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Authors: Alex Goldfarb
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said. I told him the story of the American tycoons and financiers of the Gilded Age. I told him about their mansions in Newport, where children are now taken on tours, just as Soviet children, as both of us well remembered, were taken to Lenin’s Tomb. “Those people are remembered not for how they made their money—they were no angels—but for building American industry and for their philanthropy. That was how Carnegie Hall, the Rockefeller Foundation, and Vanderbilt University came about. This iswhy Soros gives money to Russian scientists. He wants to be remembered not as ‘the man who broke the Bank of England’ but as a sponsor of democracy in the ex-USSR.”
For an instant, Boris seemed reflective. But his comeback was as quick as ever. “How interesting. Well, we will do that, too, as soon as we can. Have you heard about my Triumph Fund? It gives prizes in the arts. What if I were to contribute to your Science Foundation, put in a million and a half or so, would Soros agree?”
From the moment I met Berezovsky, I couldn’t rid myself of the thought that he did not fit in the ecosystem of the Russian power establishment. He was the Great Gatsby of Rublyovka, his mercurial temperament and grand visions incompatible with the lethargic but murderous ethos that permeates the Kremlin walls.
The inauguration of Logo VAZ Fellowships for Young Scientists at the Soros Foundation took place in the summer of 1995 in Moscow at the Great Hall of the Ministry of Science. As television cameras whirred, George and Boris shook hands. George gave a speech about passing on the philanthropic baton to a new Russian capitalist class. “Capitalism in Russia is only beginning; after all, you have to make money first in order to give it out. I’m very happy that things are going so well for you and that you have the same understanding I do of the importance of science and education.” Boris beamed.
As we drove away from the ceremony, however, George’s tone was different. I mentioned the Great Gatsby parallel. “Indeed,” George said. “I sympathize with him, but I’m afraid that he will end up badly. He is climbing up and doesn’t know where to stop. And the higher you climb, the farther you fall.”
By the end of the summer, Soros’s forecast for Russia had considerably worsened. Yeltsin, he said, was caught between a rock and a hard place, coping with a social crisis amid pressure from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which supplied the bulk of his budget, to keep spending at bay. In Chechnya, he seemedto have lost control over the army, and the war’s violence was spiraling upward.
Spring 1995: Chechen ambushes accelerate, and separatists mine roads throughout the war zone. On June 14, eighty rebels led by warlord Shamil Basayev seize a hospital in the Russian city of Budyonnovsk, seventy miles from the Chechen border, taking more than fifteen hundred hostages. A tense standoff, interrupted by botched Russian attempts to retake the hospital, finally leads to a deal: most of the hostages are released in exchange for Yeltsin’s agreement to a cease-fire to the war, allowing negotiations. The militants return to Chechnya as heroes. Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, who conducts televised negotiations with Basayev, emerges as a leading dove in the Kremlin
.
“Russia is falling into a black hole which will drag the entire region with it,” Soros gloomily predicted late that summer. He asked me to gradually wind down the science program so that we wouldn’t be “burning cash for nothing.”
He was still reluctant to consider a loan for ORT. “Boris needs a strategic partner, and I don’t understand anything about television,” he said. “I can introduce him to someone.”
But that potential partner, an investor in one of the big American networks, did not want to give Boris a loan either. Instead, he simply offered to buy a chunk of ORT. Boris said that wasn’t possible, as the
For an instant, Boris seemed reflective. But his comeback was as quick as ever. “How interesting. Well, we will do that, too, as soon as we can. Have you heard about my Triumph Fund? It gives prizes in the arts. What if I were to contribute to your Science Foundation, put in a million and a half or so, would Soros agree?”
From the moment I met Berezovsky, I couldn’t rid myself of the thought that he did not fit in the ecosystem of the Russian power establishment. He was the Great Gatsby of Rublyovka, his mercurial temperament and grand visions incompatible with the lethargic but murderous ethos that permeates the Kremlin walls.
The inauguration of Logo VAZ Fellowships for Young Scientists at the Soros Foundation took place in the summer of 1995 in Moscow at the Great Hall of the Ministry of Science. As television cameras whirred, George and Boris shook hands. George gave a speech about passing on the philanthropic baton to a new Russian capitalist class. “Capitalism in Russia is only beginning; after all, you have to make money first in order to give it out. I’m very happy that things are going so well for you and that you have the same understanding I do of the importance of science and education.” Boris beamed.
As we drove away from the ceremony, however, George’s tone was different. I mentioned the Great Gatsby parallel. “Indeed,” George said. “I sympathize with him, but I’m afraid that he will end up badly. He is climbing up and doesn’t know where to stop. And the higher you climb, the farther you fall.”
By the end of the summer, Soros’s forecast for Russia had considerably worsened. Yeltsin, he said, was caught between a rock and a hard place, coping with a social crisis amid pressure from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which supplied the bulk of his budget, to keep spending at bay. In Chechnya, he seemedto have lost control over the army, and the war’s violence was spiraling upward.
Spring 1995: Chechen ambushes accelerate, and separatists mine roads throughout the war zone. On June 14, eighty rebels led by warlord Shamil Basayev seize a hospital in the Russian city of Budyonnovsk, seventy miles from the Chechen border, taking more than fifteen hundred hostages. A tense standoff, interrupted by botched Russian attempts to retake the hospital, finally leads to a deal: most of the hostages are released in exchange for Yeltsin’s agreement to a cease-fire to the war, allowing negotiations. The militants return to Chechnya as heroes. Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, who conducts televised negotiations with Basayev, emerges as a leading dove in the Kremlin
.
“Russia is falling into a black hole which will drag the entire region with it,” Soros gloomily predicted late that summer. He asked me to gradually wind down the science program so that we wouldn’t be “burning cash for nothing.”
He was still reluctant to consider a loan for ORT. “Boris needs a strategic partner, and I don’t understand anything about television,” he said. “I can introduce him to someone.”
But that potential partner, an investor in one of the big American networks, did not want to give Boris a loan either. Instead, he simply offered to buy a chunk of ORT. Boris said that wasn’t possible, as the
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