Don't think this has been posted (did a quick search) but I'm having a bit of a TOD break.

Why does Russian energy giant Gazprom wield such power?

(CNN) -- Riding through the streets of Moscow or flipping through channels of Russian TV, it's difficult to escape messages from the country's natural gas monopoly, Gazprom.

"I'm driving under a huge Gazprom sign right now," Yuri Pogorely, vice-president of Interfax, the Russian business news wire, said in a phone interview. Television ad campaigns have promoted the company as a "national treasure" and, more recently, the business that makes "dreams come true."

"It can make someone think, why does a Russian monopoly need this kind of branding? After all, there are other state-owned companies that don't present themselves as a symbol of Russia," Pogorely said. "But Gazprom is not just any company."

If the Soviet Union promoted its interests through satellite states and military prowess, Russia today flexes its might on the global stage through its vast oil and natural gas fields. And no company exemplifies this more than Gazprom.

+ Associated Video: CNN's Richard Quest interviews Russian Gazprom Export CEO Alexander Medvedev.

Time lists Quest's interview subject Medvedev as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2009 and says of him

Alexander Medvedev, head of Gazprom Export, is its link to the outside world. One-third of the gas consumed in Europe passes through Medvedev's hands, and 60% of Gazprom's total revenues come from exports.

...Yet as the recurrent gas wars between Russia and Ukraine demonstrate, Europe's energy security is an area of high tension. After four decades of being Europe's main gas provider, Russia has seen its originally stellar reputation — it pumped away even as the Soviet Union was disintegrating — become severely damaged. Medvedev can give brilliant rejoinders to critics, but more and more people are talking about how to ensure Europe's energy security against the whims of Russia, its lead supplier.