Anna Ershova is a Russian-Ukrainian rising sophomore at Yale University, where she plans to major in Ethics, Politics, and Economics. She also has her own blog.

Next time you clean out your closet, you’ll probably find some of the over-ripe, unwanted fruits of retail therapy: new but ill-fitting items, clothes that you thought would make you look like a movie star, but never had the Hollywood magic; somewhere in the corner there are those unwanted Christmas gifts that came without a receipt, hiding behind those barely worn jeans you don’t want anymore. To free up space and help those less fortunate, you may consider putting them in a Salvation Army or a Red Cross container. After a complex and long process, that is often semi-legal, there is a good chance your leftovers will find their way to a Russian women willing to buy them at a dirt-cheap price.

If you are an average single Russian female between 20 and 30, you most likely live outside big cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg. You probably have a bachelor’s degree and work a secretarial or a managerial job. Your salary is around 10,000 to 15,000 rubles a month: an equivalent of US $420 - $630. You pay around 6000 rubles for utilities, transportation and your cell phone/Internet, which leaves you with 4,000 to 9,000 rubles to spare. Given the ever-rising food prices, you need to spend a minimum of barely 150 rubles per day for groceries (no wonder young Russian women are known for being exceptionally thin), which sums up to 4,500 rubles per month. Forget about entertainment and vacations. This arithmetic barely leaves one with enough money to buy a warm jacket and a pair of boots to keep one warm in those cold Russian winters.

But what about other seasons? What about work and casual clothes? And all those accessories women adore buying so much? How do Russian women, especially the ones who do not rely on their husbands or fathers for their income, dress themselves? And how do they manage to do so fashionably?

Second-Hand Shops Come to Rescue

A plethora of so-called “second-hand” shops has been thriving all over Russia. The concept came into being as the iron curtain came down and foreign goods began pouring into the country. A second-hand shop is usually a tiny room in a basement of an apartment building. The clothes are thrown into large piles in the middle of the room; some of the better ones are hung on the racks by the walls.

The used clothes and the ones by the cheaper brands such as “H&M” and “Zara” are usually sold by weight (the price is around 200 rubles – $8 – for a kilo). The better items (such as a brand-new “D&G” dress I saw while researching material for this article) are priced separately. They will rarely cost a lucky owner more than 300 rubles (appr. $13).

While exploring the stores in my hometown in Russia, I saw over a dozen of brand-new with tags “Miss Sixty” jeans, $2 each, and six brand-new jackets by “Zara”, $10 each. I couldn’t resist buying a pair of brand-new genuine leather “Gabor” shoes for $10 (original price – around $130). A lot of items look like they are from the over-stock in the Western stores. Most clothes, both used and new, come from the US, Germany, and Holland, according to the labels still attached to many items. All the brand-new gems are intermixed with used clothes: from slightly worn to threadbare. Every store has a mélange of old cowboy boots and haute couture dresses. Second hand stores are a box of chocolates a la Forrest Gump: you never know what you’re gonna get.

Many younger Russian women enjoy spending their spare time at those stores, looking for unusual fashion finds. Many provincial Russian cities have a shortage of decent clothing stores, so even the affluent Russians are regulars at the second-hand stores: they are on a quest to find some high quality clothing they would only be otherwise able to find in Moscow.

Buyers for Second Hand Stores: A New Job on the Market

While many Russians enjoy hunting down that perfect jacket in these stores, many are repelled by the claustrophobic space, unorganized clothes, and the pre-owned items intermixed with the brand-new ones. But worry not: second-hand stores have their own buyer services, just like big department stores in the US and Europe.

Two young women from Kaliningrad, Youlia and Yuki, enjoyed looking for a diamond in the rough so much that they decided to help other women and men get unusual things at a low cost. At least once a week, the girls visit local second-hand stores, buy exciting clothing items, take their photos and post them on their lifejournal. Their online “friends” line up to buy things like menthol “Converse” keds, bronze patent leather clutch, and funky dresses by “Atmosphere.” Users can also create wishlists and the girls will seek out the coveted vintage dressed or fancy shoes for them.

Several other websites, modeled after “trendography,” have been springing up all over the Russian Internet. Most of them are run by women. In a country where only 20% of entrepreneurs are women, this trend is an immense achievement. It looks like the overstock items from the medium-priced Western brands help empower Russian women. Way to go, “H&M.”

So next time you think of donating your clothes to charity, it may be a charity of a completely unexpected kind: helping post-Soviet women start their businesses and look well-dressed. Quite an unusual charitable cause, isn’t it?

By announcing they are to make Kvas in Russia, Coca Cola have confirmed that there is no market they are not prepared to take on.

Coca-Cola, who have spent two years developing their own special Kvas recipie, began production of Kruzhka and Bochka (Mug and Barrell) at the beginning of this month. According to Coca-Cola’s President, Kruzhka and Bochk will depart from Coca-Cola’s traditional production methods, in that it will be “a natural product with no preservatives.” Proud of its naturalness and tradtion , they plan to market their new Kvass with the slogan “Kruzhka and Bochka - Real Kvass.”

Personally, I would have preferred “Koka-Kvas”, but that’s just me.

Anyway, before anyone’s even tasted Koka-Kvas Kruzhka and Bochka, it’s received a mixed reaction from Russians. Predictably, there are those who are protesting about the “Cola-nization” of Russia but there are also quite a few entrepreneurial Kvas manufacturers who are delighted that Coca-Cola have entered the market. Nikola Volkov, Marketing Director of Deka told the Guardian.

“If their kvas is sold alongside Coke it will improve its image among young people and raise the whole sector.”

Kvas is the fastest non-alcoholic beverage market in Russia today - according to Canadean, a beverage research company, sales increased by 43 per cent to $461 million in 2007 - which makes it the market for Coca-Cola to get into. In fact, the market is growing so fast, that there are even rumours that Pepsi plans to enter, with it’s own Pepsi-Kvas.

But money is a secondary matter for the purists who read Siberian Light.

The real question is - will Coca-Kvas ever taste as good as the Kvas you get from yellow tankers in the street?

If you ever travel to Russia on business, and want to use your notebook’s Wi-Fi, or perhaps your brand new iPhone, you might want to think again.

Because Russia has just adopted a new regulation that requires every owner of a wireless device to register with the authorities before using it.

Failure to comply will mean a fine, and probably the confiscation of your beloved equipment.

But don’t worry - registering your wireless device should only take around 10 days… after which, you’ll be able to check your emails without checking over your shoulder at the same time for the FSB snoops…

You’re kidding, right?

Sadly not. The newly formed Russian Mass Media, Communications and Cultural Protection Service (more affectionately known as Rossvyazokhrankultura) has decided that it wants to muscle in on technology regulation, as well as regulation of the wider media.

And, so, a few weeks ago, the regulation you can see here was signed. Here’s a translation of the relevant sections:

On the use of communications electronics in the Russian Federation

(signed) V.P. Krasnov, deputy head of the Directorate for Supervision and Monitoring in the Sphere of Telecommunications

By the way, did I mention that the head of Rossvyazokhrankultura, the man who was hand-picked to regulate Russia’s communications… is a metallurgist.

Sigh.

In a meeting devoted to small business problems, elected President Dmitry Medvedev proposed that inspections of companies by state organisations be severely limited.

Currently, such state organisations can visit and inspect a company at any time but, under Medvedev’s plan, they will be able to visit a company to check only of they have judicial act or another legal document from a court.

Under no illusions as to how his plans would be received, Medvedev confirmed that:

“I think this decision will shock a lot all the personnel of Public Health Authority, police and firemen. They will be full of negative emotions towards this law, because they make a lot of money, checking the companies and taking bribes.”

Medvedev added that the outcome of any company’s first inspection must not be a fine, but should be recommendations. According to the President-elect:

“large amounts of bureaucratic obstacles lead to bribes. If a person wants to build their own legal business, it is necessary to be approved by up to 45 different organisations, for example, fire security, Public Health Authority, etc. In the other words now we have a legal form of bribes.”

As a result of this culture of bureaucratic bribery, small business in Russia today is developing very slowly, and its contribution into GDP is not higher than 17%. Currently in Russia there are around 1.1 million of small business companies and 3.4 millions of independent business-person (who don’t employ staff).

But inspections by the state are not the only the only issues that complicate the lives of small businessmen in Russia today. The meeting was also told about the impact of state monopolies, and the high cost small companies must pay to connect public services.

Medvedev also re-iterated his opinion that it is necessary to create techno-parks and special business-zones in Russia. In such zones, he said, it will be much easier for businessmen to open and develop their own business. He is sure that techno-parks must appear not far from universities to make innovation about unity of education, business and science. Also he offered to expand the stimulus system for small business companies to make them invest money in the area of high technologies.

Health service, education and social sphere must be opened for small business too – he believes. Because allowing to the small business to work there will be possible to make make public service more effective.

Former Nuclear Power Minister Yevgeny Adamov was today sentenced to five and a half years in jail by a Moscow court.

Adamov, who was convicted of stealing $30 million from a joint US-Russian uranium venture company, is also wanted in the United States on charges of stealing $9 million in US aid money that had been earmarked for improvements in Russian nuclear security. Unless the Russian constitution is changed to allow extradition, it looks unlikely, though, that Adamov will ever be tried in the US.

The Prosecution were disappointed by the sentence - they had called for nine years - and noted after the trial that Adamov’s theft had done significant damage to the Russian economy:

“Due to his activities, through stealing financial securities and abusing his powers, the damage to Russia directly and through missed opportunities, comes to almost $1bn.”

Sounds like hyperbole to me, although I’m sure the missed opportunity costs were greater than the $30 million Adamov actually stole.

Adamov has protested his innocence throughout the trial, insisiting defiantly that “I never took a kopek.” He has vowed to fight on to clear his name but, given that the US also want him on charges of theft on a grand scale, I doubt he will garner the same sympathy as other jailed Russian businessmen.

Incidentally, Adamov becomes the second former Russian minister to be jailed within the past few weeks - the Moscow Times yesterday reported that:

A Novosibirsk court last week found former Press Minister Boris Mironov guilty of inciting ethnic hatred but released him because the statute of limitations had expired.

Is this a new dawn in Russia’s fight against corruption, or just a continued settling of old scores?

If you believe the rumours, Vladimir Putin has accumulated a personal fortune worth $40 billion dollars during his seven and a half years as President of Russia.

That would comfortably make Putin Russia’s richest man. And Europe’s richest man. In fact, if Putin really is worth $40 billion, he would be the fourth richest man in the world.

The allegations of Putin’s vast wealth come from Stanislav Belkovsky, described as a Russian political analyst by the Guardian. In an interview with them he claimed that Putin was worth:

“At least $40bn. Maximum we cannot know. I suspect there are some businesses I know nothing about…. It may be more. It may be much more.

Putin’s name doesn’t appear on any shareholders’ register, of course. There is a non-transparent scheme of successive ownership of offshore companies and funds. The final point is in Zug [in Switzerland] and Liechtenstein. Vladimir Putin should be the beneficiary owner.”

Belkovsky goes into more detail in the Telegraph, who report that:

According to Mr Belkovsky, Mr Putin controls a 37 per cent stake in Surgutneftegaz, an oil exploration company, as well as 4.5 per cent of Gazprom, the state energy giant, and at least 50 per cent of Gunvor, a Swiss-based oil trading company that has won a series of state contracts.

Not bad for seven years work.

Only one minor detail - Belkovsky doesn’t appear to have given any evidence whatsoever to back up his claims. Which makes it all the more surprising that, since they first surfaced in a book he published last year, his claims have been picked up by Die Welt, the Washington Post and the Guardian - and now are whizzing around the global media as semi-fact.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Putin hadn’t provided generously for his retirement and had a few hundred million, perhaps even a billion or two tucked away somewhere for a rainy day.

But $40 billion??

Come on. How on earth does the leader of Europe’s biggest country, in one of the most high profile presidencies in the world, manage to become the world’s fourth richest man with absolutely nobody noticing? Not even Forbes…