By John Helmer, Moscow In fear of  the Central Bank and the General Prosecutor investigating evidence of embezzlement, racketeering and fraud,  Boris Mints (lead image), a collector of  Russian painting of the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, has fled to the UK.  How Mints turned his proceeds into artworks was one of the […]

by Editor - Tuesday, June 19th, 2018
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By John Helmer, Moscow Canada has endorsed US trade warfare against China, Russia, the European Union states, Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela,   but registers its dismay when the Trump Administration refuses to give Ottawa an indemnity pass so that it can benefit from the damage inflicted on the others.   Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland […]

by Editor - Monday, June 18th, 2018
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By John Helmer, Moscow Long before the Christians claimed credit for enunciating the Golden Rule, it was the ancient Greeks who started it off. By all reports, Jesus of Nazareth gave the Rule its positive spin – do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The Greek spin was negative – don’t […]

by Editor - Thursday, June 14th, 2018
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By John Helmer, Moscow The British state broadcasting authority BBC reported  on Saturday morning that people who shit in public places are suffering from several different pathologies. That was before Saturday afternoon, followed by all day Sunday, when US President Donald Trump (lead image, left), his national security advisor John Bolton, his economic advisor Lawrence […]

by Editor - Monday, June 11th, 2018
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By John Helmer, Moscow Dmitry Peskov’s (lead image, right) future has still not been decided by President Vladimir Putin (left) after weeks of delay in which every other major figure in the Kremlin administration has been  confirmed either as staying or as departing.  This morning Andrei Tsybulin, currently titled “Chief of the Presidential Press and […]

by Editor - Friday, June 8th, 2018
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By John Helmer, Moscow One shadow hanging over the Russian art market was dispelled in London this week when the British Government’s media campaign against wealthy Russians failed to deter record sales of Russian artworks at the leading London auction houses. Together, sales by Christie’s, Sotheby’s, MacDougall’s, and Bonhams fetched £21.7 million. That is three […]

by Editor - Thursday, June 7th, 2018
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By John Helmer, Moscow The collapse of stock market confidence in Magnit, the largest and most valuable Russian retailer in the domestic and London stock markets, has triggered widespread speculation that Sergei Galitsky, 50, the founder and control shareholder of Magnit since 1998, was attacked by corporate raiders led by Andrei Kostin, head of the […]

by Editor - Tuesday, June 5th, 2018
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By John Helmer, Moscow To the Tuileries Palace in Paris on Saturday, January 28, 1809, Napoleon Bonaparte, then France’s Emperor, summoned five of his closest advisors.  He had just raced back from the war front in Spain, and wanted to discuss the course of the war and the growing discontent among the French with Napoleon […]

by Editor - Thursday, May 31st, 2018
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By John Helmer, Moscow Under pressure from the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC),  an accused Swiss art fraudster, Yves Bouvier (lead image, right),  has become the target of new  money-laundering investigations of art dealings involving Russian businessmen. Oleg Deripaska and Suleiman Kerimov (1st left) were hit by US sanctions announced by OFAC […]

by Editor - Monday, May 21st, 2018
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By John Helmer, Moscow The lapels on a man’s coat do what a brassiere does for a woman; they display the urge to overwhelm  others.  A pointed, exaggerated urge.     So when President Vladimir Putin wore peaked lapels in public for the first time on February 9, 2017, he meant to signal he was intending […]

by Editor - Sunday, May 20th, 2018
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