The Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF) has waged, is waging, and will continue to wage a holy war against Vladimir Yakunin, the (for now) head of Russian Railways, who has become the very embodiment of corruption in Russia, thanks in part to our investigations.
Now that all eyes are on our favorite subject, we’ve decided to remind you of the milestones in his illustrious biography.
Everything you need to know about the model Putin-era state businessman.
The corruption portfolio of a future senator. Read it yourself—then pass it on.
Vladimir Yakunin owns an unbelievably luxurious country estate outside Moscow. Despite careful efforts to conceal ownership (transferring it to a Cyprus offshore company, etc.), the entire property bears Vladimir Ivanovich’s trademark imperial style: a gold-decorated prayer room, a garage bay for a Maybach, and, of course, the legendary fur storage room. Recently, the list of buildings on the grounds was expanded with a "house for gatekeepers."
Naturally, this is not just some country plot in Akulinino, but one that was illegally seized as well. Yakunin even blocked off a river so that no enemy could approach his estate by water. Unknown men in uniform, with dogs, guard the property even from the forest side.
The head of Russian Railways (soon to be former) does not neglect other luxury items either. Yakunin gives lectures and publishes books about how consumerism and the culture of consumption are society’s main problem, imposed on us by the West. And yet that cursed West somehow forced Vladimir Ivanovich to consume a watch worth 11 million rubles.
Now to the family: Yakunin’s elder son, Andrei, is a dollar millionaire. As he says himself in interviews, he achieved everything on his own, though he notes that his surname is "a kind of brand." Nevertheless, most of his "successful business" is inseparably tied to Russian Railways. Andrei Yakunin spends his millions, for example, on buying a mansion in London worth £4.5 million.
How did the younger Yakunin make his millions? Why, through "honest business," of course—for example, the RGS hotel chain, most of whose properties are located on land near railway stations. The land was allocated through Russian Railways structures, while financing was provided by the Blagosostoyanie pension fund, where the money of 3 million Russian Railways employees is kept on a nominally voluntary but effectively compulsory basis.
Yakunin’s other business also deserves attention—he is a property developer. It was his company, Tristar Investment, that was granted the famous "House with Lions" in St. Petersburg for restoration by decree of Valentina Matviyenko. The younger Yakunin turned the building into a Four Seasons hotel and for a long time pretended it was a purely commercial project. But quite recently, all of his restoration costs—$250 million—were reimbursed from the state budget.
Among other things, the Cyprus-based company VIY, which holds most of Yakunin’s assets and is directly affiliated with Andrei Yakunin, also owns a business that sells railway tickets at a markup. This offshore company owns the Russian firm UFS—an exclusive intermediary whose services are used by every website that sells tickets. The markup, or "service fee," from each ticket ends up in that very Cyprus offshore company.
Once again: the Cyprus company of the son of the head of Russian Railways is the exclusive seller of electronic rail tickets. To this day.
Now UFS has gone even further and runs the hotel booking system through the Russian Railways website. The markup remains. Even after leaving the post of head of Russian Railways, Yakunin will continue profiting from both the sale of electronic tickets and hotel bookings through the site.
And even that is not all—the Anti-Corruption Foundation published an investigation showing that the same Cyprus offshore company, VIY, supplies geogrids used to reinforce slopes and railway tracks. Naturally, on exclusive terms. The total value of the contracts won is 1 billion rubles. It is hard to imagine a more blatant and textbook example of corruption and abuse of office: the company of the son of the head of Russian Railways supplies Russian Railways with materials for building rail lines.
At the age of 7, Yakunin’s grandson became the owner of a four-room apartment measuring 157 square meters in a government residential building at 12 Rochdelskaya Street. He received ownership of it directly from the Presidential Property Management Department. Previously, the apartment had been given to his grandfather for temporary use. Apparently, he grew attached to the place.
All this time, Yakunin has flatly refused to publish his asset declaration. It is so important to him that no one learn what he really owns that he even threatened to leave Russian Railways if he were forced to report his income and property.
Perhaps this is the only positive aspect of Yakunin’s appointment as a senator. Now he definitely won’t be able to wriggle out of publishing his declaration every year. Just imagine the frantic activity now underway in the Cyprus office of lawyer Vera Lysiotis, the nominal owner of the "Russian Railways empire," as she hurriedly re-registers Yakunin’s assets to newly created offshore companies. I am almost certain that by the time the 2015 declarations are published, Vladimir Yakunin will turn out to be one of the poorest members of the Federation Council (the upper house of Russia’s parliament).
Let me repeat the obvious: every single episode listed above is sufficient grounds for immediate dismissal and the opening of a criminal case.
This list does not even include many of our other published investigations—about the Swiss apartment of Yakunin’s other son, about the endless number of charitable foundations across Europe that carry out no actual activity, about the construction of a residential complex on the former site of a railway station in St. Petersburg, about the seaport of Ust-Luga, and much more besides. In addition, we still have an entire archive of unpublished investigations into Yakunin that will inevitably come to light sooner or later.