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New exhibition coming end April www.ukrainianmuseum.org
Posted by Mike Allen on September 11, 2005 at 17:42:17:
In Reply to: Re: Politicians first look out for themselves posted by Mother Teresa'a Lawyer on September 11, 2005 at 12:03:24:
: "Ukrainians must respect the businessman who is creating jobs even though he is out to get rich himself. Poroshenko the owner of the famous "ROSHEN" brand of chocolates deserves praise"
: I don't know too much about Poroshenko, but most of the oligarchs obtained their wealth not by creating it, but by taking it in the form of monopolies or fake privitizations. This is the case in all of the FSU countries. The last story that Paul Klebnikov, the editor of Forbes Russia, wrote before he was murdered was about Russia's top 100 wealthiest people, of this 100, about 75 made their fortune by taking over state businesses, and thus created nothing, many of these businesses were then driven into the ground with their financial assets safely transferred overseas while workers were unpaid, I'd imagine the percentage in Ukraine is even greater. I will tell you this, Ukrainian workers have a very tough life here, there are really no enforced labor laws, abuses of employees are almost universal. In regards to cell phones, everyone here has them, they are the most affordable status symbol, therefor they're a "must have", they can even be bought on credit, the cheapest are affordable at about 100 USD.
I think there are between 2 and 3 million Ukrainian workers in Russia and yes any foreign worker in Russia runs the risk of exploitation. I once saw Poroshenko's chocolate factory in Kiev from the outside and that made me think he must have built it from nothing. How he acquired the money to build the factory and the supply network - that I don't know.
Klebnikov I think exposed the link between some of the Yeltsin-era oligarchs the Chechen mafiosi in Moscow and the Chechen warlords in Chechnya. His murder is probably still being investigated