SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #927 (95), Thursday, December 11, 2003
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TITLE: Communists Say Vote Count 'a Scam'
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky and Francesca Mereu
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The Communists announced on Wednesday that an alternative tally of the State Duma vote has revealed ballot stuffing that pushed the Kremlin-crafted United Russia party only a trifle higher, but was sufficient to squeeze Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces out of the Duma.
Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov said the tally, organized in conjunction with the two liberal parties, has so far covered only 15 percent of polling stations but already has turned up at least 3.5 million extra votes for United Russia. A total of 58 million people voted in Sunday's elections.
"We can't accept the results of a vote that is 100 percent a scam. We're demanding a recount of the ballots by hand," Zyuganov said at a news conference.
Central Elections Commission chief Alexander Veshnyakov stuck by his count, branding the alternative tally "not serious" and "swindling."
A United Russia leader, Oleg Morozov, dismissed the Communists' alternative tally as "political intrigue." He admitted, however, that there could have been some violations, but said they would not have changed the big picture.
True, the difference between United Russia's official result of 37.09 percent and the 33.1 percent that the Communist count is showing mattered little in the party's landslide victory. But the Communists insisted that the ballot stuffing for United Russia did irreparable harm to Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces, or SPS, by diluting their share of the vote.
Yabloko should have won 5.98 percent of the vote rather than 4.3, and SPS should have won 5.12 percent rather than 4.0, Zyuganov said. Both parties would then have cleared the 5 percent hurdle to form a faction in the Duma.
The Communists, who led the effort to prevent vote rigging, appeared to emerge unhurt by the alleged ballot stuffing. According to the alternative count, they collected 12.73 percent of the vote, practically the same as the Central Elections Commission's 12.7 percent.
The alternative count also showed no considerable difference in the results for the Liberal Democratic Party and Rodina, two other pro-Kremlin parties that won Duma seats on the basis of the party-list vote.
It was not immediately clear which regions the alternative count has covered so far - a factor that may cause the results to change dramatically as more regions are included.
The numbers of the alternative count, however, roughly correspond to those of an exit poll conducted by ROMIR Monitoring and commissioned by The St. Petersburg Times' sister paper The Moscow Times, Soros Foundation and Renaissance Capital.
Interestingly, even an exit poll conducted by the Public Opinion Foundation - run by Kremlin-connected pollster Alexander Oslon - showed the highest discrepancies for SPS and Yabloko.
But all the figures are within the margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.
The three parties carrying out the alternative count worked together to put at least one observer at each of the country's 98,000 polling stations to monitor the voting. They then received sealed copies of the reports showing the results and voter turnout.
Yabloko deputy head Sergei Mitrokhin said that ballot boxes were not always sealed for delivery to local election committees. At these committees, extra ballots could have been stuffed into the boxes before observers gained access to them, he said at a separate news conference.
Zyuganov complained that observers had much more difficulty in obtaining official vote counts from commissions suspected of fraud.
Yabloko and SPS gave mixed signals as to whether they would dispute the findings in court.
Mitrokhin said his party would take the findings to court if there were sufficient evidence "covering several regions" - something that could become clear next week. Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky, however, said it would be useless to dispute anything in the Russian judicial system.
Likewise, Boris Nadezhdin, an SPS adviser, said the party could take the case to court if the difference between the official and unofficial counts proved considerable, Interfax reported. But SPS co-leader Irina Khakamada said she shared Yavlinsky's opinion. "We realize perfectly well that all this would make no sense," she told Interfax.
The Communist Party, Yabloko and SPS said they would take another few days to process more reports from the polling stations.
"It is a huge amount of work," said Andrei Andreyev, a Communist Party spokesman. "And we don't have as many people as the Central Elections Commission has."
Sergei Ivanenko, another Yabloko deputy head, said the alternative counting has to be conducted in at least half of the polling stations for the results to be convincing.
Yevgenia Dillendorf, a spokeswoman for Yavlinsky, told Interfax that when similar violations were reported to the Central Elections Commission after the previous Duma elections in 1999, "they explained to us that they would treat an alternative vote count seriously if the data were based on results from at least 50 percent of polling stations."
Nezavisimaya Gazeta speculated that the Communists might lose interest in the effort since it has so far failed to show that they should have done better in the elections. But Andreyev said the counting would be completed and the results compared to those of the Central Elections Commission and published.
Lilia Tubovaya, a spokeswoman for SPS, said the party also is counting votes and its results are very similiar to those of the Communists. But she suggested that both SPS and Yabloko would have had little to gain by sneaking past the 5 percent barrier.
"What is the point of having two small right-wing factions in the Duma? They would not be able to change things anyway," she said.
Veshnyakov sternly warned against dramatizing the situation and leveling baseless accusations. "If there are any proven concrete facts, the culprits will be severely punished," he said at a news conference. But he added: "We will punish severely both for falsifications and for slander."
Staff writer Oksana Yablokova contributed to this report.
HOW THEY RATED
United Russia
Central Elections Commission 37.09%
Communist Count 33.1%
MT-Soros-RenCap 34.1%
Public Opinion Foundation 36.9%
Union of Right Forces
Central Elections Commission 4.0%
Communist Count 5.12%
MT-Soros-RenCap 6.1%
Public Opinion Foundation 4.7%
Yabloko
Central Elections Commission 4.3%
Communist Count 5.98%
MT-Soros-RenCap 5.8%
Public Opinion Foundation 5.1%
Rodina
Central Elections Commission 9.1%
Communist Count 10.69%
MT-Soros-RenCap 9.5%
Public Opinion Foundation 9.2%
LDPR
Central Elections Commission 11.6%
Communist Count 11.46%
MT-Soros-RenCap 10.9%
Public Opinion Foundation 11.6%
Against All
Central Elections Commission 4.8%
Communist Count 5.21%
MT-Soros-RenCap 6.8%
Public Opinion Foundation 6.1%
TITLE: Civil Rights Advocates Rue Duma
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Participants in the annual Sakharov hearings, held in St. Petersburg on Wednesday, criticized the results of the elections to the State Duma and expressed their concern about human rights in Russia.
"On Monday we woke up the the Fourth Reich in its Russian variant," said Alexander Grigoryants, a St. Petersburg theater director, commenting the results of the Duma elections.
"If the election results were falsified - then we'll have to fight," Grigoryants said. "If not then we'll be facing up to long and hard work with the souls of those people who've been indifferent to what's going on."
The hearings, marking Sakharov Memorial Day and celebrated on the same day as International Human Rights Day, were dedicated to the discussions on human rights and freedom, and the elections. Russian physicist and human rights campaigner Andrei Sakharov was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Dec. 10 1975.
Two days before Constitution Day on Friday they also discussed how much the state was fulfilling the obligations that it has in the Constitution, which was ratified on Dec. 12, 1993.
Many people who came to discuss the problems of democracy in Russia showed their surprise and irritation that two parties - the Union of the Right Forces or SPS and Yabloko - which historically had opposed the government, didn't gain enough votes to get seats in the Duma.
However, a number of participants also criticized SPS and Yabloko for their own mistakes.
"The fall of SPS's and Yabloko's popularity is a result of the fall of its leaders' popularity," said Alexander Bogdanov, independent journalist.
Igor Zhordan, a St. Petersburg a SPS member, suggested that both parties probably needed such a shock to review their policy.
"Because sometimes it seems that SPS activities turn into PR for their leaders," Zhordan said.
Andrei Alekseyev, candidate of social science at St. Petersburg Sociology Inistitute, agreed with that position saying that the personal failure of SPS leader Irina Khakamada against Gennaday Seleznyov in St. Petersburg's election district 209 was more proof of that.
Andrei Polonsky, a journalist from Novy Petersburg newspaper said he felt sorry for people who voted for the Communist party and Vladimir Zhirinovsky's Liberal Democratic Party.
"They voted like that because of their terrible standard of living," Polonsky said.
"For them Chubais symbolizes an enemy, while Yavlinsky is a man who they think has nothing for them and hasn't even promised to do anything," he said. "But Zhirinovsky promised."
"Russia has the right to strive for an authoritarian regime," because for many people it symbolizes the relative stability that they had during the Soviet times, Polonsky added.
Many participants also said that the low turnout to the elections indicated that many people are indifferent to events in the country.
Meanwhile, Nikolai Baranyuk, member of the Ukrainian Council in Russia, said that Russia "has never had and still doesn't have democracy."
He complained that many people of Ukrainian nationality, who live in Russia, suffer from not having Ukrainian newspapers, TV, and schools in this country.
Bogdanov said Russia lost a lot of its democratic image when it sent troops to Chechnya.
Antuan Arakelyan, head expert of St. Petersburg center Strategia, said that human rights are violated in Russia in many respects.
"For instance, residents of Russia's territories of Kalmykia and Buryatia, many of whom worship the Dalai Lama, cannot see him on their lands, because he is prohibited from visiting Russia due to a certain agreement between Russia and China," Arakelyan said.
TITLE: Markova Questioned for Alleged Slander of Matviyenko
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Former vice governor Anna Markova was summoned to the city prosecutor's office this week after Governor Valentina Matviyenko filed a suit against her.
Matviyenko has accused Markova of libel and verbal insult during two television debates broadcast on local TV station TRK Petersburg in early October.
The two women both ran in gubernatorial elections that culminated in a runoff by Matviyenko on Oct. 5.
Passions boiled over in the debates between the candidates. Markova said Matviyenko was hiding behind President Vladimir Putin's high poll ratings and was exploiting her position as presidential envoy to the Northwest region in the campaign. At one point, Markova took out a hamper of food, which she said was being distributed among elderly and poor voters in Matviyenko's name and asked if her rival knew anything about it.
Markova also asked a question about Matviyenko's son's allegedly routinely breaking traffic laws and exceeding speed limits in his red Ferrarri without any punishment.
After her conversation Monday with a representative of the St. Petersburg's Prosecutor's Office, Markova said she received no guarantee she would meet Matviyenko face-to-face as part of investigation.
"Confrontation with the person who filed the suit against me is my basic right, stated in the Constitution and international legislation," Markova said Wednesday. "But the investigator, with whom I spoke failed to guarantee me that."
Matviyenko's complaint was filed at the St. Petersburg Prosecutor's Office on Nov. 10, a month after the televised debates. Markova received a summon for questioning three weeks later.
St. Petersburg lawmaker Vatanyar Yagya welcomed the governor's decision saying that the case would set an important precedent for the local courts and would serve as a warning sign for the future elections on all levels.
"Every time we have elections in St. Petersburg, mud flows and dirty tricks are widely used," Yagya said. "But local courts do all they can to procrastinate the process and avoid opening a case, when candidates who fall victim to libel approach them. I just hope this case marks the beginning of a new era when each argument receives a fair and thorough investigation."
But Markova has filed a protest to the General Prosecutor's Office asking for the court case be heard outside St. Petersburg on the grounds that St. Petersburg's Prosecutor General Nikolai Vinnichenko is likely to be biased.
"I respect him as a lawyer very much but his recent appointment [as St. Petersburg's Prosecutor General] and his previous job as chief federal inspector in St. Petersburg - which meant being Matviyenko's subordinate when she served as presidential representative in Northwest region - wouldn't allow him to be impartial," Markova said. "He has an interest in Matviyenko winning."
She also complained that the St. Petersburg Prosecutor's Office violated the law by informing her that the case against had been opened after 20 days, rather than the statutory 24 hours.
Tatyana Dorutina, head of St. Petersburg's League of Voters, shared Markova's reservations.
Prosecutions in Russia are typically selective and unreliable, she said.
"This whole situation with the libel suit looks like nothing but revenge to me," Dorutina said. "The legal system is corrupt and is used as a tool against 'enemies of the state' or those whom the authorities happen to dislike."
Dorutina said another reason for Matviyenko to file a suit against Markova is to "show her teeth" to her current and potential opponents.
"The message is clear: look what will happen to you if you speak out against me, criticize what I do or ask the wrong questions," Dorutina said.
Interfax cited Alla Manilova, head of City Hall's media committee, as saying that Matviyenko "is not seeking tough measures against Anna Markova and would withdraw her complaint if her opponent publicly apologizes about her actions live on air on TRK Peterburg."
But for Markova apologies are out of the question.
She said she is ready to publicly repeat all her words as a lawyer and a citizen.
"I didn't accuse my rival of anything," Markova said. "All local newspapers wrote about the issues I was asking her about during the debates. And, most importantly as a candidate for such an important job, she should have been prepared to answer all sorts of questions whether she likes them or not."
"I stand by my every word," Markova said. "I am speaking on behalf of my voters who shared my concern. It is political persecution, and I must prove that the governor's behavior is against all rules and political culture. No apologies will be made."
Political commentator Daniil Kotsubinsky said he regretted that Matviyenko had failed to show compassion and magnanimity towards her unsuccessful rival.
"Naturally, all pre-electoral rhetoric is highly emotional, but I personally believe that it is fair to expect the winner to show some generosity," Kotsubinsky said. "I am also convinced that loose legislation provides enough opportunities to catch any candidate on something. The question is when this opportunity is actually used."
During her meeting with reporters Tuesday, Matviyenko refused to discuss the suit against Markova.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Transport Fares to Rise
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - City Hall plans to raise the price of public transport by about 15 percent on Jan.1, Interfax quoted Alexander Datsyuk, head of the transport committee, as saying Tuesday.
Bus, trolleybus and tram fares are to rise from 6 rubles (20 cents) to 7 rubles per journey while subway fares will rise from 7 rubles to 8 rubles, the report said.
The rises are subject to approval by a trilateral commission made up of representatives of City Hall, unions and employers that is to meet in the next fortnight, the report said.
End of Wait for Phones
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - City Hall intends to eliminate the waiting lists for city telephones by 2006, Interfax quoted Vice Governor Andrei Chernenko as saying Wednesday at a meeting with Deputy Communications Minister Alexander Kiselyev.
About 60,000 citizens are waiting for telephones, 15,000 of them for a second line, most of them in the outer suburbs, Chernenko was quoted as saying.
This year 72,000 new telephone connections are expected to be created and next year 121,000, he added.
Security Beefed Up
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Following terrrorist bombings in Yessentuki and Moscow in the last week, the level of security in St. Petersburg has been raised, Interfax quoted the city Federal Security Service as saying Thursday.
Police are observing large gathering points, especially the metro, railway stations and the airport with special attention being paid to nuclear power stations in the Leningrad Oblast, which are guarded by the FSB, the military and police.
Power Problems Persist
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Sixty-nine settlements with 665 inhabitants in the Leningrad region were still without power Wednesday morning after strong winds broke transmission lines on Monday, Interfax reported, citing the Emergency Situations Ministry.
Initially 455 settlements with 17,825 people in 134 districts of the region were cut off, the report said.
Payouts for Repressed
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - City Hall will have allocated 5 million rubles ($169,000) to rehabilitated victims of political repression by the end of the year, Interfax reported Tuesday.
City welfare departments have lists of 406 people who were politically repressed and in accordance with city and federal laws they are entitled to monthly compensation of 1,498 rubles ($50) each, the report said.
Noga Case Rejected
MOSCOW (SPT) - The government on Wednesday welcomed a ruling by the French appeals court that lifts the threat of Russian property being seized in France by Swiss trading company Noga, Interfax reported.
"We consider the court decision to be objective and logical," said government spokesman Alexei Gorchkov.
The legal tussle between the government and Noga stems from food-for-oil deals between the two entities that were signed in the early 1990s and for which Noga claims it is owed $1.5 billion.
Russia refused to recognize the debt, prompting Noga to pursue claims against Russian property in Europe. In 2001, a French court impounded two Russian military jets taking part in the Paris Air Show, causing an international incident. The planes eventually were allowed to leave France.
In 2000, Noga convinced French courts to impound the historic Russian sailboat Sedov and freeze the bank accounts of the Russian Embassy in Paris, decisions that were later overturned.
PM Talks Hollywood
MOSCOW (Prime-Tass) - Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov has asked the Press Ministry and other government bodies take extra measures to protect intellectual property, Kasyanov told Jack Valenti, the visiting chairman and CEO of the powerful Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA), on Wednesday, the government's press service reported.
The two men discussed cooperation in fighting copyright infringement and piracy of intellectual property.
U.S. movie makers lose $250 million per year due to pirated copies in Russia, excluding losses from exports of counterfeit copies from Russia, Valenti said.
However, Valenti praised the efforts of the government to combat these infringements of intellectual property law.
Kasyanov heads the government commission on measures against the violation of intellectual property rights.
Tanker Causes Waves
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - A Spanish ship inspector said an aging oil tanker sailing toward Spain shouldn't have been allowed to leave port, according to a statement posted on the Spanish Development Ministry's web site on Wednesday.
The Geroi Sevastopolya, a single-hull tanker, left the Latvian port of Ventspils bound for Singapore over the weekend carrying about 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil. It's following the same course as the Prestige, which broke apart and sank more than a year ago, causing Spain's worst environmental disaster.
The inspector was part of a team sent by the European Commission to inspect the Russian-flagged tanker at the Baltic Sea oil port on Friday. The Spanish navy was ordered last week to stop the vessel from sailing along Spain's coastline.
Schlumberger in Russia
MOSCOW (SPT) - Schlumberger, the French-American oil services giant, said Tuesday it will buy PetroAlliance, a Russian oilfield services company, Agence France Presse reported citing Schlumberger.
Schlumberger told the news agency that it would buy PetroAlliance in three stages, the first of which, a 26 percent stake, will take place in the first quarter of 2004, followed by 25 percent in the second quarter of 2005 and the rest later in 2005.
The value of the deal was not disclosed.
TITLE: Starovoitova Murder Trial Due This Month
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: More than five years after leading democratic politician Galina Starovoitova was assassinated on the stairway to her apartment a trial of those suspected of killing her is to start at the end of this month.
A criminal case to investigate the assassination was handed over to city court Nov. 24, Interfax reported Tuesday, without any explanation why the announcement was delayed.
The court hearing will be before a jury at the request of prosecutors and the defense. Six suspects, who are in custody, are going to be heard by the court. Four others are still at large.
The investigation has failed to reveal who is behind the assassination.
According to Agency of Journalistic Investigations the six suspects are Yury Kolchin, an employee of General Staff's Main Intelligence Directorate, or GRU, at the moment of the crime, Igor Lelyavin, Vitaly Akishin, Igor Krasnov, Anatoly Voronin and Yury Ionov, all born in the city of Dyadkovo in the Bryansk region.
Federal arrest warrants have been issued for Sergei Musin, Pavel Stekhnovsky, Oleg Fedosov and Igor Bogdanov. Prosecutors have determined that the assassination was as an act of terrorism or an attempt to kill a state or public figure so that she would cease carrying out her state or other political activity, or it was revenge for such activity.
Citing FSB investigators, the agency reports on its web site fontanka.ru that the assassination was carefully planned.
On the evening of Nov. 20, 1998, Musin is said to have called Kolchin on a cellphone from the airport to report that Starovoitova had arrived in the city. Kolchin was waiting outside the State Duma deputy's home at 91 Canal Griboyedov. Kolchin ordered Akishin and Fedosov to get ready, the agency reported.
The two suspects then went down the staircase to meet Starovoitova and Ruslan Linkov, her assistant, and shot them, the agency said. Fedosov was dressed as a woman and used an Agran machine-gun, which was later found at the scene of the crime, the report said.
Ionov drove the killers from the crime scene. At a rented apartment, Voronin destroyed the killers' clothing by ripping it apart and dumping it in the Kannonersky Canal, the report said.
Voronin was responsible for a technical part of the assassination, recording Starovoitova's phone calls and writing down their contents, the report said.
"The evidence gathered appears to be quite strong, but we'll see have to wait and see how well it stands up court," Yury Shmidt, a lawyer working on the case on the behalf of Starovoitova's family, said Wednesday.
"There are unidentified people mentioned in the case, so the investigation is not over," he added. "Because half of the ball has been untangled [the mystery has been half-solved], there is hope that suspects will start talking if they want to get lenient sentences."
"Investigators told me they know organizers, but don't have enough proof yet," Shmidt said.
The FSB interrogated more than 1000 witnesses, conducted 40 searches, 26 confiscations, 62 observations, 104 examinations, three investigation experiments and 19 identifications in connection with the case..
"How good the proof is will he judged by the court," said Ruslan Linkov, Starovoitova's assistant who was injured in the assassination. "We [Linkov and the Starovoitova's family] are mainly interested in when the investigation would finally name organizers and if law enforcement bodies are taking any steps to find the rest of the suspects."
"Another of Starovoitova's goals is going to be realized," he said Wednesday. "It will be jury trial, a thing she dreamt about having in Russia."
TITLE: FSB: al-Qaida Behind Bomb
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - Police confirmed Wednesday that a deadly explosion outside the National Hotel on Tuesday was the work of a female suicide bomber and said they were combing the city for a suspected accomplice.
Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said Tuesday's bombing, which killed six, was "a manifestation of international terrorism, according to its handwriting, its character and its content."
Russia "does not see yesterday's terrorist act in Moscow as a manifestation of Chechen terrorism," Ivanov said during a visit to Berlin, Interfax reported. "The ethnic origins of those who carried out this terrorist act have no bearing on this case."
The Federal Security Service said it believed the al-Qaida terrorist network was involved.
A Moscow prosecutor linked the attack to a series of recent blasts, including the train bombing in the Stavropol region on Friday that killed 44 and the double suicide bombings at the Tushino rock concert in July that killed 16.
"All these blasts were organized by a single group and coordinated from a single center," Prosecutor Grigory Shinakov said.
TITLE: Carriers Look Overseas For New Regional Planes
AUTHOR: By Lyuba Pronina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - A dearth of regional aircraft, coupled with growing passenger numbers, is forcing Russian carriers to fill the gap abroad, airline officials say.
Aeroflot is expected to announce a tender for regional aircraft and request that the government temporarily lift an import duty on foreign-built planes.
A replacement is urgently needed for the workhorse Tupolev-134, which on average is 20 years old and does not meet European noise regulations.
Valery Okulov, CEO of the flagship carrier, said last week that Aeroflot would call a tender for regional aircraft by the end of the year.
He did not specify which aircraft the company is considering. But last month Okulov made it clear that alternatives such as the Antonov-148 or homegrown Tu-334 are several years away from going on the market.
Russia Regional Jet (RRJ), a joint-venture between Sukhoi and Boeing, is still on the drawing boards.
Okulov has repeatedly said that the lack of modern domestic planes seriously limits the growth of Aeroflot, which plans to double its passenger numbers from six to 12 million a year by 2010.
To find the needed jets at an affordable price, Aeroflot plans to ask the government for a temporary lifting of duties and taxes on foreign planes. A 40-percent government levy on imported jets makes them too expensive.
"Aeroflot urgently needs regional aircraft, in fact we needed them yesterday," Sergei Koltovich, head of Aeroflot's fleet planning and procurement, said Wednesday.
"To resolve this problem, we would like to propose to the government to let us temporarily import foreign jets without paying the duties. In return, we would commit ourselves to acquiring domestic jets when they are ready."
Aeroflot will make the final decision on which aircraft it favors, the RRJ or the An-148.
According to Koltovich, Aeroflot needs up to 30 airplanes, each seating between 70 and 95 passengers, in the next two to three years, for routes within 2,000 kilometers of Moscow.
Andrei Ilyin, general director of Sukhoi Civil Aircraft division, which plans to start delivering RRJ in mid-2007, said that Aeroflot's scheme could work.
But, he added, "it's vital that the import of foreign jets will be firmly linked to a commitment to future Russian airplanes."
A source in Rosaviakosmos, Russian Aviation and Space Agency, said that Aeroflot is unlikely to garner support for its plan, as the government is trying hard to rescue domestic manufacturers.
The source recalled that Aeroflot already operates 27 duty-free foreign jets under a 1998 government resolution in exchange for a promise to purchase Russian-made planes in the future. To date the airline has not done so.
Mikhail Koshman, spokesman for Sibir airline, said it is likely that Aeroflot, which is 51 percent state-owned, will receive a tax break. He added that it would only be fair if other carriers would also be freed from paying the duties.
"Aeroflot's initiative is timely," he said. "It would be right to apply it to the rest of the market though."
Alexander Neradko, head of the State Civil Aviation Service, was recently quoted by Interfax as saying that some airlines might get a temporary tax break for foreign jets as early as 2006.
TITLE: Raids on Yukos Push Shares to New Low
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW - Shares in troubled oil giant Yukos slid to their lowest level in eight months on Wednesday as tax raids on affiliates continued and new charges were filed, spooking investors already worried that its takeover of rival Sibneft is doomed.
Fresh reports in Russian and Western newspapers that Sibneft's controlling shareholder, Roman Abramovich, had decided to scrap the $11 billion landmark deal helped to push Yukos shares down 6.5 percent on the day to $9.55.
Yukos has lost a third of its market value since the Oct. 25 arrest of company founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky on tax evasion charges.
Yukos shares rose above $10 in April this year as news of Khodorkovsky's merger plans with Sibneft leaked - a deal would create the world's fourth-largest oil company.
The shares peaked at $16.35 in October on news of talks with ExxonMobil, but a rumbling dispute between Khodorkovsky and President Vladimir Putin came to a head just weeks later with Khodorkovsky's arrest at gunpoint in Siberia. Putin opponents said the arrest and subsequent raids on Yukos by prosecutors was an attempt by the Kremlin to punish Khodorkovsky for backing opposition political parties.
A partial $11 billion merger of the two companies has already taken place, but shareholders from the Sibneft camp, led by Abramovich, have now gone cold on the deal and suspended it.
"We believe that Yukos has to fall further on the back of the merger break-up news and possible negative developments related to the company's ownership and/or management before bottom- fishing begins," brokerage Aton said in a research note to its clients.
After that note came out, the Interior Ministry said it had opened a criminal case against the management of Bank Menatep St. Petersburg, a financial unit of Group Menatep, the largest shareholder of Yukos.
The case was opened into allegations that the bank's management evaded taxes, said a spokesman for the ministry's economic and tax crimes unit. The official declined to be identified. Later Wednesday, another Interior Ministry spokesman denied the information.
Group Menatep said the company could not immediately comment.
Tax inspectors searched the head office of Bank Menatep St. Petersburg on Tuesday, said Alexander Tkachyov, a bank spokesman.
Tax officials earlier this year discovered the bank had underpaid its taxes for the period, and Menatep cleared the tax arrears, Tkachyov said.
Yukos' head office in Moscow was raided Wednesday by prosecutors from the Russian region of Tomsk, Interfax reported, citing an unidentified employee who witnessed the search.
The employee said the investigators were interested in documents relating to tax payments of a Yukos's Tomskneft subsidiary from 1998 to 1999, the news service reported.
Yukos spokesman Alexander Shadrin declined to comment on the report, saying he doesn't have any information about it.
Meanwhile, Abramovich is ready to return to Yukos cash and shares received in the partial completion that took place in October, Vedomosti reported.
The 37-year old tycoon and a handful of other Sibneft shareholders got $3 billion plus a 26 percent stake in Yukos in exchange for a 92 percent stake in Sibneft, which now belongs to Yukos. The parties also agreed a $1 billion breakup fee.
Sources close to Yukos said Tuesday that its core and minority shareholders had authorized management to pursue talks with Sibneft to gauge whether the $11 billion merger could be salvaged.
(Reuters, Bloomberg, SPT)
TITLE: A Funeral For Russian Democracy
TEXT: I was terrified when I saw the first elections results coming from polling stations in Russia's Far East late Sunday. A few hours later my friends observing the elections raised their glasses and drank to the funeral of democracy.
It was not a joke. A funeral is exactly what happened. Last weekend the population sentenced democracy to death, giving up the right to form the country's laws and leaving this task in the hands of nationalists, fascists and autocrats.
A big and, maybe the best part of the population, the intelligentsia, young free-minded people - literally millions of Russian citizens supporting basic democratic values - were thrown aside by a crowd of the blind majority that was so easily "managed" and ready to do whatever it was told to do.
It was hard to believe there is no liberal party in the State Duma anymore, but this is a bitter fact the country will have to face for years into the future.
"The 20 percent of people who voted in St. Petersburg [for Yabloko and SPS] will not have their representatives in the State Duma," fontanka.ru quoted Mikhail Amosov, head of the city's Yabloko faction, as saying Monday. "This was the intelligentsia and the business community, in other words independent people, whose interests will not be represented in the State Duma."
From now on the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly Yabloko faction is cut off from being able to back the city's interests at the federal level, as it frequently did while the faction was actively operating in the parliament, he added sadly.
"When such problems appeared I would just pick up the phone, dialing the number for Yabloko at the State Duma and the problems were solved," he said. "Now I don't know who to call."
Amosov, along with other liberals in the city and across the country have found themselves locked in the chains of the new power vertical, construction of which was started in 2000 by President Vladimir Putin. He started by creating seven mega districts and finished on Sunday with the election of the fully subordinated parliament filled with deputies colored gray, brown and red.
The Kremlin has no need for bright and open-minded figures because they disturb its plans to control the crowd. Another bitter fact is that the liberals are bound to become a part of that crowd. This is the new position found for them in the power vertical.
The situation does not look that terrible in comparison, for instance, with the experience of Kazakhstan - a country where controlled democracy has been in place for many years. Business is working, foreign companies operate quite well in the region, people are not sent to concentration camps.
But in the long run such a development looks very sad and might even be dangerous. The election is just more proof that Russia has strayed a long way off the path to becoming a real democratic country. After a more than 10 years of struggle to became part of European society, Russia has given up and rolled back to its original position. It considers itself not to be in the West and not in the East, but somewhere in the middle.
It has found its own path again, while the civilized world drives on freeways.
TITLE: spitfire spawns musical family
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: It has been four years since Spitfire, the local college-pop ska-punk seven-piece, released its last album, but the band hasn't been idle. Next week at Red Club, it will launch its new record, "Thrills & Kills," but this is only a small, albeit important, part of what the band has been doing lately.
Other recent activities include its partnership since 2001 with Leningrad, one of Russia's best-selling bands, adding richness and conciseness to Leningrad's slightly anarchic sound. With most of Leningrad's older members now gone, the band's leader Sergei Shnurov augmented the remnants by recruiting the full Spitfire lineup.
Spitfire has also launched the St. Petersburg Ska-Jazz Review together with two members of the Afro-Caribbean-style band Markscheider Kunst. It's lineup was completed when American jazz singer Jennifer Davis joined a few months later.
With all these projects in demand by club managers in Europe and the United States, Spitfire has combined its tours with Leningrad and Ska-Jazz Review. However, while Leningrad's clever and fun - and often obscene - Russian lyrics by Shnurov mainly appeal to Russian immigrants abroad, Spitfire, whose material is primarily in English, is more widely accepted.
"We are an absolutely international, cosmopolite band," said Spitfire drummer Denis "Kashchei" Kuptsov, adding that his style has also grown more popular in Russia.
"We were the first who started to play heavy ska-punk in Russia, and now there are plenty," said Kuptsov, admitting however that the he sees Spitfire's predecessors in such older local bands as Stranniye Igry and Dva Samaliota.
Kuptsov's extra activities include spinning his favorite ska records at the Griboyedov bunker club as DJ Denis Ska Messer, with a couple of other DJs, on Tuesday nights, devoted exclusively to ska, reggae and dub.
Formed in February 1993, Spitfire started out as a garage rockabilly band with elements of noise and punk rock ("a blend of Alien Sex Fiend and The Jesus and Mary Chain with probably a bit of Stray Cats," according to Kuptsov), and wrote its songs almost entirely in English. The goal was to win over club audiences in Western Europe, rather than the purely local scene.
The band, which celebrated its 10th anniversary with a big concert earlier this year, calculates its history from Feb. 10, 1993, the date of its live debut at the now-defunct local Indie Club.
Within one year, the band had added a full horn section and switched to ska-punk. "We were strongly influenced by Fishbone, Mighty Mighty Basstones, Sublime and The Specials. Everybody was also into NoMeansNo then, as well as the Red Hot Chili Peppers," said Kuptsov.
"Thrills & Kills" is Spitfire's third album, after 1996's "Night Hunting" and 1999's "The Coast Is Clear." Recorded at Berlin's Vielklang Musikproduktion studios last spring, the 15-track record has five songs in Russian and 10 in English.
The new album demonstrates a more eclectic approach than the former two, also featuring elements of classic punk and even rap.
"Yes, there's more eclecticism, but any progress is good," said Kuptsov. "It's become stronger, better and more interesting. You can't even call [Spitfire's style] 'ska punk' anymore."
It is also the first album to be released on Shnurov's newly formed Shnur'OK label. According to Shnurov, the aim of the label is to promote "bands that you'll never hear on the radio [in Russia]."
"Practice shows that they don't play good music on the radio in Russia at all," Kuptsov said. "It's better to be good music and not played on the radio, rather than be the music that they do play on the radio. Radio is a problem in this country. You can't fix it quickly."
Kuptsov readily acknowledges Shnurov's contribution in the current popularity of ska punk in Russia.
"The music scene of our generation is very united. Everybody helps each other. You can't see such enthusiasm and unity in Moscow ... In our northern capital people still manage not to think in monetary units."
Apart from Kuptsov, Spitfire features Konstantin Limonov on guitar, Ilya Rogachevsky on keyboards, Andrei Kurayev on bass, Roman Parygin on trumpet, Vladislav Aleksandrov on trombone and Grigory Zontov with Alexander Kanev on saxophones.
The pressure of playing with three groups - and there is even a fourth band, The Pikes, that features Kuptsov as well as two other members of Spitfire and plays its peculiar, tongue-in-cheek glam-rock set only on very special occasions such as the 2002 Halloween party at the underground club Fish Fabrique - has definitely played its part in making the public wait for Spitfire's next album for so long.
"It's a great deal of work, seriously," he said. "I am glad, of course, but it's hard ... But what can we do - we've chosen it ourselves. But we like it. We don't complain."
The concert at Red Club will be Spitfire's last performance in Russia for the next two or three months, as the band will be on tour from Jan. 14 through February to promote "Thrills & Kills" in Europe. The international release is due on Vielklang/Pork Pie in Germany on Jan. 1.
Spitfire performs on Dec. 19 at Red Club. Links: www.spitfire.spb.ru
TITLE: chernov's choice
TEXT: The main event this week has got to be the Tequilajazzz concert at Red Club on Saturday. For the past three months the band, which turned 10 years old in September, appeared locally only a couple of times, although it has been making tour appearances more frequently.
Tequilajazzz will be supported by Joensuu, Finland-based Kulo, whom the St. Petersburg band met during one of its recent Finnish tours. Kulo, which features the electric kantele - the oldest Finnish folk instrument, similar to zither - has been described as folksy psychedelic prog rock. The band itself suggests the label "groove-folk-rock-avant-garde."
"One purpose of the evening is to give a modern Finnish kantele instrument as a present to Tequilajazzz," wrote the band in an e-mail message.
"Beforehand, Kulo will show how this magnificent kantele works as a rock instrument." (see picture on Page iii.)
Saturday will also see the opening of Scopetone, a two-day festival of sound and visual arts. Promoted by Sergei Vasilyev, the manager of Auktsyon, the event will host both musical acts and all kinds of performance artists.
The opening night will be headlined by Fanfare Ciocarlia, the 12-member gypsy brass ensemble which comes from Zece Prajini, a small village with a population of 400 in the east of Romania. Part of the tradition popularized by Emir Kusturica in his 1995 film "Underground," Fanfare Ciocarlia claims to be the "fastest and craziest" of the gypsy brass bands around.
Metamorphosis, who will also play on Saturday, is a Czech Republic-based quartet, although its three of its members are Austrian.
The band, frequently compared to progressive bands from the Rock in Opposition movement, describes its style as "contaminated chamber music," using mainly cello, violin and acoustic guitar.
The festival's second night will feature Auktsyon and the band's friend Leonid Soibelman, formerly of the Tallinn, Estonia-based avant-rock band Ne Zhdali.
There will also be Norway's duo Xploding Plastix, described by Britain's New Musical Express as "two nutcases with lots of small boxes and a terrible name" in an otherwise rave review.
Originally planned to be held at Manezh exhibition hall, the event was later moved to the nearby nightclub PORT. Although PORT is infamous for long queues caused by the venue's guards who take their time searching visitors, the promoters said that the festival will have its own guards to avoid such problems.
Check www.scopetone.com for more details.
The Gallery of Experimental Sound, or GEZ-21, part of the Pushkinskaya 10 center for contemporary arts, promotes a four-day event called "Punk as the Last Modernist Project. Days of Punk Culture at GEZ-21", which will run through Saturday.
The festival, which features philosophical debates, film screenings, art exhibitions and punk concerts, seems to understand its subject a little too broadly, incorporating everything from U.S. trash films to the underground work by local "necrorealists."
The Punk Days will be concluded with a concert by the veteran local punk band Narodnoye Opolcheniye, fronted by singer Alex Ogoltely, on Saturday.
- By Sergey Chernov
TITLE: try a slice of southern slavic charm
AUTHOR: By Eric Bruns
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: On four separate occasions this summer, a friend and I found ourselves facing the bridge immortalized on the front of the 10-ruble note in Krasnoyarsk, at what became the ultimate crossroads of our trans-Siberian travels. Not far from that bridge, after repeatedly attempting to photograph what those who designed the currency had seen - without success - we stopped in a place called the Balkan Grill. That break from life on the road was the best meal I had all summer on my meager budget. The food was delicious, the atmosphere inviting and relaxed, the staff friendly and informative. You can imagine our enthusiasm when we found out they also run a restaurant in St. Petersburg called Drago.
My friend and I finally made our way to that local establishment this week. It is located a short hop, skip and jump away from the Chyornaya Rechka metro station. In contrast to the slushy gloom outside, the interior of the restaurant is warm and alluring. White brick arches promenade down the center of the dining room, supporting abundant hanging green ivy, potted sunflowers and daisies, pumpkins and wicker lamps, giving it all a summer coastal Adriatic air. The seats next to the windows are especially nice, and afford a leisurely look through a small grove of trees at Kamenny island across the river.
I ordered a half-liter of light Krusovice beer for 100 rubles ($3.35) and a half-liter bottle of Borzhomi mineral water for 50 rubles ($1.70). Before needlessly digging into the rest of the menu, vegetarian readers should direct their attention to the very last page of it, something I missed until I began hunting for desserts at the end of the meal.
To begin, however, we couldn't determine which of us would get the roasted breaded cheese for 120 rubles ($4.05). We therefore democratically decided to split it and order another appetizer each for ourselves. Perhaps our expections for the dish were too high after it had been at the center of a dispute, and it wasn't as outrageously good as we anticipated. An accompanying jam seemed more like canned cherry-pie filling and the white toast foundation was a bit stale, but the cheese itself was worthy of the hard stance we each took earlier.
For my own personal starter, I ordered the Dubrovnik salad for 150 rubles ($5.05), which was one of the most delightful salads I've ever had. That's not to say it's for everybody, as I'm not big on green leafy things, but I found the fresh apple bits perfectly complemented the soft chicken chunks and ripe tomato. For those who like green leafy things, you'll be pleased to know that it all came on a bed of incredibly fresh lettuce, without the slightest trace of mayo, as long as you keep the accompanying cocktail sauce in its decanter.
Inspired by memories of Siberia, my friend decided to compare the two restaurants' French onion soup for 80 rubles ($2.70). It came in a ceramic pot brimming with melted cheese and filled with tender onions and savory dark bread croutons. It was probably a bit better in Krasnoyarsk, but not so much as to make as special trip across four time zones.
He continued on with the signature Drago main course for 300 rubles ($10.10). It is a smorgasbord of chicken medallions (with tartar sauce), pork fillet (in a mushroom and cheese sauce) and beef (in a pepper sauce), all served with a French garnish. In his words, it is "really really really good, but not out of the ballpark."
I went with the sturgeon shashlyk for 370 rubles ($12.45). It came on a skewer with alternating shrimp, red bell pepper and onion, and brought a delightful smoky aroma to the table when it arrived. It may have been a bit dry, but that was easily rectified by generous squirts from a few lemon wedges. I also got boiled vegetables for 50 rubles, which consisted of broccoli and potatoes. They didn't bring any surprises, but a hint of garlic was a nice touch.
Overall, I was extremely satisfied by the atmosphere, food and service at this charming restaurant and any faults I can find are mostly quibbles. With that thought in mind, we settled on a wee dram of whisky and cognac for dessert. Fifty grams of Hennessy VS put us back 180 rubles ($6.05), while the same amount of Johnny Walker Red ran 120 rubles. The pair of them proved the perfect conclusion to a well-balanced, delicious, friendly and simply delightful meal. I will certainly be making my way back to this little slice of the Balkans sometime soon.
Drago. 15 Primorsky Prospect. Tel.: 430-6984. Open daily from noon to midnight. Menu in Russian with dish names translated into English. Major credit cards accepted. Dinner for two, with alcohol: 1,670 rubles ($56.15).
TITLE: booker winner beats the odds
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A Russian resident of Madrid was named winner of the 2003 Open Russia Booker Prize last week for his novel, "White on Black," published by St. Petersburg-based Limbus Press.
Paralyzed from birth, Ruben David Gonzales Gallego did not attend the ceremony last Thursday, but the $15,000 award guarantees him the publicity of Russia's most prestigious literary honor. Grandson of a general secretary of the Spanish Communist Party, Gallego grew up in a series of Soviet homes for the permanently disabled - a harrowing experience scrupulously detailed in the pages of his novel.
St. Petersburg poet and critic Tatyana Voltskaya called Gonzales Gallego's victory a rare combination of talent and remarkable life experience.
"Of course, someone might be tempted to say that the writer won primarily owing to exploitation of his sorrowful childhood and his being disabled," she said.
"But 'White on Black' is a piece of genuine art, when the writer is not playing with words for the sake of form or experiment."
The award ceremony came two months after the shortlist of six finalists was announced. Founded in 1991 by the prestigious British Booker Prize, the Russian Booker was hailed as the first independent literary award since 1917. Worldwide attention zeroed in on the winners, who have included Bulat Okudzhava, Ludmila Ulitskaya and, last year, Oleg Pavlov.
However, with the proliferation of literary prizes, many readers now look elsewhere for Russia's literary avant-garde. In 1997, the prize lost its British backing when it was taken over by a branch of the Smirnoff vodka company. In 2002, it was turned over to the Open Russia Foundation, a fund of Yukos shareholders headed by jailed oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
Of the six novels that made it to this year's shortlist, only two - Gonzales Gallego's novel and Leonid Yuzefovich's "Kazaroza" - initially appeared as books. The others - Yelena Chizhova's "Monastery," Afanasy Mamedov's "Frau Shram," Leonid Zorin's "Jupiter" and Natalia Galkina's "Villa Renault" - were printed in journals, a vestige of the Soviet literary industry that has not fared well since publishing took off in the 1990s.
Established in St. Petersburg 15 years ago, Limbus Press became Russia's first private publishing house after the downfall of the Soviet Union.
Its general director, Konstantin Tublin, called the win of "White on Black" deserved and commendable.
"In my opinion, the jury's choice was incredibly easy this year," Tublin said. "In fact the real choice for the Booker was to either support Gonzales Gallego or just destroy itself. It is encouraging to see that the prize has chosen to live on."
Some of Gonzales Gallego's rivals were so impressed with his work that they have spoken publicly of the writer's talent. Yulia Belomlinskaya, representing St. Petersburg's Amphora Publishing House and who was nominated for her novel "Poor Girl," withdrew her name from the competition during the short-listing process when she heard that Gallego's book was in contention.
"She told the jurors that she believes all the laurels of the contest should go to Gallego, as his novel is extraordinary," said Amphora's chief editor Vadim Nazarov.
"She felt it would be dishonest of her to compete with someone whose novel she admires."
At a press conference before the winner was announced, critic Igor Shaitanov, who heads the Booker Prize jury, argued that the number of nominees drawn from literary journals is proof that they still cater to the public's taste.
But the question of what exactly the public wants to read seems far from settled. Given a choice of topics, all the finalists who attended the Booker Prize ceremony - Chizhova, Yuzefovich and Mamedov - focused on the question of where "popular" literature ends and "high" literature begins.
Yuzefovich, whose "Prince of the Wind" won the 2001 National Bestseller prize, was reluctant to box in any kind of writing, but he ventured to associate "popular" literature with demand, and "high" literature with quality of delivery.
Shaitanov has veered away from this debate by emphasizing the Booker's role in publicizing serious literature Russia-wide.
"They tell me that serious literature can only market from 5,000 to 15,000 copies [throughout Russia]," he said.
Despite the popularity of detective thrillers and bodice-rippers, however, Shaitanov is convinced that Russians would read better books if they could find them in their bookstores.
One of Gonzales Gallego's responsibilities over the next year will be to promote this vision. The Booker Prize "is an attempt to open Russia like a door, to satisfy an existing demand for literature," Shaitanov said.
"To be a successful writer a literary talent alone is not enough," Votskaya said.
"What is also needed is a desire to talk to the audiences and, most importantly, the message should be rich in content - in other words, the author has to have something to say. Gallego does by far meet all the criteria.
"What the reader is seeking [in a book] is love and death," Voltskaya added. "And Gallego talks about love and death with tremendous strength."
Staff writer Rebecca Reich contributed to this report.
TITLE: emigre looks back at soviet turmoil
AUTHOR: By Rebecca Reich
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Here's how the story goes: Perestroika got rolling, censorship relaxed, printing presses started pumping out everything from gutter journalism to long-silenced literature, and everyone who'd had a bone to pick about the last few decades - picked it.
Or rather, almost everyone. A recent surge of fiction in English has uncovered the Iron Curtain's final, hidden generation - young people who emigrated between the 1970s and 1990s and who now, writing in a different language, can't wait to have their say. Some of these new writers were not even old enough to drive when they moved to the West. But what's clear from their writing is that, in fact, a lot was left unsaid about the twilight of the Soviet Union and everything that followed. And if anyone is going to say it now, it's the people who left the country and are still thinking about the way it was back then.
Lara Vapnyar's first book, "There Are Jews in My House," is a collection of stories looking at Russia is lurching along like a teenager going through an awkward growth spurt from the outside. Vapnyar's tentative and introverted young characters brace themselves inside against the unpleasant jolts of a reality that Soviet ideology forgot to explain. These are stories of growing up, and through the growing pains of Vapnyar's characters, we get a sense of an entire country forced to learn the rules from scratch.
Indeed, most of the stories are actually narrated by children, which is no surprise since Vapnyar grew up in Moscow. But Vapnyar's perspective is unmistakably adult, and her best-drawn characters are her older ones, who, for all their extra years, are hardly more experienced than the children. There are all sorts of things that they know they shouldn't talk about - sex, envy, rejection, death - and, dutifully, they never do. Kept out of sight, though, those realities are all the more unnerving once they emerge into the open.
Vapnyar's six stories are uneven in quality, but the undistinguished stretch of coming-of-age tales in the middle is more than made up for by the understated precision of the works narrated by adults at either end. The settings may be cataclysmic - war, mass immigration and economic reform - but Vapnyar is mainly concerned with the overlooked bystanders who thought they knew how the world worked until it all fell apart.
Her mostly female characters don't see further than their job or kitchen table - and enough is changing at that level to give them a good scare. In "Love Lessons - Mondays, 9 a.m.," the initial bursts of perestroika are already part of the daily ho-hum for an 18-year-old teacher at a Moscow high school, who has no problem"supervising monthly school dances and weekly yard cleanings, taking students on trips to Lenin's tomb, running out to a bakery to buy a cake for the teacher's tea," but goes faint at the thought of teaching sex education to students who probably know twice as much about sex as she does.
The solution she settles upon is typical of Vapnyar's characters - a no-nonsense exterior that brooks no opposition. "We'll begin our lessons by studying the organs responsible for sexual functions in the female body," she raps out on the first day of class. Her practical approach is as deluded as that of Galina, the main character of the collection's first and strongest story, "There Are Jews in My House," who is convinced that the World War II German invasion won't inconvenience her if she makes sure to stock up on enough potatoes and soap beforehand.
Many of the stories revolve around blatant talk of sex - the cardinal no-no of Soviet culture - which Galina "knew she didn't want to hear" from her more sophisticated friend, but can't help resenting for having never had similar experiences. In fact, Galina is so frightened of what she wants that at one point she literally claps her hands over her ears to shut out the noise.
That kind of stunted mind-set is much less moving when Vapnyar grafts it onto actual children in the central stories, using their natural innocence to skewer the grown-up world. The range of demons remains the same: There's sex in all its frightening forms, and death, which no amount of talk can satisfactorily explain. The diminutive narrator, who does not yet know how to lie, describes these demons with a child's perceptive, unprejudiced eyes.
But we've seen this trick before. Of course children are innocent, and their perceptive wisdom also goes without saying; Vapnyar is far more original when she lends that ingenuous perspective to her older characters. The candor of the little girl in "Lydia's Grove" who describes her mother's discomfort at discovering that her best friend is a lesbian is not as disconcerting as the candor of an adult who understands what they're seeing and is turned on against their will.
Time never stands still in Vapnyar's stories, however much people try to keep it contained. Even Misha's neighborhood playground, which "seemed to move and stir like a big restless animal," can be as menacing and uncontrollable as perestroika and war. Vapnyar's achievement is in transporting characters as skittish as the young teacher in "Love Lessons" from fear of change to unabashed exhilaration. As soon as the teacher learns to surrender to time's pulse, the "strange and hostile" streets of Moscow turn into "big rivers: wide, endless, and flowing. Everything - cars, people, autumn leaves - was constantly moving, and I felt swept up in it as I walked fast, my scarf flapping in the wind."
"There Are Jews in My House." By Lara Vapnyar. Pantheon Books. 160 pages. $17.95.
TITLE: the word's worth
TEXT: Myortvaya voda: water that cannot support life.
Nearly a week after the election, I continue to be fascinated with the language of the electoral process, although I admit to having found the party slogans a little lackluster. Yabloko blasted from billboards Rossiya pobedit bespraviye!(Russia will defeat lawlessness!) while Soyuz Pravykh Sil (the Union of Right Forces) told us: Vyberi sebye budushcheye (Vote for your future) - and left it up to the voter to define what kind of future that might be. One without either of these parties, clearly.
The party Za Rus Svyatuyu (For Holy Rus) used the slogan Ne voru! (Thou shalt not steal), which would seem to have been directed less at the voters and more at their fellow candidates and office holders. Partiya Zhizin (Party of Life) called upon voters in this way: Sdelat vybor v polzu Rossii, kotoruyu my lyubim i kotoroy gordimsya, (Vote for the Russia we love and in which we are proud.) When I heard that, I thought: Pri chyom tut Partiya Zhizin? In other words: Where does the Party of Life fit in?
Yedinaya Rossiya (United Russia) had a bolder formula: Vmeste c Prezidentom vybiray Yedinuyu Rossiyu! (Together with the President, vote for United Russia!). It seemed to work.
But was anyone else puzzled by Novy Kurs - Avtomobilnaya Rossiya (New Course - Automotive Russia)? For the life of me I can't figure out the deep political meaning of their ad, which shows a variety of car owners in various stages of undress depending on the car make (Jeep owner in mink, Zhiguli owner buck naked). I read pages of their party platform before I got to the phrase: Zashchita avtomobilistov kak sredego klassa (Protection of car owners is protection of the middle class). Interesting idea, but my advice would be: lose the PR firm.
PR firms must have been in hog heaven. The campaigns also consolidated two new words in Russian, piarit and pozitsionirovat. Piarit means "to promote or spin something," as in the phrase: Nado ikh pravilno piarit (You have to promote them the right way). Pozitsionirovat is "to position something/someone," i.e., present them in a beneficial way.
For example, the Communist Party decided to get out of their comfort zone and position themselves as the hip youth party. They even have a rap song: Eta nash vybor, Eta nash rep, My golsuyem, Za KPRF! (It's our choice, It's our rap, We are voting, for KPRF!)
Then there is kontseptualnaya partiya Yedineniye (the Unity Conceptual Party), which seemed to be position itself as the obscure highbrow party. I read their party program (predvybornaya programma) three times and still didn't understand it. They announced that the theoretical basis of their platform is: konseptsiya obshchestvennoy bezopachosti (epicheskoye nazvaniye "Myortvaya Voda") (the concept of public safety [with the epic title "Dead Water"]). Now I know that "myortvaya voda" refers to water that cannot support life, but I don't get why you'd call your national security policy "dead water" ("dead in the water," maybe ... ). Who knows; what I can't understand, I can't translate.
It seems I'm the kind of voter who gets simple messages, like the famous Yeltsin slogan: Vybiray serdtsem (Vote with your heart.) Or better yet, the simple slogans of most parties: They lose the name, lose the PR firm, and just tell the voters what number their party is on the ballot: Golosyuy za ...! (Vote for Number ...!) Simple, clear and to the point.
Michele A. Berdy is a Moscow-based translator and interpreter
TITLE: St. Louis Blues' Victory Ends Toronto's Winning Streak
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TORONTO - Chris Pronger scored 30 seconds into overtime to give the St. Louis Blues a 3-2 victory over Toronto on Tuesday night, ending the Maple Leafs' winning streak at eight games.
"It's a huge win," said Pronger, whose team also ended Nashville's six-game winning streak Saturday night.
"It's a great feeling to stop a team that's playing with that kind of confidence. It shows us how well we can play against some of the top teams in the league."
After Toronto's Joe Nieuwendyk tied it with a short-handed goal with 17 seconds left in regulation, Pronger scored on the power-play with a 20-foot wrist shot from in front of the net.
With Toronto's Tom Fitzgerald serving a four-minute penalty for high-sticking with 3:01 left in regulation, Nieuwendyk scored after Mats Sundin and Gary Roberts put shots off goalie Chris Osgood.
"The worst part was that I was so thankful that we clawed back and got the point, but then to look up and see that I had a minute left in the box, it's disheartening to say the least," Fitzgerald said.
Sundin also scored for the Maple Leafs, who were outshot 26-15. The winning streak was Toronto's longest since winning 10 straight at the start of the 1993-94 season.
"We weren't very good," Toronto's Gary Roberts said. "We might been fatigued. We definitely didn't play the way we have been playing."
Mark Rycroft and Dallas Drake had second-period goals for the Blues, who tied with Detroit for first place in the Central Division. St. Louis is unbeaten in four.
Toronto went 0-for-7 on the power play. In its last 11 games, St. Louis has killed 41 of 43 power-play chances.
"The penalty kill has been a huge part of our success," St. Louis center Doug Weight said. "I loved the way we played. Unfortunately, they got a goal with 17 seconds left, but we bailed ourselves out in overtime."