Striptease without undressing

Being considered a fool is not very pleasant. But when you are considered such a clinical idiot that they themselves do not hesitate to look like fools for the sake of it, it is completely insulting. I’m talking about declarations of income and property, which, as I understand, as part of the fight against corruption, were presented to the public by our main officials.

Entertainment is not new. During election periods, we regularly make fun of the poor candidates who, as a rule, have nothing but limitless reserves of conscience and honesty. But now everything is not just like that, but as part of the fight against corruption. So that no one suspects anything, so that everything is transparent, as in the palm of your hand and in your spirit. A kind of striptease - in the material sense.

But the result was not a striptease, but a real scam. The lights went out, exciting music began to play, there was a pole in the center of the stage, and the ladies were in no hurry to take off their clothes, lazily paraded and did not show us the most important thing that we so longed to see. Simply put, these income declarations cannot even be called “Filka’s letter” so as not to offend Filka.

We learned that the president’s salary is less than 100 thousand euros a year, and the Medvedev family owns a 1999 Golf. The state is fighting with all its might against such junk cars, and the president is not ashamed. However, perhaps “Golf” is a talisman, a sign - taking into account the 1999 release. Prime Minister Putin never answered the question I asked two years ago: “Where is Zaporozhets?” The same one that he demonstrated to Bush as his first car and there are no traces of which since then in any declaration of Vladimir Vladimirovich. But the prime minister did not hide two old Volga cars and a twenty-year-old trailer, a parking space in a cooperative and another parking space, as well as 230 shares of the St. Petersburg Bank with a ruble par value. Mironov has nothing but a trailer and an all-terrain vehicle. I understand that government officials live in state mansions and drive state cars, but the same Mironov was not born as a speaker right away, he did not live in a caravan before and is going to live later. Or is he a lifelong speaker? Then, of course, he doesn’t need his own apartment. However, his wife has living space. Not counting another all-terrain vehicle. Is it such an indicator of coolness for them, perhaps, to own caravans and all-terrain vehicles? So they will go in a cavalcade: one in an old Golf with a tricolor, followed by another in an old Volga with a trailer, followed by a third on an all-terrain vehicle.

In general, almost every declaration is a small anecdote. Every second official is almost a gigolo. Or henpecked. Because their wives earn much more. Wives own apartments and other “luxuries”. Shuvalov earned 77 times less than his wife in a year! 77 times! But at least he doesn’t drive some kind of GE, but like a normal person: a Jaguar, a Gelendvagen, a 600 and two more Mercedes, a Soviet ZIL, colloquially a “cock carrier,” and a bunch of Fords. (You read this way and don’t even understand what is more provocative - this fleet of vehicles or all-terrain vehicles and trailers from a landfill? But Shuvalov’s list at least looks like the truth.)

Of course, none of them have a penny or a centimeter abroad, except for Minister Avdeev, but he acquired real estate in France with the ambassador’s salary, apparently. In truth, this is not so fundamentally, but everyone prefers to be patriots of the Russian land. Sometimes literally. The poorest minister in the entire government - Shoigu - with a salary of 5,000 euros per month, has two plots - 12 hectares and 7.5 hectares. Calculate for yourself how many months he must neither eat nor drink in order to acquire this land. The chief controller Chuychenko also turned out to be the main rich man with 368 million rubles a year. But he “controlled” this because he sold the land that year. Does it fit? It fits. And before you sell it, what did you use to buy it?

All this is not to say that they should ride the subway and get $200 for really important government work. But no one believes in these reports. And everyone knows that besides the husband and wife, there are other relatives in the family. And if Mironov has nothing but an all-terrain vehicle and a trailer, but his wife already has a couple of apartments, then maybe his brothers, sisters, mothers-in-law, matchmakers and godfathers should also look for Mironov’s assets? Are there many ways to own and possess without formally having anything to do with anything?

Then why launch the “fool”? Let's just know by default that we have embezzlers, bribe-takers, millionaires with pittance salaries. But let's not disgrace ourselves in writing. I have written and said a hundred times that in our country everything is the other way around: it is not money that gives power, but power that opens the way to wealth. Well, they didn’t go into politics for the sake of old cars, small garden houses and all-terrain vehicles. This is not why they left big business to become ministers. And since people are not embarrassed by their stupid position with these declarations, it means the jackpot is solid. No one wants to be a fool for free.