This photo…
Putin sees 'double standard' in US Capitol riot prosecutions https://t.co/XLfC6VJn2o
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) June 5, 2021
Not to encroach on Adam or Cheryl’s territory, but: It seems from what I’m seeing on the web that Vladimir Vladimirovich’s ‘St Petersburg International Economic Forum’ has been taken as a bold, yet misguided attempt to show the world that he was not mad actually he was laughing right now in advance of the G7-is-quite-enough-thank-you meeting this week.
Here’s the Washington Post — “Russia aimed for post-pandemic ‘normal’ at its business expo. Critics saw many holes”:
… The event, attended by Russia’s elite and held in President Vladimir Putin’s hometown, was billed by Putin and others as the first in-person international event of this scale since the pandemic changed the world. A total of 13,000 people attended, according to the organizers.
It was also an attempt to project Russia’s strength, with a first summit between Putin and President Biden less than two weeks away.
“Half of the world is sitting at home, but here the situation is better compared to many countries,” Putin boasted Friday at the forum, Russia’s answer to the annual global business conference in Davos, Switzerland. “Thanks to timely measures, the Russian economy and labor market are already approaching precrisis levels.”…
Meanwhile, Russians’ real disposable income contracted 3.5 percent in 2020, according to the state statistics agency. The spike in food prices has become the top issue for ordinary Russians.
Maria Pevchikh, an ally of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, said on Twitter that the economic forum is a “portal to a parallel fake world.”
But Russia’s reality permeated the conference. The foreign attendee presence was slimmer, in part because of the pandemic. But no-shows were also a result of Moscow’s growing status as an international outcast — over crackdowns on political opposition and Western claims that Russia has become a haven for computer hackers and ransomware pirates…
The importance of the St. Petersburg forum for Putin was underscored by the fact that he made an in-person appearance, a rarity for him since the start of the pandemic.
Though Putin said he was inoculated with one of Russia’s domestically made vaccines earlier this year, he has continued to largely conduct his meetings over video conference. Most who meet with him face-to-face are first required to quarantine for two weeks.
‘First among equals’, but now the equals are exposed as a bunch of fellow kleptocrats and grifting hangers-on. Life was so much more fun when the Oval Office was in the hands of a subservient crony…
So I and @BeijingPalmer finally got my next piece out.
It concerns the gloriously grotesque digs of a certain Russian dictator, and what they reveal about his stunted personality.https://t.co/31BwK45dBH
— Millennial Antimillenarian (@surcomplicated) June 1, 2021
… As A Palace for Putin begins, Navalny explicitly declares it to be a “a psychological portrait” of Putin, whom he writes off as a “madman obsessed with wealth and luxury.” He parallels Putin’s almost 20-year rule over Russia with the slapdash management of the facility itself, snuffing out Putin’s carefully crafted image at home as a competent technocrat and abroad as a fearsome mastermind. Beneath this facade, both A Palace for Putin and the dacha exposé reveal not a charismatic leader but a reasonably devious, thoroughly thuggish, and incredibly lucky criminal far out over his skis…
Nor is the Valdai dacha without absurd features, such as a “Vladimirskaya” church named after its eponymous owner, a miniature casino, and a massive spa complex. The complex is especially risible, containing just about every cosmetic facility short of plastic surgery, including a dental office. Most amusing of these is a full-body cryogenic chamber, a pseudoscientific fantasy used by individuals with more money than sense to (supposedly) rejuvenate their skin by subjecting it to temperatures far below freezing. Presumably, Putin finds actually going shirtless outside in hypothermic temperatures to be insufficiently chic…
The titanic palace comes off as a split-the-baby compromise between the opulence of the tsars’ palaces and the raunchiness of a gangster paradise. These crassly hedonistic facilities coexist alongside a stage theater with a two-story auditorium, a reading room (though no library), and vast gardens.
These are token offerings to the persistent Russian notion that leaders, however brutal their origins, have to be cultured. Nekulturny (“uncultured”) cuts in Russian in a way that has little equivalent in English; not only does Russian respect for the arts run deep, but so does the fear of being seen by others as a peasant. Soviet leaders were fierce autodidacts. Putin, however, although born into an upper-middle-class Soviet family, appears to have none of the aspirations for learning and the taste of a spoiled, rich teenager…
The purpose of the palace, however, is much clearer than that of the dacha: Far from governmental duties, removed from the responsibilities of family, and loaded with at least six distinct places to get wasted, this is not the abode of a confident ruler but the lair of an overgrown manchild. In a house with more than three times the floor area of the White House and on a vast estate more than 86 times the area of Camp David, Putin is free to indulge his heart’s desires as his country crumbles around him, impoverished by the sheer rapaciousness and incompetence of its president and his accomplices.
Adam L Silverman
Did you mean to post this right now?
Old School
@Adam L Silverman:
When should it be posted?
Comrade Colette
WHOM, dammit.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Comrade Colette: aaaaaksshhully, I think it’s “Oo killed ‘oom”
Adam L Silverman
@Old School: It has stockpile in the title. That’s usually AL’s way of signaling to the rest of the front pagers in the dashboard that something isn’t ready for posting and is being saved to be posted later.
The Oracle of Solace
“[T]his is not the abode of a confident ruler but the lair of an overgrown manchild.” Sounds like the description for any place Trump had a say in decorating. I remember the photo of the gilded apartment.
Cheryl Rofer
Too late for me to do any substantive posting, but…
Things are not good in Russia. The pandemic continues out of control, and people aren’t being vaccinated. Putin has isolated himself to avoid the plague.
Navalny is in prison, but the ultimate threat to Putin’s rule and wealth, death, cannot be imprisoned.
Popular support for Putin continues to go down, but people have become apathetic.
I have a Russia post on the back burner most of the time. Biden’s summit with him will be a reason to pull parts of it out.
Anne Laurie
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks for the catch! — I just forgot to amend the title.
But if you had a post you were holding, go ahead & bigfoot this one…
Anne Laurie
Hand to goddess, I am never unhappy when you (or Adam) step up to correct me / add more detail.
I’m the utility poster here — slapping out stuff as best I can, but just as one player on the team.
Adam L Silverman
@Anne Laurie: I wasn’t. I’ve got a Floriduh! Woman post for some night this week, but I’m getting ready to rack out. So no worries. I just saw “stockpile” and wondered if you’d accidentally hit the wrong button.
Adam L Silverman
@Anne Laurie: I’ve got a number of concerns regarding the summit. I’ll probably do a post on it, which will likely be coming from a different, but complimentary direction to Cheryl’s some time later this week.
Adam L Silverman
I’m racking out. Catch everyone tomorrow/later today.
craigie
And that was a glimpse behind the curtain at the juggernaut that is Balloon Juice.
MomSense
@craigie:
We have badass front pagers. Wonder what other codes they use.
Adam L Silverman
Just really quickly though, this is the exact same language in these screengrabs that Putin and Lavrov used to justify seizing Crimea and using the little green men to invade eastern Ukraine in Winter and Spring 2014 before they seized Crimea and invaded eastern Ukraine.
Makes you wonder who from Trump’s orbit, including Trump, may still be in touch with these guys. And whether we’ve got to worry about either Erik Prince’s or Proghozin’s Wagner mercenaries starting to operate in the US.
Adam L Silverman
@craigie: It isn’t a pretty sight.
Adam L Silverman
@MomSense: Where we’re going, we don’t need codes…
NotMax
Will the bar be delivering Post Offices?
;)
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Like that pesky detail they still have the pandemic going on because the Russians don’t trust their own government’s vaccine?
oatler.
“We’ll always need an army, and may God strike me dead were it to be otherwise!”
cain
@Adam L Silverman:
uh yeah, fuck these guys – a protest goes and then overwhelms the police force around our major seat of govt causing legislators to seek shelters and threatening the life of the vice president of America – and never mind the carnage and defection of the symbol of American democracy.
Yeah, fuck em .
opiejeanne
@cain: I came here to say that, but with fewer words: Fuck Putin.
Sideways. With rusty garden implements, of which I now own a considerable number, thanks to the greenhouse fire at Christmas.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@opiejeanne: I’m a fan of the technique involving a serrated knife (steak knife? bread knife? sawzall?) and a corkscrew, which neatly sidesteps the anatomical impossibility argument against telling Putin to go fuck himself.
mrmoshpotato
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: Sawzall.
opiejeanne
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: That works too.
You still stranded in Greece? How are your parents doing?
prostratedragon
Hmm, sounds familiar.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@opiejeanne: I’m okay – actually escaped back home for a bit in April (to help my parents prepare for their final move to Greece to retire). Along the way, I got my shots and saw my sweetheart for the first time in a year and a half. We’re at a point where we’re able to start sketching out possible futures.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@opiejeanne: And parents are doing okay (I had a long edit that got eaten by the edit timer running out). Weird that coming to the US turned out to be the most effective way for me to get vaccinated. Lots of weird stuff around this crisis, not least the rapid change in fortunes that happened in the US at the beginning of 2021 for some strange reason.
Family’s all vaccinated except for my younger brother in the islands, waiting on his second shot. Greece was ahead of the curve last year, but they haven’t been able to put vaccinations into overdrive this year the way the US has.
Plus there’s quite a bit of vaccine hesitancy, a lot of which is driven by disinformation that can be laid at the feet of Vladimir Vladimirovich of the sawzall and the corkscrew.
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
The chick in the bar, I hope!
MomSense
@Adam L Silverman:
I fell asleep before I saw your reply, but now I’ve got to figure out what exactly happened on 10/21/2015.
Betty
On a dramatically smaller scale, this description of Putin and his palace fits the Prime Minister of Dominica as well. He has managed to involve himself with quite a few notorious international crooks, including Russians of course.
Ken
Russia is still having a COVID problem? But their official case and death numbers are so low….
VOR
@Adam L Silverman: Another reason (we need more?) to investigate 1/6 is the near certainty there were agents for foreign governments in that crowd. Agents who had the opportunity to roam the building and plant surveillance devices.
J R in WV
Kind of amazing how taste for decor among criminal despots all tend towards Las Vegas casino style design. Taste-less taste in other words.
Many years ago her news employer sent wife to the local newly opening back then casino, and she asked me to go with to make it a more typical casino visit. Problem was, I hate gambling. The office gave wife a little cash to gamble with, but $20 goes away like a water droplet on a hot cast iron skillet. Instantly.
I once chatted with a young woman who was a manager at the casino, who told me they have had people vomit into their purse in order to not have to leave a casino machine, because they were so sure it was about to hit a big jackpot, because they had put so much money into that specific machine. Sometimes had to call an ambulance when a gambling customer passed out while “playing” a machine. Or passed away.
I’m sorry, but putting my money into a machine repeatedly isn’t “playing” to me.
Having a little campfire out back fed with $20 and $50 bills might be more fun… no, not really.
Original Lee
@J R in WV: I still remember vividly staying at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City for a conference. My eyeballs wanted to crawl out of their sockets and roll away, but I didn’t let them. The color scheme was primarily bubblegum purple, bubblegum pink, gold, and white, while the designs were probably cribbed from Dr. Seuss’s Solla Sollew.
karen marie
I’ve watched half of Navalny’s film, and I’m only surprised he’s lived this long. I don’t see how, when Putin dies, Russia will improve given the entire government and economy is run by his cronies.
It’s the future Republicans are trying desperately to inflict on the US.