SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #987 (55), Tuesday, July 20, 2004
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TITLE: In-Fill Building Proceeds
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Despite numerous protests by St. Petersburg citizens against in-fill-construction in the city, they say that federal and local authorities are completely ignoring residents' interests.
Despite Governor Valentina Matviyenko promising an end to the practice during her election campaign last year, hundreds of trees have been cut down and the yards of apartment blocks filled in this year.
Residents say there is no sign of any let-up in such construction, as developers use permits issued before a ban came into force in June.
On Thursday, about 50 residents of the apartment buildings at 34 Kamenoostovsky Prospekt and 71 Bolshoi Prospekt in the Petrogradsky district gathered to protest the construction of a four-story apartment building in their yard.
"I don't need a building in our yard," said Emilia Yegorova, a resident of Kamenoostrovsky Prospekt, who spoke at the meeting.
Valery Tikhomirov, a resident of Bolshoi Prospekt, said the area's residents have been protesting against construction for months, but the developers insist that building in the yard is legal.
"If they construct that building in our yard it will cause many problems," Tikhomirov said. "First of all, they'll cut off the trees, which are so rare in this district; endanger the safety of our building affecting the soil and will just deprive people who live here of open space."
Residents said nobody asked their opinion of the construction plans - a legal requirement for any construction project - so they started their own campaign against it.
Petrogradsky district is considered one of the most prestigious areas in central St. Petersburg where the price for the lease of land is one of the highest in the city, and has become the biggest target of developers in the in-fill construction game.
Out of 320 addresses, which City Hall said early July are suitable for in-fill-construction, at least 109 addresses are in the district, which is already densely covered with construction and has a great shortage of green areas.
"It's obvious that the Petrograd Side has become the main target because it's the most expensive area," Tikhomirov said.
In an address to the Legislative Assembly in June, Matviyenko said that in-fill construction projects are necessary.
"There is a big demand for residential space," she said. "We've got to put up with this until we find new areas for construction."
In recent months angry residents across the city have regularly held protests about the loss of what they consider their green space to construction projects.
Residents of 9 Institutsky Prospekt organized 24-hour patrols and blocked the road to the city to halt in-fill construction projects next to their homes. Residents of 3 Ulitsa Ushinskogo also protested.
In the middle of June more than 50 editors and journalists from 30 St. Petersburg outlets wrote to President Vladimir Putin calling on him to stop rampant in-fill construction in St. Petersburg.
In July, Konsyerzh newspaper, one of the publishing houses that filed the letter, received a reply from an official of the presidential administration's public letters' department with information that the petition had been referred to the Energy and Industry Ministry.
"When I received this I thought: 'What on Earth is this? What has the Energy Ministry to do with this and what kind of a state is this that you can't get anything from it?'" Olesya Galkina, director of Konsyerzh, said Monday in a telephone interview.
"This looks like a violation of media law and I'm thinking about suing the presidential administration," Galkina said.
Igor Averbakh, 72, also a resident of 71 Bolshoi Prospekt said besides worrying about losing the green plants in his yard, he was also concerned that the new building could cause problems with the energy and water capacity in their building.
"We already have problems with that, and a new building will make it even worse," Averbakh said.
He also said the apartment building, where he lives, which was erected in 1903, was likely to collapse if excavations for a new building are made next to it.
Staff writer Vladimir Kovalev contributed to this report.
TITLE: Work Permits a Bane for Expats 2 Years on
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Almost two years after new legislation regulating foreigners who want to live and work in Russia came into force, expats still face legal and bureaucratic hurdles in obtaining work permits, even though the legislation was intended to simplify the process.
"Ever since the legislation was changed it became much more difficult," said Ekaterina Essina of Radisson SAS Royal Hotel, referring to the process of obtaining work permits for new employees.
Essina noted that before the change in legislation, "we could hire someone for a management position in three days. Now the quickest is a month or a month and a half." Essina, who is co-chair of the human resources committee for the St. Petersburg chapter of the American Chamber of Commerce, cited "more steps, more documents and stricter rules," as the main features of the new procedures.
Under the 2002 law on foreigners, companies must receive permission to hire foreign labor before they can hire a foreigner. This necessitates that the company hand over a large amount of paperwork with information on each individual it wants to hire, including which country each person is from.
"A company is obliged to know where a person it wants to hire will be from a long time in advance," Essina said. "For an international chain like Radisson SAS it is sometimes difficult to predict."
Work permits are granted according to quotas set by the federal government in Moscow.
Yana Vashchilova of law firm Baker and Mackenzie and the other co-chair of the human resources committee for the St. Petersburg chapter of the American Chamber of Commerce, said the quotas issued for 2003 were "more than enough."
Quotas are set for the country as a whole and individually for each of the country's 89 administrative regions. Quotas recently set by Moscow for this year number 213,000, with 5,000 designated for St. Petersburg, Vashchilova said.
While the quotas make no distinction based on the foreigner's country of origin, the necessity of obtaining permission to hire foreign labor restricts a company's ability to hire new employees from anywhere in the world.
For example if a company had a French employee in a specific position who were to leave mid-year, the company would either have to hire another French person for that position or turn in additional paperwork to receive permission to hire someone from somewhere else, which could take months.
Even after a company has obtained permission to hire a foreigner, the company must then obtain a work permit for each individual they want to hire.
Essina said that this process has also become more difficult since the change in legislation and the greater centralization of the process.
Vashchilova said that the actual issuing of work permits still occurs locally, but that the approval for permission to hire foreign labor now must occur in Moscow.
"The documents may be filed in St. Petersburg and then they must be transferred to Moscow to receive permission to hire foreign labor," she said. "This takes up to six months all together."
It usually takes two to four months for permission to hire document to be issued and perhaps another two to three weeks for a work permit to be issued locally, she added.
Recently the St. Petersburg chapter of the American Chamber of Commerce applied to Immigration Services in Moscow, requesting that the ability to grant permission to hire foreign labor and oversee the entire work permit process be transferred back to St. Petersburg.
"We were refused," Vashchilova said, noting that no further progress was being made on the issue at this time. No comment was available from St. Petersburg officials dealing with the issue.
After receiving a work permit, an individual must obtain a work visa. The first visa issued is entry-only, meaning that the foreigner must reapply for a multi-entry visa. While the foreigner is not required to exit the country in between obtaining visas, the process is still time consuming.
This system is particularly frustrating for international companies that need the flexibility to shift those on top positions who can give knowledge and experience to the parts of the company that need it most. Before the new law, a distinction was made between international and local companies. The new legislation is aimed at protecting the local workforce.
"The trend for international companies is to try to transfer knowledge to local people, but to do that we need people at the top who are on a mission, who have a certain knowledge," Essina said.
With the new legislation posing so many problems, some employers are using the services of other companies that specialize in helping with the work permit process.
Natalya Kochkina, director of the St. Petersburg office of the firm Avenir, said that her company helps foreigners and Russians in need of legal or accounting services.
"Due to the fairly complicated procedure, the quickest we can promise a work permit is three months after we obtain all your documents," she said.
The main reasons for the increased difficulty in obtaining work permits appears to stem from the requirement in the new law that nearly everyone who will be living in Russia for more than three months obtain a work permit, ending some previous exemptions. Centralizing the process has compounded the problem, since paperwork that used to be handled locally must now be processed in Moscow.
While the 2002 law ended previous exemptions, some foreigners are still exempt from obtaining work permits, including diplomats and employees of international organizations, students and teachers in Russian educational institutions and accredited journalists.
Foreigners who obtain either temporary or permanent residence permits do not need a work permit. Temporary residents are still required to have a visa, while permanent residents need neither a visa or work permit.
TITLE: Northwest Region Prosecutor Quits
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Vladimir Zubrin, head of the Northwest Region Prosecutor's Office, filed a letter of resignation last week.
Zubrin is known as the initiator of criminal cases against members of former governor Vladimir Yakov-lev's regime and about misspending of federal funds on St. Petersburg's 300th anniversary celebrations. The Federation Council approved the resignation on Thursday, confirming that Zubrin will move to Moscow to work at the Federal Anti-Drug Service under Viktor Cherkesov, the former presidential envoy to the Northwest region.
Yury Novolodsky, a member of the St. Petersburg Collegium of Lawyers, said Zubrin's resignation is a sign that he has accomplished a task to which he was assigned by the Kremlin. The task was to rid St. Petersburg of the influence of former allies of Yakovlev.
"It's hard to see the good side of a prosecutor who initiated criminal cases against City Hall officials in accordance with the wishes of the power hierarchy," Novoslobodsky said Friday in a telephone interview. "He also closed the criminal cases as soon as he was got an order from the Kremlin to do so."
Zubrin's successor is likely to be Moscow Oblast prosecutor Ivan Sydoruk, which does not augur well, he said.
"The Moscow Oblast prosecutor's office, which he heads, is already in a sorry state of affairs," Novolodsky said.
Zubrin was appointed to head the Northwest Prosecutor's Office, which is based in St. Petersburg, in 2000 after President Vladimir Putin was elected president. Putin had a personal grudge against Yakovlev who had ousted Putin's mentor and former boss Anatoly Sobchak in elections for the city's top administrator in 1996.
Zubrin initiated 17 criminal cases over alleged misspending of the federal funds transferred to the city to organize the 300th anniversary celebrations. Several criminal cases were opened in relation to Yakovlev's lieutenants. Among those implicated in crimes were Anatoly Kogan, head of the health committee, Viktor Krotov, head of the finance committee, Valery Malyshev, head of the communications and sports committee, and Valentin Mettus, head of the tourism and sports committee.
None of the cases went to court and most of them were dropped after Yakovlev resigned on June 16 last year to work as a deputy prime minister in the federal government.
Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov disapproved some of Zubrin's work in the Northwest district, Kommersant reported Thursday.
At a recent meeting in the Prosecutor's General Office Ustinov said 50 percent of criminal cases in several regions in the district are being reviewed after violations were found in the terms prescribed in the Criminal Code, the report said.
Sydoruk, known as a strong ally of Yakovlev, headed the St. Petersburg City Prosecutor's Office before March 2003, when he was reassigned from his position in the city to work as an assistant in the Prosecutor General's Office in Moscow and in September was appointed to head the Moscow Oblast Prosecutor's Office.
"It [Ustinov's criticism] could have been done in a pure Russian traditional way, to move Zubrin out in order to make his post vacant for Sydoruk," Novosyolov said.
At the end of 1990s, Sydoruk had frequent clashes with the Yabloko faction of the Legislative Assembly that was in opposition to Yakovlev's City Hall.
However, members of Yabloko faction are indifferent to the prospects of the return of the former city prosecutor.
"I think Sydoruk has not shown himself in a very good light," Mikhail Amosov, head of the Legislative Assembly's Yabloko faction, said Friday in a telephone interview. "If he is appointed, it's not such a big deal. It won't influence the life of the city politics."
Other candidates to succeed Zubrin are Valery Bolshakov, an assistant to Ilya Klebanov, the presidential envoy to the Northwest District and Konstantin Chaika, deputy prosecutor general in Russia's Far East, Kommersant reported Thursday.
TITLE: Viktorov to Be City Architect
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Alexander Viktorov has been appointed chief architect of St. Petersburg, Vice Governor Viktor Lobko announced on Friday.
Viktorov was chosen from 11 candidates by an expert committee, an unprecedented selection process to fill the position.
The vacancy occurred last month, after Governor Valentina Matviyenko announced that Oleg Kharchenko would be stepping down. Kharchenko accepted an offer to be rector of the city's branch of the Russian Art Academy, after serving 13 years under three administrations.
His tenure included allegations of bribery in connection with former Mayor Anatoly Sobchak and ended with playing an integral role in the preparations for a new second stage for the Mariinsky Theater.
Local media reported Monday that arts academy head Zurab Tsereteli has rejected Kharchenko for the arts academy position.
In the final deliberation late Friday morning, according to one source close to the committee, Viktorov was chosen over Yury Mitruyev, an architect recommended by the St. Petersburg Union of Architects.
Viktorov has worked as deputy head of the city's department for examining the technical and safety compliance of construction projects. He has also served on the committee for architecture and town planning for the Petrograd District.
"City architect is such a powerful position," Anatoly Seroka, business development director at international real estate company Colliers, said in a telephone interview.
The city architect has control of the approval or rejection of all major building projects, but must also walk the fine line between preservation and development, he said.
One unnamed member of the architecture and town planning committee said one objective of the new city architect will be to create conditions that allow the best architectural talent to work in St. Petersburg, the Fontanka news website reported.
When asked to evaluate Khar-chenko's achievements market players had a mix of reactions, suggesting some of the issues Viktorov may face.
"I think Kharchenko was quite political and had good relations with officials and did much manipulating to preserve the face of St. Petersburg, but did not respond to the modern requests of investors," Seroka said.
One unsuccessful candidate, Vladimir Grigoriyev, said that in retrospect he felt Kharchenko did well by erring on the conservative side and keeping new projects within the context of St. Petersburg architecture. But even as a fellow architect, working under the watch of the chief architect was not easy.
Grigoriyev was recently working on a project located across the street from Kharchenko's office.
When an elevator housing appeared on the roofline, "he [Kharchenko] phoned me and said, 'You should have that covered by Monday.' It was Friday," Grigoriyev recalled.
One major developer believes Kharchenko's downfall was due to acting too independently, not with architects, but within the administration. "He has been under pressure to leave for a very long time," said the developer, who requested anonymity, and explained that the search was for someone the administration would find more more malleable.
The criteria for the recent candidates included being a principal of their own practice and under 60 years of age. In architecture circles, it is only after 60 that an architect is seen as being in his prime. Viktorov is 49.
Historically, decisions made by the chief architect rarely please everyone. Preservationists and professionals took issue with some of Kharchenko's approvals to allow building that blocked famous sightlines. "Town planning has been sleeping for the last 10 years," Grigoriyev said.
City real estate agencies speculate that Kharchenko's exit was likely spurred by lacking a formal plan to develop the city. Viktorov will start from scratch in this regard.
But Kharchenko played a key role in the process to choose a foreign architect, Frenchman Dominique Perrault, for the Mariinsky Theater addition. That could already help satisfy one contingent for the new city architect. "I'm sure that if there is more openness, that investors will want to come to St. Petersburg and improve the investment climate," Seroka said.
Delovoi Peterburg reported Monday that Kharchenko had spent only one month as local head of the arts academy.
His job title had been acting rector, and only the deputy rector, Vladimir Pesikov, could fill that position, the newspaper quoted the previous rector Albert Charkin as saying.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Royal Burial Postponed
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The ceremonial reburial of the remains of Tsarina Maria Fyodorovna, which had been planned for this year, has been postponed until Sept. 26 2006, Interfax reported Monday.
Citing City Hall's head of state protocol Ivan Artsishevsky, the report said there was too little time left to prepare for burial this year
The Tsarina, the widow of Alexander III, outlived her son, Nicholas II and fled to Denmark, her country of birth, after the Bolshevik Revolution. She died in 1926.
She is to be buried next to her husband in the Peter and Paul Fortress.
Police Shut Down Scam
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - City police have stopped a scam and charged a company over collecting money to finance construction of a building that did not exist, Interfax reported Monday.
The company has collected up to $1.5 million from about 150 people saying this would buy apartments in an 8,000-square-meter building, the report said.
To convince its clients, the company's staff presented different documents, including plans of apartments and a model of a residential building, but everything was just on paper with no construction works ever started, the report said.
Israeli Loses $10,000
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - An Israeli tourist has been robbed of $10,000, Interfax reported Monday, quoting St. Petersburg police.
The tourist found his money was missing after visiting a cafe. He also lost his cheques, his driving license, and other identity cards, the report said.
Another tourist from Germany was robbed in the Peter and Paul Fortress with 1,000 euros missing from his backpack, the report added.
Teenager Murdered
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - A homeless person killed a 15-year-old boy at a rubbish dump located in the Kingisepp district of Leningrad Oblast, Interfax reported Monday, quoting the St. Petersburg police.
During an argument a homeless man who lives at the dump stabbed the boy with a knife in an attempt to remove from the boy something the teenager had found.
A homeless man has been charged with murder and has been detained by the Kingisepp police, the report said.
Review of Monuments
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - A conference to save and renovate architectural monuments in the Northwest region will take place at the end of the month in Novgorod, Interfax reported Monday quoting the Culture and Press Ministry.
Renovators and art critics will visit sites that are in the process of renovation, where they would have the opportunity to share their experience in renovating works taking place in Novgorod, the report said.
There are more than 4,960 architectural monuments in Novgorod Oblast that are in the responsibility of the state. More than 1,000 more monuments could be added to the list after an architectural inspection is made, the report said.
Icon Returned
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - An icon of Jesus Christ, that belonged to Russia's royal Romanov family has been returned to St. Petersburg and passed to Voskresensky Novodevechiye Monastery by Grand Duke Dmitry Romanov, a descendant of the family that ruled Russia until the Bolshevik Revolution, Interfax reported Monday.
"We have a big connection with St. Petersburg, my father was born here. The main thing is that the icon has returned to St. Petersburg after 85 years," Interfax reported him as saying.
Other priceless items that are connected with Russian history should be also returned, Romanov said.
Romanov's family has already handed over a private standard of a field marshal of the Russian army Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolayevich Romanov.
"We did not give this as a present, we have returned Russian relics. They don't belong to us, they belong to history," he said.
TITLE: Russian Ranks 57th On Development List
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The United Nations has ranked Russia the 57th best country to live in, calling it "remarkable progress" from last year's ranking of 63rd.
Russia is sandwiched between Bulgaria and Libya, ranked 56th and 58th, respectively, while Norway has retained the top spot on the annual human development index compiled by the UN Development Program.
The index measures 177 countries in terms of life expectancy, education level and adjusted real income. It is based on 2002 statistics, the latest that are available.
Norway is followed in the top 10 by Sweden, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium, Iceland, the United States, Japan and Ireland. Sierra Leone is at the bottom of the list.
Russia's location on the index puts it in the category of countries with "medium human development," but close to the top 55 countries, which are considered to have "high human development."
UNDP praised Russia's leap forward. "We consider it as remarkable progress," said Viktoria Zotikova, UNDP spokeswoman in Moscow.
Russia probably made further progress during 2003, she said. The key factor holding the country back is life expectancy, which was 66.7 years in 2002, she said.
The countries at the top of the index have life expectancies of around 80 years. The country with the next lowest life expectancy on the index is No. 78 Kazakhstan, at 66.2 years.
The UNDP rating puts Russia above all the other former Soviet republics except those in the Baltics: Estonia (36), Lithuania (41) and Latvia (50). Russia is also ahead of China, ranked 94th.
By some counts Russia beat even Norway. It has 420 physicians for every 100,000 people, compared to Norway's 367 physicians, according to the index.
Zotikova downplayed the figure. "The number of doctors doesn't directly testify to a high level of health care," she said.
Vladimir Pribylovsky, head of the Panorama think tank on domestic policy, said the UN report does not reflect reality. "I don't see a trend toward a better life," he said. "Maybe life in Uzbekistan and Belarus got worse then, and that's why our rating rose."
The painful social reform that is in the pipeline for next year - the replacement of many privileges for veterans, pensioners and other low-income people with cash payments - may further worsen living standards, he said. "Up to 70 percent of the people will suffer from that," Pribylovsky said.
The Russian economy may also weaken if an AIDS epidemic hits in several years, killing hundreds of thousands of people annually, as projected by UN experts.
Russia, however, does have some positive trends. For instance, the birth rate has grown in a number of regions, although it is still below the death rate, Interfax reported earlier this year.
TITLE: Upper House Turns Down Stepashin's Auditing Bill
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - Audit Chamber head Sergei Stepashin suffered a major setback to his efforts to boost his political weight when the Federation Council rejected a bill that would have given the president, instead of parliament, the right to nominate the budgetary watchdog's chairman.
The upper house voted 77-24 with 11 abstentions on Thursday to reject amendments to the law on the Audit Chamber that had been passed by the State Duma earlier this summer.
The bill also would have stripped the Audit Chamber of its right to check the books of the presidential administration, which it now can do at the Duma's request.
"Sergei Stepashin made a serious miscalculation," the headline of the Friday issue of Kommersant said. The sentiment was echoed by the Gazeta newspaper, which said this was only the second time the Federation Council had voted down a Duma bill since governors and speakers of regional parliaments were replaced in the upper house by envoys shortly after Putin was first elected in 2000.
Federation Council members decided to reject the bill in part because regional authorities, which they represent, are concerned that a newly empowered chamber could be used against them by the Kremlin, Alexei Malashenko of the Carnegie Moscow Center was quoted in the Friday issue of Gazeta as saying. Big businesses also could have lobbied to scuttle the changes to deny Putin a "new weapon" in dealing with them, Malashenko said.
Stepashin, who is a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, has been pushing for the amendments since 2002, saying the Audit Chamber should not just oversee government spending, but act as a financial controller under the president.
He wanted the president to nominate the Audit Chamber's chairman, who would then have the right to pick his own deputies. Under current law, the Duma appoints the chairman every six years, while the Federation Council appoints the five deputy chairmen.
This spring, Stepashin finally convinced the pro-Kremlin majority in the Duma to adopt his ideas, and leaders of the United Russia faction submitted the amendments for consideration.
In June, the Duma passed a bill that would have allowed the president to nominate the chief auditor.
The president's choice would have had to have been approved by the Duma.
On one level, the change would have made little difference since the Kremlin can control Duma appointments through the pro-presidential United Russia faction, which has two-thirds of the votes. But it would have altered the institutional framework and further strengthened the presidency at the expense of the legislative branch. It also would have increased the Audit Chamber's status and influence.
TITLE: Magazine Editor Murdered
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The Armenian editor of a Russian-language magazine focusing on Armenian issues was beaten and stabbed to death Saturday, and his body dumped on the outskirts of Moscow, police said.
Pail Peloyan, editor of Armyansky Pereulok, was found dead with knife wounds to the chest and severe trauma to the head at 7 a.m. Saturday just outside the Moscow Ring Road on the southwest edge of the city, a city police spokesman told Interfax. He died sometime between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m.
Deputy city prosecutor Alexander Krokhmal said investigators were on the crime scene Saturday, Interfax reported.
No one answered the telephone Sunday at the City Prosecutor's Office. The newspaper Gazeta reported on its web site that investigators were not excluding the possibility that the murder was connected to Peloyan's journalistic work.
Peloyan was the second magazine editor to be killed in Moscow in a little over a week. On July 9, Forbes Russia editor Paul Klebnikov was shot by unknown assailants.
Their publications, however, could not be more different.
Armyansky Pereulok had a circulation of 1,000 and covered harmless topics ranging from Armenian history to Russian-Armenian friendship, said Levon Osepyan, a well-known Armenian author and the magazine's founder.
"It was a friendly magazine," Osepyan said by telephone Sunday.
Osepyan said he has had no connection with the magazine for over a year and a half and that he did not know Peloyan.
Armyansky Pereulok has not released an issue since 2002 due to financial difficulties, Gazeta.ru reported. The web site cited a source close to the magazine's publishing house as saying Peloyan "was only nominally the editor." It was unclear whether the source was referring to the two-year lull in the magazine's output or something else.
The source also said Peloyan's murder was likely "connected to his business activities, which he preferred to keep quiet."
Armen Gevondyan, spokesman for the Armenian Embassy in Moscow, told Interfax on Saturday that the embassy is in contact with Russian authorities regarding the murder.
TITLE: United Russia Leader Killed
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: A local leader of the United Russia party was shot to death in Chechnya early Sunday in what the region's prosecutor said was a contract killing linked to next month's presidential election.
Tamara Khadzhiyeva was killed by masked gunmen at her home in Shali at about 3:30 a.m., an official in the Moscow-backed government said.
Chechen prosecutor Vladimir Kravchenko said it was a contract killing that was "no doubt linked" to preparations for Chechnya's Aug. 29 election, Itar-Tass reported.
Two relatives of hers, both policemen, have been killed in the past three months, according to Interfax. It said that Khadzhiyeva herself was kidnapped during the 1994-96 war, but that relatives secured her release.
She was the head of the Shali district branch of United Russia, the news reports said. Citing party officials, Itar-Tass reported that she was the 29th member of the party's Chechnya branch to be killed.
Russian forces killed 13 rebels in a second day of fighting near the southern village of Gansolchu, Russian news agencies reported Sunday, citing officials at the headquarters for the Russian military campaign in Chechnya. The reports did not mention Russian casualties.
TITLE: Enchanting Vilnius Offers History, Zappa
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Every city has its shortage of something. For example in St. Petersburg, it is difficult to find peanut butter and, in Prague, an honest policeman. On a recent trip to Vilnius I had trouble locating a comb. I had left mine at home, and after three days in Lithuania's lovely capital my hair seemed ready to dread. Don't let this deter you from visiting Vilnius; just remember to pack appropriately.
One thing Vilnius does not have a shortage of is charm. Of the three Baltic State's capitals, Vilnius is perhaps the most enchanting, European and friendly. All three are now members of the European Union, which is astonishing considering they gained their independence from the Soviet Union less than 15 years ago. And while the big money is yet to pour into Vilnius, it has already made magnificent strides towards its semblance of a European capital.
One thing in Vilnius' favor is its prices. While Tallinn's rates climb towards the level of most European cities, think St. Petersburg in Vilnius's case. A pint of beer, a meal in a good restaurant, and public transportation are all on par with Russia's cultural capital, and some things are cheaper and in greater abundance, namely budget accommodation.
Vilnius was founded in 1323 by Grand Duke Gediminas, on the banks of the Nerus river. It was immediately named the capital of Lithuania and has remained so ever since, one exception being the interwar years when the capital was temporarily moved to Kaunas. During this period, Vilnius was occupied by Poland. Lithuania in the early course of its history was an independent state, later dominated by Poles, then Russians, before gaining its independence again after the First World War. This freedom ended after the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939, which gave Lithuania to the Soviet Union. This lasted but a short while before the Nazis invaded, maintaining control from 1941-1944. Then the Soviet Union regained Lithuania. It officially gained its independence from Moscow only in 1991. It therefore should not be a surprise that Lithuanians cherish their new memberships in NATO and the EU, as these were made by choice, rather than force.
English should get you around fine in Vilnius, however, if you speak Russian, don't be afraid to use it. Russian is still spoken by a large segment of the population and indeed came in handy for us on a number of occasions. There is a belief that Baltic peoples hate Russians and the Russian language. This is simply not true.
First things first, find your bearings. It is quite possible to find reasonably priced lodgings in the center. For the hostel set, try the Old Town Hostel located at Ausros Vartu 20-10, which has beds in dormitories for 34 litvas ($12.15) a person. For those in need of comfort, class and a place to spend some money, try the Radisson SAS Astorija at Didzioji 35/2. It's smack dab in the center of town with rooms beginning at 169 euro. There are hundreds of housing options in Vilnius. To consult a wider variety pick up a copy of the local In Your Pocket tour guide, or try their website www.inyourpocket.com, and click on the Vilnius link.
Once you've dropped off your bags, head to Cathedral Square, the biggest square in town. A Christian church has been standing here since 1251, although the current construction dates back to 1419. It is a Catholic church, and was reopened in 1990, after serving a 40-year term as a picture gallery. Perched on the roof of the cathedral are statues of three saints. Torn down by the Soviets, they were recently recreated by restorers working from photographs. The saints are Stanislaus, Helen and Casimir. From the square walk up the hill behind it to catch a marvelous view of the city. At the top is a castle. For those needing assistance, there is an elevator to take you to the top.
The 16th century Gates of Dawn at Ausros Vartu 12 shouldn't be missed. The gates originally formed part of the town's fortifications. In 1671, a chapel was built to accommodate an icon of the Virgin Mary, which is said to possess miracle-working powers.
Perhaps the most interesting museum in Vilnius is the KGB museum, situated in the very headquarters of the former Soviet secret services of the city. Also known as the genocide museum, the grim cells inside reveal the history of interrogations and torture committed by the Soviets upon the local population. It is a rather bleak, but necessary stop on a tour of Vilnius. Closed Mondays, it is located at Auka 2a.
Since Lithuania is famous for its amber deposits, it might be worthwhile to stop at the Amber Museum-Gallery located at Sv. Mykolo 8. Come here to learn how amber is formed, colored, harvested and processed. No trip to Vilnius would be complete without a stop at the memorial to the late U.S. rock star Frank Zappa. He had no known link to Lithuania or Vilnius, but in the early 1990s a student commissioned a bust from well-known sculptor Konstantinas Bogdanas, who had been responsible for many Lenin statues in Moscow.
The bust is the only known displayed statue of the musician in the world. It can be found in a quiet courtyard at Kalinausko 1.
One neighborhood that shouldn't be missed is the breakaway republic of Uzupis, which maintains its independence from Vilnius and even has its own constitution. The mayor of Uzupis can often be spotted at Uzupio Kavine, a bar and restaurant, located on the river at Uzupio 2.
One of Vilnius's pleasures is surely its dining options. Nearly all types of cuisine are present, from Lithuanian, to Mexican, French and Chinese. One Lithuanian restaurant that wowed my traveling companion and I (and has come recommended from many others) is Aukstaiciai at Antokolskio 13, hidden on a cobble street in Old Town. Great service, food and atmosphere didn't deplete our money supply. Dinner for two including cocktails, beers, appetizers, main courses and coffees cost about $30. For those hunting for vegetarian fare check out Balti Drambliai at Vilniaus 41 for great potato pancakes, salads, soups and Middle Eastern offerings. For the tourist with a big day ahead of them, hit up the lunch buffet at Aqua on Didzioji 28.
While Vilnius is not Moscow or Berlin, it has a fair amount of nightlife options for a city its size. For those looking for strippers and casinos, you won't have to look far. Many strip clubs send out limos hunting for tourists that will bring you back to their clubs. Bars abound in the Old Town, including THE PUB, which also operates as a club. Popular and crowded, it can be found at Dominikonu 9. Mano Klubas is a good option for those unsure if they want a bar or club, since it comfortably is both. It's friendly and located at Boksto 7. For the hedonistic bunch head to Helios, one of Vilnius's most popular clubs at Didzioji 28. They often host DJs from Paris, London, Moscow and Berlin.
Vilnius is better than you think. And if its recent enrollment in the EU club is any indication, it's perhaps only getting better. While it's already touristy, Vilnius is not half as crowded as Tallinn, and is surely one of the least known of the new European capitals. But that won't last for long.
GETTING THERE
Trains leave from St. Petersburg's Vitebsky railway station on odd days at 7:44 p.m., arriving the following morning at. 9:33 a.m. On even days they leave from Vilnius's main train station at 5:05 p.m., arriving in St. Petersburg at 8:55 a.m.. There are multiple buses daily to and from either Riga or Tallinn, and six flights a week to and from Moscow.
TITLE: Doctor and Playwright Chekhov Inspires After 100 Years
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The 100th anniversary of Anton Chekhov's death on July 14, 1904, occurred last Wednesday, with barely a mention of this internationally important writer and playwright.
Nevertheless, more than any other writer, Chekhov is mentioned as the deciding influence for taking up their pen by many noted authors living today.
But Chekhov's eminence today belies his relative obscurity at the time of his death. In 1904, Chekhov was little known to the West and a careful review of his life proves Chekhov to have been a Russian writer, first and foremost.
With an eerie sense of foreboding, Chekhov entered and departed from this world on the cusp of great social upheaval.
His birth and his death were immediately followed by two events that left Russia forever altered: the emancipation of the serfs in 1861 and the 1905 worker's uprising.
The grandson of a serf who bought himself out of slavery and the son of a Kiev shopkeeper, Chekhov was born on Jan. 29, 1860, a year before the Emancipation Act, in Taganrog, Ukraine.
His early years were scarred by his father's violent alcoholism and religious fanaticism - elements that propelled him towards scientific objectivity in later life. Despite his father's abusive drunkenness, his grandfather's social ambitions weren't lost as Chekhov was afforded the best education rubles could buy. However, family fortunes took a turn for the worse when Chekhov's father went bankrupt and the family was forced to flee to Moscow.
In Moscow, Chekhov proved to be of great value to his family by both qualifying for medical school and adding to his family's income by moonlighting as a journalist. This divisive role was well suited to Chekhov's tastes and he seems to have always pursued literature and art as seriously as his medical career. Chekhov purportedly said in his later life, "medicine is my lawful wife and literature is my mistress, and I have remained equally devoted to the two."
Chekhov completed medical school in 1884 and officially practiced until 1892.
Although he is more widely known as an artist, this period of scientific study contributed greatly to both his social outlook and to his creative work. Known for balancing scientific objectivity with acute psychological intuition, Chekhov developed a six-point artistic creed with dictums such as "total objectivity," "extreme brevity" and "compassion." Although he produced several highly acclaimed short stories it is only later in his dramatic career that he truly established his reputation as a major literary force.
Unfortunately, Chekhov contracted tuberculosis and this seriously delayed much of his work. However, despite his continuing health problems, 1896 saw the first staging of "The Seagull."
With revolutionary technique, the work draws freely from established genres of humor and tragedy, while confronting the reader with a complex use of symbolism and irony.
And yet, most unsettling for the 19th century audience was Chekhov's pioneering dramatic device now termed indirect action - a device that places the most crucial elements offstage. Critics and audience members were dumbfounded and outraged alike. One reviewer wrote, "Chekhov's 'The Seagull"' is a boring, drawn-out thing that embitters the listener...Chekhov is not a playwright." Furious and humiliated, Chekhov swore to never stage another play again and said: "Writing for the theater is like eating cabbage soup from which a cockroach has just been removed."
However, the most significant stage in Chekhov's artistic career had just begun. Chekhov was approached by Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko of the revolutionary Moscow Art Theater, or MKhAT, which declared war on cliché as its primary objective. Convinced that established theater companies were crude and name heavy, the MKhaT sought new literary blood to return life to the dramatic arts. Sure of Chekhov's subtle brilliance, Danchenko and the legendary Konstantin Stanislavsky convinced the great writer to stage "The Seagull" once more. Under new direction and a crowd more attuned to Chekhov's new forms, the play was an instant success.
Despite his increasingly weak health and his exile in Crimea for pulmonary recuperation, Chekhov followed up on "The Seagull's" success with his second masterpiece, "Uncle Vanya," in 1900.
Another striking element in the final years of his life: Chekhov fell in love, at last. Olga Knipper, a beautiful young actress of the Mohan who had played the heroine in several of his productions, intoxicated the middle-aged writer and the two subsequently married in 1901. In spite of his health and Tsarist scrutiny, Chekhov wrote the third of his four dramatic works, "The Three Sisters."
Chekhov was almost completely debilitated after he suffered a severe lung haemorrhage - from which he never fully recovered. Perhaps sensing his imminent death, or the great political unrest amongst the polarised social classes of imperial Russia, Chekhov penned his last work, "The Cherry Orchard." The play confronts the death of the old Russian order under the darkening clouds of a workers' revolt. It is important to note Chekhov's peasant beginnings and to stress that he never harbored any romantic notions about life in the peasant commune - such as Leo Tolstoy did. Yet, as a physician and a compassionate man, his last work is filled with a complex empathy for both the waning aristocracy and the working poor.
This complex position seated Chekhov immediately astride the great class debates of the early 20th century. His work acknowledges modernity, while bemoaning the loss of the old ways. As the great Chekhov biographer, Donald Rayfield, asserts, "'The Cherry Orchard' is an elegy for a lost world, estate and class," a play "that foretold the events of 1905 with prescient clarity."
As always though, Chekhov's final moments were a careful balance between the tragic and the banal. Stanislavsky is recorded saying that Chekhov appeared as a "living corpse" at the staging of his last work in Moscow in January of 1904. He was suffering from "irreversible necrosis" of the lungs and was quickly deteriorating. In a desperate attempt to save her husband, Knipper took Chekhov to the Badenweiler health resort in Germany on June 26, 1904 with the hopes that it might restore his failing lungs. But being a physician himself, Chekhov knew all too well of his pending death and appeared fairly resigned to his fate. Early on the morning of July 14, 1904, in accordance with medical protocol of the day (which demanded a German physician offer champagne to a colleague when all hope was gone), Chekhov sat up in bed and said to his wife:
"I am dying. I haven't had champagne for a long time."
Chekhov lay down on his left side and died.
The tragi-comic banality of even his greatest characters cannot rival Chekhov's return to Russia. His corpse was shipped back in a green refrigerated rail car, titled:
"For the Conveyance of Oysters."
Chekhov was profoundly mourned by his loved ones and the public alike. Much like his birth before the Emancipation Act, his funeral just escaped the cataclysmic upheaval of the first revolution of 1905. Chekhov never lived to see the great impact his work would have on the international stage, but he died drinking champagne and knowing he'd pronounced as eloquently as any of his contemporaries on the great events of his time.
TITLE: Police: Two Fake Passport Gangs Busted
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Moscow law enforcement agencies have announced they have busted two fake passport gangs - one inside the police force and a travel agency supplying fake documents to Chechen rebels.
Last Tuesday, Moscow police said they had arrested two female employees of district police departments who worked in passport and visa services.
Then on Wednesday, the city police's economic crimes unit said it had closed down a travel agency it suspected of supplying fake travel documents to Chechen rebels.
Police captain Yelena Kulakova, of Yakimanka district police department's passport service, was stealing blank passports and stamps and making fake passports at home, which she was selling for $5,000 to $6,000, police said, Interfax reported.
So far investigators have found 67 passports made by Kulakova. She sold the passports to Chinese and Iranian citizens, as well as Russian citizens from North Caucasus republics, police said.
Investigators said that Kulakova had forged her own passport to hide her criminal record, and changed her age and last name, when applying to join the police job in 1987, Interfax reported, quoting a source at the police's internal security department.
Investigators also believe that Kulakova had paid a bribe to enter the police force, and used a fake law degree in her application. When arrested, Kulakova held the rank of captain.
Police said she was planning to apply to become a federal judge, a job that carries immunity from criminal prosecution.
Police also held Kulakova's accomplice, police captain Tatyana Dulova, who worked Kuzminki district police department's passport service in southeast Moscow.
Investigators believe that Dulova provided Kulakova with clients who were seeking fake passports.
Officials at both Yakimanka and Kuzminki police departments refused to comment when contacted Thursday. An official at Yakimanka only confirmed that Kulakova, who had been working there for four months, was arrested.
The two women will face charges of forgery and abuse of office, and could face up to eight years in prison if found guilty.
On Wednesday, the city police's economic crime unit said it had closed down a travel agency that was issuing fake passports and visas to Chechen rebels, some of whom had already traveled abroad with fake documents.
The travel agency came under investigation after federal security agents detained several Chechen rebels who were carrying fake passports with visas for entry into Schengen countries, a spokesman for the economic crime unit said.
The detainees told police about the agency, headed by a Georgian citizen and a Muscovite, which issued them the documents, police spokesman Filipp Zolotnitsky said, Interfax reported.
Investigators found that agency staff were pasting photos of new passport holders into genuine passports lost by Russian citizens, he said.
They also helped the new passport holders to obtain visas in CIS countries, like Ukraine, where missing Russian passports are not reported.
The agency charged anywhere between $1,500 and $3,000 for the fake passports, police said, depending on whether it had to be delivered to the North Caucasus region, where its clients were located, or could be handed over in Moscow.
Two agency managers were detained in a sting operation when a police officer, posing as a Chechen rebel, paid $1,500 for a passport.
Prosecutors have opened a criminal case into the forged documents. Police, meanwhile, have identified all the Chechen rebels that had traveled using the passports and informed Interpol, Zolotnitsky said.
TITLE: Chechen Rebels Say Officials Understate the Week's Losses
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - A pro-rebel web site claimed Thursday that Russian and Moscow-backed Chechen authorities understated their casualties in heavy fighting last week, while Russian officials said more than 30 people have been arrested in a devastating attack in the neighboring Ingushetia region last month.
The Kavkaz-Center web site claimed that rebels killed 25 members of the Chechen presidential security force in fighting Monday and Tuesday near the village of Avtury, in southern Chechnya. It claimed the total death toll among anti-rebel forces, including Russian troops, in the fighting was 40 to 50.
A pro-Moscow Chechen official, Deputy Interior Minister Sultan Satuyev, denied the claim. Satuyev said that six Chechen police officers were killed and 12 people taken captive, while about 25 rebels were believed to have died, Interfax reported.
Casualty reports from the fighting varied even among pro-Moscow officials. Initial reports cited the head of Chechnya's presidential security service as saying Wednesday that 18 of its members were killed, while Chechen chief prosecutor, Vladimir Kravchenko, later said 12 force members were taken captive and that eight Chechen policemen were killed.
Kavkaz-Center reported that a rebel leader confirmed the seizures, but did not say anything about the fate of the men.
Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov said in televised comments Thursday that 30 people are in custody in connection with an attack on police installations in Ingushetia last month than left 90 people dead.
Ustinov was speaking in Chechnya after President Vladimir Putin temporarily dispatched him to the region. He said 20 of the detainees had been charged.
On Wednesday, Ingush President Murat Zyazikov said the attack was "the work of international terrorists from the Middle East."
Moscow has frequently cited the participation of foreigners in the insurgency in Chechnya to boost its contention that its fight there is part of the global war on terror.
Meanwhile, the man seen as the Kremlin favorite in Chechnya's Aug. 29 election was the first to be registered as a candidate Thursday.
Alu Alkhanov, the region's interior minister, said that Chechen police are fully capable of maintaining security during the vote, Interfax reported.
TITLE: Russia's WTO Bid Is Timed to U.S. Poll
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: WASHINGTON - Moscow is pushing hard to hammer out a deal with Washington on WTO membership terms before the U.S. presidential election in November, Russian negotiators say.
"It may be possible to complete bilateral negotiations with our American partners in two or three months' time," said Yury Afanasyev, the chief trade officer at Russia's permanent mission to the United Nations in Switzerland.
"The understanding of both parties is that the sooner we finish it, the better," Afanasyev said by telephone from Geneva. "We are intensifying the whole process."
Russia, the largest economy outside the World Trade Organization, has been seeking to join the WTO for more than a decade, but a renewed drive by President Vladimir Putin's administration has brought the country to the verge of membership. Russia cleared its biggest hurdle in May, when the European Union, its top trading partner, agreed to terms, paving the way for bilateral deals with remaining holdouts, the most important of which is the United States.
The United States, however, is still concerned about several issues, including agricultural policy, access to the insurance market and tariffs on aircraft and agricultural products.
Maxim Medvedkov, Russia's top negotiator on WTO terms, said reaching an agreement before the U.S. presidential election would be preferable, since changes in power tend to slow down all international negotiations.
"Elections in a state lead to - I will avoid the word 'freeze,' but something like that - in the government," Medvedkov said by telephone earlier this month, also from Geneva. "They need time to reorganize. Which is understandable. It's nobody's fault," he said.
Striking a deal with Washington within two months, however, might be too optimistic a goal, Medvedkov said.
"The fact that we have signed an agreement with the EU pleases our partners - now they think they can put forward tougher demands," he told a conference in Moscow last week.
Richard Mills, a spokesman for U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, agreed that negotiations have accelerated in recent weeks, but he declined to predict how long they would take, saying the time frame is up to Russian negotiators.
"They are determining the pace," Mills said. "These talks have been on-again, off-again from the Russian side. We're pleased that they appear to be on again," Mills said, declining to qualify progress on specific issues.
Andrew Somers, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia, which represents hundreds of American companies, said the Kremlin might be looking to parlay Putin's personal relationship with U.S. President George W. Bush into an advantageous deal on WTO.
"Both administrations have stated that their relationship on key issues, such as terrorism, is very, very strong," Somers said. "I think that gives a positive glow to other aspects of their relationship, including WTO negotiations."
Afanasyev said that despite a few unresolved issues, the two sides are closer to agreements in areas widely believed to be major stumbling blocks, such as protecting intellectual property rights.
The prevalence of piracy in Russia - where American movies can be bought on CD for as little as $4, often before they are officially released - has been a major bone of contention. The International Intellectual Property Alliance, a group of trade associations and companies representing U.S. copyright industries, said its members lost $1.13 billion in revenues in Russia last year due to piracy.
According to The Associated Press, Washington has given Moscow a few more months to get tough with music and video pirates or face possible trade sanctions of nearly $500 million.
Afanasyev said that since Russia has all the necessary anti-piracy legislation in place, "now we are talking only about implementation." He added that at last month's G8 summit, Putin gave Bush his personal assurance that property rights would be enforced.
"[Intellectual property rights] are not something that is preventing the progress of our negotiations," Afanasyev said.
Somers said that agreeing to enforce laws that already exist can be tricky to quantify in negotiations. But Russia could win points on piracy by shifting its focus to the producers, rather than the vendors or distributors, and shutting down factories known to produce illicit CDs, DVDs and CD-ROMs, he said.
Another major debate is over granting foreign companies better access to Russia's banking and insurance sectors, Afanasyev said.
In particular, he said, U.S. negotiators have expressed displeasure at a law that limits the amount of foreign capital in Russia's insurance sector to 25 percent.
Regarding the banking industry, Afanasyev said, "Progress is quite good," although neither he nor Medvedkov would give details.
Analysts said that the United States has been lobbying for an agreement to allow foreign banks to open branches in Russia, instead of subsidiaries, as is currently required by Russian law.
"The Central Bank does not want to have foreign branches in Russia, full stop," said Richard Hainsworth, a banking analyst at Renaissance Capital. "They are much more difficult to regulate. What it wants is 100 percent-owned subsidiaries that can be regulated as Russian entities."
Hainsworth said the Russian side probably would not budge on the branch issue.
Afanasyev said tariffs were also an issue, although he declined to name which ones specifically. Boeing, the U.S. aerospace giant, which has an engineering center in Moscow, has lobbied Russia for years to reduce the prohibitive tariffs and taxes it imposes on imported airplanes.
Russia has a 20 percent tariff on imported aircraft, which is compounded by an 18 percent value-added tax.
But it is agriculture, Afanasyev said, that is the biggest sticking point with the United States, although discussions have been postponed until the WTO settles its own internal agricultural policy disputes.
The WTO has been gridlocked over the details of a common agriculture policy.
The United States has led a diplomatic effort to get all countries to eliminate agricultural subsidies.
"The Russians have, I think, a pretty good argument that they should not be required to reduce their subsidies," Somers said. "But they have, in negotiations, insisted on [allowances for] huge subsidies, which the U.S. is opposing because it would hurt the overall strategy of eliminating agricultural subsidies."
Staff writer Lyuba Pronina contributed to this report.
TITLE: Police Raid NGO HQ
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - Police officers raided the Moscow headquarters of a rights group set up to aid victims of police abuse in what the group members said Tuesday was retaliation for their activity.
Officers from the metro police department for fighting economic crimes conducted a search July 7 in the office of Moyo Pravo (My Right), said Mikhail Anshakov, the group's chairman.
Without producing a search warrant or providing any explanation, policemen inspected Moyo Pravo's office and confiscated documents, computer hard drives and its cash register, he said.
Officials from the metro police declined to comment last week, referring all questions to Nikolai Martin, head of the department, who was unavailable to comment.
Anshakov said police told him their visit was not a search but merely an inspection, which does not require a warrant. Anshakov argued, however, that an inspection does not entail confiscating property such as computers.
"They must have gotten an order from above and they knew they would be covered up," he said. "That is why they didn't even bother to observe any rules or laws."
Anshakov said the group has since been able to get most of its belongings back, but he fears the police might have used the computer drives to obtain and copy information, which includes details about the victims the organization is assisting.
Moyo Pravo was set up in April following the assault of a university student who crusaded against lawlessness and brutality of policemen patrolling the metro. Most recently a police sergeant was charged in the fatal beating of a man in the Nakhimovsky Prospekt in June.
Anshakov said the raid was conducted ahead of the group's planned picket of the Interior Ministry aimed at raising awareness of the abuses committed by metro police.
The event did not take place because it was not permitted.
TITLE: Balzac Statue Unveiled
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: In an admirable example of decentralization, the Russian government's recent gift to France has found its home not in the capital Paris, but in Agde, a tiny coastal town in the south of France.
The five-meter high statue of Honore de Balzac, the 19th century novelist, was unveiled in the town's central square on June 25 by sculptor Zurab Tsereteli, head of the Russian Academy of Arts and Russia's most well known living artist.
The imposing bronze monument, which was made in St. Petersburg's Monumentsculptura foundry, depicts Balzac on a throne, surrounded by 40 characters from his novels against a background of famous French landmarks and cities with a Balzac connection.
Agde, with a population of just 20 000, is a popular tourist destination and traces its origins back to the 6th century BC. Tsereteli himself chose Agde as the beneficiary of Russia's gift, having first visited several other French cities.
The monument is the most recent of Tsereteli's grandiose, some say gaudy, representations of historical Russian and European figures. Frequently described as the court sculptor of Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, the irrepressible artist has been responsible for several controversial monuments in that city, including the incongruous 95-meter high Peter the Great on the banks of the River Moskva.
His latest project is yet another Russian diplomatic gift, this time to Jersey City in the United States
The"Tear of Grief," monument to the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, which is also being made in St. Petersburg, will reportedly be financed by Luzhkov's office and the Russian government and will cost several million dollars, according to local newspaper Jersey City Reporter.
The monument, which will stand on the banks of the Hudson River, opposite the site of the World Trade Center, will take the form of a gigantic 10-meter titanium teardrop suspended within a gaping jagged gash in a 30-meter rectangular cast-bronze pillar. A device inside the pillar will allow the teardrop to "weep" drops of water continuously.
TITLE: Denisov Sent To UN Post
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - Andrei Denisov has been named Russia's permanent representative to the United Nations in New York by presidential decree, the Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.
The post was previously held by Sergei Lavrov, and had been vacant since his appointment as foreign minister in March.
Denisov told Interfax he is awaiting a U.S. visa and plans to depart for New York by the end of the month to start work by Aug. 1.
Denisov, 52, was previously a deputy foreign minister. He served as Russia's ambassador to Egypt from 2000 to 2001 and directed the ministry's economic cooperation department from 1997 to 2000.
He graduated from Moscow State Institute for International Relations, or MGIMO, in 1974 and holds a doctorate in economics.
A biography posted on the ministry's web site says that Denisov joined the diplomatic corps in 1992. What he did in the interceding 18 years was not immediately clear.
Denisov speaks English and Chinese.
Denisov's appointment is only the first of several expected in coming days, in connection with administrative reforms at the ministry.
The number of deputy foreign ministers will be cut from 12 to seven. Lavrov will keep only one first deputy, Valery Loshchinin.
TITLE: Exile Says It Was Behind Prank
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - The Exile newspaper claimed responsibility Tuesday for the fake letter, supposedly from five U.S. congressmen, concerning former Prime Minister Sergei Kiriyenko that circulated through the Russian media last month.
The letter alleged that Kiriyenko had recently purchased property in Illinois in a possible attempt to live in the United States, and suggested that Kiriyenko might have had a role in the disappearance of a $4.8 billion IMF loan in 1998.
The irreverent Exile tabloid has a reputation for pranks, and it took particular pleasure in seeing some Russian media outlets speculate, incorrectly, that the Kremlin or powerbrokers in Nizhny Novgorod may have been behind the faked letter, in a bid to undercut Kiriyenko.
Editor Mark Ames posted a notice on the Exile's web site, saying that a staff member drafted the letter and forged the stamps and signatures, which he says he easily planted through "cicada-brained right-wingers" at the American Defense Council, which posted the letter on its web site.
Ames says he then "leaked" the letter via a fax from Washington to Novaya Gazeta, which ran the story on June 28.
The Exile confession did not include an apology to Kiriyenko, who has demanded an apology from his false accusers. Kiriyenko has also said he will take Novaya Gazeta to court for publishing the "falsified and nasty, open lie."
TITLE: New Versailles Built for the Wealthy
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Wealthy Russians are invited to move into baroque palaces.
Several dozens miniature replicas of European palaces of the 17th and 18th centuries, worth from $1.1 million to $5.5 million each, will be constructed in St. Petersburg's Lahta, a district within a 40-minute drive from the city center, in the next two to three years.
Potential buyers have already booked several palaces, said Anna Prozorova of Concord Management and Consulting, the St. Petersburg-headquartered real estate company building the palace development. The project, called Northern Versailles, is estimated to cost a total of $150 million.
Tightly grouped within a territory of only 14 hectares will be 46 palaces, many of them stucco-molded, gilded and decorated with statues. Every palace has a name, such as the Azure Belvedere or The Tzarskoselsky Hermitage.
Northern Versailles will also accommodate the Lakhtinsky Passage, a luxurious shopping mall cum hotel, stylized to resemble the classical shopping centers in the center of St. Petersburg. The palaces' addresses will bear sweet floral names such as Rozovaya Alleya - literally, Lane of Roses - and Rose Square. Finally, the circular Apollo Colonnade forms the ensemble's nucleus.
To avoid looking funny, only half the palaces should be built on the area of the development, said Nadezhda Kot, managing director of Moscow-based Kirsanova Realty, affiliate of Sotheby's International Realty. A house of 700 square meters must come with at least 1 hectare of land to allow for enough privacy, Kot said Monday in a telephone interview. Privacy and space is what wealthy people are looking for when they invest considerable amounts into real estate, she said.
Though every palace is designed by Concord to be perceived as a unique jewel, its extravagance will only appear in good taste if it is surrounded by a spacious landscape, Kot said.
"Otherwise, the development is going to end up looking like Disneyland for rich people," Kot said.
Equal profits could be earned from selling fewer palaces with bigger land plots around them, Kot said. Should the number of houses be preserved, a cozier environment would be made with building stylized as an Austrian or a German Village, not palaces, she added.
The Northern Versailles is not a summer estate or out-of-town housing, Prozorova said Monday. The palaces on offer are premium-class city housing, for Lahta will be a quickly developing city district, she said. The palaces on canal embankments in central St. Petersburg are located even closer to one another, Prozorova added.
Kot said that the word "palace" has acquired a negative connotation in Russia over the past decade, as a kitsch inefficient piece of housing built by the country's nouveau riches.
The new palace development is unique in Russia, and even in Europe, said representatives of St. Petersburg Realty, the project's exclusive dealer. Versailles will not be open to the public, which will secure exclusivity within the development, St. Petersburg Realty said.
There are quite a few customers looking for housing in such areas of St. Petersburg as the Krestovsky Island - one of the city's greenest and most picturesque areas, with a fair number of large private cottages - and not finding what they want, St. Petersburg Realty said.
Prozorova said that the buyers of the Versailles palaces would be signing land-leasing contracts for 49 years with the right to either purchase the land or extend the contract once it expires. Part of the palaces will be built using Concord's own funds, but some future owners are prepared to invest into the construction.
Concord Management and Consulting is part of the Concord Group - a St. Petersburg group of companies, also including Concord Catering, which owns a number of restaurants in town, including the New Island ship, Old Customs House and Russian Kitsch, and the Chocolate Museum chain.
TITLE: Yukos Trial Judge Asks for Removal
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - The judge who was to hear the Yukos oil company's countersuit on a gigantic back taxes bill was removed from the case Monday after citing unspecified psychological pressure, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.
The request by Arbitration Court Judge Olga Mikhailova was connected to "publications in the mass media that she considered as psychological pressure," the news agency reported.
A new judge will be appointed by Tuesday evening, the report cited Yukos lawyer Sergei Pepeliayev as saying.
The date for new hearings would be decided within a month, according to Mikhail Dolomanov, a lawyer who also represents the interests of the beleaguered oil giant, the agency said.
Mikhailova's decision adds complications to the already complex legal web of legal actions involving Yukos and its jailed former CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
Yukos has been ordered to pay some $3.4 billion in back taxes for the year 2000, an amount that the company says could drive it into bankruptcy.
Another $3.3 billion is being sought for 2001 and bills for other years are expected to follow.
Khodorkovsky and a close associate, Platon Lebedev, meanwhile are on trial on charges including fraud and tax evasion. That trial is to resume on Tuesday.
Another court on Monday postponed a hearing on a motion by Khodorkovsky's and Lebedev's attorneys to release from them from custody, the Interfax news agency reported.
The Arbitration Court ruled last month that Yukos must pay its 2000 bill and the deadline for that payment expired in early July.
However, prior to that ruling, Yukos in a separate action challenged the legality of the Tax Ministry's claim. The judge in the case was removed on a challenge from the Tax Ministry, meaning the case had to be reheard; that rehearing was to begin Monday before Mikhailova.
Yukos, meanwhile, is struggling to find a compromise that would allow it to restructure its tax debts and keep the government from seizing its key assets.
There has been no government reaction to the company's proposal to pay $8 billion over two years or to an offer from Khodorkovsky - who stepped down as Yukos chief executive after his arrest - to help settle the tax claim by turning over shares held by him and his close associates.
TITLE: New Agency to Help Investors
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The city administration intends to establish an industrial investment agency in the second half of 2004.
The agency will serve two main functions, Vice Governor Mikhail Oseyevky said Monday at a news conference, Interfax reported.
"Firstly, the agency will be an outlet for industrial investors to resolve all matters associated with documents registration," Oseyevsky said.
"The second responsibility of the agency will be to prepare and develop the necessary infrastructure on those territories where industrial areas will be developed," he said. The first example of such responsibility division Oseyevsky named the Neudorf project in Strelna, which was realized by German investors.
Besides that, the administration experts count on increasing energy sector investments in the Metallostroi and Beloovstrovskaya industrial areas.
TITLE: Car Rentals Expand to Fill the Niche
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: St. Petersburg's car rental market is expanding at the speed of light, with the amount of orders doubling in three to five years, but it still has a few years to take shape, experts say.
Over one half of rental car clients in the city are foreigners.
Two major western car rental companies working in St. Petersburg are Hertz and Europcar. Another big player is Rolf, Russia's leading Audi, Ford, Hyundai, Mitsubishi and Volvo dealer, operating since 1991. Besides, a growing number of local dealers are quickly filling in the remaining niches by offering special additional services suited for higher customization.
The pace at which the market is speeding up can be observed in Europcar's fleet tripling over the past 1.5 years without losing any load per car, said Ivan Balbukov, general director of Europcar St. Petersburg.
Meanwhile Time Machine, a smaller car rental firm established in 2004, is not experiencing any harsh competition, "given the extensive amount of additional services we are providing, and the affordable overall price," said Time Machine's Director, Andrei Roze.
In Roze's opinion, the changes in the car rental market are not as dynamic as in telecom and electronics, and there is still room for newcomers.
With the large European companies, clients pay for the brand names, he said. The services at large companies are less specific, Roze said. Local car rental firms seek to make their services convenient in the sometimes atypical Russian conditions.
"When I rented a car in Western Europe, the rental company could only tell me an approximate fee, and asked for additional payments when I returned the vehicle," Roze said. "We inform the client of the exact final fee at the moment the order is placed," he said.
When working in Russia, western companies do not approach the market with the same set of services they offer in the West, said Yekaterina Fedotova of Hertz St. Petersburg. Different services are introduced based on marketing research, she said.
Meanwhile, there are "a thousand more" market segments in car rentals that remain unoccupied, including more car diversification and additional services, Fedotova said. It is going to take another three years to fill in those segments, she said.
In Balbukov's view, it may take up to five years for the Russian car rental market to reach its full potenital. If the economic situation in the country remains stable, the number of orders can be expected to increase by 100 percent to 130 percent, Balbukov said.
One of the significant factors in the market development is the growing demand on lease. There is a direct dependency between the business dynamics and the demand on car lease, Oleg Abramov, general director of Hertz St. Petersburg, told Kolyosa magazine last month. According to Kolyosa's research, 15 percent of western cars are sold in St. Petersburg via lease contracts, while the potential leasing contracts have in local sales is up to 70 percent.
Over one half of orders continue to come from foreign clients, but the number of Russian clients is on the rise. A growing number of St. Petersburg residents rent vehicles while their own cars are undergoing maintenance, Fedotova said. About 50 percent of the customers at Hertz are Russian.
At Europcar, 67 percent of the clients are foreigners, either tourists or businessmen. The rest are Russians with an average monthly income of over 25,000 rubles, Balbukov said.
The lowest price per day for an economy class vehicle is 33 euros ($40) at Time Machine, $54 at Rolf and $60 at Europcar. Consecutively, Time Machine has nearly 80 percent Russian clients. Prices on business class vehicles don't vary much across the board, balancing around $165.
Should you hire a driver, the fee varies from $18 to $40 per hour, depending on the category of the vehicle. Some companies ask for an additional fee for a second driver, if you are to travel long distance.
Safety remains a major issue on Russian roads, and the degrees of safety vary across the country. When employing a local firm's services, it is important to check whether the vehicle is fully insured.
"We have all of our vehicles fully insured. In Russia, if something happens and there is no insurance, the road police and other authorities can take an eternity to deal with," Roze said. "We have recently had a client travel as far as Mongolia," he said.
If renting over a weekend, some companies offer discounts and perks such as grill sets, bike and boat holders. On-line registration and payments, as well as round the clock operation are becoming more common.
TITLE: Making A Day Trip To Kronstadt
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: If traveling by car, a short visit to the city of Kronstadt will provide the opportunity to see the St. Petersburg naval base and the bizarre dam construction leading there.
Getting to Kronstadt is easy: shortly after leaving the city edge and passing the access ramp to the St. Petersburg Ring Road, there is a road on the left that leads to the island of Kotlin, home to Kronshtadt.
Founded by Peter the Great in 1704 as a naval fort to defend St. Petersburg from attack by sea, Kronstadt later served as St. Petersburg's main commercial port since large trading ships could not navigate the shallow waters leading to the city.
Before the Revolution it was also the headquarters of the Russian Imperial Navy, and even in Soviet times it was an important naval base closed to foreigners.
The city only opened to outsiders in 1996, and can now be visited freely.
Kronstadt is also famous for the bloody crushing of sailors' mutiny against Soviet rule during the so-called 1921 Kronstadt Rebellion, which historians say was a major factor convincing Lenin that the Russian people would not easily accept Soviet socialism.
The result was the enactment of the New Economic Policy (NEP) that allowed for a brief return to capitalism and subsequently strong economic growth after years of decline and civil war.
Kotlin Island can be reached by driving across the Flood Protection Barrier, a enormous earthen dam that ranks as one of the largest engineering projects in Europe and which stretches from the north end of the Gulf to the south end.
Construction of the dam began in the early 1980s and it is scheduled to be completed by 2010.
This article was originally written for Insight Guides/ Discovery Channel
TITLE: North Shore's Summer Spots Offer a Quick-Fix Rest
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A visit to the north shore of the Gulf of Finland reveals a less-known fun side of city life, one with a truly local character, though few city travelers make their way to the north as it lacks the glittering tsarist palaces of the southern shore.
RESORT DISTRICT HISTORY
The north shore is officially called the Kurort or Resort District, and still falls within the St. Petersburg city limits. Geographically, the area is part of the Karelian Isthmus, not to be confused with Russia's Karelia Republic much farther to the north.
If the Gulf's south shore was the summer watering hole for the tsarist elite before 1917, the north shore is where today's wealthy businesspeople, as well as the not-so-wealthy intelligentsia, prefer to spend their summer weekends.
For centuries, small Finnish villages mostly populated the Resort District, and even today many places bear Finnish names.
When Lenin gave Finland its independence in 1918, the new border with the Soviet Union went through here. When driving along the Primorskoye Shosse, small, fortified positions can be seen on the left upon exiting the village of Sestroretsk. Those are the Soviet border posts before 1939 when the Soviet Union invaded Finland and annexed a large part of the country.
The north shore became a resort in the late 19th century when St. Petersburg's growing class of businessmen and intelligentsia chose to spend their summers there, since they were not part of the official government circles that summered on the south shore. Sanatoriums sprung up to offer spa treatments.
TRAVELING
For those getting out of town without a car, it is easy to take the commuter train from the Finland Station to any seaside town along the north shore of the Gulf of Finland, allowing for a 20-minute walk to the beach from the station.
Also, bus 213 from metro Chernaya Rechka makes several stops along the coast, but traffic sometimes makes it slow going.
The Resort District is easy to navigate by car since there is only one road from St. Petersburg heading that way, the Primorskoye Shosse that will lead to the town of Sestroretsk.
As one leaves Sestroretsk, the Shosse forks into the Lower Primorskoye Shosse, which runs along the water, and the Upper Primorskoye Shosse, which runs parallel to the water at about a kilometer inland.
Upon getting off either of these main roads, however, traveling is extremely difficult without someone who knows the area well, because there is rarely a street sign to be seen, and most roads are narrow and made of dirt.
But this lack of development and suburban sprawl is what gives the area its charm, as one feels transported back into a simpler, more tranquil era.
TOWNS ON THE COAST
In the Soviet period, Sestroretsk and several of the other Kurort District villages were famed for dachas - summer cottages, belonging to the Communist Party elite and the intelligentsia.
The intelligentsia first colonized the area at the end of the 19th century and a glimpse of that era can be found at the Ilya Repin Museum in the town named in his honor, Repino, about 50 kilometers from the city.
While few foreigners know the great Russian painter, Ilya Repin (1844-1930), Russians nearly deify him. He was a founding member of the first Russian counter-culture art movement, the Wanderers or Peredvizhniki, in the second half of the 19th century and whose style eventually came to resemble the French Impressionists. The Peredvizhniki rebelled against the Classicism reigning at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts as they strove to create a more realistic art close to the masses.
While most of Repin's famous works hang in the Russian Museum, several dozen can be found in the Repino museum, where the painter spent the last 30 years of his life. His residence became a place of pilgrimage for leading cultural figures of his day, including poets Sergei Yesenin and Vladimir Mayakovsky, singer Fyodor Shalyapin, and scientist Ivan Pavlov.
The next town down is Komarovo, in whose cemetery lies the poetess Anna Akhmatova, and the Russian literature professor and medievalist, Dmitri Likhachev (1906-1999), whose opposition to the Soviet regime and seminal work in Russian literature made him a great spiritual figure and earned him the title of "the Conscious of Russia."
Also, the famous St. Petersburg avant-garde underground composer, Sergei Kuryokhin (1954-1996) is buried here.
The last town in the Resort District is Zelenogorsk, once known by its Finnish name, Terijoki, before the Soviets conquered the region in 1939.
Zelenogorsk boosts a beautiful 19th century Russian Orthodox church built in the old Russian style, and its beaches and outdoor cafes attract thousands in the summer.
BEACHES
Resort District's beach industry began developing only in the last ten years. There are twelve officially registered beaches along the coast of the Gulf of Finland, 9 belonging to resorts and over twenty of so-called "wild" beaches.
Unfortunately the weather on the Gulf, even in summer, is often cool and windy, and there are few days warm enough to swim. But if the weather permits, the Gulf is famous for its shallow depth and one can walk for tens of meters into the sea. Though locals often complain about the cleanliness of the water, many still do swim.
The lakes a little further inland are also worth exploring, and the water there is often pristine.
At the very least a walk on the beach, especially towards evening, is always romantic. Some places, such as the Golden Beach complex in Zelenogorsk, rents windsurfing, jet-skis, and other water fun equipment.
One of the best seaside locations, however, is the Resort District's first private beach, High Dive, in Komarovo, which opens this week.
It has a small amusement park for children, several cafes, and boat and jet ski rentals. The finest feature, however, is its reputation as the cleanest beach on the Gulf.
The younger crowd might want to visit several of the nightclub and party scenes springing up on the beach. Next to High Dive in Komarovo is the Jet Set Beach, which serves as the outdoor party ranch of the trendy and fashionable city nightclub by the same name.
Jet Set Beach offers clean white sand - something no other beach can offer - with summer club atmosphere where one can lounge and tan either at beachside or at the pool.
There's a small amusement park for children, and the restaurant offers Japanese and Mediterranean cuisine.
The beach is open to members only, but foreign tourists are offered a special deal where if they call the Jet Set Club in St. Petersburg, they enjoy free admission.
This article was originally written for Insight Guides / Discovery Channel
TITLE: Russian Entrepreneur Follows Mansion's Call
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Alexander Yebralidze's business draws much attention yet the general public knows very little about the man behind the grand historical mansion at 59 Moika Embankment, which catches the eye of anyone strolling along Nevsky Prospekt in the direction of Palace Square.
The owner of Taleon Club and Yeliseev Palace Hotel, Russia's first and only lodging accepted into the respected The Leading Small Hotels of the World, is a very private person. Born in Batumi, a lively town on the Georgian coast of the Black Sea, Yebralidze moved to St. Petersburg, where he has lived ever since, at the age of 15.
Yebralidze started out as a businessman in 1989 - one of the four partners of Sytny Cooperative, a wholesale company trading in fruits and vegetables. "Those were the years of the 'cooperative movement,' and the products distributed through a chain of street kiosks came from the republics of what was then still the Soviet Union," Yebralidze said. "I knew that this was just a transitional period, I believed in a future with big well-organized stores full of products - like western supermarkets we saw in movies or pre-revolutionary delicatessens run by Russian merchants like the Yeliseevs."
Yebralidze first stepped into the Yeliseev's mansion because of a TV advertisement promoting a company that organized children's' studies in the U.S. "This is how on a winter morning of 1991 I found myself at 59, Moika Embankment - I came here to send my daughter to a high school in Florida," he said.
A personal connection with the mansion rose instantly: "You probably won't believe me, if I say that I felt this house was begging me for help but this is exactly what was happening. For hours and hours I stood on the opposite side of Moika embankment imagining Yeliseev's mansion restored to its full splendor - exactly the way you see it today."
The businessman started following his dream by opening a food store in one part of the mansion, and an Escada fashion boutique in another. The transition from trade to restoration and construction was made in 1993, after Yebralidze signed a contract to lease the mansion for 49 years, the longest period then allowed by law. "The building was in critical condition, totally unsuitable for business purposes. Nobody believed in my project," Yebralidze said. "I started out small, repairing step by step whatever I could afford to repair at that time: several leaks in the roof, bursting pipes and radiators everywhere... I invested all my profits into this restoration. Soon my employees who actually saw me doing concrete things and not just talking, became more and more enthusiastic about the project."
Yebralidze said any obstacle or task can be solved provided three conditions are met: having an inner conviction, setting an exact goal and forming a team.
After the opening of Yeliseev Palace Hotel in May 2003 Yebralidze rejected offers of management from several international hotel chains. "First of all, I have invested too much effort and feeling into The Club and the Hotel, entrusting anyone else to manage it would be simply inconceivable. This is my business, it reflects my vision, and therefore I believe that running the place should be my personal responsibility," Yebralidze said. He added that considering Russian management less reliable is only a stereotype: "It is true that German, English and American managers have a better reputation. Nevertheless, no one is ever perfect. We train our personnel regularly; some of these sessions are organized by experienced foreign HR specialists. But most of all, here, at the hotel we work on developing our own know-how - a number of strategic solutions designed to resolve our specific problems."
One such solution is not aiming for a full occupancy of the hotel. On the contrary, he insists on keeping the average yearly occupancy rate around 65 percent to 70 percent. "With higher numbers there's always a risk of losing a top level of service. There should be no fuss and running around here. In fact, it is a cozy and relaxed club atmosphere that makes our boutique-hotel so very special."
From the start Taleon Club was designed to be a member-only establishment: "It provides a certain degree of comfort for those who come here. There are no strangers at the club," Yebralidze said. "Almost everyone knows each other, and new members join us through the recommendations of existing members. If there's any slightest discomfort for the guests, I immediately sense it, and deal with it in a few minutes."
Taleon translates from Latin as retaliation or Nemesis, and the name was Yebralidze's deliberate choice. "It means retaliation through creation, and this concept is very important to me - it reflects my life experience," he said. Create and move forward, despite all obstacles and enemies, this is the philosophy behind it."
The businessman refrained from talking to reporters until 2003. "I have my past, a past I am not ashamed of," he said, referring to two jail terms in the 1980s (hooliganism, carrying a gun without license and participation in an armed attack).
Some Internet sites still accuse him of having links with local criminal circles. Yebralidze replies that it is just a primitive tool used as an attempt to taint him and his business. "I paid for my mistakes in full - both with my freedom and with the tears of my family. It is practically impossible to convince anyone verbally that today I respect the law. So for the past 10 years I didn't talk. Instead I worked hard on very concrete projects: in 1997 we opened a splendidly restored mansion housing Taleon Club, in 2003 the Yeliseev Palace Hotel followed, and today we are in the middle of another huge project - a complete reconstruction and restoration of the Sheremetyev's mansion," he said. "I started talking to the press last year because now I have real things, real accomplishments to show people. Facts speak louder than words."
Paul Edwards, manager of Taleon Club Casino, says Yebralidze "is a man of his word, and takes a long-term personal commitment to the projects he undertakes."
"As an expatriate, it is important to me that he provides a stable working environment and ensures that the business is run to the letter of the law," he added.
Vladimir Golman, a St. Petersburg lawmaker and expert on construction, who advised Yebralidze during construction of the hotel, speaks highly of the businessman's professional approach and personal qualities: "He has will, character, power and drive that attract people. And he fulfils his obligations, which keeps those people around."
Yebralidze pauses at the question of what kind of boss he is. "I know exactly how much I am worth. I do not overestimate nor underestimate myself," he said. "On one hand, I approach business strategically, planning my moves like a careful chess-player. On the other hand, I always trust my intuition. I believe in establishing a trust relationship with people. I give my employees a carte blanche but as soon as I notice a discrepancy between words and actions, I make a note and draw certain conclusions. I make a very clear distinction between fact and people's opinions of those facts. People can tell me anything they like - I can't grasp it. You can only talk with me about concrete matters - about the results of what has been done."
Yebralidze strongly supports Governor Valentina Matviyenko on the privatization of the palaces mooted earlier this year. "Unfortunately many St. Petersburg residents still confuse palaces that house working museums with crumbling mansions that have fully or partially destroyed palatial interiors. Museums are, clearly, not to be touched. As for the mansions or rather whatever remains of them, the decision must be taken individually in each case."
Convinced that most mansions would benefit from being privatized, Yebralidze predicts that finding investors might prove tricky: "10 years of experience taught me that restoration sounds easy when in fact it is not. We are talking not millions but tens of millions of dollars, and many years are involved".
Sheremetyev's mansion on Kutozovskaya Naberezhnaya, that Yebralidze's company is turning into another luxury historical hotel serves as a perfect example. Destroyed during a 1993 fire the building was literally raised from the ashes. The construction work started in 2001 and finished in April 2003, but the restoration of its exquisite interiors will not be completed before 2008. "Our investment in this project will total about $30 million," Yebralidze said, emphasizing that "privatization of palatial mansions and the adjoining buildings is the quickest way to rehouse people still living in communal apartments and to increase the St. Petersburg city budget."
"Despite his tough Shrek-like appearance Mr.Yebralidze also has a charming romantic side: he believes in fate, a series of special circumstances, which brought him to be where he is today," said Caterina Innocente, Yebralidze's press-attache who has worked with him closely for about a year. "At the same time I would describe Alexander as a real entrepreneur: He never expects the profits to come overnight, understands that both investments and a daily portion of hard work always come first. I haven't often encountered this in Russia."
TITLE: Piracy Stymies Entry to WTO
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: GENEVA-The United States and other countries negotiating the terms of Russia's membership in the World Trade Organization said Friday they don't think the government is doing enough to fight counterfeiting and piracy.
The issue is "a very dark cloud hanging over Russia's accession," one U.S. delegate told a meeting of the WTO working group, officials said.
Japan, Australia, Norway and Switzerland also expressed concern at Russia's stance on intellectual property issues at the WTO working group negotiating its entry to the 147-member body, trade officials said.
Governments said they were particularly worried about a Russian law that allows equipment used for producing pirated CDs and other goods to be resold after being confiscated by the police. The equipment should be destroyed, they said.
Concerns were also expressed about the lack of enforcement of data protection laws and the poor protection of commercial secrets.
Russia first applied to join the WTO - the body that sets rules on international trade - in June 1993, but the country only started making major efforts to fulfill the conditions of membership when President Vladimir Putin came to power in 1999.
The Russians have had to embark on a major set of legislative reforms to bring them in line with WTO rules, including producing a new customs code. Other major issues include agriculture issues, easing access for foreign banks and insurers and lowering tariffs on airplane imports.
Russia's delegation, led by chief negotiator Maxim Medvedkov, told envoys it hoped some new intellectual property provisions would be in place by 2006, trade sources said.
However there are still concerns about the slow rate of change and the failure of Russia's parliament, the State Duma, to adopt all the necessary legislation.
Medvedkov told reporters that the meeting had gone "really well" and that his government has completed bilateral negotiations - but not yet signed agreements - with five more WTO member states. Russia has already signed bilateral treaties with 11 WTO members.
Each of the WTO's 147 members has the right to seek an individual deal with Russia as a condition of approving members. Only those with major trading ties are negotiating, however.
Russia has signed an agreement with the European Union, but it is still talking with the United States.
"We still continue to hope that our bilateral deals could be finished with the majority of members by the end of the year," Medvedkov said.
Russian negotiators said earlier this month that the Kremlin wants a deal with the United States before U.S. voters vote for president in November.
Medvedkov said the next meeting of the working group is likely to be in September or October, he added.
(Reuters, AP, SPT)
TITLE: Siemens Seeks Major Power Machines Share
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: BERLIN- German industrial giant Siemens has asked Russia's antitrust agency to approve a bid for a 71 percent stake in the country's biggest turbine maker, Power Machines (Siloviye Mashiny), the agency said Friday.
The German industrial conglomerate, which already has a 5 percent stake in the Russian firm, needs the go-ahead from the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service because Power Machines is involved in military equipment production. "We confirm that we received such a bid from Siemens on July 6," the agency's spokeswoman said. The watchdog must give a preliminary answer within 30 days, but can take 50 days to make a final decision, another spokesman said.
On Tuesday, Power Machines said it had received a bid from Siemens and would decide this month or next whether to accept the offer or proceed with its planned merger with Russian engineering and machinery giant OMZ.
A Siemens spokesman reiterated that the company wanted to strengthen its cooperation with Power Machines.
"In connection with this, we have filed a precautionary bid with the Russian antitrust authorities to increase our stake," he said. He declined to confirm or deny the size of the bid or to give any other details.
The move comes as investors are concerned about Russia's investment climate amid a continuing dispute between the Kremlin and oil major Yukos, which analysts say is politically motivated.
There were many reports that President Vladimir Putin is categorically against the Siemens deal due to Power Machines' role in the defence industry.
Some analysts, however, doubt Siemens would go ahead with talks if it didn't think it had the political backing for the deal.
"Putin and [German Chancellor Gerhardt] Schroder have very strong personal relations and I would be very surprised to see Russia not approve the deal," said Michael Heath, an analyst at Aton Capital in Moscow.
Siemens CEO Heinrich von Pierer earlier this month accompanied Schroder on a trip to Moscow where they met with Putin.
"If there were any Western country that would get the go-ahead, it would be Germany."
Power Machines, controlled by billionaire Vladimir Potanin's Interros holding, reported 2003 revenues of $352 million on Tuesday, up from $277 million in 2002. The company has forecast sales will almost double to $643 million this year.
Siemens is the biggest seller of mobile phones ahead of global market leader Nokia and also controls a quarter of the Russian market for medical equipment, according to company figures. Siemens first opened an office in Russia in 1853, its first outside Germany. It has a staff of about 1,500 people in Russia, where it posted revenues of just over 1 billion euros ($1.25 billion) last year.
Analysts have said it makes sense for Siemens to expand in Russia, which is one of its target regions along with India and China.
In May, it announced the $1 billion acquisition of one of America's top water companies, and it is known to be interested in a further tie-up with troubled French rival Alstom after buying Alstom's small turbines business last year. The Alstom deal made Siemens No. 2 in the world power-turbine business after General Electric.
(Reuters, Bloomberg, MT)
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Sibneft Grows 96%
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Net income at Sibneft, the fifth largest domestic oil firm, soared by 96 percent in 2003 to $2.28 billion based on U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, Sibneft said Monday.
Revenues rose by 41 percent to $6.72 billion, while earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose by 30 percent to $2.34 billion.
"Net income was boosted by returns on several key investments Sibneft has made in recent years," the firm said in a statement.
"It includes revenue from the company's holdings in Slavneft and the Moscow Refinery, as well as proceeds from the sale of shares in ONACO/Orenburgneft to TNK-BP."
The company posted capital expenditures of $985 million in 2003 versus $959 million the previous year. Lifting costs were $1.79 per barrel.
Sibneft also reduced its gross debt level to $1.59 billion at the beginning of 2004 from $2.24 billion in January 2003. Net debt stood at $1.48 billion at the beginning of this year, the company said.
Bank Scraps Charges
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's Alfa Bank has ditched a 10 percent commission on withdrawals that it had introduced because of "panic on the market" earlier this month, a spokesman said Monday.
Fear of a banking crisis, with echoes of Russia's 1998 financial meltdown, began with the closure of two small banks two months ago and escalated with moves by banks to restrict payouts - including Alfa's commission - two weeks ago.
Alfa, Russia's biggest private bank, said last week it would lift the 10 percent commission when the banking system had stabilized.
Russia's central bank said last week that the period of instability had finished after another troubled lender, Guta Bank, was rescued by state-owned Vneshtorgbank.
The Alfa Bank spokesman said the 10 percent charge was lifted on Saturday at 8 a.m.
Guta Bank Sold
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Vneshtorgbank paid "a fairly symbolic" 1 million rubles ($34,380) for Guta bank, a top-20 lender that had to be rescued after running out of cash, Vneshtorgbank's head Andrei Kostin said Monday.
"We signed an agreement with Guta's shareholders on Friday to buy almost 86 percent of the shares for a million rubles," Kostin told a news conference. "For a fairly symbolic price, we picked up a good bank." Vneshtorgbank, Russia's number two state bank, stepped in two weeks ago to take over Guta after it posted notices outside branches telling customers it had no money for them, bringing growing fears of a banking crisis to a head.
The Central Bank, which eased bankers' worries by boosting liquidity in the system, later said Guta's rescue had marked the end to the period of banking instability.
To finance the purchase of Guta, which the new owners want to keep running under the Guta name, the central bank deposited $700 million at Vneshtorgbank, Kostin said.
He said Vneshtorgbank was also close to buying a 76 percent share of St Petersburg-based Promstroibank. That purchase and two more planned in the region would give it a 20 percent market share in Russia's north-west.
Analysts have said the month-long banking crisis could prod Russian authorities into speeding up much needed reform of around 1,300 lenders in a weak banking system.
Aton brokerage said the banking sector still needed cleaning up.
"After a decade of sitting on its hands the central bank needs to bite the bullet and deal with the sector's high fragmentation, under-capitalization and inadequate safeguards," it said.
TITLE: Too High Expectations Bound to Disappoint
TEXT: I arrived in Moscow almost a year ago under the illusion that after a traumatic decade Russia was stabilizing, becoming more predictable, maybe even rebounding. While the past year has been extraordinarily interesting intellectually, thoughts of stability and predictability must once again be set aside, if only for a time. In fact, there has been so much negative news that friends now say to me: “Gee, Andy, it seems like ever since you arrived in Russia the place has gone downhill.” Just for the record, I acknowledge the coincidence but not the causal link between the two.
The Yukos case and the jailing of Mikhail Khodorkovsky have been on the front pages now for nearly a year, and while the endgame is near, the final result is not known. But it does seem that even if the company, recently Russia’s largest and acknowledged to be one of its best, is not bankrupted, it will cease to exist in its present form. The most positive thing one can say is that this is a case of very selective justice, but for now the dark cloud of possible further deoligarchization blocks much of the sunlight of Russia’s fabulous macroeconomic story.
A series of terrorist attacks in Moscow and elsewhere have rocked our sense of stability and security. And the brutal murder of the talented journalist Paul Klebnikov on July 9 brings back the memories of Russia 10 years ago, when the country was rife with gangland shootings and organized and disorganized criminals ran rampant. President Vladimir Putin is right that Russia has an image problem, but it is not the making of an international conspiracy of Russophobes posing as philanthropists, nor is it something that a more energetic diplomatic corps can cure. It is a reality that Russians have made.
While I am not one to idealize the 1990s in Russia as some kind of democratic utopia, the clear erosion of democratic principles and open society that has taken place steadily over the past four years and rapidly accelerated over the last year has also badly tarnished Russia’s image. The parliamentary and presidential election cycle this past year was a textbook case of a managed democratic spetsoperatsiya, or special operation. Putin is genuinely popular, but the legitimacy of his reelection was marred by the Kremlin’s heavyhanded tactics and the lack of any serious opposition. Russia now has a more compliant parliament, but it also has a much higher representation of nationalist conservatives and no representation of traditionally liberal-democratic parties. The nascent multiparty system is badly damaged. There are no longer any independent national television stations. Who knows if there will be anything worth watching next fall after the demise of popular current affairs shows like “Svoboda Slova,” “Namedni,” “Lichny Vklad” and others? Civil society remains weak and quite intimidated by arrests, harassment and other recent measures. In order to stave off despair and the urge to simply pack up the family and return to the United States, I must step back and look at recent events in a broader historical and comparative perspective. This leads me to four points.
The first is that this is not the Soviet Union and we are not returning to that. While democracy and open society in Russia have suffered some setbacks recently, if we consider where the country was 20 years ago, what has happened since that time is truly remarkable. Back then, people were debating whether the Soviet Union was totalitarian or authoritarian. Today, despite negative developments, the debate is whether Russia is a quasi-democracy or a semi-authoritarian state. In 1983, the late Ronald Reagan described the Soviet Union as an “evil empire,” and having lived here in the early 1980s I would agree that it was a pretty threatening and nasty place. While Russia may be flexing its muscles in the weak states on its periphery, we are very far from the evil empire days.
The second point is that even in the best-case scenario, the conventional wisdom when the Soviet Union collapsed was that a successful Russian transformation into a market democracy was at least a two-generation project. Looking back at other revolutions and transformations, these are rarely linear processes. There are often ups and downs along the way. There are many features of Russia today that suggest a reaction against the revolutionary period of the 1990s.
My third point gives me more optimism about the future. Virtually all stable, mature democracies are based on a large and enfranchised middle class that has rights and stakes they will want to defend against other entities, including an overbearing and avaricious state. The current Russian socioeconomic structure does not provide a solid foundation for democracy. At most, the middle class comprises 20 percent of the population; more than 40 percent barely get by, while more than 30 percent live below the poverty line. Then you have a very thin layer of super-rich that comprise no more than 1 percent of the population. The good news is that the middle class in Russia is steadily growing. Perhaps by the 2011-12 election cycle, Russia’s socioeconomic structure will be more conducive to democracy. My final point is a reality check on our expectations. Russia is a relatively normal middle-income country. With a per capita GDP of around $2,500, we should not compare it with wealthy democracies like those in Western Europe. A more apt comparison set for Russia now includes countries like Argentina, Mexico and Brazil. Middle- income countries are not typically mature democracies, and they are more prone to economic booms and busts. They do typically have weak legal systems, high levels of corruption and less free media.
Putin has set an ambitious goal for Russia to grow rapidly from a middle-income country to a low-end developed economy with a per capita income matching that of Portugal. But in order to sustain high growth levels to meet this worthy goal, he will need to address some of the legal, political and social weaknesses of middle-income countries that Russia shares.
The question of property rights must be resolved once and for all. The judicial branch of government must be strengthened and made more independent. The transparency and effectiveness of government and business will be improved by strong and independent media and civil society. Diversifying the economy from such high dependence on natural resources will also help sustain growth in the long term, as well as promote a prosperous middle class.
All of this will, of course, take time and focused effort. So despite negative trends today, while I am packing my bags, it is only for a vacation, and I look forward to returning to Moscow to see how Putin turns things around in his second term. In current-day Russia, it is principally his responsibility to improve the image of Russia, not that of his diplomats.
Dr. Andrew C. Kuchins, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times.
TITLE: City Hall's Approach to Land Too Unsophisticated to Succeed
TEXT: The main problem in the city's economic development is the lack of construction sites, including of those meant for housing, something which is increasing sharply the prices for housing and gradually making it inaccessible even to the large proportion of well-off citizens.
The administration is trying to solve this problem the easy way. The government isn't freeing up inefficiently used city land. Instead, various committees, within the limits of their competence, devise rather primitive plans.
The construction committee hasn't thought of anything better than developing housing on the outskirts, which is useful neither for home buyers nor the city, since it leads to an additional burden on road and transport routes that require large expenditure to build. The investment committee, preoccupied with the development of the hotel sector, has gathered several tens of locations for the placement of hotels. For all that, it could not find the time to consult either with the heads of the district administrations, who, at the last government meeting expressed their reasonable objections to the list of locations, or with colleagues from neighboring committees.
Meanwhile, the committee for town-planning and architecture, or KGA, and the committee for town-planning and the protection of monuments, or KGIOP, presented their lists (incidentally, at the same government meeting), containing 300 locations on the edge of the zone dominated by protected historic monuments, along which as exceptional cases, it will be possible to carry out reconstruction and new building work.
Unlike the investment committee's list, each of the locations from this list, as the head of the KGIOP, Vera Dementyeva, maintains, underwent detailed examination. Judging from the lack of observations from those at the meeting, this would appear to be true. It is likely that of these 300 locations there are a significant number that are suitable for the building of hotels. Yet it occurred to nobody to unite the efforts of the committees, even though in essence each one has the same problem. Each committee is preoccupied only with their own tasks, which they prefer to solve the easy way without taking into account the circumstances that go along with them.
Even Governor Valentina Matviyenko has succumbed to this general failure. Preoccupied with the important problem of the consolidating construction plans, she announced (seemingly on the advice of the KGA and KGIOP), that the list of 300 locations presented will "close the subject of consolidating building work." It is, however, obvious that building large, modern houses to contain relatively inexpensive apartments (and it is mainly just for these that builders get involved in this dubious practice) will hardly be possible. This is exactly what the head of the Admiralteisky district Yunis Lukmanov confirmed when he spoke on radio Ekho Peterburg the next day.
Another important task - raising the salaries of civil servants - is also being tackled without any particular thought. The monthly salary of all workers paid by the state is increased periodically by the same amount of 600 rubles ($21), even though the declared aim behind the policy of increasing the population's income makes provision for a targeted approach aimed mainly at people with low incomes. Pensions, for example, are increased in relation to the cost of living; salaries of lowly-paid workers are increased in relation to several costs of living.
Yegor Gaidar and Anatoly Chubais were, at one time, also accused of destructiveness in the trenchant simplicity of their reforms. The freeing of prices in 1992 left the bulk of Russians without savings, while fast privatization left them without property. However, this radicalism was justified. The country was on the brink of economic collapse: at the start of 1992 there was only enough bread in reserve for a few days, and managers, instead of restructuring state enterprises, continued to work as if they had to keep some stocks, with the expectation of orders by the State.
Right now the Russian economy is, on the contrary, growing, and the need for trenchant simplicity is not visible. Furthermore, this kind of policy is liable to make things worse, since (and I apologise for the repetition), as chairman of the Economics Committee, Vladimir Blank, says: "Simple solutions implemented in complicated situations always lead to disaster." Especially, one might add, when they are brought in emphatically and without consideration of the other factors.
Vladimir Gryaznevich is a political analyst with Expert Severo-Zapad magazine. His comment was first broadcast on Ekho Moskvy in St. Petersburg on Friday.
TITLE: Chris Floyd's Global Eye
TEXT: Mob Rule
Anyone who wants to understand the reality of modern America should pick up Gus Russo's latest book, "The Outfit." With diligent research and relentless candor, Russo strips away the facade of America's pious national myths, showing in great detail how the criminal underworld - and the even more criminal "upperworld" of big business and politics - have fused in a deadly symbiosis that underlies the nation's power structure.
You could begin unravelling this dirty skein at almost any point in the last century, but let's join the story at a critical juncture: 1960, when Democrats Jack Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson battled for the right to face Republican Richard Nixon in the presidential election. Of course, bribery, corruption, violence and vote-rigging have long been an integral part of America's glorious electoral heritage - a shining example to all the world - but the 1960 election was the first time that the country's mobsters had intervened so directly, and so decisively, in the national ballot.
They'd seen one of their creations in the White House before, of course: Harry Truman, the Missouri haberdasher who was plucked from obscurity by Tom Pendergast, boss of the Kansas City mob. Pendergast, whose iron grip on local politics was augmented by the judicious use of murder, eventually propelled Truman to the U.S. Senate. From there, having won a well-deserved reputation as a zealous scourge of corporate war profiteering (the mob steered clear of that particular racket, which was dominated by bluebloods like the Bushes), Truman was chosen as vice president in 1944. A few months later, Franklin Delano Roosevelt died - and Pendergast's boy was suddenly President of the United States.
Although Truman kept his own hands clean of bribes (except the usual ones known as "campaign contributions"), he retained a fierce tribal loyalty to the Kansas City gang and their overlords: "The Outfit," the Chicago-based heirs of Al Capone, and the nation's most powerful underworld organization. In one of the major scandals of Truman's administration, his attorney general, Tom Clark, approved early paroles for three of the Outfit's most notorious figures. A second scandal followed when Truman rewarded Clark for these gangland services rendered with a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.
But that's the way it works. "In the corrupted currents of this world," as Claudius notes in 'Hamlet,' "the wicked prize itself buys out the law." It's how you climb the greasy pole of power. Especially if you weren't born to the purple, a scion of America's nobility, those august clans who made their now well-laundered fortunes through slavery (Washington, Jefferson et al), gun-running and war profiteering (the Bushes), bootlegging and stock fraud (the Kennedys), military conquest (Texas, California, the vast Indian lands), ethnic cleansing (the Indian population slashed from 8 million to 120,000 during the 19th century), graft and terrorism (the du Ponts consolidating their hold on the gunpowder industry by firebombing their rivals; the Rockefellers burning down the oil derricks of their competitors).
In 1960, all three major candidates were mobbed up. JFK's father, the ex-bootlegger Joe Kennedy, dealt directly with his former associates in the Outfit, tapping them for untraceable vote-buying cash and their unrivaled vote-rigging muscle. Nixon, then Vice President, had long worked his mob contacts - chiefly the Los Angeles gang of Mickey Cohen and New York's Meyer Lansky - for secret campaign funds. Meanwhile, the Chicago Outfit - playing both sides as always - sought Nixon's favor by agreeing to a CIA request for help in assassinating Fidel Castro.
Johnson was backed by the Carlos Marcello gang out of New Orleans, who paid the all-powerful Texas senator $100,000 a year to keep the legislative heat off their gambling and racing interests. Of course, this mob dime was small beer to Lyndon, whose career had been bankrolled by massive cash infusions (some of them legal) from the construction and military servicing firm Brown & Root - now more famous as the chief cash cow in the Halliburton empire. (Like the Outfit, Halliburton always plays both sides.)
The rest, as they say, is history. Kennedy's Outfit connections trumped Johnson's Marcello play for the nomination, then Joe's vote-riggers outmuscled Nixon's vote-riggers in the election - the closest in American history. Nixon felt, rightly, that he'd been robbed of a presidency he'd bought fair and square. Thus he went on to even greater illegality - including outright treason in his secret negotiations with Vietnamese officials to scuttle peace talks before the 1968 election - to ensure his perch atop the greasy pole. Millions of people would die from his expansion of a war that U.S. officials had already privately conceded was a disastrous mistake. As Russo points out, gangland's rap sheet looks like a hymnbook next to the genocidal record of the upperworld.
Now, in the 21st century, the fusion of the two worlds is complete. Legitimized criminality is the order of the day. The bluebloods are back on top, openly using the Outfit's tactics on a global scale: racketeering as statecraft. Instead of carving out criminal niches on the fringes of society, the Oval Outfit takes down whole countries. Instead of whacking a few wiseguys in internecine vendettas, the Bush gang kills tens of thousands of innocent people to loot national treasuries (Iraq's, America's). The "war on terror" is just a mob feud writ large: The bin Laden crew, schooled and financed by the Washington boys during the first Afghan caper, is duking it out with its mentors for the biggest pile of swag in history - control of the world's oil.
Those who prefer the nourishing disillusionment of truth over poison national myth should seek out Russo's book. Read it - and weep.
For annotational references, please see Opinion section at www.sptimesrussia.com
TITLE: Violence Rocks Palestine Leadership
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: RAMALLAH, West Bank - Militants sacked and burned Palestinian government offices Sunday, the latest sign of growing anger over Yasser Arafat's decision to reach into his old guard and choose a loyalist relative as his new security chief.
A confrontation was brewing between Arafat - reluctant to yield significant power - and Palestinian militants, including some of Arafat's own officers. They are demanding deep reforms and new faces, Palestinian analysts said.
The divide between the two sides centered on the appointment of Moussa Arafat, Arafat's cousin, as the new head of Palestinian security. Many Palestinians rejected him as a symbol of corruption and cronyism, propelling long-held dissatisfaction into the open.
Dozens of masked gunmen marched through the Nusseirat refugee camp in central Gaza after sundown Sunday, chanting, "No to Moussa Arafat, yes to reform."
In the Rafah refugee camp, gunmen exchanged fire with guards at preventive security headquarters and attempted to break into the complex with a bulldozer. The guards wounded three attackers, but there were no casualties to the security forces, personnel at the building said.
The internal Palestinian unrest was the most serious in more than a year. In 2003, protests against corruption forced Arafat to promise reforms and appoint a new government, led by Mahmoud Abbas. He resigned after only four months.
The turmoil came as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon planned to withdraw from Gaza next year, intensifying a struggle for power and influence among the various Palestinian factions.
Sharon said the trouble reinforced his contention that Israel cannot negotiate with the present Palestinian leadership.
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz called Arafat's reforms "an illusion" and said the Palestinian leader had retained his grip on power. "They are playing musical chairs," he told Israel Radio.
The unrest began after Arafat decreed a consolidation of about a dozen disparate security branches into three services - a key element of reform that the United States and Egypt have said would be necessary to revive deadlocked peace efforts.
But the Palestinian leader defied international peacemakers by declining to put the security forces under the control of the Cabinet, and by naming his cousin and longtime lieutenant, Moussa Arafat, as security chief.
Protesting the appointment, militants broke into a building of the Palestinian Authority in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis early Sunday and burned two offices. A security guard was wounded in a gunfight.
The appointment deepened the rift between Arafat's generation, which led the Palestinian struggle from exile for decades, and young Palestinians who lived under Israeli occupation and now accuse the old guard of corruption and monopolizing power. Dissent, however, went beyond the generational divide and spread to the security forces.
Navy chief Gomma Ghali, an Arafat loyalist, handed in his resignation to protest Moussa Arafat's appointment, joining the head of intelligence and the head of the preventative security, who resigned Friday.
However, Arafat has not accepted the resignations.
In a rare news conference, Moussa Arafat brushed aside protests over his appointment.
"I take my orders from His Excellency President Arafat," he said, seated below a huge portrait of his mentor. "He is the only one who can ask me to quit my job."
TITLE: Bolivians Say Yes To Natural Gas Exports
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LA PAZ, Bolivia - Bolivians voted Sunday in favor of exporting the nation's vast natural gas resources, exit polls showed, giving a boost to a president seeking to quell simmering social unrest that threatens to fracture South America's poorest country.
Exit polls by television stations Unitel and ATB reported that between 56 to 63 percent of voters said gas should be exported. The polls had margins of error of 2.3 and 3 percentage points respectively.
The issue is a sensitive one in Bolivia. Nine months ago, then-President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada was ousted for planning to export liquefied natural gas to Mexico and California. Clashes between highland Indians and security forces in and around La Paz left nearly 60 dead.
Current President Carlos Mesa, formerly the vice president, offered to hold the referendum immediately after taking over to finish Sanchez de Lozada's term, scheduled to end in 2007.
"Bolivia has shown the world today that it is not a country - as many had suggested - in risk of falling apart," Mesa said Sunday night as official results trickled in.
Although Indian leaders had threatened to burn down polling stations Sunday, there were only minor incidents of violence.
Police were investigating a dynamite explosion in the otherwise calm town of Achacachi, 40 miles northwest of La Paz.
Dozens of townspeople, including Indian women in felt bowler hats, sweaters and layered skirts, also threw rocks at a team of election observers from the Organization of American States. The team, part of 22 OAS observers sent to Bolivia, was trying to visit a polling station in the city of El Alto, a flash point of unrest in October.
Valued at more than $70 billion, the gas fields in this landlocked country are the second largest on the continent, behind those in Venezuela.
Lured by privatization of the industry, some 20 foreign companies have invested $3.5 billion in exploration, discovering 55 trillion cubic feet of gas.
But some Bolivians remained wary of the vote and pledges that the exploitation of natural gas will raise incomes in a nation where two-thirds of the population live in poverty.
"I don't think this is going to improve the situation," said Patricia Mamani, a 28-year-old street vendor in the capital. "There have been so many promises, and the government always does what it wants."
The gas reserves have split the nation, with Indians in the western Andean plains pitted against the business elite in the eastern and southern lowlands, where the gas reserves are located.
The business leaders are set on exportation and have threatened to break away from the republic.
Indian leaders in the west want the entire gas industry nationalized to ensure profits stay in the country, an option Mesa left off the ballot.
TITLE: New Portugese PM Must Face Struggling Economy
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LISBON, Portugal - Portugal's new prime minister and his Cabinet took office Saturday, ending more than two weeks of political uncertainty after the country's leader resigned to become president of the European Commission.
Pedro Santana Lopes was sworn in as prime minister of Portugal's 16th constitutional government at a ceremony with President Jorge Sampaio. He pledged to lead the conservative coalition government through the next two years of its mandate.
Santana Lopes, 48, has for the past three years been Lisbon's mayor and has never held a senior government post.
"I reaffirm the cohesion of this coalition government, in cooperation with the president," Santana Lopes said in a 25 minute speech. "I am not here to work for the powerful. I am here to work for those in need. For us, development is only economic if it aims to become social."
The prime minister said his government would pay special attention to budget consolidation, investment, national security and European matters.
He replaced Jose Manuel Barroso, who led the Social Democratic Party to victory in the 2002 general election and brokered a governing coalition agreement with the Popular Party. Barroso announced last month he was quitting to take the European Union's top job.
However, the president warned he would closely watch the new government's decisions in the key areas of foreign affairs, defense, the economy and justice.
At Saturday's ceremony, Sampaio underlined the need for budget consolidation, and again asked the new government to continue previous programs to ensure economic stability, saying there was no margin for unjustified public spending or for unchecked tax evasion.
"Portugal has been through two very hard years with unemployment and grave social problems. Budget control has only been possible through restrictive and extraordinary measures which cannot become the rule of thumb," Sampaio said.
Unemployment in 2003 reached its highest point in six years at 6.4 percent - a 26.5 percent rise from 2002. To bring Portugal's budget in line with EU standards, Barroso's government reined in public spending, cut public administration jobs, imposed heavy taxes and began privatizing state owned companies.
Santana Lopes, who has been criticized as a political lightweight untested in economic affairs, has responded by appointing seasoned business leaders and veteran politicians to his Cabinet.
He named Antonio Monteiro, a career diplomat, to lead foreign affairs and Antonio Bagao Felix, a banking expert, to head the finance ministry.
He also picked Alvaro Barreto, 68, who headed five different government ministries between 1978-1990, as deputy prime minister also in charge of the economic affairs portfolio.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: 'Girlie' Democrats
LOS ANGELES (AP) - A spokesman for California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said Sunday that the governor would not apologize for calling lawmakers "girlie men," despite criticisms from Democrats that the remark was sexist and homophobic.
Schwarzenegger dished out the insult at a rally Saturday as he claimed Democrats were delaying the budget by catering to special interests.
"If they don't have the guts to come up here in front of you and say, 'I don't want to represent you, I want to represent those special interests, the unions, the trial lawyers... if they don't have the guts, I call them girlie men," Schwarzenegger said to the cheering crowd at a mall food court in Ontario.
The governor lifted the term from a long-running "Saturday Night Live" skit in which two pompous, Schwarzenegger-worshipping weightlifters repeatedly use it to mock those who don't meet their standards of physical perfection.
Democrats said Schwarzenegger's remarks were insulting to women and gays and distracted from budget negotiations.
(Not so) Top Secret
LONDON (Reuters) - British police said on Sunday they had launched an inquiry into how a secret police dossier went missing that according to a newspaper report contained counter-terrorist plans for London's Heathrow airport.
The dossier, found lying in a road, showed 62 sites at the airport where al-Qaida was most likely to launch anti-aircraft missile strikes, the Sun newspaper said in its Monday edition.
The Sun said the dossier included facts about surveillance, escape routes, evacuation plans and deployment of rooftop snipers at the world's busiest international hub.
The plans, which have since been returned to police, were found by a motorist, the newspaper said.
Contract for Iraqi PM
DUBAI, UAE (Reuters) - A group led by suspected al-Qaida ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has offered a reward of $282,000 for the killing of Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, according to a statement posted on an Islamist website.
"We in Khalid bin al-Walid Brigade announce to the Iraqi people a reward of 200,000 Jordanian dinars to whoever gets us Allawi's head," said a group statement posted on the site on Sunday.
The brigade, which said it was part of Zarqawi's Tawhid and Jihad Group, blasted Allawi as an "American agent". Several earlier purported Zarqawi messages have threatened Allawi.
The United States has offered a $25 million reward for the capture of Zarqawi, its top militant target in Iraq.
Mandela Turns 86
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) - Former President Nelson Mandela celebrated his 86th birthday quietly Sunday at his family home in Qunu in the Eastern Cape with his wife Graca Machel and family members.
The low key celebration was in keeping with the Nobel Laureate's announcement in June this year that he would cut back on public appearances, a spokesman from the Nelson Mandela Foundation said.
Mandela said he did not want to withdraw completely from public life but would be more selective about events he attended. He has maintained a hectic schedule since retirement from active politics in 1999. He said he would not rest till AIDS was under control.
TITLE: Iraq Reopens Anti-American Newspaper
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's interim prime minister issued a decree allowing a controversial newspaper to reopen after U.S. officials closed it in March, setting off months of fighting between U.S. forces and militants loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Meanwhile, after a two-month absence, al-Sadr showed up in Najaf in an unannounced visit to the Imam Ali shrine, one of Shiism's holiest sites. With all the pomp of a rock star, the mercurial cleric was ushered into the mosque as guards and aides cut a path through hundreds of chanting and cheering supporters.
Al-Sadr's "appearance and the disappearance was for security reasons," said Ahmed al-Shaibani, the cleric's spokesman in the holy city of Najaf. Associated Press Television News footage showed al-Sadr, looking uneasy, frowning and dismissively waving away people with a flick of his hand as he knelt in preparation for prayers.
The weekly Al-Hawza was the mouthpiece of al-Sadr's "Sadrist" movement, routinely carrying his fiery sermons on its front page along with articles sharply critical of the U.S.-led occupation, which formally ended June 28.
Iraq's former American governor, Paul Bremer, ordered the newspaper closed for two months on March 28 for allegedly inciting violence against coalition troops.
Bremer's closure order expired May 28, but al-Hawza's editor in chief, Abbas al-Robai, has said that trying to resume publication then could have exposed the newspaper's editorial staff to arrest.
The closure and the arrest a few days later of a close al-Sadr aide in the holy city of Najaf began an anti-coalition uprising by militiamen loyal to al-Sadr in Baghdad and across Shiite areas in central and southern Iraq. A series of truces ended the fighting, which had raged on-and-off for two months.
Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, himself a Shiite, ordered the paper reopened in an effort to show his "absolute belief in the freedom of the press," his office said in a statement.
Al-Sadr's representatives welcomed the move, but said it was an effort by the new leaders to win favor with the group.
"Closing the newspaper was according to our will, and opening the newspaper will also be according to our will," said al-Shaibani. "The issue is not in the hands of Allawi or others."
He said the newspaper's slant will remain unchanged and will still be "directed against the occupation."
Also on Sunday, a U.S. airstrike authorized by Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi hit purported trenches and fighting positions in Fallujah used by al-Qaida linked foreign fighters, killing 14 people, Iraqi officials said.
Word that Allawi approved the Sunday morning attack was a clear attempt to show that the Iraqi government has taken full sovereignty from the Americans and has firm control, despite its deep reliance on the 160,000 foreign troops, mainly from United States. The nature of Sunday's target, like those hit in previous attacks, was in dispute.
The U.S. military said it had destroyed trench lines and fighting positions used by fighters loyal to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaida linked Jordanian militant blamed for masterminding car bombings and other attacks in Iraq.
Fallujah Mayor Mahmoud Ibrahim al-Jirisi said the attack hit a site for civilians supporting the Fallujah Brigade, a militia of local residents that took responsibility for security in the city when the Marines left.
TITLE: British Open Crowns Calm Hamilton
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: Scotland, UK - Ernie Els knew it long before Todd Hamilton showed everyone else by winning the British Open. You can't always tell a player's pedigree by reading his resume.
"Everybody looks at America or Europe but there's a big world out there and there's a lot of quality players,'' Els said. "Wherever you win a tournament in the world you've got to play some quality golf. I knew he was going to be tough.''
Tough enough, it turns out, to get his name on the claret jug.
Hamilton had the biggest names in golf behind him and every chance to crack Sunday at Royal Troon. Ernie Els and Phil Mickelson were trading leads with him, and Tiger Woods was up ahead trying to get something going.
But he hadn't toiled for 12 years in Asia - winning 11 times on the Japanese tour - without figuring something out. He hadn't made it through PGA Tour qualifying school on his eighth try without learning how to go about it.
And he knew how to draw on those experiences at a moment some players would have trouble drawing the club back.
"To be honest with you, and this is no lie, I felt very calm the whole day,'' Hamilton said. "Sometimes I get in situations where you should be biting all your fingernails off. But sometimes I get out there and it almost seems fun.''
It didn't look like much fun when Hamilton stood on the 18th tee in regulation, then promptly hit his drive way right and his next shot way left. He managed to make bogey, which would have been good enough only for second place had Els made the 12-footer for birdie he had left.
When Els didn't, the four-hole Open playoff was on. Surely, Hamilton would now crack in a head-to-head matchup with the world's No. 2 player.
Wrong.
Hamilton was the one who made all pars, while Els bogeyed the third playoff hole to fall a shot back. And Hamilton was the one who pulled out a utility club from 40 yards away on the final playoff hole to hit a shot that skidded within 2 feet of the hole.
"I'd never been in a position like that, at least in a tournament as grand as this, and to be out there for the first time in a position like that and feel very calm was kind of an oddity,'' said Hamilton, the Honda Classic winner in March. "But, as I said, I felt very calm the whole day, believe it or not.''
Els believed it.
He played with Hamilton in the final group and saw it up close. Hamilton had a hiccup on the final hole of regulation, but he wasn't going to give away the Open in the playoff.
"He obviously had a game plan. I'm sure that's the way he played the whole tournament and he stuck with his guns,'' Els said. "It worked out this time for him. He played wonderfully.''
The game plan for Hamilton was to hit irons or utility clubs off the tee whenever trouble lurked, and use his short game to make up for the rest of it.
The short game had been honed in years of playing in Japan, when Hamilton would rather stay at the course until dark rather than go sit in a hotel room by himself watching Japanese TV.
The touch was never needed more than on the final playoff hole, when Hamilton was well in front of the 18th green and in dire need of a par. He and Els had finished regulation tied at 10 under, and now Hamilton had a one-shot lead at the final hole.
He chipped up close and watched as Els missed an 18-footer for birdie that would have forced another hole. Then Hamilton tapped in his 2-footer and the Open was his.
Only then did the enormity of the moment start to sink in.
Turning his back on the hole, he let out a whoop, raised both arms in the air and hugged his caddie.
"I think the fans got treated to some wonderful golf, if they stuck it out to the very end,'' Hamilton said.
Els did stick it out to the end, and now he walked off the final green looking exhausted. He could only think what might have been if he had made the 12-footer he left short on the final hole of regulation for the win.
"I'm going to think about that putt for quite a while,'' Els said.
Now, another major championship had somehow slipped away, like the Masters did when Mickelson sunk a birdie putt on the last hole and like the U.S. Open did when he imploded for an 80 in the final round.
"I didn't want to let this one go,'' Els said. "Coming so close, obviously it's a disappointment. But to get in the playoff from where I was, you've got to take the positive out of it.''
Mickelson also was looking for something positive. He had the lead outright on the back nine, then made his first bogey in 49 holes on the 13th hole when he missed a 4-footer.
Mickelson parred out, but it wasn't enough. When his long birdie putt on the final hole came up short, so had his chances in his second straight major since his breakthrough win at the Masters.
"To miss out by a shot certainly was disappointing,'' Mickelson said.
Tiger Woods missed out by even more. Now winless in his last nine majors, he made two early birdies but finished with a 72 and was seven shots back.
TITLE: SPORTS WATCH
TEXT: U.S. Relay May Lose Gold
GROSSETO, Italy (AP) - Track and field's governing body recommended that the U.S. 1,600-meter relay team, led by Michael Johnson, be stripped of its gold medal from the Sydney Olympics as part of Jerome Young's doping case.
The International Olympic Committee is expected to endorse the recommendation by the International Association of Athletics Federations, probably before the Athens Olympics next month.
USA Track & Field said it "regrets'' the decision and will continue to work through all appropriate channels on behalf of the affected athletes.''
The recommendation came 2 1/2 weeks after Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that Young, the 400 world champion, should be stripped of his gold because of a positive test for the steroid nandrolone on June 26, 1999.
Brazil Drub Mexico
PIURA, Peru, (Reuters) - Brazil brought Mexico's impressive Copa America run to an abrupt end on Sunday, winning their quarter-final 4-0 with the help of a controversial penalty, while 10-man Uruguay beat Paraguay 3-1.
Dario Silva scored twice, his first international goals for nearly three years, as Uruguay set up a semi-final clash with Brazil in Lima on Wednesday despite yet another red card, this time for Gustavo Varela.
Argentina meets Columbia in the other semi-final today, with the possibility of an Argentina-Brazil final still alive.
Spanish Pride on Tour
NIMES, France (Reuters) - Aitor Gonzalez gave Spain its 100th stage victory in the history of the Tour de France on Sunday, but the former Vuelta winner had little interest in that particular milestone.
"I don't care if it's the 100th or the 140th," said Gonzalez, who had never won a stage in the Tour. "For me it's the first and that's all that matters."
The overall leaders rode with the pack during Sunday's 14th stage of the Tour de France, with Thomas Voeckler maintaining his 22-second lead over Lance Armstrong.
More mountain stages start today.
Rooney's Wage Soars
LONDON (Reuters) - Everton say they have offered their coveted England striker Wayne Rooney a club record wage of 50,000 pounds a week to stay at the club.
Everton owner Bill Kenwright told Sky Sports News he was hopeful of keeping the 18-year-old, who has been tipped to move away from Goodison Park after making a big impression at Euro 2004.
"I suppose, going into this next season, we were thinking probably 'double-your-money, we'll double what you are on now'," Kenwright said on Monday.
Everton manager David Moyes explained, "Look, he's the best player in the world and I want to support the best player in the world. I'd like him to become my captain and I think we should offer him the highest wage in our history."
Kenwright agreed totally and offered him the 50,000 pounds a week. "That is not a joke offer," he said.