Fragments of a blog
Fragments of a blog
Alexandr Voloshin, Putin’s chief of staff, resigns over his opposition to Khodorkovsky’s arrest. Putin meets with top investment bankers based in Moscow. Global Markets Recoil at Russian Oil-Stock Seizure. Excuse me? Global markets? The Russian market is going down the…
…Russian Prosecutors Seize Yukos Stake. So is this the apex of the witch hunt? Or just an episode in a saga? More likely one in a succession of future infamies. A while ago, Mike Pechar (Interested-Participant) sent me a link…
Putin’s Old-Style K.G.B. Tactics on the editorial page. A bit superficial and not quite factually correct, but strongly worded. Good.
This time, the Washington Post puts it well: Billionaire’s Arrest Delineates The Battle for Russia’s Future, with a subtitle: “Reformers Despair; KGB Veterans Seen Triumphant”. I do not hold all KGB veterans in contempt; the KGB consisted of more than…
Russian Markets Slide After Arrest of Yukos Oil Chief, says the NYT, while Putin bluntly refuses to meet with the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs to discuss Khodorkovsky’s arrest. Technically speaking, he shouldn’t have, but his refusal isn’t encouraging.…
NYT: Police in Russia Seize Oil Tycoon. Actually, it is the FSB who arrested him, the successor to the KGB. WaPo: Russia Arrests Head of Largest Oil Co. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the CEO and majority owner of Russia’s largest (by market…
…from The Preserve (Zapovednik) by Sergei Dovlatov. The scene is set in the Pskov oblast’ in the 1970s. They did not like Stalin in the village. I had long noticed that. They must have well remembered collectivization and other Stalin…
According to Alex Tapinsh, Latvia will have to pay EUR20,000 within three months to two Russian nationals for violation of their human rights, European Union court on human rights declared Thursday. The court held that the two women, a former…
Former Russian PM Chernomyrdin, now ambassador to Ukraine, is said to use profane words so intensely in private conversation that, when he must omit them in a public forum, there are not many left at all. Despite that – and,…
No Internet connection either from home or office today. They say the rain is to blame. The cables got swamped or something. Sounds like a new urban legend to me. Dialup works, though. [Update: it’s all right now. Connection’s up.…
The Ventilator debates an investment banker’s article on the Chinese economy. I don’t have a password to WSJ Online, so I only have access to the bits that the Ventilator quotes. (Thanks to Cinderella Bloggerfeller for the link.) All of…
Kat — formerly of uberspiffy.com — has moved her blog over to NeoZiggurat. Don’t expect to frighten us with ziggurats, neo or paleo: we have one right in the heart of town, in Red Square. It’s called the Lenin Mausoleum.…