Andrei Dobrov:

The most important thing is for today’s businessmen and executives to be working not strictly for personal gain, but for the good of the country where they intend to live. If you’re not concerned with your country, you might soon find yourself some place like London, which is precisely what happened to many of the oligarchs of the ‘90s. Andrei Kalitin is a well-known journalist and author of the book Zero Hour, which delves into the origins of private fortunes amassed in those days. The book tells the story of starting capitals and organized crime as it infiltrated business and politics, making its way, most pertinently, into one of Russia’s wealthiest industries – ore mining. The most interesting characters in the book are certain individuals, who for some time have stayed out of the public eyes, until quite recently. Now that Russia is rising once more they are trying to get back into the game – if not politically, then at least into the business world.

Andrei Kalitin:

The book is essentially a history of organized crime in Russia’s ore mining industry – which was absolutely overwhelmed by criminal activity in the ‘90s – from 1993 to the present day. As far as I know the Kremlin, along with the Prosecutor General and the Interior Ministry, are very concerned about the possibility of dirty money making their way back into the country; this is the money that was channeled abroad for laundering by way of various machinations. Certain individuals living abroad today are definitely trying to come back – to get back into positions of power, if not political then at least economic. In this sense the recent alliance of Mikhail Chernoy and Boris Berezovsky is especially relevant, powerful and interesting.

Andrei Dobrov:

At the heart of your book is the sensational case of bank fraud, which is still classified to this day – this is the criminal investigation into the so-called fake letters of advice, which drained about 5 bil US dollars out of the national economy, In the early ‘90s Mikhail Chernoy was involved in the investigation: at the time no material evidence was found, and Chernoy himself was merely a witness in the case. But we may be certain that it was precisely this grandiose scheme – which up till now remained fairly obscure – that had given rise to a mining industry and a perfectly hermetic mafia organization that for about 10 years was headed by the aluminum kings of Russia.

Andrei Kalitin:

In the mid-‘90s Russia’s organized crime structures were highly interested in the mining business, and their number one partner here was none other than Mikhail Chernoy. Back in those days Chernoy and Berezovsky had a close personal friendship, and today their relationship is evolving not only into a business partnership but into joint political ventures as well.

Andrei Dobrov:

The ties between the newly hatched ore magnates and crime bosses were well known even outside of Russia. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which had carried out a wiretap operation involving the boss Sliva, had noted that Sliva and Chernoy were engaged in ore mining operations together. Some of Chernoy’s business partners were also mentioned in direct connection with these operations, including Anton Malevsky, head of the Izmailovo crime ring, the boss Sergei Aksenov, and the Tashkent kingpins Salim Abduvaliev and Bakhtiar Aliev. In contrast with the crime bosses, most of whom are no longer with us, their metallurgical comrades are positively thriving.

Andrei Kalitin

In order to understand how all of it came into existence we have to understand what sort of sums these early oligarchs were dealing with. The tolling system – this is what the ore mining industry was operating on in ’93-’94 – the so-called internal tolling yielded about $5 mil of pure profit, daily. This money was not recorded anywhere, nobody paid taxes on it… Unfortunately, in the early ‘90s everybody who made it into the top tier of Russian business by way of criminal ties had some such scheme going. Neither Berezpovsky nor Chernoy were able to distance themselves from their criminal roots and start a legal, legitimate, civilized life in another society, so to speak. They remained in that historical timeframe, which we rightly associate with criminal activity and corruption, to a greater extent.