Living has become better

Forbes again pleases lovers of counting money in other people's safe - and there are more money and safes.

According to Forbes, in the world at the beginning of 2006 - 793 dollar billionaires. Of these, 369 citizens of the United States, 45 Germany, 33 - the Russian Federation (and these are legal billionaires, there is not a single official on the list. Surely, if the “ambush regiment” came out in all its glory, we would have made the Germans as children and reached our rightful second place).

So, Russia (whose GDP is about 2% of the world economy, and it is not included in the top ten economic powers of the world) reached third in the number of billionaires. Citizens of the Russian Federation - more than 4% of the total number of elect, and except for the United States, then about 8%!

At the same time, the numbers do not look sensational. In May 2004, the same Forbes counted 36 billionaires in Russia, in May 2005-30. Names almost do not change. Naturally, Yukosovsky - Khodorkovsky, Nevzlin, Brudnoy, Dubov, Lebedev, Shakhnovsky fell out. From the list of 2004, they did not “live” until 2006, for some reason, Vyakhirev and Sheremet (Gazprom) and Davidovich, Oin, Gorodilov (Sibneft). Both are quite strange - because Gazprom’s shares at Vyakhirev and Sheremet seemed to have no no one requisitioned (at least officially forgot to inform us), and the price of shares has increased three times since 2004. So why did these minority shareholders of Gazprom so impoverished? The same applies to Abramovich’s employees - who, how and for what offended them, deprived of the shares? And if no one deprived, then why were they pushed out of the list?

Someone increased. The most fantastic story with Suleiman Kerimov. It cost, according to Forbes, in 2004-$ 560 million (48th place), in 2005-2 billion 600 million (16th place), in 2006-7 billion 100 million (7th place)! Get rich 13 times in 2 years! At the same time, he is not included in the "St. Petersburg Brigade", a modest deputy from the LDPR, does not appear in the "box". The most interesting thing is that, according to the media, all this crazy growth is mainly connected with the fact that, as they say, “accessible to everyone” - with a game on the exchange. Cleverly buying Russian papers (very banal - Gazprom, Sberbank, etc.), he was ahead of the stock market and managed to rise like that.

Vagit Alekperov gained well in weight. In 2004 and 2005, it was put on 10th place, estimating at 3,900,000 and 4,100,000,000, respectively. And in 2006 it is already in the first place, with a capital of 11,000,000,000. But here everything is clear-this is how Lukoil’s shares have risen.

By the way, Forbes puts Alekperov in the first place simply because Abramovich (18,200,000,000 - 11th place in the world ranking of wealth), they generally “carried out” to Russia. In principle, this is true - a citizen of the Russian Federation, the Governor of Chukotka, awarded the Order of Honor, he not only constantly lives in London (here he is far from lonely among Russian billionaires), but also actually eliminated his business in Russia. Only spiritual bonds are associated with his beloved homeland, which do not measure with money ... (by the way, Forbes evaluates the capital of Arkadyevich’s novel at the full cost of the package he had sold. Talks about “kickbacks”, about the share of direct relatives of Yeltsin, etc. The magazine ignores.)

You can write a lot about each of our national heroes (yes, a lot is written). But let's try to do small statistics. (I hasten immediately to reservation. About a month ago, the Finance magazine published its rating of Russian rich, that is, people whose fortune exceeds $ 35 million. The list includes 720 people, the numbers there are significantly different, the dollar billionaires are as much as 50, and the same Alekperov in 6th place with a fortune of 8,000,000,000 000 000 000 000. In any case, the “Finance” list gives much more material than “Forbes” is now trying to process the information of “finance”, but this is a whole doctoral dissertation on sociology, and therefore we will focus on the Forbes list.

So...

Age. The oldest - Viktor Rashnikov and Vladimir Yevtushenkov, both born in 1948, the youngest - companions Andrei Melnichenko (1972) and Sergey Popov (1971). Of the other 29 people, 18 were born in the 1960s, 11-in the 1950s. An extremely important circumstance. Before us are people who, by the beginning of the reforms (creation of cooperatives-1988, privatization-1992-93) was mainly from 25 to 30 years old. Energy, courage, lack of Soviet stereotypes and the presence of Soviet ties - these are the main features of their portrait. The popular theory (I myself developed it, I even consider myself the author of the term “nomenclature capitalism”) that the main fruits of the reform regretted the nomenclature, privatizing the “public” (state) property, so to speak, exchanging “capital” for capital, this theory does not work here. Our heroes, with rare exceptions, are only associated with the Soviet nomenclature, but they themselves do not belong to it.

It is easy to assume the nomenclature roots of capital Ms. Baturina. Alekperov managed to become deputy minister of oil and gas industry. A fairly large official of the Moscow government was Vladimir Yevtushenkov (AFK "System"). The son of the Torgmogram in Australia Potanin, the son of the prosecutor of Tashkent Alisher Usman, the son of an influential corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Peter Aven, the son of a large construction trust Leonid Michelson (he took the place of his father, and the construction of his Novatek gas empire) came out of the nomenclature families. With some stretch, the former KGB colonel Alexander Lebedev can be attributed to the nomenclature of the “second echelon”. In 1991, Viktor Rashnikov rose to the chief engineer of Magnitogorsk, which he owns today. Here, in the first approximation, as if that's all. Agree - no one entered the cream of the Soviet nomenclature.

The item at which the active salivation begins in the vast majority of free citizens of the Russian Federation. Actually, this is the only thing that worries them. Well - satisfy curiosity. So: Azerbaijani - 1, Lezgin - 1, Chechen - 1, Uzbek - 2, Ukrainians - 3 and finally (well, stokers, stricts!), Jews - 6 (with Abramovich - 7). How so? And ... the rest? Of course, you will laugh for a long time, but the other 18 are Russians! The latest justification of the patriotic struggle has been lost ... Yes, it is not in vain that it is said - "cognition multiplies sorrow." And does not add capital ...

I will not list all the boring Soviet technical universities. MGIMO has the greatest catch at MGIMO, MIPTs - 2 people, the Faculty of Physics of Moscow State University - 2 people, Misis - 3 people (all from the Alpha group).

Here the division is quite conditional. For example, today Ms. Baturina is rather a rentier, owns the shares of Gazprom, Sberbank, etc. And the capital did on construction. In addition, almost all of our heroes own many enterprises, a variety of businesses. Nevertheless, taking into account all the conventions, the picture is such.

The mining -metallurgical industry is the leader - 11 people.

Oil-7, banks-5, gas industry-1 (the administration of the state Gazprom is not included in the list), non-ferrous metallurgy-2, aluminum-1, chemical industry (potassium)-1, construction-1 (the same Ms. Baturin), vodka-1, telecommunications (mobile communications)-1, portfolio investor-1 (now there are more really more).

Alas, no signs of modern infrastructure are high technologies, media, pharmaceuticals, etc. It is not even traced here. Economics of 50 years ago ...

But in fact, this is not entirely true. If you refer to a more detailed list (the same magazine "Finance"), then the picture is already significantly different.

And in conclusion. Despite the case of Yukos, the number of billionaires did not decrease, but grew. What is Putin's success? Or is it happening contrary to his efforts? And in general - such a number of billionaires with a weak economy, which means that such a huge stratification of society is a “achievement” or “failure”?

Here about these high -quality matters, each reader can judge to the extent of his ideological spoiled. And the Forbes magazine gives some information to reflection.