Dispatches From Russia: G8 Summit Attack Thwarted? Questions Abound

(SAINT PETERSBURG, Russia) - The United States is far from the only country having to contend with terrorist/insurgent attacks and this extends beyond the Bush administration's Â°coalition of the willing." Details remain murky surrounding the killing of Chechen rebel leader Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev this past weekend in his hometown of Argun.

Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov refuses to offer any explanation for his insisting that Sadulayev was intending to lead a terrorist attack in conjunction with the July G8 Summit scheduled here, in Saint Petersburg. That assertion is being met with more than a fair share of skepticism as Sadulayev was rumored to have convinced Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev not to carry out any significant terrorist attacks following the massacre of schoolchildren and parents at Beslan.

This is not to say that the Chechen prime minister is not talking at all. To the contrary, Kadyrov insists that a raid to capture Sadulayev was made possible by someone in his inner circle acting as a Judas. Instead of silver, the informant asked for rubles and got them. The price offered up for the Chechen rebel leader's capture: 1,500 rubles or roughly fifty bucks! That certainly is a far cry from the bounty placed on recently killed al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi whose capture dead or alive was worth upwards of $25,000.000.

If the subject matter wasn't so serious, one might chortle at Prime Minister Kadyrov also announcing that the informant did it all for a fix: Â°He needed to buy a gram of heroin. He sold out his leader for heroin, Kadyrov contended.

Life in Saint Petersburg during White Nights continues to roll on as usual. As a writer, I am thrilled to see that its residents remain voracious readers despite Western distractions like discos.

Riding the metro one encounters many commuters glued to books, newspapers or magazines. Russia is certainly wired though and Internet cafes are popular with the locals who cannot afford a desktop for home use or a laptop of their own.

There are plenty of women who Â°fake and bake." Men, on the other hand, apparently don't take to tanning beds as readily and are, therefore just as pale as I am.

Women here like to show off flat stomachs with low-rider jeans and shirts that expose the navel. More than a few have also acquired tattoos just above their backside.

One thing to laud in St. Petersburg that we don't see exercised in America is the routine use of turn signals. I'm no mind reader and love to be apprised of what motorists are intending to do; especially when they are speeding down the street at 30 kilometers above the posted speed limit.

Russian speed racers thankfully let you know if you best get out of the way. They hug turns and curves like Formula One drivers.

I had to see a ballet while in St. Petersburg and decided to take in "Giselle" at the Hermitage Theatre. The venue is intimate with salmon colored marble columns and intricate statuary throughout.

Unfortunately, the performance was not as impressive as seeing Â°Swan Lake" at the famous MariinskyTheatre 14 years ago; I saved that libretto.

The stage at this production was far too small to accommodate the number of dancers on it, especially when the corps de ballet was hard at work. Dancers appeared hemmed in and it was certainly problematic when they were trying to convey a floating sensation as Wilis & shades of the forest & try to dance men to death.

The use of a human propelled scooter was employed at one point. It apparently charmed some younger people in the audience, but this walking anachronism found it out of place in a classical ballet. Put it in a Merce Cunningham modern dance program and I'd be thumbs up too.

I have placed myself on a bench in the Field of Mars where an eternal flame flickers in the perpetual sun of the White Nights. In the distance, the Cathedral of Spilt Blood and its ornate cupolas meet a blue sky etched with a smattering of cumulus clouds.

The cathedral is erected on the spot where Tsar Alexander II was assassinated by a terrorist faction.

Summer Literary Seminars (SLS) participants have been treated to just one morning of light rainfall. Precipitation occurs with regularity in St. Pete but we have been subject to a heat wave. Grey skies that normally sweep in from the Gulf of Finland have not materialized.

After a spell, it's time to get up and explore the city further and my peripatetic has me walking along the cobbled and large brick slab sidewalks along the Neva River. Sunlight reflects off its waters as tourist boats go by. The golden spire of the Peter and Paul Fortress attempts to reach the sky.

The urban trek continues and places me in front of the green pastel faÃ§ade of the Winter Place of Tsar Nicholas II that was stormed by the Bolsheviks during the October Revolution of 1917. This seminal event in world history would lead to the killing of several of my relatives so I find it a bit disconcerting that souvenir hawkers are now distributing McLenin t-shirts here.

My two weeks in Saint Petersburg will be coming to a close Saturday. I hope you have enjoyed the troika of reports I've sent to salem-news.com. I appreciate its readership.

Tonight is summer solstice. On this longest day of the year, my legs will take to the streets of Petersburg to run into the next day in the Land of the Midnight Sun.