Monthly Archives: February 2008

Smoke on the fuckin’ water. If you think soon to be Russian prez Dmitiri Medvedev is a square, think again. Forget the Russian pretension for opera and ballet. Dima is a metalist, a head bangin’, shout at the devil, Rock afficionado.

One of Medvedev’s dreams came true. Last week, Deep Purple, one of his favorites, rocked a Gazprom party to celebrate his vacating the chairman seat. Even better is that Ian Gillian, Purple’s lead vocalist, gave an account of the gig in the London Times.

I don’t know if playing a Gazprom party really classifies as a “tennis and bar mitzvah gig.” The Russian elite spares no expense in showcasing their wealth. As Gillian describes,

Security was high but being checked by the guards was a lot less dehumanising than going through most commercial airports. The hospitality was fantastic. They provided my normal two boiled ..read more

If you can’t beat them in the streets, try the courts.  That’s what Garry Kasparov looks to be doing with his 30 million ruble lawsuit against Nashi.  According to Kasparov’s camp the lawsuit is in defense of his “honor, dignity, business reputation and compensation for moral injury” inflicted by Nashi.  At the center are Nashi’s fryers which emphasize Kasparov’s American citizenship and allege that he’s “a traitor and a thief who wants to come to power in order to return Russia the oligarchic chaos of the 1990s.”  The lawsuit states that such rhetoric makes people think that he’s an agent of foreign powers’ efforts to plunder Russia.

Nashi has yet to give a response.  When they do I’m sure it will only contain more of the same rhetoric against Kasparov.  Or they might just laugh it off.  Since the “orange threat” has been “liquidated,” Kasparov legal revenge might not get more ..read more

The Russian financial magazine Finans has published more proof that capitalism under Putin is doing just fine. Fine for the Russia elite that is. Over the last year, Finans reports in its yearly tally of Russian super rich, the number of Russian billionaires has shot from 61 to 101. Their combined wealth comes to $715.3 billion and the top ten have a total wealth of $221 billion. Here are the top five richest Russians:

1. Oleg Deripaska, $40 billion, sole owner of Basic Element and chairman of Russian Aluminum. 2. Roman Abramovich, $23 billion, owner of Millhouse Capital and governor of Chukotka. 3. Vladimir Lisin, $22.2 billion, chairman of Novolipetsk Steel. 4. Mikhail Fridman, $22.2 billion, one of the main holders in Alfa Group. 5. Aleksei Mordashov, $22.1 billion, chairman of Severstal.

Finance and metals are what feeds the coffers of Russia’s super rich. ..read more

Dmitri Medvedev’s speech to the Krasnoyarsk Economic Forum might be an indication of what he has in store for Russia. Before a crowd of Russian businessmen, Medvedev laid out his vision in a forty minute speech; a vision that when boiled down doesn’t look to rock the boat too much.

One of Medvedev’s themes revolved around the “s” word, svoboda, or freedom. “Freedom is better than non-freedom,” Medvedev declared, rather tritely. He then when on to emphasize that his view of freedom includes “personal freedom, economic freedom, and finally, freedom of expression.” How banal. Before anyone could get too excited with Medvedev’s liberal pretentions, he capped off his “freedom” rap with a Putinian maxim. “Freedom cannot be separated from the actual recognition of the power of law and to not chaos and respect the accepted order of the country.” Sounds like 2000 all over ..read more

Four hours and forty minutes.  Two hours and six minutes of which were broadcast live on Russian TV.  One thousand three hundred and sixty-four journalists.  Over 100 questions from fifty-two reporters.  Those are some heady stats.  When the vozhd’ speaks, the media listens.

Putin appeared loose in his final showcase.  Reuters described his performance as “mixed flirtatious banter with metaphors about snot and showed a gift for sarcastic brush-offs worthy of a stand-up comedian.”  The snot references were to questions about his alleged hidden wealth and the hard man hours he put in as Prez.  To the former he said that reports about his wealth were “rubbish . . . excavated from someone’s nose and then spread on those bits of paper”.  To the latter, he said “Heads of state have no right to whine, or drool for any reason… If they are going to slobber and blow snot and say ..read more

Winston Churchill was never without an insightful quip about Russia. In 1939, he made his famous Russia is “a mystery wrapped inside an enigma.” Just when you think he couldn’t top that, at some point he made this apt observation: “Watching clans in Russia is like watching dogs fighting under a carpet.” If Winston was right, and I think he was, where is Michael Vick when you need him?

For almost five months now, the Kremlin dogs have been clawing and biting each other under the carpet. The Western media has been slow to tune into the show except for a few notable exceptions. The first is the Eurasian Daily Monitor‘s Jonas Bernstein. His veterinarian skills are unmatched when it concerns the machinations of the Russia’s top dogs tumbling under the rug. His articles have been essential in discerning who are the pits and who ..read more