By John Helmer, Moscow

Archangel Diamond Corporation (ADC) has this month renewed its battle against LUKoil for the latter’s alleged theft of multi-billion diamond mining rights at the Verkhotina deposit in the Arkhangelsk region of northwestern Russia. The new claims were lodged in the US District Court in the District of Colorado on January 6. Lead lawyers for ADC are the US-Russian law firm, Marks & Sokolov.

The case has been in the US and Swedish courts for more than a decade; in 2010 ADC’s failure to recover its 40% stake in the project and enforce its joint-venture agreement to mine the diamonds resulted in the company’s bankruptcy. What remains of ADC is a liquidation trust, based in Colorado, where ADC once had its headquarters for the Russian mining project. LUKoil operations in Colorado have also been documented in the court submissions in order for ADC’s applications to the courts in that state to be allowed to go to trial.
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by John Helmer - Tuesday, January 17th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Turning modestly paid public office into extravagant personal wealth isn’t provably criminal, particularly not if there’s a decent interval of time between performing the first and scoring the second.

It may be indecent for elected politicians or officials on the taxpayer’s payroll to intend to turn the one into the other. But prying open the intentions of such people for investigation, prosecution, or accountability at election time isn’t easy. Policemen don’t like the job; accountants go shy of it; newspaper reporters may relish it, but lack the means.
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by John Helmer - Tuesday, January 17th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

In this thriller the evil genius (EG) is, for once, not a Russian oligarch, Kremlin grandee, Russian computer hacker – not even a Moscow muzhik trained to use Facebook and Twitter to make or join flash mobs.
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by John Helmer - Sunday, January 15th, 2012
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by John Helmer - Sunday, January 15th, 2012
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My beloved Russian died on December 9. When he needed breath and his heart was failing, there were five who prevented me from reaching him. I grieve for him. For them, another reckoning.

If you will take to the mountain road, it is possible to breathe and sing this song.
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by John Helmer - Friday, December 30th, 2011
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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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