About This Lesson
Oligarchs control a vast amount of wealth and influence in Russia today. How did these business titans rise to power and what is their relationship to the government?
We have pulled a large excerpt from David Hoffman's 2004 talk on his book The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in Russia.Researched and written during a key time period—when the wealth and power of oligarchs was strong and rising and Putin had served only a few years in executive office—Hoffman gives a clear look at the rise and sudden fall of the man who was once the richest in Russia: Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
By reading through the piece, one can address the questions central to Hoffman's talk: "What are capitalists in a land that was hostile to the idea for seven decades? What are criminals in a state without the rule of law?"
