U.S. Investor Dispels “Seven Myths About Russia”

On Wednesday, April 20, U.S. investor William Browder who heads the investment fund Hermitage Capital Management spoke before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and tried to dispel “the seven great myths about Russia”.

Banks or Piggy Banks? How Russians Save Money - COMMENTARY

There is a vast difference between Western and Russian attitudes toward savings. Everyone in the West knows you’re in trouble without a retirement savings account; no one in Russia plans that far ahead. So very often it’s splurge and starve.

Why don't Russians save money! Because they have nothing to save! According to statistics, more than twenty percent of Russians live below the poverty line. Some experts say that two thirds of Russia's population can be considered poor.

What can you save if you grow vegetables at your garden-plots because you cannot afford to buy them in the store? Of course, the vegetables and what you make of them, but not money...

That is why Russians don't plan that far ahead. They don't have extra money.

Rice in Moscow: The People Will Choose Democracy - INTERVIEW

During her visit to Moscow, U.S. Secretary of State answered listeners’ questions as part of a live address on Moscow’s Ekho Moskvy radio. In the interview moderated by the station’s own Alexei Benediktov, Rice gave an upbeat view of relations between Russia and the United States – in particular where non-proliferation attempts were concerned.

Russia to Dispose of Its Chemical Weapons Stocks by 2012

Russia will see five new chemical weapons disposal plants built in the next two years under President Vladimir Putin’s weapons disposal program.

Condoleezza Rice Answers Radio Listeners’ Questions Ahead of Putin Meeting

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, ahead of a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, gave an unusually upbeat account Wednesday of U.S.-Russian cooperation on international issues.

Russian Astrologist Plans to Crash NASA’s Independence Day

Imagine a twist to the plot of the movie Deep Impact: besides the comet, NASA is pitted against a Russian astrologist who wants to sue the agency because destroying a comet would irrevocably harm her “system of spiritual values”. A comet is not threatening Earth, but NASA’s Deep Impact is set to collide with the Tempel-1 comet on July 4 and that has really upset one Russian astrologist.

http://mosnews.com/feature/2005/04/19/deepimpact.shtml

Parents of Detained National Bolsheviks Demand Meeting With Putin

A group of parents of young National Bolshevik Party activists held for staging a protest in the premises of the Kremlin administration in December arrived at the same address on Tuesday and requested a meeting with Vladimir Putin.

Hope they know what they do...

Moscow Air Defense Chief Vows to Down Passenger Aircraft Captured by Terrorists

Colonel-General Solovyov announced that any aircraft captured by terrorists approaching Moscow will be destroyed. “I will not allow anything to fall in Moscow. I have decided for myself what decision I would take".

What will he do if a Russian official is flying in the captured aircraft? Or even an official's relative?

Russian MP Wants to Curb Media Coverage of Pope’s Death

Russian MP Wants to Curb Media Coverage of Pope’s Death
A senior Russian MP said on Wednesday that the Russian media are paying too much attention to the news of the Pope’s death. The parliament, however, refused to interfere in the matter.

Russian Stock Market Falls on News of VimpelCom Tax Claims

If the headlines read "Russian Stock Market Falls..." — it's only because NYSE, where VimpelCom's traded under the VIP ticker symbol, hasn't awaken yet to hear the bad news. In a couple of hours it will be all over Wall Street. And something tells me this is only the beginning.

Indeed, the fiscal claims, going back to 2001's tax-avoidance schemes, had been served to VimpelCom HQ in Moscow two weeks ago. The ominous letter from the Tax Commission, that sent VIP shares plummeting today, had been delivered on November 26th, but until this very morning, December 8th, the company has kept denying its receipt (last denial, duly signed, came through to our Moscow offices today). Obviously, the VIP and Alpha top brass kept working behind the scenes over the last fortnight, trying to settle somehow, before anyone goes public with this story. But the insiders (I mean - the State, not corporate ones) were pushing too strong, and finally, the letter found its way into Reuters' Moscow bureau. Hence, the press-release.

Now they'll be blaming it all on Leonid Reiman, the influential IT and Communications minister, Putin's long-time ally, who has a long record of feuds with the Alfa-Group, VimpelCom's main shareholder. And right they'll be: it's better to be seen feuding with Reiman (who's after all just one more oligarch, powerful as he is), than paraded in Khodorkovsky's robes.

The big question is: can they help it?
How long can Alfa afford the current talk of "business as usual"?
Sources tell us, that there's a new past tax claim, waiting around the corner.
Let's take a short pause and wait for some smoke to clear.

Shamil Basayev: downing 2 Russian planes costs US$4000

Chechen Warlord Basayev Says Beslan Siege Cost 8000 Euros

It really doesn't take millions to launch a mass murder terrorist campaign in Russia. With human lives so cheap, Shamil Basayev doesn't have to be a heir to Bin Laden Construction Group (or even a subsidiary of such a heir), to keep his bloody business running.

Of course, providing funding for terror attacks does not top the long list of Chechen warlord's expenditures.
It's a safe guess, that he spends a fortune on not being caught.

For five years Russian army and Russian intelligence have been listing Basayev's capture among its top priorities.
In 2005 they will receive an extra RUR 157bln (US$ 5.37bln) from the national budget to boost these fruitless efforts.
Still, Basayev feels as free as ever to dispatch suicide bombers to Moscow, to send troops into Grozny and Nazran', to take kids hostage, and to post his boastful memoirs on the Web, without any trace of fear and remorse.

I wonder, how much this immunity costs him - in payments to Russian military and security top brass - that even a reward of $10mln for any information on his whereabouts remains unclaimed in our poor country.

Gorbie and Yeltsin Unite In Criticism of Putin's Initiatives

Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin Speak out Against Putin's Reforms

Both Yeltsin and Gorbachev still tend to view Moscow News weekly as their tribune of choice — a reputation, earned by this newspaper some 18 years ago, at the dawn of perestroika, when this paper, unavailable to the masses, used to hold a nationwide monopoly on free speech. 10 years later, when people in Russia got almost terminally fed up with truth and free speech, Moscow News Russian edition was reduced to near-oblivion. IMHO, were this weekly closed due to the 1998 financial crisis, no one would have seriously minded. Except for Yeltsin and Gorbachev, naturally.

These days, with Putin trying to reestablish the Soviet regime in all its deafness and muteness, there is suddenly a new hope for this publication. Yeltsin and Gorbachev have just proved that.

It Takes $34.22 to Blow up a Russian Airplane

The two Chechen ladies, who caused the double plane crash on August 24, had to bribe a score of Russian officials to get on board.

First, they both were detained by the airport police for routine security check. "Security check" is a popular form of extortion among Moscow's 145.000 underpaid cops: they stop anyone suspect of not being the capital's resident, and start harrassing him under all sorts of pretexts, until he pays. The terrorists paid quickly (we will never know, how much it cost them, but usually it's RUR150,-/US$5), and proceeded to bribe airline official to get on board. This time the bribe was RUR1000,-, or $34.22 by today's exchange rate.

Moscow being one of the most expensive cities in the world, human life is still dirt cheap here.

Court Finds Vet Guilty of Illegal Ketamine Use

Court Finds Vet Guilty of Illegal Ketamine Use, Orders No Punishment

One more chapter in the neverending Ketamine saga.
The point is pretty simple: instead of putting up any serious fight against drug traffic and abuse, especially in heroin, Russia's drug enforcement agency, the Gosnarkokontrol, headed by Putin's ex-KGB crony Mr. Cherkesov, stages spectacular but useless showdowns on individual vets, using Ketamine for operations on cats and dogs.

It's perfectly clear to anyone involved in this witch hunt, that none of those veterinars was ever involved in illegal drug trafficking (neither were they ever charges with selling that substance to human addicts). If the authorities were ever planning to eradicate Ketamine use by humans in Russia, they should go after actual dealers and smugglers, not vets. But this is the typical KGB-style handling of problems - reporting activities is far more important, than any tangible results.

322 Killed in N.Ossetian Seized School

The actual death toll is likely to reach 600 people, sources in Beslan estimate.
The figure, given so far by the officials, seems not to include those corpses, that the rescue teams are evacuating during Saturday works in the school debris. Obviously this estimate also disregards rescued hostages, now dying in hospitals. Putting all these figures together, we come up with some 530 dead, and locals, cited by Gazeta.Ru, estimate, that the effective toll should be ~600.

Wish they were exaggerating.

Up to 150 Hostages Killed in N.Ossetia

Up to 150 Hostages Killed in N.Ossetia

Russian troops stormed the school building in Beslan, North Ossetia. Not less than 12 terrorists fled the building unharmed, staged a gunfight in the streets of Beslan, and then disappeared, leaving 5 of their comrades dead (the total number of attackers was originally estimated at 17, 4 of them women). This is the only casualties' figure confirmed so far. Nothing is known about the number of dead and wounded among both hostages and federal forces, engaged in the rescue effort.

It's perfectly clear, that from now on the authorities' main task will be to hide real figures from the public.
From Dubrovka experience we know, that 129 dead should be considered a victory, and in this case even 150 will be proclaimed a good result. But this figure should emerge someday in the remote future - a week, two weeks from the storming date, when people start forgetting.

In the Dubrovka case, to arrive to the final number of 129 killed (contested by the media, but still official), the authorities started citing 10 dead, then 30, then 60... This was an outright and blatant lie from the start, according to those involved in corpses' evacuation: some 100 corpses were removed from the theatre site before the figure of 10 dead was ever named.

Now we see repetition of same scenario. Any casualties are classified information, and any leaks thereof are carefully dozed. 150 dead — the estimate that only Radio Free Europe dared to voice, of all Russian-speaking media — is semiofficially confirmed at the moment at the rescue HQ. Which obviously means it's a gross understatement.

At the moment, over 328 hostages were hospitalized. But we are told, that they tend to hospitalized everyone who is rescued. And the total number of people, who were held in the school building, remains undisclosed.

Under Siege School May Hold as Many as 1500 Hostages

Official number of hostages is underestimated by a factor of 4

Lenta.Ru sources in the EmerCom had said it yesterday. 1500 (or 1020) instead of 354 officially acknowledged.
The worst part of it is that this estimate makes perfect sense.
With 880 pupils attending the school in question, how on Earth could it happen, that only 132 kids were taken hostage, as the officials originaly suggested?
Should that mean, that only 1 out of 7 pupils did attend school on September 1st?
Were the authorities implying, that they were able to locate all of the 748 schoolchildren who failed to show up for studies?

In any case, the authorities were lying, as Ruslan Aushev has just confirmed, and it's highly improbable, that this sort of lie was meant to help the rescue efforts. Rather it was just one more coverup, which means the following math. Rescue operation is expected to produce some 350 live hostages, and no one would allow counting corpses of those left behind.

Great minds out there.
Yuck.