http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2015/10/vladimir_putin_s_fellow_travelers_the_russian_president_has_an_assortment.html

The World Public Forum’s “Dialogue of Civilizations” meets every year on the Greek island of Rhodes, under the patronage of its founder, Vladimir Yakunin. Until recently, Yakunin was the chairman of Russian state railways and a close ally of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. Now he has been ejected from Putin’s inner circle, but he still opened the forum in Rhodes earlier this month. When asked, he angrily denied rumors that a hushed-up corruption scandal had led to his fall from grace. Only an “idiot or a provocateur” could possibly say such a thing, he told a reporter from Politico. A few minutes later, he showed the same reporter his 140,000 euro ($159,000) watch. “If you want to buy something, what’s wrong with that?”