Dear Sir,

Up to now I have not a honor to be in correspondence with you. Having known you had read and comment my message of the 6 September to Dr. Maistrello, I decided to get in touch with you directly though I am not quite sure that my decision is in accordance with INTAS rules.

The aim of this letter is to clear up any misunderstandings and doubts concerning state of financial affairs in Moscow at realization of the IA-96-03 project.

In the Final Report I asked Dr Maistrello to clarify the role of Spetsgeofizika in detail, but, unfortunately, this was not done, and in this report was indicated only how we spent INTAS money from Brussels budget.
I have read your September message to Dr. Maistrello and fairly well understood, I hope, your position. Let me now also to comment your message.

1. I am very glad you confirm that 6,224 USD blocked at the General Bank remains available for the Moscow team if the money "could be justified". However that money is a part of the first advance payment (68,000 EURO) for Moscow. I think, it is very natural logical chain: no advance - no payment - no justification - only foreseen expenses. Ex nihilo nihil fit - as remarked notable compatriot of Dr. Maistrello.

2. I am also glad you have no interest in decreasing the total amount of money for IA-96-03 project.

3. You are right that INTAS paid ( to my mind with large delay ) the actual cost of our equipment. However it is not all equipment we used for the project, but only a part of it.

4. In the Final Report in table 1 on page 5 in column Equipment was indicated not all money (48,508 EURO) which we spent for equipment, but only a part of it. This part is INTAS money from the Brussels budget. The blocked money in the General Bank (6,224 USD) and in the MOST BANK (14,471 USD), which also is a part of the first advance payment, I can not justify for the obvious and above mentioned reason.

5. I will be very glad if you decide to audit the project. By this action INTAS will better understand real situation and real contribution of the all four partners into realization of the project.

Thus in summer’98 about 30% of the first advance payment was blocked and only with help of the General Director of Spetsgeofizika Dr. R. Berzin, who decided to support our project, the last part of necessary equipment was paid and acquired by Spetsgeofizika (see Table ?1). Moreover, Spetsgeofizika also paid many auxiliary costs main of which you can see in the Table N. 2.

Dr. R. Berzin and I have done it for the three reasons:
    a) we both consider the project as very important.
    b) we both signed The Power of Attorney.
    c) we both appreciate much the INTAS action.

By the way, this help was done when in Russia we had very hard times and all employees of Spetsgeofizika during several months had not salary.

I draw your attention that all of Spetsgeofizika payments were done via banks and sometimes in roubles. That means we have all necessary documents which justify these payments but only in Russian. If you need these documents I can send you copies.

Some final comments are necessary on the first payment that is blocked and still hold by INTAS.
Because they were not available we had to reduce our staff from five to three people. These three people and I myself have been paid salary by Spetsgeofizika to try to keep the project moving forward. The final 10% of INTAS budget was planned to be used mainly for salaries. These were to cover the data processing without which the value of the entire INTAS investment is greatly reduced. The work, that we should have been doing during the last 10 months of the coming year, financed by the 10% (b, above) were expected to lay the foundation for a new INTAS project application next year.

Thus the full financing of the project is vital for the satisfactory use of the INTAS investment in equipment.

I would like to add that my INTAS laboratory has been inspected by a group of scientists from the Swedish Research Council and obtained strong approval.
The whole IA-96-03 Action is excellently described by Dr. Maistrello in his web-site at the address: http://daphne.irrs.mi.cnr.it/~mariano.

Let me recommend you to investigate this information by which you can see many objects which indicated in Tables N.1 and 2. If you shall consider above mentioned information as justifiable, I hope, that your actions shall be in accordance with term 19 of the General Condition.

Yours sincerely,

Yu. Yurov.
Leader of Moscow team
 

Table N. 1

List of Equipment acquired for the INTAS project IA-96-03.

a)

b)

c)

II. SOFTWARE

Table N. 2

Main Auxiliary Costs for IA-93-06 project

Yury Yurov

        Spetsgeofizika, The Russian Ministry of Natural Resources,
        4 Nizhnyaya Krasnoselskaya, 107140 Moscow, Russia
        Tel: +7 095 264 06 73 Fax: +7 095 264 86 14
        E-mail: spetsgeo@cityline.ru