Dmitry Peskov married Tatyana Navka .... and the costly watch hits news !!

Wearing wrist watches were customary – they were to be hand wound – automatic watches were costlier.  Now this post is about a watch worth Rs.2.52 crores approx. – leaves to imagine, if one requires a watch for showing time – why and how can a watch be so costly ? – what extra will that offer ? – what sort of utility value it has ??

Richard Mille is a brand of luxury Swiss watches from the company of the same name founded in 1999 by French businessman Richard Mille. After studying marketing in Besançon, Richard Mille, started work at Finhor, a local watchmaking company in 1974. In 1999 he founded the company Richard Mille SA in collaboration with AudemarsPiguet. Its first product, the RM001 went on sale in 2001. Richard Mille SA is based in Les Breuleux, in the Canton of Jura, Switzerland.The brand's most famous models are the Tourbillon RM 008 (chronograph tourbillon) and the sapphire split seconds (chronograph tourbillon) RM 056. The RM 008 combines a tourbillon movement with manual winding, a chronograph split-seconds, a torque indicator, and a power reserve indicator. Claimed to be one of the most advanced watches in the world, it is priced from 500,000 Euro.

Tatyana AleksandrovnaNavka, is a Russian ice dancer of Ukrainian origins. With partner Roman Kostomarov, she is the 2006 Olympic champion, a two-time World champion (2004–05), a three-time Grand Prix Final champion (2003–05), and a three-time European champion (2004–06). Earlier in her career, she competed for the Soviet Union and Belarus.

Putin’s aide - Dmitry Peskov, 47, married former Olympic ice dancer Tatyana Navka, 40, in a lavish ceremony last weekend.  The eagle-eyed opposition spotted the extravagant watch in photographs taken at the “wedding of the year”, in Sochi. Opposition  campaigner Alexei Navalny spotted the watch, which is claimed to be worth just under £400,000.  Mr Navalny claims the watch is evidence of Mr Peskov's  corruption, and said that even if it was a gift he is forced to declare it under Russian law.  The Swiss wristwatch, which features a gold skull on the dial, has been identified as a limited edition Richard Mille 52-01 watch, only 30 of which have ever been made.  The opposition campaigner demanded that the Kremlin explain just how Mr Peskov came by it. The Q is - ‘How could the head of state’s press secretary have a watch worth more than four times his annual income?’

The watch, which features a gold skull on the face, is claimed to be a limited-edition Richard Mille 52-01, only 30 of which were ever made.  There are allegations that Vladimir Putin's Deputy Prime Minister owns a secret £12million apartment just a short walk from Downing Street.  Mr Navalny added if the watch was a gift, anti-corruption laws forced him to forfeit it.Officials in Russia have to declare gifts that are worth more than 3,000 rubles (£30), he added on the blog.

One wedding guest leapt to Mr Peskov’s aid, claiming that the watch was merely an elaborate ruse, designed to fool journalists that would inevitably analyse the wedding pictures.Oleg Mitvol, a politician who attended the wedding, said that Mr Peskov borrowed the watch from a very rich friend for the trick.The opposition refused to accept the explanation, however, holding up another photograph taken two weeks before the wedding, in which the luxury wristwatch can also be clearly seen.

Mr Peskov later insisted that the watch was a wedding present from his new wife and that how much she spent 'is no one else's business’ and added that the watch is really expensive but considerably less expensive than some comrades are saying.’ He further said that Tatyana, who won an Olympic gold medal in 2006, bought the watch with her own money and how much she spent ‘is no one else’s business’.The Kremlin official declared his income to have been 9,184,358 rubles (about £93,000) in 2014.The Kremlin has yet to respond to the allegations of corruption.

This isn’t the first time the Russian elite’s love of extravagant timepieces has landed them in hot water.President Putin himself was called out by the opposition – which devotes itself to exposing corruption – in 2012, when it was revealed his collection of watches was worth £500,000, considerably more than his declared income.Meanwhile Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, provoked internet backlash when his £19,000 Breguet watch was airbrushed out of a photograph.He was found out when keen-eyed internet users spotted that the watch could still been seen in a reflection on the top of the table at which Kirill was sitting.

Scenes and venues may change ~ but people and their attitude do not change !

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

4^th Aug 2015.