[aaus-list] Neal Ascherson reviews Misha Glenny's McMafia

[Robert Romanchuk]

... in the latest LRB:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n13/asch01_.html

“Karabas was gunned down in 1997. He and his mob had taken over the port city of Odessa as law and order disintegrated in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse. One might call his reign a comprehensive protection racket. But, looked at in another way, Karabas became the only reliable source of authority and social discipline. [...] His murderers were probably Chechens hired to break Odessa’s grip on the local oil industry, a grip coveted by Ukraine’s then president, Leonid Kuchma, who ‘during his ten years in power . . . presided over the total criminalisation of the Ukrainian government and civil service’.”

Interview with Glenny and article (Balkans focused) on B92's site:
http://www.b92.net/eng/insight/tvshows.php?nav_id=51236
http://www.b92.net/eng/news/society-article.php?yyyy=2008&mm=06&dd=19&nav_id=51237

Best, RR

Robert Romanchuk
Associate Professor of Slavic
Florida State University
Department of Modern Languages
362 Diffenbaugh
Tallahassee FL 32306-1540