After a week in Istanbul

I am in Besiktas for a week now. Instead of winterly sun it was blizzard and snowpiles expecting me in Istanbul. It is sunny again and I am busy reading and writing. The wi-fi system is down at home thus I am able to access internet only durıng evenings. With this message I wanted to let you know that everything is fine in Istanbul and I have been busy following BBC 'Inside Russia' series. 'Hard Talk' host Stephen Sackur had spectacular interviews with Andrei Margelov, A. Peskov, Yegor Gaidar (oh man he was scared...) and today with Andrei Lugovoi. For those of you who have not seen those interviews, and are interested in Russian future scenarios, I really reccomend you the aforementioned series from www.bbc.co.uk.

Latvian political system ıs facing reconfiguration of the political space. Rather uniquely the PM announced that the fate of Transport Supremo (A. Slesers) very much depends on his ability to manage Latvian Post Plc. Hmmm, interesting, is it really an end to the greasy pole for ''kickboxer''? Anyway, there are couple of more corruption scandals in the Riga City Council, and I assume that the Latvian minigarhs have changed accents lately. It means that the importance of the central government has decreased in theır calculations. One may wonder why?

Because there is too much media attention and one must really be accountable to the Western partners. Transport Supremo in January announced about his intentions to run for the maire of Riga City Council office. Is it because there are still many lucrative chunks of real estate and media traditionally does not focus thus much on the municipal level of governance or because he predicts that Latvian Post Plc. ıs busted and so would go his fortunes as a mınıster?

Only Transport Supremo knows major reasons behind his thinking, thus shall see how the Latvian anti-corruption politics develops. After all the spring could bring not only unexpected blizzard but also political developments. Thats it so far, and shall be back with more analysis as soon as the wi-fi system would be fixed early next week. Ismarladık or good-bye and talk to you soon as they say here!

P.S. Those of you reading Latvian may find my thoughts in Diena.