The operations by which not just Russian state property, but state functions themselves, are being handed over to the Rotenberg family are striking in their elegant simplicity.
The government decides to create an operator that will collect fees from heavy trucks across the country. Long-haul truckers damage the roads, especially during flood season, so the fees should be collected centrally and distributed fairly.
Not a bad idea—let's choose the operating company through an open tender, with the participation of experienced foreign firms, the government decides.
Then Chemezov from Rostec (the Russian state defense and technology conglomerate) pops up: for reasons of national security, no tender can be held; everything has to be handed over to a Rostec subsidiary.
OK. You can't argue with national security. A Rostec subsidiary is created, and it is given the right to collect money from truck drivers.
So that very Rostec subsidiary that was supposedly created for national security quietly, without fuss and without any tenders or auctions, brought in young Rotenberg as a shareholder.
Well, holy hell—they simply grabbed this lucrative business away from an open tender under the pretext of national security, and then handed a stake to Rotenberg’s son.
The very same one whose villa in Italy, with €30,000 sinks, we wrote about.
And why not buy a villa on the Argentario peninsula and sinks for €30,000 apiece, if in faraway snowy Russia your right to seize the juiciest pieces of business is declared a matter of national security?
If you didn’t read my post about neo-feudalism yesterday, do. That is exactly what it is about: Putin and his friends quite literally want to hand over all profit-generating property and infrastructure to their children.