-old forward Daniela said, showing some teenage moxie after getting a goal and an assist in Wednesday night's 4-1 upset over 2000 Olympic champion Norway. &quot;Any team we play, we're still going to play very serious and try to win.&quot; 
 In a battle of ground vs. air and flair vs. brawn, the young Brazilians weren't intimated by Norway's 17 fouls as they took command of Group B with their second consecutive three-goal victory. If the United States, the defending champion, and Brazil (2-0) win their respective groups, they can't meet until the final game. 
 &quot;It is very important that Brazil wins the World Cup,&quot; coach Paul Goncalves said. &quot;Because in Brazil if you take second or third, you get no value whatsoever. Also women's soccer in Brazil right now is just beginning to get attention.&quot; 
 In Wednesday's other Group B game, France (1-1) stayed alive with a 1-0 victory over South Korea (0-2). Marinette Pichon, last year's MVP in the WUSA, scored in the 84th minute, the first Women's World Cup goal ever for France. 
 Brazil's speed stunned Norway (1-1), which lost for just the fourth time in 20 World Cup matches. The world's second-ranked team practically sleepwalked through most of the first half, bumping and elbowing their way around on defense and missing their passes on offense. 
 &quot;We were very nervous,&quot; midfielder Solveig Gulbrandsen said. &quot;I think we had our shoulders up around our ears.&quot; 
 Coach Age Steen was not pleased. 
 &quot;We think we are better than that,&quot; he said. &quot;We are better than that.&quot; 
 Daniela and Rosana had picturesque goals in the first half, and Marta and Katia scored in the second half for Brazil. 
 Marianne Pettersen scored in first-half injury time on a classic Norwegian long-ball goal, and the Scandinavians threatened goalkeeper Andreia several times early in the second half before two more goals by Brazil quickly put the game away. 
 Daniela opened the scoring in the 26th minute with a fluid 40-meter run, darting past several Norwegian players and around defender Monica Knudsen at the penalty arc before punching in a 22-meter drive just inside the left post. 
 Daniela set up the second goal with a free-kick cross that was met by Rosana's flying header in the 37th minute. 
 Seventeen-year-old Marta made it 3-1 on a rebound off Bente Nordby's diving two-handed save of Maicon's shot in the 59th minute. Marta has 17 goals in just seven international matches, including two goals in this World Cup. 
 Katia scored her third goal of the tournament in the 68th minute with a header off Formiga's cross from the left wing. 
 The game was a rematch of the third-place game of the 1999 World Cup, won by Brazil on penalty kicks after a 0-0 tie. 
 Now, instead of Brazil, it is perennial nemesis Norway that could face in the United States in the quarterfinals. The Norwegians won the 1995 World Cup and the 2000 Olympics - the only two major worldwide tournaments in women's soccer that the United States didn't win. 
 &quot;The U.S. team is very difficult to beat,&quot; Steen said. &quot;But we have beaten the U.S. before.&quot;
 In Columbus, Ohio, Germany beat Japan 3-0 Wednesday night to become the only team in Group C with a 2-0 record. Birgit Prinz scored two goals and Sandra Minnert added another for Germany. 
 Stefanie Gottschlich stole the ball at midfield and passed to Maren Meinert who set up Prinz' first goal. Prinz collected the pass inside the penalty box and sent a right-footed shot into the right side for a 2-0 lead in the 36th minute. 
 In the 67th minute, Wiegmann sent a pass to the top of penalty box and Prinz outraced a defender to the ball and put a low shot inside the left post from 18 meters. 
 Germany opened the scoring in the 23rd minute after Meinert's header bounced off the crossbar and Minnert put the rebound into the top right corner past goalkeeper Nozomi Yamago. 
 In the other Group C game Wednesday, Canada earned its first World Cup win ever with a 3-0 victory over Argentina. Christine Latham scored twice in a span of three minutes for Canada. 
 Kara Lang passed to Latham who headed a hard shot that goalkeeper Romina Ferro blocked but Latham pushed in the rebound with her right foot while falling backward at 79 minutes. 
 In the 82nd minute, Kristina Kiss bent a direct kick past a wall of three defenders to Silvana Burtini who passed to Latham who put a low shot past Ferro from 7 meters out. 
 Charmaine Hooper added a goal off a penalty kick in the 18th minute when Latham was tripped inside the penalty box. Hooper sent a hard shot to left side netting as Ferro dove to her right.

TITLE: Marlins Hold On for Victory, Keep Lead in Wild-Card Race
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MIAMI - A rout turned into a thriller when the Florida Marlins nearly blew a big lead against Philadelphia. Thanks to Chad Fox, the Marlins held on. Now they have their biggest lead of the season in the NL wild-card race. 
 
Philadelphia scored five runs in the eighth before Fox ended the threat with two runners aboard, and the Marlins won 6-5 Wednesday night to edge closer to their first playoff berth since 1997. 
 Florida leads the Phillies and Houston Astros by three games with four to go. 
 The Phillies said the game was one they had to win, and they rallied after falling behind 6-0. But Fox struck out Chase Utley to end the eighth, and Ugueth Urbina pitched a perfect ninth. 
 &quot;We were not going to lose,&quot; Fox said. 
 &quot;That would have been a tough one to swallow if we had let that get away,&quot; said Florida's Jeff Conine, who homered for the second game in a row. 
 The Marlins can clinch a playoff berth as early as Thursday, and they can eliminate Philadelphia by completing a sweep of their three-game series. Brad Penny (13-10) is scheduled to pitch against the Phillies' Randy Wolf (16-9). 
 &quot;If I'm in their clubhouse, it's time to get going,&quot; Fox said. &quot;But they're not going to get it done here.&quot; 
 Phillies catcher Mike Lieberthal all but conceded the race to the Marlins. 
 &quot;If we win every game from here on out, we probably still won't get in,&quot; he said. &quot;It's theirs to hold on to.&quot; 
 The Marlins started strong Wednesday, and by the sixth inning they literally had the Phillies ducking out of the way. 
 Third baseman Placido Polanco scrambled to avoid being beaned by a broken bat on a run-scoring single by Miguel Cabrera. 
 Juan Encarnacion's 18th home run put Florida ahead to stay, and Josh Beckett took a two-hit shutout into the eighth inning. 
 Beckett (9-8) threw 122 pitches, allowing six hits and four runs, and sent the Phillies to their fourth consecutive loss. 
 &quot;Beckett dominated us,&quot; manager Larry Bowa said.
 &quot;That's the best stuff we've seen all year. He was overpowering.&quot; 
 The young right-hander's next start could come in the first game of the playoffs Tuesday at San Francisco. 
 &quot;We haven't opened the champagne yet,&quot; Beckett said. &quot;I just want to be in one of those celebrations. Hopefully everything will work out.&quot; 
 The Marlins won for the 13th time in their past 15 home games, and they beat Brett Myers (14-9) for the fourth time this season. 
 
 <strong>
Chicago Cubs 8, Cincinnati 0.</strong> Sammy Sosa tied Mickey Mantle for 10th place on the career home run list Wednesday night, and Shawn Estes pitched a four-hit shutout as the Cubs beat the Reds 8-0 and preserved their one-game lead in the NL Central. 
 
&quot;You want to play in October, you've got to win,&quot; said Sosa, who started the decisive rally with his 536th career homer. &quot;We don't have that much room.&quot; 
 Before the first pitch, Cubs players were engrossed in the bank of television sets in the visitors' clubhouse. They muttered curses when second-place Houston rallied for a 2-1 victory over San Francisco, meaning Chicago would have to win again to remain one game ahead. 
 Pressure? Not with thousands of Cubs fans in the stands and the major leagues' most generous defense on the field. 
 Chicago fulfilled the first requirement for a playoff contender - beat up on the downtrodden. The Cubs finish with one more game in Cincinnati, and three at Wrigley Field against the lowly Pittsburgh Pirates. 
 &quot;Especially after seeing Houston win today, we didn't want to get back into a dead heat with them,&quot; said Estes (8-11), who pitched his eighth career shutout. &quot;Everything's a playoff atmosphere. 
 &quot;[Manager] Dusty [Baker] has said all along that our hot streak hasn't even hit yet. Hopefully we're in the middle of it right now, and we can continue to play this way through the playoffs.&quot; 
 
 <i>
(For other results, see Scorecard.) </i>

TITLE: Baseball's Big Hitters Not Doing the Biz This Year
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW YORK - For the first full season since 1993, it appears neither Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa nor any of the game's top power hitters will reach 50 home runs. Could it be because baseball started testing for steroids this season? Some players think so. 
 
&quot;You look at the home-run numbers and you look at the averages that have gone down this year,&quot; said Frank Thomas of the Chicago White Sox, a two-time AL MVP. &quot;I think it's a telltale sign that it's having a positive effect.&quot; 
 Before the 1994-1995 strike, players hit at least 50 homers just 18 times. Babe Ruth in 1927 was the only one to hit 60 until Roger Maris had 61 in 1961. 
 Then came an unprecedented power barrage. Since the strike, players have reached 50 homers 18 times. Sosa topped 60 in three seasons and Mark McGwire did it twice, hitting a record 70 in 1998. Then in 2001, Bonds hit 73. 
 Going into the six days of this season, Alex Rodriguez of the Texas Rangers led the major leagues with 47 homers. Bonds had 44 for San Francisco, tied for second with Philadelphia's Jim Thome. 
 While the big bashers have dropped off, the overall average hasn't. There has been an average of 2.14 homers a game this year, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, up from 2.09 last season. Still, it's below the three peak years: 2.28 in 1999, 2.34 in 2000 and 2.25 in 2001. 
 Bob Costas, a longtime baseball broadcaster and author, says it's too early to tell if there's a link between drug tests and the power drop at the top. 
 &quot;Is it possible that there will be some positive, long-range effect? Yes. But I wouldn't jump to that conclusion yet,&quot; Costas said. 
 Bob DuPuy, baseball's chief operating officer, said it was simply another cyclical baseball trend. And, after all, pitchers have a lot to do with it, too. 
 &quot;There are a number of very good young pitchers who are maturing and having an impact,&quot; he said.

TITLE: SPORTS WATCH
TEXT: <b>Senator Navratilova?
 </b>

LEIPZIG, Germany (AP) - Martina Navratilova plans to get into public service after she stops serving and volleying in 2005. 
 Navratilova, who turns 47 next month, said Wednesday at the Sparkassen Cup tournament that she'll play through the end of next season. Then she wants to get involved with American politics, perhaps running for office. 
 "If Arnold Schwarzenegger can run for governor in California, then who knows? I have the muscles," said Navratilova, a Czech-born U.S. citizen. "I will be involved, especially the way things are going right now. The conservative party is too strong." 
 
 
<b>Kremlin Cup Changes
 </b>

MOSCOW (AP) - Venus Williams and Lindsay Davenport withdrew from next week's Kremlin Cup, while Marat Safin should return to action after missing nearly five months with a wrist injury. 
 Williams, whose half sister was killed this month, said Wednesday she won't play. She has been sidelined since Wimbledon with a stomach muscle injury. 
 Davenport, last year's runner-up, has a left foot injury that needs surgery. 
 Safin first injured his left wrist at the Australian Open at the beginning of the year, and he hurt it again while practicing for a tournament in Italy in May. 
 
 
<b>Michigan Reinstated?
 </b>

ANN ARBOR, Michigan (AP) - The Michigan basketball team has won its appeal and will be eligible to play in the 2004 NCAA tournament, according to a newspaper report. 
 The school has been informed that its appeal of the NCAA's postseason ban was successful, a person at the university familiar with the situation told the Detroit Free Press for a Thursday story. An announcement was expected Thursday.