Just flew back from Novy Urengoy. I was there with colleagues looking into signs of some pretty serious fraud by the “effective managers” of a major state-owned bank. After my stupid post saying that I was going to Gubkinsky, the effective managers started actively putting obstacles in our way, so I even had to post a childish lie saying the trip had been canceled. The childish lie didn’t help much—the obstacles didn’t go away, but the trip was still a success. We gathered enough evidence to put those modest state bankers away for about seven years. I’ll tell the whole story soon. It’s warm in Novy Urengoy: minus 9°C (about 16°F). Muksun (a Siberian whitefish) really is delicious. Hotel prices are insane. The strict passport-control regime looks pretty funny. When you get off the plane, they check your documents, but right behind the inspection booths there’s a crowd of absolutely rough-looking guys who can’t even properly pronounce the words “Want a taxi?” in Russian. They sell souvenir magnets with the word “Yamalchik” on them. The traffic cops don’t take bribes (I still can’t quite believe it, but several locals confirm it).
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