The good oligarch

He made his fortune in Russia and then returned to live in his home village. He is rarely seen but his generosity is boundless. Who is the secret Georgian billionaire?

by Wendell Steavenson / July 21, 2010 / Leave a comment

Published in August 2010 issue of Prospect Magazine

Fit for a king: the reclusive billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili has built a modern-day palace overlooking the Georgian capital Tbilisi

On top of a ridge looking down on the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, there stands a castle built of steel and polished concrete. Its turrets are wrapped in an exoskeleton of aluminium bars, and its grounds are dotted with sculptures by Henry Moore and Anish Kapoor. To one side there’s a helicopter pad. Beyond it, a hundred-foot ersatz waterfall tumbles into an aqua-blue swimming pool which fills a gully of the adjacent botanical gardens. Though the gardens are public, ramblers are discreetly deterred by black-uniformed guards hidden among the trees.

When I first lived in Tbilisi in 1998, during the dark, stagnant years of Eduard Shevardnadze’s regime, the castle was still a huge construction site, shrouded in scaffolding–an unfamiliar sight in Georgia. I once asked my friend Kakha what it was going to be. “Oh, a businessman is building a business centre,” he told me vaguely. That’s all anyone knew.

I left Georgia in 2001, but returned every so often to see friends and write articles. Work on the castle was halted and restarted several times. By 2003, Shevardnadze was an old, tired man with a halo of white hair, presiding over a corrupt cabinet and a flatlining economy; Tbilisi was down to four hours of electricity a day. Mass demonstrations after disputed parliamentary elections culminated in the peaceful “Rose” revolution. In January 2004, Mikheil Saakashvili, the young, western-educated, brash and charismatic opposition leader, was elected president with 96 per cent of the vote. “Misha! Misha! Misha!” chanted the crowds, waving red roses. The lights went on immediately. It turned out that the old regime had been selling Georgia’s electricity to Turkey and Armenia. Saakashvili stripped the economy down to free-market basics and investment bubbled up: new shops, restaurants, hotels.

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Comments

Levan
October 10, 2011 at 13:21
Dear Ms. Steavenson, Thank you very much for such a great article and an interesting story about this mysterious man, Bidzina Ivanishvili. You did it really well, and gave me a chance to have a better description of Mr. Ivanishvili and his life than it is put, currently, in the majority of Georgian newspapers. I have never expected that an English-speaking journalist may put such an interesting story about Georgia, and about a Georgian man, together. Sincerely, Levan
Nick
October 15, 2011 at 09:55
Thank you for extremely informative article giving a sneak-peak of this mysterious man, especially now, when curtains are about to be lifted.
Inga Watson
November 8, 2011 at 04:24
It is a very nice description of Bidzina Ivanichvili. It looks he is a very kind person. Maybe it is true , maybe it is not. I knew this man long time ago... But any way , thank you! Inga Watson - New Zealand
gvantsa
August 21, 2012 at 15:57
she is amazing i am georgian and i know many thing about him..i love him very very much..
gvantsa
August 21, 2012 at 15:59
soryy he...
liberti
August 27, 2012 at 14:46
Interesting to see the shadowy Shevardnadze clone emerge from the woodwork. The millions in lobbying dollars Mr. Boris now Bidina is lavishly spending in the West are obviously having some dividends. This piece by an obviously smitten-with-the image and perhaps robustly-paid writer could be used as the basis for a canonization document in the Georgian Orthodox church.
Nino
October 4, 2012 at 00:34
Dear Ms. Steaveson, Thank you so much for such a beautiful and honest article on Mr. Ivanishvili. I've been searching for something substantial and found it. I believe he is a great man and the man of real substance, who aspires to higher values and I am very hopeful that Georgia will finally have a chance to evolve (especially economically) without losing its true identity and its core. When we lose our core, we lose ourselves. The ending paragraph is fantastic and says it all , "... He was the product of the dust and mud of his childhood. He had wrestled with the dilemmas of transformational wealth. But he seems to have used it, most of all, as a way to come home." He motivates me to come home after 20 years of living abroad. Btw: He has a good taste in art Nino (Zurich)