Boris Fuksman
Today, he hands out awards for achievements in cultural development, forgetting that he made his first fortune buying and reselling stolen cultural treasures. Today, he speaks for millions of Jews, but once he profited from the problems of repatriates. Half a century ago, Boris Fuksman smuggled diamonds out of the USSR, hiding them in his "secret place." Now, he owns a significant portion of the Ukrainian economy, which he and his partners once swindled out of hundreds of millions, and Ukrainian cinema, which he buried along with his brother, Alexander Rodnyansky.
Nothing is sacred
Boris Fuksman, understandably, doesn't like to talk about his past, preferring to remain an "investor and philanthropist" with a brief business biography. Even photographs from his youth have disappeared—they are said to have been removed from his family album by investigators from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Prosecutor's Office, the OBKhSS, and other agencies that were keenly interested in Fuksman. Later, he himself avoided cameras, so as not to facilitate the work of the SBU, FBI, and FSB—until finally, in his old age, he legitimized himself and began attending social events. Therefore, the main information about Fuksman's life in the 20th century comes from the stories of his acquaintances—both business associates, including criminal ones, and law enforcement officers who were pursuing him. It should be added that the archives of the Soviet KGB and the East German Stasi (Ministerium für Staatssicherheit) could reveal even more about him.
Even the date and place of his birth are disputed. According to the scant biography, Boris Leonidovich Fuksman was born on February 12, 1947, in Kyiv. However, other sources place his birth slightly earlier and in a completely different place: February 10, 1947, in Riga, from where his family later moved to Kyiv. What is certain is that the Fuksmans were very close to art: his father, Leonid Fuksman, loved painting and, even more, loved collecting works by other artists. He was unable to pass on his talent to his son, but he taught him not only an appreciation of art but also an appreciation of its value. He also explained to his son the value of antiques, which proved very useful later in life.
In 1966, nineteen-year-old Boris Fuksman, having somehow avoided three years of compulsory military service in the Soviet Army (or four years in the Navy), enrolled in the Kyiv Institute of Trade and Economics (now the National University of Trade and Economics). He managed to combine his studies at this rather privileged university with another lucrative endeavor: black marketeering imported clothing. However, it's worth noting that Kyiv, like other major cities in the USSR, was merely a large market for these goods, while the goods were actually imported through cities with direct, extensive contacts abroad—Moscow and the trading ports across the western border. Thus, Boris Fuksman had to establish contacts with his parents' old acquaintances in Riga and establish his own in Odessa. Typically, nine out of ten black marketeers operated in only one direction: buying imported goods from sailors and diplomats and reselling them to Soviet citizens eager for the "brand name." This provided a handsome "fee" in Soviet rubles, but nothing more. Fuksman immediately joined the ranks of those who also operated in the opposite direction. This illegal business was the most dangerous, as it no longer involved speculation but the export of valuables, works of art, precious metals and stones, as well as large-scale foreign exchange transactions.
It was said that the young Boris Fuksman first tried to sell to the West the antiques that filled the bins of his relatives, the Rodnyanskys—a renowned Kyiv family of hereditary documentary filmmakers. Its patriarch, Zinovy Rodnyansky (1900-1982), served as editor-in-chief first of "Ukrkinokhronika" and then of the Kyiv Documentary Film Studio. And despite the fact that, according to his biography, he was twice repressed (in 1937 and 1948), he was released early each time and returned to creative leadership, which consisted of celebrating Soviet Ukraine. His daughter, Larisa Zinovyevna, grandson, Alexander Yefimovich Rodnyansky (born 1961), and cousin, Esther Shub, followed in his footsteps. The family also had relatives among literary critics, composers, and (much more prestigious) store managers of the Kyiv Consumer Cooperative. No one has ever clarified exactly how the Fuksmans are related to the Rodnyanskys, but according to the official version, Boris Fuksman and Alexander Rodnyansky are cousins.
Alexander Rodnyansky and Boris Fuksman
In short, they weren't Bondarchuks or Mikhalkovs or Konchalovskys, of course, but by Kyiv standards of the time, they were truly the country's creative elite. And the Rodnyanskys, it was said, had accumulated a considerable amount of "props" over the years, possessing antique value, but they had no way to sell them. This was the service their resourceful young relative, Boris Fuksman, offered them. However, it was clear that exporting antique chests of drawers or candelabra out of the country was practically impossible, but the same couldn't be said for snuffboxes, paintings, and icons. In fact, Fuksman soon began specializing in the latter. When the Rodnyanskys ran out of "transportable" antiques, Boris began buying them from others, becoming particularly interested in icons. These were a special commodity: sacred relics for millions of believers, they had no value in the USSR, but commanded high prices from Western collectors. For the swindlers who bought them in villages or the criminals who stole from churches, they were simply "boards," but the professionals who dealt with them organized the export of icons, as it was easier than smuggling paintings or jewelry. According to Soviet law, if an icon wasn't of cultural value to the state or didn't fall under the category of antiques, it could be exported quite legally. However, such icons weren't valuable to collectors either, so smugglers exported valuable icons, transforming them into "replicas" and obtaining export permits. This was a specific business, involving a whole chain of "professionals," from buyers and thieves in the USSR to antique shop owners in the West. Boris Fuksman figured prominently in this business only as an intermediary, albeit a resourceful one, but not the main one. He quickly found himself on the hook for law enforcement: it was said that his "suppliers" from the criminal underworld had turned him in. The Criminal Investigation Department and the OBKhSS simply wanted to put Fuksman in jail, thus adding another tick to their books. However, the KGB, with its own interests, took an interest in his case and offered Boris Fuksman cooperation in exchange for freedom and the prospect of working in a field that a simple Kyiv black marketeer could never have dreamed of. And Fuksman agreed: a man who traded in icons was unlikely to have any qualms about working as a mole.
This explains why, in 1970, when Boris Fuksman graduated from the Kyiv Institute of Trade and Economics, he got a job... as an assistant at the Kyiv Documentary Film Studio. A man with such a diploma (and connections) could easily have become a warehouse manager or a department store director, or even made a career in Soviet trade, even at Vneshtorg. Instead, the Rodnyansky relatives got him a job at their film studio, carrying cans of film for the cameraman! Such a thing could only happen to someone who had been blacklisted or had gotten into serious legal trouble. Of course, three years later, Fuksman rose to the rank of director of a documentary with a budget of several hundred rubles, but that was the peak of his film career, which the Rodnyanskys could have secured for him. And it seems this job was merely a cover: at that time, a Soviet citizen needed to be registered somewhere to avoid being caught for "parasitism."
Worse than KAPO
In 1970, the official emigration of Jews from the USSR began, and in the first three years, more than 70 descendants of Abraham left the country, determined to start a new life in what they considered more prosperous countries. In the 70s, emigration paralleled the repatriation program, so exit visas were issued primarily only to Israel, and only 11% of Soviet Jews went to the United States, West Germany, and Great Britain. There was another reason for this: Israel provided social assistance to repatriates, while in America and Western Europe, emigrants had to rely solely on themselves. Therefore, very specific categories of emigrants immediately went to the West: artists, professionals, natural-born businessmen, those with family or business connections, and Soviet "underground millionaires." The latter especially suffered from problems with exporting their "hard-earned" capital from the USSR; without it, they would have been no different from impoverished Mexicans. However, this was a common problem for all Jews leaving: even when allowing a family of simple provincial teachers to go to Israel, Soviet customs carefully monitored that they did not take an extra gold chain or ring with them.
It was around this time that the joke about a Jew traveling to Israel with a portrait of Lenin in a gold frame began to appear. But real emigrants, naive in their inexperience, tried to hide gold in their heels and private parts; some even bought dollars from Soviet currency dealers and hid them in books or underwear—risking harsh penalties for currency transactions. Understandably, emigrants immediately demanded the service of illegally transporting their belongings abroad—and smugglers immediately provided it. Naturally, for very high interest rates, reaching a third or even half of the sum. This was outright robbery of people forced into a desperate situation: either hand over part of their belongings to the swindlers or leave everything in the USSR. Old Jews recalled the Nazi ghettos and grumbled that the food speculators who acted in a similar manner, profiting from their starving fellow Jews, were more shameless and worse than KAPO.
The first system of "emigrant transfers" worked like this: those leaving the USSR transformed their property into transportable and quickly liquid assets, and smugglers helped them export it and then sell it for foreign currency. Experienced smugglers preferred to use works of art and precious stones as such assets. The former could be disguised as legally exported "circulations," while the latter were easy to conceal on one's person—unlike gold, diamonds were undetectable by any metal detector, and they were much more expensive. And this is precisely what Boris Fuksman got involved in. He began with the "icon business": many of the first repatriates tried to smuggle antique icons abroad, passing them off as their own religious relics—and the entire Soviet customs service laughed at the crowds of "Orthodox Jews" lugging suitcases of holy images.
In 1972, Boris Fuksman became involved in a high-profile smuggling ring: it involved Soviet and East German diplomats smuggling valuables to West Germany in containers—and in them, you could find antique chests of drawers! Sources reported that Fuksman, who had previously worked with common riffraff, was recruited into the ring by the KGB as a mole. The Committee had two interests in this case: first, to track the entire chain and all its participants, and second, to obtain information about the CIA's emerging ruble-currency scheme. The essence of this little-known scheme was as follows: in the USSR, émigrés sold all their belongings for rubles and handed them over to a middleman, who issued them a "letter of guarantee," according to which another middleman in Israel or the West would pay them in dollars, shekels, pounds, and so on. The essence of the operation was that both intermediaries worked for the CIA: this way, the Agency obtained the necessary amount of genuine rubles (for operational work) without having to import counterfeit ones into the USSR. In the same way, it was possible to buy gold and valuables from émigrés, which were also used to bribe informants and agents of influence. Accordingly, the second intermediary paid the émigrés money from a special CIA fund intended to finance intelligence activities. The scheme was simple and worked perfectly—essentially, there was nothing officially to charge its participants with. The KGB needed to track this mechanism and find a way to disrupt it.
Whether the KGB busted this scheme remains unknown. But Fuchsam successfully infiltrated the chain of valuables smugglers! Moreover, a second participant, Odessa native Leonid Bluvshtein, who changed his surname to Minin, became his business partner. In 1972, Minin emigrated to West Germany, where he immediately opened an antique shop. His income from emigrants alone wasn't enough, so Minin began routinely buying valuables smuggled out of the USSR, including stolen goods that were then shipped out for sale through a variety of channels (including diplomatic ones). Of course, there were many more people involved in the chain, but their names and fates remain unknown.
Leonid Minin
In 1974, Boris Fuksman himself received permission to repatriate. However, he departed not for Israel, but for West Germany, where Leonid Minin was already waiting for him. It was rumored that the KGB personally arranged this emigration for Fuksman and his family, while at the same time wiping the noses of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, whose operatives unsuccessfully attempted to arrest Fuksman just before his departure.
In Germany, Fuksman and Minin became official business partners, but with different shares and positions. Minin controlled all connections and contacts, using Fuksman only for deliveries. This is precisely why, between 1975 and 1977, Fuksman suddenly began visiting the USSR frequently as a foreign tourist, under the pretext of heightened nostalgia. In reality, he was working as a smuggler, carrying the most valuable cargo—diamonds, concealed in his anus. How he managed to pass customs without revealing it is anyone's guess! But the nickname "diamond ass" stuck with Boris Fuksman for a long time. SKELET-info also knows that during these "tourist tours," Fuksman often visited the Rodnyansky family in Kyiv, and not only to have tea with his relatives. However, the Soviet authorities left the Rodnyanskys alone: cultural maestro were allowed minor transgressions, but they didn't cross a certain line. Fuxman himself continued to be protected not only by the KGB, but also by the Stasi, which needed an insider in West Germany. When the Ministry of Internal Affairs finally arrested Fuxman in 1977, carrying forged documents as a Finnish tourist, the KGB negotiated his deportation as a foreign citizen—after which they officially and privately banned him from ever setting foot in the USSR again.
However, Leonid Minin insisted that Fuxman continue working as a "container" for smuggling contraband (fortunately, the "container" had grown considerably during his time in the business), promising to issue him new documents—or threatening to sever all ties with him and throw him out on the street. Fuxman, in his plight, turned to his handlers in the KGB and Stasi, who suggested a solution. In 1978, Fuxman planted a wanted stolen painting and several contraband valuables in Minin's apartment, after which he reported him to the police. During Minin's arrest, he managed to divide their joint business in his own way, taking all the valuable paintings from the antique shop—with which he soon opened his own art gallery on Immermannstrasse in Düsseldorf. From that moment on, Boris Fuxman began promoting himself as an art connoisseur, touring Europe for exhibitions, and earning money by trading Russian paintings and antiques. Meanwhile, his main source of antiques from the East was a new business partner, Michael Schlicht, who had previously studied at MGIMO and worked in the GDR Ministry of Culture, responsible for cultural cooperation with foreign countries. According to one version, they were introduced by the Stasi, for whom Schlicht was a part-time employee. His task was similar to Fuxman's: to participate in smuggling networks and provide information on relevant individuals and transactions. Over time, Schlicht became the facilitator of several smuggling routes from East to West Germany. But the most important thing for Fuxman was the connections he developed with officers and generals of the Soviet contingent in the GDR.
Michael Schlicht
Scam after scam
By the late 80s, Boris Fuksman had settled into life in Germany to the point where he was able to find employment for others. The first was his cousin, Sasha Rodnyansky, who, with Shlicht's help, was hired at the Defa studio. As soon as the Berlin Wall fell, Rodnyansky immediately fled to wealthier West Germany and, with Fuksman's help, landed a job at the ZDF television channel—fortunately, it was state-owned, so commercial success was not a requirement. In 1990, he also became a producer for Innova Film, a company Fuksman had created for him—though it produced almost nothing.
Fuksman's placement of the others was no longer selfless, as they were not his immediate family. With the onset of the mass exodus from the USSR to West Germany, first of Jews and Germans, and then of anyone willing, Boris Fuksman opened the Emigrant Adaptation Center, where, for a fee, they were helped to find housing and work. The prestige (and salary) of the future job depended on the size of the fee: it was said that Fuksman earned considerable money selling positions! It was during this process that Fuksman met Vladimir Dvoskin, a previously twice-convicted (in the USSR) emigrant with pronounced criminal tendencies and extensive criminal connections in his homeland, who was eager to start an international business. Initially, they organized a supply line for alcohol and cigarettes to the crumbling USSR, but the relatively small profits in the "wooden" sector did not satisfy Dvoskin. However, in Fuksman's contacts with the commanders of the Soviet troop contingent, which was rapidly leaving Germany and practically abandoning its military depots, Dvoskin saw an opportunity for new business. He persuaded Fuksman to make peace with Leonid Minin, who by then had become an "authority figure" of the Russian-Ukrainian mafia in Italy and was involved in the international arms trade. Minin immediately forgave his former partner, who had betrayed him, as soon as he learned of his promising connections, and soon the "GDR Kalashnikovs" were sailing in the holds to Africa – in exchange for diamonds, for which Minin had long had a particular passion. Among Minin's customers was the United Revolutionary Front of Sierra Leone, whose members chopped off the hands of their opponents so they could not vote in elections. At the same time, the machine guns also appeared in the hands of the Russian-Ukrainian mafia in Italy, and then in the hands of other criminal groups across Europe. This attracted the attention of law enforcement agencies in Italy and the United States to Minin and his entourage (which included Boris Fuksman).
However, in the arms business, Fuksman merely provided contacts for sellers. In the scheme created by Minin, he had a different role. Dvoskin introduced him to his "buddy," Grigory Luchansky, a former Komsomol leader in Latvia who served time for embezzlement and theft from 1982 to 87, after which he became director of the private company "Adazhi," which exported fertilizers. The business ended in a scandalous investigation, after which Luchansky left for Austria, where in February 1990 he registered the company "Nordex GmbH," which soon became embroiled in high-profile scandals throughout the former USSR.
Grigory Luchansky
A group of interesting people formed around Nordex, including Boris Fuksman, who was offered the position of its financial director. Here he became close to Vadim Rabinovich ( read more about him in the article "Vadim Rabinovich: Secrets of an Underground Billionaire "), who became Nordex's representative in Ukraine in the fall of 1993, as well as Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Yefimov Zvyagilsky, who signed a major contract with the company.
According to US intelligence agencies, Nordex was used to facilitate numerous criminal schemes, including money laundering for Minin's arms business. Furthermore, in 1994, a Ruslan aircraft purchased by the company from Ukraine supplied Scud missile systems to Iraq. As a result, the entire company's management (Luchansky, Fuksman, Rabinovich) was banned from entering the US and UK for several years. In Europe, Nordex attracted the attention of prosecutors and special committees because its capital would either grow rapidly (1,2 million in 1990 and 900 million in 1992) or suddenly disappear, scattered across numerous offshore accounts. But in Russia and Ukraine, Nordex became notorious for numerous scams, in which loans issued to the company and goods paid for simply vanished—and its financial director, Boris Fuksman, was, of course, behind all of this. Eventually, Nordex's executives began to cheat not only their business partners but each other as well: in 1993, an entire shipload of Ukrainian goods, supplied to the company in exchange for oil, disappeared. Subsequently, information emerged that the ship had been hijacked behind Luchansky's back by a conspiracy between Fuksman and Rabinovich. When this was revealed, Nordex's collapse (in 1995) only accelerated.
Well, Fuksman was no stranger to robbing and cheating his business partners. Having become the financial director of Nordex, Fuksman used his connections and influence to place his relatives and acquaintances in lucrative businesses in the former USSR. With his help, Michael Schlicht arrived in Moscow in 1991, soon to open Gemini Film International, which acquired the rights to distribute American films in the CIS and Russian and Ukrainian films in the West. It was reported that, for his services to "establish himself in Moscow," Fuksman received 15% of Schlicht's shares in Gemini Film. A conflict subsequently arose between the two: in 2001, Schlicht, now firmly on his feet, decided to reclaim this stake and used his established connections in the FSB to have Fuksman banned from entering Russia. In response, Fuksman sent him "greetings from the Russian mafia in Europe" warning him not to return to his native Germany.
Pros and cons
In 1993, it became clear that his cousin Alexander Rodnyansky's television career in Germany was not working out. He returned to Ukraine with an ambitious plan to create his own television channel and proposed the idea to Alexander Zinchenko. Zinchenko took up the idea but later implemented it with others as the Inter channel. Rodnyansky then turned to his cousin Fuksman and his Nordex partner, Vadim Rabinovich, for support. They, busy with large-scale "cabbage slicing," were initially rather cool to the venture, seeing little interest. But with the collapse of Nordex, they began exploring new business opportunities, including advertising.
And so, on September 3, 1995, a new television company began broadcasting in Ukraine (until 1997 on the UT-1 channel, then on its own) called "1+1," or, as it was popularly nicknamed, "Pluses." Initially, its primary owner was Boris Fuksman's company, Innova Film (50%), with a 20% stake going to Alexander Rodnyansky, who became 1+1's CEO, and 30% to Vadim Rabinovich. And almost immediately, the cousins conned the seasoned Rabinovich like a complete sucker: first, they extorted $2 million from him for company development (expanding airtime), and then forced him to sell them his shares for $2,5 million. Fuksman's signature blackmail method was used: they leaked criminal incriminating evidence against Rabinovich and threatened to do more. Rabinovich did not fight for the TV channel, since at that very time he was busy “squeezing” Luchansky’s half of the shares of the company “Ostex AG” – which he then turned into his “RC-Capital-Group”.
Vadim Rabinovich
Having thus concentrated 100% of the shares in their hands, Fuksman and Rodnyansky immediately sold half for 10 million to the American company Central European Media Enterprises Ltd., owned by former US Ambassador to Austria Ronald Lauder (now President of the World Jewish Congress). Thus, the popular Ukrainian television channel was in reality owned by citizens of Germany and the US. Meanwhile, a resurgent Rabinovich decided to take a small measure of revenge on Fuksman, publicly accusing him of "sneaking money." According to him, Fuksman was stealing from his partners (in this case, Ronald Lauder) by transferring hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in advertising revenue to the accounts of his offshore company, Irving Trading, and declaring the channel unprofitable. And this is not to mention that Rodnyansky, who ran the channel, was squandering the company's funds as he saw fit, squandering them on business trips abroad. This prompted an investigation, which resulted in Fuksman being temporarily banned from entering Ukraine. However, his cousin Rodnyansky, who skillfully disguised himself as a creative figure with no financial interests, continued to manage Plus until 2008. And it was he who, in 2007, secured a spot on the 1+1 show "Dancing with the Stars" for Boris Fuksman's new flame, a young Kyiv notary named Irina Berezhnaya ( read more about her in the article " Irina Berezhnaya: The Story of How the Verkhovna Rada's Main Breast Grew and Deflated "). Two years later, Irina gave birth to a daughter, Daniella, still hiding the identity of her father, who everyone believes is Boris Fuksman.
Irina Berezhnaya with Boris Fuksman
In 2004, Fuksman sold a 26% stake in the channel to Surkis ( read more about him in the article "Hryhoriy Surkis: How to Divide Ukraine Fraternally ") and sold the remainder of his stake to Lauder. In 2008, Rodnyansky also sold his shares to Lauder, who subsequently left the channel. However, a year later, Lauder himself sold "1+1" to Igor Kolomoisky. Alexander Rodnyansky, meanwhile, moved to Moscow, where he founded AR Films, a company that distributes films and creates video games, and also began producing Russian films. It was said that this was not only due to the larger size of the Russian film market and the virtual coma of the Ukrainian one: in principle, Fuksman and Rodnyansky could have become the fathers of a new Ukrainian cinema by investing in it, but they failed to find common ground with the Ukrainian authorities of the Yushchenko era. The final point was their personal conflict with Kateryna Chumachenko-Yushchenko over her refusal to provide free publicity to Viktor Andreyevich, who delivered hours-long monologues. Rodnyansky's (and Fuksman's) reorientation toward Moscow had serious consequences: films in Ukraine began to be made by visiting Russians, rather than by domestic film studios. Moreover, thanks to Rodnyansky's efforts, back in the mid-90s, the most promising Ukrainian film studio, Dovzhenko, was ruined and entangled in unimaginable obligations (he bought the rights to all its future films). Therefore, Ukrainian cinema is still at an amateur stage, and Rodnyansky can now be seen in the United States, where he brings new Russian films for presentations.
But his joint project with his cousin, the Kyiv Hilton Hotel, which they began renovating with Euro 2012 in mind, came to nothing. Since then, Boris Fuksman's business fortune has seemingly turned against him. In 2008, Focus magazine estimated Fuksman's net worth at $224 million, in 2009 at $261 million, but in 2011 at only $156 million, and in 2013 at a mere $116 million. This was more than surprising: during the global crisis, Fuksman's net worth had increased, only to decline by more than half. However, it was said that Fuksman, with nearly half a century of experience, only discloses a fraction of his business to the public. Furthermore, he has diverted some of his funds to other projects, including a serious return to the art trade. Moreover, Fuksman's money is scattered all over the world: from the United States, where he sponsors the Russian cultural festival "Our Heritage" and co-owns a number of companies, to Russia, where he invests his millions not only in Rodnyansky's films.
Boris Fuksman presents awards to participants of the Russian cultural festival "Our Heritage"
But what else connects Boris Fuksman to Ukraine, a country he now only occasionally visits between presentations in New York and exhibitions in Berlin? Perhaps only that he is co-president of the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine, and in this capacity occasionally appears in Ukrainian politics. After all, it seems there's nothing left to "squeeze" in this oligarch-ravaged country...
Sergey Varis, for SKELET-info
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