Boris Berezovsky (businessman), by Wikipedia

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9/11 Synthetic Terror Made in USA [Excerpt]
by Webster Griffin Tarpley

RUSSIANS EXPOSE US-UK TERROR ROLE AFTER SCHOOL MASSACRE

In early September, 2004, terrorists attacked a school in Beslan, North Ossetia, in the Russian Federation. Before this hostage crisis was over, more than 300 people, over half of them children, were killed. On Monday. September 6, Russian President Vladimir Putin made remarks to the western press which exposed the key role of the US and British governments in backing Chechen terrorism. Whatever Putin's previous role in events regarding Chechnya, his post-Beslan political posture tended to undercut the legitimacy of the supposed Anglo-American "war on terror," and pointed up the hypocrisy of the Bush regime's pledge that it would make no distinction between the terrorists and those who harbor them -- since Washington and London were currently harboring Chechens implicated in terrorism. All in all, Putin's response to the Chechen events, on the eve of the third anniversary of 9/11, brought the collapse of the official 9/11 myth measurably closer. The hypocritical terror demagogy of Bush and Blair was now undercut by the head of state of another permanent member of the UN Security Council.

On Monday September 6, Putin spoke for three and one half hours with a group of some 30 western correspondents and Russia experts at his dacha near Novo Ogarevo outside Moscow. Most US press ignored these remarks. Putin, a KGB veteran who knew whereof he spoke, told the gathering that the school massacre showed that "certain western political circles would like to weaken Russia, just as the Romans wanted to destroy Carthage." He thus suggested that the US and UK, not content with having bested Russia in the Cold War, now wanted to proceed to the dismemberment and total destruction of Russia -- a Carthaginian peace like the one the Romans finally imposed at the end of the Punic Wars in 146 BC, when they poured salt into the earth at Carthage so nothing would ever grow there again. (Le Monde, September 8, 2004) There was no link between Russian policy in Chechnya and the hostage-taking in Beslan, said Putin, meaning that the terrorists were using the Chechen situation as a pretext to attack Russia. According to a paraphrase in Le Monde: "The aim of this international terrorism, supported more or less openly by foreign states, whose names the Russian president does not want to name, is to weaken Russia from the inside, by criminalizing its economy, by provoking its disintegration through propagating separatism in the Caucasus and the transformation of the region into a military staging ground (place d'armes) for actions directed against the Russian Federation."

"Mr. Putin," continued Le Monde, "restated the accusation he had launched in a veiled form against western countries which appear to him to use double-talk. On the one side, their leaders assure the Russian President of their solidarity in the fight against terrorism. On the other hand, the intelligence services and the military -- 'who have not abandoned their Cold War prejudices,' in Putin's words -- maintain contacts with those the international press calls the 'rebels.' 'Why are those who emulate Bin Laden called terrorists and the people who kill children, rebels? Where is the logic?' asked Vladimir Putin, and then gave the answer: 'Because certain political circles in the West want to weaken Russia just like the Romans wanted to destroy Carthage.' 'But, continued Putin, "we will not allow this scenario to come to pass."' Le Monde went on: "This is, according to [Putin] a bad calculation, because Russia is a factor of stability. By weakening it, the Cold War nostalgics are clearly acting against the interests of their own country." In Putin's words: "We are the sincere champions of this cooperation [against terrorism], we are open and loyal partners. But if foreign services have contacts with the 'rebels,' they cannot be treated as reliable allies, as Russia is for them." (Daniel Vernet, "M. Poutine accuse et s'explique sur sa 'guerre totale' au terrorisme," Le Monde, September 8, 2004)

In Guardian correspondent Jonathan Steele's account of the meeting with Putin, the Russian President gave this response to the US and UK on the question of negotiating with the Chechen guerrillas of Asian Maskhadov: "Why don't you meet Osama bin Laden, invite him to Brussels or to the White House and engage in talks, ask him what he wants and give it to him so he leaves you in peace? You find it possible to set some limitations in your dealings with these bastards, so why should we talk to people who are child-killers?" (London Guardian, September 7, 2004)

On Saturday, September 4, Putin had delivered a national television address to the Russian people on the Beslan tragedy, which had left more than 300 dead, over half of them children. The main thrust was that terrorism constitutes international proxy warfare against Russia. Among other things Putin said: "In general, we need to admit that we did not fully understand the complexity and the dangers of the processes at work in our own country and in the world. In any case, we proved unable to react adequately. We showed ourselves to be weak, and the weak get beaten." "Some people would like to tear from us a tasty morsel. Others are helping them. They are helping, reasoning that Russia still remains one of the world's major nuclear powers, and as such still represents a threat to them. And so they reason that this threat should be removed. Terrorism, of course, is just an instrument to achieve these gains." "What we are dealing with, are not isolated acts intended to frighten us, not isolated terrorist attacks. What we are facing is direct intervention of international terror directed against Russia. This is a total, cruel and full- scale war that again and again is taking the lives of our fellow citizens." (Kremlin.ru, September 6, 2004; EIR, September 7, 2004)

Around the time of 9/11, Putin had pointed to open recruitment of Chechen terrorists going on in London, telling a German interviewer: "In London, there is a recruitment station for people wanting to join combat in Chechnya. Today -- not officially, but effectively in the open -- they are talking there about recruiting volunteers to go to Afghanistan." (Focus -- German weekly newsmagazine, September 2001) In addition, it is generally known in well-informed European circles that the leaders of the Chechen rebels were trained by the CIA, and that the Chechens were backed by US- sponsored anti-Russian fighters from Afghanistan. In the summer of 2004, US-UK backed Chechens destroyed two Russian airliners and attacked a Moscow subway station, in addition to the school atrocity.

Some aspects of Putin's thinking were further explained by a press interview given by Aslambek Aslakhanov, the Chechen politician who was one of Putin's official advisors. A dispatch from RIA Novosti reported Aslakhanov's comments as follows: "The terrorists who seized the school in Beslan, North Ossetia, took their orders from abroad. 'They were talking with people not from Russia, but from abroad. They were being directed,' said Aslambek Aslakhanov, advisor to the President of the Russian Federation. 'It is the desire of our "friends" -- in quotation marks -- who have probably for more than a decade been carrying out enormous, titanic work, aimed at dismembering Russia. These people have worked very hard, and the fact that the financing comes from there and that they are the puppet masters, is also clear." Aslakhanov, who was named by the terrorists as one of the people they were going to hold talks with, also told RIA Novosti that the bid for such "talks" was completely phony. He said that the hostage-takers were not Chechens. When he talked to them, by phone, in Chechen, they demanded that he talk Russian, and the ones he spoke with had the accents of other North Caucasus ethnic groups. (RIA Novosti, September 6, 2004; EIR, September 7, 2004)

On September 7, RIA Novosti reported on the demand of the Russian Foreign Ministry that two leading Chechen figures be extradited from London and Washington to stand trial in Russia. A statement from the Russia Foreign Ministry's Department of Information and Press indicated that Russia would put the United States and Britain on the spot about extraditing two top Chechen separatist officials who had been given asylum in Washington and London, respectively. They were Akhmad Zakayev, known as a "special representative" of Asian Maskhadov (currently enjoying asylum in London), and Ilyas Akhmadov, the "Foreign Minister" of the unrecognized "Chechen Republic- Ichkeria" (then residing in the USA). (RIA Novosti, September 7, 2004; EIR, September 8, 2004)

"SCHOOL SEIZURE WAS PLANNED IN WASHINGTON AND LONDON"

This was the headline of an even more explicit unsigned commentary by the Russian news agency KMNews.ru. This analysis blamed the Beslan school massacre squarely on the U.S. and British intelligence agencies. The point of departure here was that Shamil Basayev, the brutal Chechen field commander, had been linked to the attack (something that Putin advisor Aslambek Aslakhanov had said was known to the Russian FSB, successor of the KGB). The article highlighted the recent rapprochement of London and Washington with key representatives of Asian Maskhadov: Britain's giving asylum to Akhmad Zakayev (December 2003) and the USA's welcoming Ilyas Akhmadov (August 2004). Basayev, viewed in European circles as a straight-out CIA agent, openly claimed responsibility for the school massacre almost two weeks after the fact.

KMNews: CHECHEN TERROR BOSS ON US STATE DEPARTMENT PAYROLL

The Russian news agency KMNews wrote: "In early August ... 'Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Chechen Republic-lchkeria' Ilyas Akhmadov received political asylum in the USA. And for his 'outstanding services,' Akhmadov received a Reagan-Fascell grant," including a monthly stipend, medical insurance, and a well-equipped office with all necessary support services, including the possibility of meetings with political circles and leading U.S. media. "What about our partners in the 'anti-terrorist coalition,' who provided asylum, offices and money to Maskhadov's representatives?" asked the Russian press agency. Citing the official expressions of sympathy and offers of help from President Bush, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, KMNews warned: "But let's not shed tears of gratitude just yet. First we should ask: were 'Special Representative of the President of CRI' Zakayev or 'Minister of Foreign Affairs of the CRI' Akhmadov, located in Great Britain and the USA, aware of the terrorist acts that were in preparation? Beyond a doubt ... and let's also find out, how Akhmadov is spending the money provided by the Reagan-Fascell Foundation. We note: this Foundation is financed by the U.S. Congress through the budget of the State Department! "Thus, the conclusion is obvious. Willingly or not, Downing Street and the White House provoked the guerrillas to these latest attacks. Willingly or not, Great Britain and the USA have nurtured the separatists with material, information and diplomatic resources. Willingly or not, the policy of London and Washington fostered the current terrorist acts." "As the ancients said, cui bono? Perhaps we are too hasty with such sweeping accusations against our 'friends' and 'partners'? Is there a motive for the Anglo-American 'anti-terrorist coalition' to fan the fires of terror in the North Caucasus?" "Alas, there is a motive. It is no secret, that the West is vitally interested in maintaining instability in the Caucasus. That makes it easier to pump out the fossil fuel extracted in the Caspian region, and it makes it easier to control Georgia and Azerbaijan, and to exert influence on Armenia. Finally, it makes it easier to drive Russia out of the Caspian and the Caucasus. Divide et impera! -- the leaders of the Roman Empire already introduced this simple formula for subjugation."

KMNews: TERROR SUPPORTERS "ON THE BANKS OF THE THAMES AND THE POTOMAC"

KMNews continued: "Alas, it must be recognized that the co-authors of the current tragic events are to be found not in the Arab countries of the Middle East, but on the banks of the Thames and the Potomac. Will the leadership of Russia be able to make decisions, in this situation?" "Yes -- if there is the political will. The first thing is that black must be called black, and white, white. It is time to admit that no "antiterrorist coalition" exists, that the West is pursuing its egotistical interests (spreading its political influence, seizing fossil fuels deposits, etc.). Our own coalition needs to be formed, with nations that are genuinely interested in eliminating terror in the North Caucasus. Finally, it is time to change the entire tactics and strategy of counterterrorism measures. It is obvious that catching female suicide bombers on the streets of Moscow or carrying out operations to free children who are taken hostage, are, so to speak, the 'last line of defense.' It is time to learn to make preemptive strikes against the enemy, and it's time to carry combat onto the territory of the enemy. Otherwise, we shall be defeated." (Source: KMNews.ru, September 7, 2004; EIR, September 8, 2004)

Izvestia stressed the probable ethnic composition of the terrorist death squad, and its likely role in exacerbating tensions in the ethnic labyrinth of the Caucasus. Izvestia found the targeting of North Ossetia in the Beslan incident "not accidental," pointing to the danger of "irreversible consequences" for interethnic relations between Ossetians, Ingushis and Chechens. "Russia is now facing multi-vectored threats along the entire Caucasus," the paper wrote. (Izvestia, September 3, 2004)

In the wake of Putin's speech, prominent Russian commentators discussed the recent terror campaign against Russia in terms of a possible "casus belli" for a new East-West conflict. Several commentaries reaffirmed Putin's key statement that international terrorism has no independent existence, but functions only as "an instrument," wielded by powerful international circles committed (in part) to the early destruction of Russia as a nuclear-armed power. A commentary in the widely read Russian business news service RosBusinessConsult (RBC) was entitled "The West is unleashing Jihads against Russia." In language reminiscent of the Cold War, RBC charged that the recent wave of terror attacks against Russia, beginning with the sabotage of two airplanes and a terror bombing at a Moscow subway station, and culminating so far in the Beslan attack, was immediately preceded by what RBC calls "an ultimatum from the West," for Russia to turn over the Caucasus region to "Anglo-Saxon control."

ANGLO-AMERICAN TERROR ULTIMATUM TO RUSSIA FROM THE LONDON ECONOMIST

"Some days prior to the onset of the series of acts of terrorism in Russia, which has cost hundreds of lives, a number of extremely influential Western mass-media, expressing establishment positions, issued a personal warning to Vladimir Putin, that Russia should get out of the Caucasus, or else his political career would come to an end. Therefore, when the President on Saturday spoke of a declaration of war having been made against Russia, this was not just a matter of so-called 'international terrorism' ... One week prior to the first acts of terrorism, the authoritative British magazine, the Economist, which expresses the positions of Great Britain's establishment, formulated the Western position concerning the Caucasus, and above all the policy of the Anglo- Saxon elite, in a very precise manner," RBC wrote.

CZECH NGO BLOWS UP RUSSIAN TANK; BRITISH EXPERTS TRAIN CHECHEN GANGS

The RBC commentary went on to cite the Economist of August 19, 2004, which contained what RBC characterized as the virtual ultimatum to Russia. RBC noted that "the carrying out of such a series of coordinated, highly professional terrorist attacks, would be impossible without the help of qualified 'specialists'." RBC noted that at the end of August one such "specialist," working for an NGO based in the Czech republic, was arrested for blowing up a Russian armed personnel carrier. Also, British "experts" were found instructing Chechen gangs in how to lay mines. "It cannot be excluded, that also in Beslan, the logistics of the operation were provided by just such 'specialists'," noted RBC.

The RBC editorial concluded: "Apparently, by having recourse to large-scale terrorist actions, the forces behind that terrorism have now acted directly to force a 'change' in the political situation in the Caucasus, propagating interethnic wars into Russia. "The only way to resist this would be for Moscow to make it known that we are ready to fight a new war, according to new rules and new methods -- not with mythical 'international terrorists', who do not and never existed, but with the controllers of the 'insurgents and freedom fighters'; a war against the geopolitical puppet-masters who are ready to destroy thousands of Russians for the sake of achieving their new division of the world." (RBC, September 7, 2004; EIR, September 1 2004)

In a related comment, the Chairman of the Duma Foreign Affairs Committee, Dmitri Rogozin, declared in an interview on Sunday September 5: "I think [those behind the terrorism] are those who would like to see Russia totally discredited as a power ... I think that the aim is to destabilize the political situation in the country and plunge Russia into total chaos." (Ekho Moskvy, September 6, 2004) Western press organs responded to the school massacre with a campaign to blame, not the terrorists, but the Putin regime and Russian society. This disingenuous policy further stoked Russian resentment. On September 6, Strana.ru headlined, "Western Press: The Tragedy Is Russia's Own Fault," commenting that "unlike official politicians, journalists do not want to admit that the bombings and hostage-takings in our country are acts of international terrorism." (EIR, September 7, 2004) Another example this Putin-bashing was the article by Masha Lippman in the Washington Post of September 9, 2004. This was quickly followed by a campaign against Putin for being undemocratic, including, with indescribable hypocrisy, the complaint that Putin had not purged his intelligence officers after the school massacre -- this from the US, where no one had been held accountable for 9/11.

A basic reason for the US-UK surrogate warfare against Russia was the great Anglo-Saxon fear of a continental bloc of the type which emerged during the run-up to Bush's Iraq aggression. The centerpiece of the continental bloc would be the German-Russian relationship. Washington and London feared that Russia would soon agree to accept euros in payment for its oil deliveries. This would not just prevent the Anglo-Americans from further skimming off oil transactions between Russia and Europe. It would represent the beginning of the end of the dollar as the reserve currency of the world, a role which the battered greenback, weakened by Bush's $500 billion yearly trade deficit and Bush's $750 billion budget deficit, can no longer fulfill. If Russia were to adopt the euro, it was expected that the Eurasian giant would quickly be followed by Iran, Indonesia, Venezuela, and other counties. This would put an end to the ability of the US to run astronomical foreign trade deficits, and would place the question of a US return to a production-based economy on the agenda.

The 9/11 myth was still a menace to mankind.

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Boris Berezovsky’s Art Collection Said to Contain Substantial Number of Fakes
by Marion Maneker
Art Market Monitor
June 11, 2014

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Reports say that 19 of the paintings in deceased Russian Oligarch Boris Berezovsky’s collection are fakes. The discovery was made by Berezovsky’s daughter as she seeks to unravel the tangled business affairs that seem to have led to his death.

The fakes are said to be part of a collection that was once valued around £50m (though these valuations in the press are notorious for their slim basis in fact):

Administrators of the billionaire’s estate are considering calling in police after 19 paintings were revealed to be forgeries. They are believed to include all the works that once hung in Wentworth Park, his former £25m Surrey mansion.

The fakes include copies of two works by the Russian landscape painters Alexei Savrasov and Alexandre Altmann which were previously valued at £550,000 and £75,000.

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The fixer: how Berezovsky pulls the strings in Russia
Russia: special report
by Amelia Gentleman @ameliagentleman
The Guardian
Sun 16 Apr 2000 20.52 EDT First published on Sun 16 Apr 2000 20.52 EDT

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The name of Boris Berezovsky, Russia's most notorious oligarch, arouses, at best, profound suspicion in Russia. Many view the millionaire businessman - who became rich with the collapse of communism - with a loathing inspired by his influential backstage role in Russian politics.

Although he lost a significant part of his empire last year when he was distanced from the state airline Aeroflot, Berezovsky currently holds crucial stakes in two of Russia's main television channels and in several of the leading daily newspapers, as well as powerful chunks in the country's car-trade, oil and aluminium industries.

Since the mid-90s he has openly been using his business clout to exert influence over leaders in the Kremlin. Extremely charming and clever, he became a powerful figure in Boris Yeltsin's shadowy inner circle, "the family", a close associate of key presidential advisers and of Yeltsin's daughter and image maker, Tatyana Dyachenko.

Berezovsky makes no attempt to hide the role he played in ensuring Yeltsin's re-election in the 1996 presidential vote, when he and a group of other influential businessmen used their powers to pull the president back from certain defeat in the polls.

Russia's current president, Vladimir Putin, also owes a debt of gratitude to the tycoon. Putin's presidential victory was effectively secured during campaigning for last December's parliamentary elections, when a ferocious slur campaign run on Berezovsky's ORT TV channel eradicated his two main rivals. In a series of popular prime-time news shows, Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov was portrayed as a murderous conman, while gory footage of a hip operation was broadcast to demonstrate that the former prime minister Yevgeny Primakov (who had recently undergone surgery) was too frail to run the country.

Both men had been thought to be serious presidential contenders; both men later dropped out of the race. Berezovsky said that he was consulted by the show's producers and has freely admitted the role of his company in Putin's success. "I was extremely pleased [with ORT's work]," he said. "I believe they helped Russia with a historic task."

Berezovsky's involvement in the war in Chechnya is less clear. He was secretly recorded holding long negotiations with key warlords last year - although he claims he was trying to represent Russia's interests during the talks. Berezovsky's success at negotiating the release of hostages from Chechnya has also prompted suspicion about the closeness of his ties in the region. The Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov last week claimed that Berezovsky had helped finance warlords Shamil Basayev and Khattab in their separatist campaign.

Last December, the businessman was elected as the parliamentary representative for the nearby region of Karachevo-Cherkess -- thereby securing himself immunity from prosecution. Swiss prosecutors continue to investigate the way two Berezovsky-owned companies in Switzerland handled revenues from Aeroflot's coffers.

Berezovsky's future under Putin remains unclear. Some commentators expect the new president to prove his independence by making a great show of cutting ties with the powerful tycoons who wielded so much influence over Yeltsin. In his election campaigning, Putin won himself much popularity by promising to exterminate the oligarchs as a class, but Putin may not have enough power yet to distance himself from his backer.

George Soros's feelings of hostility towards Berezovsky are reciprocated. The Russian responded with fury to Soros's description in this article of his club as a mafia hangout, pointing out the building had won a prize for the authenticity of its restoration. In a recent tirade he went on to describe Soros as a liar and a hypocrite who had blurred the line between business and philanthropy.

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CIA Financing of Chechen and Other Caucasus Regional Terrorists
by Wayne Madsen (USA)
Veterans Today
April 29, 2013

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Through a myriad of "civil society" organizations, the United States has been financing Chechen groups inside the autonomous republic, in Russia, and abroad.

However, large portions of U.S. assistance money has "bled" over to support Chechen and other North Caucasus terrorist groups, which the U.S. State Department and U.S. intelligence agencies insist on referring to as "separatist guerrillas", "nationalists", "insurgents", and "rebels", instead of terrorists.

The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) has continuously refused to refer to Chechen and Islamic Emirate terrorists operating in Russia as "terrorists". NSA analysis reports of signals intelligence (SIGINT) intercepts of Russian police, Federal Security Bureau (FSB), Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), and Russian military communications, including radio, landline and cellular telephone, fax, text message, and fax, have, since 2003, referred to Chechen and North Caucasus terrorists as "guerrillas". Prior to that year, TOP SECRET Codeword internal NSA directives stated that Chechen terrorists were to be called "rebels".

Imagine the surprise if the United States began referring to "Al Qaeda" as Islamist guerrillas and rebels instead of terrorists. Yet, that is exactly how the NSA and CIA have referred to terrorists in Russia that have launched deadly attacks on airports, trains, subway stations, schools, and movie theaters throughout the Russian Federation.

U.S. "humanitarian" and "civil society" assistance to radical Islamist groups has, for the past three decades, filtered into the coffers of terrorist groups celebrated as "freedom fighters" in Washington. This was the case with U.S. support for the Afghan Mujaheddin through such groups as the Committee for a Free Afghanistan during the Islamist insurgency against the People’s Democratic Republic of Afghanistan in the 1980s and the Bosnia Defense Fund in the 1990s.

In the case of Afghanistan, U.S. and Saudi money ended up in the hands of insurgents who would later form "Al Qaeda" and in Bosnia U.S. funds were used by Al Qaeda elements fighting against Yugoslavia and the Bosnian Serb Republic and, later, Al Qaeda elements supporting the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in its war against Serbia.

After revelations that an entity called the Caucasus Fund was used by the CIA-linked Jamestown Foundation of Washington, DC to sponsor seminars on the North Caucasus in Tbilisi from January to July 2012, Georgian authorities moved to shut down the fund. The reason given by Georgia was that the organization had "fulfilled its stated mission".

Caucasus Fund and Jamestown Foundation events were attended by accused Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, a citizen of Kyrgyzstan born to parents from Dagestan. Jamestown had previously held a seminar in Tbilisi on "Hidden Nations" in the Caucasus, which, among other issues, promoted a "Greater Circassia" in the Caucasus.

U.S. "civil society" aid to groups fomenting terrorism, nationalism, separatism, and irredentism in the Caucasus is either direct through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) or covert through organizations funded by George Soros’s Open Society Institute.

Much can be learned about U.S. backing for terrorist groups operating in the North Caucasus from information gleaned from the tranche of a quarter million leaked classified State Department cables.

A November 12, 2009 Confidential cable from the U.S. embassy in Moscow implies that the Carnegie Center NGO in Moscow be engaged to stymie Russia’s political and economic goals in the North Caucasus, particularly by taking advantage of 50 percent unemployment in Ingushetiya and 30 percent in Chechnya. Areas of high unemployment in the Muslim world have served as prime recruiting grounds for Wahhabist and Salafist radical clerics financed by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the emirates of Sharjah and Ras al Khaimah. Dagestan is cited in a June 8, 2009 embassy Moscow cable as Russia’s "weakest link" in the Caucasus region.

A Confidential September 16, 2009 cable from the U.S. embassy in Moscow indicates that Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Philip Gordon was urged to push the concept that the Ramzan Kadyrov government in Chechnya had "neither control nor stability". The NGO Caucasian Knot told Gordon at a meeting at the U.S. embassy that "foreign fighters" were joining a jihad in the region and that there was a "Hobson’s Choice" between "terrorists" and "corrupt local government". Apparently, the Obama administration decided, likely with the strong support of then deputy national security adviser and current CIA director John O. Brennan, a confirmed Saudiphile and a participant in the Hadj pilgrimage to Mecca, opted for the terrorists.


Chechen separatist leader Akhmed Zakayev and late Jewish Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky in 2004.

Other leaked Confidential cables provide in-depth details on U.S., British, and Norwegian support for exiled "Chechen-Ichkeria" leader Akhmed Zakayev, a close friend of the late exiled Russo-Israeli tycoon Boris Berezovsky. A July 29, 2009 Confidential cable from the U.S. embassy in Oslo quotes the head of the Russian section at the Norwegian Foreign Ministry, Odd Skagestad, as telling the American embassy there that Zakayev was the "legitimate representative of not just the Chechen exile community, but of Chechens in Chechnya", although he added that "Zakayev is on various INTERPOL lists" for suspected terrorist links. Skagestad stated the Norwegian PST, Norway’s FBI, ignored INTERPOL arrest warrants and permitted Zakayev to visit Norway from his place of exile in London.

The Oslo embassy also stated that the Norwegian head of the "Chechnya Peace Forum", Ivar Amundsen, was very "tight lipped" about his activities and that he was a close friend of the late renegade ex-Russian intelligence officer Alexander Litvinenko. Zakayev has also received significant support from the governments of Denmark, Finland, and the Czech Republic, where there are active Chechen exile community. The Kavkaz Center, located in Helsinki, Finland runs a pro-Caucasus Emirate website and provides an important public relations service for Emirate leader Doku Umarov’s terrorist cells in southern Russia…

Ruslan Zaindi Tsarnaev, the Maryland-based uncle of suspected bombers Tamerlan and Dzokhar Dudayev, established the Congress of Chechen International Organizations, Incorporated, in Maryland on August 17, 1995 and in the District of Columbia on September 22, 1995. The Maryland entity’s status was forfeited and is not in good standing, likely because of delinquency in filing required fees and forms. The District of Columbia corporate entity was active for 17 years and seven months.

Interestingly, the DC corporate status was revoked at around the time of the Boston Marathon bombings. Ruslan Tsarnaev, also known as Ruslan Tsarni, a graduate of Duke University Law School in North Carolina, worked for USAID in Kazakhstan and other countries in preparing them for vulture capitalist enterprises such as derivative financing and hedge funds.

The Maryland address for the Congress of Chechen International Organizations is listed in Maryland corporate records as 11114 Whisperwood Lane, Rockville, Maryland 20852, which is the address for Graham E. Fuller.

Fuller is a former Russian-speaking CIA official, including station chief in Kabul and vice-chair of the National Intelligence Council during the 1980s Iran-contra scandal, with which Fuller was heavily involved. Fuller has been active in events sponsored by the Jamestown Foundation, including keynoting an October 29, 2008 conference titled "Turkey & the Caucasus after Georgia".


Samantha Ankara Fuller

Fuller’s daughter, Samantha Ankara Fuller, is a UK and US dual national who is listed as a director of Insource Energy, Ltd. of the UK, a firm owned by Carbon Trust, a not-for-profit company "with the mission to accelerate the move to a low carbon economy". According to the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority’s Financial Services Register, Samantha Ankara Fuller’s previous name was Mrs. Samantha Ankara Tsarnaev. She was the wife of Ruslan Tsarnaev and ex-aunt of the two accused Boston Marathon bombers. At the time of her marriage to Ruslan Tsarnaev, Fuller was an investment adviser to Dresdner Bank, J P Morgan Ltd. in the UK, J P Morgan Securities, and J P Morgan Chase Bank, according to the UK Financial Services Register.

Ruslan Tsarnaev is the vice president for business development and corporate secretary for Big Sky Energy Corporation, headquartered in Calgary, Canada with the headquarters of its Big Sky Group holding company located in Little Rock, Arkansas.

North Carolina court records indicate that the Tsarnaevs were married in North Carolina in 1995, the year Ruslan established the Congress of Chechen International Organizations in Washington, DC and Maryland, and divorced in 1999. The divorce was granted in Orange County, North Carolina.

It is noteworthy that the Washington DC corporate registration agent for the Congress of Chechen International Organizations is Prentice-Hall.

Prentice-Hall is owned by Pearson, the publishing and educational firm based in London that owns the Financial Times and fifty percent of The Economist Group. In 1986, the Economist Group bought the New York-based Business International Corporation (BIC), the CIA front company for which Barack Obama, Jr. served as an employee from 1983 to 1984, and folded it into the Economist Intelligence Unit.

The other uncle of the alleged Boston bombers, Alvi S. Tsarnaev of Silver Spring, Maryland, not far from his brother Ruslan’s home, is apparently affiliated with another Chechen exile organization, the United States-Chechen Republic Alliance Inc., with an address of 8920 Walden Road, Silver Spring, Maryland 20901-3823. The address is also that of Alvi S. Tsarnaev. The registered officer for the organization is listed in U.S. Internal Revenue Service filings as Lyoma Usmanov. The organization is registered as a charitable organization engaged in "International Economic Development".

In the book, Power and Purpose: U.S. Policy Toward Russia after the Cold War, by James M. Goldgeier and Michael McFaul, the latter the present activist and neo-conservative U.S. ambassador to Russia who has directly intervened in Russian politics to seek the ouster of President Vladimir Putin from power and stir up secessionist, religious, and political extremists throughout the Russian Federation. According to this book, former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski was Usmanov’s sponsor in the United States: "Brzezinski helped to establish and finance Chechen representation in the United States headed by Usmanov".

Another U.S.-based group that has championed the Chechen movement, regardless of the presence of terrorist entities, is the American Committee for Peace in the Caucasus (ACPC), formerly known as the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya. The ACPC was founded in 1999 by Freedom House, a Cold War right-wing group that has been financed by the National Endowment for Democracy and USAID-funded groups.

The ACPC has defended the political asylum in the U.S. of former Chechen Foreign Minister Ilyas Akhmadov, accused of past terrorist links. The ACPC and Freedom House work with the Jamestown Foundation, founded in 1984 by CIA director William Casey, along with high-ranking intelligence defectors from the Soviet Union, Romania, Poland, and Czechoslovakia.

An October 17, 2008 Sensitive cable from the U.S. embassy in Moscow outlines the priorities for USAID and NGOs in their operations in the North Caucasus. The cable states that the North Caucasus Program was active in North Ossetia and Kabardino-Balkaria and was working with local NGOs. The cable states explicitly that USAID’s mission in the North Caucasus was to "advance critical U.S. interests". USAID-specified "hot zones" included Chechnya, Ingushetia, and the Elbruz region of Kabardino-Balkaria. The USAID North Caucasus Program focused on four key regions: Chechnya, Ingushetia, North Ossetia, and Dagestan, plus Krasnodarsky Krai, Adygea Republic, Karachay-Cherkessia, Stavropolsky Krai, and Kabardino-Balkarskaya Republic.

USAID’s network of NGOs in the region are identified in the cable. They are: International Rescue Committee (IRC), World Vision, Keystone, IREX, Children’s Fund of North Ossetia (CFNO), Russian Microfinance Center, UNICEF, ACDI/VOCA, Southern Regional Resource Center (SRAC), Center for Fiscal Policy (CFP), Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), Institute for Urban Economics, "Faith, Hope and Love (FHL), International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC), and the Fund for Sustainable Development (FSD). Many of these groups have close links with the CIA and/or Soros, particularly World Vision and IRC.

The interests who are linked to the Boston Marathon and terrorism in Russia run the gamut from Soros-funded NGOs, to CIA front companies and non-official cover (NOC) agents, foreign intelligence services, and Western energy companies.

[admin]

Part 1 of 2

Roman Abramovich
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 8/28/18

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Roman Abramovich
Abramovich in 2007
Born Roman Arkadyevich Abramovich
24 October 1966 (age 51)
Saratov, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Nationality
Russian-Israeli
Occupation Businessman, entrepreneur, politician
Known for
Owner of Millhouse Capital
Owner of Evraz
Major shareholder of Norilsk Nickel
Owner of Chelsea F.C.
Net worth US$11.5 billion[1] (2018)
Spouse(s) Olga Lysova
(m. 1987; div. 1990)
Irina Malandina
(m. 1991; div. 2007)
Dasha Zhukova
(m. 2008; div. 2017)[2]
Children 7
Awards
Orden of Honour.png Order of Honour
Orden of Friendship.png Order of Friendship
Governor of Chukotka
In office
17 December 2000 – 3 July 2008
Preceded by Alexander Nazarov
Succeeded by Roman Kopin

Roman Arkadyevich Abramovich (Russian: Рома́н Арка́дьевич Абрамо́вич, pronounced [rɐˈman ɐrˈkadʲjɪvʲɪtɕ ɐbrɐˈmovʲɪtɕ]; Hebrew: רומן אברמוביץ'; born 24 October 1966) is a Russian-Israeli billionaire businessman, investor, and politician.

Abramovich is the primary owner of the private investment company Millhouse LLC, and is best known outside Russia as the owner of Chelsea Football Club, a Premier League football club. He was formerly governor of Chukotka Autonomous Okrug from 2000 to 2008.

According to Forbes, Abramovich's net worth was US$11.5 billion in 2018[1] making him the richest person in Israel, 11th-richest in Russia, and the 140th-richest person in the world.[1][3] He has donated more money than any other living Russian, with donations between the years 1999 and 2013 of more than US$2.5 billion to build schools, hospitals and infrastructure in Chukotka.[4]

Chukotka Autonomous Okrug (Russian: Чуко́тский автоно́мный о́круг, tr. Chukotsky avtonomny okrug, IPA: [tɕʊˈkotskʲɪj ɐftɐˈnomnɨj ˈokrʊk]; Chukchi: Чукоткакэн автономныкэн округ, Chukotkaken avtonomnyken okrug, IPA: [tɕukotˈkaken aβtonomˈnəken ˈokɹuɣ]) or Chukotka (Чуко́тка) is a federal subject (an autonomous okrug) of Russia. It is geographically located in the Far East region of the country, and is administratively part of the Far Eastern Federal District. Chukotka is the 2nd-least-populated federal subject at 50,526 (2010) and the least densely populated.[10]



Anadyr is the largest town and the capital of Chukotka, and the easternmost settlement to have town status in Russia.



Chukotka is home to Elgygytgyn Lake, an impact crater lake, and the village of Uelen, the easternmost settlement in Russia and the closest substantial settlement to the United States. The autonomous okrug's surface area is 737,700 square kilometers (284,800 sq mi), about 6% larger than the U.S. state of Texas, and is the 7th-largest Russian federal subject. The region is the most northeasterly region of Russia, and since the Alaska Purchase has been the only part of Russia lying partially in the Western Hemisphere (east of the 180th meridian). Chukotka shares a border with the Sakha Republic to the west, Magadan Oblast to the south-west, and Kamchatka Krai to the south.

Chukotka is primarily populated by ethnic Russians, Chukchis, and other indigenous peoples. It is the only autonomous okrug in Russia that is not included in, or subordinate to, another federal subject, having separated from Magadan Oblast in 1993.

Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, by Wikipedia

Personal life

Family

Abramovich's family is Jewish and are from Tauragė, Lithuania,[5][6][7] with the Lithuanian spelling of the family name being Abramavičius. His father Arkady (Aron) Abramovich (1937–1970) was a state office manager, while his grandfather Nahim (Nahman) Abramovich (1887–1942) was a businessman.[8][9] Nahim (Nahman) Abramovich was born in Eržvilkas, Lithuania and his wife (Roman Abramovich's paternal grandmother) was Tauba (maiden name Berkover) - born in Jurbarkas, Lithuania. They were married in Tauragė, Lithuania in 1925.[10] Abramovich's mother was Irina Michalenko, his maternal grandfather was Vassili Michalenko, and his maternal grandmother was Faina Grutman.[11] After losing both parents at a young age, Abramovich was raised by relatives and spent much of his youth in the Komi Republic in northern Russia. Abramovich is Chairman of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia (which is allied with Putin's administration), a trustee of the Moscow Jewish Museum[12] and donates money to the Chabad movement.[13]

Abramovich has been married three times. In December 1987, he married Olga Yurevna Lysova;[14] they divorced in 1990. In October 1991, he married a former Russian Aeroflot stewardess, Irina Vyacheslavovna Malandina (born 1967).[15][16] They divorced in 2007.[14] He and Malandina have five children; Ilya, Arina, Sofia, Arkadiy and Anna (born 1992).[16][17] On 15 October 2006, the News of the World reported that Irina had hired two top UK divorce lawyers, following reports of Abramovich's close relationship with the then 25-year-old Dasha Zhukova, the former girlfriend of the tennis player Marat Safin and daughter of a prominent Russian oligarch, Alexander Zhukov. It was speculated that a future divorce settlement (amounting to a conjectured £5.5 billion (€6.5 billion)) might be the highest ever on record. The Abramoviches replied that neither had consulted attorneys at that point.[18][19] However, they later divorced in Russia in March 2007, with a settlement reported as being US$300 million (€213 million).[16][20] Abramovich married Zhukova in a private ceremony in 2008,[21] and they have two children, a son, Aaron Alexander, and a daughter, Leah Lou.[17] In August 2017 the couple announced that they would separate.[22]

Collector Dasha Zukhova with photographer Rachel Chandler.

Business career

Abramovich started his multi-billion-dollar business during his army service.[23] After a brief stint in the Soviet Army, Abramovich married his first wife, Olga. Abramovich first worked as a street-trader, and then as a mechanic at a local factory.[24] At the peak of perestroika, Abramovich sold imported rubber ducks from his Moscow apartment.[25]

Abramovich attended the Gubkin Institute of Oil and Gas in Moscow (where he sold retreaded car tires as a sideline[26]), then traded commodities for Runicom, a Swiss trading company.[27]

In 1988, as perestroika opened up opportunities for privatization in the Soviet Union, Abramovich got a chance to legitimise his old business.[28] He and Olga set up a company making dolls. Within a few years his wealth spread from oil conglomerates to pig farms. He also started investing in other businesses. Abramovich set up and liquidated at least 20 companies during the early 1990s, in sectors as diverse as tire retreading and bodyguard recruitment.[29][30]

From 1992 to 1995, Abramovich founded five companies that conducted resale, produced consumer goods, and acted as intermediaries, eventually specializing in the trading of oil and oil products. However, in 1992 he was arrested and sent to prison in a case of theft of government property: AVEKS-Komi sent a train containing 55 cisterns of diesel fuel, worth 3.8 million roubles, from the Ukhta Oil Refinery; Abramovich met the train in Moscow and resent the shipment to the Kaliningrad military base under a fake agreement, but the fuel arrived in Riga. Abramovich co-operated with the investigation, and the case was closed after the oil production factory was compensated by the diesel's buyer, the Latvian-US company, Chikora International.[14]

In 1995, Abramovich and Boris Berezovsky, an associate of President Boris Yeltsin, acquired the controlling interest in the large oil company Sibneft. The deal was within the controversial loans-for-shares program and each partner paid US$100 million for half of the company, above the stake's stock market value of US$150 million at the time, and rapidly turned it up into billions. The fast-rising value of the company led many observers, in hindsight, to suggest that the real cost of the company should have been in the billions of dollars.[31] Abramovich later admitted in court that he paid huge bribes (in billions) to government officials and obtained protection from gangsters to acquire these and other assets (including aluminium assets during the aluminium wars).[32]

Thus the main stages of Abramovich's financial career were January 1989 to May 1991, as chairman of the Comfort Co-op (manufacturer of plastic toys), and May 1991 to May 1993, as director of the ABK small enterprise in Moscow. According to various sources, from 1992 to 1995 Roman Abramovich set up five companies engaged in the production of consumer goods and selling-and-buying. In May 1995, jointly with Boris Berezovsky, he set up the P.K. Trust close joint-stock company. In 1995 and 1996, he established another 10 firms: Mekong close joint-stock company, Centurion-M close joint-stock company, Agrofert limited liability company, Multitrans close joint-stock company, Oilimpex close joint-stock company, Sibreal close joint-stock company, Forneft close joint-stock company, Servet close joint-stock company, Branco close joint-stock company, Vector-A limited liability company, which, again together with Berezovsky, he used to purchase the shares of the Sibneft public company.[33]

The Guardian describes Abramovich's career as follows:[34]

By 1996, at the age of 30, Abramovich had become so rich and politically well-connected that he had become close to President Boris Yeltsin, and had moved into an apartment in the Kremlin at the invitation of the Yeltsin family. In 1999, and now a tycoon, Abramovich was elected governor of Russia's remote, far eastern province of Chukotka, and has since lavished £112 million (€132 million) on charity to rebuild the impoverished region. The identikit image being pieced together for us was of a self-made man who was not only powerful and wealthy, but acutely aware of those who had done less well in the tumultuous 1990s, when the Soviet Union fell.

Friendship with Boris Berezovsky

In 1992, Abramovich founded Mekong. He began selling oil from Noyabrsk. Eventually, he met fellow Russian businessman and entrepreneur Boris Berezovsky.

According to two different sources, he first met Berezovsky either at a meeting of the Russian businessmen in the Caribbean in 1993[35] or in the summer of 1995 on the yacht of his friend Pyotr Aven.[36]

Berezovsky introduced Abramovich to "the family", the close circle around the then president, Boris Yeltsin, which included his daughter Tatyana Dyachenko and chief security adviser, Alexander Korzhakov.[35]

Together with Berezovsky, Abramovich founded the offshore company Gibraltar-registered Runicom Ltd. and five Western European subsidiaries. Abramovich headed the Moscow affiliate of the Swiss firm, Runicom S.A. In August 1995, Sibneft was created by Boris Yeltsin’s presidential decree. It was rumored that Abramovich was the chief of the organization with Berezovsky promoting the business in higher circles.[14]

Acquisition of Sibneft, aluminium wars, and loans-for-shares

In 1995, Abramovich and Berezovsky acquired a controlling interest in the giant Soviet oil company Sibneft. Affiliates of Abramovich, with affiliates of Boris Berezovsky, purchased Sibneft for US$100.3 million (the company was worth US$2.7 billion at that time). As of 2000, Sibneft produced around US$3 billion worth of oil annually.[37] Abramovich established several "fly-by-night" firms and together with his friend Boris Berezovsky used them to acquire the stock of Sibneft. As a result, the tycoon managed to pay for the company 25 times less than the market price. Bought for a total of US$200 million, Sibneft is now worth seventy five times as much.[38]

The Times claimed that he was assisted by Badri Patarkatsishvili.[39] This acquisition was under the controversial loans-for-shares programme initiated by President Boris Yeltsin.[40][41][42] After Sibneft, Abramovich's next target was the aluminium industry. After privatisation the 'aluminium wars' led to murders of smelting plant managers, metals traders and journalists as groups battled for control of the industry. Abramovich famously emerged as the winner of the aluminium wars.[39] The Times stated that in a BBC investigation into Abramovich's wealth, reporter John Sweeney noted that, after the oligarch (Abramovich) emerged at the top of the trade, the murders stopped.[43]

Relationship with Boris Berezovsky and Badri Patarkatsishvili

The Times also notes:[39]

Mr Abramovich discloses that there was a showdown at St Moritz airport in Switzerland in 2001 when Mr [Badri] Patarkatsishvili asked him to pay US$1.3 billion (€925 million) to Mr Berezovsky. "The defendant agreed to pay this amount on the basis that it would be the final request for payment by Mr Berezovsky and that he and Mr Patarkatsishvili would cease to associate themselves publicly with him and his business interests." The payment was duly made.

Mr Abramovich was also willing to pay off Mr Patarkatsishvili. He states that he agreed to pay US$585 million (€416 million) "by way of final payment".

Mr Abramovich denies that he helped himself to Mr Berezovsky's interests in Sibneft and aluminium or that he threatened a friend of the exile. "It is denied that Mr Abramovich made or was party to the alleged explicit or implicit coercive threats or intimidation," he states.

According to court-papers submitted by Abramovich and seen by The Times (UK),[39] Abramovich mentions in the court-papers:

Prior to the August 1995 decree [of Sibneft's creation], the defendant [Abramovich] informed Mr Berezovsky that he wished to acquire a controlling interest in Sibneft on its creation. In return for the defendant [Abramovich] agreeing to provide Mr Berezovsky with funds he required in connection with the cash flow of [his TV company] ORT, Mr Berezovsky agreed he would use his personal and political influence to support the project and assist in the passage of the necessary legislative steps leading to the creation of Sibneft.

Mr Patarkatsishvili did ... provide assistance to the defendant in the defendant's acquisition of assets in the Russian aluminium industry.

According to the Mirror Online, Abramovich paid Berezovsky tens, and even hundreds, of millions every year for "krysha", or mafia protection.[44]

Investments in Music Messenger, Brain Recovery and StoreDot

In 2015, Abramovich invested and led a $30 million round of funding in Israeli music sharing start-up Music Messenger founded by OD Kobo.[45][46] Besides Abramovich, several well-known people in the global music industry also took part in the company's previous round, among them David Guetta, Nicki Minaj, Tiësto, Avicii, will.i.am, Benny Andersson and others.[47]

Furthermore, Abramovich is invested in few other Israeli startups in different fields. Among them is BrainQ, an Israeli startup which develops artificial intelligence-powered technologies to treat neuro disorders, such as stroke, spinal cord injury and traumatic brain injury.[48] Also StoreDot, founded by Dr. Doron Myersdorf, where Abramovich has invested over $30 million.[49]

Relationship with Kremlin

Boris Yeltsin

By 1996, at the age of 30, Abramovich had become close to President Boris Yeltsin, and had moved into an apartment inside the Kremlin at the invitation of the Yeltsin family.[34]

In 1999, the 33-year-old Abramovich was elected governor of the Russian province of Chukotka. He ran for a second term as governor in 2005. The Kremlin press service reported that Abramovich's name had been sent for approval as governor for another term to Chukotka's local parliament, which confirmed his appointment on 21 October 2005.

Vladimir Putin

Abramovich was the first person to originally recommend to Yeltsin that Vladimir Putin be his successor as the Russian president.[50]:135 When Putin formed his first cabinet as Prime Minister in 1999, Abramovich interviewed each of the candidates for cabinet positions before they were approved.[31]:102 Subsequently, Abramovich would remain one of Putin's closest confidants. In 2007, Putin consulted in meetings with Abramovich on the question of who should be his successor as president; Medvedev was personally recommended by Abramovich.[50]:135, 271

Chris Hutchins, a biographer of Putin, describes the relationship between the Russian president and Abramovich as like that between a father and a favorite son. Abramovich himself says that when he addresses Putin he uses the Russian language's formal "Вы" (like Spanish "usted", German "Sie", Italian "lei" or French "vous"), as opposed to the informal "ты" (Spanish "tú", German "du", Italian "tu" or French "tu"). Abramovich says that the reason is because 'he is more senior than me'.[51] Within the Kremlin, Abramovich is referred to as "Mr A".[44]

In September 2012, the High Court judge Elizabeth Gloster said that Abramovich's influence on Putin was limited: "There was no evidential basis supporting the contention that Mr Abramovich was in a position to manipulate, or otherwise influence, President Putin, or officers in his administration, to exercise their powers in such a way as to enable Mr Abramovich to achieve his own commercial goals."[52]

Political career

Duma member

In 1999, Abramovich was elected to the State Duma as the representative for the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, an impoverished region in the Russian Far East. He started the charity Pole of Hope to help the people of Chukotka, especially children, and in December 2000, was elected governor of Chukotka, replacing Alexander Nazarov.

Governor

Abramovich was the governor of Chukotka from 2000 to 2008. It has been estimated that he spent over US$1.3 billion (€925 million) of his own money on the region,[53] which now has one of the highest birth rates in Russia.[54] Under Abramovich, living standards improved, schools and housing were restored and new investors were being drawn to the region.[55]

In 2003, Abramovich was named Person of the Year by Expert, a Russian business magazine. He shared this title with Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Abramovich was awarded the Order of Honour for his "huge contribution to the economic development of the autonomous district [of Chukotka]", by a decree signed by the President of Russia.[56]

Resignation

In early July 2008 it was announced that President Dmitri Medvedev had accepted Abramovich's request to resign as governor of Chukotka, although his various charitable activities in the region would continue. In the period 2000–2006 the average salaries in Chukotka increased from about US$165 (€117/£100) per month in 2000 to US$826 (€588/£500) per month in 2006.[14][57]

Controversies

Roman Abramovich has been alleged to be involved in various wrongdoings. The Times said that Abramovich "famously emerged triumphant after the 'aluminium wars', in which more than 100 people are believed to have been killed in gangland feuds over control of the lucrative smelters."[39][58]

Boris Berezovsky allegations

Boris Berezovsky (his one-time business partner) alleged in 2008 that Abramovich harassed him with "threats and intimidation" to cheat him to sell his valuable shares at less than their true worth.

In 2011, Berezovsky brought a civil case against Abramovich, called Berezovsky v Abramovich,[59] in the High Court of Justice in London, accusing Abramovich of blackmail, breach of trust and breach of contract, and seeking over £3 billion in damages.[60]

On 31 August 2012, the High Court dismissed the lawsuit. The High Court judge stated that because of the nature of the evidence, the case hinged on whether to believe Berezovsky or Abramovich's evidence. The judge found Berezovsky to be "an unimpressive, and inherently unreliable witness, who regarded truth as a transitory, flexible concept, which could be moulded to suit his current purposes", whereas Abramovich was seen as "a truthful, and on the whole, reliable witness".[60][61]

Bribery

In 2008, The Times reported that Abramovich admitted that he paid billions of dollars for political favours and protection fees to obtain a big share of Russia's oil and aluminium assets as was shown by court papers obtained by The Times.[39]

Allegations of illegal share-dilution

Yugraneft, an affiliate of Sibir Energy, is seeking billions of dollars in damages in a lawsuit in London against Roman Abramovich and his investment company Millhouse Capital, alleging that it was cheated out of its Russian assets.[62] The proceedings "involve substantial claims to recover the proceeds of the diluted interest", said Sibir Energy, a company co-owned by the billionaire Shalva Chigirinsky.[62]

Arrest for theft

In 1992, he was arrested in a case of theft of government property. AVEKS-Komi sent a train containing 55 cisterns (tankers) of diesel fuel, worth Р3.8 million (Roubles), from the Ukhta Oil Refinery (Case No. 79067 for the large-scale theft of state property);[63] Abramovich met the train in Moscow and resent the shipment to the Kaliningrad military base under a fake agreement, but the fuel arrived in Riga. Abramovich cooperated with the investigation, and the charges were dropped after the oil production factory was compensated by the diesel's buyer, the Latvian-U.S. concern Chikora International.[14]

Allegations of loan fraud

An allegation emerging from a Swiss investigation links Roman Abramovich, through a former company, and numerous other Russian politicians, industrialists and bankers to using a US$4.8 billion (€3.4 billion) loan from the IMF as personal slush fund; an audit sponsored by the IMF itself determined that all of the IMF funds had been used appropriately.[64]

In January 2005, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) indicated that it would be suing Abramovich over a £9 million (US$14.9 million/€10.6 million) loan.[65] The EBRD said that it is owed US$17.5 million (€12.45 million/£10.6 million) by Runicom, a Switzerland-based oil trading business which had been controlled by Abramovich and Eugene Shvidler. Abramovich's spokesman indicated that the loan had previously been repaid.[66]

Antitrust law violation in Russia

Russia's antitrust body, the Federal Antimonopoly Service, claimed that Evraz Holding, owned in part by Abramovich, had breached Russian competition law by offering unfavorable terms for contractors and discriminating against domestic consumers for coking coal, a key material used in steel production.[67]

Dispute with Kolomoyskyi

According to Putin, Abramovich has been cheated by Ukrainian-Cypriot-Israeli oligarch Igor Kolomoyskyi. Putin claimed in 2014 that Kolomoyskyi had reneged on a contract with Abramovich, saying "He [Kolomoyskyi] even managed to cheat our oligarch Roman Abramovich two or three years ago. Scammed him, as our intellectuals like to say. They signed some deal, Abramovich transferred several billion dollars, while this guy never delivered and pocketed the money. When I asked him [Abramovich]: 'Why did you do it?' he said: 'I never thought this was possible.'"[68]

Abramovich, European football, and ice hockey

Chelsea F.C.

In June 2003, Abramovich became the owner of the companies that control Chelsea Football Club in West London. The previous owner of the club was Ken Bates, who went on to buy Leeds United. Chelsea immediately embarked on an ambitious programme of commercial development, with the aim of making it a worldwide brand on a par with footballing dynasties such as Manchester United and Real Madrid, and also announced plans to build a new state-of-the-art training complex in Cobham, Surrey.[69]

Chelsea finished their first season after the takeover in second place in the Premier League, up from fourth the previous year. They also reached the semi-finals of the Champions League, which was eventually won by surprise contender Porto, managed by José Mourinho. For Abramovich's second season at Stamford Bridge, Mourinho was recruited as the new manager, replacing the incumbent Claudio Ranieri. Chelsea ended the 2004–05 season as league champions for the first time in 50 years and only the second time in their history. Since the takeover, the club have won 13 major trophies – the UEFA Champions League, the UEFA Europa League, the Premier League five times, the FA Cup four times (with 2010 providing the club's first ever league and FA Cup double), and the League Cup three times, making Chelsea the second most successful English trophy winning team in the decade with 15 honours, behind only Manchester United with 17 honours in the same time span.


Roman Abramovich at Stamford Bridge during a 4–0 victory over Portsmouth in August 2008.

It was argued that Abramovich's involvement with Chelsea distorted the football transfer market throughout Europe,[70] as his wealth often allowed the club to purchase players virtually at will. That has changed in recent years, but he did sanction the transfer of Andriy Shevchenko for a then-British record transfer fee of around £30 million (€35.3 million).

In the year ending June 2005, Chelsea posted record losses of £140 million (€165 million) and the club was not expected to record a trading profit before 2010, although this decreased to reported losses of £80.2 million (€94.3 million) in the year ending June 2006.[71] In a December 2006 interview, Abramovich stated that he expected Chelsea's transfer spending to fall in years to come.[72]

Abramovich is present at nearly every Chelsea game and shows visible emotion during matches, a sign taken by supporters to indicate a genuine love for the sport, and usually visits the players in the dressing room following each match. This stopped for a time in early 2007, when press reports appeared of a feud between Abramovich and manager Mourinho regarding the performance of certain players, notably Andriy Shevchenko.[73]

In the early hours of 20 September 2007, Mourinho announced his exit as Chelsea manager by mutual consent with the club following a meeting with the board.[74] The former Israel coach and Chelsea's director of football, Avram Grant, was named as his replacement.[75] Ever since Grant had joined Chelsea in 2007, there had been friction between him and Mourinho. Mourinho reportedly told Grant not to interfere in team affairs but, with Abramovich's backing, Grant's profile at the club rose after he was made a member of the board. This event apparently did not go down well with Mourinho and may have contributed to his surprise departure.[76] Grant led Chelsea to the position of runners-up in the Premiership and the club's first appearance in the Champions League final, beaten by Manchester United on both accounts. Nevertheless, on 24 May 2008, Grant was sacked as manager by Abramovich.[77]

On 11 June 2008, it was announced that Luiz Felipe Scolari, who had taken Brazil to World Cup glory in 2002, would be taking over as manager, but he only lasted until 9 February 2009 before being sacked. In February 2009, acclaimed coach Guus Hiddink was appointed caretaker manager for the rest of the 2008/09 season, delivering Chelsea's first post-Mourinho trophy with the FA Cup.

Hiddink was replaced by another former European Cup winning boss, Carlo Ancelotti. In May 2010, Ancelotti took Chelsea to their first league and FA Cup "double" in his first season as manager. The following season, in January 2011, Spanish footballer Fernando Torres completed his move to Chelsea on a ​5 1⁄2-year contract on 31 January for an undisclosed fee, reported to be £50 million, which set a new record for a British transfer and made him the fourth most expensive footballer in history. Ancelotti was sacked as manager at the end of his second season with the club in May 2011, after Chelsea's impressive form at the start of the campaign collapsed spectacularly during the winter months.

André Villas-Boas, after taking Porto to a Europa League triumph, and having previously worked alongside Mourinho at Stamford Bridge, was appointed as Abramovich's seventh manager of Chelsea on 22 June 2011. Villas-Boas, however, was sacked in on 4 March due to a bad run of form, with only one win in 11 games. The next manager was Roberto Di Matteo, who was appointed to this role after winning the Champions League and the FA Cup serving in a caretaker capacity. Di Matteo was also sacked on 21 November 2012 after their 3–0 loss to Juventus.[78] Former Liverpool boss Rafael Benítez was appointed as manager for the remainder of the club's campaign. He won Chelsea the 2012–13 UEFA Europa League against Benfica before leaving at the end of his term as interim manager.


Roman Abramovich watches his team Chelsea play against Leicester City, August 2014

After the 2012–13 season, Benítez left Chelsea, whereupon José Mourinho returned as manager, signing a four-year deal.[79] On 1 July 2013, Chelsea celebrated ten years under Abramovich's ownership. Before the first game of the 2013–14 season against Hull City on 18 August 2013, the Russian thanked Chelsea supporters for ten years of support in a short message on the front cover of the match programme, saying, "We have had a great decade together and the club could not have achieved it all without you," "Thanks for your support and here’s to many more years of success."[80]

[admin]

Part 2 of 2

CSKA Moscow

In March 2004, Sibneft agreed to a three-year sponsorship deal worth €41.3 million (US$58 million) with the Russian team CSKA Moscow. Although the company explained that the decision was made at management level, some viewed the deal as an attempt by Abramovich to counter accusations of being "unpatriotic" which were made at the time of the Chelsea purchase. UEFA rules prevent one person owning more than one team participating in UEFA competitions, so Abramovich has no equity interest in CSKA. A lawyer, Alexandre Garese, is one of his partners in CSKA.

Following an investigation, Abramovich was cleared by UEFA of having a conflict of interest.[81] Nevertheless, he was named "most influential person in Russian football" in the Russian magazine Pro Sport at the end of June 2004. In May 2005, CSKA won the UEFA Cup, becoming the first Russian club ever to win a major European football competition. In October 2005, however, Abramovich sold his interest in Sibneft and the company's new owner Gazprom, which sponsors Zenit Saint Petersburg, cancelled the sponsorship deal.[82]

Russian national team


Abramovich at the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany

Abramovich also played a large role in bringing Guus Hiddink to Russia to coach the Russia national football team.[83] Piet de Visser, a former head scout of Hiddink's club PSV Eindhoven and now a personal assistant to Abramovich at Chelsea, recommended Hiddink to the Chelsea owner.[84]

National Academy of Football

In addition to his involvement in professional football, Abramovich sponsors a foundation in Russia called the National Academy of Football. The organization sponsors youth sports programs throughout the country and has constructed more than fifty football pitches in various cities and towns. It also funds training programs for coaches, prints instruction materials, renovates sports facilities and takes top coaches and students on trips to visit professional football clubs in England, the Netherlands and Spain. In 2006 the Academy of Football took over the administration of the Konoplyov football academy at Primorsky, near Togliatti, Samara Oblast, where over 1,000 youths are in residence, following the death at 38 of its founder, Yuri Konoplev.[85]

Wealth

According to Forbes, as of March 2016, Abramovich had a net worth of US$7.6 billion, ranking him as the 151th richest person in the world.[86] In March 2017, Bloomberg estimated his wealth as US$10.4 billion.[87] Prior to the 2008 financial crisis, he was considered to be the second richest person living within the United Kingdom.[88] Early in 2009, The Times estimated that due to the global economic crisis he had lost £3 billion from his £11.7 billion wealth.[89]

Wealth rankings

Year The Sunday Times
Rich List Forbes
The World's Billionaires
Rank Net worth (GB£) Rank Net worth (US$)
2010[90][91] 2 Steady ₤7.40 billion Increase $11.2 billion Increase
2011[92][91] 3 Decrease ₤10.30 billion Increase 53 Increase $13.4 billion Increase
2012[93][94] 3 Steady ₤9.50 billion Decrease 68 Decrease $12.1 billion Decrease
2013[95][96] 5 Decrease ₤9.30 billion Decrease 107 Decrease $10.3 billion Decrease
2014[97] 9 Decrease ₤8.42 billion Decrease 137 Decrease
2015[98][99] 10 Decrease ₤7.29 billion Decrease 137 Steady $9.10 billion Decrease
2016[100][86] 13 Decrease ₤6.40 billion Decrease 151 Decrease $7.60 billion Decrease
Legend
Icon Description
Steady Has not changed from the previous year
Increase Has increased from the previous year
Decrease Has decreased from the previous year

Charitable donations

Abramovich reportedly donated more money to charity than any other living Russian.[4] Between 2009 and 2013, Abramovich donated more than US$2.5 billion to build schools, hospitals and infrastructure in Chukotka. In addition, Evraz Plc (EVR), the steelmaker partly owned by Abramovich, donated US$164 million for social projects between 2010 through 2012, an amount that is excluded in Abramovich’s US$310 million donations during this period.[4]

Abramovich has reportedly spent approximately GB£1.5 bn on the Pole of Hope, his charity set up to help those in the Arctic region of Chukotka, where he was governor.[101]

Other interests and activities

Art


Statue of Roman Abramovich in a mall in Eilat, Israel.

Roman Abramovich sponsored an exhibition of photographs of Uzbekistan by renowned Soviet photographer Max Penson (1893–1959) which opened on 29 November 2006 at the Gilbert Collection at Somerset House in London. He previously funded the exhibition "Quiet Resistance: Russian Pictorial Photography 1900s–1930s" at the same gallery in 2005.[102] Both exhibits were organized by the Moscow House of Photography.[103]

In May 2008, Abramovich emerged as a major buyer in the international art auction market. He purchased Francis Bacon's Triptych 1976 for €61.4 million (US$86.3 million) (a record price for a post-war work of art) ...

and Lucian Freud's Benefits Supervisor Sleeping for €23.9 million (US$33.6 million) (a record price for a work by a living artist).[104]

His partner Dasha Zhukova is managing a Garage Center for Contemporary Culture - gallery of contemporary art in Moscow that was initially housed in the historical Bakhmetevsky Bus Garage building by Konstantin Melnikov. The building, neglected for decades and partially taken apart by previous tenants, was restored in 2007–2008 and reopened to the public in September 2008. Speed and expense of restoration is credited to sponsorship by Abramovich.[105]

Yachts

Abramovich has become the world's greatest spender on luxury yachts, and always maintains a fleet of yachts which the media have called "Abramovich's Navy":[106]

Current boats:

• Eclipse 162.5 metres (533 ft) – Built in Germany by Blohm + Voss, she was launched in September 2009.[107]Abramovich was due to take delivery of the yacht in December 2009,[108] but was delayed for almost a year after extensive sea trials. The yacht's interior and exterior were designed by Terence Disdale. Eclipse is believed to have cost Abramovich around US$400 million, and was, when delivered, the world's largest privately owned yacht, having been eclipsed in 2013 by the 180 metres (590 ft) Azzam. The specification includes at least two swimming pools, a cinema, two helicopter landing-pads, several on-board tenders and a submarine that can be launched and dive to a depth of 160 ft. She is also equipped with armour plating surrounding the bridge and Abramovich’s master suite, as well as bullet proof windows.[109]


The world's second largest expedition yacht, Luna, seen docked in San Diego, January 2013. Sold to Farkhad Akhmedov in April 2014 for $360m USD.

• Titan:Measures 262ft in length and he has owned it since 2010.
Former boats:
• Pelorus 115 metres (377 ft) – Built in 2003 by Lurssen for Sheikh Abdul Mohsen Abdulmalik Al-Sheikh, owner of M/Y Coral Island (renamed Coral Ocean) and M/Y Sussurro, who received six offers to sell her before she was even completed. In 2004 the Sheikh accepted the highest bid, which was Abramovich's. The interior was designed by Terence Disdale. The exterior was designed by Tim Heywood. Pelorus was refitted by Blohm + Voss in 2005 adding a new forward helipad and zero speed stabilizers. Given to Irina in 2009 as part of the divorce settlement, she was approached on David Geffen's behalf by broker Merle Wood, with Geffen paying US$300 million to take ownership in 2011.[110]
• Sussurro 49.5 metres (162 ft) – Built by Feadship in 1998 for Sheikh Abdul Mohsen Abdulmalik Al-Sheikh.
• Ecstasea 85 metres (279 ft) – Largest Feadship built at launch in 2004 and delivered to Abramovich. She has a gas turbine alongside the conventional diesels which gives her high cruising speed. Abramovich sold the boat to the Al Nayhan family in 2009.[111]
• Le Grand Bleu 112 metres (367 ft) – Formerly owned by John McCaw, Abramovich bought the expedition yacht in 2002 and had her completely refitted by Blohm + Voss, including a 16 ft (4.9 m) swim platform and sports dock. He presented her as a gift to his associate and friend Eugene Shvidler in June 2006.
• Luna 115 metres (377 ft) – Built by Lloyd Werft and delivered to Roman Abramovich in 2009 as an upgraded replacement for his Le Grand Bleu expedition yacht.[112] Sold to close friend, Azerbaijani born self-made billionaire Farkhad Akhmedov in April 2014 for $360m USD. Boasts a 1 million litre fuel tank, 7 engines outputting 15,000 hp propelling Luna to a maximum speed of 25 knots, 8 tenders, 15 cm ice-class steel hull and 10 VIP Cabins.

Aircraft


Roman Abramovich's Boeing 767, The Bandit, landing at Ben Gurion Airport, Israel

He owns a private Boeing 767-33A/ER, registered in Aruba as P4-MES. It is known as The Bandit[113] due to its livery. Originally the aircraft was ordered by Hawaiian Airlines but the order was cancelled and Abramovich bought it from Boeing and refitted it to his own requirements by Andrew Winch, who designed the interior and exterior. The aircraft was estimated in 2016 to cost US$74 million and its interior is reported to include a 30-seat dining room, a boardroom, master bedrooms, luxury bathrooms with showers, and a spacious living room. The aircraft has the same air missile avoidance system as the Air Force One.[113] Abramovich also owns a Gulfstream 650 with registration LX-GVI and a Dassault Falcon 7X with registration LX-MES named as "Mini Bandit".

New Year's Eve celebrations

In 2009, Abramovich had Beyoncé, Gwen Stefani and Prince sing at his New Year’s Eve event at his estate on the Caribbean island of St Bart's.[114] In 2011, Abramovich hired the Red Hot Chili Peppers to perform for a reported £5m.[115] The performance by Red Hot Chili Peppers included a special appearance from Toots Hibbert of Toots and the Maytals.[115] Abramovich reportedly spent £5 million on a total of 300 guests,[115] including George Lucas, Martha Stewart, Marc Jacobs and Jimmy Buffett.[116] In 2014, Abramovich hired British singer Robbie Williams to headline a New Year's dinner for President Putin's "inner circle". The party took place in Moscow and appears to have been the inspiration for Williams' song "Party Like a Russian".[117][118]

Israeli citizenship

As of May 2018, USSR-born billionaire businessman Abramovich is finalizing the paperwork to grant him Israeli citizenship. He is eligible to do so on account of his Jewish heritage.[119]

Abramovich owns the Varsano boutique hotel in Tel Aviv's Neve Tzedek neighborhood, which he bought for 100 million NIS in 2015 and is converting it into his Israeli home. He bought the hotel from Gal Gadot's husband Yaron Varsano and Varsano's brother Guy.[120]

Abramovich has also invested in more than a dozen Israeli startups including rapid-battery charger technology developer Storedot.[120] In 2018, he donated 70 million NIS for the Sheba Hospital in Tel HaShomer, for nuclear medicine research.[121]

See also

• List of Russian billionaires
• Russian oligarchs
• List of Jews born in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union

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Bibliography

• Midgley, Dominic; Hutchins, Chris (3 May 2005). Abramovich: The Billionaire from Nowhere. Harper Collins Willow. ISBN 978-0-00-718984-7.
• Hoffman, David (4 December 2003). The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia. Public Affairs. ISBN 978-1-58648-202-2.
• Bennetts, Marc (15 May 2008). Football Dynamo – Modern Russia and the People's Game. Virgin Books. ISBN 978-0-7535-1319-4.
• Stenning, Paul (31 October 2010). Waste of Money: Overspending in Football. Pitch Publishing. ISBN 978-1905411931.

External links

• Summarized biography – Roman Abramovich: Not Your Everyday Owner
• Pravda: Chelsea's owner Roman Abramovich tops Russia's richest men list
• Forbes: Roman Abramovich
• Roman-Abramovich.com
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Badri Patarkatsishvili
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 8/28/18

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Badri Patarkatsishvili
ბადრი პატარკაციშვილი
Badri Patarkatsishvili in 2007
Born 31 October 1955
Tbilisi, Georgian SSR, Soviet Union
Died 12 February 2008 (aged 52)
Leatherhead, Surrey, United Kingdom
Occupation Former Owner and CEO of Imedi, Oligarch, and Politician
Net worth $12 Billion before death, assets frozen or confiscated by Georgian Government
Spouse(s) Inna Gudavadze

Arkady Shalvovich "Badri" Patarkatsishvili (Georgian: ბადრი პატარკაციშვილი 31 October 1955 – 12 February 2008) was a Georgian businessman who also became extensively involved in politics. He contested the 2008 Georgian presidential election and came third with 7.1% of the votes. Although his first name was Arkady, he was best known by the nickname "Badri".[1] From the early 1980s, until the time of his death, he was a flamboyant figure in business and was behind some of the most successful companies in today's Russia.[2] From humble origins, he became the wealthiest citizen in Georgia with an estimated wealth of $12bn.[3] He was also one of the country's largest philanthropists.[4] Patarkatsishvili died intestate in February 2008 sparking one of the largest estate battles in legal history.[5]

Early life

Born in Tbilisi to a Jewish family,[6][7] Patarkatsishvili became an active member of the Komsomol, the youth wing of the Soviet Communist Party during the 1980s. He eventually became Komsomol leader at Maudi, a large textile operation.[8]

In 1984, Badri became Deputy Director General of Gruzavtovazprom, a company that purchased and delivered cars and spare parts from AvtoVAZ, which was at the time, the largest car manufacturer in the Soviet Union. It was during trips made to the AvtoVAZ plant that he first met Boris Berezovsky who was to become a close friend and business associate.[9] In 1989, Badri and Berezovsky founded LogoVaz with some of the senior executives of AvtoVAZ. LogoVaz developed software for AvtoVAZ, sold Soviet-made cars and serviced foreign cars.[10] It was established as a joint venture with Logo Systems, an Italian company, which at the time was seen as pioneering in commercial relationships between East and West. LogoVaz established an office in Georgia and Badri became Deputy Director General of the company.[11]

Move to Moscow and involvement with ORT

In 1992, Badri and his family moved to Moscow where he quickly became part of Berezovsky's increasingly influential political circle. LogoVaz had by this time become an extremely successful company and had made Badri a wealthy man. At the time, the Soviet Union was collapsing and there was a great deal of political uncertainty in the region. Badri, along with Berezvosky and other successful businessmen were supportive of Boris Yeltsin as he had liberalised trade with foreign countries, allowing their businesses to grow, however the wider economy was performing badly and there was growing support for Nikolai Ryzhkov's reformed communist party.[12]

By 1994, Berezovsky had secured control of ORT, the largest TV station in Russia at the time, and he installed Badri as First Deputy General Director.[13] Badri and Berezovsky then use the station's influence to assist Boris Yeltsin to victory in the 1996 presidential election.[14] From 1994 until mid 2000, Badri was a key figure at ORT.[15]

The Sibneft Privatisation

In 1997, he was selected to oversee the privatization of the Sibneft oil company.[16] Sibneft was the youngest oil holding company in Russia at the time having been created hastily in early 1995 out of Rosneft. An unknown entity, Oil Finance Corporation (NFK), that had been created out of Menatep, a holding company started by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, won the auction.[17] Berezovsky had an interest in the Menatep Group and for this reason, there was some speculation that the auction had been fixed.[18] It later emerged that the company had been sold for a fraction of the market value.[19]

After Badri died, in 2012, the Sibneft privatisation was to become the subject of a high court legal battle between Chelsea football club owner Roman Abramovich and Berezovsky. According to The Times,[20] Roman Abramovich submitted a 53-page court defence that accused Boris Berezovsky and Badri Patarkatsishvili of demanding huge sums for helping him to rise from obscurity. Badri emerged as the key intermediary, passing messages between Abramovich and Berezovsky. Badri was offered $500 million by Roman Abramovich, the defence papers that were submitted admit, for protecting Roman in Russia's aluminium wars.[21]

TV6 and Kommersant

Following his success at ORT, in April 2001, Badri was appointed General Director of Russia's TV6 channel, which, like ORT, was partly owned by Berezovsky. Under his control, TV6 became notorious for its anti-Kremlin line.[22]

In the late 1990s, Berezovsky and Badri also purchased Kommersant the one of Russia's most influential political newspapers. In 2006, Berezovsky sold his controlling stake to Badri increasing Badri's holding to 100%. Badri then organised the sale of Kommersant in August 2006 to senior Gazprom executive Alisher Usmanov.[23][24]

Political trouble in Russia

By mid 1999, Boris Yeltsin began losing his grip on power and Boris Berezovsky began to play an important role in the hunt for his successor. He did this in order to counter the political aspirations of the Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, who was seen as more of a statist.[25] As Berezovsky lost favour with the Kremlin, investigations began into his business affairs which Berezovsky claimed to be politically motivated. This eventually led to an arrest warrant for Berezovsky being issued in April 1999 by the Prosecutor General, Yury Skuratov.[26] Although Badri had sought to distance himself from Berezovsky's political dealings his proximity to Berezovsky was such that he began to fear that he may also be arrested so in 2000 Badri left Moscow for his native Georgia.[27]

When Vladimir Putin was elected in March 2000, Badri hoped that the situation for Berezovsky and himself in Russia would improve. He and Berezovsky had supported Putin in his election campaign.[28] Badri later claimed that he had recommended Putin to Pavel Borodin, then a senior member of President Boris Yeltsin's Kremlin administration.[29] Berezovsky had also gotten Putin appointed as Russian FSB director.[30]

However, Berezovsky quickly fell out with the new president. On May 31, Berezovsky sharply attacked the constitutional reform proposed by Putin, which would give the Kremlin the right to dismiss elected governors. In an open letter to Putin published in Kommersant Berezovsky, then a Duma deputy, said that he would be obliged to vote against the president's legislative project, which was "directed toward changing the state's structure" and represented a "threat to Russia's territorial integrity and democracy."[31] Things came to a head in August 2000 when Berezovsky used ORT to attack Putin for his handling of the sinking of the Kursk submarine, blaming the death of 118 sailors on the Kremlin's reluctance to accept foreign help.[32] This began to put pressure also on to Badri, whose association with Berezovsky was well known and was at the time, controlling the ORT station.

In December 2000, Nikolay Glushkov a co-founder of AvtoVAZ and a close associate of Badri and Berezovsky was arrested as part of the Russian Prosecutor General's investigation in Aeroflot, a company that Berezovsky had an interest in. Badri and Berezovsky believed the arrest to be politically motivated and part of the Kremlin's attempt to put pressure on their businesses. Glushkov suffered from a hereditary blood disease and had to receive special medical treatment in hospital. Badri and Berezovsky began negotiations with the Government for his release agreeing to give up their media interests and for Berezovsky to end his political ambitions.[33] However, in June 2001, the Russian Prosecutor General's Office charged Badri with organizing an attempted escape from prison of Glushkov and issued an arrest warrant for him through Interpol.[34] Knowing that he would not be given a fair trial, Badri refused to come in for questioning and, on July 4, 2001, he gave an interview to the Kommersant newspaper setting out his version of events in an attempt to clear his name.[35] To avoid prosecution in Russia, Badri moved to Tbilisi where he had been granted political asylum. [36] Further charges relating to the misappropriation of AvtoVaz were added in October 2002.[37]

Investment and philanthropy in Georgia

Upon his return Badri began investing much of the vast wealth that he had accumulated in Russia into his native country. He had become personally wealthier than the entire state budget and so was able to invest in business ventures and charitable projects in a scale that had been previously unimaginable to the impoverished country.[38] He bought the Tbilisi city football team, Dinamo Tbilisi, the Kulevi oil terminal and financed a new shopping centre in the capital and a holiday resort on the Black Sea.[39] He also became the head of the federation of Georgian businessmen and head of the Georgian National Olympic Committee, subsidized social programs and cultural activities, and on two occasions paid debts for the gas and electricity consumed by Tbilisi residents. He funded several charity projects including schools, amusement parks - even a monastery.[40] In return for these paternal gifts, the then president Eduard Shevardnadze agreed to allow Badri the state's protection from charges against him in Russia.[41]

In December 2001, he founded Imedi Media Holding, the first independent broadcasting station in Georgia.

Involvement in politics in Georgia

During his early career, Badri had shown little interest in politics.[42] However, when the Rose Revolution began in 2003 and Badri could see that Eduard Shevardnadze was losing his grip on power, he used his wealth to support the new opposition candidate Mikheil Saakashvili.[43]

Relations between Badri and Saakashvili soon deteriorated however and they became bitter rivals. Badri claimed that this was due to the coverage given by Imedi to opposition parties, Saakasvili however claimed that Badri was attempting to use his wealth to gain control of business life in Georgia.[44] Badri began financing opposition parties in late 2006 and early 2007 and a pro-Patarkatsishvili group in parliament soon emerged that developed into the Our Georgia party.[45]

In late 2007, he became embroiled in a political scandal after former defense minister Irakli Okruashvili on September 25, 2007, accused Mikheil Saakashvili, the President of Georgia, of planning Patarkatsishvili's assassination. Arrested on corruption charges, however, Okruashvili retracted his accusations against the president, winning release on bail of 10 million Georgian lari (about 6,250,000 USD). He also said that his earlier accusations levelled against Saakashvili were not true and were aimed at gaining political dividends for himself and Badri Patarkatsishvili and at discrediting the President of Georgia.[46][47] On November 6, Okruashvili, said on Patarkatsishvili's Imedi TV - by then managed by Fox TV's parent News Corporation[48] - that he had been forced into retracting his accusations against Saakashvili by pressure that he endured in prison. Down the line from Munich, he said: "All of those accusations, all of those facts that I brought against Saakashvili, everything I said about him is the plain truth."[49]

As Badri lost favour with Saakashvili's government In 2007, numerous allegations of corruption were made against him. He was impeached as president of the Georgian National Olympic Committee, and also quit as a president of the Georgian Business Federation. Tbilisi-based Rustavi 2 TV, a channel controlled by Saakashvili's government, linked his name with several notorious murders in Russia and Georgia, including the assassination of Vlad Listyev [Listiev].

On October 29, 2007, Badri publicly announced his plans to finance ten opposition parties' campaign aimed at holding early parliamentary elections in April 2008.[50] On November 2, 2007, he addressed a large anti-government rally held in downtown Tbilisi and pledged to further support it.[51] He left Georgia for London shortly afterwards. After the demonstration turned violent, following police attacks, on November 7, 2007, Georgia's Chief Prosecutor's Office announced that he was suspected of conspiracy to overthrow the government.[52] Nevertheless, he said he would run in the January 5, 2008, snap presidential elections under the slogan "Georgia without Saakashvili is Georgia without Terror."[53] Leaders of the major opposition parties distanced themselves from Patarkatsishvili, who had to run as an independent presidential candidate.[54]

On December 24 and 25, 2007, the prosecutor-general's office of Georgia released a series of audio and video recordings of the two separate meetings of the high-ranking Georgian Interior Ministry official Erekle Kodua with Patarkatsishvili and the head of his pre-election campaign Valeri Gelbakhiani. According to the government, Patarkatsishvili was trying to bribe Kodua to take part in what the Georgian officials described as an attempted coup d'état on January 6, 2008, the next of the scheduled presidential elections. The plan included to stage a mass manifestation against the government and to "neutralize" the Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili. Later independent journalist Vakhtang Komakidze produced what he said was the full transcript of the recorded conversation which showed that Patarkatsishvili was advising against violence and the extracts released had been doctored[55] The accusations forced Patarkatsishvili onto the defensive. He confirmed that he met with Kodua in London, but denied that the bribe was in connection to an alleged coup plot and claimed instead that his intention was to uncover what he said were official plans to rig the election. He also confirmed that he offered Kodua "a huge amount of money" in exchange for defecting from the authorities allegedly to avert a possible use of force by the government against the planned January rallies.[56][57][58]

On December 28, 2007, Patarkatsishvili announced that he would withdraw his bid for presidency, but would nominally remain a candidate until January 4, 2008.[59][60] On January 3, 2008, he reversed himself, however, and decided to run in presidential elections. In response, his top campaign official Giorgi Zhvania (brother of Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania) resigned, declaring that Patarkasishvili did not have the unquestionable reputation one would expect of a country's president.[61]

Interest in sports

Patarkatsishvali was chairman of the Dinamo Tbilisi soccer club. He also served as president of the Georgian National Olympic Committee (GNOC), until being impeached on October 9, 2007, after falling out with the government.[62]

In September 2006, Badri announced that he was considering a bid for the London football club West Ham.[63] However, the deal never came to fruition.

Personal life

Patarkatsishvili was married to Inna Gudavadze. The couple have two children, Lianna Zhmotova and Iya Patarkatsishvili.

Death

Patarkatsishvili, aged 52, collapsed at Downside Manor, his mansion in Leatherhead, Surrey, England on February 12, 2008, at 10.45 pm. Ambulance crew members tried unsuccessfully to resuscitate him, but he was pronounced dead at 10.52 pm.[3] As in any other case of unexpected death, Surrey police treated the case as "suspicious" and launched an official investigation.[64]

The businessman spent his last day in the City of London office of international law firm Debevoise and Plimpton, meeting his business partner[65] Boris Berezovsky, his spokesperson Lord Bell and his lawyer Lord Goldsmith QC, as well as fellow exiles, the Russians Nikolai Glushkov and Yuli Dubov[66] From the City he left for Down Street, Mayfair, to visit Berezovsky's office,[67] and at 7.00 pm was returned to Leatherhead with his Maybach. Shortly after dining, Patarkatsishvili told his family he felt unwell and went upstairs to his bedroom where he was found unconscious after a heart attack.[68]

Preliminary reports indicated a heart attack as the cause of death.[69] According to the first post-mortem tests, the death of Patarkatsishvili appeared to have been from natural cardiac-related causes. According to the pathologist Ashley Fegan-Earl, he could identify a "severity that could have resulted in a sudden and unexplained collapse and death at any time." He also concluded that chest pain that Patarkatsishvili had had and a sudden collapse "were consistent with death due to coronary heart diseases."[70] Patarkatsishvili's father, Shalva Patarkatsishvili, also died of a heart attack at an early age of 48. The businessman had no history of illness but was reported to have led an unhealthy lifestyle, smoking excessively and taking no exercise. According to Lord Bell, "he [Badri] always looked 10 years older than he was."[71] However, theories of a possible assassination were considered seriously by some. "[A] number of compounds known to be used by the former KGB can induce heart failure, but leave virtually no trace. One is sodium fluoroacetate, a fine white powder derived from pesticide."[72] The British police checked Patarkatishvili's Surrey mansion for radioactive elements but reportedly found none.[73]

British press coverage

London Lite was the first newspaper to inform the British public of the Georgian oligarch's death on the evening of 13 February 2008. In the news of 14 February 2008, Patarkatsishvili's death was covered in The Guardian, The Times, Financial Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, etc. Most newspapers discussed Patarkatsishvili's business history, including his close ties with Boris Berezovsky, Roman Abramovich, Alexander Litvinenko, Mikheil Saakashvili and Vladimir Putin.[74][75]

International press coverage

Reuters reported that Patarkatsishvili feared the Georgian authorities were plotting to kill him, a source close to the late businessman said on the day of death."[76]

Associated Press reported that on December 26, 2007, Patarkatsishvili said that he had obtained a tape recording of an official in his homeland's Interior Ministry asking a Chechen warlord to murder the tycoon in London. "I believe they want to kill me," he said. He said the tape had been given to police.[77]

Novaya Gazeta reported the following information. Patarkatsishvili, living in London, was approached by members of the Saakashvili government demanding that he sell his controlling share in the dissident Imedi TV network. Initially, Patarkatsishvili refused, but was then offered an unprecedented deal: exchanging ownership of Imedi for ownership of the entire Georgian railroad system. Being a businessman, Patarkatsishvili reportedly agreed; however, when the Saakashvili side sent him the contract, there was a new clause, which required Badri to invest $2,000,000,000 in the "improvement" of the railroad property. He refused, but died shortly after. Novaya Gazeta's source is one of the lawyers from the legal side of this deal.[78][79][80]

Estate Battle

Following Badri's death, several of his closest business associates made attempts to fraudulently claim his business assets from his family members, who were (Badri having died without leaving an valid will), under Georgian law, entitled to his residual estate.[81]

Shortly after Badri died, Joseph Kay, the step son of Patarkatsishvili's aunt and someone who had assisted Badri with his business affairs, along with the American lawyer, Emmanuel Zeltser, attempted to take control of Imedi, Mtatsminda Park and the Rustavi Metallurgical Plant in Georgia, as well as other assets belonging to Inna Gudavadze and the Patarkatsishvili family, including a large development on Fisher Island in Florida, by claiming to be in possession of Patarkatsishvili's last will and testament that appointed Kay as executor of the estate.[82] These documents were later declared to be forgeries in the UK High Court.[83] Kay's case was comprehensively dismissed by Mr Justice Dudley in the Supreme Court of Gibraltar in February 2010. Justice Dudley described Kay's case as "wholly unconvincing" adding that he was a "mendacious individual" and "certainly not a witness of truth."[84] After several further legal battles in the US, UK, and Georgia, the assets were returned to the Patarkatsishvili family.[85][86]

Another claim over the estate was launched in 2012 by Boris Berezovsky. Berezovsky claimed that half of Badri's assets belong to him under a handshake agreement that the two men made in 1995 to split all their commercial interests equally.[87] However, following the judgement of Gloster J in Berezovsky v Abramovich 2012 that gave a damming report of Berezovsky's character, Berezovsky quickly settled his case against the Patarkatsishvili family. The details of the settlement however remained confidential.[88]

In 2013, Inna Gudavadze, her two daughters, Iya Patarkatsishvili and Liana Zhmotova, and Badri's mother Natela Patarkatsishvili brought a $1.8bn action against another of Badri's business associates, Vasily Anisimov. The family claimed that they had a part-entitlement to the 20% share formerly held by Anisimov in mining company Metalloinvest. The case was settled in March 2014 before it came to court.[89]

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External links

• Badri Patarkatsishvili, Civil Georgia's profile. 2008-02-13
• (in Georgian) Patarkatsishvili: The Oligarch's Way.[permanent dead link]NewsGeorgia's profile. 2008-02-38
• Mark Hollingsworth and S Lansley, Londongrad: From Russia With Cash: The Insdie Story of the Oligarchs. 4th estate, 2009
• Badri Patarkatsishvili Full Biography

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Let Them Eat Cake
by Linda Yablonsky at the LA MoCA gala
November 16, 2011

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Left: Artist Marina Abramović and Debbie Harry. Right: Jeffrey Deitch, director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. (All photos: Linda Yablonsky)

WHEN TWO PROTEAN ARTISTS face off against each other, the confrontation can be titillating. So it went last week in Los Angeles, over the Museum of Contemporary Art’s annual artist-designed fundraiser, conceived this year by Marina Abramović. “The shit has hit the fan,” Abramović said on Thursday, when the leaked draft of a letter that choreographer and filmmaker Yvonne Rainer wrote, but hadn’t yet sent, to LA MoCA director Jeffrey Deitch went viral on the Internet.

Rainer was protesting Abramović’s plans for the gala, “An Artist’s Life Manifesto,” scheduled for Saturday, November 12. The “entertainment,” Rainer wrote, promised to exploit the young people Abramović was training to perform for such meager pay that it amounted to abuse by the rich. Their job was to either lie naked under plastic skeletons revolving on the $100,000 dinner tables, or poke their heads through the $50,000 and $25,000 table tops while turning themselves on lazy Susans and locking eyes with guests throughout the evening.

The prospect of this “grotesque spectacle,” the outraged Rainer wrote, reminded her not of Abramović’s The Artist Is Present, the performance empress’s three-month-long sit at the Museum of Modern Art last year, or of her Nude with Skeleton from 2002, but of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1975 film Salò, where fascist sadists sexually abuse beautiful youths.



“Subjecting her performers to public humiliation at the hands of a bunch of frolicking donors is yet another example of the Museum’s callousness and greed, and Ms Abramović’s obliviousness to differences in context and to some of the implications of transposing her own powerful performances to the bodies of others,” Rainer wrote, suggesting that MoCA rename itself “MODFR, or the Museum of Degenerate Fund Raising.”

[x]
Left: Dealer Shaun Caley Regen with artist Sue Williams. Right: Artists Adam McEwen and Andrea Bowers.

But it was the contretemps, not the exploitation issue, that notched up the pre-gala buzz. On her Facebook page, one LA artist called Abramović “deluded” and hoped the performers would rebel. Another posted an article about Vanessa Beecroft’s 1998 invitational performance at the Guggenheim Museum, where nearly naked models had to stand for hours while tuxedoed swells stared at them and nobody cried abuse. Yet the controversy barely flickered to life among the artists and curators at Regen Projects’ Thursday night opening for Sue Williams’s sexually scatological paintings, while Abramović joined the frolickers at collector Eugenio López Alonso’s dinner for designer turned photographer Hedi Slimane. But Deitch took the bait and invited Rainer to a rehearsal on Friday. Abramović, though cooperative, was not pleased.

She was especially exercised by the letter’s allusion to fascism, when she had spent her life opposing everything that her parents, Communist Party heroes in the former Yugoslavia, stood for. The gala, I gathered, would be something like a reverse Occupy MoCA, where wealthy, overdressed patrons would be given white lab coats to “democratize” the proceeding. Five hundred people had auditioned to be the heads and nudes on the tables, knowing they would be paid only $150 for their several hours on display. Though the chosen performers had signed confidentiality agreements to ensure the event would come as a surprise, one of them had complained to Rainer and then quit.

At a prerehearsal gathering that turned into a pro-Abramović rally, Rainer appeared a bit shaken by how quickly her unsent letter had gone public, but sat quietly among the ninety performers while Abramović acknowledged her presence and addressed her complaints. The small fee was all the museum could pay, she said, adding that she was getting no fee at all. She was hiring young people not to take advantage but because it took stamina to get through one of her durational pieces. “I’m the idiot,” she said. “I’m sixty-five and still doing this!”

Their performance as gala centerpieces would not be easy, she said, but she was taking every precaution to protect them. Diners would be instructed not to feed them, touch them, talk to them, or disrupt their performance in any way. Guards would make sure they were unmolested, but if anyone wanted to leave, they could walk out at any time. “It’s an experiment,” said Abramović, “not an entertainment. There’s a huge risk of failure, but this is my work.” This was greeted by a tremendous cheer of support and the rehearsal went forward, with Rainer interviewing the performers one by one. “I wonder how she’d like it if I did that at one of her rehearsals,” Abramović sniffed later.

[x]
Left: LA MoCA chief curator Paul Schimmel with Susan Jenkins, LA MoCA's manager of exhibition programs. Right: LA MoCA trustees Eli and Edythe Broad and Maria Bell.

That night, at the MoCA annex in the Pacific Design Center, Deitch defended Abramović for curious guests attending the opening of Slimane’s “California Song” photographs. Slimane was invisible in the darkness of an installation that projected his high-contrast, magazine-ready portraits on a cube at the center of the black-box gallery. “Any pictures that large are going to look good,” groused one observer, before moving on to Adam McEwen’s debut at Gagosian in Beverly Hills.

Next morning, an e-mail from Rainer had her “revised” letter attached, this time with dozens of signatures from other artists and writers joining the protest. The gist of it was the same as before, though this time Rainer took special care to respect Abramović’s work while denouncing her use of live heads and women-only nudes as “decorative centerpieces” at the gala to come. She claimed that the performers at the rehearsal were all “young, beautiful, and white” (I saw many black, Latino, and Asian faces, along with several white, not all young). She admitted they appeared both “touching and somewhat comic,” but recoiled at the thought of them being subjected to “possible public humiliation and bodily injury” at the hands of those frolicking donors. “Their cheerful voluntarism says something about the pervasive desperation and cynicism of the art world,” she concluded, “such that young people must become abject table ornaments and clichéd living symbols of mortality in order to assume a novitiate role in the temple of art.”

She had a point, but perhaps she has never seen one of the benefits for the Watermill Center that Robert Wilson creates. Rainer told me that she never goes to openings and was unaware that such celebrity clusterfuck fund-raisers had become common practice, more or less out of necessity. As Abramović said at the rehearsal, “Kings, aristocrats, and popes used to be the supporters of art. Today, in Europe, governments do it. In this country, we have businessmen and they want to be entertained. I want to take a different approach.”


Left: MoMA PS1 director Klaus Biesenbach with filmmaker Kenneth Anger and Jeffrey Deitch. Right: Collector Maja Hoffmann.

By 7 PM that evening, the museum on Grand Avenue was filling with a parade of patrons who seemed oblivious to the debate. In very short order, I came across last year’s gala artist, Doug Aitken, Americans for the Arts advocate Nora Halpern, Hammer Museum director Ann Philbin, actress Rosanna Arquette, Guggenheim Foundation deputy director Ari Wiseman, and artists Mark Bradford, Alex Israel, and Rosson Crow. The latter was on the arm of designer Jeremy Scott and decked out in a vintage yellow gown by Don Loper—“Lucille Ball’s favorite designer,” Crow was quick to point out. Strolling through the collection galleries, I came across former gala artist Francesco Vezzoli (in Prada) with model Shala Monroque (in Rodarte). “I’m happy that Marina can still raise controversy,” Vezzoli said. “I wish the same for me at her age.”

While Minnie Driver, Gwen Stefani, Will Ferrell, Kirsten Dunst, Pamela Anderson, and David LaChapelle walked the red carpet outside, burlesque artist Dita Von Teese (in Jean Paul Gaultier) and sometime filmmaker and jewelry designer Liz Goldwyn (in a vintage red dress) joined the crowd previewing “Naked Hollywood: Weegee in Los Angeles” and “Kenneth Anger: Icons,” a Hollywood Babylon showcase of Anger’s films and memorabilia, within. “We’re a very creative museum!” said chief curator Paul Schimmel, noting that the shows came on the schedule only recently, and giving the impression he wasn’t all that thrilled at their entry. (His sweeping, and historic, Pacific Standard Time show at MoCA’s Geffen Contemporary took years to pull together.) “You just gotta roll with the punches and all the changes,” he said.

Guards asked everyone to proceed to the humongous dinner tent outside, where one tenet of Abramović’s manifesto was projected over the entrance. “An artist should avoid falling in love with another artist,” it said. Under it, a group of the hired performers helped patrons into their lab coats, though some, like Crow, refused.


Left: Rosanna Arquette. Right: Jerry Brown's table.

Inside, all thought of exploitation quickly faded, as the 769 guests, who included California governor Jerry Brown and Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa as well as Beecroft, took their seats before the rotating heads and nudes-with-skeletons and dug into their food unfazed. (It was delicious.) Some people did hold the gaze of the heads; others winked and elicited forbidden giggles. After brief speeches by gala cochairs Eli Broad and Maria Arena Bell, and another by Deitch, who called Abramović and Deborah Harry, the evening’s main entertainment, “giants in their field,” Abramović took the stage to exhort everyone to keep on their lab coats for the sake of the experiment at hand. (Not all obeyed.) She went on to explain that it hadn’t been her idea, but the museum’s, to use only women as the nudes. Artists rarely made manifestos anymore, she said, referring to the gala’s title, adding that they were necessary in these troubled times to establish a “codex of moral and social behavior.”

John Baldessari and Meg Cranston seemed pleased to be seated ringside, where half-naked and very buff pallbearers periodically mounted the catwalk-like stage carrying a shrouded body on a bier. At trustee Wallis Annenberg’s front-and-center table, Governor Brown was smiling but seemed uncomfortable at the nude before him. “That’s a fake vagina, isn’t it?” asked collector Michael Ostin, refusing to believe that the woman on display did not have “some kind of enhancement.”

He was not the only doubter. During Serbian folk singer Svetlana Spajic’s performance of a haunting tune from Robert Wilson’s The Life and Death of Marina Abramović, someone at the table beside mine loudly expressed his displeasure to Broad Foundation curator Joanne Hyler, dealer Sara Watson, Creative Time director Anne Pasternak, and Schimmel. “This is offensive!” he shouted. “This is shit, not art. Who is she kidding? Jeffrey! Yo, Jeffrey! Stop this!” The source turned out to be artist Thomas Houseago, who evidently had imbibed more than his share of the “Rauschenberg Spirit” wines. He continued his diatribe during a reading by the performers of Abramović’s full manifesto (“An artist should not steal ideas from other artists; an artist should not make themselves into an idol . . . ”) before leaving his dinner partners in peace.


Left: The Marina Abramović cake. Right: Performer Svetlana Spajic.

Once again, the pallbearers mounted the stage, only this time the person under the shroud was the platinum-haired Harry, who sang her first number from a reclining position on the bier before hopping off to do “Heart of Glass,” followed by a rousing “One Way or Another” that brought much of the cheering, camera phone–wielding audience to its feet. After her final number, two more shrouded bodies were brought onstage. Under them was dessert: two eerily lifelike cakes fashioned to look like Abramović and Harry by LA’s Rosebud Cakes and Raphael Castoriano’s Kreëmart organization. Wielding lethal-looking knives, Abramović joined Harry to cut out the hearts of each of their cakes to a shouting, astonished crowd.

Chaos followed, as guests fought over pieces cut by the bare-chested pallbearers. “I want the breast! Give me the vagina!” they screamed, hardly noticing that Tilda Swinton had arrived for photo ops, looking very much like David Bowie in his Thin White Duke phase. When it was all over, the cut-up cakes resembled mutilated bodies that made for a ghoulish sight.

A man I didn’t know accosted me. “Is it me or was this all about violence against women?” he asked. “It’s you,” I said. “Look at that cake!” he exclaimed. “It’s a horribly mutilated woman with knives in her chest. Doesn’t that bother you?” “It’s a cake,” I said. “It represents all the indignities women have suffered at the hands of men. It is women telling their own history.” Apparently, the point was lost on him. “It’s disgusting,” he replied. I asked his name, which he declined to give. “I’m in the social register!” he growled, brushing past me to let Deitch know that this violence against women would result in the withdrawal of funding from the museum.

“Don’t be afraid of art!” Deitch said, when the man stormed off. “Wow,” he added a moment later. “That was intense.” In the end, the gala raised $2.5 million.

— Linda Yablonsky

[x]
Left: Gwen Stefani and Debbie Harry. Right: Artist Francesco Vezzoli.


Left: Marina Abramović cuts the cake. Right: Debbie Harry enters.

[x]
Left: Artist Vanessa Beecroft. Right: Artist Rosson Crow and designer Jeremy Scott.

[x]
Left: Artists John Baldessari and Meg Cranston. Right: Gemma Ponsa Salvador and Doug Aitken.

[x]
Left: Dealer Sam Orlofsky with curator Chistine Kim and art consultant Sandy Heller. Right: Dita Von Teese with filmmaker Liz Goldwyn.

[x]
Left: ForYourArt's Bettina Korek with artist Alex Israel. Right: Curators Douglas Fogle and Franklin Sirmans.

[x]
Left: Artist Billy Al Bengston with Wendy Al. Right: Artist Mark Bradford.


[x]
Left: Collector Dasha Zukhova with photographer Rachel Chandler. Right: LAXART director Lauri Firstenberg.

[x]
Left: Artist Ryan Trecartin. Right: Collectors Liz Swig and Richard Chang.

[x]
Left: Dealers Sarah Watson and Brent Sikkema. Right: Artist Walead Beshty.


Left: The Debbie Harry cake. Right: Tate Modern curator Jessica Morgan with dealer Tim Blum.

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Shalva Chigirinsky
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 8/28/18

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Shalva Chigirinsky is a Jewish Russian businessman operating in real estate and oil sectors.

Early life and education

Shalva Chigirinsky was born in 1950 in Kutaisi. He graduated from the Moscow Medical Academy.[1]

Career

In 1987, he emigrated to Spain and later to Germany, where in 1989, he became a co-founder of the real estate development company STT Group.[1] In 1990s in became a major shareholder of Sibir Energy, a London-listed Russian oil company. In 2009, the company sued Chigirinsky for at least US$325 million for a failed bid to sell his real estate assets to the company.[2] He faces several other lawsuits in different jurisdictions.[3] His stake in the company was taken over by Sberbank, pledged as loan collateral.[4] There is an investigation concerning alleged tax evasion by Chigirinsky.[2]

Personal life

Chigirinsky is divorced and has six children.[1] He and the mother of four of his children, Tatiana Panchenkova, divorced in 2009. She testified in a Connecticut court that he beat her for more than ten years.[5]

References

1. "Shalva Chigirinsky". Forbes. 2008-03-05. Retrieved 2009-09-13.
2. Katya Golubkova (2009-07-17). "Moscow eyes bigger Sibir stake amid shareholder probe". Reuters. Retrieved 2009-09-13.
3. Dmitry Sergeev (2009-08-24). "Russia's VTB says wins lawsuit against Chigirinsky". Reuters. Retrieved 2009-09-13.
4. Dmitry Sergeev (2009-08-24). "Sibir Energy secures $200 mln loan from Sberbank". Reuters. Retrieved 2009-09-13.
5. "Russian oligarch's ex-wife tells Connecticut court he 'brutally beat her for more than a decade and caused her to suffer a miscarriage'". Daily Mail. London.

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Russian oligarch's ex-wife tells Connecticut court he 'brutally beat her for more than a decade and caused her to suffer a miscarriage'
by Lydia Warren
PUBLISHED: 12:24 EDT, 6 February 2013 | UPDATED: 13:17 EDT, 6 February 2013

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Oil magnate Shalva Chigirinsky, 62, and the mother of his four children, Tatiana Panchenkova, 48, divorced in 2009

She was 'hospitalised many times after beatings' and eventually decided to sue him after 'he threatened to kill her at their daughter's birthday party'

Chigirinsky made his billions in oil but was rocked during 2008 downturn

The ex-wife of a billionaire Russian oligarch has testified that he brutally beat her for more than ten years - once even causing her to suffer a miscarriage.

Shalva Chigirinsky, 62, grinned as his ex-wife Tatiana Panchenkova, 48, told a Connecticut court how he threw her out of their Moscow home while she was pregnant with their first child in 2001.

'I don't understand what's so funny here,' snapped Panchenkova, who was married to the real-estate and oil magnate until 2009. Both now live in Greenwich, Connecticut.

She described 10 alleged beatings, including one that caused her to suffer a miscarriage.

'I suffered as a mother, I suffered as a woman,' Panchenkova said. 'I was hospitalised on a number of occasions. I was threatened that I’d be destroyed, killed, taken out if I contacted the police.

Panchenkova, who has four children with Chigirinsky, said that on one occasion she woke to find him trying to suffocate her with a pillow, the New York Post reported.'

She said that the following day he told his lawyer that he wanted to kill his wife, 'but didn't know how to dispose of the body'.

Panchenkova said that the abuse continued even after they divorced and she eventually decided to sue her former husband after an outburst their daughter's 11th birthday party last year.


'Abused': Tatiana Panchenkova, pictured right with Marina Mecik, told a Connecticut court about 10 alleged instances of physical abuse at the hands of her ex-husband

'In the presence of the children he said he was going to kill me,' she said. 'Called me garbage, a b****. He said he would create a miserable life for me every day.'

The testimony was part of her attempt to force her ex-husband to set aside $2.5 million for any damages she wins when the suit goes to trial, the Post reported.

She filed the civil-court complaint in October, saying she suffered 'a decade of brutal and barbaric physical, psychological and emotional abuse perpetrated' by Chigirinsky.

Georgian-born Chigirinsky was once one of Russia's richest men, with an estimated net worth of $1.6 billion in 2007, according to Forbes.


Wealthy: Panchenkova, who lives in this $10 million home in Greenwich, divorced the oil magnate in 2009

He studied medicine in Moscow before starting a real estate business in the 1980s. He went on to make his billions in oil and real estate businesses - but was rocked by the 2008 financial meltdown.

It is not his first brush with the courts.

After falling in trouble with his creditors, in December 2011, a Moscow district court ordered Russia's federal tax agency to collect approximately 15 million rubles ($475,000) in tax arrears from him.

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Judge ends Russian oligarch’s bitter custody battle with bizarre ruling
by Lorena Mongelli
New York Post
August 19, 2016 | 1:50am

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Tatiana Panchenkov and former husband Shalva Chigirinsky
Douglas Healey (2)

The nasty, years-long child custody battle between a Russian oligarch and his ex-wife came to an end Thursday — as a Connecticut judge bizarrely ordered the warring parents to come to future court appearances bearing photos of their kids.

Oil and real-estate tycoon Shalva Chigirinsky and Tatiana Panchenkova have been too interested in bickering with each other rather than worrying about the well-being of their four children, Stamford Superior Court Judge Thomas Colin said.

“The parents are unfortunately occupied by their dislike and distaste of each other,” the judge said.

On Wednesday, he said that the kids — 8-year-old twins and daughters ages 15 and 9 — are “somewhere on their [parents’] mind but not at the top of that list.”

Colin ordered the parents to prominently display two family photos in the courtroom at subsequent family court hearings.

During a two-day hearing, the judge noted the kids have lived under a shroud of “distrust, hatred, anger and a lust for revenge” thanks to their parents’ four-year custody fight, marred by wild allegations of sex abuse and arrests. “It is a scary place for them,” Colin said.

As part of the joint-custody settlement that was reached, Chigirinsky can see his kids on alternating weekends and Wednesdays after school.

The billionaire must replace his Russian nanny with one who speaks English and have nanny cams installed in his Greenwich home.

He’ll also undergo “reunification therapy” with his 9-year-old daughter, whom he’s been charged with abusing. That case is still pending.

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Shalva Chigirinsky is not a pedophile, but can still become bankrupt
The court in the United States closed the scandalous case of Shalva Chigirinsky. Now the businessman will focus on the lawsuits to Viktor Rashnikov in Cyprus. If he loses them, then the scandalous businessman will face bankruptcy.
The Moscow Post
06.02.2017

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Court of the US state of Connecticut closed the criminal case against Russian businessman Shalva Chigirinsky. Businessman accused of committing "illegal acts" in relation to a 16yo person with possible bodily harm. The prosecution withdrew the accusation.

While the US Supreme Court considered this serious accusation, Shalva Chigirinsky was busy in court, too, but only in Cyprus. Apparently, the courts on two fronts were too much for the businessman, since he lost the last round of the Cyprus lawsuit. It should be noted that Shalva Chigirinsky asked the Cypriot court to arrest the property for a total amount of USD 90 million belonging to the head of Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works Viktor Rashnikov and his partner Nader Nader. It is about selling a stake in Chigirinsky's Russia Tower in the "Moscow City": the businessman argues that the transaction was carried out at a lower price.

First, the requirement was satisfied, however, the respondent party was not called to the court: this practice is common in Cyprus. But when Rashnikov's side presented their evidence, it was found out that the previous decision to arrest the head of MMK's assets was made on the basis of distorted information. Experts believe that the businessman in dire need of funds, and is just trying to "tear off money" from Rashnikov and Nader, using all available methods. But to defend his innocence in a US court and try to win back a large sum, for the Cypriot court it was not easy.

In January this year the Court of Limassol considered that the demand of Shalva Chigirinsky had no ground and, moreover, an application for seizure of property contained a lot of errors. The arrest of Rashnikov's assets was removed. Persons familiar with the situation believe that Chigirinsky intends to focus on "squeezing" of money from the head of MMK. But first it was necessary to cover the high-profile case on charges of illegal sexual acts against a minor.

It is possible that it was completed by agreement of the former spouses. The scandal initially looked like an attempt of Shalva Chigirinsky and his ex-wife Tatiana Panchenkova, who divorced in 2009, to divide the family assets upon divorce. The case featured two older daughters of the former spouses. It is curious as to why the prosecutor's office, on finding Chigirinsky not guilty, at the same time withdrew the charge in respect of Panchenkova? The woman was accused of committing acts "entailed the risk of harm to minors and their moral decay." The prosecution believes that Tatiana Panchenkova deliberately manipulated daughters, with the aim to stir up hatred for their father.

But on the same day when the prosecution against Chigirinsky was withdrawn, the prosecution against Panchenkova also ended. Persons familiar with the situation reminded that the former spouses had been dividing their assets for eight years after the divorce. During it, both parties showered each other with mutual recriminations. In particular, Chigirinsky accused Panchenkova of stealing jewels worth $100 million, and the ex-wife tried to prove in a Moscow court that she never recieved 354 million rubles promised her at the divorce. The same sources make the assumption that the former spouses decided to conclude a peace treaty, in a sense. What were the conditions, if the assumption is correct, we can only guess. But it is believed that the businessman had to abandon the judicial war on two fronts because he started to lose one.

"Robin Hood" saves himself

If the famous Robin Hood took away valuables from the rich and gave to the poor, than Shalva Chigirinsky as the evil tongues say, is making every effort to take away quite a fortune from the rich for his own self. Not that back in time, Shalva Chigirinsky and Victor Rashnikov on parity started to build an ambitious project, Russia Tower, a Moscow skyscraper, which was to become the capital's tallest building. However Chigirinsky faced serious financial problems. The businessman sold the property and moved to the United States. He could not for a long time sell his share in the Tower, as nobody wanted to buy it because the skyscraper, then as now, existed only on paper.

Finally, the share of Chigirinsky was bought by Viktor Rashnikov. Experts say that the seller for a not very liquid asset received the highest possible price. But the seller claimed that the head of MMK actually paid very little. For the sake of extortion of money from Nader and Rashnikov, Shalva Chigirinsky as the evil tongues say, even reconciled with his younger brother, Alexander Chigirinsky, if money can be regarded as the goal of reconciliation.

The problem is that Chigirinsky Jr is also unlucky in the courts.

The Chigirinsky brothers against Rashnikov

Last fall Chigirinsky brothers, who had not contacted each other for a long time before, suddenly hit Rashnikov with lawsuits. But if the claim of Chigirinsky Sr. concerned the Moscow-City Russia skyscraper which was never built, his younger brother was planning to cash in on a ready object. Initially, Evolution skyscraper in Moscow-City were to be built by Snegiri belonging to Alexander Chigirinsky and Inteko belonging to the wife of former Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, Elena Baturina. However, in 2010 the businesswoman decided to leave the project.

In the same year Baturina sold 50 per cent stake in the project to Viktor Rashnikov for 37 million dollars. For the construction of Evolution, the MMK owner took out a loan, the project was finished and sold. According to rumors, the price amounted to a billion dollars. Net profit amounted to 267 million dollars, of which 50% came to the accounts of the Chigirinsky's entities, while the other half was transferred to City Palace, which Rashnikov and Chigirinsky Jr. owned jointly.

Representative of Rashnikov, Snapbox Holdings, appealed to the Russian arbitration, but the case was lost. Surprisingly, the Cyprus court, which Rashnikov addressed with the same demands, immediately arrested Rashnikov's assets worth $170 million as the claim security. However, Chigirinsky Jr. filed a lawsuit, too. He argues that during the deal with Inteko, the price of 37 million dollars, was strongly undervalued and demanded US $127 million.

However, in the autumn of last year, Alexander Chigirinsky withdrew his claims. Those familiar with the situation say that the claim was withdrawn because of its apparent unreasonableness.
But actually it changes nothing: Chigirinsky Sr. was "plucked" by the former wife, and the last asset that remained from the former business empire of brothers is Snegiri, which is now owned by Chigirinsky Jr., may soon go to the new owner.Aand after all the debts of the company all this time only grew: the parent company of Snegiri registered in Cyprus, ceased to disclose its accounts after 2013. Even then, the debt burden of the asset was estimated at $470 million.

However, the brothers' plans to capitalize on Viktor Rashnikov failed. One barely escaped 30 years in prison on charges of "sexual activities" in relation to a minor, the other is about to lose his last asset. It is possible that Shalva Chigirinsky will make a last attempt "to live beautifully" at the expense of the head of MMK. However, this option may also fail miserably.