Kevin Hennessey wants to know absolutely everything about Russia, and he wants you to know it, too. To that end, the former Credit Suisse First Boston banker has spent the last several years of his life collaborating with the Council for Trade and Economic Cooperation (USA-CIS) and a host of Russian apparatchiks to compile the definitive guide to the country’s 89 regions.

This has been no mean feat. Consider a country with 14 time zones, myriad ethnic groups and languages, and, until recently, no phone book.

Last year the group published a tome of more than 1,000 pages, which describes each region’s manufacturing and natural resources, the energy and transportation infrastructure, the political administration of the region (complete with names and phone numbers), and approximately 1,000 investment projects.

The book carries introductory remarks by James Wolfensohn, then president of the World Bank; Donald Evans, former U.S. secretary of commerce, and their Russian counterparts. This is a serious work.

This may sound like dry reading, but to would-be entrepreneurs in a country with no reliable information flow, it is the stuff of magic. Historically, there has been no way for an executive in the Urals to know that supplying cardboard boxes to the Penza region might be a profitable venture. Decades of central management will knock the stuffing out of the exchange of information, as well as ideas.

Mr. Hennessey is not in it for the money, although he hopes that sales of the book will ultimately allow the venture to break even. His ambition? To help Russia attract capital and trade, and thus raise the standard of living of its people.

Only then will Russia truly enter the world community, and only then will its leaders have to abide by the rule of law, which in turn will encourage foreign investment. Mr. Hennessey is certain that “the more you move them to trade, the more comfortable we can be that international issues will be resolved.”

How did a fellow who started life as a bank examiner become so obsessed with Russia? It may stem from his early stint as a banker for the shipping industry, which took him for the first time to exotic places like Greece, and certainly exposed him to what might be generously called “alternative business practices.”

Indeed, he has one of his early customers to thank for his introduction to Wall Street. A Greek shipping magnate who was down on his luck opened Harry’s Bar downtown – a popular aftermarket hangout for traders. In gratitude for his past loans, the owner encouraged Mr. Hennessey to take up residence at Harry’s in order to meet a few Wall Street types.

Not long after, Mr. Hennessey was on his way to CSFB, having met some congenial fellows who set him up on the municipal bond desk. In 1992, he took over management of the company’s emerging markets fixed-income business.

In those days, “emerging markets” referred mainly to Latin America, but Mr. Hennessey’s responsibilities grew to include Eastern Europe and Russia, and the seed was planted.

After leaving CSFB in 1998, Mr. Hennessey cast about for a project that could interest him, while traveling and investing in Eastern Europe. He quickly came to the conclusion that “the most intriguing place in the world is the former Soviet Union.”

Intriguing, perhaps, and also dangerous. In 1998, Mr. Hennessey watched as the Russian market collapsed, along with other emerging markets. Though he had little at stake, it was a sobering experience.

During this time, Mr. Hennessey became involved with a group of former CSFB executives who were working on the Nuclear Nonproliferation Trust. This group was attempting to resolve the issue of where to store spent nuclear fuel in Russia. The project included an attempt to raise money for a storage facility in Russia, as well as for the clean-up of some of the country’s nuclear “problems.”

Through this organization, Mr. Hennessey met Veronica Krasheninnikova-Berger, U.S. president of the Council for Trade and Economic Cooperation, who approached Mr. Hennessey about collaborating on the guide.

Soon, he was embroiled in the project, which required innumerable government approvals and enormous organization. The first step was a letter which went out to the 89 regional governors from the president of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (and a former KGB operative), asking for their cooperation. Surprise! They cooperated. Each region assigned a task force to gather requested data.

Some 7,000 phone calls later, the information was more or less in place. Mr. Hennessey and his partners insisted on fact, not fantasy. They also insisted on producing an attractive, quality product. The process of creating the guide was, in Mr. Hennessey’s words, “what we want for Russia. It used foreign money, Russian expertise, and work ethic, and produced a world class product.”

The book has not shown up on the best-seller list, but it has sold about 1,000 copies; about half in America where it costs around $900, and about half in Russia, where it is being sold below cost, for approximately $75. The creators are convinced that it is as important for stimulating trade within Russia as with America.

What’s next? The group has resolved to update the guide every two years, and to put the material online. Further, there may be other types of business publications in the future. While the Russian government may be good at amassing information about companies and how they work, little is comparable or standardized. Investors, especially from America, are going to need significantly better financial data before investment gets off the ground in earnest.

Of course, it is not only the lack of information that is currently holding back foreign investment. Today’s political climate is not auspicious, either. Mr. Hennessy avows that he is a “huge fan of Putin” and decries American press coverage of the Yukos affair as misguided and misguiding. However, he acknowledges that “the issue for any developing system is stability,” and that the goings-on in the Yukos affair have been unsettling.

Mr. Hennessey expects Mr. Putin to calm the oligarchs, having delivered to that favored group a stern warning about abuses of power, and to carry on. In his view, Russia cannot afford to revisit the handing over of enormous wealth to that group; in fact, he feels it may someday be viewed as having been the most expeditious path to privatization.

For Mr. Hennessey, the rule of law is first, and then the flow of information. He may not be in a position to do much about the former, but it looks like he is committed to beefing up the latter for the foreseeable future.