By John Bonar

Eugene Kasevin, the man who brought Victory Day (9th of May) celebrations to London and founded the Kifir Finance and Investments Market Players Club in Moscow, is urbane, cosmopolitan and rapidly makes himself at home wherever in the world he finds himself.

By John Bonar

Barry Martin first went to Russia in 1963, a 17 year old with a grasp of Russian from high school, and has made a business out of facilitating UK-Russian trade ever since.

He started his own company, Russia House, in 1970 and while the core of the business is visas and travel support this can extend to organizing trade missions and shipping goods to exhibitions. While he still provides support services for trade missions organized by UKTI, the government trade and investment body, he feels strongly that British companies have lost the get up and go spirit that once made the vast land mass and 140 million population of Russia so exciting an opportunity.

The Wave of the Future: Modern Language Training in Moscow comes from Belgium

By Ian Mitchell

Special to BSR

ElaN Languages a leading European language training school/center in Moscow, is a branch of the ElaN Holding which was started in Belgium in 1990, and now has a consolidated turnover of nearly Euro 7 million (with 3 schools/centers in Belgium but also in France and Russia).

In Moscow ElaN Languages operates out of smart, modern offices in a business park which is centrally situated amidst the picturesque dereliction behind the Byelorusskaya railway station. This location is not used for training purposes as all the courses and seminars are held on customers premises or, when appropriate, in (hotel) conference facilities.

If ever you find yourself heading off for a coffee with Brian Erickson of ID Fabrika then its well worth your while to catch the metro. Because if you are meeting him anywhere near his office this will entail a trip through Moscow ‘s recently refurbished Mayakovskaya Metro. In addition to savouring the delights of the landmark, doing so will enable anyone to get themselves into thinking about design and its meaning, both before and after the meeting. Below ground you are disgorged into a cavernous chamber where trains load and unload commuters, up the escalators and you pass into a subtle ensemble of pink marble walls and stainless steel columns – chic, distinctive, and exuding a style of Moscow which has been toasted in generations past and is now playing its part in the city’s renaissance. And thinking about design, style and image and their part in everyday lives is what Brian is about.