By John Helmer, Moscow Want to throw rice at the bride and groom — Krasnodar will be glad to fill your order. For starting this January, Russia has become a net rice exporter for the first time in its history. According to Alexander Korbut, spokesman for the Russian Grain Council, about 100,000 tonnes of short-grain […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, March 1st, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow Sergei Generalov, controlling shareholder of Far Eastern Shipping Company (Fesco), lifted the lid yesterday off an intensifying contest among Russia’s transport moguls to redivide the state’s rail, box terminal and shipping concessions. These will be awarded before the presidential election in a year’s time by Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin.

by John Helmer - Tuesday, March 1st, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow The armchair warriors in London and Washington love nothing so much as an excuse for an invasion against an enemy too small to put up much of a fight, or inflict too many casualties on the invaders. But that’s because the parlour fires, in front of which their armchairs are placed, […]

by John Helmer - Monday, February 28th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow Man has been eating his best friend for at least 9,400 years – and that’s just in the US. In Russia, he’s been doing it for even longer. He’s still doing it.

by John Helmer - Friday, February 25th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow Oleg Deripaska will fail to swing Norilsk Nickel’s international shareholders into voting for his slate of candidates for the new board of directors at Norilsk, according to a report and proxy vote recommendation by Institutional Shareholder Services/Risk Metrics, a Washington, D.C.-based advisory specialist.

by John Helmer - Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow A crack, though not yet a spill, has appeared in the Russian government’s plan to link state-owned oil producer Rosneft with BP in a multi-billion dollar joint venture for oil search in the Kara Sea.

by John Helmer - Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow Alrosa, the world’s number-1 diamond producer, has released a new planning document outlining production, earnings and diamond reserve targets after the start of three new underground mines, suggesting higher earnings than were calculated last year, and much longer mine life.

by John Helmer - Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow As names go, Berezovsky is commonplace in Russia, though not as common in Russia as Brown is in the US or UK.

by John Helmer - Monday, February 21st, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow The paucity of materials on Russia in the Wikileaks archive revealed so far is odd, considering the significance of Russia as a potential threat in the US Government’s global threat assessments.

by John Helmer - Friday, February 18th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow The Jackal’s Wedding is an old Bedouin expression. It means that the beasts will love each other so long as their fallen prey is ample enough to feed the pack. And if there’s no meat, they will attack each other.

by John Helmer - Thursday, February 17th, 2011
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