Mr. Bendukidze e a Georgia

Trecho: Ultraliberal in his economics, Mr. Bendukidze, a Georgia native and a biologist turned corporate raider, became a multimillionaire oligarch in Russia, though he did not take part in the big, controversial auctions there. Instead, he bought small companies and put them together. In June, Georgia's new populist president, Mikhail Saakashvili, asked him to leave his company, United Heavy Machinery, to return to the land he left after college and help do the heavy economic lifting.

"The president wanted to find accomplished, successful Georgians, and take advantage of their experience,'' says Zeyno Baran, a Georgia expert at the Nixon Center, a foreign policy institute in Washington. "Bendukidze was one of the very few people who made money legally in Russia.''

But Mr. Bendukidze, a large man with a big agenda, has ruffled many feathers with his attempts at market reforms in Georgia - largely by inviting private investors in - efforts through which he, Mr. Saakashvili and a circle of reformers want to jump-start the economy.

Under Mr. Shevardnadze, many tiny enterprises were privatized, but only a few large, important businesses, like the Batumi Oil Terminal. Mr. Bendukidze's list, however, has 1,800 enterprises of all sizes - including a proctology clinic, vineyards, factories, a hydropower station, Georgia's aging airport and beach resorts (refugees included). At the dusty Ministry of Economic Development, off Tbilisi's main street, Mr. Bendukidze has set up a hotline and a Web site (www.privatization.ge) for anyone interested in buying government-owned assets. Turks, Europeans, Americans and especially Russians have been poking around.