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Music and Art at the Ukrainian Institute of America
Posted by chuck on December 01, 2005 at 15:20:00:
Corrupt Russian elite spends stolen money in Monaco. Roman Abramovich biggest thief.
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Russia’s Nouveaux Riches Shake Up Monaco
Andrei Cherny
The Moscow News
Russia’s newly affluent flaunt their wealth on Cote d’Azur with oligarch Roman Abramovich setting the pace. The hot spot where Arabian sheiks and American millionaires once came to gamble is now crowded with Russians and Ukrainians.
Monaco is a sickle-like strip of prosperous land terracing up the mountains and cascading down toward the sea, with a population of 30,000, only 7,000 holding citizenship. A toy state sandwiched between France and Italy, it is one of the most affluent countries in Europe. Flowers, palms, and greenery on every square inch of land; marinas packed with yachts; streets looking as though they have just been shampooed; restaurants, boutiques, casinos, nightclubs, and sandy beaches. Monaco is a country of legitimate luxury, one of the most expensive and exclusive places in Europe. People from all over the world come here to spend their money. This past summer has seen a “Russian boom.”
“We’ve been working in Monaco for 22 years and have not until recently seen any Russians here. They appeared three years ago, but this year they have made our season!” Chantal Sobra, director of the Louis Vuitton store, says. The three-level, renovated, sparkling Vuitton is one of the most expensive boutiques on the coast.
“Russians are au courant on everything — competition, new products, the latest trends.
”And they are tres chic,“ the director says amid a flurry of activity around three Russian women clients. The provincial looking Russians are ordering about a sales assistant with the help of sign language and are terribly reminiscent of Cinderella’s sisters from the prewar Russian film.
”I was walking about Monte Carlo and I saw this shop. I had just been given a watch from that firm. I walked in. A similar model cost $40,000. But mine has fewer diamonds so it’s probably worth just $20,000,“ a Barbie kind of girl says plaintively to her macho companions at Cafe de Paris.
There are legends about Russians in Monaco.
This week, a Russian sugar daddy with several female companions had breakfast at a restaurant, shelling out 110,000 euros and then giving a 10,000 tip.
An unfamiliar word, screamed out in a horrifying voice, attracted everyone’s attention at Casino SUN. Three-hundred thousand euros that an unknown Russian lost in one fell swoop enriched the Monegasques’ vocabulary with a Russian profanity. The loser walked out of the hall, while the game continued as usual.
The beach at the Beach Hotel is the best in Monaco: It is used by the prince himself. Yet even here everyone was stunned by the appearance of a boy of about 10 with a wad of pink 500-euro bills, saying: ”Dad gave it to me to celebrate my birthday!“
Last year, the yacht of a minor oil tycoon called at the Port d’Hercule. At midnight, its lights went up to the accompaniment of disco music. Before long, however, the yacht’s owner lost moorage rights and was told never to enter Monaco waters again. Well, you don’t argue with the prince.
Still, the more money they spend, the better. Even the harsh traffic police try not to fine the drunk drivers of luxury cars when they leave casinos.
Monaco’s uncrowned king — Societe des Bains de Mer (SBM) which owns the country’s best hotels, casinos, and banks — has for the past one and a half centuries been managing its properties with an iron hand. Each SBM hotel, where prices start at $1,500 for a single room, has luxury suites at 2,000 to 7,000 euros a night during the high season.
Earlier, they were used only by Arab sheiks and U.S. millionaires. Today, Russians seem to have crowded them out.
”The local atmosphere of permanent holiday and festivity produces a strong psychological effect. This summer, very serious money has been won and lost at Monte Carlo,“ Alex Oppenot, the SBM marketing director, says.
SBM sees the ”Russian invasion“ as renaissance — the Return: After all, the place was a favorite with Russia’s grand dukes; there were Diaghilev Russian seasons and Nijinsky shows, and Russian industrial magnates played the roulette wheel here.
The new Russians’ lineage does not really matter: What counts is their money. Today, they have loads of money. One indication of this are the prices at Russian art auctions.
A recent match between a Russian and a Monaco soccer club, according to Alex Oppenot, increased the Russian presence in Monte Carlo by 64 percent. The match was not simply a sporting event but an excellent opportunity for self-promotion. Attendance at the stadium is a sign of affiliation with the caste of wealthy, happy, and successful. The number one name here is Roman Abramovich. His appearance at Monte Carlo, which has seen plenty, created a stir: Roman and his party on the coast; Roman and his yacht, the Pelarus (resembling rather a warship); Roman and his girlfriends — according to eyewitness accounts, not quite of age; Roman at Jimmy’z, a night club where a glass of water costs 40 euros.
The blatant flaunting of wealth is an infectious example for dozens of his Russian compatriots.
Real estate is the first and foremost concern for Russians on Cote d’Azur. Villa prices range from 70 million to 200 million euros, but at Cannes, Cap Ferra, Antibes, and especially Monaco, everything has already been bought up. La Vigie, a three-level villa overlooking Monte Carlo’s best beach (80,000 a month) was rented by a Russian for the entire swimming season — April through October.
Yachts are another important prestige factor. There is a kind of tacit competition for yacht size. Every extra meter costs about 1 million. Yacht builders meet at Port d’Hercule every year, showing their products, striking deals, and taking orders.
Finally, the life style. There are more car showrooms than groceries here. A Maybach or a Lamborghini here costs one-half of what it does, e.g. in France, where the luxury tax is charged. Motor vehicles parked outside the Grand Casino, built by the legendary Garnier and reminiscent of the Opera de Paris building, are not to be seen anywhere else. You cannot, however, drive to neighboring Nice in such a car, gold coast people complain: Its body will be scratched or its tires will be slashed there. You’ve got to live in Monaco: It has everything — golf fields, tennis courts, sea baths, and spa salons. Russians in Monaco are clients who must not be humiliated by low prices, especially when comfort, heat and excitement are closely intertwined.
The Monte-Carlo Casino overlooking the Mediterranean is the best known casino in the world. Royal persons and upstarts, aristocratic old ladies and golden youth, cardsharpers and spies have all played there. These include fortune seekers from the CIS. They are referred to indiscriminately as ”Russians.“ As a matter of fact, they are Ukrainians, Kazakhs, Moldovans, Armenians, etc. A running joke here has it that one day the Monegasques will learn to tell Kazakhs from Belarusians as they once learned to distinguish between the Japanese and Chinese. The naive SBM managers are going to introduce a special seminar to teach Russians ”civilized gambling“ - i.e., how to play cards without relying on luck alone. They must not have read Dostoyevsky’s The Gambler.
On Avenue des Beaux-Arts, a tiny street in downtown Monaco comprised of luxury boutiques and jewelry houses, the strong smell of petrodollars is converted into the fragrance of orchids. Fall-season collections have been swept by a hurricane from Russia. One of the most popular types of massage on the list offered to SBM luxury hotel clients is ”after-shopping massage.“ This year, Monaco’s couture stores have seen their profits rise 30 to 40 percent — mainly due to Russian and Ukrainian money.
”This summer, Americans stayed at home: Because of the dollar’s low exchange rate, it is unprofitable to travel to Europe. The Arabs have their own problems to deal with. There are also very few Japanese: They are afraid of terrorist attacks on airplanes. If it was not for the Russians, we would have been left without any profit,“ SBM managers say.
The exuberant lifestyles and spending practices that Russians, dizzy with the unlimited opportunities, demonstrated at first by buying the most expensive things, are now giving way to the ”getting-into-the-mainstream“ ambition — i.e., being like everyone else. Today, SBM managers believe, wealthy Russians are striving to be accepted into the fold of civilization. The Monegasques, however, only want to see the tip of the iceberg — that is to say, profits from the Russians’ exuberant spending practices.
Prince Albert, the patron of sports, however, objected to the idea of selling the Monaco soccer club to a Russian businessman, Aleksei Fedorychev, saying that the club must not be in the hands of a foreigner. That was the first time when the issue of the provenance of money came up. Nevertheless, that did not prevent Fedorychev from becoming the main sponsor of the Monaco club.
Russian oligarchs, raised on oil, natural gas, and god knows what else, seem to be living in total ignorance of their own country — vast and impoverished, with low living standards and high mortality rates.