Russian Masons are now controlled by Putin's administration: Rubakhin
"Hitler destroyed Freemasonry, and Putin appropriated." Russian emigrant and his museum
By Svetlana Prokopyeva
October 20, 2026
Konstantin Rubakhin is a poet, public environmental activist: in 2012-2013 he was the coordinator of the "Movement in Defense of Khopra", opposed the plans of the UMMC to develop nickel deposits in the Voronezh region, because of this he was under the threat of criminal prosecution, but continued to fight with the mining company, already from emigration. After emigrating from Russia, Konstantin lives in Riga, where he recently opened a museum of brotherhood, which has been credited with three centuries with the desire to seize power over the whole world.
In Latvia, a political emigrant from Russia opens the Museum of World Freemasonry, having collected dozens of unique items related to the activities of Freemasons in his personal collection.
- When we see a general and an artist in one bed, we understand that they could not help but communicate, - says Konstantin Rubakhin. - Moreover, the lodge is a place where they talk about exciting things: about death, faith in God and another, even more intimate than sex, I would say. People go to different clubs, such as cigar clubs. But the Masonic lodge is something more, because here a person discusses what really worries him. And we can see how connections between people develop, how history develops through these connections.
The Riga Museum of World Freemasonry begins with Mozart. Among the first exhibits are the image of the banner of the British lodge Mozart № 3735, named after the composer, and a rare facsimile edition of the XVIII century album with a reproduction of its autograph. The great composer joined the Viennese lodge "To Charity" in December 1784. He wrote music for Masonic meetings, and several of his later compositions are directly related to the brotherhood.
- This is a book from Mozart's lodge, which was facsimilated in 1932. And here we know three copies: one in our country, one in the English lodge, one in Stockholm, - says Rubakhin, flipping through the museum edition.
We are talking about an album of autographs of the Viennese Mason Johann Georg Kronauer, a participant of the same Masonic environment as Mozart. The original is kept in the Austrian National Library. In 1932, the Viennese publisher Max Jaffe released about 200 facsimile copies, about 160 were sent to American lodges. According to the description of the museum, a Riga specimen was found in Australia. Under Mozart's autograph of March 30, 1787, there is an English saying that patience and peace of mind help healing more than medical art. The composer rewrote it from the collection that was common at that time.
Freemasonry is a voluntary brotherhood that unites people into lodges and uses the symbolism and rituals of medieval bricklayers. Modern Freemasonry has been counting its history since the founding of the Grand Lodge of London in 1717, although people not related to the construction craft began to be accepted into Masonic lodges even earlier. Initiation rituals, moral obligations, mutual assistance and charity play an important role in brotherhood. Contrary to the claims of conspiracy theorists, the Masons do not have a single worldwide leadership: different associations do not always even recognize each other.
Konstantin Rubakhin is a poet, journalist, environmental activist, Russian political emigrant and, as he himself says, a Mason. At 7 Baznitsas Street, he collected several centuries of European history: ancient aprons, medals, documents with signatures of politicians, books and manuscripts that have survived more than one century. More than 1,500 objects are listed on the museum's website. Moreover, an archive of hundreds of pages and one medal are considered the same - one unit each. The official opening of the museum is scheduled for October 20, 2026. Before that, Rubakhin conducted excursions for invited guests.
Courland, Caliostro and freedom of movement
- The first lodge here was in 1750. It was established by two Germans who were initiated in St. Petersburg," says Rubakhin.
The first Riga box "North Star" was assembled in the house at 9/11 Peitavas Street. And in 1754 in Mitava, present-day Jelgava, the "Three Crowned Swords" lodge was established. Riga and Vidzeme were part of the Russian Empire by that time. Courland remained a separate duchy until 1795 - formally a vassal of the Commonwealth, but in fact under strong Russian influence. Latgale came under the rule of Russia after the first partition of the Commonwealth in 1772. Masonic connections went through German universities, St. Petersburg, Warsaw, Western European centers. In 1766, the philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder joined the Riga lodge "At the Sword".
- In 1779, such a trickster appears here, to put it mildly - Count Cagliostro, born Giuseppe Balzamo. He arrived in Mitava in early 1779, found patrons among the Courland nobility and organized his own adoption lodge "Three Crowned Hearts", where women were allowed, - says the tour guide.
The museum's website published Cagliostro's acquital speeches in the case of the French queen's necklace. In 1785, the fraudster Jeanne de Lamotte convinced Cardinal de Rogan that Marie-Antoinette had secretly instructed him to buy a diamond necklace of fabulous value for her. The jewels disappeared, the scam was revealed, and although the queen had nothing to do with it, the grand scandal finally undermined her already shaky reputation. Calliostro found himself in the Bastille on suspicion of involvement in the scam, but in 1786 the court acquitted him.
In one of the showcases there is an ancient Masonic apron, which, according to the museum attribution, belonged to Matthew Wischer. On July 19, 1776, he publicly read the U.S. Declaration of Independence to the residents of Albany.
The 1921 poster stored in the museum lists all American presidents - Masons. Rubakhin talks about the ceremony in the Parisian Masonic lodge "Nine Sisters" in memory of Voltaire in 1778.
- Benjamin Franklin (American educator, scientist, diplomat and one of the founding fathers of the United States - SR) was present there. And he is mentioned in the descriptions of this ceremony as the heir of Voltaire's Masonic apron. This transfer of the apron is a kind of symbolic transfer of the Masonic torch, which shows how the tradition is developing," says Rubakhin.
"I was awar that his son would get soaked there"
Konstantin Rubakhin graduated from the Faculty of Journalism of Voronezh University, wrote poems and was engaged in journalism. Since 2001, he lived in Moscow, worked on Channel One, in the Ministry of Transport, was an adviser to the management of Rosaviatsia, was engaged in political technologies, including participation in the promotion of the "Rodina" party. In 2012, when the structure of the Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company got licenses for the Elanskoye and Elkinskoye copper-nickel deposits, he returned home as the organizer of the movement "In Defense of Khopra".
In the Khopra Valley, near the Khoper Reserve, the project involved geological exploration, and then industrial development. Residents feared the consequences for groundwater, black soils and rivers. The movement "In Defense of Khopra" united farmers, residents of surrounding villages, environmentalists, activists and Cossacks who opposed the project.
- Hopper is my land, the land of my family. I knew I could do it all. There was money: I sold an apartment in Prague then. I didn't have to work every day. I spent money. Quickly, by the way. When the protests started, crowdfunding began. Common cash desk, everything is transparent. Civil society," he recalls.
- Your father, Viktor Rubakhin, was the chief mechanic of the Lebedinsky mining and processing plant. How did he feel about the fact that you opposed the development of nickel?
- Well, first of all, by that time had already kicked him out a long time ago. In the zeros, when I bought this GOK. But in many ways, my father did not encourage me, because he was afraid that his son would be soated there. He had something to be afraid of. When I had a search, my father called me, I said: well, here it is, a search. And he: "Ah, well, this is the third one in this house, the first two were under Stalin."
Rubakhin came with a search in November 2013 in the case of extortion of money from the UMMC - allegedly the protest had a corruption background.
In this case, two participants of the protest movement, Mikhail Bezmensky and former Cossack ataman Igor Zhitenev, were detained (local Cossacks participated in clashes with geologists and police). Rubakhin remembers that he found out about it while in Moscow.
- I got a call from Khopra and was told that Bezmensky was arrested. A few minutes later, the concierge calls: "You have cops on the site," says Rubakhin. - I called my friends, they hid me.
A month later, Rubakhin left Russia by car through Georgia. On the way, stopping in a roadside cafe, he saw an NTV story on TV about a "band of extortionists", where he was shown.
- I tried not to let the driver turn around, I entertained him. And there is a "gang of extortionists", and it went through all channels for a week, - recalls Rubakhin.
- When you were abroad, this story ended, or did you continue?
- He continued, of course. I left, and I have obligations, it's full of people. I did an investigation into the activities of these people.
In March 2016, Radio Liberty published Rubakhin's investigation under the title "Nickel on Chopre and a yacht in Saint-Tropez". The activist described the trade structures and foreign assets of the co-owners of the UMMC, in particular, real estate on the Cote d'Azur and the yacht of Iskander Makhmudov, claimed that he studied how profits are withdrived from Russia through European front companies.
Twelve years after the beginning of the conflict, the licenses for the development of the Elansky and Elkinsky sites ceased to be valid. In April 2024, Rosnedra reported that the Mednogorsk Copper-Sulfur Combine itself submitted a corresponding application, explaining the refusal by the "economic inexpediency" of production. Industrial development has never started. Formally, the protest won. But it was hardly the only reason for refusing to develop.
Rubakhin suspects that production was not the ultimate goal: the funds could have been mastered already on reconnaissance. But the main thing for him is that industrial developments did not appear on Khopr.
"You have to trim yourself"
After such an activist past, interest in Freemasonry seems unexpected. But not for Rubakhin himself.
- We're not flat. We all have different interests. Anyway, it's connected in some strange way. Everything gets into the general context," he says.
In the Riga exposition, next to the books of the Renaissance there are ritual aprons with squares, compasses, columns, sun and moon, on paper diplomas there are names, seals, complex hierarchies of initiations. The same tools with which the bricklayer determines the right angle and aligns the surface become a measure of human behavior.
- The word "uncouthed" is a Masonic word. What do we need to build a temple? Stones. Stones are people. You have to shave yourself. Your moral principles are the great Masonic construction of Solomon's temple," says Rubakhin.
You can perform rituals for years and not change anything in yourself, he emphasizes.
- I was interested in the content, and it is often not immediately clear. For the first year or two, you don't really understand what's going on. You look closely. This is one of the basic principles of Freemasonry: listen, watch and be silent. And this is work with internal discipline. You have to participate in society, pay contributions, walk, support ideas, develop yourself. It's everyone's business. You are dedicated, and then you move in a certain direction. Someone is more about communication, connections, business. Some people are interested in science.
He was consecrated in a Lithuanian box after leaving Russia. Interest arose much earlier: from Masonic symbols accidentally seen in books and on ancient objects. In France, he was looking for such things in flea markets: what an antique dealer asked for hundreds of euros for, sometimes got there for twenty or forty. The first purchases remained in the Russian apartment, to which he never returned. With the current collection, Rubakhin is already working as a researcher: he digitizes documents, compares signs and names, corresponds with specialists from different countries. According to his calculations, about 15 thousand images have accumulated in the database.
"Masonry in general for everything legal"
- Were you looking for the Masons or did they find you?
- You can't look for members in the lodge, it's a ban. There is a need to respond to a person if he knocks. So, of course, I asked, they came to me, we talked.
Rubakhin emphasizes that Masons are "not a secret society, but a society with secrets". Freemasonry publicly registers non-profit organizations, opens bank accounts, publishes addresses of lodges and invitations to lectures.
- But there are two prohibitions. The first one is outing. If I'm talking about myself, please, everyone can talk. If I don't speak, no one can say that I'm a Mason, even if they know. The second is the disclosure of the details of the ritual. This is the main secret of Freemasonry. And not because some secret management of the world opens up there. It's just that when you know the scenario in advance, you won't emotionally pass the experience you have to go through," he explains.
However, on the Internet you can find detailed descriptions, and sometimes videos, of almost all Masonic ceremonies. But inside the ritual, says Rubakhin, everything is still perceived differently.
- You know roughly theoretically what will happen. But when you're blindfolded, you don't understand where someone is around, what's going to happen now, it still works," he says.
I recently visited White's club, of which the king is a member. You can't go there to a stranger, it's still a men's club, a gentleman's club.
- Don't the Internet and social networks interfere with these Masonic secrets?
- On the contrary, they help. All lodges make websites, we share the heritage, find something and write to another lodge. I, for example, found a lodge document organized by Kipling, and they didn't even know they had it. We have a large network of scientists who are engaged in Masonic research. Now it's even more convenient to work together on the Internet, exchange information.
- The heads of state were in Masonic lodges, while the lodges themselves were subject to state prohibitions. How does it combine?
- Freemasonry is supported by the state. It basically works to be legal. Freemasonry in general for everything legal. First of all, you must be a worthy member of society: obey the laws, know a lot, work hard. You must be in law-abeding," Rubakhin says.
Nevertheless, the Freemasons had different relations with the authorities at different times. In 1822, Alexander I banned lodges and other secret societies in the Russian Empire, and officials and the military had to report their affiliation to them. In the countries that later became part of the USSR, independent Masonic organizations ceased to exist along with the destruction of independent public life. In Germany, under the Nazis, officials and applicants for public office were required to have certificates that they had never been in the Masonic brotherhood.
The museum has curious documents of Nazi times - requests to exclude from the Masonic society and a certificate of the withdrawal of one of the SS functionaries from it.
At different times, states patronized some lodges and persecuted others. Which also contributed to various conspiracy theories, to which a separate hall is dedicated in the museum.
"Hitler destroyed Freemasonry, and Putin appropriated"
- We have a way out, and in fact it's an entrance, - says Rubakhin about this hall. - We did it at the exit so that the person would first get a little crazy from all these names, the depth of everything that is happening, and already looked at the conspiracy theory with sober eyes and understands: yeah, it's funny.
Instead of aprons and handwritten diplomas, there are political pamphlets, caricatures, anti-Semitic books, documents with which a person tried to protect himself from suspicion of belonging to the brotherhood. Completely different stories begin: about how the Masons were declared the culprits of revolutions, wars, the collapse of monarchies and in general everything that required finding a secret organizer and enemy.
- At the age of ten, I read my grandmother's The best form of Masonic propaganda! - Rubakhin laughs, answering the question of how his interest in Freemasonry began. - It's like an anecdote about a Jew who reads anti-Semitic newspapers. They ask him: why? And he answers: in ordinary newspapers there are only troubles and persecutions, and in these we, it turns out, rule the world. Anti-Masonic propaganda quite sets people up for increased interest in this story.
After the French Revolution, Abbot Augustin Barruel in his multi-volume "Memoirs on the History of Jacobinism" (1797-1798) explained the fall of the old order by a coordinated conspiracy of philosophers and Masons. At that time, this theory did not yet have the idea of a Jewish "management center".
- I have five-volume Barruel's book lying on a shelf in a window, - says Rubakhin. - He writes that free-thinking philosophers with Masons tortured Louis XVI. But then, it seems, in 1806, he reports that he received information from some officer that there are also Jews there. Here it is, "Jew Freemasonry", from here it begins to develop actively.
In August 1806, Barruel did receive a letter signed by Simonini's name. The author assured that Freemasonry and were instruments of Jewish conspiracy. The letter appeared in print only in 1878. The French publicist Edouard Drumont in the book "Jewish France" (1886) already gave out the Jewish origin of Freemasonry as an obvious fact.
In the Russian Empire, the combination of two myths turned into a famous printed fake. In the fall of 1903, the St. Petersburg newspaper "Znamya" by Pavel Krushevan first published the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" - allegedly documents of the "World Union of Freemasons and Zion Sages". There were no valid meetings or authentic protocols in the text: the investigation of the London Times in 1921 established textual borrowings from Maurice Joly's French political satire written back in 1864. The history of the emergence and spread of forgery was restored by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. After the Russian revolution, the fake was replicated by monarchists and right-wing movements of different countries.
Nazi propaganda has included the "Jewish-Masonic conspiracy" in its picture of the world. In January 1934, in Prussia, Hermann Goering demanded the "voluntary" dissolution of the Masonic lodges, and on August 17, 1935, the Minister of the Interior Wilhelm Frick ordered the closure of the remaining organizations and the confiscation of their property. In the occupied countries, the Nazis used the seized archives and regalia for anti-Masonic exhibitions.
Modern Russia, says Rubakhin, has taken a different path: Hitler destroyed Freemasonry, and Putin appropriated it.
The Grand Lodge of Russia has been headed for many years by Andrei Bogdanov, a political technologist, a participant in the presidential elections of 2008. Bogdanov does not hide his own Freemasonry, and in an interview in 2026 he talked about dozens of Russian lodges. Rubakhin says that all Russian Masons are now controlled by the presidential administration.
"For the family it's anti-capital"
Rubakhin collected the collection at his own expense, "slowisely for ten years".
- When you go in one direction, there are more insight and opportunities. And people are already carrying something themselves, - he says. - A lot has been spent, but the evaluation of the collection is six to seven times more than spent. But for the family it's anti-capital. Before the opening of the museum, everything was lying, it took up space, a huge space, everyone stumbled. The child had no place to play. On the other hand, I spend money and time on it. Therefore, of course, it is something that should work for the city, for the country, for people who are interested in coming from many countries to see the collection.
The opening of the museum was postponed for several years due to the high humidity in the room, which was not compatible with the storage of old documents. Rubakhin talks about disputes with the management company, about an unsuccessful attempt to get the support of the State Fund for Cultural Capital, about fines for the sign, assistance from grantors and sponsors. There is always not enough money, he says, but the museum is about to open.
- And what is the mission of the museum?
- First of all, debund myths. And to provoke people to go read something else. Not even only about Freemasonry. We see different historical processes from new points of view, more deeply. This provokes you to further research: what a person did, what he thought, what he said when he went to Masonic events. It encourages to go and learn something else.