Is it a real crisis?
Posted on October 18, 2008 - Filed Under Economy, Russia | Leave a Comment
I must admit that I have seen this financial crisis unfold. I have had mixed feelings. On one hand, I have not lost any sleep over giant banks and rich financiers loosing some of their clout and some of their money. Also it is good for the poor that oil prices are falling. On the [...]
The Arctic is heating up
Posted on August 24, 2008 - Filed Under Arctic, Canada, Norway, Russia, USA | 2 Comments
No, I’m not talking about climate change. Even though I obviously could have, the North West passage is open again this year. No, I’m talking about the international scramble to grab land (read sea bottom) in the Arctic. The United Nations Law of the Sea gives all the countries around the Arctic bassin until 2014 [...]
Protestant ethics in Russia?
Posted on July 16, 2008 - Filed Under Russia | Leave a Comment
The russiablog.org had a very interesting post by Nikolai N. Petro today. He argues that the young people have a stronger weberian protestant ethic than you find in Western Europe. Wikipedia quotes Max Weber as having written: In order that a manner of life well adapted to the peculiarities of the capitalism… could come to [...]
Arkhangelsk, maybe the last time?
Posted on July 15, 2008 - Filed Under Russia | Leave a Comment
This is just to give you a short update. The Barents Observer writes that the recount in Arkhangelsk must be a falsification. They report a rusnord.ru saying that News site Rusnord.ru has however approached the leaders of the ballot stations, all people with extensive experiences from former elections. They all underline that the original results [...]
Archangelsk election – once more
Posted on June 5, 2008 - Filed Under Russia | 1 Comment
The mayoral election in Archangelsk is over. I must admit I was somewhat surprised that Larisa Bazanova won the election with 37,55% of the vote against the governors candidate 37,41%. Read more about the five candidates here. Put my puzzelment was soon over. The votes are recounted and Viktor Pavlenko was declared winner. No big [...]
Russia increases export duties – thats smart
Posted on May 24, 2008 - Filed Under Economy, Russia | Leave a Comment
The Russian Federation has increased the export duties on timber. This shows that the Russian government has understood a few basic about the economy that most of western and Norwegian economists has allowed to be forgotten.The forgotten lesson is that no country can get rich by exporting raw materials and importing finished goods. This is [...]
Fewer poor Russians
Posted on May 21, 2008 - Filed Under Russia | Leave a Comment
The BarentsObserver reports that the number of poor Russians are decreasing. This is very good news. Still more than 13 percent of Russians are living for less than 4005 rubels a month. That equals 170 US dollars or 840 Norwegian kroner. This is not much at a time when foodprices are soaring. Until the first of [...]
Five alike
Posted on May 13, 2008 - Filed Under Russia | 1 Comment
What is the most special thing about the upcoming mayoral election in Archangels? You could not guess? Five of the candidates have the same name. They are all called Sergei Moiseev. One could of course speculate how this may come about. The fact is that one of the Sergeis is a strong candidate, and a [...]