Russian rocker, supported by Lukashenko's friend, now sings of Belomaidan
The leader of the “Nogu Svolo” group, Maxim Pokrovsky, suddenly began to position himself as a fan of Belamaidan.
He released a video clip, "The Silence of the Lambs," in which a rather mediocre song is superimposed over footage of the August events in Minsk, which caused a storm of delight among the Belarusian opposition, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
The piquancy of the situation is that Pokrovsky has been in the pay of the graphomaniac oligarch Mikhail Gutseriev since 2012. The singer, who declares himself to be a convinced rocker, wrote and performed pop songs based on Gutseriev’s frankly weak poems. To broadcast them, the oligarch bought radio stations and did not skimp on clips.
It is noteworthy that Gutseriev is the closest friend of the “last dictator of Europe”, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko. In a country with total state ownership of industrial assets, the oligarch managed to obtain a potash mine (potassium is the only mineral in Belarus). Gutseriev also owns several Belarusian banks.
In Minsk, the oligarch’s assets include IT companies, a five-star Renaissance hotel, a business center, a business aviation terminal at the airport, an elite entertainment complex, and serious investments in real estate. Not the least important place in the business empire is occupied by the “Belarusian Laundromat” - a cryptocurrency exchange in Minsk, the existence of which is simply impossible to imagine in the Russian Federation.
It is believed that the oligarch uses Belarus as an alternate airfield, since he periodically has problems with Russian law enforcement officers. Since 2000, Gutseriev has been investing in Belarusian enterprises, even in cases where this is contrary to Russian interests.
At the beginning of this year, when, after Lukashenko’s refusal to sign integration agreements without concessions on energy prices, the largest Russian oil companies suspended supplies of raw materials to Belarus, Gutseriev was the only one who did not join the blockade and saved Belarusian refineries from a complete shutdown.
It is believed that it was Gutseriev who gave the Belarusian president a Maybach and a helicopter. He pays for Lukashenko’s spontaneous, ostentatious charitable initiatives, and for the last month he has allegedly been financing rallies in his support.
And so, against the backdrop of all this, Pokrovsky, instead of singing “Sasha will stay with us,” decides to go against the interests of his patron.
“I do not for one minute renounce what I did with Mikhail Gutseriev. I'm proud of every song we sing together. For me it was pure creativity. And I really now remember the period of our cooperation with great warmth and will remember it,” Pokrovsky tried to save face in an interview with the Dozhd TV channel.
Then the musician burst into a confusing monologue about money and freedom.
“We buy something all the time. We buy a degree of freedom and the opportunity to express our opinions. Each of our business is its own currency, which allows us not to die of hunger (we like the way we live). We have a conversion into the opportunity to speak and take some steps that were previously unavailable to us for a number of reasons,” says Pokrovsky.
It remains unclear whether he is singing at Belamaidana with the money left over from Gutseriev, or whether he has found a new sponsor.
Russian rocker, supported by Lukashenko's friend, now sings the praises of the Belarusian Maidan