RADA conducts due diligence and business intelligence investigations in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Romania, Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

MAY 8, 2012: To some, Tatarstan may seem like an odd place to launch the next stage of a booming global vodka business, but then again Rustam Tariko (pictured), who made his fortune through an eclectic mix of alcohol and banking, has never been one to do things by the book.

Having successfully turned his high-end vodka business, Russky Standart, into an international name in just over a decade, the Tatar billionaire has returned to his home region, where he hopes his investments in a local spirit distillery will help propel his business even further on the global market.

The company has invested 500 million rubles ($16 million) in modernizing the small spirit plant in Buinsk, some 130 kilometers from Kazan, since purchasing it from the Tatarstan government two years ago. Now the company hopes to use it to produce highquality spirit, which is to be the core ingredient to be used at its St. Petersburg distillery.

Despite the cost of the project, and the logistical matter of the new plant being some 1,600 kilometers of (mostly) bad road away from the old distillery, the company’s management says the investment will give the company a unique edge over other producers of high-end vodka, few of which have facilities to produce their own spirits.

Once the new plant is up and running, they will begin developing facilities to cover the initial stage of the vodka-production process – growing a unique Russky Standart variety of grain – also in Tatarstan.

Although Tatarstan is Tariko’s home region, company management said it chose the plant due to its high-quality technical facilities, rather than due to any emotional attachment to the area. Russky Standart’s technical director, Vladimir Fomin, told The Moscow News the plant was selected in an audit of 40 distilleries across Russia.

The other attraction of the area, he said, is its proximity to highquality grain, which flourishes in the fertile black earth of the lowlands surrounding the nearby Volga River.

There is little doubt that investment from a global company will bring significant benefit to Tatarstan, which has been busy developing its business climate in recent years. The efforts of the autonomous republic’s government to support business activity and enshrine investor privileges in the law led Tatarstan to be named Russia’s best region for doing business in a study conducted by Ernst and Young last year.

In a show of his approval of the Russky Standart project, Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov dropped in on the launch in a helicopter for a quick tour of the modernized factory and some private talks with Tariko.

The St. Petersburg plant currently relies on ingredients bought on the market

For Russky Standart the investment is a fairly bold bet at a time when most producers of high-end goods are cutting back in anticipation of a fresh bout of global recession.

Full vertical integration is very much a luxury in an industry where most big brands buy their primary ingredients relatively cheaply on the market, as Russky Standart has done until now, with seemingly little detriment to its reputation. The brand is growing at a rate of around 25 percent a year on international markets, while sales of others are falling flat.

The company’s management admitted that the new plant was unlikely to bring them any immediate financial gain, and is aimed more at securing their position as a producer of high-quality and authentic vodka in the long run.

Then there is the other issue that is raising alarm bells among Russian vodka producers: a hefty load of excise taxes the government plans to slap on alcohol and cigarettes in a bid to combat Russia’s health problems. The taxes could cause minimum vodka prices to rise by 30 percent this year, Russian media reported this week.

But Tariko said that neither tax hikes nor the state of the global economy worried him. The taxes, he said, target cheap vodka and will have little effect on premium brands like Russky Standart, which usually goes for about 1,000 rubles (about $30) a bottle.

And while the new factory may be a gamble, Tariko has a good track record of pulling off business ventures against the odds. His decision in the late 1990s to name his consumer banking business after his vodka brand raised eyebrows, but it quickly became one of the country’s most profitable banks.

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RADA conducts due diligence and business intelligence investigations in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Romania, Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

RADA was approached to perform due diligence on a technology company based in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

A preliminary check of Russian corporate records showed that the company was, in fact, registered at the address given on their website.

A call to the phone number listed on the website, however, did not connect to the company in question, but rather to a credit company. The people at the credit company were very helpful, they advised that they had had the phone number for several years, and that they had never heard of the other company.

Various search engines showed that the number was, in fact, connected to the credit company; the only site with linking the number to the technology company was the technology company’s own site.

Several other companies seemed to be located at the address used by the technology company on their website. Several of them were contacted by telephone. None seemed to know about the technology company, and one provided contact information for the leasing agent. The leasing agent advised that they had been managing the property for several years, and that they had never heard of the technology company.

RADA’s client decided not to pursue business with the technology company, as it could not be located with any degree of reliability.

RADA conducts due diligence and business intelligence investigations in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Romania, Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

Taken at the 2010 Moscow Auto Show

Taken at the 2010 Moscow Auto Show

British Petroleum (BP) is under increasing pressure over its disputed joint venture with Russia’s state-controlled oil firm Rosneft.

Recently, former BP CEO Tony Hayward missed a crucial board meeting, causing speculation that he may disagree with BP’s handling of the contentious deal.

In January, BP announced the signing of a joint Arctic exploration deal and $16 billion share swap with Rosneft, which the Kremlin billed as confirmation of the West’s continued business interests in Russia.

If successful, the tie-up would see BP gain a 10 percent stake in Rosneft and the Russian company receive a five percent stake in BP.

An exhibition of paintings by Soviet artist Aleksander Aleksandrovich Deyneka (1899-1969) opened in Rome on Thursday, inaugurating a year packed with hundreds of joint cultural events between Italy and Russia.

The paintings on loan from Russia depict famous scenes from the Russian Revolution and World War II, but also nudes and images of daily life in the Soviet Union with factory workers, sportsmen and children.

Deyneka came from a family of railroad workers and started out as a police photographer after graduating from art school. He made mosaics in the 1930s for Mayakovskaya metro station in central Moscow.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visited Italy this week and said the 12 months ahead would see some 500 events organised by the two countries including exhibitions, concerts, film showings and plays.

The Deyneka ehibit runs in Rome’s Palazzo delle Esposizioni until May 1.

RADA LLC is well established in Baku, and offers a complete range of investigative, due diligence, and background check services throughout Azerbaijan.

November 25, 2010  [Dushanbe] The Russian military base in Tajikistan is an important factor of stability in the region and proof of mutual confidence between the two countries, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin declared at Russo-Tajik talks on Thursday.

“Cooperation between the defence departments of the two countries and the presence of a full- format, fully-fledged Russian military base in Tajikistan on a long-term basis is a serious sign of mutual confidence between the two countries,” Putin stressed. “This is an important factor of stability in this region, taking into account difficult processes continuing in Afghanistan,” Putin said.

“All of us should do big work in Central Asia so that people could feel confident, be calm and reliably protected there,” the Russian prime minister said.

Putin also mentioned the increasing number of Russo-Tajik initiatives, including the construction of the Sangtuda-1 hydropower plant , which is the most important project underway at present.

RADA moved from one side of Falls Church to the other. The new address is:

RADA LLC

1069 West Broad Street

Falls Church VA 22046

phone, fax, email, and website remain the same.