Semibankirschina
| Semibankirschina | |
| Russian | семибанкирщина |
|---|---|
| Romanization | Semibankirschina |
| Literal meaning | seven bankers |
Semibankirschina (семибанкирщина), or seven bankers (see semiboyarschina for the origin of the term) was a group of seven Russian Business oligarchs who played an important role in the political and economical life of Russia between 1996 and 2000. In spite of internal conflicts, the group worked together in order to reelect President Boris Yeltsin in 1996 and later — to successfully manipulate him and his political environment from behind the curtain.
The word Semibankirschina was coined by the Russian journalist Andrey Fadin of the Obschaya Gazeta newspaper who published an article Semibankirschina as a New Russian Variation of Semiboyarschina on November 14, 1996. He wrote: «...They control the access to budget money and basically all investment opportunities inside the country. They own the gigantic information resource of the major TV channels. They form the President's opinion. Those who didn't want to walk along them were either strangled or left the circle...». In just a year Fadin himself was killed in a car accident.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn also used this word in his critical 1998 essay Russia under Avalanche to describe the current political regime and to warn people of what he considered an organized crime syndicate that controlled the President and 70% of all Russian money.
The identities of seven bankers are usually linked to the interview given by Boris Berezovsky to Financial Times where he names seven people who together controlled about 50% of all Russian economics and influenced the most important internal political decisions of Russia. Those include:
Other sources, including collective photo and video materials, suggested that the following people were also part of the closed group:
Since 7 out of 9 bankers had Jewish roots, it became common among some nationalists to use it as the key argument in support of the Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theory. In 1998 a popular post-Soviet writer Edward Topol (a Jew himself) published an open letter in the Argumenty i Fakty newspaper titled «Love Your Russia, Boris Abramovich!» where he stated that the power in Russia was overtaken by «a puppeteer with a long Jewish surname». He insisted that oligarchs should take responsibility for what was happening to Russia and Russians and do everything to fix the situation, so that «the people you save will protect you and us from pogroms... Otherwise some Klimov will write a novel entitled "Jewish Power" about a Russian genocide». He also described his meeting with Berezovsky who supposedly confirmed his thoughts regarding the leading role of Jews. According to Topol, after the letter was published, «Boris Abramovich sure answered me: for 4 months all emigration press in New York, newspapers, television, radio had been "kicking" me».
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