What better way to welcome the new year and break my blogging silence than with news of my favorite person in the world: ex-Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov.
Luzhkov appears in the news again today, this time because he has applied for residency in Latvia. To that end, he has invested some $200,000 in local banks and owns some property.
Also, it seems he can’t live in Russia any more. Though I’m sure he’d tell you it’s because his daughters were being physically threatened, or because he trying to start a democratic movement — a movement completely relegated to public statements — but really it’s because these are the rules of the game he helped to establish in the last decade: Loot and pillage while the going’s good, then get the fuck out as soon as it’s not. It’s a zero-sum game, and Luzhkov was always its expert (founding) player. This is why the children of its top players live abroad, and why there are residences and documents ready in case one should lose the game. And if anyone doubts that Russia’s top political players are not building a society as much as they are stripping it of its copper wiring, you have only to look at Luzhkov’s example. As soon as he’s out of power, he leaves the city he’s allegedly done so much for.
As for the Latvians, they are none too excited about the prospect of Yuri Mikhailovich settling down among them. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that, at a protest outside the Latvian embassy in Moscow in 1998, Luzhkov compared the Latvian authorities to the regime of Pol Pot. Oops!
Said Latvian Foreign Minister Linda Murniece: “Most likely, he will not get” the residency.
via Vedomosti
The Moscow Diaries 
Historically there are only 3 places to be after relinquishing “the power” in Russia – grave, jail, and exile. That is why it is so inconceivable to give up high post voluntarily.
Time to remember who was not offended as a matter of style. Ironically, London is most logical choice.
Word. Apparently, he’s applying there as well. Poor Luzhok!
Perhaps Sarah Palin would have him in Alaska…
(Welcome back, missed you.)
Interesting. I wonder what they’ll do with the modest property they bought in London?
http://www.propgoluxury.com/EN/PropertyNews/London/236-Witanhurst-Highgate-Yelena-Baturina.html
They could always sublet. I bet the rent would be steep, though. And it looks like it’d be drafty. More of a summer place – there’s probably a number you can call in advance to see if England is having a summer.