July 24, 2001

This Date's Issues:   5361 • 5362

Johnson's Russia List
#5361
24 July 2001
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. Izvestia: THE FUTURE OF RUSSIAN-WESTERN RELATIONS.
2. Luba Schwartzman: ORT Review.
3. The Scotsman: Alice Lagnado, Return of the dancing Bear. (Bolshoi)
4. The Toronto Sun: Matthew Fisher, Vlad's the man. The West very much wants to like Russia's president.
5. Toronto Sun: Matthew Fisher, Beating the heat - Russian style.
6. The Times (UK): Giles Whittell, DNA doubt cast over Tsar's remains.
7. Reuters: U.S. protesters seek release of Russian programmer.
8. AP: Moscow Mayor Rebuffs Gay Parade.
9. New York Times: William Safire, Reading Putin's Mind.
10. Wall Street Journal: Andrew Higgins, Swiss Money-Laundering Probe Finds A Kremlin Link and a Wall of Silence.]

******

#1
Izvestia
July 23, 20012
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
THE FUTURE OF RUSSIAN-WESTERN RELATIONS
By Georgy ILYICHEV

The Moscow-based Institute of US and Canadian Studies of
the Russian Academy of Sciences recently hosted a seminar
dealing with the future of Russian-Western relations. That
seminar was also organized by the London European-reform center
and Moscow's Carnegie center. Those taking part in the seminar
discussed quite a few issues, including the consequences of a
possible US decision to abrogate the ABM (Anti-Ballistic
Missile) Treaty, as well as domestic foreign-policy factors.
Sergei Rogov, who heads the aforesaid Institute of US and
Canadian Studies, flatly rejected my request to attend the
seminar. No one will be able to speak freely, if it turns out
that a journalist is present, Rogov noted. Consequently, that
seminar took place behind closed doors. However, Izvestia
interviewed three seminar co-chairmen, namely, Robert Nurik in
charge of the Moscow Carnegie center, Christopher J. Makins,
who serves as president of the US Atlantic Council, and Sergei
Rogov, after the forum wound up. The most interesting
statements follow below.

The Seminar Itself

Sergei ROGOV: We decided to renew our discussion of
Russian-Western relations, inviting US and European experts, so
that they could talk to their Russian colleagues. Such a
discussion was called on to establish trilateral, rather than
bilateral, contacts. Each side chose its own expert groups
rather carefully; these experts carry weight with academic and
political circles alike.

Christopher MAKINS: We managed to avoid the discussion of
well-known current short-term issues. That's why our forum has
proved successful. We agreed that short-term problems won't
vanish into thin air; however, we should discuss more long-term
prospects with regard to those specific means and options that
would be required for the sake of integrating Russia into the
Western system.

Robert Nurik: The expansion of NATO is a highly topical
issue. We tried to avoid such an approach, as well as all those
recurrent "pros" and "cons." We did our best to assess Russia-
NATO relations after the alliance's expansion.
Furthermore, we discussed such important subjects as the
ABM system and nuclear weapons non-proliferation, particularly
in connection with Russia's relations with Iran and Iraq. We
didn't strive to find out who was right or wrong, and whether
the current system was good or bad. Long-term relations in the
nuclear field between Russia and the European Union, as well as
Russian-US relations, are much more important.
On ABM Defenses

Sergei ROGOV: The US side keeps saying that it will deploy
a limited NMD (National Missile Defense) system. However, what
are its limitations? We made considerable headway, while
discussing this issue, just because we rose above slogans.

Christopher MAKINS: The United States is at least trying
to convince Russia that a new framework of bilateral strategic
relations can be created. The administration of President Putin
is sending out a message that it's ready to negotiate. However,
the US Administration still doesn't know, what particular
system will be deployed. And this seems to be the main problem.
At the same time, the US Government has repeatedly
stressed that it would like to defend the United States against
a limited number of small missiles. However, it doesn't want to
threaten Russia's nuclear forces in any way; nor does it want
to create any problem in this field. Quite a few Americans,
many of whom attended the seminar, believe that an ABM system
matching the aspirations of President Bush Jr. and Russian
needs can be created.

On Integration

Sergei ROGOV: We keep saying time and again that Russia
will never become a NATO member, and that it will never join
the EU.
However, the implications of all this have never been examined
in greater detail. When we talk about Russia's membership in
some international organization, then we should find out all
about specific Russian and Western actions. This facilitates a
down-to-the-point discussion.

Robert NURIK: Several opinions of this issue were voiced.
Sergei Rogov dwelled on Russia's NATO membership. Yet another
concept was suggested by a US delegate, who believes that a
bloc alliance comprising Russia and NATO should be established.
Besides, it was noted that NATO continued to change, gradually
evolving into a collective security organization. Quite
possibly, NATO will change even more in a not so distant
future, acquiring an entirely different form. After that, the
issue of its cooperation with Russia would sound differently.

Many participants wondered whether Russia's complete
economic integration into Europe was possible, and whether
Russia needed such integration. They also wanted to find out
whether we should move in another direction. Neither party
seems to have made any final decision on this issue so far.
However, all of us believe that it would be simpler to
integrate Russia into the European-security structure, rather
than into the European economic union.

Seminar Results

Robert NURIK: We didn't try to answer all the questions.
Quite a few other similar meetings are scheduled to take place.
We merely discussed a number of diverse and interesting
proposals, also examining current issues from different angles.

Sergei ROGOV: We don't pretend that we are fulfilling some
secret mission; this doesn't amount to any second-line
diplomacy, you know. We simply wanted to find out whether any
agreement on highly important issues could be attained. Quite
possibly, people responsible for making specific short-term
political decisions would find this easier, in case we agree on
some end result of Russian-Western relations.
Any tactical options for implementing a common strategy
would inevitably be found, in case such a strategy does exist.

******

#2
ORT Review
www.ortv.ru
Compiled by Luba Schwartzman (luba7@bu.edu)
Research intern at the Center for Defense Information
Research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology and Policy
at Boston University

HEADLINES,
Monday, July 23, 2001

- "Genuezskii Shlem," a historical reenactment of the 16th-century storm
of the Genoese fortress was played out today in Sudak, in the Crimea.

- Experiments in school reform continue in five of Russia's regions.
Students in the Chuvash Republic are taking a multiple-choice
college-entry exam expected to ease worries and bring fairness and
simplicity to the admissions process.

- Two thousand former prisoners of fascist concentration camps will begin
receiving compensation in the end of June. Depending on their experience,
they will receive 1,500 to 5,000 Deutschmarks. This is only the first lot
of people - the German government has earmarked a total of 835 million
Deutschmarks for Russian citizens.

- Actress Natalia Gundareva is in the hospital after a major stroke.

- The record heat in European Russia has caused numerous heart attacks,
sunstrokes, severe sunburns, and other problems.

- Stanislav Ilyasov, the head of the local Chechen administration in
Grozny presented Oleg Zhidkov, the new mayor of the city, to local
officials today. Ilyasov expressed the hope that Zhidkov will bring order
to the capital and take charge of all of the financial flows. Zhidkov
immediately asked [his audience] not to dwell on the fact that he is not
an ethnic Chechen and to remember that he was born and grew up in Grozny,
and that he is fluent in the Chechen language.
Four terrorists have been detained for attacking a block-post in Gudermes.

- Chechen commander Magomed Tsagarev was killed yesterday evening after
shooting, point blank, two police officers in the Zavodskii rayon of
Grozny. The twenty-five year-old controlled 90 percent of the small
groupings of Chechen fighters.

- Four men (two civilians and two Abkhaz soldiers) were killed in an
ambush in the Gal'skii region in Abkhazia. In connection with the recent
complications, Russian peacekeepers plan on fortifying posts in the
security zone.

- Divers taking part in the operation to raise the Kursk nuclear submarine
will begin drilling openings in the hull shortly. Footage of the Kursk
has been released.

- Vladimir Putin presided over a ceremonial presentation of the highest
officers of the power organs to the head of state - a tradition in Russia
until 1917, which was reinstated three years ago. He declared that, above
all, men in uniform [men with epaulets] must always be irreproachable.

- An ancient holiday is being celebrated in North Ossetia: Dedicated to
the One God, it is called Khusau Zuar. All citizens of the republic try
to get to the sanctuary located high up in the mountains. The elders go
through the village, house to house, and, at the head of the procession,
the young people lead a bull, decorated with bright ribbons, which is to
be sacrificed by the community.

- Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu will set off for Yakutia tomorrow. A
government commission will analyze the progress of restoration work in
Lensk.

- Fourteen illegal migrants from Asia have been detained in Sochi. The
Indian and Pakistani citizens claim that they came here to earn money, but
local authorities say that the group was sent here to investigate the
situation, and that a whole wave of settlers was to follow.

- An unusual holiday in Armenia: Vartavar, the water holiday. Out in the
streets, or through open windows, everyone is game to be sprayed by water

- from shampoo bottles, buckets, hoses, etc.. For the Armenian Orthodox
Church, it's the 98th day after the resurrection of Christ, the
celebration of his Baptism. But the holiday itself is about three
thousand years old, dedicated to Astra, the queen of flowers. Pagans
appealed to her to bless them with rainwater, but to save them from
floods.

- The court process against Grigorii Pasko is still closed to the press.
Cross-examinations of (about 60) witnesses and the study of additional
documents and expert investigation results are still ahead; no one knows
when the scandalous process will be over.

- An emergency situation has been declared in the Komi Republic. Fires
have overtaken several thousand hectares of forests. The heat makes it
nearly impossible for the firemen to deal with the conflagrations, which
often approach settlements.

******

#3
The Scotsman
July 22, 2001
Return of the dancing Bear
From Alice Lagnado in Moscow

The Bolshoi Theatre, once the world’s greatest ballet and opera company, is
to be resurrected as the symbol of Russian cultural greatness in an echo of
its former role as an example of communist superiority.

The government aims to increase funding to inject life into tired
repertoires, attracting top international names and appointing new young
directors.

The Kremlin’s campaign to boost the arts and particularly Russian classics,
epitomised by its blueprint for the Bolshoi, reveals much about President
Vladimir Putin’s world view. He aims to bring in modern economic efficiency
shaded with the conservatism and patriotism prized by Soviet cultural
bosses.

More than that, fierce promotion of cultural, sporting and military
achievements were an essential element of the communists’ ideological
struggle to win Russian hearts and minds. In contemporary Russia the battle
is more sophisticated. The best of Western culture is no longer banned, but
the underlying message is that without Russian films, theatre and music the
cultural landscape would be desolate.

However, with a few overlooked exceptions, Soviet Russia’s cultural
laboratory produced stolid, poor-quality art, literature and music. In the
last decade since perestroika underfunding and bad management have
exacerbated the situation: much of the country’s artistic output remains
mediocre.

Aware of the poverty of Soviet and post-Soviet culture, Putin and his
recently appointed Minister of Culture, Mikhail Shvydkoi, aim to primarily
encourage pre-Revolutionary works as well as young Russian talent. Putin’s
approach is politically astute, drawing in both the domestic audience hungry
for homegrown stars and the traditionally anti-Putin intelligentsia calling
for investment in culture.

Nowhere is the Kremlin’s campaign more necessary than in the case of the
Bolshoi Theatre, dogged by stagnant repertoires and scandals involving
flighty ballerinas and absentee directors. Many stars earn just £100 a
month.

In a dingy room tucked deep inside the dusky pink Bolshoi Theatre, Aleksei
Vedernikov, appointed just over a week ago to realise a new, heavily
Kremlin-influenced artistic vision, sighed as he kept hitting his desk lamp
to make it work. With a solid reputation as conductor of the Russian
Philharmonic, a top orchestra, and periods in Covent Garden and La Scala, he
is essentially a traditionalist but young enough at 37 to realise the
theatre needs shaking up.

"There have been major changes in our country but not in the arts - for
which the government has had no policy at all until recently," he said. "We
must do this very carefully so that we do not destroy the good aspects of
the past, while keeping the arts relevant."

He wants the Bolshoi to once again be thought of as highly as Covent Garden
or La Scala, to be part of what he calls the "international operatic
process".

Perhaps worryingly, he sniffs at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg,
which has raced ahead of the Bolshoi in terms of quality and ticket sales,
dismissing it as "experimental". The Mariinsky, formerly known as the Kirov,
has won audiences at home and abroad by combining tradition with touches of
innovation and slick management, much to the jealousy of the Bolshoi in
Moscow. "We are an academic theatre," Vedernikov insisted. "We must not
abandon tradition."

In that vein the Bolshoi’s next season will see mainly Russian operas -
Vedernikov’s favourites are Glinka, Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev -
and ballets, with classics such as Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake and The
Nutcracker taking precedence over new works.

Vedernikov seems aware of the difficulties in staging ballets where the
music is as well-known in Russia as the national anthem, and is keen to
inject some fire into performances to avoid the limp classical productions
that bored London audiences this spring. "We must not abandon tradition, but
tradition must not turn into routine," he said.

A third of the repertoire will be devoted to works by foreign
choreographers, but without the cutting-edge pieces that delight audiences
in New York or London. Included are modern classics by dance stalwarts like
France’s Roland Petit, whose balletic version of Tchaikovsky’s Queen of
Spades will be premiered in October, and Britain’s Sir Frederick Ashton,
whose work will open next February.

Nor is the Bolshoi about to bring in less swan-like dancers, like the "short
and fat" New York ballerinas derided by a former director.

The extremely talented young ballerinas correspond to traditional ideas of
dancers, led by the delicate 22-year-old Svetlana Lunkina. The flamboyant
Nikolai Tsiskaridze has replaced Irek Mukhamedov as Russia’s most
charismatic male dancer.

Vedernikov admits that bringing any changes to the Bolshoi is a tough task,
but said some new blood was vital if the theatre was not to sink into
apathy. "Things move very slowly in the Bolshoi. We need to bring in new
ideas and give the performers new vigour," he said.

The 144-year-old theatre, a neoclassical building, is also in need of
repair. The Royal Ballet once refused to dance on its stage, believing it to
be unsafe.

The reconstruction project, like much else at the Bolshoi, was begun in 1995
but soon stopped due to lack of funds. A new $400m theatre will be erected
in a neighbouring building and the main theatre will be closed for $200m
worth of repairs. But the management hopes Russian oil and gas magnates,
which have promised assistance, will help fund the work.

The Bolshoi’s troubles came to a melodramatic head this spring when Gennadi
Rozhdestvensky, the theatre’s freshly appointed artistic director, resigned
amid accusations of low standards and organisational chaos.

Largely absent during his brief year in office, Rozhdestvensky’s outburst
angered performers, with Nina Ananiashvili, one of the theatre’s most
established virtuoso ballerinas, temporarily deserting the Bolshoi for work
elsewhere.

The Kremlin is expected to bring the changes in the Bolshoi to other
artistic institutions. It has already replaced the head of the
Conservatoire, home of Russia’s classical music, launched investigations
into alleged misdoings at the Hermitage, one of the world’s best art
galleries, and privatised Mosfilm, the country’s biggest film studios.

Mikhail Zhirmunsky, a young arts critic at Nezavisimaya Gazeta, thinks it’s
about time. "Russian culture has been completely neglected," he said.

******

#4
The Toronto Sun
July 23, 2001
Vlad's the man
The West very much wants to like Russia's president
By MATTHEW FISHER -- Sun Columnist at Large

MOSCOW -- Tony Blair gushes his admiration for Vladimir Putin.

George Bush thinks he can trust the Russian president.

Jean Chretien has been impressed with Putin's calm, technocratic command of
bilateral and multi-lateral issues.

Gerhard Schroeder has been wowed by the German Putin learned to speak while
spying on that country.

Someday this G-8 honeymoon will end, but that day is still very far off.
Putin is the most highly regarded Russian leader in the West since, well,
Boris Yeltsin and Mikhail Gorbachev.

An unlikely feature of late Cold War and post-Cold War Russia is that the
West has tried mighty hard to like the men in the Kremlin even though they
have not done much to merit this affection. To justify their feelings,
western leaders have had to ascribe to Russia's leaders such traits as
civility, honesty, neighbourliness and fairness.

Gorbachev never enjoyed much support at home. He was and still is regarded
here as an unwavering Communist and a plodder who did not tell the truth
about Chernobyl and was later overwhelmed and overtaken by events he did not
and does not understand. But he was and still is held in remarkably high
esteem outside the former Soviet Union where the democracies regard him as a
man of vision and charisma.

At the very time his cronies were looting the country, and setting back
Russia's economic prospects for a generation, Yeltsin was every western
visitor's pal. John Major, Bill Clinton, Chretien and Helmut Kohl could not
get enough of Yeltsin's buffoonery. They fell over each other as they threw
billions of dollars at the Kremlin gates that would never be seen again
except as the ill-gotten oil companies, Mercedes-Benz sedans and Riviera,
Mayfair and Manhattan homes of Russian "biznismen" who were anything but.

Although not at all a buffoon, and not really a plodder, Putin is genuinely
popular with many Russians at the moment because he has brought a measure of
stability after a decade of chaos. It is still highly unlikely he is as
lovable, trustworthy and intellectually and linguistically gifted as his G-8
partners claim to believe he is today.

What Putin, Yeltsin and Gorbachev have in common is that they excelled in an
impenetrable, utterly discredited system where cunning and ruthlessness
counted for everything and human rights and civil behaviour, at least as it
is understood in the West, did not exist.

Although the schmaltzy rhetoric from the other G-8 nations suggests Putin is
regarded as a reliable friend of the West, the Russian president has been not
so quietly conducting contradictory diplomacy on two fronts.

Before meeting Bush and the others in Italy, he chatted up China's Jiang
Zemin in Moscow last week where they signed a friendship treaty - the first
since Mao and Stalin were chummy half a century ago.

At the treaty's heart is an appeal for a "just and rational new international
order." A Russia-China axis makes sense if you believe "the enemy of my enemy
is my friend." But it is a less happy fit with the notion that Russia should
join NATO or be part of a new European military alliance, which are other
things Putin, the internationalist, said he was in favour of last week while
at the same time repeating his revulsion at NATO's Yugoslavian bombing
campaign and floating the possibility Russia might arm its nuclear weapons
with more multiple warheads if the U.S. proceeds with plans to build an
anti-missile shield.

Whether it ends up firmly in the western or Chinese camp, Russia is doomed to
be a junior partner. For all its natural resources, its economy is such a
schmozzle that it cannot possibly keep up.

Putin's tilt toward China plays reasonably well domestically in European
Russia, but it does not make much sense elsewhere. Russia and China have been
falling out and getting back together again throughout the 20th century.

If Russia is to lose territory in the early 21st century, it is far more
likely to happen in the east than in the west. The next explosive issue to
divide Russia and China is likely to be the Russian Far East, where 200,000
Chinese have already taken Russian nationality and another one million
squatters work and live illegally.

Russia will eventually figure out that it must cast its lot with the G-8
nations.

It is useful to keep high level lines of communication open., but it is still
too early for G-8 leaders to pretend the moment is already at hand and that
Putin has earned the compliments being showered upon him.

*****

#5
Toronto Sun
July 22, 2001
Beating the heat - Russian style
By MATTHEW FISHER -- Sun Columnist at Large

VIDNOYE, Russia -- It is 30 degrees as I write this by the sweat of my brow
at midnight near this village some 40 km southeast of Moscow.

Thanks to what meteorologists have described as an African weather front
wreaking havoc 5,000 km from that continent, it has been blazing hot in
western Russia for more than a week now.

Only McDonald's and the fanciest shops and hotels have air conditioning in
Moscow. Electric fans, or "ventilators," as they're called here, aren't that
common, either, although cheap ones from China are becoming widely available
and are catching on fast.

To escape the record-breaking heat wave, it seems as if about half the
population of Moscow has found refuge in the cool waters of the many rivers
that thread their way through the capital. It seems as if the rest of the
population has escaped to the countryside.

Those going for a swim have been having such a good time that more than 150
people have drowned. The common denominator in most of these deaths is that
old scourge, vodka. After a drink or two, many Muscovites remember how hot
they are but forget they never learned how to swim.

For those not in the water, the most common refuge during the few weeks when
Russia isn't freezing is the dacha. Canadians would call such mosquito-ridden
and horsefly-plagued vacation homes, cottages. Both have barbecues as a
central feature and are places where families and friends gather, but dachas
have a far more mystical hold on Russians than cottages do on Canadians.

This is partially because at heart every Russian thinks of himself as a
peasant or boyar and senses a powerful attachment to the land. But it's also
because in a country which deprived its citizens of home ownership for
decades, dachas were often the only significant piece of property people
could call their own.

Like cottages, dachas tend to be located in great stands of trees within a
few hours drive of every Russian city. But the Russian variant seldom are
built by water and are usually grouped close enough to farms that roosters
wake everyone up at dawn.

Tumbledown shacks overgrown with vegetation and used mostly for gardening
crowd the bottom end of the dacha market. Well above them in the pecking
order are lovingly built, well maintained wooden palaces, created with care
by thoughtful people who usually do not have much money. They often have
indoor plumbing and banyas or bathhouses, as well as gardens which are used
to grow vegetables that are canned or bottled and brought back to the city to
be eaten during the winter.

The top end of the market is split between the solid wood and brick homes of
the children of the old Communist order and dachas built by so-called New
Russians which are gaudy and smack of new money.

Depending on your point of view, the best or worst of these monstrosities
that I have spotted in my travels around Moscow Oblast is a five-storey,
white Kremlin with its own golden-domed church and thick, four-metre-high
walls southwest of the city.

This colossus, which is across a forest from Boris Yeltsin's secluded state
dacha, is the subject of much speculation. It may or may not be for sale by
its owner, who may or may not be a Russian "biznisman" living in Switzerland.

I have never been in the White Kremlin or anything like it, but over the
years I have been invited to some wonderful dachas. It is almost never the
actual physical structures or the great forests that impress me, although
these can be amazing.

I have always been struck by how welcoming and relaxed people are when they
get to their dachas. It is at dachas that I discovered that Muscovites at
play are far more like Canadians than when they're trapped in Moscow's dusty,
hostile urban jungle.

Just now, I like dachas most of all because the temperatures here are two or
three degrees cooler than they are in the capital.

*****

#6
The Times (UK)
JULY 24 2001
DNA doubt cast over Tsar's remains
FROM GILES WHITTELL IN MOSCOW

THREE years after Tsar Nicholas II’s bones were reburied in St Petersburg
in one of the grandest ceremonies staged by post-Communist Russia, a
Japanese scientist has declared they were not the murdered Russian
emperor’s bones at all.

Five key flaws in DNA analysis carried out in Russia, Britain and America
to identify the Tsar’s remains before the 1998 reburial cast doubt on their
authenticity, Professor Tatsuo Nagai of the Kitasato Institute of
Microbiology in Tokyo will argue at a conference in Berlin next month.

Professor Nagai claims to have analysed DNA from the Tsar himself as well
as from the Tsar’s brother, Archduke Georgi Romanov, and from Tikhon
Kulikovsky-Romanov, who until his death in Canada in 1993 was Nicholas II’s
closest living relative.

He found close matches between his various samples, he told yesterday’s
Izvestia newspaper, but significant differences between their genetic
fingerprints and those of the bones studied before the reburial — the
famous Yekaterinburg remains, named after the city where the Tsar and his
family were executed on July 17 1918.

“I’m convinced that the Yekaterinburg remains were not the Tsar’s,”
Professor Nagai said, though he may have difficulty convincing others. He
has yet to publish details of the differences between his DNA analysis and
earlier ones, and his sample of Nicholas II’s DNA reportedly came from
sweat on a piece of the Tsar’s clothing sent to him by Professor Vyecheslav
Popov, a Russian pathologist who has sought for years to undermine the
theory that the real imperial remains were ever found.

Questions exist as to whether reliable DNA can be extracted from sweat, and
Professor Nagai admitted comparing only mitochondrial DNA, which is found
separately in human cells from the main double helix that determine one’s
genetic make-up.

Critics of the reburial will nonetheless be delighted by the new research.
Descendants of Russian emigrés still believe a 1924 account by a White
Russian investigator who claimed the remains were retrieved after burial
and burned with acid until only part of a finger and a few charred bones
and pieces of clothing remained. The Yekaterinburg remains, by contrast,
consist of nine coffin-sized boxes of bones.

******

#7
U.S. protesters seek release of Russian programmer
By Elinor Mills Abreu

SAN FRANCISCO, July 23 (Reuters) - Protesters carrying Russian and U.S.
flags and chanting "code is free speech" marched outside the California
headquarters of software giant Adobe Systems Inc. on Monday seeking release
of a Russian programmer arrested on charges of violating U.S. copyright law.

Inside the offices of the software company, lawyers from Electronic Freedom
Foundation, a San Francisco-based group focused on free speech issues on
the Internet, met with Adobe officials to discuss the case of Dmitry
Sklyarov.

"We want to secure his release and get the U.S. Department of Justice to
drop the charges," Robin Gross, staff attorney for the EFF, told Reuters
before the meeting started.

Sklyarov, 26, was arrested a week ago in Las Vegas after he spoke at a
major hackers convention and is being held there without bail until he is
transferred to San Jose, California.

Sklyarov, the first person to be prosecuted under the controversial 1998
Digital Millennium Copyright Act, wrote software that Adobe claims violates
the law, which bans the creation or distribution of technology that
circumvents copyright protections.

Sklyarov's program allows people who purchase books in digital form, known
as eBooks, to circumvent protections in Adobe's eBook Reader, make copies
of the book and read it on other computers.

About 100 people gathered late Monday morning and marched two blocks in
downtown San Jose to Adobe's offices, many carrying photos of Sklyarov and
signs with slogans like "Visit U.S. Go to Jail," said Don Marti, one of the
organizers.

"Dmitry has been arrested and put in jail for doing something that is legal
in his home country," said Marti, vice president of the Silicon Valley
Linux Users Group.

"And the law that was used to arrest him is an unjust law that can be used
to shift the balance of copyright away from the reader and give the
publisher total control."

Marcher Kathryn Myronuk said the Sklyarov case was setting a dangerous
precedent. "The ability to read eBooks is something you'll have to buy from
the company," said Myronuk, a freelance research analyst.

"Free Dmitry" rallies were also scheduled for Monday in Boston, Denver,
Chicago, Seattle and Portland, Oregon and Reno, Nevada, as well as in
Moscow, according to the BoycottAdobe.com Web site.

The EFF, founded by Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow and Mitchell
Kapor, founder of the software company Lotus, argues that the new U.S.
copyright law is flawed because it outlaws technologies instead of conduct.

Sklyarov discussed his program in a presentation July 15 at the DefCon
hacker conference in a talk entitled "eBook Security: Theory and Practice."
He was arrested in his Las Vegas hotel as he prepared to check out and
return to Moscow.

Sklyarov's employer, Moscow-based ElcomSoft Co., began selling the program
a month ago but pulled it off the market after Adobe complained.

*******

#8
Moscow Mayor Rebuffs Gay Parade
July 23, 2001

MOSCOW (AP) - The Moscow mayor's office harshly rebuffed requests for
permission to hold a Gay Pride parade, saying Monday that such an event would
amount to ``propaganda of dissipation.''

With various festive parades a typical sight in Moscow during holidays, the
office of Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov said it has been flooded by requests to
allow a Gay Pride parade. The latest one asked for a parade to be held on the
Day of the City this fall, when various other groups march across the center
of Moscow.

Luzhkov's press service issued a stern statement saying that ``the city
government will not allow holding this march in Moscow on the Day of the City
or on any other day, because such demonstrations outrage the majority of the
capital's population, are in effect propaganda of dissipation and force upon
society unacceptable norms of behavior.''

Homosexuality was a crime punishable by prison time in the Soviet era. Gay
culture grown in Moscow and other large cities in the past decade, but
remains frowned upon by most of the population.

Luzhkov's statement added that homosexuality ``goes against traditional moral
values of most Russians, as well as the canons of the main religious
confessions in the city.''

The flamboyant Luzhkov is widely popular in Moscow because of the relative
wealth enjoyed by the city, the large-scale renovations that shed the city's
drab Soviet-era image, and grandiose road construction that has helped
alleviate notorious traffic jams.

But he has maintained a Soviet-era registration system, effectively requiring
non-Muscovites to seek permits to live in the city - rebutting objections by
federal officials that the restrictions violate the Russians' constitutional
right to choose their place of residency.

Moscow police also hold arbitrary document checks on the streets, demanding
proof of registration, and usually target darker-skinned people from the
Caucasus region.

*******

#9
New York Times
July 23, 2001
Reading Putin's Mind
By WILLIAM SAFIRE

I understand how a position can be taken for the purpose of giving it up as a
concession.

That is why my friend George, whose mental reasoning is very deep, very
profound (I must keep saying that), last year said he would unilaterally
reduce the American nuclear stockpile.

My simple-minded strategists wondered — if the U.S. was going to cut its
missiles from 7,000 to less than half that, why do it without demanding
Russia give up something in return? Why take a peaceful action so
belligerently?

I knew why. Bush's advisers, who are smarter than mine, wanted to show that
it did not matter to them what Russia wanted. They know we cannot afford to
maintain our huge missile force. Yeltsin pleaded with Clinton to agree to a
lower level of 1,500 missiles in each nation.

Clinton wanted to make that deal, but his military wouldn't let him go under
2,500. Then along comes Bush to announce publicly he won't negotiate on
reductions at all — that he'll reduce the stockpile to whatever number his
military says is all America needs to destroy Russia.

Very shrewd. Bush says he will not negotiate on reducing offensive missiles
and links that to his refusal to negotiate on the Antiballistic Missile
Treaty. All most consistent; America, with its world primacy, will act
unilaterally in its national defense interest against terrorists like Saddam,
and he suggests that Russia's reaction to ending ABM restrictions does not
count.

But what everybody misses is that by doubly insulting us — on Start treaty
reductions as well as on the ABM treaty — Bush made possible a grand
compromise. While conceding our role in negotiating limits on offensive
missiles, he enables me to let him build a limited missile defense.

At our first meeting, he held to his linkage — the U.S. will decide on both
its stockpile reductions and its antimissile development. I reacted sharply
by supporting Saddam in the U.N. and by threatening to add five or more
nuclear warheads to all our missiles. (Russia cannot afford to redecorate my
dacha, but I supposedly have billions to spend on tens of thousands of new
warheads.)

At our second meeting, a counter- linkage presents itself "unexpectedly." I
agree to renegotiate the old antimissile treaty, which Bush would otherwise
abrogate, so I lose nothing. In return Bush will negotiate with Russia the
reduction of our mutual missile forces, which we both will do anyway, so he
loses nothing.

Rather than going it alone on both, as he originally set forth, we are going
it together on both. Weapons of offense and defense will now be discussed as
a set. As my profound friend George said yesterday, "the two go hand in
hand."

My face is saved. The American president nods his head as I proclaim that we,
one on one, have discussed "the world architecture of the 21st century."
Europe is grateful to Russia for forcing the unilateralist American into at
least bilateralism.

We'll both get what we need. In a few years, he will be able to shoot down
Saddam's missiles (my scientists were more amazed than the Americans at that
successful recent antimissile test), and I'll make much out of squeezing down
Start's ceiling to 2,000 missiles.

And then comes what the Americans call a "sweetener" — the promise of
economic aid and new investment flows. Bush can publicly fret about brutality
in Chechnya and my takeover of the Russian media, but I'll still praise his
mental profundity when his compatriots call him incompetent.

Do you suppose this sentimental hegemonist grasps my plan to reassert Russian
power? I will adopt China's model: Centralize political control by cracking
down on dissent and crushing democratic tendencies. At the same time, develop
a controlled capitalism to generate profits that the state can tax to build
military strength.

My gamble is in allying Russia with China against the U.S. and Japan. Selling
our latest arms to Beijing could create a superpower with 10 times our
population on Russia's eastern border. I will run that risk.

That will make a forthcoming meeting with my new friend George all the more
piquant. In Shanghai, I will introduce him to my best new friend, Jiang
Zemin.

*******

#10
Wall Street Journal
July 23, 2001
[for personal use only]
Page One Feature
Swiss Money-Laundering Probe Finds A Kremlin Link and a Wall of Silence
By ANDREW HIGGINS (andrew.higgins@wsj.com)
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

MOSCOW -- In the summer of 1996, Vladimir Putin, an obscure and out-of-work
former KGB agent, got a telephone call from the Kremlin as he was about to
board a plane home to St. Petersburg. He skipped the flight and went instead
for a job interview with Pavel Borodin, Kremlin property czar and potent
bureaucratic baron.

Mr. Putin got the job -- and a slot in a Kremlin inner circle that would
catapult him to the presidency. But his big break also set up what, nearly
five years on, is a big headache for a leader who declares firm views on
crime and punishment.

Shortly after Mr. Putin started work, his new boss took a trip to Geneva. A
burly, backslapping apparatchik from Siberia, Mr. Borodin met with Swiss
bankers at an elegant 19th-century mansion on the Boulevard des Philosophes,
say witnesses interviewed by Swiss investigators. Bank documents appearing to
bear Mr. Borodin's signature show he opened two numbered accounts.

Over the next two years, according to transfer records, more than $15 million
sluiced through these private accounts at SBS, a big Swiss bank since merged
with UBS SA. Other foreign accounts controlled by Mr. Borodin or his family
received millions more. Mr. Borodin's official salary at the time was less
than $1,000 a month.

The money, say Swiss prosecutors, came from Mercata Trading & Engineering SA,
a Swiss-based, Russian-run company to which Mr. Borodin awarded Kremlin
construction contracts. Mr. Borodin declined to be interviewed for this
article, but in an earlier interview he denied opening foreign bank accounts,
which are illegal for Russians without Central Bank approval, or taking money
from contractors. Mercata says it didn't make any direct payments to Mr.
Borodin.

In January this year, FBI agents, acting on a Swiss warrant, arrested Mr.
Borodin at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport. He was en route to a candlelit
dinner in Washington to celebrate George W. Bush's inauguration. Instead, he
spent nearly the next three months in a Brooklyn detention center, the Statue
of Liberty visible in the distance from his cell, before he agreed to meet
Swiss prosecutors in Geneva. Upon arrival, he was promptly charged with money
laundering. Two former SBS bankers had been charged earlier.

When Mr. Putin became president last year he vowed a "dictatorship of law," a
cause cheered by a population exhausted by the chaos and corruption that
convulsed Russia under Boris Yeltsin. Hindering Mr. Putin's task, however,
are complex personal and political loyalties: He wants to calm the turmoil of
Mr. Yeltsin's rule but can't break his own bonds to the Yeltsin era; he seeks
to strengthen the rule of law but also aims to fortify the power and prestige
of the state.

Watched over by plaster cherubs in a St. Petersburg palace, bankers,
bureaucrats and law-enforcement officials from around the world gathered last
month to discuss the fight against money laundering. Mr. Putin sent a message
of support to the United Nations-sponsored conference. His interior minister
gave a speech and stressed that success in stanching the flow of dirty funds
"depends on the level of international cooperation."

A week later, Daniel Devaud, a rumpled Swiss examining magistrate, put some
of the same issues to Mr. Borodin, 54 years old, at Geneva's Palais de
Justice. Invited to explain the millions of dollars that passed through his
Swiss bank accounts, Mr. Borodin, flanked by his lawyers, barricaded himself
behind a wall of silence. "I have nothing to say," he replied to each
question.

"It's Russia's version of omerta," says Mr. Devaud's boss, Geneva Prosecutor
General Bernard Bertossa, referring to the Italian mafia's code of silence.
Russian authorities, says the chain-smoking Mr. Bertossa, are hardly more
forthcoming. "I'm not inside the head of Russian authorities but my
interpretation is that there is clearly a decision of a political nature to
protect Mr. Borodin."

"I admit it looks a bit curious," says Pino Arlacchi, head of a U.N.
anticrime agency that organized the June conference on money laundering, "But
Russia is a system in full evolution. For Putin to turn the page on Yeltsin's
legacy will not be easy."

Swiss authorities have spent nearly three years on the case, compiling more
than 100,000 pages of documents and witness statements. The material, sealed
in 250 thick ring-bound folders, sketches a web of offshore companies and
bank transfers that stretches from the Swiss lakeside resort of Lugano to
Panama, Cyprus, the Bahamas and Britain's Isle of Man. The information is
confidential, but much of the story can be pieced together from documents
submitted to U.S. courts by Swiss authorities, from company filings and from
interviews with investigators, lawyers and others familiar with the matter.

Money laundering is hard to prosecute. For their charges to stick, Swiss
prosecutors need to prove that Mr. Borodin and his Geneva bankers "knew or
should have presumed" the money they handled "originated with a crime." To do
this, they need help from Russia: The alleged crimes -- bribe-taking or abuse
of office -- involved a Kremlin official working in Russia.

Last summer, Mr. Devaud sent a digest of his findings and bank documents
signed by Mr. Borodin to Moscow. Three months later, Russia gave a curt
written reply. Moscow prosecutors had interviewed Mr. Borodin for 40 minutes,
asked him whether he had foreign bank accounts -- he said no -- and Russia
thus considered the matter closed.

Dominique Poncet, the head of Mr. Borodin's defense team, acknowledged to a
Geneva bail hearing this April that Mr. Borodin had in fact opened bank
accounts in Switzerland, according to people present at the time. But Mr.
Poncet said his client hadn't signed transfer orders himself and stressed
that Moscow had no quarrel with Mr. Borodin's actions. "Russia has said there
is nothing, and we [in Switzerland] are not the judges of Moscow," the lawyer
said.

A tribunal reviewing the bail request rejected a prosecution demand that Mr.
Borodin stay in custody, noting that Russia's reluctance to help Swiss
prosecutors would likely put "insurmountable obstacles" in the way of a
conviction. The tribunal set bail at five million Swiss francs ($2.8
million). Moscow scrambled to pay it.

Eager to get Mr. Putin's former patron home, the Russian government arranged
an urgent money transfer to Geneva. Racing to beat a long Easter weekend
holiday, Mr. Borodin's Swiss lawyers collected the money in cash, stuffed it
in a carrier bag and dashed to a court-designated cashier. The next day, Mr.
Borodin flew to a hero's welcome of tears and flowers at Moscow's
Sheremetyevo airport. He paid glowing tribute to Mr. Putin: "He is a real
man." Mr. Borodin has since returned to Geneva twice for questioning and
refused both times to say anything.

In private, Kremlin officials voice dismay that Mr. Borodin risked traveling
to New York. (He applied for a U.S. visa on a diplomatic passport, which
would have provided immunity, but the application stalled and he traveled on
an old visa in an ordinary passport.) But the same officials express outrage
at what they view as an affront to the Russian state.

"I'm not saying Borodin is good or that he is bad," said a senior aide to Mr.
Putin. But, he added, a state representative should not be "treated like a
criminal." At the time of Mr. Borodin's arrest in New York, Russia's foreign
minister summoned U.S. Ambassador James F. Collins to demand his "immediate
and unconditional release."

Under Mr. Putin, Russia has launched bold plans to overhaul a graft-addled
court system, revived moribund legislation against money laundering and
pursued several tycoons accused of swindling the state. Two moguls, Vladimir
Gusinsky and Boris Berezovsky, fled abroad to escape probes of their finances
and past business dealings.

Largely exempt from this push for law-and-order, however, has been the state
itself. While prosecutors have shown great zeal in digging up evidence
against critics of the Kremlin, they have found nothing against
well-connected civil servants.

Indeed, Vladimir Rushailo, a former interior minister and head of the Kremlin
Security Council, has drawn a stark boundary between wrongdoing inside and
outside the state apparatus. "Do not mistake bribe-taking for corruption," he
told a state-run news agency, rejecting a report that 70% of Russia's civil
servants are corrupt. "Only those with links to organized crime gangs can be
regarded as corrupt."

In farewell remarks at the end of a four-year term as U.S. ambassador, Mr.
Collins identified selective justice as one of Russia's biggest problems.
Russia, he said, needs laws that "are going to guide the actions not just of
individuals but also of public officials. ... I don't know what the outcome
will be."

Trouble in Paradiso

Mr. Borodin's -- and the Kremlin's -- travails began in Paradiso, an upscale
district of Lugano. In January 1999, Switzerland's then federal prosecutor,
Carla Del Ponte, raided offices there of Mabetex Project Engineering SA, a
Swiss construction company active in Russia. Police also searched the home of
Mabetex's financial adviser, Franco Fenini.

Among documents seized at Mabetex and the home of Mr. Fenini were the bills
for credit cards issued in the name of President Yeltsin and his daughters as
well as an account form from Lugano's Banca del Gottardo signed by Mr.
Borodin. Information about the raids later leaked to the Italian press and
made big headlines in Russia.

Lost in the hubbub, though, was an important new avenue of investigation
opened up by the Mabetex inquiry. In meetings with Mabetex executives and
Lugano bankers, Ms. Del Ponte and her staff kept hearing mention of Mercata
Trading, an upstart rival to Mabetex with a knack for securing lucrative
building contracts in Russia. The Swiss probe widened.

Mercata began its meteoric rise in 1994 when a then-31-year-old Russian
businessman, Viktor Stolpovskikh, bought a dormant company registered in the
Swiss town of Zug. Before this, Mr. Stolpovskikh had acted as Mabetex's
Moscow representative and worked closely with Mr. Borodin on several
projects. Mr. Stolpovskikh, who moved back to Moscow from Switzerland last
year, has not been charged with any crimes in connection with the case. Swiss
prosecutors froze his company's bank accounts in Switzerland, but a Geneva
court later unblocked them, citing Russia's "demonstrated absence of
cooperation," which made a successful prosecution unlikely.

Despite having no track record and less than $150,000 in capital, Mercata
swiftly won hundreds of millions of dollars in Russian contracts. It designed
a country club for OAO Gazprom, refurbished President Yeltsin's official
plane and, after other ventures, moved on to rebuilding the Kremlin itself.

Mr. Stolpovskikh became rich, spending 18 million Swiss francs ($10.2
million) to buy and renovate one of Lugano's grandest mansions, Villa
Ambrosetti. He rebuilt the interior and added a pool. "I earned this myself.
This is not black money," he says. "What's dirty? Did I trade slaves or guns
or drugs, or open bars to trade prostitutes? I rebuilt Russia's No. 1
building."

Soon after her January 1999 raids in Lugano, Ms. Del Ponte telephoned Moscow
to tell Russia's then prosecutor general, Yuri Skuratov, what she had found.
Mr. Skuratov promised to pursue her leads. A few days later, he got called to
the Kremlin. Mr. Yeltsin's chief of staff showed him a grainy videotape: It
featured a man resembling Mr. Skuratov in bed with two women, neither of them
his wife. Urged to resign, Mr. Skuratov checked into a hospital.

After an absence of several weeks, he suddenly returned to work. The Kremlin,
furious, turned for help to Mr. Putin, promoted six months earlier to run the
KGB's successor agency. "He demonstrated some compassion, but at the same
time they conducted illegal investigations behind my back," says Mr.
Skuratov. "It was then that I understood the degree of Putin's hypocrisy: He
told me one thing but did something quite different." Mr. Putin, in an
interview with Russian journalists, confirmed he met with Mr. Skuratov but
described as "nonsense" reports that he put undue pressure on the prosecutor.

In March 1999, Russian state television aired parts of the explicit
videotape. Mr. Skuratov dismissed it as a fake. Mr. Putin held a briefing for
Russian media: The video, he said, was genuine -- its naked male star was Mr.
Skuratov. The prosecutor became a laughingstock. He hung on to his title for
a while longer, but his investigations fizzled.

Four months later, Mr. Yeltsin named Mr. Putin prime minister and
heir-apparent. In his memoirs, Mr. Yeltsin explains his decision: "I agonized
constantly: Who will support me? Who will really stand behind me? At a
certain moment, I understood -- Putin."

On Dec. 31, 1999, Mr. Yeltsin stepped down and Mr. Putin became president. He
immediately signed a decree giving Mr. Yeltsin immunity. That week, he also
moved Mr. Borodin from the Kremlin property department to run a state agency
handling Russia's fitful reintegration with the former Soviet republic of
Belarus. Though a demotion, the new post came with perks: diplomatic status
and a formal rank equal to that of Russia's prime minister.

Asked by a Russian journalist why he had given Mr. Borodin a new job despite
graft allegations, Mr. Putin said his former boss was innocent until proven
guilty, describing this as "a golden rule, the fundamental principle of any
democratic system."

But when asked why Mr. Skuratov had been asked to quit without a court
decision, Mr. Putin said his case was different. "There is more at stake here
than just the criminal and legal aspects. There is a moral aspect as well,"
he said.

Mr. Putin started working for Mr. Borodin in August 1996, becoming deputy
head of the Directorate of Presidential Affairs, a sprawling bureaucracy
responsible for doling out country dachas to Kremlin favorites and managing a
vast portfolio of other properties ranging from hotels, sanatoriums and
offices to government jets.

At the time, Mr. Borodin was busy executing a grand monument to Mr. Yeltsin's
rule -- a series of lavish projects to rebuild the Kremlin and other
government buildings. On Aug. 23, 1996, he gave a big chunk of the work to
Mercata Trading, signing two contracts with Mr. Stolpovskikh's firm for the
renovation of the Great Kremlin Palace and the government's Accounting
Chamber. Their total value: $492 million in state promissory notes.

Other companies won contracts, too, but Mercata had an asset not shared by
competitors: Its vice president, according to a company filing in Lugano, was
Mr. Borodin's son-in-law, Andrei Siletsky. Mr. Borodin has said Mr. Siletsky,
who later divorced his daughter, was "not related to Mercata in any way." Mr.
Stolpovskikh says Mercata did name Mr. Siletsky an executive but says this
was a ruse to secure him a Swiss visa. Mr. Siletsky could not be located for
comment.

Two weeks after awarding Mercata its contracts, Mr. Borodin had his
rendezvous with Swiss bankers on the Boulevard des Philosophes. His daughter
and Mr. Siletsky accompanied him. Together they signed forms to open bank
accounts in the name of two offshore organizations, Somos Investments in
Cyprus and Amadeus Foundation in Panama. Mr. Borodin, according to documents
submitted to the bank, was the beneficial owner of both entities.

Soon money was pouring into the accounts. Swiss prosecutors say most of it
originated with Mercata and passed to Mr. Borodin's accounts through a
company registered on the Isle of Man called Lightstar Low Voltage Systems
Ltd. Like Mercata, Lightstar was controlled by Mr. Stolpovskikh.

Mr. Stolpovskikh says he used Lightstar, which he calls "my company," to pay
fees and staff bonuses related to the Kremlin reconstruction project. Swiss
investigators, however, say it served as the lynchpin of an elaborate
operation to launder bribes and other secret payments to Mr. Borodin and
other Russians.

In 1997 and 1998, Lightstar -- which had no full-time employees and no office
-- received more than $60 million from Mercata Trading. Nearly half of this
money, say investigators, passed, via various other intermediaries, to
accounts controlled by Mr. Borodin, his family members or offshore companies
they controlled.

In February 1997, shortly before it became a conduit for large transfers,
Lightstar appointed a Geneva lawyer, Gregory John Connor, as one of two
directors. Mr. Connor declined to comment. (Its other director died in 1999.)
In a search of Mr. Connor's office and home last year, Swiss prosecutors
found four "service agreements" between Mercata and Lightstar that outlined a
detailed payment schedule for "commissions."

'Transit Lounge'

Each agreement stated that Lightstar, "through its connections and work in
Russia," had helped Mercata secure and finance contracts from Mr. Borodin's
department for the renovation of the Kremlin and Accounting Chamber, Russia's
equivalent of the General Accounting Office.

Lightstar's filings to Isle of Man authorities between January 1996 and
January 1998, however, say the company was in fact "dormant" at the time and
make no mention of any work in Russia. A January 1999 filing said Lightstar's
principal activity was "payment and receipt of commissions." Swiss
prosecutors say Lightstar was a "transit lounge" for kickbacks.

Take, for example, a flurry of transfers in March 1997. On March 13, Mercata
paid $21 million to Lightstar. A day later, Lightstar divided this between
four offshore companies, one controlled by Mr. Stolpovskikh, the rest by
other Russians. The biggest slice -- $11.6 million -- went to Zofos
Enterprises Ltd., a Cyprus-registered entity controlled by Viktor Bondarenko,
a Russian-American business associate of both Mr. Stolpovskikh and Mr.
Borodin's son-in-law. Mr. Bondarenko did not return calls to his Moscow
office. On March 17, 1997, Zofos paid $10.2 million to Mr. Borodin's Somos
Investments.

"The only question we cannot answer is who was the final recipient of these
commissions," says Mr. Bertossa, the Geneva prosecutor general, "Did
[Borodin] keep them for himself and his family? Did he give them to other
people? We don't know." Mr. Borodin's silence, he says, has blocked attempts
to find out.

Mercata's Mr. Stolpovskikh says he doesn't know where the money ended up
either but says the payments made to and by Lightstar covered only legitimate
business expenses. He says Mr. Devaud, the examining magistrate handling the
case, concocted allegations of corruption because he "hates the rich and
doesn't understand economics."

In a Moscow office decorated with portraits of Mr. Putin and Russian Orthodox
priests, Mr. Stolpovskikh describes himself as a "patriot" victimized by Mr.
Devaud, who he says is a "socialist" who wants everyone "to travel by bicycle
or donkey." (Mr. Devaud, for the record, says he has two cars, no donkeys and
rarely rides a bicycle.)

In July last year, Mr. Devaud sent a 15-page report to Moscow, along with a
diagram that outlined a trail of suspected bribes and copies of 39 documents,
including several from SBS bank that appear to bear Mr. Borodin's signature.

Noting the "urgency" of the matter, Mr. Devaud asked Russia's prosecutor
general to clarify whether Russian law permitted officials to receive
"commissions" in private bank accounts from companies they select for public
contracts.

Five months later, Moscow gave its first and final public response. Ruslan
Tamayev, a deputy prosecutor, called a news conference to announce that all
contracts signed by Mr. Borodin were in order and that no further
investigation was needed. He said it was impossible to determine whether Mr.
Borodin signed bank documents in Switzerland because copies sent from Geneva
were "of poor quality" and "difficult to read." He said he had received "no
political pressure whatsoever" to abandon the case. A few days earlier, Mr.
Tamayev had received a promotion.

Moscow's decision caused dismay in Geneva. "They claim the documents could be
false, that they couldn't identify the signature. This is all a joke," says
Mr. Bertossa, Geneva's prosecutor general. He says his office will press on
with its own case regardless, but adds: "With current authorities in Russia,
I don't think Mr. Borodin has much to fear."

******

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