Category: News

Thoroughly modern meze
By Anya von Bremzen, Special to The Times
Los Angeles Times
June 9 2004
Istanbul
By 11 p.m., the street theater on Nevizade Street, a narrow lane
lined with outdoor restaurants around Istanbul’s fish market, works
up to a kind of Felliniesque mayhem. Flower sellers push big thorny
roses at passersby’s noses, while a Gypsy quartet cranks background
music for a parade of street peddlers.
Amid this carnival, waiters unload trays of small dishes on tables
and refill glasses with raki, Turkey’s favorite anise-based liquor.
Our own table, at an old Armenian restaurant called Boncuk, is
mosaicked with plates of dips, crisp fish croquettes redolent of
allspice and cinnamon, a chickpea pâté layered with dried currants
and pine nuts, and a majestic börek, a pastry oozing a tangy filling
of cheese and pastirma, or spiced cured beef.
These are meze, Turkey’s signature little dishes and the Middle
East’s answer to Spanish tapas, Venetian baccari or Mexican
antojitos.
On our own shores, meze offer yet another twist on the small-plates
trend. Entertaining at home? Meze could have been invented for
Southern California, where, much like in Istanbul, they can be
languidly savored al fresco on the patio. Less fussy than hors
d’oeuvres, a welcome break from Italian antipasti, infinitely more
varied than hummus and baba ghanouj, a few meze together make an
exciting light feast.
Meze — the name is derived from the Persian word maza, or flavor —
seem to flourish in Istanbul as an edible life force: from a plethora
of eggplant preparations to a veritable encyclopedia of dolma, or
stuffed vegetables; from multitudes of böreks, savory pastries, to a
vast roster of salads and dips. They can be cold or hot, light or
substantial, as humble as a wedge of salty white cheese or as chichi
as the langoustine salads dished out at the glamorous fish
restaurants along the Bosphorus shores. Though most travelers to
Turkey encounter meze at restaurants, they taste even better when
prepared at home. “Meze is all about socializing — nibbling,
drinking, laughing,” says Gökçan Adar, an Istanbul food writer. One
breezy night, under a sour cherry tree in his overgrown garden, he
treats us to a 19-dish meze marathon.
Spontaneity is essential
Typical of modern-day Istanbul, where the cuisine evolves with
lightning speed, his spread is both creative and classic: braised
eggplant topped with a flourish of walnut and sun-dried tomato paste,
langoustines with their roe resting atop lemony wild greens, fritters
of just-picked zucchini flowers on a vibrant red pepper purée. This
could almost be Catalonia — or California. Not to be outdone, my
friend Engin Akin, a food writer and radio host legendary in Istanbul
for her swank soirees, throws a bash on the lawn of her home
overlooking the Bosphorus. Ever willing to experiment, Akin
deep-fries paper-thin leaves of yufka (a phyllo-like dough) and
serves the crisps with shavings of Turkish cured mullet roe similar
to bottarga. She fashions nifty bruschetta from the ubiquitous fava
bean pâté, topping the toasts with fried almonds.
Grazing gets more cosmopolitan still when Akin and I move on to
Bodrum, a jet-set resort on the Aegean. Here, at a cocktail party at
the white-washed villa of a shipping tycoon, white-gloved waiters
pass such dainties as miniature French fry “kebabs,” Gruyère köfte
(meatballs), and spicy sucuk (soujuk) sausage wrapped in phyllo.
In Turkey, meze are intimately linked with the city’s history as a
cosmopolitan port and to drinking establishments called meyhane.
What — drinking in a Muslim culture, with its Koranic prohibitions on
alcohol? Well … sure.
Even before Kemal Atatürk secularized Turkey in the 1920s,
restrictions on alcohol were sporadic, a whim of one sultan or
another. Selling alcohol was taboo, though, entrusted to Istanbul’s
numerous non-Muslim minorities: Greeks, Armenians and Jews. It was
they who established the original meyhane, raucous dives packed with
foreign sailors, where meze was an excuse for another round of raki.
Dating back to early Ottoman times or even further, meyhane continue
to thrive.
To learn more, I rendezvous with Akin and Deniz Gursoy, an author of
books on raki and meze, at Safa, the city’s oldest meyhane. With
whirling fans, burnished mirrors and pictures of Atatürk striking
Hollywood poses, the place feels like a souvenir from another era.
When Safa opened some 125 ago, Gursoy explains, meze came free with
consumption, consisting of basics like anchovies, pickled cabbage, a
tiny börek and a bowl of leblebi, or dried chickpeas. Today, the
repertoire seems inexhaustible.
Akin explains that flavors Westerners usually associate with Middle
Eastern cuisines — bulgur, pomegranate molasses, lavish spicing,
hummus, kebabs — are rather new to Istanbul, a consequence of the
enormous influx of immigrants from eastern Turkey.
Other classic meze we sample reflect the city’s historical layers of
cultures. Delicious fried liver nuggets, with wisps of raw onion and
a dusting of sumac, hail from the Balkans. The plaki is Greek, Gursoy
notes, referring to a classic cold preparation in which beans or fish
are simmered in tomato sauce sweetened with onions and cinnamon. Jews
might have contributed zeytinyagli, an iconic cold meze of
vegetables, such as artichokes or leeks, braised slowly in water and
olive oil with a little sugar until they melt in the mouth.
And though raki still reigns, these days, younger Turks are just as
likely to sip a locally made Cabernet or a dry Muscat with their
meze.
It is actually on Istanbul’s Asian side, at a humble joint called
Çiya, that I discover the city’s most exciting small dishes. Little
surprise, because chef-owner Musa Dageviren hails from Gaziantep, a
city near the Syrian border renowned for Turkey’s finest cuisine.
Each of his dishes vibrates with flavor: A simple tomato and parsley
salad comes alive with a sprinkling of pungent orange-hued powder
made from dried curd cheese. Grape leaves are filled with dried
onions, bulgur and pomegranate syrup. Boiled wheat berries and
home-pickled green tomatoes sport a creamy cloak of dense, tart
yogurt.
“Gaziantep doesn’t have a meze tradition per se,” Dageviren explains,
“but small dishes are normally served at kebab houses. At home, cooks
often fashion light cold meals from leftovers.”
Lacking white-gloved waiters or a grandma from Gaziantep, a meze
spread is still easy to improvise. The rich thick Turkish yogurt
alone — which can be replicated in the United States by draining
good-quality yogurt in a cheesecloth-lined sieve — provides a dozen
simple ideas. Stir in some crushed garlic, minced herbs and grated
cucumbers and spread it on pita. Or fold it into shredded beets,
sautéed zucchini or the chopped smoky flesh of an eggplant that has
been grilled whole over charcoal (and why not sprinkle some toasted
almond on top?). Alternatively, a dollop of yogurt can top fried
eggplant or zucchini slices.
Bulgur also makes a fine meze, say as a salad tossed with chickpeas,
tomatoes, parsley and mint and drizzled with pomegranate molasses and
olive oil. The mandatory raki accompaniment of feta and honeydew
melon becomes elegant when cut into cubes and threaded on long wooden
skewers. Not to forget olives, pistachios, good, creamy feta and
roasted chickpeas. And unless you have a bottle of raki that’s been
burning a hole in your liquor cabinet, try Greek ouzo, Pernod, a
fruity, light red wine (slightly chilled) or a crisp, delicate white
(no oaky Chardonnay, please).
Still, raki is our drink as Akin and I prepare a meze feast on her
boat for an indolent Aegean voyage. As for the menu, our plan is to
test-run the best meze recipes we’ve collected from parties and
restaurants. From Tugra, the palatial Ottoman restaurant at
Istanbul’s Çiragan Palace hotel, we steal the idea of wrapping
haloumi cheese in grape leaves, grilling them and serving this
unusual dolma drizzled with pomegranate molasses. A hit.
A floating feast
>>From the shipping tycoon’s party we’ve emerged with a recipe for
müjver, crisp zucchini pancakes, which we make cocktail-sized, with
the addition of the nontraditional baking soda — for puffier
fritters. In Akin’s hands, the ubiquitous köfte, or meatballs, turn
out studded with nuts and laced with herbs.
Suddenly, Akin confesses that she’s never made topik, my favorite
Armenian chickpea pâté filled with caramelized onions, currants and
pine nuts and dusted with cinnamon. A flurry of phone calls to
Armenian matriarchs. Akin nods and scribbles furiously. She got it.
Except we are not shaping it by spreading the chickpea purée on a wet
muslin cloth with a rolling pin, as tradition dictates. A shortcut
will do.
The table is finally set on the deck under a vast starry sky. Akin’s
husband, Nuri, proffers a CD with fasil, the traditional meyhane
music.
“You pour, we drink,” the song blasts. We take the cue. A sip, a
nibble, a gulp — and luckily no one falls in the water. Luckier
still, we don’t have far to go. No need for a hamal, a porter who in
Ottoman times would wait by the meyhane doors to deliver the
inebriated back to their families.
*
Topik (layered garbanzo bean pâté )
Total time: 1½ hours, plus chilling time
Servings: Makes 9 squares
2/3cups dried Zante currants
1/4cup mild olive oil
4 cups chopped white onions (medium dice)
1 teaspoon cinnamon, plus more for sprinkling the pâté
3/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 cup toasted pine nuts
3 cups canned garbanzo beans, well drained, liquid
reserved
3 tablespoons tahini paste, room temperature, well stirred
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 medium-sized yellow-fleshed potatoes, peeled and boiled
Salt
1. Place the currants in a medium bowl, add boiling water to a level
one-half inch above the currants and let them stand for 30 minutes.
Drain and reserve the soaking liquid.
2. In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add onions
and cook, stirring, until they begin to soften, about 7 minutes.
Reduce heat to medium-low and continue cooking, stirring
occasionally, until onions are soft and very lightly browned, about
15 to 20 minutes, adding 2 to 3 tablespoons of the currant soaking
liquid when onions begin to look dry.
3. Add the currants and another 2 to 3 tablespoons of their soaking
liquid and cook for 5 more minutes, stirring. Stir in the cinnamon
and allspice and cook for 2 more minutes. Remove from heat and let
the mixture cool to room temperature. Stir in the pine nuts.
4. In a food processor, purée the garbanzo beans in 2 batches with
the tahini, lemon juice and 4 to 5 tablespoons of the bean liquid
until very smooth. Scrape the mixture into a large bowl.
5. Mash the potatoes until smooth with a potato masher or pass
through a ricer. Stir the mashed potatoes into the puréed mixture and
mix thoroughly. Season with salt.
6. Line an 8-inch square baking pan with plastic wrap, leaving 4 to 5
inches of overhang on all sides. Wet your hands with cold water and
use them to spread half of the garbanzo mixture evenly on the bottom.
Spread the onion mixture evenly on top; it will be a rather thick
layer. With wet hands, spread the other half of the garbanzo mixture
on top of that. Fold in the overhang to enclose the pâté. Weight the
pâté with a small cast-iron skillet, a plate topped with two 16-ounce
cans or something of similar weight, and refrigerate for 2 to 3
hours.
7. To serve, bring the pâté to room temperature, invert it onto a
serving plate and remove the plastic wrap. Sprinkle the top lightly
with cinnamon (you can do this decoratively through a doily). Cut
into squares.
Each serving: 306 calories; 9 grams protein; 41 grams carbohydrates;
7 grams fiber; 14 grams fat; 2 grams saturated fat; 0 cholesterol;
246 mg. sodium.
*
Herbed zucchini and feta fritters
Total time: 1 hour, 30 minutes, plus refrigerator time
Servings: 36 fritters
1 1/2 cups plain yogurt, preferably full-fat organic
1 large garlic clove, crushed through a garlic press
Salt
1 pound zucchini (about 2 large), shredded in a food processor using
a three-eighths-inch hole
4 ounces feta, grated
1/3cup minced dill
1/3cup minced parsley
1/4 cup thinly sliced mint leaves
2/3cup flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
2 large eggs, beaten
Mild olive oil for frying
1. Place yogurt in a small sieve lined with cheesecloth and set over
a bowl. Drain in the refrigerator for 2 hours or overnight.
2. Place drained yogurt in a bowl, stir in garlic and salt to taste
and let mixture stand at room temperature while preparing fritters.
3. Place shredded zucchini in a fine sieve and press hard against the
sieve to extract as much liquid as possible. In a large bowl, mix
zucchini, feta, dill, parsley and mint and stir until well combined.
4. Sift flour and baking powder into bowl. Add half of mixture to the
eggs and stir to form a smooth paste. Stir paste into zucchini and
combine thoroughly. Sprinkle in the rest of the flour mixture and
stir in well. Let stand for about 10 minutes. Stir again.
5. Line a cookie sheet with paper towels. In a 12-inch skillet, heat
1 inch of oil to 375 degrees, or until a drop of batter sizzles on
contact. Drop 3 (1-tablespoon) portions of batter into oil without
overcrowding and flatten lightly with the back of a spoon. Fry until
deep golden and crusty, about 1 1/2 minutes per side. With a slotted
spoon, transfer fritters to the paper towels to drain and continue to
fry remaining fritters. Serve hot or warm, with the yogurt dip.
Each fritter: 50 calories; 2 grams protein; 3 grams carbohydrates;
0 fiber; 4 grams fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 16 mg. cholesterol; 52
mg. sodium.
*
Herbed köfte with tahini sauce
Total time: 45 minutes plus 1 hour chilling time
Servings: 42 meatballs
Note: Sumac is available at Middle Eastern markets.
Tahini sauce
1/2 cup tahini paste, well stirred
1/2 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon mild paprika
1. Combine tahini, chicken broth, lemon juice, cumin and paprika,
stirring well.
Meatballs
2 slices white sandwich bread, crusts removed
1/2 pound ground beef
1/2 pound ground lamb
1 medium onion, grated
1 heaping teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
Large pinch ground allspice
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
3/4 teaspoon black pepper
3/4 cup minced parsley
1/2 cup finely chopped mint
1 cup toasted walnut pieces
2 tablespoons mild olive oil
1/2 red onion, very thinly sliced
Minced parsley or sumac for garnish
Tahini sauce
1. Dip the bread in cold water and squeeze dry against the bottom of
a fine sieve. In a large bowl, mix bread with beef, lamb, onion,
salt, cumin, allspice, red pepper and black pepper. Mix thoroughly,
but avoid overhandling. Refrigerate for 1 hour.
2. Mix in parsley, mint and walnuts with your hands and shape mixture
into balls.
3. Heat 1 tablespoon oil over medium heat in a large skillet. Add
half the meatballs and sauté until browned and cooked through, about
7 minutes. Regulate heat so meatballs don’t burn, and shake pan
vigorously to turn them. Transfer to paper towels. Wipe skillet and
repeat with remaining oil and meatballs.
4. Top with onions. Garnish and serve hot or warm, with tahini sauce.
Each meatball: 69 calories;
3 grams protein; 2 grams carbohydrates; 0 fiber; 6 grams fat; 1 gram
saturated fat; 7 mg. cholesterol; 78 mg. sodium.
*
Grilled haloumi-stuffed grape leaves with pomegranate sauce
Total time: 25 minutes
Servings: Makes 12 dolmas
Note: Haloumi cheese is available at Bristol Farms and at Middle
Eastern markets. Haloumi and grape leaves can both be quite salty; if
your brand of leaves is too briny, soak them longer or blanch in
boiling water for 1 minute.
12 grape leaves preserved in brine
12 (3-inch by one-half-inch) logs haloumi cheese, one-half-inch thick
(queso blanco can be substituted)
2 1/2 tablespoons mild olive oil,
divided
2 tablespoons pomegranate molasses
1 tablespoon water
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1. Place the grape leaves in a bowl. Add boiling water to cover and
soak for about 2 minutes. Taste, and if the leaves still taste
assertively briny, soak for few minutes more. Rinse under cold water,
drain and pat dry with paper towels. Heat the grill to medium.
2. Place a grape leaf shiny side down on a work surface with the stem
facing you. Trim off the stem. Place a log of haloumi across the
bottom end of the leaf and fold the bottom over it. Fold in the sides
and roll up like a cigar to make a dolma. Make sure there are no
tears in the leaf, or the cheese will ooze out. Continue until you
have used all the grape leaves.
3. Brush the dolmas lightly with one-half tablespoon olive oil. Grill
them until they are lightly charred and the cheese is beginning to
soften but is not oozing out, about 1½ minutes per side. Transfer the
dolmas to a plate and let them cool for about 10 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, whisk the remaining oil with the pomegranate molasses,
water and sugar.
5. To serve, drizzle a white serving plate with the pomegranate
mixture and arrange the dolmas on top, drizzling with some extra
sauce if desired.
Each dolma: 246 calories; 14 grams protein; 3 grams carbohydrates;
0 fiber; 20 grams fat; 11 grams saturated fat; 50 mg. cholesterol;
418 mg. sodium.

Editorial Chief Ending 27-Year Courant Run
By MIKE SWIFT, Courant Staff Writer
Hartford Courant, CT
June 9 2004
John J. Zakarian, The Courant’s editorial page editor and a prominent
figure in opinion writing in Connecticut and beyond, said Tuesday that
he will retire after guiding the newspaper’s voice of institutional
opinion for more than a quarter-century.
A past president and life member of the National Conference of
Editorial Writers, Zakarian became The Courant’s editorial page editor
in 1977, following a career that took him from covering horse races
as a cub reporter for The Associated Press in Chicago to a Nieman
Fellowship at Harvard University, and to a host of news organizations
in between.
Zakarian guided The Courant’s editorial page through a number of
bruising public battles, drawing the public’s ire for the newspaper’s
strong backing for a state income tax in the early 1990s. He balanced
publishers and editorial boards dueling over the endorsement of
presidential candidates from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush.
In recent years, he has headed an editorial board that campaigned for
the creation of a Coltsville National Park in Hartford and championed
Park Street as the region’s Hispanic Main Street. The board’s “Cranes
and Scaffolds” and “Keys to the City” features prodded developers
and government officials to pay attention to the city’s revitalization.
A native of the Armenian quarter of Jerusalem who grew up trying to
balance the highly charged views of both Arabs and Jews, a fluent
speaker of Arabic, Armenian and English, Zakarian said that he tried
to avoid putting a particular ideological stamp on The Courant’s
editorial page.
“I came to The Courant when it was known as a very conservative,
Republican paper,” Zakarian said in an interview Tuesday. “It has
changed.”
Nevertheless, Zakarian said The Courant has taken many positions on
issues over the years that could be characterized as conservative,
such as championing welfare reform and endorsing Reagan in 1984 and
Bush in 2000.
“You always recognize that not everything is black and white. You
give the other side the benefit of hearing them out,” Zakarian said,
describing the philosophy he grew up with. “But, ultimately, you
can’t go along with somebody just to go along with them.”
Zakarian, 66, said he would have liked to work for several more years,
but decided to retire because of a recent policy by the Tribune Corp.,
The Courant’s corporate parent, that employees who retire after July
1 will not be eligible for post-retirement medical benefits. He will
retire at the end of this month.
“I probably would not have been pressed to make a decision right away”
but for the policy, Zakarian said.
Jack W. Davis Jr., The Courant’s publisher, said he would be
“open-minded” about where Zakarian’s successor would come from and
his or her politics.
“I think there are people from the editorial board who ought to be
considered as successors, and people from the rest of The Courant
and from Tribune,” as well as candidates from outside, Davis said.
Zakarian’s “27 years as editorial page editor epitomize the best of
journalism and the best of The Courant,” Davis said.
The Courant’s editorial page, he said, “is as innovative and assertive
an editorial page as you have anywhere in the United States. I think
John’s peak is in the future as far as being an editorial page editor,
which was why I was hoping he’d stay.”
Zakarian said he arrived in New York on the Queen Elizabeth in 1957,
knowing that he had scholarships from Southern Illinois University
and San Francisco State University, but knowing little more about
the United States.
Going to the ticket window at Penn Station, he told the clerk: “I
want to go to Carbondale, Ill., or San Francisco, whichever is closer.”
He ended up in Carbondale at Southern Illinois, supporting himself
partly by working as a janitor.
In the course of his journalism career, Zakarian received awards that
included the Walker Stone national award for editorial writing and an
Overseas Press Club award for a series on the Middle East in 1987. In
1981, he led a delegation of editorial page editors on a tour of the
Middle East, arranging interviews with leaders including Yasser Arafat
and Bashir Gemayel.
Zakarian received praise Tuesday from other editorial page editors,
in Connecticut and beyond.
“I think John, when he came to The Courant, sort of raised the level
of sophistication of the editorial page, made it more far-reaching.
It had more of a national and international sense,” said Morgan
McGinley, the editorial page editor of The Day of New London.
“John is a wisdom figure in editorial writing,” said Maura J. Casey,
The Day’s associate editorial page editor. “He is both an old-fashioned
gentleman and a person of stature. He is a person whose integrity is
just unquestioned.”
Paul Greenberg, editorial page editor for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
and a Pulitzer Prize winner, said Zakarian was a notable journalist
for both his civility and his ability to argue an opinion.

Extremism, Xenophobia Rising in Russia
By MARIA DANILOVA, Associated Press Writer
Associated Press
June 9 2004
Semyon Tokmakov stretches out his hand and points to a thick scar
he got from assaulting a black U.S. Marine six years ago. The attack
cost him 1 1/2 years in jail, but Tokmakov says he has no regrets.
“We are waging a racial holy war,” said Tokmakov, 28, an informal
leader among Moscow’s skinheads, whose violence appears to be rising.
Over the last several years, Russia has become a strikingly hostile
place for all those with African, Asian or so-called Caucasian
features – the dark skin and dark hair typical for the peoples of
the mountainous Caucasus region.
The U.S. Marine was badly beaten in 1998 in a Moscow market, one of
several foreigners targeted in recent years. The last few months have
seen an especially shocking series of brutal racial attacks, such
as the stabbing of a Guinea-Bissau student in the central Russian
city of Voronezh, the killing of an Afghan asylum seeker in Moscow,
and the slaying of a 9-year-old Tajik girl in St. Petersburg by
suspected skinheads.
Ethnic minorities in Moscow complain that beatings and insults are
almost a daily occurrence.
“Racially motivated crimes are growing in number and brutality by the
year,” Alexander Brod, head of the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights,
told The Associated Press in an interview.
According to a two-year study conducted by Brod’s bureau and a few
other groups, there are about 50,000 skinheads in Russia, with the two
biggest cities, Moscow and St. Petersburg, home to about 1,500 each. It
said 20-30 people have died in such attacks annually in the past few
years, and the number of such crimes is growing by 30 percent per year.
“When you kill cockroaches, you don’t feel sorry for them, do you?”
Tokmakov said, when asked whether he felt sorry for the slain Tajik
girl.
The growing extremist sentiments are rooted in Russia’s economic
problems, including high unemployment in many regions, and the
collapse of the Soviet Union, which sent hundreds of thousands of
migrants from poorer former Soviet republics to Russia seeking jobs.
“Why have they all come here?” Tokmakov said. “They bring nothing
but drugs and AIDS. Every day they harass and steal our women.”
Ethnic tensions are also fueled by Russia’s nearly decade-long
military conflict in the mostly Muslim province of Chechnya. Since
shortly before the start of the second war in 1999, Moscow and several
southern Russian cities have been shaken by a series of deadly blasts
and suicide bombings authorities blame on Chechen rebels, which have
further intensified xenophobic sentiments.
Political parties and politicians openly played the nationalist card
in the December parliamentary vote, calling for the ouster of migrant
workers and promoting Russia for Russians. Two such parties enjoyed
victory in the election.
Tokmakov said he and his associates had been on the ballot of one of
these parties, the Homeland bloc, but their names were later crossed
out. Party officials have denied that.
“When there are such economic and other hardships, there are usually
two ways of dealing with it – the first is that of contemplating,
the second is looking for an enemy and blaming him for your problems.
Unfortunately Russia has chosen the second path,” Brod said.
Rafael Arkelov, a 47-old Armenian singer who has spent all his life
living in Moscow and for whom Russian is his first language, has
experienced it all.
He was in a grocery store buying a chocolate bar and a bottle of
champagne to visit his friends for a New Year’s celebration when a
man asked him for some change. After Arkelov refused to give him
money, he saw the man approach two youths with shaved heads whom
he identified as skinheads standing nearby and whispered something.
Several minutes later, after Arkelov walked out of the store, he was
jumped from behind.
“They punched me on my eyes, my face, and all of a sudden I couldn’t
see anymore. Then I collapsed to the ground and they started beating
me with their feet,” Arkelov recalled. “If it weren’t for a woman
across the street who screamed ‘What are you doing?’, if it weren’t
for this scream of hers, I think they would have beaten me to death.”
Brod’s study predicted that the number of skinheads could grow to
80,000- 100,000 within the next two years if authorities don’t take
measures to combat xenophobia. Interior Ministry officials have said
they were closely watching 10,000 suspected members of extremist
groups, but all too often racially motivated attacks are dismissed
as hooliganism.
“Racism isn’t unique to Russia, I know it exists in Europe and
America,” Arkelov said. “But unlike Russia, in those countries it is
prosecuted and the state pursues specific policies to combat it.”

Anand to lead World team in Petrosyan match
New Kerala, India
June 9 2004
New Delhi, June 9 (IANS) :
India’s Viswanathan Anand, the World No. 2, will lead the Rest of
the World team in a match to mark the 75th birth anniversary of late
Armenian world chess champion Tigran Petrosian.
Petrosian, who was born in 1929, died in 1984.
The match, against an Armenian team, will be played in Moscow June
10-15.
The special event will be a six-player team tournament where each
player faces all the members of the opposing team.
Anand, who won the Chess Oscar for the third time in 2003, will lead
a team that is expected to include Michael Adams, Peter Svidler,
Loek Van Wely, Etienne Bacrot and Paco Vallejo.
Svidler, a Russian, is known to Indian chess fans as a great follower
of cricket and admires Sachin Tendulkar, whose name he uses to play
chess on the Internet.
Anand has in the past led the World team to an emphatic win over
Russia in Moscow.
The Armenian team includes World No. 1 Garry Kasparov. The other five
are either Armenian or have an Armenian connection.
The three Armenians are Vladimir Akopian, Smbat Lputian and Rafael
Vaganian.
Of the other three, Kasparov’s mother is Armenian. Hungarian Peter
Leko’s wife is Armenian, and her father’s name is Arshak Petrosian,
though no relation of Tigran. Israeli Boris Gelfand was the most famous
pupil of Tigran Petrosian and learnt the game from the master 1980-83.
Anand who has arrived in Moscow, said he was looking forward to
the match.
“It is a very interesting event. I enjoyed the match between Russia
and Rest of the World and I hope this will be a similar pleasant
experience.
“Playing in Moscow is always a treat. I remember playing in the
Kremlin in 2001 and the crowd started clapping when I played Qb3. To
be recognised in the Russian heartland for your chess is a matter of
pride,” Anand added.

Firing reported on Armenia-Azerbaijan border
Interfax
June 9 2004
Yerevan. (Interfax-AVN) – The Armenian and Azerbaijani Defense
Ministries have reported that firing has occurred on the border
between the two countries.
The Armenian Defense Ministry press service said the military recorded
an attempt to illegally cross the border from Azerbaijan near the
village of Bergaber in the Tavush region last night. The attempt was
thwarted, and Azerbaijan opened fire at Bergaber in response, it said.
“Armenian servicemen had no choice other than to return fire and
suppress the fire from the Azerbaijani side,” the press service said,
adding that none of their soldiers was hurt.
The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry’s press service told Interfax that
Armenian forces fired at an area near the community of Goradiz,
which is 260 kilometers southwest of Baku, killing one Azerbaijani
officer and wounding a soldier.
In addition, the ministry reported that Armenia twice violated the
cease-fire in the past several days. It said fire was opened from
Armenia’s Idzhevan district on the evening of June 6, and not far
from the village of Heirimli, which is occupied by Armenia, in the
early hours of Monday. The Azerbaijani forces suffered no losses.
In the course of a bloody conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh between the
Armenians and Azerbaijanis in the early 1990s, Baku lost control over
Nagorno-Karabakh and seven other districts bordering it. As a result,
over one million Azerbaijanis became refugees, who are currently
living in tent camps.
The UN Security Council has condemned the occupation of Azerbaijani
territory and called on Armenia to withdraw its troops from the
occupied territories.
Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a cease-fire agreement on May 12, 1994.
A self-proclaimed republic of Nagorno-Karabakh currently exists,
which is populated mostly by ethnic Armenians. It has close economic
and military ties with Armenia. Azerbaijan is seeking to restore full
control over Nagorno-Karabakh.
A negotiating process on settling the conflict is continuing with
international mediation. In particular, the OSCE set up the Minsk
Group, which is co-chaired by U.S., Russian and French representatives,
to mediate in the negotiations.

Anand to lead Rest of the World
Rediff, India
June 9 2004
India’s Viswanathan Anand, the current World number 2, will lead the
Rest of the World team against Armenia in a chess match, being held
to mark the 75th birth anniversary of late Armenian world champion
Tigran Petrosian.
The match, starting in Moscow on Thursday, will be a six-player team
tournament where each player faces all the members of the opposing
team.
The World team is expected to include Michael Adams, Peter Svidler,
Loek Van Wely, Etienne Bacrot and Paco Vallejo.
A couple of years ago, Anand led the World team to victory over the
strong Russia in an epic match in Moscow.
The Armenian team includes World No. 1 Garry Kasparov and will have
members who are either Armenian or have an Armenian connection. The
three Armenians in the six-member team are
Vladimir Akopian, Smbat Lputian and Rafael Vaganian while others
are Kasparov (whose mother is Armenian), Hungarian Peter Leko (whose
wife is Armenian) and Israeli Boris Gelfand, who was the most famous
pupil of Tigran Petrosian and learnt the game from the master between
1980-83.
“It is a very interesting event. I enjoyed the match between Russia
and Rest of the World, and I hope this will be a similar pleasant
experience,” said Anand, who has already arrived in Moscow, in
a statement.
“Playing In Moscow is always a treat. I remember playing in the Kremlin
in 2001 against Tkachiev and the crowd start clapping when I played
Qb3. To be recognized in the Russian heartland for your chess is a
matter of pride.”

Ex-Soviet Immigrants Praise Reagan
By GILLIAN FLACCUS
The Associated Press
06/09/04 05:47 EDT
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Rabbi Velvel Tsikman remembers a time when the only
link he had to his Jewish heritage was a line in his Soviet passport
that read “Nationality: Jewish.”
Now, he watches over a vibrant Russian Jewish community in West
Hollywood from his office at the Chabad Russian Jewish Community
Center.
Tsikman says he credits his spiritual freedom to the late Ronald
Reagan, whose anti-missile program drew the Soviets into a costly
arms race, helping lead to the collapse of what Reagan called the
“evil empire.”
Reagan’s 1987 demand to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev at the
Berlin Wall – “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” – was the ultimate
challenge of the Cold War.
Tsikman recalled with emotion the first time a Jewish synagogue opened
in the Ukraine after years of religious oppression. He began to wear
a yarmulke openly and grow his beard. He soon veered from a career
in computers to the spiritual life of a rabbi.
“It was like going from the basement to the street and seeing the
light,” Tsikman said. “(Reagan’s) doctrine, what he did, was very
helpful to destroy the monster that was there in Europe.”
Those sentiments were echoed across southern California, home to
large Russian and Eastern European immigrant communities. They also
were reflected in poignant signs and flags placed outside the Santa
Monica mortuary where Reagan’s body was taken after his death Saturday
at age 93.
Lithuanian and Polish flags sprouted from the grass. Posters paying
homage to Reagan sat propped against a fountain alongside flowers
and balloons.
“Sir – You told Gorbachev to ‘Take down this wall.’ We helped.
Thanks for your courage and leadership,” read one sign that was
affixed with two quarter-sized bits of the Berlin Wall.
Another said: “Solidarnosc! With love from Poland,” a reference to
Reagan’s efforts to promote the Solidarity labor movement in Poland
in the 1980s.
In West Hollywood, Tsikman has watched over the Russian Jewish
community center for 12 years, an anchor for up to 50,000 Soviet bloc
immigrants in greater Los Angeles. The neighborhood is dotted with
Russian, Ukranian and Armenian groceries, pharmacies and video stores,
and people speak more Russian than English.
At the community center, Tsikman brushed his finger against his
yarmulke and watched contentedly as dozens of elderly people ate at
long tables, laughing and chatting in Russian.
“They are living in a paradise here. It’s like God is paying them for
a terrible life in Russia,” Tsikman said. “These people were sitting
home waiting to die. When they came here, they came alive again.”
Down the street, Armenian grocer Paul Khostikyan paused from unloading
fresh fruit to remember the man he called “the best president in U.S.
history.”
Khostikyan, 54, who immigrated in 1990, said he remembered being
moved by Reagan’s bold words.
“I liked how he talked about freedom,” said Khostikyan, now a U.S.
citizen. “He really meant it, not like other presidents. He will be
in history much more than Clinton or Bush.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

EU to give 100 million euros to close Armenian Nuclear Plant
PRAVDA, Russia (RosBalt)
June 9 2004
The European Union is ready to finance the closure of the Armenian
Nuclear Power Plant. As reported by a Rosbalt correspondent, Minister
of Trade and Economic Development, Karien Chshmaritian, reported the
news at a press conference while commenting about the results of the
Armenia-EU conference held in Brussels on June 4.
He stated that a concrete date for the plant’s closure has not been
set, because Armenia is not in the financial position to finance the
closure. According to Karien Chshmaritian, the EU confirmed its intent
to allocate 100 million euros for the closure of the Armenian Nuclear
Power Plant, and the organization of alternative energy sources.
Last year, the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant was transferred to the
Russian joint-stock company EEC Russia for asset management.

Opposition MP Suggests To Discuss Karabakh In Parliament
Baku Today
June 9 2004
Baku Today 09/06/2004 12:50
Camil Hasanli, a member of parliament from opposition Azerbaijan
Popular Front Party (reformers branch), suggested Tuesday to include
the Nagorno-Karabakh issue to the agenda of the parliament, complaining
that the legislative body has not discussed the issue for long.
“About three and half years have passed since the [Azerbaijani]
parliament discussed the issue,” Hasanli said, complaining that no
parliament in the world (other than Azerbaijan’s) has shown such
indifference to occupation of its territories. “The Nagorno-Karabakh
issue must be included to the agenda of the parliament and serious
discussions must be held on the issue,” the opposition MP said.
In response, Murtuz Aleskerov, the speaker of the parliament, said
there is no need to debate the Karabakh issue as long as any progress
is achieved in peace negotiations.
“What are we going to decide by discussing the issue here? Our
president has repeatedly said that Azerbaijan’s occupied territories
must be liberated, we’ll secure Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity.
If this is the case, what are we going to achieve by discussing the
issue in the parliament?” asked Aleskerov.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIAN CITIZENS CAN BE SENTENCED TO 1-YEAR IMPRISONMENT FOR INSULTING
PUBLIC AGENT
09.06.2004 15:17
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenian deputies voted for the insertion
into the Criminal Code of Armenia a number of articles calling
for administrative punishment for insulting of a public agent. As
minister of Justice David Harutyunian, who has submitted the project,
stated, a penalty will be fixed for a person outraging a public
agent while for the second offense the citizen can be sentenced to
1-year imprisonment. Besides, the item, according to which the cases
of people sentenced to life imprisonment can be reconsidered only
after 20 years of imprisonment, has been excluded from the RA Criminal
Code. The given amendment, in the minister’s words, is connected with
the resolution by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe,
which says that despite the kind and term of punishment, the prisoners
should be given a chance to submit the application for retrial.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress