Glazyev’s star is rising on the politicai left – but you wouldn’t know it from his silence on Norilsk Nickel’s labor dispute It is recorded that, in April of 1794, when Georges Danton, the French revolutionary leader, was awaiting the guillotine at the foot of the scaffold, he remarked, “Ah, better to be a poor […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, August 12th, 2003
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A notable French medical researcher recently conducted an experiment with the drug Viagra on twelve men, who were helicoptered to one of France’s highest peaks. No women were present. By itself, Viagra (the brand name for the chemical compound known as sildenafil) isn’t a psychotropic drug, which spurs the brain to sexual arousal. Instead, it […]

by John Helmer - Monday, August 4th, 2003
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MOSCOW – Wars usually start with one large lie. Throwing more troops into the breach requires a great many little lies. Wars usually end when the lying can’t staunch the bleeding, and the stench. According to the wife of the David Kelly, the British Defense Ministry expert on Iraqi weapons who committed suicide last Friday […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, July 22nd, 2003
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MOSCOW – The most famous game of Japanese Go ever chronicled was the last match of the 64-year old master, Shusai, and his young challenger, Kitani Minoru of the Seventh Rank. This began in June 1938, and ended, 237 moves and six months later, on December 4. The master was defeated. To understand how a […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, July 15th, 2003
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MOSCOW – The church is near but the road is all ice, Russian peasants used to say. The tavern is far, but I’ll walk very carefully. According to a story published recently in the Boston Globe, Andrew Okhotin is a well-meaning young American churchman with Russian origins, who was on his way to deliver donations […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, July 9th, 2003
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By John Helmer in Moscow When Russians gather to drink, they often offer each other a traditional rhyming toast that can be roughly translated as: “May we have more pies and doughnuts, fewer black eyes and bruises!” It’s a formula which Russia’s most powerful businessmen have been quietly offering the advertising-starved managements of some of […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, July 3rd, 2003
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MOSCOW – England is far too sunless and wet to be able to grow olives. In Nyons, in Provence, where the best Mediterranean olives have been grown since Roman times, the peasants have two bits of advice for olive-growers. Roughly translated, the advice for proper pruning and cutting out of old wood is, “Undress me, […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, June 25th, 2003
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MOSCOW – In 1927, as the benefits of Lenin’s market reforms were fast running out, and the Soviet Politburo debated whether to use markets or force to industrialize the economy, the satirist Mikhail Zoshchenko told the tale of a man who bought a shirt to wear to a party. He managed to find one, he […]

by John Helmer - Friday, June 6th, 2003
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MOSCOW – It is the 300th anniversary of the Grande Chaconne, the dance which Louis XIV, the sun king of France and creator of the splendor of Versailles, regarded as his favorite. Its composer was Marin Marais, the son of a shoemaker in a family of roofers. By the time Marais first came to Louis’s […]

by John Helmer - Friday, May 30th, 2003
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Russia’s oil majors are going, going… but nowhere near gone. In February, there were six major companies. In terms of oil revenues, the largest was LUKoil, followed by Yukos, Surgutneftegas, Sibneft, Tyumen Oil Co. (TNK) and Tatneft. Measured according to market capitalization at the time, their order of precedence was a little different. Yukos came […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, May 15th, 2003
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