Russia: Vacation Here We Come!

Hello,

Left Saturday, 29th.

We are on Vacation and will be gone at least two weeks. We are going to post but not near as often. Maybe every 3 to 4 days. (We hope.) Counts on wireless availability.

We want to thank all our readers & do not think that we have run away.

Do not be a stranger while we are gone, check out the archives. We will get to comments as soon as we can.......

Windows To Russia, has 467 Posts.

Windows to Russia: News, has 568 Posts.

Windows To Russia: Video, has 54 Posts.

Windows To Russia: CCCP, has 17 Posts.

Windows To Russia: Photo, has 13 Posts.

Windows To Russia: Did You Know?: has 45 Posts.

That is 1164 Posts to look at while we are gone!

Kyle & Svet

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Russia: Lets Play- The Visa Game!

You want them to spend this Visa, then you got to let them get this Visa!

Hello,

I was drinking my morning cup of coffee & thinking about Visa issues again. It seems that getting a visa to the UK from Russia is getting hard to do. It also seems that getting a visa to Russia from the UK is just as hard if not harder!

I know visa issues play a big part of where you travel. My wife and I wanted to travel to Armenia, but the Russian/Georgian issues stopped that plan. We had to have an unbelievable mess of visas to drive to Armenia. (So we said, "No Way!")

I always try to keep updated information posted about any Visa issues.

So all UK & Russia are doing is hurt their own cash flow by keeping tourists out.....
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Russian Tourists to U.K. Face Lengthy Visa Delays

By Irina Titova

Staff Writer

Changes to visa procedures for visitors to the U.K. have led to delays of up to two months and have begun to reduce the number of Russian tourists making the trip there, Moscow tour operators say, although The St. Petersburg Times has learned that visa applications made through the British Consulate in St. Petersburg tend to be dealt with more quickly than they are through the British Embassy in the capital.

The new rules mean that a tourist wishing to visit the U.K. needs to fill out an online visa application after which an appointment to attend a visa center is arranged where the applicant will give biometric data, operators say. The application is then considered by visa authorities.

“On March 21 we were only able to arrange tourists’ appointments for April 21 — that is, they’ll have to wait for a month just for the appointment,” the Russian Tourism Union or RTU quoted Valeria Krasilnikova, head of British direction at PAK group company in Moscow, as saying.

“Besides, the [visa authorities] will then need at least two weeks to consider the documents. As a result, in order to get a visa to Great Britain a tourist needs up to two months,” Krasilnikova said.

Tour operators say that it is not completely clear if the delay with British visas is due to technical problems with the new system or with strained diplomatic relations between the countries. However, they say that the U.K. is losing Russian tourists.

“Tourists become interested in other European countries. For instance, getting a visa for Germany or Austria takes only four days. For a French visa, it officially takes two weeks but in reality one can do it in three or four days,” Tamara Guskova, manager at Moscow’s Alp Discovery travel company said.

“We don’t send that many tourists to Great Britain, but we still have a constant flow. However, because of current problems we refuse to process tours with flights dated before May,” Guzkova said.

Yelena Zryanina, general director of Moscow’s Planeta Business Tour said that because of the impossibility of receiving the visas on time the company has had to make changes in presold tours. She said Thursday that the company can’t prepare documents for people who were planning to fly as late as May 1.

Anna Maslennikova, general director of Insight Lingua, said she is worried about the cost of the new procedures, and how long they take.

“About 70 percent of our clients are people living in the regions. It’s often children who go to England to study the language. So, now a child needs to personally come to the Embassy, bring documents, give biometric data, leave, then wait to receive the visa. At the same time all those trips a child has to do with an adult. This way the trip becomes $500-$1000 more expensive,” Maslennikova said.

Maslennikova said the regional demand for U.K. trips has decreased. Instead, Russians are preferring to study in Ireland, Malta or even the United States, she said.

The press service of British Embassy in Moscow confirmed that delays with British visas currently exist.

“The delays at present are unfortunate but are due to a number of short term reasons and we are working to ensure that these problems are eliminated as soon as possible,” the press service said.

The Embassy refused to specify the “short term reasons” for the delays.

Meanwhile, the British Consulate in St. Petersburg said it is not experiencing any delays with visas.

Yelena Mishkenyuk, spokes-woman for the British Consulate in St. Petersburg, said that in St. Petersburg, those who fill out the on-line application form get an appointment for the visa center a day or two later.

Mishkenyuk said within three or four days of the appointment, if the documents are fine, a tourist can get a British visa.

“We haven’t come across this problem in St. Petersburg,” Mishkenyuk said on Wednesday.

Tatyana Demenyeva, spokes-woman for northwest office of the RTU, said St. Petersburg tour operators have not complained about problems with British visas.

Demenyeva suggested that more people in Moscow were interested in the visiting the U.K. than in St. Petersburg because it is expensive and Muscovites are wealthier than people in St. Petersburg.

Mishkenyuk said filling an on-line application form was a part of British visa strategy all over the world that was directed at the improvement of the procedure.

“In the new application form, a person needs to fill out only the parts needed for getting a particular visa type,” she said, adding that the system is directed at “lowering the percentage of refusals.”

Mishkenyuk said that although giving biometrical data causes some inconvenience to tourists it is a procedure that is becoming standard worldwide.

At the same time, Sergei Korneyev, head of the northwest branch of the RTU, said the process of getting a British visa “has indeed become longer and more complicated.”

“The new visa procedure is especially inconvenient for tourists living in Pskov, Novgorod or Murmansk if we are talking about the north west region. Residents of those cities now have to travel to St. Petersburg at least twice to get a British visa,” he said.

Korneyev said that the modernization of the visa system had clearly been the major reason for the complications in the process, but he said that he couldn’t exclude the idea that “the political situation between the countries could also play its role in that.”

“Great Britain is an interesting country for Russian tourists. However, this interest is easy to break and hard to build up again,” Korneyev said.

Beginning March 1, British visa centers accepted only electronic visa applications. At the same time, a personal visit to the visa center remains a necessity: an applicant needs to bring a passport, a printed and signed application form and other support documents, as well as to pay for the visa and give their biometrical data.

Russian citizens were obliged to give their biometrical data beginning November last year.

U.K. visa centers operate in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg.
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So Svet & I travel to countries that seem to want tourists and make it easier to get visas!

How About you?

Kyle & Svet

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Russian News: March 28th, 2008!

RBC, 28.03.2008, Moscow 11:40:45.According to the Economy Ministry's estimates, Russia's GDP growth stood at 7.8 percent in January-February 2008 compared to the same period a year earlier, the ministry's monitoring report on the economic situation in the country states. Meanwhile, GDP rose 8.2 percent in February 2008 against the same month of 2007.

RBC, 28.03.2008, Moscow 11:09:45.Rosneft's net profit under RAS decreased 1.3 times from nearly RUB 213.217bn (approx. USD 9.07bn) in 2006 to RUB 162bn (approx. USD 6.89bn) in 2007, the Russian oil producer said in a statement today. Meanwhile, Rosneft's net profit stood at RUB 70.691bn (approx. USD 3.01bn) in the fourth quarter of 2007, up 33.26 percent compared to RUB 53.047bn (approx. USD 2.26bn) in Q3 2007. Rosneft attributes the rise in quarterly profit to higher global prices of oil and oil products.

RBC, 28.03.2008, Moscow 10:59:11.Inflation is expected to reach 1-1.2 percent in Russia in March. This projection was made in a monitoring report on the macroeconomic situation in Russia for January-February 2008. As of March 17, Inflation stood at 0.6 percent. Consumer prices rose 1.2 percent (up from 1.1 percent a year earlier) in February and 3.5 percent over the first two months of 2008 (up from 2.8 percent over the same period of the previous year).

RBC, 28.03.2008, Moscow 10:27:27.More than half of Russians (55 percent) feel that innovations will improve the country's economy and social life, a poll conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) showed. Younger people were especially optimistic about innovations, with 65 percent of respondents between 18 and 24 years old sharing this opinion. Meanwhile, 16 percent of Russians believe that innovations cannot change life greatly. The figures have remained virtually unchanged from a year earlier, VCIOM reported.

RBC, 28.03.2008, Moscow 09:56:09.The Association of Regional Banks of Russia (the Russia Association) has drafted a strategy for increasing the accessibility of financial services, which stresses the need to provide Russian Post with a "broad range of powers" on the lending and savings market, the RBC Daily newspaper wrote today. It has been proposed that POS terminals should be set up at all post offices, and that Russian Post should start issuing its own plastic cards and electronic money in the mid term.

RBC, 28.03.2008, Moscow 09:28:37.Renova Media yesterday announced its Comcor TV broadband Internet subscriber numbers in a report, which for the first time consolidated the figures of companies the media group acquired in 2006-2007. According to Renova's estimates, this has placed the company second on the Moscow market, as Corbina Telecom has been moved down to third place, the RBC Daily newspaper wrote today. Analysts agree with Akado's estimates, while competitors believe the figures are far-fetched. According to Comcor TV General Director Sergei Alimbekov, Comcor's subscriber base in Moscow reached 369,000 users in 2007. According to the company's data, it took second place with a 19.4-percent market share against 34.4 percent mustered by Comstar Direct (the Stream brand), with Corbina Telecom in third place with 15.5 percent (according to J'son & Partners' estimates).

RBC, 27.03.2008, St. Petersburg 19:26:52.The ent profit of Polymetal under RAS shrank by a factor of 101.5 to RUB 537,000 (approx. USD 22,697) in 2007 compared to a year earlier, the Russian precious metals producer reported today. Net loss stood at RUB 40.571m (approx. USD 1.71m) in the fourth quarter of 2007. As reported earlier, the company's net prodit stood at RUB 41.108m (approx. USD 1.74m) during the first nine months of 2007.

RBC, 27.03.2008, Moscow 19:03:22.The Russian stock market closed with most blue chips rising more than one percent. The MICEX index increased 1.56 percent to 1,618.61 points, while the RTS index went up 1.75 percent to 2,030.13 points. Among the RTS's top gainers were Rosneft (up 4.76 percent), LUKoil (up 3.54 percent), and Surgutneftegas (up 3.56 percent). On MICEX, Rosneft surged 4 percent, LUKoil climbed 3.57 percent, and Gazprom Neft added 2.09 percent.

RBC, 27.03.2008, Moscow 15:47:17.Russia is currently reviewing US proposals for the strengthening of transparency and trust regarding the anti-missile defense system, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told journalists today. He explained that, although the US had not abandoned its unilateral plan to deploy a missile shield in Eastern Europe, it had offered a number of steps to ensure that the shield does not harm Russia. However, Russia's stand was that the US needed to scrap its anti-missile plan and switch to an alternative joint project involving Russia and other countries. This could help lift Russia's concerns that the shield would be used against it, Lavrov said. Meanwhile, consultations between Russia and the US are still underway in Washington D.C.

RBC, 27.03.2008, Moscow 13:41:22.Russia's gold and foreign exchange reserves stood at $502.2bn as of March 21, 2008, up $100m, or 0.2 percent from the previous showing. Coupled with a $21.1bn rise over the previous five-week period, the reserves have now increased by $21.2bn, or 4.4 percent, over the past 30 business days. The rise, which has been the smallest in several years, has been fueled by the euro's considerable appreciation against the dollar on international exchanges, as well as significantly larger amounts of foreign currencies bought up by the Central Bank on the domestic market. As a result, Russia has been able to somewhat narrow the gap separating it from the world leaders in international reserves, China and Japan. China's reserves currently exceed $1.65 trillion, having increased by more than $57.3bn in February alone and $61.6bn in January, due to the country's huge trade surplus. Japan currently boasts over $1 trillion in reserves.

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Russia: Visa Information!

Hello,

Just a short video on Russian Visa Issues. Worth a watch....

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Russia: I Am Watching The Dollar Sink, One kopek at a time!

Hello,

I have watched the Dollar slide downhill slowly but steadily! This effect was not very apparent when I lived in the USA, but living outside of the USA, I see how the Dollar decline is conjunctively with all currencies......
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Dollar down 13.88 kopeks, euro up 16.91 kopeks - Central Bank

27/03/2008 13:48 MOSCOW, March 27 (RIA Novosti) - The official dollar rate set by the Russian Central Bank from March 28 is 23.5171 rubles, down 13.88 kopeks from Thursday, the Central Bank said.

The official euro rate for Friday is 37.0794 rubles, up 16.91 kopeks from Thursday.
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The dropping of the dollar adds up ......

Something my Grandmother(who lived through the Depression) said to me several times in my life when I was young.

Grandma said. "Never pass a penny laying on the ground." She said. "Pick it up & save it for a rainy day." She also said, "One day the Government will not have any pennies left & you will need those that you find!"

I have found thousands upon thousands of pennies, (now I find kopeks) They really do add up.

Look around you as you walk.......

Kyle & Svet

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Russia: Spy Vs. Spy!

Hello,

Seems that here in the last few weeks there are spy's everywhere. Now Belarus has uncovered another spy ring. They must not be very good spy's because they keep getting caught.

Reminds me of: Spy Vs Spy......
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Belarus says uncovers U.S. spy network
Tue Mar 25, 2008 2:17pm EDT

MINSK (Reuters) - Belarus said on Tuesday it had uncovered a spy ring working for Washington, deepening a diplomatic and human rights row between the countries.

Hundreds of demonstrators from the ex-Soviet state's liberal and nationalist opposition, meanwhile, staged an unauthorized rally in the centre of Minsk and clashed with police. Eyewitnesses said dozens were detained.

The U.S. ambassador this month left Belarus, whose president, Alexander Lukashenko, is accused by the West of violating basic rights. Authorities objecting to what they saw as new sanctions against Belarus had urged her to go.

The U.S. embassy has since stopped issuing visas and complied with a request to cut diplomatic staff in Minsk.

On Tuesday, Belarus's intelligence service, still known by its Soviet-era initials KGB, said a spy ring of Belarussian citizens had been uncovered in the country of 10 million.

"The information about this group being exposed is completely true," a KGB official said. "A group conducting espionage for the United States has been uncovered."

KGB chairman Yuri Zhadobin later told Belarussian media that no arrests had been made in what he said was a "preventive" operation. New checks would determine if laws had been broken.

Tightly controlled state television reported at the weekend that a spying network of 10 Belarussian nationals had been exposed, but gave no details of concrete charges against them.

"We have no spies working on the territory of Belarus. These are people working for the diplomatic security service," U.S. charge d'affaires Jonathan Moore told local media.

The report showed people described as embassy employees working as informers for the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Some told an interviewer they were gathering information to prevent terrorism.

OPPOSITION RALLY

In the evening, several hundred opposition activists gathered in a Minsk square to mark the 90th anniversary of the creation of the Belarussian People's Republic, crushed within months by Bolshevik forces.

No authorization had been granted for a city-center rally.

Riot police surrounded the anti-Lukashenko protesters and broke them up into smaller groups. Clashes broke out and dozens were seen being led away to a police bus.

The opposition, often hit by internal divisions, has rarely attracted large crowds during protests in recent months.

Both the United States and European Union have long accused Belarus of crushing freedom of press and assembly.

Both bar entry to Lukashenko on grounds he rigged his 2006 re-election. U.S. officials, more critical, have denounced Belarus as "the last dictatorship in Europe".

Lukashenko, at odds with traditional ally Russia over energy prices, seeks better ties with the West, particularly the EU. Several detainees deemed political prisoners have been freed.

Washington last year prohibited dealings with national oil products firm Belneftekhim, but denies Belarussian allegations that it has since imposed new punitive measures.

The Foreign Ministry called for sanctions to be lifted.

"If the U.S. side truly regrets what has happened and truly wants new and different relations with our country, it must rescind sanctions against Belarus," a ministry statement said.

U.S. ambassador Karen Stewart last week said Belarus could end the logjam by freeing Alexander Kozulin, who ran against Lukashenko in 2006 and was sentenced to 5-1/2 years for staging protests after his landslide re-election.

Lukashenko remains broadly popular and says social benefits have spared Belarussians the turmoil of other ex-Soviet states.
By Andrei Makhovsky
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British Council rejects Russian spying allegation

25/03/2008 21:58 LONDON, March 25 (RIA Novosti) - The British Council rejected on Tuesday comments made by Russian president-elect Dmitry Medvedev suggesting that the organization is linked to British intelligence-gathering activities.

When asked by the Financial Times last Friday whether he believed the British Embassy's cultural arm was involved in spying in Russia, Medvedev said: "The information that from time to time appears in the press and the reports that I get as one of the leaders of the country show that there is a problem with this."

"This is not very surprising because these types of organizations are traditionally used for the collection of information," said Medvedev, who will become Russia's president on May 7.

A spokesman for the council told RIA Novosti: "The British Council does not cooperate with intelligence services of the U.K."

Russia ordered the closure of the British Council's offices in Russian regions in January following accusations of legal status irregularities and tax arrears, and amid growing tensions between Russia and the U.K.

Media attention was again focused on the organization last week, when reports emerged that two brothers with Russian-U.S. citizenship, one of whom has links with the British Council, had been arrested for industrial espionage.

The Federal Security Service arrested TNK-BP's Ilya Zaslavsky along with his brother Alexander on March 12 for "illegally gathering secret commercial information for the benefit of several foreign oil and gas companies, in order to give them advantages over Russian competitors."
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Oil major BP recalls 148 employees from Russia

25/03/2008 20:30 MOSCOW, March 25 (RIA Novosti) - A total of 148 employees of Britain's BP working in Russia for TNK-BP have been recalled from the country due to problems with registration, the Russian-British venture said on Tuesday.

"We confirm that 148 employees of BP have been recalled from TNK-BP. The reason for their recall is that the status of their stay in Russia has not been fully regulated in line with Russian migration laws," a TNK-BP spokesperson said.

The statement follows reports by some Russian and foreign media on Tuesday that about 150 TNK-BP employees were facing problems in extending their work visas. The Federal Migration Service has not commented on the reports.

Sources close to the situation earlier said that some of the company's staff had travelled to Russia on business visas, while they should have obtained work visas.

Police seized documents last week from the central office of TNK-BP, one of the largest crude producers in Russia. The Moscow office of British oil major BP was also raided by police.

Security officials said copies of official documents, papers on oil and gas production believed to contain commercial secrets, as well as ID cards belonging to foreign military organizations and to the CIA were found during the searches.

The Federal Security Service said that on March 12 officers had detained TNK-BP's Ilya Zaslavsky, along with his brother Alexander, who has links with the British Council, for "illegally gathering secret commercial information for the benefit of several foreign oil and gas companies, in order to give them advantages over Russian competitors."

The British Council, the U.K. Embassy's cultural arm, said Ilya Zaslavsky was not on its staff but was a member of the embassy's alumni club for foreign graduates of British universities. The British Council, whose regional offices in Russia were closed down earlier this year over alleged tax violations, subsequently voiced its concern over the arrests.

However, the Foreign Ministry denied there was a connection between the two matters. "There is no sense in looking for a connection between these two completely separate cases," Andrei Krivtsov, a deputy head of the Foreign Ministry's information and press department, said on Friday.

Despite Russia's denial that the two cases are unrelated, the arrests have the potential to further worsen Russian-British relations, already strained following the murder of Russian security service defector Alexander Litvinenko in November 2006 in London, and more recently by the closure of British Council offices.
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Last But Not Least:
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March 21, 2008, 12:19
American brothers accused of spying in Moscow
The Russian Security Service has charged two brothers, who are joint Russia-U.S. citizens, with commercial espionage. One of the Zaslavsky brothers works for TNK-BP, while the other is a member of a British Council's alumni club. They have allegedly acquired classified information on Russian oil and gas companies for foreign firms.

The Federal Security Service of Russia, the FSB, detained the two men on March 12 and charged them on March 18.

The arrested men are brothers with the surname Zaslavsky. One of them heads a British Council’s Graduate’s Club project and his brother is the head of TNK BP Management’s English Department.

According to FSB spokesman Sergey Ignachenko, the Zaslavsky were “apprehended during an attempt to obtain commercial classified information from a citizen of Russia, an employee of one of the ‘closed’ Russian oil and gas companies”.

They are suspected of gathering classified information for foreign oil and gas companies.

“The persons have been collecting commercial classified information for a number of foreign oil and gas companies, in order for them to obtain advantages over their Russian competitors, for instance, on the CIS market,” Ignachenko said.

On March 19, the Russian security service conducted a search in TNK-BP’s offices, during which they have found material evidence confirming the industrial espionage.

Among the documents seized during the search, the FSB spokesman says, were “copies of Russian government documents, analytical reports relating to subsurface resources management, preliminarily rated as commercial classified information, as well as visit cards of representatives of foreign military agencies and the CIA”.

The Zaslavsky brothers have been released, but are not allowed to leave the country.

An investigation is underway.

Meanwhile, the British Embassy in Moscow says it is watching the situation closely, but refrained from commenting on the news.

The British Council is also monitoring the situation. They have pointed out that one of the Zaslavsky brothers is not an employee of the organisation, but a head of a project within it, the Alumni Association.

Aleksandr Shadrin, the spokesperson of the joint Russian-British oil company, TNK-BP, says the company is working closely with law enforcement agencies and the latest events have not interfered with its business.

"TNK-BP operates strictly in accordance with Russian law and we will not tolerate any action which could damage either the reputation of the Russian Federation or any of our business partners. We are opposed to unethical business relations or unlawful methods of competition. In this particular case we've co-operated fully with law-enforcement agencies,” he said.

He added that the company continues to operate in its normal manner and recent events haven’t affected its activities in any way.

It's feared the arrests may increase tension between Russia, the UK and the US.
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Where is James Bond when you need him?

Now, how many spy's are not caught, that is the question????

Kyle & Svet

comments always welcome.

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Russia: Is Chechnya Getting Safer?

Hello,

I was drinking my morning cup of delicious Russian coffee & thinking about Chechnya. I was thinking about doing an article on the troubled area. It has seemed to me that the conflict has mellowed out a lot down that way.

Just as I was getting ready to start the article I saw that Yuri Mamchur from "Russia Blog" decided to write the article first. So I am going to let you see his article and give him all the credit......
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Is There Still Terrorism in Chechnya?
Yuri Mamchur

Many positive political and economic developments are taking place in Moscow. Russia Blog has noticed that many of them have been ignored since the elections of the new Russian president. The doom-and-gloom scenario predicted by the Washington think-tanks did not take place, and the scholars along with journalists ran out of negative steam relatively fast.

The reporting about the troubled Caucasian region has disappeared from the Western media coverage as well. Grozny and Chechnya are in much better shape today than they were three years ago, with nearly half a million refugees returned to their home and nearly 100,000 private businesses started. However, terrorism remains to be an issue, and random minor attacks take place on a weekly basis. For detailed reporting and analysis of the attacks happening in the region, please visit the website of the "Russia-Eurasia Daily Watch".
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Most of my Chechnya articles are in the "Windows To Russia: News!" blog.

Yuri is very correct about what he says in the article & I am glad he wrote it.

Thanks Yuri!

Kyle & Svet

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Russian News: March 25th, 2008!

RBC, 25.03.2008, Moscow 17:46:23.Severstal reckons to achieve a synergetic effect worth $50m generated by the acquisition of Sparrows Point, the Russian steel maker said. The company's management expects that the synergy between the companies will result from lower expenses and higher operating efficiency.

RBC, 25.03.2008, Moscow 17:21:03.LUKoil and Iraq have agreed to form a working group for the implementation of the Western Kurna-2 project, the Russian oil company's press office reported today, referring to the talks held by its President Vagit Alekperov and Iraq's authorities. Furthermore, LUKoil Overseas, the operator of the oil producer's foreign projects, is to take part in tenders for new projects that will be announced by Iraq's government following the introduction of a new oil law.

RBC, 25.03.2008, Moscow 16:50:59.The Federal Tax Service has transferred RUB 555.5bn (approx. USD 23.3bn) to Russia's federal budget in January-February 2008, or 31.7 percent more than in the same period a year earlier, the tax authority said in a statement. The tax on the production of mineral resources and the value-added tax accounted for large portions (45 and 24 percent respectively) of the total revenue reported by the Federal Tax Service.

RBC, 25.03.2008, Moscow 16:33:37.Consultations between Russia and the US on Russia's accession to the WTO will be held on March 26-27 in Washington D.C., the Russian Foreign Ministry reported to RBC today. The talks are a logical continuation of the recent negotiations held in the "two-plus-two" format in Moscow, the ministry reported. Russia will be represented by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak.

RBC, 25.03.2008, Moscow 15:45:12.Russia's revenue from oil and gas sales is expected to decline to 6 percent of GDP in 2011 if global oil prices stand at $75 per barrel, the country's Deputy PM and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said during the Economy Ministry's board meeting today. He noted, however, that the government did not intend to cut budget spending despite the anticipated slide in revenues. Kudrin reiterated that the transfer of oil and gas revenues to the federal budget was expected to decrease from 5.5 percent of GDP this year to 3.7 percent of GDP in 2011.

RBC, 25.03.2008, Moscow 15:38:25.A decision on the increase of gas production tax has been postponed until 2010, Russia's Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin told journalists today. He pointed out that the government had reviewed all presented materials on the matter and postponed the increase, due to Gazprom's substantial investment program.

RBC, 25.03.2008, Moscow 14:56:27.During the placing of RBC Information Systems commercial papers, demand exceeded supply, resulting in oversubscription, Alexander Kuznetsov, Director for debt capital market operations at Alfa-Bank, has reported. Alfa-Bank is acting as the underwriter for the loan. The results of the placing will be announced this evening.

RBC, 25.03.2008, Moscow 14:13:07.Stabilization Fund resources placed by the Finance Ministry in foreign assets continue to bring profit, even amid the ongoing global crisis, Deputy PM and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said during an Economy Ministry board meeting today. He reiterated that the reserve funds had been placed conservatively, adding that he was pleased not to have charged to invest more boldly in corporate bonds, as these securities had now slumped 30 percent. According to Kudrin, although Russian money was placed in mortgage company securities that had been hit by the financial crisis, the market slump did not influence them, as these were bonds guaranteed by the US government, and the Russian Stabilization Fund increased in value as its earnings rose.

RBC, 25.03.2008, Moscow 12:59:55.The placement of commercial papers of RBC Information Systems has started on MICEX. This is the first issue of this type of securities on the Russian market. Alexander Kuznetsov, Director for debt capital market operations at Alfa-Bank, the underwriter of the issue, said that the bank expected the loan to yield 12 percent per annum. The first tranche which is to be placed today is worth RUB 1.5bn (approx. USD 62.92m) and has a maturity period of one year. The entire issue totaling RUB 12bn (approx. USD 503.36m) matures on the 364th day after the start of placement.

RBC, 25.03.2008, Moscow 11:55:34.Russia expects to sign a protocol in April on the completion of talks with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on its accession to the WTO, director of the Russian Economy Ministry's trade negotiations department Maksim Medvedkov told journalists today. The talks with the UAE are nearing completion, and all the matters are expected to be settled this week, Medvedkov said.

RBC, 25.03.2008, Moscow 10:58:36.The Russian government is set to choose the founders of the St. Petersburg commodity exchange on Wednesday, Deputy Economy Minister Kirill Androsov told journalists today. The matter is to be discussed during a meeting held by Russian Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov. The ministry has drafted a package of constitutuent documents, a business plan for the exchange, and ideas about potential founders, which include both state-owned and private companies, Androsov noted.

RBC, 25.03.2008, Moscow 10:06:57.Russia's Economy Ministry has revised Urals oil price forecast upwards, from $74 per barrel to $86 per barrel in 2008, head of the ministry's macroeconomic forecasting department Gennady Kuranov said. Oil price forecasts for 2008-2011 were hiked 10 percent on average, with the price expected to reach $75 per barrel in 2009 (up from $66), $72 in 2010 (up from $62), and $70 in 2011 (up from $60). However, the ministry is scrutinizing other possible scenarios as well. Some of them predict that the oil price range will be $96-100 per barrel in 2008-2011.

RBC, 25.03.2008, Moscow 09:45:54.Russia officially resumes air links with Georgia today. AirZena Georgian Airlines will make its first flight on Tuesday on the Moscow-Tbilisi route after a 1.5-year break. Aeroflot - Russian Airlines will begin direct service between Moscow and Tbilisi on March 27. Moscow severed air links with Georgia on October 3, 2006 arguing that Georgia owed some $3.6m for the operation of flights. However, simultaneously Russia banned all transport links, as well as postal service on account of detention of four Russian military officers in Georgia.

RBC, 24.03.2008, Moscow 18:58:52.According to preliminary data, sales of National Computer Corporation (NCC) grew 35 percent to nearly RUB 40.252bn (approx. USD 1.693bn) in 2007 compared to a year earlier, the company's President Alexander Kalinin told a press conference today following the release of the financial performance of computer equipment producer Aquarius, an NCC subsidiary.

RBC, 24.03.2008, Moscow 17:47:04.Russia's production of conventional weapons is expected to grow 30 percent by 2010 and by a factor of 2.2 by 2015, the Vesti TV channel cited First Deputy PM Sergei Ivanov as saying during Russian President Vladimir Putin's traditional Monday meeting with the cabinet. Ivanov noted that the share of civil products manufactured at defense enterprises was expected to increase to 53 percent of their total production by 2010 and to 59 percent by 2015. He also said that a military-industrial commission meeting on the development strategy of companies producing conventional weapons would be held on March 26. In addition, the Federal Service for Defense Contracts' first project for 2009 is to be discussed at the meeting, Ivanov said.

RBC, 24.03.2008, Moscow 17:18:59.According to the estimate of Russia's Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat), real disposable cash incomes of Russians grew 11.2 percent in January-February 2008 compared to the same period a year earlier. Real cash incomes rose 10.6 percent in February 2008 against February 2007. Meanwhile, the average monthly accrued wages were estimated at RUB 15.214 (approx. USD 640), up 27.7 percent compared to a year earlier.

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Russia: Spring Is Trying To Start!

Hello,

Moscow has been having some warm days, today has hit over 12.4 degrees C. That is about 54.2 degrees F. These are record temperatures for this time of the year. The previous record for March 25 was 12.2 degrees (53.9 F.) which was registered in 1973. The meteorological bureau said temperatures could climb even higher by the end of the day.

The trees are starting to bud out, and I expect to see flowers growing any time soon. Spring is here & I hope that Old Man Winter does not try to freeze the new growth.

I still think that he may be waiting around the corner..........

Kyle & Svet

comments always welcome.

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Russia!

Still The Soul Of Russia: The Village!

Hello,

The second cup of morning coffee brought forth this really good article on Mother Russia. (The Country!) It gives a positive perspective about Russia and the one area I disagree with is matter of personal outlook on the Russian people! (I give my difference at the end of the article.) I understand this attraction to Mother Russia. Being 1/2 German and 1/2 Britain my roots are deep in Europe.......
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The Attraction of Mother Russia

By Olga Sharapova

Special to The St. Petersburg Times

Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times

To the frequent surprise of Russians themselves, many westerners choose to live and work in Russia, some of them permanently. Some are inspired by Russian Orthodoxy, while others come in search of a beautiful Russian bride.

When Peter the Great started building St. Petersburg in 1703, his vision was of a new capital that would resemble a western city in both appearance and customs. With impressive energy and entrepreneurial skills, Peter I tried to bring the best European achievements to Russia, such as business knowledge, practicality, good organization and attention to education, arts and science.

But even today, few Russians identify their homeland as a completely European country. There are many historical, political and cultural reasons for this — not least that it needs more time to integrate the Russian economy into international business processes than the 16 years that have passed since the break-up of the Soviet Union.

Step by step however, Russia is becoming an increasingly open country. Foreigners come to live in Russia for various reasons, such as to do business, study or working in the diplomatic service. Naturally, they bring with them their own cultures, experiences and habits. Moscow and St. Petersburg, where most expatriates in Russia are based, now offer considerable resources for foreign communities, from newspapers to schools, art festivals to ethnic restaurants and much more. Successful westerners may also unintentionally enhance the very popular idea among Russians that life in the West is completely different and far easier than in Russia.

According to the Russian mentality — or rather the Soviet way of thinking that is still alive in most adult Russians — wealthy foreign countries seem to many Russians to be the best places in the world. In the words of Arjen Roodvoets, a Dutch citizen who teaches his native language to Russians at both St. Petersburg State University and the Netherlands Institute, “Russians often think that life in the West is much better than here, but it is often not true. There is also an understated self-appreciation in Russia. In my opinion, Russia is a really special and original country. Russians should just be who they are, be natural and maintain their native values, such as a strong education system and culture.”

Roodvoets, who has lived and worked in Russia for nine years, has become deeply involved in Russian society and has adapted to Russian life. “I like many things in Russia, enjoy the Russian language and dealing with local people. One of the best things is my job here, because I like communicating with Russians.” Roodvoets, who speaks fluent Russian, was baptized in Russia and his favorite place in St. Petersburg is Valaamskoe Podvorie church on Staropetergovski prospekt.

“I think it is Orthodoxy that distinguishes Russia from other European countries and has formed the national mentality,” he says.

The cultural exchange between Russians and ex-pats is a two-way process. It is generally accepted that many aspects of Russian life have been westernized in a positive way (primarily business and management), and it is also true that there are a number of foreigners who enjoy exploring the differences between their own lifestyle and life in Russia.

Cobus van Rooijen, Group Sales and Distribution Director for Heineken Russia, says, “In my free time I usually explore cultural and natural attractions — recently, for example, I went hunting near Lake Baikal in temperatures of -35 degrees Celsius, and also attended a magnificent performance of “The Nutcracker” directed by Alexei Ratmansky at the Mariinsky theater.”

Yury Mikhailov, Managing Partner at Consort Consulting Group, has considerable experience of interacting with westerners and says he even knows some ex-pats who have become more Russian than Russians themselves by studying its history, literature, politics and character traits.

Generally, however, Mikhailov believes that “Most foreigners stay the same by going to their ex-pat bars, restaurants, clubs and consular events. This of course does not allow them to integrate and become familiar with local life.”

As to the differences between Russians and westerners, in Mikhailov’s opinion, “Foreigners often seek to achieve more recognition in professional circles as well as in their personal relationships.”

Walter Ragonese, who is from the U.S. and works in Russia as the Security and Business Continuity managing director of InterComp, concurs. “Most of the ex-pats I know have very fulfilling professional and social lives in Russia. Work is generally the focus of the professional/social life balance, but family and friendships are usually very significant factors in making the experience well rounded and personally satisfying.”

Ragonese’s colleague, Daniel J. Hill, who is general manager of InterComp Outsourcing in Russia, explains, “After 14 years in Russia, I am still here because I still find it an exciting, vibrant and dynamic place in which to work and live. I think many westerners (myself included) try to find a balance between maintaining ties with their home culture and friends, and embracing all of the new and interesting aspects of developing Russian friends and experiencing Russian culture.”

Asked what inspires foreigners to come here, Ragonese says, “Moscow and St. Petersburg in particular are very cosmopolitan and attractive locations that rank alongside other cities around the world for expatriates looking to develop their careers.

“Russia has always been open to the employment of westerners who have the necessary skills required by an organization,” he adds. “This hasn’t changed from 16 years ago when I first arrived in Russia. Obviously the required skills have become more specific with every year as the Russian market for management talent has become more developed.”

A good investment climate and very good corporate career opportunities are among the most positive factors about working in Russia, according to Cobus van Rooijen, top sales manager of Heineken Russia. But he cited the common problem often complained about by foreigners — elements of bureaucracy. His words were echoed by Consort Consulting Group’s Mikhailov: “Of course there is a certain amount of legal issues and bureaucracy, and dealing with red tape has never been easy, but it is a much more achievable goal than it used to be.” He adds, “If you just think for a minute, it’s not that easy to settle and work in other parts of the world unless you are an EU citizen wanting to work in other EU countries.”

From Mikhailov’s diverse professional experiences, he knows that many westerners who have entrepreneurial skills and an aptitude for business say that Russia became the land of opportunity several years ago. On the issue of why Russia has become a popular country in which to work, he says, “Profitability rates and sales turnover growth are much higher here than in the west, and this is what attracts businessmen seeking a faster return on their initial investments.”

Svetlana Sokhatskaya, branch manager of Kelly Services St. Petersburg, suggests that “Foreigners, in most cases, know how to count money and they realize that taxes in Russia are much lower. Many companies provide top managers from other countries with free apartments while they are working in Russia and it is, no doubt, a great advantage for westerners.”

Now there is a general tendency among local firms to invite foreign managers in to make the business more efficient. “It just means,” continues Sokhatskaya, “that in comparison with Russian specialists, westerners possess more international experience in business and management.”

The most popular and attractive segments of the local market for foreign investment are construction, real estate, the automotive industry, IT, the hospitality industry, publishing, food and the sale of different kinds of equipment. According to Mikhailov, “The number of companies is increasing every year. Since we work closely with Finnish companies, we know that there are more than 400 Finnish firms on the local market”.

InterComp’s Ragonese considers that “The most popular spheres of employment for ex-pats are auditing services, taxation consulting, and law firms. Real estate consultancy and management also employ a significant number of expatriates.”

One of the most dynamic industry segments is IT — virtually all the major brands are in St. Petersburg now, including Alcatel-Lucent, EMC, Motorola, Nokia, Microsoft, Google, Sun Microsystems and Intel.

The latest International Technical Exhibition at Lenexpo illustrated the level of interest in the Russian market — there were more than 100 companies from India alone at the fair, which focused on metallurgy and mechanical engineering, illustrating the line of business cooperation that Indian companies are planning to take in the near future.

The profitable hospitality industry, specifically the restaurant business and tourism, also tend to attract foreign managers. A myriad of different cuisines are on offer in the Northern capital — not just the usual Italian and French restaurants, but also Greek, Indian, Thai, Mexican, Korean, and many more. However, the active international presence on this business scene in turn spurs on Russians to increase their activity on the market and attract ex-pats and tourists to visit different Russian restaurants and clubs.

The private and daily lives of ex-pats in Russia may not differ greatly in some respects from the experiences of ex-pats in other foreign countries. But every country has its customs and idiosyncrasies. Van Rooijen of Heineken Russia thinks that foreigners here have several dreams — to learn the Russian language, to understand local customs and traditions, and to enjoy support in their business initiatives.

“What westerners lack in Russia,” says Mikhailov of Consort Consulting Group, “is the greater sense of security and stability that they have become so attached to back home — that’s why from time to time they tend to take off and head home for a couple of months to recharge their batteries, touch base with their friends and relatives, and share their Russian experiences.”

InterComp’s Ragonese has a keen interest in outdoor activities, and therefore lives outside the city and commutes to work every day. The most negative aspects of Russia, in his opinion, are corruption among local officials (especially the traffic police) and the aggressive behavior that Russians can display in public, even with total strangers.

But locals should not feel offended — it’s not so bad to know that westerners feel the same as Russians when the latter curse their country’s poor roads, corruption and impoliteness.
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I have to say that it is very accurate in almost all aspects! I do have one strong disagreement:

"The most negative aspects of Russia, in his opinion, are corruption among local officials (especially the traffic police) and the aggressive behavior that Russians can display in public, even with total strangers."

I agree with corrupt officials, but I have never had in two years living here, a single Russian act out of line or aggressive! (At least when I compare to my life in America.) The Russians are some of the most polite and quiet people that I have met & my wife and I travel all over the country and Moscow. (This is my perspective.)

Thanks to Olga Sharapova for a very good article that talks good about Russia......

Kyle & Svet

comments always welcome.

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Russia: Average Wages Growing Slowly!

Hello,

I was drinking my morning cup of coffee & thinking about one of the highest Googled keywords we have on Windows to Russia.

Average Wages: Several times everyday someone comes to Windows to Russia to see what Russians make in wages. (Not Much, but getting better.)

So this article will give you a better idea about wages in Russia. If you think you would come here to get rich, probably will not happen. If you come to Russia to have fun, that will happen!
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Salary Research Shows Wages Increasing

By Yekaterina Dranitsyna

Staff Writer

Most private companies in St. Petersburg — 95 percent — increased staff salaries in 2007, according to the latest salary and remuneration survey issued by Avanta Personnel recruiting company, and more than 90 percent of local companies plan to raise wages this year.

During the last year, the average salary increase in the city was 12-13 percent, while the maximum increase was reported at 30 percent. In 2008, private companies in St. Petersburg will increase salaries by 10-12 percent on average, while the maximum increase is again planned at 30 percent, Avanta Personnel reported.

“The gap between salary rates in Moscow and St. Petersburg is narrowing. In St. Petersburg the average salary is 84 percent of that in Moscow. In Vladivostok, which holds the third place in Russia, the salaries are just 55 percent of Moscow’s level,” said Anna Yegorova, head of Labour Market Research at Avanta Personnel.

Yegorova indicated that the main factors that influenced last year’s increase were the personal achievements of employees and the labor market situation, though company performance and inflation also affected salary levels.

In the survey, Avanta Personnel analyzed data concerning the HR policies of over 43,500 employers and salaries of over 27,400 employees from 92 international and Russian companies. Half of these companies were foreign, 40 percent Russian and 11 percent joint ventures.

By January 2008, the average monthly income was reported at 31,090 rubles ($1,261) for office managers, 21,520 rubles ($873) for secretaries, 11,375 rubles ($461) for office cleaners, 28,713 rubles ($1,165) for HR managers, 42,828 rubles ($1,738) for shift managers, 23,502 rubles ($953) for production operators, 26,782 rubles ($1,087) for mechanics and 25,506 rubles ($1,035) for forklift truck drivers.

Average salaries in other categories included:

Unskilled workers: 19,726 rubles ($800)

Financial analysts: 32,280 rubles ($1,310)

Accountants: 22,513 rubles

($913)

Sales representatives: 33,322 rubles ($1,352)

Merchandisers: 18,610 rubles ($755)

Software engineers: 45,684 rubles ($1,854)

IT specialists: 29,290 rubles ($1,188)

Besides the basic salary, 66 percent of the survey participants paid performance-based bonuses (12-20 percent of the annual base salary), 47 percent paid bonuses on the occasion of the anniversary of the company or date an employee started to work there, or other one-off bonuses at the management’s discretion, and 37 percent paid guaranteed bonuses either monthly or once or twice a year.

In sales departments, average sales commissions amount to 40-50 percent of the base salary.

The most common benefits provided by employers in St. Petersburg include medical insurance (78 percent of companies) and lunch benefits (73 percent).

Depending on their position, employees could be awarded other privileges. Top-managers are provided with a company car in 57 percent of companies, managers in 29 percent, and sales personnel in 20-35 percent.

Over 90 percent of companies cover their employees’ cell phone expenses, over 80 percent cover business trip expenses and 95 percent provide training programs for employees.

The average annual turnover in personnel at St. Petersburg companies is 14 percent, according to Avanta Personnel.
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The real problem is once you leave Moscow you can see that wages drop fast. The smaller the town the less money you make. Once you get to the villages wages are non existent.

Kyle & Svet

comments always welcome.

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Ukraine: Worlds Tallest Man!

Hello,

How would you like to be this tall......
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[24.03.2008 17:02]Leonid Stadnik`s phenomenal height has forced him to quit a job he loved, to stoop as he moves around his house and to spend most of his time in his tiny home village because he cannot fit in a car or bus, according to AP.

But Stadnik, who according to the Guinness World Records is the world`s tallest human, says his condition has also taught him that the world is filled with kindhearted strangers.

Since his recognition by Ukrainian record keepers four years ago, and by Guinness last year, people from all over Ukraine and the world have shipped him outsized clothing, provided his home with running water and recently presented him with a giant bicycle.

"Thanks to good people I have shoes and clothes," said the 37-year-old former veterinarian, who still lives with his 66-year-old mother.

In 2006, Stadnik was officially measured at 2.57 meters tall (8 feet 5 inches), surpassing a Chinese man to claim the title of the world`s tallest person.

His growth spurt began at age 14 after a brain operation that apparently stimulated the overproduction of growth hormone. Doctors say he has been growing ever since.

While he may appear intimidating due to his size, Stadnik charms visitors with a broad grin and childlike laugh. He seems at times like a lonely boy trapped in a giant`s body, even keeping stuffed toys on his pillow.

Stadnik`s stature has earned him worldwide attention, but it has mostly a burden to him. He has to battle to lead anything close to a normal life.

All the doorways in his one-story brick house are too short for him to pass through without stooping. His 200 kilograms (440 pounds) cause constant knee pain and often force him to move on crutches.

Stadnik loves animals, but he had to quit as a veterinarian at a cattle farm in a nearby village, after suffering frostbite when he walked work in his socks in winter. He could not afford specially made shoes for his 43-centimeter (17-inch) feet.

But his recent fame has brought him friends from all over the world and taught him not to despair.

A German man who said he was his distant relative invited Stadnik for a visit several years ago. On the trip, Stadnik got to sample frog legs in an elegant restaurant and saw a roller coaster in an amusement park — both for the first time.

Shortly after that, Stadnik came home one day and saw a brand-new computer connected to the Web sitting on his desk — a gift from a local Internet provider. Company workers "sneaked into the house like little spies" to install the equipment, Stadnik joked.

Since then he has made numerous online friends, including several in the United States, Australia and Russia. Stadnik hopes to learn English so he can communicate better with his Anglophone contacts; currently, he relies on computer translations, which he says are often inadequate.

Ukraine`s President Viktor Yushchenko`s personal tailor has made Stadnik two track suits and the president plans to present Stadnik with a giant car. Local authorities have also promised to supply gas to Stadnik`s village, 200 kilometers (125 miles) kilometers west of the capital, Kiev.

On Sunday, a local organization for the disabled gave Stadnik a giant bike so he can pedal to the grocery store, which is in a nearby village. The group also presented Stadnik with a fitness machine.

"I have always dreamt that my life and the life of my loved ones ... would become more comfortable," Stadnik said. "My dream is coming true."

His neighbors joke that they may also benefit from Stadnik`s success. "Of course we are proud of him — we may have gas here soon thanks to him," said Nila Kravchuk, 75.

Since he quit his job, Stadnik has concentrated on managing the family garden and taking care of his three cows, one horse and assorted pigs and chickens. He lives with his mother Halyna, 66, and his sister Larysa, 42.

Stadnik says his dream now is finding a soul mate, just like the former titleholder, China`s Bao Xishun, who was married last year.

"I think the future holds that for me," he said.

AP

ctnstant URL of article:
http://www.unian.net/eng/news/news-242793.html

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I am 6'3"(190+ cm), he is 2'2"(66+ cm) taller than me! (256 + cm tall)

His health is failing, read this article here... LINK!
A beautiful video about Leonid Stadnik: watch HERE!

Kyle & Svet

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Russia: Vacation Time Almost Here!

Hello,

I was drinking my morning cup of coffee & thinking that I better warn everyone that vacation time for Svet & I is almost here.

At the end of the week, (29th of March) we are going to travel Russia! A few of the places that we plan on seeing is the cities of Volgograd, Novocherkassk, Sochi, Kazan, Samara & Nizhnijj Novgorod! We are also looking at going to the countries of Georgia and Armenia.

Svet & I do not have plans set in stone, we just want to see the world a little bit at a time. I have our car ready & we have someone to watch Boza our dog!

We have an old laptop that we are taking this time. I have installed Xubuntu operating system, a wireless card, 128 megs of Ram & an external hard drive. The wireless works fantastic & we have gone to McDonald's in Moscow to test out the system.

Many Hotels that we stay at have Wi-Fi and all McDonald's that we find in Russia seem to have free Wi-Fi.

We plan on posting a few articles while we are gone on vacation & let you see what we find on the way. There are no promises that we will succeed in posting but we plan on trying,

One of the purposes of the trip is to travel to Sochi where the 2016 Winter Olympics will be held. We want to get pictures of the now(preconstruction) before all the construction is done. So that when we go back to Sochi at the Olympics we can compare.

That is all for now......

Kyle & Svet

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Russia: The Rail Yard Just Another Path To Home!

Hello,

This is not a surprise to me, The story is sad but a real part of life in Russia!

My wife & I have stood at train stations and overpasses, looking at the train tracks. As we watch the trains come & go, we see people crossing the tracks. I ask why do they all seem to put them selves in danger? Why do they cross under trains instead of going around them? Why cross here?

My wife just says that it is much faster...... She says that they live across the tracks and they take the shortest route! That all makes sense to me, except I value my life more than crawling under a rail car that could move at any moment.

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Seven-year-old girl loses legs in train tragedy in south Russia

24/03/2008 12:57 ROSTOV-ON-DON, March 24 (RIA Novosti) - A seven-year-old girl lost both legs when a rail car hit her as she crawled over the tracks in Taganrog in southern Russia, the regional railway press service said on Monday.

The accident occurred Friday when the girl's mother, decided to take a short cut under a stationary wagon rather than walk round the train. As the mother and daughter crawled under the train, it started moving crushing the girl's legs.

The girl was rushed to hospital where doctors fought to save her life.

The mother sustained slight injuries in the tragedy.
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So the Mother had only a slight injury, whereas the daughter lost both legs........

Kyle & Svet

comments always welcome.

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Russia: Has Squat Toilets Also!

Hello,

I had to smile when I saw this article several days ago. I had an interesting reaction in Russia to the very same toilets. Now I think that they are great.........
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No More Squatting at Beijing Toilets
Reuters

BEIJING -- Beijing organizers are refitting the toilets at three main Olympic venues after complaints from foreign athletes about having to squat.

Most toilets in China are still of the squat rather than sit-down variety.

"In my personal point of view, there are cultural differences between Chinese and Western people. Chinese are more used to squat toilets," said Yao Hui, a senior official responsible for the management of Olympic venues. "Toilet alteration projects at the Bird's Nest [National Stadium], the Water Cube and National Indoor Stadium are ongoing, and if technical conditions permit, all the toilets in these stadiums will be changed."

A similar project will be expanded to more of the 31 venues in the city, he added. "We will change the toilets in as many as we can, especially those for the key clients, athletes, Olympic family members and the media," he said.

Beijing has 5,200 public toilets, the Beijing Evening Post reported earlier this month, more than any city in the world.
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At least your doggy does not get stuck as easy!

Kyle & Svet

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Happy Easter!

HAPPY EASTER

From: "Windows To Russia!"
Svet & Kyle

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Pastor Phillip Miles: Still In Prison!

Hello,

Latest update on Miles. Looks like it is still many days from being over. This is starting to look bad for Pastor Miles. I think pretrial was too quick myself.
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Friday, March 14, 2008

With respect to Phillip's legal case, we have been informed that the pre-trial investigation process has been completed. This is encouraging news because this process frequently lasts many months. The prosecutor now has the case and will determine a trial date. The prosecutor has the authority to try Pastor Phillip on both the smuggling and trafficking charges. We hope to hear that the trial will take place within a few weeks, although there is currently no date set. Pastor Phillip's attorney will argue that any violation of Russian laws was done unintentionally and with no desire to cause any harm or danger to anyone in Russia. The testimony and evidence support this position. We trust that the prosecutor and the judge will agree with the evidence and Pastor Phillip will be released at the conclusion of his trial. Please continue to pray that the judge will show understanding and mercy on Pastor Phillip.

On a personal note, Pastor Phillip is continuing to develop close relationships with his cell mates and has faith that he will be able to return home soon. Two embassy officials visited Phillip this week and reported that he looked well. They were able to take the first package of letters and cards to him sent from the church, and he enjoyed reading every one of them. They had a wonderful conversation with him, even discussing the recent UNC/Duke basketball game. He decided to overlook the fact that one of the embassy visitors graduated from Duke! His third hand-written letter to Lynn seemed to indicate that he will have plenty of stories to share when he comes home. He sent his love and appreciation to the staff and congregation of CCC.
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We will see....

Kyle

http://kylekeeton.com/2008/02/pastor-phillip-miles.html
http://kylekeeton.com/2008/02/russia-important-update-on-american.html
http://kylekeeton.com/2008/02/russia-update-on-pastor-phillip-miles.html

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Russian Bloggers In UpRoar Over Livejournal.com

http://www.livejournal.com/

Bloggers on strike over lack of free service Thousands of users of the Livejournal.com blogging web-service are on strike on Friday protesting against the policies of its owners, the Russian company Sup Fabrik.

They have pledged not to create any content and refrain from taking part in any discussions on the day of the strike in protest against the cancellation of so-called basic accounts, which are free of charge and without any advertising.

The online protest was initiated by an American user from St Louis, who claimed that basic users create value for the website by producing content.

The system is very popular among Russian bloggers, many of which said they would join in the strike.

Anton Nosik from Sup Fabrik told Russia Today it's a logical step for a commercial enterprise:

“The existence of basic accounts, which are actually a non-profit thing – slightly contradicts the very idea of this being a commercial venue. We are not a Wikipedia, we are not fund-raising. We are expecting ourselves to live through advertising. To make things clear – we are not canceling any basic accounts that have been created before the announcement. We’re just not offering new ones,” he said

Kyle & Svet

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Could Litvinenko Have Poison Himself While Smuggling Polonium-210?

Hello,

Could this be true?


"According to an investigation by Edward Epstein, a New York Sun journalist, Aleksandr Litvinenko may have accidentally poisoned himself while trying to smuggle polonium-210. Aleksandr Litvinenko, a former Russian Intelligence officer, died of polonium-210 poisoning in November 2006."

I think that it is possible.....

Kyle
Here is the link to the article by Edward Jay Epstein in New York Sun Newspaper.

comments always welcome.

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Russia: Great Lent!

Hello,

In this we will talk about Russian Great Lent

2008 date for Easter:
March 23 (Western)
April 27 (Eastern)

Tradition of the Great Lent originates from ancient Christian church and is kept only in Orthodox. Lent is called Great because of its importance and is kept in memory of 40 day lent of Jesus Christ who, after his baptism, retired in a desert.

Great Lent is the longest (49 days) and strictest. It is recommended to manage without food in the first two days and the last one of Lent and be moderate in other days. You can eat fish only on the day of Annunciation and Palm Sunday. Vine and oil is allowed on Saturdays and Sundays. Lent is not a diet for physical health, but for moral health. Lent is considered as a deeping into spiritual world where you can appreciate the value of a word, as a word is silver, but silence is gold. Lent is a real heroic exploit and far from everyone can do it.

What did people eat at Lent time?
Let's imagine Lent fair: dry mushrooms, peas, radish, carrot, onion, beet, sauerkraut, pickled cucumbers, bilberries, cranberries, apples, honey, jam. There were special Lent dishes - Turya (salted water with bread pieces and chopped onion), Tolokno (fried oats with salted water), Kulesh (thin gruel made from peas, potatoes and groats). In fact, Lent table could not be so poor, as there are many vegetable dishes. The principal thing was refusal of pleasures and that made believers be thankful for this simple food. Great Lent prepares a believer to the greatest event - resurrection of Jesus, Easter.
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Beginning of the Great Lent. Tone eight.(March 10th)
Great Lent. By Monastic Charter - Full abstention from food

Clean Monday. (On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of the 1st week of Great Lent the Great Vespers the canon of St. Andrew of Crete is read).
St. Porphyrius, bishop of Gaza (420).
New Hieromartyr Peter priest (1930).
New Hieromartyr Sergius priest (1933).
Virgin-martyr Anna (1937).
New Hieromartyrs John bishop of Rylsk and John priest (1938).
St. Sebastian, monk of Poshekhonye (1542).
Martyrs Sebastian and Christodoulos (66).
New Martyr John Calphas ("the Apprentice") at Constantinople (1575) (Greek).
St. Photina, the Samaritan woman, and her sisters Anatola, Phota, Photis, Parasceva, and Cyriaca; her sons Photinus and Joses; and Sebastian the Duke, Victor, and Christodulus — all martyred under Nero (66) (Greek).
Martyr Theoclitas, martyred with St. Photina (Greek).
New Martyr Elias of Trebizond (1749).
The Mezhetsk Icon of the Mother of God.

The Scripture Readings

Isaiah 1:1-20 (6th Hour)
Genesis 1:1-13 (Vespers, 1st Reading)
Proverbs 1:1-20 (Vespers, 2nd Reading)
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First Week of the Great Lent. Tone eight.(17th of March)
Great Lent. By Monastic Charter: Strict Fast (Bread, Vegetables, Fruits)

Martyr Eudocia of Heliopolis (152).
New Hieromartyr Olga (1937).
New Hieromartyrs Basil, Peter, John, Benjamin, Michael priests, New Hieromartyr Antony, Virgin-martyrs Anna, Daria, Eudokia, Alexandra, Martyr Basil, Virgin-martyr Nadezhda (1938).
New Hieromartyr Alexander priest (1942).
New Hieromartyrs Abbess Antonina of Kizliar (1924), Methodius (1920) and Anastasia Andreyevna, fool-for-Christ.
St. Martyrius, abbot of Zelenets (Tikhvin) (1603).
Martyrs Nestor, Tribimius, Marcellus, and Anthony of Perge in Pamphylia (3rd c.).
Martyr Antonina of Nicaea in Bithynia (284-305).
Virgin Domnina of Syria (450-460).
St. Agapius of Vatopedi Skete of Kolitsou, Mt. Athos, and his four companions.
St. Swidbert, monastic founder on the Rhine River (713).
St. David of Wales, bishop (6th c.) (Celtic & British).
St. Albinus, bishop of Angers (550).
St. Leo-Luke of Corleone, Sicily (900).
New Martyr Paraskevas of Trebizond (1659).
Martyrs Sophronius and Silvester (Greek).
Martyrs Charisius, Nicephorus, and Agapius (Greek).

The Scripture Readings

Isaiah 3:1-14 (6th Hour)
Genesis 2:20-3:20 (Vespers, 1st Reading)
Proverbs 3:19-34 (Vespers, 2nd Reading)
----------------------------------------------------------

Second Week of the Great Lent. Tone one.
Great Lent. By Monastic Charter: Strict Fast (Bread, Vegetables, Fruits)

St. Theophylactus, bishop of Nicomedia (845).
New Hieromartyr John priest (1923).
Martyr Vladimir (1942).
Sts. Lazarus and Athanasius, monks of Murman Island, Onega Lake (1391).
Apostle Hermas of the Seventy (1st c.).
Hieromartyr Theodoretus of Antioch (361).
St. Dometius, monk (363).
Kursk "Sign" Icon (1898) Icon of the Mother of God.
St. Felix of Burgundy, bishop of Dunwich and enlightener of East Anglia (648) (Celtic & British).
St. Paul of Prusias, confessor (840) (Greek).
Martyr Dio (Greek).
Martyrs Quintilian and Capatolinus in Nicomedia.

The Scripture Readings

Isaiah 7:1-15 (6th Hour)
Genesis 5:32-6:8 (Vespers, 1st Reading)
Proverbs 6:20-7:1 (Vespers, 2nd Reading)
----------------------------------------------------------

Third Week of the Great Lent. Tone two.(24 of March)
Great Lent. By Monastic Charter: Strict Fast (Bread, Vegetables, Fruits)

Martyrs Agapius, Publius (Pauplios), Timolaus, Romulus, two named Dionysius, and two named Alexander, at Caesarea in Palestine (303).
New Hieromartyr Demetrius priest (1938).
New Hieromartyr Michael priest (1940).
Hieromartyr Alexander of Side in Pamphylia (270-275).
Martyr Nicander of Egypt (302).
St. Nicander, monk, of Gorodets (Novgorod) (1603).
New Martyr Manuel of Crete (1792) (Greek).
St. Hebarestes.
St. Zachariah, pope of Rome (752).

The Scripture Readings

Isaiah 13:2-13 (6th Hour)
Genesis 8:4-21 (Vespers, 1st Reading)
Proverbs 10:31-11:12 (Vespers, 2nd Reading)
-----------------------------------------------------------

Fourth Week of the Great Lent: Adoration of Cross. Tone three.(31st of march)
Great Lent. By Monastic Charter: Strict Fast (Bread, Vegetables, Fruits)

Hieromartyr Basil, presbyter of Ancyra (362).
Martyr Drosida (Drosis) of Antioch, and five virgins (104).
St. Isaac, founder of the Dalmatian Monastery at Constantinople (383).
Martyrs Callinica and Basilissa of Rome (2nd c.).
St. Basil of Mangazea in Siberia (1600).
Venerable Euthymius of Constantinople.
"The Izborsk" Icon of the Mother of God (1657).
St. Paul, bishop of Narbonne, Brittany (3rd c.) (Celtic & British).
New Martyr Euthymius of Mt. Athos (1814) (Greek).
New Martyr Basil (Zelentsov) bishop of Priluk (1930).
New Martyr Schema-abbess Sophia of Kiev (1941) and her priest Demetrius Ivanov (1934).

The Scripture Readings

Isaiah 29:13-23 (6th Hour)
Genesis 12:1-7 (Vespers, 1st Reading)
Proverbs 14:15-26 (Vespers, 2nd Reading)
----------------------------------------------------------

Fifth Week of the Great Lent. Tone four.(7th of April)
Great Lent. By Monastic Charter: Strict Fast (Bread, Vegetables, Fruits)

Martyr Mark, bishop of Arethusa (364), and with him Hieromartyr Cyril the Deacon of Heliopolis, and others, who suffered under Julian the Apostate (362).
New Martyrs Priest Paul (Voinarsky), and brothers Paul and Alexis Kiryan, of the Crimea (1919).
New Hieromartyr Micael priest(1933).
Venerable John, Anchorite of Egypt (4th c.).
St. Eustathius (Eustace) the Confessor, bishop of Kios in Bithynia(9thc.).
Sts. Jonah (1480) and Mark of the Pskov Caves.
St. Diadochus, bishop of Photike in Epirus (ca. 486).
St. Eustasius, abbot of Luxeuil (7th c.).
Sts. Gwynllw and Gwladys, parents of St. Cadoc.

The Scripture Readings

Isaiah 45:11-17 (6th Hour)
Genesis 22:1-18 (Vespers, 1st Reading)
Proverbs 17:17-18:5 (Vespers, 2nd Reading)
----------------------------------------------------------

Sixth Week of the Great Lent. Tone five.(14th of April)
Great Lent. By Monastic Charter: Strict Fast (Bread, Vegetables, Fruits)

Transation of the relics (1652) of St. Job, patriarch of Moscow (1607).
Martyrs Theodulus, reader, and Agathopodes, deacon, and those with them at Thessalonica (303).
New Hieromartyr Alexis priest (1930)..
New Hieromartyr Nicholas priest (1931).
St. Publius of Egypt, monk (4th c.).
Sts. Theonas, Symeon, and Phorbinus of Egypt (4th c.).
St. Mark the Anchorite of Athens (400).
St. Plato, abbot of the Studion (813).
St. Theodora, nun, of Thessalonica (892) (Greek).
New Martyr George of New Ephesus (1801).
Repose of St. Philip the First, metropolitan of Moscow (1473).
Five girls martyred at Neanidor of Lesbos (Greek).
Martyrs Theodora and Didymus of Alexandria (305).
The Martyr Fermus.
New Martyr Argyra at Constantinople (1725).
New Martyr Panaghiotis of Jerusalem (1820).
St. Derfel of Lianderfel.
St. Ethelburga, queen and Abbes of Lyminge, Kent.
Martyrs Claudius, Diodorus, Victor, Victorinus, Pappia, Serapion, and Nicephorus (Greek).

The Scripture Readings

John 10:1-9 Matins Gospel
Isaiah 66:10-24 (6th Hour)
Genesis 49:33-50:26 (Vespers, 1st Reading)
Proverbs 31:8-31 (Vespers, 2nd Reading)
Hebrews 7:26-8:2 St. Job
John 10:9-16 St. Job
-----------------------------------------------------------

Passion Week: Great Friday, Passion of Jesus Christ. (21st of April)
Great Lent. By Monastic Charter - Full abstention from food

St. Basil the Confessor, bishop of Parium (760).
New Hieromartyr Sergius (1938).
Hieromartyr Zeno, bishop of Verona (ca. 260).
St. Isaac the Syrian, abbot of Spoleto, Italy (ca. 550).
Martyrs Menas, David, and John of Palestine (630).
Virgin Anthusa of Constantinople (801).
St. Athanasia, abbess of Aegina (860).
"Murom" (12th c.) and "Belynich" (13th c.) Icons of the Mother of God.
St. Acacius of Kapsokalyvia Skete, Mt. Athos (1730).
St. Basil, bishop of Ryazan (1295).
Deposition of the Belt of the Most Holy Mother of God in Constantinople (942).
Martyr Sabbas the Goth, who suffered at Buzau in Wallachia (372) (Romania).
St. Sergius, patriarch of Constantinople (1019).
Martyrs Demas, Protion, and those with them (Greek).

The Scripture Readings

John 13:31-18:1 (Matins, 1st Passion Gospel)
John 18:1-28 (Matins, 2nd Passion Gospel)
Matthew 26:57-75 (Matins, 3rd Passion Gospel)
John 18:28-19:16 (Matins, 4th Passion Gospel)
Matthew 27:3-32 (Matins, 5th Passion Gospel)
Mark 15:16-32 (Matins, 6th Passion Gospel)
Matthew 27:33-54 (Matins, 7th Passion Gospel)
Luke 23:32-49 (Matins, 8th Passion Gospel)
John 19:25-37 (Matins, 9th Passion Gospel)
Mark 15:43-47 (Matins, 10th Passion Gospel)
John 19:38-42 (Matins, 11th Passion Gospel)
Matthew 27:62-66 (Matins, 12th Passion Gospel)
Galatians 6:14-18 (Royal Hours – 1st Hour)
Matthew 27:1-56 (Royal Hours – 1st Hour)
Romans 5:6-11 (Royal Hours – 3rd Hour)
Mark 15:16-41 (Royal Hours – 3rd Hour)
Hebrews 2:11-18 (Royal Hours – 6th Hour)
Luke 23:32-49 (Royal Hours – 6th Hour)
Hebrews 10:19-31 (Royal Hours – 9th Hour)
John 18:28-19:37 (Royal Hours – 9th Hour)
1 Corinthians 1:18-2:2
Matthew 27:1-38
Luke 23:39-43
Matthew 27:39-54
John 19:31-37
Matthew 27:55-61
----------------------------------------------------------

Paschalia

Feb 17	– Sunday of the Publican and Pharisee
Mar 02	– Meatfare Sunday
Mar 09	– Forgiveness Sunday
Apr 20	– Palm Sunday
Apr 27	– Great and Holy Pascha
May 21	– Mid-Pentecost (Prepolovenie)
Jun 05	– Holy Ascension
Jun 15	– Pentecost - Trinity Sunday
Jun 22	– All Saints

-----------------------------------------------------------

It goes on but I think that you see the gist of things. Easter is here and Lent is going on.

So however you deal with Lent. It is a time for recollection and renewal!

Happy Easter!

Kyle & Svet

http://kylekeeton.com/2008/03/russian-easter.html

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Lent Around The World! (Easter Time)

Lent, in most Christian denominations, is the forty-day liturgical season of fasting and prayer before Easter. The forty days represent the time Jesus spent in the desert, where, according to the Bible, he endured temptation by Satan. Different churches calculate the forty days differently.

The purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer—through prayer, penitence, alms giving and self-denial for the annual commemoration during Holy Week of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, which recalls the events linked to the Passion of Christ and culminates in Easter, the celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In Western Christianity, but with the exception of the Archdiocese of Milan which follows the Ambrosian Rite, Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and concludes on Holy Saturday. The six Sundays in Lent are not counted among the forty days because each Sunday represents a "mini-Easter", a celebration of Jesus' victory over sin and death.

In those churches which follow the Byzantine tradition (e.g. Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholics), the forty days of Lent are calculated differently: the fast begins on Clean Monday, Sundays are included in the count, and it ends on the Friday before Palm Sunday. The days of Lazarus Saturday, Palm Sunday and Holy Week are considered a distinct period of fasting.

There are several holy days within the season of Lent.

* Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent in Western Christianity. * Clean Monday (or "Ash Monday") is the first day in Eastern Orthodox Christianity. * The fourth Lenten Sunday, which marks the halfway point between Ash Wednesday and Easter, is sometimes referred to as Laetare Sunday, particularly by Roman Catholics. * The fifth Lenten Sunday, also known as Passion Sunday (however, that term is also applied to Palm Sunday) marks the beginning of Passion tide. * The sixth Lenten Sunday, commonly called Palm Sunday, marks the beginning of Holy Week, the final week of Lent immediately preceding Easter. * Wednesday of Holy Week is known as Spy Wednesday to commemorate the days on which Judas spied on Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane before betraying him. * Thursday is known as Maundy Thursday, or Holy Thursday, and is a day Christians commemorate the Last Supper shared by Christ with his disciples. * Good Friday follows the next day, on which Christians remember His crucifixion and burial.

In the Roman Catholic Church, Mass is a three day event called the Easter Triduum that begins with the opening song of the Holy Thursday celebration. After the Holy Thursday celebration, the communion bread and wine is taken from the altar with no formal closing. Instead, the parish is invited to worship the holy Body of Christ. The next day is the official commemoration of The Passion of Jesus Christ and is usually celebrated at 3 PM local time though some parishes usually change the time due to work schedules. This commemoration is part of the Triduum Mass which the opening is just a prayer followed by the day's readings. The service usually ends with a shortened communion involving only the Body of Christ and a post communion prayer before the service ends without dismissal. The Easter Vigil is the start of the end of the Triduum mass and usually starts with a fire service before the readings which explore the history of mankind. The service also includes baptism and confirmation services which are usually celebrated after the homily. The Easter Vigil and Triduum Mass ends in the usual way with full communion.

Holy Week and the season of Lent, depending on denomination and local custom, end with Easter Vigil at sundown on Holy Saturday or on the morning of Easter Sunday. It is custom for some churches to hold sunrise services which include open air celebrations in some places.

In the Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and Anglican traditions, the altar linens and priest's vestments are violet during the season of Lent. However, during the holy days the linens often change.

There are traditionally forty days in Lent which are marked by fasting, both from foods and festivities, and by other acts of penance. The three traditional practices to be taken up with renewed vigor during Lent are prayer (justice towards God), fasting (justice towards self), and alms giving (justice towards neighbor). Today, some people give up a vice of theirs, add something that will bring them closer to God, and often give the time or money spent doing that to charitable purposes or organizations.

The number forty has many Biblical references: the forty days Moses spent on Mount Sinai with God (Exodus 24:18); the forty days and nights Elijah spent walking to Mount Horeb (1 Kings 19:8); God made it rain for forty days and forty nights in the days of Noah (Genesis 7:4); the Hebrew people wandered forty years traveling to the Promised Land (Numbers 14:33); Jonah in his prophecy of judgment gave the city of Nineveh forty days in which to repent (Jonah 3:4).

Jesus retreated into the desert, where he fasted for forty days, and was tempted by the devil (Matthew 4:1-2, Mark 1:12-13, Luke 4:1-2). Jesus overcame all three of Satan's temptations by citing scripture to the devil, at which point the devil left him, angels ministered to Jesus, and he began his ministry. Jesus further said that his disciples should fast "when the bridegroom shall be taken from them" (Matthew 9:15), a reference to his Passion. Since, presumably, the Apostles fasted as they mourned the death of Jesus, Christians have traditionally fasted during the annual commemoration of his burial.

It is the traditional belief that Jesus lay for 40 hours in the tomb which led to the forty hours of total fast that preceded the Easter celebration in the early Church (the biblical reference to 'three days in the tomb' is understood as spanning three days, from Friday afternoon to early Sunday morning, rather than three 24 hour periods of time). One of the most important ceremonies at Easter was the baptism of the initiates on Easter Eve. The fast was initially undertaken by the catecholamine to prepare them for the reception of this sacrament. Later, the period of fasting from Good Friday until Easter Day was extended to six days, to correspond with the six weeks of training, necessary to give the final instruction to those converts who were to be baptized.

Converts to Christianity followed a strict catechizing or period of instruction and discipline prior to baptism. In Jerusalem near the close of the fourth century, classes were held throughout Lent for three hours each day. With the legalization of Christianity (by the Edict of Milan) and its later imposition as the state religion of the Roman Empire, its character was endangered by the great influx of new members. In response, the Lenten fast and practices of self-renunciation were required annually of all Christians, both to show solidarity with the catechisms, and for their own spiritual benefit. The less zealous converts were thus brought more securely into the Christian fold.

Traditionally, on Easter Sunday, Roman Catholics may cease their fasting and start again whatever they gave up for lent, after they attend Mass on Easter Sunday. Other Western denominations have also followed this general principle to a greater or lesser degree.

No matter how you celebrate Lent, it should be a time to recollect & renew!

2008 date for Easter:
March 23 (Western)
April 27 (Eastern)

Kyle & Svet

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Russia: Minibus!

Hello,

I was drinking my morning cup of coffee & thinking about how I really dislike the Minibuses in Russia! (My wife will disagree with me on this.)

A Minibus in Russia is a disaster waiting to kill someone. (My wife loves them & I will not ride in them.)

A Minibus driver cares about only one thing: Pick up a passenger for fare. To achieve this goal a Minibus driver will block, smash, wreck, do U turns, drive on the sidewalk, run red lights, cut traffic, go down the wrong side of the road & in general disobey all rules of driving! They are the rudest example of drivers I have ever known.

My wife will tell you that I will walk before I get into a Mini deathtrap! She also will tell you that they are a godsend to Moscow! (?)

=========================================
Minibuses Inspected After Accident Rate Hike

By Irina Titova

Staff Writer

A recent increase in the number of accidents involving the city’s marshrutki minibuses has prompted police, prosecutors and the city administration to step up safety inspections.

On Tuesday, an inspection of 18 marshrutki in northern St. Petersburg registered 14 violations of traffic rules, and three of the minibuses were taken off the route in question, Fontanka.ru reported.

The inspection showed that the vehicles were breaking technical safety standards.

However, experts say that the most frequent violation of traffic rules performed by drivers of marshrutki is making an illegal turn from the wrong lane, cutting across other vehicles and putting the safety of passengers at risk, according to Fontanka.ru.

Another common violation is that minibuses pick up and drop off passengers in illegal zones.

The city’s marshrutki also cause problems at bus stops near metro stations, which become crowded because they are often the final stop on the route. As a result, bus passengers have to step into the street in order to catch the bus they need.

Since the beginning of this year, six major traffic accidents involving marshrutki have been recorded, in which four people were killed and 30 injured.

During the first few days of this week in three separate incidents, marshrutki collided with trucks.

The latest accident took place on Tuesday when a marshrutka minibus collided with a truck while making a left turn toward the suburb of Pushkin on the Pulkovskoye Highway. Ten people were seriously injured in the accident and taken to hospital. The driver of the marshrutka did not yield to the truck, Gazeta.spb said.
=========================================

I came within inches one day of being a Minibus statistic: I was watching the drivers face, (he never once looked at me). He was picking up his passengers & I was crossing at a crosswalk that he was parked in! I stepped into my crosswalk & he took off.(The door was still open on the minibus.) He never looked forward at me as he accelerated. He was too busy collecting money from passengers! I jumped back, hit the curb & fell down on the ground. The driver who never saw me, crossed to the wrong side of the road. A large bus had to slam on the brakes and go around the minibus. The minibus then crossed back to the correct side of the road and stopped in the middle of the lane to pick up more passengers. Then took off like a "Bat out of H*ll" passing cars on a two lane road.

I do not like Minibuses in Russia.....

Kyle & Svet

comments always welcome.

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Russian News: March 21th, 2008!

RBC, 20.03.2008, Moscow 19:56:38.Following the Russian Federal Security Service's accusations that a TNK-BP employee was involved in industrial espionage, the Russian-British oil company issued a statement declaring that it was opposed to the use of unfair competitive practices. Commenting on searches carried out at the company's offices, spokesperson Alexander Shadrin said that TNK-BP never supported and does not codone any illegal activities, whose purpose is to bring harm to the Russian Federation. Furthermore, he stressed that the company continues to provide assistance to the law-enforcement bodies within the procedure established by law. According to Shadrin, TNK-BP, meanwhile, continues to conduct its business activities as usual.

RBC, 20.03.2008, Moscow 19:15:36.The strategy and reorganization committee of RAO UES's Board of Directors is planning to review dividend recommendations during a meeting scheduled for March 26, the agenda of the meeting states. In addition, the committee intends to discuss the details of the sale of a government stake in the power generation company TGK-13, which is issuing additional shares at a price range of between RUB 0.19 and RUB 0.23 per share.

RBC, 20.03.2008, Moscow 18:56:16.The investigation committee of the Russian General Prosecutor's Office has opened the fourth criminal case against Russian businessman Boris Berezovsky, the committee's public relations department reported today. The organization is currently drafting a request for legal assistance to be forwarded to concerned agencies in the UK. Berezovsky is charged with making false accusations regarding the intentions of Russia's secret service to assassinate him, as well as with deliberate falsification of evidence.

RBC, 20.03.2008, Moscow 18:27:32.Russia's Federal Security Service has charged a TNK-BP employee Ilya Zaslavsky and his brother, head of the British Council in Russia, Alexander Zaslavsky, with industrial espionage in favor of foreign companies, the agency's public relations center reported today. Each of the suspects has dual citizenship in the US and Russia. According to the organization's statement, the brothers engaged in illegal gathering of confidential commercial information to provide a number of foreign oil and gas companies with competitive advantages over their Russian rivals. A search was conducted in offices of TNK-BP and BP Trading Ltd., during which evidence confirming espionage was discovered. Both suspects were detained on March 12.

RBC, 20.03.2008, Moscow 17:23:47.Russian banks could lose up to a fourth of their assets due to financial instability, deputy head of the Federation Council's committee on financial markets and monetary circulation Gleb Fetisov told a banking conference today. According to Fetisov, five top banks with state participation have accumulated nearly 50 percent of total banking assets in Russia. He believes that regional banks have fallen behind without any hope to catch up with them. Most banks are covering their short-term liabilities with long-term loans, which could result in a liquidity squeeze. Low capitalization of the banking system is yet another problem, Fetisov said, as most regional banks have never had any intention of going public. One of the ways to solve the issues is funding by large financial organizations, including financial institutions.

RBC, 20.03.2008, Moscow 17:02:11.According to preliminary unaudited data, Lebedyansky's net profit under IFRS went down 10 percent to $79.2m in 2007, Russia's natural juice producer said in a report today. Meanwhile, revenue surged 33 percent to $944.8m, including sales of Lebedyansky's subsidiary Troya-Ultra. Sales excluding those of Troya-Ultra grew 27 percent to $892.5m. The company's management attributes the rise in sales to regional expansion, the development of direct sales and the pricing and marketing policies. EBITDA increased 12 percent to $155.6m, while EBITDA margin declined from 19.6 to 16.5 percent in 2007.

RBC, 20.03.2008, Moscow 16:55:05.Russian President Vladimir Putin has formed a list of instructions following the meeting of the presidential council for the implementation of high-priority national projects, held on February 28, the Russian leader's press office reported today. For instance, Putin urged the council to ensure the realization of the government's demographic policy and the development of priority national projects in the areas of healthcare, education, affordable housing, and agriculture.

RBC, 20.03.2008, Moscow 16:20:11.The Russian stock market is not expected to stop its downward correction until the end of the week, experts told RBC TV today. Once again, the US Federal Reserve's interest rate cut had only a short-term effect on the market. Meanwhile, analysts believe that Russian stocks' decline is likely to slow in the afternoon, with shares sliding 0.5 percent before the close. Second-tier securities of the construction and consumer sectors look more stable than the rest, experts say.

RBC, 20.03.2008, Moscow 15:52:03.According to various criteria, between 18 and 42 percent of Russians consider themselves to be middle class, a poll conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) showed. The respondents of the poll considered themselves middle class on the basis of the following criteria: good living conditions (42 percent), ability to provide high-quality education to children (39 percent), satisfaction with life prospects (35 percent), comfortable life after retirement (26 percent), ability to travel abroad (21 percent), and owning two or more cars per family (18 percent). The poll also showed that people under 35 considered themselves middle class a lot more often that people aged 35-39 and 60 or over. The poll was conducted among 1,600 respondents in 153 locations in 46 Russian regions and republics on February 16-17, with the margin of error of no more than 3.4 percent.

RBC, 20.03.2008, Moscow 13:57:02.Russia and Egypt have a great cooperation potential in the nuclear and oil and gas industries, Russia's Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko said during his talks with Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo. According to the press office of the Industry and Energy Ministry, Khristenko has arrived in Egypt to take part in the session of an intergovernmental commission on trade, economic, research and technology cooperation between the two countries. During the meeting, the minister defined the ties with Egypt as strategic. As a result of the meeting, the two sides arrived at a framework agreement on peaceful nuclear cooperation, including in such areas as personnel training, infrastructure facilities and research. The agreement is to be signed next week during the visit of Egypt's President to Russia.

RBC, 20.03.2008, Moscow 11:37:37.Russia's gold and currency reserves stood at $502.1bn as of March 14, 2008, up $7.6bn, or 1.5 percent from the previous showing. This has been the highest increase in reserves since the beginning of the year. The reserves climbed a total of $13.5bn over the four previous weeks, and therefore, the overall increase amounted to $21.1bn, or 4.4 percent, in five weeks. The rapid rise can be attributed to the euro's considerable increase against the dollar on international exchanges, as well as to the Central Bank's active foreign currency acquisitions on the domestic market. As a result, Russia has been able to somewhat close up the gas separating it from the world leaders in reserves, China and Japan. China's reserves currently exceed $1.5 trillion, having climbed more than 43 percent in 2007 alone, due to the country's huge trade surplus. Japan currently boasts over $1 trillion in reserves.

RBC, 20.03.2008, Moscow 09:29:28.Russia's Central Election Commission has filed lawsuits in a number of countries over allegations of irregularities during Russia's recent presidential election made by some foreign mass media. The commission's Chairman Vladimir Churov made this announcement during a live interview to one of the Russian radio stations. In addition, the commission's officials are now working on important publications on the issue.

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From Russia, With A Smile!

Hello,

Today on Rotus, I found a very pleasant surprise. He did a review about Windows to Russia!

No, he was not paid to do this. (He even put that in writing, that is a good thing because I could not pay his regular review fee of 5,534,876 pesos!)

Rotus has a Flagship blog called "Clarks Picks!"

Put Clark's Picks In Your Sidebar: please

Just click on the Button & you can receive your own very special button to put on your blog or website!

Thank You for being a good friend, Clark!

Kyle & Svet

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Russia: Is Not InHumane!

Hello,

I have been following this story line for a while. Russia has been doing all that it can to try to get these people out, but since they will not leave, Russia has been working very hard to keep the caves from flooding & killing all the occupants!
=========================================
Russian doomsday sect's cave saved from flooding

20/03/2008 15:28 NIZHNY NOVGOROD, March 20 (RIA Novosti) - Emergency service workers in central Russia have carried out an operation to prevent thaw waters reaching a cave where 35 members of a doomsday sect have been holed up for almost five months.

The sect, including four children, have been holed up in the cave in the Penza Region since the fall of 2007 waiting for the apocalypse, which they say will happen in May 2008. They have threatened to set fire to themselves if any attempt is made to force them out.

"Rescuers have dug special drainage ditches to prevent thaw waters from reaching the cave," said an official with the emergency services.

The official went on to say that there was little likelihood now of the cave being submerged by underground waters in the spring thaw, adding however that, "If a need arises, rescue workers will come to the site again to carry out any necessary work."

He also added that police officers on duty near the cave were monitoring the situation and that there were contingency plans in place to rescue the sect members if flooding did occur.

According to the sect's founder, Pyotr Kuznetsov, the cave is said to have been divided into five cells, with one large 'room' set aside for prayers. The prayer room is also to be used for the eventual burial of the sect members.

Kuznetsov is currently being treated for paranoid schizophrenia in a psychiatric hospital in Penza, about 600 km (370 miles) southeast of Moscow.

Religion was tightly controlled in the U.S.S.R. and the collapse of the Soviet Union saw an explosion in sects and cults, as well as interest in New Age philosophies and beliefs in Russia and many other former Soviet republics.

There are currently believed to be around 500-700 such sects in Russia, containing some 600,000-800,000 people.
=========================================
Sounds more like America everyday that I am here. :)

Kyle & Svet

comments always welcome.

PS:Remember (Waco: 74 members of Branch Davidians cult, including leader David Koresh, died in a fire) I remember!

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Russia: Moose In Moscow?

Hello,

This is Cool! I have heard of Cows and Bears in American cities. Never thought of a Moose running loose in a huge city like Moscow.....
=========================================
Wild moose 'on the run' in south Moscow industrial zone

19/03/2008 19:56 MOSCOW, March 19 (RIA Novosti) - A wild moose that strayed into an industrial zone in the south of Moscow is currently being sought by environmentalists and police, a police spokesman said on Wednesday.

The moose was initially discovered near a residential building on Varshavskoe Highway.

The animal disappeared into trees near a group of garages and is currently thought to be somewhere in the midst of an industrial zone surrounded by residential buildings, a RIA Novosti correspondent reported.

Police are planning to catch the moose with the help of environmental specialists and to return it to its native habitat. Moscow Zoo employees are also at the scene.

Although Russia has the world's second largest moose population, with approximately 500,000 animals, moose are rarely seen in big cities as they inhabit forests and large parks, feeding on grass, plants, leaves and bark.

Moscow police said that the moose had not caused any trouble or damage to property.
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I hope that the Moose is caught and released safely.

Kyle & Svet

comments always welcome.

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Russia: Killer Haircut!

Hello,

Have a sad article to read, This is why you must be taught to never stop robberies and irate customers. Just call the cops. Your life is more precious!
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Siberian hairdresser killed over price of haircut

20/03/2008 14:36 MOSCOW, 20 March (RIA Novosti) - A man in the southwest Siberian city of Omsk is due to stand trial after being accused of killing a hairdresser over the cost of a haircut, the local prosecutor's office said on its website on Thursday.

In October last year, Vadim Tikhonov tried to leave a hairdressing saloon without paying for a haircut. The hairdresser tried to prevent him from doing so by standing in front of him.

In response, police say, Tikhonov grabbed a hammer and hit the hairdresser with it, after which he took a knife and stabbed her 12 times. The hairdresser later died in hospital.

Police later established that Tikhonov had left the hairdressing saloon without paying as he felt the price of the haircut - 100 rubles or $4 - was "too high."

Tikhonov later admitted his guilt to police during questioning.
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I had a server in America put into the hospital for 2 weeks because she got mad at a customer for not leaving a tip & he beat her up in the parking lot after she got off work. (She almost died from ruptured spleen and other internal injuries)

Sad...

Kyle & Svet

comments always welcome.

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Russia: The Nicest Degradation Of The People!

Hello,

I kept this article since the 13th of March, I have read and reread this article several times. I am now going to give my opinion about this article called "Let Russians Be Russians!"

I find that Rodric Braithwaite has written the most beautiful wonderfully written article that still degrades & demoralizes the Russian People! A article that at the first reading looks & sounds good, then you reread because something hits you wrong......

1. "Given the chance, the Russians -- like the Afghans, the Iraqis, the Pakistanis and others -- turn out in large numbers to express their views through the ballot box. That is not enough, of course, to establish a working democracy in any country. But the result may well be a genuine expression of the popular view." (Interesting comparison choices to third world countries.)

2. "The Russian government manipulated the electoral process -- outrageously -- to get the right result."(What Proof?)

3. "Democracy is about throwing the rascals out, and most Russians are reconciled to their current rascals." (Democracy is about Money!)

4. "This remarkable democratic experiment then went wrong for a number of reasons:" (The Democratic experiment has just started in Russia!)

5. "That does not mean that Russians are "genetically" incapable of democracy." (What?)

6. "But if the Indians can do it, so can the Russians." (Does Russia want to be like Indians? Or Americans? Or Britain's? NO! Russians want to be like Russians!)

7. " George Kennan, that great Russia-watcher and U.S. diplomat and historian, got it right when he wrote in 1951, at the height of the Cold War: "When Soviet power has run its course ... let us not hover nervously over the people who come after, applying litmus papers daily to their political complexions to find out whether they answer to our concept of 'democrats.' Give them time; let them be Russians; let them work out their internal problems in their own manner. The ways by which people advance towards dignity and enlightenment in government are things that constitute the deepest and most intimate processes of national life. There is nothing less understandable to foreigners, nothing in which foreign influence can do less good." (This statement made my Wife see red! I say 1951 was not the era to quote from...Who said that democracy is what anyone should advance toward? )

8. "who, like latter-day Christian missionaries, believe that we have a duty to spread the gospel of democracy -- by military force, if necessary. Russians are not the only ones who find that proposition distinctly suspect." (The only thing that he said that really made sense!)

The whole article is a nice pleasent slam to the Russian people. Slam to the Russian election! Slam to Putin and his government!

Yes, He did it very polite & politically correct. Bless Him.

His comparisions, examples & statements are from a biased ancient(Cold War) veiwpoint! In 1951 America was slapping communist lables on people who liked the color red and "Black Listing" them..........
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Let Russians Be Russians
By Rodric Braithwaite

Having listened to all the speculation about what kind of president Dmitry Medvedev will become, we should look more closely at a much more contested question: Are the Russians even capable of democracy?

Many people -- both in Russia and abroad -- argue that Russians have no democratic tradition, that they prefer the iron hand of the autocrat and that the country is too big, too heterogenous and too disorderly to be ruled any other way.

President Vladimir Putin is more subtle. He believes that Russians are not yet ready for democracy, that they need to be brought to it by a managed process, lest everything collapse in chaos. He reminds one of the British, who argued that Indian independence must be postponed until the natives were capable of governing themselves.

Given the chance, the Russians -- like the Afghans, the Iraqis, the Pakistanis and others -- turn out in large numbers to express their views through the ballot box. That is not enough, of course, to establish a working democracy in any country. But the result may well be a genuine expression of the popular view.

Most ordinary Russians, thoroughly inoculated against the Western model by the chaos, humiliation, poverty and corruption of the Yeltsin years and angered by endless hectoring and ill-conceived advice from the West, are willing to pay a price in democracy for the stability and growing prosperity that have accompanied the Putin years. So in the recent parliamentary and presidential elections, they twice voted heavily for a continuation of the "Putin system." In the circumstances, that was a rational choice.

The Russian government manipulated the electoral process -- outrageously -- to get the right result. This is a curious sign of Putin's weakness, not his strength, since no one doubted that most people would vote the way the government wanted, for their own good reasons. Nevertheless, both elections had a certain legitimacy despite the obvious flaws. The voters were offered a choice on March 2, and many of them took it. One in five voted for veteran Communist Party head Gennady Zyuganov -- nearly twice as many as predicted. One in 10 voted for Liberal Democratic Party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky. We may not like these results, but this is very different from what happened in Kazakhstan in 2006, when President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who had been in power for 17 years, was re-elected for another seven by 95 percent of the voters.

Democracy is about throwing the rascals out, and most Russians are reconciled to their current rascals. It was different in March 1989, when Mikhail Gorbachev organized the first contested elections in any Warsaw Pact country, under an electoral system of mind-boggling complexity designed to preserve the Communist Party's monopoly power. But the voters recognized the rascals all right. They voted tactically and with great sophistication to throw out the bosses of Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev, a quarter of the regional party secretaries, a heap of generals and many other unpleasant people.

This remarkable democratic experiment then went wrong for a number of reasons: the sense of national humiliation that accompanied the collapse of the Soviet Union, the ensuing poverty, the inability of the liberal intelligentsia -- the self-styled "conscience of the nation" -- to agree on any effective course of action, the determination of the hard men in the army and the party to get their own back.

That does not mean that Russians are "genetically" incapable of democracy. Their history and their culture have not been propitious. The country has indeed for most of its history been a closed and imperial autocracy. But here, too, the Indian example is instructive. A country with a far larger population, an even more heterogenous culture and an unbroken history of autocratic and imperial rule has run a remarkably successful democracy for the past 60 years.

Although Russians today do not enjoy a Western kind of democracy, they do enjoy an unprecedented, if precarious, degree of personal prosperity, of access to information, of freedom to travel and even -- within limits -- to express their views. To argue that they cannot go on to construct their own version of democracy is a kind of racism. It may take decades, even generations; the construction of democracy always does. But if the Indians can do it, so can the Russians.

George Kennan, that great Russia-watcher and U.S. diplomat and historian, got it right when he wrote in 1951, at the height of the Cold War: "When Soviet power has run its course ... let us not hover nervously over the people who come after, applying litmus papers daily to their political complexions to find out whether they answer to our concept of 'democrats.' Give them time; let them be Russians; let them work out their internal problems in their own manner. The ways by which people advance towards dignity and enlightenment in government are things that constitute the deepest and most intimate processes of national life. There is nothing less understandable to foreigners, nothing in which foreign influence can do less good."

It is the wisest advice, but it is blissfully ignored by our policymakers who, like latter-day Christian missionaries, believe that we have a duty to spread the gospel of democracy -- by military force, if necessary. Russians are not the only ones who find that proposition distinctly suspect.

Sir Rodric Braithwaite, British ambassador to the Soviet Union and Russia from 1988 to 1992, is author of "Moscow 1941: A City and its People at War." This comment appeared in the Financial Times.
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The world will disagree with me, but I have studied this article with care, Once again a article that does not uplift Russia. It is an article that covers up the Russian bashing with Flowers & pretty Ribbons........

Kyle

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Russia: World Opinion!

Hello,

Interesting article on how Russians & Americans view each other! So while you are drinking your morning cup of coffee click on: read more.... (better have two cups of coffee though, it is big)

How Russians and Americans View Each Other, Themselves, China and Iran

WorldPublicOpinion.org, together with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, hosted a discussion on May 31, 2006, about the findings of its new poll of Russians and Americans. The following is an edited transcript. The findings were presented by Stephen J. Weber, Associate Director of WorldPublicOpinion.Org.

Commentators:
Steven Kull, editor of WorldPublicOpinion.org and director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes
Andrew Kuchins, Director of the Russian and Eurasian Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Igor Zevelev, Washington Bureau Chief for the Russian news agency RIA-Novosti
Michael McFaul, Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Fellow Hoover Institution, Professor of Political Science, Stanford University

Stephen Weber: In six weeks, the G8 will be meeting in St. Petersburg. The prospect of this event plus the apparently cooling relations between Moscow and Washington has prompted a great deal of discussion about future relations between the two countries. President Putin also has moved to the front of the world stage, addressing several of the most significant issues of 2006: dealing with Hamas, following their electoral victory in January, negotiating with Iran and, to some degree, with the European 3 and the U.S., as well about Iran’s developing nuclear program and addressing energy and energy security.

WorldPublicOpinion.org seeks to bring the voice and values of the public to the international policy discussion so I’d like you to reflect today about what contributions the voice of the American and the Russian public make to our understanding of this international policy discourse. Together with the Levada Center, an independent public opinion research institute in Moscow, WorldPublicOpinion conducted parallel polls of Russian and U.S. publics.

We examined how Russians and Americans looked at Iran’s development of its nuclear program and what should be done. We also posed questions on a broader set of issues on Russia and U.S. relations, each public’s perceptions of the two countries and we also included some parallel questions on China to provide greater context to public opinion in Russia and the U.S.

In Russia, the Levada Center used its national probability household sample to interview 1,000 Russians and they did so in mid-April. WorldPublicOpinion used Knowledge Network’s online panel to conduct its national sample of the American public. This panel is probability based, designed to represent all U.S. households, including the population without online access. The confidence intervals for most of today’s findings will be on the order of 3 to 4 percentage points. However, in this survey, and in most surveys, the important issues are not going to revolve around small statistical differences but rather things like: What do these questions mean? And, what do the findings mean and what is their importance for policy? Fortunately, for these difficult questions, we have an excellent panel of experts on Russia and U.S. relations:

For poll results on Russian and American views of Iran click here
For poll results on Russian and American views of each other, themselves and China click here

Steven Kull: I actually had an earlier incarnation in the 1980s studying the Soviet Union and conducted a study of Soviet thinking, which resulted in a book called Burying Lenin. Based on the writings of the Soviet leaders and the interviews that I was doing at the time, I made the case that Marxism-Leninism had been in disarray for some time but it was really the alternative ideology and thinking that really displaced Marxism-Leninism. And this new thinking really embraced the Universalist vision that was established in the post-war period. And central to this thinking was the idea that international legitimacy rose from multilateral consensus expressed largely through the United Nations. It also embraced the idea of a democratic process being the source of legitimacy for domestic government.

So a real question now has been: Is this all washed away? Is this still alive? Are Russians going off on another tangent? Are they returning to authoritarianism? Where could this lead in terms of ideology?

We have been doing some polling in Russia. Over the last year and a half, we did two polls together with Globescan for the BBC. We’ve also looked at polling for some other organizations. And I’d just like to point out a few findings that I think are relevant to this question.

The first is that it does appear that at least a majority of Russians are still pretty much on board with the Universalist vision. I think probably the most striking question was one for the BBC that we did that asked about the prospect of the U.N. being significantly more powerful in world affairs, would that be something positive or something negative. And 57 percent said that they thought it would be positive. Only 11 percent said it would be negative. There were quite a few opt outs.

Now, they’re not entirely enthusiastic about the U.N. performance. Only 38 percent were positive on that. […] But the principle of the U.N. playing a bigger role in the world is still very popular. A plurality favored the idea of adding more members to the U.N. Security Council. And, also, we asked, well, how do you feel about the idea of the U.N. Security Council having the power to override the veto of permanent members, including your country? Well, Russians were divided. They weren’t opposed. They were divided with about half not even answering. Americans, by the way, were positive on that.

Now are Russians recoiling from democracy? Well, clearly there has been major economic and political disarray since the collapse of the Soviet Union and there is a lot of evidence that their enthusiasm for democracy has been in some decline. But when asked, do you think it’s important for Russia to be a democratic country, 61 percent say that it is important. Only 21 percent say it’s unimportant. And this view that it is important rises with education. At the lowest level of education, it’s 41 percent rising all the way up to 78 percent at higher levels of education. It also rises with income. It’s also higher in Moscow. An important question is what do Russians think other Russians think. And 59 percent assume that most Russians think that it’s important that Russia be a democratic country.

Now, how do Russians feel about an authoritarian system? The Eurasia Barometer asked: For our country, the most suitable thing is to be a democratic country? Or to have something more rigid and centrally planned? Well, 50 percent went for democratic government, 35 percent for something rigid and centrally planned. On the question of the NGOs, and all that they might be up to, which has concerned some in the Russian government, that doesn’t seem to be a widespread view. Only 6 percent of Russians in the BBC poll had a negative view of NGOs. Fifty-three percent had a positive view.

We’ve also had some conversations on this question with our colleagues at the Levada Center. The way they interpret it, which we concur with, is that there may be some tendency right now to a kind of Chilean model. The idea that maybe we need to tighten up some, maybe we need to have more centralized control for a while. And that way the Chinese model looks attractive. But it does not appear there’s been some kind of ideological shift. The Chilean model is one that’s really explicitly temporary and it’s ultimately an affirmation of that in the long-run we need to come back to something that’s more democratic.

We’re now going to hear from our panelists and I think we’ll start with Andrew Kuchins. Andrew is the director of Russian and Eurasia Program here at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and he’s on the faculty of Georgetown. Previously he was the director of the Carnegie Moscow Center and his most recent publication is U.S. Russian Relations: The Case for an Upgrade. He’s currently writing a book that’s quite relevant to our discussion today: China and Russia: Strategic Allies, Partners or Competitors?

Andrew Kuchins: Steve thanks very much. First of all, let me thank Steve and Steve, collectively known as Steve squared, and PIPA for co-sponsoring this event today and for providing us with this really interesting data. Now let me make a caveat. I am by no means an expert on survey research and global opinion. Far from it. So my goal is basically to try to appear before you as an idiot savant rather than as just an idiot.

I’ll make a couple of observations. There are three points that strike me as puzzles that need further explanation or further research. And make a further point about Iran.

The first point is fairly obvious. That this data is very interesting but it would be extremely interesting if we were to look at it in time series and be able to compare these views with views five years or ten years ago in the American and Russian publics. There is some data that might be useful for this but I think Mike and some of the others might be more familiar with it. The other point I’d make is that, wow, it would be really great if we had the data on the Chinese and their views on these things. I mentioned this to Steve Weber just before we started and I know that is more difficult to come by. But these two points will come up in a couple of questions that I raise about the data itself.

The first thing that strikes me in looking at this comparison of American and Russian public opinion is how ambivalent Americans are about almost everything. And how sure the Russians are about almost everything. Americans are ambivalent about their president, Americans are ambivalent about use of force, Americans are ambivalent about the role of Russian foreign policy, Americans are ambivalent about the role of Chinese foreign policy. The only thing Americans are not ambivalent about is that the American system of government is superior to the Russians’ and the Chinese and probably everybody else’s if you had other data available. Of that we seem to be quite sure.

The Russians, on the other hand, are very sure that their president is the right guy –85 percent. They are very sure—80 percent—that Russia is playing a positive role in the world. They are very sure, surprisingly sure, and I’ll say more about this in a second, about the role of China in the world and quite positive about it. And they’re not so ambivalent about so many things. I just point that out, and I think it may suggest differences in political culture between Americans and Russians.

The three puzzles that strike me in this data. The first one I’ve referred to: The Russians being so positive about China and Chinese foreign policy. I find it a little bit surprising that the view is as positive as it is. And I would be very wary of extrapolating from this piece of data that Russians view China as a more promising international partner in the longer term.

This is certainly something I’m going to be looking into and thinking very hard about in the next year or two as I get further into this book project. But I have a lot of skepticism about that and, on this question in particular, I think it would be useful to have time series data. How durable is this positive view about China? How much has it changed over time? How much of it can be correlated to the negative perception of the Bush administration and U.S. foreign policy in the world? Because I think that for the Russians it’s the view of what the United States does that drives how they view China. So I am a little bit dubious about just how firm this is.

On the one hand, it’s easy for me to understand why they think this way. For one, they’re fed a fairly steady diet on TV, especially, about how wonderful the Sino-Russian relationship is. How positive it is. They see very few images about positive cooperation with the United States, etc. I spent two and a half years in Moscow, just getting back at the end of last year, and I apologize for repeating this to some here in the audience, but that was striking to me. Again, the Sino-Russian military exercises, Sergei Ivanov, the Defense Minister, he’s the first news story every night, smiling ear to ear. You would have thought that the Russians and the Chinese had just discovered the wheel or something. They seem so excited about this.

Very little positive about the U.S.-Russian relationship. That’s understandable. The other thing that’s understandable, of course, is that the Chinese and the Russians do share a lot of similar views about international relations. They share concerns about the unilateral, hegemonic role of the U.S. in the international system. They both promote in principle a multi-polar system. They were opposed to the U.S. withdrawal form the ABM treaty. They both opposed the NATO expansion. And also, an important note, that has become of more importance recently, they both hold very strong views of sovereignty and the importance of national sovereignty and about the unallowability of other states or international actors to impinge upon national sovereignty. All that is understandable and would drive a more positive view by the Russians of the Chinese.

But there are some real countervailing factors, also. First of all, there’s the attractiveness of culture. U.S. culture, Western culture more broadly, I think, is far more attractive to the Russian public than is Chinese culture. There’s a strong respect for Chinese culture but it’s not attractive in the way that U.S. culture is. This is something that Igor Zevelev and I discussed in Beijing about ten days ago. The Sino-Russian relationship is quite positive at the elite level but it’s weaker at the societal level. But this data is quite interesting and it would bear some further exploration.

The second puzzle for me in looking at this is the American view of Russian foreign policy and Chinese foreign policy and use of force. Actually, I think the discrepancy between American and Russian views of potential Chinese use of force is pretty easily explainable. We can imagine the possibility of the United States and China using force against each other over Taiwan. The prospect of a U.S.-Chinese war is, it’s a possibility. I don’t think it’s a possibility with the Russian Federation. I think it’s a lot less realistic. So U.S. views of Chinese use of force as being much more negative, that seems understandable to me.

What’s a little more puzzling is the American views of Russian foreign policy. There’s the question: Is Russia having a mainly positive or mainly negative influence on the world? Positive, 40 percent. Negative, 53 percent. Over the last few years, do you think the effect of Russian foreign policy on the U.S. and its interests has been positive? [Positive] 51 percent, negative, 38 percent. Now that’s not a huge difference but I think it is statistically significant and it’s puzzling to me. I don’t quite understand why that is the case. One possible explanation I came up with in thinking about this was that, well, since the Iraq war has become so unpopular for Americans, knowing that the Russians oppose the Iraq war may be the first question which is preying a bit more […] so it could relate to the Iraq war.

The other question, though: Is Russia having a mainly positive or negative influence on the world? I don’t understand quite why there is that discrepancy there. There’s no discrepancy on the questions about Chinese foreign policy, they’re consistent. On Russia, they’re not. I don’t quite understand that. That would bear some explanation.

The final puzzle for me. And maybe the most interesting one, actually: Are the Russian views of political systems? Here, just to review quickly those numbers, they’re remarkably consistent. Fifty-four percent of Russians have a very favorable or somewhat favorable view of the American system. Forty-seven percent have a very favorable or somewhat favorable view of the Russian system. Fifty-six percent have a very favorable or somewhat favorable view of the Chinese system.

Now those systems are all very different, yet the Russian view is very close in that they have the same degree of positiveness about them. It reminds me of the old story of the wise Rabbi. To paraphrase: A says this and the wise Rabbi responds, “Yes, you are right.” And then B says that and the wise Rabbi says, “Yes, you are right.” And then C says, “But how can that be? What B said contradicts A.” And the wise Rabbi says, “Yes, you are right.”

How can the Russians have similarly positive, moderately positive views of all three political systems? Well, they must have some sort of sliding scale there. Maybe they think: the Chinese system is a good system for China. The American system is a pretty good system for America. And that the Russian system is an okay, not great, but okay system for Russia. But all around the same number. That is interesting to me. I think it would bear teasing out what actually is going on there with the Russians.

The other comment I would make about that is that in their conclusions about democracy, which countries are more democratic, the Russian and American ratings of democracy were significantly different. That Russians rated Russian democracy and Chinese democracy as being about equally democratic, I found that surprising. I turned to Igor and I said, if more Russians went to China, I think they would vote differently.

But I would not say it is representative of the Russians being hard graders on themselves. I think the Russian rating of democracy as being south of the mean, less than five, somewhere in that territory, is about right. What I think is wrong is that they’re easy graders on China. And that they rate the Chinese democracy too highly. Here it would be really interesting to see what the Chinese think about Russian democracy and American democracy. And I think the numbers would be different. And I think, actually, if you compared what the Chinese think about Russian democracy today and what the Chinese thought about Russian democracy ten years ago, well, they’d think that Russian democracy today is a lot better than Russian democracy was ten years ago. Or their system of government is much better. In fact, when Igor and I were in Beijing ten days ago, I heard this term, the “Beijing Consensus.” It’s the antidote to the Washington Consensus. It’s a different political, economic, social model and even has implications for how you approach international relations. That sounds like a pretty confident country, talking about that, right? And they said quite specifically that the Russians have learned from us, they are learning the Beijing Consensus. Be interesting to have those numbers.

Final comment on Iran. The numbers on Iran really struck me as right on. There’s no puzzle there for me to explain. That the Russians don’t want to see Iran become a nuclear power, understandable, and similar to us, very close. That the Russians believe that Iran is seeking to become a nuclear power, also quite similar to us. Difference, though, in the degree of worry about it. Russians are a lot less worried. Also not surprising. The Russians, as Steve pointed out, view Iran somewhat differently. I think it would be interesting if you were to contrast what the Russians thought about, let’s say, Pakistan being a nuclear power. My guess is that the Russians would be somewhat more worried about Pakistan being a nuclear power than Iran. Interesting to see.

Finally, of course, the big difference on sanctions, economic sanctions. That’s not surprising. The Russians view economic sanctions as getting on the slippery slope toward military action, which they are categorically opposed to. But we may be able to find some agreement on sanctions.

Steven Kull: Thank you. Next we are going to hear from Igor Zevelev, who is the Washington bureau chief of Novosti Press. He’s been the chief researcher at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations in Moscow. And he is also the author of Russia and its New Diasporas.

Igor Zevelev: Thanks, Steve. As often happens when it comes to statistics, what it means may depend on who is doing the interpreting. It is hard to make cross-cultural comparisons and it may be even more difficult when the question involves perceptions of other nations. Opinion trends may shift radically in unstable societies in a short period. The most striking and general impressions one got from studying the Russian polling data in the 1990s is that Russians became a confused people in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union. The collective attitudes of many groups combined contradictory ideas and perceptions. Many perceptions and opinions are not well articulated and remain contradictory even today, in 2006. However, having said all that, the biggest surprise to me, when I read the data, was that there were no big surprises and very few contradictions.

I would like to make three points. First, the perception of Iran and its nuclear program. Both Steve and Andy already said that Russians and Americans perceive the problem very similarly. And there are two interesting exceptions. One, the difference in Russian and American attitudes toward economic sanctions and another exception is their threat assessment.

I totally agree with Andy that Russians do not see a nuclear armed Iran as that great a threat as Americans. Russians view a nuclear-armed Iran as an unpleasant fact but one that Russians can live with, as they live with a nuclear armed Pakistan. And the public and the elite have very similar approaches to this problem and their threat assessment is similar in Russia. This explains a lot when we think about Russian official position on Iran.

The second point I would like to make is on perceptions of China. China, as we saw from the data, is a positive example for Russians, and, of course, not for Americans. The Russians have a more positive attitude towards many aspects of this country and Andy suggested an international relations perspective: probably, they keep the United States and its hegemony in the world in mind when they think about China.

But I would add something to that. I think there may be another reason for this discrepancy between Russian and American perceptions of China. I think for domestic Russian discourse right now, political stability and order, economic growth and modernization, are much more important than democracy. And when they think about China, they think about the 10 percent annual growth, they think about their modernization, they think about their reduction of poverty and they do not think that much about democracy, while Americans tend to pay a lot of attention to that aspect. For many Russians, democracy is associated with chaos, collapse of the state, material gains of the very few in the nineties.

I also think that there is yet another factor that may make Russians think more positively about Chinese model. I think that most Russians believe there are many models of development, there is more than one model of development, while most Americans expect each country to become a liberal democracy eventually. And that also may explain the difference in perception of China.

Finally, my third and last point is on perceptions of each other. The most important, though not unexpected, result of this study to me personally is the perception of President Putin. American public has more favorable opinion of Putin than the American elite and the press, and, as Steve also mentioned, this block of the town. Thirty-six percent of Americans believe that Putin is good. At the same time, 85 percent of Russians hold a favorable opinion of Putin.

The discrepancy of American and Russian opinions of Putin, per se, is not that interesting. The most interesting thing about it is that many Americans who do not favor the Russian president think that Putin’s major fault is backpedaling in democracy. It’s only natural to assume that Russian citizens should be concerned about it much more than Americans. But paradoxically as it may seem, the Russians, whom Putin allegedly oppresses, support him. And as Steve mentioned, other polls indicate the same trend.

So, thinking theoretically, there may be two explanations. First, it may be argued that the state of democracy and personal freedoms in Russia is not as bad as many Americans think it is. The data of this particular study does not support this argument. It shows that Russians are tough graders, as Steve said, and do not give Russian democracy high scores. However, this is, I believe, important: A plurality of Russians sees the country as becoming more democratic. It would be interesting, by the way, to see what is the reference point: In comparison with the Soviet Union? In comparison with the nineties? What is the reference point? It’s very important. So this is the first explanation, but it is not supported by this data.

The second explanation of why Russians support Putin is that Russians are less concerned about democracy today than about stability, growth, and restoration of Russia’s great power status. Putin is viewed as a leader who brought stability, growth and international influence to Russia. Well, I personally think that both arguments, both hypotheses, that I mentioned can hold. There are many elements of truth in both. But this is a topic for another discussion. I think, though, that this difference between Russians’ and Americans’ perceptions of Putin and his record creates tension, which is reflected in the current state of U.S.-Russian relations.

In conclusion, I would like to commend the research and I’m looking forward to seeing more data collected by you in cooperation with Levada Center.

Steven Kull: Thank you. Last, we’re going to hear from Michael McFaul, who is a senior associate here at the Carnegie Endowment and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, as well as a faculty member at Stanford University. He has numerous books, among them: Russia’s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin and Between Dictatorship and Democracy: Russian post-Communist political reform.

Michael McFaul: Thank you, Steve. Congratulations on your panel and more generally for the stuff you do. I’m glad to be on your distribution list. I, too, do public opinion polls in Russia. We have for about a decade with my partner, Tim Colton, and now Henry Hale. For those of you with any influence at the NSF or the National Council if you could lobby on our behalf, because we do this every four years. We’re the only group that has done it every four years around the election cycle. We ask a lot of election questions and, if we don’t get the funding, we’re never going to have that time series data that everyone wants. In fact, it’s quite atrocious that every year we’re under the threat of not having that. I think it really shows where Russia has fallen. Understanding Russia has become less of a priority for Americans. That’s something I’m going to talk about in a minute.

I’m going very briefly to things that were striking to me. Again, not the obvious, because I think a lot of this is familiar. […] First, on the Russian political system. It’s very important to understand that we have to disaggregate the opinions about the practice of democracy, or the practice of governance, versus opinions about the norms of the practice. This was very important in the nineties. When you asked people about the way democracy was being performed, of course you got very low numbers, sometimes single digit numbers, in terms of how democracy was performing. But that’s because Boris Yeltsin identified himself as the democrat. And Russians, under this guise of democracy, this leader who called himself a democrat, were living through a social revolution. So disaggregating that, when you lump them together, I don’t find that very interesting. Of course people were dissatisfied with the performance of their government in the 1990s. It was a truly chaotic time.

When you ask questions—leaving aside attitudes about favorability or unfavorabilty or performance—and those things are very much intertwined—Americans are somewhat different and other countries too—but when you ask just straight up questions about democratic practices, especially if you don’t use the word “democracy” in Russia, which has become a kind of pejorative word, there’s lots of support for democracy.

Should your leaders be elected? Absolutely. Eighty percent. It’s not even 61 percent. Should there be checks and balances? Absolutely. Should the press be independent? Absolutely. Striking numbers. We can go through them, if you want, in questions.

So when people say that Russians want a strong hand and flirt with the Pinochet model, I really don’t believe it. These numbers have been quite stable through very chaotic times in Russia. Moreover, you can’t ask the question about Pinochet, it’s not fair. Because nobody knows what happened in Chile under Pinochet in Russia, they don’t.

You have to ask the question much more precisely. Do they want the military to rule Russia? That’s what dictatorship is. Or the KGB? Or the Communist Party? And three-quarters of the Russian population are firmly: No, we don’t want the military to run the government. That’s what dictatorship is.

So, just as you can’t be abstract about democracy, I think you have to be clear about dictatorship. There, I think, the opinions are very clear. What is also clear is that democracy is simply not a priority for the majority of Russians right now. So they have views on it, and I think the views have been rather stable through very different times from the nineties to now. But, as a priority, it’s way, way down the list in terms of things that one cares about.

Given that, the question about the favorability or unfavorability that you have in your survey is kind of striking and odd to me. Because I would expect that number to correlate with the popularity of the government. But here there’s a big gap. Putin’s at 85 percent in this survey, much higher than in other surveys, as is George W. Bush. He would die to have 45 percent right now. But that gap is a puzzle for me. How do you understand the fact that only 47 percent have a favorability rating for their political system but yet rate the guy who’s run it for six years at 85 percent?

Two explanations: one is he’s not democratic enough. I’m skeptical about that. I don’t believe that. That unfavorability rating, it’s filled with some who are worried about democracy. But, as your poll shows, that number is really quite small in Russia. There’s got to be an explanation for that gap, but I don’t know what it is.

I have a hypothesis that, in fact, Putin is so popular because nobody can think of an alternative. And that also comes with autocracy, by the way. John Kerry gets to go on the radio. Al Gore gets to make movies and go around the country talking about it. Mr. Putin’s alternatives are not getting that kind of coverage. And so that may be one possible explanation. But it demands an explanation. Those numbers should be more closely correlated. […] This is not about Russians thinking they’re just as democratic as the United States, as your poll shows rather conclusively. I think that’s also quite interesting and demands further explanation.

Second, the positive assessments on the economy, also—big gap—I mean 85 versus 31. This is the guy that’s supposed to be overseeing the Russian […] economic miracle and yet there’s a fifty point gap between Putin’s popularity and their evaluation of economic performance. Interesting. I think we need to understand how that can be true. Again, I think it might have to do with the lack of alternatives, the lack of criticism of Mr. Putin in terms of his role in the economy. That number looks low but compared to 1995, 31 percent is a giant, giant number. So that number is going in the right direction. People are much more favorably inclined, still a plurality, not a majority, but the number is going in a positive direction, rather acutely. But it’s still a big gap when you compare it with Putin’s favorability rating.

Third, just to note it, I don’t think anyone in this room will be surprised, but the support for the United States as a model, the negative numbers here, that really is a giant jump from ten or fifteen years ago in terms of the kinds of numbers you would have had in Russia. I think we can all explain that but I see that as tragic. But the trend line is very clear. Those numbers were very, very different in the early nineties.

Also, on the favorability numbers. I do think it’s important to realize that there’s a reason. I don’t think it’s fair to compare it to Bush. If Bush could control all the television stations, all the media, and have the first 22 minutes every night to talk about all the good things he was doing and we didn’t have to hear about massacres in Iraq and we didn’t have to hear about Abu Ghraib, I think his numbers would at least be higher than 33 percent. Let’s bring some political context to those numbers.

Briefly, on the foreign policy numbers. Andy talked about the puzzle about Americans’ somewhat positive relationship to Russia but somewhat negative about the Russian system of government. I think this actually means that Americans have no idea what Russia is doing in the world. When we asked our questions on this, we asked that question first. You can’t have an opinion about Mr. Putin, if you don’t know who Mr. Putin is. Putin, I guess, would get some numbers. But when I saw the numbers about Hu Jintao, 90 percent of Americans recorded an opinion about Hu Jintao. I can’t believe that. That’s not data. I think if you asked the first question: Who is the leader of China? Most people could not answer that question. Interestingly, the Russians in this way were a little more honest. The 50 percent non-respondents rate on China was very clear. Americans feel that they have to have an opinion when you ask them. The Russians just say, “I don’t know.”

I think that’s the way to understand the variations on the Russians. […] Russia, as a subject for Americans, especially when talking about foreign policy, is just something not on the radar screen. So I’m not surprised by the fact that they’re confused, they’re somewhat indifferent, when they do express an opinion. My guess would be that if you did some cross tabs on it, or some regressions on it, that’s all driven by their negative view of Russia as a whole and therefore the other negative stuff is about that and it’s about democracy. It’s not actually about what Russia is doing vis a vis Iran.
My guess is that most people have no idea what the Russian proposal on Iran is, I betcha half the people in this room don’t. And therefore to have an opinion about that is just asking too much of any people, American, Russian or otherwise. So I think those numbers show indifference about this stuff. They just don’t know. And on China, I would say the same thing.

Now , two last points on U.S. policy and then Russia-China. U.S. on Iran, diplomacy versus bombing, three to one margin. Other polls show that. But when you ask a different question, the ABC poll recently did this: Iran with a nuclear weapon or bombing? Then it’s fifty-fifty. So let’s be clear. When you get a binary choice: diplomacy or war? That’s an easy one, right? Of course, more diplomacy. But when you get the other choice, the binary choice: Iran with nuclear weapons or bombing? Surprisingly to me, that number is about 44 or 45 on each side of that.

Then, on Russia and China, just to echo some of the intuitive things that Andy was saying, and he knows that relationship better than I do. But I think your data tends to be nuanced in two different ways. One is the soft power way that Andy talked about, so I won’t go into that. […]. But when you ask Russians: Where would you rather send your child to go to school, Beijing or Palo Alto? I know the answer to that question. On all the soft power questions, it’s clearly Russians are much more enamored with America and tourist questions, I’ve seen too. But that we all know.

What’s more interesting is the enemy question. And Levada themselves have asked this question. I think it was in March of 2006. […] When they asked: Which country do you think Russia is more likely to go to war with? Not favorability, unfavorability, but actually: Who do you think we’re going to have war with? A very concrete thing. Seventy-five percent said China. And only 25 percent said the United States. […]

I think in the long run when Russians really think about who is really going to be, truly in an antithetical way, I think this fear of China, which other opinion polls have shown for a long time, this is something I think is stable, that hasn’t changed over time. With the caveat that, as Igor said, elite opinion on this has changed rather radically in the last decade and elites control media and so maybe you can square the circle here, I don’t know. But Levada numbers when you ask about enemy are quite striking and, therefore, I think, not as worrisome in terms of this “Beijing Consensus.” I actually think that’s much more ephemeral than the current polling data show. Thanks.

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Russian News: March 18th, 2008!

RBC, 18.03.2008, Moscow 11:38:28.The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) intends to form an agency to coordinate the actions of the internal affairs ministries of the organization's member states, CSTO Secretary General Nikolay Bordyuzha told the first meeting of the organization's emergencies coordination council. Such an agency will enable the ministries to react more quickly to all potential challenges and threats, Bordyuzha said.

RBC, 18.03.2008, Moscow 12:33:54.The Russian State Duma is to consider a draft law on the execution of the federal budget for 2006 in its first reading during Friday's plenary session. The deputies are also expected to review draft laws on the execution of the budgets of state non-budgetary funds, as well as to consider a number of amendments to the Criminal Code and the Administrative Violations Code.

RBC, 18.03.2008, New York 11:23:46.The net profit of Golden Telecom under US GAAP soared 77.9 percent to $153m in 2007 compared to $86m a year earlier, the Russian telecommunications company indicated in a statement today. Revenue amounted to $1.29bn, which is 51.2 percent greater than in 2006 ($855m). Operating profit surged 33.2 percent to $169m against $127m in the previous year.

RBC, 18.03.2008, Moscow 10:58:09.A new round of talks between Russia and the US has been launched over anti-missile defense in Moscow today. Russia is represented in the talks by Foreign Ministry Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, while US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates arrived in Moscow yesterday to participate in the talks for the US.

RBC, 18.03.2008, Moscow 10:48:48.Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov believes that talks with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will be productive and successful. He made this statement at the beginning of today's meeting, adding that Russia paid close attention to the 'two-plus-two' format (talks between foreign and defense ministries of the two countries).

RBC, 18.03.2008, Moscow 09:58:18.A federal agency similar to the US FBI is to be set up in Russia this fall to bring all law enforcement authorities under one umbrella. The creation of the agency has already been approved at the highest level, with the only issue left undecided: who will take the reins of the agency, RBC Daily wrote today. However, this question is fairly simple, as both of the two candidates for the position, head of the Investigation Committee of the General Prosecutor's Office Alexander Bastrykin and head of the Investigation Committee of the Interior Ministry Alexei Anichin were once President Vladimir Putin's fellow students, which means the Kremlin will maintain its influence over investigative authorities in any event.

RBC, 18.03.2008, Moscow 09:33:41.Top-level Russian-US missile defense talks are to be held today in Moscow. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates who arrived on an official visit in Russia yesterday are scheduled to meet Russian Foreign and Defense Ministers Sergei Lavrov and Anatoly Serdyukov. Alongside the missile shield issue, the two sides are expected to consider a new accord to replace the Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty (START I) which is set to expire in 2009. In addition, strategic stability issues, the drive towards non-proliferation led jointly by Russia and the US, peaceful nuclear energy cooperation and counteracting terrorism are also on the agenda. After the meeting, Russian and US officials will hold a joint press conference.

RBC, 17.03.2008, Kiev 19:41:28.Gazprom's subsidiary that will be in charge of selling 7.5bn cubic meters of gas to Ukraine will be receiving the resources from Naftogaz of Ukraine, Ukraine's Fuel and Energy Minister Yury Prodan said. The Minister stressed that the government would use its best efforts to prevent violations that were committed when UkrGazEnergo was in operation.

RBC, 17.03.2008, Moscow 19:26:06.The Moscow City Government is buying 75 percent of the additional share issue of Vnukovo Airport. As stated in the company's statement, shares will be acquired through the provision of budget investments for the airport.

RBC, 17.03.2008, Moscow 18:50:57.Russia and the US may bring their stances on the air defense and strategic offensive arms issue closer, Russia's president-elect Dmitry Medvedev said during a meeting with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. According to Medvedev, during their visit Condoleezza Rice and Robert Gates are scheduled to meet their Russian counterparts Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov. It is assumed that the four high-ranking officials will address key strategic cooperation issues. Furthermore, it is necessary to ensure the continuity of the Russian-US relations, the Rossiya TV channel cited Medvedev as saying.

RBC, 17.03.2008, Moscow 18:10:06.The construction of new houses is expected to surge by a factor of 3-3.4 from 50m square meters in 2006 to 150m-170m square meters in 2020, the Economy Ministry stated in its long-term concept of Russia's social and economic development. According to the ministry's forecasts, Russians will be provided with 27-28 square meters of living space per person in 2015 and 30-35 square meters in 2020. Meanwhile, decrepit buildings need to be removed from Russia's available housing. In addition, all Russians, who were registered as in need of housing before March 1, 2005, are to be provided with it by 2015.

RBC, 17.03.2008, Moscow 17:42:59.Russia's Economy Ministry estimates that the country will expand its share of the global GDP from 3.1 percent in 2007 to 3.8 percent in 2015 and 4.3 percent in 2020, the ministry indicated in its long-term social and economic development outline.

RBC, 17.03.2008, Moscow 17:27:27.The Economy Ministry forecasts Russia's trade balance to be negative and decrease to $90bn-$110bn, or 2 percent of the GDP, in 2018-2020. The figures are indicated in the long-term concept of Russia's social and economic development.

RBC, 17.03.2008, Moscow 16:48:38.Russian population could decrease to 113m people by 2030, the Russian Economy Ministry said in its long-term national socioeconomic development estimates. According to the document, should the current negative trend persist, population could decline to 138m people by 2020 from 141.9m in 2007. Meanwhile, the decrease will be the most rapid among the working-age population (from 89.8m to 77.5m people).

RBC, 17.03.2008, Moscow 14:29:36.Russian President Vladimir Putin has voiced concern over the ruble's significant appreciation against the dollar. The Russian leader made the statement today during the traditional meeting with the cabinet. Putin has requested that the Finance and Economy Ministries coupled with the Central Bank closely watch the situation concerning the ruble's advance, the Mayak radio reported today. The President noted that Russia could see the developments in the Eurozone and the effect of the euro's increase against the US currency.

RBC, 17.03.2008, Moscow 13:11:33.The Moscow region's consolidated budget surplus amounted to RUB 9.998bn (approx. USD 423m) as of February 1, 2008, the region's Finance Ministry reported today. Revenue surged 45.3 percent to RUB 16.186bn (approx. USD 684m) in January 2008, primarily thanks to the budget's own revenue (excluding federal subventions) of RUB 15.619bn (approx. USD 660m), or 5.2 percent above the target. Meanwhile, consolidated budget spending stood at RUB 6.188bn (approx. USD 262m). The region allocated a total of RUB 3.4bn (approx. USD 144m) from the budget to pay off its liabilities in January.
----------------------------------------------------
Russia’s share of global economy will rise from 3.1 percent of GDP (purchasing power parity) in 2007 to 3.8 percent in 2015 and 4.3 percent in 2020, the Economy Ministry said in its guidelines for Russia’s long-term socioeconomic development.

The Economy Ministry projects Russia’s exports to stand at $480 billion in 2015 and over $700 billion in 2020, up from $304 billion in 2007. Exports of mechanical engineering products are expected to increase more than 7-fold compared with 2006, to between $100 billion and $110 billion, while exports of transportation services will more than quadruple to $45 billion.

On the global hi-tech market, Russia is expected to account for at least 10 percent by 2020, up from 2.6 percent in 2006.

Russia could be among the world’s top five countries in terms of GDP by 2020, according to the document.

Housing construction is set to increase 3-3.4-fold in 2020 to between 150 million sq. meters and 170 million sq. meters, up from 50 million sq. meters in 2006.

Per capita housing space could average 27-28 sq. meters in 2015 and 30-35 sq. meters in 2020, with dilapidated housing to be completely removed from the housing inventory.

Russians put on the waiting list for new housing until March 1, 2005, should be provided with housing by 2015, the document says.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed concern over the significant appreciation of the national currency. “We can see what is happening in the euro zone, and how the strengthening euro affects the European economy. This must be watched closely,” Putin instructed government ministers today, Mayak radio reported.

The outgoing President assigned the Finance Ministry, the Central Bank of Russia and the Economy Ministry to monitor the ruble’s appreciation.

The ruble rose RUB 0.14 against the US dollar today, but weakened against the euro. Over the past four days, the ruble lost RUB 0.47 against the European currency, to 37.11 RUB/EUR, close to the euro’s all-time high in January 2004.

Putin also spoke of Russia’s rising budget spending, including salary increases, and macroeconomic performance.

Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin assured Putin that the Finance Ministry’s forecasts for this year “as well as changes in the budget, imply that overall macroeconomic performance will enable the government to curb inflation.” At the same time, he pointed to a number of unexpected problems. “Russia is seeing an influx of petrodollars, again, the money supply has jumped by 48 percent, which is a very high increase,” the Finance Minister said, noting that this could add to inflation.
-------------------------------------------------------

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Russia: No You Can Not Keep The Rocket!

Hello,

I was drinking my morning cup of coffee & thinking about a farmer in Siberia that says that a rocket fell in his yard and killed 4 of his horses. (It also scared him and his family almost to death.)

I have followed this story from the beginning & think that how neat to have a rocket fall in your yard. How cool can it be to have real rocket parts to play with!

Russia would be suing me because I would try to keep the rocket! :)

But instead of trying to have fun with the "Rocket" this man lost the lawsuit and does not even have a rocket to play with.
==========================================
Altai farmer's claim that rocket fuel killed his horses dismissed

18/03/2008 12:40 NOVOSIBIRSK, March 18 (RIA Novosti) - Scientists in Siberia rejected on Tuesday a farmer's claim that four of his horses were killed by toxic pollution from part of a carrier rocket that fell nearby.

In early March, Sergei Kazantsev told district authorities in southwest Siberia's Altai Republic that in the year since a fragment of a rocket launched from the Baikonur Space Center in Kazakhstan fell near his herd of horses, four of the horses had died.

However, the deputy head of the regional Institute for Water and Ecological Problems, Alexander Puzanov, said: "The deaths of the animals cannot be associated with the falling of rocket fragments. We have to look elsewhere for the cause."

He said that according to research carried out by the institute, which regularly measures levels of toxic heptyl rocket fuel in the region's soil and water, neither heptyl nor its derivatives had been found in the area.

Puzanov also said that researchers from his institute had not yet encountered animal deaths that could be attributed to rocket fuel pollution.

The Altai Republic has been used as a "cemetery" for the fallen fragments of carrier rockets launched from the Baikonur space center for more than 40 years. Experts estimate that about 2.5 metric tons of "space waste" have fallen in unpopulated areas of the republic during this period.

On February 5, shortly after the launch of a Proton-M carrier rocket from the Baikonur space center, a three-and-a-half-meter (11 foot) long rocket fragment landed outside the designated area for rocket debris, a few meters from the house of an Altai shepherd.

The man, who was uninjured in the incident, said he and his children had been extremely frightened and demanded compensation of 500,000 rubles ($21,000).

A few years ago another resident of the region sought damage from Federal Space Agency Roscosmos in similar circumstances. A court awarded him a mere $400 in compensation.
=========================================

Wonder what killed the Horses?

Kyle & Svet

comments always welcome.

PS:
Six rocket fragments removed from Siberian villages

18/03/2008 16:34 MOSCOW, March 18 (RIA Novosti) - A total of six rocket fragments that fell near villages in southwest Siberia after lift off from Kazakhstan on Saturday have been removed, local officials said on Tuesday.

"The wreckage has been collected and evacuated on a helicopter," a spokesman for the local administration said.

The incident occurred after the launch of a Proton-M carrier rocket from the Baikonur space center leased by Russia from nearby Kazakhstan on March 15.

The wreckage landed in three villages of the Ust-Kansky Region some 60 kilometers (37 miles) outside the designated area for rocket debris.

The smallest fragment with a weight of 60 grams landed in the yard of a village in the Altai Republic destroying the shed roof. Other wreckage landed close to houses, but no casualties have been reported. The largest fragment measured five meters (16 foot) long.

"Although no one was hurt by the fragments, people are unhappy that space waste is falling next to their houses," the spokesman said.

The Altai Republic has been used as a "cemetery" for fallen fragments of carrier rockets launched from the Baikonur space center for more than 40 years. Experts estimate that about 2.5 metric tons of "space waste" has fallen in unpopulated areas of the republic during this period.

On February 5, shortly after the launch of a Proton-M carrier rocket from the Baikonur space center, a three-and-a-half-meter (11 foot) long rocket fragment landed outside the designated area for rocket debris, a few meters from the house of an Altai shepherd.

The man, who was uninjured in the incident, said he and his children had been extremely frightened and demanded compensation of 500,000 rubles ($21,000).

Another Siberian farmer claimed that in the year since a fragment of a rocket fell near his herd of horses, four of the horses had died. However, scientists rejected his claims saying he should "look elsewhere for the cause."

A few years ago another resident of the region sought damage from Federal Space Agency Roscosmos in similar circumstances. A court awarded him a mere $400 in compensation.

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Svet Sunday: Sergey Mikhalkov 95th Anniversary!

The 13th of March Sergey Mikhalkov celebrated his 95th Anniversary! Thank you Seesaw for reminding us this date.

That's difficult to say what was Sergey Mikhalkov for us! Generations of Soviet kids grew up on his poems. That was poems of my Mom's childhood and my childhood and I've read it to my son when he was little.

Vladimir Putin sent a birthday congratulations to Sergey Mikhalkov: Putin said, “You are known in Russia and outside it as a talented poet and writer, and you are rightly considered as a Patriarch of National Culture, a personality of a truly unique scale. Literature works of your pen are in the most different genres, but a special place in your creation have the poems, novellas and stories for children, on which more than one generation of the Russians have grown. Your unsurpassed skill and creative longevity, the multifaceted organizational and public activity draw delight and respect.”

Sergei Mikhalkov was born in 1913 into a family of a lawyer. Mikhalkov himself claimed that his family was ancient and noble. In 1928, at the age of 15, Mikhalkov published his first poem and in 1935 he published his most well-known book - Dyadya Styopa - a children's book in verse about an exceptionally tall policeman.

Mikhalkov joined the Soviet Writers' Union in 1937. Despite his noble descent and the fact that he joined the Communist Party only in 1950, he managed to survive the Stalinist purges and get into special favor with Communist leaders. In 1938, at the age of 26, Mikhalkov was awarded the Order of Lenin - the top state decoration - for his poems for children.

During the Great Patriotic War Mikhalkov worked as a military reporter. In 1943, together with another military correspondent, El-Registan, Mikhalkov wrote the lyrics of the national anthem of the Soviet Union, which was first played on New Year 1944. Mikhalkov re-wrote the lyrics in 1977 to remove Stalin's name, and in 2001 wrote completely different lyrics for the same melody to create the current Russian national anthem.

That is my favorite video of Russian Anthem.

Here you can see a video where Paul Robeson sings the Soviet National Anthem in English.

Mikhalkov chaired the board of the Soviet Writers' Union, and is now the honorary head of the body that has replaced it - the International Society of Writers' Unions. At 95, the writer is still working and taking care of the society's property and daily affairs.

Aside from his closeness and support from the government, Mikhal­kov's stories have been staples for five generations of children, and literary critics say that influence is not about to end any time soon.

"I do my best to always tell the truth and not to envy anyone," Mikhalkov said in an interview with Ros­siis­kaya Gazeta daily explaining the secret of his long life.

I think that is great advise!

Best wishes and long life for all of you,

Svet and Kyle

comments always welcome.

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Russia: Dan Rather, You Must Be Listening!

This Is A Must Watch.....

U.S. has ‘neglected’ Russia: Dan Rather
Veteran U.S. newsman, Dan Rather, has told Russia Today that the United States has neglected its relationship with Russia, which has led to a fundamental misunderstanding of the country by America’s government and media.

Rather said Hillary Clinton’s recent stumble over the new Russian President’s name shows the growing lack of knowledge in America.

“I think it gives you an indication of how much lack of knowledge there is in the country as a whole because after all if a Senator Hillary Clinton did not know these things than what does it say about the rest of the population,” he said.

At the moment, Rather says, the situation between the U.S. and Russian governments is "one that every American should be concerned about".

He doesn’t see it as a new Cold War, but a "whole new era, for which we need some new name". However, this era is “dangerous because of misunderstanding”.

According to Rather, the biggest problem in terms of American foreign policy it that "it’s been neglectful of Russia".

Rather told Russia Today that the best way of improving the relationship is more talk between both sides.

“The first thing is to talk, the second is to pay attention to what is happening inside the respective countries…I think there is more understanding within Russia and the Russian government about what is happening in the United States at the moment than there is with the American government and the American people,” he said.

He says that America has been focused squarely on terrorism since 9/11.

“One should never underestimate the impact of 9/11 on individual Americans and the country as a whole and perhaps we can be forgiven for this that it’s been our main focus and has been for seven years,” Rather said.

In a newspaper article before Russia’s election, Mr Rather said America must be a ‘smart opponent’.

“U.S.-Russian relations are currently as strained as they have been since the Cold War…If we're to be in opposition with Russia, let's be a smart opponent…Regardless of whatever power Putin may continue to wield from behind the scenes, a smart foreign policy sees opportunity in a new leader,” he wrote.

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I am very impressed, someone is finally speaking up! Someone with knowledge of world politics.

Uncle Sam & the Russian Bear!

Does Anyone in American Government Speak Good About Russia?

The Knowledge or the Lack of it in the USA is Scary!

Once Again American Media.....

Russia has Open Eyes to America!

Thank You Dan Rather.

We are Happy Bears!

Kyle & Svet

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Russia: Very New At This President Game!

Democracy is like a chess game!

Hello,

Americans have played Democracy a lot longer than Russians have. It dawned on me that Russian people really do not know what a President is all about. I grew up with the concept as an American. My wife does not understand, her life was Communism & many times she wishes that it still was that way!

I remember reading that America wanted George Washington to be a King! I am sure that idea took awhile to leave the minds of people who had lived under a King all their lives.

1991 was the first Russian President Boris Yeltsin, by my count 17 years is not a very long time. I think that older Democracies need to have a little more finesse toward other countries that are at least making an attempt at trying.

It has been made clear to me, by living in Russia that America is only pushing Russia the wrong way. America needs to learn to play chess......

American Presidents:

President	Vice President
George Washington (1789-1797)	John Adams (1789-1797)
John Adams (1797-1801)	Thomas Jefferson (1797-1801)
Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809)	Aaron Burr (1801-1805)
	George Clinton (1805-1809)
James Madison (1809-1817)	George Clinton (1809-1812)
	none (1812-1813)
	Elbridge Gerry (1813-1814)
	none (1814-1817)
James Monroe (1817-1825)	Daniel D. Tompkins (1817-1825)
John Quincy Adams (1825-1829)	John C. Calhoun (1825-1829)
Andrew Jackson (1829-1837)	John C. Calhoun (1829-1832)
	none (1832-1833)
	Martin Van Buren (1833-1837)
Martin Van Buren (1837-1841)	Richard M. Johnson (1837-1841)
William Henry Harrison (1841)	John Tyler (1841)
John Tyler (1841-1845)	none (1841-1845)
James K. Polk (1845-1849)	George M. Dallas (1845-1849)
Zachary Taylor (1849-1850)	Millard Fillmore (1849-1850)
Millard Fillmore (1850-1853)	none (1850-1853)
Franklin Pierce (1853-1857)	William King (1853)
	none (1853-1857)
James Buchanan (1857-1861)	John C. Breckinridge (1857-1861)
Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865)	Hannibal Hamlin (1861-1865)
	Andrew Johnson (1865)
Andrew Johnson (1865-1869)	none (1865-1869)
Ulysses S. Grant (1869-1877)	Schuyler Colfax (1869-1873)
	Henry Wilson (1873-1875)
	none (1875-1877)
Rutherford B. Hayes (1877-1881)	William Wheeler (1877-1881)
James A. Garfield (1881)	Chester Arthur (1881)
Chester Arthur (1881-1885)	none (1881-1885)
Grover Cleveland (1885-1889)	Thomas Hendricks (1885)
	none (1885-1889)
Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893)	Levi P. Morton (1889-1893)
Grover Cleveland (1893-1897)	Adlai E. Stevenson (1893-1897)
William McKinley (1897-1901)	Garret Hobart (1897-1901)
	Theodore Roosevelt (1901)
Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909)	none (1901-1905)
	Charles Fairbanks (1905-1909)
William Howard Taft (1909-1913)	James S. Sherman (1909-1912)
	none (1912-1913)
Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921)	Thomas R. Marshall (1913-1921)
Warren G. Harding (1921-1923)	Calvin Coolidge (1921-1923)
Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929)	none (1923-1925)
	Charles Dawes (1925-1929)
Herbert Hoover (1929-1933)	Charles Curtis (1929-1933)
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945)	John Nance Garner (1933-1941)
	Henry A. Wallace (1941-1945)
	Harry S Truman (1945)
Harry S Truman (1945-1953)	none (1945-1949)
	Alben Barkley (1949-1953)
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961)	Richard Nixon (1953-1961)
John F. Kennedy (1961-1963)	Lyndon B. Johnson (1961-1963)
Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1969)	none (1963-1965)
	Hubert Humphrey (1965-1969)
Richard Nixon (1969-1974)	Spiro Agnew (1969-1973)
	none (1973)
	Gerald Ford (1973-1974)
Gerald Ford (1974-1977)	none (1974)
	Nelson Rockefeller (1974-1977)
Jimmy Carter (1977-1981)	Walter Mondale (1977-1981)
Ronald Reagan (1981-1989)	George Bush (1981-1989)
George Bush (1989-1993)	Dan Quayle (1989-1993)
Bill Clinton (1993-2001)	Al Gore (1993-2001)
George W. Bush (2001- )	Dick Cheney (2001- )

================================================

Russian Presidents:

#	President	Took office	Left office	Term
01	Boris Yeltsin	July 10, 1991* (inaugurated)	December 25, 1991*	1**
		December 25, 1991	August 9, 1996
		August 9, 1996 (inaugurated)	November 5, 1996 (went to surgical procedure)	2
—	Viktor Chernomyrdin (Acting)	November 5, 1996	November 6, 1996	-
01	Boris Yeltsin	November 6, 1996 (returned from surgical procedure)	December 31, 1999 (voluntary retired)	2
—	Vladimir Putin (Acting)	December 31, 1999	May 7, 2000	-
02	Vladimir Putin	May 7, 2000 (inaugurated)	May 7, 2004	1
		May 7, 2004 (inaugurated)	Incumbent (Term expires May 7, 2008)	2
03	Dmitry Medvedev (President-elect)	(Term starts May 7, 2008)	—	1

==================================================

Big difference!

Makes you think about all the slam dunking America does against Russia. Wrong chess moves.......

Kyle & Svet

comments always welcome.

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Russian News: March 14th, 2008!

RBC, 14.03.2008, Kiev 15:34:43.During today's press conference in Kiev, Ukraine's PM Yulia Timoshenko suggested signing a long-term gas agreement with Russia, RBC Ukraine reported. Commenting on the contract signed by Naftogaz of Ukraine and Gazprom on Thursday, Timoshenko said that the document was only valid until the end of 2008, while a strategic agreement for up to ten years was needed.

RBC, 14.03.2008, Moscow 15:03:36.The current situation on the Russian stock market is quite favorable for making investments, as Russian securities are lagging behind the global oil price dynamics, experts told RBC TV today. Oil companies are expected to show better financial performance in the first quarter of 2008, analysts note. Meanwhile, trading activity is rather low in second-tier stocks, although demand for certain securities is relatively high, experts say.

RBC, 14.03.2008, Kiev 13:40:33.Gazprom can sell 7.5bn cubic meters of gas directly to Ukrainian consumers only in 2008, Ukraine's Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko told a press conference today, commenting on an agreement reached between Naftogaz of Ukraine and Gazprom. She added that the document had been signed for one year, and that liabilities under the deal would end at the end of the year. Timoshenko also expressed hope that another long term agreement would be concluded with the Russian state gas company.

RBC, 14.03.2008, Moscow 13:27:35.Ukraine will return 1.4bn cubic meters of gas to Gazprom in the second and third quarters of 2008 as part of its debt payback for the supplies of Russian gas, Naftogaz of Ukraine chief Oleg Dubina told a press conference today. According to his statement, talks are still underway for returning a further 3.5bn cubic meters of gas for 2007.

RBC, 14.03.2008, Moscow 12:10:41.Evraz Group S.A. is poised to purchase Canadian divisions of the steel maker IPSCO specializing in steel sheet and pipe production for $4.03bn from Sweden's SSAB, the Russian steel and mining group said in a statement today. Meanwhile, a number of seamless pipe facilities are expected to be sold to Russia's pipe producer TMK for $1.7bn. Evraz intends to finance the deal by means of raising loans. Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs are to act as financial advisors for the deal.

RBC, 14.03.2008, Moscow 11:22:20.According to the Russian IT and Communications Ministry's estimates, investments in the country's IT industry are expected to surge sevenfold from $80m in 2007 to $500m-$600m in 2010, the RBC Daily newspaper reported today. Such investment growth is achievable thanks to the government's current policy directed towards raising the industry's competitiveness and investment appeal.

RBC, 14.03.2008, Moscow 10:25:21.At the opening of today's special dollar trading session for tomorrow deals, the weighted average exchange rate stood at 23.64 RUB/USD, which is RUB 0.05 lower than the official rate set by the Bank of Russia for March 14. Therefore, the ruble has extended its gains against the dollar into the third day in a row. The dollar slid RUB 0.17 against the ruble over the two previous sessions and has been sliding again at a slightly slower pace today. The current developments on MICEX can be attributed to the situation on international exchanges, where the dollar has been depreciating against the euro. The latter is now trading at USD 1.5616, up from USD 1.5558 at the same time on Thursday and USD 1.5364 on Wednesday. Consequently, the European currency has gained 0.4 percent against the dollar on the global market since yesterday and 1.6 percent since March 12.

RBC, 14.03.2008, Chisinau 09:54:49.Russia's Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov is prepared to visit Moldova in April 2008, the Moldovan government's press office told RBC, citing Russian Ambassador in Moldova Valery Kuzmin's statement during a meeting with the republic's PM Vasile Tarlev.

RBC, 14.03.2008, Kiev 09:28:19.Gas production fell 0.8 percent to 3.47bn cubic meters in Ukraine in the first two months of 2008 compared to the same period a year earlier, the government said in a statement. Ukraine's natural gas production (excluding associated gas) shrank 0.5 percent to 3.303bn cubic meters, while output of oil with gas condensate dropped 4.7 percent to 715,600 tonnes in January-February 2008 from the same two months of the previous year.

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Russia: Foreign exchange reserves!

Hello,

Reserves were formerly held only in gold, as official gold reserves. But under the Bretton Woods system, the United States pegged the dollar to gold, and allowed convertibility of dollars to gold. This effectively made dollars appear as good as gold. The U.S. later abandoned the gold standard, but the dollar has remained relatively stable as a flat currency, and it is still the most significant reserve currency. Central banks now typically hold large amounts of multiple currencies in reserve.

Rank	Country/Monetary Authority	Foreign exchange reserves (millions of USD)	Figures as of
—	World (sum of all countries)	$ 7,208,609	--
1	People's Republic of China (does not include Hong Kong SAR & Macau SAR)	$ 1,589,900	January 2008
2	Japan	$ 1,007,981	February 2008
—	Eurozone (EU member states which have adopted the euro, incl. ECB)	$ 556,965	January 2008
3	Russia	$ 494,500	March 2008
4	India	$ 301,235	February 2008
5	Taiwan	$ 277,840	February 2008
6	South Korea	$ 262,400	February 2008
7	Brazil	$ 193,782	March 2008
8	Singapore	$ 171,735	February 2008
9	Hong Kong	$ 160,300	February 2008
10	Germany	$ 147,255	January 2008
11	France	$ 128,513	January 2008
12	Malaysia	$ 116,300	February 2008
13	Algeria	$ 110,000	December 2007
14	United Kingdom	$ 104,580	February 2008
15	Italy	$ 103,459	January 2008
16	Thailand	$ 100,500	February 2008
17	Mexico	$ 90,380	February 2008
18	Libya	$ 79,000	September 2007
19	Iran	$ 76,100	November 2007
20	Switzerland	$ 75,559	January 2008
21	Turkey	$ 74,900	February 2008
22	United States	$ 73,521	February 2008
23	Poland	$ 68,564	January 2008
—	European Central Bank (ECB, reserves not wholly owned by any single EU member)	$ 64,285	January 2008
24	Norway	$ 58,930	January 2008
25	Indonesia	$ 57,130	February 2008
26	Nigeria	$ 56,800	February 2008
27	Argentina	$ 49,000	February 2008
28	Canada	$ 43,613	February 2008
29	Romania	$ 41,078	January 2008
30	Czech Republic	$ 37,017	February 2008
31	Denmark	$ 36,317	January 2008
32	Philippines	$ 36,100	February 2008
33	Egypt	$ 32,915	February 2008
34	Venezuela	$ 32,723	March 2008
35	South Africa	$ 32,723	February 2008
36	Peru	$ 32,587	March 2008
37	Ukraine	$ 31,842	January 2008
38	Australia	$ 31,832	January 2008
39	Sweden	$ 31,561	January 2008
40	Saudi Arabia	$ 31,320	October 2007
41	United Arab Emirates	$ 29,620	2007 est.
42	Israel	$ 28,662	January 2008
43	Netherlands	$ 27,486	January 2008
44	Morocco	$ 25,690	January 2008
45	Hungary	$ 24,200	January 2008
46	Colombia	$ 21,850	February 2008
47	Iraq	$ 21,260	2007 est.
48	Vietnam	$ 20,000	September 2007
49	Spain	$ 19,999	January 2008
50	Kuwait	$ 19,630	2007 est.
51	Lebanon	$ 19,400	2007 est.
52	Kazakhstan	$ 19,040	February 2008
53	Slovakia	$ 18,964	January 2008
54	Austria	$ 18,831	January 2008
55	Bulgaria	$ 17,367	January 2008
56	New Zealand	$ 17,236	January 2008
57	Chile	$ 16,910	January 2008
58	Belgium	$ 16,717	January 2008
59	Serbia	$ 15,864	February 2008
60	Pakistan	$ 14,063	February 2008
61	Croatia	$ 13,819	January 2008
62	Macau	$ 13,600	January 2008
63	Angola	$ 12,290	2007 est.
64	Portugal	$ 12,530	January 2008
65	Botswana	$ 9,629	2007 est.
66	Finland	$ 8,602	January 2008
67	Jordan	$ 8,005	January 2008
68	Yemen	$ 7,871	2007 est.
69	Tunisia	$ 7,714	February 2008
70	Lithuania	$ 7,053	February 2008
71	Oman	$ 7,004	2007 est.
72	Trinidad and Tobago	$ 6,761	2007 est.
73	Cyprus	$ 6,176	2007 est.
74	Syria	$ 6,039	2007 est.
75	Qatar	$ 6,368	2007 est.
76	Latvia	$ 5,903	January 2008
77	Bangladesh	$ 5,490	January 2008
78	Bosnia and Herzegovina	$ 5,151	January 2008
79	Guatemala	$ 4,559	2007 est.
80	Bolivia	$ 4,917	2007 est.
81	Uruguay	$ 4,429	January 2008
82	Uzbekistan	$ 5,600	2007 est.
83	Cuba	$ 4,247	2007 est.
84	Azerbaijan	$ 4,000	2007 est.
85	Equatorial Guinea	$ 3,928	2007 est.
86	Costa Rica	$ 3,915	2007 est.
87	Belarus	$ 3,788	January 2008
88	Turkmenistan	$ 3,644	2007 est.
89	Ecuador	$ 3,618	2007 est.
90	Estonia	$ 3,581	February 2008
91	Malta	$ 3,522	2007 est.
92	Bahrain	$ 3,474	2007 est.
93	Greece	$ 3,387	January 2008
94	Kenya	$ 3,300	February 2008
95	Sri Lanka	$ 3,252	2007 est.
96	Honduras	$ 2,892	2007 est.
97	Ghana	$ 2,837	2007 est.
98	Iceland	$ 2,792	February 2008
99	Dominican Republic	$ 2,525	2007 est.
100	Côte d'Ivoire	$ 2,500	2007 est.
101	Paraguay	$ 2,463	2007 est.
102	Tanzania	$ 2,441	2007 est.
103	Cameroon	$ 2,341	2007 est.
104	Congo	$ 2,242	2007 est.
105	El Salvador	$ 2,224	January 2008
106	Papua New Guinea	$ 2,193	December 2007
107	Uganda	$ 2,100	2007 est.
108	Burma	$ 2,000	January 2008
109	Republic of Macedonia	$ 1,803	2007 est.
110	Mauritius	$ 1,772	2007 est.
111	Armenia	$ 1,657	December 2007
112	Albania	$ 1,615	December 2007
113	Cambodia	$ 1,600	December 2007
114	Jamaica	$ 1,490	December 2007
115	Mozambique	$ 1,470	November 2007
116	Gabon	$ 1,459	2007 est.
117	Moldova	$ 1,360	February 2008
118	Senegal	$ 1,350	2007 est.
119	Georgia	$ 1,300	2007 est.
120	Panama	$ 1,260	2007 est.
121	Sudan	$ 1,245	2007 est.
122	Kyrgyzstan	$ 1,155	January 2008
123	Zambia	$ 1,100	2007 est.
124	Slovenia	$ 1,076	January 2008
125	Nicaragua	$ 1,075	2007 est.
126	Chad	$ 997	2007 est.
127	Republic of Ireland	$ 930	January 2008
128	Burkina Faso	$ 897	2007 est.
129	Lesotho	$ 889	2007 est.
130	Ethiopia	$ 840	2007 est.
131	Benin	$ 825	2007 est.
132	Namibia	$ 750	2007 est.
133	Madagascar	$ 745	2007 est.
134	Barbados	$ 620	2007 est
135	Laos	$ 514	2007 est.
136	Rwanda	$ 511	2007 est.
137	Swaziland	$ 395	2007 est.
138	Togo	$ 363	2007 est.
139	Cape Verde	$ 344	2007 est.
140	Tajikistan	$ 301	2007 est.
141	Luxembourg	$ 294	January 2008
142	Guyana	$ 292	2007 est.
143	Haiti	$ 221	2007 est.
153	Vanuatu	$ 149	December 2007
144	Malawi	$ 140	2007 est.
145	Zimbabwe	$ 120	2007 est.
146	Gambia	$ 120	2007 est.
147	Guinea	$ 119	2007 est.
148	Burundi	$ 118	2007 est.
149	Seychelles	$ 118	2007 est.
150	Belize	$ 92	2007 est.
151	Samoa	$ 70	2004 est.
152	Tonga	$ 55	February 2008
154	São Tomé and Príncipe	$ 36	December 2007
155	Eritrea	$ 22	2007 est.

Russia: Human Rights!

Hello,

This article, "Hits it on the nail head!"

Once again, "The Pot Calling the Kettle Black!"
==================================

Russia Slams U.S. Report as ‘Foreign Policy Tool’

The Associated Press

MOSCOW — Year after year, the U.S. issues a troubling assessment of human rights in Russia.

Year after year, Russia lashes back, accusing the U.S. State Department’s annual report on human rights practices around the world of twisting reality and warning that Washington has no right to preach.

With relations at what could be a post-Cold War low, it is no different this time around.

In a sometimes bitter, sometimes sarcastic statement Wednesday, the Foreign Ministry said the portrayal of Russia in the 2007 report was prejudiced, mistaken, poorly sourced and counterproductive.

The ministry said the report reflected the “double standards” of a country it claimed uses human rights as a “foreign policy tool” while balking at scrutiny of its own actions.

“How else can one explain that the United States — which has essentially legalized torture, applies capital punishment to minors, denies responsibility for war crimes and massive human rights violations in Iraq and Afghanistan, refuses to join a series of treaties in the sphere of human rights — distorted comments on the situation in other countries?” it said.

“Meanwhile, the U.S. uses the struggle to spread democracy and the defense of human rights as a cover, with no regard to systemic problems within its own country,” it said.

The U.S. report, released Tuesday, said that centralization of power in President Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin, corruption, selective law enforcement and onerous restrictions on aid groups and the media were among factors that “continued to erode the government’s accountability to its citizens” in Russia. It also noted human rights abuses in war-scarred Chechnya.

The Foreign Ministry said “the State Department’s latest opus” contained a “hackneyed collection of claims” about human rights in Russia.

“The document, unfortunately, abounds in groundless accusations, citations of unverified and deliberately biased sources, mistakes and juggling of facts,” the statement said. It did not offer specifics.

It said that “many passages were copied from previous reports: One gets the impression that the State Department just selected material to fit conclusions formed in advance.”

Russia took issue with the report’s reference to problematic elections and to a leading international observer group’s criticism of its December parliamentary elections. It accused the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s vote-monitoring body of “politicized approaches” and the U.S. of resisting reform.

Through eight years as president of an assertive country enjoying largely energy-fueled economic growth, Putin has made a point of shrugging off growing Western accusations of backtracking on democracy, and warned the U.S. against interfering in Russia’s affairs.

The Foreign Ministry criticized what it called the “mentorish tone” of the U.S. State Department report.

“We are convinced that politicizing the rights-protection issue and distorting the human rights situation in various countries will lead not to the resolution of existing problems, but to the devaluation of the principles and goals of international cooperation in this area,” it said.
==================================

Looks like the Kettle is getting tired of being analyzed by the Pot......

One thing that I can say from experience in America, "The issue of Human Rights in my home country of the USA is an appalling dangerous situation, the Government level of conspiracies are at a all time high! Freedom & Rights, are becoming lost words in America! "

Kyle

comments always welcome.

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Russia: Moscows Eiffel Tower!

Hello,

I came upon this article of what was a great Soviet Union Dream at one time. When I first saw this tower about a year ago I was struck in aw! It is huge, but it is less than half the size it should have been. I could not imagine if they had succeeded to get the steel to build the original plans.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Fantastic Dreams for Moscow's Eiffel Tower

The prominent lattice-worked radio and television broadcasting tower on Moscow's Shabolovka Street - the Shukhov Tower, which was built at the start of the past century, has never been repaired or renovated during its almost 100-year history. Now, experts say this unique structure - designed by Vladimir Shukhov, an outstanding Russian engineer - is in a deplorable state. Vladimir Fyodo­rovich Shukhov, the designer's great grandson and foun­der of the Shukhov Tower Foun­dation, agreed to an interview, in which he speaks candidly about the tower reconstruction project, which includes some very interesting surprises, including the construction of an observation deck at the top of the tower.

Vladimir Fyodorovich, what is the status of the tower, one of Moscow's architectural landmarks?

Most international experts acknowledge the Shukhov Tower as one of the most beautiful and prominent achievements of engineering, a masterpiece of engineering art. But unless urgent measures are taken to save it right now, the tower may simply be lost within the next decade.

The tower, which served as support for radio and television antennas for 85 years, has never been renovated and is in poor repair. Unfortunately, nothing is being done to improve the situation.

Today, the tower is off limits to tourists or specialists: it is fenced off with barbed wire along the perimeter. I believe that this is tantamount to using barbed wire to fence off an area around Moscow's Kremlin, about 1 km wide, and showing visitors its beauty from a distance: "Now look at those little turrets - that's the Kremlin!"

Here, I need to say a few words about the tower's technical characteristics. My great grandfather was the first engineer in the world to use the lattice-style technique. Due to its latticed structure, the Shukhov Tower's steel shell is subject to minimum wind load, which is the main hazard for high-rise structures.

The lattice steel structure combines strength and lightness: three times less metal per unit of height was used on the Shukhov Tower than on the Eiffel Tower. It was projected to attain the height of 350 meters with a mass of just 2,200 tons, whereas the Eiffel Tower, with a height of 305 meters, weighs 7,300 tons. Due to a shortage of steel during the Civil War in Russia, the tower only reached a mere 148.5 meters.

The tower's round conical frame is comprised of six sections, 25 meters each. The lower section rests on a concrete foundation with a diameter of 40 meters, three meters deep. During its 85-year history the Shukhov Tower has served as a support for radio and TV station antennae. On March 19, 1922, the unique tower on Shabolovka went into operation.

In your view, what steps should be taken to preserve the tower?

The Shukhov Tower Foundation has for the past several years been campaigning to develop the area around the tower. European experience in the restoration of unique architectural structures requires that appropriate surrounding infrastructure. Presently, the tower is not being used according to its original function - i.e. to retransmit radio and TV signals. Therefore, it is necessary to approach its reconstruction in a comprehensive manner, integrating adjacent territory into the project. We believe that a scientific/art center named after Shukhov could be constructed around the tower - a modern business, technological and cultural complex.

The complex could comprise a business center, congress hall, a center of culture and arts, and possibly an interactive museum to Vladimir Shukhov and his followers. My great grandfather was an excellent photographer/artist: he has left behind about 2,000 high-quality photos on glass, which could be exhibited.

How could the tower be used in the future?

A small observation deck could be built on top of the tower, which must not, however, affect the lightness of the entire structure. The idea is only to build a small observation platform on the penultimate level, at 125 meters above the surface - just like the one on the Eiffel Tower. Another option is to provide "virtual excursions" to the tower's highest point - offering a panoramic view of Mos­cow: visitors will be able to admire the sights of the capital via video cameras attached to the top of the tower while sitting in a cafe on ground level.

What hampers the project's implementation?

The territory around the tower belongs to different organizations and agencies - for example, units of the All-Russia State Television and Radio Broad­casting Company (VGTRK).

Needless to say, until a decision concerning the use of the land around the tower is made at the state level, we cannot really consider attracting investors or launching the project. We already have investors who are interested in this project, but no one will want to sink money in developing a territory that belongs to a host of legal entities. Apart from its moot property status, the land under the tower is surrounded by a closely guarded belt, 50 to 300 meters wide, and it is almost impossible to come close to the tower as such.

In Paris, avenues and alleys lead to the famous Eiffel Tower, and tourists can walk around it at their leisure. For our tower to become a kind of a public attraction, it should be accessible with a recreational zone around it.

How much money is needed to carry out your project?

Before starting the work to restore the tower, it is necessary to examine it thoroughly. The last such examination was made more than five years ago. Its results indicate that the metal structure has aged and worn down considerably. But the situation is not catastrophic, and with modern technology the tower can be restored fairly quickly. At the same time, in order to determine concrete methods and the time frame for reconstruction, another, more detailed expert examination is needed. This requires more money than we have available at the moment.

In our estimate, such an examination may cost from 1 million to 3 million rubles ($40,000 to $120,000), but it turns out that the Russian Television and Radio Broadcasting Network, on whose balance sheet the tower is listed, does not intend to provide these funds, since it has stopped using the tower as a retransmission facility. Our proposal is being considered by various bodies of legislative and executive power, but thus far without result.

I believe that the only agency that can get the project off the ground is the Moscow city government. The city authorities plan to create a tourist route, called Glass Street, which will be a pedestrian mall under a glass roof leading from Shabolovka Street to Europe Square at the Kiev railway terminal.

Since the Shukhov Tower is at the start of this route, the planners completely supported our concept for preserving the tower and incorporating it into the Glass Street project. Moscow City Hall realizes that making the Shukhov Tower into a tourist attraction will bring additional investment to the city treasury. But before the city government can take on the project, it is critical to transfer the tower and the adjacent area to city ownership.

Private investors could also be attracted to the project - both at home at abroad. Few people deny that the Shukhov Tower is in need of reconstruction, but on the other hand, the relevant agencies are doing little to put the plan into action.
-----------------------------------------------------------
To allow this tower to deteriorate is a shame. Land marks like this are almost impossible to replace.

As we moderize our world we should not forget the past........

Moscow almost had a tower larger than the Eiffel Tower, Now that is Cool!

Kyle & Svet

comments always welcome.

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