Godfather of the Kremlin

Godfather of the Kremlin PDF Author: Paul Klebnikov
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780156013307
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 424

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Book Description
Chronicles the life of the head of one of Moscow's gangster families, who financed the reelection of Boris Yeltsin and became on of his key advisors.

Godfather of the Kremlin

Godfather of the Kremlin PDF Author: Paul Klebnikov
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780156013307
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 424

Get Book Here

Book Description
Chronicles the life of the head of one of Moscow's gangster families, who financed the reelection of Boris Yeltsin and became on of his key advisors.

Godfather of the Kremlin

Godfather of the Kremlin PDF Author: Paul Klebnikov
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
Chronicles the life of the head of one of Moscow's gangster families, who financed the reelection of Boris Yeltsin and became on of his key advisors.

Once Upon a Time in Russia

Once Upon a Time in Russia PDF Author: Ben Mezrich
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0434023418
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
A gripping and shocking insight into the lives of Russiaâe(tm)s most famous oligarchs from New York Times bestselling author of The Accidental Billionaires and Bringing Down the House. Once Upon a Time in Russia is the untold true story of the larger-than-life billionaire oligarchs who surfed the waves of privatization to reap riches after the fall of the Soviet regime: âeoeGodfather of the Kremlinâe Boris Berezovsky, a former mathematician whose first entrepreneurial venture was running an automobile reselling business, and Roman Abramovich, his dashing young protégé who built a multi-billion-dollar empire of oil and aluminium. Locked in a complex, uniquely Russian partnership, Berezovsky and Abramovich battled their way through the âeoeWild Eastâe of Russia with Berezovsky acting as the younger manâe(tm)s krysha- literally, his roof, his protector. Written with the heart-stopping pace of a thriller -but even more compelling because it is true - this story of amassing obscene wealth and power depicts a rarefied world seldom seen up close. Under Berezovskyâe(tm)s krysha, Abramovich built one of Russiaâe(tm)s largest oil companies from the ground up and in exchange made cash deliveries - including 491 million dollars in just one year. But their relationship frayed when Berezovsky attacked President Vladimir Putin in the media - and had to flee to the UK. Abramovich continued to prosper. Dead bodies trailed Berezovskyâe(tm)s footsteps, and threats followed him to London, where an associate of his died painfully and famously of Polonium poisoning. Then Berezovsky himself was later found dead, declared a suicide. Exclusively sourced, capturing a momentous period in recent world history, Once Upon a Time in Russia is at once personal and political, offering an unprecedented look into the wealth, corruption, and power behind what Graydon Carter called âe~the story of our ageâe(tm).

The Vory

The Vory PDF Author: Mark Galeotti
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300186827
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
The first English-language book to document the men who emerged from the gulags to become Russia's much-feared crime class: the vory v zakone Mark Galeotti is the go-to expert on organized crime in Russia, consulted by governments and police around the world. Now, Western readers can explore the fascinating history of the vory v zakone, a group that has survived and thrived amid the changes brought on by Stalinism, the Cold War, the Afghan War, and the end of the Soviet experiment. The vory--as the Russian mafia is also known--was born early in the twentieth century, largely in the Gulags and criminal camps, where they developed their unique culture. Identified by their signature tattoos, members abided by the thieves' code, a strict system that forbade all paid employment and cooperation with law enforcement and the state. Based on two decades of on-the-ground research, Galeotti's captivating study details the vory's journey to power from their early days to their adaptation to modern-day Russia's free-wheeling oligarchy and global opportunities beyond.

The Kremlin Letters

The Kremlin Letters PDF Author: David Reynolds
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300241046
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 693

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Book Description
A penetrating account of the dynamics of World War II’s Grand Alliance through the messages exchanged by the "Big Three" Stalin exchanged more than six hundred messages with Allied leaders Churchill and Roosevelt during the Second World War. In this riveting volume—the fruit of a unique British-Russian scholarly collaboration—the messages are published and also analyzed within their historical context. Ranging from intimate personal greetings to weighty salvos about diplomacy and strategy, this book offers fascinating new revelations of the political machinations and human stories behind the Allied triumvirate. Edited and narrated by two of the world’s leading scholars on World War II diplomacy and based on a decade of research in British, American, and newly available Russian archives, this crucial addition to wartime scholarship illuminates an alliance that really worked while exposing its fractious limits and the issues and egos that set the stage for the Cold War that followed.

Darkness at Dawn

Darkness at Dawn PDF Author: David Satter
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300129092
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
“The Russia that Satter depicts in this brave, engaging book cannot be ignored . . . Required reading for anyone interested in the post-Soviet state” (Newsweek). Anticipating a new dawn of freedom after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Russians could hardly have foreseen the reality of their future a decade later: A country impoverished and controlled at every level by organized crime. This riveting book views the 1990s reform period through the experiences of individual citizens, revealing the changes that have swept Russia and their effect on Russia’s age-old ways of thinking. “With a reporter’s eye for vivid detail and a novelist’s ability to capture emotion, he conveys the drama of Russia’s rocky road for the average victimized Russian . . . This is only half the story of what is happening in Russia these days, but it is the shattering half, and Satter renders it all the more poignant by making it so human.” —Foreign Affairs “[Satter] tells engrossing tales of brazen chicanery, official greed and unbearable suffering . . . Satter manages to bring the events to life with excruciating accounts of real Russians whose lives were shattered.” —The Baltimore Sun “Satter must be commended for saying what a great many people only dare to think.” —The Globe and Mail (Toronto) “Humane and articulate.” —The Spectator “Vivid, impeccably researched and truly frightening . . . Western policy-makers would do well to study these pages.” —National Post

Sale of the Century

Sale of the Century PDF Author: Chrystia Freeland
Publisher: Crown
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 424

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Book Description
In the 1990s, all eyes turned to the momentous changes in Russia, as the world's largest country was transformed into the world's newest democracy. But the heroic images of Boris Yeltsin atop a tank in front of Moscow's White House soon turned to grim new realities: a currency in freefall and a war in Chechnya; on the street, flashy new money and a vicious Russian mafia contrasted with doctors and teachers not receiving salaries for months at a time. If this was what capitalism brought, many Russians wondered if they weren't better off under the communists. This new society did not just appear ready-made: it was created by a handful of powerful men who came to be known as the oligarchs and the young reformers. The oligarchs were fast-talking businessmen who laid claim to Russia's vast natural resources. The young reformers were an elite group of egghead economists who got to put their wild theories into action, with results that were sometimes inspiring, sometimes devastating. With unparalleled access and acute insight, Chrystia Freeland takes us behind the scenes and shows us how these two groups misused a historic opportunity to build a new Russia. Their achievements were considerable, but their mistakes will deform Russian society for generations to come. Along with a gripping account of the incredible events in Russia's corridors of power, Freeland gives us a vivid sense of the buzz and hustle of the new Russia, and inside stories of the businesses that have beaten the odds and become successful and profitable. She also exposes the conflicts and compromises that developed when red directors of old Soviet firms and factories yielded to -- or fought -- the radically new ways of doing business. She delves into the loophole economy, where anyone who knows how to manipulate the new rules can make a fast buck. Sale of the Century is a fascinating fly-on-the-wall economic thriller -- an astonishing and essential account of who really controls Russia's new frontier.

The Soviet Ambassador

The Soviet Ambassador PDF Author: Christopher Shulgan
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
ISBN: 1551992663
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
Few realize that behind Mikhail Gorbachev’s Cold War-ending perestroika reforms stood an owlish figure who was just as important as the Soviet leader himself. Fewer still know the role Canada played in transforming Gorbachev’s advisor from a devout Stalinist to the most potent force for democracy and justice ever to walk the halls of the Kremlin. His name was Aleksandr Yakovlev. Today in an increasingly autocratic Russia he’s reviled as the man who brought down the Soviet empire–the "architect" of perestroika and the "godfather" of glasnost, who, some say, was the puppetmaster manipulating Gorbachev’s strings. Yakovlev is acknowledged to have devised the strategy that won Gorbachev the job of Soviet leader. After the Soviet collapse, Yakovlev was the only other man present as Gorbachev negotiated his transfer of power to Russian president Boris Yeltsin. In between, Yakovlev was behind every democratic measure Gorbachev instituted, leading the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer David Remnick to dub him "Gorbachev’s good angel." His origins were anything but democratic. As a youth, Yakovlev was a faithful Communist who idolized Stalin. By 1970 he had ascended to a position that controlled every media outlet in the Soviet Union, requiring him to plot repressive strategies against such dissidents as Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov But then a mis-step caused the Party to banish him from Moscow. A disgraced Yakovlev landed in the Cold War backwater of Ottawa working as the Soviet ambassador to Canada. His career should have been over. But Yakovlev’s diplomatic posting functioned as an education in Western democracy. He grew fascinated with elections, attended trials and became an expert in the machinations of a market economy. He also developed a close friendship with Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, who helped arrange to bring Mikhail Gorbachev on his first visit to North America. It was in Canada that Gorbachev and Yakovlev struck up their friendship as they strategized for the first time the radical changes known as perestroika. Drawing on interviews with Yakovlev’s family and dozens of his friends, as well as never-before-disclosed archival research material, The Soviet Ambassador recounts Yakovlev’s tortuous evolution from Stalin’s acolyte to Stalinism’s nemesis, from faithful member of the Communist Party to liberal democrat engineering the same Party’s collapse. With profound implications for diplomacy in a conflict-driven age, Yakovlev’s story is also a remarkable testament to the power of conviction, and an inspiring account of an underdog overcoming injustice to improve the lives of his fellow citizens.

All the Kremlin's Men

All the Kremlin's Men PDF Author: Mikhail Zygar
Publisher: Public Affairs
ISBN: 1610397398
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
"Charting the transformation of Vladimir Putin from a passionate fan of the West and a liberal reformer into a hurt and introverted outcast, All the Kremlin's Men is a historical detective story, full of intrigue and conspiracy. This is the story of the political battles that have taken place in the court of Vladimir Putin since his rise to power, and a chronicle of friendship and hatred between the Russian leader and his foreign partners and opponents..."--

Putin's Oil

Putin's Oil PDF Author: Martin Sixsmith
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1441179887
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
This title investigates Vladimir Putin's war for control of Russia's vast oil reserves, in particular Mikhail Khodorkovsky's oil firm, Yukos. "Putin's Oil" investigates the complex world of Kremlin politics, including conspiracies and conspiracy theories, allegations that Roman Abramovitch plotted with Putin to destroy Khodorkovsky, suspicions of betrayal and double agents in the Kremlin and in Yukos, murder charges against Khodorkovsky's partners, and the KGB defector who claims they were carried out by Kremlin agents. After the mysterious death in a helicopter crash of the Englishman who had taken over Yukos, the company's war against the Kremlin is now being waged by a troika of mild mannered Britons, pursued by Interpol arrest warrants and Moscow's fury. Khodorkovsky remains in a penal camp in far Eastern Siberia. Martin Sixsmith, former BBC Moscow Correspondent, has gained unprecedented access to many of the players in the drama. The resulting book is both a thriller and an analysis of the defining moments of Putin's presidency and their ongoing impact in Russian and world politics.