This week marks the beginning of Paul Manafort’s trial on charges of various financial improprieties, with FBI agents working for special counsel Robert Mueller opening their prosecution of the former Trump campaign manager in a Virginia courthouse. As a result, Manafort’s longstanding relationships with Eastern European tycoons like the Russian aluminum baron Oleg Deripaska—who gave the career lobbyist a mysterious $10 million loan, and to whom Manafort allegedly offered to provide “private briefings” on the presidential race in 2016—are once again in the news.

Russian oligarchs are colorful people, and those who have minted their fortunes in natural resources (aluminum, gas, etc.) and other industries connected to the Russian state often have substantial ties to the art world. It’s no surprise that such magnates are involved in patronage, and several in fact participate in the higher echelons of the art market, buying celebrated artworks and even building their own museums. If you’re lucky, you just might spot one at the auctions, art fairs, and events like the Venice Biennale that attract the international art community.

So who are these tycoons, how did they make their money, and what role are they playing in the art world?

Yes, this really is Rick Scott, Adam Putnam and Pam Bondi’s fault

As horrified people watch dead manatees, marine mammals, fish and hundreds of sea turtles wash up on Florida’s southwest coast, politicians are tripping over one another to express concern.

But a look back eight years ago shows that three key state leaders – Gov. Rick Scott, Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, and Attorney General Pam Bondi – fought bitterly against stricter limits for the very pollution now sliming South Florida. And they started with a letter written just 10 days after they were elected.

Their opposition was ideological; In the November 2010 letter of objection to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson, they complained that setting pollution limits for sewage, manure and fertilizer runoff would be an “onerous regulation” by an “overbearing federal government.”

It would also, they argued, interfere with the ability to squeeze every last dollar out of the cash cow that is the Sunshine State.