Word: surgut
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Dates: during 2010-2019
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When the state-friendly Russian oil company Surgutneftegas held its annual shareholders meeting in the Siberian city of Surgut two years ago, the proceedings in the shabby auditorium started off as tightly scripted as a Politburo meeting. That is, until the moderator called for questions and Alexei Navalny took the stage. In front of some 300 stunned shareholders, Navalny, who owned about $2,000 worth of stock in the company, grilled senior management for several minutes about the company's minuscule dividends and opaque ownership. When he finished, there was a brief silence and then an unexpected burst of applause...
...questions is what Navalny does best. An erstwhile activist in Russia's marginalized opposition movement, Navalny, 33, has eschewed electoral politics to focus his formidable energies on investigating companies owned by the Russian government and its minions. And in the two years since he crashed that shareholders meeting in Surgut, he has arguably become Russia's most relevant political renegade. He is demonstrating that there may be a tool more effective than the ballot box in keeping Russia's ruling class in check: stock. (See the top underreported stories...