Karen Dawisha Quotes

[A] rich... hybrid combination of Chekists, mobsters, and officials in bureaucratic positions of power existed throughout the USSR... Putin was at the nexus of these three worlds: ...[A] former ...employee, "Nikolay" ...claims ...he was approached by his superior ...1990 to be part of the following scheme:<blockquote>...a new clandestine structure ...Your personnel files will be removed ...No one will ...know your past. ...you will ...work for the Fatherland. Against those who want to destroy it. ...I worked ...cleaning up the archives of the . ...hundreds of [files] removed. Including ...Putin. After the failed coup of '91... as the chief financial officer ...on behalf of the KGB. ...Money ...and more money. ...in one offshore paradise or another. We... were moving millions and millions of dollars into bank vaults. ....along those same channels ...money from organized crime ...I would not be able to tell which monies belonged to the KGB and which to the mafia. In response to ...questions, they responded: just move the damn money. And I did.</blockquote>

While we talked about the failure of the 1991 coup... the failure of the efforts by the conservatives to oust Gorbachev... it's a much more complex situation. ...[S]ome ...were quickly tried and put into jail, but for very short periods and very few people... even though this was a nation-wide conspiracy... 1991 failed as an incident, but the effort to return... preeminence... as a protector of the grand Russian idea... became part of the project of bringing Putin to power in 2000.

The book contains major sections on Bank Rossiya, on the food scandel in Saint Petersburg in the early 90s, on Putin's involvement in the control and emergence of the gambling industry in Saint Petersburg, Putin's involvement as a member of the board of the St. Petersburg Real Estate Holding Company [St. Peterburg Immobilien und Beteiligungs AG]... registered in Germany... investigated by and B&D for its involvement in the laundering of money from the Cali Cartel, ...giving ...a monopoly position to the Tambov gang in the , ...creating and using... money from the mayor's contingency fund through... Twentieth Trust... and the unauthorized use of funds from the mayor's contingency fund in getting an apartment for himself in Saint Petersburg...

Putin began his political career in St. Petersburg in... 1990, as advisor to... Mayor Anatoliy Sobchak, and later as the deputy... mayor... From... 1991, to... 1996, he was... chairman of the Committee for Foreign Liaison (KVS)... regulating, and licensing foreign investment in St. Petersburg and Russian investment... abroad... uniquely positioned to regulate... money, goods, and services into and out of Russia’s largest trading city... When Putin went to work for Sobchak, he immediately began to gather ...the core group ...who would work with him throughout the 1990s... into his presidency. They came from... the KGB, the Main Intelligence Directorate (...GRU), , and legal and business circles. ...[T]he inner core consisted of Dmitriy Medvedev, , , , , , , , Aleksey Miller, , and .

... "...Putin’s political philosophy and favorite concepts—managed democracy, administrative vertical, dictatorship of law, a 'control' shot to the back of the head, etc.—are close to this group."

I also got a few reviews from people who said, "ok, so they're corrupt, but it's not a ." So... what do I mean by saying that... a political system is a kleptocracy?

The pattern we see now of the redistribution of to the inner core, has been in place since the beginning, and even before . This is not a system in which robber barons create the industrial basis of a robust emerging capitalist economy. This is a system in which barons are robbed by value-detracting state raiding elites whose sole position is determined by their relationship to the current president. Value-detraction is an extremely important part of this picture.

110 billionaires control 35% of the... wealth of this very wealthy country. ...[T]he median wealth in Russia ...(50% are richer, 50% are poorer) ...is ...$871. It is the lowest median wealth figure of any country. A country that is a net exporter of energy has a lower median wealth than India. It... scores below Nigeria in its ability to control corruption, and... its willingness to control corruption.

[T]hese sanctions represented a public admission by the United States government of what it had known for over a decade... Putin has built a system based on massive predation not seen in Russia since the Tzars. Transparency International estimates $300 billion are paid every year in corruption. , according to official Russian Central Bank figures since 2005 have been $335 billion, and ... stated that Russia now has the highest income inequality of any country in the world.

[T]he system is... mutual support and tribute. It's a system. If you are on a list of possible people who might be approached to be a member of the ... you have to pay for your seat. Once you’re in... you can... charge businessmen to have line items in the budget. Same thing all across all sectors.

The argument of the book is that this group failed in 1991, but they succeeded in 2000. It's the same group, ideologically, not everybody, but ideologically.

Putin... 1991... was made head of the supervisory council overseeing the... gambling industry in St. Petersburg. ...[H]ow did the city become a majority owner in... [that] gaming industry in St. Petersburg? ..."by relinquishing the right to collect rent for the facilities that the s occupied," the city could claim 51 percent ownership ...[E]stablishing a joint stock company called Neva Chance, which... went on to create over twenty-five different [gambling industry] companies ...many ...headed by ex-FSB officials ...

He was the linchpin. He controlled which foreign companies could register their offices and receive offices. ...[A]ll this property was Soviet property. The Soviet Union hadn't fallen yet. So how was a company... to get access to property to set up... in St. Petersburg? Putin would... assign it.

Shamalov... was hired by Putin in 1993. The conflict of interest was massive. Kolesnikov... described... [Dmitri] Gorelov... director of Petromed, ordering medical equipment; Shamalov... representative of , delivering the equipment... a good friend of Putin, with whom he went on to found... .... Kolesnikov said, "When Shamalov came to us with a proposal... we understood... this was... directly from Vladimir Vladimirovich." Gorelov believed that... Putin’s KVS... provided the "roof" to protect against... organized crime. When Vladimir Yakovlev became governor of St. Petersburg... the relationship... [with] Petromed... soured, and Gorelov and Kolesnikov bought... the city's stake... They became major shareholders in Bank Rossiya, purchased a stake in s, and by the mid-2000s were... in the Russia... richest Russians. Kolesnikov... ultimately became a whistleblower... [claiming] diversion of funds... to build "."

By 2013 the Russia list of the wealthiest businessmen in Russia was replete with friends of Putin.