Free Death of a Dissident by Alex Goldfarb

existed. It was a 100 percent novel, privately owned industry that originated from scratch.
    As Chubais himself later explained, “In 1996, I had a choice between the communists coming to power, or robber capitalism. I chose robber capitalism.”
    Chubais handpicked a dozen bankers whom he knew would never cave in to the Communists and offered them some of the crown jewels of Russia: gas, minerals, and elements of the infrastructure industries, in exchange for all the cash they could raise. The government got loans from the banks secured by shares in the enterprises. If the loan was not returned on time, then the bank could auction the shares off—a pure formality, since the bank itself controlled the process.
    The loans-for-shares auctions involved twelve enterprises in all: six oil companies, three factories, and three shipping companies. They garnered $1.1 billion for the government. The lucky robberbarons became some of the richest men on earth—assuming they could hold on to their assets after the elections.
    As for Boris, he wasn’t initially planning to take part in the auctions, as he didn’t own a bank and didn’t have that kind of money. He also had the insatiable TV network hanging around his neck, which devoured all the profits from his automobile business. But among all the new oligarchs, he was the closest to the Kremlin, and so he figured out a way to turn his weakness into a strength: he explained to Chubais and Korzhakov, the two principals in the Kremlin, that in order to support ORT, he needed some sort of cash generator. After all, the state owned a 51 percent stake and should bear some responsibility for the unprofitable network. He got the go-ahead. An additional “auction” was hastily announced for a controlling stake in Sibneft, the Siberian oil company that was the seventh largest oil producer in the Russian Federation. Chubais’s economists valued it at a minimum of $100 million.
    But Boris didn’t have $100 million. He could scrape up only about half that amount.

    October 6, 1995: A bomb critically injures Anatoly Romanov, the Russian commander in Chechnya and one of the rare doves in the military, who was in the midst of peace negotiations with the rebels. The cease-fire that has been holding since June is shattered. Rumors abound that the attack on Romanov is the work of “the Party of War,” a cabal of top military and security mandarins unhappy about Yeltsin’s attempts to reach a negotiated settlement. The defense and interior ministers openly call for an all-out war
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    One day in the early fall, Boris called to invite me to The Club to discuss “an urgent matter.”
    For most people in Moscow, The Club was a famous and mysterious place. A visit there was proof of one’s status. The quality of wine and the artistry of the chef were legendary. In the wake of the assassination attempt on Boris in 1994, the security was impressive,including metal detectors, closed-circuit television monitors, an ID registry, and the presence of many attentive young men with the demeanor and habits of the old KGB Kremlin guards.
    Over the bar, which also served as a waiting room, hung the first HDTV in Moscow. There was a white grand piano, played occasionally by one of Boris’s old friends, an elderly Jew in a white suit. In the corner stood a stuffed crocodile, for reasons unknown. Boris was always behind schedule, so his visitors usually had to wait. The atmosphere was supposed to help time pass pleasantly for his unending stream of visitors.
    On any given day at The Club you could rub elbows with ministers and TV personalities, deputies of the Duma and top journalists, provincial governors and Western fund managers, as well as people no one knew, such as an unremarkable young man in a jeans suit who often sat in a corner: Sasha Litvinenko. Sasha and I saw each other at The Club several times before we were ever introduced.
    This time I was rushed straight through the bar into Boris’s office