Chichvarkin was able to build his "multi-billion dollar empire" with clean hands, and then all of a sudden the corrupted government noticed his success and cracked down on him.
I am sorry, I find this very hard to believe. A more plausible explanation is that "Russia's best and brightest" simply stepped on the toes of the very same corrupted officials that helped him with his rise.
This is not to say that best and brightest, those who are considering starting a business, are not leaving the country because of the corruption. It's just that Chichvarkin is not a good example to illustrate the point.
That is true. The "anti" corruption police branch is the center of corruption. Everyone who gets anything done business wise has to bribe someone, steal something or defraud somebody.
If they become successful they'll get the knock on their door from the "anti-corruption" officials who tells them charges will be pressed since they used "unclean" methods in the past. Unless, of course, you offer to pay even more bribes to bribe the anti-bribery police....
And yes, it is a chicken and egg problem. Even on the cultural level. Starting from the hospital when the baby is born, up through kindergarten, high-school, university and so on there are expected bribes to be payed. So people already grow up with this constant culture of corruption in mind. It is like a latent infection, always there in the background.
Chichvarkin was able to build his "multi-billion dollar empire" with clean hands, and then all of a sudden the corrupted government noticed his success and cracked down on him.
I am sorry, I find this very hard to believe. A more plausible explanation is that "Russia's best and brightest" simply stepped on the toes of the very same corrupted officials that helped him with his rise.
This is not to say that best and brightest, those who are considering starting a business, are not leaving the country because of the corruption. It's just that Chichvarkin is not a good example to illustrate the point.