After our investigation into Deputy Prime Minister Shuvalov’s tsar-like apartment was published, many attentive readers were struck by one detail: after Shuvalov bought the first apartments there, the building underwent a truly massive capital renovation funded by the state budget, at a cost of 3 billion rubles.
We started receiving letters that said roughly the following:
Guys, we liked the investigation, we can see all the documents, and Shuvalov’s representative confirmed everything. But admit it — you exaggerated (or got mixed up) about the capital renovation.
First, there’s no way a capital renovation for a single building could cost that much. 3 billion rubles. That’s something out of fantasy — comparable to the size of the capital repair fund for an entire small region. And here we’re talking about just one building, even if it is a big one.
Second, by law, a capital renovation can’t be paid for out of the state budget. These renovations are now financed by the regional capital repair fund, which is made up of the monthly fees we all pay.
That’s absolutely right, my dears.
No one is ever going to spend 3 billion rubles renovating your building. And it is completely impossible for the state budget to pay for your renovation — first you have to make those payments yourself for about thirty years.
There’s just one small detail you forgot: you’re not a deputy prime minister.
For officials, even the wealthiest ones, everything works differently. You pay for their capital renovations. And yes, it really does cost 3 billion rubles.
Read Lyubov Sobol’s major investigation: "Who is carrying out the illegal capital renovation of the building on Kotelnicheskaya Embankment, where 10 apartments were bought for Shuvalov."
It’s all laid out in detail, with documents.
There is even a document showing the source of funding:
There are also some remarkable stories about the mafia-style collusion between the organizer of the tender and the company that won the renovation contract.
And then there’s one absolutely delightful detail: this grand-scale capital renovation supposedly includes replacing the heating system, hot and cold water pipes, and communication lines. That’s why it costs so much, the contractor tells us. But Lyuba discovers that this work had already been funded separately in 2011.
How could it be otherwise?
In short, read it to be absolutely sure of one thing: every month, when you pay toward your future capital renovation, you are paying not only for yourself, but also for the “statesman” Igor Ivanovich Shuvalov, who gets everything for free.
P.S. Here you can read a good, detailed alternative investigation, unrelated to the ACF (Anti-Corruption Foundation). Its conclusions are the same.