The Life of Russian Business

The Life of Russian Business
Author: Tomas Casas i Klett
Publisher: IAP
Total Pages: 319
Release: 2019-01-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1641134526

The mainstream perception of Russian business today is framed by images of wild capitalism and a Dutch-diseased resource-dependent economy with poorly functioning rules and institutions. Despite the continued relevance of these issues in the current environment, readers of this book will discover that business in Russia has undergone a remarkable transformation. Important characteristics of the contemporary Russian business climate include the rise of a new generation of Russian business leaders and entrepreneurs, a variety of innovative and adaptive business strategies developed to respond to the increasingly VUCA world, a confident middle class with significant purchasing power, as well as a surprising level of integration in the world economy, including increasingly with China and its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). These evolving developments have received little attention from researchers and practitioners. This book has been written by Russian experts and thought leaders to address this knowledge gap. The five sections provide a diverse but integrated set of opinion pieces, analyses and cases about Russian business covering markets and macro perspectives, strategy and governance, innovation and entrepreneurship, internationalization and leadership. The aim is to overcome preconceptions by illustrating the underreported and multifaceted nature of the life of Russian business and take the reader closer to what is really happening on the ground. The book contains more than 50 contributions from 54 authors representing opinion leaders in Russia and abroad including prominent academics and businessmen. The Life of Russian Business is aimed at practitioners, policy-makers and educators, as well as those generally interested in Russia. By disseminating state-of-the-art insights on Russian decision-makers and institutions, the book ultimately delivers a well informed and balanced guide for those wishing to participate in Russia’s economy. Endorsements "This book, with its 50 contributions from scholars, thought leaders, entrepreneurs, and business leaders opens a door to Russia’s institutions, management practices and economic potential. The book fills an important gap in the literature and is a must for practitioners of trade and investment along the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Chinese and Asian readers will enjoy the fresh and dynamic stories, the rich detail, and the privileged insights into the present and future of Russia." — Professor Tony Chan, President, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) "In the Russian Federation, the shelf life of inquiries into the country’s business practices and institutions has always been short. This is all the more true for the past 3–5 years, which have seen a series of important changes in Russia’s economic context and structure. This book, which brings together a wide range of expertise and voices, will be useful to readers both in Switzerland and beyond by providing them with up to-date insight into 'the life of Russian business,' covering both the challenges and opportunities." — Yves Rossier, Ambassador to the Russian Federation, Embassy of Switzerland, Moscow

Life on the Russian Country Estate

Life on the Russian Country Estate
Author: Priscilla R. Roosevelt
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 391
Release: 1997-09-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0300072627

Om livet på de russiske godser indtil revolutionen

A Russian Merchant's Tale

A Russian Merchant's Tale
Author: David L. Ransel
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2009
Genre: Business enterprises
ISBN: 0253352363

Based on the rare diary of an 18th-century Russian provincial merchant, A Russian Merchant's Tale presents a revealing portrait of Russia's little-known commercial class. By recording his daily contacts with a wide array of individuals from lords to laborers for more than 40 years, Ivan Alekseevich Tolchënov opened a window onto the education, work, birth, death, marriage, business, civic, holiday, and religious practices of a social group about which little has been known. Using the tools of microhistory to interpret the diary, David L. Ransel vividly brings to life Tolchënov's self-construction, his relations with family and society, and his entire world of aspirations, achievements, and failures. Challenging prevailing stereotypes of Russian merchants as tradition-bound and narrow-minded, A Russian Merchant's Tale offers important new insights into the social history of imperial Russia.

Putin's Kleptocracy

Putin's Kleptocracy
Author: Karen Dawisha
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 464
Release: 2015-09-22
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1476795207

The raging question in the world today is who is the real Vladimir Putin and what are his intentions. Karen Dawisha’s brilliant Putin’s Kleptocracy provides an answer, describing how Putin got to power, the cabal he brought with him, the billions they have looted, and his plan to restore the Greater Russia. Russian scholar Dawisha describes and exposes the origins of Putin’s kleptocratic regime. She presents extensive new evidence about the Putin circle’s use of public positions for personal gain even before Putin became president in 2000. She documents the establishment of Bank Rossiya, now sanctioned by the US; the rise of the Ozero cooperative, founded by Putin and others who are now subject to visa bans and asset freezes; the links between Putin, Petromed, and “Putin’s Palace” near Sochi; and the role of security officials from Putin’s KGB days in Leningrad and Dresden, many of whom have maintained their contacts with Russian organized crime. Putin’s Kleptocracy is the result of years of research into the KGB and the various Russian crime syndicates. Dawisha’s sources include Stasi archives; Russian insiders; investigative journalists in the US, Britain, Germany, Finland, France, and Italy; and Western officials who served in Moscow. Russian journalists wrote part of this story when the Russian media was still free. “Many of them died for this story, and their work has largely been scrubbed from the Internet, and even from Russian libraries,” Dawisha says. “But some of that work remains.”

A Gentleman in Moscow

A Gentleman in Moscow
Author: Amor Towles
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 547
Release: 2017-01-09
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1448135508

The mega-bestseller with more than 2 million readers Soon to be a Showtime/Paramount+ series starring Ewan McGregor as Count Alexander Rostov From the number one New York Times-bestselling author of The Lincoln Highway and Rules of Civility, a beautifully transporting novel about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel 'A wonderful book' - Tana French 'This novel is astonishing, uplifting and wise. Don't miss it' - Chris Cleave 'No historical novel this year was more witty, insightful or original' - Sunday Times, Books of the Year '[A] supremely uplifting novel ... It's elegant, witty and delightful - much like the Count himself.' - Mail on Sunday, Books of the Year 'Charming ... shows that not all books about Russian aristocrats have to be full of doom and nihilism' - The Times, Books of the Year On 21 June 1922, Count Alexander Rostov - recipient of the Order of Saint Andrew, member of the Jockey Club, Master of the Hunt - is escorted out of the Kremlin, across Red Square and through the elegant revolving doors of the Hotel Metropol. Deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the Count has been sentenced to house arrest indefinitely. But instead of his usual suite, he must now live in an attic room while Russia undergoes decades of tumultuous upheaval. Can a life without luxury be the richest of all? A BOOK OF THE DECADE, 2010-2020 (INDEPENDENT) THE TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017 A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017 A MAIL ON SUNDAY BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017 A DAILY EXPRESS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017 AN IRISH TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017 ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S BEST BOOKS OF 2017 ONE OF BILL GATES'S SUMMER READS OF 2019 NOMINATED FOR THE 2018 INDEPENDENT BOOKSELLERS WEEK AWARD

Tolstoy

Tolstoy
Author: Rosamund Bartlett
Publisher: HMH
Total Pages: 581
Release: 2011-11-08
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0547545878

This biography of the brilliant author of War and Peace and Anna Karenina “should become the first resort for everyone drawn to its titanic subject” (Booklist, starred review). In November 1910, Count Lev Tolstoy died at a remote Russian railway station. At the time of his death, he was the most famous man in Russia, more revered than the tsar, with a growing international following. Born into an aristocratic family, Tolstoy spent his existence rebelling against not only conventional ideas about literature and art but also traditional education, family life, organized religion, and the state. In “an epic biography that does justice to an epic figure,” Rosamund Bartlett draws extensively on key Russian sources, including fascinating material that has only become available since the collapse of the Soviet Union (Library Journal, starred review). She sheds light on Tolstoy’s remarkable journey from callow youth to writer to prophet; discusses his troubled relationship with his wife, Sonya; and vividly evokes the Russian landscapes Tolstoy so loved and the turbulent times in which he lived.

Russian Energy Chains

Russian Energy Chains
Author: Margarita M. Balmaceda
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 421
Release: 2021-05-11
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 023155219X

Russia’s use of its vast energy resources for leverage against post-Soviet states such as Ukraine is widely recognized as a threat. Yet we cannot understand this danger without also understanding the opportunity that Russian energy represents. From corruption-related profits to transportation-fee income to subsidized prices, many within these states have benefited by participating in Russian energy exports. To understand Russian energy power in the region, it is necessary to look at the entire value chain—including production, processing, transportation, and marketing—and at the full spectrum of domestic and external actors involved, from Gazprom to regional oligarchs to European Union regulators. This book follows Russia’s three largest fossil-fuel exports—natural gas, oil, and coal—from production in Siberia through transportation via Ukraine to final use in Germany in order to understand the tension between energy as threat and as opportunity. Margarita M. Balmaceda reveals how this dynamic has been a key driver of political development in post-Soviet states in the period between independence in 1991 and Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. She analyzes how the physical characteristics of different types of energy, by shaping how they can be transported, distributed, and even stolen, affect how each is used—not only technically but also politically. Both a geopolitical travelogue of the journey of three fossil fuels across continents and an incisive analysis of technology’s role in fossil-fuel politics and economics, this book offers new ways of thinking about energy in Eurasia and beyond.

How Russia Really Works

How Russia Really Works
Author: Alena V. Ledeneva
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2014-01-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0801470056

During the Soviet era, blat—the use of personal networks for obtaining goods and services in short supply and for circumventing formal procedures—was necessary to compensate for the inefficiencies of socialism. The collapse of the Soviet Union produced a new generation of informal practices. In How Russia Really Works, Alena V. Ledeneva explores practices in politics, business, media, and the legal sphere in Russia in the 1990s—from the hiring of firms to create negative publicity about one's competitors, to inventing novel schemes of tax evasion and engaging in "alternative" techniques of contract and law enforcement. Ledeneva discovers ingenuity, wit, and vigor in these activities and argues that they simultaneously support and subvert formal institutions. They enable corporations, the media, politicians, and businessmen to operate in the post-Soviet labyrinth of legal and practical constraints but consistently undermine the spirit, if not the letter, of the law. The "know-how" Ledeneva describes in this book continues to operate today and is crucial to understanding contemporary Russia.

Red Notice

Red Notice
Author: Bill Browder
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2015-02-03
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1476755752

Freezing Order, the follow-up to Red Notice, is available now! “[Red Notice] does for investing in Russia and the former Soviet Union what Liar’s Poker did for our understanding of Salomon Brothers, Wall Street, and the mortgage-backed securities business in the 1980s. Browder’s business saga meshes well with the story of corruption and murder in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, making Red Notice an early candidate for any list of the year’s best books” (Fortune). “Part John Grisham-like thriller, part business and political memoir.” —The New York Times This is a story about an accidental activist. Bill Browder started out his adult life as the Wall Street maverick whose instincts led him to Russia just after the breakup of the Soviet Union, where he made his fortune. Along the way he exposed corruption, and when he did, he barely escaped with his life. His Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky wasn’t so lucky: he ended up in jail, where he was tortured to death. That changed Browder forever. He saw the murderous heart of the Putin regime and has spent the last half decade on a campaign to expose it. Because of that, he became Putin’s number one enemy, especially after Browder succeeded in having a law passed in the United States—The Magnitsky Act—that punishes a list of Russians implicated in the lawyer’s murder. Putin famously retaliated with a law that bans Americans from adopting Russian orphans. A financial caper, a crime thriller, and a political crusade, Red Notice is the story of one man taking on overpowering odds to change the world, and also the story of how, without intending to, he found meaning in his life.