Biography of Smolensky Alexander

He was 70 years old. In E, it was considered one of the most famous and rich people in Russia-Smolensk owned a business empire, which included large banks, collection companies, a non-cash calculation system, tourist and insurance companies, and so on. He was one of the first to be called an oligarch, he was actively engaged in charity and constantly flashing in the press.

In the year, Smolensky, together with the country's largest bankers, financed the election campaign of President Yeltsin, who was fighting for a second term. This group of businessmen was called "Semibankirshchina" - by analogy with Semiboyarshchina. Yeltsin and his sponsors came out by winners, but already in the m economic crisis destroyed the bank of SBS-AGRO Smolensk. Then he retired and began to write what he had dreamed about since childhood.

What were the life and career of Smolensk - in the material “Ribbon. In his youth, the future banker loved to write essays and dreamed of becoming a journalist, but did not achieve his and went into the army, where he served as an emitor in the printing house. There, fate brought him to Eduard Krasnyansky: Gobogatev, Smolensky will call him to his business empire to be responsible for public relations.

After demobilization, Smolensky took up the case that he mastered well - worked in various positions in printing houses. At the beginning of X, he got a job as a commodity department and was behind bars on charges of embezzlement of state property: he allegedly used state paint to print the Bible. True, the businessman himself assured that he was not sitting in any prison, and his competitors launched the duck.

The fate of Smolensky, like many future, turned back the Russian business, was steeply changed by perestroika and economic opportunities that came with it. Then Gorbachev allowed to pay engineering and technical workers based on the results of activities. Self -reciprocalization and self -sufficiency. What the hell should I go somewhere, I felt great.

But then they assembled a party holding. I worked in the Glavromonet in Pervomaisky district. Damn me by the tongue. He proposed to expand the services of the trust to the population, but already for a fee. Type of service. " This cooperative was engaged in sawing and selling boards to summer residents. He himself always said that he had established his own bank only because others refused to give money to his cooperative.

Each trip to the bank had to be taken by chocolate, then cognac, then money. And there these payments are thrown into the face. We were nightmaken in full, delayed checks, did not give out money, threw out payments, lost "according to him, a large role in the emergence of both the" metropolitan "and generally private banks was played by the then chairman of the board of the State Bank of the USSR Viktor Gerashchenko, without the approval of which nothing would have happened.

Be that as it may, in just a few years, the financial structures of Smolensky reached the first roles in the country, and he himself made a breakthrough to the respectable businessman: one of the first in Russia he began to call the oligarch. Subsequently, the “metropolitan” for some time paid pensions to the parents of those who died in clashes of activists. And the political confrontation in M, in the opinion of Smolensky, "could end the devil knows what." Because the guys from the other side of the Supreme Council - approx.

I can’t understand how all ours is spit. Well, Yeltsin is okay - our romantic president, although tough, and the rest are just traitors ”, according to Smolensky, in the midst of events, attempts to smash banks were recorded, and he and the companions had to be decently nervous, they did not know where to export money from the stores. However, both criminal cases were not promoted, and there were no sanctions for the oligarch.

Moreover, Smolensky was the first of the Russian bankers to receive a state award. In July, President Yeltsin handed him the Order of Friendship of Peoples for "active charitable activities aimed at social needs and the revival of Russian spiritual values." The Bank "Capital" was then actively engaged in philanthropy: he promoted Russian musical art abroad, helped the liquidators of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and fired to the military reserve, returned works of Russian fine art to Russia, and restored the church.

The real excitement among believers and journalists caused the participation of Smolensky in the reconstruction of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in the center of Moscow. The banker decided to allocate gold to the Russian Orthodox Church to cover the five main domes of the cathedral and, in confirmation of his intentions, handed over to Patriarch Alexy II a gold bar in a kilogram.

In the middle of X Smolensky stood at the origins of the creation of a global non -cash payment system in Russia using plastic cards. What today seems to be granted, 30 years ago, caused awe and shock among compatriots: the people got used to the bankrupt, did not trust this type of financial transactions too much. It was required to patiently explain to people all the advantages of progress.

The release of cards was established, the infrastructure necessary for their use was created.Tens of millions of dollars went to the supply of ATMs to Russia, because even in Moscow, in order to remove rubles from the card, it was necessary to run well at first. Smolensky was rapidly turning into the legislator of the mod in banking, at the same time his political weight was added.

State officials became his clients and holders of plastic cards. The banker became the entrance to the Kremlin. At first he merged with the bank “Consent”, and then, at the end of the GO, he acquired and attached “Agroprombank”, after which he was renamed SBS-AGRO. This allowed the businessman to work with the government’s money allocated for agriculture. Russian farmers then connected their happy future with the banker, and he himself was remembered by a tough conflict with the deputy minister of agriculture Leonid Kholod because of various views on financing: Smolensky even called the official with a crook and a thief.

The banker had smaller acquisitions. So, “only for 64 thousand dollars, he rented one of Benuar’s lodges at the Bolshoi Theater with his own security, waiters and an international telephone. Smolensky himself dreamed of leading his brainchild to the sole leaders of the industry. But the crushing crisis was already close. In front of which, however, Smolensky will once again play a huge role in the history of the country.

Nevertheless, in M ​​he united with other major bankers of Russia for the sake of a common goal - Yeltsin’s victory in the presidential election. In order to prevent the communist, Gennady Zyuganov, who, in their representation, could recall the affairs of their ideological predecessors and nationalize banks, the richest people of the country agreed to forget about the past insults and temporarily rally, throwing himself up on the election campaign of the leader of democracy.

As a response gesture from Yeltsin, they expected various privileges and preferences for themselves. Then they would slam the whole business and return to the Soviet model. They simply did not know another model ”in his opinion, in the event of Zyuganov’s victory, the oligarchs would not have given their capital voluntarily, and a civil war would have begun in Russia.

One of the participants in this group Boris Berezovsky in the fall of the same year shocked the public by the recognition that more than 50 percent of the Russian economy is controlled by only seven wealthy gentlemen who also affect political decisions. True, two more people are usually attributed to bankers, in addition to seven called Berezovsky, Vitaly Malkin and Vladimir Vinogradov.

They formulate the will of the president. Those who did not want to go with them are strangled or left the circle. " And as his colleague Yuri Malamov added, the influence of this powerful oligarchic group “extends not only on the economic, but also the Kremlin’s political line.” Smolensky himself, however, categorically denied any suspicion that the oligarchs were ruled by Russia.

Yes, nonsense is nonsense. " They suspected the oligarch of the crime: as the Austrian press wrote, at the beginning of the X Bank, the Bank of the Capital was allegedly controlled by the authority Leonid Bilunov, nicknamed Lenya Makintosh. And the case of the oligarch of the Yeltsin call was destroyed, it seems to me so, excessive gullibility to his closest environment.

Next to him was a number of people selfish, dishonest and nearby. Largely thanks to their actions, the financial business well -rebuilding throughout the country rolled down the inclined. ” By the time of the financial crisis of the year, SBS-AGRO had 5 million thousand depositors. According to this indicator, the bank ranked second in Russia. Everything collapsed almost overnight: the bank owed billions of dollars and even underwent its depositors, who to this day write curses on the Internet to SBS-AGRO and Smolensky, assuring that they were simply thrown and did not return the residues of the former empire for more successful businessmen.

Smolensky quietly retired abroad and took up writing, which he still dreamed of a student, folding a creative duet with his former commander, and then press attache Krasnyansky: more than one detective came out of their pen. And Smolensky became the third of the powerful seven who left this light - after Vinogradov and Berezovsky. Already at the beginning of x, when banks began to give up positions to state-owned companies, someone philosophically said: instead of the Semicar-based Semineftyanshchina, it came.