Posted on 04/25/2006 1:38:27 PM PDT by neverdem
The Business of Russia | Putin's Long Reach
KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia — Here in the Caucasus, above Sochi, Russia's only subtropical city, an elite ski resort is rising beside the Layura River. The resort, a multimillion-dollar project with a hotel and conference center, cottages, six lifts and miles of trails, is a centerpiece of Sochi's improbable bid for the Winter Olympic Games of 2014.
Even more improbable is the project's developer: Russia's state gas monopoly, Gazprom.
Gazprom is a vast and powerful energy giant, a company now worth more than $240 billion, having gained $10 billion in value in one week in April alone. Ranked by the value of its stock, Gazprom is the fifth-largest corporation in the world, having in the last year leaped over Wal-Mart, Toyota and Citigroup. Its executives vow to make it the biggest.
It has become something else, too: the leading model of a new Russian capitalism that has emerged since President Vladimir V. Putin came to power in 2000. It is an economic system increasingly built around huge state-owned or state-directed companies that are open to investors' dollars and euros but remain tightly controlled, like much else here in business and politics, by Mr. Putin's Kremlin.
As the project at Krasnaya Polyana shows, Gazprom is not just a lucrative state-owned monopoly, but also a powerful instrument of Kremlin policy at home and abroad. It has undertaken an array of projects that have little to do with its stated corporate interests, but much to do with politics — from bidding for the Olympics to buying up independent media, from sustaining unprofitable farms to subsidizing Russian industries with cheap energy.
It has also been at the center of Russia's foreign policy, used as a cudgel in recent disputes over gas prices with Ukraine and other neighbors...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The chinese government, Cuba, North KOrea, and Venezuela do this as well.
bttt
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From time to time, I’ll ping on noteworthy articles about politics, foreign and military affairs. FReepmail me if you want on or off my list.
ping
excellent post
just 21st Century Kossacks...
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