New Russians

See also: New Russia (disambiguation)

The New Russians (Russian: новые русские novye russkie) is a cliché term referring to members of a newly rich social class in the CIS who made vast fortunes in the 1990s (also referred to as "the wild 90s") in post-Soviet Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union. It is perceived as a stereotypical caricature. According to the stereotype, "New Russians" achieved rapid wealth by using criminal methods during Russia's chaotic transition to a market economy.

Not all New Russians are ethnically Russian. Initially a neutral designation, the term soon took on a negative and ironic connotation. It is used to describe people who became wealthy very quickly (often through dubious or illegal means), including major mafia figures, but who lack intelligence, culture, and sophistication. Despite their wealth, they retain the language and manners of the social strata from which they emerged.

In the 1990s, "New Russians" became a staple of jokes that played on stereotypes about businessmen.

Etymology

The exact time and place, as well as the authorship of this expression, have not been fully established.

Some suggest that the expression "Новый Русский" (lit. "New Russian") arose in the Russian-speaking sphere in the ostensibly English-language form "New Russian", and after that calqued into the Russian-language form. Another theory suggests the term appeared in foreign press and then made its way into Russia. Supporters of the latter theory suggest that the author of the expression was the American journalist Hedrick Smith who published two books about Russia: "The Russians" (1976) and "The New Russians" (1990).

There's also a theory that it is more of a pun, playing on the French term "nouveau riche" (i.e. "new rich"), whose meaning is very close to the term "New Russian". It is worth recalling that during Russia's industrial revolution at the end of the 19th century, Russians also used a term that was similar in meaning and use - skorobogach, Russian: скоробогач (literally “gotten-rich-quick man”, a person who very suddenly became wealthy; perhaps an individual with low moral principles).

In the documentary film With a hard-sign on the end (С твёрдом знаком на конце), dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the creation of the newspaper Kommersant and shown on Channel One on 30 November 2009), author Leonid Parfyonov demonstrates a copy of Kommersant from 1992 in which an editorial letter was addressed to the "New Russians". Parfyonov confirms that the newspaper first introduced this word into daily life, and at first it did not have any negative or ironic connotation, merely serving to describe the representatives of Russia's growing business class.

In 2010, chief researcher at the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Renald Simonyan noted that the “new Russians” were the product of the reforms of the 1990s, giving them the following characteristics: “Physically strong, poorly educated, assertive, devoid of moral values, and materialistic types”.

History

Private entrepreneurship was officially permitted in the USSR for the first time after a long hiatus—since the post-revolutionary New Economic Policy era—excluding worker cooperatives (artels), which existed until the late 1950s. It was reintroduced during Perestroika through a decree on November 19, 1986, in the form of individual labor activity (ITD) and cooperatives. This decree marked the first stage in the development of modern Russian entrepreneurship, though initially, only a few pursued it, as it was widely met with public disapproval.

The newly created private sector had to be integrated into the socialist system, which fundamentally rejected private property and wage labor. As a result, the concept of private entrepreneurship itself did not yet exist in official discourse; instead, the ideologically acceptable term individual labor activity was used. Early entrepreneurs, known as cooperators, primarily opened small food service or retail businesses. They operated under extremely harsh conditions, facing high taxes, restrictions on hiring employees (under the 1986 decree, ITD was only allowed as a solo activity or within a family and only outside of regular working hours), and distrust from both society and the Communist authorities.

The second wave of entrepreneurship emerged during the late Perestroika period (1989–1991), as socialism gradually collapsed and the transition to a market economy began. Entrepreneurs of this wave were driven more by ambition than economic calculations. High-ranking officials also started engaging in business during this period. The most common business forms included numerous banks, exchanges, and joint ventures, while the early financial and stock markets began to take shape. Cooperatives evolved into Western-style businesses, adopting attributes such as corporate capital, open-plan offices, office equipment, business attire, and professional behavior. It was during this time that the word business, previously associated exclusively with Western capitalism, became widely used and legitimized.

During this period, the phrase New Russians first appeared without any positive or negative connotation as the title of the book The New Russians (A New Type of Soviet Man), written by journalist Hedrick Smith. The book, published in 1990, was based on his revisit to the USSR in the late 1980s and served as a sequel to his earlier work The Russians, which described life in the Soviet Union during the 1970s.

The third stage, often called mass entrepreneurship, began after 1991. The collapse of the socialist system led to a massive surge in the number of entrepreneurs—sometimes out of necessity due to mass layoffs. This new wave was no longer driven solely by idealists and pioneers but also by those seeking to survive and, possibly, amass wealth.

Renald Simonyan, a senior researcher at the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, described New Russians as a product of the economic reforms of the 1990s, characterizing them as "physically strong, poorly educated, aggressive, devoid of moral constraints, and financially well-off."

Valeria Buryakovskaya, in her monograph Communicative Characteristics of Mass Culture in Media Discourse (2014), noted that the term New Russians was gradually falling out of use and fading into history. By the 2010s, it was mainly referenced as a retro-term from the wild '90s era.

See also

• Russian oligarch
• The wild nineties
• NEPman
• New Soviet man
• Novus homo
• Russian Mafia
• Oligarchy
• Gopnik
• Nouveau riche
• Thief in law
• Nawab

Sources

• Crimson Tide, appearing in the British newspaper The Sunday Times.