SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #947 (15), Friday, February 27, 2004
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TITLE: Starovoitova Trial: Suspects Used to Collect Debts
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The suspects being tried for the 1998 murder of Duma deputy Galina Starovoitova had worked for a company that collected debts which was equipped with firearms and listening devices, witnesses told the St. Petersburg City Court as the case resumed this week.
The first witness, Sergei Bogarchuk, worked for the company Status Quo in 1997 and 1998. He described its activities as being engaged in "getting debts paid back to avoid court hearings." Status Quo was headed by Yury Kolchin, one of the seven suspects on trial, and an employee of the General Staff's Main Intelligence Directorate, or GRU, at the time of the murder.
Bogarchuk, who is in detention on an unspecified charge, said he knew the suspects because he worked with them at Status Quo, Interfax reported Tuesday.
The employees, most of whom also worked for the Holy Blessed Knight Alexander Nevsky security company, had been using cars to follow people around.
Investigators paid close attention to links Kolchin had with Mikhail Glushchenko, a member of the nationalist Liberal Democrat, or LDPR, party and a former State Duma deputy, whose headquarters were in the same building as Status Quo company.
Glushchenko, described in the media under his nickname Khohol, indicating he is Ukrainian, is one of the leaders of the local Tambov criminal organization and considered by investigators to have possibly ordered Starovoitova's assassination, Kommersant reported Thursday.
Bogarchuk testified that Glushchenko had very good relations with Kolchin. He had assisted Kolchin in solving some business questions and introduced him to LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky.
On May 19 last year, Olga Starovoitova, the slain deputy's sister said in an interview on NTV that an LDPR member could be directly connected to the crime.
"These days one of the arrested [suspects] says in his testimonies that he heard that one of the arrested was ordered 'to get rid of Starovoitova.' I don't mention the last name of this man because this has not been proven. But I can only say he was a deputy in the State Duma at the same time as Galina Starovoitova was there," the sister said.
In response, Zhirinovsky denied his party had any involvement in the death of Galina Starovoitova, who was a leading proponent of democratic values.
"Sorry, I'm very sorry for her. I'm very sorry, but it is inevitable that any revolution would collapse along with the death of leaders that provoked this unnecessary anti-Russian revolution," Zhirinovsky said in an NTV interview the same day.
"LDPR has no connection to this," he added. "This is all democrats' fault! Let Olya calm down and don't think bad about LDPR and she won't have any problems in the future. She understands what am I talking about. We're all need to live and everything should be good for everyone."
Shortly after Zhirinovsky's statement Olga Starovoitova recanted her allegations regarding LDPR involvement, saying NTV misinterpreted her words.
Ruslan Linkov, Starovoitova's assistant who was severally injured in the assassination, said Status Quo had a special room where the staff prayed twice daily, according to Linkov.
The suspects had beaten up people to make them pay their debts, he said.
"There was a priest with his hands totally covered with tattoos, who came to the [Status Quo] office every day. He said he's scared of that menagerie, which is behind bars now and wrote a letter to Liteiny [Prospekt, where the headquarters of the Federal Security Service are located] to provide security for him," Linkov said in a telephone interview Wednesday.
Vadim Reznik, another witness testifying this week, was a former guard at Status Quo. He said the company resembled a religious sect. His testimony this week was rather different to what prosecutors recorded him saying earlier.
After Victoria Shuvalova, the Prosecutor's Office representative, demanded that the earlier evidence from Reznik be read out in court, Reznik explained the difference as being due to fears he had held that Kolchin would threaten the lives of his family and relatives.
Reznik's concerns have resulted in security measures introduced by the FSB around the court when the suspects are delivered to the hearings. Streets around the court located on 16 Naberezhnaya Fontanki were blocked to vehicular traffic and pedestrians, local media reported.
Both Reznik and Bogarchuk testified the suspects made regular visits to a shooting range belonging to the Defense Ministry to improve their shooting skills.
TITLE: Qatar Arrests Agents
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Acting Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said Thursday that Qatar has arrested and charged two Russian security agents on suspicion of involvement in the car bomb assassination of former Chechen rebel president Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, and he flatly denied the allegation.
TITLE: More City Students Head Abroad for Language Study
AUTHOR: By Simone Kozuharov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Demand from St. Petersburgers for English-language courses abroad, specifically in Britain, is growing at an average rate of 28 percent a year, the British Council has said.
During the 2002/2003 school year, about 20,000 students from Russia went to Britain to study. About 3,000 were from St. Petersburg, according to the British Council, which cooperates with many commercial organizations that send students to England, the most popular destination for the courses.
"We've had many more inquiries than ... the previous year," said Marina Felsher, a spokeswoman for the council.
Of the 20,000 students, 16,500 went specifically to study English as a foreign language. Another 2,500 of those students arrived for "higher and further education." And 1,000 of those students attended boarding schools.
"People are getting more and more interested because they've got more and more opportunities to use the English language at studies and at work," Felsher said.
Although the official average income in St. Petersburg is $250 a month, some families are spending at least six times as much to send their children abroad for English language instruction.
Vasily Tyukhin, director of Oxbridge Educational Travel Consulting, said the number of parents willing to invest in expensive study programs has grown significantly.
In 2003, Language Link, one of the leading language-study organizations, sent about 550 Russian students abroad, 75 of whom were from St. Petersburg.
"As might be expected, based on per capita earnings, students from St. Petersburg have tended to opt for less expensive programs than, say, students from Moscow," said Robert Jensky, Language Link's managing director.
"A student from St. Petersburg might opt to go to the same program as a student from Moscow," he said. "However, to reduce the program costs she or he might opt for two weeks and not four weeks
"Likewise, because airline tickets are cheaper from Moscow than from St. Petersburg, a student can travel to Moscow by train and then depart from and return to Moscow then return to St. Petersburg by train," Jensky added.
"That said, many of the really affordable programs are popular with all students, regardless of where they are applying from."
The English language is becoming a necessity for business and education.
"English is a kind of requirement to enter this or that course or to get a better job," the British Council's Felsher said.
Not only are more students going abroad to study English, but they are also spending a longer time abroad.
"The quantity of weeks of the chosen program is growing," said Natalya Pugachyova, head of the department for education abroad at Language Link.
That means people are paying more money to study for longer periods abroad.
Oxbridge's Tyukhin said the cost of a two-week study trip to England including airfare, visa, accommodations and studies can reach $1,500. Similarly, a two-week program through Language Link costs about $1,800.
That brings into question the value of two weeks of language study abroad.
"It's a very important step to start speaking English because you are in the environment," Felsher said.
Just because the time is short, that doesn't mean it isn't beneficial. Students who return from short-term English language study abroad have reported positive results, she said.
It's "a really good promotion of the language," said Irina, an English teacher at St. Petersburg State University. She declined to give her last name.
Irina participated in a four-week program eight years ago in Ireland. While she said she had not been challenged because her English was already advanced then, she said others at beginning and intermediate stages would benefit.
"You develop really quickly. You make a serious step ahead," she said.
A course that runs less than two weeks, however, is considered pointless for language study.
A "minimum course is usually two weeks ... because it doesn't make sense to go for a week because language shock, culture shock take maybe one or two days to overcome," Tyukhin said. "If they go for a week, they just don't have any time to get something useful [out of it]."
The firms that run the courses say it is important that students are separated from their compatriots.
Students learn best when they have the "forced opportunity to practice their English," Jensky said.
The best programs ensure that when the students are placed with host families they are the only Russians in the household.
"We do not send groups like tourist agencies [do] because we [think] that it doesn't make any sense to pay a lot of money just to make an excursion because children will speak Russian between themselves if they go as a group," Tyukhin said. "The main objective is to put them in a language environment so that they have to speak English."
Other experts share Tyukhin's opinion.
"We don't want Russians in together," Jensky said. "The homestay is partly there to use the language."
Irina Voronkova, 17, has been to England on three short-term trips, two of which were to formally study Englsih.
The first was "just for fun ... maybe to improve my English," she said. "The last two were language-study focused. There were no Russians at all, so I spoke only English. It helped me to improve my English."
While Tyukhin and Jensky said England is the top choice of most students, they also said Malta is another popular destination for study programs.
"The country of choice is Britain," Jensky said. But "dozens and dozens and dozens" also choose Malta.
Malta has what many students are looking for: the beach, discos, tourist attractions, it is less expenisve than a study package in England and it is easier and cheaper to get a Maltese visa, he said.
"We've sent students to Malta who failed to get visas to the UK," Jensky said.
That situation might change now that Malta has joined the European Union. Maltese visas will continue to be issued until October of this year.
"There's going to be a change - it won't be easier to get a visa," Jensky said.
Language Link sends 42 percent of its English students to Britain, 18 percent to Ireland, 15 percent to Malta, 5 percent to the United States and 3 percent to Canada.
The United States does not rate highly because visas are difficult to get and it is much further than Europe, making travel more expensive, Jensky said.
"Most Russians choose England over America," he said. "Everyone understands it's difficult to get visas to America."
He noted that Language Link's St. Petersburg students who were originally denied visas to the U.S. have won 100 percent of their visa appeals in the past. Their Moscow students denied visas have won 90 percent of their appeals.
Jensky attributes these high rate of success of appeals to the students' honest intentions to study English, not immigrate.
TITLE: Khakamada Files Lawsuit Against CEC
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Presidential candidate Irina Khakamada filed a suit in Moscow's Basmanny court on Thursday against the inaction of the Central Election Commission over her complaint about breaches of electoral law.
Her campaign headquarters said Thursday that the CEC had taken no action against a breach by state-owned television channel Rossia that broadcast a 29-minute address by President Vladimir Putin to his supporters on Feb. 20.
Khakamada also called on the Supreme Court to rule that the CEC's inaction on her complaint was illegal.
Her actions came one day after she said at a St. Petersburg news conference that she is focusing on building "a real democratic party that will be in opposition to the current regime".
"I am in this campaign not to become president and beat Putin, but to oppose him and help Russia's free people be heard," Khakamada said at a news conference.
Khakamada said that after spending the last 15 years promoting democratic reforms, she had no plans to leave the political arena or go abroad.
The election campaign is taking place under the same kind of distorted conditions in which December's State Duma elections were held, she said.
When she arrived in St. Petersburg to meet with her supporters, the House of Scientists, where she had wanted to hold a meeting, refused, saying that its rooms were only available to Putin.
Khakamada said she will announce her full program on March 8, International Women's Day.
She said her policy is for a socially responsible market economy, tough administrative reform, the liquidation of subordinate ministries, fighting bureaucracy, and a big increase in pensions.
Tax policies should also be changed.
"The current tax rate of 13 percent should remain for poor people and the middle class, while rich people could be paying 30 percent tax," Khakamada said.
At the same time, factories and enterprises should have a tax cut down to some 6 percent, so that they would be able to develop economically.
Khakamada condemned Putin's decision on Tuesday to fire the government.
"By this action the president shows he is a Byzantine tsar and master in this house," she said.
Khakamada said if Putin wanted to present a new team that he plans to work with, as he said, he should have done it earlier.
Lilia Shevtsova, an expert on the Russian presidency at the Carnegie Moscow Center, said Khakamada's plan to create a new party which would oppose the current government, "is positive."
"Russia is facing a long 'winter', that is a long period of stagnation. Therefore those 10-15 million of the country's citizens, who support democracy, will need that party," Shevtsova said.
Shevtsova said today Khakamada presents one of the three opportunities that democrats have to come up with for the elections.
"That is they can either vote for Khakamada, against all or just ignore the elections," she said.
When Khakamada works on organizing that new party she should take into account not only the failures, but also the successes of the parties of the 1990s, she added.
Khakamada may rely on Yabloko, but not on the Union of Right Forces, which is already blending with the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, Shevtsova said.
TITLE: Mass Hunger Strike in City Prisons Ends After Talks
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The last of some 5,000 prisoners who went on hunger strike in St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast prisons and pre-trial detention centers on Wednesday, ended the protest on Thursday.
The prisoners resumed eating after negotiations with members of inspection commissions that checked conditions in the prisons, said St. Petersburg Prisons' press-service.
The inmates of six prisons in and around the city stopped taking their food in protest at what they called "brutal treatment by prison administrators."
"The prisoners complained about different things, including that the prisons' administration did nothing about their complaints and internal conflicts," said prison department spokeswoman Silva Arutyunyan.
NTV reported Wednesday that inmates said prison staff made them pay for their requests and beat them up.
Arutyunyan said the strike started on Wednesday when the inspection commissions and representatives of the prosecutor's office began their rounds of all six prisons.
"Commission members hold private and individual talks with all prisoners willing to speak about problems," she said.
Most of the prisoners announced their decision to strike verbally, and only 100 of them wrote official declarations of their concerns.
Among the prisons involved in the strike was colony No. 4 in the village of Fornosovo, and the notorious St. Petersburg detention center of Kresty.
Arutyunyan also said that only prisoners who write official declarations that they want "to refuse to take food" are officially considered as being on hunger strike.
As a result of the first negotiations on Wednesday the number of prisoners who only gave verbal notice of their hunger strike fell to 2,337.
Arutyunyan said it was the first mass incident of its kind in St. Petersburg prisons.
St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast have 16 prisons and detention centers, which hold about 17,000 inmates.
Meanwhile, prison authorities said Thursday they thought the strike action was planned from outside the prisons, Interfax reported. They said the actions could be aimed at putting pressure on the administration of prisons and detention centers in order to destabalize the institutions.
Vladimir Lukin, the federal ombudsman for human rights, said he followed the case closely, and will ask the Justice Ministry to take all necessary measures to solve the problem.
Yury Vdovin, deputy head of St. Petersburg Citizens' Watch human rights organization, said the problems of Russian prisons are conditioned by many factors.
"It's true that most closed institutions in Russia such as prisons, the military, or orphanages have hidden problems," Vdovin said. "But it's not the fault of the staff alone."
The root of the problems often lies in the low level of funding of the institutions, he said.
"Prison wardens' pay is miserable," Vdovin said. "Prison doctors do not receive enough medicine for prisoners, even against tuberculosis, which is a scourge of prisons. The daily expenditure per prisoner is much lower that the international norms require."
Before perestroika, prisons received contracts on which they could earn money that could be used to improve inmates' conditions; today many prisons lack such contracts, he said.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: City to Evict Debtors
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - People who do not pay their communal housing service bills may be resettled, Interfax quoted Governor Valentina Matviyenko as saying Tuesday.
"We have to create precedents in which debtors will be resettled into less comfortable homes if they don't pay for their apartments," she was quoted as saying. "Then people who do not pay will not feel at ease."
She called on the heads of district administrations to adopt strict measures against those who do not pay and to ask for court orders for their resettlement.
"Most people are capable of paying," she said, adding that if families really did not have the money then they should receive subsidies.
Police to Get a Raise
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Wages for city police are to rise 60 percent, Interfax reported Tuesday.
Citing Leonid Bogdanov, head of City Hall's committee for legal matters, law and order and security, the report said that raising the wages will improve law enforcement and strengthen the fight against corruption.
The extra monthly payments for the beat police officers totals 48 million rubles ($1.7 million) and has been included in the city budget.
The raise is backdated to Jan. 1 2004 and is to continue indefinetly, the report said.
City Planning Role
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Deputies in the Legislative Assembly have passed the third reading of a law that will allow citizens to have a role in city planning, Interfax reported Wednesday.
The law creates a standard procedure for obtaining information about city planning, its evaluation by the community and the participation of citizens in city planning decisions, the agency said.
Citizens will have the right to take part in public hearings on city planning matters and information must be available in text and graphic forms to people living near proposed construction sites. Individuals' views will be taken into account in accordance with the federal law on city planning, the report said.
Oblast Tax Inspections
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The Leningrad Oblast government is starting mass inspections of local companies and enterprises over their tax payments to the oblast and district administrations, Interfax reported Thursday.
"Special attention should be paid to enterprises that are part of various holdings and concerns with offices in St. Petersburg and Moscow," Interfax quoted Oblast Governor Valery Serdyukov as saying.
Payment for Flooding
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - A St. Petersburg family whose apartment was flooded is to receive 55,000 rubles ($1,930) in compensation from the city's communal services arm, Interfax reported Thursday.
The Malovs' apartment was flooded on Nov. 11, 2002, when the central heating was switched on in their building. A pipe separated from a radiator in the the apartment located above them and boiling water poured into their apartment for 2 hours, the report said.
As a result the Malovs' ceiling, floor and furniture were damaged.
The Malovs managed to win the court case with the help of the public organization Groza, which helps regular people win cases against the city's communal services, Interfax reported.
TITLE: Putin: Firing Will Boost Reform
AUTHOR: By Simon Saradzhyan and Catherine Belton
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday put a positive spin on his abrupt decision to fire veteran Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov and his government, saying it was designed to accelerate the formation of a Cabinet that could tackle stalled structural reforms.
Putin paid a rare visit to the White House, the government's seat, to personally brief Kasyanov and his ministers on why they had been fired 19 days before the presidential election. But he kept them in the dark over who would be the new prime minister.
"A question arises - why was it necessary to stage all this and whether it should have been done three weeks before the elections? I had two reasons: political and organizational," Putin said during the meeting.
But even as Putin took pains to explain the shakeup as a careful ploy to speed up the formation of an efficient government, he conceded it was only "almost planned."
Later, Kasyanov told reporters that his dismissal had taken him by surprise and he had been expecting to have to step down only after the presidential election.
Observers say the shock decision appears to be a last-minute move designed to pull in the electorate for the March 14 vote that could be threatened with collapse because of low turnout.
But Putin said he had been prompted by a need to speed up consultations with the "parliamentary majority" about the next prime minister. He said that if he had not acted now, he would have lost time in forming a new Cabinet after the election.
"Such questions will be decided in the course of consultations with the parliamentary majority. This would require certain efforts and could introduce uncertainties that would require additional time," Putin told the meeting.
Under the law, the president has to dissolve the Cabinet after his inauguration, which is scheduled for May, and then wait for his choice of prime minister to be confirmed by parliament, a process that could go on through June. By fast-forwarding the dismissal of the Cabinet by almost three months and forwarding a new line-up for government ahead of the election, Putin, who is considered a shoo-in for a second term, appears to be jumpstarting that process.
The new Cabinet he puts together now is likely to gain rubberstamp approval after his inauguration, giving it an added two months of working power, analysts said. If Putin had waited, they said, the Kasyanov government could have been left in limbo for months with no clear mandate to go forward with reforms.
By Wednesday evening, Putin was already locked in talks with the parliamentary majority over his choice of prime minister, Interfax reported. State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov and his first deputies, Alexander Zhukov and Lyubov Sliska, attended the meeting, as did other senior members of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, including Georgy Boos, Vyacheslav Volodin and Vladimir Pekhtin. United Russia holds more than 300 of the 450 seats in the Duma. Vladislav Surkov, the deputy head of the presidential administration in charge of relations with the Duma, also attended.
The consultations will continue Sunday, Gryzlov said after the talks.
Earlier Wednesday, Gryzlov pitched for more leverage for United Russia in the government, which, he said, should be based on "the parliamentary majority."
Putin said moving to form a new government ahead of time would help advance key administrative reforms to cut the country's overblown bureaucracy.
"If we intend to complete administrative reforms ... and if the government is not confirmed now, then the Cabinet could end up in the air until June," he said. "We could not even begin to talk of an effective government."
Analysts agreed. "Although the decision was not expected, it looks logical," said Yevgeny Gavrilenkov, chief economist at Troika Dialog. "A whole year could have been lost on reforms. Putin would have had to wait to May to form the government, then nothing happens in the summer anyway, and then in fall the focus is on the budget."
Putin made it clear that he was unhappy with Kasyanov's failure to come up with a coherent plan of transforming the Cabinet into a slim and efficient machine. "I must say we have stalled this process," he said of administrative reforms, which are to end the overlapping of functions between agencies and excessive oversight of the country's economy and social sphere by the executive branch.
Kasyanov defended his Cabinet's four-year record, singling out predictability as one of his main achievements.
"The contract that I and the president signed in January 2000 has been fulfilled," he told reporters. "Some things were not completed, and it was possible to do more.
"But what was here four or five years ago was a different Russia," he said.
Even though Putin's explanations struck a chord with analysts, many expressed bewilderment over the suddenness of the shakeup. Kremlin sources said Wednesday that they had been caught off-guard, while acting Prime Minister Viktor Khristenko had been planning to fly on a business trip when he was suddenly called back. Some ministers, such as acting Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref were taken by surprise while abroad on business trips.
Most analysts polled Wednesday said it looked more like an 11th-hour decision to raise interest among the public in a presidential election that has been dominated only by one player, Putin. Although Putin is expected to easily win re-election, pollsters have said apathy could be so widespread that voter turnout might fall short of the 50 percent needed to validate the election.
"It is clear that Putin and his inner circle are nervous about turnout," said Andrei Piontkovsky, an independent political analyst
"There are still a lot of mysteries surrounding yesterday's decision," he said. "Nobody knew about it that morning. It could have been provoked by some kind of unexpected information."
Piontkovsky noted that Kasyanov had been more than just a prime minister. "If something had happened to Putin, Kasyanov is the person who would have replaced him," he said. "Putin could have decided to insure himself. He could have heard of movements by the Family against him," he said, referring to the clan of politicians and businessmen that includes Kasyanov and came to wealth and power in the Yeltsin years.
Some analysts pointed Wednesday to the publication of a transcript of alleged telephone calls made and received by deputy presidential administration chief Vladislav Surkov on the kompromat.ru web site as a sign that inter-clan fighting was heating up in the Kremlin.
The transcript of four allegedly intercepted phone conversations on Feb. 11 appears to suggest that Surkov was plotting to possibly undermine Putin together with other members of the Family. But no direct references are made during the conversations, and it is not even clear whether Putin is the target of Surkov's dealings in which, according to the transcript, he is risking his neck.
The publication was swiftly followed by reports Wednesday morning that Surkov, a former associate of jailed oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky who is believed to part of the Family, had been barred from his Kremlin office as prosecutors explored the possibility of opening a criminal investigation into his activities.
A Kremlin source, however, was quick to deny that report as having "nothing to do with reality." He also called the transcripts fabrications.
Later, Surkov was shown on television attending meetings with Putin.
"Putin's sudden decision yesterday could lead one to think that the [publication of the transcripts] are interconnected," said Sergei Markov, director of the Institute for Political Studies. He said, however, it did not look like the transcripts were genuine and that the affair "appeared to be part of the attack of the siloviki on the Family."
The siloviki are the group of Kremlin hawks with a KGB background that is calling for greater state control over the economy and has long opposed Kasyanov because of his ties with big business.
TITLE: Suspected Murderer Lost Family in Midair Crash
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: ZURICH - Swiss police on Thursday arrested a Russian citizen on suspicion of murdering an air traffic controller who was on duty when his wife, daughter and son were killed in an air crash over southern Germany in July, 2002.
The Zurich prosecutor's office announced the arrest of the 48-year-old suspect but did not name him. The man denies stabbing the controller to death.
The investigators are checking whether the suspect's fingerprints match those found on the knife used in the killing on Tuesday.
The prosecutor's office said it believes revenge is likely the main motive.
The controller, a Dane, was on duty on the fatal night of July 1-2, when a Russian Tupolev-154 airliner and a Boeing of a U.S. delivery service collided in midair over Uberlingen, Germany within the zone of the Swiss company's responsibility.
There were no survivors. The crash killed 71 people, including 69 passengers and crew of the Russian plane - mostly children of the elite of Bashkortostan, who were on the way to Spain for a holiday.
However, not all the passengers were from Bashkortostan, with some Muscovites joining the flight at the last minute. The man arrested is believed to be from Moscow.
The 36-year-old air traffic controller, who has not been named, died when a burly, black-clad man speaking broken German stabbed him at his home in the suburb of Kloten after a brief exchange of words, police said.
On Wednesday, Swiss colleagues cut back air traffic by 40 percent to ensure grief-stricken staff could maintain flight safety.
Officials stepped up protection for a second controller on duty on the night of the crash as well as for other staff.
The dead controller was in charge of traffic over Lake Constance when a holiday charter collided in the darkness with a DHL cargo jet above the town of Uberlingen.
A lawyer pressing compensation claims for parents of the dead said his clients were distressed that they might be suspected of the murder such a connection being made: "We reject any violent act. ... The families do not want to be associated with this," Gerrit Wilmans said.
Tuesday's killing sent shockwaves through the close-knit community of air traffic controllers, who came in for heavy criticism over the collision in the almost empty nighttime skies over Europe.
"Days after the crash, the Dane said in a public statement that control errors contributed to the crash and said he shared the parents' grief.
"I mourn with the relatives and express my deep sympathy for them," he wrote. "As a father, I know that this loss leaves a hole that will hurt into the future as well."
Accident investigators found only one controller was on duty as the other took a break, that a collision alert system was out of action for maintenance and work on the telephones meant a warning from German colleagues never got through.
Initial suggestions from Switzerland that the pilots of the Bashkirian Airlines Tu-154 might have erred in flying into the Boeing cargo plane operated by DHL added to anger in Russia at the role played by the controllers.
Skyguide compensated families of the Tupolev's crew recently, but negotiations with most of the children's relatives are still going on, lawyers and a Skyguide spokeswoman said.
(SPT, AP)
TITLE: Regions Begin Process to Merge
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - The oil-rich Tyumen region and its smaller neighbor the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District said they are starting work on a merger that could be put up for referendum as early as next year, Interfax reported.
Tyumen Governor Sergei Sobyanin and Yamal-Nenets Governor Yury Neyolov agreed Tuesday in the city of Tyumen to form a task force that will hammer out the details of the future integration of their regions. The announcement comes less than a week after President Vladimir Putin submitted to the State Duma a constitutional amendment that would allow the Perm region to merge with the Komi-Permyatsky Autonomous District.
The two northern regions held a referendum on their merger in December that was approved by 84 percent of voters. The Kremlin has for months been discussing regional mergers that would cut the number of regions from the current 89 to 45 or so.
Proponents of the plan argue that fewer regions would be easier to manage and would cut down on administrative costs.
Some observers say such a merger - which requires a constitutional amendment because the Constitution says Russia has 89 regions - may be a trial balloon for more sweeping changes to the Constitution, such as an extension of the presidential term.
An amendment requires the approval of two-thirds of the Duma, the Federation Council and at least 60 regional legislative assemblies.
TITLE: Russians Leading Refugees to Rich Countries
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: GENEVA - Russians shot to the top of the world list of refugees seeking asylum in industrialized countries last year, passing dwindling numbers of Iraqis and Afghans still afraid to go home, the United Nations said Tuesday.
On the receiving end, Britain was the most popular country for the fourth year in a row, with 61,050 people seeking safety, followed closely by the United States, with 60,670, said the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. France, with 51,400, was in third place.
"Russians, mostly Chechens, were easily the top asylum-seeking nationality in 2003," UNHCR spokesman Rupert Colville told reporters.
The agency said 33,364 Russians requested asylum in industrialized countries, primarily in eastern and western Europe - 68 percent higher than the 19,904 the previous year.
More than half of the Russian asylum claims were filed in just three countries - Austria, Poland and the Czech Republic, it said.
The number of refugees seeking asylum in industrialized countries fell 20 percent last year, Colville said.
"Most of the major groups of asylum-seekers especially the Afghans, Iraqis and people from Serbia and Montenegro have decreased in number, which reflects the significant changes in their home countries and regions," the agency said.
Applicants for asylum from Serbia and Montenegro were in second place, totaling 24,753, down from 32,078 in 2002. In third place were Iraqis, with 24,744 seeking asylum, half the number of the previous year.
Afghans fell 46 percent, to put them in sixth place after Turks and Chinese.
TITLE: Kirovsky Plant Unveils Amphibious Vehicles
AUTHOR: By Sophia Kornienko
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: "We can extract oil and gas to our heart's content and stay really poor. It is machine building that truly forms a country's image," said Peter Semenenko, general director of Kirovsky Zavod - the plant known for its World War II tanks and, later, for Kirovets tractors - at the company's annual media day on Wednesday.
"Many enterprises have died," Semenenko said, referring to nearly 20 years of stagnation in the Russian machine-building industry, where many companies still live off their old developments and bring nothing new to the market.
As opposed to those "living dead" monuments to the Soviet economy, Kirovsky Zavod, which turned 200 two years ago, annually spends 10 percent of its investment funds on research and development and presents several innovative machines each year. The company reported total pre-tax profits of 452.4 million rubles in 2003 with each of its nearly 9,000 employees showing a work output of $27,000, as compared to the average $18,400 in the St. Petersburg machine building and metal processing sectors.
Semenenko, who personally holds an 8.04 percent stake in Kirovsky Zavod as reported by on-line business analytical journal Skrin, proudly unveiled the company's new money makers.
In March 2004, Kirovsky Zavod will launch a new production line to manufacture decorative ceramic tiles. The modern ceramics plant is full of the latest Italian equipment, with an annual capacity of 4 million square meters of tile worth $20 million. ZAO Keramin St. Petersburg, co-founded by Belorussian Keramin - the leading tile manufacturer in the CIS - is one of Kirovsky Zavod's 14 subsidiaries.
Targeted at the Russian market, Keramin St. Petersburg tiles will offer the same quality as the famous Italian-made product, but will be available at a cheaper price, since shipping and customs fees will be avoided. The production line is expected to pay off the $22 million investment within five years.
Kirovsky Zavod's other new source of stable income is the St. Petersburg-based transmission gearbox manufacturing line - a plant the size of four soccer fields that will soon be equipped with digital control systems and begin operation this year. The products will be targeted at railroad and highway construction firms and manufacturers of industrial vehicles such as forklifts.
But Kirovsky Zavod's main product is still the all-terrain track-type vehicle and its modifications. The Gazprom gas monopoly recently signed a $420,000 contract with the plant for 10 Ermak-500 swamp vehicles. Thanks to its innovative caterpillar construction, the vehicle has a surface pressure of only 0.3 kg per square centimeters even when loaded. By way of comparison, the average surface pressure of a grown man is 0.5 kg.
As Semenenko admitted, despite the fact that Gazprom is one of the most difficult clients to work with, the company plans to produce about ten Ermaks per year.
As if ceramic tiles and swampmobiles were not enough, the plant saved its most impressive new product for last. Onlookers at Wednesday's event were almost swept away by the passing amphibious air-cushion craft that is designed to hover close to, but above any surface. It was the first time this speedy four-seater had been demonstrated to the public.
The shiny ground-effect machine develops a speed of up to 100 kilometers per hour, propelled by a 100-horsepower Rotax-912ULS2 aviation engine. According to Semenenko, foreign customers, mainly from Scandinavian countries, are already lining up to purchase this hovercraft, which has been dubbed the Victoria.
The Victoria was designed for rural areas, for example, to travel across half-frozen bodies of water. Finnish clients are happy to purchase the vehicle at its retail price of 32,000 euros, Semenenko said. He also hopes to supply Victorias to the Russian Emergency Ministry, where he says the vehicles will be better than helicopters for saving fishermen carried away on ice floes. The hovercraft consumes only 16 to 20 liters of gasoline per 100 kilometers.
"The European small hovercraft market is occupied," said Dimity Tsimlyakov, deputy chief constructor at Almaz Central Naval Design Bureau, the Russian leader in large amphibious air-cushion vessel design. Plenty of models are regularly shown at Finnish specialized fairs, he said, but Russia can hardly afford to create a demand for such vehicles, which are quite expensive to maintain.
Tsimlyakov added that most hovercraft models are not suited for emergency conditions, since they lack what are called "amphibious qualities" when waves are high or broken trees must be overcome. The Rotax engines are considered to be weak and the fuel is depleted too quickly as compared to other engines, Tsimlyakov said.
Besides, according to a specialist at another research institute, the Russian mentality is traditionally against expensive emergency equipment that demands investment and advanced technological skills. "I have been told by oil industry workers that they prefer to get a cheap Kamaz truck, have it break down within one year and buy a new one the following year," the undisclosed source said.
TITLE: Many Milestones Passed As IT Links the Country
AUTHOR: By Sophia Kornienko
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The number of mobile subscribers in Russia has caught up and equaled the number of fixed-line subscribers at 36 million, communications officials and tycoons said to visitors to the NORWECOM-2004 telecommunications and information exhibition on Tuesday.
In St. Petersburg, mobile telephone service consumption exceeds fixed-line usage by 10 percent, and this year's loudest message is that the country's great leap forward in technology covers virtually all communication industries, even the traditionally backward postal services, they said.
Up to 12 percent of Russians use the Internet at least occasionally, and St. Petersburg consistently rates second behind Moscow in terms of the number of personal computers per head of population, said a representative of City Hall's communications committee.
This welter of upbeat news was presented at the exhibition running at Lenexpo from Tuesday until Saturday. It is the 11th time the International Exhibition of Communication and Telecommunication Systems has been held to demonstrate the latest information and communication trends.
At a press conference preceding the exhibition, officials declared that the Northwest region has completed the first stage of the journey toward a digital society - the technological foundations are in place - and the second stage - creating a unified information area - has started.
Sergei Kuznetsov, general director of North-West Telecom, one of the country's leading telecommunication companies, said that the notorious queues for fixed-line connections in St. Petersburg's private homes should become history this year.
The same goes for analog telephone lines, Kuznetsov added, saying that "within three to four years we want the whole of the city's outdated telephone network to be purely digital."
Up to 60,000 analog numbers will be replaced by digital ones by the Telecominvest-owned Petersburg Transit Telecom, or PPT, which has created 450 kilometers of multi-service fiber optic network connecting all the North-West Telecom's 36 junction centers.
These allow transmission of voice, digital and multimedia data using the same lines. In emergencies the network is capable of self-restoration by excluding the damaged section and introducing a bypass. The city's biggest Internet provider specializing in Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line, or ADSL, broadband connections Web Plus has come up with an innovative solution to divide single city lines into three numbers for simultaneous use; the project is called Telephone Cloning.
Also multiplying are the recently emerged public Internet access terminals.
More than a dozen Siemens pay-for web terminals were installed in the city last summer, including one at Pulkovo I Airport, said Igor Knyshev, an IT Manager with St. Petersburg Taxophones, a Telecominvest group of operators.
Such terminals are specifically designed to resist below-zero temperatures and are protected with reinforced screens. Besides web access, they can also be used for sending SMS messages and for video conferences. Access is via a prepaid card.
The number of WiFi hotspots to spring up around St. Petersburg in the nearest future is kept secret, but such giants as Megafon, MTS and BeeLine have announced they are planning to open their access points shortly.
Besides, a variety of affordable wireless hardware, mainly 802.11b wireless networking adapters and base stations are becoming available in computer stores around the city, which can be tried immediately at the same stores, as many of them are currently listed among Quantum Telecommunications' free hot spots.
As reported by specialists, Belkin adapters, priced at $90, are rating best among Russian-made wireless products.
"It's no secret that some people still don't even have telephones", First Deputy Communications Minister Alexander Kiselyov said in the middle of everyone's digital euphoria.
The remaining information gap between the more technologically advanced and dynamically progressing cities and the more remote areas is a global problem experienced in industrially developed countries as well as in emerging economies, he said.
It is Russian Post, a recently formed state-owned enterprise, that has been charged with extending technology to the far reaches of the country from its tens of thousands of postal outlets.
Even in areas where no home-based means of communication are available, post offices will become the only access points, equipped with satellite lines and terminals.
The Antimonopoly Ministry is struggling to find ways for Russia's companies that have welfare obligations, such as Russian Post and telecommunications holding Svyazinvest to at least get their investments to pay off.
Russian Post's annual turnover is 1 billion euros, as compared to United States' chief postal operator USPS's $80 billion.
In many small towns "the postal service is also a representative of state authorities," Russian Post spokesman Sergei Grigorenko said in an interview.
"In those places where no other facilities are within easy reach, the post office is also a bank, and a shop, and a drug store," Grigorenko said.
In his view, the creation of a unified operator, nearly completed now, is going to increase responsibility and delivery service quality.
One of the programs implemented to make the Russian Post more reliable is the introduction of automatic sorting centers.
Twenty-five centers are to be built in the country; the first are being installed in the Moscow region and in St. Petersburg.
Grigorenko also said Russian Post is trying to attract young staff to shake off the old image of the state-run postal service, which had always been either the Pochtalion Pechkin (a shabby-looking corrupt postman cartoon character wearing a fur-hat year-round) or a half-educated babushka weighed down by an old bulging bag.
In March, Russian Post will take over the express international post services that used to be managed by the Russian-French joint venture EMS Guarantpost.
EMS tried to win its rights back in court in 2002 and 2003, but did not succeed, Interfax reported.
"The speed of delivery has always been our headache", Kiselyov said. "Now, we have got the express services and wings of our own."
Russian Post has begun to develop its own courier transportation network including trucks and airliners - "we will work on cutting down on both inbound and outbound mail delivery times," Kiselyov added.
"Low home penetration rates across the Central and Eastern European region are preventing the market from reaching its full potential", said Joshua Budd, senior analyst with IDC CEMA's Telecoms and Internet group.
"Estonia and Slovenia stand out as leaders in the region, as both countries have Internet penetration levels on par with Western Europe," he said.
"This can be attributed to government efforts to promote Internet usage in schools and public access points, as well as to private initiatives among businesses to promote the Internet."
TITLE: Fashion TV Opening Club in St. Petersburg
AUTHOR: By Todd Prince and Garfield Reynolds
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: Fashion TV, the only 24-hour cable television channel dedicated to fashion, will open its first bar in Russia as citizens in the world's seventh-most-populous country become richer.
Fashion Bar, a 350-square-meter bar and lounge run under a franchise agreement, will open this weekend in St. Petersburg, the country's second-largest city, FTV Managing Director François Thiellet said by telephone from Paris. Patrons will mostly be people who watch the channel, more than 40 percent of whom are "high income" earners, FTV said on its web site.
Luxury companies such as LVMH Moët-Hennessy Louis Vuitton and Bentley Motors, which offers cars starting at $250,000, are expanding in Russia, as six years of economic growth boost incomes and create more billionaires. The country has 17 billionaires, behind only the United States, Germany and Japan.
"Russia has a booming economy and it's getting better every month," Thiellet said. "There is clearly a market for upscale places."
Fashion TV, created in 1997, reaches more than 300 million households worldwide and has 12 bars, including one in Kiev.
Russian salaries grew by more than a quarter in dollar terms last year, when the economy grew more than 7 percent.
Fashion TV may seek to open a bar in Moscow, where the industry is more competitive, if the St. Petersburg venture is successful, Thiellet said.
Fashion TV designs and delivers furniture and fittings, including built-in television screens, for the franchised bars. The outlets may host fashion shows and concerts that are later shown on Fashion TV.
Jimmy Choo, the London-based maker of fashion shoes founded by Tamara Mellon in 1996, opened its first boutique in Moscow last year, joining companies such as Gucci Group in the capital. The Choo boutique is on Stoleshnikov Pereulok, known in Moscow as "boutique lane" and home to Louis Vuitton and Hermès International stores.
"We would be interested in opening a club in Moscow, and we are already in touch with a potential partner," FTV's Thiellet said.
Fashion TV has a growing audience in Russia as the country's fashion industry grows, Thiellet said.
"There is a fashion scene in Russia and it's not just beautiful girls," he said. "There are more and more talented Russian designers and that just wasn't the case four or five years ago."
Russian-born models who have experienced success abroad include Natalia Vodianova, who has advertised Calvin Klein, Louis Vuitton and Gucci products, and Natalia Semanova, who in 1999 advertised Yves Saint Laurent's Opium perfume and was on the cover of the French edition of Vogue.
Bentley, a unit of Volkswagen AG, last year opened a showroom less than a mile from the Kremlin in the city's most exclusive shopping district, where Muscovites can buy $10,000 evening gowns from Giorgio Armani and $1,000 Gucci handbags.
TITLE: Vimpelcom Denied New Frequencies for Regions
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW - National No. 2 mobile operator Vimpelcom said it had been denied access to new frequencies, sparking concern that a row with regulators could be behind the move and may inflict real damage on its business.
Vimpelcom acknowledged that in December it had been denied requests for additional radio frequencies to expand its network in the regions.
Its main competitor, Mobile TeleSystems, has already announced that its own requests were granted.
Vimpelcom CEO Alexander Izosimov has also said the Communications Ministry said a final "no" to Vimpelcom's request for a license in the Far East, the only territory of Russia where Vimpelcom cannot operate, and would have to acquire a local network if it wanted to work there.
"While Vimpelcom's previous battles with regulators only had the potential to hurt the business itself, the failure to secure regional frequencies will have a direct and long-term impact on its operations," brokerage Aton wrote.
Vimpelcom spokesman Mikhail Umarov said deputy chief executive Valery Frontov was demanding an explanation from the communications minister.
"The ministry made 97 decisions on frequencies and not one for Vimpelcom," spokesman Mikhail Umarov said.
The ministry said Vimpelcom had not been singled out in being denied so called "E-GSM" frequencies that extend the bandwidth in which a GSM-standard mobile network can operate.
"A lot of other people didn't get on the list [of frequency recipients]," a ministry spokeswoman said. "A lot of other companies are in the same situation."
Analysts have linked a regulatory onslaught against Vimpelcom to an attempt by its major shareholder, Alfa Group, to also take a stake in a rival cellphone operator, MegaFon, whose main shareholder, Telekominvest was once headed by acting Communications Minister Leonid Reiman. Alfa and Norwegian telecoms operator Telenor each own about a quarter of Vimpelcom.
A public conflict between Vimpelcom and regulators erupted last month when regulators challenged Vimpelcom's Moscow license arrangements. Prosecutors also opened a case against the company, which was later dropped.
The Moscow license is nominally held by a Vimpelcom subsidiary. Regulators have said that an agency agreement allowing Vimpelcom to sell services on behalf of the subsidiary is inadequate and that the breach must be rectified.
(Reuters, SPT)
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: 9.8% GDP Growth
MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Economic Development and Trade Ministry said Wednesday that the country's gross domestic product grew 9.8 percent in December 2003 in year-on-year terms, revising upwards its previous estimate of 8.2 percent.
The economy grew 8.8 percent last November year-on-year and 5.2 percent in December 2002, according to the data published in the ministry's monthly economic survey.
The ministry, which is the sole body in Russia to track GDP on a monthly basis, repeated the estimate of the State Statistics Committee for 2003 GDP growth of 7.3 percent.
The government expects the country to post at least 5.5 percent growth this year as oil money gushes into the economy, buoying investment and domestic demand.
S&P: Default Era Over
LONDON (Reuters) - Russia's local and regional governments' renewed access to capital markets means that the era of widespread defaults has passed, Standard and Poor's said in a report published Wednesday.
The ratings agency said it had recorded no debt defaults by Russian municipalities since 2001.
"The period of mass defaults has passed for the moment," S&P said. "There had been a deep slump in the market following numerous defaults after the 1998 Russian financial crisis, but since 2001 there have been no major publicly recorded defaults."
UES Plans on Ice
MOSCOW (Reuters) - The board of state power utility Unified Energy Systems will not discuss how to sell its wholesale generators on Friday as planned because of the firing of the government, a UES official said Wednesday.
The meeting was to have followed the meeting of a government commission under former Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Khristenko, which had been slated for Wednesday, to discuss, and possibly approve, mechanisms for the sale.
But on Tuesday President Vladimir Putin dismissed the government and appointed Khristenko acting prime minister. The commission meeting was called off.
"The board cannot consider the issue without it having been considered by Khristenko's commission," the UES official said.
$5Bln Borrowing Cap
MOSCOW (Reuters) - The board of Gazprom agreed Wednesday to limit annual borrowing to 150 billion rubles ($5.26 billion) until 2013, the company said.
"The document says that the volume of borrowed funds in the period will not exceed the level planned for 2004," Gazprom said in a statement after the board meeting which considered borrowing plans until 2013.
"If gas prices, main currency rates and market trends are favorable, borrowing volumes may go down to $2 billion to $4 billion a year."
The statement said total annual spending on servicing the debt of around $14 billion, the country's highest corporate debt, would not exceed the 166.2 billion rubles to be paid in 2004.
Gazprom also said it planned to cut the volume of short-term liabilities to 25 percent of the total from more than 30 percent at the moment.
Oil Tax Debate
MOSCOW (SPT) - Under pressure from oil lobbyists, the Finance Ministry has redrawn its proposals for hiking taxes on the oil sector, Vedomosti reported Wednesday. The ministry will now seek to raise taxes by $2.2 billion annually, down from the $3.6 billion it originally called for.
The Economic Development and Trade Ministry has proposed a different mechanism that would raise taxes by up to $3 billion each year, while the Energy Ministry is pushing a $6 billion plan. Construction Halted
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The St. Petersburg administration's construction committee halted construction of several buildings after a tour of sites in two of the city's districts revealed breaches of procedure, Interfax reported Thursday.
Construction of the Ladozhsky retail center on Utkin Prospekt was halted for lack of certification and documents attesting to the quality of the work. A residential building on Lenskaya Ulitsa also came under scrutiny when it was found that piles were being driven without the necessary approval.
The construction committee plans to evaluate the status of 38 sites throughout the city.
Novgorod Investment Up
NOVGOROD (SPT) - Foreign investment in Novgorod in 2003 went up 3.5 times to $212 million, Interfax reported Wednesday.
According to the region's state statistics committee, 44.8 percent of investment went to the forestry, wood processing and pulp and paper industries, with 39.5 percent going to food processing.
Finland was responsible for 45.4 percent of the investment figure in 2003, while France brought 19.7 percent and Great Britain ranked third with 13.8 percent.
Waste Processing Plant
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The mechanized waste processing plant in the town of Yanino outside of St. Petersburg will be refurbished by January 2005, the city's committee on roads and services told Interfax Tuesday.
The plant will boost capacity by 1.5 times from 120,000 tons to 180,000 tons of waste processed annually. Compost production will go up from 30 percent to 50 percent.
Once construction work has been completed, new equipment will be set up in April 2004. With the exception of special presses imported from France, all equipment at the plant was manufactured in Russia.
Telecom Investment
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Total investment in the Russian telecommunications industry in 2003 was up 1.5 times and amounted to more than 78 billion rubles, deputy telecommunications minister Alexander Kiselyov told journalists Tuesday.
Revenues from telecommunications services were up by 42.4 percent over 2002, while postal and IT revenues were up by 35 percent and 20.3 percent respectively.
The number of cell phone subscribers doubled in 2003 over 2002 to reach 36 million.
More Gas Stations
PASHA, Leningrad Oblast (SPT) - Oil major Yukos plans to increase investment in developing a chain of gas stations in the Leningrad Oblast by 46 percent to $8 million in 2004, Interfax reported Tuesday.
Valentin Tatura, general director of the St. Petersburg branch of Yukos-M Trading House, the company's gas station subsidiary, told journalists at the opening of a new gas station in the town of Pasha Tuesday that Yukos-M will invest 41 million rubles in the oil storage facility it purchased from the Pashsky collective farm.
"This will allow us to double the amount of petroleum products stored to 2,000 tons," Tatura said.
Yukos-M plans to open two gas stations in St. Petersburg and two in the Leningrad Oblast by the end of 2004.
Baltic Bank Loan
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Donau Bank AG will open a credit line worth 2 million euros for Baltiisky Bank for a term of one year, a Baltiisky Bank press release said Wednesday.
The Austrian bank's funds will be used to guarantee import contracts for clients of Baltiisky Bank.
Baltiisky Bank ranked 41 for the first three quarters of 2003 in the Interfax-100 rating of Russian banks.
MegaFon Subscribers Up
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The Northwest branch of cellular services provider MegaFon saw a 64 percent increase in the number of subscribers in 2003, to 2.512 million, Interfax reported Wednesday.
The branch's commercial director Nikolai Demenchuk told journalists at a press conference Wednesday that on Jan. 1, 2004, the company had 1,407 base stations in the region - 691 of them in St. Petersburg, 251 in the Leningrad Oblast, and 465 in other Northwest regions.
The company says it holds 50 percent of the cellular services in the region.
Demchuk also said MegaFon increased coverage in the St. Petersburg metro in 2003. "Subscribers can use their cell phones at a total of 51 metro stations, including transfer and above-ground stations.
TITLE: A History Written in Chechen Blood
AUTHOR: By Khassan Baiev
TEXT: Monday was Defender of the Fatherland Day in Russia, so, of course, there were observances in Moscow. But it also was the 60th anniversary of a Soviet crime perpetrated against the Chechen people - and, of course, there was no official observance in Moscow. In fact, a proposed ceremony was banned, and the small number of people who nevertheless gathered to solemnize the event were dispersed by the police. But the past will not be so easily dispersed - it must be dealt with if there is to be a political settlement of the cruel Chechen conflict.
The crime was Josef Stalin's deportation of the Chechens on Feb. 23, 1944. This event is to Chechens what the Holocaust is to the Jews or the genocide is to the Armenians. That day, when Stalin packed the Chechen population of 1 million into cattle cars and shipped them to Siberia and Central Asia, lies in our collective memory. One-third of the population died on the journey. Many others perished under the harsh conditions of exile.
During Soviet times, the deportation was a taboo subject, talked about behind closed doors. As a small boy, most of what I learned was from old women gathered in our kitchen. Once, when they thought I wasn't listening, I heard my mother tell my sisters how women were so ashamed to relieve themselves in the railroad cars in front of men that they held on until their bladders burst. Only when I was 14 years old did I understand the true horror of what had happened. That summer my father showed my twin brother and me the cliff near our ancestral village of Makazhoi, over which troops of the NKVD (the secret police of the time) pushed resisters, including some of our relatives.
Stalin claimed that the Chechens were Nazi sympathizers. This was an insult to most Chechens, including my father, who fought on the northeastern front and was wounded during World War II. In spite of his wounds, my father was deported. He returned to Chechnya from Kazakhstan in 1959 after Nikita Khrushchev allowed the Chechens to go home. Only after Mikhail Gorbachev came to power were my father and other Chechens who fought in the war recognized as veterans and given pensions. He wore his medals with pride.
Chechnya has been struggling for independence for 400 years. The 1944 deportation is not the only one we have suffered. Chechens were pressured to leave for Turkey, Jordan and Syria in the 19th century. In view of our history and what is going on in Chechnya today, it is not surprising that we believe Russia wants to liquidate us.
About one-quarter of our population has been killed since 1994. Fifty percent of the Chechen nation now lives outside Chechnya. Ethnographers say that when this happens, a nation ceases to exist. Estimates claim that 75 percent of the Chechen environment is contaminated. I recall a physician from Doctors Without Borders telling me, "The Russians don't need to bomb you, the environment will kill you." I didn't believe it at the time. But now as a doctor I can testify that Chechnya is a medical disaster area. Pediatricians report that one-third of children are born with birth defects. Drug-resistant tuberculosis is rampant. The population is suffering from post-traumatic stress. Depression and insomnia are widespread. Young men are having heart attacks.
As in all modern wars, including Iraq, the main victims are civilians.
The Kremlin has done a brilliant job of convincing the world that Chechens are bandits and terrorists. Yes, horrible acts of violence are committed in Chechnya, not only by Russians but also by some criminal Chechens. But Chechen killings, including the suicide bombings, are largely motivated by a desire to take revenge for a family member killed by the Russians. People who have lost everything think they have nothing more to live for. They are desperate. Blood revenge, rather than religious extremism imported from the Middle East, governs the violence. And I believe it will continue as long as 100,000 Russian troops remain in Chechnya.
Unlike my generation, which lived in comparative peace with Russia, today's young Chechens are growing up full of hatred for Russians. The younger generation is ignoring our traditions. They no longer obey their elders. If the world does nothing to support a peace settlement in Chechnya, there is no guarantee that these young people won't be radicalized or forced into the arms of religious fanatics. Then Russia will have a far more serious problem with history and terrorism than it has today.
Khassan Baiev, a Chechen physician, received political asylum in the United States in 2000. He is the author of "The Oath: A Surgeon Under Fire." This comment first appeared in The Washington Post.
TITLE: Russia's Stance On Larger EU Hurts Russians
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalev
TEXT: Looking at the recent developments in the relationship between Russia and the European Union in the light of the imminent enlargement of the EU, I have to wonder when Russia will finally tire of positioning itself as a powerful empire at the expense of the interests of ethnic Russians residing abroad.
It sounds rather contradictory, but, these are the consequences of the policies toward the Baltic States adopted by the Kremlin since the mid-1990s.
These days Russia is doing everything possible to avoid cooperating with new EU members, and the Baltic States in particular, on the same basis as it works with the current 15 EU member countries.
The main issue that Russia has not been able to resolve since the collapse of the Soviet Union is a double customs duty on goods exported from Estonia.
An order introduced in April 1996 by the State Customs Committee granted "favorable customs conditions" to 129 states around the world. Estonia was not on the list because it was considered a country that discriminates against the rights of the Russian-speaking population on its territory.
The only thing Russia achieved by introducing the order was, in effect, a boomerang that hit the interests of ethnic Russians in Estonia, most of whom live in the east, working in factories and on farms that could export their production to Russia. They do try to develop trade, but this is largely unsuccessful because of the double customs duty.
Last month Tõnis Nirk, deputy undersecretary of the Estonian Foreign Ministry, said that Russia has failed to even sign a trade agreement with Estonia that would set the rules and conditions of cross-border business.
"There is no agreement on trade and economic cooperation that would regulate the customs regime and the double customs duties and there is no agreement to secure investments," Nirk said in an interview with the daily, Molodyozh Estonii.
"During the last 12 years Estonia has believed that the absent agreements must be signed to create stable conditions for economic cooperation between Estonia and Russia," he said. "Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, Russia has not found an opportunity to reach such agreements."
The only reason for the delay is the Kremlin's strong belief that ethnic Russians in Estonia still look to Moscow for protection. Unfortunately for Moscow, this is wrong. Most Russians who really want to live the good life in Estonia have already done so by adapting to the country's rules. They look across the Narva River with bitterness on their faces.
An Estonian businessman I talked to on the phone the other day said the standoff between Russia and the EU is a test of self-respect for the EU. If the union does not put President Vladimir Putin in his place now it could face real unpleasantness in the future.
"Putin is like Hitler," he said. "If he is punched once or twice, he will stop, but if not, he will just go ahead out of control. Russia would say that Poland and Lithuania is a part of the EU for Europe only, but for us it is not and these countries will have to first get approval for their actions from Moscow, not from Brussels," he said.
"If the EU doesn't stop Putin now the Kremlin will influence its structural questions in the future. The EU should point out what its position is to him for once and for all," he said. "[Russia] might have had grounds to talk from such a position in the 1980s or 1970s, but not now when its missiles get stuck or fall apart right on the launch platforms."
A strict stance taken by the EU could eventually be in Russia's favor even if the Kremlin cannot understand the advantages of cooperating with all EU members on an equal basis. The Kremlin's wish to make certain countries exceptions is based on the fashionable topic of defending Russia's national interests.
If Russia really wants to improve the lives of the ethnic Russians in Estonia, it should abandon the double customs duty.
But in a time when the bear is too wild to be let inside the china shop it has to learn from others how to behave.
TITLE: Chernenko: Silovik With a Mission
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Gryaznevich
TEXT: Vice governor Andrei Chernenko has a special mission in the St. Petersburg government.
In an interview with Expert Severo-Zapad magazine, he said fighting corruption is only part of his systematic approach. His main task is "to create a filter for decisions that originate from the criminal [world] or are dictated by semi-criminal shadow interests. The root system of corruption must be torn away from all possible sources of nourishment."
Chernenko, the silovik vice governor, is a new and very enigmatic face in St. Petersburg. Trained as a journalist, he holds a PhD in law and is a three-star Interior Ministry general. The 50-year-old has spent most of his career in law enforcement, recently in leading posts.
In the interview, Chernenko described his role at City Hall as "... ensuring a number of assessments and also protecting the security of individuals implementing the principle of economic transparency, clarity and accessibility."
This statement means, in effect, that Chernenko, to use modern parlance, is acting as a "roof," or protector, for the liberals on Governor Valentina Matviyenko's team.
There is no doubt they need such protection. Vladimir Blank, head of Smolny's economic development, industrial policy and trade committee, Mikhail Oseyevsky, vice governor in charge of city finances, Vice Governor Yury Molchanov, responsible for the city's investments.and Igor Metelsky, head of the city property committee, are attacking the corruption feeding trough mechanism of managing the city that appeared under former governor Vladimir Yakovlev. This will leave many people without the income to which they have become accustomed. Blank and his family have already received unveiled threats. Chernenko says he will put up a good fight.
Judging by the vice governor's answers to questions about his vision of how to solve the myriad problems facing St. Petersburg, Chernenko is in favor of open, transparent and accessible rules of the game. For example, he likes the changes in land distribution that Blank, Oseyevsky and Alexander Vakhmistrov, vice governor in charge of construction and restoration, are pursuing. Thus he said in the interview "In place of a vague and deceptive system of appropriating funds for infrastructure development with a wealth of deferments, my colleagues have developed a strict and accessible system of direct payments to the city budget."
We're used to hearing pretty words, but so far Chernenko's actions have not strayed from his declared path. There are no clan or political motivations to be seen in his decisive actions.
There is only one area in which Chernenko is involved that could cause consternation. Citing the need for a social partnership between the authorities and business, Chernenko has been expending considerable effort on getting businessmen to help solve the city's problems. He has impressed upon cellular operators that they should help bring telephone services to the city's outskirts, to places where it is not profitable to lay conventional wires. And he has suggested that construction companies help out by providing apartments for police officers. Chernenko encourages private security companies to help the city enforce law and order.
If he manages to avoid the temptation connected to his post and performs his role, we may yet reap the benefits of economic reforms.
Vladimir Gryaznevich is an analyst with Expert Severo-Zapad. His comment was broadcast on Ekho Moskvy in St. Petersburg on Friday.
TITLE: hermitage opens dutch outpost
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: By far Russia's most internationally active gallery, the State Hermitage Museum welcomes visitors Saturday to its newest overseas branch - the Hermitage Amsterdam, located on the banks of the Amstel River in the Netherlands' capital. Joining the Hermitage Rooms in London's Somerset House and Las Vegas' Guggenheim Hermitage Museum, the Hermitage Amsterdam is third in the parent museum's growing line of international projects, confirming Hermitage director Mikhail Piotrovsky's policy of "cultural expansion."
"The Hermitage is one of the four biggest museums in the world of the caliber of Madrid's Prado and Paris's Louvre," Piotrovsky said in a recent interview. "Our policy of opening branches abroad will help our fuller integration into the global cultural space."
Tuesday's ceremonial opening of Hermitage Amsterdam was attended by Crown Prince Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands and greeted by a festive atmosphere complete with fireworks over the Amstel River.
Piotrovsky first began thinking of establishing a series of western Hermitage satellites back in the early 1990s, embarking on a program of joint exhibitions with Amsterdam's Nieuwe Kerk church and exhibition center. Funds for opening a Dutch branch of the Hermitage were raised by the Hermitage on the Amstel Foundation, an organization created specifically for the purpose. So far, the foundation has attracted 39 million euros to cover the cost of establishing the museum.
The new exhibition center opens with a display of Greek gold from the Hermitage's treasure rooms found on expeditions to ancient Greek colonies in the Black Sea area. The jewelry items on display date from the 6th to 2nd century BC and are housed in the Neerlandia Building, whose six galleries total 500 square meters of floor space. The Neerlandia Building is only part of a larger group of galleries set to open in 2007 in the historic Amstelhof architectural complex.
Located on the banks of the Amstel, the main Amstelhof building is regarded as one of the finest examples of monumental Classical architecture in Amsterdam. Built in 1681-83 as a nursing home for old women, the mansion continued to cater to the elderly over the course of several renovations, and was only recently reworked to suit the future museum needs. With its waterside location and 17th-century proportions, it bears a striking resemblance to its Russian big brother in St. Petersburg.
"The Hermitage Amsterdam complex will consist of several buildings situated around a closed garden. The Neerlandia Building was built at the end of the 19th century and is beyond the main building," said Ernst Veen, president of the Foundation of Hermitage Friends in the Netherlands.
In addition to its rich art resources and architectural merits, the Hermitage Amsterdam will expand outward from exhibition center to community events. The museum expects to receive at least 40,000 visitors per year before fully opening in 2007, with operating costs covered 50 percent by ticket sales and 50 percent by private fundraising. Tickets cost 6 euros. Children under 16 get in to the museum for free.
According to Veen, the plan for reconstruction was drafted by Hubert-Jan Henket, who has also directed the restoration of the Teylers Museum in Haarlem. "He has turned the Neerlandia into a spacious and light building," Veen said.
The interior of the galleries was designed by architect Wim Crouwel, a former director of the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam.
"He has created a contemporary but elegant interior, completely the opposite of what the building was formerly like inside," Veen said. "The construction proceeded very quickly considering that the former occupants of the building left only on April 1, 2003."
The establishment of a Dutch Hermitage comes as culmination of a longstanding exchange between the Netherlands and the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. Because of the Hermitage's impressive collection of Dutch and Flemish art, the Dutch count among the museum's most avid visitors and have been active sponsors of restoration and other development projects in St. Petersburg. In part, the new Dutch branch is in continuation of that relationship.
"The Hermitage has without any doubt the best collection of Dutch masters in the world," said Kees ter Horst, board member of the Foundation of Hermitage Friends in the Netherlands. "Our foundation would like to keep these magnificent paintings in excellent condition."
Nevertheless, the Hermitage apparently plans to keep its Dutch art in Russia in order to lure guests to its St. Petersburg headquarters. Dutch audiences in Amsterdam will be treated to other treasures from the Hermitage's giant collection, which numbers over 3 million items. Among this year's planned exhibitions is an in-depth look at the lives and art collections of Russia's last tsar, Nicholas II, and his wife, Alexandra. In 2005, Dutch audiences will see a collection of paintings by Venetian artists Tintoretto, Guardi, Canaletto and Tiepolo from the 16th through 18th centuries.
Links http://www.hermitage.nl
TITLE: the mitki send a letter to an oligarch
AUTHOR: By Sveta Graudt
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: In difficult times like these, it sometimes takes an artist to speak out for the people. Even if all he's doing is writing a letter.
That's the attitude of Dmitry Shagin, an artist who helped found the offbeat Mitki group in St. Petersburg in 1984. Twenty years on, Shagin is still pushing boundaries. His latest canvas is based on Ilya Repin's "The Zaporozhian Cossacks Write a Letter to the Turkish Sultan."
But unlike Repin's masterpiece, "The Mitki Write a Letter to an Oligarch," which went on display at Moscow's One Work Gallery two weeks ago, is addressed not to one specific person but to all those opposed to progress in Russia.
Change is what the Mitki have championed ever since they came together in 1980s Leningrad. From the very beginning, they used their own vocabulary and wore striped blue-and-white sailor shirts and sailor hats to mark their good-times attitude. Their philosophy of nonaggression was streamlined into a memorable slogan: "The Mitki aren't out for victory."
Dedicated to the group's 20th anniversary, "The Mitki Write a Letter to an Oligarch" is Shagin's largest canvas to date, and shows a group of 17 Mitki artists, including Shagin, gathered around a low table in what appears to be a boiler room. Most are wearing the Mitki trademark sailor shirts, felt boots and padded peasant coats. A fluffy striped cat sits in the corner.
The painting comes with a letter styled after the one sent by the Cossacks to the Turkish sultan some 330 years ago. Written in Mitki-Speak on a big cardboard sheet, it requires a Mitki dictionary to decipher, which the gallery staff is only too happy to provide.
"We thought that the bread was getting expensive," Shagin said about the painting in a recent interview. "'Who ate our bread?' we asked ourselves. In the 1980s, when Gorbachev introduced prohibition, we fought against this inhuman law. And we won. We drank quite a bit back then, but then drinking stopped being compatible with art. I haven't had a drink in 11 years. Now we have a problem with food, especially in St. Petersburg, where bread was more precious than gold during the siege. The prices have doubled before our eyes."
Shagin is doubtful that the oligarchs will read his letter, but said that "if they read it, they might start thinking that they should help people."
While the Mitki no longer suffer the frequent police raids that plagued them in the late Soviet period, they continue to address questions of social injustice in their humorous, eccentric manner.
In addition to painting and writing poetry and music, Shagin has a role in "The Streets of Broken Lights," a popular television series about St. Petersburg cops.
In celebration of Defender of the Fatherland Day on Monday, a separate Mitki event was held at Club na Brestskoi in Moscow. The festivities kicked off with an art exhibition called "Mitki for the Motherland," and was followed by the chance to aim at Mitki-made targets at a shooting range.
"The Mitki Write a Letter to an Oligarch" is on display at One Work Gallery, located at 5/6 Sredny Kislovsky Pereulok, Office 40, Moscow. Tel: (095) 290 5974.
TITLE: art notes
TEXT: Oleg Yanushevsky's "Cosmopolitan Icons", an exhibition juxtaposing a series of objects portraying political and mass culture idols as objects of worship, was supposed to run in St. Petersburg's S.P.A.S. gallery for several weeks until March 12th but ended up closing down in a mess just a couple of days after it opened.
Several people, dressed in camouflage and armed with pots of ink and cans of white paint entered the gallery on Saturday last week to pour all their stuff onto the artworks.
According to Tatyana Fedotova, an arts consultant at the gallery, the regular visitors to the gallery didn't resist the vandals. The police arrived way too late and nobody has been detained yet.
Yanushevsky's icons would perhaps be better described as interactive entertainment. Images of U.S. president George Bush, Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky or Finnish commander Mannerheim are pasted on wood and provided with various buttons, handles, mobile telephones and other helpful tools. Press one, and you hear tender sighs, press another, and the sound of a bombing comes out. While ordinary people apparently welcomed the display as comic relief - you could see people of all ages making faces, pressing buttons and laughing - its attackers apparently didn't find it all that funny.
Attacks on works of art have a long history since the times of Herostratus who burned down the temple of Artemis at Ephesus to get himself remembered, which seems to be the major motivation for his followers up to the present day. But when the work of art was inspired by a sacred item it is more difficult to guess what is the attackers' minds.
Yanushevsky said he believes the people behind the attack had religious motives. The artist, who is well known in Europe and the United States, frequently displays his art across the globe and it seems that on home soil he has found more antipathy than anywhere.
Yanushevsky had originally been planning to organize the exhibition in the St. Petersburg Museum of History of Religion and Atheism. Negotiations went on for months but the artist's work was refused shortly before the exhibit planned to open.
The museum, which shares houseroom with the Orthodox Church in the Kazan cathedral, has a delicate relationship with the clergy.
In Russia, there has been at least one similar attack. In January 2003, a group of six men entered the Sakharov Museum in Moscow and went on to pour red paint on paintings, break windows, and smash a few of the 45 artworks displayed in an exhibit entitled "Danger: Religion!" One of the attackers scrawled the word "sacrilege" on the wall.
The police arrested the vandals, who identified themselves as "church followers" but the attackers eventually escaped punishment. The case against them was dropped owing to "lack of evidence" as if all those wrecks in the museum weren't enough.
Yanushevsky is now getting ready for another exhibition in New York. The artist said he will, in theory, arrange another exhibition in St. Petersburg - but only if proper security is provided.
By Galina Stolyarova
TITLE: going nutty for georgian fare
AUTHOR: By Simone Kozuharov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Georgian fare is famous throughout the former Soviet Union for its rich assortment of exotic tastes, fine wines and endless toasts, making ethnic Georgian food a must for gourmets and amateurs alike.
It would be difficult to find a better place than Cafe Rioni, really more of a resteraunt, to experience authentic Georgian food and flare. Tucked away at the end of a small driveway in a basement location, this cozy eatery is a jewel in St. Petersburg's restaurant crown.
No Georgian experience would be complete without sampling the khachapuri (70 rubles, $2.45). A delicious cheese-filled bread, this appetizer is a staple on most Georgian tables. Rioni's version is particularly delightful, even for those who are not fond of cheese. The cheese is mild, surrounded by a thin layer of warm bread. It could be considered the Georgian answer to pizza. It is served as a round loaf, cut in fours and the portion is large enough to split four ways.
Salads also shouldn't be missed at Rioni. They are a great accompaniment to any dish or just simply the tasty lavash bread (10 rubles, 35 cents). The eggplant with nuts salad (115 rubles, $4.05) is a particular standout, featuring the mingling flavors of eggplant, nuts and spices. The result is a spread-like texture, with chunks of eggplant and topped with pomegranate seeds.
Another diner said her starter, the signature "Rioni" salad (100 rubles, $3.50), was "very nourishing", but slightly salty. She also mentioned that this is typical of Georgian food and is easily solved by a glass of Borzhomi.
Borzhomi, the famous Georgian mineral water said to have been favoured by the famous Georgian Joseph Stalin, is known for its promotion of good health. It is a mild mineral water, not too salty or carbonated, and a nice accompaniment at lunch or dinner.
By the time one finishes the khachapuri and salad, washed down with Borzhomi, it is difficult to even contemplate a main course. However, to experience the full essence of a Georgian meal, a main course is a necessary addition.
The adzhapsandali, a Georgian stew, arrived boiling and continued to boil for minutes. "I was impressed that it was steaming for quite a while when it was brought," a guest said. It was served in a large clay bowl on an elaborate tower of two plates and a flat board. It can be ordered with either veal (240 rubles, $8.42) or pork (220 rubles, $7.71), both tender, and contains tomatoes, green beans, eggplant and two different types of onions. It is perfect for a cold, snowy day.
It would be difficult to walk away unsatisfied after all that, but for those with insatiable appetites, there is dessert to think about. Rioni serves Georgian baklava, a heavenly departure from its Greek cousin which shares the same name but different ingredients. Perfect with tea or coffee, this sweet slipper bread is filled with nuts and berries. They may not be able to serve it at lunchtime, but the server said it can usually be ordered in the evenings.
Rioni is a great place to relax with friends, celebrate a special occasion or have an intimate meal. A quick glance around the restaurant will reveal most diners are there for just those reasons.
The lunchtime clientele includes everyone from businessmen in suites to mothers with toddlers. In the evening, couples have been known to spontaneously get up and dance hand in hand - despite Rioni's lack of a dance floor.
After one visit to Rioni, named for a river in Georgia's west, it is difficult not to return over and over. Clearly, most of the restaurant's customers feel the same way: Rioni has been in business for 15 years.
"I really feel like I'm in Georgia," said a guest. "If you open the window, there'll be Georgian scenery, like the mountains in the background, the sun is shining, it's warm - not like snowy Russia," she imagined. "And that there would be goats walking around the yard."
Like Georgia's beautiful landscape, folk scenery and warm, hospitable people, Cafe Rioni beckons its visitors to return again and again. And with so much to offer, it would be very difficult to resist the invitation.
Rioni, 24 Shpalernaya Ulitsa, Tel: 273 3261. Menu available in Russian and Englsih. Credit cards not accepted. Meal for two, 865 rubles ($30.35) not including alcohol.
TITLE: dreams of italy in stone and brick
AUTHOR: By Darja Agapova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg has often been regarded as a laboratory of architecture. For a long period of time its creators toiled at transforming its northern marshes into a new Rome.
The results of that work can be felt by anyone taking a walk along St. Petersburg's embankments and its vast squares in the cold and windy weather. Put simply, the dream of sunny Italy has never left the city. Now, the Hermitage reveals the secrets of this building laboratory and makes it possible to see how this dream was incarnated in the schemes and fantasies of architects during the reigns of Catherine II, Paul I and Alexander I (from 1762 -1825 inclusively) in the exhibition "From Myth to Project. The Influence of Architects from Italy and Ticino in Russia in the Epoch of Neoclassicism".
Ticino, a small Alpine canton in southern Switzerland near the Italian border, has been providing Europe with great architectural talents for centuries (the latest case is Mario Botta who took part in last year's competition to produce a design for the Mariinsky Theater's new building). At the beginning of the 20th century Alexander Benois, an idea-monger of the "World of Art" school, went to the Italian-speaking region with the special purpose of seeking the reasons why this corner of Europe was an architectural seed bed. He concluded that its picturesque surroundings, its stones, mountains and smoky light lay behind the phenomenon.
However, the paintings, drawings and models on display in the Hermitage exhibit, which opened on Feb. 18 and runs through April 18, belong not only to architects from Italy and Ticino such as Giacomo Quarengi, Pietro Gonzaga, and Luiggi Rusca. Architects active in St. Petersburg during the period included Charles Cameron from Scotland, Charles Louis Clerisseau and Thomas de Thomon from France, and the Russians Ivan Starov, Andrey Voronikhin and others.
Italy, the home of Neoclassicism, was the natural place to rear architects. In the middle of 18th century, Rome became an artistic Mecca, the place of pilgrimage where artists from many countries professed their worship by studying antique monuments. However, since Rome was not merely a geographic point, but rather a peculiar state of mind, the ideal of immortal Rome could also be found in England, France or Russia. Neoclassicism was nearly a religion and its adherents aspired to captivate all Europe with common cosmopolitan values of ancient virtue. It is significant that in one of the pictures on display the architect Antonio Adamini portrayed himself as an heroic commander clothed in a toga. The message? Art subjugates the world.
It is often supposed that architectural plans are only interesting to professionals. But the exhibition reveals that they may be of interest to others in the simplest terms: all that pedantic archaeology is full of startling sensuality. It is necessary to allow for time to scrutinize the displays since the atmosphere of the age evinces itself in tiny specialities rather than in big pompous portraits. So Giovanni Paolo Panini in his "Ruins with the Scene of Apostle Paul's Preaching" pictures soles and palms touching heated porous stones to show that the Neoclassical style has much in common with the sensual pleasures of rococo.
Among the most interesting things on display are the volumetric cork models of antique buildings made for Catherine the Great by Anthonio Chichi (featured items from the collection of the St. Petersburg Academy of Art). They were particularly prized because of the material: the cork perfectly imitated sandstone corroded by sun and time.
In a sense, the character of the people depicted in this exhibition resembles our own. They liked sitting astride St. Petersburg's emblematic stone lion ("Villa Medichi" by Kuzma Ivanov). They found pleasure in recognizing themselves in pictures (Quarenghi superfluously included the figure of his mistress dressing in front of a mirror in one of his interior-design drawings for the palace in Pavlovsk). Above all, they too dreamed of Mediterranean warmth.
"From Myth to Project. The Influence of Architects from Italy and Ticino in Russia in the Epoch of Neoclassicism" runs at the State Hermitage Museum through April 18.
Links: http://www.hermitage.ru
TITLE: the word's worth
AUTHOR: By Michele A. Berdy
TEXT: Xîçÿéñòâî: the economy, a business, a farm, an industry.
Xîçÿéñòâî is whatever the õîçÿèí owns, runs or manages — from the smallest garden plot to the country’s economy. It is most commonly used to describe a farm or agricultural holding, but you still need to know the context to translate a simple sentence such as: ó íåãî áîëüøîå õîçÿéñòâî (he has a big farm/business/factory/ garden).
In order to avoid unfortunate confusion, it’s good to know that õîçÿéñòâî can also refer to what we call in English “the family jewels.” If you want a more exact equivalent, it would be “equipment,” “the works” or “his business.” This is quite crude, so you should only use it in the appropriate venue (i.e. the locker room).
Ëè÷íîå ïîäñîáíîå õîçÿéñòâî refers to the garden plot, or private garden that has fed the population for centuries. Sometimes you can use the phrase “market garden” to translate it, as in the sentence: Îíà æèëà íà äîõîäû îò ñâîåãî ïîäñîáíîãî õîçÿéñòâà (she lived off the earnings from her market garden).
Õîçÿéñòâî can also refer to an entire block of economic activity or industry: íàðîäíîå õîçÿéñòâî – the (national) economy; ñåëüñêîå õîçÿéñòâî – agriculture; ðûáíîå õîçÿéñòâî – the fishing industry. Ïëàíîâîå õîçÿéñòâî refers to the planned economy of the Soviet Union; ïëàíîâî-óáûòî÷íîå ïðåäïðèÿòèå is my favorite economic phrase from those times; it means a “planned loss-making” enterprise; that is, one that was never expected to get out of the red.
It’s also handy to know the verb õîçÿéñòâîâàòü (to manage) and the noun õîçÿéñòâåííèê, which can be translated as either a “business manager,” or, in some contexts, a “good manager.” Èì ïîâåçëî ñ íîâûì íà÷àëüíèêîì. Îí îïûòíûé õîçÿéñòâåííèê. (They’re in luck with their new boss. He’s a good, experienced manager.)
Çàâåäóþùèé õîçÿéñòâîì – çàâõîç – is the guy in charge of the facilities (be it a hospital, factory or collective farm), that is, the guy who makes sure the locks work, the equipment is in place and running, or that the supply of toilet paper is sufficient. In the Russian work context, this is a guy you want to stay on the right side of: He’s got the keys to everything and controls the physical surroundings, from offices to desks to notebooks and paper clips.
To give you a sense of the possible scope of õîçÿéñòâî and the çàâõîç, Pavel Borodin – one of the more colorful, not to say notorious figures of the Yeltsin era – was often jokingly called çàâõîç Êðåìëÿ (the zavkhoz of the Kremlin).
Under Boris Yeltsin, his exact title was óïðàâëÿþùèé äåëàìè Ïðåçèäåíòà Ð’ (normally translated as “chief of the property department of the presidential administration”). This was like being the estate foreman for a particularly affluent landowner. Nice work if you can get it.
In the phrase Åëüöèí íå áûë õîçÿèíîì, it is õîçÿéñòâî in the big sense of the “business of running the country” that is meant. This is a real headache for translators: Yeltsin wasn’t a master? Boss? Ruler? None of these really fit. I prefer to translate it: “Yeltsin couldn’t run the country” or “Yeltsin didn’t manage the country well.” However, sometimes the context suggests other translations.
Michele A. Berdy is a Moscow-based translator and interpreter.
TITLE: Pressure Grows for Aristide to Step Down
AUTHOR: By Paisley Dodds
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Pressure mounted for President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to step down as his supporters built barricades in the streets of Haiti's capital before an anticipated rebel advance and diplomats sought ways to stop the violence.
Foreigners fled the island nation amid isolated looting Wednesday, while the U.N. Security Council scheduled a meeting on Haiti for Thursday.
U.S. President George W. Bush said the United States is encouraging the international community to provide a strong "security presence," and France said a peace force should be established immediately for deployment once a political agreement is reached.
A leader of the group of rebels that has overrun half the country urged Haitians to stay indoors if fighting nears the capital.
"We're going straight for the National Palace where we're going to arrest Aristide," Guy Philippe said in a call to Radio Vision 2000 from the rebel-held city of Cap-Haitien in the north. "It will be over very soon."
The message was contrary to one he gave hours earlier, when he told a reporter he wanted to see if Aristide resigns and to "give a chance to peace."
Aristide, 50-year-old former slum priest, once commanded widespread support as Haiti's first democratically elected leader and savior to the poor, but he has steadily lost support as poverty deepened after his party swept flawed legislative elections in 2000 and international donors suspended aid.
An opposition coalition, which maintains it is not linked to the rebels, continued to call on the president to resign and formally announced its rejection of a U.S.-backed proposal for Aristide to remain president and share power with his political rivals.
French Foreign Minister Dominique De Villepin also indicated France no longer supports Aristide.
"As for President Aristide, he bears heavy responsibility for the current situation," de Villepin said. "It is up to him to accept the consequences while respecting the rule of law."
De Villepin called for the establishment of a civilian peacekeeping force in Haiti, France's former colony.
TITLE: Prosecutors Of Milosevic Rest Case
AUTHOR: By Anthony Deutsch
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: THE HAGUE, Netherlands - War crimes prosecutors abruptly rested their case against former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic on Wednesday, bringing the landmark trial to its halfway point 2 years after it opened.
UN judges accepted a motion submitted earlier in the day and declared "the prosecution case is hereby closed."
The latest twist in the case followed the unexpected announcement on Sunday that the presiding judge, Richard May of Britain, was resigning because of ill health.
Prosecutors had planned to call four more witnesses and submit an unknown number of documents in two remaining days of hearings.
But they filed a motion to end their case prematurely because Milosevic has been ill for the last 2 weeks and because of May's decision to step down.
At the same time, judges rejected a series of prosecution requests to submit additional material into evidence, saying it was too late for the defense to consider it.
May, 65, presided with a stern hand over 2 years of hearings and nearly 300 witnesses, often locking horns with Milosevic, who is defending himself.
May said in a letter to the tribunal that his illness made it impossible for him to stay on. The nature of the health issue was not disclosed.
Milosevic, 61, has had high blood pressure and repeated bouts of fatigue that have delayed the trial by 65 days since it began in February 2002.
May's replacement will be appointed by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Although May's resignation takes effect May 31, he had not been expected to return to court.
Milosevic has the right to contest the appointment of a new judge and could even call for a retrial, but the court will have the final say.
In his defense, the former Yugoslav president has said he plans to call a large number of international witnesses, including Western military and political leaders.
TITLE: Incentives for Pyongyang to Abandon Nukes
AUTHOR: By Elaine Kurtenbach
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BEIJING - South Korea said Thursday that energy assistance could be part of its offer to compensate North Korea for abandoning nuclear weapons development as six-country talks reconvened and Washington pushed for a verifiable end to the North's nuclear ambitions.
Delegates entered the second day of negotiations stressing that it was too early to predict how they might end. "It's just getting started," Japan's delegate, Mitoji Yabunaka, said before the talks reconvened in Beijing on Thursday. The morning session ended later with no word of what happened, and Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said the talks would continue Friday.
In Seoul, South Korean Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun said he could not give details of the compensation - or "corresponding measures" - for Pyongyang but said they could include assistance for the power-starved North's energy sector.
Meanwhile, reports that the United States and North Korea met for a second time Thursday morning could not be confirmed by South Korean officials in both Seoul and Beijing, and the U.S. Embassy in Beijing said it had no immediate information on any meeting.
The second day of meetings among the two Koreas, China, Russia, Japan and the United States on the nuclear standoff followed a rare, lengthy one-on-one session Wednesday between high-level officials from Washington and Pyongyang.
Neither side gave details of the meeting between U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly and North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan, but the State Department described it as "useful."
North Korea and the United States have been at odds over Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions for years and especially since October 2002.
North Korea publicly denies it has a uranium program in addition to its known plutonium-based program.
The impoverished North wants aid in return for halting its nuclear programs, and in December demanded economic aid and other U.S. concessions in return for a freeze.
North Korea also wants a nonaggression treaty with the United States or at least a security guarantee from all five of its negotiating partners.
TITLE: Schroeder Urges ECB to Mull Rate Cut to Stop Euro's Rise
AUTHOR: By Geir Moulson
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BERLIN - German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said Wednesday the European Central Bank should consider countering the euro's rise against the dollar by adjusting interest rates.
The call came a day after a key index of German business sentiment registered its first fall in months. Germany is Europe's biggest economy.
The euro last week reached an all-time high of more than $1.29 and was trading at around $1.26 Wednesday. It has risen by more than 50 percent against the dollar from its record low of 82 cents in October 2000 - creating worries about prospects for European exporters.
"The weakness of the dollar and the resulting strength of the euro is giving us problems in exports, and the European Central Bank should concern itself intensely with this problem," Schroeder said in an interview with NDR radio.
"I mean to say that there is reason - and I say this with all due respect for the independence of the European Central Bank - for them to think over interest rate reactions," he said.
The ECB has expressed concern about too-rapid exchange rate moves but has not actively intervened in currency markets to restrain the rise of the euro. It also has shown no sign of preparing to cut interest rates to counter the strength of the 12-nation currency.
A senior German government official said Schroeder was expected to discuss the strong euro's impact on exports with President George W. Bush when they meet Friday in Washington.
But the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the leaders were unlikely to launch any initiative to influence the financial markets.
A rate cut would, in theory, help push the euro lower, since higher interest rates in Europe are considered one reason for the currency's rise.
A cut would also help stimulate the economy, but could worsen inflation.
The bank has left its key refinancing rate untouched at 2 percent since June last year, while the U.S. benchmark federal funds rate is at 1 percent.
TITLE: Panthers' Win Over Maple Leafs Makes It 5 In-A-Row
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SUNRISE, Florida - Juraj Kolnik kept scoring and Roberto Luongo kept preventing scores as the Florida Panthers extended their unbeaten streak to a season-high five games and won 4-0 over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Wednesday night.
Kolnik had two goals and an assist and Luongo stopped 33 shots.
"Every time I get a chance to get a shot I try to put the puck on the net," said Kolnik, who has nine goals in his last 17 games. "Tonight, I got three shots and two goals."
Luongo tied his own franchise record with his sixth shutout of the season and his third in the last four games. He has allowed two goals on 140 shots (a .985 save percentage) during that span.
"I'm feeling great right now and the guys are playing great in front of me," Luongo said. "That makes my job a lot easier. We have to keep going."
Matt Cullen had a goal and an assist for the Panthers, 3-0-2 during their streak. Florida moved within seven points of the idle New York Islanders for eighth place in the Eastern Conference.
"This is the best we've played all year," Luongo said. "It's nice to be in this situation this late in the year. It's the first time for me that we re still in it this late in the season. I'm still trying to make the playoffs."
Niklas Hagman also scored for the Panthers, and Mike Van Ryn and Valeri Bure each had two assists. The line of Cullen, Bure and Kolnik combined for seven points.
Mikael Tellqvist stopped 24 shots for the Leafs, who lost their second in a row and missed an opportunity to tie Philadelphia atop the Eastern Conference. Toronto has 80 points and trails Ottawa by one in the Northeast Division.
The Leafs lost at home to Carolina on Monday night.
"We're struggling a little bit right now," said Leafs forward Alexander Mogilny.
"We can't put the puck in the net and we're not playing well defensively. We've got to play with a little more urgency."
Kolnik scored his first goal in the opening period when he took a pass from Cullen in the slot and put a wrist shot through the legs of Robert Reichel and over the glove hand of Tellqvist.
He made it 2-0 in the third period when he outskated defenseman Ken Klee and beat Tellqvist on a partial breakaway.
Cullen scored 30 seconds later when his wrist shot from the left circle beat Tellqvist high on the short side. It was Cullen's first goal in 24 games.
"It's been a while since I scored, it was nice to be able to finish," Cullen said.
"It's nice to show I can help the team, especially now. We need to play our best hockey right now or it's going to be a short season."
TITLE: Kirilenko Delivers When It Counts for Utah Jazz
AUTHOR: By Jim Cour
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SEATTLE, Washington - Just like John Stockton and Karl Malone used to do, Andrei Kirilenko produced for the Utah Jazz when it counted.
Kirilenko scored seven of Utah's nine points in overtime with three critical baskets and the Jazz beat the Seattle SuperSonics for the second time in two nights, 93-92 Wednesday.
The first-time All-Star from Russia hit a 3-pointer from the corner to put the Jazz ahead 91-89 with 1:28 to go, then got an offensive rebound after a miss by Tom Gugliotta and scored with nine seconds on the clock.
The 22-year-old forward also scored on a tip-in after getting an offensive rebound with 3:49 left that tied the score at 89.
The Jazz won despite a 40-point outing by Ray Allen, seven short of his career-high and the third time he's had 40 or more points this season. He tied a franchise high with six 3-pointers.
"I accept the challenge," Allen said. "I'm trying to help this team win and fight through all the negatives that might happen out there on the floor."
Kirilenko finished with 24 points and Carlos Arroyo added 16 for the Jazz, who beat the Sonics for the third straight time this season.
Kirilenko is a lanky 6-foot-9, 225-pounder who doesn't play skinny.
"My bones are strong," he said with a grin.
TITLE: SPORTS WATCH
TEXT: Kuerten in Quarters
COSTA DO SAUIPE, Brazil (AP) - Third-seeded Gustavo Kuerten and No. 4 Agustin Calleri advanced Wednesday to the quarterfinals of the Brasil Open.
Brazilian Kuerten, finally recovered from a heavy cold, outran 17-year-old Frenchman Richard Gasquet to win 7-6 (3), 6-3. Gasquet was hit with muscle strains in the second set.
Argentine Calleri defeated Fernando Verdasco of Spain 6-4, 6-4.
"I only won because I was able to take advantage of the few openings given to me by Verdasco," Calleri said after winning on the clay courts of the Sauipe Tourism Complex.
Iencsi to Join Spartak
BUCHAREST, Romania (Reuters) - Romania defender Adrian Iencsi has moved from Rapid Bucharest to Spartak Moscow on a three-year contract, the player's agent said Wednesday.
"Iencsi is now a Spartak Moscow player," Gica Popescu said. "He successfully underwent a medical in Moscow and will soon join his new team."
The 28-year-old Iencsi, who has won 16 caps for his country, will form an all-Romanian partnership in central defense with Gabriel Tamas, who joined Spartak from Turkey's Galatasaray earlier this month.
Thai Seeks English Club
BANGKOK, Thailand (Reuters) - Is Thaksin Shinawatra serious?
That is the question on the minds of football fans in Bangkok and Liverpool after Thailand's billionaire prime minister signalled he was back in the hunt to buy an English Premier League club.
The telecommunications tycoon, whose failed bid for Fulham grabbed headlines last year, emerged Monday as a potential suitor for Liverpool, setting off a fresh wave of speculation on sports web sites and in newspapers around the world.
"I think he's quite serious," said Wanchai Rujawongsanti, who writes a football column for the Bangkok Post newspaper.
"It's part of his political ambitions and buying a football club is fashionable for rich people. He admires Roman Abramovich," Wanchai said, referring to the Russian billionaire who bought Chelsea last year.
Broncos Eye Bailey
NEW YORK (NYT) - The New York Jets made several trade offers last week to the Washington Redskins for the Pro Bowl cornerback Champ Bailey, but the Redskins appear close to sending Bailey to the Denver Broncos for the Pro Bowl running back Clinton Portis.
Two people with knowledge of the Jets' offers said running back LaMont Jordan would have been traded to Washington, the team that one year ago lifted four players from the Jets roster during a sometimes-contentious signing period for free agents. But at the NFL combine last week in Indianapolis, the Jets and the Redskins freely discussed a trade for Bailey, whom the Redskins made available after negotiations for a long-term contract fell apart.
Sri Lanka Scores 226
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (Reuters) - Mahela Jayawardene top-scored with 80 as Sri Lanka posted a modest 226 for eight in their 50 overs against Australia in the third one-day international Wednesday.
Jayawardene resurrected the Sri Lankan innings after fast bowler Jason Gillespie had snapped up three early wickets with the new ball.
Sri Lanka, after winning the toss, slipped to 54 for four before Jayawardene added 58.