LOCAL NEWS

MEDIA TO GET STRICTER GUIDES

MOSCOW - The Press Ministry on Monday joined the fuss over media coverage in the aftermath of the hostage crisis and issued its version of proposed guidelines for journalists covering emergency situations.

The list of 16 "recommendations," which was posted on the ministry's Web site, covers issues from the conditions under which terrorists can be interviewed to the necessity of being "tactful" in dealing with terrorists' victims and their relatives.

LOCAL ELECTION FEVER GETS GOING

With the registration deadline passing on Friday and the media-campaigning period opening this coming Friday, the elections for the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly are ready to get into full swing.

Recommendations on Media Coverage of Emergency Situations That Endanger People's Lives (Draft)

Taking into account the mass media's desire to be on top of things in order to ensure public access to reliable information, the journalistic community considers it necessary to create a stable system of necessary steps and principles in covering emergency situations where people's lives are in danger.

NATIONAL NEWS

ZAKAYEV MULLS ASYLUM OPTION

COPENHAGEN, Denmark - A Chechen rebel envoy jailed in Denmark pending a Russian extradition request may seek political asylum, a spokesperson said Sunday.

Akhmed Zakayev, a top aide to Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov, was arrested early Wednesday and jailed until Nov.

IN BRIEF

Woodbound

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Law-enforcement agents in St. Petersburg rescued a man on Monday who had been tied to a tree in a wooded park area in the Krasnogvardsky Region, Interfax reported.

LOCAL BUSINESS

GHE PUT IN PRIVATE OWNERSHIP

The City Property Committee announced Tuesday that it was selling its 40-percent stake in Europe Hotel, the firm which owns the Grand Hotel Europe. The stake was sold to another major shareholder for around $1 million, on the condition that the company's debt, which amounts to around $60 million, be restructured.

CARRIERS FLY HIGH AMID WORLD SLUMP IN SECTOR

MOSCOW - While the global-aviation industry remains mired in a post-Sept. 11, 2001, slump, Russian carriers continue flying above the fray, enjoying unprecedented operational growth for the third year in a row.

OPINION

WHY SEPARATISM IS NOT THE SAME AS TERRORISM

WHEN terrorists seized 750 hostages in the Theater Center na Dubrovke, the world awoke, bleary-eyed, and struggled to remember the Chechens. Mini-histories of the conflict were hastily assembled to refresh our memories. These tended to emphasize a similar crisis from seven years ago: Guerrilla leader Shamil Basayev led 150 of his men into a Russian village, Budyonnovsk, where they took 1,000 hostages and blockaded themselves in a hospital.

A PYRRHIC VICTORY FOR WESTERN CIVILIZATION

PRESIDENT Vladimir Putin kept his word and wasted the terrorists. Not in the outhouse as promised, it's true, but in the orchestra pit.

The West expressed its support.

Global Eye

Into the Dark

"This age: layers of lime harden

in the sick son's blood ...

There's nowhere to run from the

tyrant-epoch ...

Who else will you kill?

Who else glorify?

What other lies will you invent?"

- Osip Mandelshtam,
"January 1, 1924"

This column stands foursquare with the Honorable Donald H.

CULTURE

REMAKING CLASSIC TUNES

Its title means "Present," it's wrapped like a present, and it is indeed a long awaited present from the St. Petersburgers behind it. Although founded in 1995, a capella vocal sextet Remake has only just released its first disc, "Podarok," on local label Bomba-Piter.

The group grew out of a students' New Year party at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory. The six members-to-be of Remake - all Conservatory students and already good friends at the time - sang their version of Russia's most popular song, "V Lesu Rodilas Yolochka" ("A Christmas Tree Born in a Forest") to great acclaim.

FESTIVAL PRODUCES ART OUT OF CHAOS

The biggest event on St. Petersburg's alternative-film calendar, the "Deboshir Film Festival - Pure Dreams," kicks off on Tuesday.

For this year's running, the festival's fifth, the four-day event has moved from Dom Kino to the Palace of Youth, or LDM - the venue that hosts the alternative music festival SKIF.

CHERNOV'S CHOICE

Leningrad's much anticipated show at Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium over the weekend never actually happened. Scheduled for Saturday, the sold-out show at the 8,000-capacity venue was canceled at short notice. Press reports have mentioned at least two possible reasons.

THE SILK ROAD TO DINING PLEASURE

So... you've eaten borshch and bliny, caviar and vodka, chicken Kiev and solyanka. You are highly familiar with the Russian stolovaya, you've sampled countless shavermy, sosiski and pirozhki from sidewalk vendors, and you've enjoyed fine dining at the city's most exclusive restaurants.

paris finds it's worth the wait(s)

The snow accumulating in the city's streets does more than indicate the onset of winter. It also signifies the end of most foreign bands' concerts in St. Petersburg, who usually come to bask in the summers' White Nights. But there is one band well-known in the city that just got its international schedule underway recently, even if it adopted the conventional tendency toward warmer climes.