Medvedev wants oligarchs to tell schoolchildren how they became rich

Alexander Lebedev (a billionaire himself) about Russia´s oligarchs: "They don't read books. They don't have time. They don't go to exhibitions. They think the only way to impress anyone is to buy a yacht."


Russian president, Putin´s puppet Dmitry Medvedev has called on Russia’s oligarchs to teach schoolchildren about their personal success stories.

 “I will call on representatives of big business, mostly people whose wealth starts, for example, at $1 billion, and say they should all start teaching in schools,” he told members of the Presidential Commission for Implementation of Top-Priority National Projects and Demographic Policy.
Medvedev added that he expects school principals to support his “success story” initiative, although it has sparked debate among Russians.

A daring initiative by the puppet president, who certainly must know how the Russian oligarchs got their money:

"In my view there is no oligarch in this country who didn't steal the assets in the first instance. There's no doubt about that."
Vadim Kleiner, Hermitage Capital Management

Or maybe Medvedev plans to ask his master to tell Russian schoolchildren about his personal wealth creation "success story"?:

Citing sources inside the president's administration, Belkovsky claims that after eight years in power Putin has secretly accumulated more than $40bn (£20bn). The sum would make him Russia's - and Europe's - richest man.
In an interview with the Guardian, Belkovsky repeated his claims that Putin owns vast holdings in three Russian oil and gas companies, concealed behind a "non-transparent network of offshore trusts".
Putin "effectively" controls 37% of the shares of Surgutneftegaz, an oil exploration company and Russia's third biggest oil producer, worth $20bn, he says. He also owns 4.5% of Gazprom, and "at least 75%" of Gunvor, a mysterious Swiss-based oil trader, founded by Gennady Timchenko, a friend of the president's, Belkovsky alleges.

Read the entire article here

Ordinary Russians have reacted quite rationally to Medvedev´s initiative:

Most ordinary Russians responded negatively to the proposal, claiming Russia’s oligarchs could only teach cynicism, moral bankruptcy and corruption.
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Yaroslav Kabakov, rector of investment firm Finam’s educational center is more skeptical about the idea of turning Russian oligarchs into teachers, saying that they would probably not be interested in telling their real life stories to anybody, including children. Russia’s oligarchs, who made their money by snapping up state assets at knock-down prices after the collapse of the Soviet Union, are indeed identified with the chaos and criminality that swept Russia in the early 1990s.