Born in Soviet Georgia in 1937, he received his first prison sentence in 1957 for resisting arrest and, during his third in the 1960s, became a "thief in law", a Russian term comparable to a Mafia "godfather".
Unlike the price in America, it is tied to the oil price, thanks to long-term Russian and Norwegian export contracts.
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These import numbers are set to rise sharply, with Russia and Poland signing a new natural gas contract in February 2010 that will see long-term Russian gas imports rise to 11 bcm annually.
The funded pillar could also go a long way towards filling the gap in the Russian market for long-term financing, which is necessary for infrastructure development.
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Magna's bid was backed by Russia's state-run Sberbank and Oleg Deripaska's truck firm Gaz, and it has said it wants Opel and GM to gain 20% of the Russian market in the short term.
Then came the Russian debt crisis and Long-Term Capital Management's demise.
Under discussion: extending the pay-back term of an existing Russian loan of 2.5bn euros, made in 2011, and whether Russian could buy into a troubled bank.
Fortunately, the Russian Constitution provides for a two-term limit, preventing presidents from serving more than eight years consecutively.
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On Monday Boris Bodin, head of the Russian Space Agency's long-term planning department, acknowledged that Moscow may keep Mir flying longer than earlier announced, until several months after the arrival of the living quarters module in July 1999.
That could force the central bank to raise rates in the mid-term, putting a damper on Russian equity gains so far this year.
The term "realistic" was reportedly inserted at Russian insistence.
Boris Yeltsin and I agreed in principle on this same reduction, and there was no way in the wide world he could get it through the Russian Duma that existed at the time in his second term.
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Mr Ibragimov is said by Russian media to have been a "Salafist", a term used for Islamic radicals.
Ten years ago this month, the New York Fed orchestrated the orderly unwinding of hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management, which foundered on exposures to Russian government bonds.
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"It is clear that the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies, " he wrote.
By November 2007, when the narrative ends, it was already clear to Mr Morris that this crisis was much more serious than the last big crunch, the 1998 Russian debt default and the bail-out of Long-Term Capital Management, an American hedge fund, by a group of banks under the Fed's direction.
Over the long term economists predict a gain of about 3% in Russian GDP because of greater competition and foreign investment that membership is expected to bring.
Russian lawmakers formally pulled the treaty from consideration in the Duma after the mid-term elections, citing political doubts, although they can resubmit it at any time.
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It is not the first time Evangulov has used the term "genius" to describe the schoolboy world champion, but the Russian now believes helping Daley to an Olympic medal is no longer his main challenge.
Usachev has experience dealing with the consequences of a long-term stay in space, having spent two long-duration missions on the retired Russian space station Mir.
Many readers may not remember the first half of 1998, but may be more likely to recall the Russian ruble crisis in July 1998 and the ensuing collapse in the fall of hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM).
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