Ugly Russian Nouveaux Rags-To-Riches

A British man I know who works in luxury hotel management once asked me: "Why are rich Russians such a pain in the ass? They are by far the most annoying, hard to please bunch of ego-tripping divas."

I am quite used to receiving soul-searching kind of questions about my compatriots as if I were their spokesman, so more often than not I am prepared to provide comprehensive answers.

Up to 95% of modern Russian adults were brought up in more or less equal economic conditions. Excesses of the Soviet elite were a far cry from the post-Communist extravaganza of golden toilet bowls and custom Maybachs. Most of time a nomenklatura boss's idea of wild time was limited to screwing a self-styled loose woman after a bottle of imported cognac in the sauna. Domestic servants, class and income bracket differences, high-and-mighty lifestyles were unheard of. Conspicuous consuming was not just frowned upon but universally discouraged.

So, basically, our only idea about how rich people should behave and what they should do comes from trashy Mexican soap operas that inundated Russian broadcasting in the late 80s and well into the 90s. The vile servant-abusing thick-moustached Don Manuels and hysterical foot-stomping coiffured Doña Maria's from those tedious cheaply produced telenovelas are the only role models that new rich Russians know of.