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FRID AY, SE P T E M B E R 3 , 2010
C E N T R A L B A N K R AT E
Festival For The Dream Factory
Lucky Escape On Ligovsky
Mother Of Four Jailed
Open Cinema Festival returns to city. Page 5
No casualties in collapse of building. Page 3
Jail term for pregnant woman. Page 12
LG In Pirated Software Probe By Alexandra Odynova T H E S T. P E T E R S B U R G T I M E S
MOSCOW — Police have opened a software piracy investigation into the Russian branch of LG Electronics, in the first anti-piracy case against a major foreign company. Pirated software is widely used in companies and homes across the country, and the LG investigation, triggered by an anonymous tip, could carry serious implications if expanded beyond the South Korean firm. “For the first time in Russian legal practice, a criminal case over counterfeit software has been opened against a big foreign company,” the Interior Ministry’s economic crimes department said Wednesday in a statement. The statement did not identify the company. But the Business Software Alliance, a global intellectual property rights watchdog, confirmed that it was LG. The Russian branch of the Business Software Alliance asked police to check LG’s computers after receiving an anonymous letter last year that the company was using pirated software, said Anna Petrova, a legal expert with the alliance. “We sent a warning to the company, asking it to provide us with the licenses for the programs, but didn’t hear back,” Petrova said in a telephone interview. She said pirated software included Adobe and Corel, graphic design programs whose makers are part of the alliance. Police raided LG’s Moscow office on Nov. 30 but only announced that they had opened an investigation Wednesday. LG, a leading global producer of consumer electronics like televisions, cell phones and vacuum cleaners, confirmed that police investigators had searched its office on Nov. 30, but denied that any software was pirated. “All the software used by the company is licensed,” company spokeswoman Anna Fedotovskikh told The St. Petersburg Times, adding that it was corporate policy to only use licensed software. Petrova stressed that the investigation involved the software that LG used at the time of the raid, not today. Police posted footage on YouTube of officers with blurred-out faces checking computers in LG’s offices and two dozen hard drives stacked in a hallway. Police said they seized 44 hard drives and 17 laptops with allegedly pirated software used by the company’s 60 employees in the raid. The software was worth more than 2 million rubles ($65,000), they said. No one has been charged with wrongdoing. Charges for using pirated software in a company carry a punishment of up to five years in prison or a fine of up to 500,000 rubles ($16,250). See PIRACY, Page 2
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Dozens Arrested at Latest Strategy 31 Demos By Sergey Chernov S TA F F W R I T E R
Despite Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s warning, hundreds more people than ever before took part in the banned pro-constitution demos in Moscow and St. Petersburg that are part of the Strategy 31 campaign started on July 31, 2009. Attempting to disperse the meetings, the police arrested scores of people in Moscow and St. Petersburg, but there was no repeat of the beatings that marred the July 31 demo in St. Petersburg.
Despite the police’s efforts, the protests in Russia’s two main cities lasted longer than before. In St. Petersburg, where last month’s rally was dispersed within 40 minutes, the Tuesday event lasted over two hours. Many ordinary people joined the activists this time, Strategy 31 leaders said. In St. Petersburg, the OMON riot police in bulletproof vests and black helmets charged into the crowd pushing and detaining people, but another group of protesters quickly formed up
on the site near Gostiny Dvor metro to carry on shouting slogans such “Russia Will Be Free,” “Constitution” and “You Won’t Intimidate Us.” The police officers shouted into megaphones declaring the rally “illegal” and ordering people to disperse, but at one point a protester with a megaphone retorted that it was the police’s actions that were illegal, as they were violating Article 31 of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to assembly, and the law on the police.
One protester climbed on a kiosk and addressed the public using a megaphone, citing Article 31 of the Constitution, which guarantees “citizens the right to assemble peacefully, without weapons,” and shouting slogans such as “We Want a Russia Without Putin” and inviting the police to join the demonstrators. It took some time and effort for the police to drag him down from the kiosk and carry him to a police bus. See 31, Page 2
SERGEY CHERNOV/SPT
A police officer climbs onto a kiosk by Gostiny Dvor on Tuesday to detain a protester using a megaphone to proclaim his constitutional right to assembly.
Prime Minister Opposes Deripaska’s Dividend By Irina Filatova T H E S T. P E T E R S B U R G T I M E S
MOSCOW — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin dipped a careful toe into the heated and high-stakes battle for control of Russia’s largest miner on Tuesday, telling Norilsk Nickel’s warring shareholders during a visit to the plant that it paid unusually high dividends last year. The comments supported the position of billionaire Vladimir Potanin’s Interros, which fought off a proposal by rival owner United Company RusAl to pay 115 percent of last year’s profit in dividends. “Following the year’s results, a decision was made to pay a dividend: It represented — attention — 50 percent
of income,” Putin told management at a meeting in Norilsk, according to the government’s web site. To drive home the point, Putin rattled off a list of other global miners’ dividends. Swiss-based Xstrata paid 7.6 percent of its net income, Britain and Australia’s Rio Tinto offered shareholders 18 percent. Australia’s BHP Billiton paid out 38.2 percent of profit, and Kazakhmys paid 6.6 percent, he said. Putin reiterated that he was reluctant to get involved in the owners’ dispute, which has been simmering since RusAl became a Norilsk shareholder in 2008. But the prime minister has repeatedly said Potanin and RusAl CEO Oleg Deripaska must settle their spat
amicably to prevent harming the strategic company. He also ordered the mining company to do more for the heavily polluted city of Norilsk and asked it to submit ideas for taxes on nickel and copper exports, which were eliminated in 2008. The company’s shares closed down 1.7 percent in Moscow, worse than the MICEX Index’s loss of 0.1 percent on the day. RusAl and Interros, which both own stakes of at least 25 percent in Norilsk, have made progress in resolving their dispute over the past week, Putin said. The prime minister had planned to visit the company last week but was
forced to postpone the trip because heavy fog prevented his plane from landing. “At my request, the company’s shareholders, management and the government have worked together on the company’s complicated problems over this week, and it seems to me that there’s a certain movement forward,” Putin said without elaborating. Both RusAl and Interros declined to comment on the issue. But in a sign that tensions remain, Deripaska’s plane was initially denied permission to land in Norilsk late Monday. The local airport is owned by Norilsk Nickel. See PM, Page 2
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Continued from Page 1 In a bizarre twist, a firefighter truck, an OMON anti-bomb unit and an ambulance arrived at the scene some 80 minutes into the event, while the police blocked a large part of the site on Nevsky Prospekt, St. Petersburg’s main street, announcing that the metro was closed “on technical grounds.” Later, it was announced that the metro had been closed because of a terrorist threat. Activists estimate the number of participants of the Gostiny Dvor demo at around 1,000, 72 of whom were detained at various points during the event and taken in six buses to six different police precincts in the city’s outskirts. Most of them were charged with violation of the law on public events and failing to obey police orders, although they were released several hours later, some after midnight. Two to three hundred took part in a separate pro-constitution event held by Solidarity, the United Civil Front and the St. Petersburg Civil Rights Council on the Palace Square, just over a kilometer from the Gostiny Dvor site. Local Solidarity leader Olga Kurnosova, who was detained on Palace Square, said 300 to 400 people took part, bearing posters and shouting slogans. Twelve were detained there. They face the same charges as the demonstrators detained near Gostiny Dvor.
PIRACY
Continued from Page 1 The police regularly report cracking down on pirates distributing disks with counterfeit software, films and music, but this week’s raid marks the first time that a big company has been checked. “I can’t recall any similar criminal cases against an international company in Russia or similar police searches,” said Petrova of the Business Software Alliance. She said big international companies usually install licensed products. Sixty-seven percent of the country’s software was unlicensed in 2009, down from 68 percent the previous year, according to a report by International Data Corp. and Business Software Alliance released in May. Police have regularly raided small and medium-sized Russian business in a hunt for pirated software, and the LG case could lead to bigger companies being targeted, said Yana Yakovleva, head of Business Solidarity, a group
N The St. Petersburg police’s spokesman said he was “not ready” to comment on Tuesday’s demos when called Thursday. Matvei Krylov, an activist with Strategy 31 in Moscow who was on the movement’s hotline Thursday, said 2,000 to 3,000 took part in the Moscow rally, 103 were detained, including author and oppositional politician Eduard Limonov and Solidarity leader and former deputy prime minister Boris Nemtsov. The Moscow police said that there were only 400 people at the demo, most of them journalists. The Russian police are known for routinely underestimating the number of participants in protest rallies.
Smaller Strategy 31 rallies were held in 50 cities across Rusia and in cities abroad. Smaller rallies were held in 50 Russian cities. Events demonstrating solidarity with Strategy 31 were held in New York, London, Tel Aviv, Berlin, Helsinki and Kiev. For related article, see page 2. Police in Moscow were instructed to take Putin’s words in a Kommersant interview on Monday that the demonstrators should be beaten on their heads with truncheons if they dare to rally without a permit as a “figure of speech,” Ekho Moskvy editor Alexei that defends the rights of entrepreneurs. “Now that they have targeted a big international company, that will give them the opportunity to create a legal precedent for further actions,” Yakovleva said. She said the raids paralyze a business, and police are indiscriminate in seizing computers. She said several business owners had told her that police confiscate computers regardless of whether they hold licenses for the software, paralyzing work for a week or even longer. She said business owners sometimes have to pay bribes to reach settlements with the police. Despite the Kremlin’s promises to protect intellectual property rights, President Dmitry Medvedev himself set a dubious example by owning an iPhone long before the cell phone could legally be used on local networks. Poor enforcement of anti-piracy laws is a key hurdle blocking Russia from gaining membership in the World Trade Organization, and ef-
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Venediktov told Kommersant Thursday. Venediktov is a member of Moscow City Police Public Council. Nevertheless, four members of the European Parliament who were present at the rally in Moscow were shocked by the spectacle of how the Russian authorities treated the demonstrators. “This is an amazing way of dealing with democracy, shocking,” Thijs Berman, a Dutch member of the European Parliament’s human rights subcommittee, told The Associated Press. Meanwhile, a previously unidentified police officer on video hitting a young man across his face with a truncheon for no apparent reason during last month’s demo has been identified by the victim, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement Wednesday. A criminal case has been opened against the officer. The officer was identified as Vadim Boiko, 35, a patrol officer. The statement said Boiko had no sufficient grounds to beat Dmitry Semyonov with a truncheon and was declared a suspect officially. Boiko was asked to give a written promise not to leave the city and behave properly. However, an internal investigation launched by the St. Petersburg Department for Internal Affairs (GUVD) early last month yielded no results when completed on Thursday. Disciplinary violations on the part of the police officers employed for the protection of public order near Gostiny Dvor on July 31 were not found, the GUVD said in a statement. forts to clamp down on pirated software have been halfhearted at best. In addition to the occasional raids on shops selling pirated discs, law enforcement officials have used allegations of pirated software as a pretext to crack down on oppositionminded media outlets like Novaya Gazeta and nongovernmental groups like the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society. In January, police confiscated several computers in a search for unlicensed software at the office of Baikal Wave, a Siberian environmental organization that criticized a government plan to reopen a pulp plant on Lake Baikal. A Perm court last fall ordered the government to pay 250,000 rubles ($8,000) in damages to a village schoolteacher for falsely accusing him of using pirated Windows software. The teacher maintained his innocence, saying the software had been installed on computers when they were delivered by a subcontractor and that he had not known it was pirated.
РЕКЛАМА
City to Launch Own TV Channel T H E S T. P E T E R S B U R G T I M E S
A new TV channel, 100-percent owned by the City Administration and titled “St. Petersburg” will begin its broadcasting on Oct. 10. Yuri Zinchuk, the channel’s general director said that the channel will focus on the city’s social issues with an emphasis being placed on informative programming. Zinchuk said the channel “won’t have Smolny’s [the City Administration’s] glamor”, the Vedomosti daily newspaper reported. The channel is being operated by TKT, which will broadcast St. Petersburg on its cable network. The network links up 1.3 to 1.4 million households in the city. In its preliminary phase the broadcasting will not be large, but there are plans for programming to develop to 24-hour coverage in the future, Zinchuk said. Financing of the new channel from the city budget from September through December will amount to 60 million rubles ($1.95 million), he said.
Well-Known Emigres Rally At Foreign Demonstrations By Alexander Bratersky T H E S T. P E T E R S B U R G T I M E S
MOSCOW — The opposition’s attempts to stage rallies in Moscow and St. Petersburg got an unexpected boost this week when Russian emigrants took to the streets in several world capitals to express their solidarity. The 31st rallies, which took place in London, Berlin, New York and Tel Aviv, attracted only a handful of people, but some well-known emigres were spotted among the protesters. The London rally outside the Russian Embassy was the biggest of the four, attracting 10 participants, including Boris Berezovsky, the self-exiled tycoon once considered the Kremlin’s “gray cardinal” and instrumental in bringing Vladimir Putin to the presidency in 2000. Berezovsky carried a handmade poster reading, “I gave you life, I will also cut you short,” an apparently deliberate misquote of the famous line from Nikolai Gogol’s
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Continued from Page 1 Just an hour before his flight, Deripaska received a telegram from the airport’s director saying the airport had not cleared the landing, offering no explanation, RusAl said late Monday. “Deripaska’s jet was cleared to land in Norilsk due to the public attention and intervention of the governmental bodies,” RusAl said in a statement. Airport officials denied the accusations. Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, who oversees industry in the government, reiterated on Tuesday that the state does not plan to buy Interros or RusAl out of Norilsk. The government will not intervene in the dispute, he said, unless it begins to hurt the city of Norilsk, which depends almost exclusively on the nickel mine.
19th-century masterpiece “Taras Bulba,” where Gogol wrote, “I gave you life, I will also kill you.” Berezovsky was joined by Soviet-era dissident Vladimir Bukovsky and Yevgeny Chichvarkin, former owner of the Yevroset mobile phone retailer who is wanted in Russia on extortion charges but says he is the victim of corrupt police trying to seize his business. Also attending was Marina Litvinenko, widow of former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko who sided with Berezovsky against Putin in the early 2000s and died of radiation poisoning in London in 2006. Britain has unsuccessfully attempted to arrest a Russian businessman turned State Duma deputy on murder charges in the case. Pavel Khodorkovsky, son of jailed former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky, took part in the New York rally, the opposition site Kasparov.ru reported. “The main shareholders will reconcile their positions. We don’t interfere in corporate processes. That’s the shareholders’ business,” Sechin said, Interfax reported. He also said he “hadn’t thought” about having a third major shareholder enter Norilsk. Alisher Usmanov’s Metalloinvest bought up close to 5 percent of the company in 2008 ahead of a possible merger, but it has since said it does not plan to boost its stake further. Meanwhile, both Deripaska and Potanin said Tuesday that they saw no need for a third big owner at Norilsk, the world’s largest producer of nickel and palladium. “To make it even more fun?” Potanin asked reporters, following a question about the possibility of a third big shareholder. Potanin also reiterated his readiness to buy out RusAl’s stake in Norilsk.
Heat, Hurricane Push Up Prices By Irina Titova T H E S T. P E T E R S B U R G T I M E S
A number of regions in the European section of Russia are now facing shortages in eggs that will in turn lead to significant price increases. The shortages are largely the result of the exceptionally high temperatures experienced over the summer and the hurricane that hit the Leningrad Oblast in August, Interfax reported. According to St. Petersburg’s Economic Development, Industry and Trade Committee, the price of eggs in St. Petersburg rose by 9.4 percent over the last week, giving a total price rise of 10.2 percent between July 26 and Aug. 30. The press service of the northwestern branch of X5 Retail Group, which runs the Pyatyorochka and Perekryostok chains of stores, said the wholesale price of the eggs that it buys in rose by 5-10 percent over the last week, though retail prices for eggs at it stores have remained almost unchanged. The chains have not yet observed any shortages in egg supplies, Interfax reported. Meanwhile, the Lenta chain of supermarkets has not observed any rise in either the wholesale or retail prices for eggs in its chain. Lenta has also not observed any shortages in supply, Lenta’s press service told the St. Petersburg Times on Thursday. In the Northwest region, the consequences of the hurricane in mid-August have also been partially to blame, experts say. The hurricane caused electric power to be lost in a number of dis-
tricts of the Leningrad Oblast, with thousands of birds dying from suffocation as a result. Thus, the Sinyavinskaya poultry factory lost 300,000 birds, amounting to 8.5 percent of its entire livestock. The Roskar poultry factory lost 200,000 birds (4.7 percent of its total livestock), and the Primorskaya factory lost 5,500 birds, Interfax reported.
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Robbers Break Into Investigators’ Office By Nikolaus von Twickel T H E S T. P E T E R S B U R G T I M E S
ALEXANDER BELENKY/SPT
Two policemen walk past the building on Ligovsky Prospekt the day after the internal flooring structures collapsed.
Building Collapse Causes Traffic Mayhem T H E S T. P E T E R S B U R G T I M E S
An eight-story building that until recently housed the city’s main police investigation department partially collapsed on Wednesday. The building, located in the city center at 145 Ligovsky Prospekt was under repair and there were no people inside apart from four employees of a store located on the ground floor. One of the employees, a 23-year-old manager, received a light injury, Fontanka.ru reported. As the city’s emergency service feared that people could be under the debris, 12 emergency rescue teams
were sent to search for them, the press service of the St. Petersburg Emergency Service said. As a result of the collapse, a large section of Ligovsky Prospekt was closed to give emergency and other services free access, causing substantial traffic jams. The residents of the neighboring building were evacuated, the press service said. According to preliminary investigations, the collapse was caused by the dismantling of safes that previously belonged to the investigation department, Fontanka.ru reported.
On Monday the safes were dismantled, and on Tuesday cracks appeared in the building, with the ceilings collapsing on Wednesday, the Russian State Construction Watchdog said, Fontanka reported. The investigative department of the St. Petersburg Prosecutor’s Office has opened a criminal investigation into the collapse of the building under Article 216 of the Russian Criminal Code, concerning infringements of safety regulations during construction works, the organization’s website said.
Natural Monopolies Off Sale List for 2011 By Olga Razumovskaya T H E S T. P E T E R S B U R G T I M E S
MOSCOW — The state will not privatize stakes in its natural monopolies or defense firms next year, Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina told reporters Tuesday in the latest sign of skittishness in the government to part with key assets. In late July, Nabiullina and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin put together a list of 11 state-run companies in which stakes should be privatized
through 2013. Several companies, notably state rail monopoly Russian Railways, were dropped from the initial list. The Finance Ministry has called the sell-offs — which could raise at least $29 billion — a way to patch budget deficits in the coming years, while Nabiullina has said it will reduce the state’s “excessive” role in the Russian economy. “I won’t say what exactly will be privatized in 2011. We intend to offer fairly major stakes and stakes in major
companies,” she said, adding that natural monopolies and defense firms would not be offered next year. Selling more shares in oil giant Rosneft may also be discussed, Nabiullina said. The privatization targets currently include at least two natural monopolies: oil pipeline monopoly Transneft, in which the state owns 78.1 percent, and the Federal Grid Company, or FSK, where the government controls 79.11 percent.
MOSCOW — Masked intruders broke into the Moscow region branch of the Investigative Committee early Tuesday, rifling through 18 offices and cracking open 25 safes after tying up the sole security guard, investigators said. But the Investigative Committee’s main office insisted that the mysterious break-in was a run-ofthe-mill robbery, fueling speculation that the incident was an attempt to undermine a high-profile criminal investigation. Three masked intruders broke into a building belonging to the committee’s Moscow region branch on Rusakovskaya Ulitsa in northeast Moscow at about 4 a.m. Tuesday, the Investigative Committee said in a statement. It said the assailants only took a television set and a video camera. “No criminal files and no evidence were taken,” the statement said. It said the intruders were probably looking for valuables and linked the incident to a similar break-in at a neighboring pharmaceuticals company the same night. National media were rife with speculation that the intruders had other motives. The contents from all 25 safes were strewn over the floor except for one safe, whose documents were missing, Lifenews.ru reported, quoting a source in the committee’s Moscow region branch. The same news site reported later that an unspecified amount of jewelry and stacks of stationery with official letterhead were missing. The jewelry had been kept in an envelope belonging to an ongoing criminal investigation, it said. The blank letterheads were used for official communication with police, the report said, quoting an unidentified local Investigative Committee official. The office’s sole guard was unarmed, national media reported. A branch spokeswoman denied reports that the robbers might have made off with documents about a corruption case against Yury Sleptsov,
mayor of Voskresensk, a town southeast of the capital. Interfax quoted an investigator working at the scene as saying material from “one high-profile case” was missing. “I do not exclude that the culprits were looking for a certain criminal case,” the investigator said, adding that it might be a case against Sleptsov. The mayor was detained in July on accusations of extorting a bribe of more than $17,700 for a permit. On Monday, the Moscow regional branch of the Investigative Committee said it had opened another investigation into Sleptsov, for possible abuse of office. Sleptsov faces up to 12 years in prison if convicted on the graft charges. Branch spokeswoman Yulia Zhukova said no files on the case were held in the burgled office. Rather, Sleptsov’s files are stored in the branch’s headquarters on Maly Kiselny Pereulok, she said by telephone. The burgled office houses the committee’s “important cases” department, which deals with serious crimes like murder, rape and organized crime, Zhukova said. The Moscow region has seen a string of unsolved attacks on journalists, including Mikhail Beketov, editor of Khimkinskaya Pravda, who regularly wrote about corruption among local officials. Beketov was left brain-damaged after being severely beaten outside his home in 2008. National media reported Tuesday that the robbed office had dealt with Beketov’s case. It also worked on the case against LieutenantGeneral Vladimir Shamanov, who has been accused of dispatching his commandos to block a criminal investigation into his son-in-law, the reports said. Moscow region Governor Boris Gromov, who commanded the 40th Army during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, has helped many fellow Afghan war veterans obtain posts in the local government, including Sleptsov and Khimki Mayor Vladimir Strelchenko.
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Coca-Cola Acquires Juice Maker Nidan By Irina Filatova T H E S T. P E T E R S B U R G T I M E S
MOSCOW — Coca-Cola, the world’s largest soft-drink maker, said Wednesday that it had acquired one of Russia’s biggest juice producers, Nidan Soki, as part of its plans to expand in the fastgrowing market. The company bought a 75 percent stake in Nidan from London-based investment firm Lion Capital, as well as the remaining 25 percent held by Nidan’s founders. The juice maker has facilities in Novosibirsk and the Moscow region town of Kotelniki. Analysts said the deal was aimed at strengthening Coca-Cola’s position after its biggest rival, PepsiCo, acquired more than 75 percent of juice maker Lebedyansky in 2008 — giving it an upper hand on the local market. “Coca-Cola’s leadership became less clear after PepsiCo’s acquisition of Lebedyansky. Acquiring Russian brands is a way to compete,” said Ilya Plakhinas, head of the marketing division at Soldis Communications. The deal shows Coca-Cola’s confidence in Russia’s big potential and its commitment to invest more in the future, Ahmet Bozer, president of The Coca-Cola Company’s Eurasia and Africa
Group, said in an e-mailed statement. “This acquisition represents our continued belief in Russia and commitment to provide a wide array of beverage choices to Russian consumers,” Bozer said. “We will grow as Russia grows through ongoing investments and building a sustainable business model.” Coca-Cola, which has invested $2 billion in Russia over the past two decades, plans to invest another $1 billion in its facilities in the coming three to five years, the company said in a statement. The sides declined to disclose the value of the deal, but analysts said it was probably no more than $450 million, including Nidan’s debt. “The value of the deal could be eight to 10 times Nidan’s 2010 expected earnings before interest, taxation and depreciation and amortization, which we estimate at $45 million,” said Natalya Zagvozdina, an analyst at Renaissance Capital. “Coca-Cola is unlikely to have paid more than $450 million, including $220 million for the equity and $230 million of Nidan’s debt,” she told The St. Petersburg Times. The U.S. beverage giant may have paid up to $300 million excluding debt, Kommersant reported Wednesday, citing sources close to the deal.
Knauf Wins Piracy Lawsuit T H E S T. P E T E R S B U R G T I M E S
MOSCOW — A Moscow court awarded 5 million rubles, or $160,000, in damages to Knauf in a case against a counterfeiter, the German building materials manufacturer said Wednesday. For nearly a year, Vladimir Potekhin ran two pirate factories that made and packaged plaster, cement and other products of market leaders, including Knauf, Unis and Vetonit, the statement said. Potekhin bought special equipment for manufacturing, used packaging with fake trademarks, and distributed the goods to retailers and wholesalers in Moscow and the Moscow region, the РЕКЛАМА
court found, according to the Knauf statement. This is the largest amount Knauf CIS said it has won in court against a counterfeiter, though it has been working on the problem for many years. “Knauf has been battling with counterfeit products for nearly 10 years on our own,” said Gerd Lenga, general manager of Knauf CIS. “We spend millions of euros every year on this effort in Russia.” Potekhin was also sentenced to 1 1/2 years in prison on charges of trying to bribe a representative of a private security firm, which was involved in uncovering his operation, and illegal possession of firearms, Knauf said.
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Aeroflot is seeking $3.7 million in damages from City Hall for losses after a traffic jam on Leningradskoye Shosse.
Aeroflot Sues Moscow for Traffic Jam T H E S T. P E T E R S B U R G T I M E S
MOSCOW — Aeroflot has filed a lawsuit against the Moscow city government, seeking compensation for losses caused by a days-long traffic logjam on a highway leading to Sheremetyevo Airport, court documents showed Wednesday. City Hall denied any wrongdoing. Traffic on the busy Leningradskoye Shosse all but came to a standstill at the end of June after city authorities closed off four of its six lanes, citing the need for urgent repairs. They reopened two more lanes
after five days of gridlock, following a reprimand from Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Aeroflot is suing for 113 million rubles ($3.67 million) in damages, according to the lawsuit. The airline has said it lost 700,000 euros ($893,000) on the first day of the congestion and 400,000 euros per day during the next four days. The first day of the traffic collapse was “disastrous” for the company, as it had to refund 75 percent of the ticket cost to 1,300 passengers who were late for their flights, Aeroflot deputy chief Andrei Kalmykov has
said, Interfax reported. The Moscow city government rejected responsibility for the gridlock. “We haven’t seen this lawsuit so far, but if it really exists, it is the work of a truly sick mind,” said Mayor Yury Luzhkov’s spokesman, Sergei Tsoi. “The authors of the lawsuit must give better scrutiny to what actually caused the situation.” He did not elaborate, but the General Prosecutor’s Office blamed City Hall and the Federal Road Agency after an investigation into the matter.
State May Cut Stake in VTB Bank to 50% By Peter France and Anatoly Medetsky T H E S T. P E T E R S B U R G T I M E S
MOSCOW — The government may sell more than 35 percent of VTB to bring its stake in the bank to just over 50 percent, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said in comments released Monday, a move that may force the lender toward greater transparency. “I think it makes sense to privatize a stake of any size, in this case, up to a controlling stake,” Kudrin told reporters over the weekend. “The bigger the stake, the more liquid it will become.” A source close to VTB said earlier this year that the bank wanted the government to sell a stake that would be more than 10 percent, Interfax reported. The state now owns 85.5 percent of VTB, the country’s second-largest bank. As the financial system struggled last year, the government injected 180 billion rubles ($5.84 billion) into the company by buying up an additional share issue and increasing its stake from 77.5 percent. But now, the government is looking to unwind the bailout and more. Western or Middle Eastern investment funds may snap up a stake in VTB, said Ruslan Yunusov, an analyst at Rye, Man & Gor Securities. That would improve the bank’s reputation by forcing it to show more transparency in dealing with investors, he said. “The market will support any steps toward greater transparency,” Yunusov said. “I don’t think a local investor will be supportive of the bank’s reputation.”
VTB may gain some clout on markets outside Russia, depending on the potential buyer, he said. The lender, which returned to profitability in the first quarter after a $2 billion loss last year, said in May that it would seek to double its share price to 15 kopeks over the next three years. The shares closed at 7.98 kopeks on Monday, up 0.4 percent on the day, roughly in line with the broader MICEX Index. That’s up from a low of 2 kopeks in February 2009, and 4.8 kopeks when the state bought up the additional share issue in September 2009. At Monday’s close, VTB’s market capitalization was $27.2 billion, meaning that a 35 percent stake could bring the state $9.5 billion. With a budget deficit slated to hit 5.4 percent of gross domestic product this year, the government is looking toward its massive asset portfolio to help bridge the gap. Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina has also cast the sales as an important step toward reducing the state’s “excessive” role in the economy. In July, the Finance Ministry said Prime Minister Vladimir Putin had approved a plan to sell off $29 billion worth of stakes in 11 high-profile firms, including Sberbank, Transneft, Rosneft and VTB. Kudrin said, however, that the asset sales — the largest since the controversial loans-for-shares privatizations in the mid-1990s — were unlikely to begin this year. “Fundamentally, this is a program for covering the budget for the next three years — that is why it is here. Most likely, we will not privatize stakes
in big companies this year,” Kudrin said. He added that the outlines of the privatization plan will be completed in September, while the details would only be ready by the start of next year. The share sales will line government coffers with 290 billion rubles ($9 billion) in 2011, 276.1 billion rubles in 2012 and 309.4 billion rubles in 2013, Finance Ministry officials said in July. In addition to the list of the 11 large companies’ stakes that are going up for sale starting next year, the Economic Development Ministry developed a similar list of smaller firms in which the government hopes to reduce its role. Earlier this year, the ministry said it expected to raise more than $3.4 billion by selling assets this year, including 13 percent of insurer Rosgosstrakh, 25 percent of utility TGK-5 and 25 percent minus one share in shipping giant Sovkomflot. The Federal Property Management Agency said in a statement Monday that it aimed to raise at least $283 million from a sale of 13.1 percent of Rosgosstrakh in a bidding that will last from Monday to Sept. 23. The government isn’t selling stakes in the 11 large companies immediately because it has decided in favor of domestic borrowing to cover the deficit, said Dmitry Polevoi, an economist at ING Bank’s Moscow office. A decline in the anticipated price of oil over the next three years may speed up the sales, he said. On the contrary, if the oil price is higher than expected, there will be fewer motives to put the assets on the block, Polevoi said.
AII
ABOUT TOWN
FRIDAY,
FOR SPT
SEPTEMBER 3, 2010
An image from “Do It Yourself,” one of the films to be shown in the Open Cinema Festival which starts on Friday. ADVERTISING
Celluloid dreams The best in short and animated films at one of the city’s top festivals.
film By Galina Stolyarova T H E S T. P E T E R S B U R G T I M E S
The history of the “Dream Factory” takes center stage at this year’s Open Cinema international short film festival which kicks off at the Dom Kino cinema on Friday. Open Cinema, arguably Russia’s premiere short film and animation event, is celebrating Hollywood’s 100th anniversary with a string of exciting offerings, from the screening of D.W. Griffith’s movie “In Old California” (1910), which was shot in the north-west of Los Angeles, to a thrilling photographic exhibition showcasing more than twenty images of Hollywood icons such as Humphrey Bogart and Marilyn Monroe. The display, which opened on Sept. 2 at the Mikhail Shemyakin Foundation, can be seen until Sept. 12.
The Hollywood anniversary has influenced the whole concept and style of this year’s rendition of Open Cinema. According to the festival’s ideologists, Open Cinema-2010 is rolling back the decades and exploring the connections between classical cinema and new forms of cinema art. For the first time in its history, the festival has joined forces with the U.S.’s Turner Classic Movies (TCM) TV Channel which boasts more than 5,000 American and European films in its extensive Classic Movies collection, covering a vast period from Hollywood’s Golden age up to the end of the 20th century. But there are more than well-known masterworks on offer. The channel will also present a program that incorporates a series of unique documentaries and rare interviews with some of the founders of the Hollywood industry and the most important figures in its history.
Founded in 2004, Open Cinema traditionally features open-air concerts and film-screenings for the general public on the beach of the Peter and Paul Fortress. The event has quickly gained fame for its pioneering spirit in vigorously fusing styles and genres, and offering its audiences cutting edge works from around the world. Every year open-air beach-show is attended by more than 10 thousand people and further more than 8 thousand spectators come to watch festival programs to the movie theatres. This year, the open-air festival on the beach will be held on Sept. 10 and Sept. 11 and feature the award ceremony. The festival will also have two indoor venues — the Dom Kino Cinema Center and Mirage-Cinema — where the competition screening and events will take place.
SEE PAGE 6
friday, september 3, 2010
WORD’S In the Spotlight: Sex Shows WORTH By Anna Malpas
T H E S T. P E T E R S B U R G T I M E S
Everyone knows that during a thunderstorm, you wait for a bolt of lightning (молния) and then count the seconds until you hear the clap of thunder (гром). If you’re in Russia and there are five seconds between light and sound, the storm is five kilometers away. If you’re in the United States, the storm is five miles away (about eight kilometers). This shows how much our two great nations have in common. It also shows that our folk storm-tracking systems are pretty lousy. Long ago in Russia, folks seem to have been a bit confused about thunder and lightning. In some expressions гром means молния. For example: Однажды в сильную грозу убило громом несколько человек. (Once during a heavy storm several people were killed by lightning.) Or: Я остановился, как громом поражённый. (I stopped as if I’d been struck by lightning.) When you want to swear to the truth of your words, you can say: Разрази меня гром, если буду не прав. (May lightning strike me if I’m wrong.) And finally, there is the expression как гром среди ясного неба (like a bolt from the blue). Apparently all of our ancient ancestors believed that lightning only strikes during a storm, and so a bolt of lightning in a blue sky described something utterly unexpected. For example: Телефонный звонок раздался, как гром среди ясного неба. (The telephone call came out of the blue.) But sometimes thunder is just thunder, as in the common expression пока гром не грянет, мужик не перекрестится (literally, “until there is a clap of thunder, a man doesn’t make the sign of the cross”). Many commentators insist this is the essence of Russian mentality: В России эта истина подходит практически к любым ситуациям. (In Russian this truth can be applied to almost any situation.) But others assert that this is just part of human nature. I vote for the latter assertion. The adjective громкий means loud or noisy, but громкое имя (literally “a loud name”) is a famous person. Среди членов оргкомитета не оказалось громких имён. (There weren’t any celebrities on the organizational committee.) When the adverb громко (loudly) is combined with the verb звучать (to sound), the result is not so much an increase in decibels as an increase in significance. Доктор наук — за рубежом это звучит громко. (Outside Russia the title Doctor of Science sounds really important.) Молния also undergoes some metaphorical transformations. It can be the sharp glint of anger in someone’s eye: В его глазах сверкнула молния. (His eyes flashed with anger.) If you are furious, you can throw around bolts of lightning and thunder clouds. Правительство мечет громы и молнии, а цены растут. (The government rants and raves, but prices are rising all the same.) Where’s Zeus when you need him? Michele A. Berdy is a Moscow-based translator. A collection of her columns, “The Russian Word’s Worth,” will be released by Glas in October.
revealed how she takes part in S&M role games with a client who crawls and barks in a dog collar. Despite her lack of citizenship, she managed to find work at “one of Moscow’s best erotic clubs,” the voice-over boasted. Finally, three men eyed two girls as they picked out seductive underwear. The girls went for unrevealing flowery combos, while the men chose some scratchy net underwear, which the women then had to pose in. Men prefer underwear that is transparent and covers the least possible area, Chekhova concluded, sipping a margarita.
Nerdy Viktor stroked his sex doll, Anzhelika, whom he said had consoled him after his wife left him. “I’ve gotten used to her. I can’t say she’s like my wife — that’s a different feeling — but I don’t have to worry about her,” he confessed, sitting in front of a cupboard full of dusty china. My only comfort is that I used to read the casting ads for “Sex With Anfisa Chekhova” on TNT’s web site, and there is a sporting chance that Viktor was just an actor down on his luck. In another section, Cleopatra, a 19year-old stripper from Uzbekistan,
The show is a far cry from the groundbreaking show about sex on Russian television, “About That,” which was hosted by Yelena Khanga in the late 1990s. Its title shows the buttoned-up attitude to sex that was prevalent at the time. Nowadays, such shows are not so much about breaking taboos as mildly titillating late-night male viewers. Another long-running show, “Naked and Funny,” shows busty women losing their clothes at inappropriate moments as male passers-by — really actors — drop their jaws in amazement.
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5 The festival’s jury has reviewed more than 900 short and animation films from 30 countries and has selected almost 100 works which will compete in the official program in four categories, including fiction, documentary, animation and experimental films. Jury members have included film director Boris Khlebnikov, producer Vyacheslav Telnov, film critic Mikhail Ratgauz, philosopher and writer Alexander Sekatsky, documentary filmmaker Pavel Medvedev, and filmmaker Étienne Desrosiers. A special “Panorama 360” screening which will run concurrently with the competition presents the best collections from the world’s leading short film festivals, including the Oberhausen International Film Festival (Germany), the Recontres Henri Langois International Schools Film Festival (France), the Brussels Short Film Festival (Belgium), the ECU European Independent Film Festival (France), the Suzdalfest — Open Russian Festival of Animated Films (Russia), the Brest European Short Film Festival (France) and the Anifest International Festival of Animated Films (Czech Republic). The Oberhausen festival, which will present a selection of six fiction and animation works, is one of the oldest film events in the world and is widely regarded as being one of the most respected short film festivals in
‘About a Bird,’ dir. Olga Kudryavtseva
the world. The event served as a springboard for such internationally acclaimed filmmakers as Martin Scorsese, George Lucas and Wim Wenders. “There can be no doubt that the Oberhausen Short Film Festival has written film history...The short film has kept itself young, and so has Oberhausen. This atmosphere, this creative power, are what continue distinguishes short films today,” said former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in a statement now posted on the festival’s website. Traditionally, the festival offers a Parallel Competition which consists of movies that haven’t scored enough points to enter the main contest. This time, these works are divided into three programs subtitled, Great Expectations, Other Lands and No Anesthetic. For more information, visit: www.artbereg.ru
FOR SPT
Молния: a lightning bolt, a news flash, a zipper
‘Rain Since Yesterday,’ directed by Valentin Olshvang.
FOR SPT
By Michele A. Berdy
Every night, TNT airs a show called “Sex With Anfisa Chekhova,” whose curvaceous host promises that she knows “everything about sex.” In a show this week, a man confessed to replacing his wife with a rubber doll, a stripper called Cleopatra took a barking man for a walk on a leash, and a focus group of men explained why women should wear seethrough underwear. This month, a woman from Moscow sued the show for 3 million rubles ($97,404) in moral damages, saying it used footage of her semi-naked without her permission. The woman, Natalya Melnikova, thought that she was taking part in a casting session to be a double for bombshell actress Zhanna Friske, Life News reported. It posted a video of the prank, filmed on the bustling tourist street Arbat, an unlikely spot for a real audition. The news caused a bit of confusion as journalists phoned up the television channel for comment and found out that “Sex With Anfisa Chekhova” in fact closed last year. Since then, the channel has been fobbing viewers off with repeats, but no one has really noticed. Chekhova began hosting the show in 2005, gamely showing off her impressive cleavage and becoming one of the nation’s favorite pin-ups. Lately though, her performance had become somewhat perfunctory. In a show aired this week, she typed on a laptop as she read the intro for each section, seemingly with little enthusiasm for her subject. That did not put off viewers, who sent in badly spelled messages of love and passion to run along the bottom of the screen, at 75 rubles ($2.40) per time. “Girls, I want sex,” one wrote bluntly, managing to spell the word “girls” wrong. The show’s co-host, Denis Morozov, got all the best lines. He showed off a horrifying cheap sex doll that looked like a ventriloquist’s dummy. “You need either very poor eyesight or a very good imagination,” he said.
FOR SPT
6
‘A Game of Hide-and-Seek,’ directed by Alexandra Nemchik.
HOW TO USE LISTINGS: Dates and times are correct at the
Giselle St. Petersburg’s most popular and oftperformed ballet, Adolphe Adam’s tale of a young peasant woman deceived in love by a young aristocrat. Hermitage Theater, 8 p.m.
time of publication, but last-minute changes are not infrequent, so it’s best
tuesday, september 7
to check using the phone numbers at
ballet
the end of each entry or consult local directories. Unless otherwise stated, stage events start at 7 p.m. All stage shows and films are in Russian unless noted.
STAGES friday, september 3 Swan Lake Classical Ballet performs Tchaikovsky’s romantic classic. Bolshoi Drama Theater. Swan Lake Tchaikovsky’s signature ballet, choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, and performed by the St. Petersburg Romantic Ballet. Musical Comedy Theater, 13 Italianskaya Ul. Tel. 210 4316, 313 4316, 8 p.m. Giselle Adolphe Adam’s tragic ballet, staged by Nikolai Dolgushin, about the tragic consequences of one young peasant woman’s love for a member of the aristocracy. RimskyKorsakov Conservatory Theater, 7.30 p.m. Swan Lake Leonid Jakobson’s Ballet Theater performs Tchaikovsky’s romantic classic. Hermitage Theater, 8 p.m.
saturday, september 4 ballet Swan Lake Classical Ballet performs Tchaikovsky’s romantic classic. Bolshoi Drama Theater. Cabaret at Italyanskaya Maria Bolshakova stages and choreographs a ballet, dedicated to the Silver Age. Musical Comedy Theater, 5 p.m. Swan Lake Tchaikovsky’s signature ballet, choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, and performed by the St. Petersburg Romantic Ballet. Musical Comedy Theater, 13 Italyanskaya Ul. Tel. 210 4316, 313 4316, 8 p.m. Swan Lake Tchaikovsky’s signature ballet, choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, and performed by the St. Petersburg Theater of Classical Ballet. Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory Theater, 8 p.m. Giselle St. Petersburg’s most popular and oftperformed ballet, Adolphe Adam’s tale of a young peasant woman deceived in love by a young aristocrat. Hermitage Theater, 8 p.m.
sunday, september 5 ballet Cabaret at Italyanskaya Maria Bolshakova stages and choreographs a ballet, dedicated to the Silver Age. Musical Comedy Theater, 5 p.m. Swan Lake Tchaikovsky’s signature ballet, choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, and performed by the St. Petersburg Romantic Ballet. Musical Comedy Theater, 13 Italyanskaya Ul. Tel. 210 4316, 313 4316, 8 p.m. Giselle Adolphe Adam’s tragic ballet, staged by Nikolai Dolgushin, about the tragic consequences of one young peasant woman’s love for a member of the aristocracy. RimskyKorsakov Conservatory Theater, 8 p.m.
Swan Lake Classical Ballet performs Tchaikovsky’s romantic classic. Bolshoi Drama Theater. Swan Lake Tchaikovsky’s signature ballet, choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, and performed by the St. Petersburg Romantic Ballet. Musical Comedy Theater, 13 Italyanskaya Ul. Tel. 210 4316, 313 4316, 8 p.m.
concert Chamber Music A part of the 13th International Early Music Festival. Traditional Korean aristocratic music ensemble “Sanjo”. Soloist Francesco Cera (harpsichord, Italy). Museum of Music (Sheremetev Palace), 34 Nab. Reki Fontanki, tel. 272-4441 Mikhail Mishenko Organ Recital Saint-Sèance, Bach. Maltiyskaya Cappella, 26 Sadovaya UI. Tel. 498-0669
wednesday, september 8 ballet Swan Lake Leonid Jakobson’s Ballet Theater performs the Tchaikovsky’s signature ballet, choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov. Alexandriinsky Theater, 8 p.m. Swan Lake Tchaikovsky’s signature ballet, choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, and performed by the St. Petersburg Romantic Ballet. Musical Comedy Theater, 13 Italyanskaya Ul. Tel. 210 4316, 313 4316, 8 p.m. Swan Lake The Theater of Russian Ballet performs Tchaikovsky’s romantic classic. Hermitage Theater, 8 p.m.
thursday, september 9 ballet Spartak Leonid Jakobson’s Ballet Theater performs. Music of Aram Khachaturyan on themes of the Jovanjoli’s stories about a revolution carried out by gladiators and slaves in Ancient Rome. Alexandriinsky Theater. Swan Lake Tchaikovsky’s signature ballet, choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, and performed by the St. Petersburg Romantic Ballet. Musical Comedy Theater, 13 Italyanskaya Ul. Tel. 210 4316, 313 4316, 8 p.m.
concert Ilia Kudryavtsev Organ Recital (Switzerland) Saint-Sèance, Franck Maltiyskaya Cappella, 26 Sadovaya UI. Tel. 498-0669 Chamber Music A part of the 13th International Early Music Festival. Ensemble Golden Horn (Turkey). “Soloists of Catherine the Great” Ensemble. Derzhavin Apartment Museum, 118 Nab. Reki Fontanki
By Tobias Kuehne T H E S T. P E T E R S B U R G T I M E S
Many of St. Petersburg’s restaurant owners have the curious habit of mixing various kinds of cuisines in their establishments. Combinations such as Chinese and European food, or Japanese and Traditional occur frequently without any apparent rhyme or reason. Okean, a restaurant in a ship floating on the Neva near the Birzhevoi Bridge, is one of the few that manages to justify its potpourri of cuisines through conveying an illusion of relative mobility: Every country that has a coastline qualifies as a supplier for Okean. The day we chose to visit Okean saw a moody alternation between sunshine and rain, with gusts of wind and a slightly disturbed Neva. This setup infused an extra note of authenticity into our dining experience, as the restaurant ships (one smaller ship constituting the more open, bar area, the other a floating 3-story cruiser with a “banquet hall”) rocked back and forth. An ashtray tumbled from the bar. We seated ourselves on the smaller of the two conjoined vessels to enjoy the splendid view across the Neva. Small two-person tables, separate lounge chairs that offered seating for roughly 40 (20 more could find space in the open terrace area), a bar, summery music and the occasional faint smell of hookah tobacco wafting over from the waiters preparing it, made for a relaxed cruise-ship feel. Champagne costing up to 36,000 rubles YourFest Dub FX, Sunsay, Noize MC. Hip-hop. The Place (back courtyard). 6 p.m. La Minor Urban folk. Tantsy. 9 p.m. Zemfira Pop rock. Zal Ozhidaniya. 8 p.m. Simba Vibration Roots, African, pop. Zoccolo. 8 p.m.
jazz & blues
friday, september 10 ballet Swan Lake Leonid Jakobson’s Ballet Theater performs the Tchaikovsky’s signature ballet, choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov. Alexandriinsky Theater, 8 p.m. Swan Lake Tchaikovsky’s signature ballet, choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, and performed by the St. Petersburg Romantic Ballet. Musical Comedy Theater, 13 Italyanskaya Ul. Tel. 210 4316, 313 4316, 8 p.m.
opera Eugene Onegin Yury Alexandrov directs Tchaikovsky’s opera based on Pushkin’s novel in verse. Conducted by Vadim Afanasyev. St. Petersburg Opera.
concert Chamber Music A part of the 13th International Early Music Festival. Collegium Vocale Gent. Conductor Philippe Herreweghe (Belgium). Cappella.
THE DISH
friday, september 3, 2010
GIGS
monday, september 6
friday, september 3
ballet
rock, etc.
Swan Lake Leonid Jakobson’s Ballet Theater performs Tchaikovsky’s signature ballet, choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, Alexandriinsky Theater, 8 p.m. Swan Lake Tchaikovsky’s signature ballet, choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, and performed by the St. Petersburg Romantic Ballet. Musical Comedy Theater, 13 Italyanskaya Ul. Tel. 210 4316, 313 4316, 8 p.m.
Alternative Metal Opening Alternative metal. Arctica. 4 p.m. Jonathan Livingstone Rock. Cheshire Cat. 8:30 p.m. Vasily K. Rock. Chinese Pilot Jao Da. 8 p.m. Kim & Buran/Zelany Rashoho Electronica, alternative. Fish Fabrique (Nouvelle). 9 p.m. Stigmata Alternative. Glavclub. 8 p.m. Valentin Strykalo Griboyedov Hill. 10 p.m. Sablya Rock. Money Honey. 8 p.m.
Igor Timofeyev Band Modern jazz. JFC Jazz Club. 8 p.m. The Barbulators Rockabilly, ska. The Other Side. 10 p.m.
saturday, september 4 rock, etc.
7
All around the world Okean Prospekt Dobrolyubova 14a [next to Birzhevoi Bridge] Tel: 812-986-8600 Open everyday noon till last visitor Menu in Russian and English Lunch for two with alcohol 2,190 rubles ($74) ($1,220) a bottle and a television screen in the bathroom mirror complemented the atmosphere with a hint of luxury. As the menu featured three separate sections — “Traditional,” “Chinese” and “Italian/European” — we decided, inspired by our barge’s rocking desire to break loose, to cover all of these culinary corners of the world. The journey began with Chinese dumplings (290 rubles, $9.50), arranged on a long, slim plate, and pumpkin soup with mascarpone cheese (260 rubles, $8.50). While the meat-filled dumplings gave occasion to high expectations, the pumpkin soup’s taste fell surprisingly flat, despite the abundant mascarpone, cream and oil to be detected in it. A bottle of Corona beer (200 rubles, $7) provided the proper refreshment. To order our main course, the menu had to be retrieved from the quirky waiter, who, in his light blue polo shirt sporting the Okean’s sea star logo, displayed a droll mix of silent composure and ardent zeal to seize empty plates and refill our half-empty glasses from the bottle of water on our table. Notwithstanding his apparent reticence, he became surprisingly chatty when it came to advising us on meal choices. We followed his recommendation with the Azerbaijani Qutab (despite the fact that Azerbaijan has no oceanic coast line) (280 rubles, $9.50), which was a stiff, egg-based dough Infected Mushroom Psychedelic trance, electronic music. Glavclub. 8 p.m. Atanore Improvized, experimental. GEZ-21. 8 p.m. Diskelma/No Shame Punk rock. Griboyedov. 9 p.m. Cheese People Pop. Tantsy. 9 p.m. Dobriye Roboty/Flynotes Indie rock. Zoccolo. 8 p.m.
with cheese and spinach on the inside, with a side of smetana. The spinach balanced the dough’s heaviness, making the Qutab a novel and pleasant experience. Similar things could not be said of the chicken cutlets (330 rubles, $11), which came with mashed potatoes and an excruciatingly salty pickle — the cutlets were weeping oil and quite heavy, while the mashed potatoes roused our suspicion (although it couldn’t be confirmed) that they were made from a powder. The quality of the food hovered between delectable and disappointing, as did our vessel on the agitated Neva. When my companion began to display signs of uneasiness, our original waiter produced an inconspicuous pill for her, which alleviated her nervousness at once. For dessert, we found ourselves back on European shores, as we chose a Scottish palm cake (160 rubles, $5.50) and an Italian tiramisu (230 rubles, $8). The former, warm, rich and steeped in caramel, rounded off the meal quite nicely, especially since a torrential rain had begun to pour, allowing the palm cake to supply a soft, homey atmosphere. The tiramisu, on the other hand, fell behind the palm cake — the cream tasted flat and the bottom was far too mushy. While coming down with a final judgment of Okean may be too difficult a task to fulfill after just one visit, one thing can be said with certainty — there is nothing dull about it.
thursday, september 9 rock, etc.
monday, september 6
Peter Pan A. Pop rock. Cheshire Cat. 8 p.m. Chikiss and Yest, Yest, Yest Indie pop. Fish Fabrique (Nouvelle). 9 p.m. Epica Gothic metal. Glavclub. 8 p.m. Otomoto Artcore. Griboyedov. 9 p.m. Alina Orlova Indie pop, acoustic. Kosmonavt. 8 p.m. Next Round Hardcore punk. Tantsy. 9 p.m. Brooklyn Zoo/Ghostlake/Sasha Grey/ Turdus Musicus Alternative. Zoccolo. 8 p.m.
jazz & blues
jazz & blues
Alexi Tuomarila and Nichei Quartet Nu-jazz. JFC Jazz Club. 8 p.m.
Sergei Zolotov Band Pop jazz. JFC Jazz Club. 8 p.m.
tuesday, september 7
friday, september 10
jazz & blues Jazz Factory Mainstream. JFC Jazz Club. 8 p.m.
Tarakany! Punk. Arctica. 4 p.m. Boom-Boom Vermouth Rock and roll. Cheshire Cat. 8:30 p.m. Poimanniye Muravyedy/Zadvorki Latin, alternative, hip-hop. Chinese Pilot Jao Da. 8 p.m. Skafandr Alternative. Fish Fabrique (Nouvelle). 9 p.m. Naked King/Lowriderz/Sex Type Thing Rock. Griboyedov. 9 p.m. Nina Karlsson Pop, jazz, electronica. Kosmonavt. 8 p.m. Sunsay Pop. Tantsy. 9 p.m. Landyshi Punk, ska punk. Zoccolo. 8 p.m.
rock, etc.
rock, etc.
The Coridoors/Leta Net Rock. Chinese Pilot Jao Da. 8 p.m. Total Station Experimental. GEZ-21. 8 p.m. Devil Sold His Soul Progressive metal, post-hardcore. Tantsy. 9 p.m. Shumy/Red Rum Indie, experimental, psychedelic rock. Zoccolo. 8 p.m.
jazz & blues
jazz & blues
3+2 Jazz. JFC Jazz Club. 8 p.m. Yoel Gonzalez & Stas Pro Acoustic Cuban. The Other Side. 10 p.m.
Four & More Mainstream. JFC Jazz Club. 8 p.m.
sunday, september 5
rock, etc.
Pavel Yamaisky and Ostrovityane Reggae. Cheshire Cat. 8 p.m. Tatyana Kalmykova Swa Folk. Chinese Pilot Jao Da. 8 p.m. Kurara Rock. Fish Fabrique (Nouvelle). 9 p.m. Sinkopirovannaya Tishina Experimental. GEZ-21. 8 p.m. Sum 41 Rock, punk, alternative. Glavclub. 8 p.m. Skazy Lesa Folk punk. Griboyedov. 9 p.m. Melotron Electro, alternative, indie. Kosmonavt. 8 p.m. SOK Pop rock, reggae. Money Honey. 8 p.m. Preztizh Rock. Tantsy. 9 p.m. Yolka Pop. Zal Ozhidaniya. 8 p.m. Wozzeck/Skafandr/Nadja Alternative. Zoccolo. 8 p.m.
rock, etc. Jazz Jam Session Jazz. Chinese Pilot Jao Da. 8 p.m. Chikiss and Rok-Gryzuny Punk rock. Fish Fabrique (Nouvelle). 2 p.m. Stereo Hypnosis/Tolmunud Mesipuu/ Orkanica Ambient, electronica. GEZ-21. 8 p.m. Skvortsy Stepanova Punk, alternative. Kosmonavt. 8 p.m.
wednesday, september 8 Lost in Russia Covers. Cheshire Cat. 7 p.m. Andrei Svetlov and Andrei Ryabov Jazz. Chinese Pilot Jao Da. 8 p.m. Pesni I Skazki Folk, improvized, experimental. Fish Fabrique (Nouvelle). 9 p.m. Lyokha Nikonov Poetry. Zoccolo. 8 p.m.
jazz & blues Oblaka Soul, funk. JFC Jazz Club. 8 p.m.
jazz & blues Straight Ahead Mainstream. JFC Jazz Club. 8 p.m. The Marat Dakota Band Rockabilly, blues. The Other Side. 10 p.m.
SEE PAGE 8
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friday, september 3, 2010
MUSEUMS Academy of Arts Museum (The ScientificResearch Museum of the Academy of Arts) 17 Universitetskaya Nab. Tel. 323-6496, 323-3578 M. Vasileostrovskaya. Wednesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Anna Akhmatova Museum at the Fountain House. 34 Fontanka River, entrance from 53 Liteiny Pr. M. Gostiny Dvor, Mayakovskaya. Tel. 272-2211. Daily, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Closed Monday and the last Wednesday of every month. www.akhmatova.spb.ru Gatchina-Württemberg. Cultural Bridges: Anatoly Basyrov & Elly Rikker (Germany). Painting, graphics, objects. July 3 through October 3 NEW! Sepia Memories/Another Life: Alyona Pakhomova & Maria Rozhdestvenskaya. Photo. August 31 through September 12 NEW! A Glass of Lead: Boris Kudryakov. Photo, painting, graphics, objects, collage. September 2 through September 19
FOR SPT
Alexander Blok Apartment Museum 57 Ul. Dekabristov, M. Sadovaya, Sennaya Pl. Tel. 713-8631. Daily 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Closed Tuesday.
An image form the ‘Japanese Beauty’ exhibition of contemporary Japanese art which opens on Friday and runs through Sept. 27 at the Marble Palace. Other works in the exhibition will also be on display at the Tolstoy Square culture center on the Petrograd Side.
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SCREENS The Alien Girl (Chuzhaya) (2010, Russia) Anton Bormatov’s drama starring Natalya Romanycheva, Anatoly Otradnov and Alexander Golubkov. Khudozhestvenny. The American (2010, U.S.) Anton Corbijn’s thriller/drama starring George Clooney, Irina Bjˆrklund and Lars Hjelm. Avrora, Crystal Palace, Khudozhestvenny, Kolizei, Mirage Cinema, Neva, Pik. Exam (2009, U.K.) Stuart Hazeldine’s thriller starring Adar Beck, Gemma Chan and Nathalie Cox. Dom Kino. The Expendables (2010, U.S.) Sylvester Stallone’s action thriller starring Stallone, Jason Statham and Jet Li. Khudozhestvenny, Mirage Cinema, Neva, Pik. The Ghost Writer (2010, France-Germany-U.K.) Roman Polanski’s political thriller starring Ewan McGregor, Jon Bernthal and Kim Cattrall. Avrora, Mirage Cinema.
Heartbreaker (L’Arnacoeur) (2010, FranceMonaco) Pascal Chaumeil’s romantic comedy starring Romain Duris, Vanessa Paradis and Julie Ferrier. Avrora, Mirage Cinema, Pik. Inception (2010, U.S.) Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi thriller starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ellen Page. Avrora, Crystal Palace, Khudozhestvenny, Mirage Cinema, Pik. The Joneses (2009, U.S.) Derrick Borte’s comedy/drama starring David Duchovny, Demi Moore and Amber Heard. Mirage Cinema. The Karate Kid (2010, U.S.-China) Harald Zwart’s action drama starring Jaden Smith, Jackie Chan and Taraji P. Henson. Crystal Palace, Khudozhestvenny, Pik. Machete (2010, U.S.) Ethan Maniquis and Robert Rodriguez’s thriller starring Danny Trejo, Robert De Niro and Jessica Alba. Avrora, Crystal Palace, Jam Hall, Khudozhestvenny, Kolizei, Mirage Cinema, Neva, Pik. Magic Paris A collection of shorts about Paris including Alice Winocour’s 2007 “Magic Paris.” Dom Kino. Mr. Nobody (2009, Canada-Belgium-FranceGermany) Jaco Van Dormael’s fantasy film
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starring Jared Leto, Diane Kruger and Sarah Polley. Dom Kino. My Name Is Khan (2010, India) Karan Joharís love drama starring Shahrukh Khan, Kajol and Shane Harper. Avrora, Khudozhestvenny, Pik. North (Nord) (2009, Norway) Rune Denstad Langlo’s comedy/drama starring Anders Baasmo Christiansen, Kyrre Hellum and Marte Aunemo. Dom Kino. Piranha 3D (2010, U.S.) Alexandre Aja’s sci-fi thriller starring Richard Dreyfuss, Ving Rhames and Elisabeth Shue. Avrora, Crystal Palace, Jam Hall, Khudozhestvenny, Mirage Cinema, Neva, Pik. Regrets (Les regrets) (2009, France) Cedric Kahn’s love drama starring Yvan Attal and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi. Dom Kino. Rembrandt’s J’Accuse...! (2008, Netherlands-Germany-Finland) Peter Greenaway’s documentary about Rembrandt’s Nightwatch. Dom Kino. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010, U.S.) Edgar Wright’s action-comedy film starring Michael Cera, Alison Pill and Mark Webber. Pik. Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll (2010, U.K.) Mat Whitecross’ biography of Ian Dury starring Andy Serkis, Tom Hughes and Clifford Samuel. Dom Kino. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (2010. U.S.) Jon Turteltaub’s action comedy starring Nicolas Cage, Jay Baruchel and Alfred Molina. Mirage Cinema.
The St. Petersburg Times
Golden Autumn September 24, 2010 color supplement, covering issues including: • A look at the St. Petersburg real estate market • The local arts scene: A workshop in focus • Literary review: Recent books about Russia • Forthcoming concerts • A guide to the city’s dining scene To advertise, please contact Veronika Fedorova by tel. +7 812 325 6080 or e-mail: fedorova@sptimes.ru
Step Up 3D (2010, U.S.) Jon Chu’s dance film starring Rick Malambri, Adam G. Sevani and Sharni Vinson. Crystal Palace, Jam Hall, Khudozhestvenny, Mirage Cinema, Pik. The Switch (2010, U.S.) Josh Gordon and Will Speck’s romantic comedy starring Jason Bateman, Victor Pagan and Jennifer Aniston. Mirage Cinema, Pik. 3some (Castillos de carton) (2009, Spain) Salvador Garcia Ruiz’s drama starring Adriana Ugarte, Biel Duran and Nilo Mur. Rodina. Truce (Peremiriye) (2010, Russia) Svetlana Proskurina’s drama starring Ivan Dobronravov, Yuri Itskov and Sergei Shnurov. Rodina. The Villain (Le villain) (2009, France) Albert Dupontel’s comedy starring Catherine Frot, Albert Dupontel and Bouli Lanners. Dom Kino. Wild Grass (Les herbes folles) (2009, France-Italy) Alain Resnais’ drama starring Andre Dussollier, Sabine Azema and Emmanuelle Devos. Rodina.
Artillery Museum (Military Historical Museum of Artillery and Engineers) 7 Alexandrovsky Park, M. Gorkovskaya, tel. 232-0296, 238-0704, Wednesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Closed last Thursday of each Month NEW! Soldier Vasily Terkin. Everyday objects belonging to the Red Army soldier, and the story of Alexander Tvardovsky’s poem “Vasily Terkin.” Photo, objects. August 28 through December 31 Isaak Brodsky Apartment Museum (The I. I. Brodsky Memorial MuseumApartment) 3 Pl. Iskusstv. M. Nevsky Prospekt. Tel 314-3658. Daily 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Closed Monday, Tuesday Central Naval Museum 4 Birzhevaya Pl., M. Nevsky Pr., Vasileostravskaya, Sportivnaya. Tel. 328-2502. Wednesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Closed last Thursday of each month. Derzhavin Museum 118 Nab. Reki Fontanki. M. Technologichesky Institut, Sennaya, Sadovaya. Tel. 713-0717, 570-6511 NEW! Sergei Glotov. Painting. September 3 through September 22 Dostoevsky Apartment Museum 5/2 Kuznechny Pereulok, M. Vladimirskaya. Tel. 571-4031. Daily, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Closed Monday and last Wednesday of each month. Lonely Wayfarer: Valery Rabchinsky. Painting. August 12 through September 1 Kirov Apartment Museum 26/28 Kamennoostrovsky Prospekt. M. Gorkovskaya, Petrogradskaya. Tel. 346-0217. Daily 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Closed Wednesday Konstantinovsky State Palace of Congresses 3 Beryozovaya Alleya. Take bus from M. Avtovo. Tel. 438 5360. Daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., closed Wednesdays. The permanent exhibition features Russian art of the 17th-20th centuries (the Vishnevskaya and Rostropovich collection). Kunstkamera 3 Universitetskaya Nab. Tel. 328-1412. Daily, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Closed Monday and the last Thursday of each month. www.kunstkamera.ru Between Turkestan and Tibet: Salars. Objects, video art, photo. Through September 5 Matyushin House Museum of the St. Petersburg Avant Garde 10 Professora Popova Ul. M. Petrogradskaya. Daily 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Tuesday 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Closed Wednesday. Memorial Museum: “Raznochinny Petersburg” 7 Bolshoi Kazachy Pereulok. M. Pushkinskaya, Sennaya, Sadovaya. Tel. 572-1932, 713-5220. Daily 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Closed Sunday, Monday and last Thursday of the month Military Medicine Museum 2 Lazaretny Pereulok. M. Pushkinskaya. Tel. 315-5358, 315-7287. Daily 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Friday 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Closed at Weekend NEW! We Are Strong Together. Objects, photo, archive documents. The work of military doctors from the U.S., U.S.S.R. and other Allied countries. September 3 through November 2
Museum of City Sculpture: New Exhibition Hall 179/2a Nevsky Prospekt. Entrance through Chernoretskogo Pereulok. Tel. 274-2635, 274- 2579, 274-3860. Daily, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Closed Thursday, Friday. Museum Monument of the Heroic Defenders of Leningrad Ploshad Pobedy. M. Moskovskaya. Tel. 371-2951, 373-6563. Daily 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday, Friday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Closed last Tuesday of each month. Museum of the History of Photography 23 Professora Popova Ul. Tel. 346-1950. Daily 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.. Closed Sunday, Monday. Museum of the History of St. Petersburg Peter & Paul Fortress. M. Gorkovskaya. Tel. 230 0329. Daily, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Closed Wednesday. www.spbkrepost.ru NEW! Metromania. Photo. Alexander Kitayev, Oleg Fedulov, Alexander Malkin, Igor Lebedev, Alexander Petrosyan and others. August 25 through September 15 Permanent Collection The St. Peter and Paul Cathedral, housing the graves of most of the Romanov dynasty; History of the Mint; Museum of Old Petersburg; and more. Exhibits are housed in various locations in the Peter and Paul Fortress. The History of the Trubetsky Bastion Prison 1872-1921 The Peter and Paul Fortress was Imperial St. Petersburg’s main jail and this exhibition tells the story of the famous revolutionaries and opponents of the Tsar who were imprisoned there. The Peter and Paul Cathedral and the Great Princely Necropolis of the House of Romanov The story of the last resting place of the Romanov Dynasty from Peter the Great to Nicholas II, who was finally reinterred here in 1998. The Coffee Cup 1710–2010 St. Petersburg. Sergei Bugayev (Africa), Konstantin Zvezdochotov, Georgi Litichevsky and others. Performance by Billy’s Band, competitions and the chance to try coffee prepared in various ways. Opens July 24 Museum of Cosmonautics and Rocket Technology 3 Peter and Paul Fortress, Ioannovsky Ravelin. Tel. 230 0332. M. Gorkovskaya. Daily 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Tuesday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Closed Wednesday. Museum of Dolls 8 Kamskaya Ulitsa, M. Vasileostrovskaya. Tel. 327-7224, 321-7869. Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. Saturday 10.00 – master-class in making dolls. Random Rubbish. Toys, doll compositions and panels made of polyethylene, plastics, cardboard and other materials collected from the trash. May 21 through September 5 Museum of the History of Photography 23 Professora Popova Ul. Tel. 346-1950. Daily 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.. Closed Sunday, Monday. Museum of the History of St. Petersburg 7/9 Universitetskaya Naberezhnaya. Entrance from Mendeleyevskaya Liniya. Tel. 328-9683 Museum of the History of St. Petersburg: Rumyantsev Mansion 44 Angliiskaya Naberezhnaya. M. Vasileostrovskaya, Nevsky Prospekt. Tel. 571-7544. Daily, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Closed Wednesday and the last Tuesday of each month. The 1944 Warsaw Uprising Through The Eyes of Photo Journalists. Yevgeniush Lokaisky, Joahim Joahimchik, Silvestr Brown, Yezhi Hoinatsky, Irena Kummant-Skotnitskaya. Photo. August 6 through September 30 Museum of Music in the Sheremetyev Palace 34 Nab. Reki Fontanki. Tel. 272-4441. Wednesday through Sunday 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. Closed last Wednesday of each month, by prior appointment only. Rudolf Nureyev: Threads of Time. Stage costumes, photographs, memoirs, archive documents, video. Through September 12 Museum of the Political History of Russia 2/4 Ul. Kuibysheva, M. Gorkovskaya. Tel. 233-7052. Daily, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Closed Thursday. Each Step is Important for Russia. The history of the population census in Russia from 1897 to the present. Objects, photo. June 25 through October 31 Museum of the History of the Political Police. 6 Admiralteisky Prospekt. M. Gostiny Dvor, Nevsky Prospekt. Tel. 312 2742. Daily 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Closed Saturday, Sunday. Not by the Might of Arms Alone. Dedicated to the 65th anniversary of Victory in World War II. Art works, documents, photo, propaganda material. Through September 25
SEE PAGE 11
friday, september 3, 2010
st. petersburg city guide
9
this is where it’s at! Advertising section
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10 friday, september 3, 2010
DINING GUIDE Advertising section
ASIAN Gloss Cafe Restaurant
Gloss cafe is the perfect place for those who appreciate fine food, a cozy atmosphere and good music. At Gloss Cafe's open kitchen, chefs work their magic to create Asian cuisine: sushi, rolls, temaki and phyto salads, while hot dishes are prepared in sizzling woks. Continental dishes include our excellent leg of lamb with rosemary, dorado fillet with herbs, or risotto with asparagus and parmesan. Guests can also choose from our extensive tea menu and wide range of wines and cocktails at democratic prices. Our culinary delights are complemented by free Wi-Fi, sets by top DJs and fantastic parties on Fridays and Saturdays. On weekdays, a sushi buffet is available, priced at just 200 rubles. Average bill: 500 rubles. 17 Nevsky Prospekt. Tel.: 315-23-15.
EUROPEAN Kvartira 55
Kvartira 55 is an extension of your home. You can come here for breakfast in the morning, lunch in the daytime and dinner in the evening. That's why our little restaurant is called Kvartira, which means apartment in Russian. You can savor your favorite dishes of Russian and European cuisine here. The wine menu features around 100 labels, and a sommelier is available from Tuesday to Saturday after 6 p.m. The restaurant is open from 9 a.m. to 6 a.m. — you can enjoy a decent meal at Kvartira 55 even at night. From noon to 4 p.m. on weekdays, there is a 20 percent discount on all dishes. Before 12, delicious and filling yet reasonably priced breakfasts are served, including a complimentary pot of tea or coffee. Average check: 600 rubles. 36, 1aya Liniya Vasilyevsky Island Tel: 327-74-44.
FISH Fish House
private events. Business lunch daily from midday to 4 p.m. Guests can choose from a selection of salads, soups and hot dishes, as well as non-alcoholic drinks. 4 Pereulok Grivtsova. Tel: +7 (812) 448-22-77, 956-84-38. Email: info@stroganoffsteakhouse.ru
INDIAN Tandoor
Popular city restaurant. Experience the tantalizing flavor of Indian cuisine. From kebabs to curries, with a wide range of vegetarian selections at reasonable prices. Business Lunch 450 rubles. Choice of soup. Choice of curry: chicken, lamb, fish, lentil or vegetable with rice, salad and bread, plus mineral water. Restaurant provides small to mediumsized outdoor catering services for parties and banquet functions. Reasonable prices. Open daily from noon to 11 p.m. 2 Voznesensky Pr., near St. Isaac’s Cathedral, opposite the Admiralty. Credit cards accepted. Tel.: 312-38-86, 312-53-10.
INTERNATIONAL Imperial restaurant
Get your Sunday off to a perfect start with the Corinthia Brunch Experience international cuisine presented in a warm and welcoming atmosphere. Enjoy a selection of international delicacies including popular dishes of the Russian, Mediterranean and Japanese cuisine with free-flowing beverages complemented by a fantastic view over Nevsky Prospect. Our younger guests will love the special children’s buffet and games room. Indulge your family and friends at Imperial restaurant with a superb brunch and live music every Sunday between 12:30 and 16:00. Corinthia Hotel St Petersburg 57 Nevsky Prospect Tel.: 380-20-01 E-mail: reservation@corinthia.ru
Gusto
Gusto is an Italian restaurant headed by an Italian chef, Fabrizio Fatucci, who trains chefs at the world famous Gamberto Rosso gastronomy school. The restaurant's wine card perfectly complements the food menu, and for every dish a wine can be selected to accentuate the taste to the maximum. Gusto boasts the city's biggest Enomatic system for storing wine, making it possible to order 48 types of wine by the glass. An open bottle can be stored for up to three weeks without the wine losing any of its qualities. This allows guests to try 25-ml samples of several wines before ordering a bottle. The highlights of the menu include Rigatoni with mascarpone, lemon and Parma ham, egg plant Parmigiana, and cold soup of strawberry, paprika and basil. 142 Nevsky Pr., 20 meters down Degtyarnaya ul. Tel.: +7 (812) 941-17-44, www.probka.org
Palermo
Palermo restaurant, which serves Sicilian cuisine, is located 100 meters from Nevsky Prospekt. It offers a wide range of antipasti, meat and fish dishes as well as pasta and risotto, all prepared using olive oil from the sunny south of Italy. Selecting the perfect wine to complement any of the delectable dishes on offer is the calling card of this Petersburg restaurant. For every dish on the menu, which is updated regularly, a suitable wine is available from the leading winemaking regions and islands of Italy (Piedmont, Tuscany, Sicily, Sardinia, Umbria, EmiliaRomagna, Lazio, Basilicata and Veneto). The romantic surroundings of Palermo are a wonderful setting in which to savor authentic Italian cuisine and wine. Tel.: 764-37-64. Nab. Reki Fontanki 50, St. Petersburg. www.palermo.restoran.ru
Portobello
ITALIAN Restaurant Da Albertone
The Fish House menu has been developed by the head chef of Russian Vodka Room No. 1, Igor Dashkevich. The range of fish and seafood at the restaurant includes traditional fish house dishes, such as salmon and tuna steaks, seabass and lobster, prawns and scallops, as well as delicacies rarely found on the menus of other restaurants in St. Petersburg, including fish from Siberian rivers - Siberian white salmon and muksun whitefish. The Fish House wine menu offers selections from almost every region in the world at affordable prices. For true connoisseurs, a wine cellar is being created that will comprise exclusive wines from the Top 100 list of Wine Spectator magazine. The restaurant's main room can seat 100, while the basement floor has been designed for hosting banquets and
Chef Luca Pellino prepares immaculate authentic Italian dishes in this restaurant located next to the Hermitage. The menu here is like no other, featuring a wide variety of fish and seafood dishes, homemade desserts and pasta and charcoal grilled steaks. Pizzas here are cooked using patented Italian technology. The chef also offers weekly specials using the best seasonal products available. There is also an open kitchen and a spacious kids’ room. 23 Millionnaya Ul. (100 m. from the Hermitage). Open daily from 11 a.m. till 2 a.m. To reserve a table call 315-86-73.
Brand new Italian restaurant, bar and grill from chef Luca Pellino. Enjoy classic Italian dishes served in innovative ways or try nuovo Italiano cuisine prepared in our chef's inimitable style amid elegant Tuscan-style decor. Suitable for any occasion — lunch, drinks, dinner and romance. There are two rooms with multiple sections: guests can sit on a raised level and enjoy the view from the top, or settle on the cozy couches for two by the fireplace. The menu features homemade pasta, abundant fresh seafood dishes, high grade marble steaks and homemade ice cream and desserts. The wine menu boasts top wines from all over Italy and France to complement the dishes perfectly. Open 11 a.m. until the last customer leaves. 12 Zagorodny Prospekt. Vladimirskaya or Dostoyevskaya metro. Tel: 915-55-01.
MEDITERRANEAN Côté Jardin
A contemporary all-day restaurant made in modern, warm design featuring rich colours and wood is showcasing Russian specialties and dishes prepared with a Mediterranean touch by French Chef Fabrice Pantera. Welcome to Barbeque Terrace that is open until the end of summer. Comfortable atmosphere, attentive and friendly service. Special BBQ on the Terrace starts from 18:00. The Terrace is open from noon. At the lounge bar Intermezzo guests find an extensive vodka list, beers, wines, cocktails, alcohol collection from all around the world. Mouthwatering homemade cakes from La Brioche DeliCounter. Take away service. Open daily 06:30—23:00, breakfast 06:30—10:30, business lunch 12:00—16:00. Credit cards are accepted. Hotel Novotel St. Petersburg Centre. 3A Ul. Mayakovskogo Tel.: 335-11-88, fax: 335-11-80. www.novotel.spb.ru
MEXICAN Tequila-Boom
We invite you to visit TEQUILA-BOOM restaurant — the finest Mexican restaurant in Russia! Our head chef will prepare a delectable array of Mexican cuisine for you: Fajitas Mixto, Burrito, Gringa, flat cakes and steaks, while our barman will mix cocktails, such as Strawberry Margarita, Mexican flag, Mojito and Caipriina. From noon to 4 p.m. Monday to Friday a business lunch (250 rubles) is available at the restaurant. Every evening we have live music, and on Fridays and Saturdays there is a show program featuring the city's best musicians and Latin American dancers. The restaurant is located at: 57/127 Voznesensky Prospekt; Tel.: 310-15-34 or 050 All major credit cards are accepted. We will be glad to see you!
RUSSIAN PALKIN restaurant
PALKIN restaurant is located in the very heart of St. Petersburg. Our constant search for new flavors, painstaking work with old cookery books, and strict standards regarding the use of ingredients make Palkin one of the few places in the world where diners can enjoy the finest dishes of aristocratic Russian cuisine in the elegant atmosphere of an upscale establishment. 47 Nevsky Pr. Tel: (812) 703-53-71 Open: noon to 11.30 p.m. www.palkin.ru
Russian Kitsch Restaurant
Russian Kitsch is a restaurant and party house. You can celebrate any event here 365 days a year! Every day is a celebration here, with parties dedicated to the most outrageous, madcap and frivolous excuses: Complex-Free Day, Geisha Day, Ukraine Armed Forces Day etc. And all this in unforgettable interiors: Soviet politics-themed Baroque-style paintings, leopard print chairs, ostrich feathers, Pioneer bugles and oriental sofas with embroidered cushions that
would delight an Arab sheik. As in any decent Russian restaurant, the menu includes Italian, French and Japanese dishes, as well of course as Russian classics like "herring in a fur coat," Olivier salad, pelmeni, pickles, pies, pancakes and homemade moonshine. Average bill: 1,000 rubles. 25 Universitetskaya nab. Tel.: 325-11-22.
Russian Vodka Room No.1
Russian Vodka Room No. 1 is the first place in St. Petersburg to present Russian cuisine from different historical periods. Here, you can try pre-Petrine dishes such as “oven-cooked buckwheat porridge with chicken hearts and porcini mushrooms”; dishes featuring cuisine of the merchant and aristocratic classes, such as “pike perch rissole with mashed potato”; and Soviet cuisine such as, “chicken Kiev” or “Russian salad.” The restaurant’s premises comprise two spacious rooms with a capacity of 160. In the neighboring rooms is housed the Museum of Russian Vodka which presents fascinating exhibits dating back to the appearance of vodka culture in Russia and running right through to the present day. The restaurant also has a “rumochnaya” (a “standing-room-only” café) decorated in the 20th-century style where you can sample a variety of vodkas with traditional Russian “zakuski” (snacks). 4 Konnogvardeisky Boulevard. Open from midday to midnight. Museum open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Restaurant: 570-64-20, info@vodkaroom.ru. Museum: 570-64-22, info@vodkamuseum.ru
STEAK HOUSE Korovabar
Stylish steak house serving meat from New Zealand, the U.S. and Australia. If you like burgers, lamb ribs and all kinds of steaks, then Korovabar is the place for you! We have an excellent wine list, impeccable service and three addresses to ensure we can be reached conveniently from anywhere in the city. Korovabar is open daily from 11 a.m. till the last customer. Take-away service available. All major credit cards accepted. 8 Karavannaya Ul., tel.: 314-73-48, Gostiny Dvor metro 37 Prospekt Ispytatelei, 986-26-65, Komendantsky Prospekt metro 97 Moskovsky Prospekt, 388-30-25, Moskovskie Vorota metro www.decadencegroup.ru
Stroganoff
Stroganoff steak house is the only steakhouse in Russia that invests in dry aging and hand butchering of our best imported cuts from Australia, New Zealand and Argentina. We welcome business diners and tourists. All our steaks are grilled to perfection on real charcoal. Large steaks and chops as well as the best Beef Stroganoff in Russia. Your comfort food away from home. There are two banquet halls for from 10 to 200 people. Business lunches from 12:00 till 16:00 for 300 rubles. Children’s room. Babysitter available on weekends. Open daily from 12 to 24. 4 Konnogvardeisky blvd. near St. Isaac’s Cathedral, tel.: 314-55-14.
friday, september 3, 2010 11
Museum of the History of Religion 14/5 Pochtamtskaya. M. Nevsky Prospekt, Sennaya, Sadovaya. Tel. 571-0495, 314-5838. Daily 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Closed Wednesday The Sky of Zaonezhye. Icons from the monastery island of Kizhi. Videoart. August 12 through September 25 Museum Monument of the Heroic Defenders of Leningrad Ploshad Pobedy. M. Moskovskaya. Tel. 371-2951, 373-6563. Daily 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday, Friday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Closed last Tuesday of each month. Museum of Printing 32 Naberezhnaya Reki Moiki. Tel. 571-0270. Daily 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Friday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Closed Wednesday NEW! The Age of the Typewriter. The evolution of typewritten technology in the 19th and 20th centuries: from the first mechanical devices to various electrical systems and portable machines. August 26 through November 1 Museum of Toys 32 Naberezhnaya Reki Karpovki. Entrance from Vsevolod Vishnevsky Ul. M. Petrogradskaya, Chkalovskaya. Tel. 234-4312. Daily, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Closed Monday and last Tuesday of each Month. Vladimir Nabokov Apartment Museum 47 Bolshaya Morskaya. Tel. 315-4713, 717-4502. Daily 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Weekend 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. Closed Monday. www.nabokovmuseum.org Narva Triumphal Gates Museum-Memorial 1 Ploshad Stachek, M. Narvskaya, tel. 786-9782. Daily 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Closed Monday, Tuesday and last Friday of each month. Nikolai Nekrasov Apartment Museum 36 Liteiny Prospekt. M. Chernyshevskaya. Tel. 272-0165. Daily, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Closed Tuesday and the last Friday of each month. Popov Central Museum of Communication 3 Pochtamtsky Pereulok. Tel. 323-9718. Daily 10.30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Closed Sunday, Monday and the last Thursday of each month. www.rustelecom-museum.ru The History of the Postal Service in Russia Permanent exposition. Pushkin Apartment Museum 12 Nab. Reki Moika. Tel: 571 3801. Daily 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Closed Tuesday. www.peterlink.ru/spb/pushkin/ NEW! Russian Samovars. Andrei Lobanov’s private collection. Through November 29 Russian Ethnographic Museum. 4/1 Inzhenernaya Ul. M. Nevsky Prospect. Tel. 313-4421. Daily, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Closed Monday and the last Friday of each month. Rimsky-Korsakov Apartment Museum 28 Zagorodny Prospekt, Courtyard. M. Dostoyevskaya. Tel. 713-3208, 315-3975. Daily 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Closed Monday, Tuesday and last Friday of each month. Nikolai Roerich Apartment Museum 1 Line 18, V.O. Daily 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Closed Monday, Tuesday. Tel. 325-4413. www.roerich.spb.ru Masks of the Cham Mystery. Expedition accessories and Roerich family photos, ritual objects. July 3 through October 11 Leningrad Pages of “Amaravella.” Painting. July 16 through November 15 Russian National Library. New Building. 165/2 Moskovsky Prospekt. Tel. 718-8528. Daily 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Closed last Tuesday of each month Samoilov Apartment Museum 8 Stremyannaya Ul. Tel. 764-1130. M. Mayakovskaya. Sigmund Freud Museum of Dreams 18a Bolshoi Prospekt, Petrograd Side. M. Sportivnaya. Tel. 235-2929. Tuesday and Sunday 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. The State Museum of Theatrical and Musical Art 6 Ostrovskogo Pl. Tel. 315-5243. Daily 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. Closed Tuesday. State Russian Museum 2 Inzhenernaya Ul. M. Nevsky Prospekt. Tel. 314-3448, 595-4248. Monday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Wednesday through Sunday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Closed Tuesday. www.rusmuseum.ru/eng Permanent Collection The world’s finest and most extensive collection of works by Russian artists, from 12th-century icons to some of the latest movements in contemporary art exhibited in the Mikhailovsky Palace and in associated buildings listed below.
A Hymn to Labor. Soviet art from the collection of the Russian Museum. From August 5 to November 1 at the Benois Wing. The Sky in Art. Painting, graphics. From August 12 to November 1 at the Benois Wing. NEW! Smolyanki by Dmitry Levitsky. 18th-century paintings of the pupils of the Smolny Institute for Noble Maidens. State Russian Museum: Marble Palace 5/1 Millionnaya Ul. M. Nevsky Prospekt. Tel. 312-9196. Daily, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Closed Tuesday. A branch of the State Russian Museum. NEW! The Story of Love: Li Kvang-Kha (South Korea). Painting, graphics. September 1 through October 18 NEW! Divine Wind: Art group Tanatos Banionis. Video, 3D gravures, photo, objects. September 4 through September 30 State Russian Museum: Mikhailovsky (Engineers’) Castle 2 Sadovaya Ulitsa. M. Nevsky Prospekt. Tel. 313-4112. Daily, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Closed Tuesday. A branch of the State Russian Museum. From Russian Life of the 17th to 20th Centuries. August 26 – closing date to be announced. State Russian Museum: Stroganov Palace 17 Nevsky Prospekt. Tel. 571-2360. Daily, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Closed Tuesday. A branch of the State Russian Museum. NEW! Parisian Years: Lado Gudiashvili. 1920 – 1925. Painting, graphic. Through September 13 State Hermitage Museum 34 Dvortsovaya Naberezhnaya. M. Nevsky Prospekt. Tel. 571-3420, 571-3465. Daily, 10.30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday, 10.30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Closed Monday. www.hermitagemuseum.org/ html_En/index.html Permanent Collection Three million items in six buildings along the Neva and around Palace Square. Unless otherwise stated temporary exhibitions are displayed in the Winter Palace, the museum’s main building. Wind in the Pines. 5000 Years of Korean Art. Painting, graphics, objects, decorative art from the National Korean Museum. June 1 through September 5 Picasso. From the National Picasso Museum in Paris. Painting, graphics, sculpture, objects, ceramics, photo. June 19 through September 5 If You Like Tobacco So Much… European culture and the history of tobacco in the decorative arts. June 25 through October 10 State Hermitage Museum: Menshikov Palace 15 Universitetskaya Nab. M. Vasileostrovskaya. Tel. 323-1112. Daily, 10.30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. A branch of the State Hermitage Museum. Sèvres. Contemporary Porcelain. Vincent Barre, Louise Bourgeois, Françoise Petrovich, Adrian Saks and others (France). Through September 5 State Hermitage Museum: Youth Center of the State Hermitage 45 Naberezhnaya Reki Moiki. M. Nevsky Prospect. Tel. 710-9531. Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday 10.30 a.m. to 5.30 p.m., Thursday 12 p.m. to 8 p.m., Sunday 10.30 a.m. to 5 p.m. A branch of the State Hermitage Museum. Culture and Art From Central Asia. Antiquity and early Middle Ages. Objects. February 12 through October 31 State Hermitage Museum: General Staff Building Daily, 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday, 10:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. Closed Monday. Museum of The Guards A permanent addition to the Hermitage in the General Staff Building. State Center of Photography 35 Bolshaya Morskaya. M. Nevsky Prospekt. Tel. 314-1214, 314-6184. Daily 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. www.ncprf.org NEW! The Wrecking Immersion: Zakhar Kolovsky. The recent history of Russia’s submarine fleet. Photo. August 20 through September 26 NEW! Colors of the Early French Photography. 1840-1880 years photos from the Clementine Fund collection (Paris). Charles Nègre, Henri Le Secq, Charles Marville, Édouard Baldus, Félix Nadar, Eugène Disdéri, Étienne Carjat, Pierre Petit and other famous photographers. September 9 through November 14
Daily 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Weekend 12 a.m. to 5 p.m. Closed Monday. www.nabokovmuseum.org From Fonarny Bath to the Red Lamps: Andrei Semenov. Painting. August 17 through September 5
GALLERIES Al Gallery 76 Nab. Reki Fontanki. Tel. 713-35-34 info@album-gallery.org; www.album-gallery.ru Summary 2009-2010. Vita Buyvid, Andrei Rudyev, Veronika Rudyeva-Ryazantseva, Dmitry Shorin and others. Painting, graphics, video, photo, sculpture. Through September 6 Anna Nova 28 Zhukovskogo Ul., tel. 275-9762. Tuesday – Saturday 12 p.m. to 7 p.m. Arka 6 Bolshaya Morskaya, M. Nevsky Prospekt. Tel. 312-4012. Daily 12 p.m. to 9 p.m. Art Center Pushkinskaya 10 Galleries open from 3 p.m. through 7 p.m. Closed Mondays and Tuesdays. Entrance at 53 Ligovsky Prospekt. http://en.p-10.ru/ ■ Art-Liga Gallery Open Saturday 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. ■ Navicula Artis gallery Tel. 764-5371, Wednesday-Sunday, 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. ■ New Academy of Fine Arts Museum Room 405. Tel. 272-8222. Saturday 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. ■ Museum of Nonconformist Art Floor 4. Tel. 764-5371. Wednesday through Sunday 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. www.nonmuseum.ru/ ■ St. Petersburg Archive and Library of Independent Art Tel. 272-8222. Monday and Saturday 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. ■ FOTOImage Office 1. Tel. 764-5371. Saturday 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. ■ GEZ-21 Outbuilding B, 3 Floor. Tel. 764-5258, Daily 3 p.m. to midnight. ■ Kino-FOT-703 Office 703. Tel. 764-5353. ■ Art-Project “Parnik” Open WednesdaySunday 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. ■ The Door Floor 3. Wednesday through Sunday 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Art. Object 13 Oranienbaumskaya. Tel. 498-0625. Daily 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. NEW! The Pleasure of the Summer. Painting. September 3 through September 12 Art Re.Flex 5 Bakunina Ul. Tel. 332-3343. Daily 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. www.artreflex.ru Dreams of a Diver: Natalia Rumyantseva. Painting. Through September 1 Artists Union of Russia Exhibition Center 38 Bolshaya Morskaya Ul. Tel. 314-3060. Daily, 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. NEW! Times of the Year: Igor Gerzhedovich. Painting. August 25 through September 5 NEW! Dali: Alexei Malykh-Vasilyev & Dmitry Shumailov. Painting. August 25 through September 12 NEW! Tamara Dmitriyeva. Sculpture. September 1 through September 12 NEW! Traditional Decorative Art and Education. Decorative art. September 2 through September 12 The Books and Graphics Center 55 Liteiny Prospekt. M. Mayakovskaya. Tel. 272-9535. Daily 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Borey 58 Liteiny Prospekt. M. Vladimirskaya, Mayakovskaya. Tel. 273-3693. Tuesday Saturday 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. Bulthaup. Gallery of Design 2 Bolshaya Konyushennaya, Monday-Friday 11 a.m.- 8 p.m., Saturday - Sunday 11 a.m. – 7 p.m. Didi Art Gallery 62 Bolshoi Prospekt, V.O., M. Vasileostrovskaya. Tel. 320-7357. Daily 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Closed Sunday. Erarta Museum 2, 29th Line of Vasilyevsky Island, lit. A. M. Vasileostrovskaya. Tel. 324-0809. Daily 12 a.m .to 8 p.m. Closed Wednesday. www.erarta.com NEW! Marks of Time: Alexander Zagoskin. Painting. September 3 through October 4 Green Room Restaurant 74 Ligovsky Prospekt, 3 floor. Daily 12 a.m. to 12 p.m. Tel. 458-8003 NEW! The Murder. Last Ritual: Nicolo Ceccella (Italy). Photo. September 3 through September 24
Alexander Suvorov Apartment Museum 43 Kirochnaya Ul., M. Chernyshevskaya. Tel. 279-3914. Daily 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Closed Tuesday, Wednesday and first Monday of each Month.
Guild of Masters 82 Nevsky Prospekt. M. Gostiny Dvor. Tel. 279-0979. Daily 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. NEW! Alexander Volkov. Painting. August 22 through September 22
Vladimir Nabokov Apartment Museum 47 Bolshaya Morskaya. Tel. 315-4713, 717-4502.
Karl Bulla Photosalon 54 Nevsky Prospekt, 3 floor, tel. 312-2080
FOR SPT
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 8
‘Squirrels’ painted by Anya Abelit, one of a series of images released by the Pavlovsk Museum to mark Pavlovsk Squirrel Day, which it celebrates on Sunday. KGallery Nab. Reki Fontanki 24, M. Nevsky Prospekt. Tel. 273 0056.
Kirill Savchenko. Photo. August 7 through September 10
Kitchen Gallery 9 Belinskogo Ul. Tel. +7 921 928 9619. Daily 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Closed Monday, Tuesday.
Rachmaninov Art Way 5 Kazanskaya Ulitsa, Second Courtyard, tel. 312-9558. Daily 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Everyday Life Subjects: Serzhe Lis. Photo. August 6 through September 29
Loft-Project Etazhi 74 Ligovsky Prospekt. Tel. 339-9836. Daily 12 a.m. to 10 p.m. ■ Fotowall ■ Formula Gallery ■ Globus 4th floor. Manezh Central Exhibition Hall 1 Isaakievskaya Pl. M. Nevsky Prospekt. Tel. 314-8859. Daily, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Closed Thursday NEW! Native Land. Painting, graphics. August 25 through September 5 NEW! Festival ARTZOND-2010. Anthology of Time. Installation, performance, action, happening, theatric performance, dance. September 3 through September 5 Manezh Central Exhibition Hall, Small Hall 103 Nab. Kanala Griboyedova. Tel. 312-2243 Mart Gallery 35 Marata. Tel. 710-8835, 315-2768. M. Vladimirskaya, Dostoyevskaya. Daily 12 a.m. to 7 p.m. Closed Sunday, Monday NEW! Isla Saint Laurence, Isla Dauphine, Isla Madagascar: Fofa Rabearivelo (Madagascar). Painting. September 1 through September 21 Marina Gisich Gallery 121 Nab. Reki Fontanki, tel. 314-4380. Daily, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., Saturday 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. Closed Sunday. Open by prior appointment. Mayakovsky Library 46 Nab. Reki Fontanki. Young Photo. Something Strange. Photo. August 17 through September 8 NEW! Goths: The Charm of the Dark Romantics: Yelena Safonova. Photo. August 28 through September 20 Mokhovaya 18 Gallery M. Chernyshevskaya. Daily 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Closed Sunday, Monday. Tel. 275-3383. www.gm18.ru New Museum Gallery 29 6th Line of Vasilyevsky Island. Tel. 323-5090. M. Vasileostrovskaya www.novymuseum.ru Petersburg’s Artist MuseumExhibition Center 1 Glinki Ulitsa. Tel. 314-0609. Daily 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Closed Monday, Tuesday, www.piter-art.com Photodepartment Gallery 32 Nevsky Prospekt. Tel. 314-5925, +7 901 301 7994. M. Gostiny Dvor. www.fotodepartament.ru
Rakhmaninov Hotel 5 Kazanskaya Ul. Tel. 327 74 66. www.kazansky5.com NEW! The Hotel Collection. Graphics, photo, painting. Gaga Kovenchuk, Aron Zinshtein, Vyacheslav Pobozhensky, Irina Dudina, Arcady Shaikhet and others. September 1 through October 14 Rosphoto Center of Photography 35 Bolshaya Morskaya Ulitsa, tel: 314-1214. www.rosphoto.org Hungarian Masters of Photography. Photo. June 23 through Aug. 28 Portraits of Artists and Friends - Lars Schwander. Photo. July 3 through Sept. 15 The Mikhail Shemyakin Fund 11 Sadovaya Ul. M. Gostiny Dvor. Tel. 310-2514. Tuesday Thursday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. NEW! Hollywood Icons. Photo. A part of the Sixth International Open Cinema Short Film and Animation Festival. September 2 through September 12 Spanish Center Exhibition Hall 7 Rubinshteina Ul. M. Dostoyevskaya. Daily 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. (closed: 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.), weekend 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Tel. 325-8470. www.icsanpetersburgo.com Stachka Gallery 5 Ploshchad Stachek. Yarky Mir PRO photo center. M. Narvskaya. Tel. 680-0101. Daily 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tolstoy Square 9 Ploshad Lva Tolstogo. M. Petrogradskaya. Tel. +7 921 928 9619. Thursday 6 p.m. to 11 p.m., Friday 5 p.m. to 11 p.m., Saturday 3 p.m. to 10.30 p.m. By prior appointment. NEW! Japanese Beauty. Painting, graphics. September 3 through September 27 Tretyakov Gallery 2 Pionerskaja Ul., M. Pionerskaya, Sportivnaya. Tel. 233-1007. Tuesday through Friday 12 a.m.to 7.30 p.m., Saturday 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. NEW! Microrealism FOR EVER: Dmitry Yakovin. Painting. September 1 through September 30 Zoom Café-Club 22 Gorokhovaya Ul., tel. 972-1805. Daily, 11 a.m. to 0 p.m. 100 0f Our Own 39 Ligovsky Prospekt. Tel. 275-9363. Daily 4 p.m. to 9 p.m., closed Tuesday
12
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Friday, September 3, 2010
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The St. Petersburg Times
Jailing of Pregnant Mother of 4 Sparks Protest By Alexandra Odynova T H E S T. P E T E R S B U R G T I M E S
MOSCOW — A mother of four who is pregnant with a fifth child has become a cause celebre after a court jailed her for three years even though it could have waived the sentence under a legal provision allowing leniency for mothers with young children. Former Yukos lawyer Svetlana Bakhmina, a mother of three who failed to receive leniency when jailed on politically tinged charges in 2006, is spearheading a campaign to secure the release of the mother, Yulia Kruglova, a regional director for a Dutchowned insurance company who was jailed in July on embezzlement charges. The campaign has won the support of children’s ombudsman Pavel Astakhov and the Public Chamber. Even prosecutors have filed an appeal. “I was so amazed by the story that I decided to help,” Bakhmina said in a telephone interview. It is not unusual for a mother to be sent to prison in Russia, but Kruglova, a mother of four little children, was ordered by a judge to immediately start serving three years in prison just two months before her fifth child was supposed to be born by Caesarean section. Kruglova, 36, who ran the Oranta insurance company’s Tolyatti branch, was found guilty of embezzling 16 million rubles ($520,000) from the company and ordered jailed by Tolyatti’s Central District Court on July 19. The mother, who is now hospitalized in a prison clinic, is scheduled to undergo a Caesarean section on Sept. 20. Three days before that, on Sept. 17, the Samara Regional Court is scheduled to consider separate appeals from prosecutors, who want the prison sentence lifted, and Kruglova’s lawyers, who want the mother moved to a better-equipped hospital outside the prison.
KRUGLOVA.ITLF.RU
Kruglova’s husband and four children.
Kruglova, 36, was found guilty of embezzling 16 million rubles ($520,000) from her employer. Astakhov, who in addition to serving as children’s ombudsman is a prominent lawyer, said he would travel to the Samara region next week to try to intervene in the case. “I think that even if a crime is proven, the children’s fate can’t be put on the same level as the money, even all the money in the whole country,” Astakhov said by telephone Wednesday. He noted that Kruglova was charged with an economic crime — an area where President Dmitry Medvedev has softened penalties this year. The case against Kruglova was filed by Oranta, which was founded in 1995 and acquired by the Netherlands-based Eureko Insurance Group after Kruglova’s arrest. Oranta declined to comment on the case Wednesday. “We rely
KRUGLOVA.ITLF.RU
Pregnant mother of four Yulia Kruglova has been jailed for three years. on the court to rule a just decision, and we can’t comment on the pending case because we don’t want to put pressure on the court through public opinion and mass media,” it said in an e-mailed statement. Oranta filed the case in 2008, accusing Kruglova of falsifying expenses the previous year and pocketing 16 million rubles in company funds. It asked the court to sentence Kruglova to seven years in prison, Bakhmina said.
In her closing speech to the court, Kruglova maintained that she had never stolen anything from the company and that the case against her was falsified. The judge, Irina Kharkhan, ruled that her children could be cared for by their father and grandmother. Kharkhan could not be reached for comment on her ruling Tuesday and Wednesday. The Criminal Code allows judges at their discretion to delay the sen-
ALEXANDER BELENKY/SPT
Free For All
Participants attend the Russian Territory - Digital Space conference at the Presidential Library on Senate Square on Wednesday. From Sept. 1, the Russian Territory collection of books, maps, atlases and photographs can be accessed for free on www.prlib.ru.
tences of pregnant women or mothers with small children until the child reaches 14. Moreover, a court can revoke the sentence altogether if the convict does not commit any crimes in the interim. Bakhmina, who herself was paroled last year after spending more than four years in prison and giving birth to a third child in a prison hospital, initiated the campaign for Kruglova after hearing about it from a LiveJournal friend. Bakhmina said she sent written appeals and made phone calls to Oranta’s office in Russia but to no avail. “The only message I got was from their parent company in the Netherlands, Eureko, saying that the case is not relevant to them because it dates back to 2007, before Oranta was purchased,” Bakhmina said. She conducted her own investigation — including interviews with former Oranta employees — which she said found that Kruglova might be a scapegoat. Bakhmina highlighted the case on her LiveJournal blog and called for other people to come forward to support the mother’s release. Shortly afterward, in early August, a Tolyatti prosecutor, Dmitry Golenkov, appealed to the court to replace the prison sentence with a penalty that did not involve incarceration. After his intervention, state-run media joined the loud public outcry, incidentally putting Bakhmina’s name in a positive light for the first time since the beginning of the state’s legal assault against Yukos and its former owner Mikhail Khodorkovsky in 2003. The Public Chamber this week pressed local prison officials to transfer Kruglova from the prison hospital to a regular one by early September. Public Chamber members are planning to appeal to the Samara regional court’s top judge, Lyubov Drozdova, asking that she postpone Kruglova’s sentence until her soon-to-be-born child turns 14, as prescribed by the Criminal Code, said Maria Kannabikh, a senior member of the Federal Prison Service’s public council. “We are not saying that she is innocent. We just see that the rights of her children are being strongly violated,” Kannabikh said by telephone. She said the prison warden has given her a personal promise to transfer Kruglova to a regular hospital before the scheduled birth. Doctors have advised that the child be born by Caesarean section, just like Kruglova’s previous four children, and advised against performing the operation in the prison hospital because of possible complications. A weeping Kruglova said in televised comments from the prison hospital that she was so depressed that she could not even talk to her unborn baby. “I don’t think that the state gains any benefit in isolating me from my children,” Kruglova said in a recent interview with Channel One state television. Highlighting the arbitrariness of the law, just a month after Kruglova’s conviction, an Irkutsk court sentenced the daughter of a local official to three years in prison for killing a pedestrian and injuring another in a traffic accident — but ruled that she would not begin serving the sentence until 2024 when her infant son turns 14. The accident, in which the daughter of the chairwoman of the Irkutsk regional election committee said she lost control of her car after mixing up the gas and brake pedals, sparked considerable anger after surveillance camera footage emerged that showed the woman examining her car and then making a phone call rather than showing concern for the pedestrians.
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Please call (812) 325-6080 OFFICE FOR RENT 4-6-8, Bolshaya Konushennaya Ul. New premises for office or some other purpose in the courtyard of the “House of Finland” and Finnish church. 3 minutes to Nevsky Pr. 72 sq.m, 1st floor, 2 entrances, 2 tel. lines, WC, shower, mini kitchen. Just after renovation. Tel. +7-921967-22-83, email: k-keskus@ mail.ru Konstantin /”K-KESKUS”. No agency fee!
ACCOMMODATION FREE accommodation in exchange for English lessons. Sergey. Tel.: +7-911-096-10-68. City center. From 1,800 rub. www.ltour.ru/rental_apartments_ st_petersburg_en.php? economical=050 Tel.: +7-812-97033-34 Apartments and hotels. Tel. : (+7812) 579-99-33, (+7-812) 579-9396. E-mail: info@visatorus.com www.travelrussia.su
+7-921-992-15-22, 325-38-38, NEVSKY PROSTOR AGENCY, E-mail: rent@spb-estate.com, www.spb-estate.com
2-ROOM APARTMENT 18 Kazanskaya Ul. 50 sq.m. Historic building, 8 windows, very safe. 40,000 rub/month. From owner. Tel.: +7-911-815-49-79. E-mail: emaiorova@gmail.com 13 Shavrova Ul. NEW. European design. Tel.: +7-921-403-40-00 B. Konushennaya Ul. 65 sq.m. Two level apartment. Fully fitted, furnished. Contact tel.: +7-921-963-74-54; e-mail: olestate@gmail.com, olga@ ctinvestments.ru 6A Vosstania Ul. New elite building, high-tech design, splendid view. Fully furnished and equipped. NIGHT SKY REALTY. Tel.: +7-812333-15-15. E-mail: info@ nightskyrealty.ru
Apartments for rent in the center for short and long terms. Transport with driver for rent. Tel.: +7-901302-16-33, +7-906-274-01-51, Svetlana. E-mail: svbalueva@ yandex.ru
M. Konushennaya Ul. Total area 90 sq.m. Large kitchen, air conditioning. View of the canal. Secure entrance. Contact tel.: +7-921-963-74-54; e-mail: olestate@gmail.com, olga@ ctinvestments.ru
1-ROOM APARTMENT
Kazanskaya Ul. Comfortable 1-bedroom apartment in a brand-new building near Isaac’s Sq. Natural furnishing, convenient lay-out, secured building. 60 sq.m. 50,000 rub/month. Tel.: +7-911-732-2882, Ekaterina / Penny Lane Realty. E-mail: ekaterina@ realtor.ru, photos at www.realtor.ru/z1965
Italianskaya/Sadovaya Ul. 5th floor (lift). Room: 21 sq.m., kitchen 12 sq.m., bathroom with heated floor. Air conditioning. Furnished and equipped. Nice staircase. Secure entrance from Sadovaya Ul. 35,000 rub/month. Tel.:
2B Griboyedova Emb. One bed-
room apartment, just after renovation, modern and comfortable. Living room with a fire place, windows overlook the Mihailovsky Gardens. Parking in the closed court yard. Very central, convenient and safe location, 5 minutes to Nevsky Pr. Tel. +7-921-967-2283, email: k-keskus@mail.ru Konstantin /”K-KESKUS”. Nakhimova Ul. 1-bedroom apartment on Vasilievsky Island. Beautifully designed home benefiting from modern and stylish fixtures and fittings. 53 sq.m. 45,000 rub/month. Tel.: +7-911-732-2882, Ekaterina / Penny Lane Realty, e-mail: ekaterina@ realtor.ru, photos at www.realtor.ru/z1853 Griboyedova Emb. Comfortable 1-bedroom waterfront apartment in the city center. Modern furniture and design, all necessary appliances, perfect view of Canal Griboyedova. 80 sq.m. 70,000 rub/ month. Tel.: +7-911-732-28-82, Ekaterina / Penny Lane Realty. E-mail: ekaterina@realtor.ru, photos at www.realtor.ru/ z1161 12 Malaya Konyushennaya Ul. 3rd floor. Total area 70 sq.m.: sitting room (15 sq.m.), bedroom (17 sq.m.), kitchen (9 sq.m.), hall 26 sq.m., bathroom. Fully furnished and equipped. Entrance from a closed courtyard. 35,000 rub/ month. Tel.: +7-921-903-44-10, +7-921-992-15-22, 325-38-38, NEVSKY PROSTOR AGENCY, E-mail: rent@spb-estate.com, www.spb-estate.com 25 Fontanka River. Third building from Nevsky Prospekt. Total area 70 sq.m. 2 bedrooms, kitchen-dining room, two bathrooms, sauna. Fully furnished and well-equipped. Renovated entrance from the embankment, concierge. Short
terms: 4,000 rub/day. Tel.: +7-921957-07-63, +7-921-992-1-522, 325-3838, NEVSKY PROSTOR AGENCY, E-mail: rent@spb-estate. com, www.spb-estate.com 10 Griboyedova Emb. Total area: 100 sq.m. 1-bedroom apartment. Top-grade light apartment in the very center of St. Petersburg with a fabulous view on Griboyedova Emb. This beautifully interior designed home benefits from modern and stylish fixtures and fittings. All necessary household equipment, convenient lay-out, guarded parking. 100,000 rub/ month. Penny Lane Realty, Tel.: +7 (812) 326-26-26, +7 (911) 732-28-82. E-mail: еkaterina@ realtor.ru, photos at www.realtor.ru/z1966
3-ROOM APARTMENT First time rented. Close to Hermitage. 100 sq.m. Fully furnished. Tel.: +7-921-096-42-56. Anna. 5 Dumskaya Ul. 1 min by walk to Nevsky and metro, 2 bedrooms, living room+ kitchen, WC with shower cabin, windows overlook the court yard, entrance from the street. Fully furnished and equipped. 45,000 rub/month. Tel. +7-921-967-22-83, email: k-keskus@mail.ru Konstantin /”K-KESKUS”. 66 Nevsky Pr. Excellent water view, 2 bedrooms, modern style, fully furnished and equipped, air-conditioning. NIGHT SKY REALTY. Tel.: +7-812-333-15-15. E-mail: info@ nightskyrealty.ru 22-24 Nevsky Pr. Quiet and comfortable. Top 6th floor (lift). Total area 114 sq.m.: two bedrooms, kitchen-
sitting room and two bathrooms. Wonderful view: windows overlook greenery and church. Renovated staircase. Secure entrance from pedestrian precinct. Parking available. 120,000 rub/month. Tel.: +7-921-957-07-63, +7-921-99215-22, 325-38-38, NEVSKY PROSTOR AGENCY, E-mail: rent@spb-estate.com, www.spb-estate.com 18 Fontanka River. First time rent 2-bedroom apartment in modern style in the city center. Refurnished with natural materials. Fully furnished and equipped with all necessary household appliances. Fast Internet and satellite TV are available. 150 sq.m. 150,000 rub/ month. Tel. +7-911-171-14-14, Natalia / Penny Lane Realty. E-mail: nata@realtor.ru, photos at www.realtor.ru/z1863 42 Moika River. Second building from Nevsky Pr. 4th floor (lift). Total area 92 sq.m. Two bedrooms (19+11,5 sq.m.), sitting room (16 sq.m.), kitchen-dining room (25 sq.m.), sauna and two bathrooms. Modern furniture. All necessary equipment is available. Main entrance from Moika Embankment, 24-hour security. 75,000 rub/ month. Tel.: 957-07-63, 992-1522, +7-812-325-38-38, NEVSKY PROSTOR AGENCY, E-mail: rent@spb-estate.com, www.spb-estate.com 36/38 Kamennoostrovsky Pr. First time rent 2-bedroom apartment in modern style in the Petrograd Side. Refurnished with natural materials. Fully furnished and equipped with all necessary household appliances. Fast Internet, concierge service are available. 85 sq.m. 60,000 rub/ month. Tel. +7-911-171-14-14, Natalia / Penny Lane Realty. E-mail: nata@realtor.ru, photos at www.realtor.ru/z1950
4-ROOM APARTMENT MALAYA KONUSHENNAYA UL. 140 sq.m, three bedrooms, 2WC, modern style, very light, spacious, good view onto two sides. Renovated entrance from the street. Tel. +7-921-967-2283 Konstantin /”K-KESKUS”. Nevsky Pr. Close to the Kazan Cathedral. 140 sq.m. Spacious, fully fitted modern kitchen. Italian furniture, view of the cathedral. Secure entrance. Contact tel.: +7-921-963-74-54; e-mail: olestate@gmail.com, olga@ ctinvestments.ru 1 Moika River. Splendid location: close to Summer Gardens and Field of Mars. Sunny and well-equipped. 3rd floor. The total area 130 sq.m.: three separate bedrooms (19+17+17 sq.m.), kitchen-sitting room (30 sq.m.), 10 sq.m. entrance hall and two bathrooms with jacuzzi and shower cubicle. All necessary domestic appliances. Entrance from the embankment. 90,000 rub/month. Tel.: 957-07-63, 992-15-22, 325-38-38, NEVSKY PROSTOR AGENCY, E-mail: rent@ spb-estate.com, www.spb-estate.com
5-ROOM APARTMENT 40 Fontanka River. Elegant apartment with gorgeous river view, 3 bedrooms, 2 en-suite bathrooms, fully furnished and equipped, security, parking. NIGHT SKY REALTY. Tel.: +7-812-333-15-15. E-mail: info@nightskyrealty.ru 19 Griboyedova Emb. Stunning water view, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms. Jacuzzi. Fully furnished and equipped, air-conditioning. NIGHT SKY REALTY. Tel.: +7-812-333-15-15. E-mail: info@ nightskyrealty.ru
7-ROOM APARTMENT 42 Moika River. Newly renovated, spacious apartment. 290 sq.m. European standard, four bathrooms, fully fitted kitchen, concierge. Contact tel.: +7-921-963-74-54;e-mail:olestate@ gmail.com, olga@ctinvestments.ru
APARTMENT FOR SALE
SPECIAL OFFER for commercial real estate. For details call
325-60-80
5/1 Asafyeva Ul. 2-room apartment for sale from the owner. 67 sq.m. (14.5 + 17). 4th floor. 10 min walk from M. Prosveshcheniya. New building. Glassed-in balcony. Fully equipped kitchen (14.5 sq.m.). 2 built-in wardrobes. High ceilings (3 m.). 24hr guards, video security. Windows overlook a quiet locked courtyard with children’s playground. Parking. Good neighbors. Tel.: +7-911-811-15-20 Alex. 33 Морская наб. Василеостровский район. Метро Приморская, 15 мин. пешком. 16/16 этаж. 4 к.кв. 140 кв.м. Кухня-столовая 37 кв.м. 2 балкона. 2 санузла. 15,000 тыc. рублей. Можно с паркингом. 8-921-747-06-56.
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Friday, September 3, 2010
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The Summer of Extremes By Stefan Rahmstorf
T
his summer has been one of weather-related extremes in Russia, Pakistan, China, Europe, the Arctic — you name it. But does this have anything to do with global warming, and are human emissions to blame? While it cannot be scientifically proven — or disproven, for that matter — that global warming caused any particular extreme event, we can say that global warming very likely makes many kinds of extreme weather both more frequent and more severe. For weeks in late July and early August, central Russia suffered its worstever heat wave. As a result of drought and heat, more than 500 wildfires raged out of control. Meanwhile, Pakistan is still struggling with unprecedented flooding that has killed more than 1,600 people and affected millions more. In China, flash floods have so far killed more than 1,000 people and destroyed more than a million homes. On a smaller scale, European countries like Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic have also suffered serious flooding. Meanwhile, global temperatures in recent months have been at their highest levels in records that go back 130 years. Arctic Sea ice cover reached its lowest recorded average level for the month of June ever. In Greenland, two huge chunks of ice broke off in July and August. Are these events connected? Looking only at individual extreme events will not reveal their cause, just like watching a few scenes from a movie does not reveal the plot. But viewed in a broader context and using the logic of physics, important parts of the plot can be understood. This decade has been marked by a number of stunning extremes. In 2003, the most severe heat wave in living memory broke previous temperature records by a large margin and caused 70,000 deaths in Europe. In 2005, the most severe hurricane season ever witnessed in the Atlantic devastated New Orleans and broke records in terms of the number and intensity of storms. In 2007, unprecedented wildfires raged across Greece, nearly destroying the ancient site of Olympia. And the Northwest Passage in the Arctic became ice-free for the first time in living memory. Last year, more than 100 people were killed in bush fires in Australia, following drought and recordbreaking heat. This cluster of record-breaking events could be merely an astonishing
streak of bad luck. But that is extremely unlikely. This is far more likely to be the result of a warming climate — a consequence of this decade being the hottest worldwide for 1,000 years.
In 2003, the most severe heat wave in living memory caused 70,000 deaths in Europe. All weather is driven by energy, and the sun ultimately provides this energy. But the biggest change in Earth’s energy budget by far over the past 100 years is because of the accumulation in our atmosphere of greenhouse gases,
which limit the exit of heat into space. Owing to fossil-fuel emissions, there is now one-third more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than at any time in at least a million years, as the latest ice drilling in Antarctica has revealed. The changes in the planet’s energy budget caused by solar variations are at least 10 times smaller in comparison. And they go in the wrong direction. In recent years, the sun has been at its dimmest since satellite measurements began in the 1970s. So when unprecedented extreme weather events occur, the prime suspect is naturally the biggest atmospheric change that has happened over the past 100 years — one that has been caused by human emissions. The fact that heat waves like the one in Russia become more frequent and extreme in a warmer world is easy to understand. Extreme rainfall events will also become more frequent and in-
I N S I D E ë‡ÌÍÚ-èÂÚ·ۄ í‡ÈÏÒ Derk Sauer, CEO / ÑÂÍ ë‡Û˝ – ÉÂ̇θÌ˚È ‰ËÂÍÚÓ Tatyana Turikova, Publisher / í‡Ú¸fl̇ íÛËÍÓ‚‡ – àÁ‰‡ÚÂθ Tobin Auber, Editor / íÓ·ËÌ é·Â – É·‚Ì˚È Â‰‡ÍÚÓ Alexander Belenky, Photo Editor / Александр Беленький – Фоторедактор Shura Collinson, Deputy Editor / òÛ‡ äÓÎÎËÌÒÓÌ — á‡Ï. ‰‡ÍÚÓ‡ Galina Stolyarova, Chief Reporter / ɇÎË̇ ëÚÓÎflÓ‚‡ – ÇÂ‰Û˘ËÈ Ó·ÓÁ‚‡ÚÂθ Anna Brun, Advertising Director / AÌ̇ ÅÛÌ – ÑËÂÍÚÓ ÔÓ ÂÍ·Ï Maria Berntseva, Marketing and Public-Relations Manager / å‡Ëfl ÅÂ̈‚‡ – åẨʠÔÓ Ï‡ÍÂÚËÌ„Û Alla Kalinovskaya, Production Director / Äη ä‡ÎËÌÓ‚Ò͇fl – ìÔ‡‚Îfl˛˘ËÈ ÔÓËÁ‚Ó‰ÒÚ‚ÓÏ Founding company: OOO Neva Media Publishing company: OOO Neva Media ì˜Â‰ËÚÂθ Ë ËÁ‰‡ÚÂθ – ééé “ç‚‡ å‰ˇ” 4 St. Isaac’s Sq., St. Petersburg, Russia. Copyright © 2005 The St. Petersburg Times. All Rights Reserved. Mass media registration certificate number èà ‹ îë2-8918 of November 30, 2007, issued by the Directorate of the Federal Service for the monitoring of compliance with legislation in the sphere of mass communications and the preservation of cultural heritage of the North-West Federal District. ë‚ˉÂÚÂθÒÚ‚Ó Ó Â„ËÒÚ‡ˆËË Ò‰ÒÚ‚‡ χÒÒÓ‚ÓÈ ËÌÙÓχˆËË èà ‹ îë28918 ÓÚ 30 ÌÓfl·fl 2007 „Ó‰‡, ‚˚‰‡ÌÓ ìÔ‡‚ÎÂÌËÂÏ î‰‡θÌÓÈ ÒÎÛÊ·˚ ÔÓ Ì‡‰ÁÓÛ Á‡ Òӷβ‰ÂÌËÂÏ Á‡ÍÓÌÓ‰‡ÚÂθÒÚ‚‡ ‚ ÒÙ χÒÒÓ‚˚ı ÍÓÏÏÛÌË͇ˆËÈ Ë Óı‡Ì ÍÛθÚÛÌÓ„Ó Ì‡ÒΉËfl ÔÓ ë‚ÂÓ-á‡Ô‡‰ÌÓÏÛ Ù‰‡θÌÓÏÛ ÓÍÛ„Û. éÚÔ˜‡Ú‡ÌÓ ‚ éÄé «ëè· „‡ÁÂÚÌ˚È ÍÓÏÔÎÂÍÒ». 198216, ëè·, ãÂÌËÌÒÍËÈ Ô., 139. á‡Í‡Á ‹ 471. èÓ‰ÔËÒ‡ÌÓ ‚ Ô˜‡Ú¸ ‚ 1.00. íË‡Ê 16000 ˝ÍÁ. ê‡ÒÔÓÒÚ‡ÌflÂÚÒfl ·ÂÒÔ·ÚÌÓ. Address: 190000, Russia, St. Petersburg, 4 St. Isaac’s Square. Telephone/Fax: (7-812) 325-60-80. ĉÂÒ Â‰‡ÍˆËË: 190000, ëè·, àÒ‡‡ÍË‚Ò͇fl ÔÎ., 4. E-mail: postmaster@sptimesrussia.com Internet: http://www.sptimesrussia.com The St. Petersburg Times is a free publication.
tense in a warmer climate, owing to another simple fact of physics: Warm air can hold more moisture. For each degree Celsius of warming, 7 percent more water is available to rain down from saturated air masses. Drought risk also increases with warming. Even where rainfall does not decline, increased evaporation dries out the soils. The events of this summer show how vulnerable our societies are to weather-related extremes. But what we see now is happening after only 0.8 C of global warming. With swift and decisive action, we can still limit global warming to a total of 2 C or a bit less. Even that much warming would require a massive effort to adapt to weather extremes and rising sea levels, which needs to start now. With weak action, like that promised by governments in Copenhagen in December, we will be on course for a
global warming of 3 or 4 C. This is bound to outstrip the ability of many societies and ecosystems to adapt. With no action at all, the planet could even heat up by 5 to 7 C by the end of this century — and more thereafter. Knowingly marching down that road would be insane. We must face the facts. Our emissions of greenhouse gases probably are at least partly to blame for this summer of extremes. Clinging to the hope that it is all chance and all natural seems naive. Let us hope that this summer of extremes is a last-minute wake-up call to policymakers, the corporate world and citizens alike. Stefan Rahmstorf, a professor of physics at Potsdam University and a member of the German Advisory Council on Global Change, is author of “The Climate Crisis.” © Project Syndicate
R U S S I A
Putin’s Ticking Time Bomb By Yulia Latynina
M
oscow’s horrendous daily traffic jams and this summer’s wildfires have something in common: The roots of both of these problems can be found in the government’s gross incompetence. First, there were the Communists. They moved the capital from St. Petersburg to a large Asian village known as Moscow. Unlike St. Petersburg, Moscow grew in circles linked by radial lines, resulting in maximum chaos for drivers trying to maneuver around the city. What’s more, Moscow developed large industrial zones in the first half of the 20th century. During the Soviet era, land had no price value, and industrial zones close to the city center created serious logistical problems for transportation. Then the Soviet state fell apart. In the chaos that resulted, the dominant principle was that everything that could be sold should be sold.
In June, the inevitable happened: The Moscow authorities shut down a vital artery — an underpass on Leningradskoye Shosse — which meant that it took more Yulia Latynina than four hours to reach Sheremetyevo Airport by car from the center. A similar thing happened with the fires. The Communists drained the country’s expansive peat swamps, and as a result, wildfires broke out in Russia in 1972. But the Communists did get one thing right: They at least knew how to put out fires. Moreover, the authorities did everything possible to prevent a recurrence. The government created a nationwide firefighting service equipped with a fleet of aircraft capable of suppressing almost any fire before it could spread.
After the Soviet collapse, new leaders came to power. The country fell into a protracted period of corrupt privatization and asset grabs. In 2007, the government adopted a Forest Code that served the interests of the pulp and paper mills owners. The code gave corporate interests — rather than the state — the responsibility for conserving and protecting the forests. Every forestry expert warned that there would be catastrophic fires during the first extreme heat wave. The authorities have yet to tell us how many people died in the fires and smog, as well as what long-term health affects the smog will have on the tens of millions of people who inhaled the poisonous gases. The vertical power structure under Prime Minster Vladimir Putin is notorious for not taking preventative measures to avoid disasters. Moreover, as the Forest Code so clearly showed, it often makes decisions that directly lead to a major disaster.
The next catastrophe could easily be nuclear. Take, for example, the Mayak nuclear weapons facility near Chelyabinsk. This facility has a storage facility that contains 25 tons of weapons-grade plutonium and 200 tons of uranium. In contrast to standard practice by other nuclear states, Russia’s enormous stockpile of radioactive material is not housed in multiple sites to reduce the risk of a massive disaster. What’s more, the repository is not buried deep under a mountain. It is simply enclosed by concrete walls. During the Soviet period, Mayak had a horrific record of nuclear disasters, which resulted in roughly 500,000 people in the Chelyabinsk region receiving radioactive contamination that was many times worse than what Chernobyl disaster victims suffered. Far too little has been done to prevent another disaster. The next disaster could mean the end of Russia. Yulia Latynina hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio.
World
PAG E 1 6
FRI DAY, S E P T E M B E R 3 , 2 0 1 0
Pakistan Aid Hit by Stall In Funding
Israel, Palestine Relaunch Talks
By Hasan Mansoor AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE
By Stephen Collinson AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE
WASHINGTON — Israeli and Palestinian leaders are set to resume direct talks on Thursday, seeking to clinch an elusive peace deal for the Middle East within a year against a backdrop of renewed violence. As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas prepared to sit down for their first direct talks in 20 months, Hamas claimed responsibility for the West Bank shooting of two Israelis. That attack came just a day after four Jewish settlers were killed in a shooting on Tuesday also claimed by Hamas, which is vehemently opposed to the peace negotiations. Despite the attacks U.S. President Barack Obama called on both sides not to let slip a fleeting opportunity for peace, a Palestinian state and a secure Israel within a year, as he gathered the two leaders, with King Abdullah II of Jordan and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak at the White House on Wednesday. “This moment of opportunity may not soon come again,” said Obama, who met the leaders separately, and then hosted a dinner that also included Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and diplomatic Quartet representative Tony Blair. Netanyahu vowed to forge a “historic” peace with the Palestinians and Abbas met hawkish Netanyahu’s conciliatory rhetoric by calling for an end to bloodshed after the latest Hamas attacks, but also demanded a halt to Israel settlement activity. Netanyahu’s dramatic opening gambit came during a press appearance in
JASON REED/REUTERS
Barack Obama (c) walks with Benjamin Netanyahu (l) and Mahmoud Abbas (r) in the White House on Tuesday. the East Room of the White House that saw the leaders promise to search in good faith for peace after decades of strife. “President Abbas, you are my partner in peace,” Netanyahu said. “I came here today to find an historic compromise that will enable both our peoples to live in peace and security and dignity.” But Netanyahu’s warm words did not disguise the steel of his position. After two Hamas attacks on Israelis in the West Bank within as many days, Netanyahu vowed he would secure assurances on security, warning “terrorists” would not block the path to peace. “We left Lebanon, we got terror. We left Gaza, we got terror. We want to ensure that territory we concede will not be turned into a third Iranian-sponsored terror enclave aimed at the heart of Israel.”
His office said the Israeli position remained unchanged on letting a partial moratorium on West Bank settlement construction expire at the end of the month. Turning to Netanyahu, Abbas condemned Tuesday’s attack by Hamas that killed four Israelis and Wednesday’s strike in which two more were injured. “We do not want at all that any blood be shed... one drop of blood on the part of Israelis and Palestinians,” he said. Obama had earlier branded the first attack as “senseless slaughter” and warned it was an example of how opponents of the peace effort would try to halt progress. Hamas, which rules Gaza, is opposed to the peace talks and is a rival of Abbas’s U.S.-backed Palestinian Authority. Abbas also demanded a total freeze on settlement activity — without which
Evacuations Start as Hurricane Earl Closes In on U.S. By Rick Mercier AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE
RALEIGH, North Carolina —Tens of thousands of people were ordered to evacuate North Carolina’s barrier islands as Hurricane Earl closed in on a large part of the US east coast on Thursday. The strongest Atlantic storm of 2010 was on course to lash the coast of North Carolina and then move north, wreaking havoc on the end-of-summer Labor Day holiday weekend that usually draws millions to the beaches. At 1:00 am eastern time, Earl, a powerful category four storm, had sustained winds of 220 kilometers as it sped toward the eastern seaboard, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said. The eye of the storm was 740 kilometers south-southeast of Cape Hatteras in the Outer Banks — a narrow band of North Carolina barrier islands. Tropical storm force winds then hurricane force winds were expected to reach the state’s coast later Thursday and a “dangerous” storm surge was due to raise water levels by up to three to five feet above ground level in the
hurricane warning area, the NHC said. “The surge will be accompanied by large and destructive waves,” it warned, noting that large swells associated with the storm “will likely cause dangerous surf conditions and rip currents” through the weekend. In a sign the hurricane season was heating up, the fourth storm in the past 11 days, Tropical Storm Gaston, formed in the Atlantic. Gaston had winds of 65 kilometers per hour and was centered 2,550 kilometers east of the Lesser Antilles. But forecasters warned the storm’s track could well put it in the path of Haiti, a worst-case scenario now threatening to become reality for a nation still struggling to recover from a January earthquake. Thousands of quake survivors remain in flimsy, makeshift, open air camps in and around the capital Portau-Prince, and observers warn of a further humanitarian catastrophe if the area is hit by a major storm. US officials meanwhile ordered a mandatory evacuation for tens of thousands of visitors plus the estimated 800 residents on North Carolina’s Ocracoke Island, where ferry service is the
only transport link with the mainland. President Barack Obama signed a declaration of a state of emergency for North Carolina, opening the door to federal assistance. “The timing is not good for folks trying to enjoy the last good summer weekend, but safety and protection of personal property comes first,” said Cyndy Holda, public affairs officer at Cape Hatteras National Seashore. The storm was expected to pass about 80 kilometers to the east of Hatteras Island, North Carolina’s easternmost point, early Friday. Earl was speeding north-northwest at 30 kilometers per hour, prompting watches and warnings along a wide area of the coastline as far north as Massachusetts. A hurricane warning, meaning hurricane-force winds are expected, was in effect from the Bogue Inlet in North Carolina to the Virginia border. A hurricane watch, which means dangerous conditions are possible, was in effect from the North Carolina-Virginia border to Delaware and further north to Massachusetts, including the tourist islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.
Palestinians have threatened to walk out of the peace talks. Obama pronounced himself “cautiously optimistic” about the day’s events, though many analysts have commented that prospects for progress seem dim, given the fierce divides and lack of popular momentum for a new era of peacemaking. “We are under no illusions. Passions run deep. Each side has legitimate and enduring interests. Years of mistrust will not disappear over night,” Obama said. Thursday’s direct talks, the outcome of painstaking US diplomacy, will take place with few participants or observers predicting success amid widespread regional distrust. The issues on the table at the USmediated talks — the status of Jerusalem, security, the borders of a Palestinian state and the right of return for Palestinian refugees — have confounded all previous mediation attempts.
Australian PM Wins Key Backer By Talek Harris AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE
SYDNEY — Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard won the support of a key independent MP on Thursday, leaving her close to breaking the worst political deadlock in decades after elections failed to produce a winner. Former Iraq war whistleblower Andrew Wilkie said Gillard’s centre-left Labor party was most likely to deliver “stable” and “competent” government, an endorsement that put her within just two seats of a parliamentary majority. “I have judged that it is the Australian Labor Party that best meets my criteria that the next government must be stable, must be competent and must be ethical,” Wilkie told journalists in Canberra. Wilkie’s vote gives Gillard 74 seats in the 150-member lower house, just shy of an absolute majority.
THATTA, Pakistan — Relief efforts in flood-ravaged Pakistan are being stretched by the “unprecedented scale” of the disaster, with the flow of international aid almost at a standstill, the UN said Thursday. A month of catastrophic flooding has now killed 1,760 people and affected more than 18 million, including eight million who are dependent on aid handouts to survive, it said. Although the initially slow pace of aid had improved since a visit by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in mid-August, the UN said it has “almost stalled” since the beginning of last week, rising from 274 million dollars to 291 million dollars — about two thirds of funding needs. “Given the number of those in need, this is a humanitarian operation of unprecedented scale,” Manuel Bessler, head of the UN’s coordination agency OCHA said in a statement. “We need to reach at least eight million people, from the Karakoram Mountain Range in the north to the Arabian Sea in the south.” Thousands of people were trapped by floodwaters in towns in the southern province of Sindh, while others are complaining of going without food or water for days, some forced to live in the rubble of their ruined homes. The World Bank raised its emergency funding for Pakistan to one billion dollars amid dire warnings about the threat to the country’s food supplies. The floods have ruined 3.6 million hectares of rich farmland and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said farmers urgently needed seeds to plant for next year’s crops. “Unless people get seeds over the next few weeks they will not be able to plant wheat for a year,” Daniele Donati, director for FAO emergency operations in Asia, the Middle East and Europe, said on Wednesday. “Food aid alone will not be enough. If the next wheat crop is not salvaged, the food security of millions will be at risk,” Donati warned. The World Food Program has warned that Pakistan faces a triple threat to food supplies — with seeds, crops and incomes hit. In southern Pakistan, hundreds of hungry and desperate families from a relief camp in the city of Thatta blocked the highway to Karachi for three hours Wednesday, demanding the government provide more food and shelter. “No food or water has been provided to us for the past two days,” Mohammad Qasim, a 60-year-old resident of the flooded town of Sujawal, said. The protest came as under-fire Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani warned the country faced inflation of up to 20 percent and slower economic growth because of the floods, warning of job losses and social unrest. Gilani said an inflation target of 9.5 percent for 2011 would now likely be in the range of 15-20 percent, spurred by food shortages, while GDP growth would also slide to 2.5 percent from the predicted 4.5 percent. World Bank chief Robert Zoellick announced an extra 100 million dollars to add to an existing 900 million dollar loan as he met Pakistan’s Finance Minister on Wednesday.
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