The Rise of the Oligarchs
How a handful of men captured Russia's wealth during privatization and became kingmakers in the new political order.
Who Were the Oligarchs?
The term 'oligarch' in the Russian context refers to a specific group of businessmen who amassed enormous fortunes during the privatization of the 1990s and used that wealth to exert disproportionate political influence. The original core group, sometimes called the 'Semibankirshchina' (rule of seven bankers), included Boris Berezovsky, Vladimir Gusinsky, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Mikhail Fridman, Vladimir Potanin, Alexander Smolensky, and Pyotr Aven.
Most came from scientific or technical backgrounds rather than the old Communist nomenklatura, though some had connections to the Soviet-era shadow economy. Berezovsky was a mathematician who parlayed a car dealership into a media empire. Khodorkovsky started a youth science center that became a bank, then an oil company. What they shared was opportunism, connections to the Yeltsin government, and the willingness to exploit the lawless chaos of the transition.
Their path to wealth followed a common pattern: acquire banking licenses in the early 1990s, use bank capital to buy vouchers and state enterprise shares cheaply, leverage political connections to win rigged auctions, then use media holdings (television was key) to protect their political position. By the mid-1990s, these men did not merely own companies — they shaped elections, appointed ministers, and dictated policy.
