The Ugliest Yacht in the World
Friedrich Nietzsche observed, “it requires more genius to spend than to acquire"—making money being a question of diligence and cunning, wasting it a matter of taste. When the great philosopher wrote these words, he was actually concerned with the pervasiveness of the ascetic ideal among the capitalist elite: “The most industriousness of all ages—ours—does not know how to make anything of all its industriousness and money, except always still more money and still more industriousness.” Work, work, work with nothing to show for it.
Nietzsche never considered what horrors might ensue if those industrialists stopped delaying satisfaction until death and started lavishly spending their gains.
Robert Frank’s recent report on Russian oligarch Andrey Melnichenko’s grotesque new yacht makes one wish for a return to the good old days when the Protestant Work Ethic prevailed.
The 390-foot vessel, sheathed in white, had a knifelike hull and a three-story, bulbous watchtower. Some guessed it was a radar-deflecting warship, given its smooth lines and wraparound tinted windows. Others speculated that it was submersible.
The boat’s only identifying marker was a single letter emblazoned on the stern: “A.”
The ship is repulsive from stern to bow.
Mr. Melnichenko’s oversized bed, perched at the top of the tower, rotates on a giant turntable (with built-in entertainment systems) to give him better views out of the panoramic windows. Along with its two swimming pools—one in the front and one in back—A sports a helipad, a hovercraft and a garage for the owner’s car. The ship, which has a crew of 35, has more than 100 audio speakers, and more than a dozen plasma TV screens, many of which are disguised as mirrors. Guests in any of the rooms can watch DVDs from a centralized library of more than 2,000 titles.
Melnichenko just so happens to be married to this woman, who, no doubt, fell in love with him due to his impressive DVD collection.
Not only is the vulgarian in question incapable of spending properly, but he doesn’t even seem to possess many of the virtues of industry and hard work. The 36-year-old’s success story is much like that of the rest of Moscow’s billionaires: he founded his banking concern in ’93 during the great apparatchik-directed wealth transfer and has since been linked to money laundering and the Russian mafia—“If you have many clients and you want to have good relations, you don’t have time enough to control all of it and there is a risk of error.’’
To help clear our minds of Andrey, it’s worth re-reading Taki’s chronicle of his maritime journey, an account as charming as Melnichenko’s yacht is vomit inducing. Taki shows how wealth is done right.
The Marxian Left is constantly frustrated by the fact that the lower orders don’t look upon the extravagant spending of the well-healed and instinctively, immediately revolt, or at least demand massive wealth redistribution. Worse still, those plebs are often fascinated with the rich’s excess.
The fact that the poorer people (or at least the decent sorts) have never consistently gotten taken up in political class warfare has much to do with the utter unattractiveness of Marxian ideology. But then it also speaks to a certain instinct in us all to admire those above us, to affirm hierarchy as actually attempting to make it all come crashing down would cost us own lived reality.
Sure, Taki’s journey at sea, and his exploits on the Judo mat and in many a boudoir, might make the Third Estate a bit envious. But then the man’s life remains enchanting in that it offers a vision of an aristocratic vitality and insouciance. The best of us hope that if we ever inherited great wealth, we wouldn’t become philistine monsters but act much like Taki—or at least I imagine myself playing as an amateur at Wimbledon, hobnobbing with the aristocracy of Europe, and, let us say, sinning well.
In this way, Andrey Melnichenko’s hyperbolic vulgarity isn’t just an expression of bad taste but an almost compulsive admission that his wealth is ill-gotten, that he shouldn’t be on top and better just spend it all on some ridiculous ornament before the rest of the world catches on and puts him in his place. To the little people, Melnichenko’s stutus appears as the product not of breeding or industry but of chance—or worse, error and malfeasance.
The sight of Melnichenko vessel might not actually inspire a proletarian revolution, but then wealth without class deserves to be overthrown. At least, this privileged reactionary has a desire to reach for a pitchfork when I look at that stupid boat.
Comments
Well golly! It looks like something that came out of a Johnny West cartoon. Two questions. Should the designer and builder be exposed, and will there be whistles and boos when it shows up at the docks in Monaco?
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Looks like Jules Verne’s “Nautilus”.
I think I’d go with a riverboat, or on the ocean, this:http://www.hickerphoto.com/data/media/186/windstar-yacht_11359.jpg
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Being Russian, a Russian oligarch, a Russian oligarch married to that woman is punishment enough.
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Nyet, Richard—Menichenko’s seriously ugly gin palace is unlikely to inspire revolting masses , as is based on very famous Russian Icon-Battleship in eponymous Potemkin Movie.
As to the protestant work ethic, the very first American megayacht was modestly christened ‘ Cleopatra’s Barge ‘
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All excessive wealth is ill-gotten wealth. Simply, you can not accumulate a fortune by working 9 to 5 and having the Bible in your pocket the same time. Now, spending that kind of wealth with good taste, like Taki, or with bad taste, like Andrey, doesn’t change an iota this Fundamental Principle. Even when an excessive accumulation of wealth- above of what is generally perceived as to be a normal wealth by the public- is has been lawfully accumulated doesn’t mean that it is not ill-gotten wealth, thanks to the specific laws set up expressively for those purposes or to the express largesses of those holding power. For Taki’s fortune for example, thanks to the concessions of the Greek government, for Carnegie, Rockefeller, Morgan, Bennett… well, we know the story.
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Since when is Mr Russian Billionaire interesten in the estetic opinions of the article writer, or anyone else for that matter?
The boat is ugly, yes, but it has presence. Phillippe Starck has long been known for letting the form come before practicality, ie chairs that you can’t sit on, knifes you can’t cut with, etc.
Now, in what way is Andrey Melnichenko’s lack of good taste in any way inconsistent with what we have around us in our everyday lifes? Most buildings, cars, furniture etc are tasteless, ugly or both. Our present culture is tasteless and ugly in its entirety, so what’s new?
I can see before me a party on that boat, with Axl Rose, Amy Winehouse, Marilyn Manson and a bunch of hihoppers with their underwear showing. The 50” tv sceens on the boat alternately showing Saw III and Bukkake Fest IV, for background ambient. And all the staff of established and unestablished media that got invitations attending. Who can resist free drinks, free drugs and free chicks? Even on an ugly boat owned by a tasteless billionaire. Wake up and smell the coffee guys. This is the “normal” now.
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@Craig Senna
Well said!
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Some time ago Taki Theodoracopoulos also wrote an article about some tasteless nouveau riche in London, who have large houses without a single book in them and so forth.
Looking at that boat and hearing about rich who do not read I can not resist lamenting for former times. The Medicis financed much of the Florentine Renessaince, the Eszterhazy’s financed classical music and much else in the Carpathian basin (Haydn was the court musician of Prince Eszterhazy). Today’s “aristocracy”, from boats like that, lends helping hands to Amy Winehouse, and co.
The Taki article also discusses a certain Mittal who made a fortune from owning a mine in Kazakhstan, where miners die almost daily due to the management disregarding all safety precautions, but of course profit rates have been on the rise. This phenomenon is the explanation of Melnichenko’s, and many others’ in Eastern Europe, wealth.
http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/moolah_and_its_discontents/
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We should take comfort in the illustrious history of the Russian “navy” and assume this creature’s vessel will suffer a similar fate.
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What happens when you put the rudder hard over when this tub is at speed?
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Marius, who defines excessive wealth? Seems that role was tried out in Russia in 1917 to a marvelous conculsion. Your post reminds me of someone else’s definition of “the wealthy” someone who has one more frn than you. Read “The Millionare Next Door” to see how most US wealthy make their money, not that it’s any of your affair or mine. How many people were employed to make that floating eyesore? The US Warfare/welfare money elite worry me a lot more than some puffed up noveau riche slob who may belong in Russian handcuffs. Envy colors your post, and it’s not a pretty shade. ST
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Yes it is tassels, so is Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles…giggle you can call Democrcia.. more giggle…
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Simon Tregarth,
I said that the ordinary people, like me, my neighbor, the guy who works in the garage, the girl who works in grocery store and, I guess, yourself Mr. Tregarth, defines very well what is an excessive wealth.Now, what happens in Russia in 1917 it is well known and it is redundant to repeat that here. On the other hand for example,what it is interesting to know it is what happens after the “change of the regime” in Russia in 1991. What is,by far, the most important event in the new capitalistic regime in Russia Mr. Tregarth? It is not the return of “democracy”. It is not the “election” of Boris Yeltsin. It is not the “free market”. The landmark for any objective observer to what happens to Russia after 1991 is the unprecedented PILLAGE, plundering and looting of public wealth by few “new” capitalists.Much greater pillages that those, famous, of Rome. Never in human history a theft to such scale occurred. We understand better now from where billionaires, like Andrey Melnichenko, comes from. And what is more revealing is the fact that those new Russian billionaires are very welcome in the so called Western world. Many of them are re localized in Israel, some others in London and many others in places with a “mild” environment in witch they can spend a fraction of theirs “legitimated” excessive wealth as they are pleased; with good taste or with bad taste, doesn’t matter. I said that this fact it’s very revealing because it shows the same pattern in ours “free societies” . The same thing happens here to, concerning the accumulation of the excessive wealth, but with the apparency, the camouflage, of legality, of normality. But the essence of the PILLAGE stays the same. Now, I’m go to repeat the Fundamental thuth, la verité fondamentale; wealth is created ONLY by the work producing goods. The secretary in an office for example, or the broker in the stock market, doesn’t produce any wealth, zero. They are, simply intermediaries. Can you understand now the fortune of, say, Mr.George Soros? His fortune is entirely legal because “we” set up the legal frame for that purpose. It is la raison d’être du régime, la raison d’être of the system.It looks less savage than the Russian example. Anything else is good to rock, to lull the babes, or the masses if you prefer.
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No such thing as “excessive wealth”, but you do have “ill gotten wealth”, Russian oligarchs being an example of the latter. To call what goes on in Russia ‘capitalism’ is to not understand the term, if you are trying to indicate the free market. All industrial societies are capitalist to some extent, but I refuse to allow Marx to define my terminology. That you do not understand the division of labor and how the secretary contributes to wealth creation shows that your ignorance (lack of knowledge, not insult - no one who writes as well as you do is a blockhead) that of how a free-market economy works. The wealthier the better - since few of the rich such as M Stewart put all of their money in their drawers their assets provide much needed investment money, plus the wealthy purchase costly new tech items in such quantities as to help make such devices accessible to the middle and lower classes.. Please don’t let crooks who use political means to obtain their pelf blind you to the benefits reaped by a society that has as many wealthy (through economic means)people. Ever try to get a job from a poor person - it’s tough.
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It makes me weep that Hitler’s U boat fleet is no more.
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I just have to laugh at this silly thing. It appears that his wealth was both ill-gotten and even poorer spent.
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Tony O, funniest comment on this site in a while. Still chuckling. Karl Doenitz, call home. ST
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Simon Tregarth,
Any excessive wealth, I believe, is an ill-gotten wealth. You cannot win an excessive wealth simply by working from 9 to 5 or from 8 to 6 and also working overtime to and keeping the Bible or the Koran or the Torah or whatever in your pocket the same time. Doesn’t makes sense to me, it’s impossible. And since you cannot win an excess wealth with your honest work there has to be a mechanism of transfer of wealth,say, to me. Lets say that I “win” the lottery, one million dollars for example. Because I have the right combination of numbers the authority, say the State or the government, goes to transfer to me a small portion, a percentage, of the money, the millions of dollars paid already to the authority by millions others. It is a transfer of wealth to myself, thanks to the right combination of numbers. The same thing happens concerning the transfer of the social wealth in our society, thanks to the right legislation, to the right connection, to the right information and so on. Now, I have tried to find any good in the market produced by the secretary and I couldn’t find anything. I tried again to find any good in the market produced by George Soros, the guy of our example, and again I was disappointed, nothing. I have to say that I have nothing against Soros and the kind. Nevertheless the later is a billionaire, a legal one, without ever produces any consumable good, without ever produces any wealth. He simply got his fortune by transfer, “legally, he didn’t win his fortune. Now, the wealthy purchases don’t add anything to the GDP. A Picasso on my wall doesn’t make the society richer. You’re right saying that you cannot get a job from the middle and lower class because you have to work, together with the middle and lower class, for the few, to make the transfer possible.
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Becauce you can’t do something, it cannot be done. I can’t run a 10 sec 100 yd dash, so it can’t be done by anyone. Some people work more than 8 hr/day, 5 days/week. If a person obtains wealth through economic means, there is no problem with it. You have ignored my prior response and have added little meat to the rickety bones of your conclusion. You can’t understand how sec contributes to wealth creation because she doesn’t wield pick and shovel, fine. You arrogate to yourself the g*dlike wisdom to define what is excessive by your narrow-minded and envious definitions, great - hopefully you will never hold the power to put your delusions into action, but I would be astonished if you were not a statophile who likes and supports State action against those you deem unworthy of their wealth. Why do you not write about the State’s excessive wealth - trillions of frns taken at gunpoint? I hope busybodydom such as yours is coming to an end “soon at a theater near you”. ST
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Simon Tregarth,
The State is the best friend to those with excessive wealth Monsieur. It is the State who sets up the conditions for the transfer of the social wealth to few.It is the State who set up the legal frame to that purpose. The State is the first predator, the first raptor and the most disgusting because it has coercive power, can use violence to rob our pockets. The State has the monopoly of violence as Max Weber said and advent of the the State coincides , by miracle!!!, with the advent of the capitalistic era, or the industrial era as you prefer, I don’t have problem with the terminology my self. This coincidence, my friend, it is not innocent; the State is the sufficient and necessary tool for the transfer of the wealth from the many to few. As I already said, c’est la raison d’être de l’État, it is la raison d’être of the State, its principal function.
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Maruis, much agreement with your latest. State uses force to take from the productive to give to itself and its cronies. The free market is much like a bandit-chief’s victims - market unwillingly provides the bandit’s plunder. There is also the problem of many of the bandit’s victims coming under the bandit’s wings so as to win relative advantage over rival victims. ST
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I guess, in Russian, the term “Mercurian” translates “tasteless jackass.”
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Its about as gaudy as many elite jets I’ve worked on such as Malcom Forbes. Why the pictures on the walls of the jets interior were worth more than the plane. Why Forbes even flew his Harley around with him and had a picture of him riding it in red square of Russia.
As for Nietchsze and Marx..who reads that crap anymore?
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