they called him the face of business and government he's a he was a gambler the money came second heading the russian mafia inside the kremlin it was enough for boris just raises eyebrows to make gangsters appear. he was a great college in all of russian politics he was a big time political adventurer some even cold him a lot today rest putin the embodiment of evil and boris yeltsin's presidential colt am i supposed to put on a grieving face and talk about people across the country mourning his demise on the

contrary i moderates that his death has attracted so much attention. i learned figure in russian business exemplified nine hundred ninety s. russia he made millions while his country. he was the subject of several books and the basis for many crime movie villains and i picked qualities of people i knew personally or was influenced by. them it's quite difficult to create an entirely new persona you always come up with a car. reminding you of someone and yes it was part of that image that i've created but he certainly wasn't the only one i probably wrote some of his biographical details and some of his personality traits there is also he wanted to be a living legend in his lifetime in that he succeeded his sudden death is as big

a mystery as his rapid rise to the peak of russian business and government. the english town of ascot forty kilometers from london has a population of about eight hundred thousand is famous horse races frequented by the country's elite now it has a new claim to fame. spent his final years before a mysterious death. god for me what you deserved he says to himself as he looks from the other world. he had died in poverty at the age of eighty seated in a rocking chair. the british social system would have just sent

a nurse to care for him. she had had to wipe his dripping nose and give him slippers to stop his leg. can't imagine that. before that that's what he did. using. the. french to. the interests of russian oligarchs there was a time when he was on good terms with the. business into power the wealthy entrepreneur . to be his lawyer but the invitation was declined. i don't like crazy people he was obsessed with the idea. you never knew how the tale would work out in the end. you always have to work with crazy people with the money but when one of them is obsessed with politics it's hard to work with them.

politics and we are completely different things. better he was equally insistent in calling on you to join the opposition but failed to gain the sinister rest of the ninety's was now the target of derision and jokes nobody took him seriously anymore alexander doesn't believe better off he was murdered by special services what would have been the point of killing him he had long since ceased to be a threat. credible number of people might say that security agents jews britons the americans or irishman got into the bathroom through the lavatory by dissolving into a molecular state. to realizing his james bond. with a scarf but not before saying to him. we're going to strangle you after that they get reduced to molecules i went down to level tory with the stewards later to

emerge in the kremlin. shortly before his death row to penitential put in criminal cases against him to be dropped and to be allowed to return. former head of security believes that better promise to hand over secret files on certain officials and businessmen in return for a pardon or. understood only to well let's just saying. i won't do it again wouldn't be enough i'm almost certain that he would only expect a pardon issue in exchange for something otherwise he wouldn't have written a letter. of the in. this is a severe threat to several russian nurses. overseas but. knows firsthand that you're in the one nine hundred ninety s. . compromising material on some of russia's top businessmen and officials he has no

doubt that better plans to use it against one of the country's oligarchs. they're trying to find that archive i think that's why they did. what he called the president he said. pardon me if i come back and i can incriminate a few people to your liking and he put in some interesting pieces of information simply writing a letter or talking in an interview with forbes would have been a foolish thing to do and i don't think he was a fool or a madman. before he died better he had lost the cold case of the century one russian oligarch. demanded that another. pay him five billion pounds owed from a deal with the oil company. if it was unable to produce any evidence that had pocketed money that didn't belong to him in those times deals with sealed with handshakes rather than signature. business worked in russia fortunes were being

made in months or even weeks but meteoric rise outstripped everybody. lifestyle was a bit like a nuclear reactor in fact he was a nuclear reactor constantly generating and spewing out excess energy and of course no one despite how healthy a person is like that for a long time and then comes the apathy. he was the orchestra conductor and the center of the universe he wanted to be the focus of everybody's attention and he wanted to be talked and written about even if it was derogatory he said there's no black or white p.r. there's only. to a ph d. in mathematics. at the academy of sciences. finally opened up forty

years of age threw himself into business. and became a key business figure in the country. t.v. interview for ukrainian. politics i was ready to spend any amount of money to achieve political. spending fifteen. that was the most effective business project in my life. to build it. he claimed the project. would get their revenge. to thirty. one hundred forty million rubles. made all his money into the one rule.

that made it possible for him to. make money from after. he liked under the of his friendship with the family. company already controlled. industry but still he wanted more. with the highest authorities could bring in the really big money. officials and even members of his family. when he showed them with lavish gifts. he found a weak link to. the president's younger daughter tatiana. she had been married several times she wasn't counted by bears so was yeltsin's wife naive who heard

many good things about the entrepreneur from her daughter both were frequent guests was where a french chef served sumptuous food in the relationship simplified gifts and money with money and gifts nothing else but earning points came on june the seventh one thousand nine hundred ninety four when better limousine was blown up the driver died instantly decapitated by the blast targets several innocent bystanders sustained serious injuries miraculously. escaped and. burned alive if i stayed in the car but if i got out they shoot me my driver died but in fact he saved my life because as usual he had forgotten to lock the door i just. it was incredible a sensation like being reborn it's a sense of purity what's happened before is of no importance problems.

you have an airy feeling overwhelming. unusually took the back seat with a little how many would later speculate that the only god must a mind to the attempt on his own life to join russia's ruling elite. to the apex of power began. you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so for lengthly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture.

here is mitt romney trying to figure out the name of that thing that we americans call a dog. i'm sorry i'm just a guy who cares an awful lot about my country these are our you know what kind of my sound but i don't want usa to featurism not be on the ball and the crystal publicans poll has really good. it's good for you to distract us from what you and i should care about because there are profit driven industry that sells us and facials that garbage because that breaking news i'm not a martin and we're going to break that.

if. removed about international and world in the very. heart of moscow. the murder attempts provided better with a ticket to the presidential club. of the highest officials associated to yeltsin and his family they met only a few times and better his role was that of mata suffering for the ideals of

entrepreneurship he was a laughing stock after the car bomb that was the first time he appeared among the elite in the early ninety's who even nicknamed him smokey they were all glamorous people and suddenly they saw the a man with burnt hairs on his bald head and a bandage face this way he takes advantage of the opportunity to attract attention be heard and take another step forward in his career at first better he had no real power he set himself a different tosk he simply wanted to be seen among the presidents in as often as he could to impress on ole that he was welcome at the highest levels. he was very funny i think it was very important for him to establish himself in the kremlin and make it clear to everybody that he. was there he was fond of making phone calls from the kremlin he would say that he was calling

from the waiting room of this official or that official he felt it was very important for him to see the official in question after sitting in the waiting room for a long time but getting no concrete decision from him. we would tell you liked it the inner circle created his image they would say for us just tester raises eyebrows and the gunmen in the gangsters are all going to show up instantly look at him. they'd exclaim but actually it was a completely different person as around the same time better off he was often seen in georgia with another eccentric multimillionaire. with a coke asian style moustache a handsome face and a liking for a flashy time. business friendship and a fondness for eccentricity and promotion. i remember in my waiting room for hours on end. holding his hands like this when he brought

bad dream to me for the first time he made a better impression. later that he'd been up to his ears in crime it was bad or who did the dirty work that the jew was responsible for. really would die just as suddenly. of a heart attack his funeral would be attended by almost half of tbilisi's population . and even former president shevardnadze. would not pay his last respects to his friend he could be arrested. death was a terrible blow to. the ninety's they had together moved from being ordinary businessmen to becoming rulers of destiny. as a complete surprise to everyone. i

said every word i knew i couldn't believe it. to the funeral of had given. he would not be able to get them back off to bed trees death because they contracted with a handshake. last financial support after death. was left with no money because had hidden it somewhere but nobody knew exactly where. because he lost a good deal of money he could no longer afford to fund the activities. he influenced with his. political weight by controlling several russian t.v. broadcasters and the country's most successful publishing house. was

in a human rights campaigner. committee activist. for political competition. but he knew how far he could push journalists. between truth and truth. the difference between half truths. one was a t.v. adored by the public. the t.v. advertising market. chief editor of forbes in russia he had written about financial dealings but there was no proof that he was involved. because he feared prosecution not political persecution. should be kept at a distance from the authorities disable the mechanism he made it possible for

himself to make money by maintaining close links with the government. played a key. election in. after he became a leading figure in the president's. thoughts . i think politics all the time that's what i like. the right to do. here. you can't imagine how much. and media support for the election confronted with a conflict between business and special services. he had to find his own chief bodyguard. involved in a disagreement with. other oligarchs. twenty nine hundred ninety six

i left the kremlin and i took no part in further events. should think about repenting their own sins i've never been like that i didn't raise him so high. i once said i'd live long enough to see the end of him and a few others so far he's the only one who's gone. after the success of yeltsin's presidential campaign there was also he was given control of the signal for practically nothing he was also made a high ranking government official deputy secretary of the security council to settle the conflict in chechnya. was my days are very interesting case when i get down to stealing an oil pipeline or pump oil out of it certainly not i thought. all important for business politics and for russian general. was the most

disturbing letting issue at the time. back home by taking advantage of his longstanding contacts and. t.v. channels that he controlled repeatedly pictures of men rescued from chips in a captivity. the airliner touches down and stops some distant short of the airport building comes to the airport it gets into the plane. it approaches a group of journalists on the apron. to liberate or appears on the stairs it was a constant feature on the war t. channel. that he grabbed all the glory. at that time white people were still unaware of the fact that the time would come when they pay a heavy price for that glory. nearly all analysts for. politics was an extension of his business so he only tackled the problems in chechnya so he'd be

able to win contracts for its restoration. they said that his office he expected to get gazprom and the rest of the russian federation as well as c. but you have to that was a conspiracy theory. ready had enough and simply needed to protect what i have. the means of creating a stable political system. so that food. after winning the election there were only two official meetings between them only one appearance with yeltsin was broadcast on t.v. that was when he was being appointed to the post of executive secretary or something for russia's security council. influence on the media if he'd had a hundred. i'm certain. the

confidence of the president's elder daughter. she was the president's most trusted confidant it became clear towards the. health reasons. that he had made the choice and was sure the new president would appreciate his efforts. brought him down he had to go because his time. to trouble.

the country against my will i can't. do or i'm going to kick them because i already think. the prosecutor. trying to create a political influence the course. of the presidential election in two thousand and four. former security council had mysteriously disappeared before the vote. some claim he arranged. to disrupt the ballot. the possibility. that i don't think i'm in a position to say in front of cold feet that he betrayed me or anything.

but he is convinced that it was in fact. obviously lying we have all the records of little interrogations they contain no mention of anything like that. it was in charge of security for the. control of. his former chief. pay sixty million rubles to anyone who would give putin away because he allegedly came to power illegitimately and that was complete nonsense it makes absolutely no sense. over time. oppositionist became the butt of many jokes. of power in russia even prompted the

british authorities to issue a warning that his political asylum status could be reviewed. six or seven years ago. still the country's principle. still being demonized. and this is what i said to. you want to hear you say yes i'm guilty. oh great he says he walked off to buy some garish pictures. losing everything divorcing his second wife cost him two hundred million pounds his failed court case against. even more money. most of his fortune remains with. much less than their market value he also had to cut down service and security. people who in the months before his death said that he was taking antidepressants he. did smoke before but

not much then at one point he started smoking two packs a day and drinking heavily his personality began to split he would say one thing in the morning but it would be something different at lunch time or in the evening several times in november he said that he'd lost the meaning of life and realized that he made many mistakes. when in russia business was synonymous when money opened the door and even access to the president. would no longer work and at the end of his life he knew there was no way back for him.

technology innovation all the developments around russia we. covered. he gave me to you. he. believed.

it.