LOCAL NEWS

GOVERNOR'S SON EYES VTB POST

Sergei Matviyenko, son of Governor Valentina Matviyenko will soon be appointed to a top post at the St. Petersburg office of Vneshtorgbank, the second biggest financial institution in the Northwest region, local media reported this week.

They said he will be senior vice president responsible for information technology, the same post he holds at Bank Sankt Peterburg.

RIGHTS GROUP MEMORIAL MAKES GULAG MUSEUM CD

A electronic collection of materials about the Soviet gulag is being created by researchers from the St. Petersburg branch of human rights group Memorial and Germany's Konrad Adenauer Foundation and put on compact disc.

TOUR RECALLS THE LENINGRAD OF PRESIDENT PUTIN'S CHILDHOOD

This is the house where President Vladimir Putin lived in his childhood," says St. Petersburg guide Kirill pointing at an old, five-story yellow building at 12 Baskov Pereulok.

The building differs little from other houses in the historical center of Russia's cultural capital where the president was born 52 years ago in a city that was then called Leningrad and part of the Soviet Union.

IN BRIEF

Baltic Claim Plea

TALLINN (SPT) - The Baltic States should join forces to claim financial compensation from Russia for the period that Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia were occupied by the Soviet Union, Interfax quoted Toomas Hendrik Ilves, deputy head of the European parliament commission for foreign affairs, as saying Wednesday.

NATIONAL NEWS

ZHIRINOVSKY CALLED TO STAROVOITOVA TRIAL

Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the nationalist LDPR party, has been called to appear as a defense witness in the trial of seven people accused of assassinating State Duma deputy Galina Starovoitova in 1998, Interfax reported Wednesday.

The court issued a summons for Zhirinovsky to appear next Thursday.

PATCH ADAMS BRINGS HAPPY MISSION TO CITY

U.S. doctor Patch Adams says laughter is the best medicine.

Dressed as a clown, he uses humor to heal patients around the world.

On Thursday, Adams, who was portrayed in the Hollywood movie "Patch Adams" by Robin Williams, and a team of 36 of his compatriots dressed as clowns went to the St.

LOCAL BUSINESS

YUKOS' SHARES IN SIBNEFT FROZEN

MOSCOW - A Moscow court again froze Yukos' 34.5 percent stake in Sibneft last week, the embattled oil major said Wednesday.

"It has been arrested twice before regarding investigations of tax evasion for 2000 and 2001. And those arrests have not been lifted yet," Yukos spokesman Alexander Shadrin said.

OIL IN BRIEF

LUKoil Eyes Africa

MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - LUKoil, the country's top oil producer, started drilling the first appraisal well at its Egyptian shelf field as the company plans to compete with BP and Royal Dutch/Shell Group for market share in Africa.

STATE PONDERS OIL FUND USAGE

MOSCOW - The stabilization fund, Russia's rainy-day pot of windfall oil revenues, is sitting in ruble accounts and won't be invested until year's end because of bureaucratic delays, senior finance officials said Wednesday.

Forecast to grow to 560 billion rubles ($19.

IN BRIEF

Theaters Face Tragedy

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Chief of the Theater Professionals Union said that the Smolny-proposed theater reform could destroy the city's theaters.

OPINION

Governor's Iron Fist Reaches Only So Far

Governor Valentina Matviyenko learns something new about St.

Petersburg every day. Last weekend she made an unexpected discovery

during an inspection of the Nevsky district.

I guess she was stunned when she saw the mess that most residents of the city's outskirts live in. They are drowning in piles of

rubbish that block their doorways, breaking their legs on rickety

paths across courtyards that have been in decline for years and

living in apartments that are permeated with odors caused by

damp air rising from basements filled with water.

CULTURE

DRAWING FROM MEMORY

MOSCOW - Adolf Hitler wanted him executed as soon as German forces took Moscow.

His mocking cartoons of the Soviet Union's ideological foes in the West, ordered by Josef Stalin himself, prompted angry diplomatic protests.

At 104, Boris Yefimov's eyesight is failing and he is slightly hard of hearing.

CHERNOV'S CHOICE

The Berlin-based painter Jim Avignon of the one-man techno-pop

group Neoangin says that Kid Koala, a Canadian DJ who will perform

at Tinkoff on Friday, is really great.

KLEZMERIZING

Familiar Soviet songs are likely to sound as they have never sounded before at a concert promoted by the Jewish Community Center this week.

Translated into Yiddish and supplied with Klezmer arrangements by the Moscow-based cult singer-songwriter Psoy Korolenko and his All Stars Klezmer Band, the songs will reveal what was hidden behind the Soviet culture's official facade.

Called "Un vu iz der onheyb fun Foterland," the Yiddish for "S Chego Nachinayetsya Rodina," or "What Does the Motherland Start With," after the popular Soviet song, the set features famous songs from the repertoires of such singers as Mark Bernes and Lyudmila Zykina.

HERE KITTY, KITTY

The legendary British musical "Cats," which premiered in London in 1981 and has been bounding across the globe in ever multiplying productions ever since, is finally coming to Russia.

UNSUNG INSPIRATION

Gennady Spirin's name does not appear on the cover of Madonna's most recent storybook for children, though it's as much his work as hers.

Spirin, a Russian-born artist who lives in New Jersey, illustrated scenes of Eastern Europe of the 1600s to accompany the pop star's book, "Yakov and the Seven Thieves," but his name appears only on the title page.

LOST AND FOUND

A manuscript resurfaces one century later. The autograph manuscript of Sergei Rachmaninov's Second Symphony, long thought lost, was recently discovered in the estate of a European private collector.

WORLD

IN BRIEF

Pullout From Kashmir

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced Thursday a reduction in troops in disputed Kashmir.

Singh, who will make his first trip to Kashmir next week, did not say how big the troop withdrawal would be.

CHIEF OF SOCCER FEDERATION KOLOSKOV GETS RED CARD

MOSCOW - When Vyacheslav Koloskov took over as the man in charge of the Soviet soccer empire, half of the current national team wasn't even born, and manager Georgy Yartsev was still a player.

SPORTS WATCH

Sharapova Sponsorship

LAKE SUCCESS, New York (AP) - Maria Sharapova's sponsorships keep rolling in.

The Wimbledon champion signed with Canon Inc., the Tokyo-based producer of cameras, copiers and computer printers, on Monday, following deals with phone company Motorola and perfume maker Parlux Fragrances Inc.