Competitors forced IKEA to place orders in Russia. Result: the company provided a third of its assortment from local suppliers Before coming to Moscow, Mikael Franzen, purchasing director of the Russian branch of IKEA, worked in China for three years. This is where they really know how to make furniture cheaply! Franzen gives this example. The Swedes buy metal tubes from the Russian Severstal, send them to China and bring chairs made from these tubes back to Russia.

In Christopher Godsell's forest, a cut tree flies upward Windy morning. Christopher Godsell stands alongside a barge drifting in the middle of Ootsa Lake in the Canadian wilderness of British Columbia. Suddenly, a huge rubber air bag, to which an 18-meter tree is tied, soars above the water. Frozen in the air for a second, the “bundle” noisily falls back into the water. “I’ll never get tired of this sight,” Godsel shouts joyfully.

Without private property, the Russian economy is no longer conceivable. The share of privatized enterprises in the country is probably even greater than many are accustomed to think. Almost all infrastructure monopolies have private owners: Sberbank, Gazprom, RAO UES (and these owners, by the way, make good money from the growth of their shares). Only Russian Railways remain fully state-owned.

Non-public companies are growing faster than the Russian economy. Last year, the Forbes rating included enterprises with a turnover of $100 million. Now the lower limit of the rating is $170 million.

What governors cannot do, heads of local administrations can do. Don't believe me? The history of three Russian regions visited by a Forbes correspondent confirms this In 1991–2004, Russia received $36 billion in foreign direct investment—$257 for every resident of the country. A little. But there are places on the map of the country where investors are attracted like a magnet.

How to succeed in a highly competitive market? The Optifood company has found a way - it headed the industry lobby The owner of the Optifood company, Ivan Obolentsev, believes in the power of connections and government assistance. His connections helped him earn his first millions and become a major importer of chicken, and the government helped him and his colleagues in the market deal with small competitors.

Russian companies have learned to raise money on the stock market. But the owners of many of them believe that without this money it is safer The front pages of business newspapers leave no doubt: Russian companies, regardless of size and specialization, are fleeing the “closed economy.” At the beginning of 2005, an initial public offering (IPO) in London was carried out by AFK Sistema and raised more than $1.5 billion.

Photo by PhotoXpress NOVATEK is the only independent gas company in Russia that has not suffered from a change of government in the industry. What's the secret? “We grew up in our own business, which we knew how to do. There was hesitation, doing this and that. But everything else, thank God, didn’t work out for us,” says Leonid Mikhelson, chairman of the board and co-owner of NOVATEK, in an interview with Forbes.

Forbes tracks the fate of the heroes of its past publications Real estate is more profitable than sports In May 2004, Forbes reported that the former vice-president of LUKOIL, and now senator from the Altai Territory, Ralif Safin, invested part of the money raised from the sale of shares in the oil company in real estate in Eastern Europe. In addition, Safin was then going to invest in the Sochi football club Zhemchuzhina.

Maharajas exist not only in history books, but also in modern India. Some serve in the army, others rule the country, and others welcome tourists like royalty. They say about the Jaipur Maharaja Bhavani Singh that he is one of the richest people in India. In the 16th century, his ancestor Man Singh, commander of the army of the Great Mogul Shah Akbar, took countless riches from the conquered Afghanistan and Bengal.

MBA candidates choose programs that allow them to avoid quitting their jobs and avoiding debt Diana Avid worked for eight years in the marketing department of a small financial planning company and decided to accelerate her career growth. But at 34, she didn't want to take out a $100,000 loan to pay for a full-time MBA (master of business administration) from university. She chose the after-hours program at New York University's Stern School of Business.

Stankevich Where can a politician find refuge if he is out of work? Of course, go into business. There is always a demand for a person who has contacts in the highest echelons of power. Sergei Stankevich is a democrat of the first wave. He was part of Boris Yeltsin’s first election headquarters, and in August 1991 he supervised the dismantling of the monument to Dzerzhinsky. The peak of his career was the position of presidential adviser.

An inventor in the mayor's chair is a big burden on the budget The Moscow monorail, put into operation in November 2004, can lay claim to the title of the most expensive means of public transport in the world. According to the mayor's office, over the past period the monorail carried about 120,000 passengers. About $230 million from the Moscow budget was spent on the construction of a 4.7 km long route connecting the All-Russian Exhibition Center and the Timiryazevskaya metro station.

Shares of companies that have no analogues on the stock market rise in price faster than others. You can play on this What determines the price of shares? The simplest answer: from the availability of free money in the market and from the financial performance of the company. These two reasons operate with different strengths - sometimes the first takes precedence over the second, and in this case, securities rise in price, even if the company does not show phenomenal business results.

The closed economy is growing faster than the national economy Trading companies born in the 1990s have almost caught up in business scale with industrial enterprises created back in the USSR - we came to this conclusion a year ago when preparing the first rating of the 200 largest private companies in Russia.