Talk:Russian oligarchs/Archives/2011

Tone of the article
"are now down to their last $100m USD, the über-rich equivalent of skid row", lol —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.67.117.63 (talk) 14:33, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Ethnicity of Oligarchs
Has there been an actual survey of the ethnicity and/or religion of these Russian oligarchs? I'm curious as to where the "most of them are Jewish" statement comes from. Is there a source for that? --Nomenclaturist 17:22, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * "Most of" is an exaggerration. But many are. It is a fact and a pretty visible and discussed one, notably influencing the attitude towards them in Russia. I fixed the phrase. Mikkalai 17:41, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * Are there any sources to back up this premise? If it is true that many Jews are Russian Oligarchs, is there a way to phrase it as to not sound anti-Semitic?
 * MSTCrow 04:51, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)
 * You put it in wrong order and with wrong accents: not "many Jews are oligarchs", but "many prominent oligarchs are Jews". There is the category:Russian oligarchs that lists the prominent ones. You may easily see their nationality directly without any additional sources: of 18 listed at least 6 have a Jewish parent. And it does not simply sound anti-Semitic; its very purpose is to reflect anti-Semitic sentiments in Russia, the latter not being some obscure and rare or unbelievable phenomenon. Mikkalai 06:03, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * Mikkalai, if you want to keep including the reference to Jewish decent it should be reworded. In english it makes it sound as if the writer of the article is antisemitic; your intention that this reflects anti-semitic attitudes in the Russian population is thus lost in translation.  Maybe include a reference to anti-semitism in Russia to assist in explaining why the herritage of oligarchs affects their image in the eyes of some Russians.
 * Then be bold and do it. I am aware that my command of English is far from good. But deletion is inadmissible. Will the reference to History of Jews in Russia and Soviet Union do in your opinion? (IMO it is poor in terms of describing the today's situation; it even fails to mention "Pamyat".) mikka (t) 18:28, 28 May 2005 (UTC)
 * I added an external link that might help with this.--Shtove 14:05, 9 December 2006 (UTC) Roman Abramovich and Boris Berezovsky (as he stated jewish cristian. pravoslavnij evrej) clearly is of jewish origin. Since some of the most known oligarch are of jewish origin, russian antisemites use it as sign that conspiracy teories actualy are truth. Bur there are alsou many russian oligarchs and muslim oligarchs. Ethnicaly russian oligarch clearly isn't any better than oligarchs of any other nationalities. However, in Latvia, stated as oligarch, Andris Šķēle is an antisemite, as he stated, that in his business, he don't use "hook-nosed's".

At least 50% of the main Russian oligarchs (Berezovsky, Smolensky, Friedman, Khodorovsky) were jews even if jews are only 0.5% of the Russian population. Probably the reason is because they kept their relationship with Western jews, and later with Israel, during the USSR. Curiously, also about a third of the Russian Communist leaders (Kamenev, Trotsky) who built the USSR and killed the Czar Nicholas II ending with the Monarchy and Capitalism were also jews, something logical because the Czar and the Orthodox Church were anti-semites.--83.53.110.189 (talk) 06:00, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Anti-semitism
Why does the discussion run only to "Anti-Semitism" - and so easily? If a statistically very disproportionate amount of, say, the top 30 wealthiest people in Russia are Jewish {googling takes you into patently racist sites that are naturally untrustworthy}, not only does it bear mentioning beause anti-Semitism might play a role in government procedures, but one must in fairness ask {assume good faith!} why the Jewish population has seemed to succeed in banking, media, oil, and so forth. There is no evidence of any sort of "conspiracy", but viewed neutrally it does look suspicious, in a sense, given similar disproportionate representation in the U.S., Britain, and elsewhere. While it makes good sense to be on the lookout for editorial malfeasance and racism, that is no excuse for historical, sociological, or intellectual dishonesty. Jews qua group have amassed far more money and power in Russia than one would expect based on numbers alone. I don't know why that is, but I'm not willing to label the question "anti-Semitic" by bare virtue of the fact anti-Semites are likely to want an answer and themselves "suspect bad faith" on the part of Jewish-Russians...

Update
Please update new data of oligarch, because I think the proper of Roman Abramovich is now much more than 14.7 billions USD? Newone 09:57, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Reference section
I added reference section, with book from D. Hoffman. I guess more sources exists, possibly better and maybe even online. Adding them would make the current list-like article better. Pavel Vozenilek 18:33, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Article bias
This article is pretty unashamedly pro-Putin. Can anyone suggest a reason not to put a warning on it? Is anyone working on it? Wally 03:58, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Please list the cases, and we will work on it. I don't believe in any pro-Putin conspiracy in wikipedia. `'mikkanarxi 04:16, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
 * On the other hand, a number of places in the article strikes me as quite naive. I will return to it later (if I dont forget). `'mikkanarxi 04:18, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Rephrasing
I did some rephrasing of section 1 - a lot more needs to be done. The title should be Russian Oligarchs. I see no difficulty with listing the ethnicity of these guys.--Shtove 14:01, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Russian bank shares?
Can the part where they're listed by number of shares in Russian banks be clarified by someone who knows what all the numbers mean? 128.135.192.75 18:52, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

On the run?
How do the oligarchs who run out the country keep their wealth? Why isn't it taken?

Also are oligaches good for the country? Does the concentrated wealth mean more investment since they can't possibly spend billions on food or housing they must create jobs right? I don't know, i'm guessing. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 146.187.173.214 (talk) 00:30, 8 March 2007 (UTC).

Media and political pover
Well, oligarchs aren't just business magnates, but alsou have politicar power and control of mas media. AT least in Latvia, in Russia mas media all are goverment controled.

Article needs work
Is it just me, or are many of the articles on contemporary Russia unusually weak? Why is it that I can find details about every Soviet fighter plane ever made, but the article on the most powerful men in post-Soviet Russia is just a weak list of names? I am no expert, but I have read quite a lot on this subject and I would be happy to take on improving this article (and grateful for any help anyone would be willing to offer). Below are some of my thoughts on how the article could be improved, as I'm fairly new to this I will wait for comments before proceeding.

1. "Russian Oligarchs" page - I totally agree that this should be its own page. I don't believe that the term "business oligarch" has ever really been used outside the former Soviet Union, and its current usage vastly overshadows any general usage that may have existed before. I think someone should definitely move forward with this, hopefully while causing as little disruption as possible.
 * I agree so made Business oligarch a disambiguation page; I think we can all live with that. The Russian and Ukrainian contributions didn't compliment eachother.... —  Mariah-Yulia  • Talk to me!  17:37, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

2. Organization - I would propose a chronological summary of major events in oligarch-dom, followed by a few sections outlining major issues or controversies. A simple way to do this would be Gorbachev - Yeltsin - Putin. More detailed: Perestroika - Collapse of the Soviet Union - Yeltsin & Shock Therapy - Backlash - Putin Years. Important thematic sections would include influence of oligarchs in the media, oligarchs and politics, exiled oligarchs, oligarchs in other regions of the FSU (Baltics, Ukraine, Central Asia) and, in my opinion, a section on Jewishness/antisemitism, as this is an important them in Russia and oblique references to the oligarch's ethnicities almost invariably end up sounding like veiled antisemitism.

Does anyone feel that short summaries of events involving particular oligarchs, such as Khodorkovsky and Berezevosky, would be out of place here, even though they are covered in those peoples' pages? The purpose of this page, in my opinion, should be to give an idea of the phenomenon of the oligarch, the power they exerted as a group in Russia, and the reactions this elicited from Russian people and politicians. A list of individual biographies would seem to leave out important discussion of the overall themes linking these men together as a key social/political group in post-Soviet Russia.

There are plenty of good sources on this topic in English, I don't think it should be hard to build a high-quality article.

I will start working on this today and post my ideas somewhere for review before making sweeping edits. Comments and guidance appreciated. Stuffisthings (talk) 16:40, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Well it seems I got sidetracked (for over a year!) and forgot about this, but the article is still pretty weak. I would definitely propose "Russian oligarch" and "business magnate" (or whatever) being different articles, since the term "oligarch" and their position in society, politics, and the economy is unique to contemporary Russia and the Former Soviet Union. I have some material saved from last year when I tried to work on this -- is anyone else actively editing this article? Stuffisthings (talk) 15:17, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you. In fact, the use of "oligarch" in the sense of "influential businessman" has originated in the Russian press in the nineties, so I can't see what this whole US section is doing here. And the part about Russia is badly in need of rewriting. I'll try to get around to this some time soon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sredni vashtar (talk • contribs) 20:50, 20 December 2009 (UTC)