I've started gathering material for a new book, one of the threads of which will be about how António de Oliveira Salazar, the reigning Portuguese dictator of nearly four decades and, incidentally, an economics professor, lived. By the standards of historical satraps, Salazar lived quite modestly in a state-purchased "pocket" palace called São Bento in the hills of Lisbon's Estrela district. To this day, this square, five-axis, two-story building surrounded by a shady park is the official residence of the Portuguese prime ministers, although in truth it is closer to an elegant garden pavilion than the representative seat of the prime ministers of Europe's longest-serving colonial power.
The figure of Salazar intrigued me because two themes of strong interest to me intersect in his attitude to everyday life, namely the need for modest living and the role of luxury as a tool of self-representation, or more simply, how we want to show ourselves to the world. Salazar, it turns out, did not like gold (he left this predilection to the clergy, as a downright fanatical Catholic) or anything we would call bling today.
After his first drive, he was reportedly disgusted by the number of gadgets placed in the government's Mercedes-Benz 770 Grosser, which was ordered for him from the manufacturer, so the car stood in the garage from 1930 until the Carnation Revolution. Salazar slept alone, as an old bachelor "totally dedicated to the cause of saving the state" (what does that remind you of?) in linen sheets sewn by his mother, a simple peasant woman from a village 200 kilometers north of the capital.
Unlike most narcissistic dictators, he wore gray three-piece suits, hated public appearances and was happiest sitting in his office or reading in his favorite armchair, possibly in the summer overseeing wine production at a small vineyard he owned. He didn't buy things, any things at all, like probably no small number of older, single men, and all of his material surroundings, except perhaps his books, were "ready-made" and looked after by a dedicated housekeeper.
Rather, Salazar used the entire entourage as if it were representative paraphernalia of power, considering them the price of performing his duties, and sometimes as useful tools that did not need to be fussed over. After all, one had to sleep on something, eat at something, somewhere to read Machiavelli (whom he often quoted) and where to put a photo of an inspiring friend in the form of Benito Mussolini. The photo, by the way, eventually landed under Salazar's desk after the Allied victory, with Portugal eventually becoming a beachhead of U.S. military influence, and eventually one of the founding countries of the North Atlantic Pact. But let's not be fooled: the professor was not a nice teddy bear. He ruled with an iron fist with the help of the army and the ruthless PIDE secret police, which (if historians are to be believed) may have murdered "only" sixty people, but "for that" broke the lives of thousands of tortured and sectioned oppositionists. Several decades after the dictator's death, someone nailed a plaque on the wall of his family home with the inscription: "Here was born on April 2, 1889 Dr. Oliveira Salazar, a gentleman who ruled but never stole." Perhaps the professor really did not steal: if so, he was a very isolated case among people in power in general and among dictators in particular.
Things are quite different when it comes to Vladimir Putin, who, one might say, is the best rule setter on the subject of power's love of money. As a reminder, for the past twenty-five years the Russian dictator has been implementing a system called kleptocracy for the radical appropriation of every manifestation of the country's economic life, resulting in the extreme centralization of the flow of money. Putin has curbed the activities of all mafias while taking them over, established a foundation that puts a paw (in the form of 7 percent) on everything imported into Russia, and de facto privatized every profit-making activity within public sector entities: from mining companies to weapons factories. His activities have become a model for a slew of imitators led by his Hungarian loyal friend Viktor Orbán. At the same time, Putin is using narratives that are damaging to the elites, slowly aiming to completely intimidate and alienate them, helped, of course, by the current war. Thus, people demonstrating against his policies were at one time described by Kremlin propaganda as "elites in furs." At the same time, "Czar" Putin is probably the richest man in the world, valued at $70 billion, but his fortune remains unknown to most Russians, as officially the ruler is a humble bureaucrat devoted to the country. The average Russian, therefore, has no way of knowing about Putin's mega-residence designed by a "poor Italian architect" (as Putin's and his entourage's court architect Lanfranco Cirillo says of himself with a sneer) near the Black Sea town of Gelendzyk, which pales next to the ostentation of Donald
Trump's mansion in Mar-a-Lago.
Nor can an ordinary Russian citizen know about the $500, or, as those who have visited it say, rather $750 million, Sheherazade superyacht. Nor about the Kosatka, a smaller yacht for millions of rapturously 100, and the other two vessels between which the dictator moves. In each case, ownership is either insecure or assigned to nabobs loyal to the "tsar." If Putin's guests' indiscretions are to be believed, Scheherazade is a festival of kitsch and hutzpah, with the clou of the program being gold toilet bowls, such toilet paper holders, a self-levelling billiard table that is not afraid of storms, a Carrara marble-lined twenty-five-meter swimming pool (after all, a karateka must take care of his fitness even in the middle of the sea!), which, by the way, reveals itself to guests after they drive up to the ceiling of the covering platform that is the dance hall's dance floor. The second, outdoor pool also has a pumped slide and a jacuzzi, although a jacuzzi is, of course, already a staple article for any newcomer. It's probably impossible to list all of Putin's movable and immovable "metas," not only because of the endless financial possibilities, but also the convoluted ownership relationships covered up by tax haven companies and the conspiracy of silence binding his entourage.
Take, for example, the hilltop palace La Roca del Rey in the town of La Zagaleta on Spain's Costa del Sol, with an estimated area of only 4,000 square meters. Putin reportedly chose the location persuaded by the former mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov, who had his discreet bungalow next door (as did Rod Steward). If the local daily La Opinión de Málaga is to be believed, the "tsar" personally visited the construction site several times, incognito of course. But, again, even this information is difficult to confirm, which is certainly helped by the efforts of the FSB and a slew of Russian diplomats.
In Putin's case, then, we have two divergent visions of representation: one created by state propaganda, which in no way mentions the leader's fabulous wealth, and the other, which is based on the initiation of invited "people of influence." They reportedly include American lobbyists and politicians (and even the children of politicians like Hunter Biden), ruling heads of state, movie stars and ladies-in-waiting, because after all, it's hard to imagine superyachts without bunga-bunga, to quote a term coined by Silvio Berlusconi, a longtime friend and admirer of the Russian satrap.
Unless I'm wrong and they're out there praying together and reading the encyclicals of Pius XIII, like Professor António Salazar, described by me at the beginning, who, next to Putin, comes off as an inability to enjoy life, a dull provincial, living on top of that in a dusty cottage among furniture inherited from the previous owner. Of the two evils, I choose Salazar with his obsession with restraint, although, gee whiz, who among the architects reading these words wouldn't want to design a mansion without budget constraints? After all, you live once, brothers and sisters!
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