Today we continue a story that is very important to talk about. Because its main character, State Duma deputy Slutsky, one of the most repulsive figures we have ever had to deal with, got away with it. And that is wrong.
Most of you know Slutsky as the lawmaker who sexually harassed several female journalists. He called them “bunnies,” made unwanted advances, and behaved in an utterly disgusting and boorish way. Despite the audio recordings, the testimony of three journalists, and a meeting of the ethics commission, Slutsky did not even receive a reprimand.
In our previous investigation into Slutsky, we established that he is also known as a psychotic driver who completely ignores traffic laws. In just 9 months, he racked up 825 traffic fines.
At the same time, we found that Slutsky had an undeclared plot of land on Rublyovka (an ultra-elite residential area outside Moscow). He had kept it out of his disclosures for ten years. After our statement, Slutsky suddenly remembered the plot and added it to his new declaration. Natalia Poklonskaya, the chair of the commission responsible for checking such matters, was not bothered in the slightest—so what, a deputy forgot to declare a hectare of land on Rublyovka. An everyday situation, it happens to everyone.
What did concern Natalia Poklonskaya was something else—namely, where we got the SECRET information about Slutsky’s plot. She said investigators were looking into ACF (the Anti-Corruption Foundation) for, attention please, unlawfully obtaining information about a deputy’s property.
That statement came out a while ago, but it took us some time to cool down and recover from a permanent state of facepalming. So, the obvious: our “inside scoop” came from Rosreestr, Russia’s public real estate registry. For 300 rubles, anyone can obtain this “secret” information. Even Natalia Poklonskaya.
And now we will clearly demonstrate how to use this amazing and mysterious service.
Helping us do that will be Deputy Slutsky and the notorious property developer Sergei Polonsky.
So. In January 2017, a huge number of media outlets and news agencies reported that businessman Sergei Polonsky had filed a complaint with the prosecutor general and was demanding a criminal case against deputies Slutsky and Resin. Polonsky claimed that the deputies had received a penthouse from him as a bribe.
Polonsky is certainly a strange man and not a particularly decent one, but there is absolutely nothing stopping anyone from simply checking his claims. Just as an experiment.
As you can see from the screenshot above, this is about the Kutuzovskaya Riviera residential complex. Finding its address takes exactly five seconds, and then just a few more minutes are needed to order Rosreestr extracts for all the apartments on the top floors—that is, the penthouses.
Fortunately, there are only 16 of them, so the job is not especially difficult—and besides, we already know exactly whom we are looking for.
This woman: Lidiya Dmitrievna Lyskova.
Her name probably means nothing to you, but we have been dealing with Slutsky for a long time, so we recognize her. She is Slutsky’s wife.
Any doubts about “someone with the exact same name” and so on can be dismissed as follows. First, here is Slutsky’s official declaration.
There, under his wife’s property, we see a “non-residential premises” measuring 561.7 square meters. At first glance, this “non-residential premises” might seem like some warehouse in Khimki, but no—it is that very penthouse. The floor area matches the Rosreestr extract down to a tenth of a square meter.
Second, here is a screenshot from an old vehicle database that leaked long ago. You can find it simply by googling Slutsky’s wife’s full name. A car with the plate A700MP is registered to her.
And here is who uses a Lexus with that plate:
Meduza, incidentally, writes that Lyskova is the official owner of this Lexus. Yet it does not appear anywhere in the declaration—neither as owned nor as used.
What the declaration does show, however, is TWO new cars purchased in 2017. A Maybach for 12 million rubles. That is two and a half of Slutsky’s annual salaries. And a brand-new Bentley SUV. For 20 million rubles. That is four of Slutsky’s annual salaries. So where is all this money coming from?
Since we are talking about salaries: from declarations over several years, we know Slutsky’s wife’s income. In 2010, for example, she earned 7,000 rubles a month. That was, incidentally, roughly the subsistence minimum for that year. The same the following year. And so on up to 2017—now she earns around 20,000 rubles a month. In other words, she either does not work or works only nominally. So where did she get $6 million to buy a three-story penthouse?
In other investigations, we usually joke—maybe he found buried treasure, maybe he won the lottery—but what is there to joke about here? The developer of this building is openly saying that THE PENTHOUSE WAS TRANSFERRED AS A BRIBE. He claims he sent a complaint directly to Prosecutor General Chaika personally.
And did anyone check? Did anyone besides us spend 10 minutes looking into real estate worth 400 million rubles owned by someone earning 7,000 a month? In fact, any person could do this entire investigation, with all the evidence, in half an hour. Do they not know how to use Google over there? Can they not find the address of Kutuzovskaya Riviera? Apparently not. Nobody did anything. Not the prosecutor’s office, not Volodin, not Poklonskaya.
There are two possibilities here: either the country’s key agencies are headed by incompetent, unqualified idlers who are incapable of doing anything, or they are simply engaged in criminally covering for Slutsky. Actually, no—there is a third possibility. Both.
Slutsky could declare 10 penthouses and 20 Maybachs, and his colleagues would still understand and excuse him. That is their main function and the only reason they were appointed to these high positions. They are incapable of anything else.
Let us end with the obvious. Deputy Slutsky is corrupt, perverted, and psychopathic. He must resign immediately.
Thank you.