The Russian elite’s obsession with seasonal second homes, or Dacha, dates back to the 17th century. Tsar Peter the Great had his Marley Palace and Stalin routinely spent the entire summer at his Green Grove retreat in downtown Sochi. As for President Vladimir Putin, the very existence of his multi-million dollar Black Sea palace near the village of Praskoveevka has raised questions of corruption. His salary is only purported to be around $150,000.
Trump’s Love Of Russian Money
Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump, who is no stranger to the pleasures of a summer retreat, has something else in common with the Russian oligarchy’s predilection for extravagance. His reliance on their money.
Trump’s political alignment with the Russian elite, is by now, well documented. His stance on matters ranging from NATO to Brexit must have provided both aid and comfort to Vladimir Putin. The Russian President’s hostility towards European unity is so virulent that he has been accused of funding political parties outside of Russia.
Disturbing Ties To The Russian Elite
Less well-known than his political sympathies towards Russia is his love of doing business with one of the most corrupt regimes in the world. Not that he admits to it.
Speaking at a news conference on July 27, Trump said:
“I have nothing to with Russia. I have nothing to do with Russia — for anything.”
The lack of ambiguity found in such a statement was negated moments later as he decided that the word ‘nothing’ might have been misconstrued. He added:
“What do I have to do with Russia? You know the closest I came to Russia, I bought a house a number of years ago in Palm Beach, Florida. Palm Beach is a very expensive place. There was a man who went bankrupt and I bought the house for $40 million and I sold it to a Russian for $100 million including brokerage commissions. So I sold it. So I bought it for 40, I sold it for 100 to a Russian. That was a number of years ago. I guess probably I sell condos to Russians, okay?”
Most U.S. Banks Won’t Lend Trump Money
The Russian man in question was a 41-year-old Russian billionaire named Dmitry Rybolovlev, and in actual fact, Trump bought the villa for £42 million, spent at least $25 million renovating it and sold it for $95 million. Of more interest than the specifics of the deal, or indeed of Trump’s need to exaggerate its success, is the question as to why Rybolovlev paid so much money for a house that he has never, and probably will never, set foot in?
To begin with, Trump’s insistence that he has nothing to do with Russia, aside from this one deal, is bogus. Back in 2007 he claimed that:
“Russia is one of the hottest places in the world for investment … we will be in Moscow at some point.”
This seems, for once, not to have been an idle boast. Having burned his bridges with most of the major U.S. banks after his 2004 bankruptcy and in desperate need of credit, Trump began looking farther afield. With troubled Deutsche Bank having already sunk $2.5 billion worth of loans into companies affiliated with Trump, there were few places left to go. Attempts to borrow money from Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, a man who literally went camping on one of Trump’s estates, came to little.
Mafia Ties
According to Buzzfeed, Trump became involved with a relatively new, cash rich company called the Bayrock Group, the chairman of which was former Soviet official and real estate mogul Tevfik Arif. The day-to-day operations of Bayrock, however, were run by Felix Satter, a man whose resume is bound to raise a few eyebrows.
Satter served time in prison for slashing open a man’s face with a bottle and has been busted by the Feds for running a stock brokerage with ties to four different Mafia families. He also allegedly threatened one Trump investor with mutilation and death.
Trump’s association with such people says much about his character, but his ties to the Russian elite go deeper than simple opportunism. He shares many of the characteristic that define the new Russian oligarchy. He sold the Maison de l’Amitie to Rybolovlev for the simple reason that few others in the world were prepared to pay such a ridiculous price for it.
Five years after the sale, Palm Beach County set its value at just $59.8 million. Rybolovlev, who has a history of paying over the odds for things he wants has also been accused of making purchases in an attempt to squirrel away assets prior to, what at the time, looked like it might be the most expensive divorce settlement in human history.
The House Of Friendship Falls
As the dust settled from the drama of the Rybolovlev divorce, with the final settlement slashed from $4.5 billion to $600 million, things looked less than rosy for the house Trump once called:
“The second-greatest house in America.”
That Trump regarded his own home as being the first probably comes as a surprise to no one. That the Maison de l’Amitie, the so-called ‘House of Friendship’ is now scheduled for demolition, just might.
Check out this great take on Trump and his Russian ties:
