Russian orthodox church offered to create patrol units, which would help police to keep the public order on the streets. This goes in line with a their general militant stance: a couple of years ago some orthodox priests were protesting against gays and you can often see them marching together with nationalists at parades.


(photo by Kommersant>

If you haven't read Sorokin's latest book "Sakharny Kreml" ("Sugar Kremlin") – you should. He's writing about Russian in 20 years time where the modern technology fuses with barbaric medieval customs reminiscent of Ivan the Terrible times. If the Russian church was given all the freedom it wanted I'm pretty sure Sorokin's stories wouldn't seem so fantastic.

Several newspapers today announced that Obama posted his first internet video address on YouTube, thus heralding the era of the new "digital" government.

Surprisingly enough, the Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has started doing exactly same thing already a month ago. If you go to the Kremlin site you can see all three addresses translated in English.



However, does it really mean that the government worldwide is becoming more "transparent"?

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I don't really understand how Interbrand measures the brand value. I'm not sure if it is significant tool but this is valuable info for those who are interested in Russian market. Telecom is the only industry which was naturally created in aftersoviet time, without acquiring the state property. It is noticeable, that all three leaders of the industry are in the top 10. And we have only two oil companies there. Cool.

So, top 10 Russian brands in terms of value, 2008 (Interbrand, usd bln.)

1. Beeline, telecom, $7.4
2. MTS, telecom, $6.9
3. Baltika, beer, $2.4
4. LukOil, oil, $1.1
5. Rosneft, oil, $0.8
6. Megafon, telecom, $0.6
7. Sberbank, fiinance, $0.4
8. Alfa bank, finance, $0.38
9. Pyaterochka, retail, $0.35
10. NTV, media, $0.33

Logo of Beeline

Yesterday I walked down the river and noticed that water-level is higher then usual and I remembered that it’s storm-cone today. Storm-cone, it’s something about sailors, seas and Moby-Dicks. I don’t know how it is in real port-cities, but in St Pete you don’t really feel that port near is that ships come and drunken sailors are looking for cheap bordello. But, probably, I have to get to the port or, least, go to the seaside at Primorskaya metro station and watch the Bay, ships and lights of Kronstadt.
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