Johnson's Russia List
#6043
27 January 2002
davidjohnson@erols.com
A CDI Project
www.cdi.org

[Note from David Johnson:
1. Reuters: Uzbek leader chides West, defends firm rule in vote.
2. AP: Problem of universities' funding remains.
3. Itar-Tass: Russian radar in Azerbaijan seen as response to US ABM
withdrawal.
4. RIA: Doctors predict twofold increase of deaths over births in Russia. 
5. Baltimore Sun: Douglas Birch, Russia turns up heat on media. Repression: 
Threats against reporters and the government's closure of a television
network are the latest actions to frighten and frustrate journalists.  
6. New York Times: Igor S. Ivanov, Organizing the World to Fight Terror.
7. The Russia Journal: Gordon Hahn, Putin’s Muslim challenge.
8. Washington Post: Susan Glasser, Russian Evolution. Hip dining in Moscow?
We had reservations. 
9. Orlando Sentinel: John Daniszewski and Maura Reynolds, A few lucky
Russians live the American dream.
10. The Electronic Telegraph (UK): Clem Cecil, Pro-Putin cult urges
return to Soviet 'glory'
11. UPI: Peter Almond, Book on WW II rapes upsets Russia.
12. The Russia Journal: Christopher Kenneth, Village uses an unorthodox 
currency in its economy.]

*******

#1
Uzbek leader chides West, defends firm rule in vote
By Dmitry Solovyov
  
TASHKENT, Jan 27 (Reuters) - Uzbek President Islam Karimov, voting in a
referendum to extend the presidential term of office, chided the West on
Sunday for demanding too much democracy too quickly in his Central Asian
state. 

Karimov, a 63-year-old former Communist party boss, has enthusiastically
embraced the U.S.-led campaign to oust the Taliban in next-door Afghanistan
and allowed the deployment of at least 1,500 U.S. troops at Uzbekistan's
Khanabad airbase. 

But hosting U.S. troops has not spared him harsh Western criticism for
cracking down on the opposition and putting on hold economic reforms in his
nation of 25 million. 

"At a certain stage of historic change in your country, you need a strong
will and a certain figure," Karimov said after casting his ballot. "And you
have to use some authoritarian methods at times." 

"Nobody should press us into moving too quickly," he said. "We must take
(from the West) only what suits us, keeping in mind thousands of years of
history and our national mentality." 

The referendum asks voters to say "yes" or "no" to extending the
president's five-year term to seven years. Though Karimov's name is not on
the ballot paper, the West has criticised the poll as a ploy to prolong his
stay in power. 

Karimov's current second term, which constitutionally must be his last,
expires in 2005 but an official hinted on Friday the constitution might be
amended after the vote to allow Karimov to run for a third term. 

Quizzed by reporters, Karimov said he would comment on a new term in office
only after completing the current one. 

More than 13 million people are eligible to vote. A Central Election
Commission spokesman said the poll was already valid as over 80 percent of
voters had turned out by late afternoon. 

VOTERS LIKE "STABILITY" 

With the opposition muzzled, the free press banned and thousands of
opponents in prison, many view the referendum as a political routine act
similar to sham Soviet-era polls. But many voters also hailed Karimov as a
source of stability. 

"I have just voted to prolong President Karimov's term in office by two
years," retired school teacher Klara Shakarova told Reuters after voting at
a station in central Tashkent. 

"Just look at the map of the world -- we must be the only country living in
peace. Many thanks to our leader for this." 

Those voting in favour need only drop the papers in a ballot box, while
those opposed must mark their choice in an adjacent booth in the same
manner as Soviet-era elections. 

Officials say monitors from 32 countries would attend the vote, including
many ex-Soviet states. 

But the United States said it would send no observers as previous votes had
been "neither free nor fair." Human Rights Watch described the referendum
as "a blatant grab for power." 

A 1995 referendum, staged when Karimov was part-way through his first
five-year term, extended his mandate to 2000. 

Karimov, in power almost without interruption since taking over as the
communist boss in 1989, overwhelmingly won a second term in January 2000 in
a poll largely ignored by international observers who said there was no
chance of a genuine contest. 

*******

#2
Problem of universities' funding remains 
January 26, 2002
AP

MOSCOW - The number of students getting a higher education in Russia has
nearly doubled in the past six years, but universities are struggling to
keep education free and maintain modern equipment, officials said Friday. 

In an interview published on St. Tatyana's Day, the holiday of Russian
students, the head of Moscow State University said universities faced a
great shortage of modern classroom equipment. 

"We are facing a threat of catastrophically lagging behind prominent
universities in terms of equipment quality," Viktor Sadovnichy told the
Izvestiya newspaper. 

Meanwhile, the national statistics board said Friday that the number of
students in Russia is growing an average of 300,000 a year. About 4.7
million students received diplomas last year, up from 2.6 million in 1995,
according to the ITAR-Tass news agency. The number of those who receive
diplomas from private establishments more than quadrupled to 470,000 last
year from 110,000 six years ago. 

St. Tatyana became the patron saint of Russian university students after
the first Russian university was proposed on the saint's day in 1755. The
day was not celebrated in Soviet times, but the tradition has recently been
revived. 

********

#3
Russian radar in Azerbaijan seen as response to US ABM withdrawal 
ITAR-TASS

Moscow, 26 January, ITAR-TASS correspondent Vladislav Kuznetsov: In
accordance with the agreement of 25 January 2002 at intergovernmental
level, the status of the Qabala radar station in Azerbaijan has been
determined as being within the framework of Russia's missile and space
defence system. The ITAR-TASS correspondent was informed of this today in
the Russian Defence Ministry.

At the meeting of government delegations on questions of cooperation in the
sphere of regional security, the Russian and Azerbaijani sides reached a
joint opinion on the status of the radar, the term of its lease and
payments. The term of the lease of the radar station is 10 years. Russia
will pay Azerbaijan seven million dollars per year in rent for the radar
station. Baku will provide air defence cover for the radar installation;
Moscow will modernize the air defence system and provide new components for
it.

The Qabala radar station collects intelligence information about space in
the western sector, tracks the launch of ballistic missiles in the Middle
East and Central Asia. The information analysis centre located at the site
constantly transmits data on the missile-space situation to the Russian
missile attack warning system.

Specialists note that the constant functioning of the station is regarded
by the Russian side as one of the links in the range of measures in
response to the USA's unilateral withdrawal from the 1972 ABM Treaty.

*******

#4
Doctors predict twofold increase of deaths over births in Russia. 
Russian news agency RIA

Krasnoyarsk, 25 January, correspondent Boris Ivanov: Russian doctors are
predicting that a twofold increase of death rates over birth rates is going
to continue in Russia until 2015, Gennadiy Onishenko, first deputy Health
Minister told RIA at a Russian medical association plenary meeting in
Krasnoyarsk.

Qualified specialists from Siberia and Far East came to attend the plenary
meeting. Participants noted that a demographic situation close to normal
exists in Evenkia [Evenki Autonomous Area], in the Republic of Buryatia, in
Taymyr [Autonomous Area] and at Altay Territory. Fast growing death rates
are observed in other territories.

Doctors think that heart and cancer diseases are the main cause, besides
injuries and alcoholic poisoning were the cause of more than 30,000 deaths
in Russia in 2001.

The reduction of the death rate in Russia should become the first priority
for the Russian health system, stressed Onishenko. Positive results could
be achieved only by the creation of a corporate structure among doctors.
More than six m doctors, scientists, nurses and chemists from the Russian
medical union are called on to fulfil the task. The constituent assembly of
the Russian medical union is planning its first meeting in the middle of
February 2002.

*******

#5
Baltimore Sun
January 27, 2002
Russia turns up heat on media
Repression: Threats against reporters and the government's closure of a
television network are the latest actions to frighten and frustrate
journalists.
By Douglas Birch

MOSCOW - For many of this nation's best journalists, it's becoming
increasingly difficult to practice their craft. 

A popular news anchor, who stood up to the Kremlin in the Soviet era, says
the government's closure of the nation's last independent television
network is the last straw: She's calling it quits. A radio journalist who
covered both of Russia's brutal wars in Chechnya lives in exile in Prague
because he says official hostility makes it impossible for him to work in
Russia. A newspaper reporter renowned for her work in Chechnya has been
receiving death threats for months, and no arrests have been made. 

And in newsrooms and broadcast studios around Russia, reporters are
reluctant to pursue stories that they know will draw the wrath of the
government. 

"Journalism has turned into a profession of scared people," says Sergei
Parkhomenko, the 37-year- old editor in chief of Zhurnal, a new weekly
newsmagazine. "At the majority of editorial offices working in Russia,
there is no need to put pressure on them. They are ready to obey commands
that have not even been given." 

'Crude, totally unnecessary' 

Last week, government officials abruptly switched off the signal on TV6, a
television network owned by Boris A. Berezovsky, a tycoon critical of
President Vladimir V. Putin. The Press Ministry revoked the network's
license after another company with close Kremlin ties sued under a
never-before-invoked law to force TV6 to sell its assets and close its doors. 

The move outraged many intellectuals. "It was an ax that struck you
straight on the head," says Yasen Zasursky, professor of journalism at
Moscow State University. "It was unprofessional, very crude and totally
unnecessary." 

'Threats are increasing' 

But the fate of TV6 is only the most blatant example of what some see as a
growing government effort to silence criticism. 

A year ago, Anna Politkovskaya, a Novaya Gazeta newspaper reporter, wrote
an article about the torture, mutilation and disappearance of a 26-year-old
Chechen man while in the custody of Russian Interior Ministry military
officers. Prosecutors ordered three arrests in the case, including that of
an officer known as "Kadet." But no arrests were ever made. 

In the fall, the Moscow newspaper began receiving warnings that "Kadet" was
in the city armed with a sniper's rifle. 

At the urging of her editors, Politkovskaya fled to Vienna, Austria. But
she returned a few weeks ago, she says, because she didn't want to
surrender to what she calls "The Power" - the Kremlin, the Russian military
and its allies. Today, she is followed everywhere by bodyguards, uses a
special secure phone for interviews and leaves for interviews only at night
- so it is more difficult to follow her. 

Government officials say they are trying to catch whoever is threatening
her, but nothing has happened. "The investigation is moving extremely
slowly," she says, "and the threats are increasing." 

Ready to quit 

Svetlana Sorokina, 45, was a young television radical in the late 1980s as
the Soviet Union teetered on the edge of collapse. She was among 350
journalists who fled NTV in April for TV6 after the NTV network was taken
over by the state-controlled natural gas company, Gazprom, led by Putin's
chief of staff. 

Sorokina is known for her passionate delivery of the news and occasional
acid asides. (She once ridiculed a tape of former President Boris N.
Yeltsin's goonish dancing.) And she has repeatedly suffered the wrath of
public officials and network executives, undaunted. 

But the morning after the closure of TV6 last week, she stood at the
Ostankino television complex looking defeated. She told reporters she is
ready to quit journalism. There is no place left for her to work, she says. 

Andrei Babitsky of Radio Free Europe, who has reported extensively on human
rights abuses by Russian troops in Chechnya, may have been the first victim
of the shadowy war on the media. Two years ago, Russian troops in Chechnya
arrested him and then claimed that they swapped him with rebels for three
Russian soldiers. (The implication was that Babitsky was biased toward the
Chechens and valuable to them.) 

After Babitsky's release a few weeks later, he said he suspected that he
was simply handed over to Chechens allied with Moscow to intimidate and
discredit him. 

Part of trend 

Babitsky sees a parallel between his ordeal and TV6's demise. "These are
just different stages of the same course of action," he says. "I was
probably there in the most painful period, when the authorities were just
starting to get control of information." 

Today, the 37-year-old broadcaster lives in self-imposed exile in Prague,
capital of the Czech Republic, where he delivers commentaries for Radio
Free Europe. He is trying to get permission from Russian authorities to
return to Chechnya and work as a reporter again. But that may be
impossible. Putin called him a "traitor" in one newspaper interview. 

Parkhomenko, the Zhurnal editor, is troubled by the absence of public
outrage over the erosion of media freedoms. A poll taken shortly before the
Kremlin pulled the plug on TV6 found that two-thirds of Russians weren't
paying attention to the battle over the network. Neither was there much
reaction last year when Parkhomenko and 80 other staff members of the
newsmagazine Itogi were forced out, as part of Gazprom's takeover of NTV. 

The journalists launched the glossy Zhurnal this year. But the
35,000-circulation weekly - like all other independent publications in
Russia - is highly vulnerable to government pressure, the editor says. The
advertising industry is controlled by a few big agencies with government
ties. The nation's corporate tax laws are constantly changing and
selectively enforced. Zhurnal is printed in Finland, and customs officials
could easily block distribution. 

'No exaggeration' 

When NTV was seized, some said it sounded the death knell for independent
media in Russia. Those claims seemed exaggerated at the time, Parkhomenko
says. But the government's brazen cutoff of TV6's signal is proof of how
far it will go to silence critics. "At the end of this conflict," he says,
"it became clear that this was no exaggeration at all." 

Perhaps out of fear, many journalists seem all too eager to cooperate with
the Kremlin. A week ago, the Moscow Union of Journalists awarded Putin a
prize for "Openness to the Press," noting his "sincere aspiration to inform
each Russian citizen about reforms being carried out within the state." 

Many journalists found the award appalling, but not surprising. "There are
a huge number of journalists who are cheating themselves, who are eagerly
singing hosannas to Putin," sighs Viktor Shenderovich, a TV6 commentator
and satirist whose work regularly skewered Putin. 

As former chief scriptwriter for NTV's Kukly, which features life-size
rubber puppets molded to resemble Russian leaders, Shenderovich reportedly
earned Putin's wrath. He has portrayed the Russian president, a
martial-arts enthusiast, losing a brawl over trade policy with former
President Bill Clinton and as a medieval monk appealing for guidance to the
spirit of "St. Felix," meaning Felix Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Soviet
secret police. 

'Throw away the essence' 

Shenderovich, 44, whose humorous program of political commentary, Itogo,
had been on NTV and then TV6, says other networks have offered him work.
But strings are attached. "They would like to keep the famous face," he
says, "but to throw away the essence." 

Some think that the Kremlin campaign is doomed because Russian society has
changed drastically since the fall of the Soviet Union. The abrupt closure
of TV6, says Zasursky, of Moscow State University, "was a propaganda blow
against the government better than any enemy of the state could have
invented." Sooner or later, he says, another network will realize it can
attract viewers with independent news. 

Shenderovich agrees that the era of absolute state control is over. "Now,
they can't take us all to psychiatric clinics," he says, joking, "because
they are on friendly terms with Tony Blair and George Bush." 

Still, there is a lingering fear - even among some of the optimists here -
that things could get much, much worse. "In some sense," says Shenderovich,
"it's too late for us to be scared." 

Yelena Ilingina of The Sun's Moscow bureau contributed to this article.  
 
*******

#6
New York Times
January 27, 2002
Organizing the World to Fight Terror
By IGOR S. IVANOV
Igor S. Ivanov is the Russian foreign minister.

MOSCOW—The year 2001 was a turning point for Russia, the United States and
the world. Not long ago everybody wondered what was in store for mankind in
the 21st century. Many expressed doubts that Russian-American relations
would retain their key role in world politics. On Sept. 11, all these
issues appeared in a completely different light. The barbaric acts of
terrorists in New York and Washington were indeed a tragedy of worldwide
scale. It is no coincidence that President Vladimir Putin compared them
with the Nazi crimes of World War II.

Half a century ago Russia and the United States, despite enormous political
differences, combined efforts against Nazism. Now we are joined by common
democratic values, and it is even more obvious that a struggle against a
world threat requires the cooperation of our countries and the entire world
community. The defeat of the Taliban is only the beginning of a difficult
road.

After World War II, the victorious countries deliberated on creating
mechanisms of international cooperation that would prevent another such
catastrophe. Thus was born the United Nations, which has served as a
universal mechanism ensuring world peace and security.

Today we are facing essentially the same problem. The events of Sept. 11
demonstrated the extreme vulnerability of modern countries to new threats.
We lack reliable mechanisms to counter them or to prevent new acts of
terror, or to keep weapons of mass destruction from falling into the hands
of terrorists.
 
That is why one of the most urgent tasks is the strengthening of the world
antiterrorist coalition. Only on the basis of such a coalition is it
possible to create an atmosphere of total rejection of terrorists' actions
and to banish then from their last nests. The present solidarity against
terrorism provides a unique chance to begin constructing a system of
international security adequate to address 21st-century threats.
Russian-American cooperation can play the decisive role in creating such a
system. 

Common sense suggests that work in this direction would be better conducted
under the auspices of the United Nations and on the basis of strengthening
international law. The Security Council and the General Assembly have
already adopted decisions containing the legal basis for a long-term
struggle with terrorism.

Regional organizations can also contribute, as in the efforts to create a
new quality in relations between Russia and the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization. Russia does not raise the question of joining the North
Atlantic alliance; at the same time, we are prepared to cooperate with it
in areas of shared interest. The experience of the last decade proves that
such cooperation can be effective only if it is based on the principles of
equality. Hence the idea of creating a mechanism of cooperation within the
framework of "the 20" — the NATO member nations and Russia — which can
provide joint development and implementation of decisions in the fight
against terrorism and in responding to other contemporary challenges.

Bilateral relations must also play an important role in the new
international security system. It is widely recognized, for example, that
Russian-American relations have been and remain one of the main factors
determining the state of world politics, especially on security issues.

Over the decades, Russia and America maintained strategic stability based
on a series of disarmament and arms control agreements. Last year saw
rapprochement between our two countries pick up speed after Sept. 11. The
commonality of interests between Russia and the United States in finding
answers to new threats and challenges is at the heart of this
rapprochement. Today we are about to make a very important choice: Will
Moscow and Washington seek ways to strengthen security together, or will
each country take its own path, probably at the expense of the other's
security? 

In this sense, the events of the past year are ambiguous. On the one hand
the United States made a decision — an erroneous one, in our opinion — to
withdraw from the 1972 antiballistic missile treaty. At the same time our
countries started a dialogue on a probable new agreement on deep cuts in
strategic offensive weapons because we are no longer adversaries. A new
framework of strategic relations is to be created in the course of these
negotiations. Russia is prepared to work out far-reaching understandings on
disarmament with the United States, based on principles of mutual trust,
predictability and transparency. This could become a most important
positive signal for the entire world community. The nature of
Russian-American relations and the attitudes of our countries will also
have a significant impact on many other problems of the day, like settling
the Middle East conflict and other regional conflicts.

It is symbolic of new global conditions that Afghanistan, which for decades
was a stumbling block in relations between Moscow and Washington, has
become an example of close cooperation of our countries in the struggle
against terrorism. Much remains to be done under the auspices of the United
Nations in rendering humanitarian and economic assistance to Afghanistan.
We hope that what is achieved there will serve as an example of the kind of
cooperation on which the new world order will be built.

Vast new prospects are also opening up for Russian-American relations in
spheres like economics. There are good reasons to hope that in this new
year mutual understanding between our countries will deepen. Several
important agreements were reached between President Putin and President
Bush at meetings last fall. Many of these agreements are to be filled with
substantive content. In fulfilling those agreements, Russia and the United
States will serve their own interests and will strengthen international
security as a whole.

*******

#7
The Russia Journal
January 25-31, 2002
Putin’s Muslim challenge
By GORDON M. HAHN 

Russia has at least 20 million Muslims, of which Chechens are far from
being the most numerous. Tatars make up more than half of Russia’s Muslim
population, and more than 50 percent of them live outside Tatarstan. 

Historically, Tatars have produced moderate forms of Muslim nationalism,
such as jadidism, which appeared in the nineteenth century. They frequently
intermarried with Russians and other Slavs during the Soviet times. With
the collapse of the U.S.S.R., Mintimer Shaimiev, Tatarstan’s former
Communist Party head and now the republic’s moderate leader, contained
national separatists. He co-opted the nationalist movement’s slogans by
refusing to sign the Federation Treaty in 1992, instead negotiating a
separate treaty, which gave Tatarstan special rights as "a state associated
with" Russia. Bashkortostan, another Muslim republic, followed suit in
establishing confederal rather than federal relations with Moscow. Other
Muslim and national minorities, as well as many of the predominantly
Russian regions, resented the national republics’ privileged status and
demanded their own "treaty" with federal authorities, but with less
privileges. 

Since Vladimir Putin’s rise to presidency, the Kremlin has implemented a
series of federation reforms that have changed the flow of power between
Moscow and the regions. Regional governors and legislatures must bring
their constitutions in line with federal law or risk being removed from
power by the president under a new federal law. 

A second wave of federal reforms set for next year is likely to end in the
abrogation of the bilateral arrangements. Tatar nationalist organizations
recently have begun to pressure Shaimiev to protect Tatartsan’s sovereignty.

On this backdrop, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States and
Putin’s support for the U.S.-led war against terrorism is interjecting new
and potentially explosive tension back into Russia’s inter-ethnic
relations. Various Muslim leaders have emerged condemning or calling for
restraint in the war against Al Qaida and the Taliban. So far they have
been careful not to condemn Putin’s support for the war. Numerous
volunteers plied the moderate Tatar Public Center for the Taliban’s jihad
against the United States for its help in getting to Afghanistan. The TPC
recently organized a 2,000-strong demonstration in Tatarstan’s capital
Kazan, demanding that President Shaimiev protect the republic’s sovereignty. 

Demonstrators chanted anti-Russian slogans and called for independence from
Moscow. President Shaimiev and the leaders of other Muslim republics – most
acutely aware of the dangers of radical Islam and Russian-Muslim conflict
to the federation – have been walking a thin line between condemning and
endorsing the U.S.-led war and Putin’s support for it.

This centrist position may prove untenable. Indications that radical Islam
is making inroads into Russia are mounting. Sergei Kirienko, former liberal
premier and now Putin’s presidential envoy to the Volga Federal District,
recently said "traditional" Islam needs to be strengthened in Russia in
order to pre-empt the spread of radical Islam. 

He warned that over the past few years, hundreds of Muslim leaders have
returned to Russia from training in Saudi Arabia and other Islamic states,
and are now busy spreading Wahhabism and other radical Islamic teachings
alien to Russia’s Muslims. 

As in Chechnya, some Wahabbite extremists of Osama bin Laden’s network have
penetrated Tatar and other Russian Muslims’ religious schools. In December,
Russia’s top Muslim leader admitted that he has met with Osama bin Laden’s
brother several times in Bashkortostan. Muslim extremists could find
growing support for their views, as Russia offers little financial support
for moderate indigenous forms of Islamic education. 

In addition, the percentage of Islamic believers among the Russian
population is increasing as conversion to Islam and Muslims immigration
from surrounding former Soviet republics such as Azerbaijan and Kazakstan
grows. This in turn is driving what even moderate Muslim leaders fear is a
growing Islamophobia among Russians. Moreover, increased security measures
are bound to lead to excesses by Russian law-enforcement officers who make
"ethnic profiling" pale in comparison, exacerbating Muslim alienation from
the Russian majority.

Helping Russia with inter-ethnic and inter-confessional conflict resolution
measures should be an important part of Western political support. In
addition, Muslims and non-Muslims west and east would benefit from greater
familiarity with traditional Tatars’ moderate jadidism, which is wisely
being pushed by Shaimiev and his top advisor Rafael Khakimov as an antidote
to radical Islam everywhere. Finally, in waging the war against radical
Islam and terrorism, the United States must show appreciation for Russia’s
own Muslim challenge, while keeping up pressure on Putin to ensure the
protection of human rights and negotiate peace in Chechnya.

(Dr. Gordon M. Hahn is The Russia Journal’s political analyst and a
visiting research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.)

******

#8
Washington Post
January 27, 2002
Russian Evolution
Hip dining in Moscow? We had reservations. 
By Susan B. Glasser
Washington Post Foreign Service

The spaghetti topped with green apples was a final confirmation.

After months of silky sushi, sleek hors d'oeuvres and freshly squeezed
juice, we'd already suspected that Moscow was not the Soviet-style culinary
wasteland of our collective nightmares. 

Of course, the city's restaurants still boast far too many mystery meat
cutlets and lumpy potatoes, stinky cabbage and sour cream. But the
green-apple-butter-brown-sugar-and-spaghetti concoction at Leonardo --
delicious, by the way, if better offered as dessert than appetizer --
served only to affirm that Russia's capital has become Europe's unlikeliest
new center of culinary innovation.

My husband, Peter Baker, and I didn't think it would turn out that way when
we arrived last year to start a three-year tour in The Post's Moscow
bureau. After all, on our first scouting trip here, the only places where
we'd managed to eat were the Starlite American diner and Pizza Express, a
British chain. Both are perfectly fine restaurants, and we're now hooked on
weekend brunch at Starlite, the only real place in Moscow for Belgian
waffles on a Sunday afternoon. But we weren't optimistic about our other
prospects, beyond expecting some overpriced beef Stroganoff and chicken Kiev.

Our first hint that Moscow offered a stunning range of food came at the end
of our first week, when some new friends suggested we go out for Mongolian
barbecue. Soon, we were casually picking between Uzbek and Azerbaijani for
dinner, deciding that Tibetan was really just a synonym for excellent
Chinese and marveling at the profusion of sushi bars. Even the local
Bulgarian restaurant turned out to be a place worth returning to.

But eating out in Moscow today isn't just about new adventures in
mid-priced ethnic dining. The city is also home to innovative Asian,
Continental and Russian cooking at a handful of restaurants that would be
stars in any city but are made uniquely so by being in Moscow, formerly
known for its surly Soviet service and absence of choice.

Most of these restaurants, which have opened just in the past few years,
reflect how far the city has come from the early glitz yet uncertain
quality of the capitalist 1990s. This next generation of Moscow
restaurants, while still expensive, appears to be concentrating more on the
cooking and less on the conspicuous consumption. Even longtime Russophiles
who've been visiting the city regularly during its decade of transition
profess amazement at the quality and variety of Moscow's restaurant life
compared with just a couple of years ago. 

Consider Uley, which opened last year and is arguably the hippest
restaurant in Moscow, as well as being among its best. In introducing Asian
fusion to the former Soviet Union, Uley looks like a place airlifted from
Los Angeles, with stripped wood floors, velvet draperies and
Hollywood-looks customers. Even if some of its early conceits were not all
original (e.g., listing desserts first on the menu, putting goldfish
instead of flowers on the table), the restaurant, under the direction of a
tattooed Culinary Institute of America graduate, succeeds primarily because
the food is so good.

Appetizers are particularly well-executed; favorites include a spicy Thai
chicken salad with grilled prawns and moo shu duck pancakes. Main courses
include one of the only really rare tuna steaks in town, an excellent duck
breast and sushi worthy of the name. Among the irresistible desserts on
Uley's menu are the homemade terrine of sorbets and anything with chocolate
in it.

If Uley is cutting edge, Pushkin Cafe is a reminder of Russia's past
culinary glories -- and also of its current glamour, which is now half the
fun of eating out in Moscow. Housed in a three-story building made to
resemble a pre-revolutionary mansion (though it opened for business just
two years ago), Pushkin is the place to see and be seen by Moscow's
political, business and media elite. Befitting the hectic pace of power
brokers with a whole country to reinvent, Pushkin is open 24 hours a day. 

Given such gilded surroundings, the food could easily be indifferent or
mediocre and the service snooty or remote. But they are neither. Instead,
the kitchen delivers Russian food the way you've probably never had it:
light pirozhki (filled dumplings) alongside the soup, wild game such as
boar or deer dressed up in sprightly sauces, perfect blinis with caviar. If
you must have beef Stroganoff on your trip to Russia, this is the place to
order it (it's even an unlikely bargain at $10.50). One final tip for a
status-conscious place: If you don't want to end up dining in Siberia,
request a table on Pushkin's private club-like second floor.

Another restaurant at the top end of the new food chain is Scandinavia, a
Swedish refuge of calm in a courtyard just off Moscow's busy Tverskaya
Street. It serves warm and wildly addictive black bread, innovative
starters such as a shrimp and avocado "ceviche" and frothy corn and black
truffle soup, and upscale comfort food like grilled salmon on a skewer with
a pea puree and a potato and goat cheese timbale.

Any food tour of Moscow, however, must also include a sense of the Soviet
past and how it is being remembered and reimagined in the Russian present.
That's why a stop at Pushkin Cafe should be balanced by a visit to the
humble but hip Club Petrovich, a basement restaurant set up to look like a
Soviet communal apartment of the Brezhnev era. Russian yuppies exclaim over
the memorabilia of their youth -- ironically placed Lenin medals, cheap
housewares in awful colors -- and share typical Russian zakuski
(appetizers), like small round plates of sausage and cheese and pickled
garlic. 

Moscow's best combination of eating and Soviet-era kitsch is surely to be
found at Beloye Solntse Pustyni (White Sun of the Desert), an Uzbek theme
restaurant based on a cult film of the same name (think "Lawrence of
Arabia" meets the USSR), with belly dancers and food that transcends the
fun but tacky surroundings. The catch is the eyepopping price tag, which
made the place popular with Russia's nouveau riche "oligarchs" when it
opened in 1997. Outside, a reminder of the net worth of the diners inside,
there are invariably hordes of security men guarding Mercedes-Benz jeeps
and other status cars.

The main event here is the $60-a-head set menu that starts with an
appetizer buffet (everything from marinated salmon to an array of salads,
the best of which is tomato and avocado), then moves on to Uzbek plov, a
steaming hot plate of rice pilaf with lamb and fresh-cut tomatoes and onion
served on the side. Piles of round, hot Uzbek bread and your choice of main
course (we invariably go for the assorted shashlik, or grilled meat)
follow, then a groaning dessert buffet.

Several other restaurants also offer a chance to see the unique combination
of neo-thug and Armani suits that is found wherever Russia's magnates meet.
The latest such power lunch spot, just opened this summer, is Cir (Cheese),
complete with a big hunk of faux yellow cheese on the roof and an
open-kitchened Mediterranean interior. But the menu extends well beyond
dairy products, starting with the complimentary tomato bruschetta on the
table and on through well-executed pastas and other Italian staples.

This leads to the question of whether it's really worth going to
non-Russian restaurants on a trip to Moscow. Certainly, there are other
good Italian and French restaurants to recommend here -- places like the
innovative Leonardo, of green-apple-spaghetti renown, or Kumir, a new
franchise of French three-star Michelin chef Michel Troisgros, who aspires
to collect Russia's first star and makes duck so well that it may be only a
matter of time before he does -- but there's only so much ogling at
oligarchs that can justify such restaurant bills.

Perhaps the one exception is Japanese food, which has swept the capital in
the past year as the ethnic cuisine of choice and as such might be worth a
stop for the sheer counterintuitiveness of eating raw fish in landlocked
Moscow and not dying for your trouble. The top end is represented by Izumi,
which boasts that it's the only restaurant in town to serve fugo fish and
16 different kinds of sake but has prices that would put Tokyo to shame.
But sushi has become so universal here, it's served basically everywhere
now, from the Planet Sushi chain to supermarket kiosks.

What is more unique to Moscow is every Russian's favorite ethnic food:
Georgian. The tiny, troubled republic in the Caucasus may be independent
now that there's no more Soviet Union, but in the Russian capital its
cuisine remains a synonym for good eating. Even if they aren't centers of
culinary innovation, Moscow's many excellent Georgian restaurants shouldn't
be missed. 

Like Middle Eastern food, Georgian food stresses simple grilled meats and
makes appetizers the stars of any meal. The most irresistible is
khachapuri, a hot cheese bread. Other must-have appetizers: lobio, a red
beans and cilantro dish served in a clay pot, and tsatsivi, a dish of cold
chicken or turkey in a walnut sauce. For main courses, shashlik of either
lamb or pork is standard; another good choice is chicken tabaka, a heavily
garlicked fried chicken.

Veteran Muscovites claim that the greatest mystery about Georgian food is
that it is seemingly price resistant. In other words, it tastes just about
as good at the cheap places as at the expensive ones. We tend to agree. Our
two favorites represent both extremes: the cheap but cute Dioskuria and the
expensive, slightly over-the-top Kavkazskaya Plennitsa (Prisoner of the
Caucasus). Dioskuria, in a cul-de-sac just off the neon-pulsing New Arbat
Street, has especially good khachapuri, though its live music can
occasionally be overbearing. Prisoner of the Caucasus, another film-themed
restaurant from the owners of Beloye Solntse, has an outdoor garden for
summer eating and food good enough to make you overlook the
Disney-does-Georgian aspects of the place.

We also can't resist U Pirosmany, whose main asset is a fairy-tale setting
across from the gold-domed Novedevichy Convent. U Pirosmany was one of the
first private restaurants allowed to open in Moscow. Its food today may not
be as good as its competitors, but its location alone invariably draws
raves from Russia first-timers.

Soon after we arrived, our Russian teacher Sveta told us a sad story. Most
Americans who visit Moscow, she said, invariably have one question for her
when it comes to food: Where can I find that famous McDonald's? 

She directs them to Pushkin Square, where the lines are no longer out the
door for the privilege of downing crispy fries and using a clean public
restroom. But she always shakes her head. "These are people who wouldn't
eat dinner at McDonald's at home," she said. "But they think this is the
only place to have a decent meal here."

Like us, they were wrong.

******

#9
Orlando Sentinel
January 27, 2002
A few lucky Russians live the American dream
By John Daniszewski and Maura Reynolds | Foreign Correspondents 
 
MOSCOW -- Looking back over the 10 years since the demise of the Soviet
Union, many Russians are apt to say it was a disappointing decade -- their
hopes for democracy were dashed by criminals and gangsters, and hopes for
prosperity ended in lawlessness, poverty and despair.

But that would not be the view of Alexander Maryagin, a walking symbol of
how this land has changed.

On Dec. 31, 1991, the day that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
faded into history, Maryagin was a 21-year-old wandering the grim streets
of Moscow, a place of empty store shelves and long vodka lines. Sometimes
he would hawk calculators on the freezing pavement outside the Kiev
railroad station.

"At that time, I couldn't even imagine that I would ever own a car, let
alone drive it myself," Maryagin said recently, seated in a chic cafe as if
he owned the place (he does, in fact, own part of it.) "It was like
thinking about flying to the moon."

Maryagin did not have success handed to him. Instead, he lived the American
dream -- in Russia.

He started with nothing; toiled 24 hours a day, seven days a week. He made
countless shopping trips to Turkey to buy cheap goods to sell in Russian
markets. He paid bribes when he had to. He plowed his earnings back into
his business and seldom had time to look at his calendar or his watch.

Today he owns shares of two cafes and a shopping center and is looking into
acquiring cinemas. He has an apartment and a four-acre estate, and when he
wants to drive himself someplace, he can choose from his Dodge Durango, his
Grand Cherokee or his Lincoln Town Car.

"And I created all this from scratch with my own hands in my own city in my
own country," he says, in a voice that expresses more marvel than boast.

"It seems to me that Moscow today is entering a stage which can be
described as 'la dolce vita' compared to the gray and cold Soviet times,
which seem like hundreds of years ago."

The revolution that has taken place in Russia, the largest and most
populous part of the former Soviet Union, has been chaotic, drawn out and
marked by false starts and retreats. Even today, few people could argue
that it is finished.

But on the whole, most analysts and observers believe that Russia is well
on its way to becoming what many Russians and almost everyone in the West
would have wished for -- a country of free markets, democratically elected
government and private property operating under the rule of law.

President Vladimir V. Putin heralded that assessment in his annual New Year
address to the nation.

"The year 2001 differed significantly from those that preceded it," Putin
said. "We managed not only to maintain the growth in our economy, but also
to improve people's lives, at least to a small degree."

Of course each item on Russia's list of achievements can be debated: How
free are the markets when bureaucrats and gangsters can demand bribes and
protection money? How democratic are the elections when small parties have
been limited and local governors use "administrative means" to shape voting
results? Is private property really private when there is scant respect for
ownership by courts beholden to those in power?

Yet there is a sense that these realities are on the decline and that the
country slowly is becoming more orderly. Surveys indicate that the 10th
anniversary of the end of the U.S.S.R. finds the Russian people more
optimistic than they have been in the post-Soviet era.

"Today a majority of people are inclined to believe that the worst times
are already over," said Vyacheslav Nikonov, president of the Politika
Foundation, a Moscow think tank. "People are looking to the future with a
greater optimism, though they regard the last decade as an epoch of huge
failures."

Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader who started the reforms in the
1980s and sealed the end of the union with his resignation Dec. 25, 1991,
said the process of building Russia is ongoing.

"But it is already a serious, accomplished fact," Gorbachev said in an
interview with the Los Angeles Times earlier this year. "People who have
tasted independence and freedom will never part with it. And thank God for
that!"

Such an optimistic, albeit cautious, outlook might come as a surprise to
Western pundits who sometimes used to argue over "Who Lost Russia?"

In the waning days of the Clinton administration, it had become a truism on
the talk-show circuit that the United States had made big mistakes in its
policy toward Russia. It was said Clinton had been inattentive, or too
wanton with aid, or else had an overly personalized attachment to
ex-President Boris N. Yeltsin.

In the past three years, the Russian economy has begun to grow
dramatically, which analysts say is a result of higher oil prices, less
dependence on foreign-made goods and a firmer commitment to reforms by the
central government. In 2001, Putin pushed through a bill that finally
permitted private ownership of land and adopted a simple flat tax of 13
percent on personal income, which has led to higher tax collections.

All along, Anders Aslund, a Carnegie Endowment associate who has studied
Russia's transformation, said, the problem was not that Russia's reforms
were too radical, but rather that they were too weak.

There was "too little shock and too much corrupt state therapy in the form
of subsidies to the country's elite," Aslund said.

Nevertheless, for every winner like Maryagin, there are many people who
feel worse off. Millions are struggling to survive on a rudimentary wage or
pension, eating state-subsidized dairy products and bread and the
occasional home-grown vegetable.

They are unable to travel or buy new clothes, and they lack the means to
cope with sudden emergencies without borrowing from family or neighbors,
says Yelena Bashkirova, who tracks living trends as director general of the
Russian Public Opinion and Market Research Service.

The entire Soviet-era society was relatively poor, with few differences in
income, she says. Today, she estimates, about 10 percent of Russians could
be called rich, 30 percent make up a newly emerging middle class, and 60
percent are poor, based on their consumption habits.

Despite the large number of poor, she pointed out that only about
one-fourth to one-third of the public is dissatisfied enough to support the
Communist Party. Two-thirds or more of the public supports Putin.

She sees public opinion moving in the direction of democracy.

"We can feel a tendency already, though probably a small one. . . . Because
this is now our life: Because no one can believe now, can't even think,
that we would not have free elections. . . . This is very important."

What has changed in the past 10 years, she said, is a falling away of
illusions that the transition would be easy.

Nikonov pointed out the contradiction that persists in the mind of many
Russians.

"When you poll people with a question whether they regard the breakup of
the Soviet Union as a tragedy or a mistake, naturally a majority will say
yes. If you ask people whether they consider the reforms of Gorbachev and
Yeltsin as wrong, a majority will say yes," he said. "But, if you ask
people whether they want to go back, a majority will say no!"

Maryagin reckons that more than 30 families now earn middle-class incomes
of at least $500 a month because of the business he started.

He once considered emigrating, but is glad he did not.

"My country is where I live now. And I hope my partners and I have somehow
contributed to changing it for the better," he said.

"I like what is happening now," he said. "I like it that laws are beginning
to be obeyed. Life is becoming predictable, normal and comfortable -- for
the first time in many, many years."

Maura Reynolds and John Daniszewski are reporters for the Los Angeles
Times, a Tribune Publishing newspaper. 

******

#10
The Electronic Telegraph (UK)
27 January 2002
Pro-Putin cult urges return to Soviet 'glory'
By Clem Cecil in Moscow

A SINISTER new organisation, backed by the Kremlin, is urging the Russian
people to reject pro-Western views and go back to the "glory" of Soviet
Russia.

The 50,000-strong group which calls itself "Walking Together" has strict
rules and indoctrination methods, but unlike the Chinese group it has the
support of the authorities.

"We want to create a new generation to help the president bring Russia out
of crisis," said its founder, Vasily Yakimenko.

The Kremlin's clear involvement can be traced back to the group's
beginnings. Mr Yakimenko left a job in the Kremlin administration, where he
was overseer of state-run charities, in May 2000 to create Walking Together. 

The senior patron of the movement is Vladislav Surkov, the deputy head of
the presidential administration.

The group is vehemently pro-Putin and its first public action was a huge
rally in November 2000 to celebrate his presidency. 

Wearing T-shirts emblazoned with Putin's face, thousands gathered near the
Kremlin and spoke of their love for the president. Mr Putin later received
the organisers of the rally in the Kremlin.

Russian liberals fear that the group is the embodiment of persistent
attempts by senior Kremlin officials to set up a new Soviet-style cult of
personality around the president: nationalism thinly veiled as patriotism
is a hallmark of Walking Together.

The group demands strict loyalty and discipline from its members, who are
handed a long checklist on joining which includes commands to "read at
least six Russian classics a year, whether you enjoy them or not, and visit
the site of a battle where the Russians were victorious".

Mr Yakimenko's latest attempt to indoctrinate members, aged mainly between
14 and 30, is a proposal to "purify Russian literature". Modern "liberal"
books, which depict the difficulties of modern Russian life, have been
damned by Walking Together.

The group has in turn published thousands of copies of a book of stories
recounting the Red Army's "glorious victories" during the Second World War.
These books were offered free in exchange for "corrupting" works.

Walking Together is secretly sponsored by two companies with close Kremlin
ties as well as Moscow city council.

Its outgoings are high: members are divided into groups of five called "red
stars", each led by a "foreman" who receives a free pager and £30 for his
services. Each of his five "soldiers" receives £1 as well as free T-Shirts.

Members are encouraged to recruit others with promises of rank and glory
reminiscent of Communist indoctrination methods. "Once you have a red star,
try to persuade another 50 to join. 

"Give them a party if they show interest in the group. You must be able to
encourage and to punish, then you will become a commander of a division. If
you persuade another thousand to put their fate in your hands, you will be
a coordinator."

*******

#11
Feature: Book on WW II rapes upsets Russia 
By Peter Almond

LONDON, Jan. 26 (UPI) -- A forthcoming book about the Red Army's siege of 
Berlin in 1945 is causing outrage among senior Russian officials. It claims 
the extent of rape by Soviet soldiers against German women was much greater 
than previously realized, and included large numbers of Russian and Polish 
women who were raped even as they were being liberated from German 
concentration camps.

The book, Berlin -- The Downfall 1945, to be published by Viking in April, is 
by the acclaimed military historian Anthony Beevor, author of the 
best-selling and award-winning book Stalingrad. As with his research for that 
epic 1943 siege Beevor had access to detailed Red Army reports and other 
documents of the period.

Responding to a full-page report on the book in Thursday's Daily Telegraph, 
however, Grigory Karasin, ambassador to the Russian Federation in London, 
called the allegations a disgrace and "a clear case of slander against the 
people who saved the world from Nazism." 

"The article appeared on the eve of Holocaust Memorial Day, which transforms 
its publication into an act of blasphemy, not only against Russia and my 
people, but also against all countries and the millions of people who 
suffered from Nazism," Karasin wrote to the Telegraph.

Author Beevor replied Saturday by paying tribute to the "frequent acts of 
great kindness to German women and children," and to the "great suffering, 
courage and sacrifices of the Red Army in the Second World War." But 
unfortunately, he said, "there is also a much darker side to the story."

Beevor's conclusions are that in response to the vast scale of casualties 
inflicted on them by the Germans the Soviets responded in kind, and that 
included rape on a vast scale. It started as soon as the Red Army entered 
East Prussia and Silesia in 1944, and in many towns and villages every female 
aged from 10 to 80 was raped. 

Rape was condoned or even justified by Stalin and his commanders, and Beevor 
cites the Soviet leader's retort to a protest from Yugoslav Community Milovan 
Dijilas about Soviet troops raping Romanian, Croatian and Hungarian women: 
"Can't he understand it if a soldier has crossed thousands of kilometres 
through blood and fire and death has fun with a woman or takes some trifle?" 

Rape against the enemy's women has a long history as an act of war, but in an 
interview with Bookseller magazine earlier this month Beevor said he was 
"shaken to the core" to discover that even their own Russian and Polish women 
and girls liberated from German concentration camps were also violated. 

"That completely undermined the notion that the soldiers were using rape as a 
form of revenge against the Germans," he is quoted as saying. "By the time 
the Russians reached Berlin, soldiers were regarding women almost as carnal 
booty; they felt that because they were liberating Europe they could behave 
as they pleased. 

"That is very frightening, because one starts to realize that civilization is 
terribly superficial and the façade can be stripped away in a very short 
time."

The details of the Soviet soldiers' behavior, he said, so shocked him that 
they had forced him to revise his view of human nature. 

"Having always in the past slightly pooh-poohed the idea that most men are 
potential rapists (echoing the famous claim by the American feminist Marilyn 
French that 'in their relations with women all men are rapists, and that's 
all they are') I had to come to the conclusion that if there is a lack of 
army discipline, most men with a weapon, dehumanized by living through two or 
three years of war, do become potential rapists."

While the war in Europe ended in May, 1945, Beevor says that the ordeal for 
German women in Soviet occupied areas continued. A "high proportion" of at 
least 15 million women who lived in the Soviet zone or were expelled from 
Germany's eastern provinces were raped. About two million women had illegal 
abortions every year between 1945 and 1948. 

One of the legacies of the Soviet occupation of Germany has been that, at 
least until very recently, East German women of the wartime generation 
referred to the Red Army war memorial in Berlin as "the Tomb of the Unknown 
Rapist."

*******

#12
The Russia Journal
January 25-31, 2002
Village uses an unorthodox currency in its economy
By CHRISTOPHER KENNETH 

A Russian district that has found an unorthodox solution to its social
issues is now facing legal problems from the regional administration, legal
experts say.

Ponazyrevsky district, Kostroma Oblast, located about 300 km from Moscow,
has been running its daily financial and other economic affairs for over
three years now without using the ruble or any other world currency – in
the traditional sense of the word – in its economy, according to local
media reports.

Nor do the residents rely on barter for their economic transactions, as the
local administration has adopted a monetary system, which replaces the
national currency, the ruble, with its locally printed "money-card" as the
official legal tender in the district.

This unorthodox monetary system, which works on a principle similar to that
used in modern electronic credit-card systems, uses a card made from a
piece of ordinary cardboard, cut out in rectangular form, with the value
and the owner’s name inscribed on it. Just like a credit-card system, the
cards also effectively relieve the residents of the need to carry cash,
according to a TV6 report.

Ivan Mantashyov, director of the Gorlovsky State Farm, the mainstay of the
district’s economy, said the system was necessary to fight social evils
such as alcoholism and smoking in the district.

The introduction of this currency is part of a more comprehensive
anti-alcohol program, drafted by the district administration, to combat the
negative trend in the district, as the local currency cannot be used to buy
alcohol in any of the district’s shops, he noted.

Like most of Russia’s small and far-flung villages, Ponazyrevsky district
has been devastated by alcoholism. As the decaying village offers no other
alternatives to vodka, or its cheaper and more affordable homemade
derivatives such as samogon, drinking alcohol has become the most popular
pastime, especially among male residents, wreaking havoc both on families
and productivity in the workplace. 

As all official transactions, including workers’ salaries, are made in the
"local currency," it has so far effectively denied most drunkards access to
alcohol as shops have strict instructions not to honor the cards when
alcohol is bought.

Since the launch of this system, discipline has improved considerably both
in families and places of work, as alcoholism has gone down among the
residents, Mantashyov added.

The system has been working without a hitch now for the past three years,
he continued, emphasizing its simplicity and effectiveness. For instance, a
worker receives his salary – a cardboard money-card inscribed with his name
and the amount – which is then signed by the company’s director and
accountant, and then countersigned using the company’s official stamp.

The worker then goes to a shop, selects whatever he wants and presents his
money-card. After checking to make sure it is not counterfeit, the
shopkeeper approves the sale. However, change in rubles is not given. The
value of the goods is debited, and the difference is written back on the
card as well as in a special register at the shop, where the card owner and
the shopkeeper countersign and indicate the date of the purchase.

A shopkeeper told TV6 that since the adoption of the system over three
years ago, there has never been a case of counterfeiting, as Ponazyrevsky
district money-cards are adequately protected by security measures.

"Our money-card has three security levels of protection," she said. 

"The first is the signature of the company’s director, which we know very
well, the second is the accountant’s signature, which we also know very
well, and the last is the company seal," she proudly told TV6.

The TV channel showed footage of the villagers, mostly women, praising the
system. "Can you imagine a place in Russia, where all men are sober every
day?" one of the women asked the correspondent.

The Kostroma regional administration, which has jurisdiction over the
financially wayward district, has repeatedly ordered it to stop the
practice, fearing huge financial mismanagement could be under way as the
district’s general bookkeeping, including budgetary funding, does not use
the ruble. But all these measures and warnings have fallen on deaf ears as
both the residents and local authorities have remained committed to their
new legal tender, TV6 said. 

Currency and legal experts have called the practice a blow to the national
constitution as well as a gross violation of Russia’s currency laws.

"Such practice contravenes a lot of legal requirements, specifically
Article 75 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, which has clearly
stipulated the ruble as the sole legal tender in the country," said Maria
Stepanyan, legal affairs director at the Moscow-based Fundament Bank.

"The basis, order and conditions of introducing and using foreign or any
other currency in Russia, are either determined by the law on foreign
currency regulation and control, or by any other authorized legal
procedure," she added. 
 
*******