Are the Russians really as desperate as they seem?
The news reports coming out of Russia are almost uniformly bad. Is there nothing positive happening there at all? Are there no signs or indidcations whatsoever that the Russian economy has hit bottom and will begin an upward trend soon? Is there no good news whatsoever?
Will Russia ever again reclaim its place among the world powers?
Well, they can’t be that bad off if they can afford to give obnoxious wealthy tourists the heave-ho.
Russia Rejects Space Tourist Bid
The Associated Press, Fri 5 Oct 2001
MOSCOW (AP) — Officials rejected a South African Internet tycoon’s bid to fly to the International Space Station because he made unreasonable demands, Russian news agencies reported Friday.
Mark Shuttleworth, 27, underwent a month of tests and preparation at the Star City cosmonaut training center outside Moscow over the summer. But the Cape Town native failed to conclude a contract to become the second tourist in space.
California tycoon Dennis Tito, who reportedly paid $20 million to Russia’s cash-strapped space agency, made an eight-day trip to the station last spring.
Koptev said that Shuttleworth had insisted on a minimum of two weeks in space, instead of the eight to 10 days the space agency favored.
Koptev said that Shuttleworth had also expected a free second flight to space if the first spacecraft failed to dock with the station, ITAR-Tass reported.
And, you know, I’m sitting here browsing some Russian news sites, and I don’t get the sense of an entire culture on the ropes. Far from it. I get the sense of a culture that’s just truckin’ along, takin’ it one day at a time, same as everybody else. Business scandals, fall foliage, city budgets, illegal fishing…
Life.
Slavneft, a $6M Loan And a CEO Scapegoat
By Anna Raff
Staff Writer
At the time, it seemed to be just another routine transaction.
In May 1998, someone at Slavneft – an oil major jointly owned by the governments of Russia and Belarus – signed a letter that guaranteed part of a $6 million loan to a Finnish oil trading company.
Back then, when businesses were running months behind on payments to suppliers and workers, companies signed off on such guarantees to ensure that they would get paid. Perhaps the trading company – Uni-Baltic Oy – owed Slavneft money, and Slavneft smoothed the way by offering a guarantee to a bank that was willing to lend.
That is one theory. In any case, the loan came due and Uni-Baltic defaulted. Earlier this year, lender Ost-West Handelsbank sued Slavneft for payment in Frankfurt. Slavneft brought a countersuit, and thus began an odyssey involving managers new and old, where truth and signatures became blurred by ambiguity.
http://www.times.spb.ru/archive/times/710/top/t_4806.htm
City Submits Its Draft 2002 Budget
Smolny kicked off the budget-debate season last week by submitting a 31-volume draft for 2002 to the Legislative Assembly that included increases in spending on education and health services by 56 percent and 32 percent, respectively.
And my personal favorite, the Vladivostok News (Motto: The Ass-End of Nowhere, and Proud Of It!)
http://vn.vladnews.ru/News/upd4_1.HTM
Japanese poaching fines
The captain of a Japanese trawler detained for poaching crab in Russian waters will have to pay $140,000 in fines and the trawler’s catch and crab pots will be confiscated, the Federal Border Guard Service reported Thursday.
The penalties have been levied by a court in the Russian Pacific port of Nakhodka and Russia’s State Marine Inspection.
A Coast Guard cutter detained the Seisho Maru 81 in the Russian sector of the Sea of Japan on Sept. 13 after finding that the trawler had caught 11.1 metric tons of crab without a license. Some of the illegal spoil was still in the tackle that had as many as 1,000 traps and was 60 kilometers long.
But wait! I’ve saved the best for last.
http://vn.vladnews.ru/News/upd3.HTM
Khabarovsk chokes with smoke
By Anatoly Medetsky
Forest fires scorching vast expanses of the Russian Far East have filled the city of Khabarovsk with poisonous fumes and plumes of thick smoke, causing serious health hazards, officials said Wednesday.
Since the fires started on Monday, people in this city of 618,000 have been using wet handkerchiefs or improvised gauze respirators to filter off bad air when walking outside.
“How is that ‘the best’?” you inquire querulously.
For what its worth, a friend of mine has done two stints in Russia, as an auditor of some telecommunications systems. She described the place as “wild and woolly”, but not completely lawless nor a total basket case.
