Champagne flowed at Gazprom headquarters as Russia's political beau monde gathered for the signing of an international contract to build the underwater stretch of a gas pipeline between Russia and Turkey.

The project, dubbed "Blue Stream," aims to bring Russian gas to the growing Turkish market.

But even as Gazprom prepared to crack open the champagne, representatives of Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey - in Istanbul for the OSCE summit - signed an international declaration on building a rival trans-Caspian pipeline to supply Turkmen gas to the Turkish market. The Blue Stream project, which involves companies from Italy, France and Japan as well as Russia, has strong support in Rome and Paris, while the trans-Caspian pipeline has open U.S. backing .

The United States is currently searching for reliable investors, while trying to smooth out the inevitable complexities arising from the fact that the pipeline's route is set to cross several small and poor countries.

This clash of similar projects, and Turkey's playing the two sides off against each other, has not escaped the media's attention. Already, some are speaking of a new "great game" - the name given to the struggle for influence in nineteenth century Turkestan between the Russian and British empires.

We can certainly expect a swarm of memoirs and bestsellers to come out of the current clashes in Central Asia. But less is known about who the players actually are this time round. The United States for its part has its State Department, Energy Ministry and CIA officials working smoothly as a team - the kind of "dream team" that Gazprom envies.

The other player - generally designated "Russia" in the Western press - is far more amorphous in nature. The Russian authorities, in fact, have little to do with Blue Stream, only recently endorsing the project once it was clear it would go ahead.

Even then, the government did not grant Gazprom all the tax breaks the company asked for in order to implement the project more quickly.

Since the project's inception in late 1997, Gazprom has had to face America alone, negotiating with Turkey and European partners and gathering information in the field. Neither the government, the Foreign Ministry nor the presidential administration came to Gazprom's aid. Only Yevgeny Primakov, while he was still prime minister, used his old Italian political contacts for Gazprom's benefit.

With five governments in quick succession since 1998, the authorities have simply not had the time to spare for Blue Stream. Officials are mindful of the income that gas exports bring the country, but all too often forget that without a clear strategy for the future, there's no certainty of maintaining these exports.

Gazprom estimates that the trans-Caspian pipeline, should it be built, would cost Russia around $25 billion in lost earnings on the Turkish market between 2002 and 2025. If the Turkmen gas goes on to the European market, Russia stands to lose up to $2.5 billion a year.

But these figures seem lost on the government. Some attempts were even made to undermine Blue Stream in the hope of unseating Gazprom head Rem Vyakhirev, considered a political challenger.

It comes as no surprise, then, that the United States with its trans-Caspian project is now breathing down Blue Stream's neck. Despite what Gazprom officials say, the outcome of this new "great game" is far from decided. Following the Istanbul declaration, negotiations are set for March 2000 on the rights of countries and investors participating in the trans-Caspian project. Blue Stream has a head start of only a few weeks, and that is an advantage that could be wiped out by, for example, unfavorable political change at home.

The idea that the state should give large companies more power to set their own courses and make their own decisions is a good one, but there are times when the stakes are such that the state - with its diplomats, intelligence services, economic and military-political instruments of pressure - is needed. Should Gazprom and Russia lose the "great game," it would mean not just the loss of billions of dollars, but a "political default" by the authorities - something with consequences just as serious as those of the financial default of 1998.