Military Helicopter Sales

A Florida(US) businessman is charged with illegally trying to sell 10 military helicopters to a federal undercover infromant pretending to act on behalf of officials in Zimbabwe.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement(ICE) officials say 70-year-old Peter Spitz failed to obtain the proper State Department license. Phone conversations and e-mails between Spitz and the informant indicated he was working to arrange sale of 10 Russian military helicopters which were to delivered from Kyrgyzstan for $750,000 each.

Kyrgyz officials meantime prefer to stay silent. Interestingly, this military deal very much reminds the movie "Lord of War" staring Nicolas Cage, where he makes a deal with Ukrainian military officer to buy military planes and exports them to some African country(do not remember). This story in fact proves that there are real lords of war and corrupt officials

Top-selling brands in Russia

In Russian edition of Forbes for January 2008 a rating of the top-selling 50 brands in Russia was publsihed. These brands are made in Russia or produced specially for Russian market by foreign companies. The rating was built according to the volume of the retail sales in Russia for the period of July 2006 – June 2007.

Not surprisingly, alcoholic beverage brands are the dominant in the list 50 brands in Russian market. There are 16 different brands of (mostly)beer and vodka. In fact Baltika is the second in the list with sales of 50,3 billions of roubles after the Russian car manufacturer Avto-VAZ know for its brand Lada with sales of 135,3 billions of roubles. Baltika's sales are high in comparison to other beer brands, Baltika has 10 different beers under one brand(from Balitka "1" till Baltika "9" and Balitka "Cooler"), which target different customers.

In the segment of diary products and production of juices Vimm-Bill-Dann(Вимм-Билль-Данн) is the strongest company with its brands: Domik v derevne(Домик в деревне - 3rd), Chudo(Чудо-7th) , Veselyi Molochnik(Веселый молочник-25th), Lyubimyi Sad(Любимый Сад - 31st)

The market for the meat products(mainly sausages) is also very developed in Russia. There are 4 different companies which produce meat products: Eksima with a brand called "Mikoyan," Tsaristyno-"Tsaritsyno," Cherkizovo - "Cherkizovskiy" and Prodo - "Klinskiy."

The strong brands(especially alcoholic beverages, juices and diary products) of Russia also dominate the markets of Kyrgyzstan, because their advertisements are also broadcasted through the Russian channels which are widely watched by citizens of Kyrgyzstan. These non-local products create competition with local brands.

However, local brands find their way in the competition by setting the lower prices and with a "drinking-fresh-tastes-better" approach("Arpa" beer), or appealing to the customers as a "our-product" and sponsoring local football teams("Наше пиво" - "Our beer"), or by spending much money into promotion and running marketing campaings as well as developing their own image("Шоро-бул күч" - "Shoro is a power").