Kommersant
Forbidden art
On Tuesday, 13 Russian artists addressed an open letter to President Dmitry Medvedev, asking him to close a criminal case against Andrei Yerofeyev and Yury Samodurov, the organizers of the "Forbidden Art 2006" exhibition, now facing three-year prison terms.
The artists said the curators' conviction would "have an extremely negative effect on Russia's reputation."
On Tuesday, the Moscow Patriarchate also asked the authorities to be more lenient toward the defendants, although the criminal case against them had been opened under pressure from the Russian Orthodox community.
The open letter said Yury Samodurov, former director of the Andrei Sakharov Museum and Public Center, and Andrei Yerofeyev, former head of the State Tretyakov Gallery's contemporary art section, did not intend to cause offence to anyone.
The artists stressed that the court verdict of guilty would have political consequences and would tarnish Russia's reputation with the international art community. However, numerous independent analysts said the provocative exhibition also had a negative effect on Russia's image.
The Forbidden Art 2006 exhibition opened at the Andrei Sakharov Museum and Public Center in March 2007. Its exhibits included a crucifix with the Order of Lenin in place of Jesus's head and the picture of Jesus with the head of Mickey Mouse. After the exhibition opened, the Orthodox organization Narodny Sobor (People's Council) demanded that the Prosecutor-General's Office open a criminal case against its organizers.
The case was soon opened, and Yerofeyev, the exhibition's curator, and museum director Samodurov were charged with causing offence to believers and damaging their world outlook.
Samodurov has already stood trial for his January 2003 "Caution, Religion" exhibition featuring vodka bottles capped with onions to symbolize cathedral domes. At the time Samodurov was found guilty of inciting ethnic and religious strife and fined 100,000 rubles ($3,200), but he now faces a term in prison.
On Tuesday, Archpriest Vladimir Vigilyansky, head of the press service of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, called the prosecutor's charges excessive, unjustified and possibly harmful.
"Any believer will tell you that they can be convicted for inciting religious strife, but I think that their conviction should not lead to imprisonment. I'm asking the authorities to show clemency and leniency toward them," Father Vladimir said.
The court is to pass its verdict on July 12.
Vedomosti
Ban on Moldovan wine
Rospotrebnadzor, Russia's federal watchdog for health and consumer rights, discovered hazardous substances in Moldovan wine, depriving Moldova of a chance to become the leading importer of still wines to Russia, as expected. This is a political decision, experts believe.
On June 30, customs began stopping Moldovan wine on the Russian border, two Russian alcohol beverage distributors told Vedomosti. An employee of Lion Gri said that one of the company's railway cars carrying 46,800 bottles of wine has been kept in a customs terminal since June 30 and authorities neither allowed nor prohibited customs clearance providing no explanations.
Russia's consumer rights watchdog announced on June 29 that it will tighten control over alcoholic drinks from Moldova since it had repeatedly discovered large consignments of wine products that did not meet safety requirements. In April, 2010 the federal watchdog rejected 47,000 liters of Moldovan wine as not complying with safety requirements. After that, Gennady Onishchenko, Russia's top health official, said that there could be systemic problems in the Moldovan wine industry.
Onishchenko announced yesterday that from June 30 to July 6 Rospotrebnadzor had rejected 40 consignments of Moldovan wine, including 170,000 bottles and 150 liters of wine products, which contained plasticizer dibutyl phthalate or pesticides. Russia's top health official named Alianta Vin, Suvorov Vin and DC Intertrade among the companies that violated the safety regulations.
Onishchenko did not specify yesterday if a complete ban on importing Moldovan wine was possible but added that Moldova's government demonstrated its complete inability to control the quality of alcohol beverages. A representative of the Moldovan embassy said that the Moldovan party was satisfied with Onishchenko's explanations.
Political reasons may underlie this dissatisfaction with Moldovan wine, Fyodor Lukyanov, editor-in-chief of the Russia in Global Affairs magazine, believes. A few days before the detention of consignments of Moldovan wine, Moldova's acting President Mihai Ghimpu signed a decree declaring June 28 the Day of Soviet Occupation of Moldova. "This can't be mere coincidence, but Russia's demonstrative reaction will have the opposite effect," the expert believes.
A ban on Moldovan wine will be the end of the country's wine industry, which is in a poor condition as it is, head of a research center for federal and regional alcohol markets Vadim Drobiz says. This will also prevent Moldova from becoming the leading importer of still wines in the Russian market, as had been expected this year. According to the research centre, in January-May, 2010 Moldovan wines with 17% of the market were second to French wines with a share of 20 to 21%, and supplies of Moldovan wines were on the rise.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
China sees Russia as a colony
Recently China has started treating Russia like a colony, importing raw materials and exporting high added value goods. An ideal way to change the situation is mutual investment as part of border cooperation between Russia's Far Eastern and Trans-Baikal regions and China's northern provinces.
But so far China is investing in mineral production and in energy and transport projects and has been less eager to establish manufacturing plants in Russia.
During a video conference between Moscow and Beijing on Tuesday, analysts tried to find ways to balance their countries' interests, in particular in border trade. Such conferences and discussions should create an environment for raising Russia-China trade to the agreed upon figure of $60 billion.
In January-May 2010, bilateral trade amounted to $21 billion, or 56% more than a year ago. Chinese exports to Russia totaled $9.32 billion (up 54%) and Russian exports to China $11.69 billion (up 57%).
The two governments' plans and forecasts and analysts' debates are very interesting, but the problems they didn't discuss are even more interesting. One being Chinese investment in the Russian Far East and another being China's proposals on border cooperation through 2025.
China is mostly interested in mining, energy and transport infrastructure projects as laid out in the 200-point program. This is logical, as a developed infrastructure will facilitate trade, where China focuses on the import of Russian hydrocarbons, timber, metals and other commodities. In return, China supplies high added value products to Russia. But this is the classic model of colonial trade.
Russian scientists pointed this out at the Tuesday video conference. Sergei Luzyanin, deputy director of the Russian Academy of Science's Institute of the Far East, said Russia had made a U-turn in energy cooperation from the West to the East.
"Our lop-sided western orientation has been changed," he said referring above all to the construction of the East Siberia-Pacific Ocean oil pipeline, for which China allocated $25 billion.
China does not stint money for oil which its industry needs, but its direct investment in the Russian Far East amounts only to $180 million, an indicator that Russia remains on the periphery of China's interests.
RBC Daily
Private capital to breathe life into Caucasus
In the past ten years, the federal government has poured over 800 billion rubles into North Caucasus republics but failed to reinvigorate the local economy, Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday. It is vital to attract private capital if the Caucasus is to be revived. The government has decided to move from appealing to the business community's sense of social responsibility to risk sharing. The government is now prepared to give investors state guarantees at 70% of project cost. It will also control the project selection process, choice of investors and distribution of cash flows, a job to be done by the North Caucasus branch of the Development Bank.
The government has invested enough money in the North Caucasus: more than 800 billion rubles in the past ten years, according to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. State aid snowballed every year, from 15 billion in 2000 to 180 billion in 2010. But that failed to transform the local economy, the prime minister admitted: as before investors are keeping clear of the Caucasus, unemployment soars (average of 20%, with 30% in Chechnya and 50% in Ingushetia), and extremism is rampant.
The federal authorities' numerous appeals to investors to put their money in the Caucasus have had no response, and now the government has decided to share the risks with them. Putin promised that the Finance Ministry would give state guarantees for every project (70% of cost) that has been vetted by a Development Bank branch specially set up to cater for the North Caucasus and patterned on a governing company. The Development Bank is prepared to send its best brains to the Caucasus not only to choose projects, but also put finishing touches on them and negotiate with investors.
The government has not stated the specific amount the federal authorities are ready to invest in the revival of the Caucasus. "We'll invest as much as is needed," said Alexander Khloponin, a presidential envoy to the North Caucasus Federal District. "It is the government's duty to invest in infrastructure and remove risks, thereby promoting business development." The government expects to match one budget ruble with six rubles from private companies. The plan for the next ten years is to create 400,000 jobs.
Khloponin believes "the entire Forbes hundred" will be willing to put their money in the Caucasus if the investment climate there is favorable. Tax breaks can reduce the recoupment periods from 20 to eight years.
Regional heads in the Caucasus have joined in the campaign to reduce investment risks. Chechnya's Ramzan Kadyrov assured the media that not a single Chechen had left with arms for the mountains in the past six months.
Rossiiskaya Gazeta
Deputies approve amendments to bill on FSB
This week, the State Duma will pass, in a second and decisive reading, a bill giving the Federal Security Service (FSB) the right to issue official warnings to Russians if their behavior may pose a public threat. However, a public debate has removed the more offensive wording from the bill. Most deputies believe they have rid its text of provisions that caused concern among human rights activists and the media.
The amendments deal with the right of FSB officers to summon individuals and issue them with an official warning if their actions could lead to a crime. The bill no longer carries a provision on punishing individuals for failing to comply with the warning. The term "special preventive measures," which so shocked human rights activists, has also been deleted from the text, although the phrase "preventive measures" has been left in. A rule requiring that an official caution issued to an individual must be published in the media has also been dropped.
Another subject that was debated was the procedure for issuing an official warning. Initially, the person in question was to be summoned to a security agency office. Now this provision has been deleted.
Gennady Gudkov, deputy chairman of the State Duma's security committee, said that the gist of the law would not change much even if the amendments were adopted. It is because the FSB will finalize the details on many provisions of the law by passing internal regulations in a non-public procedure.
Vladimir Vasilyev, chairman of the State Duma's security committee, said that all doubts and suspicions were out of place, because the bill had been discussed in an absolutely open, transparent and public way. Nikolai Kovalyov, chairman of the State Duma's committee on veterans, who headed the FSB in the 1990s, has also called not to demonize the bill. "I am telling you this as a man who repeatedly issued official warnings to people," the former FSB head said. "I can proudly say that I can be credited with saving dozens of individuals from prison because another half a step and they would have ended up there."
However, Kovalyov takes a positive view of the discussion involving the media and the general public.
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MOSCOW, July 7 (RIA Novosti)
