by Jon Boyle
MOSCOW, Feb 13 (AFP)
Saint Petersburg�s status as Russia�s window on the West is under threat, not least from the cyber-cafes sprouting up around Moscow which have become favoured watering holes for the country�s internet generation.
For centuries the city of Pushkin and Dostoyevsky has been the traditional point of entry for western ideas and techniques into Russia, but the imperial capital is being rapidly deposed by the computer revolution sweeping Russia.
In a country where the average income is a paltry 752 rubles a month (around 30 dollars), 800-1,000 dollars for a home computer is beyond most budgets, so the cafe life has beckoned the new breed of techno-savvy youngsters.
�I use it just to keep in touch with my friends,� says Lena Andreyeva, 25, who e-mails English pals made during her time working on Caribbean cruise ships, from the upwardly-mobile Chevignon internet bar in downtown Moscow.
Even the financial whirlwind which tore through the Russian economy late last summer has failed to halt the techno-leap forward and dissuade local businessmen from gambling thousands of dollars in the hi-tech bistros.
Currently, more than half a dozen internet cafes operate in the Russian capital, a mixed bag of 21st-century chic, start-up small business and loss-leader sideline to a consumer durables chain.
The client base is an equally eclectic hybrid of students, foreigners, 30-something new Russians, voyeurs, western executives keeping in touch with the office and small-time bookies hustling to make a fast buck.
An information super-highway for knowledge-thirsty students seeking to broaden their horizons, the world wide web is a double-edged tool, however, which has introduced Russia to cyberporn and global gambling.
�During the Australian Open we had eight to 10 people here watching the tennis in real time,� said Marat Zhyligaliyev, whose �Nice Internet Salon� behind Moscow�s 1905 Street metro station, set up in November despite the economic crisis.
�They were here all night making and placing bets all over the world with credit cards,� he said. �They won 2,000 dollars� from wagers taken from New York to Tokyo, he added.
In southern Moscow, the electronic goods store �Party� offers its half dozen super-quick terminals for free, a boon to foreign students anxious for news from home, or Russians working their way through college.
�I work for a tourist agency which specialises in sporting events,� said trainee teacher Alexei Obchinikov, 20. �I look for when and where the events are taking place� he explained, enabling his firm to offer transportation to athletes taking part.
The store is a godsend to Tanzanian civil engineering student Enoch Kayani: �I�m up to date, it doesn�t take three or four weeks to know what�s happening back in my home country, I just get on the internet and read the newspapers for that day.�
The internet revolution has a downside, however, admit cafe owners, notably the on-line fleshpots which attract a less savory sort of customer.
�At the beginning, when we opened, we eliminated that sort of clientele,� said Christophe Gros, the French director of the Chevignon. �Afterwards they understood this wasn�t the place for that,� he said.
Chez Chevignon, Internet is a life-style choice, not an end in itself. �We offer a bar with internet facilities, not a internet facility with a bar,� noted one bar consultant.
Nevertheless, Russia�s economic plight has cut into the internet bars� client base, sparking an exodus of expatriate workers who were among their most reliable and wealthy clients, and ruining the nascent Russian middle class.
�We�ve found that the terminals are still being used, it�s the clientele that has changed,� said Gros. As the ruble lost 70 percent of its value, the free half-hour connection which accompanied a drink suddenly became expensive in a capital where many goods and services as priced in dollars.
Zhyligaliyev admits the crisis has forced his small firm to swiftly adapt its original business plan in order to recoup the 15,000-20,000 start-up costs.
�In the current times it is very difficult, after the crisis. People don�t have much money right now,� he said, a fact of life which has seen the company set up as an internet service provider, offer cut-price internet phone calls, a pager advertisement service and internet software.
By Alessandro RAIMONDI
SEBORGA, February 14
(THE GLOBE)
For those of you who believe that the Principality of Monaco is the world�s smallest populated monarchy, I deliver a shocking news: better to change idea. In fact, just few kilometers away from Montecarlo, to the east, crossed the Italian border along the coast at Ventimiglia, the next town is Bordighera, you take a left and 5 kilometers away you are in Seborga. �So what?�, might very well be your question. Point is that you are in the smallest unrecognized state on Earth: 14 sq.km., 517 m. above sea level, 2,000 population.
Your next question might be �How come I�ve never heard of it before?�, right, this is just about the point: between the small Principality of Seborga and the Italian Republic there�s an age-long contentious. Seborga has been incorporated within Italy�s boundaries no one knows exactly in force of what. The Seborchini (the principality citizens), however, do not give up and try all possible legal ways to regain their independence. Since the territory of Seborga doesn�t reach the Ligurian Sea, the principality is an enclave within Imperia province. France and Monaco are nearby and one can see them both from the ultra millenary historic centre of Seborga.
Now you can even smile, if so you wish, but around here the problem is taken seriously and by international law, it is said, sooner or later Seborga will join the international community of sovereign states.
To be ready for that moment Seborga has established all those �pinchbecks� characterizing fully reckoned nations: a head of state, H.S.H. Prince Giorgio I; ministers, some 15; a constitution, the �General Charters� and their �Codes�; a mint, reopened on April 23rd, 1995 after having been dormant since 1688; coins, 5 legal tender pieces of different sizes, the �Luigino�, fully changeable , whose value is equivalent to 6 US dollars; a coat of arm, heralding the motto �Sub Umbra Sedi�, and a white cross on a light blue shield, the colors of the Knights of St. Bernard who appointed the first Grand Master right at Seborga in the year 1127; and, of course, a flag, striped like the U.S. one but with light blue instead of red, and the coat of arm on a white field in lieu of the fifty stars on the blue field.
Of course, Seborga is a monarchy, as unmistakably points out the crown on the coat of arm, but far from being of hereditary origin her princes are pro-tempore ones, in other words nominated by her sovereign people. Last of such princes is Giorgio I, elected on 1963 as �regent�.
The prince is the driving force that for more than 30 years has fought via all legal means the inadequate presence of the Italian rule over his tiny state. Because of his struggle and endless effort H.S.H. Giorgio I has been re-elected �for life� on 9/24/�95, so vast is the trust of Seborga�s population on him.
Of course, Seborchini are voting for the city mayor, who is, however, merely considered the representative of the Italian State in the principality.
One can really feel, once entering the territory of Seborga, that he is not in Italy but elsewhere, so many are the evidencies marking the difference with to the �italianita�� of just few kilometers away.
As for the matter of issue between David and Goliath, i.e. Seborga and Italy, it finds roots in the millenary story of the principality. Back in the year 954 Count Guido of Ventimiglia donated the Castle of Seborga and ample territories to the Benedictine monks of Lerin, today�s Cannes. In 1079 the Holy Roman Empire consacrated that territory as a principality. When St. Bernard de Claivaux reached Seborga in 1118 the principality became the only Cistercian sovereign state in the world, a condition that lasted up to 1/20/1729 when Victor Emmanuel II of Savoy, king of Sardinia, purchased it, paying as much as 175,000 liras plus other 15,000 to be paid to the fathers of Monte Maggiore monastery of Arles. The act was made in Paris but it had never been registered (the Kingdom of Sardinia and the House of Savoy failed to do so) so to validate it and making it legal. Later on with the Treaty of Aachen of 1748 Seborga was not included on the territory of the Genoan Republic. As well the principality was not transferred to the Kingdom of Sardinia after the Vienna Congress of 1814. When Italy was finally established in the form of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861, somewhat replacing the Kingdom of Sardinia, both ruled by the House of Savoy, Seborga was not incorporated in the new state. There are no evidences as well of the �assignment� of Seborga, in 1946, to the Constituent Assembly that finally formed the new Italian Republic from the ashes of the kingdom.
The point is, therefore, that if Seborga has bever become part of the Kingdom of Sardinia, never of that of Italy, it could never become part of today�s Italy. The only way to have Seborga becoming part of Italy would have been by the institute of usucaption, but considering that acquisition by usucaption is not admitted by international law, such an event has never happened and might never happen.
One more explanation as to the reasons of Seborchini is given by the right of �Nullius Diocesis� benefitted by Seborga until 1946. Such right lays on two circumstances: Pope Innocent II�s bull �Omne Datum Optium� of march 1139; and the right to be enjoyed by a sovereign state as Seborga was. Matter of fact, even before the establishment of the Kingdom of Italy the priests of the principality had been vested by royal appointment, which means that Seborga was not a parish of the kingdom. On the contrary Seborga would have had to conform to the provisions of the 1929 Concordato between Mussolini�s Italy and the Vatican, while instead it didn�t until the establishment of the Italian Republic back in 1946.
As for Mussolini, on a 1934 document recently found in Germany , the Dux wrote that �surely the Principality of Seborga does not belong to Italy�.
Sooner or later, then, Italy will host a record of 3 independent enclaves: St. Marin, the world�s oldest republic, Vatican City, the world�s only monarchy of theocratic origin, and Seborga, the world�s first constitutional monarchy.
The coat of arm of the Principality of Seborga.
16/02/1937 - Wallace H. Carothers patented nylon on this day.
17/02/1876 - Julius Wolff was credited with being the first to can sardines � at Eastport, ME. Whether that was in oil, water or tomato sauce, we�re not quite sure...
17/02/1963 - Michael Jordan, the undisputed �greatest basketball player who ever lived� was born today in Brooklyn, NY. I wonder if the Jordans had trouble keeping baby �Air� Jordan from flying out of his crib...
18/02/1930 - Elm Farm Ollie became the first cow to fly in an airplane. Elm Farm Ollie was a Guernsey who took to the air and as a special added attraction, got a milking IN FLIGHT (mmmmmoooooooo!) while over St. Louis, MO. The milk was sealed in little paper containers and then parachuted over the city. And you thought we were just winging it with this stuff, didn�t you?
18/02/1953 - The new fad in America on this night was 3-D, as demonstrated in the movie, �Bwana Devil�. The three-dimensional feature opened at Loew�s State Theatre in New York City. Arch Oboler directed the movie which starred Robert Stack and the three-dimensional Barbara Britton.
18/02/1933 - Was born Yoko Ono Lennon (singer: Walking on Thin Ice; artist; John Lennon�s widow)
18/02/1954 - Was born John Travolta (actor: Welcome Back Kotter, Saturday Night Fever, Grease, Urban Cowboy, Pulp Fiction, Get Shorty, Broken Arrow)
February 16
The Kazakh Drama Theater: Molier �Fool Husband� Beginning at 6.30 p.m.
The Russian Drama Theater: Ptushkina �While She Was Dying� Beginning at 6.00 p.m.
The Novaya Stsena: Chekhov �Ancle Vanya� Beginning at 6.00 p.m.
February 17
The Kazakh Drama Theater: Zamyatin �Attila� Beginning at 6.30 p.m.
The Russian Drama Theater: Lobazerov S. �Family Portrait with a Stranger� Beginning at 6.30 p.m.
The Novaya Stsena: Williams T. �Glass Menagerie� Beginning at 6.00 p.m.
AKBK Palace of Culture: A. Adan �Corsair�, ballet in three a acts. Beginning at 6.00 p.m.
February 18
The Kazakh Drama Theater: S. Kusaynov �Ukily Ybyray� Beginning at 6.30 p.m.
The Russian Drama Theater: E. De Philippo, �I shall not Pay� Beginning at 6.00 p.m.
The Basic Scene: Gurkin V. �Pre-Baikal Quadrille� Beginning at 6.00 p.m.
February 19
The Kazakh Concert Hall: The evening of camera music Beginning at 6.00 p.m.
The Kazakh Drama Theater: Atabayev �Madonnas of Algeria� Beginning at 6.30 p.m.
The Russian Drama Theater: Braginskiy �Figment of the Imagination� Beginning at 6.00 p.m.
The Novaya Stsena: Pasternak �Doctor Zhivago� Beginning at 6 p.m.
February 3-21
MOST Gallery: The retrospective exhibition of artists, participants of �Eurasia� symposium from St. Petersburg, Tashkent, Bishkek, Dushambe and Almaty.
Working hours: 11.00 � 18.00
Saturday and Sunday: 14.00 � 18.00
January 21-February 21
The Kasteyev Museum: �The Works of German Masters�. The collection of the State Museum named after Kasteyev.
Working hours: 10.00-16.30, except Monday.
January 14 � February 16
TRIBUNA Gallery: The Exhibition of Kazakstan�s artists. Painting. Graphics. Sculpture.
Working hours: 10.00-19.00, without days off.
January 19 � March 8
The Museum of Wax Figures, St. Petersburg city in the building of the Museum of Archeology. The Exhibition of Wax Figures of well-known historic persons, artists and people from the Book of Guinness.
Exhibits from the cabinet of curiosities.
Working hours: 10.00-18.00, without days off and brakes.
Kazak Drama Theatre � Kazak National Drama Academic Auezov Drama Theatre. 103 Abai Avenue, corner Mukanov. Phone 673307.
Russian Drama Theatre � Russian National Drama Academic Lermontov Drama Theatre. 43 Abai Avenue, corner Abylai Khan Avenue. Phone 628273
Republic�s Palace � Dostyk Avenue, corner Abai Avenue. Phone 620320
DK AkhBK � Culture Palace of Almaty Cotton Centre, 22 Shalyapin St., corner Altynsarin Avenue. Phone 281911
State National Kasteyev Museum - 30-a Satpayev St.. Phone 478356
Archaeology Museum � 44 Dostyk Avenue, corner Dzhambul St., Phone 618585
Tengri-Umai Art Gallery � in the building of the Russian Drama Theatre. Phone 620309
Tribuna Art Gallery - 14a Republic�s Square. Phone 694628
Most Art Gallery � Modern Art Gallery. 85-a Dostyk Avenue, corner Kurmangazy St., Phone 622136