Rituals, symbols, hierarchies and power. Business, relationships, vices, imperialist pomp and plenty of money. An endless avalanche of euros, dollars and rubles. Charities, tips and millionaire investments, all functional to feed a real oligarchic "system" in that land transformed into Costa Smeralda by a man as rich as he is austere. From the Aga Khan to the emirs, from the Arabs to the Russians, the step was sixty years long. All transformed, inexorably. The history of this strip of Sardinia, which in the last twenty years has been transformed into a Russian enclave in Sardinian land, is marked by powerful, wealthy men with a single common denominator: Vladimir Putin. Here they not only bought a villa, but now they own entire districts of Porto Cervo. There are the playmates and sports mates, the Rotenberg brothers, there are the sentimental and business accomplices, like Alisher Usmanov, there are the friends transformed into oil, industrial, banking and financial branches, from Gennady Timchenko to Oleg Deripaska. All enclosed in a highly armored system where you do not go for a stroll through the golden alleys of Porto Cervo, where you do not experience the splendor of the Costa Smeralda in the strict sense, but interact only and exclusively in a very restricted and strictly Russian circle.

The Russian drafts

When the "drafts", always circumspect in these parts, tell the "Putin system" in the bay of Porto Cervo they don't mince words: a real parallel state, silent, powerful, with its articulations of power, from top to bottom lines. A circuit powered over the years, a luxury car, the boundless and boundless one, the one that must amaze, perhaps for a few weeks a year, but that must sculpt in the mind of the "subjects" who is the richest and most powerful of the friends of the Tsar of Russia. It is a "state" suspended between air, sea and land. Planes that belong more to science fiction than reality, with spas and swimming pools on board, yachts measuring hundreds of millions of dollars and hundreds of meters. Everything, however, takes place in total silence. The Russians are there, their wealth is shown in all the grandeur of the hierarchical symbol, but they never or almost never see them.

Usmanov, the untouchable

It is not known who arrives aboard those "ferries" with unbridled splendor, who lives there for those 50/60 days of champagne life, rich prizes and cotillions, surrounded by exclusive sea and earthly paradise everywhere. Certainly he is there. Or rather there was, given the sanctions that for a long time prevented him from setting foot, or rather slippers, in Sardinia. Alisher Usmanov is considered the untouchable here. Exalted and revered, venerable and dispenser of tips from nabobs.

Spesucce millionaire

Able with his oligarchic "state" to generate a whirlwind of money that always goes above eight figures between personnel, services and various drinks. Millions and millions of spesucce. Without reporting, of course, if only the shopping bag has always been entrusted to the most trusted men, those recognizable from a distance. Everyone here knows who they are, how they move and how much they count in the Sardinian hermitage of Putin's most powerful oligarch. To understand who governs this Russian system in the heart of the Costa Smeralda, one must rely on symbols, those used to mark the hierarchy of places and businesses, of power and unlimited wealth. Here, the number one symbol, for many years, until a few months ago, was the Dilbar, a sort of aquatic Kremlin placed like a state palace in the middle of the most coveted bay of Porto Cervo.

The golden boa

Placed means “placed” in the true sense of the word. It is no coincidence that the buoy he has been assigned in the middle of the sea is the exact center of the turquoise waters of the Costa Smeralda. Too complicated to bring that “monster” of sailing luxury back to port, despite the Prince having allowed him to expand, at Russian expense, the dock in the Old Port. It is not very symbolic to moor it on a quay, albeit gigantic, better still that imposing anchor visible from any corner of the natural amphitheater of Porto Cervo. If you do not see it, it is preferable to undergo an ophthalmological check-up, it means that the vision is disturbed. Alisher Usmanov that buoy, costing 147 thousand euros a year in rent, wanted it there so that everyone could see that mausoleum on the water, 156 meters long and 23 wide, 80 crew members, 55 cabins in all. The largest yacht in the world, worth $ 600 million, now “frozen” in a port in northern Europe.

The Kremlin of Porto Cervo

On the Dilbar, everything and more has been said, but there is something that everyone knows but that no one will confirm, perhaps not even with the microphones off: it is there, in that gigantic yacht, that the oligarchic "State" on land, at sea and in the air of Sardinia he manages the universal relationships of a man as "wide" as he is powerful. The well-informed tell of an incessant coming and going, of many who ask him to meet him, from the simplest people to the local and world powerful, from foreign heads of state to those of high finance. It is said that Jack Ma, the powerful inventor of the Alibaba platform, one of the most powerful and influential Chinese in the world, when he lost track of him last year, was actually a guest of the Russian tycoon in the gigantic "sea dacha".

From Alibaba to Facebook

Moreover, Usmanov has never spared himself in Sardinian relations with other foreign states, from China to the United States. He was by far the most innovative oligarch in Putin's circle, capable of betting out of the blue 200 million dollars on the invention of a little boy, Mark Elliot Zuckerberg, who dreamed of creating a platform called Facebook. He receives Heads of State and world leaders incognito, makes him choose whether to stay overnight in the 20 extra-luxury cabins of the Dilbar dedicated to illustrious guests or to accompany them, away from prying eyes, by sea, with mini-yachts transformed into tenders, in one of his many villas equipped with an exclusive dock. The choice is not lacking: there are the millionaire dachas of Punta Capaccia, attached to the imposing ghost villa of the Rotemberg "system", to those of Pevero or Villa Violina in Liscia di Vacca, where, however, for the few times it goes down to earth, prefers to stay personally. The guardian of many villas costs him a "little", but we only know the fee he pays to the Consortium to manage a part of its security system: one million and 200 thousand euros a year.

Drinks and full

If the basket of life of this sort of "oligarchic" Head of State in Sardinia were to be measured by the drinks consumed in the last year from the Dilbar galley, the surprising figure would be six zeros, not even quantifiable in liters of orangeade and coke. Certainly the organization entrusted to its collateral companies, those dedicated to ordering and settling the accounts of the Dilbar, spent over a million euros in 2021, not to mention when that giant of the seas has to move to Olbia to fill up. of fuel: one and a half million euros each time, with dozens of tankers lined up to fill the never empty tank of the most visible yacht on the coast.

Scott Marina, the windfall

To oversee the entire system there is always a sort of "general of the army corps", an Australian who became a Russian with a hasty and authoritative attitude. Scott Marina, a feminine name for a man who, on the other hand, governs, indeed ruled, the immense Sardinian empire of Usmanov. They tell in Porto Cervo that when Scott entered the chosen venue there was a party, it meant that manna from heaven had knocked on the front door: a thousand and one nights booking with enough cash to activate the entire season.

The slippers

Scott has always managed to solve any kind of emergency, except that of leather slippers. It is said that Usmanov was fond of those he wore daily aboard the Dilbar. The bulk, however, had literally flaked them apart. He asked twice to save them, the third the cobbler replied: they can no longer be repaired. They communicated it to the oligarch who replied: buy them back the same. They told him that the factory had been closed. He did not lose heart and exclaimed: make it reopen.

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