A terrific piece by Proekt about the Kremlin’s chief censor, Alexei Gromov, who—hilariously—is actually Alexei Grobov, but changed his last name to one that sounded more impressive.
It was long past time someone wrote about this guy. He keeps a low profile—I honestly didn’t even know what he looked like—but the ways he makes money should be of interest to a wide audience.
The guy doesn’t mind making money even off trips by Putin’s press pool: a Gromov-linked company is assigned to handle them, and media outlets transfer money to it for hotel bookings, tickets, and all that.
And that’s not all: his 24-year-old darling son is in business with Deripaska. He also does business with Abramovich.
A 500-square-meter apartment in the Tishinka area of Moscow.
A 1,000-square-meter house on Rublyovka (an elite residential area outside Moscow).
And of course, the man has spent his entire life in government service.
There’s also a separate section on how the Simonyan-Keosayan family makes its money.
All in all, respect to Proekt. It’s great that they appeared and that they exist.
Let’s read them, and the piece on Gromov clearly deserves to be shared widely.