When the results were displayed, Chernyadev - one of St. Petersburg's best-known television personalities - smiled in approval and said: "And these results are from the most intelligent city in Russia."

The show's guest, Gudsi Osmanov, the Honorary Azeri Consul in St. Petersburg, at one point asked Chernyadev: "If I wasn't a consul but a simple Azeri, would you want to beat me up?"

In response, Chernyadev smiled and laughed anxiously - but did not answer the question.

"In any European country Chernyadev would have been led out of the studio in handcuffs," a friend of mine, Sergei Alexeyev, said in disgust after watching the broadcast.

The city government owns the single largest stake - 38 percent - in Petersburg Television and Vice Governor Alexander Potekhin is chairman of the station's board of directors. Given this, one must ask the question: Is ethnic cleansing now the official policy in Smolny?

It seems to have been the unofficial policy for some time. By just paying attention to who's documents police tend to check on any street it is clear that law-enforcement officers in this city tend to equate dark skin with criminal intentions. Do they really believe that there are no fair skinned bandits in our fair city?

Overt racism in the local media - and sometimes among city officials - is of course, nothing new. Last year, the St. Petersburg edition of the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda ran a story warning Russian women not to couple with men of different races. Quoting so-called medical "experts," the article claimed that children of mixed marriages ran the risk of being born with genetic defects.

Also last year, Denis Usov, a member of the Kupchina's district council in southern St. Petersburg, initiated a program to rid the area of ethnic minorities, specifically those from the Caucuses. Usov - who was interviewed on Chernyadev's ethnic cleansing broadcast - distributed leaflets asking residents to tell him the addresses of Caucasians , so he can turn them over to the police.

And, last December's local legislative elections were marred by openly racist stories in the media, anti-Semitic leaflets and physical threats against several candidates of Jewish origin.

During NATO's 72-day air war against Serbia, many of my Russian friends and colleagues expressed anger and dismay at the bombing campaign. Most, like myself, were disturbed by the Western alliance's military campaign against a sovereign state without a United Nations mandate. Most, like myself, were also concerned that the air strikes would make matters worse - not better - for Kosovo's ethnic Albanians. And most, like myself, also categorically condemned Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's campaign of ethnic cleansing.