Russian business tycoons are acting very strangely. Some of the most notorious “oligarchs” associated with looting and theft have been spotted investing in their companies, improving infrastructure and even paying wages to their workers.
Consider Vladimir Potanin, who controls Norilsk Nickel, the world’s largest nickel producer and one of Russia’s notorious oligarchs. He has recently had warm bus shelters built in Norilsk, one of the coldest and darkest of Russia’s towns, built in the 1930s by the prisoners of Stalin’s labour camps. Heated and glazed, the shelters look encouragingly out of place, surrounded by the remains of Stalin’s barracks.
The shelters provide comfort not only to the workers, who until recently had to wait for a bus in temperatures dropping to –500C, but to the whole economy. For the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union, domestic investment in fixed assets increased by about 18 per cent last year. That included $500m which Potanin invested in Norilsk’s mines.
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