Yeeeeah it’s been awhile…skipped posting this for a few weeks, but honestly there hasn’t been much Russia-related news (on topics that I’m interested in, anyways).

Energy:
Russia Approves Divisive Pipeline Plan
A controversial plan to build a major oil pipeline passing within half a mile of Siberia’s Lake Baikal, the world’s largest freshwater lake, was approved by a Russian government regulatory agency Monday.
The decision followed a review process that environmentalists and some Russian experts involved in assessing the route say was marked by manipulation of an expert panel and political pressure on dissenting scientists.

Russia to Stake on the Shelf
Russia’s Natural Resources Ministry is to submit the long-awaited draft strategy on research and development of oil and gas reserves of the Russian continental shelf by 2020 to the Government today. The blueprint maintains that putting €1 billion budget funds into works on the shelf and opening fields for investments, the state will be able to produce up to 10 million metric tons of oil and 30 billion cu. meters of gas by 2010, or over 95 million tons of oil and at least 150 billion cu. meters of gas – by 2020.

U.S. Banker to Become Vice President at Rosneft

RUSSIA PLEDGES TO UPHOLD GLOBAL ENERGY SECURITY

Russia’s energy giant with a split personality
The crisis shocked the European Union into drawing up plans for a new common energy policy, which José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission President, will present to Moscow on Friday. It also exposed an identity crisis at the heart of Russia’s largest company and the world’s biggest gas producer.
On the one hand, Aleksei Miller, Gazprom’s chief executive, says that he wants to turn the company into a global energy giant like BP or ExxonMobil. On the other, Gazprom has become the Kremlin’s favourite tool for controlling Russia’s population and reclaiming the international clout lost when the Soviet Union collapsed. Vladimir Putin wrote as much in an academic journal in 1999 — the year before he became President. The State should use the country’ s natural resources, he argued, to ensure “Russia’s emergence from its deep crisis and restoration of its former power”.

Russia as an ‘unpredictable’ petro-state
When he first arrived in Paris in 2000 as Russia’s newly elected President, Vladimir Putin had a simple and reassuring message. “I am bringing you what you need most: a stable and guaranteed source of energy. My oil and my gas will not be cheaper than supplies coming from the Middle East, but they will be much more secure.”

His implicit point was that ‘Christian energy’, even if ‘Orthodox’, would be more reassuringly certain than ‘Muslim energy’ for a western world jittery about stability in the Middle East.

Gazprom Finds Key to Market of Canada
Gazprom has determined a partner to construct a liquefied natural gas plant near St. Petersburg. It is Canadian Petro-Canada, which is expected to provide to Gazprom a part of its re-gasification facilities in Quebec and grant access to the markets of Quebec and Ontario.

TRANS-CASPIAN EXPORT OPTION NOW AVAILABLE TO CPC COMPANIES IN KAZAKHSTAN
The timing for a definitive commitment by Astana is made even more propitious and perhaps compelling by Moscow-laid obstacles to the planned expansion of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) pipeline. Built by Western oil companies as members of the CPC consortium, the pipeline runs from Tengiz and other onshore Kazakh oilfields to Russia’s Black Sea port Novorossiysk. The Russian government poses extortionate demands to the pipeline’s Western co-owners as a condition to authorizing the line’s expansion on Russian territory. Thus, the involved Western oil-producing companies face the dilemma of submitting to extortion or, alternatively, renouncing the planned expansion, in which case they would have to seek a non-Russian export route for their rapidly rising oil output.

Caspian oil reserves will last but export routes are urgently needed
The region has enormous and largely untapped oil reserves — especially on the eastern shores of the Caspian Sea — which could be made accessible in the future provided an answer was found about an appropriate pipeline network. Can these reserves be brought within the safe and easy reach of the industrialized world?

EU calls on Russia to establish clear conditions for energy security
The European Union’s commissioner in charge of energy policy has called on Russia to open its gas production facilities and pipelines to foreign investors, saying there was an urgent need for major capital investments to expand production and guarantee energy supplies to European markets.
“We really do need an international framework to deal with energy security issues,” the commissioner, Andris Piebalgs, said in Berlin. “It is only when Russia establishes clear conditions for investment that we can speak about energy security.”

Russia as a newborn superpower: Putin as the lord of oil and gas

Russia and Eastern Europe: energy aspect

LUKOIL Targeted at Europe, Asia, Africa

Russia May Drop Energy Charter, Khristenko Said

Etc:
From Russia, a Royal Infatuation That Misses Its Mark
She wanted a prince and a palace.

But a young Russian college student who sent a letter meant for Prince William — as in Prince William, future king of England — royally missed the Zip code. Instead of arriving at Buckingham Palace, the letter reached the Prince William County courthouse in Manassas.

Flowers on the cards for speedy Russian women
Russia – Women drivers in Russia are to be awarded flowers instead of fines for petty traffic offences on International Women’s Day.

Russia Freezes Assets of Jailed Oil Tycoon’s Rights Group
The bank accounts of a foundation led by the imprisoned Russian businessman, Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, were frozen by court order today, the foundation and its bank said, a move that strongly suggests the organization is about to be shut down by the Russian government.

RUSSIAN REACTION TO MILOSEVIC’S DEATH REVEALS RIFT BETWEEN KREMLIN AND THE WEST
The controversy over the death of former Yugoslav strongman Slobodan Milosevic laid bare the deep-seated uneasiness in relations between Russia and the West. The Kremlin appears bent on taking advantage of Milosevic’s demise in the same way it tried to make use of his actions in the past, but what the Russian policymakers are really concerned about are their own political interests.

Putin Prefers to Present Foreign-Made Cars

Moscow’s Lavish, Glittering Nightlife
Moscow is a city riding high on oil money. Now the spending habits of high-rolling Muscovites have spawned some of Europe’s coolest clubs and most lavish restaurants. The owner of Turandot, for instance, former painter and restorer Andrei Dellos, spent $50 million on interior design; it’s the most expensively decorated restaurant in the world.

CHECHNYA ROCKED BY DESERTIONS, SEX SCANDAL

Trust in Russia? With a Grain of Salt.
Clearly not even Moscow, a place teeming with expensive restaurants, malls, gyms, boutiques and other trappings of an oil capital, is immune to panicky buying of basics. Beneath Russia’s growing wealth there seems to be a sense of insecurity.

Two Leaders’ Power Failures
But if power corrupts in the ways suggested by Lord Acton, so can feelings of powerlessness. Stung by terrorist assaults on their homelands, Bush and Putin set out separately to restore executive authority and a national discipline they felt had eroded over time. And they have now pushed efforts to concentrate power to the point of provoking cries of alarm — not only from civil libertarians but also from those within their own political ranks.

A few weeks ago, before I landed my current job, I was joking with some friends that I was going to apply for a position with the WMATA. The WMATA, for all you non-Washingtonians, is the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, which, as you might have guessed from the ridiculously long name, is responsible for rail and bus services within the District of Columbia and parts of Virginia and Maryland.

Now, wouldn’t you know it, but soon after I declared my intentions to apply for a job with WMATA, a WMATA uniform was literally dropped on my doorstep.

Well, kinda.

I rushed off to work this morning, bounded down the stairs and out the door, when I spied a package stuffed with a yellow/orange item sitting on the sidewalk right in front of our house. And then I saw the hat…and it occurred to me that oh-my-god-finders-keepers-losers-weepers, I now had the best Halloween costume in the Washington metropolitan area:

All nice and new, like a Christmas present…oooh

Yep, that’s definitely WMATA issue

Think Safety: Leave your uniform lying in the middle of a sidewalk

I thought it was rather odd that this was in front of my house, seeing as I live three blocks from the nearest metro station. Did an employee lose it on his way to work? Did a newly-hired employee say “screw it” after his first shift of dealing with angry metro riders and decide to toss the uniform? I guess we’ll never know.
Of course, I had to try it on. You know me too well:

Yes, I realize I look like a complete idiot. The vest is huge, and the hat looks especially ridiculous, due to the fact that it’s actually a hard hat disguised as a baseball cap.

I was thinking, though, you could probably have a lot of fun with this vest and hat. Want to get back at all those tourists that are ignorant of metro etiquette?

“You want to go to the White House? Yeah, just take the green line towards Greenbelt and get off at Fort Totten.”

“No, the Smithsonian stop is not where the Smithsonian museums are located. How did you come up with that silly idea?”

“STAND TO THE RIGHT, WALK ON YOUR LEFT.”

“Yes, feel free to eat and drink as much as you would like while on our trains.” (and then watch as the transit police wrestle them to the ground and slap the cuffs on them).

When confusing tourists gets to be a little boring, you can just switch to pissing off the locals:

“Your SmarTrip card isn’t working? MAYBE NEXT TIME YOU SHOULD EXIT PROPERLY YOU IDIOT!”

“WALK, DON’T RUN! There will be another train in 12 minutes. What, you don’t want to wait 12 minutes?”

“WHAT PART OF ‘DOORS CLOSING’ DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND?”

Yeah, a person could have a lot of fun decked out in this costume…not that I would ever think of doing that!

Lots of stories coming out of Chechnya this past week, mainly due to the fact that Yahoo’s Hot Zone journalist Kevin Sites was reporting from the region. His articles are well worth the read, but ignore the comments left by the idiots who couldn’t point out Chechnya on a map if their lives depended on it.

Life Amid the Ruins
The stated purpose of the bombing was to kill or flush out Islamic separatists who were using Grozny as a base for terrorist operations. But here and elsewhere around the world the Russian response was criticized as heavy-handed and punitive.

Grozny, once a thriving industrial center of 600,000 people, has seen its population reduced by half. Most of those who remain live in structures that would be condemned by almost any standard of structural soundness and safety.

Bomb U.
“There were days after we got off the bus,” she says, “that we had to crawl to class because of the shooting. Many of us lost friends in the fighting.”

Grief Without End
Not far from the cemetery, the Beslan school gymnasium has become a kind of shrine to the tragedy. The entire school has been vacated and will be demolished, except for the gymnasium. For now, a plastic roof has been erected where the real one once was, but the shattered walls and windows are open to the winter weather.

Pictures of each of those who died there are attached to the walls. Even now there is a small but constant stream of people leaving flowers, stuffed animals, candles and printed Bible verses on the wooden floor. Basketballs sit in the holes where the militants’ explosive charges blew away deep divots.

War of the Unknowns
“There were icicles forming on the furniture inside,” she says. “We had to bundle up in all of our clothes, and the gas pressure became so low that it was very difficult to cook anything. It would take an hour to boil water for tea. If we started to make soup in the morning, it might be hot enough to eat by nightfall.”
Because there is no running water, the family has to use aluminum pails to collect water from a nearby well in the camp.

But Layla says this winter the well froze, and she had to make a two-hour round trip in the bitter cold to get water from Maiskii village.

The Disappeared
The number 907 is the only link, the only piece of evidence Zara has to her missing 31-year-old son Ruslan.

That same night, she says, Russian security forces surrounded the house and took away her son. She has not seen or heard from him since.

More photos of Grozny

The Soviets did What?!:
Ordered the Pope shooting, apparently

An Italian parliamentary commission has concluded that the former Soviet Union was behind the 1981 assassination attempt on the late Pope John Paul II.

Turkish national Mehmet Ali Agca, now 48, shot the Pope in St Peter’s Square on 13 May 1981, hitting him four times.

Question: Was Tom Clancy’s “Red Rabbit” just translated into Italian?

Putin tours Central Europe:
Hungary to Become Biggest Energy Center in Europe, Putin Vows

Putin with Ferenc Gyurcsány, Prime Minister of Hungary…and Gyurcsány’s dog. Weird photo, eh?

Russia ready to attend Hungarian 1956 revolt anniversary
Russia is prepared to send delegates to events marking the anniversary of the 1956 anti-Soviet uprising in Hungary, President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday.

“If we receive an invitation, Russia will certainly be represented at the events,” Putin said at a meeting with political party leaders of the Hungarian parliament in Budapest.

Russia morally responsible for 1968 invasion: Putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday his country bore a moral responsibility for the 1968 Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia, but stopped short of offering an apology that many Czechs have long sought.

Putin Backs Up Historical Traditions
Putin was pleased with the sausages and most pleased with the mustard.

Putin loves Czech beer…mmm Pilsner Urquell

Energy:
The Window of Opportunity Slides Down on Foreign Investors
The Ministry of Industry and Energy and the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade have conciliated a draft law limiting access by foreign investors to “strategic sectors” of the economy. The Natural Resources Ministry participated by adding amendments to the law on mineral wealth. The presidential administration, FSB and even Federal Guard Service also took part in its drafting. The draft is to be submitted to the administration on March 9. When the law goes into effect, large investment in those strategic sectors and the Russian companies that work in them will be possible only with the approval of the president. It is being called the “one window principle” by the Industry and Energy Ministry.

ROSNEFT EXPANDING ITS ROLE IN KAZAKHSTAN
During the concluding news conference Bogdanchikov told the press that Rosneft is set for a significant expansion of its role in Kazakhstan’s oil extraction and transportation. Before outlining those intentions, Bogdanchikov claimed that Rosneft now holds first place among oil companies worldwide regarding estimated oil reserves. The only certainty about this claim is that Rosneft’s assets grew spectacularly as a result of the destruction of the Yukos company by the Russian state.

WHAT ROLE FOR THE BLACK SEA REGION IN THE EUROPEAN UNION’S ENERGY STRATEGY? Part I and Part II
AS EUROPE EMBRACES ENERGY CONSERVATION, MOSCOW LOOKS TO ASIA’S GROWING DEMAND
Russia has reiterated plans to diversify its oil and natural gas exports with a growing focus on the Asia-Pacific region. In the near future, the main instrument of the Kremlin’s strategy to re-orient hydrocarbon exports from Europe to Asia remains the planned oil pipeline from eastern Siberia to the Pacific Ocean.

Arctic defrost opens resources and divisions
It is covered by thick ice, plunged into darkness for much of the year, and blasted by freezing winds. But the Arctic Ocean is being transformed by global warming from a no-man’s-land into the front line of a scramble for resources. The melting of the ice pack is opening up vast reserves of offshore oil and gas, new shipping routes and fishing grounds, according to experts at the World Economic Forum.

Interest rebounds in Trans-Caspian pipeline for Turkmen gas

Need for Russian gas means Europe has to accept Russia’s political behaviour

Russia struggles with cold and shivers from energy insecurity
European consumers of Russian gas, primarily Italy but also Hungary and Croatia, have experienced a 20 % cut in deliveries, which remains within limits stipulated in their contracts with Gazprom, at the time when their demand has been rising. This crucial insecurity in energy supply is caused primarily by Gazprom’s reluctance to invest in modernization and even proper maintenance of its vast system of pipelines and basic infrastructure of production. The explosion on the strategic pipeline supplying Georgia and Armenia was caused, according to preliminary reports, by “technical reasons,” and is just the most recent evidence of the vulnerability of decaying infrastructure.

The need for energy dialogue – interview with Viktor Khristenko
Russia’s potential leadership in the energy field should be interpreted as “leadership for the sake of security.” In this view, the leading energy power cannot be a country with an economy based solely on export of raw materials and thereby entirely dependent on the world energy market. Nor can it be a highly developed state focusing on technology and trying to become independent from energy production altogether. The leader has to take into consideration the interests of both the suppliers and the consumers. In this case, with regard to world energy security, I think that Russia has sufficient understanding and possesses mechanisms for reducing the risks.

Etc.:
Where did Iraq’s WMDs go? Oh, that’s right, Russia dumped them into the Indian Ocean
Former U.S. undersecretary of defense Gen. John Shaw was the main speaker at the Intelligence Summit conference held in Alexandria, Virginia, a suburb of Washington DC, last week. Current and former employees of 16 U.S. intelligence organizations gathered at that conference. Shaw told those assembled that the Americans were unable to find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq because Russian intelligence agents had removed them shortly before the U.S. invasion began.

According to Shaw, “Operation Emergency Exit” had been ready since Soviet times. In December 2002, former Russian prime minister and then Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Evgeny Primakov flew to Baghdad with former deputy defense minister Vladislav Achalov and former air defense chief of staff Igor Maltsev. Primakov remained in Baghdad until the American invasion in March 2003 and the generals who accompanied him remained even after the invasion began. While they were there, several convoys of trucks were dispatched to Syria. According to Shaw, they carried weapons, and the ingredients and equipment for their manufacture. Two Russian ships departed from the Iraqi port of Umm-Qasr in March 2003 as well and dumped weapons of mass destruction into the Indian Ocean.

LOL!

Russia`s G8 vision by Vladimir Putin (or whichever intern was put in charge of writing it)

Strange City. Thankless Job. Heartless Russian Winter.
Drawn by a bustling consumer economy and a blur of new construction, they lay bricks, hang sheetrock, tile floors, haul crates, lug fruits and vegetables, cut meat and gut fish, wash dishes, mop floors, watch over children and work the low-paying and physically draining jobs that many Russians, released from Soviet servitude, do not want. They often make as little as $15 a day for 12-hour shifts, and then face a city that seems not to welcome their contribution.

TRAGEDY AT MOSCOW MARKET REVEALS XENOPHOBIA AMONG RUSSIAN PUBLIC
…in a public opinion poll conducted by Komsomolskaya pravda newspaper, more than a few people expressed disgust with the labor migrants, using the derogatory term “chornye” (blacks): “We are not animals, but ordinary Muscovites have uninvited guests more than our souls can embrace,” was a typical comment. Other respondents disagreed with Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov’s order to allocate 100,000 rubles (about $3,500) to each family that lost relatives in the accident. As one Moscow resident griped: “It would be better to have this money dispensed to pensioners”

Oh, those Russians:
50-Year-Old Mother Studies Karate to Protect 22-Year-Old Son From Bullies

Russian Parties in Turin Outshine the Competition

Mechanics Remove Grenade From Gas Tank After Russian Driver Complains of Car Malfunctions
In the evening he drove to a service center and complained that his car was rattling. Workers began examining the vehicle and to their surprise found a grenade on a tripwire, which was broken and twisted around a wheel. Fortunately, this “failure” prevented the blast.

Special Forces Prevent Burning Scarecrows of Bush, Putin, Blair in Moscow
Russian Special Forces (OMON) have broken up a show in downtown Moscow in order not to let its participants burn down scarecrows of Russian President Vladimir Putin, U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Ekho Moskvy radio station reported.

Russian Cosmonauts to Play Golf in Orbit
Russian cosmonauts want to hit a golf ball into Earth’s orbit from the International Space Station (ISS). In this case, they would set a record for the longest golf drive ever made.

…and no, it’s not at Office Depot. Smartasses.

I work for a trade association that represents major energy corporations on issues regarding these:

Tomorrow is only my third day there but so far I have really enjoyed it. I won’t be blogging about work at all because a) some D.C. bloggers who do so have a rather poor track record of keeping their jobs, and b) I won’t have entertaining stories a la office supply hell.

So yeah, that’s about it…just wanted to let all of you know that I now have a job…I need to get used to going to bed earlier, though.