Historical
![Ben Mezrich - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B001H6OGU6.jpg)
Once Upon a Time in Russia: The Rise of the Oligarchs―A True Story of Ambition, Wealth, Betrayal, and Murder
The New York Times bestselling author of Bringing Down the House and The Accidental Billionaires tells his most incredible story yet: A true drama of obscene wealth, crime, rivalry, and betrayal from deep inside the world of billionaire Russian oligarchs that Booklist called "one more example of just how talented a storyteller [Mezrich] is."
Meet two larger-than-life Russians: former mathematician Boris Berezovsky, who moved into more lucrative ventures as well as politics, becoming known as the Godfather of the Kremlin; and Roman Abramovich, a dashing young entrepreneur who built one of Russia's largest oil companies from the ground up.
After a chance meeting on a yacht in the Caribbean, the men became locked in a complex partnership, surfing the waves of privatization after the fall of the Soviet regime and amassing mega fortunes while also taking the reins of power in Russia. With Berezovsky serving as the younger entrepreneur's krysha-literally, his roof, his protector-they battled their way through the "Wild East" of Russia until their relationship soured when Berezovsky attacked President Vladimir Putin in the media. Dead bodies trailed Berezovsky as he escaped to London, where an associate died painfully of Polonium poisoning, creating an international furor. As Abramovich prospered, Berezovsky was found dead in a luxurious London town house, declared a suicide.
With unprecedented, exclusive first-person sourcing, Mezrich takes us inside a world of unimaginable wealth, power, and corruption to uncover this exciting story, a true-life thriller epic for our time-"Wolf Hall on the Moskva" (Bookpage).
Meet two larger-than-life Russians: former mathematician Boris Berezovsky, who moved into more lucrative ventures as well as politics, becoming known as the Godfather of the Kremlin; and Roman Abramovich, a dashing young entrepreneur who built one of Russia's largest oil companies from the ground up.
After a chance meeting on a yacht in the Caribbean, the men became locked in a complex partnership, surfing the waves of privatization after the fall of the Soviet regime and amassing mega fortunes while also taking the reins of power in Russia. With Berezovsky serving as the younger entrepreneur's krysha-literally, his roof, his protector-they battled their way through the "Wild East" of Russia until their relationship soured when Berezovsky attacked President Vladimir Putin in the media. Dead bodies trailed Berezovsky as he escaped to London, where an associate died painfully of Polonium poisoning, creating an international furor. As Abramovich prospered, Berezovsky was found dead in a luxurious London town house, declared a suicide.
With unprecedented, exclusive first-person sourcing, Mezrich takes us inside a world of unimaginable wealth, power, and corruption to uncover this exciting story, a true-life thriller epic for our time-"Wolf Hall on the Moskva" (Bookpage).
Editorial Reviews
"A harrowing and truly Russian tale about the river of greed and corruption that gushed out of post-Communist Russia, carried men to power and opulence, drowned them in murder and betrayal, and led to the rise of Vladimir Putin." -- Lev Golinkin, author of A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka
"Mezrich turns his keen journalistic eye to Russia...and...the oligarchs... Mezrich focuses on two such men, a mentor and his young protégé, who accumulated staggering wealth before personal differences tore apart their relationship... Mezrich's ability to tell a true (and well-documented) story in a way that makes it look and feel like the most involving of narratives is nearly unparalleled. He is one of the few writers whose name on a piece of nonfiction guarantees not only quality but also interest, no matter the subject, and this fine book is one more example of just how talented a storyteller he is." ― Booklist (Starred Review)
"Mezrich relates the story in the form of a true-life novel. The bestselling author has used the device before, including in The Accidental Billionaires, which provided the basis for The Social Network... Interviews, first-person sources, court documents, and newspaper accounts as the basis for his narrative... make the story more accessible." ― Financial Times
"With his knack for turning narrative nonfiction into stories worthy of the best thriller fiction, Ben Mezrich is one of our favorite writers." ― Omnivoracious
"Wolf Hall on the Moskva!" ― Bookpage.com
"Assassination plots, intimidation tactics, political maneuvering and money in unfeasibly large quantities… Based on a year of interviews with high-profile sources, it fleshes out almost 20 years of history with journalistic color and anecdotes."
― GQ
"[A] fascinating and often chilling read." ― The Sport (UK)
"Unputdownable." ― Mail on Sunday
"Ben Mezrich knows how to find a good story. In his latest, the Boston-based writer has a corker." ― Boston Globe
"The real-life tale of ... Putin's ascendency to power. After the fall of communism in Russia, a small new class developed, that of the oligarchs... the ambitious and opportunistic businessmen who led the wild and lawless economic conversion from state-run industries to market capitalism.... Mezrich's well-written account of this era of Russian history illuminates the tumultuous conversion of communism to capitalism." ― Jacksonville News
Mezrich's most incredible story yet. A true-life thriller... a fascinating read. ― Palo Verde Valley Times
"Compelling..." ― Maclean's
"Undeniably readable." ― Wall Street Journal, Best Business Books from 2015
"Mezrich turns his keen journalistic eye to Russia...and...the oligarchs... Mezrich focuses on two such men, a mentor and his young protégé, who accumulated staggering wealth before personal differences tore apart their relationship... Mezrich's ability to tell a true (and well-documented) story in a way that makes it look and feel like the most involving of narratives is nearly unparalleled. He is one of the few writers whose name on a piece of nonfiction guarantees not only quality but also interest, no matter the subject, and this fine book is one more example of just how talented a storyteller he is." ― Booklist (Starred Review)
"Mezrich relates the story in the form of a true-life novel. The bestselling author has used the device before, including in The Accidental Billionaires, which provided the basis for The Social Network... Interviews, first-person sources, court documents, and newspaper accounts as the basis for his narrative... make the story more accessible." ― Financial Times
"With his knack for turning narrative nonfiction into stories worthy of the best thriller fiction, Ben Mezrich is one of our favorite writers." ― Omnivoracious
"Wolf Hall on the Moskva!" ― Bookpage.com
"Assassination plots, intimidation tactics, political maneuvering and money in unfeasibly large quantities… Based on a year of interviews with high-profile sources, it fleshes out almost 20 years of history with journalistic color and anecdotes."
― GQ
"[A] fascinating and often chilling read." ― The Sport (UK)
"Unputdownable." ― Mail on Sunday
"Ben Mezrich knows how to find a good story. In his latest, the Boston-based writer has a corker." ― Boston Globe
"The real-life tale of ... Putin's ascendency to power. After the fall of communism in Russia, a small new class developed, that of the oligarchs... the ambitious and opportunistic businessmen who led the wild and lawless economic conversion from state-run industries to market capitalism.... Mezrich's well-written account of this era of Russian history illuminates the tumultuous conversion of communism to capitalism." ― Jacksonville News
Mezrich's most incredible story yet. A true-life thriller... a fascinating read. ― Palo Verde Valley Times
"Compelling..." ― Maclean's
"Undeniably readable." ― Wall Street Journal, Best Business Books from 2015
Readers Top Reviews
PauloMunichMatt B
Well written and interesting. The book concentrates on Boris Berezovsky and also Roman Abramovitch. I think it was a good idea of the author to concentrate on just two oligarchs, as the book would have become overloaded with long Russian surnames and too much detail if he had tried to include several oligarchs. The author tries to replicate several conversations. I don't know how he managed to do that without interviewing the participants. I suspect a good amount of poetic licence in the book but nevertheless it proceeds quickly in an entertaining manner
RedmondsPauloMuni
It was a great read but it really only focused on one main oligarch. It gave a great view of "the roof" in Russia and how ruthless doing business during this time in Russia really was. I only wish there was more information on the other 7 oligarchs and what happened to them. But it was a good read.
Foriegn DevilMock
This seemed to be a sort of incomplete and biased look at the life of Boris Berezovsky. Even though it was clear that Boris was a self-destructive oligarch in the early years of Russia's re-birth, he was a much more sinister character than he was made out to be in this book. Having worked in Russia during the early 1990's I was a first-hand witness to the mafia-like business environment and some of the violence involved with that. This book did not even come close to conveying what this environment was like for people as far up the food chain as Berezovsky, Abramovich, or even Putin. I was a little bored and disappointed with this book.
W. D. BarnumForie
This book, although based in fact, reads more like a novel. The story of the Oligarch Boris Berezovsky starts with his already being a powerful businessman in Russia in 1994, through his rise to the stature of Oligarch and to his death, in the UK in 2013. A sub-plot centers on the life of KGB/FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko, his links to Berezovsky and to his ultimate death in the UK in 2006 of Polonium 210 poisoning. The basic facts of the lives of these two individuals is fairly well known – in fact, you can just check Wikipedia, if all you want are the bare facts. But, this book goes deeper and through the relating of various meetings and stories, it fleshes out the basic story and makes it come alive. I found one proofing error in the book – on page 190, the word “stagecraft” is printed when it should have been “tradecraft” as it was referring to Litvinenko’s following basic anti-surveillance techniques, normally referred to as “tradecraft” by those in the intelligence services. The joke told “that the Lubyanka building (former home of the KGB, and current home of the FSB) was the tallest building in Moscow, since you could see all the way to Siberia from the basement” – was in fact a joke being told in Moscow following the collapse of the Soviet Union – I personally heard it there in late 1991. I enjoyed this book – and had to keep reminding myself that this was true and not just another spy novel – the insights this book gives to that period of Russian history are worth the price of the book themselves.
John PW. D. Barnu
This is a well written thriller. A book that can't be put down once you start reading it. And it's a true story. It gives a clearer view of what went on in Russia after the collapse of Communism in 1989. It opens up the true nature of the principle actors in the drama that followed and explains why Russians behave as they do in the world, now as well as in the past. Their society is dominated by powerful and brutal men. Now I can see why a Stalin can come to power and hold on to it for so long. The Russian people crave strong leadership, even if it is illegal and brutal in Western eyes. The book reads like a crime novel. It makes Putin more understandable today. And, to me, raises questions of whether the Russians can ever be effectively integrated into the larger global community. They seem to be too easily dominated by a few ambitious and powerful men who use brutality and terror to get their way. An excellent and swift read.
Short Excerpt Teaser
Once Upon a Time in Russia CHAPTER ONE
July 2000,
Kuntsevo Dacha, Fili District
THE SILENCE WAS EXCRUCIATING, the minutes ticking by thick and heavy, time itself gorging on the tension in the humid air. Even though the shades had been drawn back from the trio of windows pocking the long plaster walls of the cavernous dining room, it was impossible to tell how deep into the afternoon the day had drifted; the dense forest that surrounded the isolated, two-story compound cast deep shadows across the reinforced glass panes, shifting whatever remained of the bright summer light toward an ominous, gunmetal gray.
For the eighteen middle-aged men in dark suits shifting uncomfortably in their seats as they waited in that palpable silence around an oversize dining room table, it was hard to believe that they were still technically within Moscow's city limits. Though, to be fair, this aging, stone house tucked in the middle of the dark woods, surrounded by a pair of chain-link fences topped by barbed wire, was a symbol of a much different Moscow than the rapidly growing metropolis beyond the wire. The men in this room had traveled back in time more than fifty years the minute they had been ushered out of their chauffeured limousines-now parked in glistening rows behind the double fences-and led through the dacha's front door.
The setting of the meeting was not lost on any of the men. The invitation that had been delivered by official courier to each of them in the preceding weeks had been met by everything from incredulous laughter to expressions of suspicion. Every soul knew what this place was: whose house this had once been, and what had supposedly taken place here. None of the men looked carefully into the shadows that played across the aging walls, darkening the corners of the vast, high-ceilinged room.
Even though this house had fallen into disuse a generation ago-and was now more museum than functioning dacha-the meeting's address had meaning far beyond the invitation itself. And the longer the men were forced to wait for whatever was going to happen next, the more ominous the setting seemed.
Under the best of circumstances, these men were not accustomed to waiting. To describe them as powerful businessmen-or even billionaires-would have been a laughable understatement. Among them, they represented the largest-and fastest-accumulation of wealth in modern history. Within the Russian media, they had garnered the label Oligarchs-a term that was usually derogatory, defining them as a class apart and above. According to the popular notion, over the course of the past decade, as the former Soviet nation had lurched into capitalism through a complex, often shadowy process of privatization, this class-the Oligarchs-had accumulated insane riches, and they had used this wealth to imbed and twist themselves, like strangling vines, into the ruling mechanisms of the nation's government, economy, and culture.
Most of the men in this room would have bristled at the designation. If anything, they saw themselves as representatives of the new, free, and modern Russia. Almost all of them had come from poverty; many had clawed their way out of childhoods filled with deprivation and prejudice. Many at one point had been mathematicians, scientists, or academics before they had turned their ambitions to business. If they had succeeded-and yes, as a group they had succeeded to a degree perhaps unique in history-it was despite the chronic corruption and cronyism of the shifting Russian paradigm, not because of it.
Oligarchs or not, men who earned billions were not known for their patience. Eventually, the silence got the better of the room, and one of the invitees, seated closest to the door that led back into the interior of the house, cleared his throat.
"If some Chechen managed to get a bomb in here and blew us all to hell," he asked, "do you think anyone would mourn?"
Awkward laughter riffed through the room, then trickled away into the shadows. The macabre joke may have hit too close to home. Whatever the men thought about themselves, it wasn't exactly the best time to be a billionaire in Russia. Worse yet, the idea of a bomb going off in the dining room of such an ominous address wasn't as far-fetched as they would have liked to believe.
Before anyone could break the silence again, there was a rush of motion-a door opening on the far side of the dining room. The air seemed to tighten still further, like a leather strap suddenly pulled taut. After a brief pause, a lone man entered through the doorway. Head down, every step and movement...
July 2000,
Kuntsevo Dacha, Fili District
THE SILENCE WAS EXCRUCIATING, the minutes ticking by thick and heavy, time itself gorging on the tension in the humid air. Even though the shades had been drawn back from the trio of windows pocking the long plaster walls of the cavernous dining room, it was impossible to tell how deep into the afternoon the day had drifted; the dense forest that surrounded the isolated, two-story compound cast deep shadows across the reinforced glass panes, shifting whatever remained of the bright summer light toward an ominous, gunmetal gray.
For the eighteen middle-aged men in dark suits shifting uncomfortably in their seats as they waited in that palpable silence around an oversize dining room table, it was hard to believe that they were still technically within Moscow's city limits. Though, to be fair, this aging, stone house tucked in the middle of the dark woods, surrounded by a pair of chain-link fences topped by barbed wire, was a symbol of a much different Moscow than the rapidly growing metropolis beyond the wire. The men in this room had traveled back in time more than fifty years the minute they had been ushered out of their chauffeured limousines-now parked in glistening rows behind the double fences-and led through the dacha's front door.
The setting of the meeting was not lost on any of the men. The invitation that had been delivered by official courier to each of them in the preceding weeks had been met by everything from incredulous laughter to expressions of suspicion. Every soul knew what this place was: whose house this had once been, and what had supposedly taken place here. None of the men looked carefully into the shadows that played across the aging walls, darkening the corners of the vast, high-ceilinged room.
Even though this house had fallen into disuse a generation ago-and was now more museum than functioning dacha-the meeting's address had meaning far beyond the invitation itself. And the longer the men were forced to wait for whatever was going to happen next, the more ominous the setting seemed.
Under the best of circumstances, these men were not accustomed to waiting. To describe them as powerful businessmen-or even billionaires-would have been a laughable understatement. Among them, they represented the largest-and fastest-accumulation of wealth in modern history. Within the Russian media, they had garnered the label Oligarchs-a term that was usually derogatory, defining them as a class apart and above. According to the popular notion, over the course of the past decade, as the former Soviet nation had lurched into capitalism through a complex, often shadowy process of privatization, this class-the Oligarchs-had accumulated insane riches, and they had used this wealth to imbed and twist themselves, like strangling vines, into the ruling mechanisms of the nation's government, economy, and culture.
Most of the men in this room would have bristled at the designation. If anything, they saw themselves as representatives of the new, free, and modern Russia. Almost all of them had come from poverty; many had clawed their way out of childhoods filled with deprivation and prejudice. Many at one point had been mathematicians, scientists, or academics before they had turned their ambitions to business. If they had succeeded-and yes, as a group they had succeeded to a degree perhaps unique in history-it was despite the chronic corruption and cronyism of the shifting Russian paradigm, not because of it.
Oligarchs or not, men who earned billions were not known for their patience. Eventually, the silence got the better of the room, and one of the invitees, seated closest to the door that led back into the interior of the house, cleared his throat.
"If some Chechen managed to get a bomb in here and blew us all to hell," he asked, "do you think anyone would mourn?"
Awkward laughter riffed through the room, then trickled away into the shadows. The macabre joke may have hit too close to home. Whatever the men thought about themselves, it wasn't exactly the best time to be a billionaire in Russia. Worse yet, the idea of a bomb going off in the dining room of such an ominous address wasn't as far-fetched as they would have liked to believe.
Before anyone could break the silence again, there was a rush of motion-a door opening on the far side of the dining room. The air seemed to tighten still further, like a leather strap suddenly pulled taut. After a brief pause, a lone man entered through the doorway. Head down, every step and movement...
