tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-81439843003421328822024-03-06T11:22:32.679+03:00Moscow RulesAn Englishman in Moscow, whose life is a slalom between the attitudes, aspirations and realities of modern Russia and the prejudices and politics of the WestEtienne du Clé http://www.blogger.com/profile/06490468791202865582noreply@blogger.comBlogger91125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8143984300342132882.post-54487280704762025192008-12-13T17:28:00.000+03:002008-12-13T17:31:55.909+03:00Hat-tip to <a href="http://www.siberianlight.net/">Siberian Light </a>- <a href="http://www.wordle.net/">Wordle</a> is a cute little app that turns your blog into a word picture. Here's a picture for this blog:<br /><br /> <a href="http://www.wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/384175/Untitled" title="Wordle: Untitled"><img src="http://www.wordle.net/thumb/wrdl/384175/Untitled" style="padding:4px;border:1px solid #ddd" /></a>Etienne du Clé http://www.blogger.com/profile/06490468791202865582noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8143984300342132882.post-18307724297357676972008-08-20T14:51:00.006+04:002008-08-20T18:44:18.161+04:00The case for Appeasement<div align="left"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5236551282952790034" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHd_A6NNknsEMPmskqfNGvUURG4KHLwT0_QfEIgDzIKnkMWyqOGgHBSIcC1EKioGcFPJqDQfd8CIyi_MInCHs50W2nkgNtU9YYuzKr9eMSjgxrpHJm7plqlPIpts8kB0Gz0_MfIqarmspC/s320/NATO+ridiculed.jpg" border="0" /><span style="color:#ffcc66;"><em> from the London Daily Telegraph, 17th August 2008</em><br /></span><br />I love reading the <a href="http://www.spectator.co.uk/">Spectator</a>, although I instantly recoil at almost all its judgments. A friend and colleague directed me towards <a href="http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/892801/russias-aggression-in-georgia-is-a-portent-of-perils-to-come.thtml">an article </a>which is online now (and I guess will be in the dead-tree version tomorrow).<br /><br />It is a good article, although as you might expect from a Russophile – which is what westerners accuse me of being, to the <em>bewildered</em> amusement of my Russian staff – I do not share all the author’s conclusions. I do, though, agree with him on expansion of the UN Security Council (with rapid adoption of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermajority">QMV</a> and an abolition of the veto – yes, I know, it’ll never happen) and the replacement of G8 with G12 (plus India, China, Brazil and Turkey).<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV2yzDU44ZuB6aP1oybJgYwgqynwndXWPRRdM-eWGPjvRZyehCT6L30yVZ-qqMrGEEjIjogXgYKyhwhQl8do1QCK3NaBSPdvTFGp1zozOE8urmL98XlvX9TObwg0JJrAZiCSMGrkVLLuAF/s1600-h/Georgian+flag.jpg"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY1c7uHwG69yTD-CuTLMEMSAXhVz5y5VfhCbaQ1MtF7MftgceZG9OKWXzDrRkVri2WjSbq9Nfqwv4dElBrOaX9TPBVpvaaSkhNe2wtaMq_UyrlLUQO7dJT8DjsMF_jC5Im-kbEMZrGLbQD/s1600-h/Georgian+flag.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5236553943873754786" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY1c7uHwG69yTD-CuTLMEMSAXhVz5y5VfhCbaQ1MtF7MftgceZG9OKWXzDrRkVri2WjSbq9Nfqwv4dElBrOaX9TPBVpvaaSkhNe2wtaMq_UyrlLUQO7dJT8DjsMF_jC5Im-kbEMZrGLbQD/s400/Georgian+flag.jpg" border="0" /></a>But to the theme of his article: Georgia. All of us, however near or far from the Russia-NATO debate, have had our own little moment of intellectual ferreting-about, trying to find <em>le mot juste</em> for the causation of ‘Russia’s Most Excellent South Ossetian Vacation’.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_BfeHnNpCqTrDGKzReaGRvBlut0WjrBK-XjI6p3BunOrv1aF_dt5iH_kFKMLQSsnePn8PUouxXybpXjto86zovmoHdqT52w6OUkIzxDrc8XXvjimDGg2dlJhyphenhyphennvPxNnt5uLjMV6IuP5HS/s1600-h/Lord+Palmerston.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5236551780834135026" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_BfeHnNpCqTrDGKzReaGRvBlut0WjrBK-XjI6p3BunOrv1aF_dt5iH_kFKMLQSsnePn8PUouxXybpXjto86zovmoHdqT52w6OUkIzxDrc8XXvjimDGg2dlJhyphenhyphennvPxNnt5uLjMV6IuP5HS/s400/Lord+Palmerston.jpg" border="0" /></a> Understanding the ebb and flow of Caucasus politics is somewhat like trying to understand the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schleswig-Holstein_Question">Schleswig-Holstein Question</a>; of which <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Temple,_3rd_Viscount_Palmerston">Lord Palmerston</a> memorably said: “<em>Only three people understood the Schleswig-Holstein Question. The first was Albert, the Prince consort and he is dead; the second is a German professor, and he is in an asylum: and the third was myself - and I have forgotten it</em>”<br /><br />Georgia. South Ossetia. Really it is all the fault of that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson">Woodrow Wilson </a>chap. Possibly the biggest brain ever to occupy the Oval Office; and yet his two terms in office were blighted. He was the one who, during and in the aftermath of the First World War, got everyone so excited by the idea of <em>Idealism</em> in foreign policy. It has been <em>torturing</em> us ever since.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5236554480808884642" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEAg-3EWqD3qgLB582-Xn5n_UWfBoGrFPeFBdE2c8DS74aG4HxP_YXy7rhlPHP48cKM7pe2zem1NAvi3vc27xgBK2VD8FZnnvUyF03KxyMMDgxKWKIQsdZvKgmLcIuNlmj3WUD63f4GZfE/s400/Woodrow+Wilson+idealist.jpg" border="0" />Indeed, for a long time one might have argued that the Wilsonian / ‘American’ school of foreign policy nicely contrasted with the Palmerstonian or ‘British’ view. Put it another way: what Lord Palmerston would have said was “<em>Nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests": Georgia is not our ally and we have no interests there. Leave it to the Russians.</em>’ </div><div align="left"></div><br /><div align="left">On the other hand, Palmerston was the ‘ultimate pre-emptionist’, not adverse to gunboat diplomacy, which is a sabre-rattle too far just now (and worryingly apropos GW Bush).<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCLz4SMKov90b2FglZPZ8W2Ei-771Rd1NT0cIvmgqiWLs5BspZ9A6fVuBtxFhdSD2nu90eJZRGXTKh9V3hz_sTphYvpBiQLpDEt3NjdSQYUUWwIhulnZBBXBgGjCt_v_TSimrRlj6SFy8u/s1600-h/End+of+Empire.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5236557098501111378" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCLz4SMKov90b2FglZPZ8W2Ei-771Rd1NT0cIvmgqiWLs5BspZ9A6fVuBtxFhdSD2nu90eJZRGXTKh9V3hz_sTphYvpBiQLpDEt3NjdSQYUUWwIhulnZBBXBgGjCt_v_TSimrRlj6SFy8u/s400/End+of+Empire.jpg" border="0" /></a>Self Determination as a key-determinant of national sovereignty – and the existence of a state that ought to be recognized - was a Wilsonian idea. He espoused it because, <em>inter alia</em>, he hated empires. His was that whole <em>end-the Empires</em> vibe that the USA later <em>rammed</em> down British and French throats after World War II – and thus flowered, as we swapped colonial power for US dollars – democracy and stability in Africa and Indochina…well, OK, not quite.<br /><br />Today in international law, we tend to assume four things for a sovereign state to exist a (1) land; with (2) settled borders; (3) settled people and a form of (4) government. <a href="http://seansrussiablog.org/2008/08/17/ossetians-given-a-voice-humanitarian-aid-to-georgia/">Sean has been writing very convincingly about the West’s turning a deaf ear to the Ossetian voice</a>, and that that we only hear the view from Tbilisi.<br /><br />On a Wilsonian view of the world, South Ossetia has a right to be treated as being capable of independence. The same line we used, of course, for Kosovo (actually the issue was more ragged over Kosovo than over South Ossetia). The Russians aren’t especially mad at us Westerners for our hypocrisy. Quite the contrary, I am sure they love rubbing our noses in our own ‘International Rule of Law’ shit.<br /><br />Self-determination, however, is proving a most crappy touchstone for international affairs. We loved it for Kosovo; hate it for South Ossetia and scarcely know what to think about Transnistria or Nagorny-Karabakh; and run for cover if you mention Flanders; Basque or Chechnya.<br /><br />It is time to ditch self-determination as a theory in international realpolitik. At best all you get are smaller and smaller countries scarcely able to govern themselves, who have no international voice and who are over-dependent on big states (the USA, Russia or the pseudo-state of the EU). It was self-determination which brought back to us the Georgian state (which was snuffed out by the Russians in 1801, but made virtually unsustainable by Persians from the Middles Ages onwards).<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcI5-qLBDZ2ZQpEv14iVU4T3zkL7AahksxoLtqVSUp-iHHGN0EJq28kNER_uhdO9d5gOIMTcBKFLW8VOiw0iOkqLJ-KS0Q9idul0WaconZeOXBGMCYGDtLEFDaSh2OrJkLbY20ziFkXp_-/s1600-h/Russian+flag.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5236551586059441266" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcI5-qLBDZ2ZQpEv14iVU4T3zkL7AahksxoLtqVSUp-iHHGN0EJq28kNER_uhdO9d5gOIMTcBKFLW8VOiw0iOkqLJ-KS0Q9idul0WaconZeOXBGMCYGDtLEFDaSh2OrJkLbY20ziFkXp_-/s320/Russian+flag.jpg" border="0" /></a>I don’t much care whether Georgia is free of Russia or not (there, I've come out, I've said it). I care even less about South Ossetia. But I think ‘Sovereign Montenegro’ a ridiculous idea; Kosovo toxically the more so and have no wish to see a new-born state called South Ossetia. Let the Russians have it! One sure way to take the pressure off of the Western Alliance is to give Russia all the rope it wants.<br /><br />That said it sucks to be Belorussia or Ukraine. And I see that <a href="http://www.kommersant.com/p1013460/r_538/Russia_Georgia_South_Ossetia_conflict_Belarus/">Minsk is getting it in the neck </a>for having been just a little too reticent recently.<br /><br />Should we care if Russia moves to take the Crimea? Why? We know that Russia knows it can’t reverse the lost Warsaw Pact countries’ membership of NATO so, therefore, where really is the self-interest in our trying to control events east of NATO, that pose no threat to NATO territory? Just because <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeasement">Appeasement </a>failed in 1938 doesn’t mean this time it isn’t in our best <em>long-term</em> interests. </div>Etienne du Clé http://www.blogger.com/profile/06490468791202865582noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8143984300342132882.post-17124439058242006272008-08-19T15:43:00.002+04:002008-08-19T15:51:51.131+04:00Dumb and Dumber?Otherwise known as Georgia and Serbia.<br /><br />Ah... poor Serbia. Always seemingly grabbing defeat from the jaws of <em>whatever...</em><br /><em></em><br />This piece on the <a href="http://www.businessneweurope.eu/">Business New Europe </a>wire caught my eye today:<br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;color:#ffcc00;">Moscow accuses Serbia of supplying Georgia with arms<br />bne<br />August 19, 2008</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;color:#ffcc00;">The Russian Ministry of Defence has accused Serbia of being one of the countries that has supplied arms to the Georgian military prior to the recent conflict in Ossetia, Serbian media reports. The Russian's say some of the weapons were made in Serbia's Zastava factory in the central Serbian town of Kragujevac, according to reports from the BBC. "I stated that it was a bad idea selling weapons to a country that was in conflict with Russia, our biggest ally," former Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic told the BBC, pointing out that the government (in which he had been foreign minister) had initially blocked the deal, and then approved it following a strike by workers at Zastava Weapons. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;color:#ffcc00;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;color:#ffcc00;">However, Zastava Weapons Director Rade Gromovic said Draskovic's claims are "groundless.""I don't know how our Kalashnikovs got to Georgia. Maybe Georgia got them from Croatia or Bosnia, whose territorial defenses, during the former Yugoslavia, possessed such weapons. Zastava Weapons and the Serbian state cannot however tell former Yugoslav republics, which have long been independent states, what to do with their military surpluses," said Gromovic.</span><br /><br />There is almost a mathmatically circular brilliance to how screwy that is, don't you think?<br /><br />South Ossetia is Kosovo; Georgia is Serbia. Serbia is friendless other than Russia so, <em>natch</em>, Serbia 'accidentally' arms its only friend's most troublesome enemy. <em>LOL</em>Etienne du Clé http://www.blogger.com/profile/06490468791202865582noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8143984300342132882.post-24085182102138773292008-08-14T01:04:00.002+04:002008-08-14T02:40:23.949+04:00In search of truth and balance<em>Posted elsewhere by Exile:</em><br /><em></em><br />Something about August (western newsrooms, which have anyway been cutting editorial budgets, being lightly staffed); the distraction of the Olympics and a misplaced admiration for being 'democratically elected' <em>did</em> throw western media off its game. No doubt about it; in the first days of reporting the South Ossetian conflict zone.<br /><br />The early coverage in the west was awful and biased. And Saakashvili's acting skills did bludgeon fair reason from western editors' minds.<br /><br />But Russians should please remember the west's press *is* free and, like a plane in turbulence tends back towards the centre of its gravity and even flight, eventually western journalists' fondness for fact and accuracy, reverts back to (on a good day) journalistic balance.<br /><br />The London Times today has two pieces, by significant UK writers, Russians should approve of: <a href="http://tiny.cc/avNV1">http://tiny.cc/avNV1</a> and the sublime Simon Sebag-Montefiore: <a href="http://tiny.cc/5WRn1" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://tiny.cc/5WRn1</a>. The Russian point of view <em>is</em> being heard. And is respected.<br /><br />If Moscow stops shouting, for a moment, about western media's bias, it might even <em>hear</em> its more reasonable, and increasingly Moscow-attuned, voice.<br /><br />Russia has won the military battle. It can still even win the longer-run war for the <em>respect</em> from the west it reasonably <em>deserves</em>.Etienne du Clé http://www.blogger.com/profile/06490468791202865582noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8143984300342132882.post-36583487706663173112008-08-12T21:16:00.000+04:002008-08-12T21:47:35.273+04:00Why, on balance, I think Russia has acted broadly correctlyOn Sunday, I wrote elsewhere (amid a spittle-storm of British Russophobia):<br /><br />"The view here from Moscow is interesting inasmuch as there is little jingoism from the Russians I know who are jaded by the Caucasus <span style="color:#33ff33;"><em>[well, that was Sunday, by Monday morning, while I detected little jingoism, it was plain there was a massive wall of Russian outrage at the attack-on-civilians Georgia has - please let's remember this *fact* initiated last week, unprovoked. Prime Minister Putin - Blair to Medvedev's Queen of England - has tapped brilliantly into this. The guy *does do* domestic PR brilliantly well]. </em><br /><br /></span>"The West can do nothing. It holds no cards whatsoever at this poker table. It needs Russian oil and gas; it needs Russian leverage over Iran and, indeed, the USA needs Russia's cash to buy US Treasury bonds: the recent Fredie Mac and Fannie Mae crisis revealed Russian sovereign funds were huge holders of their bonds and US Treasuries.<br /><br />"The four 'frozen conflicts' (Abkhazia, Nagorny-Karabakh and of course South Ossetia; and Transnistria, on the Ukrainian border) may have been defrosted by Kosovo, that's true. There are now plenty of opportunities for Moscow to feed the EU, cold, its Kosovo solution back to them, frozen-conflict-by-frozen-conflict.<br /><br />"VVP et al have hated Saakashvili for years and have long wanted to take him out; of all the colour-revolution leaders on Russia's borders, he was always too close to Washington. And Saakashvili has *had* to snuggle up close to Washington because he is not nearly as popular amongst Georgians as his suave English-speaking appearances on CNN might have you believe.<br /><br />"Russia, I think, really *does* want a return to the status quo ante (South Ossetia within Georgia, completely autonomous and <em><span style="color:#33ff33;">[but totally]</span></em> under the Russian sphere of influence).<br /><br />"It does *not* want to annex South Ossetia, with Russian North Ossetia. The Kremlin knows that unifying the Ossetian populations won't make them happy Russian citizens; just as much as the Southerners weren't happy to be Georgian. It would lead to an independence movement. <em><span style="color:#33ff33;">[Seen Tuesday evening, I am not sure I think this is so clear-cut. Russia's stand for South Ossetians means, in the short term they would welcome Federation membership. But I still think my analysis holds true for the long term. In any case, a Georgia 'fractured', with territorial claims is, ipso facto permenantly disqualified from NATO membership]<br /></span></em><br />"Russian took years to turn the tide in Chechnya and has no intention of creating a new headache with a 'Greater Ossetia' (not least because, next door, in Russian Ingushetia, there is chronic low-level successionist violence).<br /><br />"The outcome will be like an Occupied West Bank of Jordan. South Ossetia will be out of Tbbilisi's control but with Russian never attempting to integrate it into Russia.<br /><br />"The bigger prize, for Moscow (apart from sticking it to the West) will be the inevitable fall of Saakashvili; who made re-integration of South Ossetia into Georgia a key platform of his re-election campaign."<br /><br />On Monday morning, to a UK political mate I replied (him asking what the pro-Russian 'line-to-take might be):<br /><ol><li>Georgia fired the first shots by an ill-judged unilateral action to ‘grab back’ South Ossetia and, in the process, killed Russian peacekeepers there (big mistake) </li><li>Russia responded to defend the ethnic Ossetian, civilian population and to rout Georgian aggression and seek a return to the <em>status quo ante</em> </li><li>Russia’s continued actions today – now that Georgia has been defeated and lost what footholds it had in South Ossetia – are aimed primarily at degrading Georgia’s ability to re-group and once again attack ethnic Ossetian citizens (and are, therefore, not inconsistent with its peacekeeping mandate) </li></ol>Which I think is how the Kremlin has more or less spun it.<br /><br />Saakashvili has been a vainglorious fool of iconic proportions. He's done. The Russians don't need to despose him. The Georgians will do it for them.<br /><br />What I have noticed in the last few days is the rampent one-sided, anti-Russian reporting of this conflict, most notably in the UK and US media (although today I see <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/12/nato.georgia">more balance </a>coming in).<br /><br />But was has been really depressing is the virulant anti-western sentiment now becomming firmly lodged in modern, bi-lingual, hip Russia. That, I think, is more worrying. If you have Facebook, check out <a href="http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=30028008783&ref=nf">this group</a> which caught my eye because one of my staffers has joined it. If you don't, here are some choice quotes:<br /><br /><span style="color:#ffff33;">We hereby express our allegiance with the Georgian, Osetian and Ukrainian people - who have been forced into an unlikely alliance with the West via puppet governments aimed at destabilizing Russia's sphere of influence. Some of these governments, such as that of Georgia demonstrate blatant disregard for their national purpose and sense of belonging and choose to speak English to the World Body instead of native Georgian. Which beautifully demonstrates where their intentions and directions come from.</span><br /><span style="color:#ffff33;"></span><br /><span style="color:#ffff33;">We hereby confirm our status as Citizens of the Russian Federation and acknowledge our power.We understand our worth to you as a market, and our worth to our country as its Citizens...We are Russians. We are the first generation to grow up without prejudices...</span><br /><span style="color:#ffff33;"></span><br /><span style="color:#ffff33;">...Or we can be the first to show the world that Western pop culture is a front for indoctrination of the masses and that other cultures to exist, that the dollar is not the global currency - oil is, and that saying NO to the Anglo Saxon world is very possible.</span><br /><span style="color:#ffff33;"></span><br /><span style="color:#ffff33;">...For if the worst comes to worse, in the battle for hearts and minds, we will win where you have always lost... Ourmasses mobilize themselves till the last drop of blood. Yours, have to be convinced, and will stop at the first.</span><br /><br />...<em>makes you want to weep doesn't it?</em>Etienne du Clé http://www.blogger.com/profile/06490468791202865582noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8143984300342132882.post-8514711738835497812008-05-24T14:06:00.008+04:002008-05-25T04:45:38.426+04:00Catching up with Red Exile<span style="color:#ffff00;">[the layout of this post goes oddly here and there: I have laboured unsuccessfuly to correct it; sorry]</span>
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<br />The most irritating news is that - somewhat predictably I suppose - the property developer doing our new Moscow office has predicted delays; to 10th June (90%) or 14th (100% certain to be ready he says). But our existing lease expires 31st May. So we had a meeting Friday evening. Fortunately we have a contingency plan in place for a temporary home: all at the developer's expense I hasten to add.
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<br />Oh, and our Russian bank - a new one which is not impressing me (so watch it Raiffeisen or I will switch our accounts from you!) has been a real pain in the ass. It is an issue of the 'hard currency passport' (yes, everything foreign needs something like a visa here) concerning a <em>large </em>transfer. Now lawyers and finance people in three, no, actually four, countries are beavering to sort it out.
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<br />In Russia your corporate bank is not your Friend or business partner: they are the devil! Actually, Raiffeisen Bank in Russia for a while - when I first moved here - set the benchmark of excellence, but I think their service and approach has really declined since they <a href="http://today.reuters.com/news/articlebusiness.aspx?type=bankingFinancial&storyID=nL01762681&from=business">gobbled up Impex Bank</a>. In Russia, it might be branded Austrian, but the middle management and service culture seems to me to have become distinctly <em>Soviet. </em>We were looking to pool our accounts in all the 19 countries of our region with them - I am pushing to ditch them in mine. Right now, I <em>loathe </em>them.
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<br />These two events - property and <em>cunty </em>bank - all occured after 5pm on Friday. Exhausted - a hugely busy week and two overnight train journeys in three days (and, like, 11 hours sleep in 72 hours) mean't I got home about 8pm, sank a large <em>Bombay Saphire & Schweppes </em>and went straight to bed - a glorious 11 hours asleep...
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<br />So, to catch up with all my news, here's some more annotated updates from my facebook account:
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<br />Today
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<br />Red Exile says it's nice to wake up in his own bed, which is rare enough these days, especially then to realise it's Saturday.
<br />7:54am <span style="color:#33ff33;"><em>meaning only that this week I've woken up on trains and in the 'apartment suite' in our Kyiv facility and, in recent weeks, have travelled a lot. Nothing, alas, more mischievous...</em> </span>
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<br /></span>Yesterday
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<br />Red Exile is back in the irresistible, terrible, magnificent, pulsing dark heart that is Moscow: where the weather is ghastly.
<br />9:00am
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<br />May 22
<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhVxeRziR5sOWPRH7TW9-pdqdzjR-DEd2q2JI4FLxhSVyXydbuNApOOdoGWMs7etaOpwt96Hk6Ihyv_0SFycTowqRAMOaz63933y8Tc8KIBuocMX8rR1xvpn_XPCHKF1z0nEIiSDo7KhtD/s1600-h/Overnight+train+Kyiv-Moscow.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5203902498188631506" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhVxeRziR5sOWPRH7TW9-pdqdzjR-DEd2q2JI4FLxhSVyXydbuNApOOdoGWMs7etaOpwt96Hk6Ihyv_0SFycTowqRAMOaz63933y8Tc8KIBuocMX8rR1xvpn_XPCHKF1z0nEIiSDo7KhtD/s320/Overnight+train+Kyiv-Moscow.jpg" border="0" /></a>
<br />Exile had a great evening in Kyiv; which really has everything in a city one could wish for. The weather is also lovely.
<br />12:00pm <em><span style="color:#33ff33;">I took the overnight train back again. Luckily it was the flag-ship train, so the 1st class sleeper compartments were top-notch...</span></em>
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<br />Red Exile is actually watching 'the' game & really enjoying it; in the way an ingenue 1st watches a Verdi opera; wide-eyed, without partiality and for the sort of poetry of it. But I thought Mr Ronaldo splendid.
<br />12:30am
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<br />May 21
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<br />Exile wonders why, if the football match in Moscow doesn't start until 22.45 local time, all the expats going to it are leaving their offices now. It's only Luzhniki!
<br />3:55pm
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<br /><a href="http://www.blogger.com/%3Ca" target="_blank"></a>Red Exile does not feel fresh as a daisy; couldn't sleep as his train rattled and lurched across Russia & into Ukraine.
<br />8:20am
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<br />May 20
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<br />Red Exile is on way to Kyiv tonight - overnight train (fast one with buffet). Means a dawn appointment with Russian border guards followed by Ukrainian ones.
<br />11:01pm
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<br /><wbr>Red Exile Red Exile enjoys hot humid nights; but they're better naked in the pool; as in my Guadeloupe days. A lifetime ago I lived that.
<br />9:21pm <em><span style="color:#33ff33;">It was my pool, my privilege to swim naked in it at midnight...</span></em>
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<br />Red Exile says Russia's stonking victory over Canada in the hockey Worlds means, if Chelski win Wednesday, that's 3 great sporting triumphs for Russian sentiment in a row.
<br />12:31am <em><span style="color:#33ff33;">Opinions differ amongst my Moscow staffers as to whether they are pro- or anti- Abramovich and hence whether to be pro- or anti-Chelski in fact</span></em>
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<br />May 18
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<br />Red Exile sees that 'tree-sperm' season is upon us again in Moscow and the streets full of the snow-storm of germinating stuff. What's is called? Puchre?
<br />1:18pm
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<br />May 17
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<br />Red Exile said: "and...in an instant...his weekend evaporated...".
<br />7:10pm <em><span style="color:#33ff33;">I had to work the weekend - a crisis management assignment came up.</span></em>
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<br />Red Exile has just realised he has no opera or ballet tickets booked for anything. A sort of panic has overcome him...
<br />2:58pm <span style="color:#33ff33;">Situation now rectified! Tonight I am going (for only the second time) to see the Bolshoi dance ' <em>The Golden Age</em> -music by Shostakovitch and choreographed by Yuri Grigorovich</span>
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<br />Red Exile is surprised to discover that his Asus has been buggered and so he has no mobile connectivity. Hopefully it is just the usual shoddy Russian SIM card problem.
<br />12:25am <em><span style="color:#33ff33;">It was a SIM card problem - Russian mobile operators seems prone to them</span></em>
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<br />May 14
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<br /></a>Red Exile is still in idyllic rural Hungary and this morning will opine on web 2.0: "content may have been king but now aggregation is God".
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<br />May 13
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<br /></a>Red Exile is in a particularly rural part of Hungary, just an hour's drive out of Budapest. Horses are nesting, or whatever they do, outside my window.
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<br />May 12
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<br />Red Exile has always been fond of Budapest. In 2003 it was on his 'list' with Beirut, Rome & Istanbul. But now 4 years in Moscow; LOL.
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<br /></a>Red Exile is landed in Budapest, where everyone is enjoying a public holiday and, by now, very *relaxed*.
<br />6:49pm <em><span style="color:#33ff33;">No Valium? Red wine will suffice. Nasty 'crabbing' or cross-wind landing though. </span></em>
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<br />Red Exile is depressed and anxious. He is about to fly to Budapest and has forgotten his in-flight Valium. <em><span style="color:#33ff33;">Either reader will recall my absurd, but nonetheless serious, fear of flying. On trips longer than two hours I pop two Valium. Actually, I can see why people get addicted to Valium - fabulous stuff - but don't mix it with alcohol (apparently that's not good - but on flights to Kazakhstan? yeah right...)</span></em>
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<br />May 11
<br /></a>Red Exile has his apartment to himself tonight for the first time in weeks, but only has one night to enjoy it.
<br />3:15pm
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<br /><a title="Click here to remove this item." href="http://www.blogger.com/%3Ca" target="_blank"></a>Red Exile Well the parade was later than it should be, and in the opposite direction from that expected, but the tanks and missiles were great big boys' toys. <em><span style="color:#33ff33;">A tank driving up Tverskaya; and part (I was too close to get the whole thing in view!) of a Topol M ICBM, or RT-2UTTH, nuclear missile launcher (NATO IDENT: SS-27). LOL - to think that in Soviet times my photographing it would have been a serious crime. </span></em>
<br />12:39pm
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<br /><em>That night I also took my mother to see the Bolshoi's superb production of Nabucco (4th viewing). Here an excerpt someone has ripped and put on YouTube (Elena Zelenskaya was singing the part of Abigaile that night too - it is great fun for a soprano - a </em>baddy <em>part for them for once to sing! But I think her Tosca is better and Irina Rubtsova the better Abigaile):
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<br /></em><em></em></div><div><em></em></div><div><em>(PS: I see that this recording is from the </em>old <em>Bolshoi production though, not the current one! - which is visually much more stunning)</em></div><div><em></em></div><div><em></em></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUC_NZ5Maf_GfvoZWYM653gACWKRE9uWVDPKLszTxUxi63OPpn8ATPoaJ-94e_oWaRR3rmNVd1r_ZiZGJ-qY7nQhu4D-tQPuX7lGOrRhaIFtcHIKcoufIrQjdIshvURGkXaSDiA5hpMnIH/s1600-h/8th+may+ceremony.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5203894037103058290" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUC_NZ5Maf_GfvoZWYM653gACWKRE9uWVDPKLszTxUxi63OPpn8ATPoaJ-94e_oWaRR3rmNVd1r_ZiZGJ-qY7nQhu4D-tQPuX7lGOrRhaIFtcHIKcoufIrQjdIshvURGkXaSDiA5hpMnIH/s320/8th+may+ceremony.jpg" border="0" /></a>May 8
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<br />Red Exile thinks it funny that all the male expats are really excited that Russia's new long-range nukes are being paraded through the streets tomorrow.<em> <span style="color:#33ff33;">Smaller WWII ceremonies were also taking place around the city. This one was close by our office:</span>
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<br /><div><em>10:52am
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<br />May 7
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<br /></em>Red Exile is pleased, thoroughly, to recommend Moscow fishmonger at La Marée (top of Petrovka) & thanks his mate Brian for the tip. Langoustine vivant (but not for long)!
<br />6:55pm<em> </em></div><div></div><div><span style="color:#33ff33;"><em>Mother was making her annual visitation to Moscow. She cooked the live langoustine and wasn't the least bit screamish at dunking them in boiling water. We ate them with a </em><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvDiCi2yy9gEOPcD2DwORlOJ_qsTnS_ps2sauSxReDmyH-SWYYLs1V6NidNzPbA-pJmMm1eQXohUkLhjm9IpY_0sekZajOZGnbzP_pK1O5K4DuJe4wOZJ9zu7bTjwP6AeZaDN9Q0VOSALd/s1600-h/Mother+%26+the+langoustine+she+slaughtered.JPG"></a><em>mozzarella / pesto/tomato salad; quails' eggs and a Gavi-di-Gavi</em> </span>
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<br />Red Exile wonders how long it will take to remember to call Putin Prime Minister and not President; and congratulates Dmitri Medvedev, and Russia, on his special day. 10:05am <span style="color:#33ff33;"><em>It was inauguration day - no, I wasn't invited to the ceremony. Outrageous! LOL</em></span> </div><div>
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<br /><em>Red Exile The RUS govt has just announced *visa-free* travel for Brit football fans for this bloody match: what!?!?! Madness. Are they importing fodder 4 Nashi to bully?12:24pm </em></div><div><em></em></div><div><em><span style="color:#33ff33;">We all expected there to be huge trouble with all the Brit football fans coming to Moscow - turns out it all went swimmingly. I was less concerned about Brit rioters, though, than they would be targeted by extreme Russian nationalists. But the Russian security forces had weeded them out most effectively and they were getting no-where near the supporters.</span></em></div><p>Red Exile wonders why my Lenovo x60 refuses to obey me today. Sighs: I want to go mac.. 11:33am
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<br /><p><em></em></p><p>May 5</p><p></a>Red Exile say street closures for Friday's war parade rehearsal, and later metro closures, will make Moscow impossible this week. 10:11am
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<br /><p><em></em></p><p>May 4</p><p><a href="http://www.blogger.com/%3Ca" target="_blank"></a>Red Exile exhales: "sublimi il diva; notte di passione e di gioia". Anna Netrebko concert; Moscow. Magnificent! 10:27pm<em> </em></p><p><em><span style="color:#33ff33;">erm..yes, I can get a little over-excited in post-concert high. It was at the Moscow Grand Conservatoire, which is an amazing venue and only ten minutes walk from where I live. And that day I had dined before at Cantinetta Antinori, on their lovely garden terrace.</span></em>
<br /></p><p></a>Red Exile has enjoyed the longest long lunch; and is going to diva Netrebko's concert.<em> </em>4:43pm <span style="color:#33ff33;"><em>Anna Netrebko is my all-star-world favourite soprano right now. I have all her recordings (thanks to iTunes:
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<br /><p><span style="color:#33ff33;"><em>She was four month's pregnant for tonight's concert and was an absolute trooper and stunning to boot. She shared the stage with superb Romanian mezzo-sporano, Rixandra Donose and (s0-so) American tenor, Brad Cooper. Anna and Rixandra dueting in "Si, fuggire!...Ah crudel", from Bellini's Romeo & Juliet (oh yes, it is an opera too, not just a ballet) was excellent. Bellini is hugely tough to sing and sopranos use his music to showcase their voice. </em></span><span style="color:#33ff33;"><span style="color:#ffffcc;"><span style="color:#ffffff;"></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color:#33ff33;"><span style="color:#ffffcc;"><span style="color:#ffffff;">Red Exile today is a 'working day' in Russia. I booked leave. Have now finished essential work and</span> am going to have a la-la long lunch</span></span></p><p><span style="color:#33ff33;"><span style="color:#33ff33;">In contrast to the UK, which pivots all public holidays to a Monday, in Russia the holidays fall where they are on the calendar, which means any day of the week. But, sensibly, the Government bunches them together. The French do this: they call it 'faire le pont" (to make the bridge) - but the French do it by adding in a day. At least they did on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guadeloupe">Guadeloupe</a> </a>when I lived there. In Russia, in a grasp at efficiency, they deduct a day from a nearby weekend. So: holiday is on a Thursday? Make Friday a holiday too, but work the following Sunday. It is not something I can ever get used to so I book a day's leave; but usually end up spend half of it handling essential emails and calls anyway, so wonder why I don't just give up and work it like everyone else...</span> </p></span></div></div></div></div>
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<br />Etienne du Clé http://www.blogger.com/profile/06490468791202865582noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8143984300342132882.post-83423978037643894112008-05-03T17:51:00.001+04:002008-05-03T19:22:02.586+04:00Red Exile isn't dead - he's just been distracted...<em>So 'real life' has intervened in the last few weeks in the shape of punishing work schedule; quite a lot of travel; a friend (and her 46kg dog) temporarily moving in and - which has been very <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">stressy</span> - the search for new offices in Moscow.</em><br /><br /><div><div><div><div><div><div><em>of course there comes a point, blog-wise, where after a longish absence it almost becomes intimidating to do the 'here's what I've been doing' catch-up post. I have got over this, however, by just dumping highlights from my <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">facebook</span> account. So here we go (with more <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">shockingly</span> bad photography from my handheld <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">PDA</span>), the recent past:</em></div><div><em></em></div><br /><div>Yesterday<br /><a title="Click here to remove this item." href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?id=716857154##"></a><br />Red Exile is spending another public holiday in the office; surprised how humid it is outside, which is early in the season.<br />1:43pm<br />May 1<br /><a title="Click here to remove this item." href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?id=716857154##"><span style="color:#33ff33;"></span></a><em><span style="color:#33ff33;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEPhhNjCvksWaksPRbox3yJ5j8ZTiFXtArcNRReV38giTrq8ORuBgEin118rG8gss1E5MkkCaBdxLSY_ArbgrbEapcfW4F3A9e5l7ykEBxISfsAdMZBS7T3rsKt3_Hz9ugt53J9PFLI7Ga/s1600-h/Prague+Old+Town,+April+30th+2008.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5196161391332102066" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" height="263" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEPhhNjCvksWaksPRbox3yJ5j8ZTiFXtArcNRReV38giTrq8ORuBgEin118rG8gss1E5MkkCaBdxLSY_ArbgrbEapcfW4F3A9e5l7ykEBxISfsAdMZBS7T3rsKt3_Hz9ugt53J9PFLI7Ga/s320/Prague+Old+Town,+April+30th+2008.JPG" width="195" border="0" /></a>I was in Prague on business</span></em><br />Red Exile says: "If I should die think only this of me"... I like Shiraz with my chocolate course.<br />12:25am<br />April 30<br /><br />Red Exile is watching the night twinkle on the Danube; a glass of bubbles to hand; a violin being played in the background.<br />10:40pm<br /><br />Red Exile says "OK, so there is some football match coming up in Moscow? No, I don't have tickets and I gather the street price is edging towards Euros 1,000" - crazy! <em><span style="color:#33ff33;">Since '<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Chelski</span>' has now won a place in this match, I am told the price is now Euros 4,500 for non-VIP tickets.</span></em><br />3:34pm<br /><br />Red Exile does not have a PhD in applied sciences and therefore is struggling to work the shower in his hotel bedroom. <em><span style="color:#33ff33;">Which was the Four Seasons - which is superb - and it's restaurant, <a href="http://www.fourseasons.com/prague/dining/allegro_restaurant.html">Allegro</a>, quite unbelievably good (and the holder of Prague's first and only Michelin star)</span></em><br />9:09am <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDjoT0VX0YnabK4xSEQMddrqgGa09OK_Gk8joNGbo2grP9631AO9RUkb-TkFt3su4tAAPfVeiKv1xLP27WSG7wtQq8vbqdT9VRiu8rDFvQrt6SOP2zxq_CYrY51BZLh6tAvJmbGD2gY_jU/s1600-h/%232+Charles+Bridge,+Prague,+April+30th.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5196161395627069378" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" height="283" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDjoT0VX0YnabK4xSEQMddrqgGa09OK_Gk8joNGbo2grP9631AO9RUkb-TkFt3su4tAAPfVeiKv1xLP27WSG7wtQq8vbqdT9VRiu8rDFvQrt6SOP2zxq_CYrY51BZLh6tAvJmbGD2gY_jU/s320/%232+Charles+Bridge,+Prague,+April+30th.jpg" width="193" border="0" /></a><br />Red Exile I have a table with a view; a pigeon breast; a 1/2 bottle of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Côte</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Rotie</span>: I love life, Prague & everything…<br />10:53pm<br /><br />Red Exile is now over a bumpy flight - and normal, smiley service is resumed. We thank you for your patience in this temporary service difficulty.<br />9:39pm<br /><br />Red Exile I have *never* thought of the Czechs as other than opportunists and wasters and, 30 minutes in, 4 yrs l8r, I see I was right! <em><span style="color:#33ff33;">I am inclined to be in a very bad mood after landing - partly angry at myself for having been so scared 'up there', which is silly, and partly (justifiably) because Czech immigration, clearing flights in from China and Russia, didn't open the EU Citizens line; until people like me pointed out how crazy it was that we'd have to queue with all the non-EU citizens being admitted with visas. Also, the taxi system sucks.</span></em><br />8:18pm<br /><br />Red Exile says the plane is what? Late?!? <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Arrgh</span>!<br />5:24pm<br /><br />Red Exile Has now had Aeroflot baked goods and a drink so calmer, checked in and now only to ponder age of plane about to fly...<br />4:30pm<br /><a href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?&filter=11"></a><br />Red Exile says my life is *so stressful* it is no wonder I have high blood pressure and the heart of an 80 yr old. *Made plane just on time*.<br />4:16pm<br /><a href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?&filter=11"></a><br />Red Exile hopes everyone enjoys Thursday's <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">neo</span>-cold war parade - cos rehearsals for it have screwed Moscow traffic even more than usual & I am l8 4 plane. <em><span style="color:#33ff33;">The parade is 9<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">th</span> May actually. That didn't make the traffic less <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">sucky</span>.</span></em><br />3:02pm<br /><a href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?&filter=11"></a><br />Red Exile notes that one of his two female house guests is on heat. The 46kg, 4-legged one. Words cannot express... <em><span style="color:#33ff33;">They're moving on Monday. When my mother arrives... I don't get my apartment to myself for another two weeks...</span></em><br />10:19am<br />April 28<br /><a href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?&filter=11"></a><br />Red Exile is off to a business lunch in brilliant sunshine.<br />12:00pm<br /><a href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?&filter=1"></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzIBD6VTX0dpSN6COpLFpTSMpqV2uUbiZ0ntvB9hlvdITgGL-uU3wcFa80e5xTRILDET54awx9teCXiooipULww_sUfMFgRfPQlxW0sTZsg7zVJEONrAZ7blqmDMjEMgmIMXsevQdatKaH/s1600-h/Mmd+new+offices+-+a+work+in+progress!.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5196162963290132450" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" height="176" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzIBD6VTX0dpSN6COpLFpTSMpqV2uUbiZ0ntvB9hlvdITgGL-uU3wcFa80e5xTRILDET54awx9teCXiooipULww_sUfMFgRfPQlxW0sTZsg7zVJEONrAZ7blqmDMjEMgmIMXsevQdatKaH/s320/Mmd+new+offices+-+a+work+in+progress!.JPG" width="242" border="0" /></a>Red Exile added a new photo to New offices - bought 'off-plan': what can go wrong? <em><span style="color:#33ff33;">OK, so the building is still a 'work in progress' in a completely gutted, exterior cladding yet to be <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">junked</span> and re-done and completely needs rewiring and plumbing kind-of-way. But the developer *promises* me it will be ready for entry June 1st. This is good: our current lease expires 31st May.</span></em><br />11:46am<br /><br /></div><div>Red Exile <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Madama</span> Butterfly / <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Stanislavski</span> etc: tonight Irina <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">Arkad'eva</span> was *a goddess*. Act 2 finale a weepy *triumph*!<br />10:15pm<br /><a href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?&filter=11"></a><br />Red Exile is @ v. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">gd</span> performance of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Madama</span> Butterfly, fuelling up before original 2hr version of Act2.<br />8:08pm<br /><a href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?&filter=11"></a><br />Red Exile is at the opera, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">Madama</span> Butterfly, eyeing chandeliers warily...<em><span style="color:#33ff33;"> see April 18<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">th</span> for the last comment to make sense.</span></em><br />6:37pm<br /><a href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?&filter=11"></a><br />Red Exile has discovered of himself that the pathology of his fear of flying is fear of heights. He discovered this in the glass lift of Moscow's <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">uber</span>-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">elitny</span> Lotte Plaza.<br />5:30pm<br /><a href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?&filter=5"></a><br />Red Exile Apropos his new office space, a mantra: <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">elitny</span>. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">Designerny</span>. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">Loftny</span>. *Not <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">Pafosny</span>*. <em><span style="color:#33ff33;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">Pafosny</span>? Think Paris Hilton, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">Donatella</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">Versace</span>, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">Las</span> Vegas and anything by <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">Dolce</span> & <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">Gabbana</span>. yes, that's right 'gay' (in the sense US <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31">highschoolers</span> use the term) and achingly vulgar.</span></em><br />2:24pm<br /><a href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?&filter=1"></a><br />Red Exile has signed an office lease!! Designer space; central & official. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32">Yay</span>! <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj83rk4wAeWnPcbQZNJREPutHCeb9Otpwjn0Zr5ySxxodMin2__V3odrjVTFsGCc1EYI6lNaygeBZxuxhrC3sPL4tbbOCiL187pp4z9amJC0EwDx6R0ACiTGEJG1nlDX_9hyphenhyphenmYXEhvWcrWA/s1600-h/Entrance+area.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5196160386309754626" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" height="156" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj83rk4wAeWnPcbQZNJREPutHCeb9Otpwjn0Zr5ySxxodMin2__V3odrjVTFsGCc1EYI6lNaygeBZxuxhrC3sPL4tbbOCiL187pp4z9amJC0EwDx6R0ACiTGEJG1nlDX_9hyphenhyphenmYXEhvWcrWA/s320/Entrance+area.JPG" width="231" border="0" /></a></div><div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaByw0PPVL-CJ5hjuur_FQ89g8B2zj6IQHyOSjekojSgjyqVc4HzeUDMchh9C3Yvzet5RHkk__6ysPO7EXRm9LptVERZAtDzNYecsE99-Nd0Pd8elQ_5XV9BapSM9Qc8AVqOuIdbG2J8fq/s1600-h/Interior+5th+floor+with+mezzanine.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5196162619692748754" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" height="166" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaByw0PPVL-CJ5hjuur_FQ89g8B2zj6IQHyOSjekojSgjyqVc4HzeUDMchh9C3Yvzet5RHkk__6ysPO7EXRm9LptVERZAtDzNYecsE99-Nd0Pd8elQ_5XV9BapSM9Qc8AVqOuIdbG2J8fq/s320/Interior+5th+floor+with+mezzanine.JPG" width="272" border="0" /></a>7:30pm<br /><a href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?&filter=23&app_id=&app_id=2413267546"></a><br /><a title="Click here to remove this item." href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?id=716857154##"></a><br />Red Exile is so-near-and-yet-so-far. Do we have a lease deal or not?!?!<br />3:42pm<br /><a href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?&filter=11"></a><br /><a title="Click here to remove this item." href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?id=716857154##"></a><br />Red Exile was feeling wildly exuberant; but is now back under control to face the day's trials.<br />9:34am<br />April 24<br /><br />Red Exile is an idiot! Left ballet ticket @home! So sulking shopped at <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33">Tsum</span> & now @Cafe Bar-boy.<em><span style="color:#33ff33;">.. which is what one of the girls I know Christened <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_34">café</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_35">des</span> artistes - the name just stuck somehow</span></em></div><div>7:46pm<br /><br />Red Exile is off to the ballet tonight. German State Rhine company. Stravinsky. Rites of Spring. A dose of sanity and love in my fraught life.<br />5:18pm<br /><br />Red Exile "To the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_36">FSB</span> senior officer whose convoy cut me up today but then whose car was pranged by his own follow vehicle not breaking fast enough: <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_37">hah</span>! Tosser <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_38">LOL</span>".<em><span style="color:#33ff33;"> This was really too funny to watch. Made my morning actually...</span></em><br />10:34am<br />April 23<br /><a href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?&filter=11"></a><br />Red Exile actually dares hope there *might* be a glimmer of hope. <em><span style="color:#33ff33;">On the property side of things...</span></em><br />11:11pm<br /><br />Red Exile has had, in truth, a $*#@ing shite day; and sometimes feels all the burden is on him as (some) just swish about... no doubt his default inner cheeriness will be back o/night. <em><span style="color:#33ff33;">I was stressed, just leaving the office, over-worked and miserable. It happens...</span></em><br />9:29pm<br /><br />Red Exile just came up with a strategy "find a 30-something woman, make her pretty and let's get her to cry on television" and is concerned that he doesn't feel cheap. <em><span style="color:#33ff33;">It was a good strategy. And I am not cheap... 400 Euros an hour baby!</span></em><br />12:04pm<br />April 22<br /><a href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?&filter=11"></a><br /><a title="Click here to remove this item." href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?id=716857154##"></a><em><span style="color:#33ff33;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmcV3kF1Rle4E-GfwrRFVjZgmRTJ_IyVbFI4yKTcQssIGjZsNwR82vW2jvM4XIQo4wj-jnFRIGwoZlwLafJrofoc1BUJ40-vpQSMdDQ4Ok1mfVcOZYlruA6bzipWDexAUR0yDj-i8TJ9Ht/s1600-h/Warsaw+Palace+of+Culture+%26+Science.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5196161391332102050" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" height="269" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmcV3kF1Rle4E-GfwrRFVjZgmRTJ_IyVbFI4yKTcQssIGjZsNwR82vW2jvM4XIQo4wj-jnFRIGwoZlwLafJrofoc1BUJ40-vpQSMdDQ4Ok1mfVcOZYlruA6bzipWDexAUR0yDj-i8TJ9Ht/s320/Warsaw+Palace+of+Culture+%26+Science.JPG" width="195" border="0" /></a>I was in Warsaw -I am not hugely fond of Warsaw...</span><br /></em>Red Exile has too much work to do and no time to do it.<br />11:22pm<br /><br />Red Exile has turned down the chance to eat escalope of crocodile. <em><span style="color:#33ff33;">No kidding - it's available at the Intercontinental Hotel Tower's Mexican restaurant (don't ask!). The public space is crappy in this hotel, but the rooms are great and the view always good (well as good as a view over Warsaw can ever be).</span></em><br />2:58pm<br /><a href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?&filter=5"></a><br /><a title="Click here to remove this item." href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?id=716857154##"></a><br />Red Exile says: "well *hello!* Aeroflot you sexy <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_39">thang</span>!". They're flying brand-new A320-200s into <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_40">CEE</span>. Eat me, BA!<br />9:41pm</div><br /><div>Red Exile knows he has lived in Russia too long: he finds the baked goods in the Aeroflot business lounge quite irresistibly alluring.<br />5:31pm<br /><a href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?&filter=5"></a><br />Red Exile setting of for the traditional traffic jam to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_41">Sheremetyevo</span> airport, to fly Aeroflot to Warsaw. Ah the glamour of it all...<br />2:54pm<br /><a href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?&filter=8"></a><br />Red Exile has narrowly missed *death* at the ballet. An 8-cm diameter crystal fell from the great central chandelier and missed my head by inches before smashing on ground in 100s pieces. Felt cold draft of death did we. <em><span style="color:#33ff33;">This really happened and the lump of crystal missed my head by less than 30 <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_42">cms</span></span></em><br />8:06pm<br /><a href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?&filter=11"></a><br />Red Exile is off to the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_43">Stanislaski</span>-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_44">Nemirovich</span>-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_45">Danchenko</span> tonight 2 them dance Romeo & Juliet.<br />5:26pm<br />April 18<br /><br />Red Exile wonders if the 'rock song' whose chorus is "are you off your <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_46">meds</span>?: is Placebo. He laughs & luvs it. <em><span style="color:#33ff33;">It is and I downloaded it from <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_47">iTunes</span>.</span></em><br />11:40pm<br /><br />Red Exile is off to dinner with a mate from 'the small island'...<em><span style="color:#33ff33;">as I now refer to the Britain</span></em><br />7:03pm<br /><br />Red Exile has just used his best BBC voice to voice-over a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_48">TNK</span>-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_49">BP</span> corporate video. <em><span style="color:#33ff33;">This is the second time I have done this (just to help them out for a favour - because it is crazy expensive for them to have it done in London and any old Brit RP voice will do - and because, in more weighty and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_50">feesome</span> matters, they are also a client)</span></em><br />10:43am<br />April 15<br /><a href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?&filter=11"></a><br /><span style="color:#33ff33;"><em>I was travelling in Ukraine</em><br /></span>Red Exile sees this new overnight train comes with anti-terrorism advice. In the event security forces are going to storm your Chechen terrorists "run-like-f*ck in other direction" seems to be the ambivalent advice. <em><span style="color:#33ff33;">On the new trains there is a poster by the loos with safety advice. This include in cute little pictures what to do if security forces are storming your high-jacked train. And, yes, run in the opposite direction is the helpful guidance they proffer...</span></em><br />6:38am<br /><br />Red Exile is witnessing drama @ border; 2 men arrested & dragged off train by Ukrainian troops. Unpaid parking tickets? <em><span style="color:#33ff33;">Very exciting and the full-on paramilitary performance...</span></em><br />12:44am<br />April 14<br /><a href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?&filter=11"></a><br />Red Exile and his friend, Johnny Walker, are at the Russian border - for processing. <em><span style="color:#33ff33;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_51">LOL</span></span></em><br />11:50pm<br /><a href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?&filter=11"></a><br />Red Exile has had his day ruined - 'new' landlord informs him he has been gazumped on new space. So back to Square one and now 5 weeks to Moscow office is homeless... <em><span style="color:#33ff33;">This was a low moment</span></em><br />7:32pm<br /><a href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?&filter=11"></a><br /><a title="Click here to remove this item." href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?id=716857154##"></a><br />Red Exile is having a very good day commercially and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_52">meteorologically</span>: it is a gorgeous sunny day in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_53">Kyiv</span>; the sky is almost ridiculously blue.<br />2:13pm <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4C8BDIAyu6r_hKdpWqvNcofJCneK85lxwIWT947YuNmI65fZBGrhDvGL_5KWNn-WKqhOHII_8YtFu5CiWYVuAOW_CpSIKM3-otEInrjR_0MfkEHp8BQ-d-3JKgyY7ah0kyUg-W1gFw0FO/s1600-h/Santa+Sofia+-+just+look+at+that+sky!+April+14th.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5196160832986353490" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" height="282" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4C8BDIAyu6r_hKdpWqvNcofJCneK85lxwIWT947YuNmI65fZBGrhDvGL_5KWNn-WKqhOHII_8YtFu5CiWYVuAOW_CpSIKM3-otEInrjR_0MfkEHp8BQ-d-3JKgyY7ah0kyUg-W1gFw0FO/s320/Santa+Sofia+-+just+look+at+that+sky!+April+14th.jpg" width="208" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?&filter=11"></a><br /><a title="Click here to remove this item." href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?id=716857154##"></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNXzToHCqZGNt318NzlrFoAkJqnzi8eOkO438EQB67qCzXa68kSHRC-LrpFNsuELdNgVmIF5Ia4XbWKttVIxJ_MEP9b2GaC5KF7czWy2iI8ZH3kWmoSwRi0eY5TJxLx5SokhTgcxml73hN/s1600-h/St+Michael%27s+monastry+central+Kyiv,+Monday+14th+April.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5196160850166222706" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" height="194" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNXzToHCqZGNt318NzlrFoAkJqnzi8eOkO438EQB67qCzXa68kSHRC-LrpFNsuELdNgVmIF5Ia4XbWKttVIxJ_MEP9b2GaC5KF7czWy2iI8ZH3kWmoSwRi0eY5TJxLx5SokhTgcxml73hN/s320/St+Michael%27s+monastry+central+Kyiv,+Monday+14th+April.jpg" width="249" border="0" /></a>Red Exile now has a very deep and abiding love of Ukraine; its tragic and compelling history - the more you get to know it the less like <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPhgUilWzqGug3dH4AL6la6KQrsDsC9OXejS7P9AQLo-QeH6jgtV-f2_NpWGBuWYfM-tMFP2-3EqmH41BU8jwdeDZ8K0D4G5ufQuK-huWh4O6X1QWTSLu1ddfzCzdllfqVaVpvcdQdSJR-/s1600-h/Ukrainian+Foreign+Ministry+-+trying+too+hard,+EU-wise.jpg"></a>Russia it is. </div><div></div><div><em><span style="color:#33ff33;">You <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_54">learn</span> a lot about Ukraine in the long drive between <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_55">Kyiv</span> and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_56">Lviv</span> and back - abandoned villages and the wrecks of old collective farms testifying to the waste of Collectivised farming, it's failure and - actually - the enormous post-Soviet decline in Ukrainian agricultural output. Land reform is desperately needed to modernise and <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_57">rejuvenate</span> Ukrainian agriculture.</span></em></div><br /><p><em><span style="color:#33ff33;">At the same time, as you drive past vast, pompous - but now sadly forlorn - Soviet-era memorials to WWII (more to bludgeon home a message of loyalty to the Ukrainians than a message of celebration) you realise how awful it must have been to be Ukrainian and part of the USSR. Wondering around <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_58">Lviv</span> today it is almost impossible to imagine that this bright, smiley, <u>European</u> city was once Soviet. It is totally unlike anything in Russia.</span></em><br />1:02am<br />April 13<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioezyU0LhzbxVnLkm36LYYImS001fKKFuY1nVYFMwXExiWrp2x8DzyMbFBitBF5oRmasMazqUycIpLk3kuwyFZI0t5Ryft1E1jho9ZdIPTYhSeKA-ziHoo56XBhI_GYbS2Y_2jzsX_1lfi/s1600-h/The+opera+house,+Lviv.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5196161387037134722" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" height="182" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioezyU0LhzbxVnLkm36LYYImS001fKKFuY1nVYFMwXExiWrp2x8DzyMbFBitBF5oRmasMazqUycIpLk3kuwyFZI0t5Ryft1E1jho9ZdIPTYhSeKA-ziHoo56XBhI_GYbS2Y_2jzsX_1lfi/s320/The+opera+house,+Lviv.jpg" width="265" border="0" /></a> </p><p>Red Exile is about to have a hearty lunch of Turkey liver; veal, sour cream & dumplings & all trimmings.<em><span style="color:#33ff33;"> It is not cuisine <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_59">minceur</span>, but do eat at <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_60">café</span> Amadeus.</span></em><br />1:45pm<br />April 12<br /><br />Red Exile is enjoying his birthday in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lviv"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_61">Lviv</span></a>, in which the whole history of Middle Europe can be seen. <em><span style="color:#33ff33;">The ebb and flow of empires; the heterogeneous sweep of its European architecture; but still <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_62">defiantly</span> European (Renaissance, Baroque, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_63">Neo</span>-classical, Art <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_64">Nouveau</span>...)</span></em><br />8:28pm<br />April 11<br /><a href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?&filter=11"></a><br /><a title="Click here to remove this item." href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?id=716857154##"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDrDU5fjYV6mHlhtK8egf-R6DR6WaSc_tQOJBXz2a46sBKXs2U0O-BU4vxa0w6Kqeg-_KegbjCXRccJ6KDx8oqZoVhi6G5RPnAsRvxbFyzIjf2kzorsLEQT2WCNMFaFo8Nd86XgHmAUMyV/s1600-h/Rynok+(market)+square.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5196160828691386162" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" height="197" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDrDU5fjYV6mHlhtK8egf-R6DR6WaSc_tQOJBXz2a46sBKXs2U0O-BU4vxa0w6Kqeg-_KegbjCXRccJ6KDx8oqZoVhi6G5RPnAsRvxbFyzIjf2kzorsLEQT2WCNMFaFo8Nd86XgHmAUMyV/s320/Rynok+(market)+square.jpg" width="269" border="0" /></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglYDEBa8n4puBKgVwLGA1Aw50SLwk6ouUMGnMtPR2qg6yNDXac9Yjx7CsY1rZOn8p7Ooo4xBWMFc2hyYS0DbsJtsm-_R-vd-GSKGCXEQU8oGdxq03kLh6R7p_3S2EERa5_y4D_WuSLaRDH/s1600-h/Rynok+Square,+East+side.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5196160841576288098" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 185px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 161px" height="187" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglYDEBa8n4puBKgVwLGA1Aw50SLwk6ouUMGnMtPR2qg6yNDXac9Yjx7CsY1rZOn8p7Ooo4xBWMFc2hyYS0DbsJtsm-_R-vd-GSKGCXEQU8oGdxq03kLh6R7p_3S2EERa5_y4D_WuSLaRDH/s320/Rynok+Square,+East+side.jpg" width="240" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjknjbFa5rVwypGdKlKVvPx9aEb9fxvCERwYLp7wA3AuG6VQGpvr-qqXELh74jwCWnGJT0Gi4uOeLjkA8xZysth24fTioyCdO7QAPZnL7FmVwR5aOWDBMkDPXuV3QJTHtDBbzd9sxmK01Ok/s1600-h/Lviv+City+Hall+(with+Guide+troupe).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5196160386309754642" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" height="264" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjknjbFa5rVwypGdKlKVvPx9aEb9fxvCERwYLp7wA3AuG6VQGpvr-qqXELh74jwCWnGJT0Gi4uOeLjkA8xZysth24fTioyCdO7QAPZnL7FmVwR5aOWDBMkDPXuV3QJTHtDBbzd9sxmK01Ok/s320/Lviv+City+Hall+(with+Guide+troupe).jpg" width="193" border="0" /></a>Red Exile is enjoying cafe society in Lviv; which is charming. <em><span style="color:#33ff33;">Drinking champagne, sitting outside at the <a href="http://www.lviv-life.com/eat/restaurants_details/31-The_Viennese_Cafe">Vienna Café </a>where people-watching is great fun</span></em><br />11:30pm<br /><a title="Click here to remove this item." href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?id=716857154##"></a><br />Red Exile is leaving lunchtime for the 5hr roadtrip to Lviv. The guy driving asks "do you want 'fast' or 'safe'?" - what the heck: fast! LOL.<br />12:30pm<br />April 10<br /><br />Red Exile is having a fascinating day in Kyiv.<br />6:10pm<br /><br />Red Exile s at the UKR border post, on the train, watching a beautiful sunrise. He is now though hungry & *very* thirsty!<br />6:29am<br />April 9<br /><br />Red Exile Has just realized that as he is on tne slow-overnight 'express' - 13hrs - inexplicably it has neither restaurant nor bar. Nightmare!! <em><span style="color:#33ff33;">This is the second time I have done this! memo-to-self: only Train #1 (Moscow-Kyiv) and Train #2 (Kyiv Moscow) have buffet cars. The others *don't*</span></em><br />9:54pm<br /><a href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?&filter=11"></a><br />Red Exile en route to Kyiv & then Lviv.<br />8:40pm<br /><a href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?&filter=11"></a><br />Red Exile is somewhere between despair (back to office property square 1) and elation (deal done). Only in Moscow do we live by these 2 emotional gears and no others. <em><span style="color:#33ff33;">That last sentence, BTW, is probably the truest thing I have ever written about life in Moscow.</span></em><br />12:20pm<br />April 8<br /><a href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?&filter=11"></a><br />Red Exile did have to smile as he was cut up this morning by a rickety old Lada with *diplomatic plates*.<br />10:04am<br />April 7<br /><a href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?&filter=11"></a><br />Red Exile has had just the most sublime & wonderful night at the ballet; even if his body won't fly dream a soul can. <em><span style="color:#33ff33;">Sometimes good performances make my purple-prose-restraint short-circuit.</span></em><br />10:26pm<br /><a href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?&filter=11"></a><br />Red Exile wonders what you say to a week that is pretty-much ruined before it has begun... hello? <em><span style="color:#33ff33;">P</span><span style="color:#33ff33;">roperty-related - a great development I was hoping to take was snaffled up - even though I had agreed terms with the developer - by a Russian bank.</span></em><br />10:15am<br />April 6<br /><a href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?&filter=11"></a><br />Red Exile woke up this morning dreaming about the future of capitalism. Last night he tried to dream about Tuscany. Oh well...<br />5:30pm<br />April 4<br /><a href="http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?&filter=11"></a><br />Red Exile is back to the drawing board: 8 weeks and counting to find new offices - or else it is hot desking in my front room! <em><span style="color:#33ff33;">Another potential site fell-through (because this one was pretty far from a metro station and, in any case, I just learned that this particular station is about to close for a year's remont; which ruled the property out completely.</span></em><br />5:45pm<br />April 3<br /></p><p>So there you have it. Normal service will now hopefully be resumed...</p></div></div></div></div></div>Etienne du Clé http://www.blogger.com/profile/06490468791202865582noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8143984300342132882.post-10000151022714021572008-04-04T01:07:00.001+04:002008-04-04T01:56:25.485+04:00Why, for Russia, Turkey is an issue<em>Discussion over dinner, in Moscow, "<a href="http://www.businessneweurope.eu/storyf.php?s=934">we were looking to like Turkey" but</a>... based on <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=aV.gOXqcPOzU&refer=europe">this news</a>...</em><br /><em></em><br />Of course, I am no Turkey expert, but would consider that – in an environment of global credit restriction, ‘religious risk’ is just a punt too far (apropos the recent State Prosecutor’s play) and while these games might seem logical - <em>politically</em>, <em>locally</em> - they have played massively badly, globally. As bad as Russia’s politics can do, of course, but the world is robust to Russia risk these days: and Turkey isn’t 15% of the world’s proven hydrocarbon reserves.<br /><br />On any meaningful econometric and trade analysis of Turkey we should be saying ‘<em>wow, what opportunistic treasure here lies’</em>. But, in a world where once-mighty Bear Sterns got sold for a song, Wall Street, with its deeply-embedded fear of Islamic-exposed markets, may find global chief investment and credit risk officers will be giving Turkey an investment pass…that hits Turkish inter-bank markets fast and hard.<br /><br />…logically, IMHO, Turkey should be a neo-<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRIC">BRIC</a> market. Actually, however, I think investment in Turkey in the next 12 months will be tough to obtain, except out of the middle east and, <em>hmm</em>, Russia…. But in the next 8 weeks (for technical reasons) you will read about ‘credit crunch hits Russia’… So don’t bank on that Russian ‘<em>deep pocket’</em> of last resort, which global banking markets would like to get hooked on, for Turkish banks….<br /><br />…when global capitalism tries to figure out ‘economic misery’ it tries to <em>refer back</em>, like a <em>prophet</em> to the Old Testament – which is why macro-economists try to make comparisons again to the 1973 oil crisis (high fuel prices + bubble (property-related) indebtedness +‘culture clash + war in the middle east)’. Except this is unknown territory. The primary markers of geo-political-economics are unique, today. For the first time, actually, in my adult life.<br /><br />Post-modern capitalism has never known <em>High oil price + banks scared to lend to each other, let alone *<strong>you</strong>* + consumers *<strong>drowned</strong>* in debt + massive geopolitical (war-related) risk + ‘now is when the cost-base differential of globalization hits us domestically in the west’ + a crisis in western democratic consensus</em> (I mean, if there was consensus, the DEMS, in the US primaries would have a candidate by now)…nor is there the ‘left-right’ western political debacle which, strangely, we see now, as if for the first time, benignly, underpinned 1970s economic risk analysis.<br /><br />No, there is <u>no handbook</u> for this one.<br /><br />Sadly, since 1918, it has been Turkey’s fate to be on the shit-end of this, and every, geo-political and economic stick.<br /><br />On a purely numbers basis? TUR <u>real</u> economic growth is likely this year to be half that of Ukraine’s – inflation however will also likely be half Ukraine’s. Not so bad huh? <em>Way bad!</em> Ukraine isn’t what a Global Risk Officer, in New York or Frankfurt or Zurich, would call ‘at Islamicist risk’, nor are they scared of its long-term macro-social story. That changes the investment dynamics 180 degrees. These (men) <em>are </em>scared of Turkey. Like they were of Russia.1998-2002? 2004?<br /><br />To be a Global Chief Investment Officer, right now, looking at Turkish stock, would be really interesting. 'Cos I am fascinated, precisely because I don't know if - should I have that job - I would decide <em>buy Turkish </em>or <em>'avoid exposure to Turkey like the plague'</em>...<br /><br />I guess, for the good ones, that is how intelligent CIOs earn their money...Etienne du Clé http://www.blogger.com/profile/06490468791202865582noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8143984300342132882.post-51093438900191770342008-04-02T01:41:00.002+04:002008-04-03T00:37:28.730+04:00Red Exile really wants to buy this house (off topic)<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii1IScshSxxjKfsykRC6MT-PM96QOI4ZfdFGeo-iGd275Ph0NXs54FUFOD_ACcWL588HMiDVILvlMG9zTz8od6ckgytTcHEVOOsyftP7RDEyDy5lPPiysfoxjrzgCCNwxO_9YFXyz16g1c/s1600-h/Lucca+aprtmnt+choice+%233.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5184396834583134962" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii1IScshSxxjKfsykRC6MT-PM96QOI4ZfdFGeo-iGd275Ph0NXs54FUFOD_ACcWL588HMiDVILvlMG9zTz8od6ckgytTcHEVOOsyftP7RDEyDy5lPPiysfoxjrzgCCNwxO_9YFXyz16g1c/s400/Lucca+aprtmnt+choice+%233.jpg" border="0" /></a> ...but it is, really, <a href="http://www.casatuscany.com/buy/details.php?id=577">on the market </a>'too soon' (for which reasons Exile won't dwell and be vulgar)...<br /><div></div><br /><div>...but blast <em>'global credit crunch'</em> I could really do an elderly relative to drop off their perch (and, yes, I <em>do </em>hate myself for even thinking that)</div><br /><div>The current arrangement sucks (rip out current kitchen and bathrooms = EUR 50k minimum) & burn the furniture in the pictures - but, <em>hello</em>? - 100 sqm drawing room in *<em>the</em>* medieval city I have decided to buy in? </div><div></div><div>I may have to wait <em>years </em>for another elderly Lucchese to die to free up real estate like this...</div><div></div><div>I am, bluntly, just not one of life's lucky people...</div>Etienne du Clé http://www.blogger.com/profile/06490468791202865582noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8143984300342132882.post-32068197515948977322008-03-31T21:58:00.000+04:002008-03-31T22:13:02.147+04:00Official confirmation of the end of an era: Aeroflot and the Tupolev 134<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH37rIcdvPNufNG3EZwuuADWUD3fJ99FrgA3Uu8bpvgbjvL7Hk_otv_vjYAHd9vlpoe4a-WRaBSlnAkmkkuYayOubHaeeQlXz3BgFfxoeOUCl3IGSl9Yfip6gJBIb8aiyXDfccwgTy6p3z/s1600-h/Tupi.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5183969627071103714" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH37rIcdvPNufNG3EZwuuADWUD3fJ99FrgA3Uu8bpvgbjvL7Hk_otv_vjYAHd9vlpoe4a-WRaBSlnAkmkkuYayOubHaeeQlXz3BgFfxoeOUCl3IGSl9Yfip6gJBIb8aiyXDfccwgTy6p3z/s320/Tupi.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><div>This brokers note extract across the screens today:<br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong>Aeroflot sells Tupolev 134s</strong><br /><strong>Rencap</strong><br /><strong>March 31, 2008</strong></span></div><br /><div><strong><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></strong></div><div><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong>Event:</strong> On Friday (28 Mar) Aeroflot announced the sale of its <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-134">Tupolev 134 </a>regional jets. Tu-134 has been furrowing the skies for more than 40 years but on 31 Dec 2007 the company stopped operating this type of aircraft. Nine of these planes were sold to Aeroflot subsidiaries: Aeroflot-Don, Aeroflot-Nord and Aeroflot-Plus; the company plans to sell the remaining five to external buyers. The average age of these aircrafts is 28 years old and they are priced at approximately $3mn.<br /></span><br />Ah well. No more bone-shattering ‘<em>lift-offs’</em> from the Soviet workhorse of the skies for Aeroflot. Um…<em>not quite</em>…it’s two main regional subsidiaries will still be using the Tupi for some time to come.<br /><br />They have to. While, ahead of State Duma elections in December, there was lots of celebration of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Superjet_100">Sukhoi Superjet 100 RJ</a> – the planned replacement for the Tupi and set to be the Russian competitor to the Embraer and even the Boeing 737; the reality is that it is <a href="http://www.russiatoday.ru/business/news/22805">not even ready for test-flight yet</a>.<br /><br />But the Tupi had its charm: as I recorded in the <a href="http://redexile.blogspot.com/2007/03/whole-flying-thingit-really-sucks.html">back end of this post</a>. The real writing on the wall came, though, when the <a href="http://redexile.blogspot.com/2007/06/too-dangerous-to-fly-to-europe-but-fine.html">EU closed its airspace </a>to Tupolev 134s last year.<br /><br /><em>I wonder why?</em> (PS: everyone survived this ‘<em>incident’</em>):</div><div></div><br /><object height="355" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/fV3ivuxSHls&hl=en"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><br /><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/fV3ivuxSHls&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object></div>Etienne du Clé http://www.blogger.com/profile/06490468791202865582noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8143984300342132882.post-62183750064232071862008-03-31T01:02:00.002+04:002008-03-31T01:54:08.128+04:00Week in review: St Petersburg; Russia Today and Roman AbramovichOn Monday night I took, for the first time, the newish <a href="http://grandexpress.ru/">Grand Express </a>train to St Petersburg. A first-class-only service, it underlines that, for the best in business class train travel, Russia is streets ahead of the rest of the world. It offers suites (with their own shower and bathroom) and even the more modest premium cabins (which I took) have their own washbasins, 50% larger than normal and very comfortable beds and satellite TV: and superb waiter-to-cabin service.<br /><br />For St Pete’s I had packed the full furs, guessing the weather could be inclement. And, <em>boy</em>, was<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYUCOkH4KHuePlFE2lYiLhtuzLr6xXSKp1A68u2fA7YBNVpqwuWfa0c_TvqjXAj5TQkrUAz1kbnt7yKUA4Vp8HlE4LsZJWEQGqPNzURdz1R10z-Q4oKndcCsiW5hp_C8h5dVhgIt_udFx6/s1600-h/Army+command.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5183646886048613058" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYUCOkH4KHuePlFE2lYiLhtuzLr6xXSKp1A68u2fA7YBNVpqwuWfa0c_TvqjXAj5TQkrUAz1kbnt7yKUA4Vp8HlE4LsZJWEQGqPNzURdz1R10z-Q4oKndcCsiW5hp_C8h5dVhgIt_udFx6/s200/Army+command.JPG" border="0" /></a> it? Perhaps the worse weather I have experienced in four years of living in Russia swiftly descended on Tuesday afternoon. Visiting a client located in Arsenalnaya I thought it might be a pleasant hour or so’s walk back to Winter Palace Square (close to where my hotel was located). So I am strolling along the Neva when suddenly this extraordinary wind sweeps down from the Gulf of Finland and – despite the knee-length black leather, fur-lined coat (with the luxuriant mink collar and matching mink hat) it feels like the <em>talons</em> of an Arabian falcon are slicing through my bones.<br /><br />So I turn right and, fortuitously, am right by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finlyandsky_Rail_Terminal">Finlyansky</a> Station (the setting for so many Cold War tales, both fictional and very real). I negotiate a sensible taxi fare to Winter Palace Square and, as I arrive, so do the <em>depths</em> of mid-winter. The snow starts to fall <em>horizontally</em>…<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcgLEafFh4OF7rijhJSV82k7ZKPP9b0FUtDNBDAQSt37z0RNSIZ1g-dMyl3MEHL4BrUNjISwsLWHyDnaUPJOW7A3JtKbXrQY5vvN3M4vVyoDwbogOVa5-Pg20AAwtdGZFFVzEaVxgI8cvj/s1600-h/inclement.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5183646387832406690" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 230px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 179px" height="217" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcgLEafFh4OF7rijhJSV82k7ZKPP9b0FUtDNBDAQSt37z0RNSIZ1g-dMyl3MEHL4BrUNjISwsLWHyDnaUPJOW7A3JtKbXrQY5vvN3M4vVyoDwbogOVa5-Pg20AAwtdGZFFVzEaVxgI8cvj/s400/inclement.JPG" width="282" border="0" /></a><br />Having missed lunch – and knowing I had an evening at the opera – I took High Tea and watched the snow fall and fall: about 12cms in just 4 hours. And, indeed, as I left the opera later that night, the weather was staggeringly bad.<br /><br />My guest for business lunch the next day – in response to “<em>please suggest somewhere where they can cook</em>” – took me to the newish <a href="http://www.terrassa.ru/en/">Terrassa </a>restaurant. It was quite superb and almost as good as the best <em>elitny</em> restaurants in Moscow. Lunch was, of course, ‘dry’, but had it not been, I think it would have been almost as expensive as Moscow too. I had taken half day’s leave and spent it in annual pilgrimage to the <a href="http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/html_En/index.html">Hermitage</a>. Having Russian residency meant I was allowed to buy a ticket for just 100 RUR, which was very pleasing. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh9NI6HXT9E_MdTfYEoJtp6hBVqJj4bmzsxigIYmT9vcKbgU-Dscfz6iFJzhP-xTx4Wn1SlmS9S4OWzHqA4WWwCkQuAWTnB0oytbaHKZpkmaPbZI4MTspquLNbLuWVXWvEY31ADcuJ4n_M/s1600-h/winter+palaz+sqaure.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5183646624055607986" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" height="168" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh9NI6HXT9E_MdTfYEoJtp6hBVqJj4bmzsxigIYmT9vcKbgU-Dscfz6iFJzhP-xTx4Wn1SlmS9S4OWzHqA4WWwCkQuAWTnB0oytbaHKZpkmaPbZI4MTspquLNbLuWVXWvEY31ADcuJ4n_M/s200/winter+palaz+sqaure.JPG" width="227" border="0" /></a> <div><div><div><br /><div>Lots of the rooms are closed for restorations until spring (Mid-April), but I really go for the Renaissance and Baroque Italian collection; including some excellent Titians and a favourite Bronzino. The Palace does have, BTW, a superb collection of Van Dycks; including several bought after the English Royal Collection was broken up after our <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Civil_War">civil war</a>, which ended up in the Romanov collections.<br /><br />Blogging was mostly absent this week, as it was rather busier even than usual. Saturday morning a car from the station comes to take me to <a href="http://www.russiatoday.ru/">Russia Today</a>, where they wanted me to do a studio interview on British investment in Russia. The entrance to Russia Today is located in the vast <a href="http://en.rian.ru/">RIA Novosti </a>complex (just by the dustbins actually, which I think is surely a political sideswipe at the state media TV outlet employing so many foreigners).<br /><br />Actually, I was <em>crap</em>. <em>No, really, I was</em>. I have done, in various countries, over a hundred bits of telly and radio and this was my worst ever. I have since seen the tape and, while not a <em>train wreck</em>, as such, it is just too <em>ragged</em> a performance; my ‘<em>punch points’</em> were off and in one sentence I seem to lose the ability to conjugate in my first language. It is not what <em>Exile</em> promises broadcasters: to give great headline. On the other hand, I keep my answers within a nicely sound-bitey 15 seconds each or so. But, most unforgiveably of all, I am <em>dull</em>.<br /><br />Being driven home, I pondered having Driver drop me off for lunch in Kamergersky. <strong><em>Thank God I didn’t!!</em></strong> Before my interview I went into make-up and, as they do things with my hair (a gallon of lacquer) and stick on some slap, I am distracted by the producer’s briefing. And although you can’t see this on the tape – no I am not giving you the link! – when I later walk in my apartment, having been driven back, I catch myself in the mirror. I am <strong><span style="color:#ff9900;">ORANGE</span></strong>. Orange I tell you, with the hair swept <em>en bouffant</em> like a Soviet '80s crooner. I look like a <em>paedophile</em> from Paphos. If I had walked into <a href="http://www.artistico.ru/eng/index.html">Café Des Artistes </a>like that I would never have heard the end of it!<br /><br />Having scrubbed my face, I switched on a new opera CD I have (<a href="http://www.annanetrebko.com/">Anna Netrebko</a> arias); pour a glass of Montrachet; kick off the Guccis and try, just try, to clear myself of a most unsettling feeling of ineptitude and <em>ennui</em>.<br /><br />Back at the office on Monday, I shall, Stalin-like, issue a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posolsky_Prikaz">приказ</a> to staff and have this TV appearance declared <em>un</em>-history; <u>never</u> to be referred to again…<br /><br />Saturday evening, I took a dearly beloved friend to Nedal’nij Vostok; where the selection of crustacea on offer is prepared in some of the finest ways available in the world. While there, the vast room is suddenly overcome by a nearly <em>static</em> charge of excitement. A moment later and I see <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Abramovich">Roman Abramovich</a> walk past my table. Two noteworthy things. </div><br /><div></div><div>The first is he really does have the most startlingly clear blue eyes, lit like lamps; and I can see why women, caught in their <span style="color:#33ccff;">ice-blue</span> gaze, are entranced by him. Secondly, he was body-guard free. If you hang out in Moscow’s elitny restaurants, you will see plenty of household name billionaires, but I like the fact that Abramovich doesn’t ponce about with heavy personal security, inside. Outside, as I was later to discover, it is rather different. Abramovich doesn’t go for flash cars, but the huge Chrysler limo, flanked by four 4x4s was clearly his. The nest of antennae on them, each bulging with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OMON">OMON</a>, clearly gave it away. He is entitled to OMON protection, of course, as regional Governor of Chukotka.<br /><br />Tonight, I expected to see <em>Nabucco</em> at the Bolshoi, but discovered at home I should have been there Saturday night. Not a great end to an otherwise diverting week.</div></div></div></div>Etienne du Clé http://www.blogger.com/profile/06490468791202865582noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8143984300342132882.post-64111964983646490582008-03-30T22:01:00.003+04:002008-03-31T02:31:49.540+04:00Red Exile’s week in Culture: operas at the Mariinsky and the Stanislavsky-Nemirovich-Danchenko<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1-ZbXbrmSt17_nGC1AB1DvZKJwo7SUhwBZ9V1CWhPZKzL41E5E2fOacryRwyQg4r9pnSJWhH1-DCBVcUQee9eVXpbXQkBbyKYQ8RWcxzAe4KyGLaIeX9SSXdR6_s-w7SPYOosNvIhH5Yu/s1600-h/Tsar's+box.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5183597734442877554" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1-ZbXbrmSt17_nGC1AB1DvZKJwo7SUhwBZ9V1CWhPZKzL41E5E2fOacryRwyQg4r9pnSJWhH1-DCBVcUQee9eVXpbXQkBbyKYQ8RWcxzAe4KyGLaIeX9SSXdR6_s-w7SPYOosNvIhH5Yu/s400/Tsar's+box.JPG" border="0" /></a> <strong><em>Tuesday 25th March:</em></strong> In St Petersburg this week, I went to see <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turandot">Turandot </a>at the Mariinsky. Turandot is not the most revered of Puccini’s opera’s – perhaps in recent years because people are disappointed that <em>Nessum Dorma</em> – made so famous by Luciano Pavarotti – is indeed only three minutes long; and the ending of the opera is slightly odd.<br /><br />Puccini died, of course, before the last two scenes were written and these were completed by Franco Alfano. At the opera’s première in 1926, in front of <em>il Duce</em>, the iconic conductor, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arturo_Toscanini">Toscanini</a>, stopped the orchestra at the point where Pucini’s autograph work ended, turned to the audience and said: “<em>Here the opera finishes, because at this point the Maestro died</em>.” And, it is true, the final plot resolution (where ice-princess Turandot’s heart melts and is united in love for Prince Calaf) is wildly improbable and unconvincing, even for opera.<br /><br /><br /><em>The late, great Paverotti in his signature piece:</em><br /><br /><object height="355" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/VATmgtmR5o4&hl=en"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/VATmgtmR5o4&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object><br /><br />In truth, this was a so-so outing at the Mariinsky; although I must confess I have never yet seen a production of Turandot to rival Andrei Serban’s classic production, in repertoire at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, which I first saw 15 years ago and kind of defines Turandot for me (and how I caught the opera bug).<br /><br />But, to the Mariinsky’s Turandot. Irina Gordei, as Princess Turandot, was sublime – and indeed convincingly forbidding in the first two acts. Yuri Marusin, as the lead tenor, Prince Calaf, was not having a good night. He fluffed his breathing in <em>Nessun Dorma</em> (it is, to be fair, a very, very difficult piece to sing) and faltered badly about a third of the way through and, for a while, his confidence fled him. <em>Was he coming down with a cold I wondered?</em> I don’t know him as a singer, but it seemed to me that he struggled through this performance and lacked power in his voice. His was a disappointing performance. He is also, to be blunt, just far too <em>old</em> for this part: more <em>truck driver</em> than dashing Tatar prince…<br /><br />Some of the cameo roles, though, were performed very well: especially the comic parts of Ping, Pong and Pang (Andrei Spekhov, Alexander Timchemko – who was very good indeed – and Oleg Balashov). A notable shout-out too to Victor Vikhrov as Emperor Altoum: singing from a gantry up in the gods, his voice had timorous power and sweet reason.<br /><br />I was delighted to catch up with the news, BTW, that the Mariinsky closure for restoration (which was scheduled for the end of this season), has been postponed until the end of 2009. Partly this is because the temporary home being built for the Mariinsky opera and ballet companies is behind schedule but mostly, I suspect, because the Russian authorities leaned on the Mariinsky not to close this grand old theatre before the Main Stage of the Bolshoi has re-opened (November 2009).<br /><br /><strong><em>Thursday 27th March: Tosca at the Stanislavsky-Nemirovich-Danchenko.</em></strong> This is the first time I had seen this production and I was initially a little apprehensive; because Tosca calls out for a truly onctueuse presentation, whereas the S-N-D’s, love them though I do, tend to be more sparse and stripped down to visual minimums (although often strikingly so). Actually it was a success with a set design that was both minimalist but also evocative of Rome’s lavish opulence.<br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tosca">Tosca </a>is another punishing role for a soprano and I thought Irina Arkadeva was only partly successful. For me her voice has too much<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coloratura"> coloratura </a>for Puccini and now and then I thought her tendency to <em>warble</em> quite distracting (but this might have been to cover up some rather <em>loose</em> pronunciation of the Italian libretto). I have two wonderful recordings of this opera, with the Tosca role being performed, respectively by <a href="http://www.callas.it/home.asp">Callas </a>and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Gheorghiu">Angela Gheorghiu</a> (the latter, Romanian diva I have yet to see perform live but her voice is <em>extraordinary</em>). So it is a really hard role for a younger soprano and, judging by the sour look on her face at the curtain call, I think Arkadeva realized that she hadn’t quite pulled it off that night.<br /><br />But contrast, Mikhail Vekya, as the tenor lead, Cavaradossi, was just brilliant and his was a complete triumph of a performance – <em>now if only he has sung Calaf in St Pete’s!</em> – his performance was also so much more enjoyable because he was clearly having the time of his life. At the curtain call he was so Italian (and I mean that in a good way), I really had to check the program again to confirm he was Russian: he has a tremendous and infectious enthusiasm for his craft.<br /><br />Also giving a superb performance was Aleksey Shishlaev as the <em>con brio</em> baddie, Baron Scarpia. His end of Act One - <em>Tosca, nel tuo cuor s'annida Scarpia</em> – while the chorus accompanies in a <em><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX1O5B9HX9smDq6DGJUGIVlr6Ui-q6Mkz-las4YZ5lpGh7CCVPIV49-N2vc9hkMlaH0zLorZQ648LqEG-X9pANEliKAyhyUmT-EIxpJ3kRE2Ee3j7f665YwR4VeB6AMymhWEDLK3J-0STo/s1600-h/CD+buys.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5183599692947964546" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX1O5B9HX9smDq6DGJUGIVlr6Ui-q6Mkz-las4YZ5lpGh7CCVPIV49-N2vc9hkMlaH0zLorZQ648LqEG-X9pANEliKAyhyUmT-EIxpJ3kRE2Ee3j7f665YwR4VeB6AMymhWEDLK3J-0STo/s400/CD+buys.JPG" border="0" /></a>Te Deum</em> was just riveting and bliss to experience. Overall I thought this a highly rewarding evening and a production I would recommend to anyone coming to Moscow and wanting, tentatively, to dip their virgin toe in the waters of opera.<br /><br /><br />While in St Pete's I went to a splendid classical music CD/DVD specialist I know; hard by the wonderful <a href="http://www.thehotelastoria.com/">Astoria Hotel</a>, where I stay. There I treated myself to some pieces that I have heard but don't own; including another piece by Estonian composer, <a href="http://www.arvopart.info/">Arvo Pärt</a>, to whose work I am becomming addicted.<br /><br />I also bought a DVD of Philip Glass's opera <a href="http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/season/production.aspx?id=9251&detect=yes">Satyagraha</a>. Now almost 30 years old, this established Glass's reputation as <em>enfant terrible</em> of <em>musique minimale. </em>I have yet to carve out the right evening to listen to it. "Inspired by the life of Ghandi", it has no plot. And the libretto is in Sanskrit. It is not performed very often.Etienne du Clé http://www.blogger.com/profile/06490468791202865582noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8143984300342132882.post-86164264958423529002008-03-17T23:55:00.003+03:002008-03-18T12:45:58.251+03:00Red Exile at home: a photo-meme<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFUF9fmdP0Q8FS2BdLB6mRQhzL7egseT2tQ7J5Ua4GN1TvNOPQ5G-BKp59_v78qabJYA_b86J1Ih0COVfjF7S2Dcc8Kp95m43lFtDf-qm1gV5xQ45X-b3Fk7a9MTTwD6er8_kdSjvXlors/s1600-h/CIMG0045.JPG"></a><em>From this last Sunday</em><br /><em></em><br /><em>(and, apologies in advance, I am a truly crappy photographer)</em><br /><em></em><br />So I return from a week in London and before me are rows of sheeny-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">shiney</span> shoes. Housekeeper had sent them to the boy at the Marriott Aurora for cleaning. I love clean shoes - scuffed shoes depress me: having them sent out for cleaning is an essential indulgence (especially as snow is forecast for Moscow later this week). <em>The <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Arab</span> photographs are part of a group I have had framed for the hallway:</em><br /><em></em><br /><em><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5178818294306970818" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjATlDdS4HR1Q1oAw6I4rNf0j0Q6hvmwqBReUeozmoKAct3ZhhVlv8nYyIpEaXhBB8b8YyTmeYxriutq2kvDOV85CXktk-pi8nyLm-7_yUq02569igA47WK8p5gMjJN3012hoFRa_qEjL2v/s400/CIMG0040.JPG" border="0" /></em><br /><em></em><br />While in London I splurged at <a href="http://www.jomalone.com/home.tmpl?ngextredir=1">Jo Malone's</a>, <em>inter <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">alia</span>,</em> on scented candles. I brought back a bunch of 'wild fig and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">cassis</span>'. The cushions, from a shop I like in Marrakesh, hide the hideous sofa (like all expats, this is a rented apartment)... <em>into every life a little rain must fall...</em><br /><em></em><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5178818453220760786" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMN4X_fiBhvhdp2XooItEHBZDQPtVyfSrpdL7ASvUPY4oj1Vey36KIzR8-3KYJ27w7dayeHLsGNz6qNozYgHlkeuAID-L_yW7CD-BdG_xZLkyetKtE8ZnmwbGZYRcJVJ5xl_kRuUDQf0Vo/s400/IMG022.jpg" border="0" /><br /><br />The Jo Malone splurging included more bottles of <em><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Pomegrante</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Noir</span></em>. There is no Jo Malone stockist in Russia - it is still a hard life out here<em> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">LOL</span> </em>- so I buy whenever I am in London or fly British Airways... but the latter no longer stocks <a href="http://www.jomalone.co.uk/site.nsf/shop/ProductsPage?readform&subcat=CAT0012&cat=frag&product=PROD0281"><em>Pomegranate <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Noir</span></em></a>, so I bought extra in her shop: <em>sulk</em>. Although I have... er... a fair stock, I always buy, because one never knows how long it will be between trips.<br /><br />Housekeeper and I have a game. She constantly <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">rearranges</span> the bottles in different shapes, whereas I like to group them by scent (er... I 'collect' three). She goes for fancy shapes. It is our little game and, since I am never here when she is, is as close as we have gotten to human interaction since the day I hired her...<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCadfHDk1xPh_vHodesu8VD3TTTK6y5QAtZDvlQebWwahGNOHrjTGl6tkfJ8n733DKAzI5-OqyckkalyxAlagKOe5dDCkaGVWwvH-JAiOEtpudramEEAnLObVB7L1QCwiKR_aDJp9ROMsO/s1600-h/IMG034.jpg"></a><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5178818569184877794" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh10aF8-VWvEDH54nuFCfiIGmwSIU3PhbycwGIyMmbaiggnnszxxbeyzGQjkDFjCqCEOuCu9RBGlZLsSkwg0GZ9Hv4GiTJ2JG4Sfjf5wOoAnDK4qkqYBKU8C6dSSReUaZBH_bwlzKySrK2g/s400/IMG023.jpg" border="0" /><br /><div>I also checked that the office courier had picked up my opera and ballet tickets for next few weeks. These are:</div><div></div><div><em>Tosca - 27<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">th</span> March</em></div><div><em><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Nabucco</span> - 29<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">th</span> March</em></div><div><em><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Chaika</span> (sixth time!) - 7<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">th</span> April</em></div><div><em>Romeo & Juliet (Dusseldorf ballet on tour) - 19<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">th</span> April - and I have just ordered tickets for their <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Stravinsky</span>/Rites of Spring for 23rd April</em></div><div><em>Madam Butterfly - 27<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">th</span> April</em><br /><br />I guess I am an opera and ballet nut (but this quarter has been a little disappointing in terms of offering, so I have gone less than usual):</div><div></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsm5UfnJgvYo8QdTPzMgomUR9EbfI-YjDMcdU88Ik4Erj3GToem6Du7E0GUzpzDWWJ-8s6qkABNTsuz20wVzZXUP2fu5SSZCJqGFXGd1H3Oj3qsvsMBim4-MIq3WGD35WdXuKrUwumBpLE/s1600-h/IMG033.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5178819393818598738" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsm5UfnJgvYo8QdTPzMgomUR9EbfI-YjDMcdU88Ik4Erj3GToem6Du7E0GUzpzDWWJ-8s6qkABNTsuz20wVzZXUP2fu5SSZCJqGFXGd1H3Oj3qsvsMBim4-MIq3WGD35WdXuKrUwumBpLE/s400/IMG033.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />On <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">Saturday</span> I also worshipped at the <a href="http://www.nespresso.com/precom/home_us_en.html?"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">Nepresso</span> </a>store on <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">Petrovka</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">Pereulok</span> - and finally <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">succumbed</span> to buying one of those cute capsule holders (<em>who on earth buys those wildly over-priced <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">trinkets</span> I had thought...er...me, it seems). </em>Currently on offer, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">Chez</span> Exile, we have (<em>left to right) </em>the current 'limited edition' <a href="http://www.nespresso.com/goroka/index.php?pays=it&lang=it"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">Goroka</span></a>; the previous limited edition <a href="http://www.nespresso.com/sc2007/?lang=en">'special club'</a> (which I 'stock-piled' before it sold out); <a href="http://www.nespresso.com/precom/n_espresso.php?s=2">Arpeggio </a>(for breakfast) and the one I buy for people who insist on adding <em>cow-juice</em> to real coffee... </div><div><br /><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5178818676559060210" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLpWiSz9GLp9ab1Rs6Qm-q85gWwO8oeqiUHsu5uvxiDehC7NsH5Yc2c3eAngNgXd72M6ufkdU00vj_2TcdSsQNa422rWQZvvRBAzkmM5FZAuEQTSfweKZSm-w427hNKNqmpSe0IRHYVyJk/s400/IMG025.jpg" border="0" /></div><div>On <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">Saturday</span>, I also bought a <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">lamp stand</span>: slightly Ottoman, slightly Victorian-English. That corner needed a <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">lamp stand</span>. It was ruinously expensive (at 31,000 <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">RUR</span>), but it appealed to me:<br /><br /></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5178818908487294226" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjop27MKoHpL0vY__b22VByseycvEhc0E8FD4cP43t5qg33tlrGSrRgzQM14cXcw0w27m_kimVop_h911ZYkNHncWCQDXbJmzg3J_PVdA8Q44XX7BPdEjolVGqNlGBOEsVL3wFYtURITHMN/s400/IMG026.jpg" border="0" /><br />The lighting now works better and doesn't clash with the pair of landscapes I bought from Ukrainian <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">painter</span>, Anna <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">Gidora</span>, from her 'Black Sea' series. They are dedicated the the effect of the wind upon land and souls. She wrote a poem about them:</div><div> </div><div> </div><div></div><div></div><div>"Тень ветра почти незаметна,</div><div>Но очаровывает своим присутствием.</div><div>Ветер всегда наполнен смыслом.</div><div>Через тень он шлёт послания,Но как научиться их читать?"</div><div></div><div>"Shadow of the wind is almost imperceptible,But it charms by its presence.</div><div>Wind is always filled with sense.</div><div>Through a shadow it sends a message,</div><div>But how could we learn to read it?"</div><div> </div><div> </div><div></div><div></div><div>(<em>getting into Russia, on the overnight train, required an export license from the Ukrainian Ministry of culture (Ukrainian customs); temporary import license into Russia and (signed and stamped, natch) documents for the eventual Russian export license)</em></div><div><em></em><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtfxpd0j91shMjVEJ60TIRCsdxHpArRVaSI7FJYE6x9XSDSUVT4dH3L_EEAAuunONotPYVj8qSsUMt7G79ZToCDy1JmTRefMlry0KYs6HD45cXCwIPGi0LDDSUfyPX_F9Rg9rE6k1akHsr/s1600-h/IMG030.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5178819179070233906" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtfxpd0j91shMjVEJ60TIRCsdxHpArRVaSI7FJYE6x9XSDSUVT4dH3L_EEAAuunONotPYVj8qSsUMt7G79ZToCDy1JmTRefMlry0KYs6HD45cXCwIPGi0LDDSUfyPX_F9Rg9rE6k1akHsr/s400/IMG030.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Sunday evening I settled down with this really sweet <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0404030/">US-Ukrainian film </a>(starring Elijah Wood) and a bottle of the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31">Marchesi</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32">Antinori's</span> finest <a href="http://www.antinori.it/eng/tenute/scheda.php?Id=8&tit=alto_peppoli"><em>not-quite-plonk</em> </a>(of which I bought a case from Moscow's <em><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33">Globus</span> Gourmet</em>):</div><div><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5178819295034350914" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqNleT5ASujekAXAlIDlEHPyI6BSSfq8xzGJNkpIo81kXZ9Zg1YvBQWic77-ExauBs34EI5mikNQnVbB7L0LIDChAlBR_j32GifCU84XNFgDLHj0vnsCLvCgZys2W7muivNmbNkYE9oi1a/s400/IMG032.jpg" border="0" /><br /><em>Quiet weekends in the world's busiest city are a treasure...</em></div>Etienne du Clé http://www.blogger.com/profile/06490468791202865582noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8143984300342132882.post-34376833809666837892008-03-13T22:44:00.006+03:002008-03-13T23:08:24.187+03:00Final Day (III) of the Ukrainian Investment Summit, London. Taking stockWednesday was the third and final day of the Ukrainian investment summit in London: and Adam Smith Conferences did an excellent job overall. This was the most interesting conference I had attended in years.<br /><br />The session I will highlight today - and the topic, really, on everyone lips for the last three days: <strong>Spotlight on the growth in Ukrainian IPOs</strong>.<br /><br />Some useful statistics from Ernst & Young’s Michael Lynch-Bell and Oleksandra Dubovyk:<br /><br />- About 80 Ukrainian companies will seek IPOs between 2008 and 2012, says E&Y<br />- About 20% of these will be financials and about 38% will come from retail and the consumer-facing sector<br />- Of expected IPOs, about 23% prefer the Warsaw Sock Exchange – <em>Exile says is the right choice for smaller-larger and larger-medium-sized firms, much cleverer than AIM which Exile loathes –</em> and about 11%+ will go to Frankfurt. Overall, though, about 66% will chose London (and 45% overall, will go to AIM). <em>Exile would gently opine that AIM is what *the advisers* want you to choose, because they - and their cost-base, are based in London and need London-based fees, but on a IPO+5 years basis, Exile thinks vendors and CEOs will look back and wish they had chosen Warsaw; IMHO</em>.<br /><br />Actually, if there is one theme yours truly detected this week, it is the slightest disconnect between the surge of advisors into Kyiv, and the true underlying fundamental health of the new issues market.<br /><br />Now, says Exile, from a cost, secondary market liquidity and practical POV, London may not be right for loads of CEE and Eurasian firms, especially when you start to compare Warsaw or Frankfurt, inter alia, to AIM.<br /><br />Elsewhere yesterday, Andrey Pivovarsky gave a very interesting presentation – and overall I think <a href="http://www.dragon-capital.com/en/about-us/corporate-profile">Dragon Capital</a> really impressed at this conference: very bright, very eager, professional and – actually - nice guys. Pivovarsky showed stats that the January and February new equity bookbuilding had been – as I think we all suspected – pretty ghastly. But he remains confident across the whole of 2008.<br /><br />Nonetheless, while underlining that firms undergoing IPO this quarter raised much less – or the same at much lower valuations / a bigger slice of equity – than they initially planned for; certain themes are emerging to make an IPO a success. Now, I have to say, these are not rocket science and, if anything, show that some rational thinking has come to the emerging markets equity scene; but they are worth repeating even so:<br /><br />- Investors will shun new issues where the free-float is too small (e.g. even below 3o%)<br />- High growth plays preferred over merely ‘domestic market sector stalwarts’ (PS: some of the Ukrainian financial-industrials groups will find themselves being penalized over their commodity-price vulnerable staples, says I, and should perhaps talk more about the wizzier parts of their portfolios).<br />- *Transparency* is everything. Dodgy history; less than stellar corporate governance structure or arrogant vendor-oligarch as CEO-God – forget it. You might have got such an IPO away even 9 months ago. In today’s still somewhat shell-shocked market; you may not.<br /><br />Then Pivovarsky said something for which – <em>football-player-stylee</em> – I wanted to run on the pitch and hug him – the glory days of the last two years were over, he said, “<em>and those who can, might be better to wait</em>” a year or two, for the best equity valuations.<br /><br />As he pointed out: investors want a ‘guaranteed’ (sic) 30% annual rate of return on new Ukrainian issues; given that there are now, globally, bond products out there – with arguably much less risk – offering 20% annual return.<br /><br />One speech particularly caught my interest. Although densely argued, <a href="http://www.bakerinfo.com/cmsbm/templates/DisplayAttorney.aspx?tmkprid=05131">Clive Cook</a>, from the London corporate governance team at Baker & Mackenzie, trotted through the difference between the obligations of firms listing on AIM, versus the main market.<br /><br />Although AIM <a href="http://www.londonstockexchange.com/en-gb/products/companyservices/ourmarkets/aim_new/News+and+Events/aimnomaderule.htm">toughened up the rules </a>applicable to AIM market-listed companies, and their <a href="http://www.londonstockexchange.com/en-gb/products/companyservices/ourmarkets/aim_new/For+AIM+Advisers/">NOMADs</a>, it still strikes me that, if I were an institutional investor, I would always want a risk discount on an AIM-quoted company compared, for instance, to one quoted on Frankfurt.<br /><br />PS: at one point, he argued that the London market(s) had the advantage because of the inclusion it gave you in the FTSE indices. Um…<em>not so much</em>. GDRs are not included. FTSE International was, for eons, a client of mine. It is a teeny-tiny technical point, but for firms like Ferrexpo (which, you may recall I pointed out issued Ords in London, and not GDRs), they get a liquidity boost, which *does* benefit share price, from being main market companies. Being part of, as I think Ferrexpo now is, the FTSE350, means that index tracker funds, set to that index, *have* to own the stock. As I said, it is a teeny-tiny point but, over five+ years, it *does* positively enhance share price performance.Etienne du Clé http://www.blogger.com/profile/06490468791202865582noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8143984300342132882.post-27036783729885070782008-03-12T19:22:00.003+03:002008-03-14T02:57:06.703+03:00Day 2: Blogging the Ukrainian Investment Summit, LondonAs is typical of these sorts of multi-day conferences, there was a 50% reduction in the delegate audience on day two, from day 1. That is not necessarily a bad thing: for these sort of things day one is boosted by government officials’ hangers-on and an ephemera of media. So the day II audience is more focused and less …um… <em>star-fucky</em>.<br /><br />Yesterday (Tuesday, Day II) was banker day and the highlight session for yours-truly was the session on <strong>Ukraine and the Capital Markets</strong>; able chaired by <a href="http://www.dragon-capital.com/en/about-us/management">Brian Best</a>, of Dragon Capital, who gamely opened by saying: “<em>Actually, the market sell-off around the world pretty much bypassed Ukraine; one of the few occasions the market’s lack of liquidity worked in our favour</em>”.<br /><br />The ebullient Sergiy Kulpinsky, equity strategist from Alfa Capital Ukraine, pointed out that only 6% of the shares of quoted Ukrainian companies are actually ‘<a href="http://www.investorwords.com/5893/free_float.html">free-float’</a>; which is staggeringly small and reminds us that Ukrainian share prices (<em>says Exile</em>) are probably at the top of the market, even now.<br /><br />Ukraine's <a href="http://www.pfts.com/en">PFTS</a> index rose <strong><em>135%</em></strong> in 2007; so don’t go hunting bargains in the Kyiv secondary market but, as it happens, there are some new issues coming through the next 2-3 years which, if not priced too greedily, are going to be interesting in the long term. That, of course, is the attraction of a market like Ukraine: long-term strong growth. But it is currently expensive to buy into.<br /><br />Kulpinskiy – who is a very good speaker, BTW, a rarity at these events – went on with a nice analogy about ‘<em>the good, the bad and the ugly</em>’ and the Ukrainian Stock Market, the PFTS:<br /><br />“<em>the good is the market and the expertise of the brokers there"</em> [OK…um…nice sell mate] "<em>the bad are the fundamentals of the market…inflation, soaring household debt and the fact private consumption is overheating.”</em> [Spot on says I. Ukraine should have a wonderful next five years but it has got to sort out its inflation problem or else the pendulum could easily switch the other way]; and the ugly? “<em>The politics: and the political risk discount international investors want on Ukrainian new issues</em>”.<br /><br />Nick Koemtzopoulos from Credit Suisse – whose speech was a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curate%27s_egg">curate’s egg</a> - but the second half was way too low-brow for the expert audience he was addressing – enlightened us that the ‘emerging markets’ (the BRIC nations and the satellite economies that orbit around them) accounted for 33% of new equity issues, globally, last year. That’s more than Western Europe. But it is a tough market out there:<br /><br />New equity issues globally:<br /><br />2005 on 2004 <strong>up 190%<br /></strong>2006 on 2005 <strong>up 216%</strong> - <em>a handful of mega-issues, like the giant <a href="http://www.rosneft.com/Investors/IPO/">Rosneft IPO </a>out of Russia and </em><a href="http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/sep2006/gb20060927_356775.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_businessweek+exclusives"><em>China’s ICBC </em></a><em>account for a big chunk<br /></em>2007 on 2006 <strong>up 66%</strong><br />Q12008 on Q12007 <strong>down 97%</strong> - <em>in terms of market sentiment, a huge amount rides on how the </em><a href="http://www.businessweek.com/investor/content/mar2008/pi2008037_667068.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_businessweek+exclusives"><em>Visa IPO goes later this month</em></a><em>.<br /></em><br />However, in Ukraine, 40% - <em>forty percent!</em> – of stock market new issues in 2007 were in real estate and construction. That’s a huge skewing of the market to one sector. Real estate and construction, of course, are highly leveraged plays on expected future economic confidence. Without continued confidence, those stocks can sink like a stone.<br /><br />That said, what has stalled other global markets is the fall-out from the global credit crunch last year. Well for Ukraine, much more than Russia, the global credit crisis has so far been something that happened ‘<em>somewhere else’</em>. The Ukrainian market hasn’t been so affected by a lack of confidence in the banking sector.<br /><br />Here the historically, relatively undeveloped banking capital market has had the unexpected benefit of protecting local market sentiment. This is because, due to country risk, Ukrainian banks have pretty much only been able to tap the bond markets for 1-year notes (rather than the 10-year, convertible bonds etc., issued by 1st world banks).<br /><br />Now, on the one hand this has meant that many Ukrainian banks have to refinance, in 2008’s tighter markets, money they only raised in 2007. On the other hand, such tight borrowing conditions placed a limit on Ukrainian banks ability to leverage up - according to Dmitri Sredin from Troika Dialog’s primary debt team, 2008 refinancing risk for Ukrainian banks is low, he says, in 2008. In fact, only 2.8% of bank capital needs refinancing this year.<br /><br /><em>Exile says: that’s way lower than Russia – and even more so compared to poor old Kazakhstan whose banking sector is a mess – and this is important. 2008 should see a smooth banking sector in Ukraine and this, of all things, should help to underpin market confidence about quality new issues in Ukraine.</em><br /><br /><strong><em>Statistic of the day:</em></strong><br /><br />In 2003 the corporate debt market (corporate bonds issued and new syndicated loans granted), globally, was worth $2.4 trillion in new deals done.<br /><br />By 2007, this had ballooned to over <strong>$7.5 trillion</strong> (factoid courtesy Nicolas Lipovsky at Calyon bank).<br /><br /><em>Having more than trebled in five years, that’s not ‘strong global growth’, that is a huge debt bubble. Last autumn’s credit crunch therefore is something of a correction we really all ought to have seen coming and expected. The fact we all didn’t tell you how crap capitalists are when greed gets in the way of judgment. I calculate that as a </em><a href="http://www.investorwords.com/666/CAGR.html"><em>CAGR</em></a><em> of almost <strong>26%</strong>; way outstripping nominal, annual global GDP growth</em>.<br /><br />PS: $6.7 billion of that debt growth, in 2007, was for Ukraine – $3 bn of it for banks – compared to $11.7 bn in Kazakhstan; sadly, for Kazakhstan, also mostly for banks.<br /><br /><strong><em>Real Economy Stat of the day #1:</em></strong><br /><br />Ukraine is already the 7th largest new car market in the whole of Europe.<br /><br />The top three are Germany, Italy and, at number three, Russia. This is a good reminder that you shouldn’t view the <strong>RUK</strong> markets (<em>new buzz phrase: Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan</em>) as emerging markets: they have pretty much already <u><strong>emerged</strong></u>. It is now all about market share.<br /><br /><em><strong>Real Economy stat of the day #2:</strong></em><br /><br />Ukrainian real GDP growth in 2007 was about 7.5% - about the same as Russia’s – but inflation outstripped even Russia’s worsening record: 16.6% inflation in 2007 and is expected to be 17% +.<br /><br /><em>Exile - This, BTW, reminds us of yesterday’s macro-economic advice, from Anders Aslund, at the conference. Import inflation has to be sterilized ASAP through a re-valuation of the Ukrainian Hryvna against the US Dollar.</em>Etienne du Clé http://www.blogger.com/profile/06490468791202865582noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8143984300342132882.post-85893483331548482792008-03-11T12:23:00.001+03:002008-03-11T12:40:03.249+03:00Blogging the Ukrainian Investment Summit, London<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi62LQ54geeuolOV99Rzb-8z7YslQzyV_vC3QlKQmI4KFMJZG1v_Y2wQFKkZkqGCoD-j2ygGXd6DaoJqvf-z6cj9ae9JabJqyBccaR30uuV4MGYrGdNM55fjRd_l6eXddJLmoZEpJ9yofA0/s1600-h/British-Ukraine.png"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5176416446244323858" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi62LQ54geeuolOV99Rzb-8z7YslQzyV_vC3QlKQmI4KFMJZG1v_Y2wQFKkZkqGCoD-j2ygGXd6DaoJqvf-z6cj9ae9JabJqyBccaR30uuV4MGYrGdNM55fjRd_l6eXddJLmoZEpJ9yofA0/s400/British-Ukraine.png" border="0" /></a><br /><div>Monday through Wednesday inclusive is the 4th Ukrainian Investment Summit, organized by Adam Smith Conferences. It is a star-studded cast and, relative to many of the conferences I schlep to, more thought-provoking. It is a very well-supported conference, although the audience is only about 10% the size of that at the Russian Economic Forum in its halcyon days (which tells you a lot about the relative sizes of the investment markets).<br /><br />The first speaker, Monday, was <a href="http://www.richardspringmp.com/">Richard Spring</a>, the British, opposition Conservative MP, who is President of the <a href="http://www.britishukrainiansociety.org/en/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1">British Ukrainian Society</a>. I like Dickie: he is elegant company over a tumbler of whiskey. He is a charming old cove – very bright but likes to pretend otherwise – and made much of how “<em>across both sides of the House of Commons – don’t worry about so-called <a href="http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/06/19/news/eu.php">Enlargement Fatigue</a> – we will support Ukraine’s membership of the European Union</em>” (pause for cheer which… um… didn’t come).<br /><br /><p><br />Of course, it is easy to support something not remotely likely soon to happen. Dickie Spring is likely to be gaga or even pushing up the daisies before Ukraine has any meaningful chance of accession. In terms of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquis_communautaire">acquis communautaire</a> it must be even ten years behind Turkey. So, you know, <em>don’t hold your breath…</em><br /><br />The opening session’s government speakers – three ministers no less – was a remarkable insight into how the Soviet-style of long speeches that rattle off statistics still is the preferred modus operandi of the post-Soviet politician. They were gruesomely dull to sit through.<br /><br />Across the morning, the star speakers were from <a href="http://www.ferrexpo.com/">Ferrexpo</a>, which had such a superb debut on the London Stock Exchange last year. <a href="http://www.ukraine-intelligence.fr/a2076-Profile_Konstantin_Zhevago_Finance_and_Credit_Group_.html">Konstantin Zhevago </a>is the acceptable face of oligarchy: the man is also a visionary and his commitment to professional management – his imported CEO, Michael Oppenheimer, spoke later in the day – transparency and solid corporate governance has been rewarded by a 160% rise in the share price since last year’s IPO.<br /><br />Some notes from my speaker program (I do this at conferences like I do at the opera and ballet – but without the opera glasses):<br /><br />- Konstantin Zhevago – everything that has been beneficial that has been achieved in the Ukrainian economy has been in spite of, not because of Ukrainian governments, he said.</p><br /><p>- <a href="http://www.petersoninstitute.org/staff/author_bio.cfm?author_id=455">Dr Anders Aslund</a> (Peterson Institute for International Economics, Washington DC – and a well-known Cold War-economic analyst, notably well-funded in the USA – <em>winks</em> – and sometime economic advisor to Ukraine itself): “<em>Ukraine must break the link to the US$ in order to control inflation. The Government shouldn’t talk about it, it should just do it: and, as a first step, peg the Hryvna to a basket of currencies weighted towards the Euro</em>”<br /><br />Exile opines: <em>he’s right and Ukraine needs to revalue its currency to sterilize import-related inflation. I think it could now find a natural level 15-20% above where it is now against the USD, IMHO. It is a tricky issue though. Although nominally – indeed constitutionally, independent, the oligarchs have the National Bank of Ukraine by the balls, and don’t want a stronger Hryvnia which will take the steam out of the export growth of their heavy industries. Equally, a ‘basket of currencies’ reflecting Hryvna reality means a chunk of Russian rubles: monetary-nerd, President Yushchenko, would hate that. So it won’t happen just yet: the politics isn’t right, unless Yush’ thinks the Hryvna can jump straight to a free-float (which will be an econometric shock he will be afraid to risk).<br /></em><br />Ilya Arkhipov, System Capital Management – sadly (I say sadly because I have a really good mate who works for SCM, who’ll read this, and will not be amused, but…) wins the raspberry award for worst speech. Although it was interesting for us to get a walk-around the lesser-known parts of Mr Akhmetov’s mighty empire, it would have been nice if he had addressed the issue (“Showing the experience of leading…investors”). Speakers from my region always ignore the issue and force-feed you an investor presentation; quite counter-productively so.<br /><strong><em><br />The foreign investor experience:<br /></em></strong><br />I thought this was a noteworthy bit. The two biggest foreign investors in Ukraine are Telenor (asset revaluation rather than hard cash) and ArcelorMittal (hard cash). Both have had an uneven experience, although rising asset values in the case of the former; and strong profits in the case of the latter, mean they will stick it out.<br /><br />The speakers were:<br /><br />- Ole Bjorn Sjulstad – very senior at Telenor; staggeringly bad speaker (who desperately needs help to be able to give an effective speech).<br /><br />- Narendra Chaudhary – very, very senior at ArcelorMittal (and one of Lakshmi Mittal’s most trusted lieutenants BTW). I was, BTW, quietly appalled at the bluntly racist comments – in the audience murmur around me – while he was speaking. I was even more appalled that these insults were being whispered in English, as well as Russian.<br /><br />Both these companies complain about the lousy rule of law in Ukraine, huge uncertainty over ownership rights, corporate governance and, of course, bent judges. The Mittal part of ArcelorMittal bought <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kryvorizhstal">Kryvorizhstal</a>, the giant, 46,000-employee steel mill, at auction (it having been seized by La Orangina, after the Revolution, from Renat Akhmetov, now one of the king-makers of Ukrainian political and economic life). Since then Kryvorizhstal has been plagued by union problems and last year, says Chaudhary, suffered<em> 457</em> government agency investigations and enquiries: thus showing that Mr Akhmetov’s reach is modest compared even to his grasp.<br /><br />Both being subject to poorly written and corruptly administered law, these two companies are *the* textbook examples about investment in Ukraine: “<em>you should make good money, but it is the most risky place you’ll likely ever invest in and the one whose business environment is perhaps the least trustworthy</em>”. I am slack-jawed at the (especially European) firms which blunder in there (“<em>Ukraine is a democracy, it is more European. It is therefore less risky than Russia</em>”) – completely talking out of their arses.</p><br /><p>If these two firms united in delivering their message of optimism, hedged with criticism – and delivered it just a tad more effectively – even Ukraine’s notoriously self-obsessed and naval-gazing political elite might, you know, finally wake up and do something about it…<br /><br />PS: Stefan Wagstyl, Eastern Europe editor of the FT, is a nice man who writes well and insightfully: he is <em>hopeless</em>, however, at chairing a panel session or acting as moderator of a conference. Memo to all conference organizers: stop using him! There is a skill to chairing a conference panel session effectively: he hasn’t got it.<br /><br />PPS: Because Ferrexpo is actually a UK PLC which, via a Swiss vehicle, owns its Ukrainian assets (and therefore issued Ordinary Shares on the London Stock Market not, as is usually the case for CIS firms, GDRs), it is actually just a hair’s breath away from being elevated to the FTSE100, so great has its share price run been.<br /><br />Now, if that happens the Kremlin sure will sulk: Russian firms issue GDRs, not Ords, in London so cannot be part of the FTSE100 (silly rule BTW). I met with one Russian mega-firm last week which wasn’t being very subtle about the fact that the Kremlin wants them to list *anywhere* other than London, even if just to piss on the British.</p></div>Etienne du Clé http://www.blogger.com/profile/06490468791202865582noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8143984300342132882.post-64490937872657608172008-03-07T14:45:00.004+03:002008-03-07T15:31:52.451+03:00An abomination at the Bolshoi<div align="justify"><em>“It doesn't matter how high you lift your leg.The technique is about transparency, simplicity, making an <strong>earnest attempt</strong>”.<br /></em><span style="color:#33ff33;">~ Mikhail Baryshnikov</span><br /><strong><em><br />Three one act ballets at the Bolshoi: 28th February performance<br /></em></strong><br />This is a little overdue and I may not have bothered at all if it was not that rare thing for me to post: a very bad night at the Bolshoi. Just a few days after I saw the <a href="http://redexile.blogspot.com/2008/02/mariinsky-on-tour-to-moscow-three-one.html">Mariinsky’s cool, artful professionalism</a>, I was subjected to an abomination at the Bolshoi of such artless posturing, I despaired.<br /><br />Just the day before, chatting to a chum, I observed that the fact artistic director, Alexey Ratmansky, was leaving the Bolshoi at the end of this year would, of course, please all the dinosaurs and that <em>preening</em> Nikolai Tsiskaridze, who I can’t stand. We now know who will <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/03/04/btbolshoi104.xml">replace Ratmansky</a>: <em>yay</em> (BTW, a good article in that link).<br /><br />I fear 2010 and after will see a Bolshoi ballet bounce between artistic chaos and a deadening, <em>frozen-in-aspic</em> cult of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yury_Grigorovich">Grigorovich</a>. I mean, I love Grigorovich as a choreographer – his Romeo and Juliet is a superb use of Prokofiev’s soaring score – but I don’t want <em>endless</em> Grigorovich.<br /><br /><em>Ballet, you see, is like football</em>. It is about passion and teamwork and I feel about Tsiskaridze like my Tottenham Hotspur-loving boss (I know nothing about soccer, but even I know he must be plainly <em>masochistic</em>) feels about… um… Freddie Ljunberg! [That was so random – he is the only soccer player who popped in my mind]<br /><br />So anyway: the <em>atrocity</em> of the 28th:<br /><br /><strong>Three one act ballets:</strong><br /><br />- <strong><em>Class Concert</em></strong> – <em>choreography by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asaf_Messerer">Asaf Messerer </a>to a mélange of music arranged (well actually) by Alexander Tseitlin<br /></em><br />A <strong><u>staggeringly poor performance</u></strong> by the Bolshoi Orchestra. The timing was way off on several pieces and, although actually a deceptively complex arrangement, second-line conductor, <a href="http://bolshoi.ru/en/theatre/orchestra/conductors/detail.php?&act26=info&id26=487">Pavel Klinichev </a>deserved to be booed. The brass section was just <em>ghastly</em> – And at least twice was simply <em>flat</em> – and Klinichev appeared to be more <em>spectator</em> than dictator. Had they <em>rehearsed</em>?<br /><br />Now this bit of dancing was good and in stark contrast to the two pieces which followed.<br /><br />This piece is quaint and charming. Maria Allash was wonderful and Vladimir Neporozhny was also extremely impressive. Vyacheslav Lopatin – who I was to think so piss-poor later in the evening – did rather well here. He pulled off an extraordinary number of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/32_fouett%C3%A9s_en_tournant">fouettés</a>. The best performance came from the ridiculously young <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2007/07/14/nosplit/btivan114.xml">Ivan Vasiliev</a> who performed with characteristic athleticism.<br /></div><div align="justify"><br />- <em><strong>Misericordes </strong>(known in the west as Elsinore) – choreography by Christopher Wheeldon to Arvo Pärt’s, Symphony Number 3<br /></em><br /><a href="http://bolshoi.ru/en/theatre/person/detail.php?&act26=info&id26=409">A change of conductor! </a>A brilliant performance of this music: the Bolshoi Orchestra, which had played like a youth band in High School, now returned to being professional musicians in a world-class House. This music – which I have now heard three times (it was the third time I have seen this piece this year) – stayed with me all week and I just had to <a href="http://http//phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=2601880&s=143444">download it from iTunes</a>. It made for a very pleasant accompaniment to my overnight train journey back from Kyiv that weekend.<br /><br />However, while remembering to <em>tug my forelock</em> to the performance of Bolshoi principal soloist, Dmitriy Gudanov, I have to say that the choreography is just not good enough (<em>geddit?</em>)<em>.</em><br /><br />Having <a href="http://redexile.blogspot.com/search?q=wheeldon">posed the question once before</a>, I now have a conclusion: Wheeldon is just overrated. </div><div align="justify"><br />The Bolshoi troupe danced this proficiently but with a soul-dead lack of passion. This piece calls for the <em>tautly</em>-suppressed <em>lust</em> and rage of the human body (<em>hello</em>? <em>It’s Hamlet set to dance</em>?): it was like watching robots build an Audi. <em>C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre</em>.</div><br /><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">This YouTube piece was a better night's <em>dancing</em> performance, but <em>just listen to how bad the brass section is about one third the way through! </em>I was there that night actually... I am worried for the Bolshoi Orchestra:</div><div align="justify"><br /><object height="355" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/hRJKjp0FhGs"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><br /><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/hRJKjp0FhGs" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object><br /><br /></div><div align="justify">- <em><strong>In the Upper Room</strong> – choreography by Twyla Tharp, to sublime music specially composed by Philip Glass.<br /></em><br />I know this piece quite well: this is the … <em>ahem</em>… sixth time I have seen it in the last twelve months.<br /><br />It was danced by the same cast rotation as always.<br /><br />This night, however, their performance was a <strong><u>crime</u></strong> against dance.<br /><br />- Andrey Merkuriev (who usually I highly rate) was utterly atrocious. <em>Was he drunk?</em> I have never seen such lack of precision and his partnering was abysmal: twice he nearly dropped a ballerina.<br />- All the girls were very weak: even Natalia Osipova, who did a very convincing impression of not having rehearsed and actually not much caring that we guessed she hadn't either<br />- An uncharacteristically weak performance from Vyacheslav Lopatin. Overall, the ensemble seemed <em>self-obsessed, </em><em>cynical</em> and <em>indifferent</em> to the fact they were performing in public.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJoGOhMYuqd29wdoeyBK07HqtYE7Gnx95Jz_ALrBJcOLIsDSYCBJ07wFL_FQzL5FFbmxGUaOipPpDZwTKbaS28WaQS6oUFiM7osT3WIdeiE8O-adRlbLf40WeeKcwhJklRPqkXsa07OgsB/s1600-h/Denis+Savin,+as+Romeo,+with+Maria+Alexandrova+as+Juliet.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174971022245495298" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJoGOhMYuqd29wdoeyBK07HqtYE7Gnx95Jz_ALrBJcOLIsDSYCBJ07wFL_FQzL5FFbmxGUaOipPpDZwTKbaS28WaQS6oUFiM7osT3WIdeiE8O-adRlbLf40WeeKcwhJklRPqkXsa07OgsB/s320/Denis+Savin,+as+Romeo,+with+Maria+Alexandrova+as+Juliet.jpg" border="0" /></a>They deserved to be booed off the stage. Had it been London, we would have done! But sometimes, I am reminded, Russians will clap and cheer just about anything: a sort of <em>dancing bear syndrome</em>.<br /><br />I did <u>not</u> applaud, except briefly, directed at Denis Savin. I have enjoyed watching this young dancer develop over the last four years: I thought him consistently superb in the current production of Romeo & Juliet in repertory and I very much enjoyed him the … <em>ahem</em>… seven times I saw him as Dimka in Shostakovich’s the Bolt. </div><div align="justify"> </div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">Mr Savin appeared to be the only performer on stage wholly committed to the faithful performance of Twyla Tharp’s <a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=9J3iJaiFnZU">brilliant creation</a>. </div><div align="justify"> </div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">Part of a trio, he was ably supported by Anton Savichev and Alexander Smol’yaninov (the latter has potential I think), although at one point I thought they were going to drop Natalia Osipova. </div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">By this point in her ‘performance’, however, I almost willed them to do so.</div>Etienne du Clé http://www.blogger.com/profile/06490468791202865582noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8143984300342132882.post-13771058307830962572008-03-07T01:24:00.000+03:002008-03-07T01:28:15.899+03:00No, no, no (off topic, but MY topic): do not demonize the pilotAmongst my many failures as a human being – I am Catholic, OK? (<em>lovin’ it</em>, BTW) so I embrace my lifetime in sin - is my rather <em>schizoid</em> fear of flying…<br /><br />Like most Net-literate people, I have seen *<em>that</em>* video. Lufthansa. Hamburg.<br /><br /><object height="355" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/z42fchrzhHY"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/z42fchrzhHY" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object><br /><br />No, no, no! The pilot did <em>exactly</em> what he should have. It was a bad flight – and, <em>yeah</em>, truly I would probably have <em>shat</em> myself if I had been on-board – but it was by no means ‘<em>the one’</em> (you know, ‘the one’ – the flight all frequent flyers believe is their ‘number up’)<br /><br />Gusty wind is gusty wind. It sucks. But the video is hugely misleading. The wing *did not* scrap the ground: we’d have body bags it if did.<br /><br />Not a nice flight, but rest assured what you think is ‘<em>impact smoke’</em> is just jet-back of runway surface water. Clearance levels were really better than they appear, filmed at that angle (I <em>guesstimate</em> above 5-7 feet: not nice, but not fatal).<br /><br />Neither pilot nor ATC mis-performed and, in the cockpit, the captain would have yelled “<strong>TOGA</strong>”* in time.<br /><br />* <strong>TOGA</strong> = “<em>Take Off & Go Around</em>”. In one client mandate, a rather infamous... um... actually ‘terrorist’ court case, I listened to the Cockpit Voice Recorders (CVRs) of several fatal air incidents – my fear of flying, as a non-pilot, I grant you <em>ridiculously</em>, started then – it is the ones where they yell “<em>TOGA!!!</em>”, followed by “<em><strong>arrgh, shit</strong></em>” etc., that leave a lifelong mark…<br /><br />But this whole viral YouTube thing is a good example of how YouTube vid’, from a certain angle, <em>displaces</em> the possession of truth. Something, in a bunch of circumstances, we would do well to remember.Etienne du Clé http://www.blogger.com/profile/06490468791202865582noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8143984300342132882.post-33804083502487897792008-03-05T10:30:00.009+03:002008-03-06T00:43:15.716+03:00“They’re stealing the gas, Nancy, they’re *stealing the gas*”Gazprom is spending a shed-load on some well-connected PRs right now. Friend-of-<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Peskov">Dmitry-Peskov</a>, the US PR firm, Ketchum, runs a global program. Now <a href="http://www.ketchum.com/">Ketchum </a>is a well-known consumer PR firm in the USA, but something of an also-ran (IMHO) in the rest of the world (and has, BTW, the most irritating *cutesy* web-vid intro on its website, the "<em>greeters</em>", <em>ugh</em>, which appears to assume the readers, the potential clients, are morons). It was lucky to get this, because this is a big, complicated mandate for a largely consumer PR firm, but its long-standing, Russian partner, <a href="http://www.maslov-pr.com/">Michael Maslov</a>, has solid Kremlin connections.<br /><br /><em>...and breathes in... </em>But through its <a href="http://www.omnicomgroup.com/">Omnicom</a> parent, Ketchum has some partners with clout, like the respected <a href="http://www.gavinanderson.com/">Gavin Anderson</a>, the financial spin doctors. The point is, while I like and admire Michael (we alternate to buy each other dinner), what are all these *global* people <em>doing</em> for their fees?<br /><br /><em>Get the job done</em> guys and, if you can’t get it done (perhaps because – and I know the score and how this works in Russia – the client was obliged to hire you, <em>on instructions</em>, but now ignores you), then <em>quit the mandate</em>. Big fees or no big fees, in the long run you suffer, or your reputation does, if all you do is bank the cash and merely <em>spectate</em> as a client’s global reputation <em>collapses</em>. But what do I know, maybe they’re actually slaving away and a client fight-back is about to materialize. If so, <em>news cycle</em>, guys, <em>news cycle</em>: are you acquainted with them?<br /><br />What I do know is that I have worked for a company once described as “<em>the most hated company ever to launch an IPO</em>”, and we did stuff. It worked.<br /><br />Anyway, my 'outburst' comes as the liberal, anti-Russian media in the UK delivers an astonishingly one-sided reportage of the Gazprom-Ukraine dispute (examples <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7276589.stm">here</a> and <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/04/russia.foreignpolicy">here</a>).<br /><br />The western media isn’t telling you that, quite aside from a payment track-record that makes a sub-prime mortgage holder a good bet, Ukraine is *<em>stealing the gas</em>*, siphoning it off, as it transits Ukraine into Western Europe. Where does <a href="http://www.naftogaz.com/www/2/nakweben.nsf/">Naftogaz Ukrainy </a>let it go to? Well let’s just say that the corporate profits of some Ukrainian oligarchs' heavy-industrial businesses are looking surprisingly <em>robust</em> in the face of fuel cost rises over the last two years…<br /><br />But the key thing is this, the ‘free press’ of the West just doesn’t like the idea that ‘democratic’ Ukraine (“they won <em><a href="http://www.eurovision.tv/">Eurovision</a></em>, they had a revolution, they can <em>do no wrong</em>”) could be anything other than on the side of the angels. The western, liberal media is so bound up in its <em>hate</em> (and I don't think that word is too strong) and <em>suspicion</em> of Russia, it will (and does) <em>self-edit</em> to bring you the story that always puts Russia in a bad light.<br /><br />- <em>Ukraine stealing gas?</em> Ignore – our readers/viewers need only know that Ukraine is ‘free’ and is ‘pro-western’<br />- Russia reacts by reducing the flow by the amount it steals? <em>Boo Russia</em>!<br /><br />This email conversation, yesterday, with a new political friend in the UK sets this in context (I hope):<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">From: New political friend in the UK<br />To: Red Exile </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />…[…]… Also, I saw that the new President of Russia has cut off gas supplies to the Ukraine. What is life like out there when these sorts of things happen?<br /><br />From Red Exile<br />To: New political friend in the UK<br /><br />“Re: Ukraine – LOL. GAZP didn’t cut them off; just reduced the supply by the amount that Ukraine is illegally skimming it off and siphoning to some dodgy industrial clients on the side. Really, the UKR gas company uses the fact that it transits most of Europe’s gas to hide what Naftogaz Ukrainy, the gaz monopoly, steals. This brokers’ note [<em>it is an extract from one issued yesterday by Renaissance Capital – Exile</em>] explains more:<br /><br />“Event: Ukraine's dispute with Russia over gas supplies took a turn for the worse on Monday (3 Mar) as Gazprom cut supplies 25%, or around 30 mcm/day, in response to non payment by Ukrainian counterparties. NAK Naftogaz Ukrainy later claimed the actual reduction was 35% (46 mcm/day) though Gazprom has not confirmed this. To put the cut in perspective, Interfax reported that Ukrainian consumption was running at around 150-156 mcm/day last week.<br /><br />“The Financial Times's Web site reported NAK as claiming it has enough gas in storage after a mild winter to withstand such constraints for a month. Even if this claim is exaggerated, it appears that yesterday's developments are a measured increase in pressure by Gazprom, rather than an outright attempt to force the issue to a crisis. The haggling over gas imports and the division of the spoils from the Ukrainian supply market could go on for some time still. Although we continue to believe that Gazprom chairman Dmitry Medvedev will not want his moment of victory in the presidential elections spoiled by this dispute, it is clear that Gazprom has no intention of surrendering out of deference to the political calendar.<br /><br />“We are concerned by NAK's claim of a larger supply cut than Gazprom has admitted to. Only one figure can be correct, and <span style="color:#33ff33;">NAK's record exposes it to the suspicion that it is preparing to resume illicit siphoning, which would seriously damage the aspirations toward integration with Europe that the government is voicing more and more loudly.</span>”<br /><br />From: New political friend in the UK<br />To: Red Exile<br /><br />… […]…It's really bad news if the UK press is reporting this in such an anti-Russian way. I was also surprised by Gordon Brown's response that the new Russian President will be 'judged by his actions' - hardly warm words for an incoming world leader (who happens to be pretty friendly with Iran!)...<br /></span><br /><br />Well, <em>yes</em>, indeed.<br /><br />The title of this post was inspired by this, wonderful <em>West Wing</em> moment:<br /><br /><object height="355" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/VZQDJLeIRq8"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/VZQDJLeIRq8" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object><br /><br />PS: Just loving the news that Hilary did so well in yesterday’s Primaries: you go girl!<br /><br /><em>Declaration:</em> the more I see of Obama, the more I think he is too proud, too-pretty-speech-no-substance and just not the person the rest of the world needs to have in the White House right now.<br /><br /><em>Viewpoint:</em> McCain beats Obama; but only Clinton can beat McCain<br /><br /><object height="355" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/6mOa3sXjqE4"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/6mOa3sXjqE4" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object><br /><br /></span>Etienne du Clé http://www.blogger.com/profile/06490468791202865582noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8143984300342132882.post-30167094738593678472008-02-29T14:16:00.000+03:002008-02-29T14:20:52.705+03:00Upgradeski – the art of business class travel in Russia<em>Written in the business lounge at Moscow Sheremetyevo Terminal 1c (no wifi provided!) but posted from Kyiv<br /></em><br />As either reader might recall I don’t much like flying. Terrified wouldn’t be a wholly inappropriate word; which makes one wonder why I have chosen the job I have. <em>Anyway</em>…<br /><br />This morning I flew to Kyiv (the overnight train wasn’t an option this time, as I had a date at the Bolshoi last night). Being driven out to the airport, the weather deteriorated and I began to get that shuddering yawning that only comes, oddly, when I am very nervous.<br /><br />The airline I am flying, while using Boeings, uses old ones. <em>Old</em>. Using my handy <a href="http://www.airfleets.net/home/index.php">databank</a> on my PDA, I will verify that the actual plane is between 25 and 30 years old (which is typical for the airline I am flying, for this route): they even still fly one which is now <em>33</em> years old.<br /><br />Since this flight is only 100 minutes airborne we always buy economy class. But I decide to upgrade, at personal expense, to business. There are two reasons of logic for this:<br /><br />- being personally convinced I will one day die in a plane crash, I would prefer to do it in business class (at least you’ll have more comfort for the last moments before the cleansing, ending bath of fire and the eviscerating shards of metal…)<br />- And the survival rates in business class are poor. In the event of a serious incident you will die, but it will at least be quick. Behind the curtain is the possibility of agonizing survival; or not quite.<br /><br />So I arrive at the airport and go to the ticket desk to upgrade.<br /><br />Sad smile and shrug; says he: “<em>it is impossible. Komputers all no work today. You pay cash</em>?”<br /><br />Gentle frown before helpful smile, says I: “<em>Gosh. How unfortunate. Yes I pay cash</em>”<br /><br />Eager school-boy frown, I continue: “<em>Perhaps if I pay cash you can sort out all the paperwork when your computers work again</em>?”<br /><br />Light-bulb moment: “<em>yes, that might work. You come with me</em>”<br /><br />We set off and find an official who may be Airline or maybe State but, as is often the case in Russia, is probably a bit of both. I am a <em>друг</em> (friend) apparently. That’s nice.<br /><br />A sum is ventured (“<em>the official fee of course</em>”) and a small cash transaction occurs discreetly, elegantly: it is what passports are for.<br /><br /><br />Holding my passport and new ticket (“<em>sorry, mister, no receipt possible; Komputers all no work</em>”), 10 minutes later, this official (partly Airline, partly State) walks me through customs; with much shaking of hands. I am asked no troubling questions.<br /><br />I am led to check-in and am checked in immediately, ahead of everyone else (mercifully, at this moment all the <em>Komputers</em> seem to have begun to operate again!). I say goodbye to my friend and settle into this lounge, after being assisted through Immigration. I look at my ticket and boarding pass. I am now, it seems, a government official with a VIP pass.<br /><br />This being me, a thought crosses my mind. If something does occur, and they’re identifying my body, they’ll wonder why, with my British passport and my un-Russian name, I was on seemingly on Russian state business.<br /><br />That is how conspiracy theories start.<br /><br />Postscript: Plane registration UR-BVY is, in fact, just 6 weeks short of its 26th birthday.Etienne du Clé http://www.blogger.com/profile/06490468791202865582noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8143984300342132882.post-3305728148542250622008-02-28T15:14:00.000+03:002008-02-28T15:40:02.378+03:00Quick aside: UKRAINE - What is La Orangina up to now?I refer to Prime Minister <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Yulia</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Tymoshenko</span> of Ukraine. She has this morning adopted that most noteworthy of <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Ukrainian</span> political tactics 'being rushed to hospital'. Ukrainian politicians are always being rushed to hospital, unavailable from their sick beds, rather than be in a position to do, or not do, anything when put on-the-spot. For Ukraine-watchers, it is a frequent tactic.<br /><br />The <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">newswire</span> of <a href="http://www.businessneweurope.eu/">Business New Europe </a>takes up the story:<br /><br />"Ukraine Prime Minister <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Yulia</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Tymoshenko</span> is hospitalised with flu, according to statements made by Ukraine's vice prime minister <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Oleksandr</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Turchynov</span> on Channel 5... President <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Viktor</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Yushchenko</span> had charged her with full repayment of Ukrainian debts to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Gazprom</span> before a deadline of 10 a.m., March 3, but her hospitalization looks set to stall this.<br /><br />""<em>Being a woman of character, she tried to come to work again and was taken to hospital literally from her workplace</em>," <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Turchynov</span> said. Her hospitalization follows <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Yushchenko</span> sending a telegram to Prime Minister <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Yulia</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">Timoshenko</span> yesterday, stating that she had failed to adhere to the Moscow agreements and demanding, according to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Interfax</span>, she "<em>take urgent and exhaustive measures to pay Ukraine's debt for the gas consumed. The government must fulfill all high-level agreements</em>."<br /><br />"<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Tymoshenko</span> was due to personally report to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">Yushchenko</span> on implementation of his order's execution today at 9 a.m, according to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">Kommersant</span>. Whereas <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">Yushchenko</span> reached an agreement February with Russia President Vladimir Putin and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">Gazprom</span> for Ukrainian gas distributor <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">Natftogaz</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">Ukrainy</span> to repay its debts, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">Tymoshenko</span> has been dragging her feet over implementing the agreement, causing <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">Gazprom</span> to set a deadline for <strong>March 3</strong>, after which gas supplies to Ukraine will be cut by 25%."<br /><br />Meanwhile, excellent <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">UKR</span> blog, <a href="http://foreignnotes.blogspot.com/">Foreign Notes</a>, today has a heart-rending little <em><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">crie</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">de</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">coeur</span></em> about the stress she is under: 'no wonder she is ill' ...<br /><br />Why of course, <strong><em>March 3rd</em></strong>.<br /><br />The day after (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">Gazprom</span> Chairman) <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">Dmitry</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31">Medvedev</span> - who's been <a href="http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2008/02/28/015.html">trying to cast himself as a progressive </a>- wins the Russian Presidency by a vast landslide, the world is reminded of how horrid is the <em>Russian bear</em> as poor <em>defenceless</em>, pro-Western, <em>'European'</em> little Ukraine has its gas switched off (sic) again by big, bad, <em>greedy</em> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32">Gazprom</span>.<br /><br />It's propaganda people: from Langley to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33">Kyiv</span> by way of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wag_the_Dog">Wag the Dog</a>.<br /><br />How <em>dumb</em> do the US-funded <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_34">Russophobes</span> think we all are? Dumb enough, I guess, <em>dumb enough</em>. Because you just know the <em>wailing</em> the BBC and others will plod along with.Etienne du Clé http://www.blogger.com/profile/06490468791202865582noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8143984300342132882.post-9169456144835204302008-02-28T05:44:00.002+03:002008-02-28T06:35:51.326+03:00The Mariinsky on tour to Moscow: three one act balletsA sell-out house at the Bolshoi on Monday night to see the Mariinsky, on tour to Moscow as part of the Golden Mask festival, dance three one act ballets.<br /><br />And an interesting choice for the three:<br /><br />- <strong><em>Serenade</em></strong>; the George Balanchine® piece - no, really, the Balanchine Technique is actually a registered Mark in the USA. A clever thing to choose because the Bolshoi has this piece in repertoire too, so we’re all invited, in the home crowd, from the outset, to compare the Mariinsky to the Bolshoi<br /><br />- <strong><em>In the Middle, somewhat elevated</em></strong> – a assertively modern piece designed to show that the Mariinsky is cutting edge too (<em>take that Alexey Ratmansky</em>! – who, BTW, is <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/13/arts/dance/13ball.html?ref=arts">*leaving the Bolshoi*</a> at the end of this year – that’s a <em>shame</em> because I love his work; but the Bolshoi’s <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/09/AR2007020902349.html">not <em>feeling the love</em></a>, one hears)<br /><br />- <strong><em>Le Réveil de Flore</em></strong> – a museum-piece confection, in case the traditionalists were still shocked by the previous work, and an unmistakable reminder that the Mariinsky is the senior, <em>Tsarist</em> Russian dance company, so-to-speak<br /><br />I am not sure that these three fit <em>lovingly</em> together as an ensemble; but as a statement of the Mariinsky’s artistic range and methodic dexterity, it was effective.<br /><br /><em><strong>Serenade </strong>(choreographed by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Balanchine">George Balanchine</a>®, set to Tchaikovsky’s 'Serande for Strings in C major' (op.48)<br /></em><br />First off I should say that the Mariinsky’s <a href="http://www.mariinsky.ru/en/orchestra/conductors/bubelnikov">Pavel Bubelnikov </a>conducted (their?) orchestra beautifully and it was as though I heard this piece – which I know well – for the first time.<br /><br />My program notes included:<br /><br />- “Balanchine – <em>it’s all about the fingertips</em>!” – well yes, he put great store in the way the dancer use the tips of the fingers and, indeed, the <em>placement</em> of the feet. Slightly artsy, but nice.<br /><br />- The principal hero: “<em>walks like a cat</em>” – not sure that’s a hugely meaningful <em>insight</em> into the dancing of <a href="http://www.mariinsky.ru/en/ballet/soloist/firsov">Denis Firsov </a>but, yes he does<br /><br />- In the <em>Elegie</em>, which in this balletic presentation of this music is what they end on (reversing it, in the actual order of the Tchaikovsky piece, with the ‘<em>Tema Russo’</em>), there’s a sort of <em>apotheosis</em> moment, with one ballerino and two ballerinas. This includes the wonderful <a href="http://www.mariinsky.ru/en/ballet/soloist/terioshkina">Viktoria Tereshkina </a>(I think, I don’t know the Mariinsky cast by sight the way I do of the Bolshoi’s). I just loved the way one ballerina stands behind the ballerino and just uses her arms and, suddenly, he <em>is</em> a flying angel.<br /><br />I was also struck how the Mariinsky cast seemed larger, stronger than the Bolshoi cast for this piece and so I perceived <em>Serenade</em> as being much less limply, <em>chocolate-boxey</em> than previously I have judged it. On this showing, it *is* done better by the Mariinsky than the Bolshoi (controversial, but <em>c'est la vie</em>).<br /><br /><br /><em><strong><a href="http://cndanza.mcu.es/English/erepertorio/einvitados/in_the_middle_somewhat_elevated_e.htm">In the Middle, somewhat elevated</a></strong> (choreographed by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Forsythe_%28dancer%29">William Forsythe</a>, set to [the then young] <a href="http://thom-willems.artistes.universalmusic.fr/">Thom Willems’ </a>piece of the same name)</em><br /><br />- <em>horrible</em> music! Migraine inducing. Not played by an orchestra, but from tape, we are reminded that the Bolshoi New Stage’s sound engineer should be <em>stripped</em> naked, <em>thrown</em> into the snow and <em>horse-whipped</em>. The <em>architecture</em> of the electronic sound scheme at the New Stage is piss-poor and the speakers kind of <em>slam</em> the music into you.<br /><br />Actually, heard from the Net, the music sounds much better than what we had to endure on Monday night. Willems and Forsythe are long-term collaborators but I am not sure that the poor sound-staging demonstrated Willems at his best on Monday.<br /><br />- <strong>BUT</strong> as “a piece of art” (as a colleague, who also happened to be there that night, said to me), it is quite spectacular. The Soviet style of ballet is very strong, almost athletic, and this is a piece requiring the enormous physical strength of all the performers and suits dancers brought up on the choreography, and under the artistic dictatorship, of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yury_Grigorovich">Yuri Grigorovich</a>)<br /><br />- Lead <a href="http://www.mariinsky.ru/en/ballet/soloist/lobukhin">Mikhail Lobukhin</a> was <em>Herculean</em> in this piece and his body produces taut <em>counterbalance-and-pully</em> for his ballerinas, before effortlessly segueing into <em>limpid</em> fluidity. He has that slightly cocky, but beguiling, mixture of graceful elegance, passion and raw <em>attitude</em>, that reminds me of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Nureyev">Nureyev</a> at his best.<br /><br />This piece stayed with me for several days after I saw it. There are several extracts and versions of it on YouTube.<br /><br />All glory to YouTube, there’s a short exert of the piece nicely introduced by the UK’s now sadly retired prima ballerina, Darcey Bussell. I never saw her dance live… (<em>sniffs). </em>It's been blocked from embedding, but you can find it <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfUGSeZij98">here</a>.<br /><br /><br /><em><strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Awakening_of_Flora">Le Réveil de Flore</a></strong> (choreographed by the great <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marius_Petipa">Marius Petipa</a>, the ‘father of all ballet’, set to a piece of the same name by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riccardo_Drigo">Riccardo Drigo</a>)<br /></em><br />I am not a huge fan of this sort of ballet, but the home crowd laps it up. It is, though, a fine example of high classical ballet, and the Mariinsky does it extremely well. Personally, I think it has more <em>camp</em> than a tribe of Bedouin, but that’s just me.<br /><br />Ripped from YouTube (and captured by someone naughty who recorded the Mariinsky illicitly – I don’t approve <em>per se</em>, but it is sure <em>useful</em> for these posts) is the opening (and the YouTuber has some useful notes on the ballet actually, if you double-click on the link to the original YouTube page):<br /><br /><object height="355" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/phM1sfG1x-M&rel=1"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/phM1sfG1x-M&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object><br /><br />While not a <em>triumph</em>, it was a successful exhibition night for the Mariinsky. Artistically, I am not sure the Bolshoi is yet quaking in its boots, but in terms of technique, one is reminded that even the mighty Bolshoi has better not be complacent. The Mariinsky demonstrated technical excellence on Monday.Etienne du Clé http://www.blogger.com/profile/06490468791202865582noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8143984300342132882.post-49394555196610204782008-02-26T02:06:00.001+03:002008-02-28T06:14:40.717+03:00Advance Notice (warning): It is going to be Russian ballet week on 'Moscow Rules'... because we are in the middle of the <a href="http://www.goldenmask.ru/eng/">Golden Mask festival</a>.<br /><br />I have a backlog of postings.<br /><br />I am trying to edit a post on <em>'The Seagull / Chaika'</em> I saw last Friday, at the <a href="http://www.stanislavskymusic.ru/">Stanislavski-Nemirovich-Danchenko</a>. The draft post is called "<em>De-coding the choreography: sex, death and Chekhov in the ballet of John Neumeier</em>". Truly, Kids, it'll be worth the wait... LOL!<br /><br />I also want to review the Mariinsky performance at the Bolshoi tonight. How was it? Well, as they say in my part of Italy: "cosi, cosa... <em>cosici"</em><br /><em></em><br />Some of it reminded the world St Petersburg is very intellectual, <em>natch.</em> Some of it, though, reminded us that St Petersburg hasn't had a compelling, new idea since 1932... <em>Anyway...</em><br /><em></em><br />Below is the Mariinsky's equivalent of the Bolshoi's <em>In the Upper Room </em>(I have written about the latter endlessly on this blog, so use the search function!): <em>In the Middle, somewhat elevated.</em> Of more to be written later this week.<br /><br /><object height="355" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/vHCUpEEqPSU&rel=1"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/vHCUpEEqPSU&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object><br /><br /><em>(Piece from Russia's Kultura TV)</em><br /><br />PS: And <em>tonight </em>via YouTube I learn that Andrey Merkuriev - one of the Bolshoi principal soloists I most admire, only joined 2 years ago from the Mariinsky. I learned it because he is in the YouTube snipplet I have included by way of teaser (this is about 1/4 of the way through the piece).Etienne du Clé http://www.blogger.com/profile/06490468791202865582noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8143984300342132882.post-89773333468477267242008-02-21T21:53:00.006+03:002008-02-21T22:55:23.646+03:00Why Russia is right to feel the sky may fall in on its head<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm-6n-A7VE-jYzNLd_ZBtsmJqQCJHsw475EAK21Gt5g39YyM9wwMGfOapovgaoPS7DL1u0gyZmwjeq7PmFoutN2nLHgIcsYqLciKT5EACGkpQFl_KbrLJfb7cLuArcbU9PRXt04wEUlHF8/s1600-h/Space+wars+gif.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5169515321057030002" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm-6n-A7VE-jYzNLd_ZBtsmJqQCJHsw475EAK21Gt5g39YyM9wwMGfOapovgaoPS7DL1u0gyZmwjeq7PmFoutN2nLHgIcsYqLciKT5EACGkpQFl_KbrLJfb7cLuArcbU9PRXt04wEUlHF8/s320/Space+wars+gif.jpg" border="0" /></a>As you may have noticed, it has all gone a bit <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlestar_Galactica"><em>Battlestar Galactica</em> </a>in the world right now. <a href="http://russianforces.org/blog/2008/02/usa_193_intercept.shtml">Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces </a>blog is the hero of the hour, for nuclear holocaust <em>hobbyists</em> and those playing catch-up alike. Just brilliant.<br /><br />Russia understandably <a href="http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5glO8NOCFzDgV7U_hdEkpXxjgrx8Q">kicks off a storm </a>because, for all the post-Soviet rearmament rhetoric, the Russian space program is not what it wants it to be. Also, the Russian nuclear ICBM targeting system is satellite-dependent of course. <em>Ivan-Ivanovich</em> has some nice big, shiny, <em>glow-in-the-dark</em>, new city-killers – all of which are absolutely <em>useless</em> if, suddenly, the forefront of <em>big boys’ war</em> really moves into space.<br /><br />Because remember:<br /><br />- 1.5 million men under arms is irrelevant given that every play-book on the planet assumes that military conflict with Russia goes nuclear within the first 24-hours<br />- And 1.1 million of those men are sullen conscripts of uncertain efficacy, maybe <em>over 25% of which</em> even the most optimistic Russian commander reckons are utterly useless<br /><br />No military satellites = Russia left defenseless. That’s the simple, brutal truth.<br /><br />IMHO, Russia *<em>talks</em>* anti-US/NATO threats to Russian territory, but this is misdirection. It is just simply incomprehensible that NATO would ever be the aggressor; even if Moscow bombed Tbilisi (which I think will happen, anyway). <div><div><div><div></div><br /><div><em><span style="color:#ffcc66;">But </span></em>China decides to invade east of the Urals? That is what the Kremlin really (rightly) fears, says I, one day hence. Russia is making way too much money out of the Chinese market right now to say so publicly, but it fears its eastern neighbour; just as the EU/NATO fears its, in turn. <img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5169511197888425826" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiodt7waepZaFpRumlKBBECtJbwGzo6QMZMOiXvWeTQ2n1dJB2R1FksYDA0LPFCGrlnw18-AYPsxsoG2WgnHsaHNu1YgWibQpcEDZukvehb0vre9QpU6BjKJcrgB_EO7NqldgWrU6bSR_43/s400/water.jpg" border="0" /> <em>Why would China do that?</em><br /><br />For China, finding fresh water is, by far, the biggest macro-political, or rather, <a href="http://www.wilsoncenter.org/topics/pubs/popwawa2.pdf"><span style="color:#ff0000;"><strong>civilization</strong></span> risk </a>it faces. Oh yes – on just a “<em>where is our fresh water</em>” scenario – that has to be a meaningful statistical possibility that between now <em>(OK, not 'now', but 'five minutes into the as-yet-unembraced future') </em>and 2040 a desperate China seeing a demographically weak Russia just goes for land east of the Urals. And killing Russia's military saltellites is how they start to do it. Moscow knows that. This is what military planning is all about (and why it is so cool). You issue press statements attacking Washington DC, knowing Beijing <em>gets the message too.</em><br /><br /><span style="color:#33ff33;"><em>PS:</em></span> What I heard last Friday, from a St Pete’s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silovik"><em><span style="color:#33ff33;">Siloviki</span></em> </a>clansman, in serious state employ, was 100% the <a href="http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2008/02/21/001.html">complete opposite of the Moscow Times front page today</a>. I shall – at risk of (more) ridicule – make this prediction: <em>Mayor Luzhkov will retire by the end of 2008</em>.<br /><br /><span style="color:#33ff33;">PPS:</span> I <a href="http://www.wilsoncenter.org/topics/pubs/popwawa2.pdf">posted before </a>– actually, if I may say so within 8 hours of its release I think - about the Obama/YouTube song that may well be (wrongly) described in history as the zeitgeisty turning point in his campaign.<br /><br /><em>Don'tchajustluv</em> this spoof? Pure, adulterated and wicked, splendid genius. I cried laughing:</div><div></div><div><br /><object height="355" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/3gwqEneBKUs&rel=1"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><br /><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/3gwqEneBKUs&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object><br /><br /><em><span style="color:#33ff33;">PPPS:</span></em> Apropos my last post, my long-suffering employer points out that, <em>au contraire</em>, in the event of <em>crash-evac</em> a private plane would have been guaranteed for me but, since <em><span style="color:#ff9900;">“you are always prattling on in your blog about <a href="http://redexile.blogspot.com/2007/03/whole-flying-thingit-really-sucks.html">your fear of flying</a>, we thought you would actually appreciate going overland! And - hello? - you’ve also <a href="http://redexile.blogspot.com/2007/11/help-or-ak47-is-just-phone-call-away.html">blogged before about the wonderful security service </a>we generously provide you”.</span></em><br /><br />Point taken. They’re <em>lovely</em>. I'm indulged. Now feel like spoilt selfish <em>git</em>. Also must stop writing like male <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridget_Jones">Bridget Jones</a>. <em>That ship may have sailed...</em></div></div></div></div>Etienne du Clé http://www.blogger.com/profile/06490468791202865582noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8143984300342132882.post-62625396728679846412008-02-19T22:02:00.001+03:002008-02-19T22:41:57.979+03:00Another reason to remain cheerful about Russia<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0DBHD6flGeqtkd6dKDeBIWAJpp34UE0TLpEg2mQ5moSHRPLeD-JMvyL-AuEF-qQW4PQ_C9XyysQmGYw7M09NV9Osa0jEsuMi36jNoUfVXbUeI7KDKiPjhWaN83Y9XAcYHE7jaFZT-UwWb/s1600-h/Happy+Putin.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5168776122825649970" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 130px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 113px" height="137" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0DBHD6flGeqtkd6dKDeBIWAJpp34UE0TLpEg2mQ5moSHRPLeD-JMvyL-AuEF-qQW4PQ_C9XyysQmGYw7M09NV9Osa0jEsuMi36jNoUfVXbUeI7KDKiPjhWaN83Y9XAcYHE7jaFZT-UwWb/s400/Happy+Putin.jpg" width="149" border="0" /></a> Yesterday a colleague emailed me:<br /><br />“<span style="color:#ffcc33;"><em>[the client’s] CEO was shot (but not killed) last week, so the [deal] is a bit postponed</em></span> <strong><span style="color:#ff9900;">:(</span></strong> ”<br /><br />(<em>I think adding the emoticon is a nice finishing touch, don’t you?</em>)<br /><br />This one line email gave me a bit of a boost as:<br /><br />- The guy <em>lived</em>, right?<br />- It has been ages since a client of mine has been shot; years in fact, which illustrates that the so-called <em>Wild, Wild East</em> is becoming a normal business environment just like everywhere else (<em>oh yes! Brittle smile</em>… )<br /><br />In fact, this email came from our <em>Kyiv</em> office, which is an even more important reason to be cheerful for Russians therefore. No nasty shootings with our Russian clients, <em>oh no</em>! But in <em>touchy-feely, oh-so-democratic</em> Ukraine? Um… <em>business-by-bullet</em> is still occasionally an issue there.<br /><br />Probably there is no more eloquent testimony to President Putin’s success in bringing order and safety to Russia than the fall in the numbers of (intentional) corporate killings. And when it happens, it’s screamed from the front pages and everyone is very shocked. Actually I bet business-by-bullet is more common in the USA than here…<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMGap3aNLxjQlokxpEw61V3GhOqIczOmCMHyfuCwuGqaSHZ3GpY4OX_ZKKHKLRLZGPaO3E-OZVph6HNvNzC4LfGBeuGrm_Tjn_x2-JDx7_eKlec1EbyTXYE0E9AXVX4f19BLuq2-bL25s3/s1600-h/uzipistol_b.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5168775500055392034" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMGap3aNLxjQlokxpEw61V3GhOqIczOmCMHyfuCwuGqaSHZ3GpY4OX_ZKKHKLRLZGPaO3E-OZVph6HNvNzC4LfGBeuGrm_Tjn_x2-JDx7_eKlec1EbyTXYE0E9AXVX4f19BLuq2-bL25s3/s200/uzipistol_b.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />PS: the actual story of who shot the client and how, is… <em>er</em>… very funny, but there is no way I can repeat it here. Just suffice it to say long-liquid-lunches and an <a href="http://www.israeli-weapons.com/weapons/small_arms/uzi/Uzi-Pistol.html">Uzi-semi </a>don’t mix: as ‘props’, to make a point in a post-lunch debate, they are more ruinous than rhetorical.<br /><br />Actually, come to think of it, our ‘track record’ is pretty good here. Racking my brains I don’t think we’ve lost anyone ‘on-the-job’/client-wise due to corporate hits; excluding, a tad before my time, an incident in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_(country)">Georgia</a>.<br /><br />There, I think, the client CFO was murdered and we instigated, for our people, a <em>‘crash-evac’</em> (as one past employer of mine called them); or fast extraction. You know the drill: beefy body-guards, armour-plated fast cars, private plane… <em>Damn</em>! Very cool…<br /><br />Well, at least that is how a previous employer conceptualized the process. Not sure about my current one though (bus timetable and overnight train to Finland is perhaps more likely if trouble came my way… and I would have to buy the bus ticket).<br /><br />Other than "<em>shots fired!"</em> (a shoot-out by my chauffered-Merc) in Kazakhstan, in the 1990s’ aluminium wars – advice that day to me from then British Ambassador: “<em>We cannot guarantee your safety and we recommend you leave the country. Today please, if you can</em>.” - and lock-down / petrol bombs in Haiti, my life has actually been rather sadly suburban.<br /><br />Although there was the anonymous delivery of a ‘black silk mourning’ tie to my office on my arrival – just weeks after I shafted a well-known Russian oil company on a big deal in Turkey – and a petrol-bombing in my elitny street, one summer’s night. But, hey, that happens everywhere, right?<br /><br />Favourite word of the day? <span style="color:#ffcc33;">ДЕМШИЗА </span>– Demshiza; a nice <em>mélange</em> of democrat and schizophrenic. It’s what United Russia-types call the <a href="http://www.theotherrussia.org/">pro-Kasparov loons</a>. Seemingly, <a href="http://seansrussiablog.org/2008/02/17/kasparov-sues-nashi-for-his-honor/">with cause</a>.Etienne du Clé http://www.blogger.com/profile/06490468791202865582noreply@blogger.com0