Khodorkovsky's wealth during the 1990s was not luxury goods like yachts and palaces (which Putin's cronies have today) but rather productive infrastructure: a 180-kilometer road across marshes in Western Siberia to reach the Priobskoye oil field, visible as an endless line of trucks carrying sand and gravel.
factualpending
Speaker
Mikhail KhodorkovskyEvidence Quote
“we were actually developing the new oil field in Western Siberia the pre-ox care field and in order to reach that oil field from the railway station you had to cross 180 kilometers over marshes our bogland so we actually laid a road across the marshes uh foreign and just have this picture in your mind so you're flying over it in a helicopter and you have 180 kilometers worth of trucks one after another filled with sand and gravel what is this is how I saw my wealth this was my wealth”
Source
How The West Can Stop Putin, with Exiled Critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky | Intelligence Squared— Intelligence SquaredCreated: 8/10/2026, 10:56:34 PM
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