Istanbul-based Enka Construction & Industry Co. Inc. is Turkey’s largest construction conglomerate, reaching that pinnacle with projects almost all outside the country’s borders. Now among the world’s most international contractors, Enka is particularly well-situated some 1,800 km miles away in Moscow as one of Russia’ biggest builder-developers, a market its executives say is still going strong. “We do about $1 billion of contracts yearly there, and demand is growing,” says President Haluk Gercek. “We have about 350,000 sq meters of A+ office space in Moscow.”

Russia and other new democracies that emerged from the 1991 demise of the old USSR, Turkey’s northern neighbor, are compelling markets now for Enka in a host of growing sectors, from high-rise development to oil and gas and toll roads. Enka says it has completed more than 130 building, hospital, industrial and power projects in the former Soviet Union since first moving there in the Communist era.