SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #913 (81), Friday, October 24, 2003
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TITLE: Draft Budget Passes Despite Heavy Criticism
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: After heavily criticizing the draft city budget for 2004 from the podium of the Legislative Assembly, lawmakers passed it in the first reading Wednesday with 41 votes for, one against and one abstention.
The draft estimates 83.9 billion rubles ($2.8 billion) of expenditures and 80.2 billion rubles ($2.6 billion) of revenues, which is 8.8 percent and 6 percent more than for this year, respectively.
A deficit, which is estimated at 3.7 billion rubles ($200 million), was put in the budget to keep capital expenditures at a level of 23 percent of the whole budget, or 19 billion rubles ($632 million), Governor Valentina Matviyenko said when lobbying for the draft at the Legislative Assembly session.
"While looking into questions of [budget] 2004 we kept paying close attention to the city and the development of its infrastructure in order to pursue the goal of raising the standard of living for our citizens," Matviyenko said.
Lawmakers passed the first reading of the budget on the condition that City Hall raises its revenues by a couple of billion rubles. Deputies say this is necessary because otherwise, with inflation forecast to be 10 percent next year, real spending would be lower than this year.
"The former city government threw us a dead pig that is not able to solve anything," said Sergei Andreyev, a United Russia member of the Legislative Assembly lawmaker during the budget debate.
"Some people say this is a socially oriented budget," Andreyev added. "How can that be with just 9 billion rubles allocated to welfare? That's about 100 rubles per person per year. There is 30-percent increase of a number of breakdowns of municipal housing services. Whether we like it of not, an additional 10 billion rubles has to be found.
"If not, by the end of this year you'll have real problems here, Valentina Ivanovna, including from us," Andreyev added.
However, Matviyenko said the budget is welfare oriented when a 22-billion ruble increase in the salaries of people on City Hall's payrolls is taken into account that will bring them up to the official minimum city wage, estimated to be 3,100 rubles.
The city education system is to get 11.3 billion rubles ($376 million), social policy 1.3 billion rubles, culture 1.5 billion rubles, and health and sports 3.8 billion rubles.
Dmitry Burenin, head of the St. Petersburg Audit Chamber said the proposed health expenditures are far too low. St. Petersburg hospitals can only afford 12 percent of what they need in terms of supplies such as bandages, he said.
Mikhail Amosov, head of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly said the draft budget is much less transparent than in previous years, which could lead to more corruption within City Hall.
"One item says spending is to be determined by City Hall." he said. "It is about payments parents have to transfer to pay for their children's kindergarten, the same goes for communal services payments. There is also no account taken of works to be financed from the territorial road fund."
Expenditure on municipal housing is to fall from 11 billion rubles this year to 7.4 billion rubles in 2004. At the same time, expenditures on servicing City Hall are to grow 35 percent, almost double the growth in spending on servicing the Legislative Assembly, he said.
He and other lawmakers offered to set up a conciliatory commission that will amend the budget.
Matviyenko said such a commission would be set up to allocate additional funding of at least 1.5 billion rubles before the second reading of the budget that is scheduled to take place in November. As for the items Amosov mentioned, Matviyenko said some would be clarified, but in general City Hall has to have the ability to act quickly in emergencies
"It is guaranteed that we will find an additional 1.5 billion rubles," Matviyenko said. "But to get more would require legislative changes and we would have to look carefully at what could be passed to the Legislative Assembly [to vote on]. This can happen no earlier than April," Matviyenko said.
Matviyenko has said the city budget should be 170 billion rubles ($5.6 billion) to fulfill city needs at the level Moscow does. It is possible to achieve that figure in the next two years, she said.
"Some lawmakers want to include potential revenues in the 2004 draft right now," she added. "But experience shows that when any project is in process underwater reefs appear that are invisible from a distance."
"I read recently that the governor of the Moscow region succeeded in increasing the local budget from 19 billion rubles to 85 billion rubles in just a few years," said Igor Artemyev, the Legislative Assembly Yabloko faction member at his speech on the budget Wednesday. "I hope you can increase the city budget two, three or maybe even four times."
The City Audit Chamber's Burenin proposed that Matviyenko sell loss-making municipal companies and land plots, which, he said would provide up to 5 billion rubles of additional revenues. He also suggested raising rentals for municipal real estate. All these questions, Burenin said, are going to be on the agenda of a joint City Hall, Legislative Assembly and Audit Chamber commission.
Burenin's measures look as if they are a one-time opportunity, said Felix Ejgel, an associate at rating agency Standard & Poor's.
As for plans to increase annual budget revenues to 170 billion rubles, it is unclear how this can be achieved, he said.
"There is a reform of inter-budgetary relations between administrative regions and the federal government. Tax legislation is changing, so today there could be one amount of revenues and another tomorrow." Ejgel said Thursday.
TITLE: Tikhvin Virgin To Return to Russia Next Summer
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: One of the most important Russian Orthodox icons, the Virgin of Tikhvin, is to be returned to Russia from the United States next summer.
"I hope the return of the icon will become an unforgettable event for Russia's Orthodox people," Interfax quoted Father Yevfimy, a senior priest at the Tikhvin Assumption Monastery, located 218 kilometers east of St. Petersburg and to where the icon will be returned, as saying at a news conference Tuesday.
In spring of 2003, the U.S. Orthodox church made a landmark decision to return the icon, taken from Russia during the Second World War, back to Russia by June 26, the day of national celebration of the icon.
The icon is to be taken on a special flight from Chicago to Moscow, from where "it will come back to the town of Tikhvin through the cities of Yaroslavl, Vologda, and St. Petersburg," Father Yevfimy said.
Sergei Garklavs, church assistant of the American Autocephalous Church in Chicago, is in charge of the icon and will accompany it on its journey.
According to legend, the Tikhvin Virgin was painted by the Apostle Luke, whose icons are considered the most valuable. It is one of very few icons believers consider capable of performing miracles.
But in 1383, 70 years before the fall of the Byzantine Empire, the icon miraculously disappeared from Constantinopole. The legend states that angels carried it through the sky and it suddenly appeared over the waters of Lake Ladoga, not far from the Valaam Islands in today's Leningrad Oblast.
The Tikhvin icon was one of the most worshipped Russian Orthodox icons along with the icons of the Virgins of Vladimir, Smolensk, Iversk and Kazan. It was considered a defender of Russia's northwest border.
Its reputed miracles are numerous and include healing the sick, and helping to get rid of troubles.
On several occasions in the 14th century the icon is said to have transported itself around the Tikhvin area, hanging in the air and attracting many believers to pray in front of it. Churches were later built at the places where it was said to have appeared.
On July 9, 1383 the icon is said to have appeared above the River Tikhvinka. Many people and priests went there to see it and to pray. As they prayed the icon descended into the hands of the priests. Since people thought it was a sign from the Virgin Mary that she wanted to have the icon kept at that place, they started builiding the church there.
However, the next day the icon was found on the other side of the river, and this became what would have been the final resting place for the icon and is today the site of the Tikhvin Virgin Assumption church.
The monastery played a key role in developing the spot into a city because many traders and craftsmen were attracted to it by the miraculous icon.
The icon was so famous that in 1547 Tsar Ivan the Terrible came to pay his respects to the sacred object, and in 1560 he gave permission for the construction of the Tikhvin Assumption monastery.
During World War II, Tikhvin was occupied by German troops for a month. The icon was found in the Assumption Cathedral, where services had ceased under Communist rule, and was taken to Pskov. In 1944, monks took the icon to Riga.
They gave the icon to Bishop John Garklavs, who headed the diocese at that time. After the war John fled the return of the Soviets and went to the United States, taking the icon with him. Later he received the title of Archbishop.
Archbishop John adopted Sergei Garklavs, who is now aged 75, and asked him in his will to return the icon to the Tikhvin monastery if it reopened.
The monastery has been revived, so the icon is to come back. In the monastery it is to be placed in a specially reinforced case, and it will be protected by guards.
"The return of the Tikhvin Virgin icon will be a very big event for the Russian Orthodox church and its believers," said Gennady Bartov, spokesman for the St. Petersburg Diocese Board.
Father Serafim, representative of Russian Orthodox Church in New York, said in a telephone intervew from the United States that the Russian Orthodox Church Overseas applauded the decision of taking the icon back to Russia.
"The main purpose of Russian immigration here is not just to keep the language, culture and belief but also to take part in the revival of church and belief in Russia, and do what we can," Father Serafim said.
Before the icon leaves for Russia, it will visit various Orthodox cathedrals in the United States.
TITLE: Probe of Yukos Hits Yabloko
AUTHOR: By Catherine Belton and Alex Nicholson
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The relentless tax investigation into Yukos veered openly into politics for the first time Thursday as prosecutors raided a public relations agency hired by the Yukos-funded liberal Yabloko party, detaining two of the party's deputies and confiscating $700,000 in cash and five computer servers containing campaign information.
Some 20 investigators from the Prosecutor General's Office and the Federal Security Service spent more than eight hours combing through the offices of the Agency for Strategic Communications, the firm Yabloko has hired to advise it on the upcoming State Duma elections.
The deputy director of ASC, Yuna Rappoport, said prosecutors confiscated five computer servers containing programs and information vital for the party's Duma campaign, as well as reams of documents and the cash.
"This without a doubt is going to hit the Yabloko campaign hard. We can't do anything for the campaign without those servers. The entire office is paralyzed," she said in a telephone interview after the raid had ended.
A spokesman for the prosecutor's office denied the raid was political, saying, "Investigations are being conducted as part of the criminal cases of theft and tax evasion by a number of firms controlled by the Yukos oil company."
Earlier in the day prosecutors said they were interested in a database they believed was kept at ASC's offices that could contain financial information on Yukos-affiliated companies.
But political analysts said Thursday's developments appeared to take the Yukos affair to a whole new level.
"This is a principle turning point in the campaign against Yukos," said Nikolai Petrov, head of the Center for Political and Geographical Research.
"This is a whole new dimension. Prosecutors are moving from business and are going directly to the Duma election campaign and Yabloko's financing and political strategy," he said.
Yukos chief Mikhail Khodorkovsky has openly said he is funding Yabloko, as well as the Union of Right Forces. Three Yukos representatives - Konstantin Kagalovsky, a Yukos shareholder; Galina Antonova, head of strategic planning at Yukos; and Alexander Osovtsov, project director of Yukos' Open Russia charity - are running on the Yabloko party list. Another senior Yukos shareholder, Sergei Muravlenko, is reported to be funding the Communist Party. He is also running on the Communist list.
Analysts have said the onslaught against Yukos appears to partly be an attempt to rein in Khodorkovsky's mounting political ambitions and a reaction to his funding of opposition parties ahead of the election campaign.
The attack on Yukos began when core company shareholder Platon Lebedev was arrested on charges of theft of state property in a 1994 privatization deal. The accusations have since mounted to include charges of murder, attempted murder and tax evasion. Another Yukos shareholder, Vasily Shakhnovsky, was charged with tax evasion last week, and prosecutors have said they expect to bring charges against other senior Yukos managers soon.
Analysts were split on what the exact target of the prosecutors's raid was on Thursday. " It's difficult to say what the aim is: Yukos or political projects connected to it," Petrov said.
Independent political analyst Andrei Piontkovsky speculated the attack seemed to be a signal from the Kremlin that it did not want to see Yabloko in the next Duma.
"Today's events lead one to the conclusion that the presidential administration has decided that in their regime of 'managed democracy' they would prefer to see the Union of Right Forces representing the right wing in the Duma and not Yabloko," Piontkovsky said.
He said a move by Unified Energy Systems chief Anatoly Chubais to openly run in the Union of Right Force's top troika of candidates could have only have come with the Kremlin's blessing. He said Chubais' decision since then to call for the creation of a "liberal empire" out of the former Soviet Union republics could well have earned him more brownie points with the Kremlin.
"This seems to be a signal of the clear preference of the administration, that it is better to have liberal imperialists than a party that criticizes the powers that be," he said. "This raid could be used to mount a campaign to discredit Yabloko and show it is in the pocket of the oligarchs."
A spokeswoman for the prosecutors denied, however, that law enforcers were pursuing a political agenda. "If there is campaign information on the servers, prosecutors aren't interested. This has nothing to do with the election campaign," she said.
But whatever the target of Thursday's raids, Yabloko deputies were sure that prosecutors' heavy-handed tactics would deal a heavy blow to their election campaign.
Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky condemned the raids as "a serious violation of the law."
"As soon as the search began, the Prosecutor General's Office was warned that the documents being confiscated were the property of the Yabloko party and their confiscation hinders the election campaign. The warning was ignored," he said in a statement carried by Interfax. "Yabloko believes these events are a serious violation of the law and require an explanation."
Yabloko Deputy Sergei Mitrokhin said the raid was "a huge blow" to the party's campaign. Mitrokhin and Yabloko Deputy Alexei Melnikov were detained soon after they arrived at ASC's office at around 1 p.m. Thursday by law enforcers who, Mitrokhin said, first would not let them enter the building but then, after relenting, would not let them leave until the raid was over, some time after 6 p.m.
"There wasn't any financial information on the servers they confiscated," he said when contacted on his cellphone after the raid. "There was only data for the party's campaign."
He earlier told Interfax that the detention by law enforcers was in violation of laws granting deputies legal immunity. He said the detention was "unprecedented" in Russian history.
Stanislav Belkovsky, the head of Center for National Strategy said, however, that Yabloko had not been the target in the raid.
Belkovsky is seen as the man who helped launch the onslaught against Yukos by publishing a report earlier this summer that accused Yukos of mounting "a creeping coup" and of seeking to gain control over the Duma in this year's elections.
He said prosecutors were seeking information that would link Yukos to making payments via ASC to Kremlin officials in return for their support in lobbying the company's interests to Putin. He said they also were looking for evidence that Yukos might have used ASC to conduct an anti-Putin PR campaign in the United States during the president's recent visit there.
"I can't say this for certain. I'm not in court. ... But it is widely known in political circles that Yukos used the company [ASC] for these purposes," Belkovsky said.
ASC denied engaging in any such activities. "We have no relation to Yukos apart from the fact that Yukos has given funding to Yabloko and we have helped Yabloko in its campaign," Rappoport said. "Belkovsky says a lot of interesting things. I don't even want to comment on what he says."
Yukos spokesman Alexander Shadrin said Belkovsky's comments were "absolute rubbish."
He denied that Yukos had any connection with the agency.
Shadrin added that a list of Yukos-affiliated companies could be found on the oil company's web site. "They could look for this information with the same degree of success in a zoo, circus or lunatic asylum," he said.
Earlier Thursday, before news broke of the raid, Khodorkovsky reiterated that he believed the prosecutors' actions were politically motivated.
"Without a doubt there is a political, or to put it more cautiously, an orchestrated aspect to the actions of the law enforcement bodies," he said during a visit to Saratov, Interfax reported.
"We are all familiar with the methods of prosecutors when they are really investigating serious crimes. And we all know their methods when they try to humiliate and show people their place, which is what's happening now," he said.
TITLE: 2 Vice Governors Seem Already Decided
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: While the Legislative Assembly has delayed the naming of some members of Governor Valentina Matviyenko's new government as two more readings of a law on forming the city government are passed, at least two names of likely candidates to fill the seven vacant vice governor's positions in City have become public.
Matviyenko appeared at the Legislative Assembly on Wednesday with Mikhail Oseyevski, the first deputy director of Promstroibank. He was introduced as an adviser to the governor, but is seen as the likely head of her economic and finance committee.
Quoting anonymous sources in the Legislative Assembly and bank Bankisky Dom Sankt-Peterburg, Vedomosti said Thursday that Oseyevski met members of the assembly's industrial commission recently and gave them his views on how to develop the city's industry.
"He was not speaking as an official, but his appearance was taken as a sign that he is likely to head City Hall's financial arm," newspaper Vedomosti quoted an unnamed source as saying Thursday.
Vedomosti said that taking into account that Bankirsky Dom Sankt-Peterburg is gaining more and more influence with Matviyenko it is likely the bank will get the prize job of servicing City Hall's accounts.
"I have made my choice but I believe it is premature to announce it until the law comes into force," Matviyenko said at a briefing Wednesday.
Friday last week Matviyenko also said she would keep vice governor Alexander Vakhmistrov, to head the Construction Committee. He has led the committee since May 2000, soon after former Governor Vladimir Yakovlev was elected for a second term.
"Alexander Vakhmistrov is a very good professional. [He understands that] many things should be changed in this area and we share this point of view," Interfax quoted Matviyenko as saying Saturday.
The new governor is also quite happy about the architecture committee's activity, but said red tape should be reduced "because it is hindering investments in the city."
Matviyenko also said some changes could be expected in the structure of the road construction committee.
Vice governors can only be approved after the Legislative Assembly passes the law on principals to form the local government, which is expected to be passed in the third and final reading by the end of October.
Mikhail Brodsky, the former Legislative Assembly lawmaker of the Union of Right Forces faction was appointed as City Hall representative at the city parliament last week.
Alla Manilova, former Nevskoye Vremya editor was appointed to head the City Hall Media Committee last Friday.
TITLE: Airbase To Aid Security
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan - While warplanes looped in the clear skies above, President Vladimir Putin on Thursday opened a Russian military air base and praised the event as a move aimed at strengthening security in the volatile Central Asian region.
"By creating an air shield here in Kyrgyzstan, we intend to strengthen security in the region, whose stability has became a tangible factor affecting the development of the international situation," Putin said at the opening of Russia's first military base in former Soviet Central Asia since the 1991 Soviet collapse.
"We believe it will create a good basis for cooperation and will be a factor for deterring terrorists," Putin said.
Secular governments in Central Asia have been struggling in recent years with radical Islamic groups inspired by the proximity of Afghanistan. The new base, however, is widely seen as Russia's response to the U.S. military presence in the region. Since December 2001, Kyrgyzstan has hosted hundreds of U.S.-led anti-terror coalition troops that support operations in Afghanistan.
The Kant air base was established under the Collective Security Treaty signed by Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan - a detail that Putin and his host, Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev, underscored.
Both men said they did not see the nearby coalition base as a U.S. base.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: More Radicals in City
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - St. Petersburg law enforcement bodies are concerned about the growth in the number of young people belonging to informal extreme organizations, Interfax reported Wednesday.
Five nationalistic groups, including Solnevorot and Blood and Honor, are active in the region, Anatoly Agoshkov, head of the public security arm of the city and Leningrad Oblast police, was cited as saying.
With those associated with these groups there are a total of some 10,000 young people involved in nationalist groups and about 7,500 who take part in sinister role-playing, but only about 5,000 could be considered dangerous skinheads, he added.
A significant danger is that these groups will draw others into crime. Agoshkov said, adding that 560 members of informal groups, including 109 skinheads, had been guilty of underage crimes in the first nine months of this year, the report said.
Vilnius Eyes Smuggling
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Lithuania's Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas on Thursday demanded that urgent steps be taken to introduce order on the border with the Kaliningrad region, Interfax reported.
"Huge quantities of different types of contraband goods are moving across the Lithuanian-Kaliningrad state border and customs officers are taking part in the smuggling," the news agency quoted Brazauskas as saying.
"It is not unusual for officers themselves to initiate and organize smuggling," he added.
Next year the border will be the outer limit of the European Union.
$88,000 Payroll Heist
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - A car carrying the payrolls for two factories in the Kaliningrad region was robbed of 2.65 million rubles ($88,000) on Monday, Interfax reported.
Unidentified armed robbers dressed as police stopped the car on the highway between Kalningrad and Polessk and threatened the paymaster of the Polessk fish canning plant and the Polessk meatworks. The police have opened a criminal case.
Topless Women Protest
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Nineteen woman stripped to the waist, and some of them wearing only panties, protested outside the Pskovenergo building in Pskov on Tuesday, Interfax reported.
The Pskov Citizens organized the protest under the slogan "Gentlemen, you are stripping us" with the intention of drawing the attention of the public and the administration to city oil product monopoly Pskovnefteprodukt's willful price hikes, the report said.
Law enforcement officers took no action on the protest, which was authorized. A similar protest took place at the Pskovnefteprodukt building in which 11 people took part.
The temperature was minus 2 to minus 4 degrees Celsius.
Explosives on Train
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Two and a half kilograms of nitroglycerine was found in the luggage of a passenger traveling from St. Petersburg to Kaliningrad on Tuesday after a thorough search, Interfax reported.
The train was at Gudogai on the Belarussian border when the explosive was found among the possessions of Olge Veselovsky, the reported citing the Russian Railroad Corp. press service.
Veselovsky was detained and the train continued on its way, the report said.
Delta Bank Expansion
MOSCOW (SPT) - Delta Bank will open a branch in St. Petersburg, the bank's president Alexander Grigoriev said at a press conference Thursday, Interfax reported.
The bank has had an office in St. Petersburg since July.
Delta Bank is 100-percent owned by the U.S.-Russia Investment Fund, which also owns Delta Capital mortgage bank.
Delta Bank ranked 380th in terms of assets in the Interfax Economic Analysis Center report.
Electricity Rate Cut?
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Lenenergo general director Andrei Likhachyov announced at a press conference Thursday that electricity rates could go down 20 percent after Nov. 1, Interfax reported.
The rate reduction would benefit average consumers and would result from the company purchasing electricity on the open market, rather than from FOREM, the federal wholesale electric power market where it gets half of the electricity it retails.
Likhachyov cited a draft instruction from UES CEO Anatoly Chubais containing the plan to cut rates for four power companies in which UES holds shares. The instruction has not been made public.
Ideal Investment
MOSCOW (SPT) - St. Petersburg's Ideal Cup cafe chain will invest about $1 million in development by the end of 2004, a press release announced Thursday.
Ideal Cup plans to open five cafes in Moscow and three in St. Petersburg. The first Moscow cafe costing $60,000 will open Oct. 25 at the Mega shopping mall in Moscow's Tyoply Stan neighborhood.
Ideal Cup will be the first chain to operate cafes in both Moscow and St. Petersburg. The company also plans to expand outside the capital cities, to the Volga, Ural and Siberian regions.
The St. Petersburg cafes brought revenues of $3.3 million in 2002.
Novgorod Sawmill
NOVGOROD (SPT) - The Novgorod Timber company and Finnish UPM Kymmene will invest 43 million euros in opening a new sawmill in Novgorod in early 2004, Interfax reported Thursday.
The Pestovo Novo sawmill will produce 300,000 cubic meters of sawed goods per year, mostly for export.
The mill will occupy 30,000 square meters of space and employ 150 people.
Construction began in April 2003 with St. Petersburg's YuIT-Lentek as general contractor.
In addition to the Pestovo Novo mill UPM Kymmene owns mills in Chudovo, Novgorod Oblast, that produce plywood and thin veneer.
New Chip Transformer
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - A Swiss company and a team of experts under the guidance of Ekkehard D. Hans developed a multi-layer chip transformer using an investment of about $ 2 million made 5 years ago in San Diego, CA, the inventors reported.
The basis of the new electronic component is similar to the manufacturing process of ceramic multi-layer chip capacitors.
The new patented multi-layer chip transformer eliminates the need for copper-coiled or circuit-board printed chips used in electronics and will aid the drive for miniaturization in electronics.
The components are up to 80 percent smaller in size and about 70 percent to 80 percent cheaper to produce.
VW Awaits Decision
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - Volkswagen AG, Europe's No. 1 carmaker, expects a Russian government decision on the conditions for opening a car factory in the country, the Financial Times reported Thursday, without citing anyone.
Volkswagen wants to make cars from imported kits in Russia, the paper said. Volkswagen will only invest if Russia lifts restrictions on imports of parts after three years, the paper said. Detlef Wittig, head of sales for the VW brand, told the paper that the investment would be "in the double-digit million euros." He said the import restrictions should be removed, the paper said.
$500M Steel Upgrade
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - Severstal, the nation's No. 2 steelmaker, will invest $500 million in 2003 and 2004 to upgrade its mills.
The company plans to invest $280 million next year to build a new unit to provide plastic insulation to protect the company's metal from corrosion, Severstal said in a statement. The facility will produce 200,000 tons per year of insulation.
Reserves Hit $63.8Bln
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - Russia's foreign currency and gold reserves grew to $63.8 billion on Oct. 17, the Central Bank said in a statement Thursday.
The reserves expanded by $300 million in the week to Oct. 17, after rising $1.1 billion in the previous week, the Central Bank said. The reserves rose to a record $64.9 billion on June 20. Foreign currency and gold reserves indicate the country's ability to pay its foreign debts, which is important for investors holding billions of dollars of the country's bonds.
NIKoil Seeks $100M
MOSCOW (Reuters) - One of Russia's largest banks, investment bank NIKoil, said Thursday that it planned to issue at least $100 million in debt paper in November through ABN-Amro and Deutsche Bank.
"We shall soon issue eurobonds, with a volume of least $100 million. Under our current plans the placement is in November," NIKoil financial corporation president Nikolai Tsvetkov told reporters. NIKoil investment bank is the core bank of the NIKoil financial corporation.
U.S. Farm Credits
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Agriculture Department said Monday that it had agreed to provide $390 million in farm export credits to China and $152 million to Russia.
The USDA also said it authorized $735 million in U.S. export credits to South America.
The USDA offers export credits to facilitate sales by assuring lenders that they will get their money back even if the borrower defaults.
Gazprom Output Hike
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - Gazprom plans to increase production by 2 percent next year as it pumps more fuel from its new Siberian field.
Gas production will rise by between 10 billion and 11 billion cubic meters, the gas company said Tuesday. Gazprom on Sept. 5 said it expects to pump 540 bcm of gas this year, exceeding its initial forecast for 532 bcm.
Moscow-based Gazprom supplies about a quarter of the gas consumed in Western Europe. It plans to boost exports next year to Europe and to former Soviet states.
TITLE: Time Has Yet to Heal 'Nord Ost' Wounds
AUTHOR: By Oksana Yablokova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Dutch citizen Natalya Zhirova arrived from Amsterdam last October with her husband, Oleg, and 14-year-old son, Dima. Wanting to familiarize her son with his heritage, Zhirova took him one year ago Thursday to watch "Nord Ost," a musical based on her favorite childhood book.
Zhirova, 39, was the first victim to be identified after special services pumped a knockout gas into the air ducts of the Dubrovka theater and stormed it three days later, ending a standoff with 41 Chechen rebels who had seized the theater and the 800 people inside. A total of 129 hostages died, including eight foreigners from outside the Commonwealth of Independent States.
"Every time my wife called me, she said they feared a storming most of all - and her worst expectations came true," said Zhirov, who maintained contact with his wife by cellphone during the Oct. 23-26 ordeal.
Zhirov, 39, returned to Moscow this week to commemorate the first anniversary of his wife's death and attend a "Nord Ost" court hearing. On Thursday, a memorial ceremony will be held outside the Dubrovka theater and a special plaque will be unveiled.
Zhirov, like many of those directly affected by the crisis, said his pain remains as real today as it was a year ago.
"The pain of the loss has not lessened over the year. It's still there where it was, but the anger at the injustice of what has happened has grown bigger," he said.
Zhirov's son survived but fought for his life for 10 days in intensive care.
Zhirov and scores of others have gone to court seeking compensation for what many Russian officials have described as a skillfully organized storming of the theater.
Some, however, just want to find out the actual cause of death of their loved ones, while others are doing everything possible to put the horror of those October days behind them.
Tatyana Frolova, who lost her 13-year-old daughter Dasha in the raid, said she only wants to find out how she died - whether it was the mystery gas pumped into the theater or some other cause.
"I am not seeking any compensation. I just want to know the truth and want to make sure that somebody is held responsible," Frolova said.
"You are asking me how I am getting along, and I would have to say: bad. But I don't want to put my pain on display," she said.
Natalya Salina, a 19-year-old former hostage, said she feels like she will never be able to forget what happened.
"We were in the hall adjacent to the main one, putting on our shoes - you know, they are loud. They heard us and made us join the others in the main hall," Salina said.
She considers herself fortunate as none of those in her Irish dance group Iridan died, although one young man in the group developed hearing problems. The tragedy brought the young dancers, who barely knew each other before, close together.
"I guess we have become members of a single family who cannot be without one another," Salina said. "As for the other hostages, we don't know. It was not a good time to exchange telephone numbers."
For 43-year-old former hostage Yakha Neserkhayeva, the siege was a double tragedy. Neserkhayeva, an ethnic Chechen who went to see the musical with a friend, was detained when she failed to give clear answers to investigators at the hospital where she was delivered unconscious after the raid.
Neserkhayeva, who moved to Moscow four years ago after her house in Grozny was destroyed in bombing by federal forces, spent 10 days in custody on suspicion of being one of the hostage-takers.
"Other hostages have their histories, I have mine," Neserkhayeva said.
She added, however, that the raid and the following detention had brought her to the edge of insanity.
One year later, she sees no point in suing anyone and just wants to learn to live a normal life without painful memories.
Like other survivors, Neserkhayeva was paid a government compensation of 60,000 rubles ($2,000). With the help of Aslanbek Aslakhanov, the State Duma deputy from Chechnya, she was able to find a job as an economist, her field of training. She had never been able to land a job during her previous four years in Moscow, where employers are often reluctant to hire Chechens.
Although the tragedy touched the hearts of most Russians, those who were not inside the theater can hardly understand what it really was like, Neserkhayeva said.
"Last December I went to see my mother in Grozny so she would be sure that I was fine, and her biggest worry was that I had not eaten for almost three days," she said. She never told her elderly mother about her detention.
Zhirov avoided discussing the siege with his son, Dima, for about six months for fear of further traumatizing the boy.
But during that time Dima recounted his memories of the ordeal to a Dutch journalist, who compiled them into a book.
From reading the book, Zhirov learned some details about his wife's last hours. Natalya spent time comforting a fellow hostage who had been shot by captors in the stomach. She, with the other foreigners, was initially forced to sit in the front row, but the group was moved to the back - near the air ducts - the evening before the storming because of the stench of the orchestra pit, which hostages used as a toilet.
"Apparently that was the decision that could have cost Natasha her life," Zhirov said.
Yana Valueva contributed to this report.
TITLE: Most Think State Took Right Steps
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: More than 60 percent of Russians approved of the government's handling of last year's Chechen rebel raid on the Dubrovka theater, according to a poll released Wednesday.
But when asked what led to the deaths of the 129 hostages, the majority pointed to the government's decision to pump the theater with a narcotic gas and the lack of adequate medical care administered to the rescued hostages.
The poll by the independent ROMIR polling company questioned 1,500 Russians and had a margin of error of 2.6 percentage points.
ROMIR's poll found that 22 percent said they positively assessed the authorities' action, while another 41 percent said they viewed it as rather positive. Twenty-four percent saw the response as rather negative, and 8 percent as negative, Romir said.
More than a third of the poll respondents blamed the use of the gas for causing the deaths of the 129 hostages. Twenty-six percent blamed the terrorists, while another 20 percent blamed the lack of organized medical help given to the hostages and the rest were undecided.
Reflecting public fears over the four-year-old war in Chechnya, nine out of 10 respondents said a similar raid might happen again.
Meanwhile, the Moscow prosecutor's office said Wednesday that five men, detained in connection with last year's theater raid, have been charged with terrorism and murder, Interfax reported. Chechen warlords Shamil Basayev, Khasan Zakayev and Gerikhan Dudayev were also charged in absentia.
Prosecutors also are preparing documents to charge Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, a former rebel acting president of Chechnya, in connection with assisting terrorists during the theater attack, Interfax said.
TITLE: Yeltsin: Putin Was Wary
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: Former President Boris Yeltsin said that his successor Vladimir Putin had been slow to accept his offer to take the helm, according to an interview published Tuesday.
Putin, then prime minister, became acting president on Dec. 31, 1999, when Yeltsin abruptly stepped down. With his opponents paralyzed by Yeltsin's early resignation, Putin easily won the March 2000 election.
Yeltsin told Moskovskiye Novosti that Putin had initially rejected his offer to succeed him, but accepted it when he repeated the proposal two weeks later. "I'm giving you a hard fate," Yeltsin recalled telling Putin.
Yeltsin said he had sought no privileges for himself from his successor.
Many media outlets have speculated that Yeltsin picked Putin because he was confident of his loyalty and received assurances that neither he nor his associates would be persecuted.
Yeltsin said in the interview that he has never regretted naming Putin his successor and added that they had no "disagreements on principles."
Yeltsin refused to discuss Putin's specific action in the interview. "I tell him what I like and what I don't like in person," Yeltsin said. "Opposite opinions must exist in the society. I told Vladimir Vladimirovich that, too," Yeltsin added in what sounded like a veiled rebuke.
TITLE: Eurocopter Hot To Assemble in Russia
AUTHOR: By Lyuba Pronina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Eurocopter, the world's leading helicopter company, is in talks with Irkut to assemble its choppers in Russia in order to tap the country's booming oil and gas services market, a Eurocopter spokesman said Thursday.
"We are negotiating with Irkut, but nothing is signed yet," the spokesman, Jean-Louis Espes, said by phone from his company's headquarters near Marseille, France.
Eurocopter is a subsidiary of European aerospace giant EADS.
Alexei Fyodorov, president of the Irkutsk-based Irkut Corp., which makes Sukhoi fighter jets as well as special-mission craft, said Irkut is also interested in eventually producing Eurocopter parts here to save costs.
Irkut wants to assemble Eurocopter's single-engine EC 120 and twin-engine EC 130 light models, both sides said.
Although no deal has been reached yet, Fyodorov said Irkut is already talking with potential customers - primarily oil and gas companies who have to service production facilities in harsh and remote locations. He put current demand for helicopters like the EC 120 and EC 130 at about 100.
The EC 120, known as the Colibri, can carry up to four passengers and a pilot up to 728 kilometers, while the EC 130, seats eight and has a range of 640 kilometers. Eurocopter says both models, which retail for between $1.2 million and $2 million, are suitable for a wide range of civilian and "para-public" uses.
Up until now, non-military helicopter production in Russia has been virtually non-existent.
Moscow-based Kamov unveiled its Ka-226 model in 1997, but the craft, which has a load limit of 1.3 tons, was only recently certified and has yet to go into mass production. The company plans to make its first commercial delivery, to Gazprom, next year.
The Kazan Helicopter Plant, or KVZ, makes the nine-seat, 520-kilometer Ansat, but the craft is still in testing, although the company expects certification by the end of the year. KVZ plans to produce 10 Ansats next year, and is also looking at selling licenses to produce it abroad.
Another project, which Eurocopter was involved in, is Euromil, a three-way venture with KVZ and Moscow's Mil that was set up in 1994 to develop, produce and market the Mi-38 multi-purpose medium-lift chopper, an heir to the Mi-8 workhorse.
Espes said Eurocopter finalized the sale of its 33 percent stake in Euromil last week, but that it would stick with the project through the helicopter's maiden voyage in December and then decide whether or not to continue its involvement.
TITLE: Vilnius Gives Nod to LUKoil Drilling
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - The Lithuanian government will not interfere with LUKoil's plans to develop the D-6 offshore oil field on the Baltic Sea shelf, Lithuanian Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas told Izvestia in an interview published Tuesday.
Lithuania "has no right" to pressure Russia over the project, since it is situated on Russian territory, he said.
The visiting prime minister said he had discussed the issue, which has outraged environmentalists, with LUKoil CEO Vagit Alekperov and Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov during his trip to Russia.
LUKoil announced earlier this year that it plans to begin exploiting the field, which is near the Curonian Spit, a UNESCO world heritage site that Lithuania and Kaliningrad share.
The venture, projected to produce 600,000 to 700,000 tons of crude per year for three decades, has rankled Lithuanians, who object to the platform's proposed construction site, which is 22 kilometers from the spit and 7 kilometers from the international maritime border.
But Brazauskas said Lithuanian experts have studied the project and concluded that it conforms to European Union standards.
LUKoil plans to begin drilling by the end of the year.
TITLE: Markets Tumble As Oligarchs Cry Foul
AUTHOR: By Alex Nicholson
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Markets tumbled for a second day Wednesday as the nation's largest companies closed ranks in a concerted appeal to President Vladimir Putin to step in and stop prosecutors from "discrediting" Russian businesses.
A joint letter signed by representatives of three lobby groups - the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, or RSPP, the OPORA small business union, and Business Russia - slammed the ongoing legal assault on Yukos without naming the company.
"Instead of fighting malicious tax delinquents, law enforcement bodies are harshly punishing those citizens who had the courage to set foot on the path of open business and disclose information about their income," the groups wrote in the letter.
Speaking on behalf of all three organizations, RSPP vice president Igor Yurgens said investigations into tax schemes that were used under an earlier, burdensome tax regime would create an atmosphere that would encourage people to hide their earnings.
Since the latest raids Tuesday, the benchmark RTS stock index has fallen nearly 8 percent. Taking the brunt of the sell-off was Yukos, which has lost some $3 billion in market value.
"[Prosecutors] are reassessing the rules of the game from the previous generation," Yurgens said. "Almost all of you at some stage received your wages in an envelope because businessmen couldn't pay the taxes that suffocated every enterprise in the 1990s," he told reporters. "Any of you could be targeted."
Yurgens could not resist a chance to milk the Nord Ost hostage crisis, which began a year ago Wednesday. "We know a person who is suspected of not paying 29 million rubles," he said, referring to Yukos-Moskva president Vasily Shakhnovsky, who was charged with tax fraud Friday. "This person transferred a million dollars to Nord Ost orphans without prompting and without even mentioning it. We don't believe that this is the kind of person who would hide $900,000."
Yurgens traced the Yukos affair, which began in June, to a report on corruption published by the Indem think tank that estimated that government officials take $37 billion in bribes every year.
"This [report] seemed dangerous to someone," he said. "And the arrow was turned to point at an oligarch - both for pre-election purposes and to take pressure off the state apparatus, which is a receiver of these bribes."
As a result, a well-publicized study was released warning that the oligarchs were plotting a coup, he said, referring to a report titled "The State and Oligarchy," which was published in June by an obscure group called the Council of National Strategy.
"As you can see, this hasn't happened. [But] After this report, [prosecutors] went after specific companies," he said. "When the president is here the situation is calm. When he goes away it gets worse."
TITLE: Trend Reveals Real Incomes Outstripping Real Wages
AUTHOR: By Valeria Korchagina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - It could just be clever accounting. But it might be shrewd investing; or even old-fashioned black-marketeering; or some combination of all three.
Whatever the reason - or reasons - real incomes across the nation are growing faster than real wages, meaning that Russians are getting wealthier from sources other than their official paychecks, new State Statistics Committee figures show.
A senior committee official said Tuesday that the trend was first noticed at the beginning of the year, but its origins remain unclear.
Real disposable incomes in the first nine months of the year grew 13.3 percent over the same period in 2002, while real wages grew 9.1 percent, meaning that the ratio of incomes to wages has flipped - last year real incomes rose 5.6 percent, while real wages rose 15.7 percent.
Economists say the 2002 figures represent the move by companies to legalize salaries after the introduction of the flat, 13-percent income tax rate in 2001.
"The new trend first appeared in January or February, and is probably a result of everything from dividends to the growth of gray incomes or even currency exchange rates," the committee official said on condition of anonymity.
"It probably has to do with changes in gray schemes for paying salaries, possibly through bank deposits," the official said, adding that committee data shows that bank deposits about doubled during the period.
At the end of September, the average per capita monthly income was 5,040 rubles ($168), while the average salary was 5,546 rubles.
The growth of both figures coincided with healthy growth in the economy as a whole. In its first estimate for January-September, the Economic Development and Trade Ministry said Tuesday that gross domestic product grew 6.5 percent over the same period last year.
"The results are generally good, but given that GDP growth rates always seem to slow down in the fourth quarter, the year-end figure will be lower," said Alexei Moisseyev, economist at Renaissance Capital investment bank.
The government's official growth forecast for the year is 5.9 percent, up from 4.3 percent in 2002.
What is not clear, however, is how this growth is distributed - whether a bigger economy means a smaller percentage of people living in poverty.
While the state's official statisticians remain puzzled over the meaning behind the real income figures, several economists urged them not to bother, since their numbers do not reflect the whole picture.
For example, the statistics committee counts money spent buying currency, but does not count money gained from currency sales, said Christof Ruehl, the World Bank's top economist for Russia.
In addition, since the 1998 crisis, when the ruble lost most of its value, wages have grown faster than GDP.
TITLE: Belarus KGB Telecoms Arrest
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MINSK, Belarus - Belarus' KGB secret service said Wednesday that it had detained several top managers of the country's biggest mobile operator on charges of embezzlement and abuse of power.
The KGB said the probe was aimed at the individuals rather than the company, Mobile Digital Communications, which operates under the Velcom brand and is jointly owned by Belarussian state telecom companies and Cyprus firm SB Telecom.
"Events were developing very quickly. Yesterday, in the afternoon, we started searches and detentions," KGB spokesman Alexander Bazanov said.
"The criminal case was launched on charges of embezzlement. We are talking about really large amounts, figures with six zeroes," he said.
The KGB has no questions regarding Velcom's business, Bazanov said. "The company itself is not an object of interest for investigators. We are interested that these events should have no effect on the mobile operator's activities."
Velcom officials were not immediately available for comment.
The telecoms sector has been one of the best performers in Belarus' lackluster economy, with three mobile operators competing in a market of 10 million people.
(Reuters, SPT)
TITLE: Ignatyev Discovers $9Bln Bank Fraud
AUTHOR: By Alex Fak
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Some 20 banks have spirited almost $9 billion out of the country this year through fraudulent contracts, mostly for financial services, Central Bank chief Sergei Ignatyev said at a closed meeting Wednesday.
Ignatyev estimated the real value of financial services for the first nine months of 2003 at $230 million, while the contracts were concluded to the tune of $9 billion.
"So more than $8.7 billion isn't backed by anything," Ignatyev told the meeting of representatives of the banking community, according to one of the attendees, Association of Russian Banks executive vice president Andrei Yemelin.
Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov, who also was present at the meeting, said the actual amount of contractual services completed by banks in 2003 was less than $1 billion, Interfax reported. He said the ministry is looking to work with commercial banks and the Central Bank to stem the flow of money leaving the country "via fraudulent contracts, fraudulent documents."
Ignatyev and Gryzlov did not say where they got their estimates or identify the banks suspected of using fraudulent contracts. The Central Bank could not be reached for comment Wednesday. An Interior Ministry spokeswoman said she did not have any further information.
The contracts in question are most likely linked to schemes used by companies to cut their tax burdens, banking analysts said. For example, a company pays a nominal fee for financial services but in actuality receives goods, not services. In another scheme, a transaction completed in Russia is registered as having taken place abroad.
These schemes are not necessarily capital outflow, cautioned Natalya Orlova, a banking analyst at Alfa Bank. "The money might not be going offshore - it is just used for trade," she said.
Alfa Bank estimates that only about $1 billion sent abroad this year could be classified as criminally laundered money.
The Central Bank has warned against fake contract schemes before. But the numbers put out by Ignatyev and Gryzlov baffled many analysts. Some struggled to define "financial services," while others protested the Interior Ministry's involvement in the matter, saying this would end up creating more headaches for legitimate businesses, not rooting out financial crimes.
Orlova questioned official estimates of the extent of fake contract schemes. She said most schemes would end up affecting the volume of imported services, which according to the Central Bank stood at $19.7 billion for the first nine months of 2003. "So effectively, they are saying that half of these are illegal. But this seems a bit large to me," she said.
Yemelin said he was puzzled about how the Central Bank could put a "real value" on financial transactions without going through each contract and estimating its worth. "I don't know where they got the $230 million figure," he said. "They couldn't check every contract on record. There is apt to be a lot of inaccuracy [in this figure]."
Richard Hainsworth, head of banking rating agency RusRating and a bank analyst at Renaissance Capital, expressed skepticism about the Interior Ministry's ability to tackle fake contracts.
"Clever people work to develop financial services that are legal.... Clever people also try to imitate the same transaction, but with fraudulent intent. It takes equal sophistication to distinguish between the two and to prove it in court," he said. "In the past, Russian security services have not publicly demonstrated a sophisticated understanding of financial transactions."
Suspicion might fall on a lot of legitimate businesses, Hainsworth said.
"The figures used to demonstrate levels of criminal activity seem very vague," he said. "How do the security services define 'good financial services' from the general level? The criterion everywhere should be the law only. Make the law simple, clear and difficult to break without malicious intent. Then stamp on anyone who breaks it."
TITLE: Trademark: Gorby Brands Name, Face
AUTHOR: By Alex Nicholson
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Tired of his face appearing on vodka bottles and in pasta ads, the first and last president of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, has finally decided to trademark his famous forehead, name, and nickname (Gorby), his spokesman said Thursday.
Vladimir Polyakov, spokesman for the Gorbachev Foundation, declined to go into details about the trademark, saying only that it is applicable "worldwide."
He did say, however, that the former general secretary of the Communist Party announced that he had decided to brand himself at an agricultural fair in Cologne, Germany, last week, during which he displayed a brand of vodka made by Nizhny Novgorod distillery Rossa that bears his image.
"Of course he has no plans to start production. The move is to warn people away from illegally using his names and image," Polyakov said. "It especially bothered him that his image was being used on vodka. He will only allow his name to be used on respectable products."
Gorbachev, who is still reviled by many Russians for his hugely unpopular - and unsuccessful - anti-drinking campaign in the late 1980s, plans to sue Rossa.
Some observers have suggested the clampdown helped catalyze the collapse of the Soviet Union, while the illegal stills that sprang up across the country played an important part in criminalizing the economy.
Polyakov noted, however, that Gorbachev has no quarrel with the makers of Gorbachoff vodka, "which was made a long time before Mikhail Gorbachev came into the world."
Rossa, which also sells brands that sport the images of former President Boris Yeltsin and Catherine the Great, is not the only company that has tried to cash in on Gorbachev's popularity.
Polyakov said he had personally seen an ad for a construction company on the side of a bus in the United States that featured Gorbachev operating a drill. And in Japan, he said, video clips of Gorbachev delivering a speech while he was the head of the Soviet Union have been edited into a commercial for instant noodles.
The Japanese company eventually pulled the ad and apologized, but only after Gorbachev sent a letter of complaint, Polyakov said.
Gorbachev, who led the Soviet Union from March 1985 to its dissolution in December 1991, is no novice when it comes to advertising.
He startled many political observers in the early 1990s for plugging Pizza Hut restaurants and Apple computers, for which he was paid handsomely.
Every penny Gorbachev got from appearing in those ads, however, went to charitable causes, including the construction of the Gorbachev Foundation's headquarters in Moscow, Polyakov said.
TITLE: Estonia Needs EU Security
AUTHOR: By Quentin Peel
TEXT: At the entrance of the Barclay Hotel in the historic heart of Tartu, the second city of the Baltic republic of Estonia, there is a new plaque made of black marble. Its message is very simple: "The first president of the Chechen republic Ichkeria, General Dzhokhar Dudayev, worked in this house from 1987 to 1991."
The words are repeated in Estonian, Chechen and English. They are not written in Russian, the lingua franca of the former Soviet Union, of which Estonia was a part until just 12 years ago.
It is a sudden reminder of the sympathy felt for the independence struggle of Chechnya in former parts of the Soviet empire. General Dudayev, killed in 1996 in a Russian rocket attack, has a particular reputation in Estonia as the Soviet airbase commander who ensured that his troops were not used to suppress the local revolution during the years of perestroika.
In Estonia today the war in Chechnya is followed with close attention, as an essential indicator of Russia's behavior and the mood in Moscow. Indeed, it gets a lot more attention than it does in Washington, London or Brussels, where President Vladimir Putin's brutal and clumsy efforts to suppress the long-running rebellion tend to be seen as an unfortunate distraction from the wider threats of global terrorism.
In just over six months' time, Estonia will become part of the new eastern frontier of the European Union bordering Russia. It will be the EU's fourth smallest member state, and one of seven countries joining the EU from parts of the old Soviet empire. They will bring with them a whole new perspective on the world to their east.
"The old [EU] member states are worried that they will have these Russophobic new members," says Toomas Ilves, former Estonian foreign minister. "But we are not Russophobic. We just have a very realistic view."
Of course, it is perfectly natural that countries such as Estonia and its Baltic neighbors Latvia and Lithuania should be somewhat obsessed by their former ruler. The fear of losing their hard-fought independence is very real, even if to an outsider Russia scarcely looks like an imminent threat. It is a fear that drives their foreign and security policies, and their determination to keep the United States engaged in Europe, bound to the NATO alliance. They do not want to hear any talk of transatlantic divisions.
"The threat is Russia. Supporting America is about having some guarantees against Russia," says one young student in Tartu.
That is why Estonia and its neighbors all signed a statement of support for the United States in Iraq last spring. It was never in doubt. It was simply a knee-jerk reaction. They could not understand it when President Jacques Chirac of France condemned the so-called Vilnius 10 for the statement.
And yet the mood among the "new Europeans" is already shifting. There is a feeling that neither the EU nor the United States is really focused on the security threats coming from Russia itself. And there is growing public unease, at least in Estonia, at the use of Estonian troops in the front line in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
"It is not very easy for people to understand that the forces in Afghanistan and in Iraq are defending Estonia," says Mart Laar, a former prime minister. "We have to persuade them that, by securing peace in other parts of the world, we are securing peace for ourselves."
Ilves explains why it is getting more difficult. "The U.S. has been ham-fisted in its approach to Eastern Europe," he says. "It has been a combination of bribery and blackmail. There is some romanticized feeling of warmth towards the U.S.; but both the behavior of Washington, and what we will be doing in the EU, will diminish that."
The need to be full-time players in the EU certainly looms large. "We must change very much our way of thinking," says Laar. "We must be more open and more active. We must have a clear plan for Europe. Nobody used to ask us about the Middle East, for example. Now we must actually be part of the solution. We must have an opinion. This is a big responsibility."
It will be a two-way process. The new member states will bring energy and vitality to a sluggish Western Europe.
What they will also demand is a more coherent strategy toward Russia and the EU's other new neighbors in the east, such as Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova. They have a very real interest in all those countries being stable and steadily more prosperous.
There is an uncomfortable feeling that the U.S. strategic interest in being best friends with Putin will outweigh any readiness to criticize the growing authoritarianism in his regime. If anyone is going to criticize Russia, it will have to be the EU.
Another concern is that the U.S. doctrine of pre-emptive military action, used to justify the invasion of Iraq, is encouraging Moscow to do the same - and the Baltic states still feel vulnerable.
The real security interest of the new EU member states is having stability in the former Soviet Union. It is about curbing corruption, and building institutions to stop the spread of authoritarian anarchy in countries such as Belarus. That is a job that the EU can and must do more to perform. Washington does not "do" anarchy. It is a task for Brussels. That is what the new member states will soon understand, if they have not done so already.
Quentin Peel is international affairs editor at the Financial Times, where this comment first appeared.
TITLE: No Solution To Chechen Woes in Sight
TEXT: One year on from the tragic events at the Dubrovka theater, Chechnya has a Moscow-orchestrated constitutional referendum and presidential election behind it, but has anything really been done to tackle the underlying causes of terrorism or to reduce the possibility of another 'Nord Ost" happening?
With national elections looming - both parliamentary and presidential - the administration's overriding priority has been to ensure that Chechnya is a "non-issue" and that it does not blow up (literally or figuratively) in President Vladimir Putin's face. After all, given that Putin rose to power four years ago with promises to waste all Chechen terrorists "in the outhouse," he could potentially face some awkward questions in the coming months.
However, rather than attempting the difficult work of dealing with the actual grievances (human rights abuses, poverty, etc.) on the ground in Chechnya, the Kremlin has chosen merely to conjure up a semblance of "normalization" and political process. Even though maintaining this facade has, for the most part, been counterproductive or worse. For example, the imposition of Akhmad Kadyrov on the Chechen nation through a rigged presidential election at the beginning of the month has only served to exacerbate divisions within Chechen society and to raise the chances of the republic descending into a bloody internecine clan war.
Key to the Kremlin pushing its narrative of "normalization" has been its control over the flow of information from Chechnya and, in particular, its control over national television - which, since the events of last October, has gone from preponderant to effectively monopoly control. There is no longer a national TV channel out there to challenge the Kremlin's version of events.
It would, of course, be stretching things to draw a direct causal link between the hostage crisis coverage and the ousting of Boris Jordan and Co. from NTV (even more so with the closure of TVS), but the fact is that three months after Dubrovka, a management team loyal to the Kremlin had been installed at NTV and five months later TVS was no longer on the air.
And claims of the irresponsibility of television companies (or one in particular) in covering the events has been used by various officials as an implicit justification for the general curtailment of media freedoms - most recently by Putin during a question-and-answer session at Columbia University last month.
A year after Dubrovka, the gulf between the Kremlin's narrative and the reality is only growing and there are few constraining influences to prevent it from growing further. A very dangerous situation.
TITLE: The Kind of Professional Smolny Likes
TEXT: Some might say I am biased when I comment on Governor Valentina Matviyenko's appointments to the new city government because 7 years ago I was involved directly in a conflict with one of them, Alla Manilova, head of City Hall's media committee.
I can, however, justify what I say when I tell you that the city's new media boss' track record is not about promoting open debate about city concerns, but about serving the interests of the authorities.
It does not take much of an effort to see that if you read Nevskoye Vremya, the newspaper Manilova headed from 1994 until she moved to Smolny last Friday.
Take a copy published at the time of the city's 300th anniversary celebrations, the day after an embarrassing laser show that was so badly organized that about 1 1/2 million people got stuck in the city center. People had to walk kilometers deep in the night to get home. There were no toilets and no public transport working. All the roads were blocked.
"Valentina Matviyenko met vice governors and pointed out 'the positive role' the city government had played to prepare the city for the celebration," says Nevskoye Vremya's article on the fiasco published June 4 under the byline of reporter Andrei Milkin.
"And, finally [as a vice governor says] "this a question of cultural behavior," the article concludes.
"It is hard not to agree. This is a cultural matter - a cultured person can always hold on and the absence of a toilet does not affect them.
"A real St. Petersburg citizen would not sneek into an archway to urinate, he would rather collapse in pain to save the honor of his native town."
How good the Nevskoye Vremya report sounds: Matviyenko is a kind manager, the vice governors are doing the right thing - it must have been the people's own fault if they couldn't find toilets. They shouldn't even have looked for them because they are citizens of the cultural capital of Russia.
But this is only a very small sample of Nevskoye Vremya's writing. Such an article would be no reason for Manilova to fire anyone. That is why my friends and colleagues who were fired by Manilova after challenging similar editorial policies in 1996 were outraged after she was appointed to Matviyenko's team. Back then we were naive enough to think that Manilova's media carrier would be finished after what she had done. It's a big surprise to us that in this country authorities ignore the basic requirements of any professionalism.
"I was floored by your [Tuesday's] Manilova article," Charles Digges, a friend of mine and a former news editor for the St. Petersburg Times, who broke the story about the censorship we tried to resist at Nevskoye Vremya, wrote to me. He also found out she had recieved an apartment at below-market cost from the city administration.
"I am literally stunned," he continued. "How many backward steps does that city have to take before it moves forward. We had her in 1996 - apartment documents, you and everyone else who courageously stepped forward, recordings of the publishers veiled threats on my answering machine ... ."
It's a great shame that people who have behaved unprofessionally are allowed to get management positions in the city government. And this is a bad sign that such qualities as professionalism and honesty are not the main criteria when candidates are sought.
The Soviet approach was to look for people who fit in rather then professionals and it looks like it is still the main criterion to follow for filling vacancies at the top.
I must point out that Manilova is a suitable professional for the media committee under the way it currently works. Its goals are to control and take care of the media so that it sings lullabies to Matviyenko around a clock. There are hell a lot of such media outlets in the city these days, so she's got quite a job to do. It's going to be hard for her to tell who is screaming lullabies the loudest.
TITLE: its a rap, kinda, for leningrad
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Despite being one of Russia's best-selling bands, St. Petersburg-based ska-punk group Leningrad is banned from playing major concerts in Moscow, reportedly because Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov dislikes its explicit lyrics. But, in its first regular release since February 2002, the band shot back with a new album on Tuesday.
Entitled "Dlya Millionov" (For Millions), the 15-track album was conceived as a departure from past Leningrad releases, which the band's frontman and songwriter Sergei Shnurov recently described as "anachronisms."
A play on words, the album's title refers to the band's enormous popularity while also hinting - with a comic-strip image of million-dollar gold coins on the cover - at the money that the album will rake in.
But instead of promoting the new album with press conferences and launch parties as other bands do, Shnurov packed himself off to Minsk "just to relax," according to friend and Leningrad percussion player Seva Andreyev.
Despite early reports about the new Leningrad album being rap from start to finish, "For Millions" is a mix of different music styles, from Gypsy songs to reggae, ska to Latin. The album does feature a pair of rap numbers, but, as far as Shnurov is concerned, the whole album should be understood in the context of chastushki, or traditional Russian humorous chants. "Chastushki are also rap," Shnurov said.
According to tuba player and arranger Andrei Antonenko, one of Leningrad's four original members, the use - or half-use - of rap on the new album was deliberate.
"We were defining the album's idea in the summer," said Antonenko."As usual, Sergei and I sat at the kitchen drinking and realized that we should record a rap album, because it's absolutely impossible to surprise [the public] with anything else now. But to record a fully rap album is too risky because Leningrad fans are used to slightly different material. So it turned out to be not a step, but half a step."
Conceptually, Antonenko compares the album to The Beatles' classic 1967 album, "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."
"It's a bit like 'Sgt. Pepper,' maybe a contemporary one," said Antonenko. "We even played with the title 'Klub Odinokikh Serdets Serzhanta Pertseva," but 'Sgt. Pepper' says nothing to the contemporary generation; for them, a bespectacled long-haired man is [Siberian punk star] Yegor Letov, rather than John Lennon. What we have is a good representation of current musical styles."
The opening, rapping track "Menya Zovut Shnur" (My Name Is Shnur), which was originally considered by Shnurov as the album's title track, spoofs almost every existing popular act aired by such radio stations as the Russian rock-oriented Nashe Radio, from veteran bands Mashina Vremeni and DDT to the more recent Spleen and Mumy Troll. Ironically, the track is in heavy rotation on the station, and even topped Nashe Radio's weekly Internet poll earlier this month.
Although the album was recorded rather hastily in August, amid vacations and erratic tours, its sound is noticeably better than the most of Leningrad's recorded work.
"We paid much more attention to sound than we did on our past albums - [to the] mixing, [and] production," said Antonenko. "You can probably notice that."
Leningrad's stadium concerts have been repeatedly banned in Moscow since November 2002, when a show at Luzhniki stadium was suddenly canceled and some 8,000 ticket holders turned away.
Despite the dislike of the Moscow authorities, however, the new album contains even more expletives than the band's past releases.
According to Antonenko, Leningrad, which embarks on a German tour next week, has no immediate plans to perform in Moscow, though he hints that there could be small gigs.
"We are busy with our own business now, we don't try hard to change the situation, which is the right thing to do now, I think," said Antonenko. "There will be small club dates and probably gigs at corporate parties, as always, but nothing bigger."
Another controversy around the band is the continuing legal process against Gala Records, the Moscow-based label which has released Leningrad albums since 1999.
Shnurov sued his former label for mishandling his royalties - claiming he was not paid at least $74,000 in August.
"In a nutshell, there was an audit check of Gala Records on my initiative (I have the right to do this by contract), which revealed the lack of around $74,000 due to me," said Shnurov.
"To me it's quite a sum. I don't like when it's impossible to understand where money goes. I feel being ripped-off, I don't like that."
The second and the most recent hearing on Thursday brought no immediate results. According to Leningrad's lawyer, Vadim Uskov of the law firm Uskov and Partners that represents Shnurov, one of the three lawsuits was not heard because the case did not arrived to the Basmanny court from the Moscow City Court, while the two others were rescheduled to be heard on Nov. 17 and Dec. 5, for various reasons.
Uskov added, that Gala Records counterclaimed by accusing Shnurov of selling copyrights to Leningrad songs to record pirates.
Last month, Gala Records also released the video documentary and double live CD "Leningrad Udelyvayet Ameriku" (Leningrad Does America), culled from Leningrad's 2002 U.S. tour.
Meanwhile, Shnurov's own label Shnur'OK, which is going to release primarily local bands which "have no chance to be heard on the radio," was officially registered this week.
The label's short-term plans include albums by local bands Kacheli and Spitfire as well as a compilation, which will feature Diody, Shnurov's spin-off retro pop project, Leningrad's collaboration with London's Tiger Lillies, a new track from Leningrad as well as the other bands such as La Minor, Poimanniye Muravyedy and Kacheli.
After the German tour, Leningrad will head to Siberia, where it will take part in the shoot of director Alexei Balanov's new film "Amerikanets" (American), which will take place in Norilsk and Irkutsk from Nov. 10 to 17.
TITLE: russian punk alive and kicking
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: NAIVE, one of Russia's oldest and most notorious punk bands, will play a concert at Stary Dom as part of a Russian tour to showcase its new album, released on A&B Records on Oct. 18. Called "Rok-n-Roll Myortv?" ("Rock 'n' Roll Is Dead?"), the 12-track affair is the band's eighth album and is described by drummer and manager Dmitry "Snake" Khakimov as its "most hard-edged to date."
The band, which will celebrate its 15th anniversary later this year, was started by Maxim Kochetkov and Alexander "Chacha" Ivanov in the autumn of 1988 when the pair were serving as conscripts in the Soviet army.
Since its debut album, "Switch-Blade Knaife" (sic) released on the San Francisco-based Maximum Rock 'n' Roll label in 1990, NAIVE has been the world's best known Russian punk band. The band confirmed its status in 2000 when its 1997 album "Post-Alkogolniye Strakhi," produced by Bill Gould, the former bassist of Faith No More, got its U.S. release as "Post Alcoholic Anxieties" on Gould's own label, Kool Arrow Records, to positive reviews.
"Rock 'n' Roll Is Dead?" takes its name from Akvarium's classic song, which the seminal Russian band led by Boris Grebenshchikov first recorded in 1983 (the original title had no question mark). As well as covering the Akvarium hit on the new album, NAIVE also added its own song with the same title.
The album attacks many aspects of the music business that the band does not like, from conformist rock bands in "My Vsyo Ustroim," or "We'll Take Care of Everything," to the now defunct Russian version of British music magazine New Musical Express in "NME Fuck Off."
"There's a lot that is bad, we think," said Khakimov. "The big problem is that any music that doesn't fit the accepted format is not represented on radio stations and television. I mean all the bands sound the same. To get on the radio they have to sound like some sort of soft rock."
According to Khakimov, the Russian music industry has a prejudice against punk rock.
"Punk rock is popular in the West, even more popular than some other genres," he said. "Many punk bands fill stadiums - while in this country they are some kind of exception. They [the music industry] are biased about both the musicians who play punk rock and their audiences. They treat it as kind of kindergarten-type of music making rather than a serious genre."
Although Akvarium and its frontman Grebenshchikov were fashionable targets for criticism by punk bands during Akvarium's heyday in the 1980s, Khakimov said NAIVE treats Grebenshchikov "with respect."
"We respect him as an artist," he said. "And it was kind of him to let us perform the song ["Rock 'n' Roll Is Dead?] without asking for money or anything - he's simply above that. He's a great man."
NAIVE is much more popular in Moscow than in St. Petersburg. For instance, the album launch concert at Moscow's Gorbunova Palace of Culture gathered 2,000 fans on Oct. 18, according to NAIVE's press officer Zhanna Sagadeyeva.
Apart from drummer Khakimovm NAIVE includes Ivanov on vocals, Nikolai "Kolyan" Bogdanov on bass and guitarist Alexander "Goly" Golant, but Bogdanov, who cannot make it to St. Petersburg because of personal reasons, will be replaced for Konstantin Savelyevskikh, bassist of Khakimov's spin-off glam-rock project Mad Dog.
NAIVE will mark its 15th anniversary on Dec. 5 with a special Moscow show at Adrenaline Skate Park.
NAIVE performs at 8 p.m. on Friday at Stary Dom. Links: www.naive.ru
TITLE: chernov's choice
TEXT: This week brings Joe Zawinul, best-known to an average old rock fan for his work with the influential fusion band Weather Report that he helped to found.
As part of Baltic Jazz Festival, Zawinul was to perform at an open-air event at Peter and Paul Fortress this summer, but shortly before the date the festival posters disappeared from the streets. The festival spokesperson's explanation was the vague phrase "The city is not ready for the festival."
Now the promoters assure that the festival will happen this time, though the site will be different. For more details, see article on page ix.
The club Manhattan, or Kotyol, will celebrate its seventh anniverssary with a series of concerts this weekend, featuring amusing female-fronted pop band Pep-See.
Launched by movie director Dmitry Meskhiyev as a hangout for artists, film-makers and musicians in 1996, the venue has gone off the boil in the past few years, with mostly unknown hard-rock acts performing. One night this summer, the only people in the venue were a band supposed to play and a handful of friends, waiting for the public - in vain.
With some more familiar names starting to appear again in the club, such as Kacheli, Chufella Marzufella and now Pep-See, there are signs that the venue trying to bring back the good times when it was packed on most nights.
"Policy is changing, people are changing," said Manhattan's manager.
The place was originally to be called "Kotyol" (Boiler), in honor of the underground artists, authors and musicians in the Soviet era who worked in boiler-rooms to avoid being sued for "parasitism" by the state while they worked on unofficial creative projects. But, in the spirit of modern times, the name was changed to please the venue's sponsors.
Spitfire keeps on rocking, with yet another gig at Moloko this Saturday. Though the band is ready to release its third album, this concert at the respected underground venue will be just a regular club gig.
According to drummer Denis Kuptsov, without giving many details, the percentage of Russian-language songs on the new album will be larger than on the first two albums, which were mostly in English.
Called "Thrills and Kills," the new album by Spitfire, which is now technically also part of popular ska-punk band Leningrad, will be released on Sergei Shnurov's label Shnur'OK in late November.
Reggae is still big in Russia, as an event called Jamaica Independence Day 2 will attempt to prove. Although Jamaica itself actually celebrates its independence on Aug. 8, the promoters will bring a bunch of acts from the other cities of Russia, as well as from Ukraine, to honor the holiday.
The choice of the venue is not happy, though; PORT is notorious for red-neck teenage discos and long and tiresome searches at the doors, making the crowd wait for hours when a really interesting event is taking place.
Those following trendy the parties that Svetlaya Muzyka promotes, should head to Onegin, a face-control, invitation-only kind of place where Zofka (right), the Swiss lounge act will perform on Friday.
Good live rock and roll this week can also be heard at a gig by Multfilmy (Red Club, Saturday) and Wine (Purga, the same night).
- By Sergey Chernov
TITLE: chinese cafe springs no surprises
AUTHOR: By Matthew Brown
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Paper, fireworks, McDonald's; the Chinese invented them all. Well, not McDonald's exactly, but the idea of fast food served in a branded restaurant, instantly recognizable by one and all the world over. From the humblest hamlet to vast conurbations, Chinese immigrants - closely followed by local copycats - have spread a sort of caricature of the myriad cuisines of the Chinese peoples to all four corners of the earth. In one particularly murky corner, Nevsky Prospekt, glows what turns out to be a particularly egregious example of the trend, the mysteriously-named Krasny Terem.
In no way could one be deceived that this is anything but a cookie-cutter commercial operation - even from the street. The plinky-plonky music beckons, the interior riot of red, gold and bamboo entices, and the smell of monosodium glutamate tempts. And before you know it you are seated in one of its three halls (there's also a private "party" room at the back) which, between them seat about 120 hungry passersby.
The tongues of many nations contribute to the general hubbub of clattering cutlery coming from the kitchen and the Chinese news channel CCT on the televisions overhead. There are even quite a few Chinese (or at least Chinese-looking) people dining - traditionally a good sign that the food is good.
The tri-lingual English/Russian/Chinese menu (sorry, I couldn't tell if it was Mandarin, Cantonese or the six other major languages of China) provides a feast for semioticians, if not foodies. How about these mouth-watering offers: "Carcass of Factory Pigeon," or "Fried Frog Meat". Of course, laughing at funny menus is one thing, choosing something off one is another.
After some confusion with tables, coats, ashtrays, and so on, the waitress was attentive and friendly. Asked in English for spring rolls which didn't seem to be on the menu, she assured us she could arrange it. Things were looking up.
With the starters and mains ordered, the drinks arrived promptly: green tea at 25 rubles (83 cents) and Baltika 7 for 50 rubles ($1.60). The menu features a selection of chef's specials and its seem the chef himself will nonchalantly wheel out a clinical silver trolley with a dish of crimson roasted duck portions on it, so that he can carve it before your very eyes. If you ask him nicely.
Apart from the spring rolls (more about them later), we ordered a pork soup (40 rubles, $1.30) with no end of advertised ingredients, most of which, apart from cucumber slices, never made it. In marked contrast to the main courses soon after, it was also too hot to eat.
"Pike-perch by slices with ketchup," (140 rubles, $4.60) sounded kooky, but looked spooky: anemic fish pieces (steamed? fried?) drowned in a blood red syrup with fleshy slices of tomato. It tasted "OK" according to the guinea pig.
"Sliced Chicken Meat with Red and Sweet Pepper" (120 rubles, $4) had gristly knuckles of chicken, raw garlic and peppers in a fishy sauce. Fishy, as in suspicious.
These were served with laughably small rice portions for 25 rubles each (83 cents) and some deep fried bread (15 rubles, 50 cents).
And so back to the McNuggets of Chinese cuisine - the spring roll. Four very tiny cylinders arrived with what can only described as something tasting like warm wet toilet paper inside. It was probably cabbage, but who knows. They cost an improbable 58 rubles - $1.93. No wonder they are not on the menu.
As they say in real estate, the three keys to Krasny Terem's seeming desirability must be location, location and location - right on Nevsky - since not much else recommends it.
Krasny Terem, 74 Nevsky Prospekt, Tel: 272 9017. Menu in English and Russian. Credit cards accepted. Meal for two, with alcohol (service included) 516 rubles, $17.20.
TITLE: the spirit of akhmatova lives on
AUTHOR: By Larisa Doctorow
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The latest exhibition to open at the Anna Akhmatova Museum is merely the most recent example of the important role the institution has played in the city's cultural life since its creation in 1989.
Thanks to the energy of its creator and director Nina Popova, the museum has accumulated an important collection of materials devoted to the life and art of poet Anna Akhmatova and her contemporaries.
But in a larger sense the museum is a hang-out for the St Petersburg intelligentsia. Lectures, books presentations, exhibitions of local artists follow each other in succession. A program of events is posted on the entrance to the complex at 53 Liteiny Prospekt.
"Craft. Part One," the latest exhibition which opened to the public last Saturday, is a joint venture by two master photographers, Petersburger Yury Voskresensky and Frenchman Samuel Le Coeur. The exhibition features artistic portrait photographs and installations.
At the opening of the exhibition Yury Voskresensky explained the meaning of the name of the show: "It is an elegant project. Here, I invite Samuel to St. Petersburg and introduce him to the city and to my friends, city artists of all kinds, sculptors, designers, photographers, and I do it through their portraits. We hope the second part of the show will take place in Paris, where Samuel will do the same - introduce me to the city and to his artists friends."
In answer to my question how the two had first met, Samuel replied: "It happened several months ago almost by chance. I sat in a café and showed my photos to a friend. Yury saw them and liked them. We started talking. The idea of the joint project was born, It took months to organize the show."
The poster for the new show is based on Voskresensky's photo "Packed and Ready for Shipment." The image is key to understanding the whole show. The participants wanted to record the process of creating a work of art. That is why we see portraits of artists surrounded not by their works but set in empty studios, or with the tools of their trade.
The photos in this show are mostly black and white, though upon entering the exhibition a spectator sees two of Yury's big works in color : "The Color of the City" and "A Point of View." Among the best is "Alexander Gorynin in a Forge" - a big portrait in shadows against a background of orange splashes of light.
Voskresensky studied his craft at the Baltic School of Photography. A portrait of its director Olga Korsunova is exhibited. Then he attended courses given by New York artist Debora Turbeville who visited the city on three occasions. She lectured in the Baltic School and later in the Academy of Fine Arts. Voskresensky took her portrait in the spring of 2003 in the Polovtsev House. She is shown seated after shooting a film here: tired and relaxed.
Some photos are intentionally blurred and resemble the paintings of Italian futurists in their attempt to convey movement on canvas. They also have a fluid light, which envelops city buildings and is typical of Voskresensky's work.
For Le Coeur, who has lived in St Petersburg for 10 months and speaks Russian, emotions are everything. He presents the whole process of preparing for a show. Thus we see the actors of the Lensoviet Theatre on Vladimirsky Prospekt working at Gorky's play "The Lower Depths." They work, they take a break, they go for a walk in the forest and Le Coeur captures the artists' preoccupation with their creativity wherever they are.
This is Le Coeur's second show in St Petersburg. He works both in color and black and white, but says that the latter is easier for him. When I asked him why he does not show the final result of the actors' efforts, he says he is thinking about it. Maybe next time.
Le Coeur and Voskresensky each show over 20 photographs and are the main contributors to the exhibition - but not the only ones. They invited other creative spirits from the city to contribute to the show.
Among the items especially worthy of note are "Lost Man" by Olga Manelis, where a glass head rests atop a night table, and inside is his body colored glass balls unite two parts of the body. "The Chair" made by Alexander Gorynin in 2001 is made of oak and wrought iron. In its pure lines it resembles designs of the creator of modernist furniture, Scottish architect Charles Mackintosh, who advocated a functional approach.
Fittingly, Voskresensky said that the inspiration for the show came from words in a poem by Anna Akhmatova: "If anyone knew from what debris poetry is born..."
"Craft. Part One" continues at the Anna Akhmatova Museum until Nov. 15.
TITLE: baltic jazz festival back with a bang
AUTHOR: By Jennifer Davis
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The Baltic Jazz Festival, bedevilled by problems since its inception earlier this year, will attempt a second coming next week at Yubileiniy Sports Palace with an appearance by Joe Zawinul, one of the most influential figures in jazz of the last forty years.
Originally planned by local promoters Baltic Art Agency as an outdoor festival to be held last July at the Peter and Paul Fortress - just weeks after the similar Peter and Paul Fortress Jazz Festival - the event was pushed back to autumn due to problems securing Zawinul and his group the Zawinul Syndicate.
This time around Baltic Art are confident Zawinul will appear and have lined up four supporting acts to complete the one-night festival line-up. To fans, Zawinul is "a legendary superstar of jazz," as the promoters assert, but it is unclear whether the former member and co-founder of the seminal jazz fusion group Weather Report, plus the other acts, can attract enough Petersburgers to Yubileiny this Wednesday to establish the festival on the local jazz calendar.
Before co-founding Weather Report with saxophonist, Wayne Shorter in 1970, Zawinul played piano and recorded with a slew of jazz greats including trombonist Slide Hampton, saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, vocalist Dinah Washington and trumpeter Miles Davis. Most notably, Zawinul collaborated with Davis on his 1969 breakthrough electronic jazz-rock album, Bitches Brew, which paved the way for jazz fusion in the 70s.
Born in Vienna in 1932, Zawinul studied classical piano at the Vienna Conservatory, but was infatuated with jazz from an early age, especially the music of Duke Ellington. In 1958, he won a scholarship to America's most famed jazz academy, the Berklee School of Music in Boston and almost immediately began jamming with the city's best.
In Russia, Zawinul is best known for his group Weather Report, which was popular in the Soviet Union during the late 70s and 80s and is an oft-cited influence of many local underground rock bands.
Four supporting acts are slated to play half-hour sets before Zawinul. First off is local acid jazz collective, Doo Bop Sound, who describe their sound as "acid jazz mixed with funk and jazz rock."
Second on the bill is another local combo: vocalists Anna Guzikova and Lynn Hilton supported by a five-piece band. Anna Guzikova, a member of the popular vocal group Digest, met Lynn Hilton, an American jazz vocalist and pianist currently performing nightly in Borsalino restaurant at the Angleterre Hotel, last winter. Since then, they have been collaborating and performing together at various clubs and private events. Guzikova describes their program as mostly "our versions of jazz standards," but it also includes original adaptations of some Russian folk songs.
The Siberian violin-guitar duo, Belyi Ostrog (White Fortress), who performed at the Peter and Paul Jazz Festival in June, take the stage next. Belyi Ostrog has long had a following in Europe and the U.S. and have recently gained popularity in St. Petersburg for their unique mix of Russian folk and improvised jazz.
The Norwegian band, Dadafon, is the fourth act supporting Zawinul. Headed by vocalist Kristin Asbjornsen, the group "defies categorization" according to its web site. However, local promoters describe their music as "soul, blues, pop, jazz, ethnic and funk," which is little, if any, clarification.
Finally, Zawinul takes the stage at 9:30 p.m. where he is expected to play a long set with his five-piece band, which includes vocalist Sabine Kabongo, and the Zawinul Syndicate, a band that performs jazz fusion influenced by African and South African elements, swing, gospel and classical music.
Due to the wide range of musical acts, this festival promises a diverse crowd of old hippies, new yuppies and good old-fashioned music lovers. "There's a great excitement and buzz about this festival," said participating vocalist, Lynn Hilton. "Joe is a pioneer and it is a privilege to be on the same stage as such an illustrious legend. It will force all of us musicians to rise to the occasion."
The Baltic Jazz Festival will be held at Yubileiny Sports Palace on Wednesday, Oct. 29 at 7 p.m. Tickets from 150-500 rubles.
TITLE: final assignment for spy kids
AUTHOR: By Ann Hornaday
PUBLISHER: The Washington Post
TEXT: Since making his feature debut in 1992 with the do-it-yourself masterpiece "El Mariachi," Robert Rodriguez has become a mild-mannered, self-effacing darling of Hollywood, an action director whose dexterity in camerawork, editing and even composing music is equaled by his innate sense of what appeals to young viewers.
His prodigious talents hit their apotheosis in the "Spy Kids" movies, in which Rodriguez took the idea of the typical American nuclear family into the 21st century. The heroes of this franchise are Ingrid and Gregorio Cortez (Carla Gugino and Antonio Banderas) and their kids, Carmen and Juni (Alexa Vega, Daryl Sabara), a family of Latino lineage that works out its squabbles and growing pains while saving the world with cool gadgets, vehicles and, more often than not, imagination.
"Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over" is the final installment in the "Spy Kids" trilogy, and while it bears the irrepressible inventiveness and verve that characterize all of Rodriguez's films, it differs from its predecessors in some important - and occasionally unfortunate ~ ways. The world of "Game Over" isn't the high-tech yet cozy Cortez house but the cold environs of a sharp-edged virtual world. Ingrid and Gregorio barely appear (although Banderas ensures that he makes a comic impression with his brief screen time), ceding the stage to Juni and his beloved grandfather (Ricardo Montalban). "Game Over" takes its characters - and audiences - on the same adventurous rides as previous "Spy Kids" movies, but many viewers will miss the warmth and boisterous family dynamics of its predecessors.
In fact, the best thing about "Game Over" isn't what's on the screen, but what's on the audience: those nerdy blue and red 3-D glasses most familiar to 1950s movie buffs. Delivering a nifty tweak to the ever-escalating digital race in Hollywood, Rodriguez has gone back to film's analog roots, creating an old fashioned novelty movie in the tradition of Saturday matinee classics like "House of Wax" (1953).
"Game Over" starts twice, once with a witty introductory 3-D primer delivered by Alan Cumming as Fegan Floop, the villain of the first "Spy Kids," and then with a funny, noirish voiceover by Juni, who explains that he's been "burned" by his agency - the OSS, which employs the Cortez family - and has become a private gumshoe - which, from the looks of the pink stuff he's picked up on his foot, is literal. Although it's not entirely clear why Juni is so mad at the OSS, he's forced to overcome his bitterness when he discovers that Carmen has been taken prisoner by a villain called the Toymaker (Sylvester Stallone),
who has invented a video game that is so seductive that, once kids are into it, parents won't be able to get their attention. (Note to the good people of Nintendo: The Toymaker is a fictional character. No resemblance to an actual person, living or dead, is intended.)
Carmen has been trapped on the fourth level of the Toymaker's game and Juni has to jump into its virtual world, win all four levels and shut off the fifth before the game goes on sale. On the way, he enlists the help of his grandfather - who regains the use of his legs once the game is afoot - as well as some sneaky beta testers who may or may not be on his side.
Rodriguez's natural abilities make "Game Over" almost compulsively patchable - once again, he's a jack of all trades on his own movie, here serving as director, writer, editor, producer and composer - and he injects characteristic moments of wit throughout the movie.
Stallone, whose mouth seems to be composed of more than 12 moving parts, is particularly amusing as the petulant, insecure Toyama, as well as the villain's alter egos: a power-hungry Tauten, a vengeful computer nerd and a New Age guru.
The 3-D technology is fun enough, but a side effect is that it reduces the palette of "Game Over" to monochrome grays and acid yellows; the molten lava the kids surf on seems to be exactly the same color as the goop in the light-saber-grabber-electric-cattle-prod-things they fight with.
In a climactic valedictory, Rodriguez assembles several past "Spy Kids" cast members, including Mike Judge, Cheat Marian, Danny Tree, Holland Taylor, Bill Payton and Steve Buscemi (Salma Hayek, George Clooney and Elijah Wood are on hand for cameos as well). Together they pitch the ultimate battle - and learn a lesson about the power of forgiveness - on Congress Avenue, the main artery of Austin, Texas, where Rodriguez lives and makes his movies. No matter how far he ventures into virtual territory, it's clear that the filmmaker's heart will always be where his home is - an ethos to which the "Spy Kids" trilogy stands as lively and loving testament.
TITLE: a manifesto for moore politics
AUTHOR: BY Janet Maslin
PUBLISHER: The New York Times
TEXT: In his latest book, Michael Moore reveals the identity of his favorite political candidate: someone who bracingly advocates "a free country, a safe country, a peaceful country that genuinely shares its riches with the less fortunate around the world, a country that believes in everyone getting a fair shake, and where fear is seen as the only thing we need to fear." Oh, wait a minute - he's talking about himself.
When "we, the people" enters the vocabulary of someone who likes to give marching orders, watch out. Our self-appointed spokesman may have an agenda of his own.
At the end of "Bowling for Columbine," Moore almost ruined an otherwise terrific documentary by grandstanding with Charlton Heston and a photograph of a dead child.
As someone with a penchant for demagoguery, someone who thinks that the present political structure needs "to be brought down and removed and replaced with a whole new system that we control," Moore plays to the camera even when he's doing it on the page.
Michael Moore's previous book, "Stupid White Men," was such a hit that it was last year's best-selling nonfiction book. It was in its 52nd printing when he completed the very timely "Dude, Where's My Country?," a book eager to mention its author's accomplishments. Moore's antiwar outcry at this year's Academy Awards presentation is also immortalized, supposedly mentioned to him by a great-granddaughter named Anne Coulter Moore: "Mom said you were once famous for a few minutes for yelling about something during one of the oil wars. Now all we have is this old photo of you with your mouth open and pointing at something." That sounds about right.
"Dude, Where's My Country?" includes one chapter in which Moore adopts the voice of God - only playfully, of course. In another chapter he invites you, the reader, to join what he calls Mike's Militia. And then he gives out instructions, "as your commander in chief." The smart, subversive sense of humor that brings one million visitors a day (another number trumpeted here) to Moore's web site (where they can relive his speeches and take more of his instructions) is seriously strained by the burden of so much self-promotion.
When "Stupid White Men" appeared, its brand of name-calling was more of a novelty on the best-seller list. Now it is luxuriantly in flower. Moore will no doubt share a readership with Al Franken's "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them" (which is funnier), Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose's "Bushwhacked" (which is better informed) and Joe Conason's "Big Lies" (also better informed), if not with Bill O'Reilly's "Who's Looking Out for You?" (politically opposite, but no less self-serving).
But Moore, through real conviction along with showboating personality, does make himself the most galvanizing and accessible of the lot.
With any such book, you - or "the American people," as Moore repeatedly speechifies it - can expect a certain amount of over-the-top invective. As he draws on earlier books, notably Robert Baer's "Sleeping With the Devil," to identify connections between the Bush family and Saudi Arabian royalty, Moore exhorts: "George, is this good for our national security, our homeland security? Who is it good for? You? Pops?"
But at the same time Moore is rounding off sums of Saudi money to the nearest trillion, he is being more precise in other areas. For instance, he identifies such members of the Coalition of the Willing in Iraq as Palau, a group of North Pacific islands, with a population smaller than the audience at many rock concerts. Palau has "yummy tapioca and succulent coconut but, unfortunately, no troops."
This isn't new information, but it is deployed effectively here. So is a demonstration of how unreadable the text of the U.S.A. Patriot Act is, and the fact that the Internal Revenue Service has a specific form for tax refunds of $1 million or more. (It is reprinted here.) And so is Moore's digging into underpublicized news events like a Taliban visit to Texas, for oil-related reasons, in 1997. He wonders why 20-year-old video images of Donald Rumsfeld embracing Saddam Hussein have been broadcast only by Oprah Winfrey. She, incidentally, is his draft pick for president in 2004 - though he also sees Wesley Clark "or any one of the Dixie Chicks" as possibilities.
"Dude, Where's My Country?" is much sharper about election strategy than it is about uncovering the Bush administration's transgressions. This will be increasingly relevant in run-up to the U.S. presidential election in November 2004.
Moore has marshaled all of his impassioned, populist bluster to effecting regime change with hints about how it might be done. That makes "Dude, Where's My Country?" a bumper sticker that doubles as a book.
TITLE: the word's worth
AUTHOR: By Michele A. Berdy
TEXT: Mezhdusoboychik: an event for insiders, an event just between friends; a heart-to-heart talk.
Over the years, I've developed a mental list of handy Russian words that express very succinctly a concept that is hard to express in English. Some of them I love, because they put into a Russian nutshell something you can barely fit into an English coconut shell. Some of them I loathe, because they are very hard to translate.
Take otsebyatina, a word that I love. This comes from the world of translation and means literally "something from oneself" (ot sebya), i.e. editorial commentary that the translator or interpreter adds to the text. Ya nye lyublyu s nim rabotats- idyot splashnaya otsebyatina (I don't like working with him. He adds a lot of his own commentary to the text).
Another nice word along these lines is vsyachina a noun from the adjective vsyaki (any, all kinds of), which means "a collection of all kinds of things." In colloquial English, this is usually expressed by the word "stuff." It's often used in the phrase vsyakaya vsyachina: V kladovkye - vsyakaya vsyachina (my closet is filled with all kinds of stuff). Vsyachina can refer to big or small "stuff."
Melochovka, the diminutive of melochi is a collective noun that means "small tasks." Ya ushye napisala tekst otchyota - ostalas tolko melochovka (I've already written the text of the report - all that's left are the last little details).
U nas mezhdusoboychik- nye meshiye (we're having a heart-to-heart talk - please don't bother us). Nye stoit uchastvovats v grantovom konkursy. Eta mezhdusoboychik (there's no point applying for the grant. It's for insiders only).
Russian encapsulates the notion of "an activity for a select group of people" so nicely in the word mezhdusoboychik that I've always wanted to translate "insider trading" as: mezhdusoboychik na birzhye.
Another group of nouns that are voluminous in meaning but a headache to translate are abstract nouns formed by adding -ost to the stem of an adjective.
Siuminutnost is derived from the adjective siuminutni and could be rendered literally as "right-this-minute-ness." Internet obyespechivayet siuminunost peridachi informatsi (through the Internet you can update information virtually every minute).
Potustoronny Mir is "the afterlife," literally "the world on the other side." This has a nice abstract noun, potustoronnost literally "the concept of life in the next world," which could be used in the phrase: Potustoronnost yavlyayetsa odnoy iz glavnikh tyem tvorchestva Nabokova (the idea of the afterlife is one of the main themes in Nabokov's work).
Russian-English translators and interpreters also loathe two other commonly used "meaningful" Russian nouns: Printsipalnost (the condition of being based on firm principles) and resultatinost (the condition of producing constructive results). When you hit up against one, you groan, throw the Russian semantic construction out the window, and rebuild the thought in English in another way.
With resultativnost you can try "constructive" or "productive." Oni dovolni resultativnostu peregovorov (they were pleased that the negotiations were productive).
But if you're interpreting in front of 3,000 people and your brain short-circuits on "the resultativeness of the negotiations," try a bit of otsebyatina.They thought the meeting went well, anyway.
Michele A. Berdy is a Moscow-based translator and interpreter.
TITLE: Bush Thanks Australia for Sending Troops
AUTHOR: By Terence Hunt
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: CANBERRA, Australia- As thousands of anti-war demonstrators protested outside Parliament, President Bush thanked Australia on Thursday for sending troops to Iraq and Afghanistan to stand and fight alongside the United States "instead of wishing and waiting while tragedy drew closer."
Bush personally saluted Prime Minister John Howard as "a leader of exceptional courage" for not buckling earlier this year to his nation's largest peace marches since the Vietnam War. Instead, Howard sent 2,000 troops to Iraq.
Forty-one opposition lawmakers signed a letter criticizing Bush's war decision, saying the war was conducted on the basis of a clear and present danger in Iraq that did not exist. But Bush shot back in his speech that "Saddam Hussein's regime is gone and no one should mourn its passing."
Outside Parliament, thousands of demonstrators banged drums and shouted at the president from security lines 100 meters away. Other protesters jostled with security officials outside the U.S. embassy compound where Bush stayed overnight.
Inside Parliament, two Green Party senators shouted war protests at Bush during his speech and were ordered removed, but refused to go. One of them, maverick Senator Bob Brown, interrupted Bush to say "we are not a sheriff" - a reference to Bush's recent description of Howard. Bush smiled during the interruptions and said, "I love free speech."
Bush came here, his last stop on a six-country trip, from Indonesia where he tried to convince skeptical Islamic leaders Wednesday that America is not biased against Muslim countries. He praised the anti-terror work of Indonesia's president in an appearance near the site of an al-Qaida-sponsored bombing that killed more than 200.
Bush praised President Megawati Sikarnoputri, an ally against terrorism, and tried to dispel the conviction of many Muslims that the war on terror is, in fact, a war against Islam. He presented his case in a meeting with moderate religious leaders.
Like Bush, Megawati faces an election next year, and she tried to appear close to Bush while saying that her citizens are suspicious of the United States. "We do not always share common perspective," Megawati said.
En route to Australia, Bush said on Air Force One that he told the religious leaders in Bali that he disagreed with those who say America is anti-Islamic, and too pro-Israel. "They said the United States' policy is tilted toward Israel, and I said our policy is tilted toward peace," Bush said.
Australia was the last stop on a grueling six-country trip that won international support for Bush's initiative to help solve the North Korean nuclear crisis.
"Kim Jong Il is used to being able to deal bilaterally with the United States, but the change of policy now is, is that he must deal with other nations, most notably China," Bush said on Air Force One. "Now he's got his big neighbor to the right on his border, he's got a neighbor to the south, he's got Japan, he's got another neighbor, Russia, all saying the same thing."
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In sharp contrast with the Bush administration's upbeat progress reports, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is questioning whether the United States has failed to take "truly bold moves" in Iraq and Afghanistan and asking the Pentagon to rethink its strategy.
In an internal memo, Rumsfeld said the U.S.-led coalitions would win in Afghanistan and Iraq, but so far have had mixed results. He wrote that the United States "has made reasonable progress in capturing or killing the top 55 Iraqis" but has made "somewhat slower progress" tracking down top Taliban leaders who sheltered al-Qaida in Afghanistan.
Rumsfeld wrote in the Oct. 16 memo, which was first reported by USA Today on Wednesday, "My impression is that we have not yet made truly bold moves."
TITLE: Israel Shuns UN Plea to Wreck Wall
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: JERUSALEM - Israel rejected an overwhelming call by the United Nations to dismantle a massive barrier being built in the West Bank, with a top official dismissing the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday as hostile to the Jewish state.
"The fence will continue to be built," said Vice Premier Ehud Olmert.
Israel says the wall is needed to keep suicide bombers out. The Palestinians say Israel is using the barrier as a pretext to take Palestinian land.
In Jerusalem, meanwhile, Israel's police minister toured a disputed holy site - the first visit by a senior Israeli official since Israeli-Palestinian fighting erupted there three years ago. Muslim administrators of the site called the visit a provocation, though Police Minister Tzachi Hanegbi said it was coordinated with them. The visit ended without incident.
The General Assembly's call to dismantle the West Bank barrier was passed late Tuesday after more than six hours of negotiations.
The compromise resolution wasn't legally binding, but was seen as a gauge of world opinion. Palestinians praised the measure, which passed with 144 countries in favor and four opposed, including the United States. There were 12 abstentions.
Olmert, speaking to Israel radio Wednesday, dismissed the resolution as an example of the world's hostility toward Israel.
"Everything connected to Israel gets an automatic majority," Olmert said.
TITLE: Report Condemns Lax UN Security
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations' "dysfunctional" security system led to unnecessary casualties in the August bombing of its headquarters in Iraq, and the world body inappropriately shunned protection by U.S.-led coalition forces, a U.N.-appointed panel examining U.N. security reported Wednesday.
The 40-page assessment by the independent panel was perhaps the most condemnatory report on U.N. actions since those on the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica, Bosnia.
The report raised questions about the world body's ability to ensure the safety of its employees without appearing to work in concert with an occupying force that is itself the target of guerrilla attacks.
The U.N. staff union called the report a "damning indictment" of the organization's attitude toward the security of its employees.
"But while it points to gross negligence and massive shortcomings... it fails to hold anyone accountable," the union noted in a statement. "The real problem lies with the failures of management to adhere even to the existing security system."
Former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, who chaired the panel, said the United Nations must address the issue of accountability.
"In the end, I think everyone bears responsibility - the member states who are asking the U.N. to carry out those responsibilities, and of course... the buck stops always with the secretary-general," he said. "But obviously there are clear messages to those who are actually in charge of the U.N. security coordination."
Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a statement that he will study the report and act to ensure early implementation of its main recommendations.
TITLE: Fatal Car Crash Wasn't Plot To Kill Diana, Says Brother
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LONDON - Princess Diana's brother said Wednesday he does not believe her death in a car crash was planned, despite a recently publicized letter in which she worried that someone was plotting against her.
In the letter published by London's Daily Mirror newspaper, Diana told former servant Paul Burrell that someone was planning "an accident in my car, brake failure and serious head injury in order to make the path clear for Charles to marry."
On Wednesday, Earl Spencer told NBC's "Today" show that he and other relatives do not suspect foul play.
"My family and I are absolutely certain that we've never seen any evidence of that whatsoever," he said. As for Diana's fears, he said, "I do think it's just a horrible coincidence, rather than actually tied in with reality."
Diana died in an August 1997 car crash in Paris that also killed her companion, Dodi Fayed, and driver Henri Paul. A French judge has ruled that Paul's use of drugs and alcohol, and the car's high speed, caused the accident.
Fayed's father, Mohammed al Fayed, who has never accepted that the crash was an accident, called for a public inquiry into the deaths.
Asked if Diana's fears were justified, Spencer said she had spoken to him about being eavesdropped on and having her private quarters bugged.
"I think paranoid is a very strong word. I think using it in the common way of meaning very concerned, she was at times," Spencer said.
He said he hadn't seen the letters but had heard the sections made public seemed to be Diana's handwriting.
The excerpts from Burrell's book, "A Royal Duty," have been appearing in The Daily Mirror all week, embarrassing the royals with gossipy tidbits from letters Prince Philip reportedly sent Diana, his daughter-in-law.
The royal family asked to see an advance copy of the book, and the publisher responded by sending excerpts to Buckingham Palace.
News reports have said Philip and Queen Elizabeth II, his wife, are furious that Burrell included the private letters in his book and are considering legal action.
TITLE: Niagara Jump Survivor Was Suicidal
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NIAGARA FALLS, Ontario - The man who walked away virtually unharmed from a plunge over Niagara Falls said he had been suicidal, but the experience made him want to live.
The comments contradict statements from authorities suggesting Kirk Jones was simply a daredevil - the latest in a long line who have sought to conquer Niagara Falls over the last century.
Jones, 40, was released from the hospital Wednesday .
"It's an embarrassing thing to say now, but depression caused me to do what I think untold numbers have done in Niagara Falls," Jones said. "I can't ask you why God saw me fit to live at this time, but I'm happy to be alive."
The Canton, Michigan, native is the only person known to have survived a plunge over the falls without a safety device.
TITLE: Drug Users Face Tough Penalties
AUTHOR: By Rob Gloster
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SAN FRANCISCO - Threatened with decertification and confronted with fresh evidence its athletes are using banned substances, the U.S. athletics association USA Track & Field has proposed tougher drug rules that could include lifetime bans for first steroid offenses.
The proposed rules also could include fines of up to $100,000 for athletes who test positive for banned drugs - and for their coaches.
"We can no longer allow athletes to cheat and get away with it,'' said USATF chief executive officer Craig Masbeck, acknowledging his organization has not done enough to curb drug use.
The plan was unveiled Wednesday as Dwain Chambers of England, Europe's fastest man, became the first athlete to admit testing positive for a newly discovered designer steroid and as Masback announced that four U.S. track and field athletes also tested positive for the drug this summer.
The previously undetectable steroid, THG, is at the center of a potentially colossal scandal involving chemists, athletes and coaches. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency believes the THG came from a laboratory that supplies some of the nation's top sports stars with nutritional supplements.
Just days ago, the U.S. Olympic Committee gave the national track governing body a month to deal with doping and athlete conduct issues - or face possible decertification.
The USATF hopes to vote on the new anti-doping policy at its annual meeting Dec. 4-8 in Greensboro, North Carolina, after determining if it can legally implement the increased penalties under the Amateur Sports Act. Current USATF rules call for a two-year ban for a first steroid offense.
Masback said the proposed changes would not be retroactive, which means athletes who tested positive this summer for tetrahydrogestrinone, or THG, would not face a possible lifetime ban.
The plan also proposes fines of up to $10,000 for stimulant use and up to $100,000 for drugs such as steroids or amphetamines. Coaches could face bans and fines of up to $100,000 if their athletes flunk drug tests.
The USOC called the plan "an excellent first step'' and said it had appointed a four-person panel to work with the USATF.
"This is a problem that must be addressed, and it must be addressed now,'' Jim Scherr, the USOC's acting CEO, said in a statement. "The integrity and credibility of track and field in America is at stake.''
Masback sent a letter Wednesday to the leaders of major U.S. sports leagues, asking them to join him in Washington in the next two weeks for a meeting about the problem of drugs in sports.
"The situation in which we find ourselves is not a track and field problem or a baseball problem, but an American problem,'' Masback said in a conference call from USATF headquarters in Indianapolis.
The four U.S. athletes who tested positive for THG this summer at the U.S. track and field championships at Stanford, California, could be barred from the 2004 Olympics. Despite that, hurdler Allen Johnson said the U.S. team will not suffer.
"We have enough clean athletes to perform as well as we ever have. We have enough clean athletes to win gold medals,'' Johnson, a four-time world champion, said during the USATF conference call.
The IAAF plans to retest about 400 urine samples from the World Championships in August and says any positive findings would lead to retroactive punishments.
On Wednesday, swimming's world governing body, FINA, said it would consider retesting drug samples from its world championships this summer.
The NFL has said the league might retest its samples for THG. Major league baseball has said it will be unable to retest samples taken this year for THG, but plans to discuss whether to add it to the list of banned substances.
Chambers, a Briton who is the European 100-meter champion, said he tested positive for THG in an out-of-competition test in August. If found guilty of doping, Chambers would face a two-year ban. Britain could also lose its 400 relay silver medal from the world meet in August because Chambers ran the final leg.
Chambers denied trying to cheat and blamed his positive test on nutritional supplements he said were provided by the Burlingame-based Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, or BALCO. He said through an attorney that he had been assured by BALCO founder Victor Conte that all the supplements he was given were within international rules.
USADA detected THG after testing a substance in a syringe provided by an unidentified coach who said it came from Conte. Conte has denied being the source.
Meanwhile, dozens of top Olympic and professional athletes - from baseball's Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi to boxer Shane Mosley - have been subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury probing BALCO. Being subpoenaed does not imply wrongdoing.
BALCO was raided by the Internal Revenue Service and local drug agents in September. Conte's attorney has confirmed his client is the target of the grand jury probe.
The scope of the investigation is unclear, and federal officials have refused to comment.
TITLE: Marlins Tied With N.Y. Yankees
AUTHOR: By Ben Walker
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MIAMI - The Florida Marlins gave Roger Clemens his due, but not the win. That they claimed that for themselves. Slumping Alex Gonzalez led off the bottom of the 12th inning with a home run and the Marlins survived yet another late Yankees jolt, beating New York 4-3 Wednesday night to even the World Series at two games each.
A night that was supposed to belong to Clemens instead turned in Florida's favor, ensuring that the Series will return to Yankee Stadium for another game.
All of the Marlins applauded while popping flashbulbs lit up the park when the Rocket walked off after the seventh in what might have been his final appearance.
"It kind of just hits you a little bit, everything that's happened over your career," Clemens said.
But there was still a lot of ball left. Pinch-hitter Ruben Sierra saved the Yankees with a two-out, two-run triple in the ninth that tied it at 3.
And it turned out the drama was just beginning once the clock passed midnight. At 12:28 a.m., Gonzalez hit a low line drive off Jeff Weaver that barely cleared the left-field wall for the win. Gonzalez had been only 5-for-53 this postseason.
Weaver, the odd man out on the Yankees' staff for most of the season, began warming up in the first inning when Clemens gave up three runs. Weaver took over in the 11th in his first appearance since Sept. 24.
Both teams threatened in extra innings, with Marlins reliever Braden Looper escaping a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the 11th and posting the victory.
The Yankees had won seven straight extra-inning games in the Series since 1964.
The previous two were among the most stirring in their storied history, set up when Tino Martinez and Scott Brosius hit two-out, two-run homers in the bottom of the ninth on consecutive nights against Arizona's Byung-Hyun Kim in 2001.
But the Marlins also knew a thing about late magic. Their last Series win at Pro Player was an 11-inning victory in Game 7 against Cleveland in 1997.
"That's what this is all about. You've got two great teams that deserve to be here, and you saw great baseball tonight," Yankees manager Joe Torre said.
Torre and Clemens already have talked, in fact, about the Rocket being in the bullpen later in the Series. While Clemens did not win, the Yankees at least made sure he did not lose.
Shut down for eight innings by Carl Pavano, New York came back in the ninth against Ugueth Urbina.
Bernie Williams, who had four hits, singled with one out, Hideki Matsui walked and Jorge Posada grounded into a force play. David Dellucci came in to run for Posada, and Sierra fouled off two full-count pitches before tripling into the right-field corner.
All the elements were in place for Clemens' coronation as one of the all-time greats. His place in the Hall of Fame is already assured, and the Yankees hoped he could go out with a win that would put them one victory for yet another championship.
But the plucky Marlins had other ideas.
Miguel Cabrera, only 1 when Clemens made his major league debut in 1984, put the Marlins ahead with a two-out, two-run homer in the first.
"We got five straight hits in the first inning we thought we were going to get to him early," Florida's Jeff Conine said. "It was really nice to see the crowd give him a sendoff like they did."
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Loko Shock
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Lokomotiv Moscow shattered the 100 percent record of Inter Milan in this season's Champions League on Tuesday with a shock 3-0 victory over the Italians at the Lokomotiv Stadium.
Lokomotiv, which had not scored a goal in its opening two Group B matches, produced a superb display against an Inter team still reeling after the sacking of its Argentine coach Hector Cuper on Sunday.
Less than two minutes into the match Lokomotiv captain Dmitry Loskov surprised the visitors when he converted Maxim Buznikin's cross from the right wing to make it 1-0.
Georgia striker Mikheil Ashvetia and Russian international Dmitry Khokhlov, with an imperious header, completed the rout with two goals seven minutes apart shortly after the interval.
Kobe's Comeback
EL SEGUNDO, California (AP) - Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant is looking forward to his first game since being ordered to stand trial for sexual assault and undergoing knee surgery.
"It's my eighth year in the league - too many years in the league to be nervous,'' he said after practice Wednesday.
Coach Phil Jackson said he plans to start Bryant in the exhibition game against the Los Angeles Clippers in Anaheim on Thursday night and play him in "eight-to-nine minute bursts.''
Renna Killed in Crash
(AP) Indy car driver Tony Renna,26, was killed Wednesday in a crash at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
The crash came in his first test session on the track with the elite Target/Chip Ganassi Racing team, and it came in the same car that new teammate Scott Dixon, the 2003 IRL champion, had driven the previous day at speeds up to 230 mph. Renna was on his fourth lap when his G Force-Toyota crashed as he came out of the third turn on the 2 1/2 -mile oval.
Team owner Ganassi said the car cleared the wall and crashed into the catch fence. Renna was taken to Methodist Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
India Moves on Peace
NEW DELHI (AFP) - Talks between Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf at a South Asian summit in January are unlikely, despite fresh peace moves between the two, India said.
Indian Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha confirmed Wednesday Vajapayee would attend the Jan. 4-6 summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation in Islamabad but ruled out the one-to-one talks.
The nuclear rivals are in the middle of a delicate peace process after coming close to their fourth war last year. Since April they have been mending ties and have reappointed ambassadors to each others' capitals.
Opposition to Launch
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - NASA's decision to launch a fresh crew to the International Space Station came over the strenuous objections of mid-level scientists and physicians who raised safety concerns, The Washington Post reported Thursday.
The newspaper said two officials responsible for health and environmental conditions on the space station refused to approve the launch and instead signed a dissent that warned of risks posed by the deterioration of vital equipment aboard the orbiting laboratory.
British Police Quit
LONDON (Reuters) - Five policemen exposed in a BBC documentary on racism within the ranks have resigned and three others have been suspended, police say.
Three officers from Greater Manchester resigned on Wednesday after initially being suspended and one resigned from Cheshire.
In North Wales, PC Robert Pulling stood down after an undercover reporter filmed him apparently saying Adolf Hitler had the "right idea" but the wrong methods.
The documentary, secretly filmed by a BBC reporter who enlisted in the police, showed one trainee wearing a Ku Klux Klan-style hood and threatening to harass a British Asian recruit.
School Killers Filmed
DENVER (Reuters) - Only six weeks before carrying out the Columbine High School massacre, two teenage gunmen went target practising and wondered what it would be like to shoot someone in the head, a newly-released videotape shows.
The target practice video depicts Dylan Klebold, 17, Eric Harris, 18, and three friends firing illegally sawed-off shotguns and a semiautomatic pistol in the foothills southwest of Denver.
The three weapons were later used in the April 20, 1999 rampage.