A sweeping exposé of corruption at the highest echelons of the Russian government in the 1990s during the fall of communism, featuring an extraordinary cast of characters including Australia's PM Malcolm Turnbull, Russia's first president, Boris Yeltsin, and the last-ever president of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev.
Based on diary, business-meeting, and company records provided by executive Ludmila Melnikoff, For the Love of Russian Gold chronicles one Australian company's audacious attempt to mine Sukhoi Log for gold, the secret Russian jewel valued at [...] billion, at the dawn of Russia's attempts at modernization.
The Berlin Wall has come down, and East meets West. Yeltsin becomes president of a bankrupt state. In the wild west of the new, independent Russia, tax havens flourish, the mafia gains a foothold, massive bribes drive business deals, and synthetic drugs flood the markets.
Desperate for cash, Russia opens its doors to foreign companies, and Australian-born Ludmila is lured to the home of her ancestors to mine the Sukhoi Log, allegedly the world's largest gold reserve.
To do this, she seeks the aid of charismatic mining magnate Ian MacNee and Australia's future prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull. The two men share a passion for gold and for Ludmila-but one man is not what he seems.
Millions of dollars raised by merchant bankers in London, New York, and Australia flow into Siberia as the mining world eagerly watches.
The stakes are high, but the question remains: Is the never-before-unveiled Sukhoi Log really the literal gold mine they think it is, or is it Russia's greatest grift?
As much as it is a shocking once-in-a-generation account of Russia's power structures in the '90s, and a foreshadowing of its current administration, For the Love of Russian Gold is also a personal, heart-wrenching personal story of Ludmila's abuse and the coercive control she endured behind the closed doors of a multimillion-dollar mining enterprise.