Many consumer goods companies entering the Russian market for the first time choose to do so through joint ventures, because this gives them the local contacts they need to overcome red tape. As one chief executive puts it: "You need to have very good people, have good introductions, and contact the right people at the right time."

This is the route taken by Diageo, which teamed up with A1, a trading company of the Russian financial-industrial conglomerate Alfa Group