Alexei Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) published an investigation into Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. Previously, FBK already drew attention to the corruption connections and real estate of Dmitry Medvedev, having found his secret dacha in Ples. The new investigation, “He’s not Dimon to you. Palaces, yachts, vineyards - the secret empire of Dmitry Medvedev,” we are talking about real estate and expensive hobbies of the Russian Prime Minister.
According to the authors of the investigation, the image of an official whom no one takes seriously was created artificially. In fact, Dmitry Medvedev is “the creator and head of a huge, multi-level corruption scheme.” In particular, according to FBK, an estate on Rublyovka worth about 5 billion rubles was donated by oligarch Alisher Usmanov to structures associated with Medvedev. FBK called this “gift” a “bribe.”
In addition, according to anti-corruption fighters, another estate on Rublevo-Uspenskoye Highway is associated with Medvedev, as well as a residence in the Kursk region, a mansion in St. Petersburg, two plots by the sea in the Krasnodar Territory, a mansion near Sochi, vineyards near Anapa and in Italy , and an estate in the Ivanovo region, which Navalny’s associates announced last year.
The FBK investigation also reports on two yachts that are registered to a structure close to Medvedev. Navalny says that the amount of funds from funds and companies controlled by the head of government is at least 70 billion rubles. The sources of this money, in addition to Usmanov, are the shareholders of the gas company Novatek Leonid Mikhelson and Leonid Simanovsky, as well as Gazprombank and Bashneft. Most funds, according to FBK, are withdrawn to offshore accounts.
Based on this information, Navalny accused Medvedev of creating a “multi-level corruption scheme” and “receiving bribes from oligarchs.” The oppositionist states that thousands of people are involved in “serving the schemes” of the head of government, and his property is “protected by state intelligence services.”
FBK employees found, described and documented that there is a network of charitable and non-profit foundations organized by trustees and relatives of Dmitry Medvedev.
An employee of Alexei Navalny’s FBK told Radio Liberty about how the investigation was carried out. Georgy Alburov:
– This is the largest FBK investigation that we have ever released - it is larger than Chaika, and even more so larger than everything else that came before. At the end of summer and beginning of autumn, we released a large investigation, also on Medvedev, on Ples, on the residence that was given to him by the oligarchs Mikhelson and Simanovsky. And then we simply followed the chain from this, found additional facts, found correspondence where he ordered clothes...
So, in fact, by connecting different facts together, we eventually came to a whole grandiose corruption empire, where there are vineyards in Anapa, vineyards in Tuscany, a mountain residence, two estates on Rublyovka... It is difficult to describe this investigation in a few words, it is very large, and it simply shows that a person spent 70 billion rubles on entertainment: palaces, vineyards, yachts. 70 billion rubles that the oligarchs allocated to him when he was still president, and they continue to allocate this money to him.
- What are the sources of his income? Who gave and continues to give him money?
“We paid a lot of attention to this in our investigation and very clearly described with evidence, with an invoice, where the money came from. Oligarch Alisher Usmanov donated an estate on Rublevka worth 5 billion rubles, simply under an agreement of donation of real estate to a non-profit foundation controlled by Medvedev.
Oligarchs Mikhelson and Simanovsky donated 30 billion rubles as authorized capital to another fund. A large amount of money came in the form of loans from Gazprombank, where Ilya Eliseev, Medvedev’s closest friend and ally, works as vice president; they studied together and wrote books. And if anyone can personally call Medvedev “Dimon,” it is Ilya Eliseev. We have described everything quite carefully, and a total of 70 billion rubles have been documented, all of which was spent on entertainment and on making Medvedev’s life beautiful and beautiful.
– I understand that in your investigation you paid a lot of attention to Dmitry Medvedev’s foreign real estate...
– Abroad, we found a company in Italy – Hatori de Laiola, behind this company there are ancient vineyards in Tuscany, which previously belonged to some Italian senator, and then, in 2012, Ilya Eliseev bought these same ones from the family of this senator with money from Gazprombank vineyards. And along with the vineyards, there is also a beautiful 17th-century villa, one and a half thousand square meters. We filmed it all, and it, of course, looks grandiose and beautiful! It’s a pity, of course, that all this was stolen from you and me (many photographs of the Italian castle and vineyards can be viewed at the link)
– Where does he get such a passion for vineyards?
Medvedev has a huge passion for wine. He turns out to be a wine fanatic.
– It’s true, we noticed that Medvedev has a great passion for wine, winemaking and so on. In his correspondence there is a list of ten items that need to be done: home theater, security, something else. And several of these ten points were dedicated to winemaking and wine: buying glasses, delivering wine between two residences... It turns out that he really is such a fan of winemaking. And he has a million square meters of vineyards in Anapa and a million square meters of vineyards in Tuscany. And even the most important management company that we found, which manages this entire corrupt empire, is called Meritage - this is a type of American wine.
- Well, a person’s hobby is...
– The person really has a hobby. The person skis, loves wine, lives such a hedonistic life.
– Was it difficult for you to find all this real estate, vineyards? What sources did you use?
– Everything we do is based on open sources, we attach a link to every word. This can be viewed in the text version of our large investigation, everything is conveniently divided into chapters, with links to documents, everyone can check it, go in right now and conduct exactly the same investigation. They just went step by step from one company to another, from one trusted person to another, and at some point this whole system became closed. It would seem that different people from completely different companies began to intersect: in one company a person was a director, in another he became a founder.
How many people are there in the country to whom you can give an estate on Rublyovka for 5 billion rubles?
But this whole scheme with proxies who meet here and there has one thing in common: it acts in the interests of Medvedev. And we prove this by the fact that he just happens to be in these places. He travels on yachts that are registered to the same company that owns the vineyards in Italy. He vacations every year in the winter at a mountain residence and takes Instagram photos from there. We flew a drone to this residence and specially removed the pipes - they were exactly the same pipes that Medvedev published on his Instagram.
– What consequences of your investigation do you expect?
– We filed a statement with the law enforcement agencies, because there is no other way to call what happened - there are real documented facts of bribes! When oligarch Usmanov gives President Medvedev an estate on Rublyovka for 5 billion rubles to Medvedev’s charitable foundation, this cannot be called anything other than a bribe. There is not an orphanage there, not an animal shelter, there is a real estate, a palace, a residence - you can call it whatever you want. There are 40 thousand square meters of land and approximately 4 thousand square meters of buildings. This is just a palace that was donated by oligarch Usmanov. How many people are there in the country to whom you can give an estate on Rublyovka for 5 billion rubles? There are literally two people, and one of them is Dmitry Medvedev.
– This is not your first investigation concerning Medvedev, Putin’s friends, Putin himself. If we make a rating of Russian corrupt officials, which of them will be at the top? Medvedev, the Rotenberg brothers, Sechin?
They steal exactly as much as Putin allows them
– All this wealth that you are talking about is not the same wealth as that of American entrepreneurs, for example, from Silicon Valley. The wealth of these people is derived from the power that is established in Russia. If there is no Putin, these people will not have any wealth. Yes, they are now using residences, many billions of rubles, but sooner or later this will all end. And I don’t even see much point in making a rating. It is clear that Putin personally heads all this - he gives the Rotenbergs, Medvedevs and others the opportunity to steal, and they steal exactly as much as they can steal, as much as Putin allows them to steal.
– Of course, this investigation can become an important part of the campaign against Putin and United Russia. And the fact that we did this investigation, of course, will deal a blow to the leader of United Russia, Dmitry Medvedev. And, of course, disseminating the facts from this investigation, in my opinion, should become an important part of the election campaign.
He's not Dimon for you
It was a huge job, and at first we were not at all sure that it could be done on our own. But we did. We found and filmed (!!!) all the residences in Russia and abroad, found the damn elusive yachts and scrupulously used geotags, photos from Instagram and archival records to establish where and who sailed on them. They were hiding from the FSO guarding the facilities. We spent hundreds of man-hours analyzing social networks and looking for the necessary photos. They shoveled through offshore documentation. We looked at domain names. We literally looked at every photo of the main character for a year to find the right sneakers and shirts (that’s where it all started). We went to Tuscany to photograph vineyards, and to the Kursk region to photograph cows.
Damn, we even bought the rights to the song by the group “Combination” to make this movie more fun for you to watch.
Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev is not at all the harmless and comic character he seems to be. Don't let it deceive you sleeping in meetings , badminton, or passion for gadgets.
This is a very cunning and greedy person, clearly slightly obsessed with residences and luxury real estate and, for the sake of owning them, created one of the largest corruption schemes in the country. And, we must give him his due, one of the most sophisticated.
We found, described and documented the existence of a network of charitable and non-profit foundations organized by Medvedev's proxies and relatives. The word “charitable” should not confuse: the only recipients of “help” here are Medvedev and his family.
They use the funds to receive “donations” (read: bribes) from oligarchs and state-controlled banks and spend the funds on the purchase of palaces, yachts and vineyards in Russia and abroad.
And yes - it's very clever. Who owns, for example, Medvedev’s secret dacha in Plyos, about which we did a lot of research? Formally, no one. The charitable organization is the Gradislav Foundation, which means there are not even individuals who are the ultimate owners, because the property of a non-profit organization ultimately belongs only to it, and not even to its founders.
In fact, everyone understands: the dacha belongs to Medvedev. She is protected by the FSO. The service department is located there. There is even an official no-fly zone above the Plyos dacha.
That is, the corruption scheme is based on the creation of a charitable organization with a reliable person (classmate, relative) at the head. After which you can safely pump the organization with money and buy palaces-yachts with it, without fear that someone will poke it in your face with a piece of paper where your name is in the “owner” column.
There’s just one problem: there can’t be too many reliable people. If there are a small number of individuals involved in the organization, financing and management of a bunch of charitable foundations, the main feature of which is the ownership of the property of Prime Minister Medvedev, then everything becomes clear: this is corruption.
Starting with these fun colored sneakers,
we have established and documented the entire corruption empire of Dmitry Medvedev, the funds that make up it, and his closest confidants.
This
— bribes from oligarchs Usmanov and Mikhelson;
- money from Gazprombank, which has been seen many times before to act as a “wallet” to cover the expenses of high-ranking officials (see the “Vinokur case” and “Sechin’s wife’s salary case”);
— transfers from other companies (for example, a subsidiary of Bashneft).
This money was used to build, purchase and maintain:
Medvedev’s family estate and agricultural complex in Mansurovo:
Mansurovo
Mountain residence "Psekhako" in Sochi:
Vineyards in Anapa and Tuscany:
Milovka, which we showed earlier:
And much more, which we talk about in our investigation. In its video version. And in its detailed text version with all the documents.
Here I will briefly talk about only one episode, which is enough to send both Medvedev and Usmanov to the dock.
Do you know how this object worth 5 billion ended up in Medvedev’s possession?
Alisher Burkhanovich Usmanov, one of the richest oligarchs in Russia with a fortune of 12.5 billion dollars, simply donates both land and a mansion to Medvedev’s foundation.
What should I call it? That's right: a bribe.
That's what we call it in our crime report. And in general, this entire investigation of ours, both as a whole and broken down into episodes, will be turned into statements of crimes.
Yes, we understand that now the authorities will do everything to prevent any steps that law enforcement agencies are obliged to take. That is, what happened with Chaika will be repeated. But, as they say, you have to live long in Russia. Sooner or later we will achieve our goal and see all the characters in the dock. And sitting next to them will be those who will block the investigation now.
However, even this is not the main thing now. You and I understand very well that the Kremlin will devote its main efforts not to working with “law enforcement officers” (otherwise Chaika and Bastrykin themselves don’t understand what to do), but to stop the spread of information about the investigation .
They have 100% control over their servants in uniform, but public opinion and the heads of citizens are not so easy to control. Yes, of course, zombie guy, that’s all, but nevertheless, with our joint efforts we can easily make a hole in the picture of the world of the average citizen of the Russian Federation.
Let's make efforts to achieve this together. Moreover, it has such an attractive and understandable format, with aerial filming. We must ensure that all those 20 million people below the poverty line look at Medvedev’s apartments with elevators for cars and angels for fireplaces.
Don't fall into the trap Why should I spread this link, everyone has already seen it" Not all. It is your link, your comment that is missing. It’s not enough to just throw it on Facebook today. Today. And then tomorrow. And just to be sure, in two days.
A couple of emails. SMS to your beloved grandmother. A letter to a classmate with the subject " look at Medvedev's castle in Italy».
By the way, I want to say that in social networks for older people, visual content of this kind works even better. Video clip about Medvedev's Milovka It has 4.2 million views on YouTube, and 7 million on Odnoklassniki. This is despite the fact that we ourselves did not post it on Odnoklassniki - people themselves stole it from their accounts.
If you don’t want to send it to your grandmother, but want to send it to a foreign friend, no problem - here’s a description of the investigation in English.
A separate appeal to journalists:
First of all, how much can you be afraid? You can't spend your whole life publishing what not scary.
Secondly, this is your traffic, your clicks, your circulation. People read nothing better than investigations of corruption with such texture.
Thirdly, this is your chance to make your profession interesting and rewarding. Each episode of this investigation can and should be supplemented with its own story. Comment from an interested person. Just going to the scene of the event. We have revealed only the most basic things. Who knows, maybe you will get attached to something (like we do to sneakers) and find something that will make you the main journalist in the country. Your name will be mentioned in journalism departments when talking about how to do investigations.
In general, dear everyone, help. Our work has no meaning unless millions know about it. This is our joint project with you, and your contribution is no less important.
Well, don’t forget that I need your signatures in support of the nomination. The Anti-Corruption Foundation exists and does such investigations only thanks to. Support us if you think we are doing something useful.
They unite and protect each other to build palaces for themselves, and let us act together to regain our country.
Dmitry Medvedev's press secretary Natalya Timakova said that the Anti-Corruption Foundation's investigation into the prime minister's "secret empire". It has a “clearly expressed pre-election character. According to her, it is “pointless” to comment on these accusations, Interfax reports.
Having connected various facts together, we eventually came to a whole grandiose corruption empire, where there are vineyards in Anapa, vineyards in Tuscany, a mountain residence, two estates on Rublyovka... It is difficult to describe this investigation in a few words, it is very large, and it simply shows that people spent 70 billion rubles on entertainment. Georgy Alburov
The director of the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) of Alexei Navalny, Roman Rubanov, sent on Thursday to the Investigative Committee of Russia (ICR) a statement to initiate a criminal case against Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and businessman Alisher Usmanov under Art. 290 of the Criminal Code (taking a bribe) and Art. 291 of the Criminal Code (giving a bribe). Vedomosti
Mansions, vineyards, yachts: Dmitry Medvedev broke the law?
The Anti-Corruption Foundation has published a large-scale investigation about Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. It follows from the material that people and charitable foundations associated with Medvedev own several luxury residences in Russia and abroad, agricultural land and two yachts. Alexei Navalny calls Medvedev’s actions a criminal offense; in an interview with Dozhd, he said that the prime minister “can be sent to the dock even tomorrow.” Deputy General Director of Transparency International - Russia Ilya Shumanov explained to Meduza that from the point of view of the letter of the law, it is difficult to blame Medvedev for anything.
Legal argumentation is the weakest point of the new Anti-Corruption Foundation investigation. I don’t see anything illegal in what Mr. Medvedev did. The fact is that due to gaps in Russian legislation, it turns out that all the assets listed in the investigation are registered in accordance with the law. That is, if you look precisely from the point of view of the letter of the law, everything is completely legal.
The assets discussed in the investigation belong to non-profit charitable organizations. For example, the residence donated by [businessman] Alisher Usmanov is his contribution to the NGO. Such organizations formally do not have owners and do not involve making a profit or withdrawing assets. These assets are managed by a hired manager, and it is difficult to determine who the real owner is. I will not evaluate the arguments related to sneakers and hacked emails, because they are outside the legal field and legal expertise.
Dmitry Medvedev himself is not mentioned in the documentation of the charitable organizations involved in the investigation. It mentions people close to the prime minister and, in particular, [his classmate] Ilya Eliseev. One could say that he is the nominal owner of these non-profit funds, but [in fact] he is quite a self-sufficient figure. Since 2005, Eliseev has held the position of deputy chairman of Gazprombank and is on the board of directors of Gazprom-Media, so he could have acquired all these assets himself and used them. It turns out that Medvedev may not be involved in all this.
The form of a non-profit organization is a corruption-prone hole in the Russian legal field. In this case, a legal scheme provides the opportunity for illegal enrichment and avoids liability. I think, when commenting on the investigation, Medvedev and Eliseev will point specifically to the legal side, and the ethical side will be behind the scenes.
FBK conducted a good, logical investigation. If the prime minister uses the property of the deputy chairman of the board of Gazprombank, who studied with him in the same course, this creates a situation of conflict of interest. This is a sign of a corruption offense for which there should be some kind of responsibility. But the investigation's findings do not mention a conflict of interest.
In a European country, this whole situation would be a reason for the resignation of the prime minister and cabinet, but in Russia this is unlikely.
“We found 80 percent of the schemes in 20 percent of the time spent”Interview with Georgy Alburov, one of the authors of the investigation into the property of Dmitry Medvedev
Georgy Alburov and quadcopter. Photo: Evgeny Feldman for FBK
- Did this investigation really start with a pair of sneakers seen on Dmitry Medvedev?
Of course, it started with many things at the same time, but a pair of sneakers is such a very important expressive part, it really helped us a lot. It turned out that the entire corruption scheme can be traced back to the purchase of this pair. These sneakers were ordered for one of the people closest to Prime Minister Medvedev. We began to look at what else there was behind this man - and immediately went out to vineyards, houses, including an estate in the old village of Mansurovo, where Medvedev’s ancestors lived. Yes, the sneakers helped us a lot.
Was the whole scheme drawn up quickly or was it difficult to find people close to the prime minister and identify them?
We found 80 percent of the schemes in 20 percent of the time spent. With the rest it was more difficult - we went from one legal entity to another, we did not see any connection. Then people from one of our schemes suddenly found themselves connected to companies from a completely different part of the scheme. It began to become more complicated and confusing, but with each new discovery it was clear: all these people we are talking about are directly related to Dmitry Medvedev. There were no particular difficulties with identification: lists of Medvedev’s classmates are publicly available and open. It was more difficult to identify the students, but we identified them by year of graduation.
There was still a question about one person; we could not verify him. Someone Vitaly Golovachev. He was in the insurance business in the late 1990s - he litigated on behalf of insurance companies, then disappeared for ten years and suddenly turned up as a top manager at Gazprombank, at the Meritage company, at the Dar charity foundation ( all organizations appear in the FBK investigation - approx. "Jellyfish"). Unfortunately, it was not possible to communicate with him.
- From your point of view, all these people were very secretive about their activities?
Most likely, Medvedev was confident that he would transfer all the property to some non-profit foundations that do not pay taxes. He will appoint his classmates there, or their students, in cases where classmates are too pale, and this scheme will work. Yes, it is quite reliable in terms of management: all these people are close to Medvedev, super-confidants. But the problem is that the number of such people is very limited. Such a scheme could have been identified a long time ago.
- How many people were involved in the investigation?
Six months ago we started... At first there were two people, towards the end four people were involved in the investigation, and another six were involved in the website, video, graphics, music and other things. I will say this: the amount of effort we spent on making all this look good, readable and remembered is even greater than the amount of effort [spent] on collecting facts.
- Tell us about the quadcopter; filming from it is a separate important part of the investigation.
The quadcopter is our faithful fighter, he has been with us since last year and helps us a lot. This is a basic model and can be purchased at any hardware store. It shoots well: we learned how to work with it and smooth out some technical difficulties. If you estimate roughly, 20 million people have seen the video that was made with its help. This is our indispensable tool and practically a team member.
-Are the rights to the songs of the group “Combination” the same beautiful detail as with the sneakers? Why do you need them?
Not so simple! At some point we realized that we were using the song too many times. And I wouldn’t want YouTube to ban us for copyright infringement. So we went to the owners of these songs and formalized the purchase of the rights to use them. The copyright holders, interestingly, were very surprised; no one had ever bought the rights to songs from them in their lives; they didn’t even have a template agreement. It cost quite a bit of money, about 10 thousand rubles per song. It's worth it so we don't get banned.
With your investigation, you have convincingly proven that Dmitry Medvedev’s inner circle lives well. Do you think you have convincingly managed to prove that all these people were buying everything they could in the interests of the Prime Minister?
Yes, anyone can come to us and ask: what does Medvedev have to do with it? His classmates, relatives and friends are here. But we have collected enough facts for ourselves and everyone else to answer this question. Look: how many people are there in the world to whom [businessman] Alisher Usmanov gives estates, and even a real palace on Rublyovka? Not so much. Medvedev visited all these facilities and used them. We convincingly prove this.
In Psekhako, we used a drone to photograph the chimneys of a country house in the mountains and compared them with those that Medvedev posts on his Instagram. These are the same pipes. Regarding the yacht, we found the geolocation of this yacht over the past two years. She went to Plyos four times, where Medvedev has a residence, and twice to the Scarlet Sails festival in St. Petersburg. This is a holiday for graduates, a beautiful event, fireworks. Shipping is closed there at this moment. The only yacht for which an exception was made is the yacht “Photinia”, with which Medvedev took his photographs and also posted them. All this is ironclad evidence.
Part of the property you are talking about is registered in charitable foundations. Have you seen their reports? Who are they helping at all?
This is an interesting question in the sense that we don't know - they don't publish their reports. They do not submit reports to the Ministry of Justice, as required by law. Our fund is renting, but they are not. This is a direct violation of the law. They can be found on the tax office website, but it is difficult to draw correct conclusions from the information there. For example, they issue a cadastral valuation for real estate, and the estate on Rublyovka, with a market value of two billion rubles, is valued much lower.
- How do you like the first one?reactionfor investigation?
I read the reaction of [Prime Minister Natalya] Timakova’s press secretary... You know, all my life I was sure that she was a rather reserved person from whom one could not hear words like “I will not comment on the words of this opposition criminal-politician.” What kind of state did she have to be brought to in order for her to utter such words? But our investigation did it - very nice. I hope there will be more substantive comments, including from law enforcement agencies.
May I live like this, Dimon!
I strongly advise you to watch the film of the Anti-Corruption Foundation about Medvedev’s dachas, vineyards, estates and yachts. And watch it not even to find out what specific estates, apartments and mountain ranges belong to Dmitry Anatolyevich, what they look like and where they are located. And watch in order to experience this feeling. This feeling will not necessarily be indignation, disgust or disgust. Although what you will see is criminal and shameful for the country. No! I'm talking about something else.
Look at all this splendor, and then listen to yourself. And inside, if not everyone, then very many, this insidious voice will sound: “Damn! Yes, I wish I could live like this!” Really, looking at the swimming pools and the car elevator and the marble staircase in the apartment like a palace, didn’t you want to live like that for at least a couple of days? And a mansion in St. Petersburg, and a 17th century villa in Italy, and a family estate in Kursk, and just an estate in Plyos! We are not holy ascetics or altruists. But for the most part we work a lot for little money. And here, on the screen, there is such a life that we cannot even dream of. But someone lives such a life, and we know this person, and he is one of those who controls us!
In the end, Navalny says words that are completely obvious, but no less correct: there, at the heights of power, all this is not a secret - because at the heights of power they all live one way or something like this, in accordance with the positions they hold and the degree of their arrogance. And I would be surprised if there is anyone among them who lives differently. And this is exactly why they strive for power. That is why power is the main asset in Russia. Neither your talents, nor your brains, nor your resourcefulness or ingenuity - nothing matters here. Only position and authority matter.
In Russia there is no point in becoming Elon Musk, because people who change the world are not needed here. We need people here who will leave everything as before. Russia does not need people who earn money thanks to incredible technologies or modern production. Because it is troublesome and time-consuming, and the risk is high. You can make money much easier and much faster by being a prosecutor, judge, minister or even prime minister, as it turns out. More precisely, not to earn, but to receive.
In developed countries, money is important because it gives power. In Russia, on the contrary, the authorities give money. And the authorities can take away the money. Ask Khodorkovsky, who was the richest man in the country and set out to change something in politics - what happened to him and did he like it? That is why the current oligarchs do not make the same mistakes and will donate billions to all sorts of fake funds and give away estates in order to remain oligarchs, and not sew mittens in prison.
Navalny made a powerful film, but I doubt that this film will blow up society. And not only because a minority of the population will still know about it. And also because millions of our fellow citizens themselves would like to live like this, and to live like this, not thanks to their talents and enterprise, but in order to have power, and to have everything that this power can give in our country. And she can give anything - if only she had imagination and arrogance.
The Kremlin responded to the FBK investigation into Medvedev’s real estate within 24 hours
The Kremlin is not “in detail” familiar with the Anti-Corruption Foundation’s investigation into Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s real estate. The investigation was published the day before, March 2. The Cabinet of Ministers stated that it is of an election nature.
Press Secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov answered the question of whether the head of state Vladimir Putin is familiar with the investigation of Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation about the “secret real estate” of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, an RBC correspondent reports.
“We are not familiar with the details. We saw the media reports. These are not the first examples of the work of this famous convicted citizen. There is nothing to add to what was said by the press secretary of the Prime Minister,” he said.
The day before, commenting on the investigation, the press secretary of the head of the Cabinet of Ministers, Natalya Timakova, said that the material was of a clearly pre-election nature. “Navalny’s material is clearly pre-election in nature, as he himself says at the end of the video. It makes no sense to comment on the propaganda attacks of an oppositional and convicted character who said that he is already waging some kind of election campaign and is fighting the authorities,” she noted.
The FBK investigation was published the day before, on March 2. It says that Medvedev owns “huge tracts of land in the most elite areas, manages yachts, apartments in old mansions, agricultural complexes and wineries in Russia and abroad.”
The authors of the investigation draw their conclusions based on data from Rosreestr, extracts from various registers of legal entities, as well as publications in the media and posts on social networks. At the same time, the FBK points out that the real owner of the assets “is almost impossible to track, since, being registered with charitable foundations, they do not belong to anyone.”
Such objects, according to FBK, are, in particular, real estate in the village of Znamenskoye near Rublevo-Uspenskoye Highway, an estate in the Kursk region, a winery in Italian Tuscany and a number of others. Medvedev’s property is managed by his friends, classmates and confidants, the investigation states.
The effect of an unexploded bomb: how the media did not notice Navalny’s investigation into Medvedev
FBK head Alexei Navalny called the investigation into the “secret empire of Dmitry Medvedev” published by the Anti-Corruption Foundation the foundation’s most ambitious project. Russian media reacted differently to the investigation; many ignored the FBK publication. Not only federal television channels, but also the media, which previously paid more attention to Navalny’s publications, decided not to write or talk about the investigation.
TV and Radio
Federal TV channels “Pervy”, “Russia 1” and NTV never mentioned Navalny’s investigation on their broadcast, it follows from the data of “Medialogy”, prepared at the request of Dozhd. Among cable TV channels, RBC paid attention to the investigation (17 materials during the day). From information radio stations, the publication was discussed by “Echo-Moscow” and “Business FM” - 33 and 4 materials, respectively. Kommersant FM and Vesti FM did not talk about the investigation.
Newspapers
Of the newspapers published on Friday, only two publications wrote about Navalny’s investigation: Vedomosti and Novaya Gazeta. The newspapers Kommersant, Izvestia, AiF, RBC, Moskovsky Komsomolets, Komsomolskaya Pravda and Nezavisimaya Gazeta wrote nothing about the oppositionist’s publication.
In Vedomosti, the FBK publication was devoted to the column “New Feedings” by Maria Zheleznova and Nikolai Epple in the opinion section, a material retelling the essence of the investigation “Premiere Show” on the second page, as well as Maxim Trudolyubov’s column “Inverted Tradition.”
Novaya Gazeta published the commentary “Reception against the successor.” It called the investigation “weighty and uncompromising,” seeing in the FBK publication the beginning of Navalny’s election campaign. “Navalny’s investigation highlights a non-obvious fact: Dmitry Anatolyevich is really the second person in the state<…>To be honest, I don’t know who else in our country is allowed to have such a resource - financial and political,” writes Alexey Polukhin, editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta.
Internet media
According to the Yandex-news service, the first news about the investigation appeared in online media at 13.15. Among the first to write about him were Mediazona, Republic, Echo of Moscow, RBC, Tsargrad (as well as Meduza, which is not indexed in the service). On the Kommersant website (owned by businessman Alisher Usmanov, whom Navalny mentions in the investigation), at 15:48 a news item was published under the heading “The Anti-Corruption Foundation has published another investigation.” Forbes published an article about “the fate of the site from Alexei Navalny’s investigation.” Life only posted a comment from Medvedev’s press secretary Natalya Timakova.
The websites of three major news agencies responded to the investigation after Timakova's comment at 2:40 p.m. At the same time, RIA Novosti did not retell the essence of the investigation in its report. “Earlier, Navalny posted a film with an “investigation” against Medvedev. Its authors stated that they spent more than six months collecting material,” RIA wrote.
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On Thursday, March 2, Alexei Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation published materials from another investigation: this time, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev became its key person.
It turned out that for the needs of Medvedev and his family, several magnificent country residences were built in different parts of Russia, luxury yachts, mansions and wineries were purchased. In addition, FBK employees discovered that an offshore company associated with Medvedev owns a huge estate with vineyards and olive groves in Italian Tuscany.
FBK was able to convincingly prove that the Prime Minister actually uses all this property by comparing photographs from Medvedev’s Instagram with aerial photography data of palaces and estates. The documents discovered by Navalny’s employees showed that this entire empire is financed through a system of charitable foundations, which, in turn, are filled with multi-billion dollar contributions from businessmen and loans from commercial banks.
Thus, the head of the Russian government was caught in corruption of fantastic proportions. The value of all assets mentioned in the investigation is estimated by FBK at approximately 70 billion rubles (more than $1 billion). Summing up the results of the work done, Alexey Navalny said that “the entire system of power is rotten from head to toe” and called for people to vote for his candidacy in the 2018 presidential elections.
It would seem that presidential candidate Navalny has made a very strong move, and his opponents from the Russian government will have to work hard to fend off accusations backed by convincing evidence.
However, based on the experience of the reaction to Navalny’s past investigations, one can say with a high degree of confidence: no extra efforts will have to be made to refute the accusations made by the authorities, and Dmitry Medvedev personally, will not have to make any efforts. The very first comments from representatives of the government and the presidential administration showed: this time again, the country’s leadership will use a rhetorical device that has long been worked out and is quite acceptable to the broad masses of Russians - an indication that Navalny himself is convicted in a fraud case, and his “anti-government propaganda” you just have to ignore it.
What under no circumstances would be an adequate response to accusations of corruption in any European country or the United States - in the case of Russian public opinion turns out to be a sufficient and convincing argument.
The problem of relations between government and business, and the spending of funds by government officials is viewed in Russia from a completely different angle than in Western societies. Russian ideas about what an official can do and what he cannot do are based on a complex system of traditional views on the nature of power and private property, inherited almost from the period of medieval Muscovite Rus', as well as on the painful experience of the last decades following the collapse of the USSR.
For centuries of Russian history, private property was under close state control, and involvement in political power, in turn, implied unspoken but wide opportunities for the personal enrichment of officials. During the Soviet period, private property came under an official ban, which, of course, did not contribute to the strengthening of this institution and the eradication of corruption.
In the post-Soviet period, Russian society went through the process of privatization of state assets, and, it seems, this should have laid the foundations for “civilized” relations between government and business, based on the principles of modern law.
However, in reality, the privatization of the 1990s was only the first step in this direction. Government officials who ensured the process of transferring multi-billion-dollar Soviet “national property” into the hands of resourceful businessmen did not at all consider themselves less worthy contenders for a piece of the state pie.
It can be argued that the entire “Putin era,” the sad corruption results of which Navalny quite rightly laments, is a period when there was a gradual equalization of the imbalance in the distribution of assets between “businessmen” and “officials” that developed in the late 1990s.
It is of course possible, and even necessary, to consider this situation from a moral point of view, as Navalny and his employees do, but to count on the fact that popular anger will allow the creation of the “correct” institution of private property and the “correct” government in Russia is quite naive , especially for a presidential candidate.
Many commentators have already noted that with his anti-corruption revelations, Navalny as a politician rather short-sightedly isolated himself from all the existing centers of political influence in the country, except for the blind popular element. He accused liberals (who usually include Dmitry Medvedev), centrists, and conservatives of corruption.
In addition, he and his supporters react rather painfully to criticism from other opposition groups, in particular those who point out to Navalny the counterproductiveness of strict moralism as a tool of political struggle in the conditions of modern Russia, mired in cynicism. The inevitable discord within the opposition on this issue will only further weaken its electoral prospects
As a result, with a high degree of probability, Navalny’s new investigation, directed against the Russian authorities, will only help strengthen the political positions of President Putin, and Dmitry Medvedev himself, because Putin, as is well known, in response to external pressure is inclined to only strengthen support for members of his teams that were hit.
The Russian average person can draw the conclusion from this whole story that the “bosses” are at least capable of keeping the oligarchs under control and forcing them to “chip in” to build beautiful palaces, while the oppositionists are only engaged in moralizing, quarreling with each other and do not own even the most the simplest methods of conducting coalition political struggle.
HOW MANY DID MEDVEDEV STOLEN?
The Central Election Commission has published fresh data on the property and income of candidates for deputies, which, in addition to annual information on annual income, also includes bank deposits of politicians.
Dmitry Medvedev immediately found 13 accounts in different banks (Russia, Sberbank, Alfa Bank and VTB) for a total amount of 10,721,492 rubles 14 kopecks.
What is characteristic is that five years ago, when Medvedev’s name also appeared on the list of candidates for a Duma mandate, he had only four bank accounts, and there was much less money there - only 4,266,678 rubles.
In other words, while ordinary Russians began to eat away their former savings during the crisis, Medvedev, on the contrary, saved 6,454,814 rubles 14 kopecks during his time in the government. That is, he still has money. But only for yourself, not for pensioners.
However, is it really only 10 million rubles???
House 1, building "A" on Minskaya Street is located in the elite residential complex "Golden Keys-1". The Medvedevs live in apartment 38. The total area is 364.5 square meters. m. Original layout and marble floors. Four bedrooms, three toilets, an office, a dining room and a spacious living room with cast rock crystal columns. In addition, the house has a sauna, fitness club, gym, beauty salon, and a football ground in the yard.
There is a cozy winter garden under the glass roof. And, of course, strict access control and 24-hour security.
The house provides individual parking for cars worth 100 thousand dollars each. The Medvedevs' family Volkswagen, produced in 1999, has been laid up here for more than two years. It is registered in the name of his wife. Svetlana Vladimirovna acquired it while she was still registered in St. Petersburg on Frunze Street. At first I drove with regular license plates. After my husband moved to Moscow, as befits the Kremlin inhabitants, a number of the “thieves” series AAA appeared.
The Medvedevs' neighbors in the Golden Keys are very decent people. Mostly foreigners. This is Tomasz Kazmierowski from Alfa Bank and the representative of the Singaporean company Future Generation, Mr. Chan Thi Thao. A little higher up was the press attache of the Italian Embassy, Liborio Stellino, and Yugoslav Goran Vukovich from Slavex-Center. Among our neighbors there are many of our compatriots. For example, Semyon Vainshtok (Olympic State Corporation), Viktor Fedotov from Uralsib Capital, David Yakobashvili (Vim-Bil-Dan), Tatyana Bogomolova from Rosneftexport, Viktor Polstovalov (LUKOIL-Yurga) and Ermek Tusenov from Tubus-Plast- Invest" (production of pipes for the oil and gas industry). One of the apartments houses the office of the Medved Foundation for Legal Support of Strategies for the Revival of Russia.
The foundation is headed by former State Duma deputy Bashir Kodzoev*.
But the most famous neighbor is rightfully considered citizen Ridiger Alexey Mikhailovich, better known as His Holiness Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Alexy II. The patriarch has a smaller apartment of 227 square meters. m. These meters are also designed for the office of the Russian Orthodox Church. True, according to the guards at the Golden Keys, they have never seen groups of believers come here.
This is what the president of Obnovlenie CJSC, Gennady Maslennikov, who built the Golden Keys, said: “Our apartments were initially priced at high prices. Only the cost of one square meter in 1999 was 4 thousand dollars. Applicants for living in the Golden Keys underwent a strict selection "People came to us with suitcases of money, but our special service weeded out the bandit element."
It is difficult to estimate the current market value of the Medvedevs’ apartment. It depends on what kind of “filling” is inside. For example, a seven-room apartment in the same house, with VIP renovation, with a total area of 286 sq. m. m, was sold for $5.65 million.
Monthly utility bills reach up to $5,000. Who pays the bills is a state secret.
According to data from the Unified Register of Home Owners, in Moscow Dmitry Medvedev owns another apartment at the address: Tikhvinskaya Street, building 4, apt. 35. Total area 174 sq. m. At least in 2005, the surname D.A. was in the owner column. Medvedev. And the wife had a mark in her passport indicating registration at this very address.
Interestingly, according to an extract from the register, before the Medvedevs, these apartments were occupied by 85-year-old pensioner Glukhov. Unfortunately, it was not possible to find out the details from the old man. He lived in Novokosin and has already died. As experienced realtors explained, the pensioner had never been to his elite house on Tikhvinskaya; only his passport was used.
Tikhvin residents are also difficult people: Minister of Internal Affairs Rashid Nurgaliev, Chairman of the Constitutional Court Valery Zorkin.
Let's look at pictures of the palaces of the Russian elite
Putin once said that he works like a slave in the galleys. Look how luxurious these galleys are:
(let's separate the cutlets from the flies, let's not pay attention to the authorship). Each millions of dollars!
And there are also palaces and yachts of Vekselberg, Usmanov, Prokhorov, Abramovich, Lisin, Sechin, Friedman, Trutnev, Rybolovlev, Alekperov, Kuzyaev, Rotenberg, Deripaska, Timchenko, Khan, Melnichenko, Potanin, Mordashov, etc., etc. .
Plus palaces and yachts of governors and heads of republics, mayors and ministers, leaders of parliamentary parties and general directors of factories...
Now let's calculate how much Medvedev stole.
This was discussed in the final Vesti program on the Rossiya1 TV channel on August 28, 2016.
Through incredible mental efforts, Pig Eyes and iPhone degenerated: 5 thousand rubles! One time. After the New Year. Or maybe not everyone. And not after the New Year, but in May. And not 5 thousand. And they won’t pay.
The situation of pensioners, the old cretin says on the program, is normal.
4% towards pension, another scum is lying, it’s 200,400 rubles.
They honestly say that 13 thousand is a small pension. And they nod pitifully - there is one like this in Russia.
4% from 13 thousand rubles = 520 rub.
In 12 months 520 x 12 = 6240. That is those who receive a meager pension were given 1,240 rubles. Let’s say that a million pensioners with such a pension have already put 1.24 billion rubles into their pockets. Those pensioners who receive 20 thousand rubles, they shod on 9600 rubles. 5 thousand = 4.6 thousand per year. From a million pensioners 4.6 billion rubles.
But 13 thousand is not at all the smallest pension. The average minimum pension in Russia in 2015 is 6354 rubles. You will laugh, but The average pension in the Russian Federation in 2015 was 12,400 rubles.
There is no money in total, but you hold on, the capital’s nits stole approximately 40 billion rubles. Good gesheft.
Apparently, part of this money will go to pay traitors to the homeland, those who moved to Israel during difficult times for the country, and now have become pensioners.
Moreover, these brainless sheep do not want to understand the most basic thing: a decrease in demand leads to the curtailment of local production.
Prepared by Boris Ikhlov, 30.8.2016
Interesting article?
On Thursday, Russian oppositionist Alexei Navalny published a serious layer of information visualizing the property of Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, acquired through back-breaking labor. As the head of the Anti-Corruption Foundation boasted, this became their largest investigation.
"Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev is not at all such a harmless and comic character as he seems. Do not be fooled by sleep at meetings, badminton or a passion for gadgets. He is a very cunning and greedy person, clearly slightly obsessed with residences and luxury real estate, who created one one of the largest corruption schemes in the country, and we must give him credit, one of the most sophisticated,” Navalny noted.
The video shows Tuscan vineyards, several rich residences in different places in Russia, etc. One of the key points: how was the author of the “no money” meme able to build such mansions (and more than one) and buy yachts. The Navalny Foundation notes that the key to success is various fake funds, where bribes from oligarchs and banks go under the guise of charitable contributions. Medvedev thus received at least 70 billion rubles (approximately $1.2 billion) in money and property.
“This amount went to the prime minister from bribes from the oligarchs Usmanov and Mikhelson, with money from Gazprombank, which had previously been seen many times in the past to work as a “wallet” to cover the expenses of high-ranking officials, transfers from other companies (for example, a subsidiary of Bashneft) ", the investigation says.
Of course, the prime minister’s speaker, Natalya Timakova, on behalf of the boss, denied everything, calling the FBK investigation a “propaganda attack.” Bots went to the masses with approximately the same theses, recalling the sins of Navalny himself.
One of the persons involved in the investigation, deputy head of the board of Gazprombank Ilya Eliseev, a former classmate of Medevev and the “manager” of his empire, also denies all accusations and calls it “informational stuffing.” “The recent news stories are an example of obvious political propaganda and have no basis in reality,” he said.
And Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky said on his Facebook that if the investigation is true, then both Putin and Medvedev should resign. If not, then Yavlinsky is hinting at cooperation between Navalny and Putin.
But to say that the results of the investigation had the effect of a grenade exploding in a closed room? You won't wait. Russians are not interested in this. And this is not even compromising evidence at all: in the political culture there, such stories gain weight solely on orders from above.
It’s interesting that they talk about this without a shadow of embarrassment. Thus, Ekaterina Shulman, associate professor at the Institute of Social Sciences of RANEPA, in a comment to Dozhd, expressed the opinion that there would be consequences if Medvedev were nominated anywhere. And she reminded that in Russia civil servants do not resign because of information about corruption.
Although Shulman sees in this a certain set of signals that threaten the well-being of the Russian prime minister: “Inside the power machine itself, the appearance of this kind of information is perceived as a signal from one group to another group. Since they do not believe in either civil society or the media, they believe in signals. Some group opposed to the prime minister managed to make this information public in this way. I’m not talking about how much this corresponds to reality, I think that it does not correspond to reality, although it uses those. information that flows in to them from different directions."
Russian blogger Kirill Shulika correctly noted that the fact of corruption at this level is not present in the media: “But here everything is not like that. For us, it is more important that Kokorin drove in the oncoming lane, and Zakharchenko takes away Akhmetov’s property. And only Natalya Timakova modestly said , that “tell it all up” and generally leave me alone. Such a reaction, alas, is quite enough in modern Russia.”
It is also obvious that Medvedev has successfully outdone the scandal with yet another loud statements. The surest way to distract attention is to hit the patient. This is what the head of the Russian government did, fatalistically promising an “indefinitely long” life under sanctions.
Surely Navalny himself did not believe that Medvedev would suddenly be dismissed. So the question remains what he was counting on. To the revolt of network hamsters?
If Russian TV channels and the press for the most part did not notice Medvedev’s 70 billion, then on social networks the reaction was more lively. Everyone remembered the prime minister: the menacing message from 2011 - “The noose around the neck of a corrupt official must tighten inexorably” and sleep at all public events. "" has collected a small selection of such comments and reactions on Facebook and Twitter.
