Guiding Lines: Magic Symbols

But with an almost identical offer from Switzerland, for some reason even though they don't fully trust it they are at least prepared to investigate and discuss it. Especially if it appears that among the potential counterparts there is a retired Swiss official possessing a database of alleged real estate in Switzerland that has been put up for sale by the state.

Habitual Russian principles of business dealing force people to lose their heads.

In 1988 the whole population of Russia's large cities was captured by a speculative fever: there was an opportunity to buy 100,000 Marlboro cigarettes cheaply and then sell them on, then later you could export 20 tankers of oil, and for the real losers, 5 grams of bee sting, which subsequently became known as Red Mercury.

Tales and myths don't die. They get reborn not as tragedies but as farces. Myths about rich foreigners (either fools or clear sighted), which say all of them are ready to give big money to smart and sharp Russian businessmen, died a long time ago. But now reborn are tales abroad about Russian multimillionaires who have lots of easy money and are easy to fool out of it.

Every myth has a foundation. The funniest thing is that it's western mass media that is carefully cultivating the image of "insane Russian millionaires," buying what they like - from football clubs to tourist trips to space - and preparing the foundation for people who want to try to do business with "New Russians." And thanks to this they make millions straight away from investing only a few cents.

Of course, nothing really comes from these kinds of ideas. But some people do use them. For example, former Russians. In a small company abroad to have a person who speaks Russian, for the owner, is very prestigious. And for the employee who speaks Russian it's a good opportunity to be in a position to build contacts with "New Russians," which will the bread on his table for at least the next three years.

And only then it turns out that it is not just former Russians, but also owners of foreign companies who want to sell real estate in their own countries to "New Russians," and who haven't heard about FIABCI, MIPIM, 101st and 103rd study courses or about terms to do with "the level of vacant space" in office buildings, etc, which can be understood by any amateur journalist writing about the real estate market. For such partners the 13th quarter in Paris is associated with a French action movie and the multi-million Docklands project in London is associated with the slums form Lenin's time. But actually, when Lenin was an immigrant, he preferred not to live in the working quarters of Manchester and Liverpool, where the foundations of proletarianism lay, but in the prestigious areas of Geneva and Paris (on whose expenses?).

Russian business has picked up pace. Glavstroi thinks that in a few years they will be able to overtake the quality of any foreign general contractor. Russian developers are going abroad and beating competitors there. Stroimontazh in St. Petersburg is developing a project in the suburbs of Paris. Arabic observers are noticing with amazement the large share of Russian investments in mega projects in Dubai. MIAN has started building a business center in Sofia.

Of course, it's hard to fool directors of such big companies. But young companies should take care in checking the reliability of foreign counteragents when they are trying to do business with them, so that the following does not happen: Someone pretends they have goods and another person pretends he has money. Because not everybody just has money like Lenin just had.