Archive

July 13, 2007

Russian Opposition Promises to Be Active by Autumn

Russian Opposition Promises to Be Active by Autumn by Victor Andreyev [Editor’s note: we pleased to offer this exclusive eyewitness report from the Other Russia summit held last week in Moscow. Special thanks to Victor Andreyev, a journalist...
July 13, 2007

The Perfect Partner for Gazprom

Now serving cassoulet Way back in December of last year, we blogged about a Wall Street Journal article which examined CEO of Total Christophe de Margerie’s bribery investigations and his “non-‘Anglo-Saxon'” approach to doi...
July 12, 2007

Video: CNN and Russian Conspiracies

A while back during Vladimir Putin’s visit with George Bush at the family home in Kennebunkport, Maine, I recall reading an odd story on Siberian Light about an alleged member of the Russian president’s entourage trying to pass a count...
July 12, 2007

GDP Growth Makes Russians Happy

New surveys show that countries with high GDP growth like China, India and Russia also show high levels of optimism – however there is a huge gap between the elites and the general population. In Russia, 43% of elites say they “are sat...
July 12, 2007

Bienvenue à Shtokman

Well, as we discussed on this blog a few days ago, Gazprom has announced its selection of the first partner for the development of the Shtokman natural gas field in the Barents Sea: Total of France. The French company will take on a 25% stake in t...
July 12, 2007

Resource Nationalism Makes the World Poorer

From a letter sent to the Financial Times by Sacha Kumaria, a Senior Adviser at Cambridge Centre for Energy Studies: However, the renationalisation of energy assets in countries such as Russia and Venezuela, and long-standing prohibitions on forei...
July 12, 2007

The Italian Wildcat

In the next issue of Forbes, Daniel Fisher has a good profile of ENI’s Paolo Scaroni and his high-stakes bet on Russia (including a quote from RA). Eni CEO Paolo Scaroni (L) and Gazprom Vice-President Alexander Medvedev. Photo: Reuters From ...
July 11, 2007

The Unrepentant Marxist

Today the Scotsman is running an interesting book review / interview with Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm, which illuminates an important point about identity and reconciliation of past political ideology in Russia. Whether the West is aware of it...
July 11, 2007

Quid Pro Quo

After agreeing to withdraw support for ten years of Yukos audits, how is PwC rewarded? Moscow Times: Russian court hands victory to PricewaterhouseCoopers in tax evasion case A Russian appeals court on Tuesday ordered a new round of hearings into ...