President Putin in person has interfered for the first time in the situation about Abkhazia and South Ossetia. He has ordered that the Russian government offer measures for giving substantial aid to the populations of the unrecognized republics. To put it exactly, he ordered that a cooperation start with their authorities in the trade, economic and social spheres. Another instruction is defining the list of documents issued by local authorities that are to be recognized by Moscow.

What does all that mean?

That means, all the juridical entities registered on the territory of Abkhazia and South Ossetia will get recognized in Russia.

Should we remind that economic activities are very specific on the territories of the unrecognized republics? For example, one of the deputy prime ministers in South Ossetia lost his office just because he did not want to share the money gained out of the fraud with aviso. His “comrades” revenged on him kidnapping his son. 

Today’s South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity used to be a figure supported by the local opposition presented by Tedeevs the brothers. That time the only difference between authority and opposition was that authority was engaged directly in smuggling business through the Roksky Tunnel, while the opposition would come to the customs office armed with guns and would take its share from there.   

Well, those times are far behind now. At the moment the South Ossetia lives not from contraband, but from Russian money. Can you imagine how much one may receive out from pension and social benefits for 70,000 people when the real number of the local population is maximum 30,000? As for Tedeevs brothers, they were first accused of designing a plot against Kokoita, and later the junior Tedeev was just shot in the city of Vladikavkaz.   

I can’t forget an episode that happened during my visiting the republic, when I was being guarded by the President Kokoita’s securities. Treating me like a spy from CIA or from British intelligence service, they answered “correctly” to all my questions, saying about “vicious regime in Georgia and about aggressors from NATO”. Then accidentally the topic swung to a Russian oligarch who had allotted some money to an Ossetian dying enterprise, by the Kremlin’s request. The guards began to argue if that oligarch would invest money also into the local mines. Finally, they concluded that “no, he wouldn’t”. And then one of them suddenly uttered that, if he didn’t keep his promise, he could be asked for it in accordance with the rules of the underworld. Saying that the poor guard let slip the main secret of the state arrangement of South Ossetia!      

As for Abkhazia, another shady business scheme is very popular there. Some careless Russian citizen, who was not born in the area, buys a house from an owner for, say, $30,000. Next month another seller comes to him and says he is the real owner of the sold house and requires the money to be paid to him. Another variant is requiring additional money along with the property going up in the republic.  

Another popular scheming relates to big properties. For example, you are offered to buy a hotel for $2,000,000. You give $200,000 for paying all the registration costs. For this money the mediator registers the hotel to his own name, and not to yours. When one buyer got trapped that way and required his money back, he got an interesting reply: “We have already eaten that money, but if you bring here another stupid man from Russia, we shall fraud him and shall compensate your losses”.  

It’s all those “very exclusive” economic zones that President Putin has ordered to recognize. Actually, they are nothing but a tax hole for some Russian officials. Just a business. 

So there have been two important foreign policy events this week. First, President Putin has signed an agreement with Libya, according to which we shall write off its debts in case it contracts the new ones. Second, our “vertical of power” has revenged “sternly” on Georgia, making a tax and juridical hole in the Russian legislation. Well, the nature of the revenge corresponds to the nature of the vertical!