Many thanks to RFE/RL’s Transmission for picking up on the diary of TV producer Peter Pomerantsev, a witty but disquieting insight into the inner workings of the television industry in Russia, including glimpses into the perils of entrepreneurship both off and on screen, the formulas of state-produced programing and the labyrinthine ways of avoiding encounters with the tax police.  Here is just a taste, from the London Review of Books:

Whatever measures were taken the tax police would occasionally turn up anyway, tipped off by someone or just roaming around the estate. When the authorities came we knew the drill: pick up your things and leave quietly. If anyone asks say you’ve just come in for a meeting or a casting. The first time it happened I was convinced we were about to be handcuffed and sent down for fraud. But for my Russian colleagues the raids were a reason to celebrate: the rest of the day was invariably a holiday (deadlines be damned) as Ivan haggled with the tax police to keep down the size of the pay-off. ‘Only a dozen people work here,’ he would say with a wink as they looked around at the many dozens of desks, chairs and computers still warm from use. Then Ivan would bring out the fake accounts from the front office to support his case and they would sit down to negotiate, with tea and biscuits, as if this were the most normal of business deals. And in Russia it was. The word ‘bribe’ was never used. The officials would look at the fake books, which they knew perfectly well to be fake, and extract fines in line with legislation they knew Ivan did not need to comply with. So everything would be settled, and every role, pose, and line of dialogue would reproduce the ritual of legality. It was a ritual played out every day in every medium-sized business, every furniture company, restaurant, modelling agency and PR firm across the country.