LOCAL NEWS

LAWMAKER HELD ON KICKBACK CHARGE

The St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly was the scene of charges of political prosecution on Wednesday, following the Tuesday arrest of Union of Right Forces (SPS) lawmaker Alexei Kovalyov. The City Prosecutor's Office has charged Kovalyov with misappropriation of government funds, maintaining that he organized a kickback scheme to bilk the city budget of 2 billion rubles ($390,000) in 1996.

DEPUTIES WANT TO OUTLAW HOMOSEXUALITY

A group of lawmakers - including Russia's main representative to the Council of Europe - say they have begun a campaign to shore up the morals of the country by recriminalizing homosexuality.

NATIONAL NEWS

INTERIOR MINISTRY ANNOUNCES CHECKS ON FOREIGNERS

MOSCOW - Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov said Wednesday that authorities would begin keeping tabs on all foreigners who enter the country in an effort to crack down on illegal immigration.

Gryzlov said police would soon conduct a thorough check of all foreigners "to determine whether they are living in our country legally," Interfax quoted him as saying.

IN BRIEF

Krotov Faces Charges

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The Northwest Region Prosecutor's Office has initiated a criminal case against Vice Governor Victor Krotov, who is the head of the City Hall financial committee, on charges of abuse of office, Interfax reported on Thursday.

LOCAL BUSINESS

BANKERS CITE SECTOR'S PROBLEMS

MOSCOW - If the 12th annual meeting of the National Banking Association accomplished anything Wednesday, it was to send the clear message that the banking sector is in no less of a precarious position than at the time of the 1998 financial crisis.

Meeting under the cloud of the biggest bank failure since the crisis, the nation's top bankers gathered to compare notes and discuss the path Kremlin-mandated reforms should take.

GOVERNMENT TO LAUNCH REGIONAL LOANS SCHEME

MOSCOW - In an effort to boost the efficiency of its borrowings, the government will award a World Bank loan to regions on a competitive basis.

The new method will be tested through a $120 million regional fiscal-reform loan that Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Khristenko and World Bank acting country director Richard Clifford signed into force this week.

ANTIMONOPOLY MINISTRY TO INVESTIGATE GAZ

MOSCOW - The Antimonopoly Ministry will investigate Gorky Auto Plant, or GAZ, next month, and claims that the No. 2 carmaker is illegally holding back production of its Volga model to boost its price, a ministry official said Thursday.

The company is "cutting sales while hiking prices of goods whose quality is getting worse - that's a violation of Antimonopoly legislation," said Gennady Gudkov, the head of the ministry's representative office in Nizhny Novgorod.

SBERBANK FACING SHAREHOLDER BID

MOSCOW - Foreign shareholders in No. 1 bank Sberbank have approached United Financial Group about issuing level 1 American depositary receipts, with or without Sberbank's cooperation, the investment house said Thursday.

OPINION

RUSSOPHOBIA STILL RAMPANT

EVERY country has two histories: one written by the country itself, the other by its neighbors. The amount that has been written about Russia by Western authors is quite astounding. Such literary luminaries as Diderot, Stendhal, Balzac, Merimee, Casanova, Alexandre Dumas pere, H.

THESE AREN'T THE GOOD OLD DAYS

NOSTALGIA can be a powerful sentiment, especially in a country where a large number of people can't help but feel that, at least from an economic standpoint, their lives were better before.

A Closer Look At Reactions To Skinheads

THE big story in the Russian press last week was the "skinhead threat." Top law-enforcement officials spoke of little else. The president even mentioned the dangers of extremism in his state of the nation address.

Russians who grew up in the Soviet era find it extremely hard to react to all this in a rational manner.

CULTURE

PROVIDING MUSIC FOR THE HEAD

English band Songdog is not your typical pop act - its Web site says that it is "Schopenhauer's favorite band."

Further, the band was formed when its members were in their late 30s, its frontman used to be an award-winning playwright and he also readily affirms that he believes that pop music is an art form.

Quite a happy choice for the sixth Sergei Kuryokhin International Festival, or SKIF6, which happens this week and specializes in all kinds of off-the-wall music and concepts.

FINLAND'S FULL OF FESTIVALS

As everybody knows, St. Petersburg historically has been very closely connected to Finland. It is entirely logical, then, that the Finnish Consulate should seek to promote its summer progam of festivals to the city's residents.

CHERNOV'S CHOICE

Sergei Shnurov had only one thing to say - and that was in English - during his eagerly anticipated guest appearance at the Fuzz Awards ceremony-cum-concert last week.

"F**k you very much," was the only comment from the frontman of Leningrad, the band that Shnurov put on hold in February.

DELIVERY CULTURE REACHES PITER

A place has reached a certain level of culture when good food is readily available in elegant surroundings for reasonable prices, and St. Petersburg long ago achieved this status.

REPIN CAUSES A DUTCH SENSATION

Russia's greatest oil painter, Ilya Repin, has been causing quite a stir in the Netherlands. Fifty of his paintings and thirty-five sketches were on display until earlier this month in Groningen, which shares with St. Petersburg the epithet "The Northern Capital.

CAPTURING A "RUSSIA PHASE"

Though the details of "Leaving Katya" are unique, my first thought on closing Paul Greenberg's tightly woven novel was "This is my experience of Russia.

WORLD

SPORTS WATCH

Zenit Makes Final

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Andrei Arshavin saw Zenit into the Russian Cup final on an extra-time golden goal against Saturn Ramenskoye on Wednesday.

Arshavin settled the game nine minutes into extra time with a drilled shot from 15 meters that flew past Saturn goalkeeper Valery Chizhov.