In summer 2005 the British paper Daily Telegraph published the article “By giving Putin a yacht Abramovich got himself a cheap insurance policy”. I cite the text of the newspaper according to the site News.ru.com on 06.21.05. “It's been a tense few months for Russian oligarchs, what with Mikhail Khodorkovsky's fall from grace. The Yukos tycoon's recent imprisonment on charges of tax fraud left oil billionaires quivering in their boots that they could soon be the government's next target. /…/ All, that is, except Roman Abramovich, who is said to be on good terms with the Kremlin. The Russian government has allegedly received a Ј30 million yacht from the Chelsea FC owner. The yacht, built in the Netherlands in 2002, was in the past thought to have belonged to Abramovich's business partner, Yevgeny Shvidler. ‘The boat has actually always belonged to Abramovich,’ adds my source. ‘Friends are now joking that at Ј30 million, the gift represents quite a cheap insurance policy. It's called Olympia and was given with the intention of it being a sort of Royal Yacht Britannia for the Kremlin's official use. It was recently spotted in the Black Sea port of Sochi, patrolled by federal guards, with Putin apparently on board. It's a 180-footer and quite a monster,’ says my mole.”
Novaya Gazeta investigated the origin of the yacht. Here is what they wrote on 05.31.05: “The president’s administration refused to give us the official information about the yacht – the ‘object’ was classified. The photo taken by the ITAR-TASS agency in the Sochi seaport shows that this yacht runs under the flag of the Cayman Islands – a British dominion, a tax-free offshore zone, where billionaires from around the world prefer to register their yachts. The yacht was produced by the Dutch company Feadship. Here is what is known about the ship: the snow-white, 57 meters-long five-decks yacht Olympia was built three years ago on the shipyard of the Dutch city of Papendrecht. After it was finished Olympia went in Amsterdam for a redesign, after which it took course on Russia and arrived first to Tunis and then to the Sochi port. At the port in Sochi it was greeted by a special commission from Moscow. One of the functionaries close to the organizers of the reception committee told Novaya Gazeta: ‘It is comfortable and royally splendid. All the rooms there are trimmed with real red wood and rotang, an African palmier. Everything is gilded, of course. The beds are fixed with joints in such a way that even if the ship heels over by thirty degrees the bed will stay straight.’ /…/ The superior open deck of the Olympia is equipped with a large super modern jacuzzi, a bar and a barbecue and on the middle deck there are cutters that can be used for water skiing. In the reception-rooms and apartments on the other decks the furniture and paneling is made of rare white ash; the colonnades are made of rare maple, there is a Linn audio-video system, whose value is measured in hundreds of thousands dollars; a huge bathroom with glossy ceilings entirely tiled with Rosa Porto Gallo marble.”
Officially 2 352 000 dollars were spent on the president’s representative expenses for the five years of Putin’s rule. How was the Olympia acquired then? Novaya Gazeta asked Lloyd’s Registry of Shipping and was answered: “Initially the registered owner of the Olympia was Ironstone Investments (address: Langtrey House, La Motte Street, St. Helier, Jersey, Channel Islands, Great Britain); the manager of the ship was Unicom Management Services Ltd (address: Unicom Tower, Maximos Plaza, 2 Paparigopoulou Street, 3309 Limassol, Cyprus)” It is interesting that Ironstone Investments started off on January 17th 2002, right before buying the Olympia and was liquidated on May 6th 2004 and its property (the Olympia) was inherited by a company with a similar name, Ironstone Marine Investments Ltd, registered on the British Islands. Somebody was covering up his tracks. But the manager still remains Unicom Management Services Ltd, registered on the Cyprus and which is a filial of the Russian Sovkomflot Company. All 100% of the Sovkomflot’s shares belong to the State. In other words their balance supposes that the expenses are paid from the taxpayers’ pockets. The company’s board of directors is headed by Igor Shuvalov, adviser of the RF president.
So here is the thing. Roman Abramovich has another mega-yacht. Its name is Blue Abyss. What remained unclear is whether the State paid Putin’s yacht with our money and transferred 50 millions of our money to Abramovich’s offshore accounts, like it just happened with 13 billion dollars the State transferred to Abramovich for Sibneft, or Abramovich gave this yacht to the State as a gift?
The total cost of Russia’s president’s fleet:
– Repair and modernization of the Caucasus – from 1 to 2,8 million dollars.
– Construction of the Storm Petrel – 3 million dollars.
– Construction of the Pallada – from 4 to 7 million dollars.
– Maintenance of the Pallada – from 0,8 to 1,34 million dollars per year.
– Construction of the Olympia – 50 million dollars.
– Interior design of the Olympia – from 3 to 4 million dollars.
– Maintenance of the Olympia – about 1,5 million dollars per year.
And this is not all. Already 1,2 million dollars were spent on the project of a representative ship to replace the Russia motor ship.
The totaclass="underline" only the sea trips of president Putin cost the country from 78 to 84 million dollars.
Why does the president need five yachts? The president himself could give an answer to this question. But he will not tell the truth like he did not tell the truth about the Kursk, about the raid of the center on Dubrovka, about Beslan.
The British singer Beverly Knight visited one of Putin’s yachts in May 2003 and told about it to London’s Sunday Times. After the singer’s performance on the G8 summit in Saint Petersburg in May 2003 president Putin “has invited her to a dinner on his yacht”, where she found herself face to face with Tony Blair, Gerhard Shredder and Putin himself. The singer said: “I didn’t want to refuse the chance to meet the most influential people in the world. Putin impressed me. He was visibly nervous because I was looking straight in his eyes. I liked his manner of appearing a bit sinister, like Darth Vader.”
Does the president of a country, where the minimal salary is less than a thousand rubles, have the moral right to have this sea luxury paid by us? Undoubtedly he does not. The National-Bolsheviks wrote in their leaflet, right in the end:
“It seems that you imagined you are a tsar, and not a president, elected by the people and responsible before the people. You forgot the words of oath, which you gave at your inauguration: “I swear to respect and to guard human and civil rights and freedoms, to respect and to protect the constitution of the Russian Federation, to protect the sovereignty and independence, safety and integrity of the State, to serve the people loyally.”
In reality tsars behave more decently than Putin, the son of a house-cleaner and a metal worker. The Spanish king Juan Carlos has sold his yacht because of economical difficulties in his country and the mere intention of the tourist companies of the Balearic Islands to give him a new one, worth 20 million dollars, caused a big political scandal in Spain.
The RF citizens grew used to president Putin wearing a 60 thousand dollars-worth Patek Philippe watch in a country where over 30% of the population live below the poverty line. This is not even corruption anymore; this is tactlessness, lack of good sense. As is the fact that each Putin’s trip to the Kremlin and back, when the streets are entirely blocked and the traffic is paralyzed for a long time, costs Moscow’s budget 220 thousand dollars and is humiliating for the Muscovites.
As for the Konstantinovsky Palace in Strelna, the president’s “sea residence”, it has cost over 280 million dollars. All the construction works were over by spring 2003, on the threshold of the celebration of Saint Petersburg’s 300th anniversary and the Russia-EU summit, which took place in the restored palace. As we see, moved by vanity, the son of a metal worker and a house cleaner made royal gifts to himself for the 300th anniversary: two yachts – the Storm Petrel and the Pallada and restored a palace for 280 millions. And of course he wanted to impress the foreigners: “I am the king of the Earth’s kings…” Putin… Die from jealousy.