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The Moscow Times was the only newspaper represented at the Russian-American Business Summit, which participated in by Dmitry Medvedev and Barak Obama

On 7 July 2009 The Moscow Times published a special full colour issue of the newspaper, timed to coincide with the visit of Barak Obama to Moscow.

The newspaper was presented at the Russian-American Business Summit, which was organized by the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) and the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RUIE) at Manezh. The forum drew the participation of more than 700 key representatives of Russian and international business, the political elite and non-governmental organizations.



Friday, July 10, 2009 Updated at 10 July 2009 0:46 Moscow Time.

The Moscow Times » Issue 3000 » 3,000th Issue

Reporter Carl Schreck holding a World War II-era mine while on assignment in Tver.

A Dummy's Guide to Writing About Crime

07 September 2004By Carl Schreck / The Moscow TimesRussian police don't have the greatest reputation, to put it mildly.

It seems like every week there are new reports about the notorious "werewolves in epaulettes," crooked cops accused of everything from extortion of businessmen to rape and assault of innocent civilians.

Given this, it's hardly surprising that the most common question I get about my weekly Crime Watch column is whether it's intimidating to talk to Russian police.

The answer is "No." It's not intimidating. In fact, anyone with a decent command of Russian, a strong stomach and a bit of initiative can cut their teeth as a crime reporter in Russia. There are only a couple tricks of the trade, albeit very important ones, you have to learn.

The first thing to do is to learn the vernacular. When I first began making calls to police to get details about the latest grisly murder or ingenious scam, the deafening silence on the other end of the line made it obvious that I was bumbling my way through questions about suspected ne'er-do-wells. I only learned a little later that one can gain instant credibility, even with a heavy foreign accent, by peppering questions with police slang.

With apologies to our resident linguist Michelle Berdy, one essential is to shun the word prestupnik, the formal translation of the noun "criminal." Instead use the word zlodei. Literally it means "evil doer," though it's probably best translated as "perp." There may be an initial thrill of sounding like a pro the first time you ask police "Kto zlodei?," or "Who's the perp?" But that wears off soon. After all, to police you sound just like another pesky crime reporter, and that is, after all, the point.

To expand your crime vocabulary it's crucial to read the sensationalist daily Moskovsky Komsomolets, which consistently provides the most colorful, and sometimes disturbingly gleeful, crime reporting in the city. There you might pick up terms like primeryat, which literally means "to try on," as in clothes, but can also be used to describe how police size up whether a suspect can be charged with a given crime.

The next thing to do is to learn the Criminal Code. Not all of it, mind you. There are 360 articles in the document, and most of them aren't applicable to the job. Learn the important ones.

Asking police if a perp is being charged with Article 105 -- murder -- shows you've done your homework. Police will be pleasantly surprised that you take their job seriously will often reward you in kind with copious details.

One agency immune to flattery is the Federal Security Service. Squeezing information out of this successor to the KGB is about as easy as prying a steak from the locked jaws of a pit-bull.

Recently, after an FSB spokesman refused to confirm details that were being widely reported in the press, including government news agencies, one of my editors asked me to have them "confirm whether or not they exist."

The typical FSB response to queries is a request that you send a fax with your questions in writing. They'll get back to you, though rarely in a timely fashoin. This is why so many articles contain statements like "an FSB spokesman declined to comment immediately." They'll answer you eventually, sometimes days, or even weeks, after the article has been published.

Finally, perhaps the most important and obvious step in covering crime is establishing personal contacts within the police. If they know you, they're a lot more comfortable talking to you. The best thing to do is to go down to a precinct and get to know them.

A few months ago I visited a good contact of mine in his district branch, which will remain undisclosed here.

I brought a bottle of vodka to be a good guest. It was the first time we'd ever met in person, and when I walked into his cramped office with the bottle, he eyed me up and down while I considered the prospect that I had offended a rabid teetotaler.

"Do you drink?" he asked me uneasily.

I waited for a second and gave a drawn-out answer. "Well ... yes."

"Because I have some very fine stuff here," he said, walking over to the small refrigerator in the office and pulling out a bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream.

We downed a couple of shots of Bailey's and went down to the cafeteria to talk shop over lunch.

When we got back to his office he showed me a video of a raid on an apartment where a criminal group was hiding out. The camera followed the cops as they kicked down the door and burst in with guns cocked and screaming for everyone to get down on the floor. Every one of the men inside the apartment was armed, and I didn't envy the cameraman.

After a minute the tape cut off, and when it resumed the apartment was quiet. On the floor was a badly beaten man lying in a pool of blood. Like I said, a strong stomach is important.