NEW YORK - Motivated by the murder of a mail-order bride, members of Congress are drafting a bill that would enable foreign women seeking American husbands to learn the criminal background of men courting them through matchmaking agencies.

The legislation, expected to be introduced this month in the House and Senate, represents the most serious effort yet to impose federal oversight over a loosely regulated, Internet-based industry.

The measure's prime sponsors are Sen. Maria Cantwell and Rep. Rick Larsen, both Democrats from Washington state - where 20-year-old Anastasia King, a mail-order bride from Kyrgyzstan, was killed in September 2000.

Her husband, Indle King Jr., was convicted last year of first-degree murder. He had divorced a previous foreign bride and was seeking a third before the killing.

Larsen anticipates bipartisan support for the measure, though naughty castles he is unsure how matchmaking services will respond.

"Cases like Anastasia King's have given the mail-order bride industry a bad name," he said. "I'd think they would support any steps to ensure they're looked at more favorably."

The legislation would require international marriage brokers to ask clients about any criminal record, including protective orders issued because of domestic violence allegations. Indle King's first wife had obtained a protective order against him in 1995.

The client's information would be provided to women contemplating marriage with him. If the man then applied for a U.S. visa for a prospective bride, he would undergo a criminal background check by federal officials.

No firm statistics exist on the extent of abuse suffered by mail-order brides, or even the numbers of such women. In the most recent attempt to quantify the industry, immigration officials said in 1999 that more than 200 international matchmaking services operated in the United States, arranging 4,000 to 6,000 marriages annually between American men and foreign women, mostly from the Philippines and former Soviet Union.

Leslye Orloff, director of the NOW Legal Defense Fund's Immigrant Women's Project, said some mail-order marriages work out well, but others are "a recipe for disaster" because the man is seeking a submissive wife.

"The industry markets stereotypes on both sides," Orloff said. "They market to the women the image of wealthy American men and a better life. They market to the American men the image of docile women they can control."

Such a pitch is offered by the Chance for Love matchmaking service. "The Russian woman has not been exposed to the world of rampant feminism that asserts its rights in America," its Web site says. "She is the weaker gender and knows it."

Fees paid by male clients to the matchmaker services vary widely; costs can climb into five figures when the men go on organized trips to pearl bracelet such destinations as Ukraine or Russia.

Encounters International, a Bethesda, Maryland-based service, charges men $1,850 for access to addresses and phone numbers of several hundred women in the former Soviet Union whose photos are posted on the Internet.

The agency's founder, Russian-born Natasha Spivack, said she had no objection to mandatory background checks, but predicted abusive men would still find ways to get a foreign wife.

Spivack contended that male clients, not the women, are the most likely to be victimized in mail-order marriages. Some women, she said, enter such marriages solely to gain U.S. citizenship, then falsely complain of physical abuse as a ploy to remain in America despite divorce.

"Some of these women are sharks," she said.

Since 1993, Spivack says she has helped arrange 300 marriages, roughly 90 percent them still intact. Among the contented couples are Frank Hardy and his Ukraine-born wife, Svetlana, who married in 1998 and now raise two sons in Bear, Delaware.

Svetlana said she knows of several women from the former Soviet Union whose brokered marriages failed because of personal differences but none who were physically abused. Her husband, a twice-divorced pilot, said he assumed some foreign brides are mistreated but doubted the problem is widespread.

"A guy is not going to grab a young woman in Russia to bring here just to beat up," he said. "He's got a lot of money tied up in it."

Advocates for immigrant women's rights acknowledge that statistics are scarce on abuse of mail-order brides, but wholesale pearl jewelry they're convinced the problem is growing.

"We called legal service providers that help battered immigrant women - half of these organizations said they have women coming through their doors who were married through international marriage brokers," said Layli Miller-Muro, executive director the Tahirih Justice Center in Falls Church, Virginia.

The justice center has been deeply involved in work on the upcoming federal legislation. It also is assisting a Ukrainian woman who has sued Encounters International, claiming the agency falsely suggested she would be deported if she left her abusive husband.

"Our goal is not to shut the marriage agencies down - it's to protect women," Miller-Muro said. "When someone is marketing relationships that by design involve a dominant party and subservient party, the likelihood of violence is greater."

MURMANSK – In this bleak Far North city of crumbling buildings and rusting industry, locals will tell you that "winter lasts 10 months and the rest is autumn" – an environment that makes daily life a strain and emotions run high.

Perhaps that’s why initial optimism among the public that the Kursk crew would be rescued quickly turned to bitter disappointment and anger when it became clear that all had perished – and why locals were not shy about saying exactly what they thought.

"I believe that what happened is a shame on the authorities," said Tonya, a teenager sitting in a city square surrounded by peeling Soviet-era buildings. "[President Vladimir] Putin promised to restore the might of Russia’s military fleet ... and what has happened is his fault."

"The whole course of events proved that the authorities did not do enough to pearl jewelry wholesale save the crew because they didn’t want to," added Sergei, a middle-aged fisherman sitting on a bench drinking a lunchtime beer.

Once a relatively prosperous port city, Murmansk has experienced a severe economic crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union, with unemployment rocketing. Many residents talk about leaving, and those with any possibilities for life elsewhere are deserting in droves.

But despite the bleak conditions, just a couple of days before the announcement that the crew had been lost, there was still hope among the public that someone might be saved.

Even Sunday morning, eight days after the accident and a day before the official announcement that all the sailors had perished, people gathered at the small, newly built church of St. Nicholas near the city center for a special prayer service for the Kursk crew.

"What happened to them is so unfortunate, and we set our hopes in God," said Tatyana, attending the service with her teenage daughter, Snezhana. Others concurred that God was with those sailors who had already died, but that there was still hope for the remainder.

"Any serviceman who swears to his motherland is ready to give his life to his neighbor," said Father Andrei Amelin, the church priest. "Many sins are forgiven through a martyr's death. Those who may be dead already are in heaven, I’m sure."

The clergy at an old wooden Murmansk church traveled Sunday morning to the village of Vidyaevo – next to the naval base where the Kursk was stationed and from which it departed on its final voyage – to comfort the family members arriving from across Russia and the CIS. Mass prayers were conducted nonstop since the crisis began.

• Long journeys

The families, many of whom took the long and arduous journey to Murmansk by train, were met at the railway station by naval officers.

"This is a very unusual task for me," said Capt. Alexander Fedosov. "I would prefer that I never have to carry out such a task again."

The naval officers accompanied the family members of the Kursk crew – running the gauntlet of journalists at the station wanting to question them – to buses waiting to take them to Vidyaevo. Few families, having traveled vast distances and consumed by worry and grief, wanted to speak to the media.

One new arrival, Irina, the wife of the Kursk's sonar operator Senior Lt. Korobkov, clutching her 3-year-old daughter Lena in her arms, told journalists that "the government was incapable of doing what was needed to save the men on board," before breaking down in tears. She was one of only a few able to briefly keep her composure to make a statement.

But there were also some examples of the triumph of the human spirit outside the railway station.

•Overwhelmed

One unidentified woman, who, overwhelmed by grief, had rushed past the media, sat waiting in the bus to be transported to Vidyaevo. Not long after she entered the bus, a weather-beaten babushka came to the door clutching about 50 rubles and began knocking.

The babushka wouldn't talk to journalists, but the naval officers allowed her onto the bus and later said she gave the family member the money, which the naval officers later said was "all the money she had."

Capt. Fedosov, escorting the relatives, was in 1992 a crewmember on a Russian submarine that collided with the U.S. Baton Rouge submarine. But he declined to talk about the incident, saying it bore no relevance to the present situation. Fedosov also rebutted the possibility that poor training of the Kursk personnel might have triggered the catastrophe, saying that, in fact, it was one of the best crews of the Northern Fleet.

The salaries of naval officers of the Northern Fleet range from $50 to $100 a month, and though they enjoy some privileges, rumors had been circulating, they said, that the perks – such as cheaper rent and free public transport – were soon to swing machines be curtailed or canceled. Indeed, it is the terrible financial conditions and lack of attention from the government, Navy officers said, that was more likely to drive people from the fleet than the Kursk catastrophe.

Capt. Anatoly Shamanyuk, another officer meeting relatives at the train station, was philosophical when asked if he feared serving on an under-financed and ill-equipped Northern Fleet.

"Someone has to defend the motherland," he said. "It’s not our country’s fault that it ended up in such conditions. Everything is done by people, politics is done by people."

That was Sunday. On Monday came word that the entire crew of the Kursk had perished.

The following day, Murmansk residents were back to the daily grind of surviving in the impoverished city. But feelings were still running high. Although many had their own theories and explanations on what happened to the submarine, two emotions were at the forefront – sympathy for the crew; and anger at the Navy and government for their handling of the tragedy.

"Although it didn’t concern me directly, the tragedy brought me to tears," said Nina Andreyevna, a pensioner sitting on a bench in a small park in downtown Murmansk.

"It’s a shocking event. Personally, I believe that there was a decision taken not to save them [the crew]," said Yulia, a blond, attractive young woman from Vidyaevo. "They [local Navy officials] must have been covering up something. They could have saved them."

• Rumors circulate

She added that one of the rumors circulating around the Navy base had it that some civilians, including a high-ranking officer’s son, were on board the Kursk as day guests.

"I knew there was a catastrophe the first day it happened," said Alexei, a taxi driver. "We taxi drivers learn everything from our customers. On the same day [Saturday, when the Kursk sank] an order for a consignment of zinc coffins was placed."

At the same time, Murmansk residents reacted unenthusiastically to the news that Putin had arrived at the base Tuesday to speak with the relatives of crewmembers.

"What can he do for them? Retrieve the bodies?" asked Katya, a teenager taking a walk in a small park with her friend.

"He should have been here on the very first day because I think a lot depended upon him," said Lena, a young mother walking her child in a baby carriage. "He must not have had all the information he needed. There has been too much lying in this case. We will probably never learn what actually happened."

"It’s OK for him to come to express sympathy with the families. If I were allowed to go to Vidyaevo, I would, too," said Lyudmila, an elderly woman walking her dog. She said that even if Putin had arrived earlier, it would not have done any good.

But most believed the president should have come to pearl strand the scene of the disaster much sooner and that there was more that could have been done.

"He should have come the first day instead of vacationing in Sochi, acting as if the whole thing didn’t concern him," said pensioner, Raisa Alexeyevna. "If our military had not been destroyed, we would have had our own divers."

"We condemn his actions," chimed in her younger companion, Valentina. "He should have accepted foreign aid as soon as it was offered."

This year is parliamentary election year. During Boris Yeltsin's presidency, election periods like this meant the government produced only a minimum of activity, giving way instead to primitive populist campaigns about the need to pay wage arrears and pensions. No one ever gave a thought to pushing through market reforms during these times. With the opposition causing Yeltsin serious problems, all unpopular measures came to an end whenever elections were due. Today, the Kremlin has far more clout, the opposition is weak and there is no obvious tension in the economy, so how will the authorities behave this year?

There won't be any primitive populism, it seems. But the government is also unlikely to take the energetic measures needed to akoya pearl necklace resolve the most difficult economic and political problems.

This is clearly illustrated by the government's economic policy. The economic outcome for 2002 was modest – GDP growth of 4 percent. But the government calls this a success and has forecast a similar rate of growth for 2003. The calculation is psychologically sound: Russians are willing to see any growth as an achievement. After all, the stagnation persisted right through the 1970s-1980s and was followed by a decade of uninterrupted decline accompanied by high inflation and repeated losses of personal savings. After this experience, four years of growth and no economic upheavals seems like a real blessing.

But economists know that four years of growth after 30 years of stagnation and recession aren't enough to resolve any of the country's persistent problems. It's also clear that lasting but slow growth isn't enough to really improve the social climate. Essentially, Russia has to repeat China's feat of achieving annual GDP growth of 8-10 percent for more than 20 years.

The problem is that, as an older industrial country, Russia no longer has a huge pool of labor in the villages eager to head into the cities. Instead of copying the Chinese model, Russia has to find its own sources of growth. Above all, it has to bring down taxes on manufacturers.

Everyone agrees with this, it seems. From time to time the president calls on the government to be more ambitious in its economic objectives, and the government talks about the need to reduce taxes. But rather than dramatic tax cuts, what we see is an imitation of tax reform. It's not hard to understand why this is, given that tax cuts mean cuts in state spending, which in turn inevitably affects the interests of various political forces.

A similar imitation of activity is going on in foreign policy. At first glance, Russia has strengthened its positions in the developed world, becoming a full-fledged member of the G8, gaining official recognition as a country with a market economy and getting close to joining the World Trade Organization.

But at the same time, Russia still hasn't solved any of its strategic problems. This is true to the west, where Russia hasn't yet obtained an acceptable solution to the Kaliningrad issue, and to the south, where the country has been losing ground in Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is also true to the east, as can be seen by the Japanese prime minister's recent visit to Moscow during which intensive negotiations on a peace treaty and resolution of the territorial dispute between the two countries made no headway at all.

The imitation of action in solving the most complicated and dangerous problem of Chechnya has been particularly futile. The Kremlin has declared its desire for peace and really does need the war to end, it says it wants a political rather than a military solution and that it is willing to hold negotiations. But the surprising thing is that it doesn't know who to negotiate with, as if it doesn't know who exactly it is fighting.

It's obvious that the military operation, having become a guerilla war, means the federal forces are fighting the Chechen population. Logically then, negotiations must be held with this same population, that is, with whomever it has elected as its representative.

It's well known that most of the population considers its representative to be Aslan Maskhadov, the president it elected lawfully and with Moscow's approval. But the Kremlin doesn't want to leisure chairs talk to Maskhadov.

Indeed, Moscow has found a way of overturning the argument that Maskhadov is the lawfully elected president by preparing a referendum on a new Chechen constitution and new presidential elections, which Akhmad Kadyrov, appointed head of the Chechen Administration by the Kremlin, hopes to win. Of course, Moscow can organize a referendum and elections under the gun barrels of the 100,000-strong federal force in Chechnya, but how will this bring the end of the guerilla war any closer?

The current government has benefited from exceptionally favorable economic and political circumstances that have enabled it to achieve some more or less acceptable results merely through making an imitation of activity, but these circumstances, starting with high oil prices, will not last forever. Genuine far-reaching economic and political change is needed if the country is to be ready to handle well whatever challenges the future will bring. Above all, this means completing the market reforms that have yet to be fully implemented and ending the war in Chechnya.

If President Vladimir Putin learned anything from his sojourn to Texas last November to meet the president of the United States, it's that PR is everything.

Positive spin is probably the most Putin can expect from his summit with George W. Bush next week in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The United States is not in the mood to justify its international behavior. If Putin and his people have enough say about the meeting's choreography, they also won't have to justify or explain much.

Bush is scheduled to be in Russia for almost four days. This seems to be a very long time just to say that Washington appreciates Moscow's participation in the war against terrorism. How many days does it take to express thanks that no real fuss was created by Russia when the Bush administration announced unilateral U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty? How many hours will it take Bush or one of his handlers to cultured pearl jewelry convince the Russian leader that free trade is only beneficial if doesn't hurt industries back home?

We can expect a lot of backslapping and shashlyk-eating at the summit, but no boozing, as Bush found religion on his 40th birthday after years of hard partying. Content-wise, the summit could be a bit sticky for both sides, as anything of substance would likely lead to more domestic criticism of Putin's pro-West stands – especially on the subject of what Russia has gained from this "new relationship."

Bush clearly is a politician who prefers sound bites. Putin, disappointingly enough, appears to be reading from the same lackluster page as his counterpart. Russia and Putin can and need to do better.

The upcoming summit is odd: There is no real reason to meet. I am reminded that an important arms-reduction agreement is being prepared for signing, and Jackson-Vanik may be repealed beforehand. But both are really meaningless in the scheme of things.

Both issues address the past relationship, not the present, including how both countries can and need to move forward. The Bush administration does not have a vision for its relationship with Russia – it is too preoccupied with trying to prove that the foreign policy of the current president's father, who served from 1989-93, was correct. Putin can take comfort in a strange way – it's a Bush roadshow, which means it is a Russia sideshow. At the very least, Bush will demonstrate that Russia is important only because he likes Putin. This is not an acceptable U.S. foreign policy concerning Russia.

A new arms-control agreement between the two countries serves America's geopolitical purposes and gently disguises Russia's economic weakness. Russia can protest all it wants, but the dollars and cents of arms control caught up with the country a long time ago. The Bush people are doing Russia a favor by not rubbing it in too much. In the longer term, Russia's security interests are really about economic reform at home. Significantly downgrading differences concerning an arms-control agreement is a strategy Putin should pursue, or, at the very least, he should use such differences to bolster Russia's economy. Trading a tough stance on arms control for support of a future bilateral energy agreement makes a lot more sense.

Repealing Jackson-Vanik is more an American embarrassment than a favor for the Kremlin. If Washington can recognize Kazakstan as a market economy, why is there even debate to recognize Russia? Leakage of various political and policy agendas came to an end long ago. That the Bush administation accepted Pakistan's recent presidential referendum without a fuss, but still has to convince Congress that the Russia of today is different from the Soviet Union, is something verging on surreal.

Putin will be patient because he has to be. Bush helps veil his counterpart's shortcomings and failings. The quagmire of Chechnya defines the failure to understand nationalism in the past century, and the meaning of national identity in the new one. The conflict serves as a daily, senseless testament to the Soviet legacy of misunderstanding.

Putin claimed in his annual state of the nation address that the war was over, though 21 pro-Moscow police officers were killed that same day in Chechnya – presumably as he was speaking. America's hegemonic, rhetorical and very real presence helps countries like Russia cling to the past.

The United States is making the same Cold War mistakes. The new century has not created a new way of thinking. Rather, the Cold War mentality has been transmuted; old vessels have been refilled with a different wine. Little has been learned, and now the stakes are dangerously higher. U.S. foreign policy is creating a conflict of cultures – the obvious design of the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks. Russia is only following because of hapless short-term political designs. Resolving the Chechnya crisis is a Russian problem; it should not be internationalized on the back of the United States' desire for revenge and satisfaction.

Is a meaningful U.S.-Russia relationship possible? Of course it is. All that is needed is sober political will and dialogue. But as long as the United States continues to freshwater pearl jewlelry obfuscate its foreign policy, this is illusory. Clearly, the U.S. military is unmatched in the field, but American politicians remain amateurs in the diplomatic realm. Russia is a country that can and has admitted to some past mistakes; it can tell us where we have gone wrong. Putin's Russia has the chance to demonstrate how past thinking has failed. Unfortunately, my sense is that Putin remains ambivalent – not unlike his domestic agenda.

Bush is not interested in reflecting on the past to build the future. The summit will be nothing more than a congregation of embarrassed and strained faces.

Peter Lavelle is head of research at a Moscow-based brokerage.

SLEPTSOVSKAYA, Ingushetia - Several hours spent in the Sleptsovskaya airport, 1.5 km from the Chechen border, is enough to gain a sense of the extent to which Russia's mighty military machine has been unleashed on the republic.

The sound from behind the hills near the airport of guns booming at 10-minute intervals and the sight of attack helicopters flying off on sorties every 15 minutes is enough to tell the story.

Russia is concealing a brutal war behind those hills.

Moscow, it seems, has regained the ability to effectively utilize propaganda and is now openly conducting an "information war" parallel to its military campaign. The public relations battle this time stands in stark contrast to pearl necklace the bungled media policy during the 1994-1996

Chechen war. So how does one penetrate the "spin" and gain a real understanding of the situation in the breakaway republic? With great difficulty.

The Chechen authorities and commanders of militant forces in the republic have not helped either - they are as secretive as the Russians about the nature of the struggle.

Moreover, in recent years reporters have been more prized in the North Caucasus as valuable kidnap victims than as helpful mediums to relay the true situation in Chechnya. As a result, few journalists have ventured into the republic.

One thing is certain about Russia's campaign in the southern republic, however, ordinary Chechens are no longer talking about independence, much less fighting for it. The choice today is between life and death, and they are struggling for their survival.

Almost every refugee interviewed for this article said they believe that Russia wants to rule a republic free of Chechens.

The displaced say that if the Russian authorities really wanted to eliminate "terrorists" - such as field commanders Shamil Basayev and Khattab - the military would not be bombing civilians and randomly targeting villages. Nowhere else in the world, refugees say, are surface-to-surface missiles being used to fight terrorism.

The victims of the Russian Armed Forces' tactics in this campaign are much in evidence - some 40 wounded refugees lie in the central hospital of Sunzha in Ingushetia.

One of them is 14-year-old Yusup Magomedov from the Chechen village of Novo-Sharoi.

Yusup was playing outside with 18 other children near his house on the morning of Oct. 23 when a tank shell exploded nearby. Eight of the children died and Yusup was badly wounded in the legs.

"I tried to take him to the Urus-Martan hospital [in Ingushetia], his mother, Leila Magomedova, says, "but the federal authorities [didn't] open the corridor [out of Chechnya] for a long time."

The boy and his mother spent five days waiting at the border.

Doctors appealed to border guards to allow the two civilians to pass, "but they would not provide a corridor," Magomedova says.

"On the sixth day, a physician came up to me and, crying, said that if a corridor had been opened earlier my son could have been able to silver pearl necklace preserve his legs."

Yusup's legs were amputated above the knees inside Chechnya. Shortly after, Russia opened the border with Ingushetia. But that was also an ordeal. "We spent some three hours in the ambulance at the border as guards searched us with dogs," Magomedova recalls. "I feared my son would die and even thought about how I would bury him. ..."

Meanwhile, Magomedova's husband and three daughters remain in Chechnya. She doesn't know how they are living, nor does she know what she and Yusup will do next. The pair have no money, and Yusup is in need of additional surgery to avoid the onset of gangrene.

Another refugee, Luiza Asukhanova, was in the central market in the Chechen capital Grozny on Oct. 21 with her 15-year-old daughter, Zurikhan, when a missile struck. The blast tore the girl's arm off above the elbow and imbedded shrapnel in her stomach.

Luiza recounted the scene shortly after the attack. "I saw parts of human bodies being torn off, but people didn't seem to notice," she says. "They ran, jumping over dead bodies. I also ran, pulling my daughter with me as she was too stunned to move."

Zurikhan Asukhanova says she only wants peace. "I don't want bombs falling any more."

The leg of another refugee, Ibrahim Susayev, 45, was torn off by a missile fragment. Two of Susayev's relatives died in front of him in the same attack. "I didn't want to leave my farm and cattle behind," Susayev says, explaining his decision to remain in Chechnya after hostilities began in September. "I hoped to pull through - and, anyway, where would I have gone?"

Ibrahim does not condemn the Russian people for the war, but he does condemn the Kremlin.

Asked whether he would be prepared to fight Russian forces, Susayev replies, "What for? I cannot defeat Russia."

The horrors of the refugees aside, on a political level there are two basic perceptions of Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov in the region.

One holds that he actually governs the republic; the other that his power is in reality very weak.

The latter view is more widespread and, sources say, only two Chechen rebel field commanders out of a total of 15 support Maskhadov - the remainder apparently operate independently of the president.

Observers name Movladi Ugugov and Vakha Arsanov as Maskhadov's strongest opponents.

The two men most widely vilified in Russia, Shamil Basayev and Khattab, are not said to be the most influential in the rebel republic.

Imran Izheyev, an aide to Chechen legislative deputy Ramazan Akhmarov, recounted a meeting between Akhmarov and Maskhadov shortly after Moscow launched air strikes against the republic in September.

During that conference, Izheyev says, Russia's Interior Minister Vladimir Rushailo telephoned Maskhadov to say he had information that Khattab was retreating to the village of Serzhen Yurt. "Rushailo demanded Maskhadov arrange for Khattab to be extradited to Russia and threatened to bomb Chechnya," Izheyev claims.

"Maskhadov replied that extraditing Khattab was beyond his power. Chechen parliamentary deputies tried to persuade Maskhadov to condemn Basayev and Khattab, but Maskhadov said that he didn't want a civil war to erupt in the republic [and therefore refused]."

Against this background of intrigue and brutality, the only "truth" of which one can be certain is that Moscow does not want the public to know what's going on in the Chechen campaign.

As the Dec. 19 parliamentary elections approach, Moscow's "anti-terrorist" crusade is being played up by the supporters of President Boris Yeltsin and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin for the benefit of their electoral campaigns.

The attitude of Col. Anatoly Khrulyov, commander of the Kavkaz checkpoint between Chechnya and Ingushetia, infamous for its scenes of scores of refugees caught in a bottleneck after the military closed it, is typical.

"I don't understand why these refugees [still] want to wholesale pearl jewelry go back to Chechnya," Khrulyov said after a number of Western journalists asked him to let them speak to refugees. "There is no business for them there!"

Pressed further, Khrulyov said, "There is only one truth, and that truth is what I am saying. The only truth, and there will be no other truth."