Use Your Time Wisely, Install Filters, and Don’t Do Anything Stupid (2)

It would be wise to avoid the sorts of ridiculous situations foreign entrepreneurs in Russia typically put themselves in as they strive to fulfill their goals. An example of this is any attempt to start a romance with the secretary of an influential official in order to resolve your own issues. Anything like this is doomed to fail.

But there are also grander ways to fail. For example, a bodyguard for the Russian Prime Minister had a good laugh when he told me how one international oil company approached him with a request to lobby for the company to receive a license to develop an oil field in Siberia (for a fee, of course)… In the end, this company was forced out of the Russian market.