CHICAGO: Anna Hebal said pierogi dumplings do not sell as they used to at her Czerwone Jabluszko Polish eatery in Chicago. She blames a lack of Poles immigrating to the city, the largest Polish community outside of Warsaw.

“Theres no point in coming to the United States, now that theres a united Europe,” said Hebal, 54, who received refugee status in the United States after Poland, which was a Communist country at the time, declared martial law while she visited Chicago in 1981. “Poles have more freedom than ever, so less people are coming. Its kind of hard.”

Poles in Chicago say their culture, influence and businesses are declining in Chicago, the third-largest U.S. city.

Entry by Poland into the European Union in 2004 is leading Poles who once considered moving to Chicago to choose cities like Dublin and London, where their earnings can be similar to U.S. wages, but a flight from home takes just about two hours and no visa or work permit is required.

Metropolitan Chicago, with a population of more than nine million, has more than 800,000 residents of Polish descent.

The number of Poles in the Chicago area who were granted permanent resident status in 2005 fell 5.3 percent to 5,575 from 2004, when Poland joined the European Union, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

“Its been a very distinctive decline,” said Wanda Kudrycka, a Pole who works at the Polish Embassy in Washington. “They are going to England, and then Ireland and Germany.”

Poles are making immigration decisions based more on economics than on politics. Chicago lost out on luring Damian Magierski, who used to work at a television-assembly company in Warsaw.

He rejected his sisters suggestions that he move to Chicago to increase his pay. He leaves Warsaw next month for a construction job in Glasgow.

“I already know that a month later I will see my family, paying only 100 zloty, or $30, for a cheap plane,” said Magierski, 32. “A few years ago, I probably would have flown to Chicago immediately after receiving a visa. These days, I wasnt even considering that. America is far. If I go there, I would need to stay at least six months to make any sense out of the trip.”

Chicago traces its Polish ties to the 1830s, with the arrival of aristocrats who fled their homeland after a failed 1830-31 revolt against Russian domination, according to Dominic Pacyga, author of the book “Polish Immigrants and Industrial Chicago.”

Polish peasants in the 1850s began flocking to the city, where an expanding meat-packing industry needed laborers with experience handling livestock, Pacyga says.

Today, Chicago is still infused with Polish culture. Theaters, choral societies and dance troupes are named for the composer Fryderyk Chopin. Polish restaurants feature pierogi Д boiled egg- dough dumplings that are most often stuffed with potatoes, onions, cabbage or cheese.

Polish influence extends throughout Illinois.

Schools and government offices closed Monday to honor the birthday of Casimir Pulaski, a Polish cavalry officer recruited by Benjamin Franklin to fight the British. Pulaski was killed in a battle in Savannah, Georgia.

Chicago served as a refuge for Polands art as well as its immigrants in the 20th century.

When Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, paintings, sculpture and artifacts on display at the New York Worlds Fair were shipped for safekeeping to the Polish Museum of America in Chicago.

The works remain in the museum, and will make their first trip back to Poland in a traveling exhibit this year, said the museums director, Jan Lorys. He said Polish influence was peaking as Chicago Poles return to Poland after they retire.

“The problem facing us is that people will stop coming,” said Lorys, 58, the son of a Polish cavalry officer captured by the Nazis when Warsaw fell in 1939.

Polish residents in Chicago still wield political and cultural clout, said Monika Mysliwiec, a Polish outreach coordinator at the Chicago Board of Elections who came to the United States more than 10 years ago. She oversees five Polish speakers at an election hot line handling complaints about voter fraud at polling stations.

The city publishes voter guides in English, Spanish, Polish and Chinese.

“Polish and Spanish are neck and neck,” said Vern Apke, a Chicago Board of Elections researcher who lives in a Polish enclave called Archer Heights.

Across town, the restaurant owner, Hebal, said Polish fare like meat-stuffed cabbage rolls called golabki has dwindled to one-third of her menu. Buffet trays that once groaned with blintzes and beet soup now include pizza and Italian beef sandwiches.

When, at two minutes before midnight on New Year’s Eve, Russian and Belarusian negotiators signed a new, five-year gas supply contract for the ex-Soviet republic of Belarus, it looked like a fresh energy supply crisis for Europe had been narrowly averted. The 11th-hour agreement meant that Russia wouldn’t be turning off Belarus’ gas at the stroke of midnight. European customers, mindful of the previous year’s gas supply disruptions caused by Russia’s price dispute with Ukraine, breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Yet, just over a week later, it turns out the relief was premature. This time it’s Russian oil, not gas, causing the commotion. On Jan. 8, Russia halted oil deliveries to Central and Western Europe via the Druzhba pipeline through Belarus. The move resulted from Belarus’ imposition of a transit tariff of $45 per metric ton, which Russia has called illegal and refused to pay. In retaliation for Russia’s nonpayment, Belarus began confiscating gas destined for Western consumers.

By imposing a hefty transit tax, Belarus is clearly trying to get back at Russia for more than doubling the price Belarus must pay for natural gas at the start of the year. Belarus is also sore because Russia is imposing an export duty on oil of $180.70 per ton. That will cut out a lucrative trade, worth an estimated $4 billion, under which Belarus imported duty-free Russian oil before reexporting it to Western Europe at a significant markup. EU in the Crossfire

What to make of it? The West can hardly blame Russia for wanting to eliminate this unjustified largesse. “Belarus has been making money hand over fist importing very cheap Russian oil and exporting it at world prices, and the Russians just got fed up with it,” says Jonathan Stern, an expert on the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) at the Oxford Institute of Energy Studies. “In terms of what Russia should be doing—moving toward market relations both in their own country and in their relations with other countries—this is what they should have done years ago.”

Few in the West will shed tears for the difficulties now caused for the regime of Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, a belligerent anti-Western autocrat. But, as with last year’s pricing dispute between Russia and Ukraine, customers in the European Union are caught in the crossfire, causing squeals of protest from Brussels to Warsaw.

Germany’s Chancellor, Angela Merkel, has called “unacceptable” Russia’s decision to cut off supplies unannounced. The European Commission, meanwhile, says that the dispute “has to be taken seriously.” In a statement released on Jan. 9, Brussels noted that the drawing of emergency stocks represented “non-negligible financial costs” and “also reflects negatively on the image of the reliability of the two countries as energy partners for the Union.” Russia Compelled to Compromise?

True, the immediate impact on European energy markets is likely to be slight. According to the EU, emergency oil stocks in the Union represent at least 120 days of normal consumption, while the Polish government has said that it has 80 days’ worth of emergency supplies. Customers such as Germany and Poland have simply been forced to dip into these emergency supplies until the conflict is resolved—presumably within the next few days.

One possibility, says Jeffrey Woodruff, director of Fitch Ratings’ energy team in London, is that Russia and Belarus may agree to share the revenues from the reexport of Russian oil from the country. That would represent something of a defeat for Russia and a victory for Lukashenko’s stubborn and belligerent tactics. It’s a sign of how conscious Russia has become of the negative international publicity caused by its energy tactics that such a compromise now seems possible.

Officials and analysts say the incident should still be taken seriously. “The big surprise is how quickly the situation deteriorated,” says Woodruff. “People were expecting a dialogue before it reached the level that we’re at right now.”

Although Europe’s oil imports are more diversified than its gas imports, Russia is still a significant supplier. Russian oil accounts for a quarter of the EU’s oil consumption and 30% of its imports. Around half of that oil comes through Belarus via the Druzhba pipeline, which supplies 1.8 million barrels per day to Poland and Germany. Impetus to Treaty Talks

And the latest interruption to Europe’s energy supplies from Russia is yet another reminder of how insecure these supplies can be. While many in the West have voiced fears about Russia’s potential use of energy as a geopolitical weapon, the real lesson of the latest dispute, argues Oxford’s Stern, is that the stability of Europe’s energy supplies depends just as much on (not-so-reliable) transit countries such as Belarus. “Europe has paid very little attention to Belarus, Ukraine, and Moldova,” says Stern. “These are very important countries which require a significant amount of attention.”

The incident also increases the urgency of long-running energy negotiations between Russia and the European Union. For months, the EU has been pressing Russia to ratify an international treaty, the European Energy Charter, which would establish much clearer guidelines governing the supply and transit of energy. But faced with Russian objections to key aspects of the charter, Brussels has been slow in formulating alternatives that could move the dialogue forward. “All of these episodes show what an absolutely essential piece of the international energy architecture it is,” says Stern, who argues that Brussels now needs to soften its position to gain Russian acceptance of the treaty.

Energy analysts also expect the latest developments to accelerate moves in the EU toward greater diversification of energy supplies. Yet for all the talk about diversification, in practice the EU still has very few alternative options readily available. European consumers may have to rely on insecure Russian energy supplies for years to come.

THEY have won acclaim for their talented brushwork, exhibited at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery and been commissioned by Prince Charles and the Queen Mother.

But two artists have had their applications to join the prestigious Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour (RSW) turned down repeatedly, with one of them told he was “too popular”.

Hugh Buchanan has had his delicate, finely detailed architectural paintings commissioned by leading royalty, but the RSW, founded by Queen Victoria in 1876, has denied him membership four times. Despite the backing of leading artist Dame Elizabeth Blackadder, among others, he was quietly told his work was “too popular”, he said.

“Having painted for the Royal Family probably counts against me. Maybe it should be the Republican Watercolour Society,” he joked. His first application dates to 1986.

“I have had it from a senior member that I will never be accepted. But I care about the tradition of the Scottish watercolour painting so I want to be part of it,” said Mr Buchanan.

Portrait artist Harry More Gordon, 79, had a major exhibition at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery last year. It included his portrait of Sir Timothy Clifford, the National Galleries of Scotland’s former director, and his family. The catalogue praised “an acute eye for telling detail, earning him acclaim as a contemporary observer of modern life and manners”. But he has also been rejected several times.

The RSW president, John Inglis, said it would have been “careless” to tell Mr Buchanan he was too popular.

“What we are going on is the quality of the work,” he said.

But it emerged the RSW is looking at modernising its constitution for the first time since the 1960s. Currently, a painter must be recommended by one member, seconded by another and then submit three works for inspection. There are then three rounds of voting by members who turn up at the annual general assembly, sorting the candidates on priority and voting on them one at a time.

“We are looking at things like postal voting, but we would have to change a system of election,” Mr Inglis said.

The arts impresario and watercolourist Richard Demarco, an RSW member for four decades, put Mr Buchanan up for membership.

“I strongly recommended Hugh Buchanan because he has an international reputation as a watercolourist, which would be the envy of many watercolourists in Scotland,” he said.

“Harry More Gordon is one of the outstanding practitioners of the art of watercolour paintings and former director of illustration at the Edinburgh College of Art. You’re talking about one of the great societies in the cultural life of Scotland. It seems to be kind of an anomaly.”

In a defiant gesture, Mr Demarco said he was now proposing the two men for the Royal Watercolour Society in London, whose president he met this week.

For a painter, becoming a member of the RSW brings the respect and recognition of your peers, and the right to show works in the annual exhibition, at the Royal Scottish Academy building on the Mound.

Members run from HRH The Duchess of Gloucester, an honorary member, to the leading watercolourist and former president, Philip Reeves, Victoria Crowe, Elizabeth Blackadder, and Gordon Mitchell.

Mr Buchanan’s commissions include one of the Queen Mother lying in state.

“Whoever bothers to turn up at the meeting can vote on whether they want you in,” Mr Buchanan said. “I have been turned down four times, and after a while you don’t bother.”

The Francis Kyle Gallery in London represents both men, who met at Edinburgh College of Art. It is currently showing an exhibition of Mr Buchanan’s work.

Mr Kyle said: “Both Harry and Hugh over the years have submitted for membership and been refused. What both have been told on the grapevine is: you’re too successful, sorry, no you can’t get in.”

He said the society’s house style was “jolly abstracts in acrylic mixes”, not classic watercolours in the tradition of JMW Turner, whose works show at the National Galleries of Scotland every January. GORDON AND BUCHANAN: MEN OF VISION

HARRY MORE GORDON, born in 1928, did not take up portraiture for nearly 40 years. Trained at Edinburgh College of Art, he later taught illustration there after a career as a graphic artist. He has held 17 exhibitions in the UK, the US and Italy since 1971. The National Galleries of Scotland hold two works in their collections, including the group portrait Eight Secretaries of State for Scotland. He has held nine one-man shows since 1983 at the Francis Kyle Gallery.

HUGH BUCHANAN’s current exhibition of interiors of castles, palaces and great houses ranges from the Hermitage and Tsarskoe Selo in Russia to paintings at Hampton Court and Belvoir Castle. Born in Edinburgh in 1958 and trained at Edinburgh College of Art, he has had major commissions from the National Trust, the Prince of Wales for a series of interiors of Balmoral, and the House of Commons.