You know, things have been quite interesting in Montelibero lately.

Four households have already formed in MTL-City. The first three are builders who settled in newly constructed apartments—one of them bought his, while two are renting. The fourth household is the family of the Mayor of MTL-City. Previously, he accepted construction work remotely, but now he will be able to oversee the construction from the roof of his apartments while sipping kafa.

And on September 23, MTL-City will host a libertarian festival. We recently did a reconnaissance trip, estimated where to place the various locations, and realized that about three hundred people could comfortably hang out there—two hundred on the main stage area, and another hundred could easily disperse among the other activities. Several presentations are planned from the stage during the day. First, I’ll briefly talk about how these two and a half years have gone for Montelibero (ah, fuck, speaking on stage in front of a crowd, I’m going to screw it up!!!), then we’ll bring out Svetov to shift everyone’s attention to him and quickly gloss over my failure, and then a few more people for the sake of prestige (like a Montenegrin deputy). In the evening, there will be a concert on the same stage until the end, while the biggest bores will retreat to a quieter place for a panel discussion. Parallel to all this, there will be presentations of local Montelibero businesses and other initiatives, a separate area for children, and all-pervasive networking.

Due to the festival, large-scale construction in MTL-City is temporarily winding down: no new foundations are planned to be laid, and we are focusing on the finishing of what has already been built. However, the builders certainly intend to ramp up afterwards. The construction company recently underwent rebranding; it is now proudly called Tokenopolis and is entering the broad investment market. Those who believe that investing in the Montelibero investment fund is excessively conservative and yields too modest a return can buy tokens of a business already established in Montenegro without intermediaries and receive a more significant profit.

The investment fund itself is currently undergoing reorganization. It has accumulated various social burdens that conflict with the fund’s direct goals, namely generating profit. Therefore, a search has begun for ways to remove this non-core burden from it.

One of the ideas is to create a separate, purely charitable fund. The fund was established at the beginning of the summer and is called the Third Montelibero Fund; it has already invested in the autumn festival and plans to gradually take over both the niche of sponsoring various non-profit projects promoting libertarianism and the function of a mutual aid fund. As is known, such funds were quite common in the 19th century until the state usurped the field of social insurance. But mandatory state social insurance in Montenegro for immigrants is essentially meaningless. This means there is room for activity. I recently invested a symbolic ten euros in the fund to see how it works from the inside. I will keep you updated on its development.

Another idea for transforming the investment fund is the creation of some kind of libertarian association, in which the fund would join as an ordinary member alongside other people and organizations. This idea is currently being actively discussed; many objections have been raised, and there is even a slight chance that this will lead to a split in Montelibero even before Mikhail Svetov arrives in Montenegro.

One way or another, the fund has fulfilled its primary task: at the start of the project, it was effectively the only way to invest money or, conversely, to receive investment. Now, enough alternatives have appeared: a number of quite independent businesses that formed without the participation of the MTL fund and received financing from Montelibero participants. And heightened competition is a powerful stimulus for optimization, which is exactly what we are observing.

Exactly two months have passed since the previous issue, let’s go through the news.

On May 24, a libertarian flag was raised over MTL-city. I hope this is not just a morale-boosting action, but also a declaration of intent to protect the territory from state encroachments; otherwise, the Montelibero flag should have been raised instead of the Gadsden flag with the snake.

I wrote that in MTL-city they promised to deliver the first apartments by summer. Well, we can conditionally consider the promise fulfilled: on May 28, the first apartment owner in MTL-city moved into their home. He worked on the construction site himself, including finishing his own apartment, which is why he moved in first, even before the full formal completion of the work.

In the last issue, I lamented that with current construction prices, I wouldn’t have enough money, and now I am forced to put my small plot of land up for sale.

The plot of 202 sq.m is conveniently located right in the geometric center of MTL-city. Communications are brought in from below, which means greater convenience for connection to the sewage system. The main road runs along the plot, which facilitates access—no need to maneuver through narrow internal paths. There are two oak trees on the plot that create extensive shade (very relevant in summer), and if there is a desire to build on a large scale, they can be cut down and sold for firewood. The plot is also burdened with a debt of 2,055 euros for the payment of general infrastructure construction. Price: 8,000 euros (including the encumbrance, it will be 10,055). Installments are possible. Contact via DM.

Montelibero was presented at two major conferences: Zuzalu (a posh gathering in Luštica Bay, with honorary citizen of Montenegro Vitalik Buterin, Dritan Abazović, who is spending his final days as the Prime Minister of Montenegro, and other famous guys like Titus Gebel) and Edcon (a two-day cryptocurrency conference, also with Buterin and various Ethereum startups). As a result, we have a number of business contacts plus an increased probability that MTL-city will have fewer problems with the legalization of buildings.

The Montelibero Wallet, which is a Telegram bot, has made significant progress in its functionality. It already supports multi-accounting, trading is possible through it (though Lobstr still has a more convenient interface for this), it is equipped with special tools for MTL fund shareholders, but most conveniently—it is now possible to deposit/withdraw funds in USDT (TRC20) or Bitcoin (Lightning) through it. That is, if before I deposited bitcoins on-chain to the fund’s wallet, and then the fund officially issued BTCMTL tokens against them, processing the decision via multi-sig, and this took a day—now the entire procedure of depositing Lightning in exchange for SATMTL tokens takes about five minutes, without involving live people in the exchange, and without commissions. The https://thothpay.com service is used for the exchange—which, by the way, was also created by Montelibero participants.

In anticipation of the yachting season, a yacht club was launched by Montelibero participants. Participants meet on Saturdays either in the first Montelibero club or in the Bar marina, and have the opportunity to order a yacht trip at discounted prices or undergo skipper training. EURMTL is accepted as payment.

The Montelibero podcast channel has become active; it currently features conversations about individual interesting employment cases in Montenegro (there are episodes about a chef and an electronics technician so far) and weekly reviews of the project’s news.

About two months have passed since the previous newsletter, which means it’s time for the next one. Last time, there was a lot about the First Montelibero Club, which has become the main center of activity for project participants. So, once again, I’ll start by talking about the club.

Since only those who have explicitly agreed to abide by the NAP become club members, it is much easier to count them than the participants of the Montelibero project; today there are 81 people, half of whom I haven’t even seen once because I don’t visit as often now.

Currently, an English club, a movie club, and a discussion club coexist under its roof; lectures are held from time to time, and a coworking space and bar — with cocktails and the best coffee in Montenegro — are permanently operational.

Additionally, a podcast recording studio has been created there. Those interested can subscribe to the channel where they are posted. For now, the content consists of introductions to various project participants, but over time, I hope other materials will appear.

The Movimento Libertario assembly took place in Italy, where our activist Birkin spoke remotely about the Montelibero project. We look forward to visiting Italian comrades.

The project’s tokenomics is becoming increasingly mature. For instance, for the MTL token — Montelibero’s main investment fund — a public offer has appeared, which finally describes in a dry but accessible manner what it is, what it is used for, and how it works. Previously, the tokens themselves were sold directly by the fund in unlimited quantities at a fixed price, but this sell order has now been liquidated. Issuance at a fixed price is still possible, but only in large portions and by prior request. It is expected that this will have a positive effect on the token price and on the activity of the secondary token market.

For the first time in a very long while, I didn’t start the news summary with the MTL City settlement, but that doesn’t mean construction has failed or even stopped. The concrete frames for a residential building with eight apartments and a non-residential building, which will house various technical services for the future settlement, are completely ready. Wall laying is finishing, then comes the finishing work; the buildings are promised to be completed by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, in Russia, general mobilization and the closing of borders are underway. This means that the main source of new recruits for the project is under threat of exhaustion, and we may soon need to reorient ourselves entirely toward other markets. I doubt we will suddenly start catering to Western European libertarians. Rather, we will work more actively with the already established Russian-speaking diaspora.

In the previous issue, I talked about how we recovered from the initial shocks of the start of the war and continued a quite steady development. Since then, this trend has continued without any new shocks.

Traditionally, I’ll start with the MTLCity settlement. Two months ago, I posted a photo of the pouring of the first two foundations. Now, the residential building already has one and a half floors, and the adjacent administrative building has one.

These buildings are planned to be completed by the end of the year, and the fund is already looking for a person to manage them.

In this regard, I want to immediately mention the recent speech by Mikhail Svetov on Radio Vera, where he was asked about our project, and he stated that he does not like the idea because libertarians should not live together; on the contrary, they should have the opportunity to live separately, drawing boundaries between themselves, while remaining libertarians and political allies.

I am far from gloating over how poorly and biasedly Mikhail works with sources, given that even now, after more than a year of the Montelibero project’s existence, he is convinced that it is exclusively about creating a small settlement of libertarians. A small settlement is for those who want to have libertarians as neighbors. For those who prefer to have other people as neighbors—there is the rest of the country. Mikhail’s speech talks about what is visible (libertarians may not agree on lifestyle preferences and therefore will not get along side by side), but it does not mention what is not visible (it is just as easy to disagree on lifestyle views and have mutual friction with other people—except if your neighbors are statists, then you face the additional danger of the state getting involved in your neighborly disputes). This is a classic mistake of a bad economist.

In any case, Montelibero is by no means only about the MTLCity settlement, and in the future, I will try to mostly talk about our other projects and activities.

A much greater influence on the project today is exerted not by some construction in Dobry Vody, but by a club on the outskirts of Bar, which has already become a point of attraction not only for the libertarian active core, but also for a broad core of those sympathetic to this ideology. To make it clearer for Mikhail—this is our New Sincerity, just without Rospotrebnadzor and in a less pretentious building.

On June 25, a small IT conference was held at the club with about three dozen listeners, featuring an introductory speech on the history of money and a detailed account of how Bitcoin Lightning works.

On July 15, project participant Valery Utrosin held a meeting at the club to discuss his startup for receiving cashback in cryptocurrency during fiat payments with bank cards. He received a lot of feedback, which he hopes will greatly help him in developing the company.

The club has a mini-coworking space for two to three people, a decent kitchen, a cinema room, and many board games, but for Mikhail, I will highlight the main feature: freedom of association. To enter the club, you literally need to sign a non-aggression pact. New members fall only under the responsibility of those who brought them. If a person is uncomfortable to be around, they may be denied access to the club, and such a precedent has already happened once. In short, there is no need to worry: libertarians know how to handle private boundaries and set them where it is convenient for them.

But, of course, we are not cocooning ourselves among our own in a single location, but continuing our expansion. For example, on Wednesdays in Bar, breakfasts are held in various establishments in the city, where participants of the Montelibero project are guaranteed to be present, and where anyone interested can join—to ask their questions and resolve their doubts about us. At first, these were just informal conversations at the table, but recently, pre-selected topics for table discussions were added.

Project participants have already managed to create several businesses in the service sector, mainly oriented toward the Russian-speaking diaspora, but not only. These include car and yacht rentals, currency exchange, and organizational and legal assistance in obtaining Montenegro residence permits.

Although the main vector of our efforts to promote the project has shifted offline, people who discovered Montelibero on the internet continue to visit us. Recently, we posted an English translation of a Libertarian Band video about Montelibero. It’s not that we expected an immediate influx of English speakers; it’s more about accumulating a certain amount of English-language information about ourselves for the future, which will be periodically needed by those for whom perceiving Russian-language information is not very comfortable.

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.