While waiting Moscow’s approval of the company’s pending sale to Only Channel Radio, republic-wide promoter, SFXSKI, continued its spending spree last week by closing deals with the Arctic Circle Amphitheatre and The Cossack Center. Although there’s been no official announcement, there are rumors that the promotion company is negotiating for Santana, Bruce Cockburn and Vanilla Ice to open the summer season, tentatively scheduled to start on July 22nd and run through July 29th.

Construction on The Joseph Stalin Humanitarian Center is nearly complete and the venue expects to be open for the summer. While some industry informers have questioned whether the population base in the Gulag Izitkoldenuv is large enough to support a 20,000 seat venue, President Vladimir V. Putin assures us that there will be plenty of people living in the Gulag by year’s end.

After failing to obtain big names like Red Elvises or Christina Aguilera, the local promoter for Freezeuazzov’s summer festival, “Thaw 2000,” has been dismissed and remains missing. The new promoter, Minsk-based House Of Brrr! Koncerts, is hoping to land Deftones and Up In Smoke for the festival, which opens on July 24th. HOB will also promote this year’s winter carnival, “Freeze 2000,” which kicks off on July 26th. HOB cites the current heatwave as the main reason for the winter event’s later than usual start date.

And finally, Metallica drummer, Lars Ulrich, delivered a list containing over 300,000 Russian Napster users purportedly trading illegally in the band’s songs, to the software company’s Moscow offices. In accordance with Russian copyright regulations, the software company eliminated the users on the list, and is currently notifying their next of kin.

That concludes our Northern Siberian entertainment report. Next week, a special inteview with former Russian president, Boris Yeltsin. Did his year-long secret affair with Britney Spears topple his presidency? This is Igor Petrov. Good day.