Friday, June 24, 2005

Who is Mr. Khodorkovsky?

Kirill Pankratov gives a very good account of who is Mr. Khodorkovsky and what Russians really think of him and his infamous trial. Here a link to his new article Yuck!-os Trial and a passage that made me laugh.

It is rather funny to see how much of the final downfall of the Yukos clan was of itsown making. Imagine, say, Enron bringing to its defense a short, clownish Russian lawyer, who, in a thickly accented English, would call the whole US administration "a corrupt dictatorship" while spewing threats of international sanctions? That's roughly what the Khodorkovsky's counsel Robert Amsterdam was doing during the trial in Moscow. After watching him, some of Khodorkovsky's ardent supporters later snickered on the internet forums that to give these megalomaniacs a good slap may be not such a bad idea.
One can't help feeling relieved that the whole thing is over for now. It is better when a circus comes to town once in a while, not when the whole town turns into a circus.


If you didn't see Robert Amsterdam on TV and didn't read his interviews in Russian newspapers you probably didn't get it.

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