Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky.

Russia: Get Rich or Die Trying

Redbrick

“It’s the same old story; someone will approach you and offer a pittance for your business, an offer you can only refuse. Next thing you know your family home is raided by police officers and you are imprisoned for a crime you did not commit. Why? Because the system is corrupt. The police are corrupt; the judiciary is corrupt and at the very top is Putin- the ex-KGB officer who has engendered the demoralization of justice in Russia. “

These are the ominous words of Sergei- a member of Russia’s most persecuted class. Sergei is not a human rights lawyer nor a political activist or any other member of society that is most often oppressed under despotic regimes. Yet 3 million of Sergei’s peers have been imprisoned in the last ten years. And there is a 1 in 6 chance that my interviewee will too find himself behind bars.

Sergei is an entrepreneur.

Sergei created his business in 2005, a cattle farm situated in European Russia. It was the post-Soviet period of hope and growth spanning from the fall of Communism in 1992 until 2008 that enabled Sergei, a humble Russian citizen with an entrepreneurial vision, to join the growing market. Indeed, it was in this period that entrepreneurism was apparently actively encouraged. The government’s ‘belief’ in capitalism and the capability of its citizens was exemplified by the ‘National Priority Projects,’ implemented by Putin in 2005. As well as huge investment into the country’s education and healthcare systems, the government aimed to spur growth in the agricultural sector through the backing of private loans to start-up businessmen and small time farmers.