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Tonight on FRONTLINE/WORLD, two stories from a small planet.

ANNOUNCER: In Moscow, a city transformed by the young and wealthy, the Kremlin has just arrested one of them, the richest man in Russia. An exclusive interview with New York Times reporter Sabrina Tavernise.

In post-war Afghanistan--

ANNOUNCER: --NPR’s Sarah Chayes gave up reporting and started helping.

Afghanistan: A House for Haji Baba

Reported by: Brian Knappenberger

SARAH CHAYES, Afghans for Civil Society: If this road could talk, you know, what a tale it would-- it could tell us.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: Sarah is a former war correspondent who covered the campaign against the Taliban here for National Public Radio.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: For years as a reporter, Sarah had come and gone from war zones, increasingly with misgivings about the devastation she’d left behind. But this time, in Afghanistan, a chance conversation would change her life. It was at a dinner with the uncle of President Karzai.

SARAH CHAYES: We had, you know, a wonderful meal and a wonderful conversation, as always. We were looking ahead. Now the Taliban have fallen, Hamid Karzai has been named interim premier, and it’s, like, What are the prospects for the future? As I got up to go, he kind of cocked his head and said, "Wouldn’t you come back and help us?" Just like that. And it was, like, the signal, you know? It was really incredible.

AZIZ KHAN KARZAI, President Karzai’s Uncle: She was thinking that she can do something and she must do it. So we liked that from the very beginning.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: The uncle introduced Sarah to the president’s brother, Qayum Karzai, and he proposed that Sarah come back to help in the reconstruction of the country.

SARAH CHAYES: I wanted to make sure he meant what I thought he meant. And I said, "Not as a journalist." And he said, "Yeah, not as a journalist." And I said "Yeah."

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: Sarah gave up her job at NPR. On this trip, she was coming back not to report, but to rebuild.

SARAH CHAYES: I’ve made a couple of major changes in the direction of my life. And sometimes I’ve made changes away from something that didn’t feel right. This time, it was making a change towards something that did feel right.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: After 14 hours on the road, we are nearing the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar. There’s a wedding in the Karzai family tonight, and we’ve been invited to join Qayum, his uncle and the new president. But what we didn’t know is that afternoon, as Hamid Karzai made his way through the streets, and just as a young boy leaned in to greet him, an assassin opened fire.

In an attempt to save the president, the boy had jumped on the gunman, but in the confusion, the American special forces assigned to guard Karzai opened fire. Three were killed in the melee-- the assassin, another guard and the boy who saved the president’s life. That night, under stepped-up security from U.S. special forces, the president decided to go ahead with the wedding as planned.

QAYUM KARZAI, President Karzai’s Brother: It was a very strange, strange night. You know, on one had, you were struggling to be happy. On another hand, there was this reminder that an assassin-- major, major assassination, point-blank assassination plot just failed. He’s the symbol of peace. If he’s not here, peace is not here.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: Inside, we meet a surprisingly calm President Hamid Karzai.

SARAH CHAYES: He was gracious. He was playful. And I was very touched. To have canceled that wedding would have been to give power to the people who tried to rattle him.

QAYUM KARZAI: He didn’t want to tell the extremists and the Taliban that they could disrupt the peace process.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: Kandahar remains a dangerous place. Here loyalty is to warlords, not to the central government in far-off Kabul, and there is still deep support for the Taliban. In the late days of the war, the Taliban fled along this road out of Kandahar. They made their last stand in small villages to the north. We’re headed to one of them now.

This is Akokolacha. It was hit hard by U.S. bombing.

SARAH CHAYES: It really got hammered, you can see. It’s right near the airport, which was basically the last stand of al Qaeda. It was, like, the last hold-out, where the last major battle was fought. And these villagers all had run away, obviously, by that time. It’s quite likely that

al Qaeda fighters had taken up positions in these houses, and so it just got plastered.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: More than half of this village was destroyed in the bombing, 13 homes in all. Sarah is here to rebuild them, using private aid money she helped raise back in Concord, Massachusetts, for Qayum’s foundation. It’s a story in the small about the big challenges this country faces after decades of war.

SARAH CHAYES: The bombing of Akokolacha was justified. We’re not trying to say this was a mistake, and therefore the United States should pay for it. Whether it was wrong or whether it was right, these people deserve to have their houses to live in.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: Before any construction can begin, there are some decisions to be made. Sarah and Qayum hold a shura, a meeting of village elders who are considered to be the tribal leaders. This is democracy Afghan-style. Voices can get loud, but here they will decide how the homes will be built.

QAYUM KARZAI: I told them that this money is not government money, and because of that, we are only able to put standard houses together-- three rooms, each room with one window and one door.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: It is decided at the shura that the villagers will provide the workers. And Haji Baba, the oldest of the village, will have his house built first. Everyone accepts the outcome.

QAYUM KARZAI: In the end, the community agrees to find a way, a consensus emerges, and those who disagree keeps quiet.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: As a woman, Sarah’s presence at the shura is far from normal. Women are not allowed, but she is playing a primary role. As she goes about her daily life here, Sarah always attracts attention.

SARAH CHAYES: I kind of pile it on, right? I’m non-Afghan, I’m female, I’m wearing men’s clothes, including a turban, and I’m driving a car. That does attract a lot of attention. All the time, people wonder if I’m a man or a woman. I’ll hear kids say, "That’s a woman!" You know? And then I’ll turn around and say, "Yeah, yeah, it’s a woman".

[www.pbs.org: Where are the Afghan women?]

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: The next morning marks the first day of construction, but already there’s a problem. There are no workers. In spite of what was agreed at the shura, only a handful of villagers showed up.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: Sarah and the man who everyone calls Engineer Abdullah listen to the local foreman’s explanation, but they’re not satisfied with what they hear.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: Engineer Abdullah decides he needs to bring in some men of his own, but that won’t happen until tomorrow. In the meantime, Sarah’s impatient to get started.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: She rounds up some of the local villagers and begins clearing the rubble.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: Haji Baba is 85 years old. After almost a year, his new house is finally under way.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: Haji Baba is in a joking mood, but when we leave, he turns more serious. That night, Sarah learns that Haji Baba wants a change in plans. The next morning, she returns to Akokolacha to find him.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: Sarah’s learned that Haji Baba wants bigger rooms in his new house. He’s insisting on 7 meters, not 5.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: Haji Baba’s hold-out drags on, and the whole project is stalled. But then another of the village elders finally steps in.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: On the morning of the sixth day, with the rubble now removed, it’s time to start construction by laying down the stone foundation. Or at least, that was the plan.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: The local governor is blocking the villagers’ shipment of foundation stone. Sarah didn’t know why, but she did know who, Governor Gul Agha Shirzai. He’s a former warlord, pictured here on the left with President Karzai. Shirzai and his troops seized Kandahar after the war, and Karzai reluctantly named him governor. Now, at gunpoint, some of Shirzai’s soldiers were seizing the quarry just outside of Akokolacha.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: Sarah’s suspicions are confirmed. Governor Shirzai and his brother-in-law, Razak, have taken control of the quarry.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: The owner of the stone quarry is Haji Abdullah. Though Sarah and the engineer need their stones, Haji Abdullah has problems of his own. He has been forced out of his own factory.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: Now we know why Haji Abdullah’s quarry is so important to Governor Shirzai.

The notorious road from Kabul to Kandahar is about to be repaved with funding from the United States government. A recipient of the lucrative cement contract? Governor Gul Agha Shirzai and his brother-in-law, Razak.

Without the foundation stone they need to begin, the work at Akokolacha is at a standstill.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: The Karzai government has been struggling to control local governors like Gul Agha Shirzai.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: Qayum’s upset about what happened to the quarry owner.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: During the bombing campaign, Haji Abdullah’s machinery was seriously damaged. He had just made the repairs when the governor shut him down. Now, if he can’t sell the stones legally, his family and his employees will go hungry.

Late in the day, Sarah and Engineer Abdullah return with a proposal. The plan is to sneak the stones out of the quarry without the governor finding out.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: When the sun comes up the next morning, it begins to look like their plan may have worked. They managed to smuggle at least a tractorful of the precious cargo out of the quarry-- not enough for the entire village, but stone enough to at least start Haji Baba’s foundation.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: Haji Baba’s house is under way, but the next attempt to get stone ends badly. The workers gather the next load, but as their truck tries to leave the quarry, Shirzai’s soldiers once again intervene.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: In post-war Afghanistan, even the stones are worth fighting for. Sarah and the Engineer are left with only one choice, to confront Governor Shirzai directly. Because of her status as an American and her alliance with the Karzais, we don’t have to wait long to get an audience. Other people with grievances wait outside the gate for days or even weeks.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: Sarah is made to wait as the governor eats his lunch. ...

[www.pbs.org: Read behind-the-scene stories]

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: This is Governor Gul Agha Shirzai.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: The governor tells Sarah which parts of the mountains are off limits for stone and why. Then he urges her away from stone altogether.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: The deputy minister tells Sarah to meet him at his office the next morning to work out the details.

SARAH CHAYES: Yeah, bricks with cement, and buy my cement. God, it’s the same everywhere!

That mountain has to be saved for using on cement from his goddamn factory, and nobody is allowed to have stone for foundations. He’s cornering a market completely, and he’s the governor and he’s the part owner of this factory, of this new cement factory. So he’s using his governmental power to protect that monopoly.

[www.pbs.org: Read an interview with Sarah Chayes]

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: Meanwhile, at Akokolacha, the workers have run out of stone.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: The next morning, Sarah heads to her meeting with the deputy minister. This time, however, getting through the gate is not so easy.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: Eventually, Sarah is not only denied access, but we are physically threatened by one of the governor’s higher-ranking guards. It takes hours for Engineer Abdullah to finally negotiate their way to the deputy minister.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: Instead of approving Sarah’s order for stone, the Deputy Minister gives her yet another turn in the bureaucratic maze, the director of Mines and Industry. Sarah quickly finds herself back where she started.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: On our way to the quarry, Engineer Abdullah notices some tractors carrying stone. It turns out that these men have bribed their way past the governor’s soldiers at another quarry.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: They finally end up at the original stone quarry, talking to its owner, Haji Abdullah.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: Sarah’s persistence pays off. Just a short drive away, the minister ignores the governor’s orders and tells the workers at the quarry to let the stones through.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: Meanwhile, Haji Abdullah is still out of business.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: Haji Abdullah would get no money for his land or his equipment. Worse, the soldiers of Governor Gul Agha Shirzai would arrest him and throw him in jail. And when he was let out 10 days later, the stone he had stockpiled for years was gone. Now he would need to start all over again.

The next morning, stone arrives as scheduled at Akokolacha. They now have the stone they need to finish Haji Baba’s foundation and begin his house.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: For the walls of Haji Baba’s house, the workers make traditional sun-baked mud bricks.

QAYUM KARZAI, Afghans for Civil Society: Afghans have enormous energy for construction. They are very hard working people, very individualistic and would like to improve their lot. I think the reconstruction and the peace process would be very easy to achieve if it wasn’t for these warlords. Warlords are in control of the government and of the resources of the society. They are sucking the blood and the flesh from the society. This vacuum that occurred after the Taliban, they have emerged and they are here. They are basically bandits.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: Who controls things here in the south is increasingly uncertain, especially now, as members of the Taliban slip back into their former home. In recent months, the Taliban have killed construction crews and ambushed international aid workers.

SARAH CHAYES: There is murder. There is greed. There is corruption. This is still a very volatile place, particularly in the south. And there are people with a lot of different agendas, and it’s going to take a long time for mindsets to change.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: But even with these dangers, there are signs that life here is getting better.

SARAH CHAYES: The Taliban banned kite flying. Right after the Taliban fell, there was, like, a week’s hiatus, and the kites just filled the sky. And it was, like, in clouds like this. It was like swallows. And to me, it’s the real symbol of the liberation of this country.

HAJI BABA: [subtitles] I have seen a lot of pain and suffering. I have seen it all. Governments come and governments go. They change so fast. The most important thing in my life is to live in peace. All that I ask for is food, water and shelter.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: Haji Baba’s house is almost complete. But even in this one village, there are still 12 more houses to be rebuilt.

SARAH CHAYES: Somebody said, at some point, this is like trying to clean up a nuclear disaster with a toothbrush. It’s been a really emotionally kind of roller-coaster of an experience, which means that there are moments of incredible euphoria, and there have been times of-- you know, I’ve cried. I have cried, you know?

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: It’s taken about three weeks, but now the finishing touches are being put on Haji Baba’s house.

SARAH CHAYES: I do believe that as they come to have more faith in me that I am building them their houses, and I am really going to do this and I am a person-- they see me as dollar signs, and that’s perfectly legitimate. I totally understand that. They see me as dollar signs, and it’s only over time that they’re going to start to see me as a person, as a human being.

I’m not ready to leave this country yet. I feel like my destiny is bound up with the destiny of this place-- for a little while, anyway.

ANNOUNCER: Next, New York Times reporter Sabrina Tavernise meets the richest man in Russia, who now finds himself in a jail cell.

Moscow: Rich in Russia

Reported by: Sabrina Tavernise

SABRINA TAVERNISE, Reporter: [voice-over] I spent eight years in Russia, most recently as a reporter for The New York Times in Moscow. That’s the Kremlin wall. Behind it the czars once ruled, then the Bolsheviks, and now democratically elected presidents.

Outside the wall, a new power has emerged: money. The new money has created opportunities for Russians that never existed before. Thirty-year-old Vladislav Dudakov is part of a new generation of business managers. He grew up in a run-down Russian village and came to Moscow as a soldier in the Red Army. He was a guard at Lenin’s tomb. He remembers entertaining tourists with his exaggerated march.

Then McDonald’s came to Moscow, and Vladislav switched allegiances. From floor sweeper, he quickly rose to store manager. Ten years later, he went to work for a Russian investor wanting to open Starbucks-style coffee shops. Today Vladislav manages a chain of some 30 coffee houses in Moscow. I ask him what he thought of his McDonald’s boot camp.

VLADISLAV DUDAKOV: [subtitles] I was different than my peers. They would say, "Why don’t we extend our break a bit?" "Why do we have to scrub so hard?" My answer was, "You must fulfill the task." At McDonald’s, we were always getting achievement awards. At one point, they sent me to Hamburger University in Chicago. The American style of management became my education.

SABRINA TAVERNISE: Western business ideas are reshaping everything here. For Vladislav, that even comes down to getting the waitresses to let go of old Soviet habits, and, he says, learn to smile, smile, smile.

In today’s Moscow, as traditional Russian culture mixes with the new capitalist culture, entire new professions have emerged, like advertising. My friend Andrei Gnatiuk owns advertising and political consulting companies. He’s part of the young generation trying to bring a new order out of the chaos of post-communist Russia.

ANDREI GNATIUK: [subtitles] Entropy, if you remember from school, is a concept of disorder. It says chaos is the prevailing force in the world. We call ourselves entropy busters.

SABRINA TAVERNISE: Andrei is the founder of the Russian Advertising Association. Tonight it celebrates its 10th anniversary.

Russian capitalism is still in its wild phase. For those with money, Andrei says, everything is for sale, even sometimes the law itself.

ANDREI GNATIUK: [subtitles] The first money in Russia was made very fast and without much respect for the law. Russia is trying to achieve in 10 years something that took the United States hundreds of years. We still don’t have a society governed by the rule of law.

SABRINA TAVERNISE: In the 10 years since Russia chose capitalism, Moscow has become a party for the young and rich. The nouveau riche are famous for their indulgent excesses. Moscow, once a city of darkness, is now a city of light. My Russian friends brag that nightlife here rivals Paris and London. Beyond the lights of Moscow, the rest of Russia lies in shadow. The average salary is just $4,000 a year. Moscow is where the fortunes are being made.

Rafael Filinov, age 33, made his millions in real estate. In Soviet times, the land around Red Square had no commercial value. In the new economy, it’s worth billions. As the city sells dilapidated historic buildings, Rafael snatches them up. Only the vestiges of the old Soviet system remain.

SABRINA TAVERNISE: This former storage space will be a million-dollar room with a view.

RAFAEL FILINOV: [subtitles] You’ll be able to see the Kremlin from here, but better from upstairs.

SABRINA TAVERNISE: Rafael’s office is located in an exclusive section of Moscow. He tells me about the booming real estate market. When he closed a deal on an apartment with a Kremlin view, someone immediately offered him $100,000 more. A week later, someone offered $200,000 more, then $600,000 more. The market is wild, he says. For Russians who made quick fortunes in mining and oil, cost is not a concern. They’ll pay anything for a view of the Kremlin.

RAFAEL FILINOV: [subtitles] Don’t be confused. Moscow and Russia are two different countries. I’m afraid that if I tell a Russian babushka that one square meter in Moscow costs $11,000, she will think I’m talking about the price for an entire apartment. She will not survive the news that in the city she lives in, one square meter costs $11,000. She will have a heart attack.

SABRINA TAVERNISE: When people in Moscow throw a coin for good luck, the money doesn’t stay on the ground for long. It’s hard to be old in the new Moscow.

At last count, Russia had 17 billionaires, most under the age of 40. In this exclusive enclave of boutiques in the heart of Moscow, there are as many bodyguards as shoppers. The super-rich keep to themselves, spending like there’s no tomorrow, increasingly cut off from the lives of their countrymen.

[www.pbs.org: Read the reporter’s NY Times articles]

Beneath Moscow’s glitz, ordinary Russians struggle to survive. Most Russians are poorer since the fall of the Soviet Union. They despise the rich and powerful for having grabbed the crown jewels of the Soviet economy: factories, oil fields, gold mines.

The profound changes have left most Russians disoriented. Their country is no longer a great world power. Their economy has shrunk to the size of Poland’s. Doctors have to moonlight as cab drivers. It is as if they are immigrants in their own country.

The worst off are the elderly. Pensions do not begin to cover the cost of modern life. So the poor sell their belongings on the streets-- scraps of fur from family coats.

[on camera] [subtitles] What is it you’re selling?

OLD WOMAN: [subtitles] Everyone has a little secret.

SABRINA TAVERNISE: [voice-over] This woman was a foreman at a Soviet shoe factory. Now, at 70, she is embarrassed about what she has to do to supplement her $70-a-month retirement check. I asked her what she thinks of Russia’s wealthy.

OLD WOMAN: [subtitles] Every country needs rich people. They have a lot to contribute. We just wish they would give a tiny bit back to us.

SABRINA TAVERNISE: The Kremlin has been trying to keep control of Russia’s tycoons. President Vladimir Putin told the oligarchs that they could keep the wealth they had grabbed, as long as they stayed out of politics.

This is the headquarters for Yukos, Russia’s biggest oil company, valued at $32 billion. This empire is at the center of a new power struggle between the Kremlin and big business. The government raided the company’s offices, accusing top oil executives of tax evasion and fraud, charges they deny. The principal owner, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, is the richest man in Russia. At age 40, he’s worth an estimated $8 billion.

MIKHAIL KHODORKOVSKY: [subtitles] I like conducting business in an open way. This is what I tell myself: I will not only obey the law, but also adhere to good business ethics.

SABRINA TAVERNISE: It was just 3 weeks after this interview that Khodorkovsky would be arrested himself and thrown in jail.

MIKHAIL KHODORKOVSKY: [subtitles] I admit that prior to 1992, I functioned differently. I was not breaking Russian laws, but I was still careless. At the time, Russian law allowed us to do things that were unthinkable in the Western business world.

[trailer for "Tycoon" courtesy of New Yorker Films]

SABRINA TAVERNISE: Recently, a Russian movie called Tycoon dramatized the life story of another oligarch, Boris Berezovsky.

SABRINA TAVERNISE: Berezovsky was a political power broker who clashed with Putin and lost.

MIKHAIL KHODORKOVSKY: [subtitles] Berezovsky was no longer interested in business. He went into politics while still doing business. This got him in trouble. His mistakes that followed were political mistakes. And I don’t want to get into it. You can do business or you can do politics, but you cannot play both games.

SABRINA TAVERNISE: In fact, I had met Berezovsky. On my way to Russia, I stopped in London, where he lives as a fugitive from Russian law. The British government just gave him political asylum. At the peak of his power, Berezovsky owned a television network, Russia’s biggest car company and its national airline. He is wanted in Moscow for fraud.

BORIS BEREZOVSKY: We pass through absolutely special time in Russia. We pass through revolution. And never a revolution happened without mistakes. For sure, we did a lot of mistakes, and we need to improve that. But step by step, in an evolutional process, business and power have to cooperate, and very close to cooperate. Let’s say, for you, it’s not surprising that, let’s say, very rich man, Rockefeller, one day become vice president of the United States. It’s nothing.

SABRINA TAVERNISE: Berezovsky fears for his life. He says Scotland Yard alerted him to three assassination plots, the last one involving a private hit man hired to stab him with a poison-tip umbrella. He insists he’s innocent of everything the Kremlin accuses him of.

BORIS BEREZOVSKY: [subtitles] We didn’t break any laws. But if you call giving bribes a crime, then all oligarchs were criminals.

SABRINA TAVERNISE: Berezovsky explained how he acquired his assets during Russia’s wild early days of capitalism.

BORIS BEREZOVSKY: [subtitles] The Soviet bureaucrats didn’t believe that capitalism would prevail. You would give an official $10,000, and he’d give you the property title. Not for one second did he expect this factory to stay private. He was convinced that the Reds would return and take it back.

SABRINA TAVERNISE: I asked Berezovsky if he felt guilty about his fortune. "I don’t regret being rich," he told me. "I only regret that there are so many poor."

BORIS BEREZOVSKY: [subtitles] I believe oligarchs are true heroes. Because of us, Russia was put on a new course.

[www.pbs.org: Meet other Russian oligarchs]

SABRINA TAVERNISE: The oligarchs may have put Russia on a new course, but what’s threatening to Putin and the political establishment is the sheer economic power they hold in their hands.

MIKHAIL KHODORKOVSKY: [subtitles] We are, of course, influential people, with our own views on how the country should develop. Should we follow the American model or, for example, the Venezuelan one, with private property as the economic base, but all political life controlled by the government? A country cannot become rich unless it is democratic.

SABRINA TAVERNISE: In Moscow, people say his problems with the government are not about business. Putin has been sending a message about who’s in charge, a warning to stay out of politics.

MIKHAIL KHODORKOVSKY: [subtitles] Personally, I don’t deal in politics.

SABRINA TAVERNISE: But in fact, he has been financing opposition political parties.

MIKHAIL KHODORKOVSKY: [subtitles] It’s one thing to sponsor politicians who support us. It’s something else to directly participate in politics. One requires money, which I have. The other requires effort and time, which I don’t have.

SABRINA TAVERNISE: Despite Khodorkovsky’s cautious denials, in the new Russia, politics and business have always gone together. It depends whose side you’re on. Consider Vladimir Semionov, a communist agriculture minister turned capitalist. He suddenly gained control of this collective farm in the economic chaos of the 1990s. The farm does $50 million of business a year and supplies most of the vegetables to McDonald’s.

Semionov is also a member of parliament, with a politician’s knack for rhetoric. He’s a rich man warning the oligarchs about a populist backlash.

VLADIMIR SEMIONOV: [subtitles] You remember your President Roosevelt during the Depression. He said to big business, "Be aware that you can wake up tomorrow in a different country." Today Russia finds itself in a similar situation. In my view, we must act on behalf of the poor to prevent them from taking the situation into their own hands. Russia will not survive another revolution.

SABRINA TAVERNISE: It’s a political season in Russia. Elections are coming soon. As one friend said to me, "Putin needs to spear an oligarch." Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s arrest and jailing on charges that could be brought against most of Russia’s super-rich is a high-risk tactic, threatening businessmen and foreign investors. But it will play well with most ordinary Russians, who feel left out of capitalism’s rewards.

Leaving Moscow this time, I wonder how long it will take for the country’s wealth to reach down to ordinary Russians. It will pass many of them by, especially the old. If there’s hope, it’s with the young, who are more independent, more worldly and more sure of themselves than their parents ever were.

A HOUSE FOR HAJI BABA

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SHARON TILLER

Series Editor

STEPHEN TALBOT

Executive Producer

DAVID FANNING

(c) 2003

WGBH and KQED

All rights reserved

FRONTLINE/World is a coproduction of WGBH Boston and KQED San Francisco, which are solely responsible for its content.

ANNOUNCER: There’s more of the world to explore on our Web site, including a reporter’s slide show from Afghanistan, more on Russia’s transition to capitalism, an interview with New York Times reporter Sabrina Tavernise, eight of the richest men in Russia and how they got that way, and more of the interview with Mikhail Khodorkovsky. And for teachers, a guide for sharing our stories with your students.

Discuss the world and tell us what you think of our Stories From a Small Planet at pbs.org.

ANNOUNCER: Next time on FRONTLINE--

ANNOUNCER: --alternative medicine.

ANNOUNCER: It’s a $48-billion business.

ANNOUNCER: But do the alternatives work?

ANNOUNCER: And are they safe?

ANNOUNCER: The Alternative Fix. Watch FRONTLINE.

Educators and educational institutions can purchase a tape of FRONTLINE/WORLD by calling PBS Video at 1-800-PLAY-PBS. [$59.95 plus s&h]

Major funding for FRONTLINE/WORLD is provided by:

ABB, a global provider of power and automation technologies. We enable our utility and industry customers all over the world to find solutions in their quest to improve performance and lower environmental impact.

And by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. With additional funding from Tom Steyer and Kat Taylor, and Carnegie Corporation of New York.

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