THE GUARDIAN

The view from ... Moscow

Andrew Osborn
Friday July 23, 2004

The Guardian

Russia's fabulously wealthy oligarchs are not flavour of the month in the Kremlin right now with the richest of them all, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, on very public trial for fraud and embezzlement.

But business daily Vedemosti had some embarrassing news for oligarch-bashing President Vladimir Putin this week. Young people between the ages of 18 and 24 put "successful businessmen and oligarchs" on a pedestal and even idolise them, according to a new poll.

The survey, carried out by the respected All-Russian Research Centre of Social Opinions, found that oligarchs were second only to pop stars in the popularity stakes with 42% of those polled expressing deep admiration for them.

That put oligarchs well ahead of sports stars, TV stars and even Mr Putin himself, who came a miserable fifth with just 14% support. And, in a sign that nostalgia for the old days of revolutionary communism is of little interest to Russia's younger generation, Che Guevara came in last, polling a mere 1%.

"Success, and I mean quick success, has become the main value [for young people]," Vladimir Petukhov, the man responsible for the research, told the daily.

Vedemosti noted, however, that Russian society at large is traditionally hostile to the oligarchs with a poll last year revealing that 77% of the population have a negative attitude towards big business. According to Aleksandr Asmolov, a psychological expert at Moscow State University, that is more a function of envy than anything else.

Indeed, envy levels are likely to soar after an article in the St Petersburg Times revealed that 46 palaces are to be built for the country's super-rich in the former tsarist capital. Dubbed "the Northern Versailles", the development will include dozens of replica miniature 17th and 18th-century baroque European palaces.

Many of these "tightly grouped" palaces would be "stucco-moulded, gilded and decorated with statues", the paper reported. "Every palace has a name such as the Azure Belvedere or the Tsarskoselsky Hermitage."

With prices ranging from £600,000 to £3m, these gated communities will not be for the long-suffering narod (common people).

One property expert told the paper that the developers should make sure each palace is surrounded by a large plot of land. "Otherwise the development is going to end up looking like Disneyland for rich people."

If St Petersburg's Northern Versailles development was enough to send embittered Russians round the twist, there was relief at the online MosNews. It reported that Russia's Ministry of Natural Resources had threatened to bulldoze hundreds of illegal dachas, or country houses, built on the outskirts of Moscow in the 1990s by some of the country's most illustrious sons and daughters.

"Of the villas to be torn down ... some are owned by oligarchs Boris Berezovsky, Anatoly Chubais, Vladimir Potanin and the pop star Alla Pugacheva," it said.

Much of the land had been illegally seized, the website said, while some villas had been erected in right-of-way zones, with residents dispelling sewage into reservoirs which feed into the capital's water supply system.

"The list of sins of the new dacha owners includes the incredible number of private fences ... which have made recreation, fishing and berry picking ... impossible for most residents. In other words, the task is to restore not just law and order but social justice," said MosNews

Order was in equally short supply, according to daily Izvestia, on an Aeroflot flight from Moscow to the Siberian city of Nizhnevartovsk this week. Aeroflot is no stranger to bad publicity but this incident - in which a passenger was beaten up by drunken cabin staff for questioning their professionalism - takes the biscuit.

Artyom Chernopup, a Siberian businessman, emerged from the flight with a black eye while another passenger had a door slammed in his face. The three-man crew had all been imbibing spirits.

One passenger was quoted by Izvestia as saying that the drunken trio only started to serve meals on the four-hour flight when the plane was descending. "At this point I noticed something was wrong," said the passenger. "About half the meals ended up on the tables or in passengers' laps while the rest ended up on the floor. We left the plane with lunch boxes crunching beneath our feet."