The following article was sent to me from a regular reader who wishes to remain anonymous. There may be Smoke on the Water in Moscow, but the only fires burning in many Russian towns are in wood stoves. It has been reported in the press that Russian behemoth Gazprom intends to celebrate its 15th anniversary this Monday with a private command performance concert by rock dinosaurs Deep Purple in the Kremlin’s cavernous Palace of Congresses – formerly the site of all those pompous Party Congresses. Vladimir Putin himself will attend this latter-day secret policemen’s ball, which will also be something of a premature celebration of the promotion of Gazprom Chairman Dmitry Medvedev, who was as good as appointed president of the Russian Federation in December; all that remains is the formality of a show “election”, from which all the real alternative candidates have been ignominiously sidelined.