My next piece for ArchFrontline.eu:

“…Every Russian property owner occupies a peculiar position. He may own a factory, a bank, or an oil company, yet tacitly acknowledge that the decisive voice in the fate of his assets belongs to an outside force—the state, a government official, or the security services. Formally, he is the owner. In practice, there is always another authority above him that can rewrite the terms of ownership.

That is what makes Russian property hybrid: private in legal form, but constrained by political dependence.

In such a system, the regime does not need to nationalize the entire economy to control a substantial part of it. It only needs to retain the power to intervene in the fate of virtually any major asset…”

Private Property, Putin Style