Well then, let’s take this as a sign for all of us. It can hardly be a mere coincidence that the real start of the election campaign is being given today both by us—with this investigation—and by United Russia leader Dmitry Medvedev, who has published a programmatic open letter to party members and supporters.
The prime minister specifically noted that the “arrogance and boorishness” of certain United Russia members would be helped along by “external watchdogs” conducting investigations.
We appreciate this attention to the work of the ACF (Anti-Corruption Foundation), and we are offering the public exactly that kind of “oversight investigation,” although at this stage we no longer think anything can really be remedied. When it comes to United Russia, only two words are appropriate: Lord, burn it all down.
Today really is the first day of the real election campaign. It is underway in nearly a third of the country’s regions, but the main and decisive battle is, of course, in Moscow.
The countdown has begun: the final four days during which we can give our signatures to independent candidates. That will determine whether only the “systemic opposition” will be allowed to take part in the election, or whether genuine opposition candidates will too. Our laziness is the key factor here—couldn’t find 15 minutes to go sign? United Russia thanks you.
Next week you will definitely see a disgusting spectacle in which Sobyanin and the main subject of our investigation, acting through the election commissions, will declare the genuine signatures of independent candidates to be fake, while treating the fabricated signatures of “United Russia self-nominees” as valid. They are terrified of independents—today’s Levada Center poll says that Yashin will crush the United Russia candidate in his district.
And then we will enter the final stretch of campaigning so that on September 8 we can vote and answer the main question: does United Russia have the right to keep 85% of the seats in the Moscow parliament?
I believe it does not, and I will do everything I can to make sure you go and leave your signature in these remaining four days. Register for Smart Voting, and on September 8 vote for the candidate whose support gives the best chance of defeating the United Russia candidate and, ideally, depriving United Russia of its majority.
I can’t force you to do it. But I can try to persuade you.
So here are 40 minutes of new arguments.
When we say “United Russia,” we are not talking about an abstraction—we mean specific people. These are the leaders who will sit in parliamentary seats, collect salaries paid from our pockets, and pass the laws we will live under.
United Russia is now telling all Muscovites: the leader of our party in Moscow is Andrei Metelsky. He has been chosen. He is the best of us. He will lead us forward.
And today we say in response: dear party of power, Metelsky really is the perfect leader for people like you. The head of United Russia in Moscow, deputy speaker of the Moscow City Duma, Andrei Metelsky, is a crook and a thief the likes of which we have not seen in a long time. A secret business in Austria, hundreds of millions of rubles in bank accounts, offshore companies, hotels, car dealerships, restaurants, construction firms—this is only a small part of what we found. And all of it is registered in the name of his 75-year-old mother.
Watch—and help us show everyone else.
Andrei Nikolaevich Metelsky. Here he is, our lawmaker.
One of the longest-serving deputies in the Moscow City Duma, an official since 2001, a member of the presidium of United Russia’s general council. The head of the party in Moscow. He has sat in the city parliament for four consecutive terms and is now aiming for a fifth. He represents the districts of Golyanovo, Severnoye Izmaylovo, and Metrogorodok. If you are registered there, stay alert. Most absurd of all, Metelsky is running as an independent nominee. The head of the party is running as an independent. Collecting signatures door to door (not really).
A couple more preliminaries. Metelsky has an asset declaration. It is empty. The income is decent enough—7 million rubles—but there is no real estate. No cars. His wife’s income is basically nonexistent too.
Metelsky also has a mother. She is 75 years old and has been retired for 20 years. There are two unusual things about her. The first and main one is her financial status—at least $100 million. The second is her name. Her name is Eldibitta Vasilievna Metelskaya.
Thanks to that unique name, Metelsky’s mother’s assets are outrageously easy to find. Look: just type “eldibitta” into Google—you do not even need the surname:
And the very first results say that Eldibitta Metelskaya is a major hotel owner with her own chain of hotels. But for some reason the links are in German. Why might that be? Because her hotels are in Austria.
The Metelskys’ Austrian story began surprisingly long ago—12 years earlier, in 2007. Back when there were no sanctions, no wars, no international isolation. When Putin had not even finished his second term, and Moscow’s mayor was not Sobyanin but Luzhkov. And it was then, in 2007, that deputy Metelsky made a key decision: everything he stole in Russia would be stashed abroad.
And in order to pull this off secretly and unnoticed, he registered it all in the names of relatives and a friend. Let’s meet them right now—they will be the main characters throughout this investigation.
1) Mother—we have already met her—Eldibitta Metelskaya, born in 1944.
2) Son—Andrei Andreevich Metelsky, born in 1993.
Friend—Pyotr Sergeyevich Ivanovsky. Metelsky himself called him a “longtime friend” in comments to the media. That friendship later brought Ivanovsky into the Moscow City Duma itself: he too was a United Russia deputy and served as vice president of the United Russia support fund in Moscow. Today he is the official adviser to the deputy speaker of the Moscow City Duma—that is, to Metelsky himself. Here he is listed on the Duma’s website.
We will hardly need anyone else. Everything I am about to discuss in this section on Austria is registered in the names of these three people. With your permission, I will skip the whole charade of pretending that a retired woman named Eldibitta or a 17-year-old boy bought these hotels. These are all rather poorly chosen front people for Metelsky himself.
In 2007, Metelsky bought this hotel—Maximilian. It is located in the village of Serfaus, in Tyrol, in the Austrian Alps. It is a fairly large ski resort. In winter, naturally, it is full of skiers, and in summer there are plenty of tourists hiking in the mountains and breathing the Alpine air.
The purchase price was €5 million. Where did he get that money at the time? Unknown. He had already been a deputy for six years; he simply could not have had it. And what is more, this was hardly the last of his savings.
Exactly one year later, he bought another hotel, 500 meters away. It is smaller, but it has its own restaurant with a panoramic view. It is called Tirolerhof.
That cost him another €3.5 million.
Do not think this was some soulless investment, just a way to make money. The Metelskys vacation there every year, and often several times a year. They spent this past New Year there in Serfaus, for example.
A few words about his wife, Tatyana Metelskaya, since the subject has come up. She is Metelsky’s second wife (more on the first later), and the daughter of another Moscow City Duma deputy, Irina Velikanova. Velikanova senior recently left her post, but remained an official—Metelsky’s mother-in-law now heads the State Central Museum of Contemporary History of Russia.
Of course, I would like to show you more beautiful views and photos, but we need to move on. The next, the Metelskys’ third hotel, is a 10-minute drive away.
This time we are in the neighboring village of Ried. Just as beautiful as Serfaus.
There is a monument on Austrian soil to the famous “castling move” (a reference to Putin and Medvedev swapping offices). Here it is.
You may remember that on September 24, 2012, Medvedev announced that he and Putin were switching places and Putin would become president again. The head of United Russia in Moscow, Andrei Metelsky, was no doubt delighted. But for some reason, over the next three days he grabbed another €7 million—I have no idea where he got it—moved it out of Russia, and bought the third hotel in his collection: Mozart.
A strange-looking tube juts out from the hotel at the level of the fifth floor, and our theory is that the other end has been plugged directly into the Moscow city budget to make it easier for United Russia to suck money out of the country. Then again, it might just be a waterslide.
I very much hope you are not tired of Austria, because we still have another 600 km to travel across it. To Vienna. Where Metelsky has another hotel. And not just a hotel.
Take a look. In this photo, Metelsky’s Strudlhof hotel is on the left, and the historic staircase is on the right. This is a very famous spot in Vienna, packed with tourists.
Because it leads here: to the Strudlhof Palace.
Not especially remarkable from the outside, but highly significant historically. Formally speaking, World War I began here. You remember: Serbs killed the Austrian archduke, the Austrians issued the Serbs a deliberately unacceptable ultimatum, and the war began. Well, that ultimatum—the “July Ultimatum”—was signed in this very palace. In the 1970s, it also hosted disarmament talks between the USSR and the United States.
This place has been owned by all sorts of people—the royal family, diplomats, embassies. And now it belongs to the “new aristocrats”: the family of Moscow United Russia politician Metelsky. They bought it in 2010 for more than €20 million.
We carefully examined the Austrian companies through which all this is held and found a couple more interesting details. For example, about €40 million was spent buying up the four Austrian hotels.
And the Metelskys poured at least another €12 million into this business. They literally moved that money out of Russia and into Austria.
The entire business, by the way, is completely unprofitable. It is drowning in debt. Can you guess who is issuing them loans in Austria?
The Austrian branch of the Russian state-owned bank VTB.
At the moment, this entire Austrian empire—four hotels and a palace—belongs to three individuals. Andrei Metelsky Jr. has 49%, transferred to him this January by his beloved grandmother. Pyotr Ivanovsky has 31%, and the remaining 20% belongs to an Austrian manager named Leonovich. The hotels themselves are held through legal entities, but the scheme is fairly simple: the parent company, Maximilian Holding, owns three other companies, which in turn own the hotels.
Again, more for the record and for connoisseurs, we sketched out what all this looks like legally.
And here you can find a folder of documents from the Austrian corporate registry. It includes information on the founders and financial statements—you can verify everything yourself if you read German.
You, dear readers, may well ask: why are they doing all this in Austria? Why is Moscow’s top United Russia politician, with all his endless financial and corrupt resources, building hotels there instead of in Moscow?
Oh, he is building in Moscow too—do not worry.
Austria is all very nice, of course, but the most interesting story is unfolding not there but right under our noses, near Paveletsky railway station in Moscow.
The plot outlined in red on the image covers about 1.2 hectares. By 2021, a hotel and a residential apartment complex totaling 14,500 square meters are supposed to be built here. This will supposedly be done by deputy Metelsky’s mother Eldibitta, the owner of the land, who by then will be nearly 80 years old.
The decision to build a hotel here was made quite a while ago—in 2013.
The plans have changed many times; at this point there is hardly any point in figuring out which version is the latest.
But as you can plainly see, not only is this project nowhere to be found—there is no hotel here at all. The only thing worth noting is this historic building, the former Kozhevnicheskiye Baths. It appears on every list of Moscow constructivist landmarks thanks to its majolica-tile frieze. The building belongs to one of Metelskaya’s companies. Most of their firms are registered here.
It is, in fact, a rather strange story. How did it happen that a hectare of extremely valuable land in central Moscow has sat idle for six years and will sit idle for three more?
There is an explanation. It can be found in the rulings of the Moscow Arbitration Court. To put it mildly, Eldibitta Metelskaya “screwed over” her partners, and they have been battling her in court for a long time.
So, here is the gist of the case, which you can study in full detail here.
Eldibitta Metelskaya decided to build a huge hotel in central Moscow. Although what Eldibitta? Let’s call things by their proper names. It was deputy Metelsky who decided to build the hotel. He is not allowed to engage in business, so he put everything in the name of his very elderly mother. And he decided to build it not with his own money, but with money from outside partners—attracted investors. They all put substantial sums into Manor LLC.
This was done by purchasing stakes in the company—you can see in the screenshot above that 100% was initially registered to Metelskaya, and later 49%—as well as through investment agreements and loans.
In total, around 1.4 billion rubles flowed into Manor LLC’s accounts.
And then, if the Moscow Arbitration Court’s ruling is to be believed, that money was simply stolen. It was transferred to the personal accounts of Eldibitta and her son, deputy Metelsky. And most of it—classic stuff—was moved offshore.
Again, based on court documents, we learned that the whole operation was carried out by pensioner Metelskaya and Manor director Vyacheslav Kapustin. I would not mention him if not for one amusing detail: he is Metelsky’s neighbor on the same stairwell, and also the son of another Moscow City Duma deputy from Izmaylovo, Andrei Kapustin.
Let’s go through in detail, with excerpts from the documents, where the money intended for the hotel’s construction went. 270 million rubles were transferred to Eldibitta Metelskaya’s personal account in the form of loans.
Another 305 million rubles, also in the form of loans, were issued directly to deputy Andrei Metelsky.
Together, that is 575 million rubles. Into the accounts of Moscow’s top United Russia politician and his mother. It is there in black and white.
All this happened in 2013–2014. Take a look at Metelsky’s 2014 declaration. It does not look like the declaration of a man moving hundreds of millions through personal accounts, does it?
And, this is probably worth mentioning, the court found these loans to be fictitious and non-market. They were not secured by anything at all. The interest rate was many times lower than normal. The repayment terms were impossible. In other words, it is not us but a Moscow court that has effectively ruled: Moscow’s top United Russia politician is a fraudster.
But that is not all. The remaining money—the part not siphoned off to the Metelskys as fictitious loans—was sent to a Cypriot offshore company. We are talking about $22 million. 750 million rubles—just think about that. A company belonging to the mother of the Moscow City Duma deputy speaker moved it to Cyprus.
In court, Manor’s director—the same neighbor of Metelsky’s from the stairwell—said the money was sent to Cyprus to buy another offshore company that owned the neighboring plot of land. Let’s remember its name: Starfington.
But that is, of course, a lie. They had long owned the neighboring plot already.
In reality, the offshore company Starfington, whose account received the $22 million, at that very moment owned the hotel in Vienna that I showed in the previous section.
And this entire transfer of $22 million looks very much like the Metelskys were trying, to put it bluntly, to steal money from their partners. Or to cheat currency controls or the tax authorities. There is no point discussing motive here; the fact is what matters: $22 million was moved out of Russia to Cyprus, to the very same offshore company that owned Metelsky’s hotel in Vienna.
This should be printed right on Metelsky’s campaign leaflets: “Sign for our deputy—according to a court ruling, he borrowed 570 million rubles and never paid it back. United Russia: the party of real deeds.”
But as you have probably already guessed, Metelsky’s holdings are not limited to hotels. Now I will tell you about his other assets, no less valuable and grandiose.
Using the corporate registry, we carefully examined everything else belonging to the Metelskys. We compiled a list of directors, partners, nominees, and others involved in organizing this underground business empire. The scheme is not very complicated.
Since Metelsky is formally barred from doing business, he transferred every company he ever had to two people. Those people are his mother and his friend, Metelsky’s adviser in the Moscow City Duma, Pyotr Ivanovsky. This is very easy to detect and prove. We took a list of 12 companies that were ever owned by Metelsky. In seven of them, the stake—down to the exact percentage—was transferred to Eldibitta Metelskaya. In five, it was transferred to Pyotr Ivanovsky. There are simply no other people involved.
And using exactly the same pattern, we found a very interesting company: Interflora. It used to belong to Metelskaya; now it belongs to Ivanovsky. The director is Kapustin.
Why is it interesting? Here is why.
This is the Lefortovo transport hub under construction—a place where metro lines, commuter trains, and bus and trolleybus routes all converge. These transport hubs are probably one of Sobyanin’s biggest and most emblematic personal projects. Such sites get shopping centers and park-and-ride lots; they are incredibly lucrative because hundreds of thousands of people are guaranteed to pass through them every day.
Well, this particular Lefortovo transport hub is being developed by the Metelskys’ company, Interflora. The development rights were purchased from Moscow City Hall at auction for 100 million rubles. As we already understand, by Metelsky’s standards that is pocket change. But a great deal will be built here: an ice rink, a renovated cinema, restaurants, and of course commercial real estate for shops.
And now it gets even more interesting.
Right behind the construction site, almost adjoining it, stands a brand-new residential complex. Two buildings have already been completed, and a third is underway. It is called Lefort.
You probably think I am about to write, “The Metelskys have a шикарный penthouse in this building,” or “The Metelskys bought 10 apartments here.” But no. They own the ENTIRE residential complex. They are the developers. Their company built all of this and is now selling it.
So our modest deputy from Izmaylovo turns out to be a major Moscow property developer. Given the number of apartments, their approximate prices, and the actual figures for units already sold, Metelsky’s company will make around 1 billion rubles on this project.
But even that is not all. Using the same method—shared addresses, directors, and so on—we found even more assets. And even more business interests.
Let’s run through them in blitz mode.
And since we are already talking about real estate... forgive the banal transition, but the Metelskys own so much that one hardly has the energy left to list it all.
Here we go! Commercial real estate: 4 properties, total area 1,700 square meters, total value 600 million rubles.
The most interesting item on this list is this mansion, personally owned by Eldibitta Vasilievna, in the Chistye Prudy area.
And then there is residential property. In the same building where the Metelskys own commercial space, they also have three duplex apartments on the sixth floor. Together they form a huge 600-square-meter penthouse. It is registered to Eldibitta. One of the apartments was transferred to her by the much-mentioned Pyotr Ivanovsky.
Metelsky’s son owns another apartment in Izmaylovo, 115 square meters, on Izmaylovsky Boulevard.
From the property extract for it, we learn the name of his mother—that is, the wife of deputy Metelsky, apparently his former wife: Elena Georgievna Knyazeva. And it is here, in the neighboring 128-square-meter apartment, that the director of most of the deputy’s companies, Kapustin, lives.
Knyazeva also has her own separate residence. Again in Izmaylovo. 288 square meters.
Neighbors in the building include the well-known Pyotr Ivanovsky (extract). And, just by the way, Mikhail Putin (extract)—a cousin once removed of the main Putin and the newly appointed deputy chairman of Gazprom. I have no idea how he ended up there.
And of course, two neighboring country houses on Rublyovka (the elite suburban area west of Moscow). Both are right in the heart of it, in the village of Razdory. Here is the full set of property extracts.
The Metelskys have hidden them among the fir trees—you cannot see anything—but we know there are three houses there: 520, 504, and 328 square meters.
A few smaller things too. A small apartment not far from Patriarch’s Ponds.
A house in Kaliningrad. Eldibitta and Andrei Metelsky are originally from Kaliningrad.
Add it all up, and we found 5.7 billion rubles’ worth of real estate alone belonging to the leader of United Russia in Moscow. And he hides absolutely all of it from voters.
Now two questions: one rhetorical, one real.
The rhetorical one: do people like Metelsky deserve the right to write the laws you live under?
The real one: what are you going to do?
If you do not have a clear plan, I will offer mine. It is simple, but I think effective.
At the very least, United Russia considers it effective, which is why in an hour I will be on trial—formally over a rally in support of Golunov—and will most likely be arrested, in order to obstruct the campaign against United Russia and deprive independent candidates of an information resource at the moment they need it most.
The plan:
Share the investigation everywhere. I am repeating this for the millionth time: do not think, “Oh, people will see it anyway.” When you send it to someone you know with a personal “you have to watch this,” the impact and virality of the video increase a millionfold.
If you have not yet signed for a candidate, go here, find your district and your candidate, and go sign for them TODAY. Nothing could be more important right now.
Register for Smart Voting, wherever you live. Even if there are no elections in your region this September, that just means there will be some next year.
If I am arrested and isolated again for a month, then follow the news closely and provide moral, informational, and other support to the candidates whom United Russia will try to keep off the ballot.
Support financially our fight against the party of crooks and thieves.
For now, those are five very simple steps.
But if you do not follow them, your life will continue to be run by Metelsky. From Austria.