Notebook

Luzhkov Eyes Tretyakov

The fight over the redistribution of federal cultural assets continues. According to Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, the world-famous Tretyakov Art Gallery will be taken over by the city. In Luzhkov’s words, the state cannot afford the maintenance of the gallery, and the city government intends to ask federal authorities to include the gallery on the city government’s books. Utility providers are reportedly threatening to cut off the gallery’s heat or telephone lines due to unpaid bills. But this may all be so much posturing. According to the head of the Russian government’s Department of Culture and Information, Igor Shabdurasulov, the Tretyakov gallery will remain under federal jurisdiction.

Astoria Gets Investor

The administration of St. Petersburg has begun selling part of its shares in one of the city’s oldest hotels – the Astoria. As many as 4,416 shares with a nominal value of R1,000 were put on the block. The first contest was won by the English company Sir Rocco Forte & Family (Russia), which bested the US company Incentive Hotels of the World by offering $50,000 over the starting price. As a result, the British firm acquired 25.5% of the hotel’s shares for roughly R19.9 bn ($3.6 mn). According to the specifics of the contest, the British are to invest $7.05 mn in the Astoria’s renovation. The St. Petersburg city administration will retain 35% ownership in the hotel.

Shooting for the Stars

Meanwhile, across town, ITT Sheraton signed an agreement to take over management of the Nevsky Palace hotel, St. Petersburg’s second largest five-star hotel (the Grand Hotel being the largest), from the Austrian company Marco Polo. The president of ITT Sheraton’s European division, Robert Cotter, said that his firm will phase out commonly offered discounts and stimulate business by placing the hotel on the Sheraton’s reservation system. A St. Petersburg city hall representative announced that the city welcomes Sheraton’s presence and will now seriously consider selling off its 51% stake in the hotel. Meanwhile, Radisson SAS is negotiating with the city to set up another five-star hotel in downtown St. Petersburg.

Upgrading Domodedovo

The Russian State Property Committee (Goskomimushestvo) plans to privatize the state company Aeroservice Domodedovo. The company is one of the two enterprises formed as a result of the restructuring of the Domodedovo airport – the largest in the Moscow region and the one seen by many as best suited for renovation into the city’s main international airport. The total sum of investment in Aeroservice Domodedovo, along with projected budget revenues as a result of the privatization, will total about $100 mn.

... And Pulkovo

The leadership of the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development has endorsed the decision of the bank’s loan committee to grant a $156 mn credit to St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo international airport. The money will be spent on the construction of an international terminal called Pulkovo-3. The construction of the new terminal, which will be completed by the year 2000, will turn the airport into a major transit point – the future terminal will be able to service 1,000 passengers per hour. It will be built next to the current Pulkovo-2, and the terminals will eventually be integrated. Pulkovo-3 was designed by the St. Petersburg-based Lenaeroproekt institute and the US firm STV International.

Going to the boards

According to the Moscow Tribune daily newspaper, Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov has ordered tighter municipal control of Moscow’s loosely regulated outdoor advertising industry, in an effort to grab more cash for city coffers. The decree will increase the fees charged to the dozens of companies that are currently raking in billions of rubles a year by subleasing billboards and other outdoor advertising sites. Municipal officials insist the city budget is receiving only 10 percent of potential street advertising revenues. Still, the possibility of the fee hike troubles the advertising community. As is, the cost of a billboard sometimes exceeds $1,500, which local advertisers believe is high by world standards.

Cathedral in an Egg

What does it take to build a Christ the Savior cathedral? One kilogram of white stone, 150 grams of gold, a kilogram of silver, 50 grams of enamel, diamond chips, a little jasper and a big dose of talent. Such were the “ingredients” used by master jeweler Andrei Ananov, who managed to insert his masterpiece — a replica of the Christ the Savior cathedral — into an Easter egg. The egg is 25 cm high and 15 cm in diameter. When the upper part of the egg opens, a miniature copy of the cathedral emerges.

Tax Amnesty in the Works

So said the head of Russia’s Federal Tax Service, Alexander Pochinok. Under the amnesty, individuals who have been avoiding taxes and hiding their capital from taxation will be pardoned. Under the tentative amnesty procedure, they must declare their revenues and deposit them in bank accounts in Russian banks – at which time they will pay a relatively small tax. In Pochinok’s opinion, the tax rate of 10 to 17% proposed by the Russian president is quite reasonable, although he personally favors the lower limit of 10%. The Chairman of the Russian Central Bank, Sergei Dubinin, disagrees, arguing that the amnesty will cause an influx of “dirty money of non-Russian origin,” e.g., money earned from drug trafficking or the illegal arms trade.

Conference Urges Firms to Hire Russian

Leading American corporations doing business in Russia urged business colleagues to be less Moscow-oriented and to hire more Russian nationals, which they said is more cost-effective, as Russians are more familiar with the local terrain. The message emerged from an international conference entitled “Moscow in the New Millennium,” hosted in Moscow in late September by the Vermont-based Geonomics Institute, which celebrates its tenth anniversary this year. The conference was sponsored by the United States Information Agency and corporate sponsors such as the American Chamber of Commerce, Latham & Walkins and others. It brought together American managers from such well-established companies as Coca-Cola, Scott-European Corporation, and Patterson  Belknap, Webb & Tyler LLP. They, in turn, had the opportunity to meet with prospective employees who had undergone training and internships in Vermont. Paying tribute to Moscow for its impressive development over the last ten years, conference participants forecasted an even more impressive boom for Russia in the years ahead.

Missing Persons

The independent demographer, Alexander Sinelnikov published some startling statistics last month. If current demographic trends (i.e. population decline due to falling birth rate and climbing death rates) in Russia continue, he argued, in one-thousand years there will be just 150 people left in Russia. The current trajectory of decline would halve the Russian population (148 mn) to 74 mn by the middle of the next century.

Requiem for a Russophile

We at Russian Life were shocked and saddened to receive news early last month of the death of Ed Hogan, 46, in a canoeing accident in Maine. Ed was the founder and driving force behind Zephyr Press, which publishes Russian and Ukrainian literature in English. Ed’s most notable achievements at Zephyr were the publication of the only English language compendium of the complete works of Anna Akhmatova (two volumes, 1521 pages), twelve volumes of Glas, a popular literary journal featuring new Russian literature in English, and two fine travel guides to Russia (the Explorer’s Guides to Moscow and to Russia), written by former Russian Life Managing Editor Robert Greenall.

In fact, we had been sharing with Ed his excitement on the completion of his reprinting of the Akhmatova tomes just days before his untimely death.

Ed began his publishing career in the late 1960s when, as a college freshman, he founded a cooperatively-run literary journal, Aspect. He was “bitten” by the Russian bug in the early 1990s, leading to his involvement with Glas. Greenall expressed Ed’s business ethos perfectly when he noted to us that, “he seems to have often taken risks with authors that no one else would have done.” What is more, Ed’s books were always distinguished by their high quality of editorial execution.

Ed’s presence in the community of Americans active in things Russian will be sorely missed. He was a resident of Somerville, MA, and leaves a wife and stepdaughter.