Claus Rosenberg made a small fortune importing salami to Moscow and marketing washing powder in Poland.

 Anton Inshutin has been appointed corporate finance director for telecommunications, media and technology at United Financial Group. Since 1999 he has worked as an equity research analyst specializing in East European telecoms at Morgan Stanley in London. Prior to that Inshutin worked as an analyst on Russian regional telecoms at Morgan Stanley's Moscow office. From 1996 to 1997, he worked at CentreInvest Securities in Moscow as a telecoms analyst. Inshutin graduated from the Academy of National Economy in 1996 and holds a Bachelor of Arts in financial management. Aton  Dima Starenko has been appointed head of trading at Aton Capital. Starenko founded NetTrader.ru, where he also worked as general director. Before that he served as head of securities at Fleming UCB and chief equity trader at Troika Dialog. He was also general director at Regent European Securities in Moscow. Transkreditbank  The Central Bank has approved Alexei Krokhin as senior vice president of Transkreditbank.

A rating of residential developments beyond the Moscow Ring Road, or MKAD, shows the capital's most highly rated and expensive country residences are concentrated in the west of the city near Rublyovo-Uspenskoye Shosse.

Although interest is growing in cities in Russia's regions incomes will have to rise before regional capitals enjoy the boom that Moscow and St. Petersburg are experiencing.

Oil major BP said Monday it was holding preliminary talks with Yukos to develop rich but untapped fields in eastern Siberia.

A criminal investigation of Mosenergo general director Arkady Yevstafyev stems from his activities as head of a fund in the late 1990s, his lawyer said this weekend.

In a move to win back markets lost to a controversial natural gas trader, Gazprom on Monday said it was revamping the way it sells gas to former Soviet states.