It turns out that Putin’s All-Russia People’s Front (ONF) costs 455 million rubles a year (about 4.9 million USD). And that’s without office expenses and bonuses. And without counting what the rebranded United Russia people pocketed for themselves, taking advantage of a completely opaque system of income and spending.
Two very funny moments in this RBC investigation:
The ONF people can’t keep their stories straight about where their money comes from:
It proved impossible to determine the budget of the ONF project “For Fair Procurement.” That’s how “fair” their procurement is.
It’s very interesting to compare all this with the budget of ACF (the Anti-Corruption Foundation), because from the start all ONF projects were copied from ACF: RosPil became “For Fair Procurement,” and RosYama became “Killed Roads” (“Dead Roads”).
So, ACF’s 2014 budget (the 2015 report will be out soon) was 28 million rubles (about 300,000 USD).
You can see exactly where the money came from and where it went:
This says a lot about the effectiveness of the authorities versus the opposition. On one side, 455 million from unclear sources, spent in unclear ways; on the other, 28 million from private donors, spent on clear, concrete projects noticed both by the media and by ordinary people.
Let’s not even get into the fact that the leader of the ONF is one V.V. Putin, which makes it especially hilarious to watch them criticize the authorities. It was your leader who made the roads “dead” and the procurement dishonest, so who exactly are your projects addressed to?
And in the same article there’s also a chart with figures that never stop amazing me: state budget funding for political parties.
It’s just a fabulous life in a sea of money.
At the same time, some things look downright strange. I can understand where the Communists spent 1.3 billion rubles (about 14 million USD): regional elections, a large organization. But can anyone explain where the Yabloko party spent its 232 million rubles in state funding (about 2.5 million USD)? Their activity is ten times lower than that of PARNAS, which gets no budget funding at all—not to mention ACF. A mystery.
PS After reading this post and the RBC article, you definitely thought: yeeeah, ACF really is more transparent and more effective than anyone else. Before that thought passes, go here and sign up for an automatic monthly donation.