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Listen, we missed it.
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A national holiday. This is terrible—we
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forget our heroes,
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the ones who fight every day without sparing
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any effort to achieve their goal. And if our entire
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state had a task that
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its leader pursued as best
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he could, and he succeeded—doesn’t that
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deserve
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a holiday? But you
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ungrateful people know nothing about it.
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But fortunately, you have me to remind you
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about it. Here they are, these two heroes:
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Vladimir Putin has spent 18 years doing everything
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he can to make sure as many state contracts as possible
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go to his childhood friend,
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Arkady Rotenberg.
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And Arkady Rotenberg, in turn, diligently
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grabs that money, pockets it, and
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stashes it away in their joint offshore
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accounts. Not an easy job.
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But can difficulties stop these
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people? Absolutely not. And today, from the bottom of
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my heart, I want to congratulate Vladimir
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Vladimirovich Putin and Arkady
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Romanovich Rotenberg, because our
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spreadsheet, where we carefully recorded all
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the state contracts handed to Rotenberg on behalf of
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our entire nation, has reached
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the wonderful round figure of 1 trillion
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rubles. Hooray, comrades. That’s no small change—
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a trillion is a major achievement. And
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that’s not the income of the entire Rotenberg family,
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of whom there are already quite
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a few, but only of the company Stroygazmontazh,
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which is 100 percent owned
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personally by Rotenberg. He is our
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chief builder of everything from pipelines across the country
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to the Crimean Bridge—he builds everything.
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And don’t argue with me: this really
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deserves a nationwide
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celebration. We could call it Kickback Day
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or the Day of the Insatiable Leech
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or the Festival of Greedy Ghouls, because
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the amount is certainly impressive: 1 trillion
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rubles. That’s three times more than the entire
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Russian federal healthcare budget
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and twice as much as the entire
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federal education budget. It’s 11
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times more than all spending on physical culture and sports.
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Listen, I think that’s roughly the amount
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allocated to national defense
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in the federal budget. Just
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imagine it: Russia’s entire huge army—
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tanks, guns, planes, military
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bases, salaries, food supplies—and one
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Arkady Rotenberg. Well, not one alone, of course—
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obviously together with Vladimir
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Vladimirovich, working his magic. We can talk about
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very balanced
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budget policy all we want, but it still
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boggles the mind.
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Especially considering that you and I
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know perfectly well who
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Rotenberg is. Sorry, but he’s a nobody out of nowhere.
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He invented nothing, created nothing,
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came up with nothing. He did judo with Putin
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in childhood, graduated from an institute of physical education, and that’s it.
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And then—bam—a trillion. That’s
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your
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success story. No Hollywood movie
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even comes close. And the coolest
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and most thrilling part of this arrangement is that
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Putin, acting on behalf of all of us as head
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of state, took our trillion and handed
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it to Rotenberg—and on top of that, a whole lot of
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people in the country go around saying what a
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wonderful president we have, what a
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great guy he is, how carefully he treats our
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money.
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Where’s the money? Return the money. So I’m congratulating not only
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Vladimir Vladimirovich
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and Arkady Romanovich, but you as well,
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my dear fellow Russians. As it turns out, our entire
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state exists
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only to funnel money to
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Putin’s friends. Probably some people think
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that this is exactly how it should be, that it’s all perfectly right, and so
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once again I propose that we
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split into two camps, if you don’t mind.
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If the remarkable fate
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of this trillion doesn’t bother you at all, then fine—
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celebrate. This truly is your holiday. But
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if you disagree, if this situation
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seems a little crazy to you, and you think
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that maybe, somehow, this trillion could have been
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spent a little better—hard
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to say exactly how, I don’t know—
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but surely there are
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other builders and contractors in Russia,
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not just Rotenberg—then join
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me. Sign in support of my movement,
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support my election campaign, and
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most importantly, do not stay silent, because
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it is precisely our silence
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that is the main condition for
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the emergence in our country of these kind of
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holidays. Subscribe to our
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channel.
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This is where the truth is told.