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About LinkBacksNo, of course there were no Russians that were rich in a meaningful way prior to glasnost.
Some people had access to large funds through their work, but it was not their money. They couldn't inherit any serious wealth, and if they lived in luxurious conditions, it was because of their job, not because they had private wealth.
Those people who were rich before the revolution left the country. If they didn't, they eventually lost everything and became regular citizens.
Perhaps some superstar singers and the odd criminal were rich in Soviet times, but not regular people, even people with really important jobs.
Like I explained those super rich people took advantage of the conditions in the 1990s, at the very end of the USSR, or just after. (it held on to 1992).
Probably it's not possible anymmore to become super-rich in Russia as fast as the first generation of oligarchs did. It was a unique situation.
The modern day financial market in Russia is apparently well regulated and functions similarly to any other stock exchange in the world.
The rumours back in the 1980s was that Russians had "lots, and lots of money", and technically that was probably true in many cases. But the rumour continued: They have all that money but they can't really find much to spend it on.
The problem was, the money couldn't easily be exchanged to any hard currency, and they couldn't buy stuff they wanted with the money, because of shortages, bureacracy and laws. So if somebody had a large amount of Soviet roubles it only had limited value anyway. Most people couldn't get large amounts of hard currency and had no opportunity to leave the country and set up accounts somewhere else. The system (deliberately) made it almost impossible to become rich.
Plus, the Soviet roubles lost their value almost completely over the course of a few years, and then again in 1998. So anything they kept in that currency was ultimately useless.
The situation was really very odd from a modern / Western viewpoint.
If you are born in '86 you are to young to remember it, but it was well known back in those days, what difficulties the Soviets and others in Eastern Europe experienced on that front. One short visit to anywhere in Eastern Europe made the situation pretty clear. The stuff you might want might not necessarily be available. From today's perspective it's difficult to get it across. It wasn't poverty or misery, just a total absence of private wealth or luxury consumption.
If you just took a superficial view, it was clean, people looked healthy and there were no beggars, unemployed looters or open criminality. But there also were no ads, no cool shops, no chic restaurants and not a lot of really desirable things to buy.
To conclude: None of the people that you are advising in a professional capacity today are likely to have had anything remotely passing for private wealth prior to the 90s.
One exception perhaps somebody who happened to live in a very attractive property as a perk for his job, continued living there and was able to snap it up very cheaply and now finds that he sits on a luxury property in central Moscow, worth millions. But that must be an unusual situation. That's talking about the top 1% of the population.
As for China, I think 95% of what goes on there has nothing to do with Communism. It's just the name of the party ruling the country.
They re-defined Chinese Communism to essentially mean capitalism with a one party meritocratic state.
However the state there is trying to make it difficult for people to move money out of the country. They don't mind people being rich, but they want the money to be in China, not in offshore locations.
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Originally Posted by Hanna 
