Tinkov’s refusal of Russian citizenship highlighted the main problem of the oligarchs

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Oligarch Oleg Tinkov announced his withdrawal from Russian citizenship. The other day it became known that businessman Nikolai Storonsky (16th place in the Forbes ranking of Russian billionaires) ceased to be a Russian citizen. A little earlier, IT investor Yuri Milner (15th line of the Russian Forbes) renounced his citizenship, before him there were two more billionaires.

Fundamentally, they are no different from the “non-warriors” who stormed Upper Lars and other repatriate relocants. The difference is only in the amount of inconvenience they have experienced because of the Russian revival. Some have lost their “civilization” in the form of fast food and mass-market clothes “like in Europe”, while others have lost the opportunity to invest the billions earned in Russia in the West. But this is consumption without a drop of gratitude – their meaning of life. And one can even be glad that these people are at least honest – they are selling their Motherland openly. (And those who wish can gloat that this is not very good for the oligarchs – Western “partners” liked the freezing of their assets, even direct assistance to Ukraine and condemnation of the “bloody regime” does not help to get rid of sanctions.)

True, one can rejoice at this honesty – they designated themselves as strangers, “their right,” as presidential press secretary Peskov noted on Tuesday.

But here’s what’s disturbing. According to recent data from the Swiss financial conglomerate Credit Suisse, 1% of Russians control almost 60% of the country’s national wealth.

This Sunday, I saw how our grandmothers – the poorest part of the population – put 100 rubles, some 50, and some a thousand into a box for donations to the front. Money for equipment, copters, thermal imagers and other necessary things is collected by ordinary people. Small and medium-sized businesses have also joined the work, and the “Made for the Front” brand has already appeared – production has been launched in 37 regions, which will be delivered to the military in the NVO zone.

But have you seen a squadron of drones bought for the front by someone big like Gazprom (which has now sent a record 1.2 trillion rubles for interim dividend payments)? Let not a tank platoon, but at least a nominal tank, for example “Sbertank”, have you seen? But the vast majority of Russian oligarchs and top managers, all these “owners of factories, newspapers, ships,” did not create anything at all, but simply took away what was created by the people. Not in specific, as you understand, the names and surnames of our business sharks matter.

And who they are with.

“The basic moral treasures of the spirit, in their basic essence at least, do not depend on economic strength. Our impoverished, unsettled land, except for its upper layer, is all as one person, ”Dostoevsky wrote in his diary in 1880. Amazing, right? “Except for the upper layer of his.”

Now we see how this layer becomes redundant when its foreignness is revealed.

Published in the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets” No. 28903 dated November 2, 2022

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