text: how do you spell "alegarks" =rich russians?   oligarh - in russian spelling.  this is, obviously, a refernce to oligarchic type of economy, where large portions of national economy belong to several big players, conglomerates, trusts, and etc.  new russians (novy russkiy) - is not necessarily an oligarch. he may be a head of big oil or metal exporting venture. and so-called oligarchs, most probably, bought their ventures due to extremely low pricing on auctions during 1990-s. for instance, mikhail khodorkovsky is believed to have bought yukos oil conglomerate for approximately 200 mln $, while its original price was about 2 billion. russians themselves consider all rich people got rich at expense of somebody's life. it is some component of russian mentality.