The Invention of Russia: The Journey from Gorbachev's Freedom to Putin's War - читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги автора Arkady Ostrovsky (ч. notes)

FOOTNOTES

1

The crucial role in thwarting the coup was played by the minister of defence, Marshal Georgy Zhukov, who lent Khrushchev a hand (and military planes that briskly delivered members of the Central Committee to Moscow).

1

Albats also wrote one of the best political profiles of the KGB: KGB: State Within a State (New York: Farrar Straws Giroux, 1994)

2

‘I have a feeling that he was really eyeing the job as the head of the [pro-Yeltsin] KGB,’ Gevorkyan said later.⁸

1

Yakovlev was introduced to Dittmer by an American journalist and one of Kommersant’s co-founders, A. Craig Copetas. In his racy and captivating book about the venture, Bear Hunting with the Politburo, Dittmer, the CEO of Refco, is disguised as ‘Tom Billington’.

2

Copetas said that the total investment by Refco in Kommersant was nearly $1 million.

3

The majority of Russians supported market reforms and the privatization of land plots and small businesses, but not of large factories and natural resources. Still, most saw entrepreneurs as a positive force that could pull the country out of its economic trough.

1

Itogi started on Channel One but moved under the same name to NTV.

2

Gusinsky formed a consortium of investors including Mikhail Fridman, another oligarch, Credit Suisse First Boston and, most importantly, Spain’s Telefonica, which was supposed to manage Svyazinvest.

3

Luzhkov was also one of the first acting Russian politicians to exploit the subject of Crimea and Ukraine. He travelled to Sebastopol to declare that the city of Russian glory should never have been passed to Ukraine.

1

One of the film’s unintended consequences was that it inspired Russian neo-Nazi youths, who even adopted the names of the film’s characters.

2

A member of a criminal gang in Russia was often described as ‘bratok’ – a diminutive of ‘brother’.

1

Soon after being appointed prime minister, Putin half-jokingly told an assembly of intelligence officers on the anniversary of the foundation of the Soviet secret police: ‘The intelligence operatives planted inside the Russian government have successfully completed the first stage of the operation.’

2

Yegor was also one of NTV’s trustees, as were Alexander Yakovlev and Mikhail Gorbachev.

3

Politkovskaya was poisoned with mysterious toxins while on a plane as she flew to Beslen to negotiate with hostage-takers. Two years later, on 7 October 2007, she was killed outside her Moscow apartment.