There’s an aside in a meditation on contemporary Russia, on Boris Berezovsky mainly, by Peter Pomerantsev in the latest London Review of Books, which goes a long way towards explaining the brazenness of the Russian oligarchs, their complete lack of the hypocrisy which seems to ooze from the psychic pores of oligarchs of other countries as persistently and naturally as sweat. Pomegranates (no, I hadn’t heard of him either; he’s a TV producer in London writing a book about modern Russia who, commendably, has not yet gotten around to having one of his friends write him up in Wikipedia) points out that the Russian oligarchy was brought up with the notion that property is theft. It’s what they were taught in school. In joining the ranks of the capitalists, they have joined the ranks of sanctioned thieves and are comfortable in the role. Unlike the rich elsewhere, their wealth does not present them with a moral dilemma.
“Refreshing” usually accompanies “lack of hypocrisy” with the ease of a Homeric epithet, but it just doesn’t seem to work with the Russian oligarchs. Why is that, I wonder? Is it because they are, by and large, such nasty pieces of work? Or is it instead that it hard to find anything Russian that can be described as “refreshing.”
“Refreshing” usually accompanies “lack of hypocrisy” with the ease of a Homeric epithet, but it just doesn’t seem to work with the Russian oligarchs. Why is that, I wonder? Is it because they are, by and large, such nasty pieces of work? Or is it instead that it hard to find anything Russian that can be described as “refreshing.”