QXL Ricardo, the European online auction company, has bought a 30 percent stake in Molotok.ru, an online auction site in Russia, for a small sum of $1.5 million. The remaining 70 percent of the site is be owned by Russian portal Mail.ru (Naspers, the South African media giant, in turn has a 30 percent stake in Mail.ru). QXL has an option to increase its stake to 51 percent depending on the future performance of the business. The deal values Molotok.ru at $5 million. Some more info in this PDF release, and Cnews story. (Thanks Yakov for the tip).