By MICHAEL CROWLEY updated 05/15/16 05:01 PM EDT

On June 18, 2013, Donald Trump had some exciting news: He would soon be whisking dozens of the world’s most beautiful women to Russia.

“The Miss Universe Pageant will be broadcast live from MOSCOW, RUSSIA on November 9th,” Trump tweeted that day, referring to the beauty pageant he owned at the time. “A big deal that will bring our countries together!”

And maybe not just the countries, Trump said: “Do you think Putin will be going to The Miss Universe Pageant,” he tweeted later that day. “[I]f so, will he become my new best friend?”

Now that he’s headed for the Republican presidential nomination, Trump talks often about establishing warmer relations with Vladimir Putin. That’s a sharp break from the Washington establishment consensus for punishing Russia’s president over his policies in Ukraine and Syria.

Trump has said his understanding of Russia is based in part on the 2013 Miss Universe event in Moscow, where the Manhattan mogul watched 86 contestants don shimmering evening gowns and skimpy swimsuits for what he would call “the world’s biggest and most iconic beauty contest.”

“I know Russia well,” Trump told Fox News on May 6. “I had a major event in Russia two or three years ago, which was a big, big incredible event.” Asked whether he had met with Putin there, Trump declined to say, though he added: “I got to meet a lot of people.”

“And you know what?” he continued. “They want to be friendly with the United States. Wouldn’t it be nice if we actually got along with somebody?”

Critics ridiculed the idea that Trump gleaned any real understanding of Russia from hosting a beauty pageant there. But the deeper story of how he brought the Miss Universe pageant to Moscow — a classic Trumpian tale of money, power and pulchritude — does shed fresh light on the business interests and personal contacts that have helped to shape his views about the country. It also reveals more about his personal courtship of Putin, which long predates his presidential bid.

At the heart of the episode is Trump’s relationship with Aras Agalarov, a billionaire Russian real estate mogul with ties to Putin, and Agalarov’s rakish son, Emin, 36, a dance-pop singer with ambitions to international stardom who got Trump to appear in one of his music videos.

The father and son are two of several ultra-wealthy Russians to whom Trump is connected and with whom he has pursued real estate deals. “I have always been interested in building in Russia,” he told the New York Post just after his return from Moscow. He also boasted upon his return from the pageant that “almost all of the oligarchs were in the room.”

The elder Agalarov was born in Azerbaijan in 1956 and has made a Forbes-estimated fortune of nearly $1.3 billion in real estate development. His company, Crocus Group, has won contracts from Putin’s Kremlin, including for two World Cub 2018 stadiums. Putin himself recognized Agalarov’s commercial work in a 2013 ceremony at the Kremlin, where he pinned a medal of honor on Agalarov’s lapel.

Agalarov, 60, shares Trump’s taste for material excess. He developed a luxury housing community outside of Moscow that features a manmade beach waterfall, and housing for his residents’ hundreds of bodyguards. The company’s deluxe shopping mall in Moscow, says its website, “elevat[es] shopping to an art form.”

But it’s Agalarov’s musician son, Emin, who started the chain of events that brought Trump to Moscow. 

Emin’s website describes him as having “rock star good looks,” and his music is in the Euro-club style, featuring risque lyrics over thumping dance beats. While Emin claims some commercial success in Russia, his family fortune ensures he can afford a hedonistic lifestyle, one he chronicles on his Instagram account, where he poses on beaches, in swimming pools and at nightclubs — often wearing hats and T-shirts with slogans like “Surprise, I’m Drunk Again” and “Your Girlfriend Hates My Alarm Clock.”

Emin Agalarov’s connection to Donald Trump runs through a beauty queen. In 2013 Emin filmed the video for his single “Amor,” in which the young singer pursues Miss Universe 2012, Olivia Culpo, through darkened city streets with a flashlight. Miss Universe representatives later came to Moscow with Culpo to meet with the Agalarovs, and subsequently introduced the Russians to Trump.

Beauty pageants have long appealed to Trump on both aesthetic and commercial grounds. “Honestly, when I bought [Miss Universe], the bathing suits got smaller and the heels got higher and the ratings went up,” he told Vanity Fair in January. Trump purchased the contest in 1996 and entered into a joint partnership with NBC six years later. After NBC protested his inflammatory comments about Mexican immigrants last year, Trump bought out the network’s share of the organization, then sold his entire stake a few days later.

Soon after meeting Trump, the Agalarovs persuaded him to bring the 2013 pageant to one of their marquee properties: Crocus City Hall, a 7,500-seat concert hall they had opened four years earlier. “We just had a meeting … we all seemed to like each other, shook hands and signed our contract within a week’s time,” Emin said in his Forbes interview, adding that the pageant would cost $20 million to host.

Trump announced the venue in June 2013, saying Russia had beaten out 17 other countries. “Moscow right now in the world is a very, very important place,” he said. “We wanted Moscow all the way.” Trump added of the Agalarovs: “One of the great families in Russia is our partner in this endeavor.”

The New York mogul didn’t mention another motive for befriending that family: his hopes for big real estate projects in Moscow, which he would discuss during his visit there.

But as the day of big event approached, Trump seemed particularly excited about his proximity to Putin — even as the Russian’s image in the U.S. was growing more nefarious. Two weeks after Trump revealed his pageant was headed to Moscow, Putin signed a harsh new law that banned pro-gay “propaganda” and criminalized public expressions of gay pride. Around the same time, Edward Snowden landed in Moscow, fleeing U.S. authorities after leaking some of America’s most sensitive intelligence secrets.

Although Trump suggested that Snowden should be executed — “you know what we used to do to traitors, right?” he asked a Fox News host last July — the anti-gay law cast the darker shadow over the pageant. The event’s openly gay host, actor Andy Cohen, backed out, saying he “didn’t feel right as a gay man stepping foot into Russia.” More than 30,000 people signed a Change.org petition urging the pageant to pull out of Moscow. One person who spoke to Trump at the time told Politico that he advised the mogul to relocate the pageant, but Trump wasn’t interested.

Trump argued that the “many [gay] people” who work for the pageant urged him to carry on, saying that while he didn’t like the anti-gay law, “we can go over there and maybe make a difference.” He even found another openly gay host in MSNBC anchor Thomas Roberts.

Whether Trump also considered Putin’s potential reaction isn’t known. But he clearly sought the Russian president’s favor. A few weeks before departing for Moscow, Trump made clear he still hoped to see the Russian leader at his Nov. 9 gala.

“I know for a fact that he wants very much to come, but we’ll have to see. We haven’t heard yet, but we have invited him,” Trump told an interviewer that October.

Snowden, not so much. “Message to Edward Snowden, you’re banned from [Miss Universe]. Unless you want me to take you back home to face justice!” Trump tweeted.

Hours before the pageant, Trump tweeted that he’d just been given a tour of Moscow: “fantastic, hard-working people. CITY IS REALLY ENERGIZED.”

Trump arrived that evening on a red carpet, delighting onlookers with trademark declarations of “You’re fired!” before posing for photos with the Agalarovs. A Moscow Times reporter noted that Trump “had to dodge some uncomfortable questions” about whether Emin, who performed at the event in a lineup that included bigger names, like Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler, had earned his place on merit.

Trump also described his criteria for a Miss Universe winner. “You have to have the outer beauty, but you also have to have the inner beauty,” he said. “We have some women that are incredibly beautiful, but they don’t have the heart. And if you don’t have the heart, you can’t have the great beauty.” 

Putin never showed. But the pageant went off smoothly, crowning 25-year-old Gabriela Isler of Venezuela before what NBC claims was a worldwide audience of 1 billion. (To the disappointment of some LGBT activists, no mention was made of the anti-gay law.) After the contest, Trump attended a vodka-infused 1 a.m. afterparty at which ticket holders were promised a meeting with the New Yorker, along with the pageant contestants.

He also met with the Agalarovs to talk business.

Trump had explored real estate projects in Russia before. In 1987, he visited Moscow and St. Petersburg at the invitation of the Soviet ambassador to the U.S., though he doubted the standards of Soviet construction firms and never followed through. In 2008, his son Donald Jr. visited Moscow to explore licensing the Trump name to properties there, according to the Russian newspaper Kommersant. The paper also reported that, a few years earlier, Trump had considered aiding the reconstruction of the city’s Moskva and Rossiya hotels.

Joining Trump’s November 2013 meeting with the Agalarovs were Alex Sapir and Rotem Rosen, a pair of New York-based Russian developers who helped to develop the Trump Soho hotel and condominium project in Manhattan. Sapir later told New York’s Real Estate Weekly that Russian visitors to the Trump Soho “have been telling us they wish there was something modern and hip like it in Moscow. … A lot of people from the oil and gas businesses have come to us asking to be partners in building a product like Trump Soho there.”

“The Russian market is attracted to me,” the article quotes Trump as saying — along with his boast that “almost all the oligarchs” had attended the Moscow Miss Universe event.

Trump also attended a business lunch in the city, according to social media posts by Yulia Alferova, a wealthy young Muscovite who belongs to local civic and business organizations — and who earned a brief measure of fame last year after she posted pictures online of her cat eating caviar.

“I just got back from Russia-learned lots & lots,” Trump tweeted upon his return to the U.S. “Moscow is a very interesting and amazing place! U.S. MUST BE VERY SMART AND VERY STRATEGIC.”

He thanked the Agalarovs specifically: “I had a great weekend with you and your family … TRUMP TOWER-MOSCOW is next.”

There is no evidence that such talk led anywhere, however — perhaps because Trump soon turned his attention to his run for the White House.

But the Agalarovs have not forgotten their powerful American friend. Soon after Trump’s visit, Emin released a video for his song “In Another Life,” in which he dozes off during a boardroom meeting and dreams about lounging around his apartment as scantily clad Miss Universe contestants parade around. The video ends back in the boardroom, where Trump himself has appeared at the head of the table.

“Emin, wake up!” the mogul barks. “You’re always late. You’re just another pretty face. I’m really tired of you. You’re fired!”

The next year, Trump opened a video produced for Emin’s 35th birthday and posted on YouTube. “Emin, I can’t believe you’re turning 35. … You’re a winner, you’re a champ!” he says, just before a drum beat kicks in to unleash an Emin Europop ballad.

As for Putin, Trump isn’t saying whether he met with the Russian leader. But he does claim some understanding of how the Russians he met around the Miss Universe pageant feel about their president.

Putin “has a tremendous popularity in Russia,” Trump told Fox News last July. “They love what he’s doing. They love what he represents.”