Post by zaffra on Aug 26, 2004 12:01:33 GMT
I've had enough of the Olympics, so tuned into this prog on BBC2 last night, I'd seen an earlier instalment that was about homes in Hollywood, it was the usual stuff of multi million dollar real estate stuff.
But Russia was completely different.
They have only been allowed to own their own houses for the last six years, prices for homes were set by the government in the '70's and haven't changed on list price BUT to avoid tax you have to pay cash in dollars, this is a country that doesn't yet trust banks and mortgages. For example a luxary flat might have a list price of $500,000, but if you want to buy it on top of this official price you needed to pay $4.5 million in cash! That's 22 shopping bags stuffed full of money.
Another problem is that Changing Rooms hasn't yet reached Moscow and they have no idea who Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen is, lucky them I hear you cry, but no - 5 star hotels are their only barometer of what looks good so most interiors have an excess of baroque gold leaf surfaces and red velvet.
The way to get rich and get ahead in business is to kill your rivals, so security was the other big problem, everyone in this super rich bracket had gun weilding security guards and fortress homes.
They followed this guy who owned a drug company to his weekend place where he had comissioned all these old masterpiece paintings but with his face and his family in them, it was amazingly tacky.
But Russia was completely different.
They have only been allowed to own their own houses for the last six years, prices for homes were set by the government in the '70's and haven't changed on list price BUT to avoid tax you have to pay cash in dollars, this is a country that doesn't yet trust banks and mortgages. For example a luxary flat might have a list price of $500,000, but if you want to buy it on top of this official price you needed to pay $4.5 million in cash! That's 22 shopping bags stuffed full of money.
Another problem is that Changing Rooms hasn't yet reached Moscow and they have no idea who Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen is, lucky them I hear you cry, but no - 5 star hotels are their only barometer of what looks good so most interiors have an excess of baroque gold leaf surfaces and red velvet.
The way to get rich and get ahead in business is to kill your rivals, so security was the other big problem, everyone in this super rich bracket had gun weilding security guards and fortress homes.
They followed this guy who owned a drug company to his weekend place where he had comissioned all these old masterpiece paintings but with his face and his family in them, it was amazingly tacky.
