SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #996 (64), Friday, August 20, 2004
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TITLE: Schroeders Adopt in St. Petersburg
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and his wife, Doris Schroeder-Koepf, have adopted a 3-year-old girl from St. Petersburg.
Germany's first couple adopted the girl, Viktoria, several weeks ago from an orphanage in President Vladimir Putin's hometown, and the girl is living with the family at their home in Hannover, German newspapers Bild and Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported Tuesday.
Wolfgang Juettner, the Social Democratic Party leader in Schroeder's home state of Lower Saxony, confirmed the adoption Tuesday, saying that during a recent visit to the Schroeder home in Hannover the couple introduced the girl to him as an adopted daughter, The Associated Press reported.
Schroeder informed President Vladimir Putin of his intention to adopt a Russian child, Interfax reported Tuesday, citing an unidentified Kremlin official.
The German chancellor and Putin, a fluent German speaker thanks to days as a KGB agent in East Germany, have built a close relationship since Putin came to power.
Interestingly, the Kremlin official stressed that Schroeder and his wife had not been given any special treatment in adopting the girl.
"The decision was made fully in line with Russian law and based on the decision of a Russian court," the official told Interfax, adding that Schroeder-Koepf personally was present in court when the adoption was granted.
A spokesman for the Schroeder government declined to comment Tuesday.
"As a rule we will not comment on the chancellor's private life," the spokesman said by telephone from Berlin.
It was unclear when Viktoria was adopted. Schroeder's last official visit to Russia was on July 8, when he arrived with about 30 executives from Lufthansa, Deutsche Bank, Siemens and other leading German companies to announce bilateral business deals worth 6 billion euros ($7.4 billion).
Bild reported that Schroeder and his wife took Viktoria home from the St. Petersburg orphanage "a few weeks ago," and that they kept the adoption so quiet that government bodyguards found out only shortly before flying back to Germany that they were taking the child with them.
The newspaper said Schroeder-Koepf had taken an interest in the plight of orphans in St. Petersburg and suggested that this interest may have influenced the decision to adopt.
Only 15,000 of the 170,000 children eligible for adoption each year are placed in families, Galina Trostanetskaya, head of the Education Ministry's child social welfare department, said in an interview this year. She said about half of those who are adopted go to foreign parents.
About 700,000 children under the age of 16 live in orphanages around the country, Trostanetskaya said.
All foreign adoptions of children in St. Petersburg are processed by the city's registry office, ZAGS, and require permission from the city court in the child's district of residence, a legal foreign passport and proof of marriage between the two adoptive parents, according to the St. Petersburg administration's web site.
Under Russian law, it is illegal to disclose adoption information without the authorization of the adoptive parents.
Schroeder, who has divorced three times, has no children of his own. Schroeder-Koepf has a 13-year-old daughter, Klara, from a previous marriage.
Schroeder caused a stir in Germany in 1997 when he married Koepf, a former Bild journalist, less than a month after divorcing his third wife, Hiltrud.
Asked about the divorce and quick marriage, Schroeder reportedly said, "It is proof of my earnestness."
He also has reportedly joked to Schroeder-Koepf that he changes wives every 12 years.
But Bild, Germany's most popular paper and in many ways similar to the sensational Moskovsky Komsomolyets daily, pointed out Tuesday that Schroeder-Koepf has had strong influence on her husband's domestic life.
"It's also well-known that the chancellor's wife is very family-oriented," Bild said. "She has taught the chancellor to greatly appreciate family life. He has long been a loveable father to Klara. He talks with her and his wife regularly by cellphone."
The newspaper concluded that "little Viktoria from distant Russia will receive much love from the Schroeder family."
TITLE: Stolen Cards Can Cost Owners a Fortune
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Foreigners whose bankcards are stolen in St. Petersburg can face huge financial losses and may find no sympathy from banks or the police as they attempt to get their money back if their card was used before the owner canceled it.
Banks and card operators say that until clients cancel the cards expenses incurred are purely the clients' responsibility. Clients must be careful with their wallets and if they fail to tell their bank about a theft, then they will have to pay for any misuse of the card, they said.
This is the situation faced by Rodney Scherer, an Australian artist, who was robbed while visiting St. Petersburg this summer.
Scherer says he canceled his Visa card half an hour after it was stolen from him on the metro line between Petrogradskaya and Nevsky Prospekt stations, but found that in this time thousands of dollars had been taken from his bank account. He is still struggling to get the money back from his bank.
"They [the thieves] had pulled 5,000 Australian dollars [$3,610] out of my credit card account through online purchases that were obviously going to supply street sellers," he wrote in a letter to The St. Petersburg Times in June. "A hundred hand bags from United Colors of Bennetton on a foreign credit card! Is this usual? Or is a sale that important that you turn a blind eye?"
"The thieves also bought DVDs, CDs and computer software from 505.ru, which delivers to homes. Did this purchase not seem strange on an Australian credit card! I think these retail outlets or some of their employees are in on the scams," he wrote.
Web site www.505.ru did not respond to a request for comment.
Victims complain that some commercial entities appear to be cooperating with bankcard thieves because the withdrawals are made so quickly and without proper checks on the identity of the person who withdraws the cash or makes purchases.
Like many other readers who have told The St. Petersburg Times about systematic robbery of foreigners, Scherer also says he noticed an organized group of pickpockets operating on the metro to and from the Nevsky Prospekt station and that the police pay no or very little attention to them.
"These people are working the metro like a milking machine. Where are the police? One stands at the entrance to the Nevsky Prospekt metro station. Pathetic!
"If the St Petersburg authorities don't do something about the rampant theft, St Petersburg will suffer enormously," he wrote.
An Australian bank that issued Scherer's cards is investigating his case, but has not sent any reports on how the process is going, Scherer said in a telephone interview from Melbourne on Wednesday.
Scherer confirmed he had reported the incident to the police.
The police could not be reached for comment Thursday.
"It is, of course, strange that some Australian purchased 100 handbags in St. Petersburg," an unidentified security official at card-payment processing company United Credit Cards in St. Petersburg said Thursday in a telephone interview.
"But it might be that he is ill or something. How do we know?" he added. "It is not prohibited to buy a box of brandy on a credit card and then to present it to your friends, for instance. How do we know, what's in some client's mind?"
The official said foreigners should be aware of pickpockets and be careful in crowded areas of the city. They should report their losses as soon as they can as this is the only way to avoid "unpleasant developments."
"A pocket with a zipper would be the best thing to have," the official said, "But I can assure you that if a card is stolen security departments at banks are doing their job to find the thieves. But nobody would tell you what they do exactly and I won't either."
The American Express office in St. Petersburg receives more than 100 reports of stolen credit cards each summer, the credit card operators said Thursday.
"The cards are getting stolen and being lost in crowded areas of the city such as busy streets, the metro and on public transport," Anna Rakhmankulova, an American Express office representative said Thursday in a telephone interview. "On average we have two cases every couple of days, though sometimes four people can show up in one day."
TITLE: Cranes Loom Over School, Kindergarten
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Construction cranes that tower above a kindergarten and two schools - that's what residents of Granitnaya Ulitsa in the Malaya Okhta district have to put up with even though the city prosecutor's office has ordered that the in-fill construction development should be suspended, a residents' action group said Wednesday.
In the last few weeks, local real estate developer LEKESTATE has started erecting a 16-story residential building on a site squeezed inside a 40-year-old residential area where a park has been razed. Noisy machinery operates around the clock in spite of an order by prosecutors that the case should go to court, residents said.
LEKESTATE could not be reached for comment.
Residents have good reason to be afraid of cranes so close to their dwellings and children.
Four cranes have collapsed in the city this year, causing injuries and deaths to their operators and construction workers. Eighty-five percent of cranes in the city are being used beyond the period for which they were designed, television news program "Vesti" reported last week.
Representatives of the Mechanics Department No. 6, one of two major crane suppliers in the city, said the equipment includes about 100 cranes hired out to local developers that are on average about 20 years old, the report said.
"They chopped down 215 trees that were planted 42 years ago when we all moved here," Irina Kuratova, head of the action group, said Wednesday in a telephone interview.
"The fence surrounding the construction site was put up just five meters from the kindergarten, four meters from School No. 9 and right next to a sports field where children are supposed to train," she added.
"All our protests have been conducted legally, without drilling holes in the fence or damaging construction equipment," she said.
"We haven't blown anything up. But it looks like it's impossible to do anything in this country in a legal way. You don't get anywhere [by obeying the law]."
A total of 140 parents of children studying at School No. 491, which is 2.5 meters from the fence, in February signed a petition to City Hall officials demanding that they suspend construction.
"Parents of students and the School No. 491 board ask you to acknowledge that the construction that has started next to the school building threatens the lives, health and well-being of our children," Andrei Pashkin, the school's director, wrote in the letter.
"[The construction] site makes it more difficult to make food deliveries for students of the first to fourth grade and complicates routes for emergency vehicles," Pashkin added, saying that construction of the fence had destroyed the nearby sports field.
At her first annual address on the state of St. Petersburg in June, Governor Valentina Matviyenko broke her election promise to stop in-fill construction projects in the city.
In-fill construction projects are necessary, she said.
"There is a big demand for residential space," Matviyenko added. "We've got to put up with this until we find new areas for construction."
At the end of June, the action group wrote to Matviyenko, expressing their dissatisfaction with the governor's policy.
"Strangely enough, you don't support the people who elected you, but construction companies," they said. "LEKESTATE is in the privileged position of being allowed to break the law and damage people and the appearance of the city. Developers profit from this, but what do we get?" residents wrote.
The group received no reply from the governor. This month, the group filed a lawsuit against LEKESTATE, but was told by Malaya Okhta court officials that the case would not be heard until at least Sept. 23 because all judges are on vacation, Kuratova said.
"It is obvious that they [LEKESTATE] started work so they could later say to the court that they had invested so much already that it doesn't make sense to halt construction," she said.
Among other things, LEKESTATE has allegedly falsified documents on public hearings on the project that officially took place in June 2001. Almost half of the residents named in the documents are either fictional or live far from the construction site, Kuratova said.
Apart from the project on Granitnaya Ulitsa, the company plans to construct four other residential buildings in the green areas close to Zanevsky Prospekt and has received permits from City Hall to do so, Kuratova said.
Last month the city prosecutor's office said it would file its own lawsuit over the project on Granitnaya Ulitsa, but the promise has not been fulfilled, she added.
"This question is in the control of the city prosecutor's office," Yury Smirnov, head of the prosecutor's office department that oversees implementation of the law and order, said July 30 in a letter to the residents.
On Wednesday, Smirnov said he had no more information on the matter.
Residents may still stop construction if they go to court, he said.
"If they can prove the law was broken, they can win," Smirnov said. "It has already happened a couple of times in the city when construction was stopped by the court. It was done for trade pavilions on Bolshoi Prospekt for instance."
TITLE: Court Rejects Sutyagin Appeal
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld Igor Sutyagin's conviction to 15 years in prison on espionage charges in a case that human rights advocates called a miscarriage of justice and part of an FSB campaign to intimidate academics.
A Moscow City Court jury found Sutyagin, an arms control researcher at the respected USA and Canada Institute, guilty of treason in April for selling information on nuclear submarines and missile warning systems to a British company that the Federal Security Service, or FSB, claimed was a CIA cover.
Sutyagin maintained that he drew his information from publicly available sources such as news reports, and that he had no reason to believe that the British company was linked to U.S. intelligence.
Defense lawyers appealed to the Supreme Court that the judge and jury had been replaced for no good reason after the trial had begun and that the new judge, Marina Komarova, had misdirected jurors by telling them to ignore the nonclassified nature of the information Sutyagin had passed on. The lawyers also said the prosecution's witnesses had misguided the jury by discussing evidence that did not pertain to the case.
Sutyagin's lawyers said they would appeal to the presidium of the Supreme Court - the last possible avenue for appeal - and seek justice at the European Court of Human Rights.
But Tuesday's ruling means that Sutyagin can now be transferred to a maximum-security prison to serve out his sentence.
Sutyagin's parents, Vyacheslav and Svetlana, said the decision squashed any hope that their son might be freed soon.
"We'll have to wait for another president. It's four more years," Sutyagin's father said at the door of the courthouse, in a reference to the clout that the FSB has gained under President Vladimir Putin.
"We have no hope," said Sutyagin's mother, fighting back tears.
The Supreme Court hearing was held behind closed doors, but journalists were let in after the judge had heard arguments from defense lawyers and prosecutors and left the room to make a decision.
TITLE: More Troops Die in Ossetia
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TBILISI, Georgia - Three Georgian troops were killed overnight in one of the most intensive exchanges of fire in breakaway South Ossetia, and government forces captured a strategic area held by separatists, Georgian officials said Thursday.
Fighting has raged each night in the tiny province despite a cease fire agreement negotiated last week, and government and separatist officials have blamed each other for breaking the truce.
Georgian Defense Ministry spokeswoman Natia Chikovani said three Georgian servicemen were killed and eight wounded overnight as separatists fired at Georgian troops' positions outside ethnic Georgian villages in the province.
The latest casualties have brought the number of Georgian soldiers killed since Friday's truce to nine.
In a counterattack, government forces captured hills overlooking a strategic road and killed eight Cossack mercenaries, Georgian Interior Minister Irakly Okruashvili said.
TITLE: Starovoitova Suspect Detained in Belgium
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Law enforcement officials say they expect Belgium authorities to hand over Pavel Stekhnovsky, who is suspected of playing a role in the 1998 assassination of the State Duma Deputy Galina Starovoitova, Interfax reported Wednesday.
Stekhnovsky was detained in Belgium some time ago and is in jail waiting for a decision to extradite him to Russia, said the report, which cited the St. Petersburg FSB.
"He's one of the suspects that was involved in a technical side of the assassination," Ruslan Linkov, who was formerly Starovoitova' s assistant and who was injured during the assassination, said Wednesday in a telephone interview.
"Stekhnovsky was not one of those that fired the gun, but he participated in the organization of the assassination, according to materials gathered by investigators," he added.
According to the evidence of a witness, who cannot be named by the media, Stekhnovsky had bought the gun from the witness who needed cash. The weapon did not work properly, the evidence on www.starovoitova.ru says.
"Force had to be used to install the magazine in the machine gun. The gun sometimes jammed during firing," the witness said.
The investigators' evidence shows Stekhnovsky to be the one who bought the assassination weapon, an Agran-2000 machine-gun. He bought it some time in the summer of 1998 for $3,000, according to one witness.
Seven suspects are on trial in St. Petersburg at the moment, including Yury Kolchin, an employee of the military intelligence General Staff's Main Directorate, or GRU, at the time of the crime, Igor Lelyavin and his brother Vyacheslav, Vitaly Akishin, Igor Krasnov, Anatoly Voronin and Yury Ionov. All were born in the city of Dyadkovo in the Bryansk region.
In addition to the one for Stekhnovsky, federal arrest warrants have been issued for Sergei Musin, Oleg Fedosov and Igor Bogdanov.
TITLE: Northernmost Children's Village Opened
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: KANDALAKSHA, Murmansk region - Part of a charity project that started in 2000 came to its completion Sunday when an SOS Children's Village was formally opened in Kandalaksha in the Murmansk region.
The Norwegian Broadcasting Corp.'s annual television appeal in 2000 raised $17 million in just one day for SOS Children's Villages in Norway. The money was used to build new Children's Villages in five countries, including one in Kandalaksha, Murmansk to give orphaned and destitute children a safe and permanent home.
On Sunday, more than 150 friends of SOS Norway and the Princess Märtha Louise came to the inauguration. Among other VIP guests there were Murmansk governor Yury Yevdokimov, mayor of Kandalaksha Vitaly Golubev, and the president of SOS Russia Yelena Bruskova.
Three ribbons tethering a big balloon were cut by the princess and two sisters Katya and Zhenya, the first child residents of SOS Children's Village Kandalaksha. The children gave a concert for the guests and the princess and other guests visited the family houses.
The SOS Children's Villages are a new type of an organization in Russia with a family-based model of bringing up orphaned, destitute or abandoned children. There are 12 family houses in Kandalaksha in which children live together with 12 SOS-mothers. By the middle of 2005 each SOS family will comprise 6-7 children.
The first SOS Children's Village was built in Austria by Herman Gmeiner in 1949. There are more then 440 SOS Children's Villages in 132 countries all over the world.
The SOS Children's Village Kandalaksha is the 4th village in Russia and is the most northern in the world.
Other children's villages in Russia are located at Tomilino outside Moscow, in Lavrovo in the Oryol region, and at Pushkin near St. Petersburg.
TITLE: Collector May Return Rubens
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Moscow collector Vladimir Logvinenko, whose possession of the Rubens painting "Tarquin and Lucretia" has led to charges from German prosecutors of illegal procurement, says he may give it to Germany.
Mikhail Piotrovsky, director of St. Petersburg's State Hermitage Museum, had earlier said the painting, removed from Germany at the end of World War II, would likely end up in the Hermitage.
"Provided that Russian spectators can see the painting, I am prepared to accept reasonable conditions and a just amount of compensation to return the painting to Germany," Interfax quoted Logvinenko saying Wednesday.
"The painting will be returned only if Germany drops its criminal case against me," he added.
Russian prosecutors have said Logvinenko acquired the painting legally, he said.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: 7 Face Murder Charges
MOSCOW (SPT) - Seven suspects have been charged with being involved in the murder of Khursheda Sultanova, 9, in the center of St. Petersburg in February, Interfax reported Tuesday quoting the federal criminal police.
"Three of the suspects have been detained, four others signed declarations that they will not leave the city during the investigation," Interfax cited Yury Demidov, deputy head of the federal criminal police, as saying.
He did not say if the investigation had found any links to extremist groups.
"The investigation is proceeding," he said. "Until now the suspects are charged with hooliganism and inciting racial hatred."
Extremists Face Trial
NOVGOROD (SPT) - Novgorod law enforcers have finished investigating a criminal case of extremism initiated a year ago against three members of Russian National Unity party, Interfax reported Tuesday citing the local prosecutor's office.
A businessman, 45, and two unemployed men aged 30 and 21 face trial, but a date for the hearings has not yet been set, the report said.
The suspects are charged with setting up an extremist group and spreading extremist publications that incited hatred on the grounds of race and religion.
Long Manevich Probe
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - After seven years of investigation, the federal prosecutor's office has extended the investigation into the assassination of Mikhail Manevich, the former head of the St. Petersburg city property committee, who was killed in August 1997, until February 2005, Interfax reported Wednesday, quoting the city's branch of the FSB. The investigation has succeeded "in narrowing down significantly the circle of people that are being checked and also to receive data that proves that the assassination of M.Manevich was linked to his professional activity," Interfax cited the FSB as saying in a statement.
Manevich was killed Aug. 18, on his way to work when a sniper fired from the penthouse of a building at the intersection of Ulitsa Rubinsteina and Nevsky Prospekt.
Shtandart Draws Eyes
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Shtandart, a replica of a boat that belonged to Peter the Great, has joined the international festival Hanse Sail in Rostock, Germany, Interfax reported Wednesday, quoting the Shtandart's press-service.
The vessel, built along rare, early 18th century lines, has been a focus of media attention, the report said.
On Wednesday, Shtandart docked in Travemuende to participate in another festival, Baltic Sail.
Nord-Ost Turned Down
MOSCOW (SPT) - Georgy Vasilyev, director of musical Nord-Ost, is outraged by the refusal of the St. Petersburg Music Hall to allow the musical to be performed on its stage, Interfax reported Wednesday.
"Basically, there is an extortion going on," he was quoted as saying. "They force us to pay for any kind of sneeze, even for services that we have paid for, according to an agreement. They just twist our arms on the eve of the renewed version of the performance that is planned to take place Sept. 24."
The Moscow theater where the musical was first performed was captured by Chechen terrorists on Oct. 23, 2002, leading to the deaths of 129 spectators and the terrorists.
TITLE: Prices Surge for Olympic Mascot Toy
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Children's author Eduard Uspensky, the creator of the beloved Cheburashka character, has fired off an angry letter to the Russian Olympics Committee and a fashion retailer after Cheburashka plush toys wearing Olympics outfits hit Moscow store shelves for 50 euros (about 1,800 rubles) apiece.
Cheburashka, who resembles a teddy bear with the ears of an Indian elephant, is the official mascot of the Russian Olympic team at the 2004 Athens Games. Uspensky, who owns the Cheburashka trademark, signed a noncommercial agreement authorizing the team's use of Cheburashka's likeness.
But Uspensky said by telephone Monday that he never gave permission for anyone to profit on the use of his creation.
The controversy comes less than a week after more than 40 cartoonists demanded an apology from Uspensky and the Russian Olympic Committee for picking Cheburashka as the Olympic team's mascot without first consulting with Leonid Shvartsman, the artist who gave a face to Uspensky's literary creation.
Uspensky last week sent a withering letter to the Russian Olympic Committee and Bosco Sport, the fashion retailer behind the Olympic costume whose idea it was to use Cheburashka as a mascot, asking why the noncommercial deal had been broken.
"To our great surprise the mascot is selling in GUM, Passazh and Bosco Sport for the price of 50 euros," Uspensky wrote in the letter, which was published in Novaya Gazeta on Monday. "Why has commercialism begun? Are you perhaps collecting money as prizes for athletes or as presents for sport veterans?"
The letter goes on: "What is surprising is that the Cheburashka without a sports costume costs 300 rubles but in a sports costume costs 50 euros. Does that red T-shirt cost 1,490 rubles?"
In an interview with Gazeta newspaper last month, Uspensky said that "the Olympic committee will buy the toys and hand them out as gifts, not sell them."
Bosco di Ciliegi, the parent company of Bosco Sport, and the Russian Olympic Committee had no comment about the letter Monday and Tuesday.
Uspensky said he has yet to receive a reply.
Uspensky has vigorously defended his ownership rights to Cheburashka's name and likeness in the past. Several years ago he threatened legal action over what he said was the unauthorized use of Cheburashka in Japan, where the animal has a cult following.
Uspensky wrote the 1966 book that went on to inspire a series of popular Soviet-era animated films starring Shvartsman's depiction of Cheburashka, which could be considered Russia's answer to Mickey Mouse.
Uspensky registered a copyright to Cheburashka's name and image in 1997 that left Shvartsman out of the deal.
TITLE: Smolny to Warrant Investment Projects
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Smolny will begin allocating funds from the city budget as state guarantees on investment projects.
Legal entities with practical work experience of over three years and no city budget liabilities will be eligible for state guarantees, the city government's press service reported Tuesday.
The decision to begin providing state guarantees was reached at the government's meeting the same day.
State guarantees will be granted primarily on the investment projects aimed to improve the city's infrastructure, head of the city's financial committee Alexander Nikonov said. The investors must prove they possess funds covering at least half of the total investments, Nikonov said.
State guarantees on investment projects is an old practice that used to exist under Anatoly Sobchak, the mayor of St. Petersburg in the early 1990s, said an anonymous city investments committee source. However, the source said, it is only now that the practice of providing state guarantees will be systemized, each project following the same procedure of approvals.
The change will concern the current and upcoming big strategic projects, such as the Western Express Diameter and the new passenger marine terminal, worth hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars, for which the city does not have enough money, the source said.
The investors will have to prove that the project is a top priority for the city's infrastructure, the source said. The guarantees will be issued to both the state-owned enterprises - subject to the government anyway - and private companies, providing they are transparent, the source said.
The recommendations concerning each project will be issued at the city government's level and then passed to the city legislative assembly, commented Boris Vishnevsky, a Yabloko faction member. The guarantee funds can be reviewed either when passing the next year's budget or as an additional law to change the current budget. In the latter case, it will take at least two weeks to review the law in three readings, Vishnevsky said.
Dan Kearvell, head of Russo-British Chamber of Commerce St. Petersburg. said the procedure has the potential to provide real incentives to companies looking to invest in the city.
"Generally, this initiative ... must be seen as a positive, albeit initial, step. Figures released last week by the Federal Service of State Statistics indicate that investment Russia-wide is up by as much as 36 percent year on year, so the general trend is certainly positive," he said.
"It is also encouraging to see that the city is starting to be more pro-active in its approach to attracting foreign investment, something the Oblast has been extremely successful in doing recently," Kearvell said.
However, he added, in its current form, the proposed reforms is a framework within which many questions regarding the process of procuring the state guarantees remain unanswered.
"Both, in this initiative and generally, it is crucial that the city maintains an open and fully informative approach to its potential investors at all times, actively working both at home and abroad to promote the city's profile," Kearvell said.
Olga Litvinova, office managing partner of Ernst & Young Law in St. Petersburg, said providing state guarantees is a step that "can definitely stimulate the investors' interest in infrastructure projects."
"State guarantees can help resolve the problem of long-term loans, without which it is hardly possible to finance large projects. However, approval procedures and the necessity to include the guarantees in the budget will require much time and administrative resources from the investors," Litvinova said.
"It is unlikely that we can expect a boom in investments into the city's infrastructure projects based solely on Tuesday's decision," Litvinova added.
It will be sensible for the city to continue promoting private provision of infrastructure, or PPI partnerships, Litvinova said. Such partnerships don't ask for state guarantees, but demand strictly administrative resources from the city and are therefore not bound to any budgetary limitations.
Projects involving construction of tunnels and bridges to link the busiest highways proved to be successful in the framework of PPI partnerships in the West, Litvinova said.
TITLE: China Offers to Pay for Yukos' Fare
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - China said it would foot the bill of Yukos shipments to its oil-thirsty economy Wednesday, but investors seemed unimpressed by the announcement, letting shares in the besieged company drop 12 percent.
The shares rose insignificantly Thursday, with trading volumes remaining low in the wait of further developments.
Amid concern that Yukos will be unable to pay its bills, Russian Railways Co., RZD, said that Chinese buyers are prepared to pay for the transportation of the company's oil by rail.
"Should there be any problems with payments, the Chinese side will cover transportation expenses," Gennady Fadeyev, the head of RZD, told reporters in Moscow, news agencies reported. "All existing agreements with Yukos are still in place."
Concerns that Yukos' struggle to pay the tax claim could disrupt the country's oil exports have intensified over the past week, reportedly prompting the Chinese side to raise the issue with Russian authorities.
Officials have said that if Yukos is unable to pump and ship crude oil to China, there are no other Russian sources with which to supply the world's fastest growing economy.
However Gordeyev said that Yukos has already prepaid 700 million rubles ($24 million) for shipments to China through Sept. 10, after which China is ready to chip in if needed.
Despite the company's legal woes, Gordeyev said, Yukos is now shipping by rail some 400,000 barrels per day - more than originally planned.
But even with one headache temporarily off the agenda, investors still gave Yukos' near future a gloomy rating.
Yukos shares plunged Wednesday, forcing the MICEX to halt trading of the company's shares twice during the day. Yukos lost 12.11 percent on the MICEX Wednesday closing at 107.22 rubles. On the RTS, Yukos shares closed at $3.75, down 11.76 percent. The drop came after the Moscow Arbitration Court on Tuesday rejected Yukos' attempt to cover part of a $3.4 billion bill with its stakes in Sibneft and its petition to postpone collection of the claim.
Yukos is on the verge of bankruptcy, its managers have warned. In addition to the 2000 bill, it faces a similar charge for 2001.
The company posted negative net assets of $2.1 billion as a result of growing liabilities in the first half of 2004, which analysts say could indicate the company is ready to file for bankruptcy.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Finns Get a Go Ahead
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The federal anti-monopoly service or FAS approved the request of Finnish Fortum Power and Heat Oy to buy an additional 8.94 percent of stock in the energy provider Lenenergo, which would make their stake in the company about 30 percent, FAS press release said.
The Finnish energy group noted earlier that after increasing its stake in Lenenergo its total investment in the company stock will reach 150 million euros.
The major Lenenergo shareholder is the Russian energy giant UES with 49 percent of total stock, while foreign investors hold about 40 percent of the stock.
Gas Stations Sale
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Faeton Invest, a part of the Faeton group, is selling nine of its gas fuel stations, Delovoi Peterburg reported Wednesday.
The stations will be sold as a single deal, with five stations located in the city and four in the Leningrad Oblast. The stations cost 1 million euros each plus 10 percent for the share package.
The sale of the stations is tied to their low gas fuel sale volumes, said the company head Sergei Snopok. "The daily gas turn-over on the stations put up for sale is under 15,000 liters. That's too low for gas stations that are a part of a large company," he said.
The company's competition has taken time out to ponder the deal, Delovoi Peterburg reported.
City Block Dealt Out
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - City Hall will hand over the rights to develop a city block on Priazhka river in the Admiralteisky district to the international group Dussmann in the fall, Delovoi Peterburg reported Wednesday.
The business daily said that the project is set to start in autumn, and it will be the first such project in St. Petersburg.
The Priazhka block accounts for 104 houses, many of which were built in the 18th and 19th century and have not been renovated since.
"The agreement was made between Dussmann, the city housing committee and the city property management committee. No funds from the city budget will be allocated for the development, with Dussmann investing $2 million during the first two years," the Admiralteisky district head Yunis Lukmanov told Delovoi Peterburg.
Disclosure Postponed
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia has decided to put off the long-awaited disclosure of data on reserves of platinum group metals, PGMs, and diamonds, which are currently a state secret, the Natural Resources Ministry said Tuesday.
" This is not so much the decision of the Natural Resources Ministry but of the various coordination committees representing relevant ministries," said Rinat Gizatulin, a ministry spokesman.
The law allowing disclosure of data on private PGM stocks, production and trade became officially effective in February.
But President Vladimir Putin still has to sign a separate decree amending the list of state secrets, after which the Ministries of Economic Development and Trade, Natural Resources and Finance are to amend their own lists of secrets and authorize disclosure.
Gizatulin said data on gold reserves had been dropped from the ministry's latest secrets list.
TITLE: Georgia's Long, Hot Summer
TEXT: TBILISI, Georgia - Not long ago, the people of Georgia launched a bold and uncertain experiment. After years of decline and chronic lawlessness, they stood up last fall to defend their democracy in what has since been called the "Rose Revolution."
At the time, a chorus of regional voices predicted Georgia's rapid demise, claiming that liberal values and democratic principles could never take root in the Caucasus, and that soon Georgia would collapse under the weight of entrenched corruption, poor governance and regional separatism. Despite the tragic violence in South Ossetia recently, the people of Georgia will continue to prove the pundits wrong. A review of the current situation explains why.
South Ossetian separatists last week attacked and killed several Georgian servicemen. They died while trying to maintain peace in the South Ossetia region of Georgia, a small but integral area of our country where a separatist war raged 12 years ago and is now in the midst of a humanitarian crisis.
Ironically, the impetus behind this reckless wave of aggression has its roots in Georgia's very success. After assuming the presidency of Georgia late last year, I made it a priority to reunite our country and clamp down on corruption and the rampant smuggling activity that destabilized the entire state and contributed to its economic free fall. The first step in Georgia's peaceful reunification came this May. Courageous activists in the Black Sea region of Adzharia forced out a local dictator who for years outlawed political pluralism and free media, undermined efforts to hold democratic elections, and threatened to secede from Georgia. Afraid to face the people he once terrorized, Adzharia's former dictator fled to Moscow, where hard-liners generously offered him safe haven.
With the Adzharia example in mind, it is no wonder that the separatist regime in South Ossetia, which has thrived for so many years off criminality, now finds itself uncomfortable with Georgia's democratic success.
Because the Georgian government recently introduced robust measures that significantly reduced the amount of smuggling to and from South Ossetia, the de facto leadership in this lawless region saw their income threatened and have resorted to violence. Georgian servicemen were killed in order to provoke a confrontation that they hope will undermine Georgia's credibility and standing in the international community.
For millennia, Georgia has prided itself on being a multi-ethnic, open-minded society. Ethnic and religious tolerance has always been a central component of our identity. As evidence of this - even as separatist activity and tensions brought on by the South Ossetians continue to mount - the government of Georgia has maintained its policy of resettling refugees from all ethnic backgrounds and religions from Russia back to Georgia. We have continued to do this even under difficult political circumstances.
Unfortunately, the attitude of South Ossetian authorities and certain elements within the Russian government have brought the situation to the brink of a major armed conflict. While Georgia has gone to great lengths not to respond to dangerous provocations, I have also made it clear that the security of our people is my highest priority and we will defend our citizens from aggression. But it is because Georgia wants to solve this issue through peaceful dialogue that I am calling upon Washington, Brussels and the entire international community to take a more active role in defusing tensions in South Ossetia.
How exactly can the international community help find a peaceful solution through political dialogue? A good start would be an active role for the international community - specifically the United States, European Union and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe - in high-level negotiations among the parties directly involved.
This dialogue should center on the following three issues. The first is the demilitarization of South Ossetia. Paramilitary groups and arms deliveries from Russia have played a major role in the escalation of tensions. Therefore, an international peacekeeping operation that is balanced and takes into consideration Georgia's Euro-Atlantic partners should be mandated in South Ossetia to provide security for the population and ensure the conditions for political negotiations toward a lasting settlement. This is the only realistic way of achieving a lasting peace in the region.
Just as urgently, we must substantially broaden the existing international observer mission's mandate in South Ossetia - particularly by the OSCE. Until now the OSCE monitoring mission has been limited to only six monitors. It has also suffered from Russian efforts to keep OSCE observers out of the northern zone of South Ossetia. That's where almost all of the arms, drugs and other contraband enters South Ossetia from Russia through the only road link into the region - the Roksky tunnel.
So, third, this is why it is imperative to establish a joint Georgian-Russian customs and border checkpoint at the Roksky tunnel to ensure that foreign fighters, illegal weapons and contraband do not enter South Ossetia. Russia has continued to balk at the establishment of such a checkpoint even though it acknowledges that South Ossetia is indeed part of Georgia's territory.
The Georgian government has a clear position. The international community should play a key role in helping to resolve this crisis by taking a hands-on approach.
Georgia has close cultural links and a common history with Russia. We have warm relations with our Russian partners that we hope to enhance. We have reached initial progress in our joint efforts to combat international terrorism. I want to continue to have a productive working relationship with Moscow but when it comes to defending our citizens, there is a distinct line representing protection of democratic values and territorial integrity that needs to be respected.
Waging peace is full of risks but we will continue to press ahead with reuniting the country through political empowerment, spreading the values of liberal democracy and promoting a common market in the Caucasus as a precondition for integration into European security and economic structures.
Despite the current tensions and blatant provocations, I remain fully committed to resolving the South Ossetia issue through peaceful means only. To help with this task, I call upon the international community - because it shares my total commitment for a peaceful solution through political dialogue - to take concrete steps to help ensure that such a process takes place. Anything less risks a further escalation of tensions that can derail Georgia's young democracy and destabilize the entire region.
Mikheil Saakashvili is the president of Georgia. This comment is reprinted from Tuesday's edition of The Wall Street Journal.
TITLE: Remove the Beam From Your Eye Before Tackling Brother
TEXT: While accusing the Baltic States of practicing double standards in their interpretations of their relations with the Soviet Union, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov showed his own double standard when answering questions relating to contemporary politics last weekend.
Ivanov suggested the United States should hold an international conference "that would gather all sides of the conflict" to silence the guns in Iraq. Sitting next to his U.S. counterpart Donald Rumsfeld at a news conference in St. Petersburg, he said "Russia has been offering this idea for quite a while and now this idea is more up to date than it ever has been."
His words appeared to me to be outright impudence considering the way Ivanov and President Vladimir Putin have been dealing with the Chechen problem since 1999.
The idea itself sounds reasonable, but for the defense minister to make such a suggestion in the light of what is happening in southern Russia it looks like a cruel joke.
For five years in a row, the Kremlin has failed to understand that its policy on the rebel republic is leading nowhere, with numerous terrorist acts, large-scale rebel raids and a mine war against the military causing more casualties every day. The rebels have captured weapons from federal troops and have conducted operations in towns of neighboring regions.
The Kremlin keeps painting a rosy picture of these events, trying to convince the world and itself that everything is going to be just fine in Chechnya. Its policy has primarily been to demonstrate limitless support for the allies of former Chechen president Akhmad Kadyrov, who was killed on May 9.
By the way, who killed Kadyrov? It sounds very strange that he was assassinated when he was supposed to be so popular in the breakaway republic that 80 percent of eligible voters supported the Kremlin-backed candidate with an official turnout of 87.7 percent or 499,325 people.
Let's imagine for a moment that there was no fraud in the presidential elections in Chechnya, no attempts to stuff ballot boxes at polling stations, no threats to people who didn't want to participate in the elections. Even if all this were true, there are still about 70,000 eligible voters who did not come to the polling stations and many of whom might be hiding in the mountains waiting for the moment when they can detonate another shell under a truck carrying Russian soldiers.
And that is only if we believe official statistics. If we don't, the number of such people could easily be much greater, probably two or three times more than the numbers the Kremlin offers.
For some time, Russian and international politicians have tried to convince the Kremlin that the only solution to the conflict that has raged on and off for more than 10 years would be an international conference with the participation of all those involved in the war.
But Putin and all his servants appear to be under some kind of mass hypnosis, repeating again and again that "negotiations with terrorists are unacceptable." The Kremlin keeps ignoring the problem so well that national television coverage of Chechnya, fully controlled by the state, has already started resembling television programs that are intended to help children go to bed and fall asleep.
This Tuesday, I couldn't believe my eyes watching a report on an initiative by a Chechen official to give 10,000 rubles ($340) to each family that named their child Akhmad if it was born next Monday, the birthday of former leader Kadyrov. Chechen Prime Minister Sergei Abramov said he is ready to call his child Akhmad if it is born that day.
If may sound a bit insane, but don't go mad - it is not the right time yet, because there are even more interesting things planned before Aug. 29 the eve of the upcoming presidential elections in Chechnya.
On Monday, each kindergarten in Chechnya will receive 10 bicycles, and each child born that day would get 5,000 rubles ($170). In Gudermes, a bronze statue of Kadyrov will be erected and streets and avenues in Chechen villages will be named after Kadyrov.
A street in Moscow will also be named after Kadyrov. This move looks reasonable, of course, taking into account the amount of financial and verbal support the Kremlin has spent to back its candidate in September's elections.
In these conditions, Ivanov is sufficiently brave to suggest that the United States run an international conference for Iraq!
I bet Rumsfeld, who was beside Ivanov when he said it, and the American journalists listening to the defense minister's words, thought at that moment: "What the hell is this guy talking about?"
But this guy has no shame.
Ivanov has been named as one of the most likely successors to Putin in presidential elections in 2008. For this reason I suggest the leaders of Western states get prepared to face a policy of double standards developing in Russia in the near future.
TITLE: scissor sisters make the cut
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Russia may still be seen as a haven for burnt-out Western rockers, but the arrival of Scissor Sisters, New York's latest music sensation and, as the New Musical Express puts it, "the coolest band on the face of the planet," is a step in the right direction. Fronted by the frenetic duo of singer/dancers Jake Shears and Ana Matronic, the flamboyant disco-rock quintet made its Russian debut with an upbeat open-air show at Moscow's Hermitage Gardens on Saturday.
Although this witty, eccentric band draws from pop music of the late 1970s and early 1980s, with David Bowie, Elton John, Blondie, Roxy Music and many others resonating in its instantly catchy songs, it is not a retro affair - it is fresh and infectious.
In the early evening before the concert, Scissor Sisters' instrumental force, guitarist Del Marquis, bassist/keyboardist/producer Babydaddy and drummer Paddy Boom, sat with The St. Petersburg Times at the Marriott Tverskaya Hotel.
"There are no really good pop bands right now in music, like people who write well-crafted songs, intelligible lyrics, somewhat challenging but still very universal, that can be played on radio or in a dance club," Marquis said.
"If you're pop now, you're a figurehead, and there's machine behind you creating everything that you are, or you are an angry rocker, and there's just so much in between, and I think that in the 1970s and the 1980s bands wrote amazing pop singles. They designed their own image, everything that you associate with them came from the band. And I think we're harking back to that a little bit. We're not afraid of writing a pop tune, but we're in control of that all."
When the embryonic Scissor Sisters emerged as a trio in late 2001, it was pretty much a reaction to the depressing, post-9/11 atmosphere in New York.
"It was the notion in the air especially in New York, where a lot of rights were being taken away at that point, and a lot of dance culture and large clubs were being shut down ... Everybody had a negative outlook and skepticism," Marquis said.
"I think it was a reaction by a lot of the younger people in the city to do something fun and find a reason to celebrate living there and being young, embracing your own culture and getting together.
"That's when 'electroclash' was born, and it's just happened to be the right stage for the early Scissor Sisters. From that point we've obviously grown into a much more accomplished band, with more traditional, straightforward pop and rock songs as well as dance. But we never lose sight of the original idea which is that there is enough fun to be had in music, and to make pop and dance not a dirty word."
Mischievously, Scissor Sisters, whose logo is scissors with woman's legs clad in stockings and high-heeled shoes, took its name from a gay slang term for a lesbian sex technique. "It means lesbian... when two women bump," explained Marquis, accompanying his words with a gesture of two open scissors colliding.
"That's the guilty pleasure for a pop band like ours. There are little subversive messages that go on undetected, because the music is so easy to take in."
According to Marquis, most of the band's songs were written in the studio at the point of recording them.
"Jake is the lyricist, he constantly writes in his diary, from totally unintelligible nonsense to very straightforward stories," he said. "And Babydaddy is there as the Svengali, just working it all in, and then everybody comes and puts their parts down. And we take that and turn it into something entirely different live, because there is no point in replicating the album. You want to give somebody something different if they have the album.
"I think the challenge has been that we are constantly touring, and there's a lack of a studio, so the process of songwriting has to change somewhat for us."
Scissor Sisters first broke through early last year with the B-side of its first single, "Electrobix," which was an almost unrecognizable disco cover of the dark, drug-themed "Comfortably Numb" from Pink Floyd's 1979 high-concept album "The Wall," complete with Shears' Bee Gees-like falsetto. "[Jake]was always a fan, he reinterpreted it and started to sing it in a way that recalled disco and the Bee Gees," Marquis said.
"I thought there's almost a dual meaning, another way to interpret the song. To me it's almost the same thing for a new audience. The original song talks about heroin addiction and losing yourself, and that was [also true for] dance culture and a different drug - people throwing their lives away."
Babydaddy denies any ironic intention in covering the 1970s rock monsters but admits to a touch of dark humor.
"I don't think we have any grand concept of irony; it's not something we really want to push, but there's an element of humor in what we do, and I think that in that song you can't deny that it's sort of a humorous take on a track like that," he said.
"We do have a lot of respect for the original, for us it makes sense, but there's a sort of silliness to the way it was reinterpreted. You know, disco is a little bit silly at times."
The band spent around two years working on its eponymous debut, released this year. "We were building as a band during that time," Babydaddy said.
"'Comfortably Numb' and 'Laura' started pretty developed, just when it was me and Jake but we kept building and the things just kept coming, so the album is really a collection of songs from all the different stages of our growth. [It has] everything up till now, [but] we're still growing."
Though Scissor Sisters is often seen as a gay band, its members do not subscribe to the notion; Paddy Boom points out that he is straight - "Just for the stupid record."
"It's not a question of disowning our sexuality. I mean it's quite the opposite, we came out right away. We're totally honest about it, because we didn't want that to be a marketing tool," Marquis said.
"I think we just thought that was the best way to go about it, especially right now. In our mind, in England and the States this is the time and place to have a band that is honest about what they are instead of playing with ideas about people's sexuality, like tATu, kissing each other and say 'We're this,' when they are not that at all. I think it's just to cause a controversy, and ... that's not how we want to cause a controversy, because we see nothing different about it."
Scissor Sisters' "Scissor Sisters" out on Universal Music Russia.
Links: www.scissorsisters.com
TITLE: cartoonist wins rights to his creation
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: After almost a year of legal battles St. Petersburg cartoonist Oleg Kuvayev, creator of once highly-popular cyber cartoon girl Masyanya, has successfully secured the copyright of the character. Kuvayev and his studio Mult.ru, which runs a website of the same name, where all cartoons can be viewed, are now in full control of his brainchild.
Masyanya, often referred to as Russia's answer to America's "Beavis and Butthead," gained instant and overwhelming attenion across Russia after she first appeared in the public eye in October 2001.
Masyanya, who sports a wide smile revealing a single tooth on her melon-shaped face, was the most quoted, mimed, mentioned, watched and discussed character in Russia and a media sensation.
During the 2002, the web site where her antics could be viewd won five of 22 prizes at the prestigious National Internet Awards, including the Grand Prix "Breakthrough of the Year."
In March 2002, Kuvayev handed the right to use the already booming image of Masyanya to the Moscow-based limited liability company "Masyanya," which had offered distribution and promotion services to the artist.
But less than one year later, this company leased the rights to another firm, the limited liability company "Alvins," leaving Kuvayev withiout any control over his creation.
Kuvayev refrains from speaking directly to reporters and published an official statement instead on his website, www.mult.ru.
"Without the artist's participation or even knowledge, there emerged a horrendous number of clones, not even remotely fitting her style or concept," reads the statement.
Having lost the copyright, Kuvayev did not receive a ruble in rolyalties from the widespead commercial use of Masyanya, who appeared in puppet, radio and print versions all over the country. Then, in February 2003, Kuvayev's Mult.ru studio was forced to suspend work owing to a financial near-collapse as the artist never received royalties for advertisements published on the website as well as for his project with NTV television to show weekly premieres of new cartoons. The now-defunct popular weekly Sunday evening news analysis program "Namedni" broadcast the cartoons, which were later relased on videotapes.
Kuvayev initiated a court case to reestablish his copyright over the foul-mouthed character and the Savyolovsky inter-municipal court has now finally confirmed his rights.
"Therefore, as of now, any commercial use of Masyanya's image by anyone, without settling the issue with Oleg Kuvayev, is illegal," reads Kuvayev's statement.
TITLE: chernov's choice
TEXT: St. Petersburg and Moscow are rivals, no doubt, but even if the former claims it has better bands, it doesn't always win the big gigs. A local promoter said he had declined the offer to promote the Scissor Sisters' show in St. Petersburg due to the fact that now is a "dead season." This did not prevent hundreds of Muscovites watching the band's exciting open-air show even on an autumnal, cold and rainy night. See article, this page.
Anyway, the local club scene seems to be recovering after hot summer days and showing signs of life.
The underground rock venue Orlandina owned by Caravan, a shop which trades in records and all kinds of rock paraphernalia, will return on Friday and be open every night, while the punk band Korol i Shut's club Stary Dom reopened for a few days this week only to go away again - it aims to be fully fuctional again from Sept. 3.
There is also a new name on the club scene - Jah'mbala, the reggae bar-cum-club operated by the local veteran band Reggaestan (formerly known as the Street Boys). It will open at 7 p.m. on Friday.
The address is 80 Bolshoi Prospekt (Vasilyevsky Ostrov) and it is located in the Senator Business Center.
Call 332-1077 or 322-6705 for more information (however, both numbers were not active as this paper went to press). The band also promises to announce the club's events on its web site at www.reggaestan.ru.
Jah'mbala claims to be the only reggae bar in the city, because Popugai, the first local attempt at a reggae bar, bombed due to its commercial nature and the lack of soul.
But the most talked-about new club is Platforma, which will officially open on 40 Ulitsa Nekrasova on Sept. 4. Though rumor has it that the venue is an extension of Moscow's O.G.I. famed network of clubs, Nikolai Okhotin, Platforma's founder, art director and co-owner, said that the new place is linked to O.G.I. only indirectly.
"It is only being done by the same crew that did the Moscow club Project O.G.I.," said Okhotin. "There is no direct, formal connection."
The multi-genre club will include a concert hall and a book store. Literature readings, film screenings and theater performances are also planned.
"Musically, it's like what used to happen at O.G.I. in Moscow, it's any style of music," Okhotin said.
"The only criterion is its novelty and interest for our public - the intellectual and humanitarian community," he added.
For details, call 110-6303.
The reggae theme will be continued at the Rock 'n' Reggae Open Air Festival at Molodyozhny Theater. Though headlined by the German pop band Fool's Garden, the best-known act to take part is the local alt-rock band Tequilajazzz. There will be also a number of Moscow-based bands. See Gigs for the full lineup.
There is another festival this week. Called the Bike Rock Festival, it is promoted by Moscow's bike group Night Wolves, but even if has live music there are no decent bands on the bill. The 3-day event will open on the Sivoritsy airfield in Nikolskoye (the 60th kilometer of Kievskoye Shosse) at 6 p.m. on Friday. To get out theretake marshrutka No. 18 from Moskovskaya Metro station. Check www.night-wolves.spb.ru for more details.
- By Sergey Chernov
TITLE: feeling the pulse at bean restaurant
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Fasol, with its low large windows, allowing those passing by to peep in and see those eating, has been attracting our attention since ealier this summer when it opened on Gorokhovaya Ulitsa. A few steps down, through wide transparent doors (don't miss the decorative grains and pulses scattered in-between the glass surfaces - it's part of the design scheme), and a friendly greeter explains that there aren't many tables to choose from (encouragingly the place is busy on a Sunday evening). In spite of my eternal desire to sit by the window and look outside, my companion spots an "alcove" - almost an extra room with a table for four, at which we sit next to each other like schoolchildren and overlook one of Fasol's four halls with great interest, with every coming waitress being met by us as if by administrators at a reception desk in a government office or something or the kind. But in a strange reversal of the scene it isn't she who asks for a piece of good advice, or a stamp, or a signature, but vice versa.
Fasol attracts a fashionable downtown clientele, along with some foreign guests (to which the staff pays particular attention - for example, as soon as three Spanish tourists come in, music suddenly changes to flamenco), with most visitors speaking quite loudly. All four halls are smoking areas.
The whole place is decorated with modern but rustic lime-washed fittings, gray wooden panels, suspended ceilings, and it is well-lit with soft lighting. The "alcove" has three mirrors hanging from the ceiling, obviously to create an illusion of spaciousness.
Coming to a place named after a kind of crop, you expect it to be widely represented in the café's menu. This is not the case with Fasol (which means "beans" in Russian). In spite of the paper place setting, featuring the witty slogan fasol nagorokhovoi, meaning "beans on Gorokh ('pea') Street," we only found two salads containing beans, two versions of buckwheat-based dishes, and some rice dishes (even though the menu has its separate section, for "pasta and crops").
For a starter, I chose the Caesar salad with grilled prawns (170 rubles, $5.80), and my companion chose the Tuna salad with Kenyan beans, tomatoes, potatoes, lettuce and anchovies in olive-balsamic dressing (130 rubles, $4.48). While I happily enjoyed my salad (paying particular gastronomic attention to the giant prawns), my companion was slightly dissatisfied with the presence of radish in his salad, which, to his taste, had nothing to do with the rest of the ingredients. Following these light starters, my companion ordered a cold meat borshch (70 rubles, $2.40), while I decided to go straight ahead with the main course. My rastomlennaya (stewed) duck with vegetables and red bilberries (185 rubles, $6.37) came as a miserable looking, obviously over-fried duck, quite heavy and rough, with some onions and carrots. Although quite tasty on the inside, there was generally not much meat - a fact, which left me lamenting the absence of garnish. My companion chose chicken wings in a sweet and sour sauce with sesame seeds (130 rubles, $4.48) and fried potatoes with chanterelles (85 rubles, $2.90). The chicken wings also appeared to be over-fried and too sweet, and the potatoes were not that crispy and rather dull. A good thing to say about this poultry experience is that we were both offered bowls with water and a slice of lemon for washing our hands.
Maybe it was a mistake to choose both of our dishes from the so-called "dishes on frying-pan" section, and not from the "grilled dishes" one. Most main courses vary from 120 ($4.10) to 280 rubles ($9.65), with quite an unexpectedly generous selection of mushrooms, coming both as an accompaniment to the dishes and as garnishes.
Enjoying "home-made" red wine (150 ml for 70 rubles, $2.40), and a Margarita (140 rubles, $4.80), we didn't rush to dessert (ranging from 70 to 90 rubles, $2.40 to $3.10), especially since our waitress was not hurrying us. In the end, we decided on cheesecake with raspberry sauce which comes warm and fresh, and a highly recommended "poppy parfait" - a frozen mixture of ice-cream, cream and poppy seeds with a sweet mint sauce.
Such a sweet ending had a remarkable coda - while eating at Fasol, we missed two heavy rains and were exposed to the wet brightness of rainbow over Canal Griboyedov.
Fasol, 17 Gorokhovaya Ulitsa. Tel. 117-0907. www.fasolcafe.ru. Open daily through midnight (kitchen closes at 11.30 p.m.). Menu in Russian and English. Visa and Mastercard accepted. Dinner for two with alcohol 1335 rubles ($46).
TITLE: shostakovich: dissident or loyalist?
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A major U.S. music festival stirs up old debates about a Soviet composer's true musical identity
Leon Trotsky once wrote that anyone with a hankering for the quiet life had made a mistake to be born in the 20th century. For some public figures who made that mistake, the 21st century has been no more tranquil.
One such person is Dmitry Shostakovich, whose life and output have once again become the subject of heated debate in anticipation of his centennial in 2006. It's a debate that began at the height of the Cold War and that is marked to this day with the cultural deceptions, false impressions and hidden agendas of those times. This week the Bard Music Festival (BMF) in upstate New York is re-airing those tensions with a three-week program of concerts and talks as the polarized American musical community tries to get to the heart of the composer's identity. Was Shostakovich a Soviet loyalist or a dissident in disguise? What is written between his music's lines?
Throughout the composer's life and for half a decade after his death in 1975, Western musicians thought they knew the answer, accepting the official line that Shostakovich was a faithful Soviet citizen and interpreting his music accordingly. Then, in 1979, a text purporting to be the composer's dictated memoirs that had been smuggled out of the Soviet Union was published in the West - written by a young musicologist named Solomon Volkov, who emigrated shortly thereafter.
In Volkov's "Testimony," we read that Shostakovich suffered under the communist dictatorship and that he deliberately reflected his revulsion toward Josef Stalin's brutal regime in his compositions, turning them into a musical commentary on the events he witnessed. "Testimony" portrays Shostakovich as a silent dissident, and not a communist marionette or Stalinist servant, as he had regularly been depicted in the Soviet and U.S. media.
This came as no news to Russian musical audiences, who had long detected an underlying dissidence in Shostakovich's music: "the contrapuntal commentary of an outraged humanity," as British music historian and journalist Norman Lebrecht wrote in a recent commentary. And the idea of a silenced genius fit in well with Cold War cultural politics. While party-line Soviet music historians hurriedly dismissed "Testimony" as a forgery, American musicologists such as the eminent Richard Taruskin took up its cause, greeting the memoirs as a sign of a new era in Shostakovich studies.
The book did usher in a new era, but its consequences were mixed. In 1980, the young musicologist Laurel Fay took the side of the Soviet establishment, dismissing the memoirs as a fake. Substantial passages of the memoirs had already appeared under Shostakovich's name in other Soviet publications long before Volkov's interviews with the composer took place, Fay pointed out. Many, including Taruskin, were swayed to her side.
Clashes between the revisionists and the counter-revisionists have been escalating ever since, with Taruskin, Fay and others insisting at various points that the composer was "perhaps Soviet Russia's most loyal musical son," "a wuss," and "a mediocre human being" who "toadied and cringed before his Soviet bosses," and Volkov supporters Allan B. Ho and Dmitry Feofanov making a case for the authenticity of "Testimony" in their 1998 book, "Shostakovich Reconsidered." Volkov, for his part, remained silent all these years, speaking out only once, at a 1999 conference at Mannes College of Music in New York, to call "Testimony" "an absolutely honest book."
Over the past year, however, the controversy exploded again with a new book by Volkov and two collections of essays by members of the Fay camp. And on July 28, the BMF heralded its upcoming retrospective, "Shostakovich and His World," with the East Coast premiere of the composer's opera "The Nose." The three-week program of music and lectures features works by Shostakovich both glorifying Stalin and reflecting the tragedies of life under the Soviet regime, and Taruskin and Fay, among others, are scheduled to speak.
In her new collection, "A Shostakovich Casebook," Fay, who declined to answer questions for this article citing "several unfortunate experiences with interviewers," continues making her point that "Testimony" is not an authentic memoir.
"The problem with the memoirs is whether or not Shostakovich actually answered for them, and [after Fay's research] that case has now been solved," Caryl Emerson, chair of the Slavic department at Princeton University and a panelist at the festival, said in a telephone interview. The memoirs "are a good, interesting work by a knowledgeable music historian, but they are not the memoirs of Shostakovich. It was a book advertised under Shostakovich's name but not authorized by him. It was a marketing procedure in which American publishers were all too eager to cooperate."
Nevertheless, Emerson acknowledges, the publication of "Testimony" was an important event, if only because it varied the one-dimensional way in which Shostakovich had been viewed in both the East and the West.
"There is no question even for those who doubt the authenticity of the memoirs that many of the opinions expressed there were legitimate opinions of both Shostakovich and the generation of the Russian intelligentsia to which he belonged," she said. "The West was also a victim of the Soviet propaganda machine. Shostakovich was presented to us as a great communist composer, as he was presented to his own people. Yet surely he was, as are all geniuses, much more complex. It's important that the message got out, but the format [of 'Testimony'] has been exposed now for what it is."
The dichotomy of artist as official spokesman and as private conscience of the era was a reality of life for creative people under Stalin. Shostakovich often proclaimed in his speeches his allegiance to the Soviet regime, and in 1973, he signed a letter denouncing Andrei Sakharov, the renowned physicist who had spoken out for human rights. Still, on his desk he kept a photograph of Gavril Glikman's painting portraying himself and Sergei Prokofiev in prisoner's clothes carrying a bucket to be used as a toilet. Though he had never been imprisoned, Shostakovich believed that this was the true representation of his life in the Soviet Union.
"People who didn't live through the Soviet time have a problem identifying with the way of life in the Soviet Union, its nuances and specificity," pianist and conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy, who wrote the foreword to the 25th-anniversary edition of "Testimony" published earlier this year, said in a recent telephone interview. "Inevitably, this leads to superficial conclusions about Shostakovich's life and music.
"Shostakovich is often blamed for his conformism and cowardice," Ashkenazy continued. "The irony is that if he hadn't played those conformist games, then we wouldn't be able today to discuss much of his work, simply because he could have easily ended his life in one of the labor camps."
Speaking by telephone from New York, Volkov declined to talk about "Testimony" but did make an argument that the Western attitude toward Shostakovich has largely been influenced by current musical fashion. "Statements about Shostakovich being Stalin's servant are vestiges of the negative attitude toward him as a composer," he said. "In America, he was considered a traditionalist in his use of the means of expression, a conformist. Today, however, it's no longer the deadliest sin to write in traditional form, since the time of avant-garde dictatorship has passed. Only now, there gradually comes the understanding that Shostakovich is a great musical figure."
Still, the controversy rages on, with the BMF as its latest episode. According to Emerson, the Princeton professor, the debate has a larger purpose. "Occasionally, there are controversies that are important not so much for the questions they resolve, but the questions they raise," she said. "Both of our countries have terrible reflexes to overcome, and Shostakovich is, for better or worse, a very good focus for this."
Once again, Shostakovich and his music have become a unifying force. He would have appreciated the irony.
TITLE: reliving the life of a doomed tsar
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A special exhibition devoted to Paul I, Russia's most ambiguous tsar, opened in Manezh on Wednesday, marking 250 years since the monarch's birth. It is the first major display of artwork, documents, books and clothes put together to mark Paul's life (1754-1801) and has been put together from various collections, including those at the royal palaces of Pavlovsk and Gatchina, the Artillery Museum, Moscow's Tretyakov Gallery, and the State Russian Museum, as well as a number of libraries and archives.
The image of Pavel, as he is known in Russian, the most criticized and ridiculed of all the Russian tsars both during the Imperial and Soviet eras and a figure hardly known outside of Russia, is surrounded in a veil of myth. A son of Catherine the Great and Peter III (although there are rumors concerning who else Paul's father could have been, given the vast number of Catherine's lovers), during the first years of his life he was largely oppressed by his domineering mother, and greatly shocked by the assassination of his father in 1761 by supporters of Catherine who then became empress. This Russian Hamlet, as Paul has been called by historians (inspiring a contemporary ballet of that name by Boris Eifman), upon accession to the thrown in 1796, pursued inconsequential and willful policies, driven by his own messianism. Adoring the Prussian Kaiser Friedrich, Pavel was obsessed with order. He introduced Prussian-like wigs, uniforms, drills and customs of order and obedience to the army, and tried to militarize all of Russian society.
Paul's foreign policy was driven mainly by his emotions - during the first years of his reign he strongly opposed republican France and Napoleon in particular, even creating an anti-French coalition (Russia, Austria, Prussia), which resulted in General Suvorov driving Napoleon's forces out of Italy. This campaign is rumored to have been largely financed by the British. Later, however, having become disappointed in his former allies, Paul teamed up with France to create an anti-English coalition, planning a joint march to India together with Napoleon. That's why Napoleon was said to be deeply saddened by Paul's subsquent assassination.
Pavel also championed a spiritual renaissance in Russia and preached unification between Russia's Orthodox Church and the Vatican, another doomed policy. Supporting the Knights of Malta, Paul led the order and even brought its headquarters to St. Petersburg. Some say he also brought freemasonry to Russia, but others say he fought against it.
During his short reign, just five years until 1801, Paul managed to antagonize almost every social layer of Russian society: the army, the nobility, and the clergy. It is no surprise then, that a plot to assassinate him was successful. Paul was murdered in the Mikhailvosky Castle, which he had built for himself shortly before, and, according to a legend, had lived on just the number of days which equaled the number of letters in the greeting engraved upon it's entrance. His son, Alexander, the future tsar Alexander I, was said to have indirectly participated in the conspiracy, or at least to have known about it.
Not one policy initiated by Paul was continued by any of his successors, and his name has remained in history mainly as a synonym of pathetic indulgence, famous more for the myths around him than for his deeds.
The exhibition at the Manezh, however, demonstrates a balanced approach towards Paul I, presenting his era with material artifacts, without rehearsing rumors or legends. A visitor can see Paul, his family and famous noblemen in the pictures of 18th and 19th century painters, read Paul's letters (including the one to Marie Antoinette and other European monarchs), examine the plans of the Mikhailovsky Castle, Pavlovsk, and Gatchina palaces and parks, and inspect his clothes and arms. Fine engravings, table sets, clocks, examples of interior design, portraits of friends and assassins all help build a picture of the luckless tsar. There are also two documentary films being shown every day at the exhibition. Unfortunately for foreign visitors, all of the materials and films are in Russian only.
"Emperor Pavel the First" (Paul I) through Sept. 22 at the Manezh exhibition hall, 1. St. Isaac's Square. Open daily except Thursday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
TITLE: barbershop festival brings cheer
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The light-hearted harmonies of barbershop singing can once again be heard in St. Petersburg this week as the Fifth International Festival "Barbershop Harmony" kicks off on Aug. 19th at the Glazunov Hall of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, featuring performances by American and Russian quartets and choirs.
Running through Monday Aug. 23, the event, where barbershop singers will perform their special narative songs a cappella at a number of venues, including the St. Petersburg State Cappella (Aug. 21, 6 p.m.), the Pink Pavilion in Pavlovsk (Aug. 22, 4 p.m.), the Sheremetev Palace (Aug. 21, 7 p.m.) and the St. Petersburg State Musical Comedy Theater (Aug. 23, 7 p.m.).
This year's participants hail from a wide area - from the United States to Rostov-on-Don in Southern Russia, and even Yakutia. Traditionally, the festival introduces an array of American choirs and groups. This time, look for "Voices of the South" (Alabama), female quartet "Ms. Behavin" (Colorado), quartet "Vocal Spectrum" (Missouri) and female quartet "Escapade" (Florida).
Joining them will be the female quartet "Summer Time" from Petrozavodsk, the "Chorus Quartet" from Perm, the quartet "The Shining Faces" from Rostov-on-Don, "Nota Bene" from St. Petersburg and "Skai" from Yakutsk.
The Siberian singers all have a classical background in the Yakutsk Opera and Ballet Theater - and count among the newly converted to barbershop singing. "We have been rehearsing for several months only," said the group's leading tenor Stanislav Ivanov. "I fell in love with barbershop on a recent trip to the United States, and upon my return I've infected my colleagues with the barbershop bug."
Barbershop singing emerged in 16th century England as a way for men waiting for shaves and haircuts to amuse themselves, becoming a sort of ad hoc street art, and enjoyed great popularity until the end of the 18th century.
In the early 20th century, there was a tremendous barbershop renaissance in the United States, as English immigrants introduced the style to their new home country. Interestingly, barbershop as a performing style was initially associated in New England with quartets of black musicians from southern states. In the 19th century white singers sometimes sang Negro songs in "blackface."
New England nurtured barbershop traditions well, even establishing a Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America in 1938. The organization's acronym, SPEBSQSA, is, in fact, a mockery of the sort of multi-letter abbreviations which were often used for American state institutions of the period.
Now the association, whose first meeting gathered only 26 people boasts 34,225 members, making it the world's largest alliance of amateur performers. Aside from Canada and the United States, there are also SPEBSQSA branches in Great Britain, Australia, Germany, New Zealand, South Africa, Sweden, the Netherlands and other countries. The barbershop festival in St. Petersburg brings together American singers and Russian performers.
Why do Russians like barbershop singing? Alexander Nikitin, a professor with the Magnitogorsk Conservatory and artistic director of "Solovushki Magnikti" (The Nightingales of Magnitka) quartet, believes the magnetism of barbershop is in the combination of vocal and performing arts. "The incorporation of spontaneous choreographic elements into the singing performance should, in fact, be very appealing to the Russians: as a Russian popular wisdom has it, a song needs to be played," Nikitin said. "Thinking about that, I always wondered, why on earth do most Russian singers perform with such deadly dull and serious expressions in their faces."
No dull faces, certainly, will be expected at the Barbershop Harmony Festival. With all its diversity, this art doesn't even hint at boredom.
TITLE: the word's worth
TEXT: Áðàòü ãðåõ íà äóøó: to commit a sin
TITLE: Abuse 'Blamed on Lower Ranks'
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON - Two dozen people will be blamed by an Army investigation into the abuse of inmates at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, says a senior defense official.
The official, who spoke Wednesday on condition of anonymity, provided no details of the report. Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, would say only that the report was nearing completion.
However, The New York Times reported the inquiry found no evidence of direct blame above the rank of the colonel who commanded the military intelligence unit at the prison.
Photos of the prisoner abuse, which included beatings and sexual humiliation, created a worldwide scandal when they were published in April.
The Times reported in Thursday's editions that the inquiry found that senior American commanders created conditions that allowed abuses to occur at the prison because they failed to provide leadership and sufficient resources.
The report also will cite military medical personnel who saw or learned of abuse when treating injured detainees but failed to report it up the chain of command, the Times said.
Senior officers in Baghdad and in Washington were not found to have played a role in ordering or allowing the abuse, according to the Times report of the inquiry.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Aziz Wins Bi-Elections
FATEH JANG, Pakistan (AP) - Pakistan's finance minister took an important step toward becoming the new prime minister by easily winning two bi-elections that give him a seat in parliament that is a prerequisite for the post, state-run television reported Thursday. Opposition groups said the vote was rigged.
President Pervez Musharraf made Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz the prime minister-designate after Zafarullah Khan Jamali stepped down in June, but Aziz needed to win a seat in the lower house of parliament before he could take the premiership.
Aziz, a former Citibank executive and International Monetary Fund official, is largely credited with getting Pakistan's economy back on track after international sanctions were imposed in 1998 in reaction to Islamabad's testing of nuclear missiles.
Fears of More Killings
BUJUMBURA/UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - UN peacekeepers are scrambling to avoid new bloodshed in the volatile Great Lakes region of Africa following a massacre of Congolese refugees in western Burundi, the United Nations said on Wednesday.
African leaders meeting in Dar es Salaam declared the Hutu extremist rebel group that claimed responsibility for last Friday's massacre of more than 160 Tutsi Congolese refugees a terrorist organization but failed to impose sanctions.
Rebuke for Sharon
JERUSALEM (AP) - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's own party handed him a stinging rebuke, banning him from adding the moderate Labor Party to his government to bolster a Gaza pullout plan-a move that endangered the proposed withdrawal.
The vote at a Likud Party convention Wednesday was not close with 60 percent in favor of banning Labor. The opposition party's inclusion was needed to assure Cabinet support of the Gaza withdrawal next year.
Seoul Party Boss Quits
SEOUL (Reuters) - The chairman of South Korea's ruling Uri Party resigned Thursday after saying his father had served as a military police officer during Japan's 1910-1945 colonial rule on the peninsula.
Shin Ki-nam became the first, and unexpected, casualty of President Roh Moo-hyun's call for a broad inquiry looking back to who may have benefited from working with Korea's Japanese colonial rulers and also with South Korea's military governments.
Darfur Unease Widens
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The U.S. government says it is "concerned" by information provided by Amnesty International, which says Sudanese authorities have arrested civilians who spoke to foreign officials visiting the troubled Darfur region.
"The U.S. government is concerned by the allegations, and we strongly promote protections for the freedom of speech around the world," said deputy State Department spokesman Adam Ereli.
He said the department had received a copy of the Amnesty International report, which alleges that Darfurians who discussed the situation in Darfur with foreigners were subsequently imprisoned and subject to harassment.
TITLE: Germany's Riders Win, Lose, Win
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ATHENS - On the road to gold, they jumped over more hurdles and obstacles than their high-performance steeds.
Germany's riders won the gold medal Wednesday in the grueling three-day event - but not before losing it, and then winning it back, in a bizarre flurry of judging decisions and reversals.
The United States, Britain and France - the three teams caught in the middle of the judges' indecision - vowed to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, hoping to reverse a dramatic turnabout that for a fleeting moment gave the U.S. team the bronze in horsemanship's equivalent of the decathlon.
It was a day of confusion that seemed out of place in equestrian, a sport known for its elegance, poise and politesse. First, the judges gave Germany the gold and France the silver, while Britain took bronze.
But the same officials, concerned that Germany's Bettina Hoy might have crossed the start line twice on the show jumping course, decided to probe further.
The judges then decided to dock Germany 14 points, dropping it from first place to fourth with 147.8 points in a decision that lifted the United States to third and the bronze.
Germany then lodged a protest, an equestrian appeals committee reversed the decision of the judges - and the Germans reclaimed their gold. Once again, France was awarded the silver and Britain the bronze. The United States was left empty-handed.
"The ground jury itself realized there had been irregularities and decided to investigate what had happened," Hugh Thomas of Britain, an appeals committee member, said late Wednesday.
The United States fell out of medal contention when Kim Severson rolled the top plank off the last jump in the show-jumping phase of the team event.
TITLE: OLYMPIC DIARY
TEXT: FENCING - There was blood on the carpet in the Olympic fencing hall Thursday as Frenchman Damien Touya had his right hand sliced open during the climax of the men's sabre team semifinal against the United States.
With the score level at 44-44, Touya and Keeth Smart lunged simultaneously. The American's saber cut through the webbing around the knuckles of the Frenchman's glove.
The blade emerged through his palm, leaving Touya in considerable pain. After a 10-minute time-out, he bravely pulled on his glove and after two further simultaneous attacks that kept the scores tied, he finally produced the hit that sent his team into the final against Italy. (Reuters)
BASKETBALL - Russia held Brazil 40 points below its scoring average in the women's tournament, leaving Australia the only unbeaten team in Group A.
Anna Arkhipova scored 20 points, including a jumper with 37 seconds left that ended Brazil's final rally, for Russia. Maria Stepanova added 15 points and nine rebounds for Russia, which took a 46-28 halftime lead only to see Brazil get as close as five points with four minutes to play.
Australia leads Group A at 3-0, Brazil and Russia are 2-1, Greece and Japan 1-2 and Nigeria 0-3.
The U.S. and Spain lead the Group B standings with 3-0 records while the Czech Republic, China and New Zealand are 1-2 and South Korea 0-3. (AP)
BOXING - For just one evening, Najah Ali felt 10 feet tall and unbeatable.
Iraq's only Olympic boxer added another triumph to his war-torn nation's unexpected success at the Olympics on Wednesday, beating North Korea's Kwak Hyok Ju 21-7 to advance to the second round in the light flyweight bracket.
Ali, the games' smallest fighter at 1.5 meters and 48 kilograms, outslugged his taller opponent from the start, peppering the Korean with jabs and combinations. With his nation's flag on his chest and his American coach's chosen slogan - "Iraq Is Back" - across his back, Ali punched, feinted and danced across the ring for four impressive rounds.
When it was over, Ali pumped his fist over his head and jumped for joy while a handful of flag-waving Iraq fans screamed and chanted his name. After the fight, Ali received several kisses from Maurice "Termite" Watkins, a Texan who went to Iraq last year to provide pest control for the U.S. Army - and wound up coaching 21 Iraqi fighters. (AP)
WEEKEND HIGHLIGHTS
Trampolining - After winning the inaugural trampolining Olympic titles in Sydney, Russians Alexander Moskalenko and Irina Karavayeva will be leaping under new rules at the Athens Games, putting them under extra pressure.
To make the sport more televisual, the compulsory routines have been replaced with a second voluntary routine and critics believe this could lead to the downfall of the two champions.
The Russian duo built their somersaulting routines around the compulsory skills but since the changes were introduced, they have been upstaged by the imaginative displays from many of their rivals.
Ukrainian Yury Nikitin will fancy his chances for the men's crown on Saturday, with Germany's Henrik Stehlik and Alexander Rusakov of Russia as his main challengers.
In the women's field, surprise world champion Karen Cockburn and Olena Movchan of Ukraine will be out to steal Karavayeva's crown on Friday.
There are 16 men and women competing for the events. (Reuters)
SOCCER - Unless Italy recaptures a title it last won 68 years ago, the Olympic Games will crown a new soccer champion in Athens on Aug. 28. Just like Atlanta in 1996 and Sydney in 2000.
Seven of the eight quarterfinalists have never won the gold medal, Argentina being a two-time runner up. None of the others have even made the final of a competition first played in 1908 - 22 years before the first World Cup.
To the satisfaction of the organizers and world governing body FIFA, the quarterfinal list is a true global spread.
Although South America has two survivors (Argentina and Paraguay) there is one team from Europe (Italy), one from Africa (Mali), one from Central America (Costa Rica), one from Oceania (Australia) one from the Far East (South Korea) and one from the Middle East (Iraq).
The matchups are Mali vs. Italy; Argentina vs. Costa Rica; Iraq vs. Australia; and Paraguay vs. Korea.
That sets up the possibility of a meeting between soccer powerhouses Argentina and Italy in one semifinal. Iraq, continuing its amazing success story in international soccer, has avoided them both and has a much easier route to the final. If it beats Australia, it faces either Paraguay or South Korea in the other semi. (AP)