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Mar 27, 2012

Issue #1701(12), Wednesday, March 28, 2012

The St. Petersburg Times
Issue #1701(12), Wednesday, March 28, 2012

LOCAL NEWS

Opposition Protests Showing Dwindling Support
Law Makes Finns Return Land On Border Territory
The first authorized protest rallies against electoral fraud since the March 4 presidential vote were held in St. Petersburg on the weekend. Saturday's march from the Petrograd Side across the Neva River to the Field of Mars drew more than 3,000 and went smoothly, but Sunday's 1,000-strong stationary meeting on Konyushennaya Ploshchad was marked by arrests.
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Finnish citizens and companies that own real estate on Russian territory near the border will have to give up their land under a new Russian law. According to Russia's land law, which has been in effect since 2001 and has recently returned to the spotlight, foreigners cannot own real estate on Russian border territories.
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Nurse Says Sacking Was Result Of Politics
SKA Defeats Atlant MO to Enter Finals
The head nurse at a state dental clinic in the Kirovsky district of St. Petersburg has been fired in what some say was a politically motivated decision. Liliya Serebryakova was fired on the grounds of "loss of trust" when new management took over her clinic after she had worked there for almost ten years.
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SKA St. Petersburg marches on to the KHL Western Conference finals after a convincing 4-0 win Friday night over Atlant Moscow Oblast in game 6 of conference semi-finals at the Mytishchi Arena in Mytishchi in the Moscow Oblast.
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Mariinsky II Investigated
IN BRIEF
The city's Audit Chamber has found massive violations in the construction of the Mariinsky Theater's second stage. The company responsible for building the theater is the North-West Construction, Reconstruction and Restoration Directorate.
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Hamburg Comes Closer ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — German airline Lufthansa launched a new flight Sunday from St. Petersburg to Hamburg, Germany. The 2.5-hour flight will operate twice a week, on Wednesdays and Sundays.
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NATIONAL NEWS

Journalists Toe Fine Line With Opposition Politics
Pundits Stand Divided on the Success of 'Reset'
MOSCOW — Oleg Kashin lit another cigarette. His iPhone beeped, as it does every few minutes. "They probably could have fired me for participating in the opposition rallies," he said, flicking aside the background image on his phone, Kazimir Malevich's "Reaper on a Red Background.
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MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev said Monday that the relationship between Russia and the United States was at its best during his term in office. Medvedev was attending a nuclear summit in Seoul, which is his last opportunity to meet counterpart Barack Obama before he yields the presidency in May to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
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Criminal Case Opened Into Edited Video of Putin
Duma Passes Bill on Parties
MOSCOW — A Leningrad Oblast journalist has been accused of fomenting extremism by editing an address by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to make him sound critical of the government. The journalist, Andrei Kolomoisky, posted a video to his blog on the website of the Vyborgskiye Vedomosti newspaper of Putin speaking to the camera while sitting in front of the Russian flag on the eve of the Dec.
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MOSCOW — The State Duma on Friday unanimously approved in the third and final reading a Kremlin-sponsored bill reducing the minimum required national party membership from 40,000 to 500, Interfax reported.
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Desire to Emigrate Decreases
Belarus Protests Against Gov't
MOSCOW — The percentage of Russians who say they want to leave the country has dropped by half since last summer and is now lower than it was in the final days of the Soviet Union, according to a new poll.
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MINSK, Belarus — Thousands turned out for an anti-government rally in Belarus Sunday to call for the freeing of political prisoners and for their country to become a European-style democracy. The protest rally was the largest since authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko won a fourth term in 2010 , intensifying his crackdown on the opposition.
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OPINION

U.S. Protects Russians With Jackson-Vanik
FROM A SAFE DISTANCE: Putin Showed His Weakness With Poland
Is the Cold War over? Textbooks say yes and even cite the date that hostilities ended: Dec. 3, 1989, during the Malta Summit of Mikhail Gorbachev and President George H.W. Bush. But some doubts still remain — or have reappeared.
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The citizens' awakening in Russia dates from the disputed State Duma elections on Dec. 4 and the first protest held on the following day on Chistiye Prudy. But to my mind, the first sign that Vladimir Putin's regime is tottering emerged 20 months earlier, on the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre.
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CULTURE

A lesson in tolerance
CHERNOV'S CHOICE
Open Your Eyes, a film festival focusing on human rights and directed against xenophobia and fascism, opens this week. The city of St. Petersburg proudly boasts of its UNESCO-awarded official tolerance program, yet it has just passed an infamous "anti-gay" law, which indicates that the city authorities' idea of tolerance is somewhat radical.
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A gay group will picket Russian concerts by Madonna, who declined an invitation to participate in the boycott of St. Petersburg announced as a result of a notorious anti-gay law signed into law in the city earlier this month.
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The art of revival
the word's worth: A phenomenon missing from the dictionary
A century after the most daring artistic minds of Russia joined forces under the impresario Sergei Diaghilev and took Europe by storm with the arts extravaganza that came to be known collectively as the Russian Seasons, the ballets are returning to the city of their birth.
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Commuter: житель пригорода, ежедневно ездящий на работу в город Common wisdom has it that when a new object or concept appears in a language milieu, the speakers of that language get cracking and come up with a name for it.
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Dance of the robots
Life through a lens
After conquering Moscow, the Aluminum Show will be performed for the first time in St. Petersburg at the Lensoviet House of Culture on March 28. Combining visual theater with modern dance, acrobatics, special effects and puppetry, the Aluminum Show is often compared to Blue Man Group, Stomp and Cirque du Soleil.
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While contemporary life in its entirety can't be packaged into just 350 photos, the State Russian Museum has managed to capture a decent glimpse of modern Russia with the Second Photobiennale of Modern Photography.
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in the spotlight: When migration laws meet music
THE DISH: Belinskogo 6
When British boy band of the 1990s East 17, and euro pop acts Snap, La Bouche and Culture Beat walked off after a nostalgic disco night at Moscow's Olimpiisky Sports Complex this month, they had a very unpleasant surprise.
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Tapas tavern The creative minds behind a cozy little tapas bar on Ulitsa Belinskogo near the circus have opted to forego the quest for an original or witty name in favor of a cunningly laconic approach: By making the restaurant's name — Belinskogo 6 — the same as its address, they have succeeded in making it both memorable and easy to locate.
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FEATURES

Law Attracts Mixed Reactions
comment: Expert: Perils of a Law That Lacks Definition
A new city law banning homosexual propaganda among minors has caused widespread criticism abroad and a divided response in Russia, with many petitioning for the city to be boycotted by tourists. St. Petersburg is unlikely to suffer a decrease in the volume of tourists as a result of the petitions and negative response to the new law, St.
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On March 30, 2012, the infamous amendments to the St. Petersburg Law on Administrative Offenses will come into force. The law stipulates fines for the public dissemination of propaganda of "homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexualism and transgenderness" among minors.
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Milonov: 'The Sin of Sodom Is Repellent To Me'
comment: Anti-Gay Law Traces Roots to Failed European, U.S. Legislation
Vitaly Milonov, the man behind the controversial bill against "promoting sodomy, lesbianism, bisexualism and transgenderism to minors," fully intends to catch Madonna committing a possible offense when the pop diva visits St.
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In comments published in The St. Petersburg Times, the sponsor of the city's recently passed anti-gay law, Vitaly Milonov, said "why should we copy European laws?" in reference to protection-of-rights legislation passed in a few Western countries.
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Back to 1992, When Being Gay Was Still a Crime
A History of Homophobia
It was a long time ago, at the beginning of the 1990s. It was a wild, difficult time, but a time that was of great interest to photographic journalists because entirely new, incredible subjects, previously banned and impossible to cover, were opening up.
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Russian laws against homosexuality have a long history. Orthodox clerics condemned sex between men and youths. They also condemned men who shaved, used make-up, or wore gaudy clothing as devotees of the "sodomitical sin.
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St. Petersburg's Gay Nightlife Is Alive and Kicking
 
Perhaps what's most surprising amid the homophobic rhetoric and the new law targeting the "promotion" of gay lifestyles is the fact that St. Petersburg's gay scene has never been more visible or felt less threatened than it does today.
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© 2012 The Saint-Petersburg Times

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