The previous issue was mainly about how the start of the war affected the project (in short: the influx of people accelerated, and bringing in money became harder). Since then, the war has become routine, it no longer attracts as much painful attention, and people have switched back to peaceful life.

Construction of the settlement is progressing actively; the first two foundations were poured the other day.

The media coverage of the project has also grown significantly. I am no longer the main mouthpiece of Montelibero, but just an old information channel, but the main content is now provided by entirely different people. For example, you can check out a short drone video on Soz’s channel, which clearly shows where the settlement is located relative to the nearest town and what the activity on site looks like. Soz has taken over my role as the main construction inspector; I can breathe a sigh of relief. Or, for instance, Viktor gave an interview to a friendly project creating a decentralized legal platform, where he explained who we are and why we gathered here.

There are currently fifty Montelibero activists who have directly relocated to Montenegro (the strangest thing for me is that there are very few members of the Libertarian Party of Russia among them—it’s completely unclear where they all went; some remained in the RF and are active, but most seem to have vanished without a trace). Additionally, a core of supporters from the diaspora is being formed; they haven’t fully integrated yet but are gradually participating in various activities. Here, of course, the club mentioned in the previous issue turned out to be an important center of attraction. The premises are still being tidied up, but in parallel, they regularly host various events: English and poker clubs, D&D and more modern board games, birthdays, and simple gatherings to celebrate the arrival of various guests.

Tokenomics continues to strengthen. The MTL Fund and individual private investors have invested their capital into a car rental organization project. The first convertible has already been purchased and rented out; now simpler cars are being bought. Our Euro-pegged stablecoins are already accepted by a fairly large number of businesses. By the way, if you followed the previous link, you might have seen that the project has acquired its own directory on a wiki engine; there is hope that this will slightly reduce the flow of identical questions in the chats.

I hope you are subscribed to the main project telegram channel, and for you, my news selection is just a very modest summary of what you’ve already read, as you’ve long been aware of all our inner workings.

It will soon be a year since my arrival in Montenegro, and that decision so far seems like the most successful one in my life. I have never had so many active, free people around me with whom I am on the same wavelength. I hope that similar decisions become the most successful in your lives as well.

The previous issue was almost entirely dedicated to how we are intricately digging up the ground at the site of the future libertarian settlement so that it remains drier during the rainy season. I would prefer to continue talking about such domestic trifles, but since then, you know, a war has broken out.

Crisis centers to assist Ukrainian refugees were deployed in several cities in Montenegro. Volunteers from our project took an active part in the work of the Bar center. In Budva, a participant of the Montelibero project began helping refugees obtain residence permits on a pro bono basis. We also attempted to send humanitarian aid to Ukraine, primarily medications, but it was unsuccessful: too many borders and bureaucratic hurdles; such things would be easier to handle from countries bordering Ukraine.

Sanctions have greatly complicated life not only for those who remain in Russia feeding Putin’s regime with taxes, but also for those who moved to more decent places in advance. For instance, it has become much harder for us to transfer Russian investments to Montenegro to finance construction, and those of us who worked remotely for Russian companies faced both a sharp decrease in income in euro equivalent due to the fall of the ruble, and additional commissions to turn rubles on Russian bank cards into euro cash. EURMTL — our internal euro stablecoin — is also creaking, since its main feature was always free conversion between tokens and euro cash, and now, apparently, we will not be able to avoid the appearance of cash-out fees.

Another direct consequence of the war was that many project participants, who had previously been slowly planning their move to Montenegro, were forced to urgently speed up and rush here in haste. In one month, the size of the Montenegrin libertarian community doubled, and now there are more than forty of us here. Gathering everyone together in some cafe became impossible, so we rented a separate pavilion that had stood abandoned since the time of Covid and began to tidy it up. Now we have a place for meetings, and soon we plan to start giving lectures on libertarianism there. This is quite relevant because we have already become quite noticeable to the local Russian-speaking diaspora, and people are keenly interested in who we are and what motivates us. In the good old days, when the activity of the libertarian party was flourishing in Russia, in no Russian city with a population of 20,000 people (like Bar) or even 40,000 people (counting Budva) did the number of libertarian activists even come close to four dozen, so we have already created a concentration of libertarians higher than it ever was anywhere in the RF, and this is only the beginning. Forgive me, I’m starting to sound like Svetlov, I need to tone down the pathos.

Despite all the problems described above, construction in the Montelibero settlement continues. Utilities are being laid throughout the site: sewage pipes and channels for everything else: water pipes, cables, and so on.

We are waiting for the results of the parcelization to finally be reflected in the state cadastre so that the land can be divided among the co-owners, but the Montenegrin state is an exceptionally slow thing. It is possible that the first houses will begin to be built even before the property rights to the plots are fixed.

It is still unclear whether a delegation from us will go to Liberticon, but we have agreed with the organizers to place our advertisements, and we also asked one of the Russian expat-libertarians living in the Czech Republic to present our project.

In short, now even the complete closure of the borders with Russia will not stop us; the foundation is already sufficient to continue growing without the influx of new Russian immigrants. But a nuclear war in Europe, perhaps, could seriously damage our plans; we would like to do without it.

The previous issue began with a description of the drainage work on the road leading to the future Monte Libero settlement. Over the past month, the drainage has been seriously improved. First, at the very beginning of the road, the area near the spring was completely concreted, and the overflow from the basin was routed into a pipe under this concrete platform.

Secondly, further up the road, wherever there is a risk of erosion, even a small drainage ditch has been added. In general, the road definitely won’t wash away now. Please forgive me for highlighting such minor details, but with the treacherous weather here, you learn to appreciate exactly those details.

While filling in the internal roads of the settlement, serious drainage was required in one particular spot. Upon closer inspection, it was discovered that groundwater runs close to the surface in this area, and for now, water is seeping directly onto the road. This means we have solved the water supply problem! Or rather, we’ve found an approach to the solution. Now the plan is to lead this water aside along the road across the entire width of the aquifer and collect it in a storage basin, from where it can then be used. In short, to do roughly the same thing as we did down there where we concreted the platform. For now, of course, it looks unsightly:

And besides water supply and drainage, the settlement will also need sewage. We decided to make one common septic tank, and it is already practically ready; all that’s left is to dig a drainage ditch away from it (is that too much drainage in one post?), and then sewage pipes will need to be laid throughout the settlement.

We invited a surveyor, and with his help, we divided all the land into separate plots, which are intended to be privatized. My plot is roughly in the center of this image, with an area of 202 sq.m. I hope that in some time I will be able to delight you in my Instagram with images from my own personal construction.

But actually, besides these two large pieces of land, we were also sold an exclave as an add-on—a piece slightly smaller than seven hundred square meters, to which we have no way of bringing a road except through the neighbors.

We have finally cleared it of thick brush as well. It turned out that it is even terraced, which will save some money on its development.

With all these chores, I haven’t yet had the chance to mount a few solar panels on the roof of the hut (there is a stupid regulation here forbidding the placement of panels on the ground, intended to limit solar generation strictly to domestic needs) and check whether all this is capable of powering a miner. But we hope to get to this soon.

Of course, activity within the project is not limited to construction. We have gradually formed a team for creating various targeted promotional content. They released a video with an annual report on the entire project,

as well as a separate video in the local dialect describing unconditional basic income.

There is an opinion that libertarians are social Darwinists who would happily watch the weak die off and clear the field. In practice, however, mutual aid is quite developed in our small community, and project participants from the outside world have decided to support those who have already moved, regularly chipping in money, from which an unconditional income is paid weekly to all libertarians who moved to Montenegro as part of the Monte Libero project—simply the contents of the piggy bank are divided equally among everyone. This is roughly how social welfare works under ancap, without any taxes. For now, it comes to about two and a half euros per person per week, meaning about ten a month. This amount could increase if more people want to fill the pot, or decrease if more people move in while contributions remain the same. Overall, it is an interesting experiment, and it is still waiting for its team of sociologists for a correct description.

Another social program within the project is bike rentals. For about a month, a couple stayed with us, who during that time rode and explored the entire area, for which they bought a pair of bikes. Now this transport has been handed over to the project, and it can be borrowed for donations.

Another subtle but important area of activity in the project is the improvement of tokenomics—the cryptocurrency engine on which everything revolves. The financial reporting of the Monte Libero fund is becoming clearer, signing transactions with multi-sig, and most importantly, reading them before signing, is becoming more convenient (which means more mindful participation in fund management), and our IT specialists have big plans for implementing various new features. Thus, a branch of the fund in Liquid—a Bitcoin sidechain—is gradually being polished. For now, all tokenomics run on the Stellar blockchain, which means hardcore Bitcoiners simply won’t join us because alts are “cringe.” If it’s possible to implement the necessary functionality within the toolkit available in the older and more venerable currency, it could potentially add more investors.

Recently, news flickered that the Slovenian visa center in Montenegro has closed for quarantine, and this is worrying because it was the easiest way to get a Schengen visa here in Montenegro. The thing is, we want to take a Monte Libero delegation at the end of April to a large libertarian convention in Prague, however, COVID and bureaucracy are capable of seriously complicating this task. So, not everything is smooth, but it’s okay, we’ll push through.

In the previous issue, I mostly talked about how the work on the land of our future settlement is progressing, and now, perhaps, I will start with this topic as it is the most grounded.

We have already laid some of the roads inside the settlement, cleared some stumps, started digging a septic tank, and so on—in short, the routine is underway. Importantly, it rained heavily for almost two weeks without interruption, and we were able to verify that the road was not washed away. However, in one place, we further improved the drainage afterward so that the stream flows along the shoulder rather than wherever it pleases.

Equipment for a small solar power plant is expected to arrive this week—we hesitated for a long time about whether to get involved in this, but electricity prices from the central grid are expected to rise significantly in the foreseeable future, so it seems that autonomous generation is exactly what the doctor ordered right now. This electricity is intended to power the trailer so that we can finally station a security guard there. As for the remaining energy, we are thinking of using it for Bitcoin mining. As an experiment, an old miner was purchased, which is currently buzzing at my home, and after the power plant is installed, it will move to the settlement.

But it’s not just about Bitcoin. Specifically for hardcore gold bugs, the Montelibero fund has released gold tokens, and several ten-gram bars were purchased with the funds collected. Some of them have already been delivered to buyers, while some remain on the fund’s balance. Tokens can be purchased in any fractional shares (worldwide) and exchanged for bars in ten-gram lots (only for residents of Montenegro).

Speaking of tokens. Along with the development of the project’s tokenomics, associated specific risks are increasing: unknown parties have already released several fake tokens on the Stellar blockchain that imitate ours. To avoid falling for such things, I recommend relying only on the tokens you see on the fund’s balance. This incident with scammers has spurred us to try to move to the Liquid Network, as tokens on a Bitcoin sidechain are, of course, far more substantial. If anyone is knowledgeable about this, feel free to drop by the developers’ chat.

However, we are not being promoted by scammers alone. You already know about the Libertarian Band video dedicated to our project. In addition, a local Montenegrin news site and a large Italian community, Instituto liberale – Gruppo nazionale, have written about us. For now, they are writing based on what can be found online, but I believe that reports from the site itself in the media are just around the corner. This motivates us to settle into our construction site as quickly as possible.