Paul
Goble
Staunton, August 13 – Even as Dmitry
Medvedev was provoking anger for his remark that “there is no money but have a
nice day,” a group of rich Russian bankers and officials were celebrating the
Russian ruble at a lavish party in which two models wrestled with one another
in a pool filled with black caviar.
Their “battle” was captured on a video
that has gone viral in Russia, sparking outrage and reminding everyone few mind
living in huts until someone builds and then flaunts a palace nearby (The video
is at youtube.com/watch?v=Nzbc-0JmpuE.
For a Russian account, see topwar.ru/99194-dlya-naseleniya-deneg-net-a-dlya-finansovyh-vorotil-vecherinki-v-chernoy-ikre.html).
Organized by the
Russian Agency for International Projects in Culture, Education and Sport, the
evening was devoted not only to the 700th anniversary of the creation
of the Russian ruble but also to three other “Russian currencies from time
immemorial – oil, caviar, and furs.” It
attacked bankers, businessmen and senior officials.
Vyacheslav Tetekin, a Duma deputy,
said that this reminded him of “’a
celebration in the time of a plague. Demographer Yury Krupnov said that it
showed the triumph of feudalism in Russia and the reduction of most of its
population to “second class” status while the rich partied without regard to
anyone else.
And one Russian regional paper
pointedly noted that “there is no money for you. But for us, models fight in a
pool filled with black caviar.” Some who
viewed the clip said it highlighted the degeneration of the elite; others, however,
suggested that the whole thing was “patriotic” and that they could feel in it “the
spiritual bindings” Vladimir Putin likes to talk about.
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