Not only that, but it creates jobs, helps the economy by supporting the major logging industry in Russia (a sustainable industry if done right) and improves the lifestyles of normal Russians, among other...

It does. But I don't think they deserve some special rights because of that or because of their size; that is, a right to use corruption (when trying to do something questionable) and blame corruption (when it gets in their way) at one time.

As for improving the lifestyles, you'll soon realise that cheap chinese wares don't improve the lifestyles that much. Cheap, but ugly and non-durable.

Are you claiming that Ikea is using corruption (bribing someone) in Russia? On what grounds?

I don't believe you can operate a large business in Russia and not pay bribes. To think otherwise is naive.

Although my experience is 5 years old, I don't think things have changed so much that Ikea isn't paying bribes.

Because every big corporation uses corruption unless proven otherwise. Sorry.

Especially global corporations are known for doing it in less economically developed countries to own them as they wish. Example is South America: there were some wars, even, growing out of conflict between two American oil corporations.

You as a Russian should know better than to generalize about others, in the same way Russians are being unfavorably generalized elsewhere. It just makes you look as bad as them.

Well, doesn't it seem strange to you that they SUDDENTLY discovered that there's corruption. There's two branches: - It's really the first time they ran into corruption; it would be a cool fairy-tale, but neither I nor you beleive this. - They managed to get along before despite corruption. Which means that either corruption is not so much severe (they managed to open and operate successfully and profitably, on a large scale), or that they used that corruption (bribed).

Now you can say that there's good bribe and bad bribe (first for doing legal things, second for questionable), but it's bribery in either case.

Do you see the title of the original article: it includes the expression "fed up". It implies they have been fighting corruption issues before, but until now managed to stomach it. Now, however, they are fed up with it, resorting to going public. See?

How did they "fight" exactly?

By refusing to pay them?

This is an attitude that I see more out of writers from countries with corrupt governments. Perhaps it's a way of trying to justify your own country's problems, rather than working to fix them?

However, traditional Russian furniture is fine compared to Ikea's chinese crap. Crap's cheaper, tho.

I know that on the basis of having some.

As for retailers: if it wouldn't be an IKEA mall, it would be some other kind of mall, it's not like there would be much difference.

Well I'm sure that if Russian furniture is so fine and good value for the money, it will have no problems competing with Ikea on domestic or international market (and that is a big if). Or do you want in your absurd hatred of Ikea to ban it from the market, even though normal people like me for example would prefer it (I have several Ikea products that are just fine and are several years old). Anyhow, I don't see what you are arguing for, limiting the marketplace and imposing your will on what people actually what? First you argue for suck up to corruption or leave, now this... I admit, it's very tempting for me to give now a quick generalization of your statements as a reason for current economic status of Russia, but I won't because that would be also stupid.

I argue that IKEA uses "free press" as a lever to get whatever it wants from government, for cheap. Then I say that if we don't like IKEA that much, we shouldn't buy into that.

Are you implying Ikea would want anything else than normal, civilized treatment from local authorities? If not, why on earth would Ikea need to slander the local government for anything? I'm sure this is not the kind of publicity either one wants.

Maybe they want normal, civilized treatment. However, they do some serious bashing in process of acquiring that, so I did some bashing too. And! I didn't want anything besides normal, civilized treatment, too! Makes it an interesting social experiment.

The question is: Is their "bashing" of the local government justified? Is your "bashing" of Ikea justified?

To me it seems Ikea is not in this for any political games: it wants to make business, within moral codes it has set up for itself, that should be reasonable to everyone, even you. You on the other hand seem to be in this out of hurt national pride. That is not an argument as compelling as the first.

It is not difficult to understand that Russians do have a hurt national pride, looking at recent history. But don't take it out on Ikea - they're not the one at fault here. Take it out on the corrupt local government. That would be more constructive, and even build up some credit with Russia's current skeptics.

So when you can't win the actual argument, you will slander Ikea's products? Maybe I'm feeding the trolls here.

How would IKEA ever interest us outside of the context of its products?

"In other news, IKEA, after operating in Russia for 9 years, suddently discovers that there's a massive corruption there".

IKEA uses press to bash government for bad process; I use HN to bash IKEA for bad wares; If I troll, don't they?

Ikea would interest us as a company trying to do business without paying bribes in Russia. No matter what the quality of its products, it does not deserve to be extorted by corrupt authorities. So don't mix up the quality of its products with the corruption issue.

If you can have a huge successful business without paying any bribes, that sounds like a pretty managed level of corruption.

Sounds like you think the world is Russia. If you ever get a chance, try exploring the corporate culture in another country, say, Sweden. You will be amazed at how many things you assumed to be universal actually are characteristics of Russian corporate and government culture. This includes rampant corruption in large corporations and government.

What bothers me with the attitude of neo-patriotic Russians under Putin (which you seem to represent well) is that it considers the logic of "everyone cheats, therefore we can too, even so bad that it goes off the charts" valid.