Ever come across something so brilliant you wish you had thought of it yourself? Well that's what Seth Hettena has just put together, via sourcing from Vedomosti: an aggregation of the preferred timepieces worn by high-level Russian officialdom as a possible proxy for corruption. There are several questions raised from this little survey, not the least of which is: to those of you contending that Igor Sechin is the real master string-puller, I ask you, have you considered Moscow's Deputy Mayor Vladimir Resin? More importantly, could any of these men hold it together under the mind-bending microscope of Vesper Lynd?

A partial list of who prefers which wristwatch:

Vladimir Putin: Blancpain, Leman Aqualung Grande Date, $10,500

Dmitry Medvedev: Breguet, Classique Moon

...

TODAY: Did Clinton get what she wanted?; media reports possible silence for sanctions deal; START treaty progress.  Georgia accused of abetting al-Qaida; Putin 'satisfied' with job.  German official castigates Medvedev for investigation into Stalin-researching historian; the man of steel's grandson loses battle with newspaper; psychological perils of police force and military; mafia boss funeral. According to the Moscow Times, Hillary Clinton received a 'cool welcome' from Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the crucial issue of sanctions on Iran, with Russia still resisting.  Clinton apparently 'brave-faced' it, saying, 'we did not ask for anything today. We reviewed the situation', and added 'Russia has been extremely co-operative in the work we have done together'.  Reports have circulated that the ...

Reuters has a feature on the nanotechnology surge; Rusnano head Anatoly Chubais sees the crisis as an opportunity to drive the economy away from oil and gas.  Chubais has apparently said that Russia's Moscow Bank may create an innovation market that would have a trading floor the equivalent of Nasdaq.  Bloomberg reports on how the collapse in oil and gas prices has pushed Vladimir Putin towards economic reform.  Rushydro is looking for a 10-year, $234.7 million loan to pay for some of the repairs to the Sayano-Shushenskaya power plant.  Truck maker Kamaz intends to establish two joint ventures with US company Case New Holland.  To prevent the ruble from strengthening and assist exporters, Russia's central bank reportedly bought between $750 million and $1 billion in foreign currency yesterday.  Billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov is quoted in the Moscow ...

TODAY: Third anniversary of the killing of Anna Politkovskaya; Kadyrov wins his lawsuit against Memorial, launches another.  Gay marriage bid rejected; critical posters displayed around Moscow.  Medvedev gets his new speech writer; no independence recognition trade-off with Turkey; Russia denies its scientists are helping Iran with bomb.Three years on from the slaying of Anna Politkovskaya, Novaya Gazeta editor Sergei Sokolov says that new suspects have emerged in the murder case.  Russia has denied visas to two members of Reporters without Borders, who planned a trip to Russia for the anniversary of the journalist's death.  The move has been criticized by her son Ilya Politkovskaya.  K. Anthony Appiah in the Washington Post laments the fact that in Russia ...

TODAY: Lavrov keeps eagle eye on Georgia; Netanyahu's fears about Russian rogue scientists; Chubais takes the fall for hydropower plant disaster.  Litvinenko widow despairs over apparent British moves towards rapprochement.  Luzhkov-Baturina to take Nemtsov to court. UN report pessimistic on Russia's demographic decline; Ban Ki-moon voices approval for ecological care.According to the Moscow Times, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says that Russia will survey shipping in the Black Sea to monitor Georgian 'provocations' which are a 'serious concern'.  Jorg Himmelreich in the International Herald Tribune suggests that much analysis of last year's Georgia-Russia conflict has overlooked the crucial matter of President Bush's Georgia policy.  Spokesman Andrei Nesterenko says that he believes that the ratification of the Lisbon treaty would benefit ...

The Moscow Times reports that the government spent $10.7 billion of the state budget on fighting the financial crisis in the first six months of the year.  A Russian-Indian project to build a titanium factory in east India has been jeopardized by a shareholder dispute.  Telephone tycoon Yevgeny Chichvarkin, who is exiled in Britain, says he may set up a business there, 'maybe something in the service industry'.  The former Yevroset chairman says he has no fear of the charges held against him in Russia and does not plan to return until it becomes 'a free country'.  The ex-President of Avtovaz, Boris Alyoshin, will become an adviser to the Director General of Rostekhnologii.  Booming retailer Magnit will sell 11.2 million new shares to help finance expansion plans.  Russia's airline industry saw passenger numbers fall ...

...And 70,000 "Enemies of the People" Grigory Pasko, journalist Если Вы хотите прочитать оригинал данной статьи на русском языке, нажмите сюда. On the internet you can find even today a list of enemies of the Russian people. I write the word "enemies" without quotation marks, just like it’s written on the site. It was written long ago: this list has been hanging there since the year 2005. Three years it’s been there. And it doesn’t appear to bother any one within the power. The list was prepared by a former (at that time – current) State Duma deputy, a certain Kuryanovich. On the list are 100 people: politicians, journalists, human rights advocates… Boris Yeltsin, Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Nemtsov, Irina Hakamada, Yegor Gaidar, Anatoly Chubais, Sergey Kovalev, Svetlana Gannushkina… The journalists Latynina, Minkin, Radzikhovsky, Panyushkin. ...

Or perhaps I should say Igor Sechin has just added another job to his long list of government portfolios and extremely profitable business perks. Today it was announced that the silovik grand wizard has been nominated to the board of electricity trader Inter RAO - which fulfills his longtime dream of getting his foot in the door of Russia's electricity game. As many of you recall, Sechin was eagerly tossing monkey wrenches into the privatization process of UES, the country's public utility, overseen by Anatoly Chubais, who surprisingly was successful in fending him off (very, very few people in Russian business can say something like that). After Rosneft failed in its lawsuit to block the reorganization of TGK-11, Sechin appears to have intelligently waited until the privatization was complete in order to get into Inter. As his ...

This is a very sad day for Russian democracy as one of the leading opposition parties, the Union of Right Forces, has voted to disband and form another party under the Kremlin's control. The party's decision was pushed by Anatoly Chubais and Leonid Gozman, who said that "Some people say you have no moral right to make deals with these people in the Kremlin after what they have done. But if you want to make change in your country, you can't ignore the reality, and the reality is the Kremlin of Putin. I don't like the reality, but that doesn't change it." As may be expected, the disbanding of the party is fiercely opposed by Boris Nemtsov and Nikita Belykh. Perhaps the most preposterously naive quote from this story comes from Olga Kryshtanovskaya, who thinks that this new state controlled party could eventually take on a ...

This is a very sad day for Russian democracy as one of the leading opposition parties, the Union of Right Forces, has voted to disband and form another party under the Kremlin's control. The party's decision was pushed by Anatoly Chubais and Leonid Gozman, who said that "Some people say you have no moral right to make deals with these people in the Kremlin after what they have done. But if you want to make change in your country, you can't ignore the reality, and the reality is the Kremlin of Putin. I don't like the reality, but that doesn't change it." As may be expected, the disbanding of the party is fiercely opposed by Boris Nemtsov and Nikita Belykh. Perhaps the most preposterously naive quote from this story comes from Olga Kryshtanovskaya, who thinks that this new state controlled party could eventually take on a ...