Ilyumzhinov called his autobiography, published in 1998, “The President’s Crown of Thorns.’’ (Chapter titles include “Without Me the People Are Incomplete,” “I Become a Millionaire,’’ and “It Only Takes Two Weeks to Have a Man Killed.”)
Oh my. Just. What the fuck.
~
Ilyumzhinov decided to rebuild every one. And more. “Thirteen years ago, when they elected me, there wasn’t a single Buddhist temple in Kalmykia,’’ he said as we sat in his office, staring out at the recently completed Golden Temple. Construction took six months, and it opened on December 27th, in time to commemorate the anniversary of the day that Stalin deported the Kalmyks. Ilyumzhinov had hoped to have Chuck Norris (who had been there before) and several celebrity Buddhists on hand—he had mentioned Steven Segal, Richard Gere, and Sharon Stone. None made it; but the Royal Nepalese Ambassador to the Russian Federation was there, as were representatives of Buddhist communities from Tuva, Mongolia, and Tibet, and the special representative of the Dalai Lama (who had visited in 2004 and consecrated the site). “In thirteen years, we’ve built thirty-eight Buddhist temples—thirty-eight!We’ve built twenty-two Orthodox churches. We built a Polish Catholic cathedral and a mosque. And I want to emphasize this: it wasn’t Russia that built it; it wasn’t Moscow that built it, not the investors, not the sponsors. It was all built with my own personal money, and given to the people.’’
How utterly interesting is this dayum. So many parallels to other developing countries, it's like such a standard schtick to make places of worship to appease a population that's getting duped otherwise.
This guy's life is equal parts repulsive and fascinating to me.
~
I walked through the museum, which has keepsakes from many of history’s most famous matches, including the 1996 bout between Gata Kamsky and Anatoly Karpov, which Ilyumzhinov, after negotiations with Saddam Hussein, had scheduled for Baghdad.
Was just seeing the Ali Gata game a while back and now read this. Fuck dude. So crazy fascinating and steeped in history of the world this game is, especially the Russian history. This is so damn nuts. And I'm seeing it on an internet board today while the article talks of a time when this place didn't have proper electricity or roads. Oh man my brain no comprende. Times, how they change.
~
“Even a dickhead would do a better job than Ilyumzhinov,’’ Anatoly Karpov, the former world champion, said recently, when he was asked whom he supported.
It's 3 am and I've been reading about him for hours, and I think this is a good note as any to bring this deep dive into Ilyumzhinov to a close.
Cheers!
Aaaand this exists: https://kirsan.today/en/
Nope, no words.
No comments:
Post a Comment