via a link from Golyshev golishev Belkovsky is on fire here: Meanwhile, the corporate “victims of the crisis” are making no effort at all to hide why they suddenly need yet another batch of state billions. No, don’t alarm yourself — it’s not for paying wages or preventing layoffs. For example, LUKoil has to close its deal to buy a stake in the Italian refining complex ISAB ($2.1 billion) and the Turkish retail network Akpet ($555 million). Gazprom is supposed to buy out 16.5% of Libya’s Elephant field (and the deal amount, damn it, is disclosed about as clearly as a file after a virus attack). Gazprom Neft needs €400 million to acquire 51% of Serbia’s NIS. Rosneft has to build a refinery and a gas-station network in China. But most importantly: if you’re used to Christina Aguilera, you can’t just switch to a worn-out Irina Allegrova (a Russian pop singer). You also can’t suddenly trade $2,000-a-night prostitutes for $500 ones — the prim wives would never approve. And the Russian people will pay anyway. That’s what this endlessly optimistic people were created for by a stern Lord in an hour of wine-and-vodka hangover. ... And then there are, by the way, the little details. The Guardian reported the other day that neither Abramovich, nor Usmanov, nor the other intelligible people are, of course, planning to sell their football clubs (that is, their British ones). Because clubs are for the soul. The Russian popular rabble can be laid off by the millions. But football is for the children of the elite. That will remain. Yes, and one more thing. At the height of the first act of the crisis, it was announced that Roman Abramovich (former governor and future speaker of the Chukotka legislative assembly) was completing construction of a yacht worth £200 million ($450 million). On that yacht there will be everything — right down to submarines and fighter jets. In time, when the yacht reaches its planned obsolescence, it will probably be able to serve as the flagship of our unsinkable Black Sea Fleet. And go on permanent duty in Olympic Novorossiysk. Meanwhile, under the strain, Abramovich even postponed his wedding to Dasha Zhukova. For only a true oligarch-moneycrat knows: it is impossible to love a yacht and a woman equally at the same time. The soul just isn’t big enough. Here