About a year and a half ago, we learned that Artyom Chaika (the son of Prosecutor General Chaika) owns a hotel in Greece. We decided to dig deeper.
The first surprise came when we found out that no one even knows what he looks like (everything online labeled "Artyom Chaika" is not actually him).
The second surprise came when we realized that the hotel was far too expensive for the scale of corruption one would expect even a prosecutor’s son to be able to afford.
And when we found out with whom, and with what money, Artyom Chaika bought this hotel, our hair stood on end. Twenty times over we said, "No, this can’t be true—they’re from the prosecutor’s office," and then we decided to carry out a thorough investigation and tell you about the money of Prosecutor General Chaika’s family.
That was the beginning of the case that became the biggest investigation we have ever conducted. In Greece, Switzerland, Irkutsk, Krasnodar Krai, and Kaluga. We studied offshore documents and property registries, and searched for customs declarations for steamships privatized 13 years ago. We tracked down relatives of murdered people and spoke to those whose businesses had been taken away. We examined, by name, the biographies of everyone helping the Chaikas organize their criminal schemes—from Swiss lawyers to prosecutors in the Moscow region and Artyom Chaika’s former classmates. Throughout these eighteen months, many people helped us: they photographed the Chaika family’s luxury properties in Europe, spoke with neighbors, employees working for the Prosecutor General’s family, and people who had crossed paths with Chaika over the past 15 years. Many thanks to these brave and courageous people who helped us.
Today, the Anti-Corruption Foundation presents to you, with both pride and sadness, the investigation "Chaika." With pride, because we were able to describe and document in considerable detail this "business," built on extortion, kickbacks, and corporate raiding. Going all the way back to 1999.
With sadness, because how can anyone feel happy on learning that the children of your country’s prosecutor general do business with murderers, and that in a case about their seizure of a business you have to read a description of a "ligature mark on the neck".
There was so much material that we could have written a book. But you understand, no bookstore would carry that book. So we made a film instead:
And alongside the film, there is a large interactive feature with far more detail, all the documents, and many interesting specifics about how our investigation was conducted. We thought that might interest you too: where things come from, and how this or that fact is uncovered.
If you prefer watching, watch
If you prefer reading, read.
This investigation is tremendously important, in my view, and I am asking all of you to help spread it. You can see what is happening right now. The cunning Kremlin has completely pushed discussion of any domestic Russian issues out of the news agenda. The whole country—from political analysts to grandmothers sitting outside their apartment buildings—has been discussing Ukraine, then the United States, then Merkel, then the Minsk agreements, then France, then Syria, and now Turkey.
This is being done entirely deliberately: it is obvious that we have problems more important than Lord Curzon, the Entente, Erdogan, and some Assad living thousands of kilometers from our borders. The collapse of public utilities and housing services, and corruption, cannot be solved with a TV segment saying "Obama is an idiot," so they have to keep inventing wars in order to say: now is not the time to talk about corruption, the enemy is at the gates, Damascus—a holy city for Russians—is about to fall.
We want everyone to watch this film. Then people will understand more quickly what kind of catastrophe is really unfolding in Russia: the rule of the worst and the destruction of the state.
Helping us is simple: send the links to your friends and acquaintances, and recommend that they watch/read it. Drop the links into your messenger chats or company mailing lists. Share them on your social networks and write a few words about what you yourself think of it.
In our country, 50 million people go online every day; can we really not get our story to 20 million of them? This blog is read by 1.3 million users a month—five minutes of effort and 10 clicks from each person, and we will reach our goal.
Don’t be lazy. Remember: all that is needed for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.
And in conclusion, here is the Conclusion. This section is how our longread ends. It really is "long," so in case you do not make it to the end: