Introduction – Jan 24, 2021
Reports about Putin’s palace were leaked to the press more than a decade ago. This website even featured reports about it. So why has this old story resurfaced now?
Anatoly Karlin – The Unz Review Jan 22, 2021
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Good taste, not overly tacky (e.g. too much gold like with Trump). I’d probably build something like that as a strongman.
There’s nothing cardinally new about Navalny’s video.
The construction of a palace at Gelendzhik in Krasnodar Krai linked to friends of Putin was “leaked” to the world more than a decade by Sergey Kolesnikov, a businessman involved in the project. Incidentally, the first photographs of the palace appeared at the Russian language version of Wikileaks website, a detail that seems to have been written out of contemporary accounts now that Assange has long become unhandshakeworthy while the election of Biden has given the West the impetus to start intensively building up Navalny as the figurehead of the Russian Maidan.
Imagine prospects for world peace, prosperity, & security if Joe Biden were President of the United States & Alexei Navalny the President of Russia. We’ll soon be halfway there.
“Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
You, you may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one” https://t.co/oHV7P3fYTY— John O. Brennan (@JohnBrennan) October 9, 2020
Why does Putin need a palace? Well, as I noted back in 2019, it seems to be a relatively cheap way to maintain elite discipline while pursuing a sovereign course.
In traditional societies, it is mainly the aristocracy’s sense of solidarity, noblesse oblige, feudal bonds, the Mannerbund institute. Though I don’t mean to idealize it. It proved completely maladaptive come the industrial age.
In totalitarian regimes, chiliastic ideology and repression/terror plays a major role.
Modern, largely non-ideological populist regimes at odds with GloboHomo – that’s Putin, Orban, etc. – distribute resources or economic “demesnes” to their cronies, creating networks of personal loyalty unbeholden to the global elites – a sort of “counter-elite,” or Dugin’s so-called “patriotic corruption“. One additional “benefit” of such systems is that damning kompromat is available on “defectors” by default. Though obviously this is not the only mechanism. Putinism also has elements of a Mannerbund, as well as more severe punishments.
China has elements of all the above, but with greater load on legitimizing ideology (it is still a Marxist-Leninist state) and on repression.
Political elites under free markets are always poorer than economic elites. They resent that. There’s a constant incentive to defect, unless there are countervailing incentives (e.g. material gains) and disincentives (e.g. punishment for “treason”).
Unofficial wealth is one of the big incentives and is seen from Orban’s Hungary to China (Politburo members are not poor) and Sultan Erdogan – who has constructed a nifty palace for himself too. Remember this?
There doesn’t seem to be any way out of it. At a high enough level most everyone seems to have assets entirely incommensurate with their very modest official salaries – even people such as PM Mishustin, who made his name combating tax evasion as head of the Russian tax service.
A major convenience of this system is that the “shadow” nature of this wealth also constitutes ready-made “kompromat” and a built-in “corruption case” against elite defectors.
But since Putin is the head guy, why would he need a palace? Well, it would be pretty bizarre if senior bureaucrats such as Defense Minister Shoigu had pads like these:
… while the Tsar himself made do in a commie block.
Clearly “Putin’s palace” needs to be the biggest and grandest one, with its cost of $1.2B about equaling all of PM Medvedev’s known assets (as per a 2017 Navalny investigation).
He doesn’t even appear to use it much (or at all?). It’s clearly primarily there as a signal of his apex position in the dominance hierarchy to the rest of the elites.
Is this a large sum? It might appear to be so to simple people. But in reality, one billion USD is just the equivalent of a large five star hotel. Modern societies are vastly richer than the Sun King’s France, in which the construction of the Palace of Versailles ate up 60% of the budget. This is just 0.5% of the annual Russian federal budget – less still if lower spending is included – and even that is to exaggerate the impact, because it was not built on budget money but through the reciprocal generosity of people whom Putin allowed to get rich in exchange for their implied loyalty, not just personal but geopolitical.
To illustrate that point, if Putin would have been unable to get the Gelendzhik Palace constructed…
… There wouldn’t – couldn’t – have been a Crimean Bridge either:
The Kersch Strait Bridge, linking Crimea with southern Russia. Click to enlarge
No genuinely “private” company would agree to embark on such a project given the US sanctions that would have inevitably been brought against its directors and shareholders.
It’s also not even the case that had Putin not enriched the cronies who built him his palace, the proceeds would have gone to “ordinary” Russians. All market economies concentrate wealth. Those proceeds would have ended up with other people in the construction industry, many of whom would have just used it to build smaller palaces for themselves and send their children to Hogwarts. While the Crimean Bridge would not exist, and indeed the issue would be entirely moot, since Crimea would not be Russian, given Navalny’s reaction to the return of Russian territories was to call for sanctions from his Western friends:
Then, on Feb. 28, Russia sent troops to Ukraine in precisely such a “little war.” I admit that I underestimated Mr. Putin’s talent for finding enemies, as well as his dedication to ruling as “president for life,” with powers on par with the czars’.
As a citizen and patriot, I cannot support actions against Russia that would worsen conditions for our people. Still, I recommend two options that, if successfully implemented, I believe would be welcomed by most Russians. …
Such sanctions should primarily target Mr. Putin’s inner circle, the Kremlin mafia who pillage the nation’s wealth, including Gennady N. Timchenko, head of the Volga Group; Arkady and Boris Rotenberg, influential businessmen and former judo sparring partners of Mr. Putin; Yuri V. Kovalchuk, a financier believed to be Mr. Putin’s banker; Vladimir I. Yakunin, president of Russian Railways; the oligarchs Roman A. Abramovich and Alisher B. Usmanov; and Igor I. Sechin and Aleksei B. Miller, the heads of Rosneft and Gazprom, respectively.
The sanctions must also hit the oligarchs whose media outlets parrot the regime lines, and target Mr. Putin’s entire “war cabinet”: the TV spin doctors, compliant Duma members and apparatchiks of Mr. Putin’s United Russia Party.
Now in fairness it is logical for Western elites to support a quiescent Russian regime whose economic functionaries are clean and not at all corrupt and completely intertwined with the Western world-economy in which the rules of the game are set by the US Treasury and who own the politicians making impossible any deviation from the party line set by the State Department for its vassals. But it would be pretty stupid for Russians to once again step on the same rake that they did in 1917 and 1991 just on account of spite over Putin’s 5 star hotel.
I do not think there will be a Maidan or anything even close for reasons I will detail in the next post. In fact I expect the protests tomorrow and henceforth to be a damp squib. But on the off chance I am wrong, Russians will only prove themselves morons.
As a old man and a former hotel manager I think this could really be a super 5* hotel. Anyway Putin saved Russia from the “Values of the Western Word” so I think he deserve this Domus.
I doubt that palace is anymore’s Putin’s than Buckingham Palace is the queen’s. But unlike the queen Putin was elected and is ultimately removable who’s been boss seven years less than Merkel. And the queen’s palace is much bigger. It’s all about making Russia America’s enemy again. Under Trump it was China.
It wasn’t Russia or China who set the Middle East on fire twenty years ago after attacking their own country on 9/11 to turn fascist with the world and their own people. That was America, the most country that has ever existed. And our politicians should stop kissing its ring. Its wealth is all printed now.
Putin and his allies are likely corrupt. But, the amount Putin stole is chump pocket change compared
to what the Jew Yeltsin and his family stole from Russia in the 1990s. Russia was at the point of total collapse when Putin took charge. Putin, good or bad, actually saved Russia. The Satanic filth Khazars do not like Putin because he either locked up, or ran out of Russia, the Satanic Khazar Oligarchs.
Putin…just another agent of the (Jewish) Overlords. Race hygienists can detect his mixed Mongoloid ancestry in his physiognomy.
President Putin has denied that he or any member of his family owns the said property or has ever owned a palace.
It is now up to Russia’s Gaido to prove his claim.
I think we need to be realistic. Under Putin, the totally corrupt West, its banks, and corporations have largely been kicked out of Russia although Russia still has a Central Bank (CB) & Putin has not moved against the Russian CB which is full of pro-Western aligned operatives that are supported by a good portion of the Russian elite.
Money is power, & to resist the Western threats, you need to build your own elite to counter that threat, or should I say: ‘It just happens’.
The West wants to control Russia’s vast resources. Russia is part of the reason for Brexit, Russia is part of the reason why the UK is pursuing such a vigorous green agenda. The UK claims they get only 3% of their gas from Russia… another big fat lie, it is 17% or more. This is why Boris wants gas boilers banned from new builds and for old boilers to be replaced with heat exchangers that have questionable efficacy… the future is cold, but who cares.
By building a Russian upper middle class through corruption or not is much more preferable to Russia being plundered by Western corporations… see what is happening in the Amazon rain forests or EV battery materials such as lithium from Bolivia which has 25% of global reserves & hence the coup that removed Morales from power.
The focus on Putin and his allies is just your usual MI6/CIA attempt at destabilisation. I hope Navalny gets banged away for a very long time. In the most basic terms, Navalny wants to be the City and Wall Street frontman in Russia. Navalny wasn’t making any headway, he was a minor political force and so MI6 did their usual poisoning ruse. I mean, how can so many sheeple survive Novichok?
The stakes in this global battle for control are absolutely massive. So big that it is almost certain that the City and Wall Street will bring down the EU just to stop the practical and logical closeness developing between the EU (Germany) & Russia, & China with their Silk Road 2 plan.
The West is a free (lol), so say, business-orientated system, so long as the City and Wall Street pulls the strings. China has developed the same wealthy elite as Russia & what we see is a few individuals in both countries chancing their arm at greatness to front City and Wall Street control. Will this new Russian system be robust enough to survive the post Putin era? I would like to think that Putin the commensurate strategist has been very busy planning for Russia when he has gone… and this is why the UK & US won’t wait for Putin’s passing.
Make no mistake, the corridors of Westminster & Washington would love to turn Russia & China into bigger versions of Syria and Libya. Take Libya, the wealthiest country in Africa. The Lybian people had a far better standard of living than your average British sheeple… can you imagine how the Libyan quality of life irked the Israelis?
When you consider the stakes in this power play, it kinda puts the Covid bioweapons into context & yes, the City and Wall Street (they are bust) are very happy to see a 20yr campaign of bioweapons just like their sham war on terror.
So we probably have Russian corruption but compared to US Fed, & Bank of England QE making billionaires even wealthier by buying their stocks. Any Russian corruption is tiny in comparison, absolutely tiny.
It is amazing to think that a relatively small number of elite sheeple who have basically screwed up their own system are now willing to bring down the global economy & impoverish their own sheeple because they are pissed at someone else’s legitimate success because they either have staggering resources or a very highly organised system. I might add that in the 80s & 90s there was a debate about the rise of China & Japan & how the West could learn from them. This helped to form the way the EU works & it does work & it would become even more successful if the banks weren’t set on destroying it. And this also explains why any semblance of US/UK democracy has vanished, partly to do with alternative systems, but the fact that these changes did not equate to any success. Why did this failure happen? Because the City & Wall Street seek instant gratification and are inherently corrupt. Take Boeing, it offshored many key responsibilities, this is why the Dreamliner had so many problems, why Boeing executives lied to US regulators & here in the UK where we only maintain X manufacturing out of national security. We only have X steel production for national security, we don’t have that steel production because we want to manufacture widgets… the City crime cartels demand that any UK manufactured widgets be made from cheaper imported steel. UK universities aren’t there to produce clever British sheeple, no, they are they to educate wealthy foreign sheeple & the UK’s modus operandi is to IMPORT brains. The idea that you educate BRITISH sheeple is absolutely abhorrent to the UK elite. Sure, you will get UK talent rising to the top, again, this is a national security consideration & most of these successful sheeple come from the same schools and universities time and time again.
Many look at the UK and say ‘prosperous economy’ but fail to see the failure. Why do so many white boys & men live in their bedrooms playing computer games? The system is rigged against them. Just take London, if you are a young white man in London, you are screwed & even if you manage to get a job, the culture in the business will be run along foreign cultural lines. This has led to the rise in cash bonuses for introductions, so it is very easy to find a medium-sized business that is dominated by several families and their close friends. Even big London based divisions of big international corporations are swamped in this toxic culture. If you were unfortunate enough to get a job at such a place, good luck with promotion, good luck with getting the easy tasks, or fair workload. As a result, so-called middle England now does the same thing & jobs are acquired by networking which is just another name for sycophancy. The four big UK bank chiefs who gave evidence to a UK regime committee after the 2008 financial collapse, all four got their lofty jobs because of the ‘Old Boy Network’, not one of these bank chiefs was qualified to run a bank… this sums up why the UK is an utterly failed state & this is why the fake news attacks Putin & Russia.
A mere slave quarters at the back end of one of the Rothschild’s estates….