I had lunch with Khodorkhovski in Paris back in 1998, we sat side by side and discussed the merits of the latest Nokia phone ;). I also met him less intensively at various bank meetings. Lebedev I also met; we had some tense negotiations in September 1998, after the Russian moratorium on debt (which hit Yukos rather directly then) in the hotel particulier in central Moscow that was one of their headquarters. They had a rather spectacular French wine cellar, then.

Meeting with a number of Russian gazillionaires in various fancy settings (I was able to try out a number of nice Parisian restaurants) has left me with the pleasant feeling that they are not that different from us, in fact.

But Khodorkhorvski did impress more than others. Beyond being smart and determined, he was clearly more disciplined.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes