How do you know a natural born gentleman of means from a freshstart trying to pass for one? The latter gives too much tips.
New Russians feel that if something costs an awful amount of money, it simply must be good. Probably that's why clothes of comparable quality cost in Moscow 2-3 times as much as in Western Europe. Russians are considered best customers in Amsterdam's shopping malls, which locals consider too ridiculously overpriced to go to. Life is not a cabaret, it is a mall so Russians in Europe shop till they drop - as if the stingy hand of Communism were still having a grip on Russia's consumer supply.
Russia's presumedly richest man Roman Abramovich paid Amy Winehouse a hefty 1 million GBP (that's around 2 millions US bucks) to sing one hour at the launch of his girlfriend's art gallery in Moscow. That may come across as a sign of ultimate coolness in Moscow but Mrs. Wino must have been laughing in her sleeves not believing her luck: the Russian gig brought in about 10 times as much as a much longer regular performance elsewhere.
This guy looks like he can't believe his luck: Ivorian footballer Didier Drogba was plucked out of relative obscurity and handed 24 million pounds by Mr. Abramovich to join his favourite hobby horse: Chelsea F.C. - just one million short of Beckham's transfer fee to Real Madrid one year earlier. The kick of playing a fairytale prince who can turn people's fortunes upside down at his whim must be priceless.
Unrestrained in means and oblivious of real world prices, in football New Russians are pushing the prices up, just like in London's luxury realty market where they are responsible for 90% of purchases, pressing out the Japanese and Arabs.
In the country where 34 people own 75% of entire wealth, it is a never-ending ball for those 34 and their families. Brought up in relative austerity under Communists, they managed to grab hold of formally everybody's - technically nobody's - assets in what is probably the biggest swindling operation in history when world's second largest economy was privatized for next to peanuts. But it is also the same country where men officially are not expected to live to retirement (average life span is 56 years) and whose population is dwindling by 800 thousand a year from harsh labour and living conditions, unhealthy lifestyles, rampant alcoholism, drug abuse and diseases. But what of it, when you can sit back in your 9.5-million-pound London apartment and enjoy an 80-million pound painting that belongs to you and looks like shit.
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