Today I have a new investigation for you.
People often write in the comments saying they’re tired of stories about dachas—how much more of this can they watch? Everyone already knows that all officials are thieves. Villas, pools, cars, and yachts don’t surprise anyone anymore.
I’ll try to surprise you with something new. This investigation vividly shows both the absurdity and the sheer scale of the problem of Russia’s officialdom.
Actually, all of this came to light during our investigation into Shuvalov’s tsar apartment, but we decided to give it a separate piece because Russia’s deputy prime minister has, excuse me, completely lost it. Lost it on a truly fantastic scale.
I think you won’t be able to find any other word for it yourself once you finish reading this post and watch the short video.
Before, with all those castles and apartments in London, the story of buying up an entire floor in the high-rise on Kotelnicheskaya Embankment, apartments on Kosygin Street, and the Rolls-Royce, I thought he was simply an arrogant crook and a show-off. Now I’m inclined to think he’s more likely insane. Given his monologues about how people should “endure any hardship and give up electricity,” I can only conclude that the deputy prime minister has a serious mental disorder.
He has simply gone mad from the money and power that fell into his lap. Just like in the song: “they go insane because there’s nothing left for them to want.”
The deputy prime minister’s behavior is so outrageous that I even recorded a video. Not just any video, but one featuring a live corgi—I went chasing clicks—because that kind of dog is the star of our new investigation.
There is one subject we at the ACF (Anti-Corruption Foundation) have been interested in for quite a while: private jets. As with yachts, it’s a difficult area—assets like these are always registered to legal entities somewhere in the Caribbean. We regularly receive tips through the Black Box saying that this or that official was seen aboard a private aircraft, but in 99% of cases it is impossible to establish the planes’ true owners.
But here’s the thing. If some official has acquired a private jet, then obviously he’s going to use it. And that’s where tracking websites come in: by tail number, you can follow a jet’s movements almost in real time.
Over time, we have built up a fairly impressive list of private aircraft “under suspicion.” One of them is Shuvalov’s.
Take a look: this is a Bombardier Global Express. One of the most expensive and best aircraft in its class. It has a top speed of 950 km/h (about 590 mph) and can fly nonstop from New York to Tokyo. It is famous for its interiors—the cabin finish on planes like this leaves a lasting impression.
This is not just a picture of a similar aircraft from the internet. This is the specific plane used by Deputy Prime Minister Shuvalov. I’m going to prove it now using open-source data, and you’ll be able to verify everything yourself.
The tail number is M-VQBI. On those same tracking websites, you can trace this aircraft’s movements over the past year. We analyzed the full list of flights, and we no longer have any doubt that it is Shuvalov who flies on this plane.
Here are a few examples.
The aircraft with tail number M-VQBI flies to Vladivostok on September 4, 2015.
And who is speaking at a forum there that very same day? Our Igor Ivanovich.
Or this.
The plane heads to Sochi on October 2, 2015.
That same day, Igor Ivanovich is also there taking part in the Sochi 2015 forum.
Where was Shuvalov mocking 20-square-meter apartments recently? In Kazan, during an official visit.
What an amazing coincidence! The Bombardier Global Express private jet with tail number M-VQBI arrived in Kazan that very same day.
And this happened 13 times. Thirteen times over the past year, the plane flew to places where Shuvalov appeared the same day or the next. Either someone is following Shuvalov around in this private jet, or he is the one flying on it. Given the more exotic destinations like Tehran and Beijing, there is no doubt left. A Russian official is constantly traveling on this $50 million aircraft.
Of course, we didn’t stop at work trips—we analyzed all of the plane’s flights over the year. And that opened the door a crack into the deputy prime minister’s astonishing life outside work.
Can you guess the most frequent route? Where did the private jet fly 18 times over the past year? It’s not hard.
Salzburg. And what’s in Salzburg? A Mozart tour, perhaps? Or the Capuchin monastery?
Not exactly. That’s where the Shuvalovs have their dacha—or rather, a castle. Let me remind you that Shuvalov long denied owning this property, saying the castle was rented, and then in an interview with The New Times he suddenly admitted that the castle was his.
The Bombardier private jet with tail number M-VQBI flew to the “dacha” 18 times in one year. Sometimes several times a week. I’m sure most of you visit your dacha less often even if it’s within 70 kilometers (43 miles) of where you live.
Let me make one thing clear right away. No one had ever heard before that Shuvalov had his own plane. The aircraft does not appear in his asset declaration, and Shuvalov himself has never mentioned it in interviews or anywhere else. The deputy prime minister takes pride in and boasts that he is supposedly completely transparent, that everything is declared, and that he has nothing to hide. So let’s not make a direct accusation that the plane belongs to him—we cannot prove that with documents.
Let’s “believe” the deputy prime minister and assume the plane really is not his. But if it isn’t his and he uses it regularly, then he must be chartering it.
Let’s see how much that pleasure costs.
On a website offering private charter services, we enter the deputy prime minister’s route to the dacha.
And we find the exact same aircraft and the price: $40,000 one way.
And from the dacha you still have to get back to work in Moscow—the round trip costs $80,000. Multiply that by 18 trips and you get $1,440,000. Nearly 100,000,000 rubles a year spent on trips to the dacha.
We could stop right here. Where has anyone ever seen anything like this? Ordinary Russians spend 250 rubles on a commuter train to get to their dacha, while an official with 18 years in office spends 100 million a year. But that’s not all. Fasten your seatbelts, so to speak.
After analyzing the Bombardier’s full list of flights for the year, we were able to identify Shuvalov’s work trips and visits to his foreign properties. But for every such “match,” there were several other routes we simply could not explain: Riga for a day, for example, or Prague for a couple of days in winter. Or Cyprus, while Shuvalov himself was somewhere else entirely. Who was flying on the deputy prime minister’s plane, and where were they going? We genuinely spent a long time trying to figure it out.
The answer turned out to be simple—but very funny.
It is fairly well known that Igor Ivanovich Shuvalov’s wife is a breeder and owner of prize-winning, world-famous corgis. Here you can read her interview on the subject, where she says that as far back as 2007 her dog was already a multiple champion. Olga Shuvalova is also very well known on specialized dog forums.
And on closer inspection, it turned out that the business jet was flying precisely to places where dog shows were being held at the time.
Here is Olga Shuvalova, the deputy prime minister’s wife, a housewife earning 200 million rubles a year:
She and her dogs regularly take part in all kinds of competitions around the world.
Here is the long list of titles held by one of Olga Shuvalova’s dogs:
The top champion in the photo above is named Andvol Pinkerton, or simply Tosha for short. But we managed to find eight more corgis belonging to Shuvalova. These are pedigreed and expensive dogs, so their names and owners are registered. The dogs’ names deserve special attention. Credit where it’s due: the official’s wife has imagination, and the names really are something.
For example, Andvol Tsesarevich.
And here on the right is Andvol Ostap Bender, while on the left is Andvol Hugo Boss.
We also really liked this one: Andvol I Am Your Idol.
And then there’s our favorite: Fox Pack Gabby Joy of the Elves. JOY OF THE ELVES!!!! Everything from “Fox” to “Elves” is the name of a single dog.
Olga Shuvalova, the deputy prime minister’s wife, has taken her animal-breeding hobby to a whole new level. Her corgis, accompanied by special managers, fly to dog shows on a private jet.
On that very same deputy-prime-ministerial plane.
I’m serious.
Through the social media accounts of Shuvalova’s dog managers—they prefer to call themselves “handlers”—we were able to find out where Tosha and Tsesarevich had been this year. We compared that with the movements of Shuvalov’s jet, and it matched exactly: eight perfect coincidences.
At the end of May, the Bombardier flies to Cyprus.
On board is not an official hurrying off to open a couple of offshore companies. It’s a dog. Here is its photo from the Cyprus tour. The Aphrodite dog show was taking place there.
Here the business jet flies to Riga. Shuvalov himself is not there. But who is? That’s right—Tsesarevich!
England is the same story. The plane flew there last week, and right on cue there were fresh photos from Windsor on social media.
Including this one: out for a walk with the owner.
In the end, we found eight unambiguous matches involving the dogs. By exact, I mean cases where we have both the flight route and a photo of a specific Shuvalov corgi in that place on that day. There are most likely more, but about these eight we are 100% certain.
But if anyone still has doubts, here is the ace up the sleeve.
Did you catch that? The dog manager writes that Shuvalov’s pets AREN’T AS COMFORTABLE IN BUSINESS CLASS. Smiley face.
Well of course—how could that not make us smile? Admit it: you have almost certainly never flown business class at all. Or maybe once or twice, using miles instead of paying cash.
That’s what you have in common with Shuvalov’s dog—it doesn’t fly business class either. It’s not comfortable enough.
This is Pinkerton and Tsesarevich, I assume, aboard that very Bombardier on which Shuvalov flies around on deputy-prime-minister business. We could not have been given a better photograph, because it identifies everything beyond doubt.
Let’s compare this photo with the Bombardier’s brochure photos, taken when it was put up for sale:
As you can see for yourself, it’s clear down to the exact seat where the corgis are flying.
We compiled a large table of flights and roughly calculated that the flights to dog shows alone cost the Shuvalovs 40,000,000 rubles.
You can also examine Shuvalov’s flights in calendar form and on a map. And here are screenshots of all the flights.
Those of you who are especially meticulous can check all the dates, routes, and calculations.
For the sake of completeness, I suggest you take a look at the gallery of adventures of Pinkerton, Tsesarevich, and Fox Pack Joy of the Elves.
Take a look at this photograph.
In the background is the door of Shuvalov’s Austrian castle. For 4 years (!!!) we tried to find reliable photos—almost everything previously published by the media turned out to be a neighboring house—we ordered land registry extracts and documents, and here it is at last! Fox Pack (or is it Tsesarevich? or Hugo Boss?) led us straight to Shuvalov’s secret property.
Now we can say with 100% certainty: this is the Shuvalovs’ Austrian dacha. Great, isn’t it? Everything has fallen into place. Here are the high-res images and the documents for the deputy prime minister’s Austrian castle. Just don’t laugh—the house is only 1,500 m². But the land is 25,943 m², so there’s plenty of room to walk the dogs.
The moral and the conclusions.
As I wrote above, they have all gone mad there in the Kremlin. Truly mad. They stole the petrodollars raining from the sky—let me remind you that during Putin’s rule, Russia received $3 trillion from oil and gas sales. Then they legalized what they stole through “business.” Then they convinced themselves that they had earned it rather than stolen it. They came to believe they deserved this wealth. They bought castles and estates. They created family coats of arms—Shuvalov, for example, has one with owls on it.
They imagined themselves to be aristocracy. And little by little, they really did go insane. A madman does not necessarily sit there drooling. His disorder may also take the form of flying dogs around on a plane.
I simply cannot imagine where else something like this could happen. In no country, not even the most corrupt, could this possibly be normal. Yes, there are sheikhs who buy gold Lamborghinis, but in those countries every citizen is given money at birth for living expenses and for studying at any university in the world. The population is small and the oil wealth is vast.
Meanwhile, in our country, 22.9 million people live below the poverty line. That means 20% of the population is practically destitute, while this man spends 40 million rubles a year flying dogs around.
And don’t tell me, “Shuvalov is rich, he can afford it.” Even if his money were honestly earned—which it is not—it is still inconceivable that a government official, the first deputy chairman of the government, should spend 170 million rubles a year on private-jet flights, 40 million of that on transporting dogs.
It is abnormal, immoral, insane. You can find plenty of epithets for it. It would be abnormal for an ordinary person; for a public official, it is simply unimaginable.
And of all senior officials, Shuvalov is the one who most often urges Russians to tighten their belts. Remember that line: “eat less, use less electricity”.
Yes, let’s all eat less, because business class is not good enough for your dog.
I really want you to help spread both this post and the video.
It is election season now, and United Russia will once again tell us how much they care about the people and what a social welfare state we have. Let the whole country throw Shuvalov in their faces—his property, his dogs, and his lifestyle. Let every candidate for parliament from every party answer one question: can a public official live like this?
And don’t forget that Medvedev heads United Russia’s party list, while Shuvalov is his first deputy and in practice runs the government while Medvedev performs the inevitable ceremonial role.
This should become a central issue of the election campaign: the corruption, wealth, and lifestyle of our officials, including Shuvalov as an example.
After “Chaika”, many people wrote to us asking: why did you stop making DMP leaflets (printable campaign flyers)? I want to put one up in my apartment building entrance and enlighten the grandmas. We took that into account, and here is a leaflet for you:
Download it here. Print it out on your home or office printer and put it up in apartment building entrances. It’s all for you—just spread it around.
For people to start talking about this, they first have to know about it. Help however you can. Thanks in advance.
And if you support what the Anti-Corruption Foundation does, go here—it is only thanks to you that we remain independent and investigate what we believe needs investigating.
Update: After the investigation was published, Olga Shuvalova confirmed that the plane belongs to the Shuvalov family, saying: “we transport our dogs on our own plane to international shows, where we uphold Russia’s honor”:
