This & That, Ceci et Cela

Bribe, baksheesh, dash, call it what you like; its available everywhere in different national flavours including Russian:
“MOSCOW A businessman here recently formed a company to supply equipment used in new office and apartment buildings. Despite the country’s construction boom, he nearly foundered.  That is, until this summer, when two “intermediaries” arranged to fix the bidding for contracts from a regional government. He has since received four new contracts, he said, and expects more. Success has its cost, though. He said that he paid bribes, he said, amounting to 5 to 10 percent of each contract. The largest, so far, totaled $90,000. The amount of each bribe was punched out on a desktop calculator, so as to avoid any paper trail. He expressed disgust, but said that the bribes were the unavoidable cost of doing business in Russia today.” (IHT).