Text version
0:00
The ability of Russia’s ruling elite not to feel even the slightest
0:02
embarrassment about their lifestyle
0:04
never ceases to amaze us; this trait
0:07
has, incidentally, been described many times in literature.
0:09
Slave owners or owners of serfs
0:11
felt absolutely no shame; they could,
0:14
for example, change clothes in their presence
0:15
or talk about anything at all,
0:17
because, well, they did not consider them real
0:19
people. The recent scandal involving
0:21
official representatives—yes, Maria Zakharova
0:22
and others—who informed us that vacations abroad and
0:24
air travel should be available only
0:26
to well-off people in clean, nice
0:29
clothes, while everyone else should find
0:31
a simpler kind of vacation, is directly connected to this. People
0:33
who have money—they, they
0:36
are dressed appropriately, they
0:39
are engaged in certain pursuits, they travel
0:42
by plane.
0:43
They have those opportunities, while people who
0:45
do not have money travel however they can;
0:48
they hitchhike, they
0:51
are dressed accordingly, they do not
0:53
lay claim to anything, they are ready to sleep,
0:56
eat, wait, and so on and so forth, on the floor,
0:58
in a train car, and so on and so forth. It never even occurred to Zakharova
1:01
that she would anger
1:03
tens of millions of people, because in the
1:05
official’s view, people with mortgages
1:07
and debts should themselves understand that they are
1:09
beneath her and worse than her, and that they are not entitled to the whole
1:12
airplane. A trip abroad is
1:14
an extremely serious, highly demanding, and very
1:16
risky undertaking; one needs to have
1:19
a fairly substantial amount of money or
1:22
pretty good connections. This perfectly reflects
1:25
the Russian authorities’ idea of how
1:27
Russia ought to be organized, or rather
1:29
that all things beautiful and elegant should not
1:32
pay attention to the troubles of the plebs,
1:34
while the latter, in turn, should know their
1:36
place, keep quiet, and pay taxes.
1:38
Look at the rich life, but don’t touch it
1:41
with your hands. Well then, let us at least
1:43
take a look, since it so happens that we have
1:44
been sadly stuck at home for weeks.
1:46
So let’s go all in and
1:49
talk about glamour and fashion; for 10
1:52
minutes, let’s turn the Anti-Corruption Foundation into the video
1:54
version of *Tatler* magazine. For variety,
1:56
our gloomy channel won’t be talking only
1:58
about how everything was stolen and squandered,
2:01
especially since we have an excellent reason.
2:02
A selfless woman now appearing
2:05
on television screens—for all 22 years
2:07
of her government career, she
2:09
has worked side by side with Sergei Sobyanin.
2:11
Wherever he went, she went too: from Tyumen
2:14
to the Presidential Administration, and then
2:15
to the Moscow city government. And fate
2:17
has decreed that now she is
2:19
Moscow’s deputy mayor for social
2:21
development.
2:22
Anastasia Rakova. The departments of
2:29
education, healthcare, social protection,
2:31
labor, and many other thoroughly unglamorous
2:33
areas fall under her responsibility—not
2:35
innovation, not investment, not business, and not
2:37
construction, but rather dusty, difficult
2:40
work closest to the people—and not just to
2:42
all Muscovites, but to the most vulnerable, the most
2:45
unprotected, the most needy: doctors,
2:47
teachers, children with disabilities, the sick, veterans,
2:50
orphans, pensioners, the poor.
2:52
These are the people whose affairs Anastasia
2:55
Rakova oversees.
2:55
And for their well-being she bears personal
2:58
responsibility. And right now her position is
3:00
one of the most important in the country—no joke.
3:03
She is the top official for medicine in the city with the highest
3:05
number of infections; under her command is a whole
3:07
army of medical workers, and like a true
3:10
commander-in-chief she addresses this
3:12
army, raising its fighting spirit.
3:14
Today I want to address all
3:16
medical workers in Moscow, everyone who
3:19
is working on our common task—the fight
3:22
against coronavirus. Today all services
3:24
of the capital’s healthcare system must
3:26
work according to a universal algorithm, in
3:29
a single rhythm and with one breath.
3:31
Even if that breath is often unsteady
3:33
from exhaustion after several shifts and
3:36
night duties.
3:37
Together we will do everything to defeat
3:40
coronavirus. The doctors’ unsteady breathing, their
3:43
heroism, and our common enemy, the coronavirus—I
3:46
can just imagine how an ordinary Moscow
3:48
nurse or ambulance paramedic,
3:49
who stands in line for hours to
3:52
hand over yet another coronavirus
3:54
patient,
3:54
watches this and thinks: to hell with
3:57
the conditions, with the hazard pay that isn’t there,
3:59
with the salary—what difference does it make? Better now
4:02
to unite with Anastasia Rakova and
4:04
Sergei Semyonovich (Sobyanin).
4:05
And we’ll work for free, because after all we are
4:08
together. But no, dear nurse or
4:10
paramedic, unfortunately you are not together, and
4:13
the warning sign that you are not together
4:15
can be spotted right there in the very
4:17
video—you just have to look closely. Do you know
4:20
how much this lady received?
4:22
After working a month on three positions—that is,
4:24
doing the work of three people—in that very famous
4:26
Kommunarka hospital, she got 26,000 rubles.
4:30
We worked three jobs: as junior medical
4:33
staff, as cafeteria workers,
4:35
and as linen-room attendants. No one paid us for
4:38
the extra work. I
4:41
received a salary of 26,000 rubles in April.
4:44
Do you know how much the brown belt
4:47
by Loro Piana that Anastasia Rakova
4:49
chose for her touching
4:51
address costs? Exactly twice as much—
4:53
52,000 rubles on the website; the amount may be
4:57
Do you think this is some absurd
4:58
accident?
4:59
That villains slipped Rakova an expensive belt and
5:02
maliciously caught her on video, but in fact
5:04
she actually dresses very modestly and
5:06
appropriately for her position?
5:07
Alas, here is an appearance by Moscow official
5:11
Anastasia Rakova on Channel One (Russia's main state TV channel). There she
5:13
began by scolding people having barbecues, because of whom
5:15
everyone had to be put under a full
5:17
quarantine. The previous weekend, apparently,
5:19
tens of thousands of people went out to parks,
5:22
had kebabs, and played on sports and
5:25
children's playgrounds, which in today's world
5:26
is unsafe.
5:27
And then she delivered some good news about
5:30
financial assistance for Muscovites:
5:32
"I'll start with the most important thing for today.
5:35
The risk group, for whom the illness
5:37
really can have serious
5:39
consequences—very serious consequences—
5:40
includes people over 55 and people with
5:44
chronic illnesses. For them, a quarantine regime
5:46
was introduced back last
5:48
week. Understanding how difficult it is
5:50
to remain in quarantine, a decision was made
5:51
to pay them a one-time
5:54
financial benefit of 4,000 rubles (about $43), 2,000 of which
5:57
we paid immediately, before the start of the
5:59
isolation regime, so that people could actually
6:01
buy food and prepare somehow,
6:04
and the remaining part will be paid after
6:07
this self-isolation regime
6:09
comes to an end. Understanding how difficult
6:11
it is to remain in quarantine..."
6:13
Anastasia is offering sick elderly Muscovites
6:15
a mind-blowing payment of 4,000
6:18
rubles (about $43), of which 2,000 you got right away. Can you
6:21
imagine? Anastasia, bravo—2,000 immediately!
6:27
What ever will they do with such
6:29
vast sums? Good thing the other 2,000
6:31
will be paid at some unclear point after
6:33
the end of a non-existent quarantine.
6:35
Our benefactress, our savior. We didn't watch this
6:39
video in order to
6:41
laugh at the pitiful attempts
6:43
of the Moscow government to pretend
6:45
that it is supporting anyone. What interests us
6:47
is the fashionable outfit in which
6:49
Anastasia delivered this news.
6:51
The T-shirt is easy to identify from the slogan
6:54
"Speak kind and bright words." It's by
6:56
the Italian brand Brunello Cucinelli,
6:58
priced at 46,000 rubles (about $500). Over
7:01
the T-shirt she is wearing a black blazer.
7:03
We recognize it by the lapels and turned-up
7:05
cuffs. Same brand. Price: 160.5 thousand
7:08
rubles (about $1,730).
7:09
It's not hard to calculate that, just above
7:12
the waist, Anastasia is wearing
7:13
the equivalent of one-time payments for 100 Moscow
7:16
pensioners with chronic illnesses.
7:18
It becomes clear that before us is a woman whose
7:21
career is going just fine. Last
7:24
week, Anastasia Vladimirovna
7:25
appeared on another federal TV channel,
7:27
Rossiya 1. We won't even bother listening
7:30
to what she's saying. We're interested in the blouse and
7:32
the shoes. Anastasia had already worn this look to
7:35
the opening of a coronavirus ward in
7:37
one of Moscow's hospitals.
7:38
Jimmy Choo shoes: 45,000 rubles (about $485).
7:41
A Kiton silk blouse: 94.5 thousand
7:44
rubles (about $1,020). How can a blouse
7:47
cost nearly 100,000 rubles?
7:49
Of course, there are very expensive things, but
7:51
this is really beyond the pale. Yes, it's all about
7:54
the brand: Kiton.
7:55
It's one of the most expensive brands in the world.
7:57
It's an old Neapolitan workshop,
7:59
a family-run Italian tradition,
8:01
entirely handmade, with one-of-a-kind
8:03
items.
8:15
The brand is known for its business
8:17
suits, worn by the richest and
8:19
most famous people in the world—presidents,
8:21
Hollywood stars, and the deputy
8:24
mayor of Moscow.
8:25
Anastasia Rakova. And the latter is simply
8:28
obsessed with them. A suit from this very brand
8:30
can be seen on Anastasia Vladimirovna
8:33
in this photograph from the Russian
8:34
Presidential Academy of National Economy. On the jacket
8:37
of cashmere, as the website tells us,
8:39
25 tailors worked for about a day for Anastasia.
8:42
The price of the suit matches
8:44
the labor of Italian seamstresses: 507
8:46
thousand rubles (about $5,470). And now let's
8:49
add some context. By virtue of her position, Rakova is
8:51
responsible for setting and
8:53
maintaining the subsistence minimum for
8:54
Muscovites. It's a quarterly
8:57
process: officials gather and
8:58
calculate how much a Muscovite needs
9:00
to live normally for a month—for food,
9:02
utilities, household goods, clothing,
9:05
gasoline, everything. They set an amount, and
9:08
then it becomes the baseline figure from
9:10
which they work when
9:11
setting wages, pensions,
9:13
benefits, and so on. And quite recently,
9:15
at the end of March, Rakova presented a
9:17
fresh calculation: the subsistence minimum in
9:19
Moscow is 16,843 rubles per month (about $180). She
9:23
considers it and decides that for the average
9:26
Muscovite, that's exactly how much is needed for
9:29
a normal life. That's about 30 times
9:31
less than the cost of the social policy vice mayor's
9:33
suit. So everything must be in order.
9:36
This is turning into some kind of sad and bitter
9:40
fashion blog, isn't it? Yes, yes.
9:46
But let's not be sad—let's move on.
9:48
Because Anastasia Rakova, along with doctors,
9:51
is simply obsessed with suits, and we really...
9:53
At the start of her collection, here is another example.
10:01
An interview in which she sings the praises of her
10:03
boss, Sobyanin. Moscow Mayor Sergei
10:05
Sobyanin announced a large-scale program
10:08
to develop healthcare infrastructure.
10:10
But Anastasia is wearing a beige blazer
10:13
from her favorite brand, costing 250,000 rubles
10:16
trousers for 116,000 and Louis Vuitton shoes for 70,000
10:20
rubles. The total look comes to 435,000. In this
10:24
photo, we see a bright blue summer
10:26
outfit.
10:27
Again, Kiton: a blazer for 300,000, trousers for 100,000. Here
10:31
you probably already recognize the signature check pattern.
10:33
A gray suit version, three hundred
10:35
seventy-three thousand altogether. And here
10:38
we recognize, by the bright white stitching,
10:40
a jacket worth 250,000.
10:42
Here is another jacket, very similar to the gray
10:44
suit, but still different.
10:46
Another 240,000. And here is a photo from Anastasia's appearance
10:49
at the conference “Medicine and
10:51
Quality 7”: a Kiton blazer
10:53
this time for 293,000 rubles, as well as
10:56
a turtleneck for 80,000 and trousers for 85,000.
11:00
At the beginning of this video, I showed you
11:02
just 10 recent public appearances by this official—40 in
11:05
total, and only official events.
11:07
No paparazzi shots, and only in
11:09
these 10 photographs we found clothing
11:12
worth more than 3 million rubles. She knows
11:16
that she will be photographed. These are
11:18
public events. She cannot fail to
11:21
understand that these clothes can be identified—and
11:23
very easily, as we did. And just as clearly
11:25
she understands perfectly well that no
11:28
public official can afford to dress
11:30
like this.
11:30
But even so, the desire to wear the most
11:33
exclusive clothes in the world wins out over
11:35
common sense. The continuation of
11:37
this grim story is coming very soon. Fashion tips.
11:40
Many will probably say that you are
11:42
making too much of clothes—that these are trivial things.
11:44
Over there, they steal billions on curbstones (a reference to Moscow’s notorious street-renovation spending).
11:46
Of course they steal billions, and we
11:49
talk about that constantly. But this matters too,
11:51
because offshore accounts,
11:53
secret overseas villas—all of that is well
11:55
hidden, concealed, disguised. But here
11:58
it is all right out in the open,
11:59
plainly, right before our eyes—a clear
12:01
indicator of how a Moscow official
12:04
really lives.
12:05
How much money she really has—not according to
12:07
declarations, not on paper,
12:09
but physically, in plain sight. Let’s
12:15
open the Twitter account of Moscow Mayor
12:16
Sergei Sobyanin—a model
12:19
official’s Twitter: look how
12:21
efficiently we work, look how we
12:23
are saving Muscovites, and so on. Here he
12:25
posted photos from a huge construction site.
12:27
Near Kommunarka, they are building another
12:29
temporary hospital with 1,500
12:31
additional beds. In one of the photos,
12:33
we notice Anastasia Rakova among a crowd of other officials.
12:35
You have to admit, in this
12:38
photograph, nothing would really
12:40
arouse suspicion. And here, on a construction site,
12:43
she seems to be dressed modestly. Alas—a Chanel scarf
12:47
for 78,000 rubles, which we identified quite
12:50
quickly. The coat took a bit more work,
12:52
but no matter—we found a cashmere
12:55
coat,
12:55
a Loro Piana for 448,000
12:58
rubles. The right color was not on the website, but
13:00
we made a special effort to confirm that it was
13:02
exactly the same model. Scrolling through Twitter
13:04
further, we again see photos—this time they are
13:07
opening a coronavirus ward
13:09
at a Moscow hospital.
13:10
These are very recent photos, from May. We see
13:12
the tiniest glimpse of Anastasia Rakova—
13:15
literally just one eye and a shoulder.
13:17
And on that shoulder, another checked coat—a
13:20
Loro Piana for 477,000
13:22
rubles. I simply cannot wrap my head around
13:24
how an official who thinks it is normal
13:27
to spend half a million rubles on a single
13:30
coat can deal with the problems
13:32
of low-income pensioners and veterans.
13:34
What can she possibly know or understand about how
13:37
ordinary Muscovites live?
13:38
What subsidies need to be paid, and how much
13:40
money they need for food, when she herself
13:42
goes shopping and hands over the equivalent of two years’ worth of a
13:44
Muscovite’s pension for a single coat? Ten public appearances in,
13:47
and that is already the price of a one-room apartment in Moscow.
13:49
Add two coats, and a two-room apartment starts to seem
13:51
like a joke—yet people actually buy housing like that.
13:53
And finally, I have for you
13:55
an interesting observation. It is impossible not
13:57
to notice one detail:
13:59
Anastasia Rakova completely neglects
14:02
accessories. In all the photos I showed you—
14:04
outrageously expensive suits, tops, shoes—but
14:06
there is almost no jewelry at all. The same
14:09
small stud earrings, a little bracelet,
14:11
sometimes some kind of necklace.
14:12
No watch, never anything around the neck either.
14:15
Nothing—well, maybe a tiny cross.
14:17
It is genuinely strange: if you are so obsessed with your
14:20
outfits that you are ready to
14:22
pay half a million rubles for the most
14:24
expensive suits in the world, then surely your eye would also fall on
14:26
jewelry—perhaps
14:28
some earrings or a ring. How is it
14:31
that, judging by
14:32
the photographs, Anastasia has exclusively
14:34
expensive
14:35
clothing and nothing else? There is a simple and
14:38
logical explanation for that.
14:39
Before each public appearance,
14:40
official Rakova carefully removes from herself
14:43
all her jewelry, which is naturally even
14:45
more expensive than her clothes, carefully
14:47
puts it into a little box, and does not put it
14:49
back on until the cameras are turned off.
14:51
How do I know this?
14:52
From the same place our most loyal
14:54
viewers do: back in 2015, we published a roundup
14:57
of the most expensive jewelry worn by female officials
15:00
mostly from Moscow City Hall. The article
15:02
featured Rakova prominently, and today we
15:08
will tell you about her love for the Van
15:10
Cleef jewelry house. Look, she has a set like this
15:12
and a pendant like this, and another one like this,
15:15
a diamond butterfly.
15:16
She likes rings too — for example, one costing
15:18
550,000 rubles, but what she loves most is
15:21
diamonds. Look at how she showed up
15:24
to a Moscow city government meeting
15:25
as if she were attending the Oscars.
15:28
A pendant, and of course earrings from the jewelry house
15:30
Graff.
15:31
Back then, we asked for the price and found out that
15:33
a set like that costs more than 8
15:35
million rubles — for most Russians, that's
15:37
enough to buy a pretty decent apartment. For
15:39
official Rakova, it was just an everyday
15:41
trinket.
15:43
[music]
15:48
The only pleasant thing is that from 2015
15:51
to the present day, not a single photo has
15:53
appeared online of Rakova wearing these
15:55
or any other expensive
15:57
pieces of jewelry. She and her friends at City Hall
15:59
were simply banned from wearing them during working
16:01
hours.
16:02
I look forward to the day when that changes, and
16:04
to wrap up, I want to make a fairly
16:06
obvious observation: we are dealing with
16:09
colossal social inequality,
16:10
a truly gigantic rift that
16:13
separates ordinary people from their
16:16
ultra-rich, utterly shameless
16:18
officials — these so-called servants of the people whom we
16:20
pay to support. And this is not only about
16:23
material things. One of Anastasia's scarves costs
16:25
as much as the entire annual clothing budget
16:27
of the average Muscovite. Rakova may not
16:29
say outright that she considers the people
16:30
around her second-rate,
16:32
worthless ragamuffins, but the way she
16:34
behaves says it better than any
16:36
words. That is exactly why people like Rakova
16:39
are categorically against giving people
16:41
20,000 rubles each right now, as we
16:43
have proposed in the Five Steps
16:45
program.
16:45
By the way, don't forget to sign it
16:47
— the link is in the description. They sincerely
16:50
believe that we are entitled to
16:52
nothing at all. What do you mean, another 20,000 rubles — for
16:54
what exactly?
16:55
But when it comes to her own income,
16:57
anything goes. In her official declaration,
17:00
Anastasia Rakova's average income over
17:02
the last five years is 7 million rubles.
17:04
There are no other sources of income. She is unmarried and
17:07
has spent 20 years in public service. Yet just the clothes and
17:09
jewelry visible in several carefully staged
17:11
photos add up, by my count, to more than 15
17:14
million rubles. Again, that is only what she chose to
17:18
be photographed in. What else
17:20
does she own? Given her tastes and the scale of it all,
17:23
I'm afraid to imagine. It is obvious that
17:25
Rakova is living on far more than the salary
17:26
of a deputy mayor, but it does not even occur to her
17:28
to hide it. She proudly
17:30
wears evidence of her corruption
17:32
on her body, not ashamed to appear in it
17:35
in public and go on federal
17:36
TV channels.
17:37
She could not care less whether anyone finds out
17:39
the price of her things, because she fears
17:41
nothing. She has a lot of money,
17:44
truly a lot. She could
17:46
use it to light the barbecue at her dacha (country house),
17:48
but Rakova chose another way
17:50
to dispose of it: buying the most expensive clothes
17:52
in the world, and public opinion on the matter
17:54
simply does not interest her.
17:56
She can drape herself in diamonds
17:58
like a New Year's tree covered in ornaments, while
18:00
doctors work
18:01
for 20,000 rubles, and she thinks that is perfectly
18:04
normal, because she has earned it, whereas
18:07
doctors, in her view, have not.