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By John Helmer in Moscow
For a brief moment, the death of Boris Yeltsin in April allowed his supporters and critics to reappear in full cry; particularly his supporters, whose attacks on the Putin administration have failed to attract an audience outside Embassy Row, and who are naturally nostalgic for the days when their bons mots drew better remuneration.
Since almost no Russian or western correspondent remains in Moscow today, who reported on the Gorbachev, the Yeltsin, and the Putin administrations, the Yeltsin obituary columns were largely an exercise in wishful retro-thinking — and exhibitionism.

By John Helmer in Moscow
It’s a pity Vladimir Lenin was tone deaf, and dismissed music (along with chess) as an entertainment for the ruling class. Had he an ear and taste for classical music (like Karl Marx, who was keen on Beethoven, and Leon Trotsky, who loved Verdi), he might have devised a revolutionary doctrine for the performing arts. This could have protected Russia from the likes of Mstislav Rostropovich the cellist, Nikita Mikhalkov the filmmaker, Valery Gergiev the conductor, and X the theatre director.
I regret I am obliged to avoid using X’s, or his Moscow theatre’s real name, because he and his colleagues are so thin-skinned, so despotic, and so vengeful, they brook no criticism, and would react by attacking the livelihood of a member of my family.

By John Helmer in Moscow
If life were a circus, then the only reason a contemplative man would walk behind an elephant in a ring, wielding bucket and shovel, would be for the money, not for the laughs.
John Lloyd, a onetime Moscow correspondent of the Financial Times, has made many of his colleagues and readers laugh at him. But it was his eulogy upon the death of ex-President Boris Yeltsin, just published by the Financial Times, that has been convincing. Lloyd hasn’t been clowning all this time for laughs. He’s been putting shit in a bucket for the money.
And good money it was, certainly when his then wife headed the Moscow office of a well-known English law firm, and Lloyd filled his Moscow despatches with tales of the good fortune falling from the parapets of the Kremlin for her clientele. There was the odd and embarrassing pratfall; the time, for example, when Lloyd reported, and the FT printed, that Yegor Gaidar had been voted in as prime minister, when that favourite of Lloyd, his wife’s law firm, and the FT had in fact been trounced by Victor Chernomyrdin. Thus did Gaidar’s high political career end – in retrospect, we can now say, for good – while Lloyd was telling the FT audience the reverse.

By John Helmer in Moscow
Oleg Deripaska is under unexpected personal pressure, at home and abroad, just when his plan to take control of one of the largest bauxite and aluminium producers in the world is close to final government approval. And that is exactly why the trouble for Deripaska is growing now.
Russian government authorization this month of the creation of a monopoly aluminium concern, integrating domestic and foreign bauxite, alumina, and aluminium production assets, has followed a no-objection ruling from the European Commission (EC) in Brussels. The unconditional ruling was issued by the EC on February 1.

By John Helmer in Moscow
Did Nicolas Sarkozy, the small rightwing candidate for President of France, benefit from the brief imprisonment in Lyon of one Russian billionaire, and from the award of a medal, days later in Paris, to another Russian billionaire, who happened to be the business partner of the first?
And was Sarkozy helped by Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, ministre blanchisseur, official custodian of French culture, receiver of kickbacks, and arranger of unorthodox donations to presidential campaign chests?
In short, on January 30, when Donnedieu de Vabres awarded the medal of Officer of the Legion of Arts and Letters to Vladimir Potanin, was this the end to an ingenious quartet of hostage-taking and ransom on the French side, procuring and precious metals on the Russian?

A Scottish man who spent a month in a prison in Yemen for not renewing his visa sang, danced and chatted with rebel Houthi inmates. It wasn’t such a laugh with al- Qaeda inmates - they were “boring and judgmental”, and in their opinion everything was forbidden. - Oliver Holmes (Jun 29, ‘10)

Little more than a year ago, scandal-hit Satyam Computer Services appeared destined for the corporate scrap heap. Now, under new management, it is a central player at the football World Cup in South Africa, managing US$1 billion in assets as it holds together the telecommunications, the ticketing process and the co-ordination and transport of thousands of officials and volunteers. - Raja Murthy (Jun 29, ‘10)

Former Melrose Place actress Amy Locane, 39-year-old, is being held on a $50,000 bond after police say she collided with another car while driving drunk, killing the passenger and critically injuring the driver.

Also on AMERICAN MOSAIC: A question from Russia about a religious group, the Old Believers. And music by Whitney Houston.