The Oligarchs

Wealth and Power in the New Russia

De: David Hoffman

Narrado por: Steve Coulter

A brilliant investigative narrative: How six average Soviet men rose to the pinnacle of Russia's battered economy. David Hoffman, former Moscow bureau chief for The Washington Post, sheds light onto the hidden lives of Russia's most feared power brokers: the oligarchs. Focusing on six of these ruthless men Hoffman reveals how a few players managed to take over Russia's cash-strapped economy and then divvy it up in loans-for-shares deals. Before perestroika, these men were normal Soviet citizens, stuck in a dead-end system, claustrophobic apartments, and long bread lines. But as Communism loosened, they found gaps in the economy and reaped huge fortunes by getting their hands on fast money. They were entrepreneurs. As the government weakened and their businesses flourished, they grew greedier. Now the stakes were higher. The state was auctioning off its own assets to the highest bidder.

The tycoons go on wild borrowing sprees, taking billions of dollars from gullible western lenders. Meanwhile, Russia is building up a debt bomb. When the ruble finally collapses and Russia defaults, the tycoons try to save themselves by hiding their assets and running for cover. They turn against one another as each one faces a stark choice - annihilate or be annihilated. The story of the old Russia was spies, dissidents, and missiles. This is the new Russia, where civil society and the rule of law have little or no meaning.

©2002, 2003, 2011 David E. Hoffman (P)2014 Audible, Inc.

Very comprehensive account

This book was well written and very thorough in its account of the rise of the Oligarchs. Perhaps it could have been a little less in depth in some places, as at times the story got quite slow and the overall listen time was quite lengthy. Generally very good, however.

Compelling History - Rise of the First Oligarchs

When the Soviet Union collapsed and ailing President Boris Yeltsin relaxed restrictions on foreign capital, he set in motion an asset-grabbing, profit-generating nightmare in which, without the structures required to keep raw capitalism in check, billions were made and Russia's crown jewel resources divided among a brilliant, ruthless few. This story tracks these first oligarchs up to the rise of Vladimir Putin, when everything changed. Disgraced, deported or jailed few of the billionaires remained unscathed. Putin installed a new breed of oligarchs whose loyalty to the autocratic Putin remains unquestioned. A highly detailed history of Russia's version of the wild, wild west.

Very detailed and informative

I think this book is a must for anyone trying to understand russian politics today.

Russian words are badly mispronounced

Where does The Oligarchs rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Russian words are badly mispronounced

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Oligarchs?

Russian words are badly mispronounced

How could the performance have been better?

Russian words are badly mispronounced

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Russian words are badly mispronounced

Any additional comments?

Russian words are badly mispronounced

No judgment by the author for any side is great

no emotions for any side for such a book is very hard, but the author made it.

Detailed

This is a very detailed explanation of how privatization happened after the fall of the Soviet Union. It is very similar to a book about politics with explanations of the different factions and experiences of the players influencing there ideas and actions. The broad context of how the privatization happened with billion-dollar companies selling for cents on the dollar was interesting to me. The politics and outcomes for so many individuals was too detailed for me.

Excellent!

At first I was intimidate by the length of the book, but once I started listening I couldn’t “put it down”. Great listen and very interesting!

Supreme Chronicle of Murky Times

This is by far the best book on this period of Russian history that I have encountered.

The author struggling to present a complex economic/social history to the general reader faces two potential pitfalls. One is to simplify everything to the point of being patronizing. The other is to air on the side of the more technical information that will be alienating to non-academic readers and take away from the human narrative.

This book avoids both of these risks and strikes a perfect balance between stories of men who advanced in this tumultuous period and the systematic/structural shifts that allowed for their rise.

We all know that command economy has failed in the Soviet Union but this book explains why it did without becoming technical or dull. We all know that oligarchs rose from the ashes of the empire, this book explains how they did. We are all familiar with the pervasive corruption in Russia, this book shows how corruption was used to wield power by the mayor of Moscow and the Kremlin itself.

The old historical debate pits those who believe that men make history versus the scholars who emphasize structural forces that toss around the lives of people who are not important in on of themselves. The truth most intelligent people grasp instinctively is that history is made in a messy struggle, the Yin and Yang, between the fates of individuals and larger historical forces. Each trying to define the other.

You want find a better story of this struggle than David Hoffman's book.

Ivan
~Ivan's Shady Existence Blog

***

A word about the narrator. As a native Russian speaker hearing him pronounce Russian names and words is like hearing someone scratch the chalk board. Obviously the pronunciation of Russian words in an American book will not be precise. I wouldn't be asking for that. But the emphasis is sometimes shifted so much that the original Russian name or word becomes unrecognizable.

Imagine listening to a Russian book where the name George Bush would be pronounced as "Dzorge Push"

When it comes to the flow of the book the narration is perfect but its a shame that no one familiar with the Russian language was consulted on the narration to make it a little better.

Amazing as economics, history, character study

This gives me the same sensation as a great documentary does: a sense of peering through a window, clean and clear and literal, at the most harrowing and instructive of realities. Here I am, looking over these individuals' shoulders, feeling them tremble, as they face the great questions of their societies' destinies. We find out who heroic figures are, in my sense of the word, when we observe people, perhaps not seemingly touched by greatness to begin with, who must grope as chasms of uncertainty open beneath them, who must build bridges where no clear path or support is evident. Many such characters can be met here, as Russia staggered away from a comprehensively failing socialism, as it is so vividly described here, down to the last rotting tomato in a vast mismanaged distribution center. In econ-tech terms, these stories provide a textbook of internal frictions and agency costs of forced-distributive systems, which brought the ideals of communism staggering clumsily to collapse. At that level, it is easy to see why desperate people must betray the system and furtively grasp for market exchanges to survive. The story does not come all the way to present times, so at least one more book will be needed before I can feel well-briefed. So sad it is, that Russia lurched (perhaps merely due to the speed, but look at China's dissimilar experiment in an only slightly longer time-frame) into a gangster-capitalism, and must await another epoch maybe, for a more humane and balanced system to arrive. But these characters were vaulting across great precipices, fueled by their few capitalist books. This is where ideas are stress-tested and sometimes tested to destruction against fast-breaking realities. There were opportunities everywhere, but risks, oh my!

Great book

Such a great book. Facts very well distributed over each chapter. A never old history of changes in Russia. And coming from Albania it makes the book more interesting for me. A lot of connections between the changes in the two countries