By John Helmer, Moscow

At a time when mass protests against the greed and criminality of bankers have spread from from the US to Greece, Italy and the UK, and on across the world, the London Daily Telegraph headline, “Financiers are being forced out of Russia”, might be widely applauded by a certain section of the population. So the Bolshie Russians are doing to them what noone else in the capitalist world dares – that might be the theme for Telegraph columnist Con Coughlin. Except that it isn’t.
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by John Helmer - Wednesday, November 16th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Ekaterina Videman is the spokesman for Mechel and Mechel Mining, wealth accumulation vehicles controlled by Igor Zyuzin (left). What she and the company announce publicly is what they want public shareholders to think, and they do not respond readily to questions. This is allowable under the New York Stock Exchange rules for Mechel, because it is a foreign-domiciled listing on the US exchange, and that exempts it from disclosure requirements which apply to the domestic stocks on the same exchange.
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by John Helmer - Wednesday, November 16th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Global warming should be so good for Russia that, as long as St. Petersburg can be jacked up by a metre or so, it may pay for the Kremlin to accelerate the melting of the Arctic ice-pack, if it can. But will that be so good for the beverages Russians like for slaking their thirst? Beer, for instance.

According to the latest announcements from Denmark-based brewer Carlsberg, profits of 3.3 billion Danish krone ($591 million) have fallen by 20% in the third quarter, ending September 30. And because almost half of Carlsberg’s profits are earned from beer sales in Russia, the bad news must be Russian in origin. Carlsberg sells 45 brands of beer in the Russian market, ranging alphabetically from Baltika to Nevskoye, Uralskoye, and my favourite, Zhigulevskoye (as aerated and rusty as my old car).
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by John Helmer - Monday, November 14th, 2011
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Q [Laurence Rabinowitz for Boris Berezovsky]

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by John Helmer - Monday, November 14th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Is Vladimir Kekhman going to lose his bananas because the Joint Fruit Company (JFC) he owns, Russia’s banana trade leader, cannot, or will not, pay $16.2 million in commercial damages awarded since August by the UK High Court in London?

Kekhman, who doubles as director of the Mikhailovsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, was recently named Man of the Year in the Theatre Producer category by Russia’s GQ Magazine. In March, he won the Izvestia Celebrity of the Year award in the Culture category (Good Deed was the other category). The year after next, Kekhman said at the March award ceremony, he plans bicentennial celebrations for Wagner and Verdi. Until then, it’s a case of la forza del destino – though not the one commissioned from Verdi by the old Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre in St. Petersburg.
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by John Helmer - Friday, November 11th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow

An unusual moment occurred on Wednesday this week in Roman Abramovich’s testimony in the UK High Court when he refers to the seigneurial right – that historically doubtful power a feudal lord claimed for first sex with young virgins on his estates, who were, by feudal law, his property.

Abramovich says: “Well, it’s the thing which is called the right of the first night”. In the Russian and the English, Abramovich is referring to the Latin jus primae noctis – properly translated, that’s the law of the first night. The feudal law textbooks claim the rape could be bought off if the girl gave the lord part or all of her dowry. Either way, she would become used property and unmarriageable.
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by John Helmer - Thursday, November 10th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Let’s hear it for Polymetal’s control shareholders – they have devised a scheme that appears to have fooled much of the Moscow market, but few in the London market. By moving Polymetal to the main board of the London Stock Exchange (LSE), they have camouflaged a free floating share bloc which isn’t, in order to create a better share-price platform to sell out. And that is what is known in the toy balloon business as a prick.
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by John Helmer - Wednesday, November 9th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Charlie Drake’s hit song has been celebrating its fiftieth anniversary in London, where it was created and first recorded, not far from the law courts on the Strand. Play it before you read another word, and listen carefully to the lyrics.
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by John Helmer - Tuesday, November 8th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow

There are two ironies in Sergei Frank’s latest outing in the London courts on November 4. One is that Frank, chief executive of Sovcomflot, is not lodging an appeal against rulings last December and March by High Court Justice Andrew Smith, judging Frank himself to have been dishonest. Nor is he claiming that most of the rulings, which have vindicated the three men he has targeted for almost six years– tanker charterer Yury Nikitin, and former chief executives Dmitry Skarga and Tagir Izmaylov – are faulty.
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by John Helmer - Monday, November 7th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow

One of Russia’s richest men, and by some accounts one of the cleverest, claims he has no idea whether the principal source of his income is taxed. The admission came just a few minutes after three in the afternoon in London last Friday. Roman Abramovich may have been tired, having been on the witness stand in the High Court since 10 that morning, and for the fifth gruelling day in row.
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by John Helmer - Monday, November 7th, 2011
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