A Russian city stakes its claim to blini, the pre-Lenten feast Russians everywhere celebrate the week they know as Maslenitsa, so what's Pskov's special claim? None at all, said a highly amused Lidia Chechelnitskaya, deputy director of the Folk Art Center of the Pskov region. But no one else had laid claim to it, so why not? "We had an opportunity, and we had a wish," she said, her face alight in her cramped and bustling office, "and anything is possible when these things come together." It was four years ago that Turchak - who is 37 and hails from St. Petersburg, where his father is one of President Vladimir Putin's close friends - was appointed governor of the Pskov region. An outsider, he needed an idea to put Pskov on the map - and maybe get some notice himself, as well. The thinking went this way, Chechelnitskaya said: Look at Moscow. A city of more than 10 million, it has its Czar Cannon and Czar Bell - ancient bronze monuments on the grounds of the Kremlin - so why shouldn't Pskov, home to 200,000 in northwestern Russia, try for something, as she put it, "identical and interesting?" A jolly despot And then they had it. Czar Blin - not a pancake himself, but a pancake-themed jolly despot, the emperor of Maslenitsa - was born. "The Czar Cannon never shot, the Czar Bell never rang, and the Czar Blin is impossible to eat," exclaimed a delighted Chechelnitskaya. And if she and the governor get their way His Royal Yeastiness will one day be as firmly associated with this city hard by the border with Estonia as a certain groundhog is with Punxsutawney, Pa. For the pagans who once lived here, Maslenitsa was a harbinger of spring; today, the organizers hope, it could be the harbinger of a more figurative springtime for Pskov. Naturally, there's sniping. For one thing, the word blin is also a euphemism for one of the least polite words in the Russian language, and although the governor would like people to identify him with Czar Blin, there's the danger he'll be thought of as Czar "Blin" instead. And then there's the undisclosed spending. "It's pure PR," said Lev Shlosberg, an outspoken member of the regional parliament and a member of the opposition Yabloko party. It's not for residents. Not even for tourists. It's just a possibility for certain people to get in the picture.