Yesterday I took part in a roundtable on "Ensuring Information Transparency in Investment Projects in the Oil and Gas Sector," organized by ilya_ponomarev at INSOR. The very same INSOR, whose trustee is Dmitry Medvedev and which is supposed to generate brilliant forward-looking ideas for him. It turned out to be quite an interesting event. The participants included representatives of oil and service companies, equipment manufacturers, and consultants. What was striking was that my fairly sharp remarks did not seem out of place at all. People were saying it outright: yes, corruption has been legalized; yes, transparency in procurement is a sham; yes, the state-owned Rosneft and Transneft are completely lawless. And this was not a roundtable of "The Other Russia" (an opposition coalition), but a gathering of people very much "integrated into the elite." You could print out the transcript and hand it out at opposition marches. But the biggest impression came from the conversations on the sidelines. People were chatting away cheerfully. No matter which little group you approached, they were all talking about the same thing: *- Ha, let me tell you now how they stole a billion using a dead-simple scheme.. Ha, go ahead. Then I’ll tell you how they stole three billion using an even simpler scheme.. Haha. And then I’ll tell you how the "men in uniform managers" stole five billion without any scheme at all.. *I suddenly realized, to my own surprise, that a story about stealing A BILLION DOLLARS sounds completely ordinary. There’s no sensation in it. It’s just part of everyday life here. Apparently Russia really has gotten back on its feet after all. And I finally met, in person, the top oil-and-gas blogger, nalymov. He spoke too.