Chapter 940 (1/2)
In St. Petersburg, Simon ends his video call with Amy Pascal and does some other work. He turns off his computer and walks out of his study.
This is a coastal suburb southwest of St. Petersburg.
As for how to choose the best residence in a city, it's absolutely right to follow the powerful mansions or government departments.
Along the southwest coast of St. Petersburg, there are many tsarist Russian palaces, including Peter's palace. Simon began to layout Russia a few years ago, and naturally chose his residence in St. Petersburg here.
Russia is vast and sparsely populated, and the most important thing is land.
Therefore, Simon's waterfront manor has set aside 100 hectares of land between the Peter's palace and another Constantine palace. It took three years to complete the construction. The main building in the manor is a baroque style three story villa similar to the winter palace in St. Petersburg, but the appearance of the villa is simple and heavy raw lime, rather than the grass green of the winter palace Color.
In order to avoid being mixed with sand in the construction process, the building materials, including the construction team, are from Ukraine.
Simon knows the story that the bricks of the U.S. Embassy are filled with eavesdroppers.
Simon has always had a shadow over this kind of thing since his experience at the Plaza Hotel.
After leaving the study, girl a quickly comes to meet her with two waitresses. The waitress holds two sets of clothes in her hand and chooses one at will. Simon changes them in the next bedroom and goes downstairs.
The car has been waiting outside the villa.
Perceiving that Simon was about to go out, a little girl broke away from her mother's arms and ran to her.
We need to be together.
Simon picked up the little girl and saw Shul higgina coming to pick up the baby. He shook his head with a smile and said to the little guy in his arms, ”we can do it together, but we must be good.”
”Of course, Dad, Nina is very good.”
Yulia shuershiggina didn't know what Simon was going to do next, but she knew that it must not be an ordinary party. She stepped forward a little and said, ”Sir, you'd better give me the baby, Nina. It's not suitable.”
The little guy in Simon's arms saw his mother come forward, immediately put a koala around Simon's neck like a koala, and urged: ”Dad, let's go.”
He shakes his head to schulthina again. Simon comes to the villa with his child in his arms. The waiting bodyguards and drivers are surprised to see Simon holding a little bit, but they don't say anything. They just open the door for their boss.
Simon holds the child to get on the car, and girl a follows in. When the door closes, the little girl immediately makes a face at her mother outside the window.
Without reminding the child that her mother couldn't see the car, Simon told the driver to drive.
as like as two peas, the two black Mercedes crossed the long corridor and left the road to the highway heading for St Petersburg.
It's already more than 7:00 p.m., and it's still bright in St. Petersburg, which is located in the high latitude area. It's expected that it will be dark after 8:00 p.m. Simon looks at the city outside the car window while dealing with various problems of the little guy in his arms.
This ancient city at the mouth of the Baltic Sea is a witness of Russia's transformation from a small backward country in a remote corner to a European power.
At the beginning of the 18th century, Peter the great moved Russia's capital from Moscow to St. Petersburg, and under the unanimous opposition of domestic dignitaries, he strongly promoted Russia's Europeanization process, accepted various advanced technologies and cultures, and finally established Russia's position as a powerful country nearly 300 years before the collapse of the Soviet Union.
It is said that Peter the great was in the same period as Emperor Kangxi of China, but they led the two countries to two completely opposite directions.
One is forced to open up and eventually become a European power.
One insisted on seclusion and was abandoned by history.
Now, this ancient city, which has experienced 300 years of vicissitudes, has once again fallen into a period of downturn in its life.
When Simon drives into the city of St. Petersburg, except for the asphalt road left over from the Soviet era, which is still broad and solid, there is a similar decadent atmosphere with Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. Many buildings on both sides of the road are mottled and dilapidated due to lack of maintenance. In addition, Russia's relatively sparse population, at first glance, is similar to that of Ukraine If the ghost town.
Simon knows that this kind of decadence is still not the lowest point in Russia.
Although Russia's GDP has dropped from US $517.9 billion when the Soviet Union just disintegrated in 1991 to US $395.5 billion in 1995, a drop of 24%, the real abyss is still after 1997.
And the turning point is this year.
1996 is not only the presidential election year of the United States, but also the presidential election year of Russia.
Yeltsin succeeded in stealing the power of the president of this country at the beginning of this year. After a few years, he completely made a mess of Russia. As a result, at the beginning of this year, the Russian people's support rate for the president who had more speculators than politicians was only 3%, either 30% or 3%.Yeltsin, who knows exactly what will happen to him if he loses the election this year, resolutely joined hands with Russia's major oligarchs and invested a lot of money to turn the situation around.
The information age has not yet fully arrived, because the media communication channels are limited, the manipulation of public opinion is quite easy, and a large amount of money has been thrown down. A few months later, Yeltsin's support rate has risen to about 50%, ahead of his competitors. Not surprisingly, the other party will be reelected in the general election in July.
Since the oligarchs have given Yeltsin so much support, of course they have to ask for something in return.
As a result, the second feast to carve up Russia's state-owned assets became more and more unscrupulous during Yeltsin's second term of office. Coupled with the impact of the Southeast Asian financial crisis, Russia's economy fell into a more difficult abyss. At its lowest point in 1999, Russia's GDP was only over $190 billion, a further drop of 50% compared with about $400 billion at that time.
If Yeltsin had not done the only right thing in the last period of his administration and elected a qualified successor, it would not have been impossible for Russia to make a living by selling land again even after the millennium.
Simon and his party entered the city of St. Petersburg from the southwest suburb, crossed the Neva River, and finally came to another private residence in the eastern suburb of the city after more than 40 minutes' journey.
This is a private house of Mikhail Friedman, a business oligarch supported by the westero system in Russia.
A small reception in the field of politics and business will be held here tonight.
The reception was arranged by Simon himself.
Over the years, with the influence of Simon, the big butterfly, getting bigger and bigger, many things are more and more back to the history in memory. After all, according to the commonly understood butterfly effect theory, two seemingly unrelated things will eventually affect each other under various implications. What's more, Simon is directly involved in them.
So some things are inevitable.
In order to avoid history going in a strange direction that he could not understand, Simon decided to push the wheel of history gently at the critical moment after much deliberation.
Just like this time.
On the Russian side, the attention focused presidential election is related to the political trend of the country in the next four years. Another thing, the new St. Petersburg mayoral election, which almost happens at the same time, is related to the political trend of Russia in the next 20 years.
Because it involves a very key person.
As a matter of fact, the election of St. Petersburg mayor ended on May 19. The current mayor of St. Petersburg, Sobchak, lost to his competitors by a tiny margin of 1.5%. Unlike in the United States, the mayor of St. Petersburg will be sworn in on the last day of August and take office in September.