Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu will depart next week on a four-day trip to Brazil and Peru to promote the sales of Russian weaponry to the two countries. The success of Shoigu's talks with his Brazilian and Peruvian counterparts will significantly boost Russia's chances to sell military equipment worth at least $1.7 billion, Kommersant Daily said citing a source in the Russian General Staff.

Every weekend for the next two months, a new business course called Shkola Biznesa ver. 2.0 will offer participants a series of interactive training courses, master classes with successful businesspeople, and simulations devoted to ingraining essential business skills for the modern media environment in young entrepreneurs entirely free of charge.

Azeri President Ilham Aliyev casting his vote at a polling station in Baku. Ilham Aliyev was headed to win Wednesday's presidential election in the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan, in what some analysts say is the perfect demonstration of how oil revenues can strengthen a country's leader both domestically and internationally. During the decade that Aliyev ruled the country after succeeding his father in 2003, Azerbaijan's economy expanded almost tenfold.

The Dutch foreign minister apologized to Moscow on Wednesday for the detention of a Russian diplomat in The Hague, saying his right to diplomatic immunity had been violated. Russian Embassy officials said Dutch police entered the diplomat's home, beat him with a baton and illegally detained him for several hours last weekend. President Vladimir Putin demanded an apology from the Dutch for the incident. "This is a crude violation of the Vienna Convention.

As international banks conclude that UTair is massively undervalued, Russia's fourth-largest aviation group plans to divide its helicopter and airplane operations into two separate companies, the group's CEO, Andrei Martirosov, announced Wednesday. The division, set for completion by 2016, will allow the company to attract separate investors for the two branches of its operations, chief financial officer Igor Petrov said at the same event, Prime reported.

Red Wings Airlines will continue charter flights in October and November. Topping off a year of turmoil for the midsize air carrier, Red Wings Airlines will halt all regular passenger flights as of Oct. 26. The company's charter program is likely to be wound down as well, a source close to the company told Kommersant.

Gazprom has agreed to supply gas at a discount to a Ukrainian tycoon, whose past role in gas deals ended after a price row in 2009, a company source said Wednesday, as concerns mount over Ukraine's ability to foot its import bill. Dmytro Firtash's Ostchem holding will purchase 5 billion cubic meters of gas to put into underground storage, at a 30 to 36 percent discount to the price Ukraine pays for Russian gas, the source added, confirming newspaper reports.

Kommersant 1. Sofya Samokhina et al. article headlined "State of complex subordination" elaborates on the progress of the reform of the Russian Academy of Sciences and, in particular, on the setting up of new administrative bodies for managing the assets of the academy; pp 1, 5 (906 words). 2.

Increasing workforce productivity can help the country avoid economic stagnation but doing this will not come cheap. Correction appended: The Russian economy will stagnate if companies do not increase their labor productivity, which currently averages at 40 percent of that of the Fortune 500 Global companies, according to an annual ranking that Expert Rating Agency presented Wednesday.

An art installation featuring Dutch cheese at the All-Russia Exhibition Center as part of the “Dutch Village” exhibit, which runs until Oct. 13. Russian authorities said Wednesday that they were tightening checks on dairy imports from the Netherlands and could ban Dutch tulip supplies.

The Economic Development Ministry on Wednesday approved plans by Spanish company CIEAutomotive to build a car-parts plant in the Samara region, with construction set to get under way in 2014. It will be built in a special economic zone in the car-producing hub of Tolyatti and will require investments totaling 1.9 billion rubles ($58.8 million), Itar-Tass reported. Production should start in the third quarter of 2015 and by 2017 the plant is expected to manufacture 6,500 tons of parts per year.

The Finance Ministry is considering a bill that would make income received from federal and regional bonds tax-free, Vedomosti reported Wednesday. Russian companies currently pay tax of 15 percent on income from bond yields and 20 percent on increases in their value, rates from which foreign investors are exempt, PricewaterhouseCoopers' Matvei Manuilov told Vedomosti. In most countries, no tax is levied on such income.

With the help of Moscow-based architect and researcher Kuba Snopek, The Moscow Times takes a closer look at Belyayevo, the subject of a book about the preservation of non-tangible architectural heritage that he just released at the third Lisbon Architecture Triennial.

Mikhail Kosenko Maxim Shemetov Russia's top psychiatric institution held an open house Wednesday in an attempt to popularize its work, amid speculation about a revival of Soviet-style punitive psychiatry following the sentencing of an opposition protester to mandatory mental treatment.

The newly formed arms maker Kalashnikov Concern has been added to the list of strategic enterprises to ensure its stable development and efficient operation, the company said. "The status of Kalashnikov Concern as a strategic enterprise underlines its high importance for the development of the country's small arms industry and provides a broader range of opportunities to receive state support," Kalashnikov said in a statement on Tuesday.