The most scandalous company of the year turned out to be Uralkali. Suleiman Kerimov had to find new owners for it. The story of the purchase and sale of Uralkali by billionaire Suleiman Kerimov looks like a classic Western. All participants in the events, including a dozen people on the Forbes list and the president of a neighboring state, act according to the laws of the genre - cynically and prudently. Everyone is obsessed with the desire for big money.

photo by Artem Holoshchapov for Forbes How an ordinary film producer became a successful businessman after discovering the demand for makeup cars. The walls of the meeting room of the Kinodoktor company are covered with gratitude from clients. Among them are two split plates glued to a wooden base. “Kinodoktor” rents out make-up vans - mobile make-up and costume complexes. The plates are exhibition prizes, “cinema” symbols: the dishes are broken at the beginning of filming for good luck.

photo by Evgeny Dudin for Forbes The most successful Russian entrepreneur of 2013. It rarely happens that Sergei Galitsky, the billionaire founder of Russia's largest retail chain Magnit, makes a mistake. “I think we will never be able to repeat such results again,” he said in an interview with Forbes in the spring of 2013, commenting on the financial results of the past year. 9 months later we can say that he was wrong.

About state and society Alexander Zapolskis. The state is not a thing in itself. It is always a reflection of society - its views, principles and even the collective unconscious. If people are convinced that everyone around them is obliged to live by the rules, and “personally” I can decide for myself where and for how long to follow them, and when it is possible (and even necessary) to violate them, then where will the state come from that acts differently?

photo by Dmitry Ternovoy for Forbes While compiling a list of nominees for the title of “businessman of the year,” Forbes unexpectedly discovered that large entrepreneurs, who have been called oligarchs since the 1990s, are no longer the favorites in the race. Analyzing case by case, deal by deal, story by story, in the end we were able to include few people among the applicants. Is the era of oligarchs coming to an end?

photo by Artem Holoshchapov for Forbes How the “billionaires club” manages the money of private clients. “Once one of the clients called us and said that he was in a car dealership and wanted to buy a Bentley,” recalls Tatyana Ivanova, director of the department for working with wealthy clients at the International Financial Club (IFC) bank. This was before the 2008 crisis, then Ivanova worked at Rosbank. The client was nervous: there was only one car in the dealership, but three buyers.

Photo by Polina& Skene studio Russian entrepreneurs want to learn from the Chinese. How much can you earn from this? “My friend asked me to help organize a trip for one hundred employees and one of the shareholders of the Chelyabinsk Pipe Rolling Plant [Chelyabinsk Pipe Rolling Plant] to Chinese enterprises,” recalls Anton Saraikin, a former journalist and founder of a very unusual tourism business.

How a private investor can participate in the modernization of state-owned companies. Financier Ilya Golubovich spends a significant part of his working time in negotiations with top managers of state-owned companies that have approved innovative development programs on behalf of the government. Golubovich is the founder of I2BF Global Ventures, which manages more than $300 million, part of which is invested in Western companies developing industrial technologies.

Ballerinas at the Bolshoi Theater, the price of the Miss Universe contest, a test drive of the Yo-mobile and other popular videos Twigle Twigle Twigle Twigle Twigle Twigle Twigle Twigle

From bread to banks - the most successful new brands. It is believed that a brand is the same as a trademark. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary clarifies: a brand is a set of goods identified by name as products of one company or manufacturer. But it's not just about the name. A brand is an idea and even a whole concept behind a product or service. The next Forbes brand rating is compiled according to the same rules as the previous one.

photo Kommersant Don't expect that having a business on the side makes police officers honest. In modern Russian fiction there is a figure of the so-called honest cop. This is an employee of the internal affairs bodies who does not take bribes, does not engage in racketeering or protection protection. At the same time, he investigates crimes and catches criminals. They explain to the perplexed reader that this employee has his own business.

How can investors make money in 2014? Having rebounded after the 2008 crisis, the Russian stock market has slipped into stagnation - indices do not fall to new lows, but each new high is lower than the previous one. The economy is slowing down, political risks are growing, which means that the indices have nothing to grow from. Therefore, it is impossible to make money on Russian stocks? It is possible, but not on the index.

photo by Artem Holoshchapov for Forbes Vladimir Yevtushenkov created the largest medical business in the country. Will he be able to take patients away from government clinics? In March 2012, rumors spread in the children's clinic of the Moscow City Hall about its imminent sale. Incomprehensible commissions frequented the building near the Patriarch's Ponds: they looked closely, assessed.

Will markets crash in late December or early January? And if so, how can you escape from it? The positive dynamics of the American stock market against the backdrop of stagnation in the markets of developing countries can be considered the main investment result of 2013. Analysts perceive a 25% rise in the S&P index as the beginning of a multi-year rally and are encouraging investors to invest in US securities.

photo by Dmitry Ternovoy for Forbes A Russian or former Russian businessman who has achieved significant success outside of Russia. Fur, caviar, oil, vodka, space, autocracy and the KGB - this is a set of world-recognized symbols inherited from the Russian Empire and the USSR. Each allows you to create a global brand or a global business, the right to existence of which is difficult to refute: there is nothing to argue against the first man in space.