As bonded slavery evolved in the corporate west, so too Russia’s feudal system slipped effortlessly through bouts of communism and capitalism. The bolyars of old, rebranded as district secretaries, and now as brazen oligarchs. Too young to gain from the 1990s privatizations that made many oligarchs fortunes, Menshikov began trading bitcoin, famously securing one of the first 10 bitcoins from Hal Finney. Leveraging his nascent portfolio he secured a coveted banking license from the financial wreckage of Russia’s shady banking sector in 2011. Menshikov ruthlessly leveraged the small banks balance sheet to acquire numerous gold, diamond, and silver mines, in shell companies that he owned, then sold the bank with its bad debts to a top US bank. His exact wealth is unknown, although his appetite for women and yachts are legendary.
