Business in Russia was not being done like in the West, with contracts. In Russia, hundreds of millions of dollars were going forward and backward by word of mouth.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Lots of businesses built in the early 1990s were not very transparent, not only by Russians, but also by foreigners.
Russia does not have a modern economy: it's a petro-power. The only thing it sells that the world wants to buy is oil and natural gas. When was the last time anyone bought a Russian computer? A Russian car? A Russian cell phone? Russia is so dependent on high energy prices that if oil falls below $100 a barrel, the Kremlin can't meet payroll.
It was always a challenge for me to prove that a Russian financial investor can be as successful in the West as back at home in Russia.
I do not like the idea that a Russian company cannot be successful without Western experience. I think that, at the end of the day, it is a question of bringing benchmarks from other countries. So far, the golden benchmark has been the West.
The way the business things work in Russia is you have to meet people, you have to go through a certain amount of etiquette and business things are done just simply by a shake of the hand and whether they like you or not.
Two decades after communism and the alleged end of the Cold War, Russia is still a cash economy. The preferred currency is dollars, though euros are also acceptable.
From the country with limited hope to grow your own business and express your own personality, Russia has become the land of significant opportunity.
Today's Russia is not to be compared with the Soviet Union of back then.
The Russians often took advantage of Lend-Lease.
There is an enormous difference between Russia and Western Europe.
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