ABSTRACT
As the Russian statistics are deficient, the researchers aimed at producing a more detailed picture of Russian direct investments abroad. This has been mainly achieved through intensive data collection using primary and secondary sources. A description of the historical development of Russian/Soviet internationalization offers a reader some background information, which may be useful in anticipating the motives, directions and modes of the Russian corporations' expansion abroad in the future. In spite of Soviet business small amount due to a different business environmental reality, to divide the international operations of the Soviet enterprises into two main categories: Soviet companies in socialist countries and Soviet companies in non-socialist countries. The overwhelming majority of the Soviet subsidiaries in the West operated in the marketing of oil, metals, timber, chemicals, machinery and vehicles. While the Russian gas sector is dominated by Gazprom, the country's oil industry is made up of a dozen vertically integrated companies.
