SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #970 (38), Friday, May 21, 2004
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TITLE: Reactions Mixed to Film on Sobchak
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalev 

PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A state-financed documentary film about former St. Petersburg Mayor Anatoly Sobchak has produced mixed reactions from politicians and human rights advocates who worked with Sobchak in the 1990s.
 
The film's premiere screening was in Dom Kino on Tuesday. 
 Its name "Sobchak: Woe from Wit," is an echo of Alexander Griboyedov's satirical play, "Woe from Wit," the title of which is sometimes translated as "The Misfortune of Being Clever." The film runs for 2 hours 44 minutes. It presents Sobchak, a former law professor who died in early 2000, in a positive light and as well ahead of his time, but whose ideas were misunderstood and not appreciated.
 At that time President Vladimir Putin was the a deputy mayor in charge of external relations and something of Sobchak's right-hand man.
 Director Natalya Mikova said the film intended to "some show something of Sobchak's uniqueness, and what he brought [to the public] in his time." "Those people in the city who still do not like him will have to reconsider," she said.
 The film was commissioned by the Culture Ministry and the State Cinema Committee, which since March have become the Federal Culture and Cinematography Agency. 
 Sobchak's widow, Lyudmila Naru-sova, who represents Tuva in the Fe-deration Council, co-directed the do-cumentary. 
 "This documentary is about the fate of a politician who has confirmed with all his life the truth expressed by [the writer] Alexander Griboyedov that in Russia woe comes from wit," Interfax quoted Narusova as saying Tuesday.
 Mikova said the documentary's board of directors is negotiating with state-owned Channel One television station to broadcast it this fall.
 She declined to say how much the documentary had cost.
 "It took us a year to make," she said Wednesday in a telephone interview. "The most surprising thing for me was that there is lots of footage from the 1990s at the St. Petersburg Documentary Studio storage facility, but much of it was never used because there was no money to develop it."
 The documentary starts with images of massive lines outside city food stores in the early 1990s and shows the empty meat and milk departments. Crowds attend political rallies all around St. Petersburg.
 The images are accompanied by quotations from Sobchak's books spoken by actor Leonid Mozgovoi.
 "We don't have a foundation for democracy yet, but we've already been convinced the building itself is not solid," Sobchak wrote in one of his books. "Democracy doesn't start by electing administrators, this is just its external form. It starts with civil rights taking precedence over the administration above and with a person being protected from the arbitrariness of the state."
 Sobchak was mayor from 1991 to 1996, when he was defeated by his former deputy Vladimir Yakovlev. 
 He is a figure of dark and light who gained international attention when he stood by then-President Boris Yeltsin against the August 1991 coup. Hailed as a democrat, Sobchak's books were published in many languages.
 However, he administered a city with collapsing infrastructure where crime was out of control and there were frequent contract killings. City Hall was embroiled in scandals. Sobchak was investigated for abuse of power and corruption and criticized for his haughty, autocratic rule.
 Sobchak ran unsuccessfully in the State Duma elections in 1999.
 He died of a heart attack on Feb. 20, 2000 in Svetlogorsk, a resort town in the Kaliningrad region. He traveled there as a representative of Putin's presidential election headquarters. Many politicians, opponents and allies included, suggested he did not die of natural causes, because Sobchak looked healthy just days before his trip.
 "I met him a few days before he died. He looked full of energy, ready for action and healthy," sculptor Mikhail Shemyakin says in the documentary. "I have the impression he didn't just 'go,' but that he was taken away [by somebody]."
 "I fear that some of those around Putin himself may be behind Sobchak's death," said Yury Vdovin, co-chairman of the local branch of human rights group Citizens' Watch.
 "He wouldn't have forgiven Putin for allowing things like the return of the melody of the Soviet national anthem and his eulogies of Stalin, that's for sure," he said Wednesday in a telephone interview.
 Human rights advocates said that the film, which avoids criticizing Sobchak's policies, looks as if it is intended to praise Putin indirectly, who has repeatedly called Sobchak his mentor.
 Putin appears right at the end of the documentary giving his farewell speech at Sobchak's funeral, and referring to Sobchak as his teacher. 
 Mikova said that because of this scene the premiere was delayed, because it could have been treated as campaign material for the March 14 presidential elections.
 "I'm absolutely sure the cult of this movie is related not to Sobchak, but to Putin," said Boris Vishnevksy, an adviser to the Constitutional Court and co-head of the local branch of the liberal Yabloko party.
 "The teacher is dead," he said Wednesday in a telephone interview. "Therefore he can be praised and remembered with honor while the student doesn't have to listen to his moral admonitions."
 Vishnevsky questioned one of the key points of the documentary that says it was thanks to Sobchak that Leningrad was renamed St. Petersburg in 1991.
 "Sobchak had nothing to do with this," Vishnevsky said. "It was an initiative of the deputy Vitaly Skoibeda, supported by his colleague Alexei Kovalyov, who introduced the bill about the name change to the city council on April 26, 1991. Sobchak was there for half an hour and left without saying anything."
 "In addition, he was against the name change when he campaigned to be mayor, saying it would dishonor those who survived the [1941 to 1944] siege and would require additional spending to change the signs in government offices," Vishnevsky said. "There are people who still remember all of it."
 "Sobchak's only role in this was that he could have stopped it, but he didn't," said another St. Petersburg-based politician on condition of anonymity.
 But Narusova disagreed.
 "The main thing for me is that the documentary is being shown for the first time on the eve of the birthday of the city [May 27], to which Sobchak not only returned its name, but also gave it his heart," she said at the premiere.
 Sobchak's words about a meeting with then President Boris Yeltsin in 1995 to discuss who could run in the next presidential elections are read out in the documentary.
 "Yeltsin asked for my advice if he should run or not because he felt ill and tired," Sobchak wrote. 
 "I said to him honestly that he should find a successor. But it was a test and the outcome was that I was put on a list of Yeltsin's enemies. And there was more. According to a FSB report submitted to the president, if I had been elected as governor of St. Petersburg in 1996, I would have been a potential candidate for president," he added.

TITLE: Reactor At LAES To Restart In August
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalev 

PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Reactor No. 1 of the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant, which has been out of action since 1999, will restart again in August, officials of the Federal Nuclear Power Agency said this week.
 
The official working life of the reactor, the oldest of four at the plant located in the town of Sosnovy Bor, 80 kilometers west of St. Petersburg, has expired. However, flying in the face of the environmentalists' opposition, it has been restored to extend its operating life by another 10 years.
 The plant is generally known by its Russian acronym LAES. Its reactors are all RBMK-1000s, the same type that caused the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.
 "The modernization and extenuation of the nuclear power reactor's working life is a very important question," Nikolai Sorokin, technical director of the nuclear power agency, said Tuesday at a news conference representing the views of the nuclear power lobby. "Technological progress has resulted in innovations that allow us to raise the level of safety. Thus, as a result of the renovations, the possibility of a reactor accident has been halved." 
 "The same process of extending a reactor's life is being performed in the United States and in France," he added. "In 2001 we extended the life of a reactor at the Voronezh Nuclear Power Plant. One of our requirements is that reactors in Russia must meet European standards of safety."
 Also in August, the agency will activate a new third reactor at the Kalinin Nuclear Power Plant located near the city of Tver between St. Petersburg and Moscow. The bloc will reach its industrial capacity by the beginning of next year, agency representatives said.
 Vladimir Pyshny, vice president of the Ukraine's Energoatom nuclear power ministry, said Ukraine will also increase its energy capacity this year by launching a second reactor at the Khmelnitsk Nuclear Power Plant in August and a fourth reactor at the Rovensk Nuclear Power Plant in October.
 "The highest authorities in Ukraine have decided to build a third reactor at the Khmelnitsk Nuclear Power Plant," Pyshny said at the conference. "We have plans to complete the construction and launch it within the next five years." 
 While the former Soviet republics are boosting their nuclear power programs, Germany is on its way to closing all such plants on its territory after a decision taken by the Green Party-SPD coalition government backed by international environmentalists.
 Hartmut Lauer, vice president of Germany's Biblis Nuclear Power Plant, said the last plant on German soil is scheduled to be closed by 2020, but the nuclear energy lobby still hopes that if the government changes, the policy could be overturned.
 "Nuclear energy has to be a part of the energy system and we think this decision is wrong," Lauer said at the conference. "Nuclear energy covers 50 percent of electricity demands in Germany and there are no alternative sources at the moment."
 Russia has also drafted plans to reduce its dependence on energy from nuclear plants, but the plans are vague and are considered only one of several scenarios.
 "If we don't extent the lives of reactors, by 2021 we will have just one reactor left operating, at the Volgodonsk Nuclear Power Plant," Sorokin said.
 He said it costs 10 percent of the cost of building and installing a new reactor to dispose of one. A new reactor costs $1,000 for each kilowatt of capacity.
 Sergei Kharitonov, a member of environmental group Bellona, presented the results of a study of safety at LAES in January, which among other things contained pictures displaying messy and makeshift methods employed at the plant, especially in the area used to store spent nuclear fuel.
 Speaking at the Regional Press Institute at the time, he said leaks of spent fuel are common and equipment crucial to the safety of the reactor is being stolen. Moreover, some staff are drunk on the job.
 "Alcoholism thrives [at the plant]," he said. "Staff do not undergo drug tests. There is a case detailed in my report of a person who had recently been treated for alcoholism being allowed to work with nuclear fuel."
 But LAES director Valery Lebedev said Tuesday he did not take Bellona's concerns seriously.
 "I have no idea where he [Kharitonov] took those pictures," he said. "But seriously speaking, don't you think you can find this kind of thing in any apartment if you looked around carefully.
 "Also, making accusations is a business, so he might have decided to make money out of this ... He is a retarded person with a mind that faces complications during springs and autumns," Lebedev said.
 In 1995, Kharitonov began documenting the plant's environmental hazards. 
 The same year, Kharitonov and Green World Sosnovy Bor, his environmental organization, protested against the plant's attempt to cram twice as much nuclear waste into storage facilities than they were designed to hold. 
 And in 1996, Kharitonov distributed photographs of the waste facility's cracked foundation, which showed ground water seeping through the floor. Environmentalists have estimated that the LAES storage facility has a potential contamination level 50 times that of Chernobyl.
 In November 1997, he was dismissed after publishing an article calling for LAES's operating license to be revoked.
 Kharitonov took the plant to court. Having worked at the plant for 25 years and with the legal status of a Chernobyl liquidator, he successfully claimed he could not be fired without two months' notice. 
 The court agreed, citing the Labor Code, which says that Chernobyl liquidators should be the last people to be sacked.
 LAES continued to pay his salary, but would not let him into his workplace. In 2000, it fired him.

TITLE: Fortress Town Kronstadt Celebrates Despite Chill
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova

PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The sun failed to shine on Kronstadt this week as it celebrated its 300th birthday, but open-air concerts, midnight fireworks, memorial services, the opening of fountains and a regatta of navy cruisers went ahead despite the chilly conditions.
 
On Kronstadt's actual birthday, Tuesday, it was windy, cloudy and quiet. The town's streets were nearly deserted and occasional passers-by kept the collars of their coats turned up. 
 The most cheerful sight was a group of young cadets, apparently in their first year, marching through the town, relaxed and smiling yet trying to concentrate on their steps.
 A handful of military recruits dressed as Peter the Great's grenadiers in uniforms borrowed from film studios Lenfilm huddled together with their backs to the strong wind. 
 "The celebrations are fun only for the locals; we aren't getting a crumb of it," moaned one, Alexander Sorokin. "They get to go to all the discos and fireworks but we only parade about the town, fire the cannon at noon, get photographed with the tourists and are confined to our barracks in the evening."
 The festivities have been spread out over 10 days, from May 14 through May 23, giving the celebrations a comfortable pace. The locals flood the streets in the evening. Yakornaya Square, which houses the country's main naval cathedral, the St. Nicholas the Miracle Worker Cathedral, was crowded during fireworks on Tuesday night, despite driving rain.
 "There is a very cheerful atmosphere in town and such an optimistic feeling," said Nelly Perepadenko, a curator at the Kronstadt History Museum, which is based in the cathedral. 
 &quot;It's lovely that we now have five new fountains and the new Savior-on-the-Waters chapel, but I am sure the best present that we locals have had was reduction in the price from 30 rubles to 14 rubles of the <i>marshrutka</i> that goes from Kronstadt to Chyornaya Rechka metro station.&quot;
 Viktor Surikov, head of Kronstadt district, said Valentina Matviyenko, governor of the city of St. Petersburg to which Kronstadt and Kotlin Island on which it stands belong, provided 6.7 million rubles ($230,000) for the advertising and promotion of the anniversary.
 &quot;Kronstadt has been undeservedly forgotten for decades,&quot; he said. &quot;I am happy to see eyes turning towards the island, but if it had happened earlier it would have been easier to save the town. The most important task is to give buildings that belong to the Defense Ministry, but aren't used by them ,to the city.&quot;
 Among such buildings is the cathedral, the fate of which is being discussed by the administration, the ministry and the Orthodox Church with the intention of giving back the cathedral to the church in the near future.
 Founded in 1704 by Peter the Great, Kronstadt has served as the base for the Baltic Fleet since 1720. 
 During World War II, Kronstadt protected besieged Leningrad from attacks from the sea. War veterans are visiting the island this week for nostalgic trips.
 &quot;My naval career really began with Kronstadt back in 1939, when I started as a naval officer,&quot; remembered retired first-class captain Nikolai Bavin, the only surviving officer of the war-time intelligence service of the Baltic Fleet. 
 &quot;The mission of Kronstadt is historical, and its history is admirable. It is a real pity that President Vladimir Putin didn't consider coming,&quot; he said.
 Vladimirsky Cathedral, the only operating church in Kronstadt, held special services almost every day this week in honor of all those who served in Kronstadt. For Father Svyatoslav, the cathedral's senior priest, the jubilee was first and foremost about remembering the spiritual history of the island. 
 &quot;Kronstadt, often referred to as the Russian Calvary, has long been a place of exile for rebels and dissidents, who protested against injustice and suffered for the truth,&quot; he said. &quot;My greatest hope is that the celebrations encourage a spiritual renaissance on the island.&quot;


TITLE: Lists for Privatization Prepared
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova

PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: City Hall has prepared lists of 25 St. Petersburg historical buildings that it wants to privatize first and 17 that are out of bounds for privatization.
 
The privatization list, drawn up by the St. Petersburg Committee for the State Inspection and Protection of Historic Monuments, or KGIOP, includes the Bezborodko dacha on Sverdlovskaya Naberezhnaya, Sheremetyev's mansion on Ulitsa Shpalernaya and Yulia Samoilova's palace and park at Pavlovsk.
 &quot;These are the buildings and palaces that are in the worst shape,&quot; KGIOP head Vera Dementyeva said Wednesday in an interview. &quot;They won't last more than five years if they aren't repaired.&quot;
 Properties have been listed that City Hall considers to have special value for the cultural heritage of Russia and will not to be subject to privatization.
 Among those buildings are the State Hermitage Museum, Peterhof, the palace and park museum at Tsarskoye Selo, St. Petersburg State University, and the Pulkovo Observatory.
 Governor Valentina Matviyenko proposed privatizing historic buildings last month. The proposal was not new and was seen by some as favoring oil firm LUKoil, which is restoring the city's Steiglitz palace and is to receive 60 sites for gas stations from the city without tenders. 
 Dementyeva said foreigners will be allowed to participate in tenders for the privatization of historic buildings. 
 Descendants of families who owned the buildings before the Bolsheviks nationalized them will be able to take part in the tenders, but will be treated no differently to other bidders, she added.
 &quot;The privatizations won't be an avalanche, it will have an individual character,&quot; she said.
 Privatization tenders will not be able to take place until the State Duma passes an amendment to the federal law on who controls property. The amendment will sort out which authority owns state property, whether it be the federal or municipal government or one of the 89 administrative regions.
 &quot;The main objective of that law will be to define who owns this or that building and who has a right to sell it,&quot; Dementyeva said.
 She expected it might take up to half a year for the Duma to consider the amendment.
 St. Petersburg has about 7,500 historical buildings, most of which have never had a thorough restoration, she said.
 &quot;Almost all these buildings need urgent repairs,&quot; Dementyeva said. &quot;Unfortunately, the state can't afford to do them.&quot;
 In the last few years about 120 of the city's historical monuments have been privatized in one way or another, including several buildings at Apraksin Dvor, she said.
 &quot;That was hidden privatization,&quot; Dementyeva said.
 The state and city's task will be to identify the best owners for historic buildings. &quot;That's why we will have tenders,&quot; she said.
 New owners will be obliged to renovate a building, keep it in good condition, and also to let the public view the building occasionally.
 Bidders at tenders will be required to pay the full value of any historical building, minus what they pledge to spend on repairs.
 &quot;Part of the proceeds from selling the buildings will be used to restore other dilapidated historical buildings,&quot; she said.
 On the list of the first 25 buildings to be privatized there are six buildings where investors have already started renovations. Those investors will be favored in tenders for privatization of those buildings, she said.
 Irina Antonova, general director of Moscow's Pushkin Fine Arts Museum, this week spoke against privatization of historic properties, Interfax reported.
 &quot;It implies not just the privatization of the buildings, but everything that is inside, including museums,&quot; she said. 
 &quot;But who are those privatizers? Do they have knowledge of museum work?&quot; she asked.
 Hermitage director Mikhail Piotrovsky said privatization is essential to &quot;save Russia's cultural heritage,&quot; the report said. 

<strong>Selected sites that may be privatized first </strong>

1. Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich Palace (Nab. reki Moiki, 122) - has an investor.
 2. Vyazemskiye Estate (Osinovaya Roshcha) - has an investor.
 3. Sobstvennaya Dacha palace and park ensemble (84 Sobstvenny Prospekt, Petrodvorets)
 4. Yusupova's Dacha with a gardener's house, Pushkin - has an investor.
 5. Samoilova's Dacha and park, Pavlovsk.
 6. Bezborodko's Dacha, 40 Sverd-lovskaya Naberezhnaya.
 7. Gostiny Dvor, Kronstadt
 8. Dacha (Ofitservskoye Sobraniye) (Zelenogorsk, 6 Ispolkomovskaya Ulitsa).
 9. Lanskiye Estate (4 Prospekt Engelsa).
 10. Dacha Vazhevskoi (Ul. Andreyeva, 12).
 11. Dacha Benua (17 Tikhoretsky Prospekt).
 12. Fort Totleben, Kronstadt.
 <i>Source: KGIOP </i>

TITLE: Police Detain Suspected Killers of Tajik Girl
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova

PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: St. Petersburg police have detained several people suspected of the murder of a nine-year-old Tajik girl in February, says chief city prosecutor Nikolai Vinchenko.
 
&quot;The investigation has not stopped, not even for a day,&quot; Interfax quoted him as saying Thursday. &quot;We have made a significant move foward in the investigation of this case, and we have detained suspects. However, in the interests of the investigation I won't name them.&quot; 
 Yelena Ordynskaya, spokeswoman for the city prosecutor's office, said Thursday that in the course of the investigation the suspicion that racist skinheads were responsible for the murder had been replaced by the view that the slaying was &quot;hooliganism.&quot;
 Valery Vekhov, spokesman for the city's criminal police, said the investigation is in its final phase.
 Drunken youths murdered Khursheda Sultanova and beat up her father and cousin in the city center on Feb. 9.
 Young people armed with a knife, knuckledusters, chains and bats attacked Yusuf Sultanov, 35, his daughter Khursheda and nephew Alabir, 11, in a yard in Pereulok Boltsova.
 The victims were attacked when Sultanov and the children were on the way home from their walk to one of the ice slides in the city's Yusupov Garden. A group of teenagers followed them, and then hit Sultanov's head with something heavy from behind.
 The attackers also hit the boy on his head, but Alabir managed to hide under a car. Then the group turned to the girl and stabbed her with a knife 11 times in her arms, chest and stomach. Khursheda died from loss of blood before an ambulance arrived.
 The man and the boy managed to survive the attack and were hospitalized with head injuries. However, the next day they were released from the hospital. 
 The murder attracted attention across the country. Governor Valentina Matviyenko gave special orders to find and punish the criminals.

TITLE: FSB Critic Jailed for Four Years
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky

PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Lawyer Mikhail Trepashkin was sentenced to four years in prison on Wednesday in a move that he and human rights advocates decried as retribution for his investigation into allegations linking the Federal Security Service to the 1999 apartment bombings that helped to prompt the second war in Chechnya.
 
After a seven-month closed-door trial the Moscow Military District Court found Trepashkin, a former FSB lieutenant colonel, guilty of divulging state secrets and illegal possession of ammunition.
 The charges are based on a search that turned up 26 cartridges in Trepashkin's apartment in January 2002 and a report from a former FSB agent that Trepashkin showed him classified documents he had kept from his time in the service.
 Trepashkin, wearing a blue tracksuit emblazoned with the word &quot;Columbia,&quot; showed no visible reaction from the defendant's cage as the verdict was read out. 
 Trepashkin's lawyer, Valery Glu-shenkov, said he would appeal the verdict and seek a full acquittal.
 Prosecutors had demanded Trepash-kin be jailed for five years.
 Speaking in a quiet, subdued voice from the defendant's cage to reporters, who were allowed into the court a few minutes before the judge pronounced sentence, Trepashkin said: &quot;I don't expect anything good. The case was filed on someone's orders and doesn't stand up to criticism from a legal point of view.&quot; 
 &quot;It's linked to my work with Sergei Kovalyov's commission,&quot; he said, referring to the Terror 1999 commission investigating the 1999 apartment bombings on Ulitsa Guryanova and Kashirskoye Shosse and the 2002 Dubrovka Theater hostage-taking, headed by the then-State Duma Deputy and human rights advocate. &quot;If I hadn't got involved, there wouldn't have been any case [against me].&quot;
 With his security service background, Trepashkin was an important member of the commission who could provide valuable information through his contacts and experience, said Alexander Podrabinek, editor of the Prima News human rights news service, after the sentencing.
 Trepashkin had a theory that the FSB could have had a hand both in the 1999 apartment bombings and the Dubrovka hostage-taking blamed on Chechen rebels, an allegation the FSB had denied.
 The apartment bombings were part of the reason why then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ordered federal forces back into Chechnya in 1999, a resumption of the war that sent his popularity ratings sky-high.
 Despite the FSB's denial, Wednesday's verdict shows that &quot;the authorities are clearly afraid of an open and independent investigation of the 1999 bombings and Dubrovka,&quot; Podrabinek said.
 &quot;Now we have yet another political prisoner,&quot; said Lev Ponomaryov, head of the For Human Rights movement.
 Podrabinek said that the commission's investigation had wound down after Trepashkin's jailing. 
 &quot;It's not ruled out that we will never find out what actually happened,&quot; he said.
 The sentencing is also a signal to others to avoid questioning the official statements on the commission's allegations, a &quot;signal that we hope won't be heard,&quot; Podrabinek said.
 Trepashkin's misfortunes began after he first publicly voiced the apartment bombings allegation, even before joining Kovalyov's commission, on Ren-TV television in late 2001.
 Shortly after the interview aired, police found the ammunition in a sewingbox in clear view on a shelf in Trepashkin's apartment, Glushenkov said. 
 The lawyer said the ammunition was planted.


TITLE: Human Rights Court Sides With Gusinsky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - The European Court of Human Rights has ruled in favor of exiled media mogul Vladimir Gusinsky, who filed a suit claiming that Russian authorities had used imprisonment to force him to sign over his Kremlin-hostile Media-MOST empire. 
 
The seven judges on Europe's highest human rights tribunal ruled unanimously Wednesday that the Russian government should foot Gusinsky's 88,000-euro legal bill for violating his right to liberty and security enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights, to which Moscow is a signatory.
 &quot;It was not the purpose of such public law matters as criminal proceedings and detention on remand to be used as part of commercial bargaining strategies,&quot; the judges wrote in their decision.
 They were referring to a 2000 agreement with the government in which Gusinsky sold his media business to Gazprom in exchange for fraud charges being dropped.
 Court spokesman Roderick Liddel said that the case was far from closed, however, and that the Russian government could apply for the case to be referred to a higher chamber of 17 judges within a 3-month period. 
 Russia's representative at the court, Pavel Laptev, promised a swift response. 
 &quot;The European court ruling is both theoretically and factually flawed and this fact cannot be left without a procedural response,&quot; Laptev said, Interfax reported.
 Gusinsky was held in pre-trial detention in June 2000 after authorities claimed he fraudulently obtained a $262 million loan from Gazprom.

TITLE: Report Faults Skyguide, Pilots
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BRAUNSCHWEIG, Germany - A Swiss-based air traffic controller noticed too late that a cargo plane and a Russian charter airliner filled with schoolchildren were on a collision course before they slammed into each other over southern Germany in 2002, killing all 71 people aboard, German investigators said Wednesday in their final report.
 
While not blaming the controller alone, the report said he issued his first instructions only 43 seconds before the crash. That started a fatal series of mishaps - and confusion among the Russian pilots about what to do - that led to the crash on July 1, 2002.
 The conclusions prompted a Swiss government apology to President Vladimir Putin and a pledge to bring those responsible to justice. Skyguide, the flight control company that handled the doomed planes, acknowledged that shortcomings at its Zurich center helped cause the accident. The report suggested that the Russian pilots' training led them to give priority to the controller, who told them to descend while their onboard collision-avoidance system demanded they climb to avoid the DHL cargo jet.

TITLE: Sub Sinking Blamed on Admiral
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - A Russian military court on Tuesday convicted a top admiral of negligence in the fatal sinking of a mothballed nuclear submarine and gave him a suspended four-year prison sentence.
 
Admiral Gennady Suchkov had pleaded not guilty to the charges during the hearings at the Northern Fleet Military Court in Severomorsk. Prosecutors asked for a four-year prison sentence while relatives of the seamen who were killed demanded tougher punishment.
 President Vladimir Putin suspended Admiral Suchkov from his post as the Russian Navy's Northern Fleet chief shortly after last August's sinking of the K-159 submarine as it was being towed to a scrapyard. Nine of the 10 crewmen on board died when a storm ripped the pontoons from the submarine.
 Navy commander Vladimir Kuroyedov has said Northern Fleet commanders disregarded safety rules when they authorized the towing of the submarine despite a bad weather forecast.

TITLE: Land-Lease Auctions Ready
AUTHOR: By Sophia Kornienko

PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: St. Petersburg's first open auction on land leasing rights will take place June 9. Auction winners will be offered 6 year leasing contracts enabling them to carry out construction in the leased areas. 
 
The bidding will be organized in the form of a complete auction, including an auctioneer, a gavel and number plates for participants. &quot;This is going to be a real system, auctions will be held on a regular basis,&quot; said Andrey Stepanenko, acting director of the St. Petersburg Property Fund at the city government at a press conference Thursday.
 &quot;This system will be transparent and allow us to determine the market price of the land plot accurately,&quot; he said. &quot;Even if the prices at the first auction do not exceed the nominal prices much, we estimate to get $9 million worth of revenues in the city budget,&quot; he said.
 The city government had passed a resolution on the auctions back in February, but it is only now that the first six plots are ready to be offered, each with an expensive package of approving documentation prepared. &quot;It used to take investors up to one and a half years to collect all the approvals, now the city administration does it for them. We have really simplified the procedure to a minimum,&quot; said Lev Vinnik, director of the investments division. 
 As many as 20 more land plots are currently being prepared, Vinnik said. 
 At the leased land plots, investors can construct only those buildings that correspond to the town planning documentation. Limitations on size and purpose of use - such as housing or commercial construction - of the prospective real estate are extensive. 
 Roughly 2 million square meters of housing land and about the same amount of land for commercial real estate construction will be auctioned this year alone, Vinnik said.
 The payment to cover the whole period of six years should be paid in installments of 30 percent every year for the first three years, and 3.33 percent every following year, said Alaxei Chichkanov, first deputy head of the city property management committee. 
 Auctions are a positive development that will allow for transparency in the land rental process, said Olga Litvinova, Office Managing Partner of Ernst &amp; Young and EY Law in St. Petersburg. &quot;Plots suitable for construction used to be leased to companies who submitted suitable plans but had scarce funds to complete construction. Those companies held on to the land plots like penny-pinching aristocrats. Any form of open financial bidding will encourage development of the leased plots,&quot; Litvinova said. The terms are quite sensible. According to the laws on construction, the permits for construction are valid for 2 years, which is a period long enough for construction companies and real estate developers, she said. 
 &quot;We are convinced that the land plots are going to be sold at the first auction,&quot; Chichkanov said. A number of proposals have been received, but no information about the bids can be made public until June 4, he said.
 Auctions should be especially efficient when they concern commercial areas, Litvinova said. &quot;I am not sure whether the areas suitable for housing construction will prove to be as profitable. There are territories that should be developed by other means, so auctions are not a panacea,&quot; she added. 
 The main problem the investors face is the lack of information about the land plots, Litvinova said. &quot;Auction is a big step forward, but an even bigger task that the city administration should target is the creation of a free-access land database,&quot; she said. Ideally, the city should plan the development of the potential construction areas, meaning connections to the engineering infrastructure, transportation links and the like, and offer plots within those areas with such information readily available, Litvinova said. &quot;Investors usually ask for specific conditions, which include electric power, gas and distance from traffic. Municipalities often fail to give that data on their plots,&quot; she said. 
 The land plots to be auctioned off in June are sized from 19,000 to 46,000 square meters and are located in Primorsky, Vyborgsky and Nevsky districts.
 The more auctions that are held, the more land files will become available to investors, Litvinova said.
 The city, slowly distancing itself from burdening property, is also hoping to sell its shares in hotels. This year, Moscow and Oktyabrskaya hotels will be sold to private owners. Among smaller hotels to go on sale possibly this summer are Vyborgskaya, Kievskaya, Yuzhnaya, Tourist and Chaika. The city's 30 percent stake in Astoria Hotel was marked as the next in line, said Chichkanov.
 The city's participation in hotel ownership has proved to be inefficient, Litvinova said. &quot;Share sales will benefit the city financially as well as relieve it from having to maintain those buildings. There is a severe deficiency of mid-range hotels in St. Petersburg. Private ownership will give a big boost to their development,&quot; she said.

TITLE: A New Read Launched For English Speakers
AUTHOR: By Sophia Kornienko

PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The city is about to get Russia's first magazine that uses &quot;real&quot; English to attract English learners. The magazine has a label of &quot;over 16s only,&quot; and attempts to bring relevance and entertainment to language learning. The Consulate of Great Britain in St. Petersburg supports the project.
 
&quot;We at Hot English believe that learning English should be fun, not conservatively old-fashioned, so our articles focus on the funny side of life,&quot; said William Hackett-Jones, the magazine's editorial director, at a press conference Wednesday. 
 The Hot English brand, first created in Spain three years ago, has been a big success in Italy, Hungary, Chile and Brazil. Hackett-Jones purchased a license from the Spanish owners that enabled him to launch a company in Britain and bring its affiliate to Russia. &quot;We expect the Russian project to pay off by May next year,&quot; said Natalia Viazovskaya, general director of Hot English Russia and Hackett-Jones' wife.
 The first full fledge 32 page issue is to come out June 1, followed by a second issue two months later. Starting from October, Hot English plans to go monthly, with each copy including a 60-minute CD with chats and music in English accents from different regions. 
 Straightforward and slightly provocative, the April pilot issue bears a modern day knickers guide with accompanying pictures followed by an interview with Richard Branson, the boss of the Virgin Empire.
 &quot;Real English, not Royal English,&quot; says the magazine's slogan. The project's target audience is the 16 to 24 age group, but older readers confessed they found Hot English quite catchy. Though the magazine is primarily a language learning tool, native speakers are said to enjoy it as well. &quot;I read the magazine from cover to cover,&quot; Hackett-Jones said. 
 The pilot issue was popular with the buyers, but difficult to distribute with some shops wanting to boost the price, Hackett-Jones said. Hot English will be selling for 2 to 3 euros at Anglia, Bukvoyed, Quo vadis, St. Petersburg State University and a number of selected schools, shops and cafes. 
 &quot;I have seen dozens of magazine projects launched, but most of them met resistance in the market, which is loaded with glossy publications. However, Hot English is like nothing else we've seen before,&quot; said Oleg Vorobiov, general director of Gaudeamus, a city weekly newspaper for university students. In the framework of a special project between the two publications, Gaudeaumus will publish selected materials from Hot English twice a month starting next week. &quot;Our styles have much in common. We try to find a fun way to tell about things that usually appear boring,&quot; Vorobiov said.
 &quot;I liked the magazine's pilot issue. The British Council in Spain is subscribed to Hot English Spain. The British Council in Moscow is planning to get a subscription to Hot English Russia,&quot; said Maria Pankina, head of the library department at the British Council in Moscow.

TITLE: A Radical Shake-Up or Is It Just Personal?
AUTHOR: By Alexander Golts

TEXT: I've got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that for the first time in 12 years the government appears poised to push forward with meaningful military reform. The bad news is that this major step forward may result not from strategic planning but from a clash between warring bureaucratic factions.
 
In late April, just before the country went on holiday for two weeks, the State Duma passed a bill on the structure of the military at a first reading. The bill, introduced by President Vladimir Putin, met with no opposition.
 This came as something of a surprise. The draft law is nothing short of revolutionary, after all, as it makes no mention of the General Staff. The current law states that &quot;the defense minister directs the armed forces through the Defense Ministry and the General Staff, which is the operational command body of the armed forces.&quot;
 Gone from the draft law are the articles stating that in a state of war the General Staff becomes the operational command body not only of the armed forces, but also of the &quot;other forces&quot; attached to the dozen or so militarized government agencies not part of the Defense Ministry.
 Should the bill become law, it would entail a radical departure from the Soviet model of military organization. The current situation, in which the General Staff combines both command and military planning functions, is nothing short of dangerous.
 History shows that no sooner does the institution charged with planning the conduct of future wars gain command and management powers than it begins to draw the state into exactly the sort of wars it is planning for.
 Recent history is full of such examples. Take the decision to send federal troops across the Terek River in 1999. The generals lobbied hard for this advance, and it started the second Chechen war. Beyond this, in its resistance to changes in the draft and its insistence on retaining universal military service, the General Staff today is the ideological and organizational center of opposition to military reform.
 Clouds began to gather over the General Staff back in February. At the annual meeting of the Academy of Military Sciences, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov proposed that the General Staff relinquish operational and administrative control of the armed forces. It should instead become a genuine military brain trust and concentrate on strategic planning. 
 Ivanov did not explain why during his three years in charge of the Defense Ministry he has consistently allowed the General Staff to expand its powers.
 In September 2003, for example, Putin issued a decree with Ivanov's full approval that put the General Staff in charge of coordinating the actions of all government agencies with troops at their disposal.
 Putin and Ivanov are probably fed up with the endless scheming of General Anatoly Kvashnin, head of the General Staff, a man as limited as he is ambitious. It is well known that Kvashnin got the better of his former boss, Marshal Igor Sergeyev. 
 The proposal to reorganize the General Staff could therefore be nothing more than a way to get rid of Kvashnin. After all, the very notion that Kvashnin, who has trouble formulating a coherent thought, would be in charge of the military's brain trust is an affront to common sense.
 But if the Kremlin really intends to create an organization capable of analyzing threats to security and devising strategies for meeting those threats, this is another thing entirely. There is reason to believe that such an attempt is doomed to failure, just like the attempt to create select units of professional, volunteer soldiers within a Soviet-style conscript army.
 A truly modern General Staff is impossible without officers of a specific kind. Intelligence, military knowledge, experience and suitability to &quot;command culture&quot; are crucial, of course, but another quality is even more important in such an officer: professionalism.
 The truly professional officer not only believes that his knowledge and experience give him the right to his own opinion; he is certain that this opinion will be taken into account by his superiors. 
 To produce such officers would require fundamental changes in the current system of military education and service.
 Today's officer finds himself in a relationship of almost feudal dependence on his immediate superiors. His entire career is filled with humiliation and servility.
 The top jobs in the General Staff are currently held by the people who in 1997 insisted that merging the Strategic Missile Forces with the Space Forces and eliminating the central Ground Forces command were essential steps along the road to military reform. Three years later the same people insisted just as sincerely that military reform meant separating the Space Forces from the Strategic Missile Forces and restoring the central Ground Forces command. 
 Their task, clearly, had nothing to do with long-term planning and everything to do with divining the wishes of their most powerful superiors. Yesterday they maintained that the General Staff should have total operational control of the armed forces. Tomorrow they will be riding the brain trust bandwagon.
 Whatever the Kremlin may have in mind, the proposed law now moving through the Duma would radically alter the structure of the armed forces.
 Operational functions taken away from the General Staff would have to be transferred to the Defense Ministry. This would mean relocating the agencies in charge of organization, mobilization and intelligence. Otherwise these crucial agencies would be left without a central command. 
 Removing the General Staff from the chain of command would also entail changes in the functions of military districts, which would need to be converted into strategic commands capable of integrating troops from all branches of the armed forces. To do this they would have to give up their mobilization functions.
 The process now under way is reminiscent of perestroika. Mikhail Gorbachev set out to modernize one aspect of an outdated system, but in doing so he brought down the entire system. Any attempt to modernize a single aspect of Russia's outdated military structure would be likely to have the same effect.
 We will soon know what the people who drafted the new law on the military have in mind. If their only aim is to get rid of Kvashnin, they will be scared witless by the chaos their actions could unleash and put a stop to the process. But if the bill becomes law, enormous changes in the military are inevitable.
 <i>
 Alexander Golts, deputy editor of Yezhenedelny Zhurnal, contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times. </i>

TITLE: Planned Car Purchases Reflect Administrators' Arrogance
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalev

TEXT: City Hall wants to buy 80 new Volvo cars to make life easier for 50 Legislative Assembly lawmakers and 30 city government officials, my sources told me this week. 
 
A simple calculation shows that if the cars on average cost 30,000 euros ($36,000), the cars will make a dent in the city budget of 2.4 million euros ($2.9 million). I guess that is where some of the 4.5 billion ruble ($155 million) city budget surplus will go and, as always happens, taxpayers' interests are brushed aside. 
 Unfortunately, there is nothing new in the car-purchase plan. It looks like City Hall is using budget money in the same way as the federal government, which has announced that staff numbers will be cut whereas, in actual fact, they just keep on growing. Here I refer to a report last week on NTV about the federal government's plans to buy more than 100 new cars at a total cost of 6.5 million euros to provide newly employed civil servants with comfort and mobility. 
 The 2.4 million euros City Hall wants to spend on cars would be enough to equip between 200 and 500 playgrounds for children in the city or to buy a lot of medicine for old people who don't have enough money to buy pills.
 You only have to take one step anywhere in the city to see where this money could be better spent. There are yards cracking all over St. Petersburg, staircases that look more like trash cans than anything else. Pieces of magnificent city architecture are falling on the heads of tourist guides. 
 The money could be spent on fixing any of those things, but City Hall decided its main priority is cars. It seems that administrators' sense of superiority in regard to the rest of the population grows from year to year. 
 One recent example is the wedding of Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref, who reportedly used one of the palaces in Peterhof for his celebration, arriving there in the presidential yacht. It would have been absolutely fine if Gref rented out the palace for the occasion, using his own money. If that were the case I wouldn't have said a word, but just have wished him happiness. But Gref's behavior looks as if he treated the palace as his private residence while ordinary people run around like slaves. 
 I have a question for Mr. Gref: Can I use the yacht and hold my wedding in the same palace he did?
 I don't think I'll ever get an answer.
 A slightly different concern affects local drivers, who dread the arrival of summer. This is the time when the city becomes a center for frequent meetings between President Vladimir Putin and other heads of state.
 For drivers rushing to work or trying to get to their summer houses, Russia's efforts to become a part of the civilized world don't come to much when they add up the time they spend in traffic jams. &quot;Ordinary&quot; cars have to wait to make way for special vehicles. 
 I can imagine what is going to happen if some of the functions of the capital are transferred from Moscow to St. Petersburg. If that happens there is a good chance that the city center will be in gridlock quite frequently, and not only during the rush hour. And it is very likely that one of the obstacles in drivers' way are going to be the cars bought for 6.5 million euros by the federal government and for 2.4 million euros by City Hall. 
 Taxpayers mean nothing to the authorities in Russia. To be honest, I wouldn't mind if Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov or Governor Valentina Matviyenko spent even more money to provide government officials with helicopters. That would definitely make locals' lives much easier.
 But I know why they wouldn't do that: the number of helicopters officials would need would be so high that it would cause massive crashes in the skies of St. Petersburg and Moscow. Just imagine, 80 authorities flying at the same time.

TITLE: sing with worldwide webley
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov

PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Jason Webley, the Seattle-based singer and accordion player, has returned with a new album called &quot;Only Just Beginning.&quot; Described as &quot;by far Jason's strongest work yet&quot; on his official web site, it contains some definite Russian influences that Webley picked up during his stay in Russia last year. 
 
&quot;I think you can hear the influence!&quot; wrote Webley in an email interview from his home in Seattle.
 &quot;Sometimes I steal very directly. The song 'Icarus' is very much a homage to [Russian songwriting icon Vladimir] Vysotsky. The melody I wrote long ago, but the finger-picking style and the relentless onslaught of words he inspired.
 &quot;Also, the chorus of the last song borrows an altered version of the melody of the 'Crocodile Gena Happy Birthday Song' which I played last year in St. Petersburg for the city's anniversary.&quot;
 He added that he also included a famous Russian cartoon song on the CD as a &quot;very well hidden bonus track.&quot;
 According to Webley, who launched his new Russian tour with a concert in Obninsk, 100 kilometers southwest of Moscow this week, the new CD sounds different to his last three albums.
 &quot;A few things have changed,&quot; he wrote.
 &quot;The last album [2002's 'Counterpoint'] was my first attempt at working with a large group of other musicians. I think that since then I've gotten much better at working with other people. I think the new album feels more like an ensemble rather than a bunch of session players. I think my skills as a producer and engineer have also gotten a lot stronger.
 &quot;But the main difference is the music. I think there is something very different about these songs. I'm not quite sure what it is. In a way they very directly reference the music I have done before, but I think mostly they sound quite different. Some of the songs come from my heart much more than my past music which came from the brain.
 &quot;There is a melody on the last track that makes my heart break and come together. Break and come together. I hope it touches some other people like that too.&quot;
 Webley, who came to Russia in 2002 and 2003, said he would perform some new Russian songs this time. 
 &quot;So far each year I've played something new. I really love to play Russian songs. My Russian isn't so great, but I actually studied a bit when I was in grade school, so I hope my pronunciation is not too bad.&quot;
 During his two Russian tours, Webley has gathered a solid fan base in the cities he played in.
 &quot;I have had great response from Russians,&quot; he wrote. 
 &quot;I have been given fan mail, pictures painted of me, many photos and even a tribute song recorded by young musicians in Moscow.&quot;
 His show last year at Red Club packed the house, and the response from the audience was enthusiastic. 
 &quot;I enjoyed it a lot and I'm excited to be coming back to the Red Club. You could say it is one of the craziest shows I ever played. Not so much for the show, but for the night that followed. I remember it was a mad scene after the concert in the club and that energy continued on the train ride back to Moscow later that night. It is a beautiful and crazy city you've got.&quot;
 At Red Club last year, Webley's vivacious performance had an immediate and healthy effect on the club's bar sales, but he says alcohol is not necessary to comprehend his work.
 &quot;I really like the spirit and idea of a drinking song, since it is something that brings people together and brings a certain energy out of people,&quot; he wrote. Last year also saw Webley performing at Glastonbury, Britain's biggest rock event, a feat he will repeat this year.
 &quot;I was on a couple of stages. The Cabaret and Circus stages,&quot; he wrote. &quot;But it wasn't my favorite thing. I prefer smaller more intimate concerts. And there was so much going on there, I felt a bit lost in it. But I am going back to try it one more time.&quot;
 From the U.K. he returned for a lengthy tour of the U.S. and Canada to end the season with a relatively large-scale show in Seattle. &quot;At the end, everyone was given a helium balloon. There was a lovely puppet built that looked exactly like me. At the end of the concert, everyone took their balloon and tied it to the puppet and he flew away into the night over the city. Like the cover of the new CD.&quot;
 <i>

 Jason Webley performs at 8 p.m. at Red Club on Sunday. Links: www.jasonwebley.com</i>


TITLE: red club welcomes indie bands
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov

PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Two indie bands from Spain and France will perform at Red Club on Monday, the day of the week notorious for its lack of decent entertainment in the city. In fact, Spain's Schwarz and the Paris-based Berg Sans Nipple will visit the city after their performances at Avant, the new festival of indie music in Moscow, which will take place on Saturday. Avant will be headlined by the U.S. band Xiu Xiu, which will not come to St. Petersburg. 
 
The psychedelia-tinged Schwarz formed in 1997, when its mastermind, guitarist Alfonso Alfonso, quit his previous band Fuck My Dreams, reportedly tired of standard rock's limitations and cliches. 
 &quot;Drones and some sort of repetition are a very important element of our music, together with an &quot;infected&quot; sense of melody and pop sensibility,&quot; he wrote in an email interview about the music of Schwarz, which is now a trio with Juanma Martinez on bass guitar, baritone guitar and synths and Cesar Verdu, who is in charge of drums and programming.
 &quot;And distortion, noise and psychedelia are equally important. I guess you could describe it as 'Velvet Underground meets Spacemen 3 meets Stereolab.' In a very open sense, of course.&quot; A Schwarz concert is an intense affair, according to Alfonso.
 &quot;Intensity is the keyword,&quot; he wrote.
 &quot;We are three people but we make a lot of noise on stage. Pity we cannot bring all of our gear by plane. We usually carry a lot of equipment, but this concert will be a bit more 'in your face.' But equally intense.&quot;
 Alfonso reckons that being exposed to bad music was formative for him as a musician.
 &quot;I've been interested in music since I can remember,&quot; he wrote.
 &quot;And it's curious, because I grew up in a family where nobody liked music. When they listened to something, it was always the most stinky Spanish rubbish. Now I'm thinking all that crap was formative for me! Maybe that's the reason why I developed an interest in punk music later ... And psychedelia, of course. Any style you could apply the word 'psych' to, I like.
 &quot;I'm currently very interested in drones, both pure and applied to pop and rock music,&quot; he wrote.
 &quot;And some kind of avant-garde from the '50s and '60s. I'm also interested in bands that use vintage and analog gear. I like the sound of vintage equipment a lot. It sounds very alive, sometimes even out of control.&quot;
 Hailing from Paris, Berg Sans Nipple, which performs its own blend of rock, electronica and jazz, is a Franco-American duo of Lori Sean Berg and Shane Aspegren. While Berg is a Parisian, Aspergen comes from Nebraska, although now he is also based in Paris.
 In an email interview, Aspergen stumbled for words to speak about the band's upcoming concert. 
 &quot;Indescribable! A circular, throbbing mass of sound,&quot; he wrote. Although there will only be two people on stage, there will be lots of musical instruments, both acoustic and electronic.
 &quot;We actually have a ridiculous number of instruments and machines for just two people,&quot; he wrote.
 &quot;Drums, glockenspiels, a steel drum (and other percussion), a Wurlitzer piano, a Bass Rhodes, synths, drum machines, samplers, live looping machines, and two live bodies.&quot;
 Coming from two very different countries, the musical backgrounds of Berg and Aspergen are very different as well, although both started out as drummers.
 &quot;I grew up in a small town in the middle of Nebraska, listening to a bunch of shitty rock music and metal,&quot; wrote Aspergen.
 &quot;For Lori, I think he had a completely different introduction into the world of music, though we both did play in orchestras and studied music in the classical sense when we were younger. He was listening more to pop music, probably much better music than I was listening to.
 &quot;What's similar for us is that we both seemed to discover new worlds of music that more influence what we do now around our late teens, you know, everything from noise rock to dub to minimal composers to electronic stuff.&quot;
 Support comes from the local ethno/psychedelic-rock band Klever.
 <i>
 
Schwarz and Berg Sans Nipple at Red Club at 8 p.m. on Monday. Links: http://perso.wanadoo.es/schwarz/; www.bergsansnipple.com. </i>

TITLE: chernov's choice
TEXT: Although rumor has had it that <strong>Moloko </strong>would perform in St. Petersburg this Saturday for some time now, the location has become known only very recently. 
 According to local promoters Dance Planet, the Sheffield-based electronic pop band will play at the Sixth Pavillion of the Lenexpo, the local exhibition complex on Vasilyevsky Island.
 Moloko is a duo formed by Dublin-born singer Roisin Murphy and Sheffield producer Mark Brydon in 1994. The pair obviously fished the name of their band, which is Russian for &quot;milk,&quot; from Anthony Burgess' 1962 novel &quot;A Clockwork Orange,&quot; in which Burgess invented a Russian-based slang for his characters. 
 In the book, Alex and his violent teenage <i>droogs,</i> or friends, spend time at Korova Milkbar drinking milk with a certain drug in it, &quot;which would give you a nice quick horrorshow 15 minutes admiring Bog And All His Holy Angels And Saints in your left shoe with lights bursting all over your mozg,&quot; as Burgess put it. &quot;Horrorshow&quot; stood for <i>khorosho</i> (good), <i>Bog</i> is God, while <i>mozg </i>means brain.
 The duo is expected to showcase its fourth and most recent album, &quot;Statues,&quot; described on its web site as &quot;a record of epic emotions and epic musical ambition,&quot; as well as playing some older songs.
 It is not yet clear whether they will visit what is probably the city's best underground club - which is also called Moloko - although it took its name from an old, discarded milk shop sign, rather than Burgess' book.
 The fun will continue with <strong>Jason Webley,</strong> the Seattle-based singer/accordion player who, with his fiery performance and catchy drinking songs, performs at Red Club on Sunday. The next night the venue will host two contemporary bands, Spain's <strong>Schwarz</strong> and the Paris-based <strong>Berg Sans Nipple</strong>. See articles, this page.
 Some decent local bands perform this week as well. 
 <strong>Billy's Band,</strong> the Tom Waits-influenced trio of singer and double bass player Billy Novik, accordion player Anton Matezius and guitarist Andrei Ryzhik, which has become hugely popular over the past year, will play at Red Club on Friday.
 The band played its first big concert at LDM, or the Palace of Youth, to launch its most recent album &quot;Nemnogo Smerti/Nemnogo Lyubvi&quot; (A Little Death/A Little Love), on Apr. 18, but has not performed since then.
 &quot;People swear that we've forgotten them, so we are pleased to play again,&quot; said Novik by phone this week. He said that the new album, which is the band's third &quot;official&quot; CD (early demos not included) will be performed and will be available at the concert.
 Novik added that a new song, called &quot;V Golove Blyuz&quot; (Blues in My Head) will be premiered.
 <strong>Skafandr,</strong> the instrumental alt-rock power trio, which has lately impoved its performance substantially, will perform at Moloko on Saturday.
 <strong>P.T.V.P.,</strong> fronted by Lyokha Nikonov and possibly the leading punk band on the local scene, despite hailing from Vyborg, will play at Red Club on Wednesday.
 <strong>Iva Nova,</strong> the all-girl folk punk band, will perform at Red Club on Thursday. See gigs for more events.
 
 <i>- By Sergey Chernov </i>

TITLE: the taste of the italian street
AUTHOR: By Simone Kozuharov

PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: In a city supposedly brimming with world class restaurants and A-list eateries, good Italian food in St. Petersburg can still be hard to come by. Something of a institution here, La Strada serves great Italian food with a bit of Russian flare. 
 
The restaurant, a far cry from the fancy dining rooms most pricey places boast, is a family restaurant to the core, complete with a kids room and a <i>nyanya</i> - babysitter - for hire. 
 While the children are at play or watching a video, parents are free to relax and dine slowly over one of La Strada's freshly baked pizzas. Pasta and main dish selections vary much less than the pizza varieties, but it was quite difficult to find an unappealing offering at the restaurant.
 Each meal begins with a bountiful bread basket, filled with delicious, fresh foccacia (La Strada calls it garlic bread) and the gratuitous, but also quite tasty Italian bread sticks. Traditional Russian brown bread occupies the remaining third of the basket.
 Appetizers abound on the menu and it is a difficult undertaking to select just one. The Zuppa di Salmone (salmon soup, 210 rubles, $7.20) was exquisitely filled with tender pieces of fish, bay shrimp and diced potatoes, sprinkled with fresh dill. 
 Calorie counters beware, this soup could make even Twiggy feel guilty with its cream base. It was so filling that the soup would certainly be great for lunch on a rainy day.
 Another diner sampled the Piatta di Carne (cold cuts platter, 220 rubles, $7.50), a hefty offering of five different cold cuts, including salami and beef, pickled vegetables, olives, hard boiled egg slices, tomato wedges and brie cheese. It was served with a side helping of tartare sauce.
 It was &quot;very tasty,&quot; the diner said, who was in La Strada on a return visit. &quot;Everything is fresh and for different tastes.&quot;
 After such fare, eating the main courses seemed more like a chore than a pleasure. When they arrived, appetites or not, it was difficult to resist.
 The Fetta di Salmone (470 rubles, $16.20) was perfectly pan-fried, not too greasy, tough or dry, served on a delicious cream sauce with a bit of red caviar. The dish was the perfect accompaniment to the salmon soup. It was served with forgettable white rice, but the mingling flavors of the creamy sauce, caviar and salmon were enough to satisfy any palette and add a bit of excitement to the rice. 
 Another diner tried a small Hawaii Pizza (210 rubles, $7.20) one of many varieties offered at the restaurant, also somewhat of a pizzeria. It was covered with a generous amount of ham and pineapple. Sitting on the second-level terrace, the diner watched the pizzas being made from above with particular glee. 
 &quot;I like it because it was made just in front of my eyes and I could see the process,&quot; she said. 
 The pizza itself was &quot;very good&quot; and &quot;it hasn't been standing here for I don't know how many hours,&quot; she noted.
 Just when it seemed impossible to eat anything more, the tiramisu, an Italian dessert, arrived. &quot;Tirami su&quot; is Italian for &quot;pick me up&quot; and it's no surprise where this espresso soaked cake with marscapone cheese and sprinkled cocoa got its name. 
 It is difficult to find properly-made tiramisu because, as with most good Italian food, the love of the Italian mother who made it is usually an important ingredient. La Strada's chef must have an Italian mother because the restaurant's version was not a bad variant. No one wanted to try it after so much food, but five minutes later, all that was left was a crumb and the plate. 
 La Strada, which means The Street in Italian, has a fun, family atmosphere. 
 &quot;I think this restaurant is perfect for families,&quot; one diner said. &quot;It is perfect for young families with kids.&quot;
 La Strada is a nice place to go after a long day. Its bright and cheery decor is reminiscent of a small old street in Italy, with a vaulted glass ceiling.
 Most important perhaps, is that the clientele includes Italians. A sure sign of good ethnic food is ethnic patrons. 
 The only possible complaint to lodge against La Strada is its prices. The food is great, but simple and the total price in dollars was a bit surprising for a family restaurant. 
 
 <i>La Strada, 27 Bolshaya Konyushennaya Ulitsa. Tel: 312 4700. Open daily from 12.00 p.m. Menu in Russian and English. Credit cards accepted. Dinner for two including wine and coffee 1,660 rubles ($57.20).
 </i>

TITLE: russian artists think about home
AUTHOR: By Andrei Vorobei

PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The concept of <i>rodina</i> is a central theme in Russian culture. Along with <i>otchizna</i> and <i>otechestvo,</i> which mean &quot;fatherland,&quot; notions of rodina (&quot;motherland&quot;) are tied to Russia's sense of self, the &quot;homeland&quot; of the Russian soul. Rodina is a popular name for movie theaters and aeroplanes, the current political party run by Roguzin, and giant Socialist-Realist statues depicting Rodina herself. Thinking about the motherland has occupied Russian artists for centuries - now the topic lends itself to a new exhibition at the Anna Akhmatova Museum until the end of May. 
 The curators have brought together artists of different generations and caliber for the show and it is quite rare that so many internationally acknowledged names in contemporary Russian art are simultaneously represented in St Petersburg. 
 Some of the artists participated in the last Venice Biennale (for instance, Moscow-based artist Konstantin Zvezdochetov and the duo of Alexander Vinogradov and Vladimir Dubosarsky), while the works of other artists will be on show at the upcoming Sidney Biennale - namely, the Moscow group AES+F.
 As could be expected, each artist sees Russia or harbors wishes for it from their own retrospective perspective. As manifested in the exhibition, such views and desires appear quite contradictory, even diametrically opposed - from rodina as utopia (for instance, Yevgeny Kuznetsov's &quot;I Love You!&quot; (2004) - a statue of Putin) to rodina as military powerhouse, as diplayed in Lena and Vera Samorodova's &quot;Our-Alien,&quot; from rodina as a spiritual entity, as in &quot;Secret Councils&quot; (2004) by the prominent local artist Natalya Pershina-Yakimanskya (well known as 'Gluklya') to the rough anatomy of Leonid Tishkov's amusing thoughts about rodina in &quot;Anatomy Map of Russia&quot; (1997). 
 Rodina as metaphor, as in Kerim Ragimov's work &quot;RoadOff&quot; (2002-2003) has specific connotations for Russians since it refers to a well-known painting of Ivan Shishkin which was mass produced in the Soviet era. 
 The spectator is asked to choose between them: with which rodina do you feel most intimate? Well, one of the most interesting perspectives is offered by the 'Action Half Life. Episode 2' project by AES+F (the current exhibition displays only one work from this series). 
 This project, which has more in common with computer games, virtual reality and Hollywood films, is about youth, and teenagers who often imagine themselves as heroes - but against an absent enemy; it is about a time of harmless heroism, a time when everything is possible. 
 According to the authors: &quot;the driving concept behind our art is our perpetual attempt to precipitate the 'genome of heroism' out of today's world of grimmer reality.&quot;
 Another, quite opposite, but interesting perspective is offered by &quot;Livshits' Institute&quot; (2004) by the established Moscow artist Dmitry Gutov. His work is a documentary film dedicated to an odious Soviet figure, the philosopher and scandalous publicist Mikhail Livshits who was the author of the famous pamphlet 'Why I'm Not Modernist' (1966). With this work Gutov wants us to pay attention to that version of Marxism of the 1930s (that was made by people, like Livshits, who sincerely believed in it), a substitute for Communist ideology that in reality had nothing to do with Marxism. 
 He wants contemporary art to be seen again in truly Marxist terms. He writes: &quot;awoken from its coma, Marxism is given the chance to move away from a rough parody of itself. It is time to explore aesthetics by Livshits.&quot;
 
Lastly, another semi-documentary at the exposition is the series &quot;Captured Films&quot; by local artists Olga and Aleksander Florensky that deal ironically with eternal imperial ambitions of Russia. 
 

 <i>
Thoughts about the Motherland runs through May 31 at the Anna Akhmatova Museum at the Fontanka House. 
 Links: http://www.akhmatova.spb.ru </i>

TITLE: a painter's nostalgia comes to life
AUTHOR: By Larisa Doctorow

PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The Russian painter Boris Zaborov has been living in Paris for more than 20 years and during this time there has only been one show of his work in St Petersburg - in the Manezh in 1995. His new one-man show opened on April 29 in the Ludwig Museum rooms of the Marble Palace, part of the State Russian Museum, and gives St. Petersburg a chance to become acquainted with an artist who is among the most successful, sought after, expensive and prolific painters of our time. The exhibition comprises 62 paintings, works of graphic art, collages and sculptures. It is a demonstration of his success that many of the paintings come from museums and private collections in Europe and the U.S.
 
Zaborov was born in Minsk in 1935 and studied art for 12 years, first there, then at the St Petersburg Art Academy and finally at Moscow's Surikov Institute.
 He became an accomplished graphic artist whose illustrations to literary classics won him prizes at Moscow book fairs. But Zaborov aspired to paint, and in 1981 he decided to leave Russia for Paris and chart a new artistic course. 
 But, Zabanov explained, it was difficult to leave Russia behind. 
 &quot;Once, looking through the archive I brought from Russia, I came across some old photos, some of my family, and some unknown ... My gaze passed through them and went beyond the frames as if they were an open window towards the endless space of recollection. The noise of Paris was gone; instead I heard the distant rustle of years gone by.&quot;
 That was in the 1980s when so-called &quot;Memory Art&quot; was very popular in the West. New movements closely linked to photography sprung up in many countries including France and Italy. The movement was otherwise known as &quot;photo-based art.&quot;
 Zaborov used old photos in a variety of ways: as an inspiration for his paintings, or his pictures were the remakes of photos, or at times they even entered paintings directly as part of collages.
 But Zabarov's work offers a specifically painterly vision. Vladimir Pertz, curator of the current exhibition, says &quot;If you take a one square centimeter piece from a Cezanne painting, it is [clearly] a painting. The same applies to one square centimeter of Zaborov's works.&quot;
 The artist's painting is not restricted with the image or the subject. It concerns the colors and the interaction of different layers of paint. It also concerns the cracks, the traces left by a knife or a pencil or a pen. 
 Zaborov's color scheme is mostly monochrome with rare explosions of color. At the same time, as the painter said about his present and future work: &quot;I don't feel it but people tell me it is getting lighter, more colorful. A variety of colors appear.&quot;
 Zaborov's technique is complex, and the surface of his canvases are richly covered with a combination of acrylic, pencil and charcoal drawings, and with watercolors and pastel. Sometimes all of these are visible in one work. It creates additional dimensions - illusionary images appear from nowhere - like the developing of photographic negatives. 
 The art of Zaborov is brought to life by the past. The bond with the times and people of the past is enhanced by wide use of citations from his favorite masters like Diego Velazquez (&quot;The Infanta&quot;) or the icon composition tradition when the central image is surrounded by the episodes from his life. 
 The majority of works at the exhibition are portraits. Landscapes are rare. 
 &quot;I always paint the same thing - the village in Belarus. I grew up with this image,&quot; Zaborov said.
 One curious aspect of Zaborov's technique is his use of negative-like images of the 19th century where the shades of dark and light are in the reverse. Here one sees his training as a graphic artist who for a long time worked with reverse images, doing etching, prints, creating reverse images on metal plates or wooden plates.
 Asked whether it was easy to get works from private and state collections for this exhibition, Zaborov said &quot;Before it was not a problem. Now it was hard. The works from England came on the eve of the departure to St. Petersburg and I was very nervous, especially if you take into account the fact that they make up 25 percent of the show.&quot;
 
 <i>
Boris Zaborov at the Marble Palace, 5/1 Millionnaya Ulitsa, through June 11. </i>

TITLE: maestro's favorite quartet returns
AUTHOR: By Peter Dyson

PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Britain's Fitzwilliam Quartet, which became a favorite of Dmitry Shostakovich in the years before his death in 1975, returns to St. Petersburg this week to give four concerts at a number of venues including the St. Petersburg State University and the Bolshoi Dvorets at Peterhof. 
 
Founded in 1968 by four Cambridge University undergraduates, the Fitzwilliam was one of the first of a long line of distinguished quartets to emerge from Britain's Royal Academy of Music. They became well known through their close personal association with Shostakovich, who befriended them following a visit to York, England, in 1972 to hear them play. 
 Viola player Alan George recalled the circumstances of the Fitzwilliam Quartet's meeting with the great Russian composer in an interview shortly after Shostakovich died.
 &quot;Early in 1972 I wrote to Shostakovich requesting his permission to perform the 13th quartet - the work had in fact been composed two years previously, and it seemed shameful to me that it had not yet been heard in [the UK.] He replied at once, not only consenting but welcoming the chance and expressing the hope that he might be able to come and hear the performance himself. 
 &quot;Not long after, he sent a score and a set of parts, repeating his wish to come and hear us play. At the time, I was somewhat perplexed as to why he should be so enthusiastic about hearing a very young and unknown group play his music, but as I got to know him better, through his letters and his music, and meeting him personally, I have come to realise that, distressingly conscious of his age, he must have felt glad to know that this 'old man's music' could live and thrive in the hands of young people. 
 When the moment came, the young musicians decided it was George who should first meet Shostakovich.
 &quot;I had been delegated by my colleagues to meet the composer at the station, and as I stood waiting, excitement and apprehension in turn prevented me from realising the composure with which I had hoped to greet him. Of course I recognised him immediately, but he was a much bigger man than I had expected; in fact he appeared a squarely built powerful-looking figure, yet physically very frail on account of his poor health. His face was white and drawn, yet behind a pair of thick spectacles one was acutely conscious of his dark, searching eyes. 
 &quot;His reputation of being excessively nervous was soon amply justified, especially when confronted with anything more than the smallest group of people, but as soon as he got to know us better he became more relaxed and very talkative. He must have known that actually playing to him for the first time would be a real ordeal for us, so he suggested that we should play the piece through to him during the afternoon, so that we would feel more at ease in the concert itself. At the end he seemed satisfied, and confined his remarks to amending a few of his own dynamic marks (particularly for pizzicato) in the text. 
 &quot;We were all deeply touched by his efforts to make us comfortable and his insistence that plans for the day should be arranged to suit our convenience rather than his.
 &quot;I don't think that anyone who was fortunate enough to be in the Lyons Concert Hall at York University that night can have forgotten the occasion quickly. The man's presence was electrifying, and one had the overwhelming sensation that one was in the company of something indescribably great.&quot;
 Shostakovich himself was moved by the occasion and later wrote to George: &quot;I would like to thank the Fitzwilliam Quartet, whom I admire very much, for a superlative performance of the 13th quartet.&quot; 
 Shostakovich went on to entrust the Fitzwilliam Quartet with the western premieres of his last three quartets. They became the first ever group to perform and record all 15 quartets; complete cycles have been performed by them in a number of major cities, including London, New York, and Montreal.
 Shostakovich, perhaps better known for his symphonies, wrote 15 quartets in his lifetime. George wrote about his thoughts on the place of the quartets in Shostakovich's body of work in the 1970s. 
 &quot;Shostakovich's 15 quartets do not span his entire career, so they cannot therefore be looked upon as a complete record of his development as a composer. Such a claim can, however, be made for the 15 symphonies. But considered together, the two series show a very clear, if slow change of emphasis throughout his life; after the end of [World War II] he composed 6 symphonies and 13 quartets, whereas up to that time he had produced 9 symphonies and only 2 quartets,&quot; George wrote.
 &quot;Having established there is no 'early' quartet it is possible to divide the series into two groups corresponding to the 'middle' and 'late' periods of such composers as Beethoven and Mahler. The division is not an equal one, neither is it particularly clear cut. The last 4 quartets do seem to belong so inexorably to each other, presenting four entirely contrasting aspects of something common to them all, so that they must be seen apart from the rest,&quot; George added.
 &quot;These quartets form the backbone of his final period of creativity; they show the ageing composer totally withdrawn into his own private world, obsessed with thoughts of approaching death and represent a widening of his musical language, influenced to a considerable extent by the use of 12-note rows and the greater degree of harmonic and melodic flexibility which these give rise to.&quot;
 The Fitzwilliam Quartet will perform three Shostakovich quartets during its visit to St. Petersburg this week.
 Quartet No. 5 was written in 1952 as a 30th anniversary gift to the Beethoven Quartet with whom Shostakovich had built a remarkable creative relationship that lasted throughout his life. It was not performed until after Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's death in 1953 and represented a breaking of &quot;the silence&quot; that had descended upon Soviet art as a consequence of Leningrad Communist Party boss Andrei Zhdanov's 1948 cultural purge. 
 Quartet No. 11 was written in 1966 and dedicated to the memory of Vassily Shirinsky, who as second violinist of the Beethoven Quartet had taken part in the first performances of all its predecessors apart from Quartet No. 1. This seven-movement quartet, played without a break, shows Shostakovich firmly committed to musical continuity and cogency of musical ideas in his quartets, achieved by a disarmingly simple thematic unity and stringent economy of means with just two principal motifs on which the entire work is constructed.
 Soon after completing Quartet No. 11, Shostakovich suffered his first heart attack. He had had to face ill health on and off for most of his life but now the lurking fear was turning into reality. Human mortality - his own mortality - stared him in the face and it inevitably colored the remainder of his life and work. One cannot help sensing a fateful premonition in the music of Quartet No. 11.
 Quartet No 12 was written in 1968 and is perhaps the toughest and most complex of all Shostakovich's quartets, but it is not predominantly dark in tone. It is as powerful and virile as anything in his entire output, striking a genuine note of heroicism which is so sadly absent from much of the work that followed.
 Shostakovich's son, the conductor Maxim Shostakovich, has said: &quot;My father used the quartet genre for the deepest of his thoughts, for the expression of his most important philosophical conceptions. And into this category I would place the 15 quartets as a lyrical confession of my father.&quot;
 During its visit, the fifth time the quartet has performed in St. Petersburg, the Fitzwilliam will also give premieres of new British music by Marcus Tristan Heathcock, Peter Dyson, Steve Crowther and Liz Johnson in the Petrovsky Zal of St. Petersburg State University. All the music to be performed has been written specifically for the Fitzwilliam Quartet.
 Heathcock and Dyson are two British composers who have been living in St. Petersburg for the last eight years. With conductor Roman Leontiyev they formed the New Music Initiative earlier this year. This is the third series of concerts under the program, which aims to promote new composers' works.
 Heathcock's contribution is a reworking of dances by the composer Susato and is receiving its world premiere. He studied with Hans Werner Henze at the Royal Academy in London and later with Oliver Messiaen in Paris. Dyson studied with Boris Tishchenko in the St. Petersburg State Conservatory of Music. His work, &quot;Stone,&quot; is based on a poem by Russian &quot;Silver Age&quot; poet Osip Mandelstam and the Fitzwilliam Quartet premiered it last year at the Swaledale Festival in Yorkshire, England, when a dry stone wall was built on the stage especially for the performance. Both pieces are to be performed twice during the visit.
 &quot;Break on Through&quot; by Steve Crowther was written in 2002 in reaction to the death of a close friend. Crowther studied with British composers Johnathan Harvey and Michael Finnissy. Also on the program is Liz Johnston's &quot;Intricate Web&quot; which was premiered by the Fitzwilliam Quartet at the Bromsgrove Festival last year.
 Also included is an all-Shostakovich programme in the Kollony Zal of Herzen University, and a performance of Pyotr Tchaikovsky's Quartet No. 1 at the Agora cultural center in the flat once lived in by his brother Modest on the Fontanka.
 The Fitzwilliam Quartet hope to return to St. Petersburg in 2006 to perform a complete cycle of all 15 of Shostakovich's quartets.
 <i>

 Peter Dyson is a St. Petersburg-based composer whose new work &quot;Stone&quot; will be performed this week by the Fitzwilliam Quartet. See box for details. </i>

<strong>The Fitzwilliam Quartet in St. Petersburg </strong>

<strong>May 26, 6.00 p.m.</strong>
 <i>Petrovsky Zal, <br> St. Petersburg State University</i>
 Program: 
 PREMIERE! Steve Crowther: &quot;Break on Through&quot; (2002)
 PREMIERE! Liz Johston: &quot;Intricate Web&quot; (2003)
 PREMIERE! Peter Dyson: &quot;Stone&quot; (2003)
 WORLD PREMIERE! Marcus Tristan Heathcock: &quot;Susato Dances&quot; (2004)
 Shostakovich: String Quartet No 12
 
 <strong>May 27, 7.00 p.m.</strong>
 <i>Kolonny Zal, <br> Russian State Pedagogical Institute,
 Herzen University, 48 Nab. Reki Moiki, Building 4</i>
 Program:
 Shostakovich: String Quartets No 5, 11 &amp; 12
 
 <strong>May 28, 7.00 p.m.</strong>
 <i>Bely Zal, Bolshoi Dvorets, Peterhof</i>
 Program:
 Purcell: Music from &quot;Dido and Aeneas.&quot;
 WORLD PREMIERE! Marcus Tristan Heathcock: &quot;Susato Dances&quot; (2004)
 Shostakovich: String Quartet No 11
 Tchaikovsky: String Quartet No 1
 
 <strong>May 29, 7.00 p.m.</strong>
 <i>Agora, 25 Fontanka, Apt 12</i>
 Program:
 Bach: The Art of Fugue Nos. 1, 9 &amp; 11
 Peter Dyson: &quot;Stone&quot;
 Shostakovich: String Quartet No 11
 Tchaikovsky: String Quartet No 1

TITLE: White Gets Two-Year Drug Ban
AUTHOR: By John Marshall

PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: DENVER, Colorado - American sprinter Kelli White accepted a two-year drug ban Wednesday, costing her a trip to the Athens Olympics and every medal she won during the past four years. 
 
White tested positive for the stimulant modafinil at last year's world championships and U.S. nationals. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency said it also found evidence she used undetectable steroids and the endurance-enhancing hormone erythropoietin. 
 The USADA, based in nearby Colorado Springs, said some evidence was obtained through documents from the federal investigation into BALCO. 
 &quot;In doing this, I have not only cheated myself, but also my family, friends and sport,&quot; White said in a statement issued by her attorney. &quot;I am sorry for the poor choices I have made.&quot;
 The 27-year-old sprinter said she plans to compete again when the ban ends in May 2006. 
 White is the first athlete to be suspended based on information from the BALCO case. The Bay Area drug company is accused of illegally distributing steroids and performance-enhancing drugs to professional athletes. 
 The Senate this month released information in the BALCO case to Olympic officials, who requested the materials so they could be sure to field a clean team in Athens. 
 Five-time Olympic medalist Marion Jones said last week she would sue USADA if it prevents her from going to Athens without a positive drug test, but White decided against fighting the suspension. 
 &quot;If given the opportunity, there is so much I would do differently,&quot; White said. &quot;Unfortunately, we cannot go back in time. I can only go forward and make sure I do the right things from here on out. 
 Modafinil carries a public warning and disqualification from the event where the positive test took place, but the use of EPO and the previously undetectable steroid THG means all of White's results since Dec. 15, 2000, will be wiped out. 
 That means she will be stripped of her gold medals in the 100 and 200 meters at last year's world championships in Paris, and a gold and bronze at the 2001 worlds in Edmonton. 
 Torri Edwards of the United States now becomes the 2003 world champion in the 100, with Zhanna Block of Ukraine moving up to silver and Chandra Sturrup of Bahamas to bronze. 
 The new 200 world champion is Russia's Anastasia Kapachinskaya, who faces losing her world indoor title and a two-year ban of her own after testing positive for steroids. 
 Edwards moves up to silver and France's Muriel Hurtis gets the bronze.
 Edwards also was declared the 2003 outdoor champion in the 100 and 200, her first two national titles. 
 USADA chief executive Terry Madden said he admired White for acknowledging her mistakes. 
 &quot;It is not easy to admit you have done wrong and then stand up to do something about it,&quot; he said.

TITLE: Canada's Flames Outplay Sharks to Advance to the Finals
AUTHOR: By Greg Beacham

PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: CALGARY, Alberta - The pandemonium began while the puck was still in play, sliding alone toward the tranquility of the San Jose Sharks' unguarded net. 
 
When the final score of the Western Conference finals bisected the goal line as time expired, the Calgary Flames and their fans were going too crazy to notice. 
 With one more fantastic finish, Canada's team had earned the right to play for the Cup. 
 Captain Jarome Iginla scored his 10th playoff goal and the Flames advanced to their first Stanley Cup finals in 15 years with a 3-1 victory over the San Jose Sharks in Game 6 Wednesday night. 
 Miikka Kiprusoff made 18 saves for the Flames, whose victory was the first by a home team in the series. But Calgary's &quot;Red Sea&quot; finally had something to cheer as the Flames took an early lead and hung on through the third period. 
 Calgary missed the playoffs in each of the previous seven seasons before a young roster, a new coach and an otherworldly goalie put together one of the most improbable playoff runs in recent history - and it's not over yet. 
 &quot;You never know when this opportunity is going to come again in your life,&quot; said Iginla, who leads the playoffs with 17 points. &quot;You'd like to think it's going to happen every year ... but we know that's not the case. You have to grab it when it comes.&quot; 
 The Sharks pulled goalie Yevgeny Nabokov in the final minute of a relentless third-period attack, but the Flames' Robyn Regehr was credited with a goal with one second left after San Jose's Alex Korolyuk attempted to pass the puck from behind the Calgary net. 
 It went the length of the ice, settling into the net while the Flames threw their sticks and gloves in the air. 
 Martin Gelinas, twice an overtime hero in series-clinching games, also put the puck in the net for the sixth-seeded Flames, who will open their fourth straight playoff series on the road Tuesday, either at Tampa Bay or Philadelphia. 
 Gelinas got the eventual winning goal in the second period. &quot;[Overtime goals] are too hard on my heart,&quot; he said. &quot;It was good to get it out of the way early ... When we started the season, we knew we had a gritty team that worked hard, and our goal was to make the playoffs. To say that we were going to get the Stanley Cup, that's hard to believe.&quot; 
 Calgary hasn't been in the NHL's final round since winning the Stanley Cup in 1989 - and the Canadian anthem will be sung in the finals for the first time since Vancouver made it in 1994. A Canadian team hasn't won the Cup since Montreal's victory in 1993. 
 The party spilled out into the streets in Calgary, where thousands of fans honked horns, waved banners and turned the popular 17th Avenue entertainment district into a parking lot. 
 Alyn McCauley scored for San Jose, but the best season in franchise history ended with back-to-back losses in the Sharks' first appearance in the conference finals. San Jose also lost its final four home games of the playoffs, running out of energy and focus despite its 104-point regular season and home-ice advantage in every round. 
 &quot;We just didn't have good luck this time,&quot; said center Vincent Damphousse, whose career with the Sharks is probably over. &quot;We've got a lot of breaks in the playoffs, but I guess our luck just ran out.&quot; 
 Nabokov made 27 saves but lost again to Kiprusoff, his former backup. Kiprusoff arrived in Calgary in a trade last November, and the Flames haven't been the same since they've been good enough to roar past every Western team with a low-budget roster and an impeccable work ethic. 
 &quot;You never pictured this in your wildest dreams,&quot; said Craig Conroy, whose steal of a second-period faceoff set up Gelinas' goal. &quot;Everything about this season has just been too good to be true.&quot; 
 The Flames had more jump from the opening faceoff, narrowly missing several scoring chances before Iginla walked in on Nabokov for a power-play goal with 93 seconds left in the first period. 
 Three minutes after Conroy assisted on Gelinas' goal, McCauley scored San Jose's first goal in approximately 118 minutes - but that was it for the Sharks, who scored just once in the final seven periods of the series. 
 Though coach Darryl Sutter rejects the idea of his team representing the nation, try telling that to millions of proud Canadian hockey fans who have transferred their allegiances from the Maple Leafs or the Oilers to Calgary's band of overachievers for the spring. 
 And never mind that the Flames have a Finnish goalie and two Americans in their regular starting lineup, or that every NHL team has a roster crowded with Canadians: They prefer to root for the home team in the Great White North. 
 And Sutter never would acknowledge any satisfaction in dispatching the team that fired him just 17 months ago - but the coach wore a broad smile after his team clinched his first trip to the Stanley Cup finals.

TITLE: Schummi Eyes New Record
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MONTE CARLO, Monaco - Michael Schumacher is after yet another record Sunday in the Monaco Grand Prix. A sixth consecutive victory would give him the best start to a Formula One season. 
 
The six-time world champion, six pole positions behind Ayrton Senna's mark of 65, also will equal the Brazilian's record of six Monte Carlo victories if he wins. Schumacher has won the most championships in F1 and the most races with a career total of 75. 
 Schumacher matched Nigel Mansell's best start to a season two weeks ago in Barcelona, but Monaco isn't the easiest venue for the Ferrari driver. He last dominated here in 2001, but believes he knows what it takes to win. 
 &quot;Whether it's five in a row or not is not really the matter,&quot; Schumacher said. &quot;The matter is that every weekend you get out there and try to do your best job.&quot; 
 Mansell's record streak in 1992 was snapped here when he couldn't get by Senna on the final eight laps. When Ferrari won 15 of 17 races in 2002, one of the two races it lost was in Monaco to McLaren's David Coulthard. 
 The street circuit in Monaco might give the other teams another chance to beat Ferrari. 
 Last year's race was won by Williams-BMW's Juan Pablo Montoya, who has fond memories of his victory. 
 Even Coulthard, whose Mercedes-powered car is having a rough time this season, has had better success recently at Monaco than Schumacher. He has won twice here since 2000. 
 Despite the loss here in 2002, Schumacher's domination that season caused F1 officials to slightly change the rules to even the competition. More changes were made this year, but they haven't slowed the German, well on his way to another title. 
 He has a perfect 50 points in five races. The only driver relatively close is Ferrari teammate Rubens Barrichello at 32. Behind them, the best of the rest is BAR-Honda's Jenson Button at 24 points.