The comment by @BeRuzzia is a bit inaccurate and the truth is way more infuriating. The video is from 91-92 when Sobchak was a major, while Putin was his International Affairs deputy. Sobchak truly needed a special IA guy at the time...

Leningrad (later Saint Petersburg) was in a very tough spot. A huge megapolis heavily relied on imports of food. However, after the Union collapse, there was no regional funding or government subsidies, as Moscow didn't have enough budget. What could be done was legislation.

International trade was controlled by Moscow but in the extreme situation of famine, they chose to cut corners and gave "export quotas" - local SPB officials could arrange trade deals on their terms WHICH WORKED FUCKING AMAZING.

There was "no time for a proper import-export system", so Sobchak and Putin arranged the very convenient barter system. We give wood, metal, and other resources in direct exchange for sugar, meat, and bread. Which is just idiotic from any point of view.

Imagine coming to some international metal conglomerate and saying: - No, no, no money, give us canned meat. The only question is, does our conglomerate own a tushenka department?

It was an invitation for all sorts of bad-faith actors, who quickly arranged companies acting as these middlemen for outlandish commissions. More to it, the contracts didn't imply any substantial fees for breaching the obligations. Come, get rich, do nothing, pay a fee, run.

The deals were just laughable: Russia received sugar priced at 280$ per ton. The real market price was 200. In exchange, Russia gave scrap ferrous metal priced 50$ per ton. The real price was... 410$. If you thought "that's bad", sometimes prices were 2000 (!!!) times higher.

Even after straight-up fraud, some companies delivered actual food. The warehouses around Spb were stockpiled with sugar, meat, and bread. So famine over? Not even close. This food was for trade, not citizens. Even while rotting it was not given to regular people.

Putin was a middleman too. Between the state-owned resources and the criminal syndicates who waited at the city port for their friend Vladimir to seal the deal. Later they sold the very same products either abroad or to the starving population but with their fee added.

So. Local officials were bribed to pick the "right companies", received a cut from the deal, later got more money from the mafia, and finally... Taxes from regular businesses and people. That was not just theft, that was a burglar combo.

And now watch this video once again. Guys are invited to Finland to sign a fraudulent deal only to pull more cash later. They feast while their people are starving and laugh when investigative journalists are mentioned. That's what happens in this flick.

There are two points for true putinologists though: 1) Coming back to "low fee, unreliable partner, bad west" contracts, you can understand that was not the lack of experience but the birth of Putin's "нас надули" (we were fooled) trope.

2) In the feasting (pun intended) video, somebody makes a joke about Sobchak and a big lucrative loaf of meat. Putin says: - Oh yeah, look, our Governor is left with just bones, without any meat, that's what we should say.

You can see meat, he can see meat, they for fucking sure can. Putin is subverting what everybody sees with an out-of-touch bullshit narrative, and does it almost instantly. And everybody follows his words in follow-up jokes.

I want to highlight this for all the "we didn't know who he was back then" crowd. Everybody did because he was the same, just in ridiculous clothing. Thread over.