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Now we want to tell you about news and its role in our life. Certainly news is very important in our modern life. The world is changing very fast, so people from different countries must know what is happening in the others countries and in their own country too. Without news society can not develop. News is also very useful for human, because everyone can find something interesting for himself. Of course this is very well. But unfortunately bad news attracts our attention much strongly than positive messages. Now more often news broadcasts and columns in newspapers reveals information on natural disasters, murders and other terrible events. It's very bad but we can do nothing about it. News is very different: bad, positive, neutral. And people want to know about everything in the world. And now let's see what the word «News» means. News is the communication of selected information on current events which is presented by print, broadcast, Internet, or word of mouth to a third party or mass audience.

One theory claims that news developed as a special use of the plural form of new in the 14th century. In Middle English, the equivalent word was newes, like the French nouvelles and the German neues. Somewhat similar developments are found in some of the Slavic languages (Czech and Slovak), where there exists a word noviny ("news"), developed from the word nový ("new"), and in the Celtic languages Welsh and Cornish, where there are the words newyddion and nowodhow, respectively from W. newydd and C. nowydh.

A folk etymology suggests that it is an acronym of the cardinal directions: north, east, west, and south.

Before the invention of newspapers in the early 17th century, official government bulletins and edicts were circulated at times in some centralized empires.

The first documented use of an organized courier service for the diffusion of written documents is in Egypt, where Pharaohs used couriers for the diffusion of their decrees in the territory of the State (2400 BC). This practice almost certainly has roots in the much older practice of oral messaging and may have been built on a pre-existing infrastructure.

In Ancient Rome, Acta Diurna, or government announcement bulletins, were made public by Julius Caesar. They were carved in metal or stone and posted in public places.

In China, early government-produced news sheets, called tipao, circulated among court officials during the late Han dynasty (second and third centuries AD). Between 713 and 734, the Kaiyuan Za Bao ("Bulletin of the Court") of the Chinese Tang Dynasty published government news; it was handwritten on silk and read by government officials. In 1582 there was the first reference to privately published newssheets in Beijing, during the late Ming Dynasty;

In Early modern Europe, increased cross-border interaction created a rising need for information which was met by concise handwritten newssheets. In 1556, the government of Venice first published the monthly Notizie scritte, which cost one gazetta. These avvisi were handwritten newsletters and used to convey political, military, and economic news quickly and efficiently to Italian cities (1500-1700) - sharing some characteristics of newspapers though usually not considered true newspapers. Due to low literacy rates, news was at times disseminated by town criers.

Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien, from 1605, is recognized as the world's first newspaper.

The oldest news agency is the Agence France-Presse (AFP). It was founded in 1835 by a Parisian translator and advertising agent, Charles-Louis Havas as Agence Havas.

In modern times, printed news had to be phoned in to a newsroom or brought there by a reporter, where it was typed and either transmitted over wire services or edited and manually set in type along with other news stories for a specific edition. Today, the term "breaking news" has become trite as commercial broadcasting United States cable news services that are available 24-hours a day use live satellite technology to bring current events into consumers' homes as the event occurs. Events that used to take hours or days to become common knowledge in towns or in nations are fed instantaneously to consumers via radio, television, mobile phone, and the Internet.

Most large cities in the United States historically had morning and afternoon newspapers. As the media evolved and news outlets increased to the point of near over-saturation, most afternoon newspapers were shut down. Morning newspapers have been gradually losing circulation, according to reports advanced by the papers themselves. Commonly, news content should contain the "Five Ws" (who, what, when, where, why, and also how) of an event. There should be no questions remaining. Newspapers normally write hard news stories, such as those pertaining to murders, fires, wars, etc. in inverted pyramid style so the most important information is at the beginning. Busy readers can read as little or as much as they desire. Local stations and networks with a set format must take news stories and break them down into the most important aspects due to time constraints. Cable news channels such as BBC News, Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN, are able to take advantage of a story, sacrificing other, decidedly less important stories, and giving as much detail about breaking news as possible.

News organizations are often expected to aim for objectivity; reporters claim to try to cover all sides of an issue without bias, as compared to commentators or analysts, who provide opinion or personal point-of-view. Several governments impose certain constraints or police news organizations against bias. In the United Kingdom, for example, limits are set by the government agency Ofcom, the Office of Communications. Both newspapers and broadcast news programs in the United States are generally expected to remain neutral and avoid bias except for clearly indicated editorial articles or segments. Many single-party governments have operated state-run news organizations, which may present the government's views.

Even in those situations where objectivity is expected, it is difficult to achieve, and individual journalists may fall foul of their own personal bias, or succumb to commercial or political pressure. Similarly, the objectivity of news organizations owned by conglomerated corporations fairly may be questioned, in light of the natural incentive for such groups to report news in a manner intended to advance the conglomerate's financial interests. Individuals and organizations who are the subject of news reports may use news management techniques to try to make a favourable impression. Because each individual has a particular point of view, it is recognized that there can be no absolute objectivity in news reporting.

Newsworthiness

Newsworthiness is defined as a subject having sufficient relevance to the public or a special audience to warrant press attention or coverage.

In some countries and at some points in history, what news media and the public have considered "newsworthy" has met different definitions, such as the notion of news values. For example, mid-twentieth-century news reporting in the United States focused on political and local issues with important socio-economic impacts, such as the landing of a living person on the moon or the cold war. More recently, the focus similarly remains on political and local issues; however, the news mass media now comes under criticism for over-emphasis on "non-news" and "gossip" such as celebrities' personal social issues, local issues of little merit, as well as biased sensationalism of political topics such as terrorism and the economy. The dominance of celebrity and social news, the blurring of the boundary between news and reality shows and other popular culture, and the advent of citizen journalism may suggest that the nature of 'news' and news values are evolving and that traditional models of the news process are now only partially relevant. Newsworthiness does not only depend on the topic, but also the presentation of the topic and the selection of information from that topic.

New ecology of news

"Everything we thought we once knew about journalism needs to be rethought in the Digital Age", professor of Sociology and Communication Michael Schudson points out. Today the work of journalism can be done from anywhere and done well. It requires no more than a reporter and a laptop. In that way, journalistic authority seems to have become more individual- and less institution-based. But does the individual reporter always have to be an actual journalist? Or can journalistic work be done from anywhere and by anyone? These are questions that refers to the core of journalistic practice and the definition of "news" itself. As Schudson has given emphasis to, the answer is not easily found; "the ground journalists walk upon is shaking, and the experience for both those who work in the field and those on the outside studying it is dizzying".

Schudson has identified the following six specific areas where the ecology of news in his opinion has changed: 1. The line between the reader and writer has blurred 2. The distinction among tweet, blog post, newspaper story, magazine article, and book as blurred 3. The line between professionals and amateurs has blurred, and a variety of "pro-am" relationships has emerged 4. The boundaries delineating for-profit, public, and non-profit media have blurred, and the cooperation across these models of financing has developed 5. Within commercial news organizations, the line between the news room and the business office has blurred 6. The line between old media and new media has blurred, practically beyond recognition

These alterations inevitably has fundamental ramifications for the contemporary ecology of news. "The boundaries of journalism, which just a few years ago seemed relatively clear, and permanent, have become less distinct, and this blurring, while potentially the foundation of progress even as it is the source of risk, has given rise to a new set of journalistic principles and practices",Schudson puts it. It is indeed complex, but it seems to be the future.

Taking on the task of relating the entire history of news telling from its very beginnings lost in the prehistoric past all the way up to the cable television and Internet of today seems impossible; yet Stephens certainly makes a good try. He recreates the prehistoric period with sociological accounts of the vocal exchange of news in illiterate societies by the constant pestering of visitors from outside the village with ?gWhat?fs the news??h He uses the letters of Cicero, among others, to demonstrate the spread of news during the Roman Empire. He then goes on to the show the slow spread of the printing press, the development of, first, weekly newspapers, then dailies, and so on up to the instantaneous reporting of the Gulf War via CNN.

As he tells his tale, he leaps us from ancient Rome to ancient China and right back again so smoothly we hardly notice. Along the way he points out the vast changes that have taken place from the days our ancestors bemoaned the almost total lack of reliable news up to the present state in which we are constantly deluged with so much, we can begin to keep up.

Russian News

News are different: political, economic, community and many others. Now we want to tell you something about Russian political news.

Sergei Sobyanin, whose recent appointment as the new mayor of Moscow ends the 18-year-long tenure of his predecessor Yury Luzhkov, has promised the media, the public and members of the United Russia faction in the Duma that a new strategy will be developed for the city. He stopped short, however, of any promise to suspend or scrap the controversial recent «Master Plan for the development of Moscow untill 2025», known in Russian as «the Genplan».

During his interim tenure as acting mayor, Luzhkov's former right-hand man for buildiding and development activity in the city, Vladimir Resin, has reiterated his allegiance to the plan in general, but admitted in his statements to the media that a «point-by-point adjustment» may be in order. Sobyanin promised to address any concerns and suggestions for such adjustments. He referred to the plan as a «firm foundation» but admitted that improvement was possible. « The Genplan is by no means untouchable» he said during hisconfirmation hearings. Sobyanin added that the plan will need to be constantly reassessed to ensure that it remains in line with the development strategy for the city. The master Plan for the Development of Moscow untill 2025, adopted by Luzhkov in May 2010 based on legislation passed by the Moscow City Duma that he largery controlled, has been a subject of heated public controversy.

Luzhkov's departure triggered a spur of renewed activity by the opponents of the plan. Public Chamber member and chairman of its special commission on the issue, art gallery owner Marat Guelman called the plan a «death sentence» for Moscow, according to RIA-Novosti. The commission has adopted a resolution calling for the plan to be suspended.

Sergei Mitrokhin, leader of the Yabloko political party, has been to court in his attempts to scrap the plan, which, he claims, is invalid because it does not have the approval of the federal government. Such approval, Mitrokhin said, is needed in this case of a city with a special federal status. His claim was dismissed.

Vyacheslav Glazychev, a renowned art historian and also a member of the Public Chamber, has told Kommersant that he does not see any compelling reasons to abandon the plan, which, he said, includes many reasonable aspects and adheres to generally accepted principles of city development. The expert pointed out that this does not preclude any specific changes being made to the plan.

Most critics of the plan take issue with the principle that divides the city into "stabilization zones," freezing any demolition and construction in some zones while allowing both in others.

When asked to lay out his general priorities for Moscow during his confirmation process, Sobyanin repeatedly mentioned fighting corruption in the city and its transportation crisis. During a meeting with union representatives, he also called for jobs in Moscow to be given primarily to residents of the city.

Alleged corruption in the Moscow construction industry is widely perceived by the public to be the reason behind the dismissal of Luzhkov, who was fired in September by President Dmitry Medvedev on rarely used grounds of "a loss of confidence." Immediately prior to that, state media ran a series of reports revealing new details about Inteko, the construction company owned by Luzhkov's wife, Yelena Baturina, and the preferential treatment it had allegedly received from the city government.

Transportation gridlock on the streets of Moscow has also been widely cited as a point of discontent, as Luzhkov has been criticized for limiting funds vitally needed for road and transport development. Supporters of Luzhkov point out that during his tenure as mayor, the number of cars in the city grew by millions, and the administration has been doing the best it could to adapt the city accordingly.

Immediately prior to his appointment as the Moscow mayor, Sobyanin served as a deputy prime minister and the chief of staff in the Russian government.

He has been replaced in this post by Vyacheslav Volodin, a long-term United Russia top apparatchik.

Sobyanin's previous roles included a one-term tenure as governor of the oil-rich Tyumen region. He has been widely credited with overall success in the role and with overseeing an extensive development of the road network in the region.

Sobyanin Says Moskva-City Was a Mistake

New Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin called the Moskva-City project a "mistake" during his publicly broadcast confirmation hearings in the City Duma.

Referring to the most ambitious development in the city in the last 20 years, Sobyanin expressed concerns that such a massive project was built in the middle of the city, and pointed out that transportation and parking issues that arise with its intended use have not been addressed by the project.

Moskva-City, just off the Third Transportation Ring a few kilometers west of the White House, was first devised in the 1990s and was supposed to include the landmark Russia Tower, designed by architect Norman Foster. The construction of the tower, which was to be completed in 2016, was later canceled. A few other parts of the planned development have been halted in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Several of the buildings have already been completed.

In 2006, the new Mezhdunarodnaya metro station was opened to accommodate travel to the Moskva-City site.

"What is done, is done," Sobyanin said, adding that the emphasis now needs to be placed on resolving the transportation and parking issues around the existing complex. "We need to make it work," he said.

Luzhkov Follows His Predecessor Into New Employment

REQ

Recently dismissed Mayor Yury Luzhkov has been appointed dean of the faculty of big-city management at the International University in Moscow (IUM), founded by former Mayor Gavriil Popov, under whom Luzhkov briefly served as deputy mayor in 1991-92. The press release with information about the appointment is officially published on the university's web site. The site quotes the appointment date as Oct. 1.

IUM is the first private university in Russia. At the time of its creation it was referred to as a "Soviet-American University." The decision to establish the institution was made in 1991 jointly by Presidents Mikhail Gorbachev of the Soviet Union and George Bush of the United States.

Popov became the first president of the university, and still remains in the post. According to the press release, it was Popov who formally signed Luzhkov's appointment papers.

Luzhkov had previously been an honorary professor at the university. At the start of this year's classes on Sept. 1, he delivered an opening lecture titled "The Hot Summer of 2010: Heat, Water, Environment, Food Supply." This followed wide criticism that he received from the media for leaving the city during the peak of the record heat last summer.

The faculty Luzhkov is now heading was created in 2002 under his own patronage. Until recently, the faculty did not have a fully appointed dean. Oleg Tolkachyov, who represents Moscow in the Federation Council, has been serving as acting dean.

According to the university's web site, the faculty's students study for a qualification in state and municipal management. They have an option to major in state and municipal property management or management of social infrastructure.

According to the press release by the university, in the short term Luzhkov will undertake mostly administrative work related to the management of the faculty, and does not have immediate plans to teach.

Environmentalists Start Independent Probe Into Planned Highway Through Khimki Forest

An independent commission was formed by environmentalists to probe the feasibility and environmental impact of the proposed construction of a new highway from Moscow to St. Petersburg through the Khimki forest north of Moscow, which was halted by President Dmitry Medvedev in late August after a wave of protests, Greenpeace Russia said in a public statement.

According to the statement, the commission, which started its work in late October and includes representatives of Greenpeace, the WWF and other nongovernmental organizations and is chaired by environmental lawyer Tamara Zlotnikova, sees itself as an alternative to the stalled hearings on the same issue in the Public Chamber.

The hearings were initiated after Medvedev called for additional inquiry into the environmental impact and alternative routes for the project after a substantial wave of protests against the associated logging in the forest, as well as statements by various influential public figures, including U2 frontman Bono.

The Public Chamber conducted hearings into the issue in September but made no recommendations. Ivan Blokov, program director for Greenpeace Russia, told the REQ that he sees no reason why it would take the authorities more than a month.

In its statement, Greenpeace expresses concern that Medvedev's order to halt construction could have been a part of a carefully devised plan to diffuse public tension around the project.

"In the nearest future, the government will most likely announce that "additional public and expert discussions were successfully held" and that "the plans to build a highway through the core of the Khimki forest gained full popular and expert support," Greenpeace said in the statement.

According to the environmentalists, the road construction works in the Khimki forest have never actually been halted. Even though they acknowledge that no additional logging has taken place since the "freeze," activists insist that they witnessed drilling and other road works at the site of a previously proposed controversial section of the future highway.

On Sept. 6, then-Mayor Yury Luzhkov spoke out in support of the proposed road on the pages of Rossiiskaya Gazeta, citing the transportation collapse in the north of the city and a dire need for the new road. Luzhkov called upon Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who had also spoken out in support of the road, to go ahead with the plan, even after Medvedev had already given the order to reconsider. Many analysts at the time pointed that out as the mayor's attempt to exploit the potential disagreement between Medvedev and Putin. Luzhkov's dismissal followed in three weeks.

Mitvol Vows to Continue Environmental Work After Dismissal as Prefect

REQ

The outspoken prefect of the Northern Administrative District of Moscow, Oleg Mitvol, was unexpectedly fired from his post by acting Mayor Vladimir Resin in early October.

Resin argued that Mitvol's methods "have not found support among the residents of the district," but did not specify which methods he was referring to.

Prior to his most recent appointment, Mitvol was deputy head of the Federal Inspection Service for Natural Resources Use, a government environmental-compliance watchdog where he was in open opposition to his most recent boss, the service's head Vladimir Kirillov. Mitvol is widely known in the environmental community and has sided with environmental activists on many issues, including the proposed construction of a highway through Khimki, which is adjacent to the territory of the Northern Administrative District.

As a prefect in this district, Mitvol was recently involved in a very public conflict with the pro-government Nashi youth movement. In September, Mitvol ordered the organization to be evicted from its headquarters within the district. Nashi's lease on a former preschool building had expired earlier this year, and the building was to be returned to the city for use as a preschool once again. A shortage of preschools is an ongoing point of concern for Muscovites. The city government has previously claimed that this was in part because of the fact that Soviet-time preschool buildings were repurposed as offices during the early 1990s.

Nashi eventually moved out but made counter claims against Mitvol. In various media statements, the movement's spokeswoman Maria Kislitsyna accused Mitvol of using his position of power for personal political gain and suggested that the administrative headquarters of one of the Northern District's subdivisions were also located in a former preschool building.

Upon his firing from the post of a prefect, Mitvol told the RIA-Novosti news agency that he "will stay publicly active and continue working on environmental issues."

Perm's Cultural Revolution

Until recently, Perm has been a typical industrial city in the Urals: a lot of factories in a depressing urban environment. "Not a city, but a collection of residential neighborhoods located around factories," was how Vyacheslav Glazychev, a professor at the Moscow Institute of Architecture, described Perm. An unusually unpleasant detail about Perm was that it was for years a "closed" city and an integral part of the Soviet gulag. There are still quite a few prisons there today.

Perm is not a poor city, but nonetheless it is one where hopelessness looms. The increase in tax revenue and personal incomes over the last 10 years has not been reflected in the city's quality of life. A surprising majority of Perm residents say their hometown is "inconvenient, unpleasant, uncomfortable." They vote against it with their feet as well, and as a result the population is shrinking. It is mostly young, active people who are leaving.

As governor, Chirkunov has taken the plunge to break out of this slump and reverse the region's degeneration. Chirkunov is not a typical Russian regional governor. He's open, talkative and personally maintains a candid blog. He sounds like he knows what he is talking about when he mentions terms like "postindustrial city," "creative clusters" and "the economy of innovation." He's had an unusual career path for a governor, as well. Apart from the requisite Soviet Communist Party career followed by success in business, he's a graduate of the Higher School of the KGB and also spent quite a few years in Europe. This is where he reportedly picked up the European values he is now trying to bring to Perm.

According to Chirkunov, a cultural revolution was supposed to become the main driving force behind the intended changes in the Perm region. He began with architecture, hosting an international architectural competition in 2007 to build a new museum of modern art in Perm. Unusual for a Russian province, Perm managed to attract several international architectural stars with the competition, including Zaha Hadid and Peter Zumthor. The building ended up never being built, but in terms of public relations, the return from the competition was immense. But this was only the beginning. During the last two years, Chirkunov has sharply increased his investment in cultural projects. Today, Moscow and St. Petersburg are the only two Russian cities where more money is spent per capita on high culture than in Perm. The governor has also changed the way in which projects are financed; instead of the usual policy of giving some support to various initiatives across the board, he decided to focus on festivals and new museums exclusively.

He started out by inviting several famous Muscovites, each of whom has given their name to a well-known brand, to come and work in Perm: designer Artemy Lebedev, gallery owner Marat Guelman and theater producer Eduard Boyakov. They kick-started cultural life in Perm on a scale previously unseen in a provincial town. Currently, there are more than 12 festivals taking place in Perm, including music, theater and literary festivals, among others. What used to be the city's river port building has become Guelman's contemporary art museum. Lebedev's design center nearby allows young aspiring designers to obtain affordable office space. Not far away, there is even a museum of dinosaurs called the Perm Period Museum. Other cultural projects are in the works.

Museums Instead of Roads

Perm's proclamation of its status as cultural capital of Russia understandably upset St. Petersburg. But in Perm, they take the name less seriously; for them, it's just part of the PR game. Even though the title, which they are claiming for public relations reasons, is not entirely undeserved as no other provincial city in Russia has ever achieved such a high standard of cultural life, any outsider first introduced to the "Perm phenomenon" could be forgiven for wondering what the deal is. On what planet is it feasible to spend most of the money from the regional budget on all these artificially implanted cultural innovations while the region's roads remain in perennial disrepair?

Perm's city fathers are inspired by the so-called "Bilbao effect:" In 1997, the Spanish city built a Guggenheim Museum based on a design by American architect Frank Gehry, and the titanium-covered, postmodernistic building soon became a catalyst for the development of the city's economy. The museum now attracts up to 1.5 million tourists a year and has transformed a dull provincial town into a trendy tourist destination. The actual construction cost the city $120 million, but the museum now brings in an estimated $240 million annually.

In the last decade, many European cities have attempted to jump-start their development in the same way, and Perm is the first experiment of this kind in Russia. A few years ago, Thomas Krens, then-director of the Solomon Guggenheim Foundation, visited Perm and reportedly regarded its collection of wooden Christian sculptures very highly, but he then let the administration know unequivocally that Perm, unfortunately, does not have the same potential as Bilbao or Barcelona. It is, he said, too far from Western Europe, there is no large body of water and nothing to see, and, finally, it is way too cold.

The brokenhearted local administration was forced to correct their ambitions and aim a bit lower to become, for starters, the primary tourist destination in Russia's Urals region. This goal is not as farfetched: The "culture project" has only been going for about two years now, but a once-negligible flow of tourists to Perm has already increased multifold. The number of tourists now stands at 600,000 a year, which may not sound like much, but is not bad considering Perm was, until a few years ago, a closed prison town. What is important for Perm now are the effects that the cultural revolution is supposed to have on other aspects of city life. Now that leisure opportunities have so greatly improved in the city, they are slowly leading to the formation of a higher-income, middle-class environment, which, in turn, is supposed to lead to a reduction of crime in the city.

"The feeling of hopelessness and despair, once prevalent in the city, is now disappearing," said Boris Milgram, the region's minister of culture. "Until recently, most young people wanted to go live in Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk or Moscow, but now, according to polls, their attitudes toward migration have changed; people actually want to live in Perm."

This change in attitude among young people and a slowing of the brain drain are probably the first meaningful effects of the new cultural politics in Perm. The city's overall image has changed, too. Until recently, it was associated primarily with the gulag - the Museum of Repressions in its "Perm 36" concentration camp is very popular with foreigners - but now it is more associated with culture. The city is starting to see its first investments that are not fossil fuel-related. There is already a cluster of design and television production companies that will be subcontracting in the region for the Rossia television channel, doing the work that used to be done in Southeast Asia.

Perm's Untraditional Master Plan

One of the tools to bring about change in the city of Perm is supposed to be the city's master plan, developed by KCAP, a Dutch architectural bureau. This is essentially the first case in which foreign architects have been invited to carry out large-scale city planning in Russia. The plan's main idea is that it is possible to make Perm a convenient modern European city.

"Once we arrived in Perm, we headed straight to the library," recalled KCAP managing partner Kees Christiaanse. "We took a look at some old maps and discovered that it was quite a European city in the 19th century. Back then, they were using some of Europe's progressive ideas of the day in the city's design. The main drift away from Europe took place during the 20th century; now it is a rough, stretched-out, inconvenient city."

One of the master plan's main ideas is that Perm should stop expanding geographically. It is already too long by most standards, stretching up to 70 kilometers along the Kama River. By square mileage, it is the third largest city in the country after Moscow and St. Petersburg. What's wrong with this size is that when such a relatively small population lives across such a vast space, the expenses needed to maintain the city's social and engineering infrastructure increase substantially, and the transportation issue becomes almost unsolvable.

In saying no to further extensive development, Perm is taking a new turn that is unprecedented in Russia. Historically, this country and its cities have always strived to expand, and the desire to take over more and more space is deeply embedded in the Russian mentality. Perm's new approach suggests that the emphasis should be placed instead on the city's reconstruction, especially the redesign of existing neighborhoods and the filling up of empty space inside the existing boundaries. This not only requires a change of mentality but also disrupts customary ways in which business has been done. In Perm, like everywhere in Russia, agricultural land around the city has been bought up by private investors. Naturally, most of them have been hoping to build on their land, but the new strategy is blocking their plans.

In particular, it is unlikely that the Kamskaya Dolina project, which was being developed by the large national construction company Renova-StroiGroup, will be ever realized on the right, undeveloped bank of the Kama.

"There aren't many cities in the world that have developed successfully on both banks of a river," Christiaanse explained. "London, for instance, took a couple of centuries to populate both banks of the River Thames. And the Kama is almost a kilometer wide; this is 10 times wider than the width of the River Seine in and around Paris. This needs to be taken into account."

The cancellation of such investment projects has caused a revolt among construction lobbyists, and some developers are already suing the local government.

The city is also saying no to the new planned neighborhoods - mikroraiony - typical of Russia's panel building development. Altogether, the master plan calls for a shift from enclosed neighborhoods to city blocks. Its authors consider a strictly-shaped city block - not a development such as Perm's Le Corbusier, where buildings are thrown around the place chaotically - to be the most convenient and modern form of city living. Block-by-block development allows the separation of city space into two levels: Streets become pedestrian-friendly and contain stores and cafes, and yards become semi-private spaces used mostly by residents.

The master plan also calls for cessation of the functionality-based zoning by which each neighborhood contained similar-purpose buildings, with apartments in one neighborhood, offices in another and industry somewhere else. At the same time, KCAP does not recommend a particular architectural style in an attempt to foster a variety of possible approaches.

The development of new cultural institutions is an important component of the master plan, and this is where city-building meets the regional government's new cultural policy. Two of its major projects have been the subject of international architectural competitions this year. Architect David Chipperfield won the right to rebuild the city's theater of opera and ballet, and Yury Grigoryan will be in charge of a remake of the city port building, which is already home to Guelman's PERMM Museum of Contemporary Art.

The master plan also includes as one of its key features the opening of access to Perm's biggest treasure - the Kama River. (Historically, waterfront access was blocked by an industrial zone or a railway in most Soviet cities.) Now, special overpasses to the embankment will be built over the railway tracks. Overall, the Dutch approach is untypical for Russia: Until now, most architects in the country have been presented with the task of spotting suitable land for new construction, not making the existing city more comfortable.

Novaya Perm or New Bilbao?

The Perm regional government, evidently influenced by all these new ideas, has already put forth a proposal to solicit the title of European Capital of Culture in 2016. If the idea catches on with the federal government as part of its general plan to further integrate Russia into Europe, Perm will be able to count on some federal funds for its proposed museum-building activities. Chirkunov himself, having started the cultural revolution, is now moving on to science and education. The city has two universities, but the governor wants to build one that will be up to international standards. He has already allocated the territory and is negotiating with Western universities and educational consultants. At the same time, the reception of his ideas in Perm itself borders on skeptical. Many resent the fact that most of the local budget is being spent by Muscovites. In addition, residents are not exactly happy that, with all the festivals going on, so little has been done to address the daily needs of the city, where roads and other parts of the infrastructure remain dismal. The central figure of local resistance against "aggressors from Moscow" is writer Alexei Ivanov, author of "The Heart of Parma" and Perm's main homegrown cultural brand. Initially, Ivanov participated in some of Chirkunov's projects, but he has since changed over to sharp opposition. Ivanov says the "Moscow recon team" has no feel whatsoever for the specifics of a unique "Urals civilization" and will only be in Perm so long as there is money to spend.

The critics also fault the Dutch master plan for an alleged lack of cultural sensitivity to local traditions. How do you turn the enormous expanse of Perm into a compact European city? Why should such an emphasis be made on reconstruction instead of building new housing, of which there is a large shortage? How can any of this be accomplished on a very non-European budget? The Dutch do not answer any of these questions but instead write prescriptions, say many local architects, whose business, of course, has suffered with the arrival of the external invaders.

The fact that there have been, so far, very few real achievements on the real estate front also does not help the governor's case. Even the government itself recognizes that it has made more changes in terms of culture than it has in terms of city life. The center has been cleaned up, six squares have been overhauled and some 40 art objects have been erected, but that's about it so far. Everyone understands that the process of design and development of new buildings takes time, but the lack of significant visible construction activity fuels resentment.

To what extent is all this criticism fair? On a recent visit to Perm for its Economics and Culture forum, a group of delegates and journalists who had arrived by a chartered midnight plane from Moscow were taken across town in a bus escorted by police vehicles with flashing blue lights along streets that had been closed off for the occasion. This did not look like an arrival in a postindustrial city, but rather an episode from the Soviet past. Neither writer Ivanov nor other lawmakers in opposition to the reforms have been invited to the forum, which was guarded by scores of police. This seems to show that the progressives in Perm's government are still quite far-removed from its people, which is probably the weakest link in the whole Perm experiment. The local population is seen as just another variable, and not the ultimate purpose.

Will the experiment succeed? It's hard to tell. There are, so far, more plans and PR than real achievements. But as just that, an experiment, it's still very interesting, especially against the backdrop of inert development in most of Russia's regions.

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