We never forget the fairy tale dreams of our childhood. My teenage years were spent (among other things) engrossed in the immortal literature of imperial Russia - Tolstoy Pushkin Gogol Chekov Dostoevsky and even Pasternak. The lost world of the Tsars so enchanted me the lost world literally murdered by Lenin's Cheka in the cellar of a merchant's mansion on the night of July 18 1918. I swore never to visit Leningrad as long as it bore the name of the evil monster who founded the Sovetsky Soyuz (the USSR) - and I never did. When I finally visited my beloved Saint Petersburg the Venice of the North I found I knew its streets palaces and theatres from my boyhood reveries in Russian literature and history. Palace Square Saint Isaac's Cathedral the Neva embankment Vasilyevsky Island Nevsky Prospekt the Hermitage the Fortanka Mariinsky Theatre Senate Square the Yusopov palace on the Moika Canal. This was the city where Russia's imperial saga was born and died. This was the city of Vronsky and Anna the brothers Karamazov Alix and Nicky Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich - and the city of Vladimir Putin.

Russia trades at five times earnings the cheapest emerging market on earth with good reason. The Russian rouble has fallen 120 per cent against the US dollar since Putin's Crimean Anschluss. The Kremlin has checkmated the West in Georgia Ukraine's Donbass and Syria on the battlefield but paid a ghastly economic price in sanctions. Capital flight is the highest since the fall of the Soviet Union. Money market rates soared to 17 per cent in a failed bid to defend the rouble. Inflation has devastated the income of pensioners and industrial workers Putin's core vote bank. The banking sector repaid $200 billion in foreign loans in 2015 and faces a draconian credit crunch. Yet it is always darkest before dawn. The output freeze deal with Saudi Arabia in Doha is a game changer in the oil game. $400 billion in new energy projects worldwide is now kaput. The Texan shale oil drillers will go bankrupt as hedges expire this summer. Wall Street junk bonds imply a 30 per cent default rate for shale oil and gas drillers.

The global oil glut is at least 1.5 MBD now. Yet the Black Death has de facto shut down the North Sea the Santos Basin deepwater West Africa Alberta tar sands the oilfields of Azerbaijan and the Maracaibo Basin. Saudi Arabia's epic bet will finally succeed when the world loses 2 MBD of high cost supply this autumn and find itself short black gold. Then and only then will the Saudis invite Opec and Russia into a new deal that leads to $50 Brent. Is this macro oil scenario remotely priced into the money souk? In Russky nyet.

Churchill said Stalin's Russia was a riddle wrapped in a mystery wrapped in an enigma like a matryoshka doll. Not Putin's Russia. The Kiev Maidan uprising was a de facto coup against an elected President and the Ukraine far right nationalists were once allies of Hitler's Wehrmacht and the Himmler's SS Einsatzgruppen. Crimea is the home base of the Russian Black Fleet since the reign of Tsar Alexander Pavelvich Napoleon's rival at Borodino who led the Imperial Army across Europe to Paris. Unlike Lenin or Stalin Putin's currency of power is money and oil not Marxist fantasies. Sergei Lavrov is the most savvy Russian diplomat since Tsar Nicholas's count Nesselrode. The US and Germany need Russia to vanquish Daesh stabilise Syria deter China engineer a Ukraine ceasefire kick start EU growth. If the West and Russia unite to destroy Daesh and implement the Minsk Pact sanctions will be lifted. This will mean the mother of all stock market rallies in Russia though the oil/rouble crash has led to both winners and losers.

Russian equities are of course not for widows orphans and for those without abdominal fortitude and the right market intel with the cognoscenti in Moscow and Londongrad. After three years of horrific losses Wall Street the city (and UAE family offices) are disgusted with Russian equities. Wonderful. Yet the smart hot money nibbles at the Russian firebird even as oil prices bottom the rouble stabilises and the Kerry Lavrov diplomatic dance to lift sanctions begins. In times of crises as when Moscow burnt while Napoleon slept in the Kremlin or Leningrad starved as Hitler planned his victory dinner menu the Russian muzhik knew it is always darkest before dawn knew the curse of the witch Baba Yaga must eventually end. So it is with Russian equities as I hunt Moscow for the next triple bagger.