A superb article by Roman Shleynov in *Vedomosti*. A must-read.
Every Family Has Its Gazprom The suppliers of Russia’s gas monopoly are connected not only to people in Vladimir Putin’s circle, but also to its own top managers. The gas giant pays its suppliers handsomely: Gazprom Komplektatsiya alone spent 666 billion rubles on “material and technical resources” in 2008–2010. Read the full article
This article in blogs[?]
palychpalych I was especially struck by the touching story of how a modest “physics teacher who taught in French” from St. Petersburg suddenly started supplying Gazprom with large-diameter pipes. Either the lady’s entrepreneurial streak suddenly awoke, or her husband helped out (purely by coincidence, he happened to be deputy chairman of Gazprom’s management board). These people have absolutely no shame. It’s all so brazen and obvious. The “Putin draft” in Gazprom is tearing Gazprom itself apart in a way that would make all the crooks of the Yeltsin era jealous. I recommend reading carefully and, after every paragraph, watching this video. An excellent pick-me-up.