Earlier this year we brought you the story of Russian Orthodox Church Leader and his mysterious disappearing $30,000 watch.
Patriarch Kirill's team had apparently Photoshopped the Breguet watch out a photo from an official event, apparently hoping to stem any criticism about why a religious leader would be wearing such an expensive watch. Of course their plan backfired and the story spread from blogs to international press in a matter of days.
Have Russian officials learned?
Apparently not. The New York Times' Lede Blog as a great summary of the case of ethnic republic Udmurtia’s president, Alexander Volkov, who appeared on a billboard and cuddling a tiger and wearing some kind of watch.
Russian bloggers were soon able to reveal that the plain watch on the poster had in fact been stuck on top of the previous, more glamorous watch.
Here's the poster:
This video below shows that the new watch is a sticker.
The blogger, Andrey Konoval, was able get the sticker off and post photos of the watch below on his blog. It appears to be the "Classique Complications" watch from Breguet.
Volkov's team denied that the president had worn either watch, and insisted that both watches had been added by the poster's designers. However Konoval has been able to find more images of the watch, despite an apparent attempt to scrub photos of the expensive watch from the internet.
Our advice to corrupt officials around the world: leave the watches at home.
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