In the USSR, after long and futile attempts to grow corn, wheat, breed rabbits and chinchilla, it was finally decided to create a “historical community,” the Soviet people.
In the CIS the situation with corn, wheat, chinchilla, and especially the Soviet people is very bad. But the experimenting did not stop and the next decision was grow a new economic community, oligarchy. But to breed oligarchs in captivity one has to know the ways, habits, and tastes of this phenomenon of post-Soviet nature.
In fact, this article is the first attempt to categorize oligarchs from a purely objective scholarly perspective.
Oligarchs multiply well in oil-, gas-, bauxite-, and diamond-bearing environs that constitute the most favorable oligarchic habitats. There they grow like mushrooms, before one’s very eyes, using tax exemptions, putting on weight, growing fat (in certain countries they are known as fat cats). However, there is an exception to every rule. Recently the world was shook by news from Russia where a team of researchers succeeded in breeding a very special oligarch species using an ordinary Zhiguli automobile.
Considering their exceptional value (worth $3-4 billion a head), oligarchs are often kidnapped and smuggled out of the country. To prevent such outrageous practices, an international reserve called the CIS was established.
Within the CIS framework oligarchs are imported with member countries taking turns and letting them loose on a given territory. Researchers monitor their conduct in strange, often hostile environs, collecting data. Once at large, oligarchs start by sniffing out oil and gas deposits (e.g., Russia, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan). After finding them, they proceed to construct oil and gas pipelines, using all local materials. Remarkably, like birds always flying south, oligarchs guide their pipelines westward. They do not even need a compass. Their westward instinct is as strong as the north-south instinct of migrating birds.
In the absence of oil and gas, oligarchs show miraculous resourcefulness. In Belarus they feed on customs exemptions, in Chechnya on budget subsidies for reviving industry and housing, and in various trouble spots on arms supplies. Ukraine is the only terra incognita, for no one knows just what the local oligarchs live on. Some dilettantes claim that they use miners’ back wages, but this remains to be proven from the strictly legal point of view. Thus, we resolutely refute such allegations as unscientific. Now the question is whether an oligarch be bred using a Zaporozhets car? Quite intriguing to the inquisitive scholarly mind.
Warning: Never make an oligarch pay taxes. This is hazardous to the breeding process. Taxes make oligarchs languish, lose weight, and die soon after. In such cases offshore havens are the only remedy, but this medicine is too expensive and is in critically short supply, being manufactured abroad. All attempts to launch its serial output in Ukraine have proven abortive.
It varies across the world. In the West red-haired oligarchs are especially valued. In Russia, the bald-headed variety is in vogue, but the predominant one is the Silver Fox Oligarch (gray-haired).
Oligarchs’ mating games are especially interesting to watch during presidential campaigns. An oligarch picks a contender and courts him with amazing tenderness and consideration until inauguration. Oligarchs are monogamous (i.e., they remain faithful to their presidential sweethearts for the entire term). However, readers’ letters point to exceptions from this rule, registered during political cataclysms in certain areas (e.g., Krasnoyarsk in Russia and Dnipropetrovsk oblast in Ukraine).
Oligarchs are known for their remarkable independence and wayward conduct. In normal conditions they are like cats, keeping to themselves. Moreover, they mark the boundaries of their respective habitats by means of financial-industrial groups. Woe unto a stray oligarch trying to trespass! However, in bad weather, biting frosts or economic crises oligarchs join in herds, pressing close, warming each other with their respective assets. The instinct of financial self-preservation is especially strong at such times.
Oligarchs are very humble. None will ever admit to his wealth, driven by modesty verging on shame. All oligarchs, even when holding high government posts, live on miserable salaries, so they need no moonlighting like Gasprom stock, writing books, or unloading boxcars.
To assess their true worth, the Swiss city of Davos hosts a display of oligarchs once a year. Each and every oligarch, due to his inborn modesty, arrives on board his private jet. After paying a token admittance fee the Swiss man in the street can explore this exhibit and watch these remarkable representatives of economic fauna and political flora walking Davos streets without their usual retinue and bodyguards, playing an oligarchic folk game called Loan Me.
In the course of each such display every oligarch is required to show all his skills, ranging from champagne-drinking to snowmobile-driving.
The exhibit is summed up in Forbes Magazine.
Oligarchs are very fond of journalists, provided they are under control and be treated like pets. Journalists do not like oligarchs, but are willing to eat out of their hands (this author has not had the honor, but, judging from the rich forms of certain political observers, these handouts are quite generous).
Oligarchs hate wayward journalists so much that they sometimes order them hunted down. Well, no one loves unruly journalists.
There are many Jews among the oligarchs. Why? Why are there so many Blacks in the NBA, Russians in the NHL, or Yakuts in Yakutia? Let us suppose that this is that very “objective reality perceived by man using his senses.” (See Vladimir Lenin, Complete Collected Works (55 volumes, seek and ye shall find)).
Watch out for counterfeit oligarchs! Some smart operators will try to sell you “new Russians,” “new Ukrainians” or even “new Armenians.”
Oligarchs cherish some inexplicable affection for cultural figures, instituting sizable monetary prizes for them. Needless to say that cultural figures receiving such prizes reciprocate wholeheartedly. Those failing to receive such trophies attack them, using four-letter words and keeping paving stones in their breast pockets, remembering the effectiveness of this proletarian weapon.
Kind-hearted, cheerful, and wealthy oligarchs are an embellishment to any country. Hungary and the Czech Republic have carried out economic reforms, joined NATO, and received huge investments. But where are their oligarchs? I have a friend, Petro Volodymyrovych. I can always borrow 10 hryvnias from him until the next payday. Is he an oligarch? Of course he is. Or another one, Pavlo Ivanovych... It all depends on the scope of operation, but we need oligarchs of all kinds and hues.
It was probably to improve the local oligarch breed that the President invited Boris Abramovich Berezovsky to run the CIS oligarch preserve. This man is the most gifted and learned oligarch I have ever met, progressing from automobiles to television to a good piece of a whole country. I am sure that he will contribute much to oligarch breeding methods.
However, I am afraid that in the course of selection Petro Volodymyrovych and Pavlo Ivanovych will be eaten up. Who will I borrow 10 hryvnias from then?
P.S.: I ask my readers to please nominate me for the Literary Prize instituted by Boris Abramovich Berezovsky. Thank you.






