By John Helmer, Moscow

In the recent history of Russian classical music, Mstislav Rostropovich grew so rich with the cello – Vladimir Spivakov with fiddle, Valery Gergiev with baton, too — how to explain that the broadcasting of classical music on the radio has grown so poor?

The technologies of digital reproduction of music are now so cheap, the radio audience can listen to far greater sound quality at a fraction of the price Rostropovich used to demand. The devices available for broadcasting and listening are also far smaller, higher in sound quality, and more affordable than ever before. With stream programming like Sweden’s Spotify, radio audiences can even assemble their own concerts, and do away with the cost of presenters, engineers and producers playing maestro themselves to justify their pay. Not to mention the costs of microphones, players, sound desks, transmitters, and radio frequencies.
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by Editor - Thursday, December 11th, 2014
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Tiger is an unlucky brand-name for Russian investment. The record of Mikhail Prokhorov and Maxim Finsky in trying, and failing three times over to sell shares in White Tiger Gold on the Toronto Stock Exchange explains. So why is the Russian Direct Investment Fund, a state development bank, betting on a small Australian-listed coking coal company in Chukotka called Tigers Realm Coal?

The feareasternmost province of Russia, Chukotka makes a good case for ample underground resources to be mined, so long as costs of digging and shipping to China stay low; and demand recovers. Perish the thought that Tigers Realm Coal is an insider manipulation with the aim of pumping the share price, then dumping the project by several names associated with such scheming in the past.
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by Editor - Monday, December 8th, 2014
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By John Helmer, Moscow

The new finance minister of Ukraine, Natalie Jaresko, may have replaced her US citizenship with Ukrainian at the start of this week, but her employer continued to be the US Government, long after she claims she left the State Department. US court and other records reveal that Jaresko has been the co-owner of a management company and Ukrainian investment funds registered in the state of Delaware, dependent for her salary and for investment funds on a $150 million grant from the US Agency for International Development. The US records reveal that according to Jaresko’s former husband, she is culpable in financial misconduct.
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by Editor - Wednesday, December 3rd, 2014
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Edward Lucas has revealed that he is virtually leaving the UK for Estonia. His wife, Cristina Odone, too.

That may be strategic, because they think they should be closer to the front line in the war against Russia. It may be personal, because they want to be closer to their family friends, ex-foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski and Anne Applebaum, his wife, who have suffered from recent scandal and misfortune in nearby Poland. When asked to explain in an interview with Estonian state television in Tallinn on Monday, Lucas said he wants to take advantage of Estonia’s tax system. A Russian invasion notwithstanding, about which Lucas has done much broadcasting, he thinks the risk is outweighed by the benefits of Estonia’s zero tax rates for company income, dividends, interest payments, and copyright royalties.
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by Editor - Tuesday, December 2nd, 2014
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By John Helmer, Moscow

If the flock of smart tarts speaking Russian into their smartphones along King and New Bond Streets in London last week were a sign, nothing much has changed in the Russian art market. Christie’s and Sotheby’s, the art auctioneers, would be the last people to say if or when the bottom has fallen out of an art market. But the results of the major Russian art auctions in London in the last week of November indicate the top of the market has fallen in.

Non-Russians (mostly Europeans) continue to dominate the sellers, while Russians remain the big majority of buyers. But this time the former overstepped the price which the latter will agree to pay. Wishful European expectation for price has met sober Russian asset stocktaking. This in turn means that Russian art buyers are no longer anticipating the rapid growth of value in Russian art assets recorded in the summer auctions.
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by Editor - Tuesday, December 2nd, 2014
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By John Helmer, Moscow

When the Russian delegation arrives in Peru next week for a fresh session of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), it is proposing several initiatives for debate and vote. None of them proposes to cut greenhouse gas emissions below the target set a year ago by President Vladimir Putin. But according to a report issued this week in Moscow, that target has already been achieved. For further cuts there is next to no enthusiasm from state or business officials.
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by Editor - Friday, November 28th, 2014
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Interpol has issued a Wanted Notice for Sergei Pugachev, making him the first Russian oligarch to have Russian charges of fraud endorsed by the international police organization – and to make a money-launderer of the Financial Times. If Pugachev crosses the border between his homes in England and France, the policemen on either side will see his name flashing on their computer screens, and they will be under standing orders to arrest him.
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by Editor - Thursday, November 27th, 2014
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By John Helmer, Moscow

When an elephant means to put his foot down on something with the objective of crushing it, a German speaker uses the same word as in English – trample (trampeln). When the intention and the outcome are emphatic, an English-speaker can say trample underfoot.

When German Chancellor Angela Merkel (lead image) expressed the idea in a speech on November 17 that she objects to the legality of Russian actions in Crimea and Ukraine, she used a different expression — mit Füßen getreten wird. Literally, that means “with feet is kicked”. To the customary German ear, it means “kicked aside”, “ignored”.

To the New York Times and The Economist, the expression was a signal from Merkel of an angry change in German strategy. But comparing the English interpretation with the German original, this was incompetent translating and unprofessional reporting.
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by Editor - Wednesday, November 26th, 2014
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By John Helmer, Moscow

The war against Russia outside Russia is being lost inside Russia. If the Allied strategic bombing campaign against Germany’s cities failed seventy years ago, and since then every US attempt to topple Middle Eastern and South American regimes, what reason or reward do the bow-and-arrow brigade have for thinking otherwise?

The latest Russian opinion polls reveal that President Vladimir Putin enjoys a greater reserve of domestic political support than his western attackers, President Barack Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron, anticipated for Putin — or enjoy for themselves. In the war of attrition Russians believe to have been imposed on them, Putin has more time to spare than Obama or Cameron – and not less than Chancellor Angela Merkel.
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by Editor - Monday, November 24th, 2014
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By John Helmer, Moscow

If you think Russia’s food supply is crashing under the impact of international sanctions because that’s what the Obama Administration is telling its media, think again. This week’s reported panic over the staple buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum, groats, grits, гречневая крупа) is a figment.
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by Editor - Thursday, November 20th, 2014
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