LOCAL NEWS

‘BAH HUMBUG’ FROM KILLJOY ATHEISTS

MOSCOW — An ocean away, the traditional holiday debate rages: Have shopping malls and iPods taken the Christ out of Christmas?

But if you ask Alexander Nikonov, the less Christ in Christmas, the better.

“Religion divides people. The task of Soviet society was to carry out a policy that made it as improper to talk about religion as about salaries or syphilitics,” Nikonov said.

AMENDED BILL ON NGOS QUICKLY PASSED IN DUMA

MOSCOW — The State Duma on Wednesday rushed through a raft of amendments to a bill that would increase state control over nongovernmental organizations and passed it in a crucial second reading, ignoring a wave of protest from Russian and foreign NGOs.

Economic Advisor Blasts New Face ‘Corporate’ State

MOSCOW — Andrei Illarionov, President Vladimir Putin’s maverick economic adviser, blasted the government on Wednesday for imposing a “corporatist” model on Russia that distanced the authorities from the people and skewed the playing field for businesses.

“The main outcome of this year is the formulation of a new, corporatist model for political, economic, social, public and international life,” Illarionov said at a year-end briefing for reporters.

NATIONAL NEWS

COURT BACKS PUTIN OVER GOVERNORS

MOSCOW — The Constitutional Court on Wednesday backed the Kremlin in a challenge of the federal law that gives President Vladimir Putin the right to effectively appoint governors.

But the court refused to rule on complaints that the law violated the Constitution by allowing the president to disband regional legislatures and dismiss governors.

SENATORS SUPPORT COURT’S MOVE TO CITY

The Council of the Russian State Duma on Tuesday supported a proposal from the city’s Legislative Assembly to move the Russian Constitutional Court from Moscow to the Senate and Synod buildings.

Cherkesov Lauds Progress on Anti-Drug Enforcement

MOSCOW — Federal Drug Control Service chief Viktor Cherkesov on Wednesday touted his agency’s efforts to combat drugs, saying a sharp post-Soviet increase in drug users had ended due to record drug seizures by his agency.

Cherkesov told reporters that the drug seizures had pushed up the street price of heroin, the drug of choice for young people, and made it less available to new users.

LOCAL BUSINESS

DEMOGRAPHIC CRISIS MAY COST COUNTRY $400 BILLION

The Russian economy is set to lose over $390 billion in the next two decades if the government, business and society do not take immediate action to reverse the demographic catastrophe already looming, a business lobby group said in a report Wednesday.

GAZPROM BUYS ZENIT

MOSCOW — Gazprom has bought a controlling stake in FC Zenit St. Petersburg, a soccer club avidly supported by the gas giant’s chief executive, Vedomosti reported Tuesday.

IN BRIEF

Megafon Numbers

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The subscriber base of MegaFon Northwest increased 35 percent on the year to 5.4 million users this year, the commercial director of the company’s Northwest branch Nikolai Demenchuk said at a press conference Wednesday.

STUDY: $22BLN SPENT ON CARS IN ‘05

By the end of this year, Russians will have splashed out $22 billion on cars, a 22 percent increase from 2004, according to a new report published by PricewaterhouseCoopers on Wednesday.

Governor Speaks Out In Favor Of Cheaper Loans

Mortgage interest rates should be halved and the initial deposit should be decreased to 10 percent, St. Petersburg’s governor said Tuesday.

To make the national program ‘Affordable House’ “not a mere declaration but a project that improves housing supply” a mortgage should be granted not for five years but for 20 or 30 years, Interfax cited Valentina Matviyenko as saying.

OPINION

A VIRTUAL ELECTION IN A FANTASY CHECHNYA

The parliamentary elections in Chechnya orchestrated by the Kremlin on Nov. 27 were another step in President Vladimir Putin’s strategy to gain international legitimacy for his handling of Chechnya. While this may constitute a short-term victory, the elections do nothing to improve the deadlock in Chechnya and the rapidly deteriorating situation in the North Caucasus as a whole.

A PARALLEL MARCH IN A PARALLEL WORLD

What could be easier than going to a demonstration? It would seem the simplest sort of political activity: a short-term commitment with no special skills required, and it provides the added bonus of spending time outdoors with a group of like-minded individuals.

CULTURE

A WINTER’S TALE

A century after his birth, the music of Shostakovich is the focus of this year’s Arts Square Winter Festival.

With the great love Russians have for anniversaries, the nation’s classical concert halls are hardly likely to be short of music by Dmitry Shostakovich, who would have reached the age of 100 next year.

THE RETURN OF DECADANCE

Once one of the most fashionable house clubs around, Decadance is back on the city’s clubbing map after two year’s absence and is ready to promote what its founders regard as the “right system of show business.

THE WORD’S WORTH

Now that Russian law gives its hard-working citizens a long holiday between Jan. 1 and Orthodox Christmas on Jan. 7, how about a train trip? But before you go, it’s a good idea to master some of the lingo. Dictionaries aren’t much help with slang and the alphabet soup of railway abbreviations.

IN KHARMS’ WAY

The Russian author Daniil Kharms was born a hundred years ago.

Centenary celebrations for absurdist author Daniil Kharms in St. Petersburg this year have come to a head in the last two weeks leading up to the 100th anniversary of the date of his birth on Dec.

ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE

Swiss video installations on show at the Hermitage Museum’s education center.

The National Center for Contemporary Art has brought a little love from Alpine Switzerland to wintry St. Petersburg with a video installation project called Love.com.

The Russian organizer of the event, Maria Korosteleva, said that Love.

LOOKING BOTH WAYS

What a phenomenon Edvard Radzinsky is. His new biography of Tsar Alexander II was on George W. Bush’s summer reading list this year; the author suggested in an interview that the U.

SPORT

BERTUZZI TO PLAY FOR CANADA IN OLYMPICS

TORONTO — Rookie sensation Sidney Crosby was left off Canada’s Olympic hockey team while controversial forward Todd Bertuzzi was selected to make the trip to Turin as the defending gold medallists unveiled their Winter Games lineup on Wednesday.

Suspended for 17 months for a brutal on-ice attack that left Colorado Avalanche’s Steve Moore with a broken neck, Bertuzzi’s inclusion on the Olympic squad was one of the few mild surprises as Canada opted for a mostly experienced lineup to defend the title it won in Salt Lake City.

EIGHT-YEAR DOPING BAN FOR ’05 FRENCH OPEN FINALIST

LONDON — The tennis career of Argentina’s Mariano Puerta lay in tatters on Wednesday after he was banned for a record eight years after a positive drugs test.