The British came up with nice bon mots for the typical symbiosis between the capital and its rich Russian inhabitants.
»Londongrad«, for example, because so many Russians now reside there.
Or »London Laundromat« – the capital as a laundromat for dirty money from abroad.
Because the tactic of getting as many rich people from abroad as possible to take up residence in the kingdom is now based on a long tradition: the conservative Prime Minister John Major installed the practice of issuing “golden visas” to wealthy prospective customers, combined with the prospect of an accelerated visa naturalization procedure.
In return, only investments had to be made in Great Britain, if possible in the millions, but it didn't matter whether by means of real or dummy companies.
Tony Blair continued this practice and when the Tories, ie the Conservatives under David Cameron, ruled after the Labor years, things really took off.
"It really exploded with the golden visa," says SPIEGEL correspondent Jörg Schindler in this podcast episode.
»And it's not just that the rich Russians came here with a lot of money and invested it in villas and so on.
Rather, they specifically, almost strategically, bought into British society.«
Entire economic circles now depend on the existence of the oligarchs.
Not only high-end real estate agents, but restaurants, bodyguards, nannies, gardeners, drivers or people who walk the dogs of rich people.
The interlocking is so close that one has to fear a shock for the British economy.
Sanctions or not - the oligarchs have to stay, otherwise the system that feeds so many gets stuck.
"What we're seeing here is just a threatening backdrop against Putin and his cronies," says Jörg Schindler, "and not an attempt to drain a swamp.
And that is very important.
It's not about ending this whole thing in an unsavory way.
You just don't want to be deprived of that flow of money, those staggering fantastic billions that are then flying to London."
In this episode of »Eight Billions«, Jörg Schindler talks about why the term oligarch is misleading here and by no means only refers to Russians, who maintains and maintains the system and why Roman Abramowitsch is a special figure in this system.
Listen to the current episode here:
