What lies behind the corruption scandals in the Kremlin?
For over a week, accusations of corruption against President Boris Yeltsin and his “family” have been mounting. They were unleashed by the almost simultaneous publication of three articles, which for the first time linked Yeltsin personally to a series of scandals in Russia. First, the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported that investigations had been launched into the granting of credit cards to Yeltsin’s family. During a probe of the Swiss company Mabetex, records were found relating to credit cards issued to Boris Yeltsin and his daughters, Tatyana Dyachenko and Yelena Okulova. Mabetex, which received $335 million worth of contracts for the restoration of the Kremlin and other government buildings, had transferred millions of dollars to the private account of Pavel Borodin at a Budapest bank. Borodin is the director of the department for real estate and services in the Kremlin, and is considered to be number two after Yeltsin, who is believed to have received a million doll
