SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #909 (77), Friday, October 10, 2003
**************************************************************************


TITLE: Smolny Policies Unclear
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: With less then a week left before next Wednesday's scheduled inauguration of Governor-elect Valentina Matviyenko, local politicians and businesses are still in a fog about the new head of the city's plans for economic development.
 
Her election program said an economic climate needed to be created that would give new impulse to foreign and domestic investment in St. Petersburg. No specific measures to achieve that goal were mentioned.
 "The city authorities should assist in every way to improve the investment and business climate," the program posted on Matviyenko's official campaign web site says. 
 "As a first step, it will be necessary to end the practice of city authorities patronizing businesses based on political or other preferences. All businesses must enjoy equal legal and competitive conditions. At the same time the St. Petersburg government has to favor local companies." 
 Matviyenko later stated that the city must review the city's assets and manage municipal property "to increase budget incomes from rent payments."
 She said she would raise the city's budget revenues to the same level as that spent per capita on Muscovites, despite the lower incomes of St. Petersburgers. According to the State Statistics Committee's 2003 figures, the average Muscovite's income is 17,125 rubles ($562) a month, while the average Petersburger earns 5,960 rubles ($195) a month. 
 "It seems to me that a new broom will sweep in a new way," Alexei Shaskolsky, head of the evaluation department at the Institute of Small Business Problems Research, said Thursday in a telephone interview. "There is going to be a new dynamic, because compared to Moscow, St. Petersburg's dynamic looks poor." 
 "An attempt to move some federal ministries to St. Petersburg would already say something about her organizing abilities," he added. "She has to undertake some significant and successful action, to calm people down and guarantee that Moscow-based companies won't come to the city and strangle weak local business."
 A Matviyenko proposal to move the Supreme and Arbitration Courts to St. Petersburg has already faced an opposition from Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, who said this week it does not make much sense to him.
 "This is a political offer that doesn't have any justification," Interfax quoted Luzhkov as sayiing Tuesday.
 "The first reason is economical. To move part of its functions, the state would have had to spend huge amounts of money, which it doesn't have ... and, according to the Constitution, Moscow should be asked first whether it agrees to hand over part of its functions. And probably the question will be solved in a positive way," Luzhkov added.
 "The damage from the population believing that they did not get to participate in the choice of governor of St. Petersburg may outweigh the advantages of stability and good relations with Moscow that she brings," Christian Courbois, general director of Westpost, said Tuesday. 
 "I am not entirely sure of her experience or ideas regarding business, or what she plans to do to improve the situation in the city. But the stability that she brings is bound to be helpful."
 Courbois said that if Matviyenko listens to the business community, foreign investors, small enterprise and especially business associations, it will be a good start. 
 If she goes a step further and acts on the initiatives of business associations and entrepreneurs she will have a good chance of succeeding and making things better, he added.
 "What she says about simply raising rents of government-owned property is simplistic and not going to result in much besides hurting some of the smaller and poorer companies that rent such property," Courbois said, 
 "Her comments about how to stop bribery by targeting the businessman, not the structures of authority, also show naiveity and a lack of understanding of the rent-seeking problem, as well as a lack of sensitivity to the plight of the small and medium-size business sphere."
 Boris Vishnevsky, a member of Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly, said he has little hope any changes will be for the better.
 "She doesn't have any economic program. The vocabulary she uses, such as 'enforce,' 'make it deeper' and 'provide' only confirm her autocratic, Communist-style approach," Vishnevsky said Thursday.
 "I don't think [businesses] should expect anything to change ... It's going to be the same corrupt government," Vishnevsky said.
 Matviyenko said Thursday she has already decided who will form 60 percent of her staff, Interfax reported Thursday.
 "There are going to be famous and not famous people in the government, but all of them are going to be St. Petersburg natives," Matviyenko said in a Petersburg Television interview Wednesday.
 Matviyenko is originally from Ukraine.
 Officials who worked for former governor Vladimir Yakovlev before he was appointed deputy prime minister in June will make up a significant portion of the new city government, Rosbalt reported Thursday.
 Citing anonymous sources, Rosbalt reported that Alexander Vakhmistrov, head of the construction committee, Alexander Prokhorenko, head of external relations committee, and Oleg Virolained, head of the communal services and maintenance committee, will very likely keep their seats. 
 Viktor Lobko, former deputy head of City Hall's administrative office, will be promoted to head of the office. Andrei Cherneiko, head of the Federal Northwest Employment Service, who worked in Matviyenko's election headquarters, is likely to get a seat in the city government, the agency also said. 
 Sergei Tarasov, a Legislative Assembly lawmaker close to Yakovlev, will also get a position in the city government, according to the report.
 Serei Demin, deputy head of the finance committee, Dmitry Lebedev, chairman of MENATEP SPb bank, and Vitaliy Saveliyev, a manager of Bankirsky Dom, all of whom supported Matviyenko during the elections, were named by the agency as candidates to head the finance committee. 
 Lebedev has warned colleagues he will leave the bank next week to work for the city government, Rosbalt reported.
 Alla Manilova, editor of daily Nevskoye Vremya, is to head City Hall's media committee, it added. 
 Manilova is known among local journalists as the editor who fired a group of four journalists in 1996 after they publicly protested against an attempt to introduce censorship at Nevskoye Vremya.
 "This way, all the talk about Matviyenko bringing in a fresh team of new professionals is empty. There is nothing in these words, literary nothing," Vishnevsky said.


TITLE: Snappers Nabbed In the Act
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The Federal Guard Service protecting Governor-elect Valentina Matviyenko on Monday harassed photographers after they tried to take pictures of guards detaining two National Bolshevik party members who struck the presidential envoy in the face.
 
Sergei Sokolov, a Kommersant reporter, was pinned to the floor, his hands tied with a belt, and his digital camera was taken from him. When he got it back all the pictures had been erased.
 The guards also seized the camera of Delovoi Peterburg's Yelena Yakovleva and exposed her film. Yakovleva had snapped a photograph of Sokolov being manhandled to the floor.
 "At first they wanted to smash my camera, but then they just pulled out the film," Yakovleva said Wednesday in a telephone interview.
 "I feel insulted," she said. "Maybe my editor or I would have decided ourselves that the pictures looked too awful to use in the paper, but [the guards] decided for us. I don't like when somebody decides for me."
 Article 29 of the Constitution says that everyone has a right to freely search for, obtain, hand over, produce and distribute information in an any legitimate way. A federal law must be passed before information can be considered a state secret, the constitution says.
 Article 7 of the federal law on state secrets says that authorities who classify information on violations of human rights and freedoms should face criminal responsibility depending on the level of damage.
 "I think the journalists are obliged to file a claim to the prosecutor's office under Article 144 [of the Russian Criminal Code], hindering professional activity," Oleg Panfilov, director of the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations, said in a telephone interview Thursday.
 "We have already seen the way Matviyenko used the administrative resource during the election campaign and I'm afraid she's going to use it further. Hearing her [recent words] it looks like she is going to introduce an authoritarian regime in the city," he said.
 "If journalists are so scared that they have no claims against the guards, then it is the St. Petersburg journalistic organizations' duty to create a scandal on that point," Panfilov said.
 Sokolov said he did not blame the guards "because they were doing their job."
 "I was put on the floor in quite a polite way and they then bound my hands," he said. "The police would have crushed the flash first and then beaten the living hell out of me. The police have a regulation that prohibits taking pictures of them and the Federal Guard Service has the same status."
 After his pictures were erased, the guards apologized and made him sign a statement that he would not make any claims against them.
 "The only thing that concerned me was the behavior of some small guy in glasses wearing a police uniform," Sokolov said. "When I was placed against the wall, he kept beating my legs trying to spread them wider and wider, bound my hands tighter and tighter and said, 'You will stand like this, you bastard.'"
 "I would like to meet this policeman without his uniform sometime in day-to-day life, to look though his glasses into his eyes and explain to him some things about life," Sokolov said.
 Sokolov was made to stand against the wall for about 30 minutes with his hands bound.
 Matviyenko's spokeswoman, Galina Gromova, could not be reached for comment, despite being in her office.
 "Whatever they [the guards] would say, it is quite clear what happened there," said Yury Vdovin, deputy head of the St. Petersburg branch of the human rights organization Citizen's Watch. "I heard the other day on Ekho Moskvy radio that they might have mixed up [the photographers] with these attackers, but really what happened was that they did not want photos of the events to be published." 
 "It's not normal when guards react this way, beating up people and photographers who just happened to be there," said Andrei Dmitriyev, spokesman for the St. Petersburg branch of National Bolshevik party. "In the West, for instance, people are used to such protests. When somebody threw eggs at Schwarzenegger ... he just smiled," 
 "Matviyenko did not intervene," he said. "This clearly shows she is not a person who can make her own decisions." 
 


TITLE: Traffic Proving Major Headache for City Drivers
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: St. Petersburg driver Valery Kozhukhov says he spends from one to two hours a day standing in the city's traffic jams. 
 
"Almost every morning, stuck in a jam, I get nervy worrying that I will be late for work, and I really am late now and then," Kozhukhov said.
 Anna, an accountant, said that her relatives had twice almost missed trains from Moskovsky Station because they were stuck in traffic jams on Ligovsky Prospekt.
 "They had to abandon the car before they got to the station, and they ran there with all their bags," she recalled.
 Every evening and morning the city is filled with vehicles impatiently honking at each other, desperately trying to get through. Some drivers even jump out of their cars to continue their journey via the closest metro.
 However, according to Igor Ivanov, 50, a St. Petersburg taxi driver with 25 years of experience, local drivers only recently became aware of traffic jams.
 "It's unbelievable and scary how rapidly the number of cars grows in this city, with its narrow streets," Ivanov said.
 "I can tell you that 10, even five years ago, St. Petersburg drivers had no idea what a traffic jam is," he said.
 Ivanov's words sound exaggerated for residents of big Western metropolises, but his complaints are backed up by statistics.
 According to city traffic police, in 1983 the 5 million residents of the city, then called Leningrad, registered just 100,000 vehicles, while in 2003 the number of vehicles was almost 12 times larger, with 1,178,000 cars registered in St. Petersburg and many more coming in from outside areas.
 In 1985, only 25 out of 1,000 Leningraders had cars, while with the same size population in 2003 there are now 210 to 220 cars per 1,000 Petersburgers.
 City roads have not gotten any wider, few parking spaces have been created and there has been no significant increase in the number of roads in the city.
 "The city road infrastructure was obviously financially and conceptually ill-prepared for such rapid and strong traffic growth," said Vladimir Khokhlev, spokesman for the St. Petersburg Traffic Board.
 Experts say the recent boom in car consumption in Russia is not just connected to the standard of living, but also with people's lifestyles becoming more Western. In the West, private automobiles have become an inseparable part of life for most of the population; in the United States, every second person has a car.
 "Twenty years ago, Russians who had cars didn't drive them everywhere," said Alexander Solodky, general director of the St. Petersburg Research and Design Institute of Regional Development and Transportation. 
 "They mainly used their vehicles to get to remote places, such as their dachas. They wouldn't dream of driving to the nearest store like they do now," he said.
 But the increasing number of vehicles, narrow St. Petersburg streets and the low capacity of the road network are not the only reasons for the traffic jams that can be the bane of life in the city.
 The drivers themselves are part of the problem, he said.
 Westerners are known for being afraid of driving in Russia. They become scared and are often outraged by the careless way locals drive. Besides widespread refusal to wear seat belts, local drivers often drive as if there were no rules, adding to the complications on the road.
 "We could avoid about 30 percent of traffic jams in the city if local drivers obeyed the traffic rules," Khokhlev said.
 The most serious traffic infringement that leads to traffic jams is drivers proceeding into an intersection when the traffic light is orange, Khokhlev said. The result is cars stuck right in the middle of the intersection blocking movement from all directions.
 "The city's driving culture needs to be greatly improved," Khokhlev said.
 However, those who might be able to help untangle the city's vehicular Gordian knot seem to be rarely seen at the city's tight spots. They are more renowned for making drivers pull over for innocuous reasons and then "fining" them, a euphemism for extorting bribes.
 Solodky said most developed countries and their cities experienced similar traffic booms, though years earlier than Russia - mostly in the 1960s - and developed solutions within a few years.
 "We must find our own solutions, using international experience," Solodky said.
 Solodky's institute was created as part of a recent comprehensive response to traffic jams called the Traffic Organization Complex Scheme, or TOCS. It is supposed to be completely implemented by 2010.
 The project lists actions St. Petersburg should take, including construction of numerous parking lots; introduction of an automatic traffic control system;. town-planning measures for pedestrians; one-way roads; and banning certain classes of vehicle, especially trucks, from the city center.
 Other measures include defining what the city's major arterial routes should be, systems to control vehicle weights and access rights, construction of more underground pedestrian crossings and creating a system of ring roads.
 "However, one of the main ways to solve the problem would be to make providing public transport a priority," Solodky said.
 Because its coffers are drained and there is little vacant space for new roadways in the center, the city can't build new roads fast enough to cope with the volume of traffic. It should therefore, he said, aim to make public transport more attractive than driving around the city.
 "This can be achieved only if buses take people to their destinations quicker than private vehicles," he said.
 One of the most effective ways to achieve that aim would be introduction of separate bus-lanes on major roads, a solution already successfully working in Britain and Germany.
 Solodky said introduction of one-way streets would increase the capacity of roads by 30 to 50 percent.
 However, he said that a pie-in-the-sky idea to create another main thoroughfare parallel to Nevsky Prospekt, where cars would go in one direction while on Nevsky they would travel in the opposite direction, is a non-starter because there is nowhere to put a second Nevsky Prospekt.
 Khokhlyev said the introduction of an automatic traffic control system for 500 traffic lights will help a lot.
 The system measures traffic flows and coordinates the lights so that the busiest roads get the green lights longest.
 Khokhlyev said 25 city traffic lights on Nevsky Prospect were integrated into the system in 2002. Another 25 traffic lights are to be added next year.
 However, only 10 percent of intersections will be in the system, while to achieve the best effect the whole city should be included. That won't happen soon because there is not enough money, he said.
 Andrew Wixom, an architect and real estate developer, said in a telephone interview from Moscow that synchronized traffic light systems help traffic flows a lot in London and New York.
 "In my opinion, Russia should have a completely new look at its traffic organization," Wixom said. 
 "Of course, there is no one magic pill for such big cities as New York or Moscow, where one car accident or a broken car can seriously block traffic, but measures should definitely be taken to ease the situation, like is done in New York and London," he said.
 Wixom said he always is surprised when seeing road repair work being done in the middle of the day in Moscow or St. Petersburg.
 "Such works block the traffic, and in many Western cities such works are allowed only during the night," he said.
 Wixom said the introduction of paid parking lots and paid entry to the London city center caused many people to leave their cars and take the metro, which is also quicker. However, paying to enter the center is controversial and causes a lot of inconvenience to Londoners, he said.
 Solodky said the long expected construction of the St. Petersburg Ring Road, which is stalled due to financial problems, would help the city because a lot of trucks would bypass the center. 
 The center could seriously benefit from parking lots built next to the last metro stations, where people could leave their vehicles and take a metro as is done in Washington, he said.
 The center and the routes leading to the center also need construction of additional multi-storied parking lots.
 "Drivers have to park their vehicles next to the curb, choking the flow of traffic," Solodky said.
 His team has calculated that one lane can carry up to 900 vehicles an hour.
 Olga, a St. Petersburg manager who lives in the area of Ligovsky Prospect, said parking lots in the center are vital.
 "Since there are not enough parking lots in our area, people park their cars in the yards, leaving no space for children to play," Olga said, adding that a vacant lot near Moskovsky Station, where a new high-speed train terminal was to have been built, could be effectively used for a huge parking lot.
 Another problem is that, as in many other Russian cities, most jobs in St. Petersburg are in the city center.
 An estimated 44 percent of the working population of St. Petersburg have jobs in the center, while 82 percent of the work force lives in the outskirts.
 This situation causes huge flows of people in both directions, with at least 2 million people coming to the city center daily.
 Red tape is also slowing the implementation of TOCS.
 "TOCS has to comply with the general city plan, according to which each structure, be it traffic police or a transport committee, has its own views. And it is often difficult to make those interests and rules coincide," Khokhlyev said.
 Governor-elect Valentina Matviyenko said at a news conference on Oct. 6 that the city's general plan has not changed since the beginning of 1980s, and that the city needs new plans.
 Khokhlyev said if the conditions were favorable the city could implement TOCS by the year of 2010.
 Meanwhile, ecologists are concerned that both dense traffic and long traffic jams create serious danger to the ecology.
 "When vehicles stand in traffic jams, harmful substances become two to three times more concentrated," said Natalya Olefirenko, head of the ecology analysis department at Greenpeace, Moscow.
 Olefirenko said the situation could be helped by building new turnpikes, decreasing the number of traffic lights through construction of underground pedestrian passages, and introduction of underground tunnels for vehicles.
 To reduce the negative effect of transport fumes, Moscow introduced special transparent barriers along its third ring, she said. Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov also approved a program to install free, good-quality windows for residents of buildings located close to big intersections.
 Speaking of St. Petersburg, Olefirenko suggested more widespread cycling could have good results for the city.
 "Unfortunately, it's practically impossible in Moscow, which is even bigger and has many hills," she said. 
 A simple calculation shows that one hour stuck in traffic jams a day leads to the loss of 15 days in a year. Those who spend two hours stuck are unfortunate enough to lose a month.
 Therefore, while the situation has not changed in St. Petersburg, it's probably worthwhile to copy the example of Kozhukhov's businessman neighbor. 
 Accepting the inevitability of sitting in traffic jams, he has his laptop mounted in his car. He starts his working day by making his first phone calls and browsing the Internet from his vehicle.
 
 <strong>A TRAFFIC-INDUCED TALE OF WOE </strong>
Traffic jams even made relatives late for the funeral of a 90-year-old woman.
 One mourner, who declined to be named, described the scene: 
 &quot;We were late for my husband's grandmother's funeral because, driving from the north of town, we decided to cross the Neva on the way to the morgue near Yelizarovskaya metro station using the Alexander Nevsky Bridge.
 &quot;Traffic was backed up halfway to Ladozhskaya metro station. There was virtually nowhere to turn and nothing to do but inch along the way to the bridge, breathing exhaust fumes, and trying to find cheerful topics for conversation when all we could think about was the service about to start, the relatives waiting for us at the metro and, finally, the bus scheduled to take granny in her coffin back the same route to Murino, the <i>only</i> crematorium in town ... through the same traffic jams. It turned out that the cause of the backup was a serious accident involving five or six cars at the crest of the bridge.
 &quot;Probably someone was driving in the wrong lane of going too fast, etc. In other words, the accident and the paralyzation of this vital bridge across the river could have been avoided if the drivers had just been careful and observed the law.
 &quot;Eventually, we were almost an hour late for the modest service. The priest expressed his annoyance but went on to perform the service in full. I was spared the grueling drive to the crematorium and went to Kupchino to lay out the spread for the wake to which granny's 90-year-old neighbors had been invited. The rest of the family was two hours late getting to the wake.&quot;

TITLE: EU Court Rules On Residency
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: STRASBOURG, France - Europe's top human rights court ruled Thursday that Latvia abused the rights of two Russian women by forcing them to leave due to their ethnicity. 
 
The panel of 17 judges at the European Court of Human Rights awarded Tatyana Slivenko and her daughter Karina Slivenko, 10,000 euros ($11,800) in damages after finding their rights to &quot;respect for a private life and home&quot; under the Convention on Human Rights had been violated. 
 As a signatory to the charter, Latvia is bound to uphold it. 
 In their ruling, the judges said their deportation from Riga, Latvia, under a Latvian law that forced out Soviet army officers was unjustified. 
 &quot;The authorities did not appear to have examined whether each person presented a specific danger to national security or public order,&quot; the judges said. &quot;In all the circumstances, the applicants' removal could not be regarded as having been necessary in a democratic society.&quot; 
 Tatyana moved to Latvia with her parents - who still live in Riga - in 1959 and married her husband, Nikolai, a Soviet army officer, in 1980. Their daughter, Karina, was born in 1981. Nikolai retired from active duty in 1986. 
 The family was denied permanent resident permits and given deportation orders in August 1996. The Latvian government, which gained its independence in 1991, said the family had to leave under a 1994 treaty on the withdrawal of Russian troops.

TITLE: City Headmaster Wins Teacher of the Year
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: St. Petersburg history teacher Igor Karachyevtsev, 41, this week added his name to the list of St. Petersburg celebrities who have shone on the national or world stage in the past few years.
 
Following in the slipstream of city physicist Zhores Alfyorov, who won a Nobel Prize in 2001, policewoman Oksana Fyodorova, who was crowned Miss Universe in 2002, and, of course, St. Petersburg native and Russian president since 2000, Vladimir Putin, Karachyevtsev won the title Russia's Teacher of the Year.
 Karachyevtsev received a hero's welcome when he returned to St. Petersburg high school No. 166, where he is headmaster, after two weeks of competition in Moscow.
 &quot;We are so proud of him,&quot; said Margarita Fedortseva, the school's deputy director.
 &quot;Karachyevtsev is a genuine Russian gentleman - an all-around developed person, who can talk to anyone with equal respect, and who is not embarrassed to take a broom and sweep the classroom,&quot; Fedortseva said.
 Karachyevtsev, who impressed the contest judges with his creativity, acting skills, sense of humor, knowledge and research abilities, said the secret to a teacher's success is simple. 
 &quot;First love, then teach - that's the secret,&quot; he said.
 Karachyevtsev said he is &quot;never embarrassed to tell his students honestly if he doesn't know something,&quot; and that modern youth is &quot;more open and brave&quot; about expressing opinions than previous generations.
 The most interesting historical period for him is the turn of the 19th and 20th century, when the economy flourished and Russia's writers, composers and artists led the world. He calls it an enigma.
 Karachyevtsev was one of several St. Petersburgers who went forward from a local contest to the national final consisting of 80 teachers.
 The contest, founded by the Education Ministry, was first organized in 1990 as an analog to the American &quot;Best Teacher&quot; contest. The aim of the contest is to give the profession prestige and attract attention to this sphere of life.
 The panel of judges included respected scientists, journalists and education authorities, and is headed by the head of Moscow State University Viktor Sadovnichy.
 The emblem of the contest - a pelican - symbolizes the link between different ages; before the revolution high school teachers had images of pelicans on their buttons.
 Contestants had to give open lessons to Moscow school students, pass certain tests, and perform many other assignments.
 Karachyevtsev thinks the main task of a school is &quot;to prepare and adapt students to future adult life.&quot;
 Russian schools are known for their conservatism compared to Western schools, which has both advantages and disadvantages, he said.
 &quot;On one hand, this style gives our students less freedom, but on the other hand it leads to more healthy and rational conservatism. Too much freedom sometimes leads to ignorant students, because study is work rather than entertainment,&quot; he said.
 Karachyevtsev thinks that Western school systems, particularly the U.S.'s, are more oriented to the psychological comfort of students, and demand less responsibility for knowledge.
 He chose this profession because he wanted to communicate with people, and because he liked the humanities.
 &quot;I also considered being a theater director or an actor,&quot; Karacheyvtsev said.
 &quot;But, in the end, a teacher has to combine all those trends - being a scriptwriter, film director and actor at the same time.&quot;
 Karachyevtsev says that though schools definitely need male teachers, they don't have enough of them, at least in Russia.
 The main reasons for the lack of male teachers are the low wages and the emotional pressures on school staff. Women seem to cope with both better than men, he said.
 Men may be a minority in schools, but they have been a majority of contestants and winners in the Best Teacher contests of the last 14 years. Only two women have won.
 Karachyevtsev said in order to make children love his subject, &quot;a teacher should know his subject very well and love it himself.&quot;
 Speaking of his favorite historical period, Karachyevtsev said he has not resolved the contradictions it poses.
 &quot;At that time Russia was at the peak of its economic and cultural growth, but it was also on the brink of the country's terrible catastrophes - the First World War and the revolutions of 1917,&quot; he said.
 &quot;Maybe it's because history develops in ups and downs and, in our country, all those changes are normally very sharp?&quot;
 Karachyevtsev said he treats the events of the last 15 and even 50 years &quot;not yet as history but still as politics.&quot;
 &quot;It's still not history, because people who participated in those events are still alive, and can give quite contradictory opinions. And that's the basic way we are to teach about that period,&quot; he said.
 Karachyevtsev said his female students found a convenient pretext to sometimes ignore that period, saying that they &quot;love history, but don't like politics.&quot;
 When teaching about the recent past it's better not to give any definite evaluation, because the history can be judged only from a long distance.
 Karachyevtsev said a healthy sense of humor and openness are the best policy for successful communication with students.
 Sergey Avdeyev, an 11th grade student, said students really like Karchyevtsev's lessons.
 &quot;He is not just a great teacher with excellent knowledge, but his lessons are also full of theatrical effect. He can often show some historical scenes almost in faces. It's very unusual and attractive,&quot; Avdeyev said.

TITLE: Narodny Control DisappearsAfter Poll
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A mysterious and well-funded organization that stood behind Valentina Matviyenko in the gubernatorial elections stealthily left the scene Monday, the day her victory was announced.
 
Narodny Control - or Popular Control - simply switched all the phones off and left its headquarters without officially announcing its departure.
 It claimed it was a non-governmental organization when it appeared in July this year. It said its prime goal was to collect information on people's problems and to pass it on to the top city authorities. Its five offices were full to bursting with written complaints and its hotlines were incessantly busy, but on Monday the only reply locals could count on was &quot;the number is out of service.&quot;
 The organization showed its support for Matviyenko on numerous posters and banners during the campaign.
 &quot;The way this information was gathered and used in an election campaign is utterly unethical,&quot; Natalya Yevdokimova, head of the of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly's Commission on Social Issues, said Tuesday. &quot;It stinks that such a wealthy and anonymous organization - I have an idea of how much those posters cost to hang in town - shows up and disappears just as suddenly.&quot;
 Narodny Control had taken no corrective measures in response to the public's woes; its only achievement was making a huge fuss, she said. 
 &quot;They advertised themselves as a mediator between the ordinary people and the officials, but what happened is that now my table - and many more desks in the city parliament and probably City Hall - is overloaded with complaints. And the so-called mediators are gone without a trace.&quot;
 Tatyana Dorutina, head of St. Petersburg's League of Voters, said the city has to protect itself from a repeat of Narodny Control's actions by establishing a rule that no unnamed players are allowed on the field. 
 &quot;It is dishonest to make voters guess whose money is behind your back, and, surely, if the organization has at least some dignity, it will tell everyone straight out that the project is a temporary enterprise, &quot; she said. 
 &quot;Such tricks do much to further undermine the public's trust in authorities. I think that Matviyenko is morally obliged to respond to each complaint collected by her supporters and to take measures - if, of course, that list still exists somewhere,&quot; Dorutina added. 
 Asked if she was aware that Narodny Control shut down the same day the elections ended, Matviyenko's spokeswoman Galina Gromova said she had had no contacts with the organization.
 Narodny Control never disclosed the source of its funding. 
 Its head, Inga Burikova, told The St. Petersburg Times last month that she &quot;had no right to reveal the names of the people behind the organization, or the source of its funding.&quot;
 Yury Vdovin of the St. Petersburg's branch of human rights group Citizens' Watch said the source of Narodny Control's funding is a subject the prosecutor's office should investigate.
 An official within the city's housing maintenance committee sighed when asked to comment on Narodny Control's activities. 
 &quot;Who would dare to criticize anything related to Matviyenko now? Nobody, at least in this office. We are not brave enough, sorry, &quot; she said. She refused to be quoted by name.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>Fewer Vice Governors
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The Legislative Assembly on Wednesday passed the third and final reading of amendments to the City Charter that will limit the powers of acting governors and reduce their number from 15 to seven, all of whom must be approved by the assembly, Interfax reported.
 The amendments mean that an acting governor has no power to change the charter, dismiss the assembly or appoint members of government, the report said. Speaker Vadim Tyulpanov was quoted as saying that the amendments brought the charter into line with federal law.
 
 
<b>Deputies Want Silence
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The Legislative Assembly has passed the first reading of a law aimed at maintaining low levels of noise in the city at night, Interfax reported Thursday.
 Citing the assembly press center, the report said fines will be levied for those making noise after 11 p.m. and before 7 a.m. Individuals face penalties of 0.5 to 5 minimum wages (600 rubles or $19.70), while businesses will pay 1 to 10 minimum wages. 



TITLE: Physicist, 87, Gets Nobel Prize
AUTHOR: By Alla Startseva
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - In his office on Leninsky Prospekt, 87-year-old physicist Vitaly Ginzburg was preparing for a weekly staff seminar Tuesday morning when a call came through from Stockholm.
 
When the voice at the other end of the line said in English that he had won the Nobel Prize for Physics, Ginzburg thought it was a joke at first.
 But later Ginzburg realized that it was true, as colleagues at the Academy of Sciences' Lebedev Physics Institute, who'd seen the news on the Internet, rushed in to offer congratulations.
 He had indeed won the $1.3 million award for work on superconductivity and superfluidity, jointly with fellow Russian Alexei Abrikosov, who now works at the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, and British scientist Anthony Leggett also from the University of Illinois, both of whom are now U.S. citizens.
 The award came more than 50 years after Ginzburg first started researching superconductivity, the ability of some materials to conduct electricity without resistance when chilled to very low temperatures.
 The invention of magnetic imaging scanners, which built on the pioneering work of Ginzburg, Abrikosov and Leggett, also won the Nobel Prize for Medicine awarded by the 264-year-old Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Monday.
 For Ginzburg, the award was quite a surprise.
 &quot;They have been nominating me for about 30 years, so in that sense it didn't come out of a blue sky,&quot; Ginzburg was quoted by The Associated Press as saying Tuesday. &quot;But I thought, 'Well, they're not giving it to me, I guess that's it.' I had long ago forgotten to think about this.&quot;
 Colleagues said that Ginzburg took the news in stride. &quot;Of course, he was glad,&quot; said Yuly Bruk, the institute's scientific secretary. &quot;But he was very quiet about it. He didn't seem to expect it or hope for it.&quot;
 Another colleague said that Ginzburg, who turned 87 on Saturday, had thought the prize &quot;would be a lot more beneficial to younger people.&quot;
 Ginzburg graduated Moscow State University in 1938 and first began work in 1940 at the prestigious Lebedev Physical Institute, which can now boast seven Nobel laureates.
 The last Russian citizen to win a Nobel Prize for Physics was Zhores Alfyorov, head of the Physical-Technical Institute. Before him, it was Pyotr Kapitsa, who won in 1978.
 Ginzburg's main scientific breakthrough came in 1950, at the age of 34, when he devised a &quot;theory of superconductivity,&quot; which he worked on with another Russian scientist, Lev Landau. Their work became known as the Ginzburg-Landau theory.
 &quot;In his 63 years at the institute, Ginzburg has also worked on theoretical subjects as diverse as radioastronomy, universe, radiation, optics and astrophysics. But superconductivity and superfluidity were always his favorite subjects,&quot; Bruk said.
 Ginzburg's work has been described as the starting point for the work of Abrikosov and Leggett.
 Abrikosov, 75, also began his work over half a century ago as a Soviet scientist. Leggett, meanwhile, applied ideas about superconductivity to explain how atoms behave in one kind of &quot;superfluid&quot; in the 1970s.
 &quot;All three of us have something in common: our discoveries... were done many years ago. We are pretty old people,&quot; Abrikosov told Reuters from Lemont, Illinois, on learning of the award.
 Leggett, the youngest of the trio at 65, said he was very surprised by the pre-dawn telephone call informing him of the award, and said he knew his co-winners quite well. &quot;I guess it had occurred to me that it was a possibility I might get the Nobel Prize, but I didn't think it was particularly probable,&quot; he said.
 &quot;I'm pleased to be sharing the prize with them.&quot;
 This year the Nobel committee notified Abrikosov, who had been nominated several times before, that he was a candidate. &quot;And since this had never happened before, I saw this as a good sign,&quot; he said. &quot;I now feel relief.&quot;
 The $1.3 million prize money will be shared equally among the three winners. A self-deprecating Ginzburg said his share of the $1.3 million prize money, a fortune to him, would be spent on his family.
 &quot;I have great-grandchildren and at least I can give it to them,&quot; Reuters quoted him as saying. &quot;A tennis player can earn this amount for just one game.
 &quot;For me, of course, it's a huge amount of money, as it is for anyone in Russia who isn't a crook or a business tycoon.&quot;


TITLE: Group Faults Chechen Poll
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - A leading human rights organization on Wednesday accused authorities of staging large-scale falsification of voting in Chechnya's presidential election to ensure the victory of Akhmad Kadyrov, the Kremlin-favored candidate.
 
The Moscow Helsinki Group said that after seeing deserted polling stations, it considered official reports of a turnout of around 85 percent to be a crime and a &quot;shameful farce.&quot;
 Major international organizations refused to send observers to the Sunday balloting, where the victory of Kadyrov, the pro-Moscow head of the Chechen administration since June 2000, was seen as predetermined. But the Moscow Helsinki Group sent unofficial monitors to watch the voting.
 The group reported a sharp discrepancy between the 85 percent official turnout and the numbers of people observed voting.
 Central Electoral Commission head Alexander Veshnyakov conceded later Wednesday that some irregularities had occurred.

TITLE: Suit Ends After Britain Gives Berezovsky Associate Asylum
AUTHOR: By Thomas Wagner
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LONDON - A British court dropped extradition proceedings against Yuly Dubov on Tuesday after it was told the businessman had been granted asylum here.
 
Judge Timothy Workman said in Bow St. Magistrates Court that there was no purpose continuing with the case following the order made by the Home Office on Sept. 30.
 Russia has requested the extradition of Dubov, Boris Berezovsky, and a business associate, Badri Patarkatsishvili, on charges of fraud at flagship carmaker AvtoVAZ. Workman ruled last month that Berezovsky could not be extradited after he was granted asylum.
 In London, Russia's ambassador, Grigory Karasin, said the decision to give political asylum to Dubov could affect Russian-British relations.
 Britain's Foreign Office responded by issuing a statement saying it hopes the two countries can maintain strong ties.
 Dubov did not attend court for the hearing Tuesday after receiving permission to stay away on security grounds.
 At a news conference held by Dubov and Berezovsky later Tuesday, Dubov said he did not believe his case would damage Russian-British ties.
 &quot;Russia shouldn't start criminal cases that are fabricated and bogus, pretending they have a political ground,&quot; he added.
 Berezovsky said: &quot;This day is very important for the entire Russian business community. We're all described as bandits, but Great Britain, one of the most important democracies, showed that's not the case. We are only under pressure at home because we had an independent vision of Russia.&quot;
 Outside the court, Dubov's lawyer, Andrew Stephenson, said Russia was trying to persecute Dubov for criticising President Vladimir Putin.
 John Hardy, the British lawyer acting on behalf of Moscow, criticized Home Secretary David Blunkett for not explaining why he had granted political asylum.

TITLE: Putin Warns EU on WTO Arm-Twisting
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: YEKATERINBURG, Ural Mountains - President Vladimir Putin sharply criticized European Union &quot;bureaucrats&quot; on Thursday for pressing Russia to raise domestic energy prices as a condition for joining the World Trade Organization and asked visiting German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to support him in the dispute.
 
&quot;EU bureaucrats either don't understand it or deliberately put unacceptable conditions for Russia to join the WTO,&quot; Putin said at a meeting with Russian and German businessmen that was part of bilateral consultations in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg.
 &quot;We cannot move to world energy prices in a single day. It will ruin the country's economy. 
 &quot;Such a tough position toward Russia is unjustified and dishonest. It's an attempt to twist our arms, but Russia's arms are getting stronger and the EU won't succeed in twisting them.&quot;
 In Brussels, the European Commission responded to Putin's criticism by saying it is not asking for unreasonable compromises from Russia.
 &quot;We are not asking the Russians to make unreasonable concessions or to force obligations on the Russians other than those in the WTO, or to try and influence the decisions the Russians will adopt at home,&quot; Arancha Gonzalez, spokeswoman for European Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy, told a news conference.
 She said energy pricing, which the EU sees as a trade-distorting subsidy to Russian domestic companies, was just one problematic aspect of the talks.
 She said Russia also wanted to give state long-distance telephone operator Rostelecom a market monopoly and charged European airlines excessively high prices for flying over Siberia.
 She said Lamy would visit Moscow next week to pursue the tough talks with Russia.
 European Union trade negotiators also say low gas prices give Russian industrial exporters an unfair advantage over foreign markets and distort trade.
 Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref, addressing Russian and German businessmen on the sidelines of the summit, said WTO entry talks had hit deadlock - partly because of energy prices.
 &quot;Negotiations are proceeding with considerable difficulty. They are deadlocked,&quot; news agencies quoted Gref as saying, referring to his meeting in Brussels this week with Lamy.
 But a ministry spokesman said Deputy Economic Development and Trade Minister Maxim Medvedkov still intended to attend a Geneva meeting of a working group on overall negotiations on WTO entry, set for Oct. 27-30.
 &quot;If something slows down in talks with the EU, it does not mean all work slows down,&quot; he said in Moscow.
 Gas prices charged to Russian domestic and industrial users are far below world levels. Under proposed but repeatedly delayed reforms of gas monopoly Gazprom, the government plans to raise them gradually.
 Prices, however, cannot be pushed up to world levels because Gazprom's transportation costs, factored into European gas prices, are considerably lower on the home market. Europe receives a quarter of its gas supplies from Russia.
 Gazprom effectively subsidizes the rest of the economy with its low prices.
 National power utility UES, Gazprom's main consumer, plans to raise electricity prices in line with inflation, but also plans to launch a free power market.
 &quot;Our position here is not obstinate,&quot; Putin said. &quot;We understand that sooner or later we must introduce world prices inside the country. But we intend to do it gradually.&quot;
 Putin said Russia, which received its first investment grade from Moody's Investor Service on Wednesday, had become a stable country - a fact the European Union should appreciate.
 &quot;Russia's main advantage today is its political and macroeconomic stability,&quot; Putin said. &quot;If we move to world energy prices macroeconomic stability will be undermined.&quot; 
 <i>(AP, Reuters) </i>

TITLE: Container Cranes Boost Port Capacity
AUTHOR: By Anna Ngwafu
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The first new Finnish container crane is in place at the port of St. Petersburg's First Container Terminal with another crane to follow next week.
 
An attempt to erect the second, 700-ton crane was postponed Wednesday because of high winds. The crane stands on the barge that brought it from Finland.
 The Konecrane cranes are part of a 9.5 million Euro ($11 million) contract that will raise the capacity of the terminal, already the largest in the Baltic, in a move that will increase the capacity of the port to 800,000 TEUs.
 TEU means a 20-foot (6.1 meters) equivalent unit, which represents the standard shipping container. Last year the terminal processed 438,000 TEUs.
 The port company said they had little doubt that the extra capacity will be used to import all kinds of goods from Hamburg, Rotterdam and Bremen.
 The cranes will be the first of their kind in the former Soviet Union. The port of Oulu in the Gulf of Finland has the only other such crane in the Baltic Sea region.
 The cranes are capable of lifting 50 tons. They can work in winds of up to 20 meters per second and in temperatures of minus 40 degrees to plus 40 degrees.
 They are transported on a special barge elevator that is used for carrying oversized cargoes.
 Natalya Vedeneyeva, spokeswoman for the seaport, said that Western experts have predicted that the future of cargo transport is directly linked to containerization.
 &quot;Drewry Shipping Consultants predict that within the next 10 years the annual volume of container traffic via the Russian Federation will increase to 7 million containers, 3.5 million of which will go through the ports of the Northwest,&quot; she said in a statement.
 Last year the port spent more than $20 million developing container capacity. A program running from 1998 to 2003 raised the capacity of the container terminal from 150,000 TEUs to 600,000 TEUs last year.
 This port is a joint-stock company with Nasdor Anstalt of Liechtenstein owning 51.06 percent, the St. Petersburg Property Committee owning 28.79 percent and the Property Ministry owning 20.21 percent, according to Vedomosti.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>Gas Prices Up
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Gas prices at the pump may go up 2 percent in October, Interfax reported Petersburg Oil Club president Oleg Ashikhmin as saying on Thursday.
 Ashikhmin explained that the jump is due to an increase in wholesale prices on petroleum products, which have gone up 7 percent since Oct. 1.
 There are around 100 companies retailing gasoline in St. Petersburg. The largest of these is Petersburg Fuel Company (PTK), which controls between 30 percent and 40 percent of the market.
 
 
<b>More Shell Stations
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Shell AZS, a full subsidiary of Royal Dutch/Shell Group, plans to build two new filling stations in St. Petersburg in 2004, Interfax reported.
 The cost of building one Shell filling station is runs between $900,000 and $1.2 million.
 Shell AZS, in St. Petersburg since 1997, originally planned to build 25 filling stations, but rethought this plan in 1998 due to parent-company losses. St. Petersburg has six Shell filling stations.
 
<b>Nevsky Lighting
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Lenenergo general director Andrey Likhachev asked Lensvet, the state-owned company that operates the city's street lighting, to develop a unified design for lighting Nevsky Prospect, Interfax reported on Thursday. 
 The idea is to make the lighting on the city's main thoroughfare more attractive. Financing for the lighting scheme will come from private investors, not the city budget, the press release emphasized.
 
 
<b>IKEA Goes Karelia
 </b>

PETROZAVODSK (SPT) - The government of the Republic of Karelia signed an agreement with the Swedish IKEA concern on Wednesday, Interfax reported.
 According to the agreement, the Swedish concern will build a sawmill and a plant to manufacture furniture-grade laminated wood in the republic. The project is worth 16 million euros. Construction will begin in summer 2004. The operation is slated to produce 100,000 cubic meters of sawed goods and 30,000 cubic meters of laminated wood per year. 
 SwedWood vice president Nils Skaerbaek said that "this is the first step; the second will most likely be construction of a furniture factory like the one the company has already built in Tikhvin, Leningrad Oblast."
 This plant will probably be in the Karelian town of Kostomuksha.
 "Many of Karelia's existing wood-processing plants are out of date and unable to compete on the world market. It is vital to the republic that more modern plants be built," said Sergey Katanandov, head of the republic's government.
 
 
<b>Fabric is Big Business
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Trekhgornaya Manufaktura, a Moscow-based textile manufacturer founded in 1799 and now majority-owned by Base Element, announced at a press conference in St. Petersburg on Thursday that it will increase profits by up to 10 percent over last year's figure of $24 million, Interfax reported. 
 The company is opening a new fabric department at the DLT shopping center on Oct. 10. More outlets will help boost the company's share of the St. Petersburg market from 2 percent to 25 percent. 



TITLE: Russia Gets Investment Grade Status
AUTHOR: By Alex Fak
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Moody's Investors Service raised Russian debt to its first ever investment grade status Wednesday, lifting a surprised stock market to a new historical high and tightening risk premiums on bonds.
 
Investors predicted more pension fund inflows, while politicians were quick to claim the upgrade as a vindication of their reform efforts.
 Moody's raised the government's Eurobonds, as well as the ceiling on Russia's foreign currency bonds and notes, by two notches, to Baa3.
 It cited fiscal discipline, improvements in debt and liquidity ratios, the formation of a &quot;stabilization fund&quot; to help cushion downturns in commodity prices, and ebbing political risk as reasons for its announcement.
 &quot;No one expected this for another year. The bond market had not priced in the upgrade,&quot; said Alexei Moisseyev, fixed income analyst at Renaissance Capital.
 Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin told Prime-Tass that the upgrade reflected the government's successes in implementing structural reforms. 
 The market's reaction was swift.
 Within hours of the news, the RTS index, which had been falling steadily since the start of the day's trading, jumped more than 5 percent from its low, reaching a new high of 628.98.
 Risk premium on the government's benchmark long-term debt, the 2030 Eurobond, contracted by 40 basis points to 265 basis points over U.S. Treasury bonds, according to Reuters.
 Analysts rushed to reevaluate their fair value projections for the market. Troika Dialog, one of the more cautious brokerages, raised its fair value by 6.2 percent to 570, said James Fenkner, head of research.
 United Financial Group upgraded its forecast range for the election period from 620 to a maximum of 690 and upped its end-2004 target by 60 points to 790. 
 The forecast hikes came despite a warning by First Deputy Economy Minister Ivan Materov that in the heavily export-based economy, the upgrade could trigger firming of the ruble. The Central Bank had earlier pledged to keep ruble appreciation under 6 percent this year.
 &quot;The move institutionalizes Russia's recovery - which has been phenomenal, [considering] the very desperate days of '98,&quot; said Philip Poole, head of research for emerging markets at ING, citing changes in government, quality of economic management and political and market stability. 
 As for stability, &quot;getting the rating before the elections means Russia has joined a category of countries where the political situation does not reflect on creditworthiness,&quot; Renaissance's Moisseyev said.
 Not all observers shared this perspective. Standard &amp; Poor's and Fitch said they have no plans for a major Russian upgrade until well after the presidential election in March 2004.
 &quot;I see it as highly unlikely that, even after the elections, we would immediately step up to investment grade,&quot; said Konrad Reuss, managing director of sovereign ratings at S&amp;P. The agency first needs to see reforms of the banking and public sectors and at Gazprom, or &quot;at least to see that they are being addressed,&quot; he said.
 &quot;We don't think that Russia is yet investment grade,&quot; echoed David Riley, managing director of sovereign ratings group at Fitch. &quot;We... remain concerned that Russia, post-1998, has not gone through an oil price cycle,&quot; he said. &quot;If oil prices were to drop, how well would the economy and public finance stand up to that kind of shock? Perhaps [Moody's] is less concerned than we are in that respect.&quot;
 Question marks also remain over respect for property rights and the rights of investors and shareholders in many companies, while bureaucracy continues to impede business development, Riley said. Fitch will also wait until after the presidential election.
 Many observers worry that a more populist State Duma after elections on Dec. 7 could derail reforms. Moody's said only the pace of the reforms could be affected, not the general trends.
 Fenkner traced parallels to the Mexican market, following the default in late 1994. &quot;In the Mexican case, you had a massive devaluation, then an incredible market climb for five years. In 2000, Moody's comes in and upgrades Mexico to investment grade. The market jumps immediately, by about 10 percent, then collapses by around 20 percent - and is now virtually unchanged since the 2000 upgrade.&quot; Moody's Mexico upgrade came at the very top of the market, he said, adding, &quot;Rating agencies tend to be trend followers, not trendsetters.&quot;
 


TITLE: Kasyanov Grim After Moody's Rating Made Public
AUTHOR: By Alex Fak
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Moody's surprise investment rating upgrade could trigger an influx of cash that would destabilize the market, Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov warned at a Cabinet meeting on Thursday.
 
His comments came as traders sobered up and paused to ponder the effect of the upgrade. Moody's Investors Service raised Russian debt to investment grade status Wednesday - the first time Russia has received such a high rating.
 The benchmark RTS index on Thursday finished at 628.87, almost the level it closed on Wednesday.
 The exception was the currency market. Expectations of a foreign capital inflow sent the ruble surging 15 kopeks to a nearly two-year high of 30.23 to the dollar in record trading - despite an unprecedented buying spree of more than $1 billion by the Central Bank.
 Financial markets &quot;remain weak and limited,&quot; Kasyanov told the Cabinet. &quot;The volatility of quotes remains high, and the capital that is likely to come will most likely be short-term,&quot; he said, Reuters reported.
 Kasyanov suggested inflows of foreign capital would be good for the economy but at the same time present a challenge to Russia's fragmented and undercapitalized banking system.
 The question now is, observers said, what will the government do to prevent an opportunity from becoming a crisis?
 &quot;I just hope this upgrade does not lead to even more complacency in respect to structural reforms,&quot; said Christof Ruehl, chief economist at the World Bank's Russia department. 
 He echoed some analysts in saying the upgrade was premature. &quot;There are still underlying structural problems that will become apparent only when the oil price falls,&quot; Ruehl said. 
 A jump in foreign direct investment will only reveal weaknesses, not cause them, said Al Breach, chief economist at Brunswick UBS. &quot;Investment grade opens the opportunities that are really good for us,&quot; he said. FDI is the kind of investment that is more long-term and brings advanced technology that currently tends to stay clear of Russia. 
 He said he was puzzled by Kasyanov's reference to short-term capital. &quot;Short-term capital generally comes first - but investment grade rating means it comes along with long-term capital,&quot; he said. 
 Larger global funds, which have more than $1 trillion to play around with, could join the emerging-market investors who only have a tenth of that amount. Breach said he expected healthy investment levels, noting that global funds invest just 0.08 percent of their portfolios in Russia compared 0.8 percent - 10 times more - in Mexico alone. 
 &quot;In the medium term, all classes of Russian assets will grow in value by a very significant margin,&quot; Alexei Moisseyev, chief economist at Renaissance Capital, said in a research note.
 More skeptical economists were busy dusting off their emerging-market case files and pointing to previous upgrades in places like Poland, Hungary, South Africa and Mexico in the late 1990s and 2000. 
 
 
 


TITLE: Watchdog Says Corruption on Rise in Russia
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Corruption has been critically high in Russia and only worsened this year, according to a report released Tuesday by the Berlin-based corruption watchdog group Transparency International.
 
Russia ranked 88th of the 133 countries included in the group's annual Corruption Perceptions Index, on par with Algeria and Pakistan.
 Finland held on to last year's top spot as the least corrupt country and Bangladesh ranked the last.
 In the past two surveys, Russia also found itself toward the bottom of the heap, ranking 79th out of 91 countries in 2001 and 82nd out of 99 in 2000.
 Transparency International compiled the rating based on corruption surveys conducted by 13 independent organizations, including the World Bank, Columbia University and accounting consulting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers. The surveys reflected the opinions of businessmen and analysts.
 Russia was one of the most extensively researched countries, having undergone 16 surveys, according to the watchdog group. The surveys were conducted independently of Transparency International, which based its ratings on the other groups' findings.
 On a scale of one to 10, with 10 indicating the least corruption, Russia scored 2.6, marginally worse than last year's reading of 2.7.
 &quot;Sadly, nothing is changing for the better,&quot; lamented Yelena Panfilova, the head of the Center for Anti-Corruption Research and Initiatives, the Russian affiliate of Transparency International.
 Finland received 9.7, unchanged from last year, while Bangladesh improved slightly to a score of 1.3 points.
 Panfilova said Russia attracted this high number of professional studies because &quot;for the major international organizations that conduct the surveys, Russia is either a partner or a market or a place to invest.&quot;
 On top of that, thanks to its size, Russia was the focus of research that targeted both Europe and Asia, Panfilova said.
 The index judged Russia to be less corrupt than most of its surveyed peers in the Commonwealth of Independent States. Only two - Belarus and Armenia - ranked higher, at 52nd and 80th respectively, based on five surveys in each of the countries. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, meanwhile, came in a few notches below, sharing the 97th spot. Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Tajikistan fell even lower.


TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>Kiriyenko Woos Toyota 
 </b>

MOSCOW (SPT) - Toyota chairman Hiroshi Okuda was in Nizhny Novgorod this week to discuss the possibility of Toyota launching production in Russia, news agencies reported. 
 On Wednesday, Okuda held talks with former Prime Minister Sergei Kiriyenko, now the presidential envoy to the Volga Federal District, the hub of Russia's automobile industry, Japanese agency Kyodo reported. 
 While in Japan in August, Kiriyenko invited Okuda to visit Nizhny Novgorod with an eye to either launching production or a possible joint venture with Russian automobile manufacturers, Kiriyenko's office was quoted as saying. 
 
 
<b>LUKoil Doubles Profit 
 </b>

MOSCOW (Reuters) - National No. 2 oil producer LUKoil more than doubled its second-quarter net profit to $1.544 billion compared to the same period last year on the sale of a stake in an Azeri oil field.
 The net profit figure fell just below analysts' expectations of $1.58 billion. LUKoil also said in a statement Thursday that second-quarter revenues rose to $5.086 billion from $3.794 billion last year.
 The company had been Russia's biggest oil producer with output of 1.6 million barrels a day. But it has been eclipsed by the merger of rivals Yukos and Sibneft, which now form YukosSibneft, Russia's biggest oil company with output on a par with world No. 4 Total.
 
 
<b>$1.8 Bln Gazprom Net? 
 </b>

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The world's biggest gas company, Gazprom, will show healthier first-quarter 2003 profits on the back of higher prices and sales, analysts said on Thursday. 
 The company, which supplies Europe with a quarter of its gas, plans to publish its first quarter results to international accounting standards this week or next. 
 A survey of four analysts produced an average forecast for net income of $1,805 million. 
 There are no comparative figures as this is the first time Gazprom has published quarterly figures. 
 Gazprom is expected to profit from higher international prices, which gained in the first quarter following a rise in oil prices in 2002. Gas prices follow oil prices with a lag of six to nine months. 
 
 
 
 



TITLE: Portents of Former Times
AUTHOR: By Yury Vdovin
TEXT: Where are we living? In what age? Can this really be the 21st century? I can't believe it!
 
We are living either in the Soviet Union or in North Korea in the mid-20th century.
 In our elections, we elect the <i>nomenklatura</i> candidates promoted by the party and against whom there is no alternative. Or maybe it's just that the party <i>nomenklatura</i> is good at keeping all the others away from its trough of power?
 &quot;Valentina Matviyenko announced that she would maintain an open relationship with the press, and that after becoming governor of St. Petersburg no pressure would be put on those media organizations that had criticized her during the election campaign,&quot; the news agencies and mass media gleefully inform us. 
 The journalists jump for joy, thinking: &quot;What a benevolent government, they won't give us a whipping!&quot;
 This is the 21st century. And Russia is supposedly a democratic country. The syncophantic mass media in St. Petersburg portrays the views of green journalists, the Nuclear Power Ministry and the Natural Resources Committee without any contradictions, as if they are all one happy family.
 &quot;There will be no pressure on the mass media or persecution of those who expressed their opinion after I am inaugurated. I do not divide journalists up into those who write nice things about me and those who write bad things,&quot; Matviyenko emphasized at a briefing after the preliminary count in the second round of elections for the post of governor of St. Petersburg. Our journalists fought back their tears of joy and gratitude - they may even be allowed to lick the boots of authority.
 Answering questions from journalists about the future of TRK Petersburg television and radio station, Matviyenko noted that &quot;the station must become a professional television station with good prospects of broadcasting in other regions of the Russian Federation and becoming a national channel.&quot; 
 She really went overboard with that bit about a professional television station.
 Matviyenko said earlier that TRK Petersburg should be broadcast throughout Russia. 
 We might recall that St. Petersburg lost its national outlets before, just in case ... or else who knows what they might have broadcast without control from Moscow. 
 So now we've exchanged a Russian channel for total control of the city administration over the local television waves. Now we really have a future: our loyalty to the center of power is guaranteed. The rest are extras ... professionalism, technical details such as sending the signal throughout Russia, finding retransmitters with licenses to broadcast throughout Russia. 
 And do the citizens of Russia really want to see broadcasting from St. Petersburg? Who's asking us? They didn't ask us when they closed down NTV, TV6, or TVS. They didn't ask us if we wanted to see sports instead of news. Note the &quot;instead,&quot; not &quot;and.&quot; Just like in the Soviet Union everybody had to watch Vremya on all the channels and there was no use turning the knob or, nowadays, pushing the buttons on the remote.
 &quot;We will take a look at all the television station's problems, including financial and personnel issues,&quot; Matviyenko said.
 So the government is going to look into a television station's problems. It's not the television station that will, along with viewers, consider the issues of the government and how it meets the expectations of citizens ... how familiar all this sounds.
 These days, not a day goes by without turning the channel and seeing some show about the heroic deeds of Chekists who fought for Soviet power against the Whites, or fought for Soviet power against spies, or fought for Soviet power and the ideals of communism against detractors. 
 And somehow we forget that it is they who - to establish and defend the criminal communist power, which existed in a hostile environment both without and within - destroyed countless millions of citizens in the name of defending communist ideals against the enemies of the people and imperialist tricks. 
 Somehow we have forgotten that, after 1917, the government was illegitimate, and the Chekists were the most criminal branch of that illegitimate government. It's not just the old creations of Socialist Realism depicting the Chekists that we see on our screens today, shows like &quot;The Mistakes of Kochin the Engineer,&quot; but even new shows that even the underfunded television stations somehow find money to shoot. 
 And now no one remembers that the gulag was created by those very same Dzerzhinskys and Berias, and one of them, who is responsible for shedding blood in Hungary in 1956, may even get a monument erected in his name in the capital. 
 And how many Iron Felixes made out of bronze are there in Russia, affirming the legality of destroying millions of compatriots ... there's even one standing in St. Petersburg, not far from Smolny. We couldn't possibly get rid of him, no, that would destroy the architectural unity of the square. It's not a building or a park, things that are regularly given up for building elite housing for leading citizens of the city and country
 But at least we know that the government, to the great joy of journalists, will be kind to those who criticized it. Today it might be kind, but what about tomorrow?
 &quot;Matviyenko thinks it necessary to dispense with 'horror stories' about how the free press in St. Petersburg is doomed. In her opinion, there's no foundation for such statements, and there's even a reason to say that the government is putting pressure on the press. She's already said that there will be no preconceptions, repression or persecution of those who wrote bad things about her,&quot; the media reports.
 The problem is that it's within Matviyenko's power to decide whether to put the screws on the press or not. And the journalists are ready to sing the praises of their kind princess for delaying the thrashing indefinitely.
 So far we're very far from democracy. Our country is pregnant with totalitarianism. It's time to get an abortion.
 
 <i>Yury Vdovin is the deputy head of human rights organization Citizen's Watch. </i>

TITLE: Democracy, In Putin's Own Words
TEXT: President Vladimir Putin, in interviews given to foreign journalists just before and after his recent trip to the United States, offered his most detailed comments to date on the ongoing Yukos saga and, more broadly, on the relationship between the state and business. Taken together, the comments provide a valuable insight into the president's mind-set and the so-called Putin &quot;power vertical.&quot; A couple of passages should suffice:
 
First, Putin talks of the oligarchs as state-appointed billionaires who &quot;got the impression that the gods themselves slept on their heads, that everything is permitted to them.&quot;
 Second, and most strikingly, Putin speaks of Yukos' reported funding of the Union of Right Forces and Yabloko as follows: &quot;One of the key persons in the Union of Right Forces is Mr. Chubais. And had there been any wish to wipe him off the political stage, Mr. Chubais would no longer be there, would not be the CEO of RAO UES. Who is supporting him?
 &quot;Very often I don't agree with what they [Yabloko and SPS] say or do, but I am convinced that these forces should be represented on the political stage. And if Yukos finances them ... fine, go ahead.&quot;
 In his enthusiasm to project the image of an enlightened ruler, Putin (no doubt inadvertently) ends up portraying himself a modern-day tsar, in whose gift it is to decide: who should be represented on the political stage and who not; which political parties should be funded and which not; and - would it be stretching things too far to say - which state-appointed billionaires should feel the heat of the prosecutor's office and which not.
 In the case of Anatoly Chubais, as state-appointed head of UES, it is, of course, well within the president's competence to initiate his dismissal. Less clear are the legal means whereby Putin could &quot;wipe him off the political map.&quot;
 And as regards state-appointed oligarchs, the legal mechanisms for removing those who provoke the tsar's wrath are far from obvious and clear cut. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, as far as we are aware, cannot be dismissed as CEO of Yukos by presidential decree, even if he does do things that Putin disapproves of (whether it be buying seats in the State Duma or failing to grovel to the president before merging with Sibneft and trying to sell a strategic stake in the merged entity to a foreign oil major).
 Has Putin not provided us with his own rather candid vision of the &quot;managed democracy&quot; that claims does not exist in Russia? And could the actions of the prosecutor's office not be the fulfillment of the will of a frustrated tsar who feels that certain state-appointed billionaires have got a little too big for their boots?

TITLE: Omens Suggest Regime Won't Admit Mistakes Unable
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalyev
TEXT: In 1996, when Vladimir Yakovlev, then a deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, won the gubernatorial election, his first news conference as governor-elect was held in the St. Petersburg House of Journalists.
 
When he showed up on the podium in front of a huge crowd of journalists, Yakovlev looked red, sweaty and a bit lost, as if he could not believe he had won.
 The journalists were excited and back then it was hard to believe that seven years later Yakovlev would resemble a floating shipwreck, battered and destroyed by an endless war with his opponents.
 Valentina Matviyenko's first news conference, after winning the gubernatorial election on Sunday, was held at her headquarters in the State Mining Institute. Journalists were searched by the Federal Guard Service and a dozen of them were refused entry because they were not on lists drawn up by Matviyenko's press service. It was clear the guards were worried some visitors had rotten tomatoes or eggs in their pockets that might end up smearing the governor-elect's face. (On election night, flowers were used not to congratulate but to swat Matviyenko's face.)
 At the mining institute, Matviyenko stood in front of a huge painting of Catherine the Great.
 The journalists' spirits seemed low, in keeping with the mist, rain and gray sky outside. &quot;We can't joke about things any more as we used to do in the Legislative Assembly. This is it. This is the end,&quot; said one journalist sitting beside me after I pointed to the portrait.
 Matviyenko was making promises: to provide street lighting; to clean up the city; to develop small business; to create better conditions for investment; to make the city budget more welfare oriented so that &quot;St. Petersburg residents will notice things are getting better soon after the new government starts working.&quot;
 Her words were appealing, and I would have had hope that most of the goals could be achieved if I did not know one thing: Half of Matviyenko's new government is going to be people from the old team. This horde of bureaucrats will include thousands of old clerks, who thoroughly deserve a special medal for stopping business development in the city. If that is what Matviyenko was referring to when she spoke of a government of professionals and people respected citywide, I don't think that St. Petersburg has a bright future.
 What really needs to be done is to conduct a comprehensive purge of those officials whose only thoughts concern how much money they can extort by exploiting their positions. But is Matviyenko the kind of person to do that?
 Hearing her speak and observing the way her election campaign was conducted, I don't expect Matviyenko to behave like the woman in front of whose portrait she was standing.
 My impression is that anything the governor-elect says is fed to her by someone else. I could be wrong, but what is clear is that she is not ready to accept any criticism. Without being open to dealing with other points of view, she will be incapable of reforming City Hall's governance structures.
 At the press conference, Matviyenko said she would cast &quot;dirty image makers&quot; out of the city.
 After the confiscation of millions of campaign leaflets promoting Matviyenko's rivals in the last two months, it seems the governor-elect is quite unable to distinguish between dirty election tactics and other points of view.
 So what will she do if the new government does something wrong - banish someone from the city?
 I think that is unlikely. The Legislative Assembly is already submissive to her, and the prosecutor's office carries out her will - so no one in the government will criticize anything, even when it should be criticized.
 We are facing a new era and a new approach to governing the city. When things are done right, they will be celebrated, and when things go wrong, they will be dismissed as crimes committed by malcontents.

TITLE: director returns with hit film
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Andrei Zvyagintsev's &quot;Vozvrashcheniye&quot; (&quot;The Return&quot;), the winner of two top prizes during the 60th International Film Festival in Venice last month, came to town this week to screen at the Aurora cinema.
 
 &quot;Vozvrashcheniye&quot;, which received two Golden Lions as the best film and the best debut - is a highly philosophical and beautifully shot story of a week in the life of two teenage boys and their father who returns home after 12 years' absence. The film's success was, however, marred by tragedy. Two months before the festival, 15-year-old Vladimir Garin, who played one of the brothers, tragically drowned in Ladozhskoye Lake near St. Petersburg, a location for the movie. 
 In Venice, the film was greeted with fifteen-minute ovation, with the director promptly named Russia's second Andrei Tarkovsky.
 The triumphant director, who started as a theater actor from Novosibirsk, named Tarkovsky as one of his favourites at a press conference in St Petersburg on Thursday. His list of favourites also includes Michelangelo Antonioni, Luc Besson and Takeshi Kitano.
 The script of &quot;Vozvrashcheniye&quot; was suggested by TV channel RenTV producer Dmitry Lesnevsky, with whom Zvyagintsev had previously worked as director on three parts of the detective series &quot;Black Room.&quot; According to Zvyagintsev, Lesnevsky was deeply touched by the script.
 &quot;He gave me the script - written by Alexander Novototsky and Vladimir Moiseyenko - and I took it home to read overnight&quot; Zvyagintsev recalls. &quot;Dmitry called me at one in the morning - he never did this before - to ask what I think. I said I was only on the eighth page, and he asked me to call him back whenever I finished reading [it].&quot;
 It took some time for Zvyagintsev to find an approach to the theme, although he admits he had found the script tremendously powerful. 
 In the film, the two brothers show contradicting reactions to their father's sudden arrival, and to his tough, brutal approach. While the youngest, Ivan (Ivan Dobronravov) remains reserved and reluctant to get to know the father (Konstantin Lavronenko), the oldest adapts quickly and responds happily to various challenges sometimes artificially created for the brothers by the father.
 &quot;The casting [took an] incredibly long [time], nearly half a year,&quot; Zvyagintsev said. &quot;I honestly thought it was going to be a hopeless enterprise. But I got just what I wanted in the end.&quot;
 The director had another scare - he dreaded talking to the boys about the film. &quot;I knew I wasn't going to talk about ideas. I never discuss the philosophy of my works with anyone, it is too personal, and also needless,&quot; Zvyagintsev said. &quot;But thankfully I didn't have to invent anything. With the two young actors the understanding was intuitive, and stunningly good. Every moment of the filming was happy.&quot;
 &quot;Vozvrashcheniye&quot; was filmed around St. Petersburg - at Ladozhskoye Lake, and around Priozersk, Zelenogorsk and Sosnovo. The director deliberately downplayed all possible connections to the time, place and even the father's background. The children never get to know what their father had been doing during the 12 years he is away, why he hates fish (while they adore fishing), what he does for a living and what mission he had on the remote island on the lake. 
 The world of &quot;Vozvrashcheniye&quot; is a discrete universe, and the story it tells is a universal human story. In the original scenario, the brothers had Georgian names - Archil and David - but the director insisted the names be changed. The looks of tanned, dark hair father may hint on his origin but very remotely.
 In a sad twist which foreshadowed the real-life drowning of teenage actor Garin, the film's original scenario ended with his character's death. Zvyagintsev, however, changed the script, and in the film it is the father who dies - he falls from a tower and ends up drowning in the lake.
 In Venice, Zvyagintsev dedicated the prizes &quot;Vozvrashcheniye&quot; received to the late young actor.
 
 <i>
&quot;Vozvrashcheniye&quot; will be screened at the Avrora cinema from Oct. 16. </i>

TITLE: former crooner doing it his way
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
TEXT: For 30 years, Austrian singer Louis Austen was a crooner in the mold of Frank Sinatra, performing at places like Hilton hotels. Today, though, Austen, who performs at Onegin on Saturday, has switched to contemporary electronic music and is becoming a hit at techno clubs.
 
&quot;In my former career, I was like a European Frank Sinatra or Dean Martin,&quot; Austen, 56, said by telephone from his home in Vienna this week. 
 &quot;[But] I was always listening to a lot of experimental things, and I tried everything in the music industry, such as producing and writing.&quot;
 The drastic change came when Austen met two young Austrian electronic producers, Patrick Pulsinger and Mario Neugebauer, in the late 1990s.
 &quot;They asked me, 'What about the idea just to try to get a real singer on an electronic track?' and I said, 'Hey, that sounds really good!' and that's how we started,&quot; he said. &quot;In those days we didn't know if it would be successful or not, but we did it because we thought it was interesting to do. We had no idea how everything would work out. I was just very lucky that for some reason people worldwide liked the idea of a crooner and electronic beats.&quot;
 For his club performances, Austen usually sings solo backed by music from a CD that he brings with him. Although it may seem minimalist, he insisted that it is enough to make a good concert.
 &quot;Absolutely! It sounds great,&quot; he said. &quot;I like it, because, with a lot of musicians, if you travel ... it's not only more expensive, but [this way] I can concentrate on myself and on my music. There are concerts when I work with a band, but it depends on the circumstances.&quot;
 Austen releases his records on Kitty-Yo, a Berlin-based independent label that is also home to Peaches. The Berlin-based, Toronto-born techno-punk diva, notorious for her sexually explicit lyrics and stage act, joined Austen for a track called &quot;Grab My Shaft!&quot; on his 2001 album &quot;Only Tonight&quot; - a collaboration that he once described as a &quot;wild experience.&quot;
 &quot;It was fun,&quot; he said. &quot;I just like her ... and what she's doing. She is a great performer. She's a lot of fun.&quot;
 According to Austen, his audience has changed dramatically since his switch to electronic beats - and he likes the change.
 &quot;It's totally different when you work at a nightclub or you work at a club for young people,&quot; he said. &quot;The best thing in the world is to work for young people, because they have this energy and appreciate what you're doing. Ninety-nine percent of these clubs have a great sound system that's really big and powerful, so I love to do that.&quot; 
 Austen writes both the lyrics and the melodies of his songs.
 &quot;I get a track and on the track is an arrangement and beats, and I just try to find out what I feel about the theme,&quot; he said. &quot;The theme of the song is very important for me. [I like] to find out how the situation is, that I'm in with the song. Then I sit down and play the track and try to find something on the piano, and then I write the lyrics.&quot;
 For his most recent album, this year's &quot;Easy Love,&quot; he worked with jazz composer Tibor Barkoczy, a long-time friend and Austen's first band leader. 
 Austen is a rare sight in Vienna, spending most of the time traveling with his electronic set. But when in his home city, Austen said he performs in his old style as a guitarist. 
 &quot;I formed a guitar band, because three months ago I bought a flamenco guitar, and because I was a guitarist when I was performing in different places [before],&quot; he said.
 At his concert in St. Petersburg, Austen said he will perform not only his electronic numbers, but also a few songs from his older repertoire.
 &quot;I'll do some old songs from my former career as a nightclub singer ... Frank Sinatra, one or two songs ... and then I'll start with the first album, 'Only Tonight,' and the rest of the concert is songs from my new album,&quot; he said. &quot;It's a mixture of everything, so that people know what I did in the last 30 years, but the oldies comprise just one song in the beginning and two songs as an encore. Most people want to listen to my new stuff, not the old stuff.&quot;
 From the Sinatra repertoire, Austen said he will perform &quot;The Lady Is a Tramp,&quot; &quot;That's Life&quot; and &quot;My Way.&quot; But when asked about his favorite singers, he cites himself rather than the great crooners of the past.
 &quot;I like the other singers as colleagues, as friends, but I concentrate on myself,&quot; he said. &quot;You need others when you're young and start in the business. You need some people about whom you think, 'I'd like to sing like him.' But then, after 10 or 15 years you have to find your own style. You have to do your own thing. And you no longer have to copy somebody else. You have to be yourself, you have to be able to say, 'That's the way I'm singing, that's the way I'm performing.'&quot; 
 
 <i>
Louie Austen performs at Onegin at midnight on Saturday. Links: www.louie-austen.com </i>

TITLE: chernov's choice
TEXT: The St. Petersburg Ska Jazz Review</strong> will play a rare local concert at Red Club on Friday to showcase its long-awaited single, which was due six months ago but did not appear on time.
 
The five-track CD includes the band's own &quot;Night on a Bus,&quot; written by trumpeter Roman Parygin, which became sort of a hit after appearing on the band's 2002 debut CD and several compilations. Apart from the original version, the single features a remix by Dim Dimich of dub band Caribace. 
 The rest are covers: Sonny Rollins' &quot;St. Thomas,&quot; Derrick Harriott's &quot;Monkey Ska&quot; (&quot;Monkey Do,&quot; in the Review's version), and Boney M's &quot;Gotta Go Home.&quot; The band plans to start recording its second full-length album in November.
 The ensemble, which includes the full line-up of local ska-punk band Spitfire, two members of the Afro-Caribbean-style Markscheider Kunst and U.S. expat jazz singer Jennifer Davis, chose its name as a hint at the New York Ska Jazz Ensemble.
 Hot from its German tour, <strong>Billy's Band</strong>, will restart its local gigs with a big concert at Red Club on Saturday. Vadim &quot;Billy&quot; Novik, frontman of the Tom Waits-influenced trio's frontman, who sings and plays double bass, said that the concert will come in two parts and showcase some new songs from the band's next album.
 Called &quot;Kladbishche Devichyikh Serdets&quot; (&quot;Cemetery of Girls' Hearts&quot;), it will be the band's third official album. Though it has not yet been recorded, Billy's Band is planning to release it on a local label early next year. 
 On Sunday, Billy's Band will perform a smaller concert at 40-odd-seat cafe Zavodniye Yaitsa. The relatively new place, which does not usually boast big names in its program, is located at 48 Furshtatskaya Ulitsa. Call 275-8896 for possible reservations.
 <strong>Vermicelli Orchestra</strong>, a fully instrumental art-rock band that uses world-music influences in its work, will play a full-length concert at Stary Dom on Saturday.
 Led by ex-Akvarium accordion player Sergei Shchurakov, the band only performed three times during the summer, being busy recording its third album. Tentatively called &quot;Strannik&quot; (&quot;Wanderer)&quot;, it will feature eight tracks including an adaptation of &quot;Guinnevere,&quot; an instrumental number written by Akvarium's late flautist, Andrei Romanov.
 According to Vermicelli Orchestra's producer and sound engineer, Artyom Tamazov, the band's work is now moving in the direction of The Beatles.
 At the concert, there will be one new, yet untitled song, which will be probably included in the band's fourth album.
 <strong>Wine</strong>, which after a three-year pause has been making its presence on the local club scene strongly felt again, played a great concert at Moloko this Wednesday. 
 Opening with Morrissey's &quot;November Spawned the Monster,&quot; the concert was almost entirely Smiths and Morrissey covers (with a notable exception of Bob Dylan's &quot;All Along the Watchtower&quot;) and crowned with David Bowie's &quot;Heroes&quot; at the end.
 The current three-piece lineup is probably the best in Wine's long history, though the show would just perfect without a Russian-language song in the middle.
 The next time Wine will appear at the tiny club Purga on Saturday. Reservations are a must.
 
 <i>- By Sergey Chernov </i>

TITLE: porgy at porto lives up to the hype
AUTHOR: By Peter Morley
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Press releases from restaurants here can be strange beasts. So I was intrigued this week when one arrived in my inbox last week from a new place called Porto Maltese that boasted about its chef's resume and claimed to be St. Petersburg's first authentic fish restaurant.
 
The CV of the restaurant's Italian chef, Mario Zorzetto, includes being personal caterer to Aristotle Onassis and Madonna, as well as having cooked for U.S. presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, plus former President Boris Yeltsin and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. He has also, apparently, run restaurants in Japan, Canada, the United States and France. 
 Porto Maltese is laid out in a basement about five minutes walk up Nevsky Prospect from Ploshchad Alexandra Nevskogo, taking up three quite airy rooms that are decorated in subtly good taste. I arrived this week with two companions, one of whom is not generally a fish fan (I accidentally omitted to mention the restaurant's piscine inclinations). We took a seat in the furthest of the three rooms.
 So what about the food? Porto Maltese's fresh-fish menu is stunning. Another great feature is that diners can choose their own fish. (A menu is available, but we had to ask; because the fish changes daily, selecting a fish personally is the way to go.) We spent a good 10 or 15 minutes looking at the display, which is laid out on ice just by the door. Help is on hand not only from the wait staff, but also from Zorzetto, who was happy to assist us with our choice.
 Prices are given in rubles per 100 grams of fish, so it might be a good idea to check the weight of the fish first to get an idea of the cost. Generally, fish goes for between 100 and 200 rubles ($3.28 to $6.55) per 100 grams, while other seafood - the list includes shrimp, lobsters, crab and more exotic items like octopus - can push this up to 250 rubles ($8.22). There is also the option of a buffet with about a dozen cold dishes for 290 rubles per plate ($9.50) that would probably be a good option for starters.
 For non fish eaters, the restaurant has a small selection of meat dishes - the pepper steak for 630 rubles ($20.70) being typical - as well as a page or so in its menu of salads, generally in the 100 to 200-ruble range, plus desserts that start from about 150 rubles.
 While I was tempted by the swordfish, and my generally piscophobe companion was veering toward a shrimp dish, we eventually took the chef's recommendation and plumped for a sizable porgy - no, us neither - between the three of us. Our server offered us a few options of how we would like the fish prepared, and we unanimously favored the oven-baked version.
 (A fisherman writes: &quot;As you would know if you looked on the invaluable website dictionary.com, a porgy is a deep-bodied marine food fishes of the family Sparidae, especially the common species Pagrus pagrus of Mediterranean and Atlantic waters, or any of several fishes similar to the porgy. The word derives from the Greek <i>phagros</i>, meaning sea bream.&quot;)
 Half an hour later, it arrived, and we were duly bowled over. The 2.3-kilogram porgy was delivered whole, still in the roasting dish - our server drew up another table on which to put it - and served expertly at the table.
 In terms of texture, the fish actually tasted extremely like chicken, and was beautiful almost beyond description. The flesh was gorgeously tender and wonderfully flavored. Surprisingly, the skin was also extremely tasty, and rather crisp, which I liked. The simple potato side dish (198 rubles, $6.50) was also fantastic, and the whole creation was set of brilliantly by the sauce, which was almost gravy-esque in its consistency. 
 Drinks-wise, Porto Maltese has an impressive-looking wine selection - also on display so that guests can choose their own bottle - and the usual range of soft drinks and liqueurs. We started with an apple juice (35 rubles, $1.15), a Pepsi (26 rubles, $0.85) and a mineral water (Evian for 55 rubles, $1.80), before discovering that, while bottled wine is quite expensive - prices start at about $20 - the house wine is not. So we ordered a 1-liter carafe of red (285 rubles, $9.40), which was lovely and - going against traditional James Bond ideas of white wine with fish - complemented our meal beautifully.
 The service was also excellent. Our server, who turned out to be from Belgrade, spoke passable Russian and good German, while the maitre d' informed us that, although there is no English-language menu for the moment, the restaurant has servers who speak English and French as well. Our server was unfailingly polite and helpful, and we got the impression that nothing would be too much trouble for any of the staff.
 For an operation to be running as smoothly as Porto Maltese only a few days after opening is extremely impressive, and it can only be hoped that the restaurant can survive and prosper. While not in everyone's price range - our porgy cost 3,910 rubles ($128.60) - it would be a great place for a special occasion with friends. (Even so, we got out for about $50 per head, which is not outrageous.) With Porto Maltese, St. Petersburg's dining scene has just taken a leap forward.
 
 <i>
Porto Maltese. 174 Nevsky Prospect. Tel.: 271-7677. Open daily, noon to midnight. Menu in Russian only (English version coming soon). Credit cards accepted. Dinner for three, with alcohol: 4,509 rubles ($148.30). </i>

TITLE: book fair opens new chapter for russia
AUTHOR: By Mark Landler
PUBLISHER: New York Times Service
TEXT: FRANKFURT, Germany - The word here is that Russia's publishing industry is back on its feet, after languishing for years amid the country's economic collapse and political dislocation. But more interesting than that bit of news, perhaps, is that Russia chose the Frankfurt Book Fair, which opened Tuesday, to trumpet its literary comeback.
 
Indeed, the timing and the place are rich in symbolism. The nearly 100 Russian authors who are flocking to this mammoth gathering of agents, publishers and booksellers follow on the heels of political leaders who have cultivated closer ties between Russia and Germany.
 While Germany and the United States are barely on speaking terms after their dispute over Iraq, Germany and Russia, which made common cause against the war, are basking in the glow of a rekindled relationship.
 Earlier this year, Berlin and Moscow kicked off an ambitious program of cultural exchanges that will include art exhibits, theater, opera and ballet performances, and film festivals in both countries. To coincide with the book fair, the Schirn gallery here is showing a major exhibit on Stalinist art.
 In a visit to St. Petersburg University in April, while the Iraq war was raging, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder declared that &quot;German-Russian relations are the strongest they have been for 100 years.&quot;
 That is not saying a great deal, of course. While the Russian-German relationship is marked by deep cultural affinities, it has been disfigured by two world wars and the cold war.
 &quot;Lenin, Trotsky and the other Communist leaders spoke German,&quot; said Wolfgang Eichwede, an expert on Russia at the University of Bremen. &quot;But in World War II, we tried not only to defeat, but to annihilate, the Russians. We are relatives in culture, but enemies in war.&quot;
 The first thawing of the ice in German-Russian cold war relations came in the 1970s, when Chancellor Willy Brandt apologized for Nazi crimes in Eastern Europe and embarked on Ostpolitik. This reconciliation with the Soviet bloc fanned the suspicions of Western conservatives about Brandt's reliability as an ally, but initiated a steady stream of contacts between the Soviets and the Germans.
 With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Germany and Russia were able to start the arduous process of really normalizing their ties. The first steps were taken by Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, and continued through the 1990s.
 Russia's current president, Vladimir Putin, is rare among Russian leaders in having significant first-hand experience of Germany. As a young KGB operative in the 1980s, he worked for several years in Dresden, in the former East Germany. 
 &quot;This has been very helpful, of course,&quot; said Vladimir Grigoryev, the deputy minister of press, television, and radio broadcasting, who heads the Russian delegation in Frankfurt. &quot;He lived here, he speaks fluent German, he feels somehow comfortable with German culture.&quot;
 The United States, usually a major player in Frankfurt, has a subdued presence this year, in part because the American subsidiary of Holtzbrinck, which owns St. Martin's Press and Henry Holt, is boycotting the fair, after a dispute over hot
 The decision is all the more remarkable because Holtzbrinck's corporate parent, the Von Holtzbrinck Group, is based in Stuttgart. Holtzbrinck is making an exception for one of its imprints, Farrar Straus &amp; Giroux, but only because it publishes Susan Sontag, who is receiving a prestigious German literary award, the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade.
 Sontag has a loyal following in Germany, yet the timing of her award is also noteworthy. She was a vocal critic of the war in Iraq, and aroused fury among some conservatives in the United States by questioning whether it was accurate to describe the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 as &quot;cowardly.&quot;
 There are limits to how closely Moscow and Berlin can align themselves. Russia is not a member of NATO or the European Union. That is the very reason, some experts say, that the two are placing such an emphasis on cultural exchange.
 But even such exchanges carry hidden dangers. On the eve of the fair, a Russian journalist whose reporting on her country's blood-stained involvement in Chechnya has won international acclaim said her invitation to appear on a panel there had been retracted because of pressure from Russian government officials.
 The journalist, Anna Politkovskaya, was scheduled to appear on Saturday with two other Russians who have written about Chechnya - a human rights activist and a philosopher. The German publisher who organized the panel denied feeling any pressure, and said it was simply not able to scrounge up the fare for her flight.
 At this book fair, where rumor and cigarette smoke cloud the air in equal measure, the dispute has caused a stir. But in a measure of Russia and Germany's reconciliation, it is playing out less as an international incident than a publishing-industry tempest. 
 Grigoryev also denied that Moscow had put pressure on the organizers, noting that the fair was likely to feature several panel discussions critical of the Russian government. 
 A one-time book editor who worked briefly for Random House in New York, Grigoryev wondered whether Politkovskaya was practicing some shrewd marketing. &quot;She knows that creating a little scandal is a great way to promote her writing,&quot; he said.

TITLE: russian museum expands horizons
AUTHOR: By Larisa Doctorow
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: With unparalleled expansion during the past 15 years, the State Russian Museum is alone among St. Petersburg cultural institutions in challenging the scale of the State Hermitage Museum. 
 
Since 1988, when Vladimir Gusev became its director, the museum has expanded to take in four palaces around the city: the Mikhailovsky Palace, the Engineers' Castle, the Stroganov Palace and the Marble Palace. 
 As Gusev joked in a recent interview: &quot;The Hermitage is begining to feel uneasy about our expansion.&quot;
 Under his directorship the museum is also changing its image. Extensive renovation work has been performed on all four properties. The museum has also learned to survive in a market economy and it is even learning to make money. 
 &quot;We make money on our publishing activity, fundraising, catering which we plan to widen, different forms of paid service, concerts and festivals,&quot; Gusev said. &quot;The Club of Friends of the Russian Museum also helps us.&quot;
 However, Gusev continues, &quot;Mostly our money comes from the federal budget. We need enormous sums for restoration work. If it were not for that, we would be able to cover [only] 40 percent of our costs.&quot;
 Surprisingly, money gleaned from admission charges is not an important element of the museum's funding, according to Gusev. Asked, then, to justify continued &quot;dual pricing,&quot; where non-Russian's are charged much higher admission prices than Russians, Gusev said: &quot;This is not a normal situation, I agree. And this will disappear sooner or later. But now it should be accepted as a big reduction for Russians who cannot pay the normal price of about $5 or $6.&quot;
 The concert halls now incorporated in the museum complex enable it to hold concert series and music festivals. The Russian Museum is involved in running the annual Arts Square Winter Festival and also hosts concerts in the Music in St. Petersburg Palaces festival.
 Opening the White-Gothic hall and the Winter Garden in the Marble Palace has created new possibilities for having regular concert and theater programs in the palace. The museum organized its first open-air concert in front of the Mikhailovsky (Engineers') Castle last June, featuring the Moscow Symphony Orchestra.
 But Gusev said that, with restoration on the new properties nearing completion, there are no plans to annex any more palaces.
 &quot;I assure you that the geographic expansion of the Russian Museum is over. In the last 10 years, our space has grown over three times as big. It is very nice to get new palaces, but it is difficult to restore and find uses for them. Before we had three buildings [in the original Mikhailovsky complex on Ploshchad Isskutsv], now there are 12 [altogether]. Before, we had 30,000 square meters. Now we have close to 100,000 square meters. Plus the Mikhailovsky and Summer Gardens and the green territory around the Engineers' Castle. The works will continue. The government has approved a program of restoration that goes up to 2008.&quot;
 The museum's expansion has enabled an overarching artistic mission to emerge in the last few years. The number of exhibitions the Russian Museum stages each year in Russia and abroad has grown enormously.
 &quot;Before, we used to put on 12 exhibitions a year. Now it is 50 to 60, and if you include exhibitions abroad then 60 to 70 annually,&quot; Gusev said.
 &quot;It is not our desire to stage as many shows as possible without thinking about the quality. We have a unique collection that we try to show. It is four times bigger than the Tretyakov Gallery collection [in Moscow]. We now try to create a program of exhibitions in such a way that a whole generation will see only new things without repetition. In our collection we have all the names and all the trends of Russian art during its 1,000 years of development.&quot;
 Shows of recent years have both been big and prestigious - like &quot;Russian Impressionism&quot; or &quot;Portrait of the Century&quot; - and small and intimate, like the recent &quot;Portrait of an Artist's Wife.&quot;
 Contemporary St. Petersburg artists also get fair treatment from the museum. Exhibitions such as that devoted to Alexandre Agabekov in 2001 are a regular event in the halls of the museum. 
 So are retrospectives of artists in Russia who have recently passed away. The enormous retrospective of Muscovite Mikhail Schwarzman who died in 1997, is a case in point.
 &quot;We have reinstated the department of contemporary trends which existed in the museum in the 1920s,&quot; Gusev said. &quot;The Marble Palace is the place where we exhibit modern things and for this we often get reprimanded. [But] the Russian Museum traditionally worked with contemporary artists.&quot;
 Gusev said the direction in which the museum is headed follows Western practices in museum policy. 
 &quot;When I became the director of the Russian Museum, the Rockfeller Foundation in New York paid for my two study trips to the United States, and I spent time in New York in the Metropolitan Museum and in Washington at the National Gallery gathering information on how they function. What I learned there I am putting into practice here.&quot;
 But Gusev said that, unlike the Hermitage, which set up a branch in Somerset House in London in 2001 - a first for a Russian museum - the Russian Museum has no plans to expand beyond the borders of its homeland.
 &quot;We regularly mount exhibitions abroad, but we do not plan to open outlets of the Russian Museum. Russian art is not well known abroad, because it was isolated from the rest of the world for so long. To attract money and attention for Aivazovsky or Maliavin is more difficult there than here. We try to find Russian sponsors,&quot; said Gusev. &quot;Our motto is 'Russian business for the Russian Museum.'&quot;

TITLE: another slice of tasteless pie
AUTHOR: By Desson Howe
PUBLISHER: The Washington Post
TEXT: Shock prediction: &quot;American Wedding&quot; won't win an Oscar for best original screenplay. 
 
But it knows the rules: People want to laugh, cringe with embarrassment and shake their heads in horrified disbelief at how far this thing dares to go. Producer-writer (and original creator) Adam Herz and director Jesse Dylan (who's also Bob's son and Wallflower Jakob's brother) oblige these expectations perfectly. If you do not bring pride, good taste or sense to this third &quot;American Pie&quot; installment, you'll have a good time. Of course, you won't admit it in front of respectable company - who should know better than to ask, anyway. 
 In &quot;American Wedding,&quot; Jim Levinstein (Jason Biggs) intends to tie the knot with longtime girlfriend Michelle Flaherty (Alyson Hannigan). Of course, this sets him up for huge trouble in so many ways. As Jim goes through the groom-to-be's rites of passage, he screws things up at every turn. 
 When trying to propose at a restaurant, for instance, he ends up with his trousers around his ankles, with Michelle crouched under the table and several customers (including his dad) watching in horror. He still manages to ask for Michelle's hand. 
 More disaster awaits, as Jim weathers an unexpected stag party, attempts to impress Michelle's parents (Fred Willard and Deborah Rush) and tries to keep Stifler away from the wedding. 
 Ah, Stifler. As played by the satyrlike Seann William Scott, he's the joker in the pack, whose mission is to destroy all sense of stability and peace. He leads Jim and the guys into a Chicago nightclub (only to discover it's a gay spot), hits on Michelle's sister, Cadence (January Jones), and destroys the entire supply of flowers for the ceremony. He's shameless, sickening and disgusting and, naturally, I mean that in the nicest possible way. 
 Jim has his usual, uncomfortable conferences with dad (the always funny Eugene Levy), who tries to encourage his son with too much information. And Jim's pals Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) and Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas) are back, too, most memorably when they stage that stag party, complete with busty, semi-nude hookers, unaware that Jim is about to enter the place with Michelle's folks - intending to have a sedate, get-acquainted dinner. 
 The movie, which includes the requisite gross-out scenes (involving the wedding cake, as well as a nasty doggy doo moment) and a tour-de-force dance contest between Stifler and a muscular gay performer, is anti-serious, liberated and often very funny. And as long as Jim gets himself into embarrassing scrapes, which seems to be all the time (and as long as people keep paying to watch his torturous experiences), this &quot;American Pie&quot; series shows no sign of ending. 
 After all, there are so many more potential disasters for Jim to face in subsequent movies. How will Jim cope with a long-term marriage? What about first-time parenthood? How about the death of one of his parents? Or crazy teenage children? Or a midlife crisis? Or retirement? Ladies and gentlemen, there's a million different ways to bake that pie, and it's up to you whether you take a slice or not. 
 
 <i>
&quot;American Wedding&quot; is currently showing at Kolizei, Leningrad and Mirage Cinema. </i>

TITLE: study in grief offers few answers
AUTHOR: By Alan Ehrenhalt
PUBLISHER: The Washington Post
TEXT: Ordinary human beings feel an almost irresistible attraction to sagas of personal tragedy. This goes far beyond schadenfreude, the malicious enjoyment of other people's sorrow; it also goes beyond any cathartic relief that the experience of vicarious misery might bring. It is mostly a matter of curiosity. We want to know what it feels like to suffer.
 
And the larger the theater of suffering, the more curious we become. There is no obvious reason why the grief visited upon any individual by an airplane crash should interest us more than the grief caused by a fatal illness or a single-car accident, but somehow it does. The endless chronicling of Sept.11 and its aftermath makes this paradox abundantly plain. Journalists and political leaders have produced millions of words of Sept. 11 soap opera, and we are far from finished.
 But no one has tested the market for Sept. 11 voyeurism quite as thoroughly as Gail Sheehy does in Middletown, America. Sheehy's book zeroes in on a suburban township in New Jersey that suffered losses disproportionate to its size. Out of a population of fewer than 70,000, Middletown lost nearly 50 people at the World Trade Center. Sheehy showed up a few weeks afterward and remained for more than a year, living among the bereaved families, recording their devastation and tracking their efforts at recovery. She sees her work as considerably more than an exercise in post-traumatic sentimentality. She describes it, at various moments, as both a study in community structure and a meditation on the nature of human grief. 
 Without question, Middletown is a fascinating corner of the contemporary world. It is an enclave of youthful affluence essentially created by the financial bubble of the 1990s. Its inhabitants are brokers and bond traders, Irish and Italian ethnics whose nerve and hustle have taken them far beyond their largely blue-collar roots. 
 Most of the husbands commute to lower Manhattan each day by ferry; many of them worked for the investment firm of Cantor, Fitzgerald on the top floors of the World Trade Center, which is why they died in such great numbers on Sept. 11. The wives, many of whom worked for financial firms themselves as young Manhattan singles in the 1990s, are mostly full-time mothers, content to stay home and grateful for the financial security that has made their domestic lives possible. &quot;When they made a decision to raise a family,&quot; one resident tells Sheehy, &quot;the wives decided to stay home. It became a tradition.&quot; 
 Sheehy is skillful at telling dramatic stories about people's personal lives, and she has always had an ability to coin a phrase - the words &quot;mid-life crisis&quot; owe their ubiquity in large part to her 1976 book Passages. This time she creates the phrase &quot;new normal&quot; to reflect the continuing uneasiness and sense of fragility with which she believes that Americans have lived their lives in the aftermath of Sept. 11. 
 The book rarely misses an opportunity to make this point. &quot;Middletown's people,&quot; she says, &quot;were canaries in the mine shaft of the New Normal.&quot; Her characters use the phrase themselves, which would seem to suggest either that Sheehy has strongly influenced their thinking or that she has taken a few liberties with quoted conversation.
 But it is not so clear how much life in Middletown as a whole has changed since September of 2001. Families who lost loved ones in the attacks have been disrupted tragically and unalterably - and several women widowed in the attacks are now full-time activists, pressing the federal government for information about what went wrong - but within just a few weeks of the event, the other 69,000 residents seem to have returned to something much like the &quot;old normality&quot; of their previous daily routine. Randall Gabrielan, author of a town history, says this in no uncertain terms: &quot;The main issues for Middletown before 9/11 were taxes, development and congestion. The main issues after 9/11 were taxes, development and congestion.&quot; 
 If some in Middletown did begin to feel a permanent vulnerability after Sept.11, it could well be because they were compelled to re-enact the terrors of the day countless times for essentially ceremonial purposes: memorial services, dedications, media interviews and other forms of well-meaning but painful ritual. Those actually bereaved seem to have been treated almost as props in the community grieving process. As the first anniversary approached, the memorializing became intolerable for many of them. &quot;One week,&quot; Sheehy recounts, &quot;it would be their husband's high school class, the next it was his bowling team or church group.&quot; One young widow confesses that &quot;there's so much focus on this anniversary - I feel like I'm being pressured to fall apart on that day. It drives me insane.&quot;
 Painful as this ritualized remembrance is, Sheehy implies that it is necessary, both for the bereaved and for the community, if they are to avoid even more serious problems later. Unless memories of a tragic event &quot;are retrieved and the fragments put back into context,&quot; she reports, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) becomes much more likely. Sheehy interviews a psychiatrist who maintains that &quot;the essential ingredient in any form of treatment of PTSD is to assist the person in constructing a verbal narrative of the traumatic experience.&quot; This sounds like an argument for endless mental re-examination, whatever the cost. 
 On the other hand, Sheehy refers to a growing body of evidence that the best way for many people to cope with terrifying memories is not to retrieve them or dwell upon them, but to place them to one side as soon as possible. Two extensive studies of bereavement, one conducted in Israel and one at Columbia University, both concluded that survivors who repress recollections of trauma actually fare better than those who are helped by therapists to reconstruct them. An Australian psychologist who has done similar research says the same thing: &quot;The long-held notion that early intervention is the be-all and the end-all of treatment for trauma is nuts ... Better in the short term to use denial.&quot;
 Sheehy is scrupulous in presenting this point of view, but her heart lies on the other side - on the side of retrieval and re-examination and catharsis. Repression doesn't make for very readable soap opera; catharsis does. To quote Sheehy on the last page: &quot;The best way to build bridges from the land of the dead to the land of the living is to tell and retell the stories of those who are gone.&quot;
 A few chapters earlier, however, she records the frustrated sentiments of a boogie-boarding Middletown high school student, expressed as a drama therapy group staged one of the innumerable first-anniversary re-enactments. &quot;We're inundated with 9/11 memorials,&quot; the boy said. &quot;It doesn't really do anything for me. Can't we just shut up and get on with it?&quot;
 No one would dispute that Sheehy's are far more noble sentiments. But by the end of Middletown, America you can't help thinking the high school student might have a healthier prescription.
 
 <i>
&quot;Middletown, America: One Town's Passage From Trauma to Hope.&quot; By Gail Sheehy. Random House. 412 pp. $25.95
 Alan Ehrenhalt is executive editor of Governing magazine and author of &quot;The United States of Ambition.&quot; </i>

TITLE: the word's worth
AUTHOR: By Michele A. Berdy
TEXT: <i>Dat sdachi</i>: to hit somebody in response, to give it to someone.
 
In Russia parting with your money is easy enough to do. It's another matter, however, to do it correctly in Russian. The first trick is changing your hard currency (<i>valyuta</i>) into rubles. You all know by now that you do not do this with scruffy-looking men who mutter <i>cheindzh</i> (exchange) under their breath in poorly lit archways. They are more likely to give you a <i>kukla</i>, that is, a wad of cut-up newspaper covered by a couple of real bills. 
 Instead, you go to the <i>obmenny punkt</i> (exchange office). There you can say: <i>ya khochu obmenyat/ pomenyat sto dollarov</i>(I'd like to change $100). To keep them from giving you three crisp 1,000 ruble notes, you can add: <i>daite, pozhaluista, tysyachu v melkix kupyurax</i> (please give me a thousand in small bills.) If they've already given you the big bills, you can ask someone: <i>kto mozhet razmenyat tysyachu rublei?</i> (Who can change/break a thousand-ruble bill?). No one will be able to, and you'll spend the next few days cadging off friends because no store, restaurant or service organization will take the large bill. <i>Sdachi net!</i> (I don't have any change!)
 The salesclerk can also protest, <i>melochi net</i> (I don't have any small change). <i>Meloch</i> means &quot;small change&quot;. <i>Melochi</i> are &quot;trifles,&quot; i.e. anything of little value or importance. 
 In restaurants you part with cash by asking for the <i>schyot</i> (bill, check), or saying: <i>poschitaite nam, pozhaluista</i> (could you bring us our bill?). Then you are faced with the eternal question, to tip or not to tip? In Russian, tips are <i>chayeviye</i> or <i>dengi na chai</i>, &quot;tea money&quot; (since giving a couple of kopeks for tea was the way to thank someone for good service in the old days). If you are an American, please don't take out your calculator and figure out the 10-15 percent down to the last decimal point. In Russia this is <i>durnoi ton</i> (bad taste).
 In restaurants and stores, you can also ask: <i>kakaya forma oplaty?</i> (How do you accept payment? How can I pay?) If the waiter says: <i>lyubaya</i> (any way you want) - you should understand this as code for: Even though we are expressly forbidden by law to accept anything but credit cards and rubles, we will happily take your dollars, euros, pounds or other freely convertible currency. But he might add: <i>no sdachu dam v rublyakh</i> (but I'll give you change in rubles). 
 It's extremely helpful to know that <i>dat sdachu</i> means &quot;to give change.&quot; <i>Dat sdachi</i>, on the other hand, means, &quot;to hit somebody in response,&quot; &quot;to give it to someone.&quot; I remember the old days when every cashier had an abacus (<i>schyoty</i>) and a cash register (<i>kassovaya mashina</i>). I never learned how to figure sums on an abacus, so standing in the checkout line was always a bit of theater, watching as the cashier whipped the beads back and forth to figure out the total, which she then rang up on the register before meticulously counting out your 2 rubles and 43 kopeks in change. 
 In today's supermarkets this is all done with machines that read the code. After the cashier glances at the total, she'll usually say: <i>Vy ne naidyote dva rublya i sorok tri kopeiki</i> (Do you have two rubles and 43 kopeks?) While she looks off into the middle distance and the line behind you groans, you turn out your pockets. When you proudly produce the small change, she opens the cash register to reveal piles of every bill and coin Russia has ever minted. So take a tip from the salesclerks and just say - <i>melochi net!</i>
 
 <i>
Michele A. Berdy is a Moscow-based translator and interpreter. </i>

TITLE: U.S. Leads Way in Nobels for Science
AUTHOR: By Karl Ritter
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: STOCKHOLM, Sweden - If the Nobel Prizes are a good indicator, Americans are the world's best doctors, physicists, economists and chemists. They're not as good at writing or making peace, though.
 
Six U.S. citizens were bestowed the top honor in medicine, physics, chemistry and economics this week as the Nobel Prize committees announced the 2003 winners, continuing a trend of American dominance in the science awards.
 The literature prize last week went to J.M. Coetzee of South Africa. The peace prize will be announced Friday in Oslo, Norway.
 Since the first Nobel Prizes were awarded in 1901, 277 of the 661 winners - or 42 percent - have been Americans. Many of the other winners have been researchers at U.S. universities.
 &quot;There's a brutal predominance for the U.S.,&quot; said Jonas Foerare, a spokesman for the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which picks the winners in physics, chemistry and economics. &quot;This shows that the American investments in their university system are very successful.&quot;
 Foerare was speaking from experience. He did post-doctoral work in biology at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.
 The academy on Wednesday awarded the chemistry prize to Americans Peter Agre and Roderick MacKinnon for studies of tiny transportation tunnels in cell walls, work that illuminates diseases of the heart, kidneys and nervous system.
 American Robert F. Engle shared the 2003 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Briton Clive W.J. Granger, the first non-American to win that award since Amartya Sen of India in 1998.
 &quot;We don't take into consideration where people are from. It's just that the best American universities are very good and they attract gifted researchers from the whole world,&quot; said Lars Calmfors, Professor of International Economics at Stockholm University and member of the committee that selects prize winners in economics.
 Calmfors said the Nobel award committees are sometimes criticized by people who believe they should try harder to find laureates outside of the United States.
 &quot;But there isn't a widespread dissatisfaction. Everyone is aware of the situation,&quot; he said. &quot;[Americans] have resources and there are opportunities to pay competent researchers high salaries.&quot;
 Thirty five of the 56 economics winners have been Americans.
 Professor Charles F. Zukoski, vice chancellor for research at the University of Illinois, said this year's awards show his state in particular is a good example of the benefits of investing in academic institutions.
 &quot;Investments made probably 40 years ago built these programs,&quot; Zukoski said. &quot;That created an environment where really creative people can do really creative things. It says the educational institutions in this state are very strong.&quot;
 Alexei Abrikosov, a Russian and American citizen based at the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois; and Anthony Leggett, a British and American citizen based at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, were among three winners of the physics prize.
 Paul Lauterbur, an American at the University of Illinois, was a co-winner of the medicine prize and even Coetzee, the literature laureate, teaches at the University of Chicago.

TITLE: 'Governator' Sure of Smooth Transition
AUTHOR: By Erica Werner
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LOS ANGELES - California Governor-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger said he expects a seamless move into his new office, naming a congressman to head his transition team after fielding calls from U.S. President George W. Bush, Nelson Mandela and other well-wishing luminaries. 
Next comes the hard part: making good on a long list of campaign-trail promises to restore the California dream. Schwarzenegger's plans to attract jobs, revive a troubled economy and erase a massive deficit will have to go through a Legislature controlled by Democrats angered by the recall process some called a hostile takeover. 
 But Schwarzenegger expressed confidence that California lawmakers would get the message voters delivered in Tuesday night's election. 
 &quot;The legislators up there have gotten this message last night, that the people of California want change,&quot; he said. 
 The action hero's first press conference Wednesday, a day after he snatched away Governor Gray Davis' job, yielded few new specifics about how he plans to fix California's ills. 
 He reiterated plans for an independent audit of the state's books before revealing program cuts, pledged to repeal the recent tripling of the car tax, said he'd work with Indian tribes to negotiate more casino revenues and promised again not to raise taxes. 
 More specifics were likely to emerge Thursday, when he was set to hold a joint press conference in Santa Monica with David Dreier, chairman of his transition team, to announce its other members. 
 Schwarzenegger's toughest and first challenge is an $8 billion budget deficit, which will grow by another $4 billion if the car tax hike is repealed. Schwarzenegger also has said he will not cut education spending, and much of California's budget is committed to specific programs by law, leaving the new governor potentially little room to maneuver. 
 &quot;In the very near future, I will be announcing what I will do,&quot; he said. 
 Democrats were quick to offer support. Schwarzenegger spoke Wednesday with Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, state Senate Leader John Burton and state Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson. All promised to work with the new governor, who will be sworn in by mid-November, while urging him to get to work on his programs. 
 As of Wednesday night, the secretary of state reported the recall of Davis was approved 55.4 percent to 44.6 percent, and Schwarzenegger won 48.7 percent of the vote among replacement candidates, while runner-up Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante, a Democrat, got 31.6 percent. 
 Schwarzenegger takes office as the lone Republican officeholder in a state where heavy majorities of the state Senate, Assembly and congressional delegations are Democratic. And while they gave Schwarzenegger a resounding victory, the state's voters lean Democratic, too - 44 percent to 35 percent Republican. 
 Still, more voters supported Schwarzenegger than voted against recalling Davis. It was an outcome Schwarzenegger aides touted as a mandate after weeks of predictions from Democrats that the winner might triumph with a small percentage of the vote. 
 &quot;The fact that he got more votes than Gray Davis puts him in a position of strength,&quot; said Allan Hoffenblum, a GOP consultant. &quot;There's going to be some Democrats up there who are going to want to play ball reasonably with Arnold Schwarzenegger.&quot; 
 Schwarzenegger was not asked during his press conference about the last-minute allegations that he had a history of groping women. In an interview Wednesday, CBS News anchor Dan Rather raised the issue, asking Schwarzenegger how he would react if his wife, Maria Shriver, came to him saying she'd been groped and felt humiliated and afraid. 
 &quot;She has come to me in the past, and said that. So, I mean, I totally understand that. But, let's not forget that I have said that, the past, that I apologize if I offended anyone. And I take those charges seriously,&quot; Schwarzenegger replied.

TITLE: WORLD WATCH
TEXT: <b>Baghdad Bomb
 </b>

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Nine people were killed, including a suicide bomber and three Iraqi police officers, in a car bomb attack on a police station in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood, according to US military police on the scene.
 "Nine people were killed in the attack, including three policemen, five civilians and the suicide bomber," said Captain Sean Kirley, a US Military Police spokesman.
 Also Thursday, Spanish intelligence officer posted to Baghdad was murdered as he left his home in the Iraqi capital. The dead man was Jose Antonio Bernal Gomez, a military attache and intelligence official, the foreign ministry said.
 
 
<b>Afghan Standoff
 </b>

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Hundreds of rival militiamen with tanks and artillery faced off against each other Thursday along a narrow front line in northern Afghanistan, a commander said, as the government scrambled to stop what it described as the worst fighting in months.
 Clashes broke out Wednesday about 50 kilometers west of Mazar-e-Sharif. One warring side said the death toll was 60 while the other said it was much lower.
 The United Nations said it did not know the exact toll but said there were "high numbers of casualties."
 
 
<b>Indonesia Pile-Up
 </b>

JAKARTA (AFP) - At least 54 people, mostly high-school girls, were killed when a three-vehicle pile-up burst into flames in what police said was one of Indonesia's worst road traffic accidents this year.
 Forty nine girls from a school near the town of Yogyakarta, 450 kilometers east of Jakarta, died on Wednesday when their bus was crushed between two vehicles, local police spokesman Brigadier Supoyo said.
 The accident took place around 7:30 p.m. Wednesday when the bus, returning the students from a field trip on the resort island of Bali was hit by an oncoming truck then rammed from behind by another vehicle, Supoyo said.
 
 
 



TITLE: Dallas Thumps Anaheim in NHL Opener
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: DALLAS - The Dallas Stars beat Jean-Sebastien Giguere with their second and third shots. By then, they'd already been in two fights with the Anaheim Mighty Ducks. 
 
Equal parts payback for the way last season ended and starting the new season in style, the Stars rode their early burst to a 4-1 victory in the opener Wednesday night. 
 Sergei Zubov and Stu Barnes scored 30 seconds apart to get Dallas going, then Zubov made a superb play to set up Barnes for another goal. Bill Guerin added the finale on a breakaway midway through the third period. 
 &quot;What a great way to start the season,&quot; Stars coach Dave Tippett said. &quot;There was a lot of pent-up frustration. Our guys answered the physical challenge, we were able to score a couple of goals off Giguere and we were off and running.&quot; 
 Dallas' emotions seemed to come out early as Guerin and Anaheim's Todd Simpson mixed it up just 20 seconds in, then John Erskine of the Stars and Garrett Burnett of the Ducks rolled on the ice before the game was even two minutes old. 
 While the four of them were sitting out five-minute penalties, Zubov smashed a long, straight-on sizzler on a power play just 2:27 into the game, then a half-minute later Barnes flicked in a shot from the left circle that Giguere should've seen. 
 &quot;They outworked us in the beginning and we can't be satisfied with that,&quot; said Giguere, who finished with 18 saves. &quot;Personally, I'm unhappy with the way I showed up tonight. I felt like I was slack out there. There's no excuses.&quot; 
 Stars goaltender Marty Turco made 20 saves and looked comfortable despite a limited preseason after a holdout that ended with him signing a $12 million, three-year deal. He's coming off a debut season as the full-time starter in which he set a modern-day record for goals-against average. 
 &quot;It was a fun game,&quot; he said. &quot;We were energetic to start off, and we kept it going for 60 minutes.&quot; 
 Rob Niedermayer got Anaheim within 2-1 late in the first with a power-play goal on a perfect give-and-go with Joffrey Lupul, the seventh overall pick of the 2002 draft who was making his NHL debut. 
 Mike Modano, Dallas' new captain, assisted on Zubov's goal. He now has 44 assists and 63 points against Anaheim, the most by a Mighty Ducks opponent in both categories. 
 Modano's linemate Jere Lehtinen, who last season was named the league's top defensive forward for a third time, left in the second period because of a shoulder injury. He was hurt in a first-period collision with Anaheim's Jason Krog. Tippett said it wasn't a serious problem.
 <strong>
Boston 3, New Jersey 3.</strong> Jeff Jillson scored twice in his Bruins debut, the second to tie the game with 3:58 left in regulation on Wednesday night as Boston opened the season with a 3-3 tie against the Stanley Cup champion New Jersey Devils. 
 
&quot;Every year, they're up there and battling for the Stanley Cup,&quot; said Bruins goalie Felix Potvin, who stopped 32 shots in his Boston debut. &quot;I think we held our own against those guys.&quot; 
 With many in the crowd following the AL playoff game between the Yankees and Red Sox in New York, the Bruins rallied from a 2-0 deficit in the second period only to fall behind on Scott Niedermayer's second goal of the game. 
 But Jillson tied it when he faked out a defenseman in front of the left circle and wristed a shot past goaltender Martin Brodeur. Joe Thornton also scored for the Bruins, who got new coach Mike Sullivan a point in his debut as an NHL head coach. 
 Brian Rafalski had two assists, and Jeff Friesen also scored for the Devils. Brodeur stopped 28 shots for New Jersey, which beat Boston in the first round of the playoffs 4-1 on its way to the title. 
 &quot;It's been a long training camp,&quot; Brodeur said. &quot;But we're all looking forward to the challenge of defending the Cup.&quot; 
 Niedermayer's second goal was the 100th of his career. The defenseman also cleared the puck off the goal line with just over two minutes left in overtime. 
 The first period was scoreless, then New Jersey took a 2-0 lead on a pair of power-play goals. 
 The Devils made it 1-0 just 42 seconds into the second period when Niedermayer stickhandled through the defense and slipped the puck under Potvin's pads. Friesen made it 2-0 at 12:40 of the second when he knocked in his own rebound. 
 The Bruins pulled within one at 14:31 of the second when Jillson's slap shot went off Brodeur's left shoulder and trickled into the net. Thornton tied it with 15.2 seconds left in the period, coming from behind the net and stuffing the puck through Brodeur's legs. 
 With 1:02 left in regulation, Jamie Langenbrunner's shot bounced off the goal post and behind Potvin, but it went across the crease and off to the side.
 
 <strong>
Chicago 1, Minnesota 0.</strong> Jocelyn Thibault stopped 33 shots and helped his teammates snuff all seven Minnesota power plays to lead the Blackhawks to a 1-0 victory Wednesday night in the season opener for both teams. 
 
Chicago's tight play and Thibault's sharp work allowed an early second-period goal by Tyler Arnason to stand up. 
 &quot;Our penalty killers were good - they had to be,&quot; Chicago coach Brian Sutter said. &quot;We played a good team tonight and had to earn it, and Joce was solid.&quot; 
 Chicago had three power-play opportunities, two in the first period. One of those chances lasted only eight seconds. 
 &quot;We knew what to expect from Minnesota,&quot; Thibault said. &quot;I don't want to say it was a defensive battle, but there wasn't a lot of open ice out there.&quot;
 Minnesota's Dwayne Roloson stopped 21 shots.

TITLE: Boston Swoops in, BeatsYanks
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW YORK - Tim Wakefield left the New York Yankees cursing his knuckleball, while David Ortiz, Todd Walker and Manny Ramirez left them marveling at their power. 
 
For all the &quot;Star Wars&quot; imagery and talk of good versus evil, Game 1 of the American League championship series was decided by Wakefield's darting knuckler and Boston's overpowering bats. 
 &quot;Our offense came through. It's unbelievable,&quot; Wakefield said Wednesday night after the Red Sox put aside fatigue and opened with a 5-2 victory. 
 Ortiz started Boston off with a two-run homer in the fourth inning, and Walker and Ramirez added solo shots in the fifth off a shaky Mike Mussina. 
 Wakefield befuddled New York's batters, taking a five-run lead into the seventh before he got wild and three relievers from Boston's beleaguered bullpen completed the three-hitter. 
 &quot;He had a good one,&quot; Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter said. &quot;Nobody knew where it was going.&quot; 
 All the chants and signs reminding Boston of its 85-year title drought only seemed to spur on the Red Sox against their old rivals, who have dominated their Northeast neighbors for decades. 
 After traveling from Boston to Oakland on Sunday night, then winning Game 5 on Monday night and flying back across the country, the Red Sox seemed bleary-eyed when they arrived at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday. But when it came time to play, they had the energy and emotion, not New York, which had been off since winning its first-round series at Minnesota on Sunday. 
 Wakefield, who retired 14 straight batters starting in the second, said he was going on adrenaline. 
 &quot;I told all my friends don't call me because I'm going to be sleeping in,&quot; he said. 
 Ever since December, when Boston president Larry Lucchino called the Yankees the &quot;Evil Empire,&quot; the Red Sox have played off imagery from &quot;Star Wars,&quot; painting themselves as white knights trying to knock off the 26-time World Series champions. 
 Following their stunning comeback from a 2-0 deficit against the Athletics, Lucchino even predicted the Red Sox, who haven't won the Series since trading Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1920 - supposedly bringing on The Curse - would have The Force on their side. 
 Yankees fans kept reminding the Red Sox of their title drought, taunting them by screaming &quot;1918,&quot; but it just seemed to fuel the Red Sox, who showed force at the plate and rapped out 13 hits, including four by Ramirez, who grew up close to Yankee Stadium. 
 Mussina, pitching on seven days' rest since losing the first-round opener against Minnesota, wasn't sharp at all, allowing three homers in a game for only the second time this year - and for the first time in 13 postseason starts. He dropped to 4-4 in postseason play. 
 &quot;When they get a good pitch, they hit it hard,&quot; Mussina said. &quot;They have a lot of guys who hit .320.&quot; 
 While Mussina didn't allow any runs in the second inning, he labored, going to 2-0 counts on four batters, including 3-0 on three. He said plate umpire Tim McClelland squeezed him. 
 &quot;I thought the strike zone was small tonight,&quot; Mussina said, &quot;I just thought it was a struggle throwing strikes.&quot;
 Boston finally broke through in the fourth. Ramirez reached on a one-hopper to right side that Mussina just managed to deflect - similar to Cristian Guzman's infield hit that led to Minnesota's key rally in his previous start. 
 Ortiz, who had been 0-for-20 against Mussina, fell behind 0-2, worked the count full and then homered into the front of the right-field upper deck. 
 Walker made it 3-0 when he led off the fifth with a drive high off the foul pole in right field. While right-field umpire Angel Hernandez signaled it was foul, he was immediately overruled by McClelland - also behind the plate 20 years ago when he took a home run away from George Brett, a call later reversed by AL president Lee MacPhail.