The royal wedding of the future Sultan of Brunei, Prince Abdul Malik, with his chosen one, 22-year-old programmer Dayangku Raabi’atul ‘Adawiyyah Pengiran Haji Bolkiah, eclipsed in luxury even the wedding of the Crown Prince of the British throne, which in comparison with this one could be called very modest. The Prince of Brunei and his chosen one were dressed in wedding robes embroidered with real gold, and the bride's bouquet was made of precious stones.
12 PHOTOS
The material was prepared with the support of the online jewelry magazine http://www.jewellerymag.ru.
1. Prince Abdul Malik is the youngest of the four sons of reigning Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah and the second in line to the throne after his father. The wedding ceremony took place 11 days after the engagement. (Photo: STRINGER / REUTERS / REUTERS). 
2. The bride's shoes from Christian Louboutin are decorated with diamonds and gold. (Photo: OLIVIA HARRIS / REUTERS / REUTERS). 
3. The bride's wedding necklace and tiara are decorated with diamonds and huge emeralds, the size of grapes. According to local traditions, the bride must wear something borrowed from her. IN in this case These were my mother-in-law's jewelry - a diamond tiara, a necklace and a brooch. (Photo: STRINGER / REUTERS / REUTERS). 
4. The solemn wedding ceremony took place at the Sultan's Palace in the capital of Brunei, Bandar Seri Begawan. Istana Nurul Imam Palace - the residence of the Sultan - has 1,788 rooms. (Photo: OLIVIA HARRIS / REUTERS / REUTERS). 
5. The Sultan of Brunei, the groom's father and a fuel magnate, is one of the richest men in the world. His fortune is estimated at 20-80 billion dollars. Hassanal Bolkiah has ruled his country since 1967. (Photo: OLIVIA HARRIS / REUTERS / REUTERS). 
6. The Sultan of Brunei, Hassanal Bolkiah, has five sons and seven daughters from three marriages. Prince Abdul Malik is second in line to the Brunei throne. The first son, Crown Prince of Brunei Al-Muhtadi Billa, married more than 10 years ago. (Photo: OLIVIA HARRIS / REUTERS / REUTERS). 
7. During the wedding ceremony. (Photo: STRINGER / REUTERS / REUTERS).
Brunei, a longtime British colony of 400,000 that lies on the northwestern coast of the island of Borneo, is absolute monarchy(Sultanate). In Brunei, ruled by the 68-year-old Sultan, he is both head of state and head of government, minister of national defense and minister of finance.
8. Prince Abdul Malik with his father, the Sultan of Brunei. Members of the royal family have often been criticized for living too extravagantly. The Telegraph recalled that in 1996, Michael Jackson was supposed to receive 10 million pounds for a concert in honor of the Sultan's 50th birthday. However, dissatisfaction state system in the country is small, which is a consequence high level the lives of its citizens, as well as free education and healthcare. (Photo: OLIVIA HARRIS / REUTERS / REUTERS). 
9. Brunei is a country whose official religion is Islam. Last year, after the Sultan adopted Sharia law, which allows punishments such as stoning and flogging, a wave of indignation and discontent arose in the country. (Photo: OLIVIA HARRIS / REUTERS / REUTERS). The Sultan of Brunei is one of the richest people in the world. He surprises the world with boundless luxury. The whole world is discussing with envy the scandalous data published about his expenses, but he continues to live in grand style. One of his recent purchases is an Airbus A340 aircraft for US$100 million. Let's take a look into the flying palace - the personal plane of the head of the oil power.
Post sponsor: Weather in Moscow: Let's start the day with the right site!
1. The Airbus A340 is a long-range, four-engine, wide-body jet passenger aircraft developed by Airbus SAS and is the world's longest passenger aircraft with a fuselage length of 75.3 meters. Due to its large wingspan and high fuel consumption, the A340-212 was not in demand - a total of 28 such aircraft were produced, including the Sultan version.
2. Corridor in the Sultan's plane.
3. Meeting room.
4. And this is very romantically called the “compartment compartment”.
5. Toilet with shower. All plumbing on the plane is gold plated.
6. And finally, the golden shell.
8. Sultan of Brunei Hassanal Bolkiah has been flying the Airbus A340-212 for a long time, and, according to American intelligence, getting on board is more difficult than getting into the room with the US nuclear weapons launch system.
9. The Sultan bought an Airbus A340-212 for $100 million, after which he gave it for modification to the American military department (!) Raytheon, which for $120 million completely changed the interior of the aircraft and slightly modernized it. Additional fuel tanks increased the flight range to 15 thousand km, versus 12.4 thousand for the production model.
10. The Sultan of Brunei's airbus was decorated in the colors of the national flag.
11. Hassanal Bolkiah was surrounded by gold and diamonds from the day he was born. In October 1967, at the age of 21, Bolkiah took over as Sultan of Brunei and began to increase his wealth. Gold accompanies the Sultan everywhere, even in the sky.
The Sultan of Brunei is one of the richest people in the world. He surprises the world with boundless luxury. The whole world is discussing with envy the scandalous data published about his expenses, but he continues to live in grand style. One of his recent purchases is an Airbus A340 aircraft for US$100 million.
1. The Airbus A340 is a long-range, four-engine, wide-body jet passenger aircraft developed by Airbus SAS and is the world's longest passenger aircraft with a fuselage length of 75.3 meters. Due to its large wingspan and high fuel consumption, the A340-212 was not in demand - a total of 28 such aircraft were produced, including the Sultan version.
2. Corridor in the Sultan's plane.
3. Meeting room.
4. And this is very romantically called the “compartment compartment”.
5. Toilet with shower. All plumbing on the plane is gold plated.
6. And finally, the golden shell.
8. Sultan of Brunei Hassanal Bolkiah has been flying the Airbus A340-212 for a long time, and, according to American intelligence, getting on board is more difficult than getting into the room with the US nuclear weapons launch system.
9. The Sultan bought an Airbus A340-212 for $100 million, after which he gave it for modification to the American military department (!) Raytheon, which for $120 million completely changed the interior of the aircraft and slightly modernized it. Additional fuel tanks increased the flight range to 15 thousand km, versus 12.4 thousand for the production model.
10. The Sultan of Brunei's airbus was decorated in the colors of the national flag.
11. Hassanal Bolkiah was surrounded by gold and diamonds from the day he was born. In October 1967, at the age of 21, Bolkiah took over as Sultan of Brunei and began to increase his wealth. Gold accompanies the Sultan everywhere, even in the sky.
One of richest people in the world - the Sultan of Brunei, gave his daughter in marriage.
My father’s generosity knew no bounds; few people have seen such luxury.
The dazzling ceremony took place in the monarch's 1,700-room palace.
The daughter was in dazzling fluffy dress, her chosen one was Penjiran Haji Muhammad Razini.
Princess Haja Hafiza Sururul Bolkiah, 32, the Sultan's fifth child, and her fiance, who recently turned 29, exchanged vows in front of family and friends, royalty and international figures.
The bride and groom work for the government as employees of the Sultan of Brunei. Hafiza has a degree in business administration and holds a senior position in the finance ministry, while Razini is one of the prime minister's staff.
The sultan is the premier of the small but oil-rich Muslim sultanate, which has been ruled by the same royal family for 600 years, and also serves as finance minister and defense minister.
The Sultan of Brunei, Haji Hassanal Bolkiah, created a magnificent ceremony in honor of his daughter’s wedding, ordering a cafe for the wedding in Tula. This is a joke, of course, the celebration took place in the incredibly rich Throne Hall of the Sultan's palace.
There, the couple exchanged vows in front of the country's most powerful people, including the Prime Minister of neighboring Malaysia, Najib Razak.
The newlyweds were then formally introduced to the royal court in a lavish ceremony that marked the culmination of more than a week of wedding celebrations. Among the guests were leaders South-East Asia and representatives of foreign royal families.
Such weddings tend to be a rare source of fun in Brunei, which is known for its slow pace of life and lack of nightlife options.
The wedding of Crown Prince Al-Muhtabi Billah in 2004 attracted big people to the capital Bandar Seri Begawan, and the guest list consisted of more than 2,000 people, which included members of the royal families of Japan, Jordan, Great Britain and Malaysia.
If among “mere mortals” the owner of the Microsoft computer company Bill Gates still has no equal in the size of his personal wealth, then among the “chosen” of God, as before, the Sultan of Brunei Haji is considered the wealthiest (he made a pilgrimage to Mecca to Muslim shrines) Hassanal Bolkiah. At the age of 61, his personal fortune (or rather, it is nothing more than the national budget of his native Sultanate of Brunei) is $22 billion.
40 years ago, this man became the 29th Sultan of the small Malay Sultan of Brunei on the island of Borneo (it also contains two states of Malaysia - Sabah and Sarawak, and part of Indonesia), he actually inherited the wealth of the entire Bolkiah dynasty, which already numbers over 600 years.
The Sultan of Brunei simultaneously serves as the prime minister, minister of defense, minister of finance of his country, as well as the head of the local religious community. In general, everything is under sole control, so it is not surprising that His Highness remains the richest “royal heir” on our planet. In addition, world oil prices still remain very high, and since there is virtually nothing else in Brunei besides oil, the wealth of its Sultan will, apparently, continue to grow at an enviable pace.
The richest man on the planet is Sultan Hassanal Bolkiyah. He is also the prime minister, the minister of defense, the minister of finance, and a religious leader. He is also the largest collector of expensive cars and works of impressionists. But the most important thing is that it has a lot of oil. True, in last years the monarch is impoverished: family problems - here, sometimes, oil will not help.
The Sultan and the nation are united.
The official name of the state, nestled in the northwest of the island of Kalimantan (Borneo), between the Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak, is Brunei Darussalam, “the abode of peace.” Brunei was first mentioned by Chinese chroniclers in the 6th century, and the sultanate reached its relative prosperity about a thousand years later, when it became one of the centers of the spread of Islam in the region. By that time, local sultans controlled most of the island, and one of them (also Bolkiyah, nicknamed the Singing Captain), having built a good fleet for those times, captured a number of territories in the neighboring Philippines. However, the sultans of Brunei not only successfully fought, but also traded - primarily with China. The basis of exports were valuable wood species and the favorite delicacy of the inhabitants of the Middle Kingdom - swallow's nests.
The effectiveness of the “stick and nest” policy towards neighbors is evidenced by the fact that until the mid-19th century Brunei managed to maintain independence. But in 1842, an uprising broke out on the island, and the then Sultan resorted to the help of a European - the English adventurer James Brooke, who purchased newest weapons and equipped the mercenaries. Having suppressed the uprising, the ruler apparently underestimated that the West is also a rather delicate matter, and in gratitude he bestowed on Brook the title of Rajah of Sarawak and vast lands. It was a fatal mistake. Representatives of the “White Rajah” dynasty, with the help of the British company North Borneo, which had its own designs on the natural resources of the island, gradually chopped off most of Brunei. In the end, the fairly shriveled state found itself surrounded on all sides by the territory of Sarawak. The final end to sovereignty came in 1888, when Brunei officially became a British protectorate.
During the Second World War, the British were driven out by the Japanese, but only for four years, after which the status quo was restored. In 1959, Britain granted internal autonomy to Brunei and did not even object to the adoption of Brunei's first constitution. However, it did not last long, and even then only on paper.
The reason for curtailing democracy and tightening the screws of power was another uprising against the then Sultan Omar, raised in 1963 by the Brunei People's Party. The Sultan was ready to join the Malaysian federation that was being created, but the opposition prevented this in every possible way. Omar suppressed the uprising, but also drew conclusions from what happened - he slowed down entry into the federation, reined in the opposition, and he, tired of government activities, abdicated the throne in favor of his son, Prince Hassanal Bolkiyah, ordering him not to play at democracy anymore, but to rule the country alone, with the help of decrees. Which is what he did until recently.
Haji Hassanal Bolkiyah Muizzaddin Vadaulah was born on July 15, 1946. The prince received his education at local private schools and a university in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), after which he graduated from the elite Royal military academy in Sandhurst (UK). By the time of his coronation, which took place on August 1, 1968, Bolkiyah was not at all the richest man on the planet and generally lived relatively modestly - albeit in a palace, but in a wooden one, on stilts (this is how the Malays, who make up the majority of the population of Brunei, have long built their homes) .
Oil and gas were discovered in Borneo at the beginning of the last century, and the Anglo-Dutch Royal Dutch/Shell was the first to share the license pie. But the richest deposits were discovered later in a tiny swampy piece of land called Brunei. The Brunei Shell Petroleum company was founded, owned on a parity basis by Royal Dutch/Shell and the ruling dynasty. Millions of barrels of oil were pumped into the company's tankers (Brunei ranks third in oil production in Southeast Asia - 163 thousand barrels per day - and fourth in the world in production liquefied gas), and billions of dollars poured into the accounts of the royal family.
When Brunei gained independence on January 1, 1984, Sultan Bolkiyah was already firmly at the top of the famous Forbes list of four hundred super-rich people and four years later he took first place in it. And his sultanate has become one of the leaders in terms of living standards among Asian states.
Tale of 1001 towers.
The population of Brunei does not know what political parties, the opposition, independent media, elections are: the Sultan personally appoints officials at all levels, and he also issues decrees with the rank of laws. N 
But on the other hand, all 345 thousand Bruneians do not pay income tax, receive gifts on the Sultan’s birthday, actively use interest-free loans (with which they even buy personal planes), are provided with free healthcare and education, including any educational institution abroad to choose from; In addition (specific to the Islamic monarchy), the state pays for the traditional annual pilgrimage to Mecca - the Hajj. So one of the most severe punishments for the Sultan’s subjects is deprivation of citizenship.
The average annual income of Bruneians is one of the highest in Asia. At the end of the 1980s it was $25 thousand, but recently it has decreased slightly (more on the reasons below). Although, to get a real picture, one would have to calculate the average income without taking into account what the Sultan and members of his large family receive. Their incomes, and most importantly, expenses, have long been legendary.
To begin with, Bolkiyah, no longer wanting to live on stilts, built a dwelling worthy of a Sultan. His palace "Istana Nurul Iman" today is the largest in the world and as such appears in the Guinness Book of Records. No expense was spared for the construction of the next wonder of the world, larger in area than the Vatican - everything together, including the famous Carrara marble and pure gold for covering the domes, cost the Sultan approximately $500 million. The total number of rooms in the palace complex is 1788, the underground garage is designed for 153 cars, banquet hall for 4 thousand people. The paintings and sculptures stored in the palace would be a credit to any museum. The Sultan paid more than $70 million at auction for just one painting by Renoir, adding another record to his name in the aforementioned book.
The Sultan is also interested in collecting cars - of course, the most expensive and rare ones; Bolkiyakh has about 5 thousand of them. He also maintains a stable for two hundred thoroughbred horses, one of the best polo stadiums in the world (having a special penchant for this game), owns several aircraft, including a Boeing 747, and a cruise ship.
But the generosity of the ruler of Brunei is truly oriental. Thus, for his 50th birthday party, he invited Michael Jackson himself to sing for $17 million, and for his daughter’s birthday he gave an Airbus A-340 worth $100 million. When traveling abroad, the royal retinue numbers up to 500 people; one night in a hotel costs to the Sultan about $250 thousand. On the days of such arrivals, the most famous boutiques and fashion houses organize an exit sale at the hotel where the dear guest and his entourage are staying. A representative of the Armani house once remarked: what the members of this family bought from us would be enough to dress an entire country.
And most recently, the Sultan built the most expensive hotel in the world, Empire. It took almost five times to build it more money than for the palace of Bolkiyakh himself (inflation!): $2.7 billion. But guests can not only eat on silver and Limoges porcelain, but also, with no less chic, carry out, so to speak, the opposite process - sitting on pure gold. In the hotel, all the plumbing fixtures are made from it (as well as door handles, air conditioner buttons, etc.).
True, this wonderful building was forced to become a hotel. About ten years ago, the Sultan decided to build just a guest house for friends and relatives. 250 architects were hired and asked not to restrain their imagination. Therefore, crystal lamps were ordered from Austria, green marble from Sardinia, silk for the interior upholstery of cabinets from China, silver from England, and stereo systems for each room were ordered from Denmark. Pool with sea water with an area of 11 thousand square meters. m was also designed as a candidate for the Guinness Book of Records.
However, five years later, the construction of the century was suspended: an audit appointed by the Sultan discovered misuse of funds by the main contractor. And in order to somehow return the money spent, the guest house was repurposed into a superhotel with 433 rooms. But this establishment of exemplary life will be able to pay for itself no sooner than in half a century, and even then only at full capacity.
It's time to name the embezzlement contractor in question. This is the Sultan’s younger brother, Prince Geoffrey Bolkiah, a constant headache for the ruler of Brunei, as well as the main source of trouble for the state, that is, the Sultan’s, treasury.
And you, brother...
Compared to yours younger brother The sultan, if not an unmercenary ascetic, is at least a statesman who, while allowing himself small joys, also cares about the well-being of his subjects. Prince Geoffrey is a different story. He always considered the petrodollars flowing into the country as small change given to him personally for pocket expenses. The Prince maintained this belief while heading the Treasury, public investment corporations and construction companies, who erected various objects - from the mentioned guest house to Brunei's first satellite television center.
However, no government official’s salary would have been enough for the prince’s pocket expenses; even the monthly $300 thousand given by his older brother did not help. Jeffrey Bolkiyakh knew a lot about shopping. He had 30 personal residences, including a London mansion on Park Lane ($34 million) and a villa in Beverly Hills ($13 million), a dozen hotels, a collection of jewelry (the highlight of which was a diamond bought for $400 million from the British royal family) and its own garage of Rolls-Royce and other expensive cars (although more modest than the Sultan’s: only 600 cars).
In the end, the dissolute prince’s spending caused such damage to the country’s economy and Hassanal’s own fortune that he decided to talk to Geoffrey not like a brother, but like a sultan. And the middle of the brothers, Prince Mohammed Bolkiyah, tried to trick the Sultan properly. He, unlike Hassanal and Geoffrey, was modest and fanatically religious, which did not prevent him from envying both.
At first, the reveler and playboy Jeffrey, who traveled around the world in the company of fifty girlfriends from expensive escort services (the prince left four faithful wives at home to take care of the household), was able to neutralize his holy brother. When two of the country's leading companies, whose controlling stakes belonged to Mohammed, went bankrupt in the mid-1980s, Jeffrey managed to convince Hassanal that the middle brother was a useless businessman and would soon let the family go around the world. The retaliatory strike was not long in coming. Having taken the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mohammed did not long search for incriminating evidence on Jeffrey - one of his former girlfriends had just sued him, claiming that the prince had used her as a sex slave. And everything would be fine, but the plaintiff turned out to be a former Miss America, and this is actually an international scandal.
But Hassanal was not yet going to seriously quarrel with his younger brother, and the matter was hushed up. But Mohammed’s next “attack” was a success. The reason was again a scandal - this time a high-profile lawsuit between Prince Geoffrey and his confidants, the Manukyan brothers. They claimed that, on his instructions, they bought antiques and jewelry worth more than $800 million, and the prince at the last moment refused the purchase, thereby causing damage to the Manukyans in the amount of $130 million. In a counterclaim, the prince accused his proxies of abusing his trust - they allegedly overestimated price through a secret transaction with the seller. While the high-profile case was being heard in London, Mohammed, taking advantage of the absence of Hassanal and Jeffrey from the country, ordered the freezing of the bank accounts of companies that were part of the state investment corporation Amedeo, which was also headed by Jeffrey, and when the brothers returned, he reported to the eldest that the corporation had died for a long time because for the squandering of the younger one.
It happened in 1998, and this time the Sultan willingly accepted the version proposed by Mohammed. By that time, both the economic situation of the country and the personal financial position head of state. In this situation, the spendthrift prince was ideally suited to the role of scapegoat.
Back in the early 1990s, the Sultan was acquainted with the forecast of experts who predicted the complete depletion of oil reserves in Brunei in the next 25-30 years. Having decided to dispose of the funds accumulated by that time in a state manner, Bolkiyah created a special fund - the Brunei Investment Agency (BIA), through which he invested money in promising business Worldwide. In 1994, BIA was headed by Prince Geoffrey and in three years brought the fund to bankruptcy (with $3.5 billion in debt), and reduced his elder brother’s personal fortune, estimated at $30-40 billion, by almost half. (The estimates are indirect, since all data on the welfare of the monarch in Brunei is considered a state secret.)
To be fair, it should be noted that there were, of course, objective reasons: a sharp drop in oil prices in 1997 (oil and gas exports account for up to 93% of the country’s budget revenues), and the general decline in the Asian economy. However, Sultan Bolkiyah needed to find a specific attacker - even his subjects, who had previously lived happily and were therefore not interested in the economy, felt that something was wrong in the Brunei kingdom. Their income, unlike the income of the ruler, is not a secret: over the past 20 years, per capita income has fallen by almost 35%.
As a result, the Sultan filed a complaint against his brother in his own Supreme Court, accusing Jeffrey of embezzling $15 billion, and also organized an international audit of all his commercial affairs. In the meantime, the court and the matter released his brother from his duties as Minister of Finance (and at the same time expelled Mohammed from the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs, taking both portfolios for himself), demanded that Jeffrey’s accounts be frozen, and summoned the prince himself from London to the carpet.
Friends did not advise the prince to return: it could cost him his head. More than a year Jeffrey, with his four wives and 17 children, eked out a miserable existence (on $60 thousand a month) in London, but then, unable to withstand the inhuman conditions, he nevertheless went home to surrender. However, everything worked out - the brothers agreed. Geoffrey promised to return what he could, and in 2001, 10 thousand units of the prince’s personal property, occupying 21 warehouses, were sold at an auction in Brunei. Nevertheless, Hassanal banned his brother from appearing in Brunei for another five years. Family problems, who have they escaped!
When the bowels are empty.
This story forced Sultan Bolkiyakh to think seriously about the immediate prospects - personal and for his state. Over the past two decades, life in Brunei - even despite the obvious religious costs such as a ban on the sale of alcohol and other joys of democracy - has been the envy of many neighbors. But it is impossible to sit forever on the oil needle, and the small Asian sultanate understood this. Therefore, Hassanal Bolkiyah, remembering that he was also the head of government, began to energetically seek a replacement for oil and gas exports.
And since in principle no other economy existed in the state other than the raw materials economy, Bolkiyakh had no choice - Brunei would become a new offshore! True, to implement this obvious scheme it was necessary to work hard.
Spoiled by a well-fed and comfortable fairy-tale life, the Bruneians did not feel the need for any financial and economic instruments, without which a real, not a fairy-tale, economy cannot be built, even an offshore one. There were no stock exchanges in Brunei, and virtually no international trade. In addition to local ones, only seven foreign banks with total assets of $7 billion operated in the country (in a model offshore - Luxembourg - about 8 thousand investment funds, whose assets are estimated at $1.3 trillion, built a nest). In short, the economy of the sultanate turned out to be not only neglected, it seemed as if it did not exist at all.
First of all, Hassanal Bolkiyah hired smart specialists in international finance and international law at the beginning of 2000, giving them the task of developing a plan for all necessary measures for the speedy entry of Brunei into the world economy. Lawyers quickly figured out how to bring local legislation into line with international law (those sections relating to the fight against money laundering and tax evasion), and the Sultan just as quickly introduced new laws by decree. In 2002, the International Financial Center opened in Brunei and a branch of the Royal Bank of Canada opened, which received the first offshore banking license.
And although running a credit and financial business in an Islamic way is associated with certain difficulties (as is known, Muslims are prohibited from any activity that involves lending at interest), the Sultan does not lose optimism - the Arab business world has somehow learned to bypass these prohibitions, and the Brunei ones will also learn bankers. In any case, Bolkiyakh still has enough money for first-class consultants.
Meanwhile, his personal fortune, which today is estimated at only $7-10 billion (the first places on the Forbes list had long been forgotten), may decrease even more in the near future. And again for domestic and family reasons.
Early last year, the Sultan announced that he was divorcing his second wife Miriam. They had been married for a long time, Bolkiyah was then just a prince and the husband of his cousin, and Miriam worked as a flight attendant. The Sultan lived for more than 20 years with both wives (although Islam allows you to have four), as they say, in perfect harmony, but something prompted him to divorce. The reason has not yet been disclosed, but it will inevitably emerge if the case comes to court: according to the same Islamic laws, a Muslim is obliged to support his ex-wife. True, there is a caveat: if it is proven that the spouse behaved unworthy of the wife of a true believer, she is deprived of the right to a share of her husband’s fortune.
If Miriam succeeds in defending her rights, another entry in the Guinness Book of Records is guaranteed. Until now, the record holder of the “divorce business” remains Sally Crooker-Poole, who received from ex-husband Prince Karim Aga Khan IV $75 million (the late Princess Diana was content with only $22.5 million from Prince Charles - by the way, Prince Jeffrey's regular polo partner). But the condition of the Sultan of Brunei cannot be compared with the condition of Prince Karim, so it will be relieved by a much larger amount.
And then there are the problems with the heir to the throne. The eldest son from his first wife, Prince Haji al-Muhtadi Billah, as often happens in dynastic family marriages, suffers from a whole bunch of diseases, including diabetes and progressive myopia. Billah recently graduated from Oxford and has already been declared the official heir to the throne. However, whether he will still have a prosperous country depends on how long the oil tap remains operational. More has already flowed out of it than remains in the bowels of Brunei.
ROYAL STABLE.
Brunei wheelbase.
In four underground garages of the Sultan of Brunei with a total area of 1 sq. m. km, not only the most expensive models in the world are collected. Among the 5 thousand storage units of this “diamond fund” of the modern automobile industry, there are cars made in a single copy upon the personal order of the monarch.
The owner is especially proud of his fleet of rare Ferraris. Four unique variants of the Venice model: coupe, convertible, four-door sedan and five-door station wagon (as it is written in one specialized publication for car enthusiasts, “a sedan, and especially a station wagon for Ferrari is like a trailer for a Formula 1 car”). All of them are made on the platform of the 456th model - a car that itself costs $200 thousand. There are also a couple of Ferrari Mythos concept cars that did not make it into mass production. Finally, the Sultan owns model F-X, equipped with a semi-automatic transmission with steering wheel controls, developed by Prodrive and officially available only on the 355 F-1. However, an exception was made for the royal customer - he received his car with this innovation a little earlier. And not just one, but six! Almost all Ferraris that have undergone conversion are made in the Pininfarina studio.
The Mercedes collection is not inferior to the Ferrari fleet - the Sultan buys cars of this brand in bulk. In any case, purchasing a couple of dozen custom-made convertibles based on the two-door CL-600 coupe is not a problem for the ruler of Brunei. Although this seemed not enough to him - more than 40 more ordinary (with a standard body) copies came after him. The highlight of the royal collection is the only CLK-GTR Le Man in the world with right-hand drive. In addition, specialists from the famous tuning company AMG recreated six copies of the iconic 300 SL model from 1954 for the Sultan.
And finally, the royal car stable is richly represented by Rolls-Royce and Bentley, to which Sultan Bolkiyah has a special affection. First of all, these are the unique Bentley Java Estate concept cars and the Bentley Dominator SUV. For almost a century of its existence, Bentley has not released a single SUV - as they say, not of its level. But if the Sultan of Brunei asks, no questions asked, we’ll do it (on the chassis Range Rover)! The same applies to the sports Rolls-Royce, equipped with a 540-horsepower twin-turbocharged engine. The Sultan of Brunei is one of the company's most important clients; he buys up to 50 Rolls-Royce cars a year - both "regular" (this word in relation to the products of the Crewe plant requires quotation marks) and ceremonial ones, with a special sultan spec finish ( There is even a model with pure gold jewelry). The cost of each such car approaches, or even exceeds, $1 million. And to service this largest Rolls-Royce fleet in the world, the Sultan specially sent a whole team of mechanics from the UK.
In the garages of the ruler of Brunei there are eight more McLaren F1s, a Porsche 962 LMS (tuned by Dauer), two rare Jaguar XJR 15 racing supercars, three equally rare Cizetta V16 Moroder Ts (designed by Marcello Gandini), a Lamborghini Diablo Jota, assembled to order Aston Martin AM3 and AM4 (each costing $1.5 million), not counting the 300 production cars of this brand.
A special section of the collection is dedicated to Formula 1. Sultan collected all the championship cars that have won competitions since 1980. Not copies, but real cars purchased directly from the owners of the Ferrari, McLaren and others. It is not reported how much was paid for these rarities: for the Sultan, as a true collector, money does not matter.
True, according to press reports, after a scandal in the royal family (meaning the story with Prince Jeffrey), the Sultan closed his garage and stopped purchasing and financing the development of supercars for the collection.
The head of state and government is Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Muizaddin Waddola, one of the richest people on the planet (Hassanal Bolkiah, crowned August 1, 1968, Prime Minister of independent Brunei since January 1, 1984). The cabinet of ministers is appointed and controlled by the monarch. Government bodies also include the Religious Council (council members are appointed by the monarch and are responsible for the religious aspects of the country), the Privy Council (deals with constitutional issues) and the Council of Succession (deals with issues of genealogy and inheritance of the monarchy). Legislative power belongs to the Legislative Council, which was convened after a twenty-year break on September 25, 2004 and dissolved on September 1, 2005 in order to form a new Council (29 members appointed by the Sultan).
Stamp Brunei 1907 10c.
In January 2004, Brunei celebrated a small anniversary - the 20th anniversary of independence. A seemingly insignificant event, and it is unlikely that the world media would have paid attention to it if this state had not been Brunei.
The first and main clause of the local constitution sounds extremely unusual: the ruler of the country cannot commit injustice, and his actions are not subject to appeal either in national or foreign courts.
Sultan of Brunei Hassanal Bolkiah with his first wife Pengiran Anak Saleha and third wife Azrinaz Mazhar Hakim
Recently, in a topic about the Spanish Queen Leticia, I wrote that there are beautiful Asian princesses and queens in the world, but little is known about them.
Let's meet someone! Let's start with Brunei.
Brunei is a state (sultanate) in Southeast Asia, on the northwestern coast of the island of Kalimantan. Washed by the South China Sea. Population: 401,890 Brunei is one of the smallest countries to still retain a monarchy, and its monarchs are among the richest royal families in the world.
The royal, gilded palace where the family lives has 1,788 rooms, 257 of which are bathrooms. Living space- 200,000 square meters (for clarity, imagine a football field; exactly 20 of them can fit in a palace). Under the palace there is a huge garage for 500 Mercedes, 350 Bentleys, 170 Jaguars and 130 Rolls-Royces.
The current ruler is the 29th Sultan of Brunei, Hassanal Bolkiah, a representative of a dynasty that has ruled since the 14th century.
Sultan of Brunei Hassanal Bolkiah with his first wife Pengiran Anak Saleha
The Sultan was married 3 times. He is still married to his first wife, but divorced his second and third, depriving them of all their titles.
Pengiran Anak Saleha
Sultan of Brunei Hassanal Bolkiah with his first wife Pengiran Anak Saleha and his second wife Haja Mariam
Sultan of Brunei Hassanal Bolkiah with his second wife Haja Mariam
His second wife was a Royal Brunei Airlines stewardess, with whom he lived for more than 20 years, and his third wife was a Malaysian television journalist 33 years his junior.
Sultan of Brunei Hassanal Bolkiah with his third wife Azrinaz Mazhar Hakim
From three wives, the Sultan has 12 children, 5 sons and 7 daughters.
Nothing is known about most of them except their names. And even photographs appear mainly in connection with weddings. Moreover, princesses are also confused; princesses publish photographs of clearly different women under the same name.
But they are in very beautiful Bruneian national costumes, which are very interesting to look at.
Princess Sarah
Princess Sarah, born Sarah Binti Salleh Ab-Rahaman (born 1987), became Crown Princess of Brunei when she married Crown Prince Al-Muhtadi Billah (the Sultan's eldest son) in 2004, at the age of 17.
However, she met the prince when she was 14 and still in school.
Sarah Salleh's father is a Bruneian businessman, and her mother is Swiss nurse Suzanne Aebi. She is the third and most youngest child in family.
Sarah received a Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy and Administration from the University of Brunei Darussalam, where her husband also studied.
Sarah was also a cadet in the university cadet corps.
Now she and the prince have three children, two sons and a daughter.
Princess Majida
Princess Majida was born in 1976 and is the fourth child of the Sultan. In 2007, the princess married Khairule Halile, who is assistant executive director at the office of the Prime Minister of Brunei.
Princess Hafiza
Princess Hafiza (born 1980) is the fifth of 12 children of the current Sultan of Brunei, Hasanal Bolkiah.
In 2012, 32-year-old Hafiza married a simple employee who was 2 years younger than her wife.
Hafiza works in the Ministry of Finance (her father is the Minister of Finance), and her husband works for the prime minister, in the department that deals with economic issues.
These are three princesses whose personalities I am sure are exactly them in the photographs. In general, the life of the royal houses of Asia is very poorly covered in the press. There are not even normal photographs anywhere of what the prince or princess looks like.
The ceremony began on April 5 and will last 11 days. Gold, precious stones, simply unimaginable luxury...
Several hundred hundred relatives, friends and diplomats are present at this wedding. There's plenty of room for everyone in the 1,788-room royal family palace in Brunei's capital. Prince Abdul Malik, 31, exchanged vows with Dayangku Raabiatul Adawiya Pengiran Haji Bolkiya, 22.
The newlyweds, at their first appearance in public, literally sparkled with richly decorated outfits in the Malay style, while the young wife of the Sultan’s son wore a set of gold jewelry with diamonds and emeralds the size of a quail’s egg. And in the hands of the bride, instead of a bouquet of flowers, there was a bouquet of precious stones. The girl's feet were wearing shoes from the Christian Louboutin collection worth $4,000, and a heavy gold bracelet glittered on her ankle. 
The royal wedding of the future Sultan of Brunei, Prince Abdul Malik, with his chosen one, 22-year-old programmer Dayangku Raabi’atul ‘Adawiyyah Pengiran Haji Bolkiah, eclipsed in luxury even the wedding of the Crown Prince of the British throne, which in comparison with this one could be called very modest. The Prince of Brunei and his bride wore wedding robes embroidered with real gold, and the bride's bouquet was made of precious stones. 
Prince Abdul Malik is the youngest of four sons of reigning Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah and second in line to the throne after his father. The wedding ceremony took place 11 days after the engagement. 
The solemn wedding ceremony took place at the Sultan's palace in the capital of Brunei, Bandar Seri Begawan. Istana Nurul Imam Palace - the residence of the Sultan - has 1788 rooms. 
The bride's wedding necklace and tiara are decorated with diamonds and huge emeralds the size of grapes. According to local traditions, the bride must wear something borrowed from her. In this case, it was the mother-in-law's jewelry - a diamond tiara, necklace and brooch. 
The bride's shoes from Christian Louboutin are decorated with diamonds and gold. 
During the wedding ceremony.
Brunei, a long-standing British colony of 400,000 that lies on the northwestern coast of the island of Borneo, is an absolute monarchy (sultanate). In Brunei, ruled by the 68-year-old Sultan, he is both head of state and head of government, minister of national defense and minister of finance. 
Prince Abdul Malik with his father, the Sultan of Brunei. Members of the royal family have often been criticized for living too extravagantly. The Telegraph recalled that in 1996, Michael Jackson was supposed to receive 10 million pounds for a concert in honor of the Sultan's 50th birthday. However, there is little dissatisfaction with the government system in the country, which is a consequence of the high standard of living of its citizens, as well as free education and healthcare. 
The Sultan of Brunei, Hassanal Bolkiah, has five sons and seven daughters from three marriages. Prince Abdul Malik is second in line to the Brunei throne. The first son, Crown Prince of Brunei Al-Muhtadi Billa, married more than 10 years ago. 
The Sultan of Brunei, the groom's father and a fuel magnate, is one of the richest men in the world. His fortune is estimated at 20-80 billion dollars. Hassanal Bolkiah has ruled his country since 1967. 
About five thousand guests were invited to the wedding of Prince Abdul Malik.