Petr Aven is a Russian billionaire businessman who also holds Latvian citizenship. He rose to prominence as Minister of Foreign Economic Relations of the Russian Federation during Boris Yeltsin’s government in 1991–92, and earned his fortune on the board of Alfa Group, the company behind Russian banking giant Alfa-Bank and a number of other high-profile business ventures.
The rare experience of having been in the upper echelons of both politics and business at a time of upheaval and transition has given Aven a unique perspective, which he has written about in two books depicting the first decade of the Russian Federation: Gaidar’s Revolution, and The Age of Berezovsky. The former – published in 2013 – looks at the economic reforms and price controls of the former Minister of Finance and later acting Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar, while the latter – published in 2017 – offers a cultural portrait of Russia’s “wild 1990s” and one of its key figures, Boris Berezovsky.
The 1990s in Russia were a time of social and political transformation, when the Soviet Union was dissolved and Russia along with other member nations transitioned to market economies. Petr Aven himself a major player in this period of transformation, looks at the period through the lens of businessman Boris Berezovsky, speaking to former government officials, other businesspeople and TV journalists.
There are a number of parallels between the two entrepreneurs. Berezovsky, like Aven, was involved in politics, helping to fund the Unity party which was supported by Boris Yeltsin. He also benefited personally from the wave of privatization that swept the nation. His early business successes came in the automotive industry, paving the way for his later purchase of the country’s main television channel, Channel One.
Petr Aven and Boris Berezovsky were friends, having originally met around the time when Aven was a student at the Faculty of Economics of Moscow State University. This gave him unprecedented access to Berezovsky’s inner circle when writing the book, which is based around interviews with dozens of people who had personal experiences with him.
