As the well-known Engish screenwriter, Dennis Potter, was in his last days, dying of pancreatic cancer, he agreed to an interview on television. There he said: “I call my cancer Rupert. I would shoot the bugger if I could.” Potter was speaking of Rupert Murdoch, the media proprietor. Five years after Potter’s death, in a […]

by John Helmer - Friday, February 12th, 1999
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By answering questions the way he’s been doing, the Chairman of the Central Bank of Russia, Viktor Gerashchenko, has unfortunately aroused people to ask whether he’s a good man, or bad. A good man is good inside, they say in Russian villages — a good horse is good outside. No one investigating the Central Bank […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, February 9th, 1999
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What kind of bird is russa’s prime minister, Yevgeny Primakov, or is he a fox? Aesop once tried to explain the difference with the fable of a jackdaw, who was sitting on the branch of a fig-tree. Hungry though he was, the bird could see the fruit was still green. So he decided to wait. […]

by John Helmer - Friday, February 5th, 1999
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Rogues aren’t always criminals. Take rogue elephants, for example: if they threaten to go on the rampage, it’s neces sary to immobilise them; and if that doesn’t work, to shoot them. After the rampage, that’s a waste of bullets — unless they threaten to come back. The evidence being patiently assembled at the moment by […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, February 2nd, 1999
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Heart surgeons are like athletes. Their best work requires tremendous endurance for feats of physical precision, coordination, and ingenuity. This is why the best surgeons are past their prime by the age of 50. That’s when the strength and control that flows from brain to fingertips begins to ebb. At more than 80 years of […]

by John Helmer - Friday, January 22nd, 1999
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By John Helmer MOSCOW — This may be the year, according to President Boris Yeltsin, when the Russian economy starts growing from the grassroots. It’s already the year in which Russians have been sold on an idea they never had before about the hair-roots on their heads. The idea is that a healthy head of […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, July 23rd, 1997
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By John Helmer in Moscow There is still time in the Moscow season to catch a performance of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s last great opera, Zolotoi Petushok (“The Golden Cockerel”). It may be the only way to sing in tune with the Russian leadership, as it finalizes its agreement with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). That’s […]

by John Helmer - Saturday, May 17th, 1997
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By John Helmer in Moscow When Tony de Almeida, the musicial director of the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, telephoned in January to say I’d be sure to enjoy his next concert at the Conservatoire, he was doing what Tony did naturally and energetically. He was promoting the orchestra and the music he believed in to those […]

by John Helmer - Saturday, February 22nd, 1997
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Drive north from Moscow, and the road passes Foolish Women Ville (Durikino). Drive east, and you will come upon the village of Silly Lady (Durovo). What misfortune or humourlessness in their rural past induced Russians to fix the stigma of stupidity on their places of living — and put the blame firmly on women? In […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, May 27th, 1993
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The Congress of People’s Deputies, Russia’s super-parliament, will not be called into session in October, according to officials in the office of the Speaker, Ruslan Khasbulatov. The decision by Khasbulatov will allow President Yeltsin several weeks’ additional time before the expected confrontation with parliament over the president’s powers to implement his highly unpopular economic policy. […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, September 1st, 1992
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