The Federation Council on Wednesday passed five bills outlining the restructuring of Unified Energy Systems (UES), Russia's electricity grid monopoly, headed by Anatoly Chubais. The reform has come at almost the same time as British Petroleum's purchase of 50 percent of Tyumen Oil Co. (TNK). The resulting new oil company - which has been given the name TNK-BP - has widely been seen as an indication that the investment climate in Russia has changed markedly for the better. BP's purchase amounts to the largest foreign direct investment in the history of post-Soviet Russia.

On the other hand, there has been a great deal of concern over the possibility of malfeasance during UES restructuring.

Economic prognoses for Russia's economy range from exuberantly optimistic to darkly catastrophic. What is the reason for all this disagreement?

In the case of the UES reform plan, one reason is obvious: Chubais' reputation precedes him. As one of the principal architects of the 1990s "reform" project - which was, to make an understatement, permeated with corruption - his name automatically sets off sirens in the minds of shareholders and economists whenever it is connected with a business or economic endeavor.

The oil sector has already been consolidated. When oil-sector properties were divvied up, fighting between prospective owners was fierce and, often, underhanded.

UES' breakup, on the other hand, is about to begin - and may see struggles of a similar nature.

It is misleading to speak generally about conditions for investment in the Russian economy.

Russia's economy is hardly unified, and sectors differ widely.

At present, the country is characterized by islands of great prosperity, dripping with the profits of natural-resource exports, surrounded by a mostly archaic industrial complex - except for the defense sector - and a small, struggling service economy.

The largest island of prosperity is Moscow, which gets some 70-80 percent of foreign direct investment into Russia.

The natural-resource exporters, with the major exception of Gazprom, have been largely consolidated and allotted to various financial-industrial clans.

Mafia intrigues and naked power grabs are generally a thing of the past. Having seized all the assets they can, it is now in the clans' interests to abide more closely by rules of transparency and equitable treatment of shareholders.

Of course, they have not suddenly become nice guys; this is a move of cool self-interest to increase their market share.

This sector of the economy is the true "new Russian business" model touted in the West and by participating companies.

In the rest of the Russian business world, things do not look nearly so rosy. The once-mighty industrial sector has come upon hard times indeed.

Small and medium-sized businesses, the backbone of Western economies, still make up just a small fraction of GDP and are struggling to turn a profit.

Then there are cases like UES and - if the Kremlin's biggest cash cow is ever broken up - Gazprom. These behemoths may experience the same fate that befell the oil sector in the 1990s - chaos, embezzlement and thuggery unleashed in a pell-mell rush after wealth.

Investors and analysts should keep this in mind. Russia is a vast, complicated country, and its businesses are no exception.