Russia's tycoons, whose flamboyant spending has ka-chinged from Mediterranean isles to London's Mayfair district, have found a new use for their supersize wallets: philanthropic foundations.
The rich are awarding thousands of scholarships to the best and the brightest, promoting arts and culture, funding libraries, schools and universities, supporting the Russian Orthodox Church's growth and improving health-care facilities in a country where 20 percent of the population lives in poverty.
But the long and growing list of worthy projects has a striking absentee, the development of democracy. Donors "are afraid of the political consequences," said Maria Chertok, head of the Charities Aid Foundation in Russia. "For now, areas like human rights and social justice are just too controversial."
This vast country, with its troves of natural resources and strong science education, has generated 33 billionaires and 90,000 millionaires since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
"I believe that any businessman who has enough funds, who has more than he needs, has an obligation to give back. It's his destiny," said Dmitry Zimin, 73, who built Russia's second-largest cellular phone company, VympelCom, and created the Dynasty Foundation to support fundamental science, particularly physics.
[By Peter Finn, The Washington Post]
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