Russia’s oligarchs like to compare themselves to robber barons of 19th century America. But billionaire businessmen like Boris Berezovksy and Vladimir Gusinsky are creating a far different legacy than the Rockefellers and Carnegies. Instead of railroads, libraries, and foundations, Russia’s new rich have offshore accounts, private security armies, and criminal connections. Post-Soviet Russia is an impoverished country with a fraction of its once mighty industrial output, and a handful of tycoons have made fortunes during its decline.
The writer Paul Klebnikov says that Russia’s troubled transition is a story of brazen embezzlement by corrupt communists, apparatchiks-turned-capitalists, and a mafia full of ex-KGB agents. Berezovsky may be the godfather of them all, with an expanding empire of oil, automobiles, airlines, and media unrivaled in the world. The looting of Russia is this hour on the Connection.
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)
Guests:
Paul Klebnikov, Forbes writer and author of “Godfather of the Kremlin: Boris Berezovsky and The Looting of Russia”