Yesterday, Novaya Gazeta published a great action-packed investigation into how its reporters went looking for Medvedev’s “charitable” foundations—the entities to which all his palaces and country estates have been assigned. Spoiler: the foundations exist only “on paper,” and they call media inquiries “void.”
A reminder: the entire legal trick behind Medvedev’s corruption empire is to register multibillion-ruble assets under nonprofit foundations. It is very convenient: there is simply no specific individual owner. The property is registered to a charitable organization and belongs to it, not to its founder.
Medvedev put his friends and former classmates in charge of the foundations. They look after the estate, while he merely gives instructions—where to buy decanters, where to order an NTV-style outdoor cinema setup (?!), and where to get a full staff of maids.
Meanwhile, the foundations receive billions of rubles from oligarchs and banks. Novatek shareholders Mikhelson and Simanovsky contribute 33 billion rubles, Usmanov gifts country houses on Rublyovka (an elite residential area outside Moscow), and so on.
Just look at the annual donations. In 2015, Russia’s largest charitable foundation, *Podari Zhizn* (“Gift of Life”), received 1.8 billion rubles:
In that same year, the Dar Foundation—which treats no one, saves no one, and merely serves Medvedev’s interests—received a comparable amount: 1.4 billion rubles.
And that is despite the fact that they still had 7.5 billion rubles left over from the previous year. The foundation is literally being buried in “donations.” They do not even need more, yet the money just keeps coming.
That same year, the Sotsgosproekt Foundation—which owns a mansion on Rublyovka and vineyards in Anapa—received another 1 billion rubles.
What does Dar do with the billions it receives every year? As of today, Dar does not even formally own anything except apartments with car elevators in a historic mansion in St. Petersburg. What are they spending the money on?
And what does Sotsgosproekt spend its billion on? Clearing leaves from 4 hectares (about 10 acres) of land on Rublyovka? Where are the socially significant state projects it is supposed to support?
And how does the Foundation for the Support of Winter Olympic Sports spend its money? Judging by the photos on Medvedev’s Instagram, they do not even clear the snow from the grounds—the lamp posts are completely buried. Where are their gold-plated bobsleigh tracks?
We could have learned all this from the annual report that nonprofit foundations are REQUIRED to submit to the Ministry of Justice. But we will not. Because, in blatant violation of the law, Medvedev’s foundations submit nothing to anyone.
Look: a *Novaya Gazeta* reporter tried to get into the office of Medvedev’s “charitable” foundations—probably the richest nonprofit organizations in Russia.
This is the office of the Dar Foundation. The country house in Plyos was registered to this foundation, and 4,000 hectares (about 9,900 acres) of land are leased by the foundation’s management company for 40 rubles a year.
Who is that over there in the green vest? Could it be banker Ilya Yeliseyev, chairman of the Dar Foundation’s supervisory board?
The foundation simply is not there at its official registered address. There is a construction site there.
Now take a look at this back alley. This is where the Gradislava Foundation is located—the owner of the Milovka estate in Plyos.
Another back alley—this is where the foundation that owns the mountain residence in Psekhako is based.
And here is a report from the scene:
And when Novaya asked for the financial report that, once again, ALL NONPROFITS ARE REQUIRED TO PUBLISH, the foundation replied that it considers the request void.
For our part, we consider it pathetic to try to hide the fact that these organizations are, in reality, Dmitry Medvedev’s personal pocket foundations.
In our investigation, we wrote that these “charitable” foundations, which at first glance appear unrelated, are in fact run by the same people. That despite having different founders, they are actually woven into a single corruption network.
And here is yet another piece of proof. A few hours before publishing the investigation, we called the Meritage management company and asked to be put through to the foundations’ leadership. Without the slightest hesitation, a Meritage employee gave us the phone numbers for the Foundation for the Support of Winter Olympic Sports, the Dar Foundation, and—most interestingly—the Sotsgosproekt Foundation. He then teasingly asked where we had gotten such information. We recorded the call:
This is the one hundred and fifty-seventh piece of evidence that all these nonprofit foundations are in fact one giant corrupt foundation belonging to Dmitry Medvedev. A foundation that receives unprecedentedly huge loans from Gazprombank, into which oligarchs pour tens of billions in “donations,” and which can afford to ignore the law and disclose absolutely nothing about its activities.
But there are no inspections of Medvedev’s foundations. The leadership of these organizations considers inquiries “void.” People who came out to protest are being arrested. And the Ministry of Justice responds to our request about all these foundations with a boilerplate brush-off.
We would very much like to attach a copy of the Ministry of Justice’s brush-off reply here. But we cannot. The letter was left in the ACF office, which has been sealed off and blocked by police officers and the FSB for four days now.
It is Medvedev’s foundations that are breaking the law, yet somehow it is our foundation that has been sealed and blocked. It is Medvedev’s foundations that take billions in bribes, yet the FSB prowls around not the Dar Foundation at night, but the Anti-Corruption Foundation. All the equipment was removed not from the Sotsgosproekt Foundation, but from our office. The people being arrested are not those who keep Medvedev’s corruption empire running, but the ACF employees who exposed it.
But there is no reason to despair. Police officers and FSB agents can loiter in our office for as long as they like, study our documents, and dig through our computers. We will continue publishing investigations into the billions belonging to the officials they guard so diligently.