MOSCOW – The English and North Americans have never been much good at analyzing Russia, and they haven’t gotten better. A long time fighting an enemy can make you wary, without becoming wise. But in war neither time nor experience need make any difference to who wins, who loses. Kremlinology was a wartime industry, and […]

by John Helmer - Saturday, March 22nd, 2003
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The only foreign phrase that managed to lodge itself correctly in the brain of Ronald Reagan, before he developed Alzheimer’s disease but after he became president of the United States, was “doveryai no proveryai.” As he never tired of explaining, that’s Russian for “trust but verify,” Reagan and his successors always meant to apply that […]

by John Helmer - Saturday, March 15th, 2003
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Never apologize, never explain. Charles de Gaulle, the French leader, made this a tactic – which many lesser, and less popular, politicians than he have followed; but none as successfully as de Gaulle. Richard Nixon tried it, for example, when he was guilty of the minor crime of spying on his opposition. The tactic became […]

by John Helmer - Sunday, March 2nd, 2003
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Liberty! Liberty! What crimes are committed in thy name!” The person who said that was Marie Jeanne Roland. They were her last words. She was four months short of her 40th birthday when, sharp at half-past three on a dull November afternoon in Paris, the guillotine cut her head off. The charge for which she […]

by John Helmer - Friday, February 21st, 2003
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Last week, when we last visited Mikhail Fridman and Viktor Vekselberg, the controlling shareholders of Tyumen Oil Co. (TNK), we found them in the shrubbery desperately trying to sell off their loot. For more than a year, they had been offering minority-sized stakes in the oil company. But, after doing their due diligence, Chevron-Texaco and […]

by John Helmer - Friday, February 14th, 2003
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It was during the brief period of the New Economic Policy (NEP), which began in 1921, that Lenin and the Soviet authorities had the thought that, in order to improve the redistribution of wealth, it was necessary to generate some wealth to start with. This hilarious idea produced a dazzling display of satirical writing by […]

by John Helmer - Friday, February 7th, 2003
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For the first time ever, Russian workers are threatening to strike in a dispute union leaders directly blame on the tactics of the oligarch who controls the shareholding of Norilsk Nickel. Also for the first time, the unions are demanding that corporate transparency include the disclosure of the oligarch’s perquisites, including the salaries paid to […]

by John Helmer - Friday, January 24th, 2003
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The Kremlin has decided to curtail its support for a new pipeline proposed for oil shipments to China after six months of appearing in public to want to accelerate the project. According to Moscow industry sources and a blitz of Japanese media leaks ahead of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s visit to Moscow last week, some […]

by John Helmer - Friday, January 17th, 2003
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The four Russian oil producers, which signed an agreement a few days ago to build a new oil terminal at Mur-mansk, Russia’s Arctic port, are taking on not only the state pipe-line operator Transneft, but also the Russian government’s power to regulate and limit the volume of oil exports. If you believe what you read […]

by John Helmer - Monday, December 16th, 2002
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Russian insurers and Moscow-based international insurance analysts are critical of a recent report by Moscow-based United Financial Group (UFG) suggesting that fiction is larger than fact in the share valuations, balance-sheets and premium revenue reports of the leading Russian insurance companies. UFG is one of a handful of Russian investment banks and brokerages with an […]

by John Helmer - Friday, December 6th, 2002
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