Paparazzi Ethnography

In Moscow, we had breakfast with Citigroup energy analyst Alexander Korneev. The meeting was part of our effort to establish connections with financial analysts who determine market understandings and provide assessments of developing energy projects in Russia. Alexander creates assessments on the East Barents Sea offshore natural gas project called Shtokman, and we wanted to follow up with him on this topic.

It was also an opportunity for us to enter into the Citigroup Highrise located in downtown Moscow…

Alexander K. is frequently quoted in the press as you can read here. He is a spokesperson for determining the financial health of Russian oil and gas companies. Alexander K. is listed also as a co-author on a number of Citigroup insight reports concerning the timing of development on the Shtokman offshore arctic natural gas project.

We couldn’t help noticing our route to the Citigroup Building, and we want to take a moment and set the stage for how we arrived at breakfast. We took the subway as far as Mayakovskaya station, and then began wandering around the neighborhood, looking for Ulitsa Gasheka 6 (Гашека ул.), the very address for the Citigroup building. It was difficult for us to get our bearing coming out of the subway and while wandering the neighborhood, we decided to play a guessing game about which building would be the Citigroup.

In fact, the Citigroup appeared to us as an Island of Inland Empire, rising out of an older neighborhood in the mode of a brand new office center, all to its own, like an island of financial exception.

The following image, by the way, captures the external world of the everyday life that surrounds Alexander K. The buildings are some of the objects of representation that serve as the dominant in structuring the images that Alexander K. (as a financial analyst) has of himself, including his ideological relationship to the world and the principle behind his aesthetic orientation of himself to his surroundings.

For example, Alexander K. is aware that he holds an office in a building and that this awareness confronts him visually every morning upon his exit from the subway station. He is aware also that others can see this building as they leave the subway — as we do, for example, as we walk toward his building.

Thus, the field of vision belonging to Alexander K.– alongside and on the same plane with the self-consciousness he has of himself– also absorbs into it, the entire world of objects that surround him, and – in fact – the other fields of vision (e.g., us) who hold another point of view on the world, but whose point of view is now exposed to the visible reality of Alexander K’s world (e.g., the Citigroup Building we see from the subway station among other buildings).

One might say, following Mikhail Bahktin‘s description of the Hero in the novel of Fydor Doestoevsky, that: to the all-devouring consciousness of Alexander K., there is juxtaposed to this, a world of other consciousnesses that he encounters.  And he absorbs these other features and consciousnesses, which are rolled into his own material.

How does this occur? What consciousness will he now confront — Well, ours! and everything that we understand of him as we move through a set of visuals to visit him. What are these visuals that we absorb, and for which he will in turn be confronted with, which he already is aware of? Let’s look at the following visuals as expressions of power and distance:


Well, there’s the security turnstyles:

The visibility of titles of prestige:

Reception room of Alexander K. – notice the images posted on the wall…

“In power that may exist but is not visible in the appearance of the ruler the people do not believe. They must see in order to believe…. the most visible expression of this total focusing [on the] person and his elevation and distinction, is etiquette.” (Norbert Elias Court Society p. 118, emphasis added).

Here, what I want to draw attention to is the ritualistic visibility of the building itself, the titles of offices placed into the marble wall behind the security desk, the requirements for identifications badges to pass through the security turnstyles, what is important here, is: (1) objects within the field of vision and (2) the aesthetic distinction that this particular field of vision provides. As we move through this sequence, from (a) envisioning the building from the entrance of the subway, (b) the building’s visual amidst the neighborhood, (c) through security and recognizing the various company offices in proximity to Citigroup, (d) and finally arriving at Alexander’s reception desk, where we encounter, well, another set of visuals, about — buildings:


Images of power and history: A buiding within a building.















Reminders of where you are:




















The image actually has a descriptive in Russian and English:















Notice in these photos that hang on the wall of Citigroup reception, what we become witness to is a visual on the historical power of Citigroup as an expression of a building, an actual building in the past, that is brought to us in the present, as a visual expression of the permanance of capital, metropolitanism (New York and Madrid) and expanse across territories (the fact that these images are in Moscow).


Oh boy, okay, where shall we go for breakfast?


Citigroup on one side:





























Eatery on the other:

Audi parking in-between (compare with cars in previous gashenka street photo)

Architecturally, we have two new buildings that comprise this particular cityscape — from this perspective (which is the only perspective you see if you google Citigroup Moscow), what we find is a self-sufficient ideologically and structurally self-enclosed sphere.

What is required of us, is to leave the building, pass Starbucks, and enter into another entrance, that of a high-end eatery directly across this parking lot. No reference, assimilation or visual of the surrounding neighborhood.


Citigroup entrance:

…passing Starbucks…

Eatery entrance directly across from 6 Gasheka:

We have entrances of steel and glass, clean streets, even pavement–what we have here is a type of interior, with the only exposure to Moscow being the sky. It is a pose, similar very much so, to that of the galleria of the World Bank in Washington, D.C. (as seen in this image, taken while visiting the Energy Czar, Dan Kammen).

—  But there, the exposure to finance as composed by the World Bank building itself — reaches its zenith. In that building, it is a private public square without any interference from the city scape.












Okay, breakfast.

Buffet left, center and right

Vanguard and Rearguard
Knowledge-making surrounding energy development in Russia today consists of two contrasting social groups: a rear-guard made up of an older generation of specialists whose structural position as managers of organizations such as Gazprom and the government ministries is based upon accumulated political capital, that is, their built-up personal connections throughout their career, and; a vanguard or alternatively labeled the Global Russians (Globalnye Ruskie) – a phrase adopted at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum this past June, to identify a younger generation of Russians educated in the West and who are now serving as experts in Moscow either in the capacity as energy analysts, journalists, etc. for western firms (e.g., Citibank), or for newly created government entrepreneurial incubation parks. This vanguard group is further characterized by their reliance upon American economic discourses concerning relationships between capital expenditures, transparent reporting, and returns on investment.

Business card in English

Business card in Russian

Alexander K. clearly belongs in the latter group of vanguards.

Alex staging plaque

I find myself fascinated by the crypto-symbolism of sense making created by Cambridge Energy Research Associates or CERA. As many of you know, CERA is an energy consulting firm and global leader in providing advisory knowledge to decision makers on energy development. It is headed up by the charismatic energy guru Daniel Yergin. I first met Dr. Yergin while working as an energy lobbyist under Alaska Governor Tony Knowles. But that’s another story. CERA has 11 offices across the world so whenever we visit a destination with a CERA office we like to check in.

In Moscow, Russia, we visited Vitaly Yermakov at the CERA office. I have quite a bit to write about that meeting. But before going there I want to pause on the curiosity of this bronze plaque that identifies the Moscow office.

Please take a close look at this plaque, and you will come to understand what is so interesting about the intersection of anthropology and energy expertise. First of all, the plaque is glued to the entrance of a Moscow office building. And, as you can see from the empty holes on each corner — in fact, the plaque was created specifically to be bolted to the building. The use of bolts has a long history and predates the use of glue, which is relatively recent. That is, a bolted plaque provides a narrative about historical time. Unlike glue, which hides between the plaque and the building, bolts provide visible evidence of attachment in a material way that captures the viewers attention.

It’s not unusual to see a bolted bronze plaque in Russia. Together, the bolts, the bronze metal and the plaque —together— establish the mark of a reputable institution in the eyes of the pedestrian, and this process of marking applies widely from hotels to universities. Take a look here:

“European University in St. Petersburg” as engraved in the Cyrillic alphabet.

Bolts, bolts, bolts (admission: in the lower image, the plaque uses screws).


Nevertheless, you get the message. Using a bolt is Meaningful as evidenced — both, by the drill holes in the plaque and the visibility of bolts actually used to secure the plaque to the building.



So why are there no bolts on the CERA plaque?

It is certainly tempting to suggest the answer has something to do with the building itself, the materials used, etc. — a kind of materialist functional answer. Uh-huh. I thought about that one. So why is it then, that the bronze plaque, directly located to the left of the CERA plaque — have bolts?

Bolts and No Bolts By Comparison

Thus… this peculiar feature of marking energy expertise raises the question: why are there no bolts on the CERA plaque in Moscow?

Can you imagine? The presence and absence of bolts on a Moscow plaque as the basis for developing a theory of the role of Western energy consultant expertise in Russia? At any rate… let’s take a look at the sense-making surrounding the various types of lettering…

Notice that the hotels are written using a Latin alphabet and communicating in the English language proper. That makes some sense. These are expensive hotels often catering to tourists from Western Europe and the US. The only example of a purely Cyrillic alphabet belongs to the plaque announcing the European University in St. Petersburg. And that makes sense, in part, because they are already somewhat estranged by their institutional title and affiliation as a “European University in” Russia — so identification in purely Russian language would seem to soften the dissonance between their institutional identity and the requirement for presenting themselves as, well, a Russian institution (a European-ly Russian institute).

Then, there’s the bronze plaque above — “ЖУРНАЛ DER SPIEGAL” — indicating the German Newspaper Der Spiegal, written in both Cyrillic (ЖУРНАЛ) and Latin (DER SPIEGAL) alphabets.

Okay, this is going to sound a little nutty:

First, notice what the Der Spiegal plaque has in common with the hotel and university plaques. They are all using UPPER-CASE FONTS for ALL letters. By contrast, the CERA plaque capitalizes only select letters of words: (1) the beginning of each word; (2) acronyms in Latin and Cyrillic; (3) the first letter of each acronymic letter in cyrillic that spells out the company IHS.

That’s weird to me. Another thing: Notice please, that the CERA plaque has written in Latin alphabet the acronym “CERA”. And this acronym has a direct Cyrillic alphabet translation in the acronym “КЭРА”….

….By contrast, however, the acronym in Latin alphabet “IHS” is not translated into a Cyrillic alphabetized acronym, but instead, into the words “Aye Aech Es” by use of the Cyrillic alphabetized letters “Ай Эйч Эс” — This raises the question: why on earth do the words “IHS” when translated into the Cyrillic alphabet lose their direct translation as an acronym but appear on the plaque as a string of words (“Ай Эйч Эс”) that provokes an English pronunciation of the company?

Let me drive the point home: the acronym CERA produces a sound pattern in spoken English as “SERA”. By contrast, the acronym КЭРА produces a different sound pattern, that if heard by an English speaker, would sound like “KERA” — There is a difference in the sound pattern of the English versus Russian lettering, even though both acronyms refer to one and the same company. The plaque allows a Russian speaker to pronounce CERA as “KERA” (and not “SERA”) in the Russian language. Yet, this same plaque demands that a Russian speaking pedestrian create the sound pattern “Aye Aech Es” (Ай Эйч Эс) for the acronym IHS as it would be heard when speaking in English.

As a reminder, we’re looking at the representation on a bronze plaque in Moscow of an energy consulting firm — through their choice of lettering to create an image of the company for the pedestrian, and asking the question, why is it that the acronym “IHS” must remain pronounced in English through the cyrillic lettering “Ай Эйч Эс” — when a direct font translation if printed in Latin script would be rendered “CERA An Aye Aech Es Company”.

Now we have three puzzling questions surrounding CERA’s bronze plaque in Moscow:
(1) Where are the bolts?
(2) Why is there a mix of upper-case and lower-case lettering?
(3) Why is the acronym “IHS” rendered as words printed in Cyrillic, when the acronym “CERA” — in Latin alphabet is rendered as the acronym “КЭРА” in Cyrillic alphabet?


It is worthwhile to note that this staging of the — IHS/Ай Эйч Эс and CERA/КЭРА –formula is not a unique event to the plaque alone, but represents an aesthetic of form, a rationality of self-presentation as seen duplicated on business cards. Here is the Russian language business card of a CERA expert working in Washington, D.C. — notice the presence of “КЭРА/Ай Эйч Эс” on the very bottom of the image.

IHS CERA in Cyrillic type

On the English side of the business card, the Latin alphabet is pure and simple “CERA — An IHS Company”

Returning to the Russian side of the business card, the Cyrillic alphabet appears directly below the Latin alphabet — recreating the bronze plaque in Moscow almost completely in lettering and placement (the trademark which appears on this card is not on the bronze plaque).























Not incidentally, the business card provides an important clue for understanding the anomaly in acronyms — notice please the following:

“CERA An IHS Company”

“КЭРА Компания Ай-Эйч-Эс”


Do you see it? CERA and КЭРА are both printed in Bold Type Face.

Whereas only IHS is printed in Bold Type Face — Ай-Эйч-Эс is not. What this means is that the logic of Ай-Эйч-Эс is not that of an acronym, according to the company itself. It is in fact, thoroughly understood as a string of words, printed in Cyrillic alphabet, with the purpose of producing the sound “Aye Aech Es”.

As such, Ай-Эйч-Эс is a string of words. On the one hand, the sight of these words does not produce an immediacy of meaning that the three previous acronyms produce. The acronyms function as a hieroglyph — at one glance, we understand what they are meant to signify. Thus, Ай-Эйч-Эс is weighted down considerably. First, it requires a double-step to arrive at the meaning of the acronym (pronunciation and then realization). Second, the time-lag required for cognition dampens the effect of immediacy that accompanies the hieroglyphic sign function of the acronym. Third, the bold type face accents the immediacy of the hieroglyphic function, while the absence of bold type face emphasizes the immediacy of pronunciation function (i.e., “Ай Эйч Эс” appears like every other word that requires reading).

CERA stands for Cambridge Energy Research Associates. If you google the acronym CERA, a variety of company pages and news articles pop up in spades. However, if you google КЭРА, you are likely not to find anything, until you combine the acronym with a word string, such as “КЭРА energy”. So what does КЭРА actually stand for, if it is not a recognized acronym of the company in its own right?

Well, this is interesting. КЭРА is actually a transliteration of CERA. That is, it is the spelling of “Cambridge Energy Research Associates” in the Cyrillic alphabet: Кембридж Энерджи Рисерс Ассошиэйтс or КЭРА (Cambridge Energy Research Associates or CERA). In Russian, it is a string of word-sounds that would be recognized by a Russian speaker as totally foreign, of foreign origin. What this means is that the phrase does not follow any grammatical rule or usage in the Russian language that usually governs over the spelling and pronunciation of words. It is stable and static. It does not decline, for example, when used in the news media. Take the following example, of an advertisement for a job vacancy at CERA:

Looking at the first sentence, appearing under the news headline and company internet link — there are the words printed in cyrillic:


“Компания Кембридж Энерджи Рисерс Ассошиэйтс, Инк., КЭРА (Cambridge Energy Research Associates, CERA) –”


In English:

“[The] company [of] Cambridge Energy Research Associates, Inc., CERA….”


The point I want to make here is that the first word “company” in Russian (Компания) is typically followed by the name of a company appearing in its possessive declination, something like the following: Кембриджа Энерджй Рисерса Ассошиэйтса.

But here, of course, the phrase remains a transfixed loan word, without interruptions in Russian language. One might say, that it belongs to a category of Western capitalist word formations that are new to Russia, including the transliteration of the phrase “energy consulting” (энерджи консалтинг). The actual word Energy in Russian is Энергия or Energiya — “Energy”. It is not энерджи which in Russian, has the same pronunciation as the word in English energy.


But there is more: Look again at the Russian spelling — Кембридж Энерджи Рисерс Ассошиэйтс.


Actually, if you pronounce this phrase from your lips as it is spelled out, what you would actually hear is the following: Cambridge Energy Researsh Associates” — The word “Research” is actually mis-transliterated. The word is spelled without using a ч on the end, to create the “CH” sound. Instead, it is spelled with a с on the end, creating an “S” sound.


A small consideration perhaps, but then why go through the trouble of absolutely ensuring that that the “H” in the acronym “IHS”, is spelled in Cyrillic with the ч sound (Эйч)?

Thus, we add to our original three questions, a fourth question:

(1) Where are the bolts?
(2) Why is there a mix of upper-case and lower-case lettering?
(3) Why is the acronym “IHS” rendered as words printed in Cyrillic, when the acronym “CERA” — in Latin alphabet is rendered as the acronym “КЭРА” in Cyrillic alphabet?
(4) Why is the ч (“ch”) pronunciation important enough to be spelled out in the acronym “IHS” but apparently, not important enough to be spelled out in the word “Research”, when the latter word appears in the Cyrillic alphabet to denote the company name of Cambridge Energy Research (Рисерс) Associates?

And what does this all have to do, we wonder, with the fact that at the front door of the CERA/IHS office inside the building, the sign indicating the companies only refer to IHS?

These differences are beginning to suggest a critical set of distinctions that separate CERA and IHS as the joint company appears to itself and others inside of Russia.

Cultural logics of Western practice —

available at the passing glance of a pedestrian…

Paparazzi.Ethnography@berkeley.edu