Keep in mind that those people were coming from late Soviet stagnation with empty shelves and shoddy quality for anything that was available. One of the ideas floated around at the time is that, because all property in the country was everyone's, it was, in practice, no-one's; people stole what they could, and didn't care if something was a waste. So, the theory went, what you need is owners with vested interest in that property, to put it to good use and avoid waste.

Like all simple economic theories, it looked good on paper, and convincing to the crowd. Then it turned out that the new owners were largely the same people who were in charge in Soviet days, except for a few talented and lucky grifters who made their way from the very bottom to the very top.

It was a good idea in that it made a lot of people very very rich. Some folks such as the Clinton's got their fingers in both the Russian pie as well as other minor ones (in terms of wealth extracted, not effect) like Haiti.