Gaming in Romania: overview | Practical Law

The black nobility is the base of the global crime syndicate that controls this planet. The black nobility or black aristocracy are the aristocratic families that sided with the papacy under Pope Pius IX after the army of the Kingdom of Italy led by the Savoy family entered Rome on September 20, 1870, overthrew the pope . and the Papal States, and took over the Quirinal Palace, and the nobles later ennobled by the Pope prior to the Lateran Treaty of 1929. Any family that produced popes for the Vatican is royalty. Most of the black nobility are Vatican royalty. The black nobility consider themselves sovereign princes. These families earned the title of "black" nobility for their relentless unscrupulousness. They used murder, rape, kidnapping, robbery and all kinds of deception on a large scale, without resisting the achievement of their objectives. The black nobility were the families that financed and created the holy corporation of the Vatican with the aim of imposing world slavery as a necessary institution, with the sole belief that some are born to rule and others to be ruled. The idea that certain families were born to rule as an arbitrary elite, while the vast majority of a given population is condemned to oppression, servitude, or slavery became the theological position of this elite. The "New World Order" is an attempt to take control of society by these fascist families with the purpose of the total slavery of humanity.
The Vatican is an imperial nation and is the largest empire in this world. The Vatican City, or the Holy Vatican Corporation, officially the Vatican City State, is a nation that operates as the largest intelligence network in the world. The Holy See is the "All-Seeing Eye" in society and a corporate entity connected to many other corporations and governments through papal and royal statutes. Archbishops and high-level bishops are the overseers of society within their districts and oversee politics, police, business, and organized crime. The same year that the professor of ecclesiastical law and practical philosophy at the University of Ingolstadt, Adam Weishaupt, created the Order of the Illuminati, was the same year that they created the United States as a corporation to run it as their private army and lead I dig the agenda of a "New World Order" for the elites, mainly, thanks to the infiltrated Freemasonry and directed by the Jesuits.
The New World Order is a conspiracy of lineage at the top. They are ancient and evil bloodlines that build and destroy empires for control through an order out of chaos. Royal and noble houses are corporate entities and claim to rule and own land, resources, and people. Landlords have always been the dominant owners of gold and precious metals. They empower and finance bankers and entrepreneurs to work for them through their corporate homes. They authorize and issue the creation of laws, agencies, the military, companies, and universities. They create and run religions and secret societies. They also finance and organize organized crime syndicates as if they were commercial enterprises. Some of the major royal bloodlines include Savoy, Bourbon, Medici, Glücksburg, Wittelsbach, Nassau-Weilberg, Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Romanov, Grimaldi, Orleans, Braganza, Habsburg, Hannover, Windsor, Saud, Thani, Khalifa, Alouwite , Zogu, Hohenzollern, Orange-Nassau, Bonaparte and Bernadotte. Many royal bloodlines still rule their nations as heads of state such as the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Monaco, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Morocco, Sweden, Norway, and Luxembourg. The Vatican City State is also a kingdom with the Pope of Rome as its monarch. The Black Nobility are the ancient bloodlines of the Papal States and they own the Holy See and the Vatican. They produced the first popes of Rome and held leadership positions in the Vatican from its inception. The Colonna and Torlonia still hold the hereditary positions of the Assistant Princes to the Papal Throne. The black nobility consider themselves sovereign princes. The Vatican is used as a central point of control and the Holy See is one of the oldest and most criminal corporate entities in existence. The Spanish Catholic Church is immensely rich, it has not suffered the crisis and also enjoys a true tax haven, being free to pay taxes, such as the IBI, works, companies, etc. The vast majority of the assets in their possession and on their accounts are completely opaque. This situation is illegitimate, unfair and presumably illegal, and this occurs with the complicity and consent of the public powers.
The Erlach and Brandi families are Swiss tax advisers who enable corruption, bribery, criminal financing, and money laundering. The Swiss Guard is the one that protects the Vatican City State. The Swiss cantons have been in contract with the Vatican for centuries and Switzerland is basically a papal state with the noble Roman saints claiming partial ownership. The German house of Baden-Zahringen founded Bern, in Switzerland. The House of Savoy ruled the regions of Switzerland for hundreds of years. Some of the most important bloodlines of the Black Nobility are: Massimo, Colonna, Pallavicini, Odescalchi, Ruspoli, Orsini, Aldobrandini, Sforza-Cesarini, Boncompagni-Ludovisi, Chigi-Albani-Della Rovere, Doria-Pamphilj, Rospigliosi, Giustiniani , Torlonia, Corsini, Borghese, Del Drago, Lucchesi-Palli, and Gaetani. The Pecci and Pacelli families are more recent bloodlines of the Black Nobility. The black nobility share ownership over the Holy See, which is a corporate entity based in the Vatican City State that was established as a nation in 1929 under Benito Mussolini, who was put in power by the House of Savoy. The Mussolini and Franco families became nobles after their fascist regimes. The Black Nobility also owns the Knights of Malta, the Jesuits, and the Cosa Nostra. The Black Nobility established branches in southern Italy and married Sicilian-Campanian nobles such as the Lanza di Scalea, Adragna, Sanseverino, Tomasi di Lampedusa, Paterno, Cattaneo, Serena di Lapigio and Rocco di Torrepadula families. Many Italian crime families were Sicilian nobles like the Bonanno and Bellomo families. Both the mafia bosses and the Italian and Spanish nobles call themselves Dons, which is the equivalent of Boos (boss) of crime. The Savoy, Savoy-Aosta, Medici, Borbon-Dos Sicilias, and Borbon-Parma families are members of Italian royalty and are married to various European royal bloodlines and Black Nobility. Most of the monarchs are members of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Prince Carlo Massimo has been overseeing the Sovereign Military Order of Malta as President of the Italian Association of SMOM. The Knights of Malta have an undercover operation at the Jesuit School of Foreign Service in Georgetown, run by Joel Hellman. The Jesuits and the Knights of Malta basically run the Defense Department alongside British Crown agents and high-level Freemasons. Prince Carlo de Borbón-Dos Sicilias is a high commander of the Society of Jesus through his Sacred Constantinian Military Order of Saint George. The Jesuits were authorized by Pope Paul III of the Farnese family. The Bourbon-Dos Sicilias and Borbon-Parma families are the continuation of the Farnese family, the name Farnesivs is engraved in the Jesuit headquarters called the Church of Gesu in Rome. The Farnese family lived in a pentagonal fortress called Farnese Villa Caprarola, which is the basis for the design of the American Pentagon. Jesuits are involved in education, politics, banking, science, law, and especially military intelligence. The Italian Bourbons have established residences all over the world, including Florida. Jesuits need to be investigated and banned, they have rightly been expelled from almost every country in the world, but they always end up coming back. In Spain three times, his last return was at the hands of General Franco.
The Holy See is a corporate body that issues laws and bills, such as the Golden Bull, which claims ownership of the Kingdom of England and identifies the emperor as the sovereign of the only legitimate universal empire, directly chosen by God. The Pope claims temporal power or ownership over the Earth and also claims Papal Supremacy or Papal Rule and Papal Infallibility. Infallibility means incapable of being wrong. The Roman Curia or Papal Court is the highest organized council in society and is directly supervised by the two “Assistants of the Prince to the Pontifical Throne”, these two positions are held by the princes of the Colonna and Torlonia families. They work with a higher level princely council of the Italian nobility that works with another council made up of the Roman nobility. The Italian and Austrian nobility are married to each other and work closely together leading the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, which is a sovereign entity equivalent to that of a sovereign nation. The Italian Nobility, La Cosa Nostra and the German and Austrian Nobles, run the Jewish Mafia. Royalty and nobles have massive amounts of wealth in private bank accounts in Switzerland. They use the Nazi-founded Bank for International Settlements to steal wealth from central banks through fraudulent tax contracts and then launder and hide the wealth in private bank accounts in Switzerland. The main Italian lineages still active include the Massimo, Colonna, Pallavicini, Torlonia, Aldobrandini, Ruspoli, Orsini, Gaetani-D'Aragona, Borbón-Parma, Odescalchi, Borghese, Adragni, Chigi, Medici, Borromeo, Doria-Pamphilj, Sacchetti, Savoy, Grimaldi and Bourbon. These bloodlines oversee the various specters of society. Outside of this power structure is the Committee of 300 with an inner circle made up of the leading monarchs and princes of Europe and the former Holy Roman Empire with members from Windsor, Spencer, Cecil, Percy, Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Habsburg, Bonaparte, Orleans, Bernadotte, Lagergren, Glucksburg, Hannover, Furstenberg, Austria-East, Hohenberg, Hesse, Nassau-Weilberg, Habsburg-Lorraine, Saxe Coburg and Gotha, Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach, Saxony-Meiningen, Braganza, Orange-Nassau, Hohenzollern , Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, Liechtenstein, Rothschild, FitzJames, Lobkowicz, Ligne, Merode, Romanov, Thurn and Taxis, Schwarzenberg, Orsini-Rosenberg, Windisch-Graetz, Esterhazy and other families. Many members who do not have noble status on the Committee of 300 are representatives of the royal families.
These families are all enemies of humanity and have conspired to enslave the world for centuries. They authorize and create corporations and billionaires, run religions, states, secret societies, the mafia, and organized crime syndicates. Royal families in Europe are mainly divided into two factions, and this dates back to the Guelph merchants and Ghibelline landowners. All other groups like Bilderberg, CFR, and the Trilateral Commission are lower-level organizations. All roads lead to Rome, which is the basis of its control system. The European Constitutional Monarchies are branches of the corporate empire of Rome. Constitutional Monarchies are ruled by blood-appointed heads of state and serve Rome through the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. The Pope claims temporary or physical ownership of the Earth. The Pope claims to be infallible of error. The Pope claims ownership over all souls through the papal doctrine of "Papal Supremacy." The Pope is a leader for the Black Nobility of Italy.
The Jesuits are a military priesthood officially established by Pope Paul III A.K. to Alessandro Farnese of the Farnese family. The Jesuits were officially established under the Papal Bull called Regimini Militantis Ecclesiae, which means Military Regiment of the Church as the continuation of the Templars. The Black Nobles are the true owners and controllers of the Vatican and maintain their control throughout the centuries by installing their relatives as high-level popes and bishops. At present the Torlonia and Colonna families who have the hereditary positions of Prince Assistants to the Papal Throne are those who supervise the pope. In turn Pope Francis supervises all members of the Catholic Church and also supervises the various secret societies that are connected with the Church.
The Jesuits are also a Masonic order and were the continuation of the Templar orders when they were banned. The Roman Catholic Church mocks Christians by performing rituals where they pretend to drink blood and eat human flesh known as the Eucharist, also called Holy Sacrifice. The New Testament did not exist until about 1600 and the Old Testament is even more recent than the new. It was the Vatican and European monarchs who created both the New and the Old Testaments. The last official version of the bible was published in 1777.
The bishops and priests operate as supervisors and the Jesuits function as spies trained in deception and are infiltrated everywhere. The Pope claims temporal power or ownership over the Earth and also claims Papal Supremacy or Papal Rule and Papal Infallibility. Infallibility means incapable of being wrong. Archbishops are the overseers of society within their districts and oversee politics, police, business, and organized crime. The Latin phrase Novus Ordo Seclorum means New Order of Ages (or Ages), or also "New World Order", and is on the US dollar bill and Great Seal of the United States.
The Vatican uses Latin as an official language and for documents. America is named after the Italian Americo Vespucci who worked for the Medici family of Florence and Rome. Vespucci created the term New World for America. The Bank of America was originally called the Bank of Italy and was founded by Amadeo Giannini, who was financed by Italians. Nations were formed as companies or corporations to exploit their citizens as merchandise. Corporations are fraudulent constructions because they are considered a person with rights under the law, and because the owners and controllers of the corporations can disregard responsibility for crimes committed by the corporation. That is fraudulent. Corporations are not people and therefore cannot have rights. Corporations are also monopolies that use subsidiaries to hide their dominance over industry. Private companies cannot compete fairly with corporations. Citizens are also classified as legal persons (companies), robbing them of all their human rights. Corporations shouldn't exist.
Royalty and nobles issue charters establishing representative covert property agents controlled by corporate households or crowns of royalty and nobles. They claim to own foreign governments in this way. Royalty and nobles claim to own the United States as a continuation of the Virginia Company. Roman royalty such as the Hanover, Hesses, Wurttembergs, Hohenzollerns, Glucksburgs, Orange-Nassaus and Saxe-Coburg and Gothas claim a share of ownership over the British Crown. This is why the British royal family has so much German ancestry. The United States is defined as a federal corporation under US code 3002. Section 15. Most of the founding fathers were Freemasons and worked for the British Crown and German royalty. American political families, such as the Bushs, Clintons, Romneys, and Kennedys, take their names from European noble families that still exist. The Von Dem Bussche family are German nobles and relatives of the Bush family. The Clintons and Romneys are also British nobles. The Kennedys are Scottish-Irish nobles and an American political family involved with the Democratic Party. Mars, Walton, Rockefeller, Guggenheim, Getty, Hearst, Sackler, Lauder, Sachs, Busche, Johnson, McMahon, Forbes, and Cox are some of the billionaire American families that work with royalty and nobles in Europe. The Mars family is worth about 70 billion and works with the Windsor, Savoy, Thurn and Taxis families. The Waltons are worth around 130 billion and work with German nobles like the Württemberg, Baden, Hohenzollern and Isenberg families. The various Johnson families in the United States are collectively worth tens of billions and serve as agents for the House of Hannover. They own Johnson and Johnson and Fidelity Investments. The Hanovers are powerful royals and merchants who established the Hanseatic League. The Hearst family is worth more than 25 billion and several members were educated at Harvard University of the British Crown. The McMahon family is a billionaire and owner of the WWE and works under the Bonapartes and Savoys as their noble ancestors who were served militarily by the MacMahons during the Second Italian War of Independence. Today there are MacMahons in France with Italian and French titles of nobility. The Lauder family works for the House of Esterhazy in Austria and the House of East in Austria and Italy. The Guggenheims have assets worth hundreds of billions and are married to the House of Stuart. The Getty family are billionaire American oil merchants and are married to the Italian House of Ruspoli. The Forbes family are billionaires and American descendants of Scottish nobles who still exist.
All gang stalking and cult organizations are owned and controlled by members of royalty and nobility. Criminal organizations such as Royalty itself, Royal Institutions, The Company of Jesus, The Black Monks, The Hellfire Club, The Templar Orders, Freemasonry, The Grand Orient of France, The York Rite, The Scottish Rite, Prince Masonry of Prince Hall, Shriners International, The Royal Order of Jesters, The Cabal Society, Chabad, Scientology, Skull & Bones, The Boulé Society, The 5% Nation, The Nation of Islam, Black Israelites, The Ordo Templi Orientis ( OTO), The Temple of Set, The Church of Satan, Rosicrucian, Golden Dawn, Opus Dei, Mormons, Knights of Columbus, The Bohemian Club, Knights of Phintias, Ancient Order of Druids, Wicca, Santeria, Obeah, Voodoo, Sufism , Greek Fraternities and Brotherhoods, New Age and Gnostic Cults, Nazi Cults, KKK, Mafias, Prison Gangs, Biker Gangs and Street Gangs. The Rockefeller family uses their charitable foundations to fund harassment gangs and bribery in the United States, as well as globalization agendas and vaccination programs. The Rockefeller Foundation funded Almighty Vice Lord Nation, which is an organized crime group, and also funded the Tavistock Institute.
Hollywood, the Church of Scientology, and Silicon Valley are military operations like the US DARPA agency and run by European royalty and nobles like the Oettingen-Spielbergs, Schaumburg-Lippes, Anhalts, Hanovers, Windsors, Passi di Preposulos, Ruspolis, Torlonias and Odescalchis. The Ferragamo family is also involved in the management and financing of corruption in Hollywood. The House of Nassau-Weilberg, which is married to the Torlonias, funds human trafficking and human sacrifice in Hollywood. Idols in the entertainment industry are a dangerous cult with leaders who have access to electronic weapons. Most of modern electronics is being broadcast covertly with GENISIS and NEURON bio-piracy software controlled by Kabbalists and Scientologists. European monarchies function as extensions of Rome and run secret societies that infiltrate government agencies and run corporations for monarchs. The Sovereign Military Order of Malta is the main military council and works closely with the Orders of St. John administered by Protestant royalty such as the Windsors and the Hohenzollerns. The Order of Malta and the Order of Saint John are Masonic organizations with grand masters and titles for initiation. The royal and noble bloodlines are all working together as a global crime syndicate and part of a modernized Roman corporate empire. They also have several competing factions that create the illusion of division. The British crown and Scottish nobles such as the Bruce, Stewart, Sinclair, Campbell, Montagu, Scott, Hamilton, Percy, Boyle, Bowes-Lyon and Sutherland families administer a large part of Freemasonry. All of these families produced Grand Masters of the Grand Lodge of England. There are thousands of Masonic lodges in Europe and in the United States. Freemasonry must be investigated and outlawed. The Greek-German Royal House of Glucksburg directs the Greek fraternities and brotherhoods and uses initiates as its agents. Glucksburg nobles and Italians run the Boule Society, Boule is a Greek fraternal society for African Americans. Martin Luther King and Jesse Jackson have been members of Boule, among many other high-profile, successful, and wealthy blacks, including Barack Obama, Bill Cosby, Al Sharpton, and Thurgood Marshall. The Glucksburg family rules Denmark and Norway and recently ruled Greece. Among its members are the ex-queen Sofía of Spain and Duke Felipe de Edimburgo. Former Greek nobility and royal merchants such as the Mavroleon, Onassis, and Niarchos families are billionaires who have a monopoly in the shipping industry and work with British nobles. The Greek royal family currently lives in London from where many Greek consignment merchants operate. The British Crown authorized and controls universities such as Yale and Harvard which are used to recruit Crown agents through fraternal orders such as Skull & Bones and Book and Snake. Royal and noble families also do undercover business in the City of London Corporation, which dominates global markets. Some of the major London merchant families include the Goldsmith, Stuart, Rothschild, Grosvenor, Sassoon, Barclay, Sutherland, Montagu, Bailey and Guinness families. The Sutherland family created the HSBC bank that has a long history of financial scandals around the world (Emilio Botín, Fernando Alonso, Mohamed VI, Jorge Trías and Jordi Pujol Jr. had accounts at HSBC when it was chaired by Stephen Green, Baron Green of Hurstpierpoint). The Bailey family is co-founder of Janus Henderson through a merger. Janus Henderson manages around 190 billion in assets. The Stuart family owns the Hudson Bay Company and has an alliance with the Bavarian House of Wittelsbach, which is the covert owner of some of the Hudson's Bay Company subsidiaries, which were founded by Bavarian merchants. HBC has approximately $ 12 billion in assets and has had fiscal contracts with the United States through the Organic Law of the District of Columbia of 1871.
The Orange-Nassau family are influential traders through the Netherlands Trading Society and have a large number of shares in Royal Dutch Shell, Philips Electronics and ABN AMRO Bank. The Orange-Nassaus and their Dreyfus agents run the Rand Corporation, which has a contract with the US military. Rand's founder was a Dutch gentleman. The Orange-Nassau family also runs the Loyal Orange Institution in Ireland, which has infiltrated the police, justice and politics. The Luxembourg Nassau-Weilburg family are international bankers connected to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The royal families of Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands have shares in the European Investment Bank and all of these royals are recently married to Italian nobles. The Ligne family from Belgium are wealthy diamond and gold merchants. The Belgian Crown and its nobles are stealing wealth from the United States through fraudulent tax contracts established through the Organic Law of the District of Columbia of 1871 and continue to do so through the Bank for International Settlements. The Barons Strange heads the Masonic Order of Oddfellow. The Russell family are the Marquesses of Tavistock and they run the Tavistock Institute, which is an organization involved in mass mind control. The Russell family also co-founded the Yale University and Russell Trust Association, which is named after the New Haven, Connecticut company based on the Skull & Bones secret society.
Skull & Bones is a death cult military complex run by the Bush family from the USA who are like a European royal family in the USA. The Furstenberg family runs the Royal Order of Jesters who wear a jester on their coat of arms. The Clintons work closely with the House of Furstenberg, who have residences in the United States. The Italian Orsini family and the Holy Roman Rosenberg family lead the Rosicrucian Order of alchemists who infiltrate food and drug companies for chemical warfare. The Medici family, who have a statue of Hermes (Mercury) in their palace in Rome, administer the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an alchemical secret society. The Medici were architects of modern banking. The Pierleoni family of Rome and the Spanish House of Bourbon-Anjou run the Kabbalah Society, which uses the Spanish lion for its logo. The Pacelli family of Rome and the Crescenzi family of Italy administer the Wiccan witchcraft cults. The Bavarian Wittelsbach family from Bavaria created the Bavarian Illuminati and administers the Benedictine Monks and is also part of the Jewish Mafia in the United States who are white collar criminals. The Pecci family of Italy also owns the Jewish mafia in the United States through their marriage to the Blumenthal family. The House of Wittelsbach is involved with Zionism, Nazism, Freemasonry, and the Society of Jesus. The Jesuits function as Roman intelligence and infiltrators and use their universities to recruit and train agents for Rome. Jesuit agents dominate leadership positions in the United States military and intelligence and especially in the CIA. The Knights of Columbus are owned by the Casa de Colonna. Christopher Columbus was Pedro Madruga, the Count of Caminha, a relative of the Colonnas who settled in Pontevedra at the time of the Romans. Many Knights of Columbus are police officers, mayors, lawyers, and judges, protecting the Italian mob while targeting free-thinking people. The Knights of Columbus are heavily involved in gang harassment.
Court Jews such as the Rothschild, Warburg, Goldsmith, Oppenheimer, Walton, Sassoon, Kadoorie, Lewis, Javal, Lauder, Sackler and Dreyfus families work through the Roman Curia or royal courtrooms such as Buckingham Palace. The French Rothschilds work for the Black Nobility of Rome and the French House of Orleans. The British Rothschilds work for the British Crown. The Sassoon and Kadoorie families work for the British Crown and oversee banking and business in China and India. The Swiss Rothschilds work for the House of Habsburg and the House of Hesse. The Oppenheimers work for the German House of Wurttemberg and the Cologne Oppenheim branch. the Austrian House of Habsburg granted them titles of nobility. The Warburgs work for the Italian House of Borghese and the German House of Hesse and the House of Hannover. Warburg Pincus had a contract with Unicredit that merged with the Borghese Family's Bank of the Holy Spirit. The Warburgs were Venetian bankers and the Borghese family now hold Venetian titles of nobility. The Warburgs financed the Nazis. The Dreyfus family works for the Dutch House of Orange-Nassau and the French House of Bonaparte. Jewish banking families work for Christian nobles and royalty. These billionaire Jewish bloodlines run many rabbis who run a criminal intelligence network that works with Mossad. The French House of Bonaparte and the Swedish House of Bernadotte control many of the main European companies through their knights of the Order of Seraphim and the Legion of Honor, who are also members of the Round Table of Industrialists of Europe, which it has a great economic influence on the markets. The Wallenbergs run corporations worth hundreds of billions and work for the Swedish House of Bernadotte. The Wallenbergs and the Swedish Crown also work with the Jesuits and the Vatican. The Black Nobility and other royal families have been hiding billions in private banks in Luxembourg, Liechtenstein and Switzerland. The royal families of Luxembourg and Liechtenstein own and run their own national and private banks. Austrian and Eastern European royalty and nobles, such as the Habsburgs, Esterhazys and Schonberg, use private banks in Liechtenstein and also own Israeli and Jewish mafias. The Esterhazy family together with the Lucchesi-Palli family run a faction of the Russian mafia through the mob boss Semion Mogilevich from Budapest. The Torlonia family owns the Fucino Bank in Rome and functions as Vatican bankers and treasurers. The Torlonia family of Rome and the Hohenzollern family of Germany are the main owners and controllers of the Bank for International Settlements which was founded and administered by the Nazis during World War II. The Torlonias are architects of fascism and the Hohenzollerns are architects of Nazism.
The East, Rothschild and Hottinger families are some of the leading Swiss bankers. The Romanian Sturdza family also owns a private bank in Switzerland. The Casanova family of Italy and Spain is one of the leading political families in Switzerland. The East and Savoy families run the Bank for International Settlements, which has a contract with most of the major central banks and is embezzling the wealth of nations through fraudulent loans and contracts. The Savoys live in Switzerland and Prince Lorenz of Austria-Este works at the Gutzwiller bank. The Bank for International Settlements must be investigated and closed. The Gutzwiller family is one of the leading banking families in Switzerland, owning its own private bank and managing 35 other Swiss banks. The Swiss Guard is a military body in charge of the security of the Pope and the Holy See. The ceremonial head of the Swiss Guard is the Pope, sovereign of Vatican City. Italian mafias are Rome's enforcers involved in extortion, money laundering, murder and drug trafficking, and they pay their dues to the Sicilian mafia, which in turn pays them to the black nobility. The mafia channels its earnings and tributes to the Black Nobility through the Vatican charitable foundations and then from the Vatican bank they are transferred to the private accounts of the Swiss Bank. The Savoy’s Genovese crime family specializes in extorting Wall Street. The mafia is rigging professional sports for gambling and they also launder their criminal winnings through the casinos. The Torlonia family owns the Kansas City crime family and shares ownership of the Pittsburgh crime family with the Borghese family of Rome and the Rocco di Torrepadula family of Sicily. The French House of Orleans owns the New Orleans crime family and the Franco-British Beaufort family oversees and owns the Dixie Mafia factions along with other British peers who have French ancestry. Cox's billionaire family is involved in multimedia communications and is part of the owners of the Dixie mob, which is involved in tobacco and ginseng sales as well as arms, drug and human trafficking. The Goldsmith and Sassoon families own Pakistani and Hindu human trafficking networks operating in the United Kingdom. The Imperial House of Brazil, Orleans-Braganza and the Belgian House of Ligne are married and have shares in the Brazilian companies AmBev and Belgian Anheuser-Busch InBev. The House of Orleans-Braganza owns Brazilian drug cartels that are also involved in human trafficking. The Sforza family owns the Stidda Mafia clans operating in the Sforza-Visconti territory in Milan and the Sforza and Visconti families have greater control over the Italian Stock Exchange or the Milan Stock Exchange. Milanese billionaire Silvio Berlusconi works for the Sforza and Visconti families and has a monopoly on Italian media and politics. Berlusconi founded the Forza political party in Italy named after the Sforzas. Some northern Italian nobles such as the Visconti, Borromeo, Este, Gonzaga, Valenti, D’Adda, and Passi di Preposulo families are closely related to billionaire families such as the Rothschilds, Agnellis, Benettons, Armanis, and Ferreros. The Sforza and Visconti families own the Seattle crime family with the Gaetani family as partial owners. The Seattle crime family controls billionaires Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos through blackmail. In 2017, Microsoft and Amazon employees were caught in a sex trafficking scandal.
The Colonna family owns the Knights of Columbus and also owns the Colombo crime family and partially owns the Chicago Outfit along with the Capponi and Roselli families of the Florence Turk. Al Capone was an agent of the House of Capponi and John Roselli was an agent of the Roselli del Turco family. Roselli also worked for the CIA. Colonna means column like Colombo and Colón. The Knights of Columbus infiltrate police departments and work with the Italian mafia. The Massimo and Gaetani families own and run the Gambino crime family and the Philadelphia crime family. The Massimo-Brancaccio family also owns and runs the Magliana or Roman Mafia and the Armed Revolutionary Nuclei, as well as the Graviano de Brancaccio crime family in Palermo, Sicily, which is part of the Corleonisi mafia clan. The Massimo family receives tribute from most of the Italian crime families and even from the Russian mafia and Eastern European mafias. The Massimo de Roccasecca family, who live in London, own the Clerkenwell crime syndicate, also known as the Adams Family or the London A-team and are part owners of the Irish Mafia, including the Rathkeale Rovers. The Borghese family is also the main owner of the Sicilian Mafia and the Mafia Magliana. The Lucchesi-Palli and Pallavicini families own the Lucchese crime family to which the Russian mafia in Brighton Beach pays tribute. The Pallavicini family owns the Armenian mafia that operates in Hollywood and works closely with the Kardashian family. The Romanovs are partial owners of the Russian mafia and have established several residences in the United States. The Giustiniani family oversee the Philadelphia Greek Mafia along with some Greek merchants. Royal and noble families finance organized crime. The Jewish Mafia reorganized into a white collar crime and worked with the black hand of the Italian Mafia. The head of the Jewish mafia in the United States is billionaire Michael Bloomberg. Leon Black is another one of the leading Jewish mobsters in New York. The Jewish Mafia participates in professional sports with white-collar mobsters such as Daniel Gilbert, Robert Kraft, Joshua Harris, Tom Werner, Jerry Reinsdorf, George Kaiser, Peter Guber, Joe Lacob, Mark Cuban, and Micky Arison. The European Union is based on the Treaty of Rome that was signed at the Capitol in Rome. The president of the European Central Bank is Mario Draghi, born in Rome and educated by the Jesuits at the Massimo Institute. Mario Draghi is an undercover relative of the Borghese and Del Drago families. The Erba-Odescalchi family with ancestry from Cernobbio, Italy, runs CERN with the Roman Fabiola Gianotti as CERN Director General that is used to generate pressure in the lower atmosphere in order to oppress society. CERN, HAARP, The Church of Scientology, Chemtrails and electronic devices are being used to covertly oppress society. The US military administers a HAARP electronic harassment system in Puerto Rico that is controlled from Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, which is under the command of Captain David Culpepper. The CIA and the Italian Mafia have a large criminal operation in Cuba. The CIA and Cosa Nostra work closely to this day.
Islamic royal families were named after European royalty in the 19th and 20th centuries and especially after the First World War. Middle Eastern royalty run the oil industry and use their massive wealth to fund globalist agendas that allow them to rule their nations. The house of Saud is worth at least a billion. The House of Thani and the House of Al Khalifa work with the House of Saud and are also wealthy oil traders. Royals from the Middle East run the Muslim Brotherhood and the Five Percent and the Nation of Islam, which are violent mobs of cult and harassment. These organizations need to be investigated and banned. They also own an Arab mob that is based in New Jersey and Detroit. The royal family of Morocco are wealthy merchants and owners of the Abergil crime family of Israel and Morocco. The House of Bourbon and Spanish nobility such as the Osorio, Fitz James, Alvarez (Alba), Pignatelli, Arteaga, Borja, Zuniga, Ruspoli, and Aragon-Escobar families own the majority of the Mexican and South American drug cartels. The Osorio and Borja families own MS-13. The Borgia and Borja families are also partial owners of the Mongels motorcycle gang. The Bourbons own the Gulf Cartel and the Lating Kings. The Ruspolis are partial owners of the Sinaloa Cartel and the Primeiro Comando da Capital in Sao Paulo, where their Matarazzo cousins ​​reside. The FitzJames and Alvarez families own the Los Zetas Cartel. The Álvarez and Osorio families also own the Bandidos motorcycle gang. The House of Bourbons are the founders and owners of Banco Santander. The King of Spain has the official right to the throne as King of Jerusalem.

Nothing in Kubala's life was normal. Now that TV series about sportsmen are fashionable, the one that could be made about the adventures of Ladislao Kubala Stecz (Budapest, 1927) would raze through many seasons. In one season we could go deeper into his facet of legendary footballer, capable of changing the way of playing this sport, how he saved his life at the very last moment by not getting on the Torino plane that crashed in Superga, or how he was ten minutes away from signing for Real Madrid or enrolling in the Pirate League of Colombia, all of this in order to end being Barcelona's biggest icon... who ended playing for Espanyol.
We could add a season of adventures due to his incredible escape from communist Hungary. His journey through Italy with a football team, the Hungaria, of stateless people in which in addition to Hungarians also played Croats, Albanians, Romanians and Serbs who were looking for a life as good as they could get. One could also add to this the facet of the social phenomenon that dazzled a country during the dark years of Franco's regime by becoming a pop star, and end up with another season about the legends, real, invented or simply exaggerated, of his adventures in Barcelona's nightclubs.
Everything about Kubala is like a movie.

The legend of the escape.

Born in Budapest to a Hungarian man and a Slovakian woman, he always considered himself as both Hungarian and Slovakian, even when this republic was part of the now extinct Czechoslovakia. By the age of 20, Kubala was a football star known for his performances with Slovan Bratislava and Vasas Budapest. In fact, he had already been capped by Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Later, he would go on to play for Spain, and is still the only player to have been capped by three countries. But fed up with the system that was preventing him from developing his professional football career, he embarked on an escape proper of a movie to the West. He contacted a human trafficking organisation, a mafia that, in exchange for a large amount of money, facilitated a partial escape. As is now the case with criminals who gamble with the lives of people who want to cross the Mediterranean from Africa to Europe or pass to the United States through the southern border, the smugglers did not secure anything. The last part of the journey depended on the luck and expertise of the escapees and often ended tragically.
"I remember that when I escaped from Hungary I was just a kid. The traffickers left us in the middle of a mountain to do the last stretch on foot. We were a large group. The adults gathered the children and gave us palinka. A liquor similar to brandy to get us drunk and fall asleep. A child's cry could alert the border guards patrolling the mountain. And they had orders to shoot to kill. The group split in two. My group was lucky and we were able to win the Austrian border. Once we were safe, we learned that the other group that had travelled with us and took another road was discovered and killed." The chilling story is that of Zoltan Czibor, the son of the former Barça player who tells how he had to flee Hungary with his family to join his father in Italy. The odyssey of Kubala, six years earlier, was mirrored.
The traffickers disguised Kubala as a Russian soldier and put him in a truck that would leave the escapees at an undetermined point in the mountains so that they could cross the border into Austria on their own. Kubala remembered that this journey scared him to death because unlike his comrades, he was a national celebrity and any soldier who checked the military truck would recognize him. He was endangering his life and the lives of those who accompanied him.
When they were left in the mountain on January 27, 1949, Kubala walked, and crossing a river helped by a tire that carried him, managed to reach Innsbuck, Austria, without any documentation. He was a stateless man starting from scratch.
In Austria he managed to sign with Pro Patria, a team from Milan, but he could only play friendly matches. His escape provoked the anger of the Hungarian regime, which denounced him and blocked his registration. Kubala had married Anna Daucik two years earlier, sister of Fernando Daucik, a veteran player of the era who would later become a famous coach. When Kubala fled, he left behind his family, whom he was unable to reunite with until six months later, when Anna was able to cross the border and meet Ladislao in Udine. He arrived with one more member of the family. A baby, her firstborn, whom Kubala did not yet know.
While he is irregularly enrolled in the Pro Patria, he gets the chance to sign with Torino, Italy's dominant team at the time. He is offered a trial match. Nothing better than a friendly match that Il Grande Torino had in Lisbon as a tribute to Xico Ferreira. However, when the Turin team's plane is about to take off, the president of Torino prevents Kubala from boarding because he fears a federal sanction. On the return flight, on 4 May 1949, the Fiat G 212 of Avio Linee Italiana crashed into the retaining wall of the Basilica of Superga due to the wind, poor visibility and an error in the altimeter of the aircraft. At 180 kilometres per hour and with a visibility of 40 metres, the pilot saw the stone wall of the basilica too late when he thought the plane was at 2,000 metres and was actually at 690 metres above sea level. The 31 people who were travelling in that aircraft died. Kubala had saved his life again.

The legend of Hungaria.

With no possibility of playing in Italy because the back then very powerful Italian Communist Party was pressing to prevent people fleeing from countries in the orbit of the USSR from taking refuge in Italy, Kubala had no choice but to form a team of stateless people who hired their services throughout Europe to play friendly matches against whoever hired them.
The team was called Hungaria, was managed by his brother-in-law Fernando Daucik and was mainly made up of Hungarians, although there were also players of other nationalities. It was made up of: Kis, Marik, Torok, Mogoy, Lami, Rákosi, Hrotko, Majteny, Nagy, Kubala, Otto, Licker, Turbeky, Monsider (Croatian), De Lorenzi (Albanian), Szegedi (Romanian) and Arangelovic (Serbian).
They played their first match against Italy's B team, but again pressure from the PCI forced them to play outside Italy. And that is how they arrived in Spain, hired by Santiago Bernabéu. On June 5, 1950, they faced Real Madrid in Chamartin, losing 4-2, but with a stellar performance by Kubala, who scored both of his team's goals. Three days later, they beat the Spanish team that was preparing for the World Cup in Brazil, where they came in fourth, 1-2 again with a great performance by Kubala, who received an offer from Real Madrid to be signed.
Kubala requires that to join the team, Madrid must also hire Daucik as a coach, something that Bernabéu does not agree to. The Madrid coach at that time was the Briton Keeping, a great connoisseur of WM tactics. Daucik is offered to train the Plus Ultra, a Madrid branch that plays in the third division. That negative and the federative problems that drags Kubala cause that Madrid becomes disinterested in his transfer, that was already agreed lacking of some fringes that turned out to be determinant.
The Hungaria moves two days later to Barcelona, where on June 10 plays against Espanyol losing 6-4 in a match with Pepe Samitier, the technical secretary of Barça, in the stands. It is necessary to emphasize that Hungaria had been playing three matches in five days with a very short team and without being able to make substitutions. Even so, Kubala amazes and Samitier does not mess around. Six days after that match, on 16 June 1950, at half past six in the evening, Kubala signed his three-year contract with Barça at the Pasaje Méndez Vigo. Obviously, with Fernando Daucik as coach. President Montal, Sr., signed him as an "amateur player" in order to avoid any trouble for the federation.
Real Madrid rages and is shocked. Pablo Hernández, general secretary of the white entity and Santiago Bernabéu's right hand, assures that Barça had broken a non-aggression pact between both teams and had hired a player with whom they were in talks. Samitier, who was unbeatable in the media, declares that he had been following Kubala for months and that the pact had not been broken because it referred only to players who played in Spanish teams. And Hungaria was not Spanish. In fact, it wasn't from anywhere.
But Kubala's problems didn't end there. He still didn't have a registration card or an international certificate. Vasas in Budapest and the Hungarian Federation had reported him to FIFA. Barça used the weak argument that since professionalism had been abolished in Hungary, any amateur player could choose his destiny. But the fight was not going to be so easy.
Barça, it is fair to say, had the total support of the regime and the Federation to carry out the transfer. At the level of anti-communist propaganda, Kubala was perfect. A young and extraordinary sportsman who fled from the red hell to take refuge in Franco's Spain was a candy too sweet to let go. Muñoz Calero, president of the Federation, rowed in favor of Barça as did Ricardo Cabot, secretary of the organization, who, in addition to his affection for the regime, was a well-known Barcelona supporter.
But the procedures were very slow and Kubala could only play friendly matches. He made his debut against Osasuna on 12 October, scoring two goals on the day the Barça fans knew instantly that they had just signed a star. Then he played against Zaragoza, Frankfurt twice, Girona and the Badalona. In six friendlies he scored 11 goals. The fans and the player himself were eager to meet in an official match. For all this, the Federation to play the role with FIFA fined Barça every time he lined up Kubala with the symbolic figure of 50 pesetas.
It is at this time that Kubala is about to leave everything and go away from Barça. He needed the money and wanted to play at the highest level and in Colombia he was offered the chance to do so. The South American country had organised the so-called Pirate League outside FIFA and many of the world's biggest stars joined, including Alfredo Di Stefano who went to Millonarios in Bogota. Kubala had a tempting offer from Atletico Bucaramanga. With the option of Kubala leaving, events accelerated. To begin with, Barça fixed his financial situation by means of a peculiar amateur contract in which they paid him 1,200 pesetas for "compensation" and 3,800 for "encouragement and overfeeding".
On April 2, 1951, he was granted the status of political refugee as a stateless person, which was a step towards granting him Spanish nationality. But for this step, Kubala first had to be converted to Catholicism through the sacrament of baptism. Every Spaniard had to be a Catholic. Kubala was baptized in Aguilas, Murcia, the birthplace of Muñoz Calero, president of the Federation. It is then when Barça, to avoid problems, settles its differences economically with Vasas, which despite being against capitalism accepts a payment of 300,000 pesetas to provide the transfer, while the Pro Patria, which also complained, is satisfied with 12 million lire.
The Kubala era could now really commence.

The legend on the field.

Kubala made his official debut with Barcelona in Sevilla in a cup match. The Sevillistas at that time were one of the best teams. Sevilla and Barça had developed in that period a great rivalry in the high places of the table. In 1946 Sevilla had stolen the possibility of winning the championship from Barça by drawing in Les Corts on the last day, in 1948 Barça beat the Sevillians in the final of the Eva Perón Cup (which would be the current Supercup) and in that campaign a Barça without Kubala had lost all its options to win La Liga after losing 4-0 in Nervión three days before the end of the season.
The Cup, by that time was played once the regular season was over and in those circumstances the official debut of Kubala took place. On April 29th in Nervion, Barça arrived to play against Sevilla in the middle of a difficult atmosphere. The Andalusians had lost the league in a dramatic outcome when they drew at home in the last match against Atletico Madrid with a refereeing performance that the locals judged scandalous. For further concern, the Federation allowed Kubala to line up with Barça in the first round of the Cup, which in Sevilla was taken as a surprise.
With the stadium full to the flag, Barcelona defeated Sevilla in an exhibition of Kubala. He wasn't just the best of the match but he showed Spain a way of playing football unthinkable until that time: chest controls, shots with curve, millimetric changes of play of 40 meters, protection of the ball with his back, use of the body in the shot and touches with the heel.
Domenech, Sevilla's attacker who was the direct protagonist of that match, explained years later how he remembered that day.
"It was something never seen before. Ramallets kicked it and he would receive her with his chest, or with either of his legs. If you tackled him he would dribble you in a brick. He'd put the ball where he wanted her. Besides, from time to time he changed with César, he'd be a center forward and César would be a midfielder. They drove us crazy. The anger of the people became clamours. We were witnessing something extraordinary. It was like going from black and white cinema to colour," explained the former Sevilla player. The Sevilla crowd, who had welcomed Barça and its new superstar with anger, ended up giving Kubala a standing ovation for every action as if they were watching a glorious bullfighting performance.
Kubala's actions on the field change football forever. Since there was no television, his exploits are reported orally. There is no other way to see it than to go to the field of Les Corts, which is packed for every game Barça plays as a local. It is a very common argument to say that Kubala forced Barça to build the Camp Nou because the old Les Corts was not enough to accommodate all the people who wanted to admire him. Maybe he had an influence, but as the journalist Frederic Porta, author of an interesting biography of Kubala (Kubala, l'heroi que va canviar la història del Barça. Ed. Saldonar) explains, "the truth is that Barça had already bought the land to build the Camp Nou two years before and the idea of making a bigger field already existed, but Kubala advanced everything and justified the change".
Blessed with brutal technique, a sensational strike of the ball and an unusual physical strength, Kubala changed football. He would throw free-kicks over the wall with curve or by making the ball bounce in front of the goalkeeper, he would take penalties (he was practically infallible) with what was later called paradinha and was credited with the Brazilians although he was the first in Europe to do so. Physically he was a bull. In his youth he had practiced boxing and if he didn't become a recognized fighter with a great career it was because he had short arms. His lower body was sensational. He had a butt and legs that allowed him to protect the ball like no one else. Frederic Porta says that "in his time of splendour they measured his thighs and each one had a circumference of 69 centimetres, which would be the waist of one of his companions". He was also capable of running the 100 metres in less than 11 seconds. A total athlete with a very refined technique.
However, that physical strength and the confidence he had in her, for he never avoided a collision, were his downfall. Kubala became the target of a hunt by rival defenders. He never went into hiding and that's why in eleven years at Barcelona he suffered up to eleven injuries of some seriousness. With matches without television, the harshness that bordered on violence was the order of the day. He was being kicked to death.
But Barça was living its most golden period to date. Moreover, the club revolved around Kubala. Frederic Porta compares it with the present time: "Now they say that Messi commands the club and surely he commands, but nothing to do with the influence that Kubala had. Kubala was the boss and even the one who decided the transfers. And no one was surprised. That Barça adopted the socks with the horizontal stripes blaugrana is his imposition. He saw them on the rugby team, liked them and incorporated them into the football team by decree. In fact, it is he who insists on signing Luis Suarez when he impresses him in a match against Deportivo. Kubala was Suarez's first fan, but what happened in the stands, which was divided between Suaristas and Kubalistas, is another matter.
Suarez was eight years younger than Kubala. He arrived at Barcelona at the age of 19, Kubala was 27 and his physique was very punished by his injuries and the life he was living, as he did not deprive himself of anything. If he held out, it was because of privileged genetics.
Therefore, there never was a real competition between them, but there was a lot of influence here from the figure of Helenio Herrera, the Barça manager, who saw Kubala as older and slower and was looking forward to a quick change by the young Galician as the leader of the team. The debate reached the stands and the media. It was an absurd debate, because they didn't play in the same position, with whom Kubala really had a certain rivalry with Eulogio Martínez, who was the one with whom he alternated the position.
Kubala's physical problems were not only due to injuries. He had the whole of Spain in suspense when he suffered a tuberculosis that could have cost him his life. There are apocryphal versions that explain that this tuberculosis was actually a stab wound he suffered in a fight in a cheap pub in the fifth district (Barcelona's Chinatown) and he has to retire to Montseny to recover. Nobody is betting on his return to the pitch if he survives a "hole in the lung the size of a silver bullet" according to the chronicles of the time. But once again, Kubala's ability to survive prevails. He returns to the pitches, but already heavily punished and slowed down.
It is against this backdrop that the 1961 European Cup final arrives, with Kubala arriving at the age of 34 with a herniated disc that barely allows him to walk, but he wants to play. He knows that the club is going through a critical situation despite having reached the final of the maximum trophy for the first time: the club is bankrupt because of the construction of the Camp Nou, the fights in the board of directors are chaotic, Luis Suarez has signed for Inter (the one in Bern will be his last game with Barça), which was where Helenio Herrera had left the team in the hands of Enrique Orizaola.
Kubala tells Orizaola to line him up, that like all the Portuguese will go for him and he can barely move because of the back pain and will play with painkillers, it will give more opportunities to his teammates. But the match is a pile of misfortunes for Barcelona. Ramallets scores an own goal, Barça shoots three times to the damn square posts of the goals (from then on they would change their shape) even Kubala kicked a ball that hit a post, went through the goal line until it hit the other post and came out repelled. Barça lost and Kubala's time at Barcelona came to an end.

The man of the year.

Kubala's significance goes beyond the playing field. According to a vote made for Radio Barcelona by journalist Joaquín Soler Serrano in the mid-50s, the Catalans most loved by their fellow citizens were Doctor Barraquer and Ladislao Kubala.
"He was literally the most famous person in the city, people really venerated him, and even Messi's influence cannot be compared to that of Kubala in those years," explains Porta.
His life off the field was notorious. An unrepentant night owl, it was common to see him in Barcelona's fashionable coffee shops and nightclubs. He was a man who stood out. Alfredo Relaño defines him in some of his articles as "a demigod. Tall, strong, blond with blue eyes and an overflowing personality. He aroused the admiration of men and women alike. An idol". Frederic Porta sums it up with the argument that "he would be the sum of Messi and Beckham and on top of that, he would go out every night".
Faced with Kubala's disorganised life, the Barcelona management decided to set up a private detective agency to follow him at night. The reports of the detectives are still in the Centre de Documentació del FC Barcelona and Frederic Porta published them in the history magazine 'Sàpiens'. In them, he gives a detailed account of the nocturnal wanderings of "Mr. K.", the code name of the Blaugrana star in an exercise in absurd discretion. There is also a letter from a Sabadell businessman in the club's archives, expressing concern that Kubala and Czibor had been "found in a Sabadell establishment after 2.30 in the morning accompanied by some of those ladies who were once gentlemen, I don't know if you understand". What the businessman doesn't explain in the letter is what he was doing in the same place.
Kubala's fondness for drinking was no secret. Helenio Herrera explains in a television interview that "one day at an airport in customs they asked Kubala if he had anything to declare and he said two bottles of whisky. The official asked him to show them to him and he, laughing, touched his belly and said: 'X-ray, I have them inside'. On another occasion, in the same situation, but carrying the bottle in the bag, he was told to leave it at the airport because no alcoholic drinks were allowed to be taken on board. Neither shy nor lazy, he drank it in front of the astonished official.
The legends about the occasions when the night was made longer and he did not arrive at training sessions or matches were recurrent. In that case, he called on the services of Angel Mur Sr., the team masseur who knew where to find him. He would start a pilgrimage through the usual places or floors until he found him, took him to the changing room, gave him a cold shower, a coffee with salt, a massage and played. The fans forgave him everything and were aware that their star was a man of joyful life. But he never failed on the field. Among the crowd at the time there were comments about the Kubala ritual in those games that followed a busy night. "He started off badly, and vaguely, but the signal was when, ten minutes into the game, he rolled up his sleeves as if to say 'I'm here, let's start, I've already cleared off', and the machine started to work.
You can't find anyone in the world who speaks ill of Kubala. Absolutely no one. Everyone highlights his huge heart and that despite being by far the highest paid player of the time (he earned six times more than his teammates) he didn't have a no for anyone. His detachment from money was legendary.
As proof, the anecdote explained by his biographer Porta: "one day he arrived at the dressing room and commented that his car had been stolen and that in the glove compartment he was carrying an envelope with 200,000 pesetas, which was a fortune for the time (a good apartment could cost 130,000 pesetas). When his colleagues tried to encourage him, he simply said: someone who needs it more than I do must have taken it".
It was also usual for him to take off his coat and give it to a poor man who begged in Barcelona's winter, or to take in any Hungarian who came to Barcelona asking for help in his house in Carrer Duquesa d'Orleans. Kubala, remembering his times as a stateless refugee without papers, asked nothing. He would take them home and pay them a boat ticket to America. The motto among the refugees fleeing the Iron Curtain was that "if you get to Barcelona, look for Kubala, he will help you". He never failed.
Later, now retired, he set up a bar next to Czibor in Capitan Arenas Street, the mythical Kep Duna (blue Danube in Hungarian) that became an unofficial refugee reception centre that was monitored by the secret services of the United States, the USSR and the Spanish police. Something like the Rick's Café in the film Casablanca, but in the upper area of Barcelona.
He was the great character of Barcelona loved by all, but there was a moment when this was almost broken, strange as it may seem. It coincided with the defeat in Bern, when a part of the press came to write that "Barça must be de-Kubalized as the Soviet Union must be de-Stalinized" and, especially, when he signed for Espanyol. The earthquake was a huge one.

From the bench to Sarrià.

After the defeat in Bern's final, Kubala announced his retirement from the fields. He had taken the coaching course and was ranked number one in his class. He made a pact with the president Llaudet, who was also an interesting character as we will see, that in principle he would take charge of the footballers' school of the club and that in a couple of years he would be in charge of the first team.
Meanwhile, Barcelona is directed by Lluís Miró who faces a team in disarray. Suarez has been transferred to Inter in the worst decision in the club's history and myths such as Ramallets, Tejada and Czibor were in the decline of their careers. The season starts badly and after losing at Mestalla to Valencia by a humiliating 6-2 that forces the resignation of Miro. It was time for Kubala, who was promoted to the first team in front of the joy of the fans. And the project results from the beginning. The Barça of the second part of season 61-62 recovers in La Liga and finishes second (the distance with the white ones when Kubala arrived was almost insurmountable) and avenges the 6-2 of Mestalla beating Valencia in the Camp Nou 4-0.
Facing the next season, the 62-63, Kubala can make his team by giving painful drops of some of his former teammates as it is the case of Eulogio Martinez or Evaristo. One of Llaudet's reluctances to give Kubala the job of coach was that he would have to manage some of his former teammates.
The positive expectations about Kubala's first full project were frustrated at first when the Blaugrana team had to play the final of the Copa de Ferias against Valencia, the team that caused the fall of Miró and the promotion of Kubala. And the history, by rare that it seems, repeats: Valencia returns to him to put 6-2 to the Barça. The fans explode against the team. In the return match, obviously, there is nothing to do, but Llaudet's ability to self-flagellation has no limits. As Alfredo Relaño writes, the Blaugrana president calls a dinner with the press the day before the game and makes this statement that if it happened today would open all the news.
Llaudet, in front of the press and accompanied by the coach Kubala and Gràcia as captain, asks the fans to forgive him and announces changes in the protocol of the start of the second leg. "Valencia will go out first to receive the applause, then Barcelona, to receive the whistles. Then Kubala will come out, so he can get the thunders. And finally me, so that all the whistles fall on my person, because I am the barcelonist who loves the club the most and who is destined to die on the pitch, if necessary...". He ends his speech crying. As we can see, Gaspart didn't invent anything.
The match ended in a draw and Kubala's project as Barça's coach was doomed. The manager is fired in the middle of the season and then a bomb explodes in Barcelona. Kubala accepts the offer to return to the pitch, but not as a coach, will be as a player and nothing more and nothing less than in Espanyol, Barça's eternal rival.
On 3 September 1963 Espanyol, then Español, announced that Kubala would be hired as a player. At 36 years of age, he was capable of being competitive.
His decision divides the public opinion. On the one hand, Federico Gallo and Juan José Castillo support his decision, on the other hand, Carlos Pardo or Ibáñez Escofet shoot at him. They call him a "Jew who sells himself for a plate of beans", a "traitor" and they see political interests in his decision.
Kubala explains that he wanted to continue playing and that he saw himself capable of doing so, although he accepted that he was not at Barcelona's level. He had received offers from important clubs, including River Plate and Juventus, but he doesn't want to leave Barcelona, where he feels like another Barcelonian. The Espanyol meets his expectations.
His start of the season is not bad, on the contrary, he scores in his first two games, but the team doesn't work out. The coexistence between the veteran newcomer Kubala and the team's symbol, Argilés, is not easy. Scopelli is dismissed as coach and de facto command of the team is given to the two team leaders despite their differences. The crisis erupts when the Spaniard visits the Camp Nou. The periquitos lose by 5-0 in a match in which the Barcelona crowd booed Kubala who they are eager to humiliate with his new team. Even so, at the end of the match, Kubala has a gesture to his former team that shows that he does not hold any grudge against what he has heard from the stands. At the end of the match, he organizes his teammates to make the corridor to Barça applauding the rival in recognition of the exhibition made. That gesture feels bad among the Espanyol fans and among some of his teammates. Argilés does not make the corridor and goes straight to the changing rooms.
The following year, Kubala becomes a manager-player and among the departures that he causes, there is the one of Argilés, but by contrast, Di Stéfano arrives, also hurt by his bad exit from Madrid fighting against Bernabéu.
Di Stefano and Kubala are like brothers. Even though they haven't officially played together, they have a special chemistry. A friendship that is forged when the Argentinian is about to sign for Barcelona.
When Di Stéfano arrives in Barcelona to sign for Español, he stays first at the Avenida Palace Hotel, but after a month he is living in Kubala's house as one of the family. The children of both always maintained a relationship as if they were brothers.
One of the players under Kubala's command was Jose Maria Rodilla, one of the players who would soon form the famous 'Dolphins' forward line. At 80 years of age, Rodilla remembers Kubala.
"I have a wonderful memory of Kubala, I always had a special affection for him. Not in vain, he was the one who signed me for Espanyol", he remembers when answering the call of this newspaper to which he confesses that* "normally I do not make declarations, but to speak about Kubala I do whatever is needed"*.
Rodilla, former teammate at Espanyol, has clear that "he was the best player in the world in terms of technique. Di Stéfano was the best footballer, but he didn't have his technique. Alfredo was more intense and more player of the whole field, but he could not do things that Kubala did"
Those who had the privilege of playing with both of them remember that "for example, Di Stefano wouldn't leave you alone for a minute, he was all over you and the fights were intense, but he always set an example, he never asked you for anything that he didn't do. Kubala was more paternalistic and tolerant. For example, he would ask us to do as he did in training, and while sitting down he would be able to make 3,000 touches on the ball without dropping it. Only he could do that."
Rodilla adds a story that explains Kubala's quality as a player-coach at the age of 38: "We went to play a friendly at Amposta and they called a foul on the edge of the box. Kubala takes the ball and whacks it into the corner. The referee made him repeat it because someone had moved or I don't know what. Kubala takes the ball and wham, back to the square. And the referee tells him that he has to repeat. That day Kubala got angry and left the field."
Rodilla recalls that Kubala's move from Barça to Espanyol created controversy in the city, but that he was oblivious to it. "He was still a magnificent person, I never heard him say a bad word against anyone. He never got into an argument, he was goodness personified, he was unlucky in his time as a coach, but as a coach he is one of the best I've ever had, with a great love for young players and always trying to help you improve."

Boys well, optimal morale.

He extended his playing career for a couple more years by playing for Zurich and even trying out the American adventure at the Toronto Falcons, where he coincides with Branko and Daucik's son. At the age of 40 he played 19 games and scored 5 goals.
In 1968 he returned to Spain and trained the Córdoba team for a short period of time until he was called up to the national team. Kubala will manage the Spanish team until 1980, when he signs for Barcelona again as a coach.
Kubala's debut with Spain was, once again, a propaganda match for the regime. It was played in the Estadio de la Línea de la Concepción against Finland and Spain beat their rivals 6-0 in a match that was no longer useful. Spain had missed out on qualifying for the Mexico '70 World Cup, but the idea of that game was to showcase a great field that could be seen from Gibraltar as if to give jealousy to those in the Rock for the sports culture of Spain. Dictatorship things.
It's true that at that time Spain was struggling more than anything else on the international scene. It did not qualify for the 1974 World Cup because of Katalinski's goal in the play-off match in Frankfurt, and in both the 1978 World Cup and the 1980 European Championship the team fell in the first round, but there is still no one from that era who will make a judgement against Kubala.
"Kubala, one ahead of his time. No doubt he had a lot to do with his past as a footballer. And not just like any other player, like the best! I remember him always saying to me: 'Ruben, you have to get out of the way on the other side of the ball. Look for the space, not the ball. The goal I scored in Yugoslavia has to do with everything he taught me," he told Fermin de la Calle in an interview with AS Ruben Cano, the hero of the famous 'Battle of Belgrade' in the match that took Spain to the World Cup in Argentina. Yes, the one with the goal by Cardeñosa that could have changed Kubala's record with the national team.
He did a lot to improve Spanish football and his idea regarding the incorporation of foreigners to improve the level of Spanish football was key in the future development of the Spanish competitive level.
His players remember him as a didactic person, tactically bold and very close. At a time when fury was the hallmark of the game, Kubala never forgot that he was the heir to the Magyar tradition of the Honved and the Hungary who, by moving the ball, shocked the world the day they destroyed England at Wembley 3-6.
For the average football fan, Kubala may have been a half-hearted coach who embodied an era of the national team in which nothing was won, as has been the case most of the time, and he became popular for his expressions that would now be meme material on social networks. The national team was known as the 'Kubala boys' and the coach's catchphrase before the matches saying "boys well, optimal morale" was the fashionable phrase in the coffee shops of the 70s in Spain.
But among his colleagues, Kubala still deserved reverential respect. "The first goal was authentically Latin, cunningly scored and perfectly studied. I can only congratulate Kubala on his previous tactical work," said German boss Helmut Schön after facing and losing to Spain in a friendly in which the recent world semi-finalist and next world champion fell to the Kubala boys at the Sanchez Pizjuan with two strategic goals from Arieta. Yes, Arieta against Müller. Seeler, Beckembauer, Maier, Netzer and company.
He left the national team in 1980 to join Barça as the coach of Núñez's second project in an operation that was the prelude to what would happen in the World Cup in Russia with Lopetegui. Kubala committed to Barça while he was coach and tried to alternate functions, but Porta refused. Finally, on 8 June 1980, four days before the start of the European Championship, Kubala signed for the Blaugrana team, which he would join after the European Championship.
His second spell at the head of Barça did not go well either and he was dismissed mid-season. He continued his adventure on the bench as coach of Saudi Arabia (in that he was also a pioneer), training Malaga and the Paraguayan national team before retiring from football on the bench of Elche.
He spent his final years in Barcelona as active as ever. Playing with Barça veterans, helping his teammates, not having a no for anyone and playing tennis every day or going for a run or cycling routes exhibiting an enviable physical condition.
Until the light of genius and the glory faded away 18 years ago. A degenerative brain disease put an end to the adventure, but not to the legend of a world football myth. An icon that changed the lives of so many people that they wouldn't fit even in a stadium.
The coffin with the mortal remains of Kubala was carried on shoulders, amidst the applause of the fans who gathered at the doors of the church of Santa Tecla, by Alfredo Di Stéfano, Gustau Biosca, Eduardo Manchón, Estanislao Basora, Joan Segarra, Josep Bartomeu, Luis Suárez, Antoni Ramallets and Gonzalvo III.
He rests in the cemetery of Les Corts, next to the Camp Nou because that is what he left written in his will, while Serrat sang to him about how...
...Pelé was Pelé and Maradona was the one and that's it. Di Stéfano was a pit of mischief. Honour and glory to those who made the sun shine on our football. Everyone has his merits; to each his own, but for me none is like Kubala. Respectable silence is requested, for those who haven't enjoyed him, I'll say four things: he stops it with his head, he drops it on with his chest, he sleeps it off with his left, crosses the pitch with the ball attached to the boot, leaves the midfield and enters the box showing the ball, hides it with his body, pushes with his ass and gets in with his heels. He pisses on the centerback with a dedicated piece. and touches her gently to put her on the path to glory.

by Santi Gimenez for AS.com (2020)

Nothing in Kubala's life was normal. Now that TV series about sportsmen are fashionable, the one that could be made about the adventures of Ladislao Kubala Stecz (Budapest, 1927) would raze through many seasons. In one season we could go deeper into his facet of legendary footballer, capable of changing the way of playing this sport, how he saved his life at the very last moment by not getting on the Torino plane that crashed in Superga, or how he was ten minutes away from signing for Real Madrid or enrolling in the Pirate League of Colombia, all of this in order to end being Barcelona's biggest icon... who ended playing for Espanyol.
We could add a season of adventures due to his incredible escape from communist Hungary. His journey through Italy with a football team, the Hungaria, of stateless people in which in addition to Hungarians also played Croats, Albanians, Romanians and Serbs who were looking for a life as good as they could get. One could also add to this the facet of the social phenomenon that dazzled a country during the dark years of Franco's regime by becoming a pop star, and end up with another season about the legends, real, invented or simply exaggerated, of his adventures in Barcelona's nightclubs.
Everything about Kubala is like a movie.

The legend of the escape.

Born in Budapest to a Hungarian man and a Slovakian woman, he always considered himself as both Hungarian and Slovakian, even when this republic was part of the now extinct Czechoslovakia. By the age of 20, Kubala was a football star known for his performances with Slovan Bratislava and Vasas Budapest. In fact, he had already been capped by Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Later, he would go on to play for Spain, and is still the only player to have been capped by three countries. But fed up with the system that was preventing him from developing his professional football career, he embarked on an escape proper of a movie to the West. He contacted a human trafficking organisation, a mafia that, in exchange for a large amount of money, facilitated a partial escape. As is now the case with criminals who gamble with the lives of people who want to cross the Mediterranean from Africa to Europe or pass to the United States through the southern border, the smugglers did not secure anything. The last part of the journey depended on the luck and expertise of the escapees and often ended tragically.
"I remember that when I escaped from Hungary I was just a kid. The traffickers left us in the middle of a mountain to do the last stretch on foot. We were a large group. The adults gathered the children and gave us palinka. A liquor similar to brandy to get us drunk and fall asleep. A child's cry could alert the border guards patrolling the mountain. And they had orders to shoot to kill. The group split in two. My group was lucky and we were able to win the Austrian border. Once we were safe, we learned that the other group that had travelled with us and took another road was discovered and killed." The chilling story is that of Zoltan Czibor, the son of the former Barça player who tells how he had to flee Hungary with his family to join his father in Italy. The odyssey of Kubala, six years earlier, was mirrored.
The traffickers disguised Kubala as a Russian soldier and put him in a truck that would leave the escapees at an undetermined point in the mountains so that they could cross the border into Austria on their own. Kubala remembered that this journey scared him to death because unlike his comrades, he was a national celebrity and any soldier who checked the military truck would recognize him. He was endangering his life and the lives of those who accompanied him.
When they were left in the mountain on January 27, 1949, Kubala walked, and crossing a river helped by a tire that carried him, managed to reach Innsbuck, Austria, without any documentation. He was a stateless man starting from scratch.
In Austria he managed to sign with Pro Patria, a team from Milan, but he could only play friendly matches. His escape provoked the anger of the Hungarian regime, which denounced him and blocked his registration. Kubala had married Anna Daucik two years earlier, sister of Fernando Daucik, a veteran player of the era who would later become a famous coach. When Kubala fled, he left behind his family, whom he was unable to reunite with until six months later, when Anna was able to cross the border and meet Ladislao in Udine. He arrived with one more member of the family. A baby, her firstborn, whom Kubala did not yet know.
While he is irregularly enrolled in the Pro Patria, he gets the chance to sign with Torino, Italy's dominant team at the time. He is offered a trial match. Nothing better than a friendly match that Il Grande Torino had in Lisbon as a tribute to Xico Ferreira. However, when the Turin team's plane is about to take off, the president of Torino prevents Kubala from boarding because he fears a federal sanction. On the return flight, on 4 May 1949, the Fiat G 212 of Avio Linee Italiana crashed into the retaining wall of the Basilica of Superga due to the wind, poor visibility and an error in the altimeter of the aircraft. At 180 kilometres per hour and with a visibility of 40 metres, the pilot saw the stone wall of the basilica too late when he thought the plane was at 2,000 metres and was actually at 690 metres above sea level. The 31 people who were travelling in that aircraft died. Kubala had saved his life again.

The legend of Hungaria.

With no possibility of playing in Italy because the back then very powerful Italian Communist Party was pressing to prevent people fleeing from countries in the orbit of the USSR from taking refuge in Italy, Kubala had no choice but to form a team of stateless people who hired their services throughout Europe to play friendly matches against whoever hired them.
The team was called Hungaria, was managed by his brother-in-law Fernando Daucik and was mainly made up of Hungarians, although there were also players of other nationalities. It was made up of: Kis, Marik, Torok, Mogoy, Lami, Rákosi, Hrotko, Majteny, Nagy, Kubala, Otto, Licker, Turbeky, Monsider (Croatian), De Lorenzi (Albanian), Szegedi (Romanian) and Arangelovic (Serbian).
They played their first match against Italy's B team, but again pressure from the PCI forced them to play outside Italy. And that is how they arrived in Spain, hired by Santiago Bernabéu. On June 5, 1950, they faced Real Madrid in Chamartin, losing 4-2, but with a stellar performance by Kubala, who scored both of his team's goals. Three days later, they beat the Spanish team that was preparing for the World Cup in Brazil, where they came in fourth, 1-2 again with a great performance by Kubala, who received an offer from Real Madrid to be signed.
Kubala requires that to join the team, Madrid must also hire Daucik as a coach, something that Bernabéu does not agree to. The Madrid coach at that time was the Briton Keeping, a great connoisseur of WM tactics. Daucik is offered to train the Plus Ultra, a Madrid branch that plays in the third division. That negative and the federative problems that drags Kubala cause that Madrid becomes disinterested in his transfer, that was already agreed lacking of some fringes that turned out to be determinant.
The Hungaria moves two days later to Barcelona, where on June 10 plays against Espanyol losing 6-4 in a match with Pepe Samitier, the technical secretary of Barça, in the stands. It is necessary to emphasize that Hungaria had been playing three matches in five days with a very short team and without being able to make substitutions. Even so, Kubala amazes and Samitier does not mess around. Six days after that match, on 16 June 1950, at half past six in the evening, Kubala signed his three-year contract with Barça at the Pasaje Méndez Vigo. Obviously, with Fernando Daucik as coach. President Montal, Sr., signed him as an "amateur player" in order to avoid any trouble for the federation.
Real Madrid rages and is shocked. Pablo Hernández, general secretary of the white entity and Santiago Bernabéu's right hand, assures that Barça had broken a non-aggression pact between both teams and had hired a player with whom they were in talks. Samitier, who was unbeatable in the media, declares that he had been following Kubala for months and that the pact had not been broken because it referred only to players who played in Spanish teams. And Hungaria was not Spanish. In fact, it wasn't from anywhere.
But Kubala's problems didn't end there. He still didn't have a registration card or an international certificate. Vasas in Budapest and the Hungarian Federation had reported him to FIFA. Barça used the weak argument that since professionalism had been abolished in Hungary, any amateur player could choose his destiny. But the fight was not going to be so easy.
Barça, it is fair to say, had the total support of the regime and the Federation to carry out the transfer. At the level of anti-communist propaganda, Kubala was perfect. A young and extraordinary sportsman who fled from the red hell to take refuge in Franco's Spain was a candy too sweet to let go. Muñoz Calero, president of the Federation, rowed in favor of Barça as did Ricardo Cabot, secretary of the organization, who, in addition to his affection for the regime, was a well-known Barcelona supporter.
But the procedures were very slow and Kubala could only play friendly matches. He made his debut against Osasuna on 12 October, scoring two goals on the day the Barça fans knew instantly that they had just signed a star. Then he played against Zaragoza, Frankfurt twice, Girona and the Badalona. In six friendlies he scored 11 goals. The fans and the player himself were eager to meet in an official match. For all this, the Federation to play the role with FIFA fined Barça every time he lined up Kubala with the symbolic figure of 50 pesetas.
It is at this time that Kubala is about to leave everything and go away from Barça. He needed the money and wanted to play at the highest level and in Colombia he was offered the chance to do so. The South American country had organised the so-called Pirate League outside FIFA and many of the world's biggest stars joined, including Alfredo Di Stefano who went to Millonarios in Bogota. Kubala had a tempting offer from Atletico Bucaramanga. With the option of Kubala leaving, events accelerated. To begin with, Barça fixed his financial situation by means of a peculiar amateur contract in which they paid him 1,200 pesetas for "compensation" and 3,800 for "encouragement and overfeeding".
On April 2, 1951, he was granted the status of political refugee as a stateless person, which was a step towards granting him Spanish nationality. But for this step, Kubala first had to be converted to Catholicism through the sacrament of baptism. Every Spaniard had to be a Catholic. Kubala was baptized in Aguilas, Murcia, the birthplace of Muñoz Calero, president of the Federation. It is then when Barça, to avoid problems, settles its differences economically with Vasas, which despite being against capitalism accepts a payment of 300,000 pesetas to provide the transfer, while the Pro Patria, which also complained, is satisfied with 12 million lire.
The Kubala era could now really commence.

The legend on the field.

Kubala made his official debut with Barcelona in Sevilla in a cup match. The Sevillistas at that time were one of the best teams. Sevilla and Barça had developed in that period a great rivalry in the high places of the table. In 1946 Sevilla had stolen the possibility of winning the championship from Barça by drawing in Les Corts on the last day, in 1948 Barça beat the Sevillians in the final of the Eva Perón Cup (which would be the current Supercup) and in that campaign a Barça without Kubala had lost all its options to win La Liga after losing 4-0 in Nervión three days before the end of the season.
The Cup, by that time was played once the regular season was over and in those circumstances the official debut of Kubala took place. On April 29th in Nervion, Barça arrived to play against Sevilla in the middle of a difficult atmosphere. The Andalusians had lost the league in a dramatic outcome when they drew at home in the last match against Atletico Madrid with a refereeing performance that the locals judged scandalous. For further concern, the Federation allowed Kubala to line up with Barça in the first round of the Cup, which in Sevilla was taken as a surprise.
With the stadium full to the flag, Barcelona defeated Sevilla in an exhibition of Kubala. He wasn't just the best of the match but he showed Spain a way of playing football unthinkable until that time: chest controls, shots with curve, millimetric changes of play of 40 meters, protection of the ball with his back, use of the body in the shot and touches with the heel.
Domenech, Sevilla's attacker who was the direct protagonist of that match, explained years later how he remembered that day.
"It was something never seen before. Ramallets kicked it and he would receive her with his chest, or with either of his legs. If you tackled him he would dribble you in a brick. He'd put the ball where he wanted her. Besides, from time to time he changed with César, he'd be a center forward and César would be a midfielder. They drove us crazy. The anger of the people became clamours. We were witnessing something extraordinary. It was like going from black and white cinema to colour," explained the former Sevilla player. The Sevilla crowd, who had welcomed Barça and its new superstar with anger, ended up giving Kubala a standing ovation for every action as if they were watching a glorious bullfighting performance.
Kubala's actions on the field change football forever. Since there was no television, his exploits are reported orally. There is no other way to see it than to go to the field of Les Corts, which is packed for every game Barça plays as a local. It is a very common argument to say that Kubala forced Barça to build the Camp Nou because the old Les Corts was not enough to accommodate all the people who wanted to admire him. Maybe he had an influence, but as the journalist Frederic Porta, author of an interesting biography of Kubala (Kubala, l'heroi que va canviar la història del Barça. Ed. Saldonar) explains, "the truth is that Barça had already bought the land to build the Camp Nou two years before and the idea of making a bigger field already existed, but Kubala advanced everything and justified the change".
Blessed with brutal technique, a sensational strike of the ball and an unusual physical strength, Kubala changed football. He would throw free-kicks over the wall with curve or by making the ball bounce in front of the goalkeeper, he would take penalties (he was practically infallible) with what was later called paradinha and was credited with the Brazilians although he was the first in Europe to do so. Physically he was a bull. In his youth he had practiced boxing and if he didn't become a recognized fighter with a great career it was because he had short arms. His lower body was sensational. He had a butt and legs that allowed him to protect the ball like no one else. Frederic Porta says that "in his time of splendour they measured his thighs and each one had a circumference of 69 centimetres, which would be the waist of one of his companions". He was also capable of running the 100 metres in less than 11 seconds. A total athlete with a very refined technique.
However, that physical strength and the confidence he had in her, for he never avoided a collision, were his downfall. Kubala became the target of a hunt by rival defenders. He never went into hiding and that's why in eleven years at Barcelona he suffered up to eleven injuries of some seriousness. With matches without television, the harshness that bordered on violence was the order of the day. He was being kicked to death.
But Barça was living its most golden period to date. Moreover, the club revolved around Kubala. Frederic Porta compares it with the present time: "Now they say that Messi commands the club and surely he commands, but nothing to do with the influence that Kubala had. Kubala was the boss and even the one who decided the transfers. And no one was surprised. That Barça adopted the socks with the horizontal stripes blaugrana is his imposition. He saw them on the rugby team, liked them and incorporated them into the football team by decree. In fact, it is he who insists on signing Luis Suarez when he impresses him in a match against Deportivo. Kubala was Suarez's first fan, but what happened in the stands, which was divided between Suaristas and Kubalistas, is another matter.
Suarez was eight years younger than Kubala. He arrived at Barcelona at the age of 19, Kubala was 27 and his physique was very punished by his injuries and the life he was living, as he did not deprive himself of anything. If he held out, it was because of privileged genetics.
Therefore, there never was a real competition between them, but there was a lot of influence here from the figure of Helenio Herrera, the Barça manager, who saw Kubala as older and slower and was looking forward to a quick change by the young Galician as the leader of the team. The debate reached the stands and the media. It was an absurd debate, because they didn't play in the same position, with whom Kubala really had a certain rivalry with Eulogio Martínez, who was the one with whom he alternated the position.
Kubala's physical problems were not only due to injuries. He had the whole of Spain in suspense when he suffered a tuberculosis that could have cost him his life. There are apocryphal versions that explain that this tuberculosis was actually a stab wound he suffered in a fight in a cheap pub in the fifth district (Barcelona's Chinatown) and he has to retire to Montseny to recover. Nobody is betting on his return to the pitch if he survives a "hole in the lung the size of a silver bullet" according to the chronicles of the time. But once again, Kubala's ability to survive prevails. He returns to the pitches, but already heavily punished and slowed down.
It is against this backdrop that the 1961 European Cup final arrives, with Kubala arriving at the age of 34 with a herniated disc that barely allows him to walk, but he wants to play. He knows that the club is going through a critical situation despite having reached the final of the maximum trophy for the first time: the club is bankrupt because of the construction of the Camp Nou, the fights in the board of directors are chaotic, Luis Suarez has signed for Inter (the one in Bern will be his last game with Barça), which was where Helenio Herrera had left the team in the hands of Enrique Orizaola.
Kubala tells Orizaola to line him up, that like all the Portuguese will go for him and he can barely move because of the back pain and will play with painkillers, it will give more opportunities to his teammates. But the match is a pile of misfortunes for Barcelona. Ramallets scores an own goal, Barça shoots three times to the damn square posts of the goals (from then on they would change their shape) even Kubala kicked a ball that hit a post, went through the goal line until it hit the other post and came out repelled. Barça lost and Kubala's time at Barcelona came to an end.

The man of the year.

Kubala's significance goes beyond the playing field. According to a vote made for Radio Barcelona by journalist Joaquín Soler Serrano in the mid-50s, the Catalans most loved by their fellow citizens were Doctor Barraquer and Ladislao Kubala.
"He was literally the most famous person in the city, people really venerated him, and even Messi's influence cannot be compared to that of Kubala in those years," explains Porta.
His life off the field was notorious. An unrepentant night owl, it was common to see him in Barcelona's fashionable coffee shops and nightclubs. He was a man who stood out. Alfredo Relaño defines him in some of his articles as "a demigod. Tall, strong, blond with blue eyes and an overflowing personality. He aroused the admiration of men and women alike. An idol". Frederic Porta sums it up with the argument that "he would be the sum of Messi and Beckham and on top of that, he would go out every night".
Faced with Kubala's disorganised life, the Barcelona management decided to set up a private detective agency to follow him at night. The reports of the detectives are still in the Centre de Documentació del FC Barcelona and Frederic Porta published them in the history magazine 'Sàpiens'. In them, he gives a detailed account of the nocturnal wanderings of "Mr. K.", the code name of the Blaugrana star in an exercise in absurd discretion. There is also a letter from a Sabadell businessman in the club's archives, expressing concern that Kubala and Czibor had been "found in a Sabadell establishment after 2.30 in the morning accompanied by some of those ladies who were once gentlemen, I don't know if you understand". What the businessman doesn't explain in the letter is what he was doing in the same place.
Kubala's fondness for drinking was no secret. Helenio Herrera explains in a television interview that "one day at an airport in customs they asked Kubala if he had anything to declare and he said two bottles of whisky. The official asked him to show them to him and he, laughing, touched his belly and said: 'X-ray, I have them inside'. On another occasion, in the same situation, but carrying the bottle in the bag, he was told to leave it at the airport because no alcoholic drinks were allowed to be taken on board. Neither shy nor lazy, he drank it in front of the astonished official.
The legends about the occasions when the night was made longer and he did not arrive at training sessions or matches were recurrent. In that case, he called on the services of Angel Mur Sr., the team masseur who knew where to find him. He would start a pilgrimage through the usual places or floors until he found him, took him to the changing room, gave him a cold shower, a coffee with salt, a massage and played. The fans forgave him everything and were aware that their star was a man of joyful life. But he never failed on the field. Among the crowd at the time there were comments about the Kubala ritual in those games that followed a busy night. "He started off badly, and vaguely, but the signal was when, ten minutes into the game, he rolled up his sleeves as if to say 'I'm here, let's start, I've already cleared off', and the machine started to work.
You can't find anyone in the world who speaks ill of Kubala. Absolutely no one. Everyone highlights his huge heart and that despite being by far the highest paid player of the time (he earned six times more than his teammates) he didn't have a no for anyone. His detachment from money was legendary.
As proof, the anecdote explained by his biographer Porta: "one day he arrived at the dressing room and commented that his car had been stolen and that in the glove compartment he was carrying an envelope with 200,000 pesetas, which was a fortune for the time (a good apartment could cost 130,000 pesetas). When his colleagues tried to encourage him, he simply said: someone who needs it more than I do must have taken it".
It was also usual for him to take off his coat and give it to a poor man who begged in Barcelona's winter, or to take in any Hungarian who came to Barcelona asking for help in his house in Carrer Duquesa d'Orleans. Kubala, remembering his times as a stateless refugee without papers, asked nothing. He would take them home and pay them a boat ticket to America. The motto among the refugees fleeing the Iron Curtain was that "if you get to Barcelona, look for Kubala, he will help you". He never failed.
Later, now retired, he set up a bar next to Czibor in Capitan Arenas Street, the mythical Kep Duna (blue Danube in Hungarian) that became an unofficial refugee reception centre that was monitored by the secret services of the United States, the USSR and the Spanish police. Something like the Rick's Café in the film Casablanca, but in the upper area of Barcelona.
He was the great character of Barcelona loved by all, but there was a moment when this was almost broken, strange as it may seem. It coincided with the defeat in Bern, when a part of the press came to write that "Barça must be de-Kubalized as the Soviet Union must be de-Stalinized" and, especially, when he signed for Espanyol. The earthquake was a huge one.

From the bench to Sarrià.

After the defeat in Bern's final, Kubala announced his retirement from the fields. He had taken the coaching course and was ranked number one in his class. He made a pact with the president Llaudet, who was also an interesting character as we will see, that in principle he would take charge of the footballers' school of the club and that in a couple of years he would be in charge of the first team.
Meanwhile, Barcelona is directed by Lluís Miró who faces a team in disarray. Suarez has been transferred to Inter in the worst decision in the club's history and myths such as Ramallets, Tejada and Czibor were in the decline of their careers. The season starts badly and after losing at Mestalla to Valencia by a humiliating 6-2 that forces the resignation of Miro. It was time for Kubala, who was promoted to the first team in front of the joy of the fans. And the project results from the beginning. The Barça of the second part of season 61-62 recovers in La Liga and finishes second (the distance with the white ones when Kubala arrived was almost insurmountable) and avenges the 6-2 of Mestalla beating Valencia in the Camp Nou 4-0.
Facing the next season, the 62-63, Kubala can make his team by giving painful drops of some of his former teammates as it is the case of Eulogio Martinez or Evaristo. One of Llaudet's reluctances to give Kubala the job of coach was that he would have to manage some of his former teammates.
The positive expectations about Kubala's first full project were frustrated at first when the Blaugrana team had to play the final of the Copa de Ferias against Valencia, the team that caused the fall of Miró and the promotion of Kubala. And the history, by rare that it seems, repeats: Valencia returns to him to put 6-2 to the Barça. The fans explode against the team. In the return match, obviously, there is nothing to do, but Llaudet's ability to self-flagellation has no limits. As Alfredo Relaño writes, the Blaugrana president calls a dinner with the press the day before the game and makes this statement that if it happened today would open all the news.
Llaudet, in front of the press and accompanied by the coach Kubala and Gràcia as captain, asks the fans to forgive him and announces changes in the protocol of the start of the second leg. "Valencia will go out first to receive the applause, then Barcelona, to receive the whistles. Then Kubala will come out, so he can get the thunders. And finally me, so that all the whistles fall on my person, because I am the barcelonist who loves the club the most and who is destined to die on the pitch, if necessary...". He ends his speech crying. As we can see, Gaspart didn't invent anything.
The match ended in a draw and Kubala's project as Barça's coach was doomed. The manager is fired in the middle of the season and then a bomb explodes in Barcelona. Kubala accepts the offer to return to the pitch, but not as a coach, will be as a player and nothing more and nothing less than in Espanyol, Barça's eternal rival.
On 3 September 1963 Espanyol, then Español, announced that Kubala would be hired as a player. At 36 years of age, he was capable of being competitive.
His decision divides the public opinion. On the one hand, Federico Gallo and Juan José Castillo support his decision, on the other hand, Carlos Pardo or Ibáñez Escofet shoot at him. They call him a "Jew who sells himself for a plate of beans", a "traitor" and they see political interests in his decision.
Kubala explains that he wanted to continue playing and that he saw himself capable of doing so, although he accepted that he was not at Barcelona's level. He had received offers from important clubs, including River Plate and Juventus, but he doesn't want to leave Barcelona, where he feels like another Barcelonian. The Espanyol meets his expectations.
His start of the season is not bad, on the contrary, he scores in his first two games, but the team doesn't work out. The coexistence between the veteran newcomer Kubala and the team's symbol, Argilés, is not easy. Scopelli is dismissed as coach and de facto command of the team is given to the two team leaders despite their differences. The crisis erupts when the Spaniard visits the Camp Nou. The periquitos lose by 5-0 in a match in which the Barcelona crowd booed Kubala who they are eager to humiliate with his new team. Even so, at the end of the match, Kubala has a gesture to his former team that shows that he does not hold any grudge against what he has heard from the stands. At the end of the match, he organizes his teammates to make the corridor to Barça applauding the rival in recognition of the exhibition made. That gesture feels bad among the Espanyol fans and among some of his teammates. Argilés does not make the corridor and goes straight to the changing rooms.
The following year, Kubala becomes a manager-player and among the departures that he causes, there is the one of Argilés, but by contrast, Di Stéfano arrives, also hurt by his bad exit from Madrid fighting against Bernabéu.
Di Stefano and Kubala are like brothers. Even though they haven't officially played together, they have a special chemistry. A friendship that is forged when the Argentinian is about to sign for Barcelona.
When Di Stéfano arrives in Barcelona to sign for Español, he stays first at the Avenida Palace Hotel, but after a month he is living in Kubala's house as one of the family. The children of both always maintained a relationship as if they were brothers.
One of the players under Kubala's command was Jose Maria Rodilla, one of the players who would soon form the famous 'Dolphins' forward line. At 80 years of age, Rodilla remembers Kubala.
"I have a wonderful memory of Kubala, I always had a special affection for him. Not in vain, he was the one who signed me for Espanyol", he remembers when answering the call of this newspaper to which he confesses that* "normally I do not make declarations, but to speak about Kubala I do whatever is needed"*.
Rodilla, former teammate at Espanyol, has clear that "he was the best player in the world in terms of technique. Di Stéfano was the best footballer, but he didn't have his technique. Alfredo was more intense and more player of the whole field, but he could not do things that Kubala did"
Those who had the privilege of playing with both of them remember that "for example, Di Stefano wouldn't leave you alone for a minute, he was all over you and the fights were intense, but he always set an example, he never asked you for anything that he didn't do. Kubala was more paternalistic and tolerant. For example, he would ask us to do as he did in training, and while sitting down he would be able to make 3,000 touches on the ball without dropping it. Only he could do that."
Rodilla adds a story that explains Kubala's quality as a player-coach at the age of 38: "We went to play a friendly at Amposta and they called a foul on the edge of the box. Kubala takes the ball and whacks it into the corner. The referee made him repeat it because someone had moved or I don't know what. Kubala takes the ball and wham, back to the square. And the referee tells him that he has to repeat. That day Kubala got angry and left the field."
Rodilla recalls that Kubala's move from Barça to Espanyol created controversy in the city, but that he was oblivious to it. "He was still a magnificent person, I never heard him say a bad word against anyone. He never got into an argument, he was goodness personified, he was unlucky in his time as a coach, but as a coach he is one of the best I've ever had, with a great love for young players and always trying to help you improve."

Boys well, optimal morale.

He extended his playing career for a couple more years by playing for Zurich and even trying out the American adventure at the Toronto Falcons, where he coincides with Branko and Daucik's son. At the age of 40 he played 19 games and scored 5 goals.
In 1968 he returned to Spain and trained the Córdoba team for a short period of time until he was called up to the national team. Kubala will manage the Spanish team until 1980, when he signs for Barcelona again as a coach.
Kubala's debut with Spain was, once again, a propaganda match for the regime. It was played in the Estadio de la Línea de la Concepción against Finland and Spain beat their rivals 6-0 in a match that was no longer useful. Spain had missed out on qualifying for the Mexico '70 World Cup, but the idea of that game was to showcase a great field that could be seen from Gibraltar as if to give jealousy to those in the Rock for the sports culture of Spain. Dictatorship things.
It's true that at that time Spain was struggling more than anything else on the international scene. It did not qualify for the 1974 World Cup because of Katalinski's goal in the play-off match in Frankfurt, and in both the 1978 World Cup and the 1980 European Championship the team fell in the first round, but there is still no one from that era who will make a judgement against Kubala.
"Kubala, one ahead of his time. No doubt he had a lot to do with his past as a footballer. And not just like any other player, like the best! I remember him always saying to me: 'Ruben, you have to get out of the way on the other side of the ball. Look for the space, not the ball. The goal I scored in Yugoslavia has to do with everything he taught me," he told Fermin de la Calle in an interview with AS Ruben Cano, the hero of the famous 'Battle of Belgrade' in the match that took Spain to the World Cup in Argentina. Yes, the one with the goal by Cardeñosa that could have changed Kubala's record with the national team.
He did a lot to improve Spanish football and his idea regarding the incorporation of foreigners to improve the level of Spanish football was key in the future development of the Spanish competitive level.
His players remember him as a didactic person, tactically bold and very close. At a time when fury was the hallmark of the game, Kubala never forgot that he was the heir to the Magyar tradition of the Honved and the Hungary who, by moving the ball, shocked the world the day they destroyed England at Wembley 3-6.
For the average football fan, Kubala may have been a half-hearted coach who embodied an era of the national team in which nothing was won, as has been the case most of the time, and he became popular for his expressions that would now be meme material on social networks. The national team was known as the 'Kubala boys' and the coach's catchphrase before the matches saying "boys well, optimal morale" was the fashionable phrase in the coffee shops of the 70s in Spain.
But among his colleagues, Kubala still deserved reverential respect. "The first goal was authentically Latin, cunningly scored and perfectly studied. I can only congratulate Kubala on his previous tactical work," said German boss Helmut Schön after facing and losing to Spain in a friendly in which the recent world semi-finalist and next world champion fell to the Kubala boys at the Sanchez Pizjuan with two strategic goals from Arieta. Yes, Arieta against Müller. Seeler, Beckembauer, Maier, Netzer and company.
He left the national team in 1980 to join Barça as the coach of Núñez's second project in an operation that was the prelude to what would happen in the World Cup in Russia with Lopetegui. Kubala committed to Barça while he was coach and tried to alternate functions, but Porta refused. Finally, on 8 June 1980, four days before the start of the European Championship, Kubala signed for the Blaugrana team, which he would join after the European Championship.
His second spell at the head of Barça did not go well either and he was dismissed mid-season. He continued his adventure on the bench as coach of Saudi Arabia (in that he was also a pioneer), training Malaga and the Paraguayan national team before retiring from football on the bench of Elche.
He spent his final years in Barcelona as active as ever. Playing with Barça veterans, helping his teammates, not having a no for anyone and playing tennis every day or going for a run or cycling routes exhibiting an enviable physical condition.
Until the light of genius and the glory faded away 18 years ago. A degenerative brain disease put an end to the adventure, but not to the legend of a world football myth. An icon that changed the lives of so many people that they wouldn't fit even in a stadium.
The coffin with the mortal remains of Kubala was carried on shoulders, amidst the applause of the fans who gathered at the doors of the church of Santa Tecla, by Alfredo Di Stéfano, Gustau Biosca, Eduardo Manchón, Estanislao Basora, Joan Segarra, Josep Bartomeu, Luis Suárez, Antoni Ramallets and Gonzalvo III.
He rests in the cemetery of Les Corts, next to the Camp Nou because that is what he left written in his will, while Serrat sang to him about how...
...Pelé was Pelé and Maradona was the one and that's it. Di Stéfano was a pit of mischief. Honour and glory to those who made the sun shine on our football. Everyone has his merits; to each his own, but for me none is like Kubala. Respectable silence is requested, for those who haven't enjoyed him, I'll say four things: he stops it with his head, he drops it on with his chest, he sleeps it off with his left, crosses the pitch with the ball attached to the boot, leaves the midfield and enters the box showing the ball, hides it with his body, pushes with his ass and gets in with his heels. He pisses on the centerback with a dedicated piece. and touches her gently to put her on the path to glory.

by Santi Gimenez for AS.com (2020)

Disclaimer: All the accused are innocent until proven guilty by the court of law, even if they may sound as being guilty. Currency in Armenian Drams unless specified otherwise.
Yesterday we learned that on 2008, Yerevan municipality illegally sold lands to someone for below-market values. It turns out it was sold to HHK party. 👌
https://hetq.am/hy/article/102651
IRS, with the court's authorization, is auditing BHK chief Gagik "Dod" Tsarukyan's Arinj Mall. They are suspected of not paying taxes from gazebo rental money they collect from 3rd party traders.
The firm's representative denies wrongdoing, says someone gave false information to IRS. The mall's rep also condemned the fake news on social media for spreading rumors that the mall is shutting down in a few days, calling it harmful for the business because people might read that and decide not to come to shop.
https://armtimes.com/hy/article/158624 ---- https://armenpress.am/arm/news/970625.html ---- https://youtu.be/0g6cJAIimlA?t=81 ---- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YozzWPMc3Dk
IRS has busted EuroFutbol gambling firm's CEO with 1 billion Dram damages to state. He is accused of using an offshore firm registered in Curaçao island (belonging to Netherlands) to coverup and run an unlicensed gambling business since Nov-2018.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/970613.html
Artsakh opposition (anti-Roboserj) MP Hayk Khanumyan is accusing Serj Sargsyan's son-in-law of being involved in a possibly illegal embezzlement of billions of drams from Artsakh Investment Fund.
He says that on 2016, the Fund spent 2.8bln to purchase 100% of the shares of a coal mine "Energia Plus". The mine was purchased from Hasa Group corporation. The sole owner-shareholder of Hasa Group was Serj's son-in-law Hayk Khachatryan.
Few days before the purchase of Energia Plus, another company called Energia Minus joined Energia Plus. Energia Minus was run by Artsakh PM Araik Harutyunyan's friend.
Energia Group was then supposed to run a mine after being given a tax-free deal by Artsakh government on 2012, but didn't operate.
MP Khanumyan has raised this issue multiple times in Artsakh, but was told the sale was legal.
http://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/158668
Pashinyan visited different IRS branches. PM says IRS's reputation is high today. He went around Araratyan customs center and threw a hissy fit at the dirty conditions, asked the streets to be properly labeled, center cleaned up, and better conditions to be created for the visitors.
He then joined a person who was trying to have his car cleared by the customs. The process took only 20 minutes. Pashinyan added that if it took 20 minutes at his presence, it should hopefully take 20 minutes for everyone else.
During the visit to Noragavit vehicle customs clearing point, PM got mad and asked the IRS customs employees to resign/fired for keeping the rooms in very dirty conditions and having the Armenian flag thrown on the ground.
https://armtimes.com/hy/article/158582 ------ https://armtimes.com/hy/article/158617 ---- https://armtimes.com/hy/article/158584
SOC chief David Sanasaryan (DS) testified as a witness in the court. The case is about an anti-Serj protest that took place in Sari Tagh on 2016, during Sasna Tsrer group's hostage takeover of a police station. The protests ended with the police violently dispersing the protesters. Several nearby residents reported having been "terrorized" by the police which was looking for some of the participants of the protests. The defendant of this case is a political figure Andrias Ghukasyan, who is accused of organizing the protest and later trying to join Sasna Tsrer.
DS's accounts:
DS was also among the protesters. They decided to march from the public square to near the police station with a hope that the hostage takers and the police wouldn't shoot at one another due to the crowd's discouragements. When they reached Sari Tagh district, some police-allied people who had civilian clothes started to throw rocks towards the protesters. DS and the defendant tried to calm the protesters. The police told them to leave. DS and defendant told the police it's impossible because they need some time to calm the protesters.
The police used riot weapons and gas. DS helped to extinguish a fire on a woman whose clothes caught fire. During this process, DS says (pro-Serj) agitators were throwing rocks at the protestors from the hills. Journalists and his father were attacked. DS was taken to police station, where he received concussion after being beaten by the police. He was kept detained illegally for lengthy periods.
The police only gave the protestors 5 minutes to leave the scene. Considering the size of the crowd, it was impossible to comply.
(Implicated in the case is also Levon Yeranosyan, the former military police chief who is charged in another similar improper equipment use case during 2018 revolution). DS says Yeranosyan was behaving aggressively and appeared to be under a substance influence in Sari Tagh. While DS and Andreas Ghukasyan were asking Yeranosyan not to fire towards the crowd, Yeranosayan's eye movements and the aggressive behavior made it apparent he wasn't sober.
End of DS statement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oho0mcUNVoA ---- https://armtimes.com/hy/article/158620
Kotayk governor Romanos Petrosyan has contacted prosecutors after finding possibly illegal activities by officials in Abovyan.
Governor:
Laws were violated while issuing construction permits, 2mln was stolen on 2016, 2.4mln stolen on 2017, 2.5mln stolen on 2018. Several gov-funded kindergarten officials made unauthorized expenditures. Mayor recorded several workers as being hired, but without the proper authorization of the municipality board, which caused 1mln/month damages to state. Some municipality sessions took place without following the procedures. During 2016-2018, numerous illegal purchases were made without authorization or auction. Illegal land sales. Illegal buildings. 66,000 pieces of literature books were illegally sold as paperweight for pennies.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/970642.html
March 1st 2008 case investigators have questioned the general who was the deputy-chief of the military unit that was formed on 2008 after the infamous Order 0038, which involved the military in politics.
http://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/158645
Yerevan municipality has contacted the prosecutors about an illegal decision made on 2004 by Yerevan administration and Culture Ministry, after which a cultural building on Arami 9 was destroyed. The building was once used by Aram Manukyan, the founder of the 1st Armenian Republic. A criminal case is launched about abuse of power.
http://panarmenian.net/m/arm/news/267429 ---- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aram_Manukian
(Protecting traditions since 2004 👌)
Parliament has fully adopted the laws about requiting gas stations to measure gas by weight, and the addition of Citizen's Day to holiday calendar.
https://armtimes.com/hy/article/158601 ----- https://armtimes.com/hy/article/158598
ex-HHK MP Babukhanyan is suing George Soros' Armenia-based branch for an alleged defamation, after the foundation's representative revealed that they paid the HHK MP money to travel and participate in a human rights conference.
https://armtimes.com/hy/article/158613
Pashinyan was asked to comment about the transgender activist story, after criticism by Roboserj circles. He said HHK, which calls itself the defender of family and traditions, on 2015 gave a man named Vagharshak Martirosyan a passport with the name changed to Lilith Martirosyan (the trans activist) and the gender specified as Male.
"Why is now HHK all of a sudden active about this. Have they ever met a man named Lilith?". By giving him that passport and registering as a voter with that name, HHK gave Lilith full rights that all other citizens have, added Pashinyan.
I told HHK they are gay activists, but they didn't believe me, said Pashinyan. They can't escape the reality. They have no right to criticize others on this topic. I verified with the authorities that BHK Naira Zohrabyan herself signed to authorize the speech. Added Pashinyan.
Pashinyan wants the churchmen, BHK and HHK to answer, is Lilith Harutyunyan a human or not? Pashinyan also criticized BHK and their ability to lead the Parliamentary Huamn Rights Committee because these actions put a stain on Armenia's positions in human rights.
Pashinyan blamed BHK and others for causing "an anti-revolution provocation".
https://armtimes.com/hy/article/158591
................
HHK Shmays is back from Las Vegas. He was asked to comment on the LGBT topic. "What do I have to say, you know better than I do." He says he would have made a scene if he was in the Parliament building that day (good old days).
"չգիտեմ՝ գենդեր են, գյանդո՞ր են․․․ տենց բան չի կարա լինի, որովհետև Հանրապետականն էն տղեքն են, որ իսկականից դեմ կլինեին։ Կլարեին, էլի, ըտեղից։"
https://hraparak.am/post/567998157
......................
Another document is published showing that BHK Naira Zohrabyan exchanged emails with the LGBT group and agreed to discuss with them about a possible speech in Parliament, before approving it.
We can only speculate now. It is possible that Zohrabyan (currently overseas) wasn't aware of the nature of the group. It is also possible that the topic of the speech was presented as being about gender equality, which is why Zohrabyan got angry after the speech and accused the LGBT speaker of giving out of topic speech (LGBT issues). Others believe BHK created the incident on purpose so the public will have displeasure with QP, which is viewed as the main power in the Parliament.
https://hraparak.am/post/1676636682
........................
BHK will not suspend Parliamentary Human Rights Committee chief Naira Zohrabyan for her handling of the session during which the transgender activists gave a speech.
Another BHK member said "Not everyone have equal rights in Armenia. Maybe in Europe they do, but in Armenia our traditions are more important", said BHK Vardan Ghukasyan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHBgCvw5DAQ
.............................
EU's office in Armenia is deeply concerned by the anti-LGBT activists' threats towards the transgender woman. They reminded that physical threats are against the Armenian Constitution, and hope that the police will take action to protect the LGBT and investigate the threat makers.
https://armtimes.com/hy/article/158615
Pashinyan was asked if fighting online fakes is a suppression of media or not. He said the fake Facebook account owner who was recently arrested, told his followers to stab HHK members during a QP march, which is against the law. "If a HHK member was stabbed, who would be blamed for it?", added PM.
https://armtimes.com/hy/article/158590
2019Q1 vs 2018Q1, the airport traffic visitors/goers rose by 10.2%.
https://armtimes.com/hy/article/158616
Defense Minister Tonoyan met Czech colleague. The latter explained that some of their mortar weapons ended up in Azerbaijan through a third party reseller, and not a direct sale. Czech Republic does not authorize licenses to heavy weapon sales to Azerbaijan in order not to disturb the peace negotiation process.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/970639.html
.................
Armenia and Czechia signed a military-industrial cooperation agreement. Soon Czech delegation will meet PM and others to develop a possible weapon sales program. 300 Armenian soldiers have been re-trained in Czechia so far.
http://panarmenian.net/m/arm/news/267464
Armenian army is training more attack units and adjusting its weapons purchase towards more offensive type, said Defense ministry spokesman. "The peace that exists at the border wasn't given as a gift to Armenia. We forced the opponent to respect peace."
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/970638.html
.....
Defense Ministry is still internally discussing whether to reduce the mandatory 2-year conscript for frontlines soldiers, and increase it for those who serve in "easier" locations.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/970658.html
Freestyle wrestling European championship. Arsen Harutyunyan advanced to semi-finals after defeating the Turkish athlete Recep Topal 5:2. There, he defeated Romanian athlete and will fight for gold tomorrow against a Georgian athlete.
https://armtimes.com/hy/article/158621 ---- http://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/158634
70 US House of Representatives has joined an initiative by ANCA-allied Reps to push for a new Armenian Genocide recognition and condemnation bill.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/970563.html
Italian MPs are in the process of forming a bill to formally recognize and condemn the Armenian Genocide. Turkey isn't happy. They called the Italian ambassador in Ankara to give explanations.
Earlier, Italy's Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said Turkey will never be a member of EU, and the merger discussions should permanently end.
http://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/158662
G.R.A.Z.I.E.
President Sarkissian and PM Pashinyan spoke with Portugal PM about improving tourism, possible cooperation in tech projects and satellite science, and establishment of direct flights between the countries.
https://hetq.am/hy/article/102634
First Lady Anna Hakobyan met Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti, deputy-mayor Nina Hachikyan and LA council member Paul Grigoryan. She then met the LA Armenian community.
https://factor.am/140270.html
(Bois is Glendale leaking all over LA?)
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe held a discussion with Azeri political activists about the human rights in Azerbaijan. Popular figures Leila Yunusova, Rasul Jafavor, Ilgar Mammadov and others urged Europe not to fall for Aliyev's tactics that mimic reforms. They say the freedom of expression situation is still bad. (Azerbaijan still has over 70 political prisoners).
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/970634.html

I begin this tale now with the full knowledge that I may not be able to finish it. I have hidden myself in a church, for I feel that it cannot enter here, but even as I think this, I can hear it: skittering over stone surfaces, tapping on the walls, tap tap tap. And as I hear these clicks which send shivers through my very marrow, I know I am not long for this world. I shall be brief, then, but where to begin? With my name? That is of no importance. Everyone has a name, most of them the same, all of them meaning nothing. Let me instead say what I was: a renowned professor of folklore and mythology at the renowned Skalborough institute. It was in my very nature to examine the odd, the weird, the unnatural for the purpose of cutting it down to its simplest, most meaningless form: a fact.
These facts I would soak in conjecture and publish to some acclaim in the academic press. Therefore, when word crossed my desk that the Slavic Studies department secured a grant to create a study abroad program in the Carpathian Mountains, I was quite excited to visit. The Carpathians had always fascinated me ever since, as a young girl, I first unearthed the tale of Count Dracula by Bram Stoker. And though I had done research across all variety of nations and lands, from the East-Asian rice patties to the hills of Kentucky, never once had I strayed into those mythic mountains. I knew nothing of their folk tales, their myths, their local history. All this, then, I would deconstruct like a boy who pins butterflies. The thought excited me to no end.
The trip began pleasantly enough. We were sixteen in number then, though I shudder to think of it now. Since I am hardly a gregarious person, I knew but a few of their names, and yet despite this, their faces shall haunt me for eternity. All of us procured seats upon a plane bound for Budapest, and from there to the village of Escrow. The others were loud and jubilant, but I ignored them altogether. I cared not for them, only for the place itself, with its odd, diverse people and alien traditions. The hours passed idly by on that flight. If I’d known then what I know now, I would have cast myself in some manner from the aircraft the moment we were high enough to ensure my death.
But as it were, the flight was without incident, and we soon took an uncomfortably banal bus trip to the small, backwoods hamlet of Escrow. A lonely place, a desolate place, a land in which bleak despair had fused itself so inexorably with the landscape that one could not bear to look at the settings without feeling the bite of its grim maw. It was a city of inns, farms, and not much else. Some businesses had been in families for generations. Perhaps longer. One got the feeling that this place hadn’t seen significantly change since the great mastodons and mammoths had frequented these bitter pines. The people gave us sallow-eyed waxen looks, as if they were animate corpses: the look of any person who has lived long in both extreme poverty and extreme fear.
The town bordered a dense mountain forest, and yet as we drove by on the flat, dusty road, I saw no evidence of logging or lumber camps. Throughout our first week in the town, we heard no one speak of the gargantuan taiga, nor saw anyone venture into the dense, shadowy sprawl. When one of the faculty inquired as to why this was the case, the villager she interviewed became strangely animated, threatening physical violence in his choppy, staccato tongue, should she dare speak of these woods. All staff members were henceforth discouraged from mentioning the place. But my interest now was piqued. The fervor with which this man had accosted my colleague was the type brought on only by some sort of ancestral fear: by a lie being born of truth, and then being repeated so oft that the two became indistinguishable. With this then, I resolved I would discover for myself the reason for the ancestral apprehension with which the townsfolk viewed the wood.
The Sabbatical meandered on. The land deal was cemented, and an area only 40 minutes from Budapest was purchased for the University. My fellow faculty became accustomed to the natives’ way of life, their foreign tongue, their tasteless food. But I was far from satisfied. For despite my discerning eye for detail, the forest and the fear of it remained as opaque to me as the day I first arrived. I did not share the fascination of my academic brethren for seeing these native people about their work. Their culture did not mystify nor entice me. I find that all people are generally the same, much as all horses are generally the same. The distinctions are evident only to one who sees a single tree in the forest. Very similar, very bland, very… uninteresting. I sought something more, something preternatural. I sought knowledge that would reshape my narrow field. I found it, of course, to my undying regret. If I knew to what extent these horrors would warp the meager mind that sought to know them, I would never have left my den.
One night, I heard some local storytellers surrounding a campfire, their lined and weathered faces wracked with urgency as they relayed their stories to the wide-eyed youngsters. I spoke the native dialect, but poorly, so I found a professor of world languages and beseeched him to translate for me. He did so quietly from afar, as not to disturb the natural flow of the speaker’s tale. And what a tale it was.
He spoke of a group of ancients who peopled these hills long before even their forefathers had even dreamed of fire. Strange folk, who worshipped equally strange deities. One of these deities, whom my colleague described as ‘Fleshmelder,’ was the most powerful of them. To appease this surreal titan, the savage people sacrificed living children like firewood to feed its desire for bloodlust. No accurate description of the thing could be given, for it was said to be flesh but not flesh of Earth.
Then, the Mongols rode in. Even the greatest sorcerers and warriors of the savage mountain gods were slaughtered in battle, and the hungry horde proceeded to sack the town. The Mongols hung the last high priest of Fleshmelder from the arbors of the forest with his own guts. While he hung, the priest levied a horrific curse on them: this savage beast, who was more than a beast, would come for them all to avenge the priest’s wrongful death. This did not deter the savages from their sport, and they hung the old man as they would any other.
However, the next morning, twenty Mongols were found dead with their twenty steeds in a pile of bloody viscera and stinking flesh. The rest of the horde feared it was native retribution, but found no men alive capable of doing this deed. They ran off into the forest to oust whatever thing had done this. The only ones who returned were mad.
So this was the reason that no man would venture into the tranquil trees. Fleshmelder. Hah. But even as I scoffed, my curiosity was more inflamed than ever. What was described here by this old man was a battle, a conflict completely lost to the annals of history. Most myths and legends, I have found, are based at least partially in truth: the crimes and murders of old twisted into the fantasies of the new. What if I, a humble professor of old stories, were to uncover a great historical conflict and present it to the world? I would be a colossus of both legend and history, the great Rhodian academic who would unite two diametrically opposed fields in one great discovery. Publishing just one book would provide me with enough money to live comfortably off for a decade.
But first, I must prove there was some truth to this myth. That it was more than just a tired twist of the tongue meant to force children to clean their rooms. I tried to find someone in the town with a car who would be willing to take me out into the forest, but I came up empty handed.
Even when I offered them triple the price of any reasonable fare, I got nothing. So, as any apt explorer must, I took matters into my own hands. Late one night, when I was sure no one would bother me or impede my progress, I stole out down one of the poorly kept forest trails into the inky blackness of the pine-barrens. It seems perhaps an unreasonable gamble but not to me. Not then. Some sort of mania had taken possession of my senses, and I knew then, in the atrophied part of my brain not well suited for logic, that I must find this place. The cool night temperature was still just above freezing, and wolves could be heard howling throughout the misty mountain timbers. I clutched the .38 caliber revolver I had purchased some weeks back when the baying beasts had grown too loud. Surely I could frighten them off with a few shots, couldn’t I?
It was bitter cold, and the wind whipped my face. The tops of my cheeks went numb, as if by novacaine, and the rest of my face had become as stiff as a mask. Eyes glinted from the shrubbery, staring at me with ravenous hunger. Just as I was beginning to relinquish hope of ever locating any mystical battlefield, I heard a muffled raven’s caw. I turned to look for the source of the noise, and in doing so lost my footing, tumbling down a gulch.
I pulled myself up from the muck, then examined my surroundings.
I was in a giant crater surrounded by the dead.
Their bones were clad in leather and studded armor, their withered fingers reaching desperately at the clay walls of this chasm, their tomb. Their empty eye sockets still somehow seemed to plead with me, their discoverer, for mercy. These bleached and muddy bones were like flies in amber, an eternal testament to the suffering of the damned.
Then there was the loud cawing again. The raven had landed on a human skull, and was cawing belligerently at me. They were bold birds, ravens, possessed of a savage, bestial cunning, not unlike the soldiers of Gheghis Khan they now using as a de facto perch. Nevertheless, in my current excited state, I quickly lost my temper with the thing and swatted violently at it with my arm. My effort succeeding in dislodging the bird, who went flying into the air. It also succeeded in knocking the dead man’s skull from his ancient shoulders, where it bounced lamely over his brethren to land in the middle of the carnage.
Immediately, something changed. Suddenly, I was aware that I was no longer alone in this pit.
Nothing moved. Nothing stirred. But my feeling of sheer, unadulterated terror only hastened in its growth. Something was here, something evil, something old.
Frantically, I pulled myself up the cave wall, madly knocking over ribcages and femurs as I sunk my hands into clay. When at last I wrenched myself from the gulch that seemed like an abyss, I ran, faster than I could ever recall running before, back toward the safety and security of my private little hamlet.
I saw no eyes on this run. Even if I had looked, even if my fear had relented, there would not have been any. The wolves and beasts of the forest surely felt this palpable, creeping horror as I did. How could they not? As I stumbled back down the path into sight of the village, I remember tripping over a wolf skeleton I do not recall having been there before.
As I hurtled down the trail back towards the place I had become so familiar with, I began to relax. Surely here I was safe. The people of this village were skilled shots. Whatever was out there would not trouble me here. My fear gradually gave way to exhaustion. What an evening! I could not wait to make use of my find. Tomorrow, I would gather some locals to help me with my excavation, along with one or two of the less ambitious interns who wouldn’t be tempted to publish anything themselves. And of course, I’d hire several gunmen, too. For security purposes. For now, though, rest. I would need slumber so as not to fall victim to this foolishness again.
I slept fitfully, and had no unpleasant dreams, unless you can say that all that came after was an unpleasant dream. But, for the last time in my life, I slumbered peacefully and well, with not so much as an uncomfortable bump to disturb me.
When I awoke, I found myself possessed of new resolve. After a cup of coffee, I would proceed immediately to my find, telling no one. There I would begin categorizing the bones, listing and enumerating them. Preparing to leap from them into eternal fame.
I put my muddied coat in the wash, gathered some new clothes, and strode briskly out towards the forest’s edge.
When my charisma evaporated.
For, dangling from the arbors, were one score of human bodies, swinging by their guts.
Beneath them, the fleshy pink mush that had once been people, now spread around in a nasty, gory carpet. Heads I saw, arms and legs and genitals and eyes. Men, women and children alike had been dissected and made into a gruesome collage.
I nearly fell to my knees in shock. No. This could not be. I had to go find someone, alert them. But I spent a quarter of an hour hollering, scouring the place for help, and received no answer. There were an awful lot of bodies up there. Had every single citizen been slain?
Outside help. From Budapest. I would go alert the Romanian law. This crime could not go unavenged. I hot-wired a rugged-looking truck, and managed to get it onto a main road, speeding as fast as I could towards help.
And it was on this road that the true horror of the morning awaited me.
As I rocketed along the black asphalt, I saw a figure ahead of me. Perfect, I thought, perhaps I could explain to him what had happened. But as I neared, I noticed more of him. He was soaked in mud, and wore a black woolen coat, much like mine. And as I passed him gradually slowing, he looked up at my window.
It was the face of the old story teller. But not for very long. For even as I looked at it, it began to change. Slowly, at first, but by the time three heartbeats had elapsed, I was staring at a familiar figure. One whom I saw whenever I looked into a mirror. Only, instead of the haughty, proud expression I was so accustomed to wearing, the face gave me a delighted, almost radiant grin.
Ah, it seemed to say. Did you receive my message?
It was then I remembered the full myth of Fleshmelder. Of the dormant god, now risen up, whom with one careless stroke I had awakened, and sent crawling from the earth again. Flesh that was more than flesh. I stared at my own glittering eyes with horror, not knowing what this being would do next, or where it would go. Only that now, a thing that once had terrorized mankind since its infancy had returned to our cold and unprepared earth.
Since my return to the university I have not slept a single night. I scarcely eat and have grown as thin and wiry as a mesh colander. I cannot even drown my sorrow in alcohol like I once could, for I fear that in my inebriation, I shall slip up, give this thing the opportunity it needs to take me unawares. Indeed, I’ve started seeing it almost constantly. At first it was just my dreams, my fantasies and fears, but now my imagination cannot bear the full blame. During a faculty meeting, I became convinced the table we sat at was the Fleshmelder in disguise. In one incident that must have cemented my madness in the minds of my colleagues, I thought it was masquerading as a student in my Introduction to Folktales class, and ran screaming from the hall to barricade myself in my office. Though I apologized profusely for the incident, I’m under close observation from the university staff, who believe me delusional and suicidal after witnessing the deaths of so many friends and co-workers.
On one occasion, I attempted to tell someone else what I witnessed. A Freudian, who was examining me ‘merely as a formality.’ During this cross-examination, there was one moment where I tried to divulge the truth of what had occurred. But I paused. For outside at that moment, I had just heard a raven caw, unearthing memories as black and deep as the damp Carpathian mud that first spat forth those skeletons. So I remained silent, and said not a word.
The massacre garnered little media coverage. Since many of the dead were found near weapons and firearms, Romanian police have pinned the slaughter on some sort of fanatic religious caliphate, or rebel right-wing extremists. Amazing, what people will believe. That fascist bullets are responsible for gutting a corpse, or that the macerations that line the crushed skulls of the villagers were the result of knife blades.
The authorities brought up this theory when questioning me, and I simply neglected to correct them. I had no desire to give my critics more fodder with which to call for my dismissal. And after all, it was a more than adequate cover. Since the events I have described occurred, a slew of violent uprisings and rebellions have plagued the Balkans, resulting in countless deaths. Madness and murder seem to slowly be engulfing the continent—the work of Fleshmelder, I am sure.
I’ve researched this thing for almost three months, now. I haven’t come up with much; its origins lie firmly in prehistory, and while almost all cultures of note have stories of Shape-Shifters, none describe anything of this magnitude. I had a thought once, alone in my office, wearing the same blouse I’d had on for almost a week, smelling of sweat and cheap food and stale perfume. What if the Fleshmelder was all of it? Every myth, every story, every god ever concocted? After all, it had the power to take on any desirable shape, could kill humans with ease, and in vast quantities.
And what is more, it erodes the minds of those who it comes in contact with—it drove those Mongols mad, and it seems to have done the same to me. What if, every time scribes spoke of dragons, they were describing this monstrous thing in one of its forms, setting fire to villages for sport? What if instead of God spreading plague amongst the Egyptians, it was Fleshmelder, murdering firstborn sons just to see what the Pharaoh would do? What if every tale and legend I’d ever read had been paying homage to this dark monster? What if the stories I had thought once made us strong, merely asserted our position as prey?
In my saner moments, I sometimes wonder why the thing hasn’t killed me yet. Why it didn’t kill me as I slept, unarmed in my hut. I have yet to settle upon a satisfactory conclusion. Perhaps it was grateful to me for waking it? It thought I was its friend? That alone was a horrifying thought. Maybe it wanted a more existential revenge for rousing it from slumber. But no. The pain I felt now was a fear of madness, grief and guilt, all emotions no god can truly comprehend.
Those are the emotions of the prey, the dying. The answer I can’t seem to shake is far simpler. All gods desire to be revered and feared. To be sacrificed to, to be worshipped, that they may reap savagery through the hands of their believers. Otherwise they are little more than a dream, an idea. What if Fleshmelder had kept me alive because I was its greatest disciple? I had spent most of my life studying its every move throughout history, until I finally beheld it, this god about which all tales are written. If my theories were sound, then it had chosen me to be its prophet. To speak of it madly, to write long and wax eloquent on its deeds in the forest. So that those few who had knowledge of such things could rise and do their master’s bidding.
But my pen has not until now touched parchment. Even these ramblings will be seen more as a bizarre suicide note than anything else, and that is if I do not burn them, as I yearn to do. To take the monster with me into the abyss. But part of me knows that a thing, once done, can never be undone. No matter how hard I try to conceal, repress what has happened, it will not consent to be buried for long.
This then wasn’t the story of a battle. It was a creation narrative. This was the very earth, the very mountains cleansing themselves of the upright aberration that was mankind. All humanity meeting its end where reality was weakest.
Every movement is a torment for me. My hair is falling out in tufts. The constant clattering of footsteps and branches on windows and floors is excruciating. Which sound will be the last one I hear?
I’ve taken refuge for hours at a time in this church, but it brings me no solace, for I was never the praying sort. And in these, long, winding hours, I envy my dead fellows who died before they could learn what I know now, what those old storytellers in the village had always known. What they had tried so hard to hide in the guise of narrative, to crush, to smother, to destroy. That this life is a cold and empty thing, and we are not wanted by this earth where we live it. No power saves us on that day when some new foe asserts itself above us on this fickle food chain, and like flies we die, one by one by one.
What was that? Has it come for me at last? I pray that is the case, that I may finally have some peace, some sleep, some mercy. But no: it is a car driving by. And so once again I am forced to take matters into my own hands. To draw the battered old .38 that I have never fired. To at long last lend my face to this beast from hell. To explore the depths of this cold, deep, dark, forest. Alone.