a landmark 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 the car. reminding you of someone and. 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. 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 eighteen fells and is famous for horse races frequented by the country's elite now it has a new claim to fame. spent his final years before a mysterious death. 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 in 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. he did. using. the. french to alexander. defending the interests of russian oligarchs there was a time when he was on good terms with. 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. how the tale would work out in the end. you always have to work with crazy people with someone but when one of them is obsessed with politics it's hard to work with them. politics and we are completely different things. 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 that doesn't believe better he was murdered by special services what would have been the point of killing him he had long since ceased to be a threat. and incredible number of people might say that security agents. britons the americans or irishman got into the bathroom through the lavatory by dissolving into a molecular state. to realizing is james bond. with a scar 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 a secret files on certain officials and businessmen in return for a pardon or. understood only to well let's just saying forgive me 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. you're a threat to several russian. overseas but it. 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 it is 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 had lost the cold case of the century one russian oligarch better demanded that another. pay him five billion pounds owed from a deal with the oil company. 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 were russia fortunes were being made in months even weeks but. outstripped everybody.

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. he started as a junior and. 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. one hundred forty million rubles. money sticking to the one rule that he set for himself and.

that made it possible for him to plunder. make money from off. 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. even members of his family. when he showed them with lavish gifts this will he found a weak link to boris yeltsin the president's younger daughter tatiana. she had been married several times she wasn't chanted by bears so was yeltsin's wife nyima who heard many good things about the entrepreneur from her daughter both were frequent guests of was where

a french chef served sumptuous food in the relationship simplified gifts and money with money and gifts nothing else a turning point came on june the seventh nine hundred ninety four when better limousine was blown up the driver died instantly decapitated by the blast targets body guards and several innocent bystanders sustained serious injuries miraculously better. than. i thought to be burned alive if i stayed in the car but if i got out it was a shoot me my driver died but in fact he saved my life because as usual he forgot to lock the door i just got out it was an incredible sensation it's not like being reborn it's a sense of. what's happened before is of no importance problems are an important you have an airy feeling overwhelming.

on that day he unusually took the back seat with a blast caused little how many would later speculate that the only god can muster a mind to the attempt on his own life to join russia is ruling elite. to the apex of power began. the for.

victims multiply here each day. it's very profitable to invest in colombia with the very profit of the it is a very high return on investment. in good dalmiya he has said that i've been working in this area for thirty years and i've always had to pay the armed groups that when they come i mean that is the new the managers of change their name and strategy but just till the same murderous. high ranking suspects give no comment very upset on that mr president goes. to president putin. but the media. i won't give an interview i'm sorry but no. investigation is a dead. end and says sick and can't stop the bullshit and keep quiet

or else you'll suffer the consequences. even if they're your bodyguards to watch themselves because the same goes for them. blood rivers from synch i've never heard of such a case as ours where so much money and gold has been stolen so many years. for all the gold in colombia on our t.v. . international airport in the very heart of moscow. the murder attempts provided

better with a ticket to the presidential club a small circle of the highest officials associated to yeltsin and his family they met only a few times and better off his role was that of mata suffering for the ideals of entrepreneurship he was a laughingstock 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 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 president's in a circle as often as he could to impress on ole that he was welcome at the highest levels. it 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 is all ski 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 and 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 of the inner circle created his image they would say for us just have. all going to show up instantly look at him. they'd exclaim but actually he was a completely different person as around the same time. with another eccentric multimillionaire. with. a handsome face and a liking for flashy ties. 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 badgering who did the dirty work that the jewel was responsible for. just as suddenly as. a heart attack. 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 i couldn't believe it. the funeral of had given all his assets to. be able to get them back off to bed because they. lost fine. death. because. nobody knew exactly where. because he lost a good deal of money. he . makes with his. political weight by controlling several

russian t.v. broadcasters and the country's most successful publishing house. wasn't a human rights. activist. for political competition. but he knew how far he could push journalists. between truth and truth. the difference between half truths. adored by the public. the t.v. advertising market. and 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. made possible for himself to make money. with the government. after he became a leading figure in the president's. i think politics all the time that's what i like why do you. have you the right to do that and that's what i often hear the simple answer you can't imagine how much i love it. considerable power. needed both financial and media support for the election confronted with

a conflict between business and special services. he had to fire his own chief bodyguard who had openly been 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 significance for practically nothing he was also made a high ranking government official deputy secretary of the security council to settle a conflict in chechnya. was in my days

a very interesting case when i get down to stealing an oil pipeline or pump oil out of it certainly not i thought it was the all important for business politics and for russians general this was the most the stop the laughing issue at the time. back home by taking advantage of his longstanding contacts in chechnya t.v. channels that he controlled repeatedly pictures of men rescued from church and 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 it seemed 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 so certain that for better politics was an extension of his business that he only tackled the problems in chechnya so he'd be able to win contracts for its restoration. but. they said that his office he expected to get gazprom and the rest of the russian federation as well as you have 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 secretary or something for

russia's security council. the media had a hundred meetings with i'm certain. the confidence of the president. 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. do or i'm going to kick the bucket because i. think. it was. the prosecutor. trying to create a political influence the course. of the presidential election in two thousand and four. former security council head mysteriously disappeared before the vote. some claim he arranged. to disrupt the ballot. possibility.

that i don't think i'm in a position to say in front of cold feet that he betrayed me or anything. intelligent. with. british intelligence accused. but he is convinced that he was in fact. obviously lying we have all the records of little interrogations they contain no mention of anything like that that means this was a. security for the t.v. . control. exposing 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 the british authorities to issue a warning that his political asylum could be reviewed. six or seven years ago. he said my 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. crazy says he walked off to buy some pictures without. 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 the. better.

value he also had to cut down service and security. people who saw 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. takes would no longer work and at the end of his life he

knew there was no way back for him. no the deal is our life. in eternal silence. in the inner invisible battle. every day is a struggle. for our children sleep soundly at night.

we are palestinian women working in israel. we've done more for our kids than our husbands. know we are phantoms in this life. room. a clear image of iraq after inflation. twenty day taxi trip through the country. the road full of danger. clear evidence from north to south. the rich map of iraqi tragedy. after the war waiting for peace. by god taxi all r.t. . choose your language call it with know if there is still some of. us choose to use the consensus here to. choose the opinions that invigorating

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