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During the post-Soviet era, the port city has acquired a reputation throughout Russia as a bastion of the underground economy. Darkin himself laid the foundation for his rise to power with a company that officials at the Interior Ministry in Moscow characterized as a "hornets' nest of organized crime." At the time, his current wife was married to Igor "The Carp" Karpov, an underworld figure well known in the city. When snipers shot and killed "The Carp" in broad daylight, Belobrova agreed to marry the governor.

"What is happening in the Russian Far East is, in a grotesque way, characteristic of all of Russia," says Vitaly Nomokonov, a law professor at the University of Vladivostok and the author of a textbook on organized crime in the Far East. "The most criminal area of all here is big business, which really ought to be clean, given its close ties to politics."

For this reason, says Nomokonov, there is absolutely no doubt that the top brass in Moscow know perfectly well what is going on in Vladivostok, though they continue to support Darkin. Because of his past, he is susceptible to blackmail and is easily manipulated. He guarantees the "otkat," or commission for high-ranking officials.

During the Putin era, the total amount of bribes being paid in Russia has increased from $33 billion to $400 billion. "Even President Medvedev has admitted there has been no progress," says Professor Nomokonov. "Why is this the case? Because the people in power lack the political will."

Setting The Stage

Even if a vice-governor or a customs director is occasionally arrested on corruption charges, the pickings are still abundant for gold-diggers in Vladivostok. The APEC summit of Asia-Pacific nations will be held in September 2012 on Russky Island, off the coast of Vladivostok. For this reason alone, 15 billion will have been spent on bridges, new construction and infrastructure by then.

When Governor Darkin looks down from his office in Vladivostok's "White House," he doesn't just see a city that is cleaning itself up for the big event in the best of Potemkin traditions with a few improved streets along the route to the airport, or fresh paint on buildings that line the streets.

He also sees heavily loaded ferries breaking through the ice near the half-finished bridge across the Zolotoy Rog Bay. On the island across the bay, which barely had enough drinking water for its residents until recently, some 15,000 construction workers from around the world are working furiously to complete the set for the summit, which is intended to win the respect of U.S. President Barack Obama, Chinese President Hu Jintao and other world leaders.

A project that is deeply Russian in its mixture of energy and pomposity is taking shape on the island. While the champagne glasses for the Obamas are already standing on the dining table in the presidential suite, only a few kilometers away Gennady Paskotin, a retired army officer, is complaining about what was sold to him as a "townhouse." He was forced to leave his former apartment due to the construction. Now he is checking the new 57-square-meter (613-square-foot) dwelling, with its plasterboard interior walls, for crooked alignment. The developer billed the government 150,000 for this drafty alternative housing. "A joke," says Paskotin, who makes ends meet on a small officer's pension.

"Our entire system is so unbelievably corrupt," says an official with United Russia in Vladivostok, "that the only way to save it would be to shoot officials, as they do in China."

Originally posted here:
Shadow Economy And Media Control - Russian's Fed Up With Putin's Manipulations