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Podcast: In Conversation: An OUP Podcast
Episode: Charles Hecker, "Zero Sum: The Arc of International Business in Russia" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Description: Today I interviewed Charles HeckerĀ aboutĀ Zero Sum.Ā The Arc of International Business in RussiaĀ (Oxford UP, 2025).
Hecker, a journalist and business consultant, speaks with dozens of Western business executives, bankers, and financiers who reaped immense profits for themselves and their companies in the Russian market, which suddenly opened to foreigners after decades of state planning and economic autarky.
These āriskophileā Westerners recall the early post-Soviet Russia as an unchartered territory where business āhad a body countā and āviolence was cheap, routine and almost casualā.
In the 2000s Russia, now stabilized by Putin, offered unparall...