Natalia Timakova—the press secretary to United Russia party leader Dmitry Medvedev (who also serves as Russia’s prime minister)—is a very brave person. After all, if you watch Russian television, including speeches by her boss, one thing is clear: Europe is in very, very bad shape. It’s dangerous there. There are fascists and a crisis of multiculturalism. Any normal person ought to stay as far away from that den of iniquity as possible.
But instead of building a cozy family nest somewhere closer to the holy sites of Korsun (an old Russian reference to Chersonesus in Crimea), Natalia Timakova and her husband are boldly and uncompromisingly preparing a fallback airfield for themselves in one of the world’s hottest spots.
So, what did Latvian television tell us? I asked Georgy Alburov from the ACF investigative department to look into it all.
From this report (start watching at 44:40), we learn what Timakova’s house in Latvia looks like, and also that her husband, Alexander Budberg, obtained a residence permit in Latvia.
Here is a link to the house project; it includes the specifications and the signature PASŪTĪTĀJS: Alexander Budberg (Client: Alexander Budberg).
Does Timakova ever stay at this house? Does she suffer from European gay fascism?
Her Instagram has photos from this place. The most recent was posted 4 weeks ago, the oldest 123 weeks ago. That matches the purchase date. So yes, she does go there—and suffer.
From here we learn that the house cost €1.37 million, the buyer was Timakova’s husband Budberg, and that no mortgage loan was used.
This is what Timakova’s house looks like now. The planned reconstruction in line with the project will obviously cost a very substantial amount on top of that. But never mind—the Russian budget has survived worse.
A delightful detail in this story: the Timakova-Budberg family hung a Latvian flag on their house! Good for them. I just hope they also pinned up at least one tiny, tiiiiny St. George ribbon (a Russian patriotic symbol). Maybe on the bathhouse, or the cucumber greenhouse.
We live in fascinatingly awful times: the country’s entire state policy has been reduced to hysterical pseudo-patriotism and the slogan “Russia is surrounded by enemies.” And at the same time, officials are buying property in countries officially declared unfriendly.
How long would a White House press secretary in the United States keep his job if it emerged that his family had bought property not somewhere in China, but in friendly Canada?
And that’s not even mentioning the residence permit.
As for the source of the money used to buy property like this, once again we see a classic feature of Putin’s system. Before the “moment of latching on,” Timakova and Budberg were journalists at Kommersant and MK (Moskovsky Komsomolets), and they could not possibly have had that kind of money.
After just a little time in state service—Timakova directly in government, Budberg at the state-owned VTB bank—they are suddenly able to buy a €1.3 million house without a mortgage, something utterly unimaginable for even the highest-ranking public official in either Europe or the United States.
If you know anything about Budberg and Timakova’s corrupt dealings, send it to our Black Box.