Where my alter ego ‘Natasha’ wants to work.
Articles about Russian gas giant Gazprom, like this one, from The Economist over month ago, make me very sad deep down inside. You see, unlike your average Westerner (in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not really average in anything), I actually harbor affectionate feelings for Gazprom, albeit for silly, sentimental reasons. You see, the word ‘Gazprom’ was one of the first words I learned to read in the Russian alphabet. (Though one can easily memorize the entire Cyrillic alphabet in a day or two, it takes a lot of time and practice for your brain to get used to stringing the letters together and reading them fluently. Trust me, I speak from personal experience on this.)
So first off, a bit of background about Gazprom, because I love to edify people about Russia, my favorite topic in the universe. Gazprom (which is a portmanteau of the ridiculously long phrase Газовая промышленность [gazovaya promyshlennost], meaning “gas industry”) was formed in the later years of the Soviet Union. It was privatized in the 1990s, but was kind of, sort of, renationalized after Putin came to power in 2000. From what I can tell, it exists in an odd state of limbo. I’m not sure I’d outright categorize it as a state-owned company, but it’s not exactly privately owned, either. Basically, it is a publicly traded company (on multiple stock exchanges – take that, Facebook!), but the Russian government has great influence over it, which in turn increases Russia’s influence in the world (since it is a huge and powerful company that delivers an important resource).
Continue reading
