David Craig, on May 5th, 2024Monday-Tuesday blog
With so many excellent websites (for example, The Daily Sceptic and The Conservative Woman) and so many great YouTube channels (for example, Neil Oliver’s monologues and Simon Webb’s History Debunked) it’s getting increasingly difficult to find something to write about which hasn’t been covered by loads of other people. But I’ll try to soldier on for a bit longer.
Here’s something I haven’t seen mentioned anywhere else:
This is quite a big house:
Well, it’s a lot bigger than mine. If Google images are to be trusted, this rather impressive home belongs to a Mr Sergei Shoigu, commander of the Russian military. This home is reportedly worth about $18,000,000:
And here’s another big house:
This impressive home allegedly belongs to a close female friend of Mr Shoigu. Evil rumour has it that she lives there with a son who was conceived on a plane.
And while we’re looking at desirable properties in Russia, this one is not too bad either:
Again, if Google images are to be trusted, this belongs to Russian Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov. Some unkind people have suggested that Russian Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov may be one of the top ten richest people in Russia.
Now, I obviously don’t know what the yearly salary is for Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu nor for Russian Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov. I suspect both men are paid generous amounts of money. But whether they are paid enough to be able to buy multi-million/billion rouble mansions for themselves and female friends might be questioned. Russian Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov has reportedly recently (April 2024) been arrested on suspicion of taking large bribes. The sum of $100m has been mentioned.
Anyway, if you’re a Russian soldier getting paid a pittance stuck in a water-logged muddy trench in preparation for being one of the several hundred thousand Russians killed and maimed in Uncle Vladimir’s pointless Ukraine war, it must be heart-warmingly satisfying to see that your billionaire military bosses are rewarding themselves so handsomely for their brilliant military leadership.
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There’s an even bigger villa I keep seeing on the Black Sea coast which is said to belong to Putin.
Neil Oliver was discussing revolutions today, saying they never achieve what they promise, with Russia being a good example. The wealth and grand lifestyle of the Tsars just passed to the revolutionary leaders and the workers got nothing and in most cases they were worse off.
The rock group, the Who, warned us about this in their 1978 song “Won’t get fooled again” in which they sang “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss”
These homes are fairly modest compared to Blenheim Palace, awarded by a grateful class of English aristocrats to a fellow aristocrat for his military services against the French three hundred years ago. Which is still, I believe, in the hands of his descendants despite many years of British democracy. So nothing new there then.
Russia, of course, has no aristocracy any more, since those whom the Bolsheviks didn’t get the opportunity to shoot, fled into exile.
Which accounts for the groaning breasts of Soviet generals of yore, positively armour-plated with an incomprehensible array of proletarian honours, and doubtless relieved to have avoided being liquidated themselves in the cellars of the Lubyanka for the slightest perceived disloyalty – surely a reward in itself?
But the absence nowadays of an official Russian aristocratic class makes it difficult, in these less totalitarian times, for Putin to honour Russia’s generals, successful or otherwise, as we do ours in the UK with automatic knighthoods and peerages, seats in the Lords, Garter membership and other aristocratic baubles. So it appears it has to be cash. If you haven’t been blown up in an unfortunate airplane accident, of course…