By John Helmer, Moscow

Nathaniel Rothschild’s (centre) libel lawsuit against the Daily Mail and Associated Newspapers, due to commence on January 23 in the High Court in London, is now unravelling even more Russian oligarch secrets. As they crack open, so do suspicions of even more inexplicable involvement by Rothschild’s friend, Lord Peter Mandelson, than the lawsuit was intended to stop.

The point on which the entire tale hangs, at least for Rothschild, is that in January 2005, Mandelson was the European Union’s trade commissioner. The events reported by the newspaper in its initial publication, and now in new evidence before the court, suggest that Mandelson was involving himself in Russian business deals which he knew, or should have known, created the appearance of a conflict of interest with his official position.
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by John Helmer - Friday, December 30th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Russian labour unions have been crippled since the end of the Soviet Union. With the exception of the coalminers and the seafarers, they have been incapable of defending their members’ wages, terms of employment contracts, or work safety standards. This week the Seafarers Union of Russia – affiliated with the International Transport Workers Federation – scored an unusual victory which has left the shipowners and the federal transport officials who attempted to follow their lead, quite speechless.
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by John Helmer - Wednesday, December 28th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Homer accords with the latest in canine science.

Because Odysseus raised his Argos as a pup from birth, the dog fixed on him as devotedly as he would, had his canine mother, or another human being, done the nurturing within the first ten weeks of the dog’s life. Odysseus, far too smug a character, thought the loyalty of Argos was his due, like everything and everyone else, gods included, on his destructive odyssey. And since he planned to murder everyone in the Ithaca palace who thought he had a chance to take the kingship, along with Penelope, wife and queen, he didn’t break his disguise to show Argos who he was. But the dog knew. He managed to prick up his ears and wag his tail, and then died.
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by John Helmer - Sunday, December 25th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Constructivism, that combination of industrial design ideas applied to post-revolutionary Russian urban growth requirements, has been struggling to survive the assault of commercial real estate development since 1991.

The current exhibition at London’s Royal Academy of Art, entitled “Building the Revolution” reveals how many of the buildings of the Constructivist era in the 1920s, have deteriorated almost beyond repair. The show, with just three weeks left to run in London, won’t be coming to Russia. Also, it has yet to convince the guardians of Moscow’s architectural heritage to intervene to preserve what’s left of Constructivism as a home-grown approach to the cityscape.
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by John Helmer - Sunday, December 25th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow

In the interior designer trade, there is a standard known inside Russia and the world over as the vomit test.

The World of Interiors usually passes; Architectural Digest often fails. This isn’t what it sounds like – no disparagement intended of the design or designer as such. No Sirree. The test is simply whether the design portrayed is so crowded, with so many different and overlapping patterns, that if you vomited, noone would notice.
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by John Helmer - Thursday, December 22nd, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow

After claims a week ago that the Daily Mail newspaper and its publisher were expecting to go to trial next month on a libel claim by Nathaniel Rothschild relating to the Russian aluminium business, it has now been revealed that Rothschild has exposed an even more secret business deal he was attempting to pull off with Oleg Deripaska, with hand-holding assistance from Lord Peter Mandelson. This one in Russian gold and silver-mining.
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by John Helmer - Wednesday, December 21st, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Nathaniel Rothschild (right, pointing) has told the UK High Court that a London newspaper report claiming he had tried ingratiating himself with Oleg Deripaska (centre) was defamatory, and that as a result of the publication he had been “seriously damaged in his character and reputation and has suffered considerable distress, embarrassment and injury to his feelings”. A trial on the claims has been ordered to commence in the High Court next month. The defendant is Associated Newspapers, which publishes the Daily Mail in London.

The Daily Mail report appeared on May 22, 2010. Rothschild, calling himself “a member of the well known Rothschild banking family [and] a financier with substantial international business interests”, filed suit on July 7, 2010. He gave his address as Riedweg 18, in Klosters, Switzerland.
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by John Helmer - Sunday, December 18th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Christopher Hitchens, who died on Thursday at 62 years of age, described me many years ago as “an old personal enemy of mine”.

Hitchens wore the inimical declarations of others as self-awarded Victoria Crosses, as if his bravado under the fire he inflicted deserved more than the money he was paid to pull the trigger. But Hitchens was sparing in the identification of others as his personal enemies. Search though I have through the back-indexes of his collected re-publications on London bookshop tables – buy one, get one free — the only other person Hitchens picked out in print as his personal enemy appears to have been Osama bin Laden. The reason Hitchens put the two of us on a par deserves brief record as Hitchens goes to his grave covered by encomiums from his accomplices in a career of duplicity and meretriciousness.
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by John Helmer - Sunday, December 18th, 2011
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Э.Мацкявичюс: Владимир Владимирович, есть вопрос, поступивший на сайт программы, он, отчасти, продолжает тему, поднятую Александром Андреевичем: “Читаю сообщение о суде в Лондоне и думаю, когда украденные у народа деньги перестанут обогащать Англию?” Я точно не поручусь, но, видимо, имеется в виду суд между Абрамовичем и Березовским. (more…)

by John Helmer - Friday, December 16th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Alrosa has been attempting to boost its share price, following the start to regular share trading on the Moscow MICEX exchange at the beginning of this month. On December 13, the company released a forecast for next year of rising mine volumes and higher revenues and profits.

But four days earlier, on December 9, Alrosa’s chief executive Fyodor Andreyev (image left) met Prime Minister Vladimir Putin for his first-ever solo session with the head of government (image right). While Putin meets from time to time with heads of the Sakha republic, where Alrosa’s mines are concentrated – the last of those was on January 18 of this year — Putin has not met one on one with a chief executive of the company since 2004. That was when he discussed moving the then chief executive, Vyacheslav Shtirov, from the company to the presidency of the Sakha republic.
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by John Helmer - Friday, December 16th, 2011
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