Popular Politics newspaper, issue 3.

POPULAR POLITICS

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10 Navalny investigations they want to jail him for

ITAR-TASS

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Deputy Prime Minister Shuvalov’s mansion

Item of the issue → p. 8

Vladimir Putin’s championship ring

Photo © ACF (Anti-Corruption Foundation), Viktor Gorbachev, CERN, xPACIFICA/Redux/East News, ITAR-TASS, Fotoinmedia, cook.livejournal.com/240998.html

INVESTIGATIONS

Deputy Prime Minister Shuvalov’s palace

The Moscow mansion of the deputy prime minister covers 4,000 square meters

The Anti-Corruption Foundation photographed from the air the luxurious mansion of First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov. He earned the money for it through his ties to oligarchs. Among the official’s friends are Roman Abramovich, Alisher Usmanov, Suleiman Kerimov, and other billionaires.

Shuvalov’s 7.5-hectare plot is located not far from the MKAD (Moscow Ring Road), on the site of former state dachas once used by Politburo members. It contains a huge house, a greenhouse for tropical plants (photo 1), a swimming pool, a tennis court, and a cottage for servants. The estate is worth at least $10 million.

Shuvalov, a state official, acquired that kind of money thanks to his friendship with oligarchs. For example, in 2004 a company owned by Shuvalov’s wife received $50 million from Roman Abramovich. The billionaire’s press secretary explained that the money was paid to buy back a 0.5% stake in Sibneft that belonged to the official. The future deputy prime minister had allegedly received it not for legal work with the oil company back in the late 1990s. Shuvalov himself did not provide documents confirming that the option was real.

The money he received from Abramovich, the official then lent to another oligarch — Alisher Usmanov.

“Igor Shuvalov is one of my close friends, and I love him very much,” the billionaire admitted to the newspaper Vedomosti. Usmanov invested all the funds in the purchase of a metallurgical company, and Igor Shuvalov earned $69 million. The deputy prime minister did not forget his friend. During the 2009 crisis, a government commission headed by Shuvalov approved state guarantees for Usmanov’s Metalloinvest worth 30 billion rubles.

Shuvalov earned an even larger sum when he was a presidential aide on economic issues. Another wealthy friend helped him — Suleiman Kerimov. The oligarch invested in Gazprom shares together with the official. Thanks to a government reform, their value increased sevenfold. As a result, Shuvalov, then a presidential aide, earned at least $80 million.

Shuvalov spends the money he earned thanks to his good relations with oligarchs on a lavish lifestyle. In addition to his palace in Moscow, he has a mansion in Austria and the UAE, apartments in London, and several expensive foreign cars. Officially, all of Shuvalov’s real estate is rented by a company. As recently became clear — from himself. The official recently admitted in an interview that the owner of the estate in Austria is his wife’s company.

Photo © ACF (Anti-Corruption Foundation), Viktor Balagadze/Kommersant (1), Yury Martyanov/Kommersant (2), ITAR-TASS (3), Vyacheslav Prokofyev/Kommersant (4), Dmitry Lebedev/Kommersant (5)

Shuvalov’s five friends

1. ROMAN ABRAMOVICH. Net worth — $10.2 billion. Private investor and owner of the English football club Chelsea.

2. ALISHER USMANOV. Net worth — $17.6 billion. Co-owner of the Metalloinvest holding company, MegaFon, and others.

3. OLEG BOYKO. Net worth — $1.4 billion.

4. ALEXANDER MAMUT. Net worth — $2.3 billion.

5. SULEIMAN KERIMOV. Net worth — $7.1 billion.

State Duma deputy concealed eight apartments in Miami

During the parliamentary elections, LDPR deputy Igor Ananskikh owned elite real estate in the United States worth $6 million. He concealed this fact from voters through an overseas company. The State Duma does not intend to strip him of his mandate over it

In 2007, the future deputy bought two apartments in Miami for $820,000. The apartments are located in an elite residential complex on the oceanfront. Over the next year and a half, he acquired six more luxury apartments on the Atlantic coast. Ananskikh registered five of them to companies created specifically for this purpose. The total value of the future people’s representative’s American real estate came to $6.4 million.

Three years later, Ananskikh decided to become a State Duma deputy. He filed his election declaration, but did not list the Miami real estate. “I bought these apartments in 2008 and sold them in 2011 — before becoming a candidate for the State Duma. I acted legally and had the right to do so,” the deputy later said. The Anti-Corruption Foundation found that Ananskikh sold all the apartments only by the end of 2012. Moreover, the price of each transaction was $100. The new owner of the real estate was an offshore company registered in the British Virgin Islands. The same offshore also owns two Russian companies headed by Ananskikh’s own brother. The elite American real estate remained in the deputy’s family; he simply re-registered it to hide it from voters.

LDPR party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky repeatedly supported a ban on foreign real estate and bank accounts for lawmakers. “All future officials must know this: if you have money abroad or property overseas, you should not become an elected officeholder,” the politician said. Yet he imposed no such restriction on his fellow party member Igor Ananskikh and did not demand that he give up his parliamentary seat.

Where to Find Honest Officials

“Corruption is impossible to eradicate; it’s in our blood,” civil servants in Singapore, Italy, and Hong Kong used to say about themselves. Now they know that taking a bribe will land them in prison. The experience of these countries shows that bribery among officials can, if not be eliminated, at least be reduced to an acceptable level. All that is needed is political will from those in power.

In 1959, Lee Kuan Yew became prime minister of Singapore. A year later, he enacted a special anti-corruption law. From then on, officials could be jailed if they could not explain the origin of their expensive real estate and other assets. This applied even to the prime minister’s closest associates. “Start by putting three of your friends in jail. You know exactly what for,” Lee Kuan Yew himself said. He adhered to this principle throughout his time in power. In 1975, a former friend of Lee Kuan Yew, the environment minister, was imprisoned after receiving about $600,000 from businessmen in exchange for help in allocating land plots.

In the mid-1980s, Singapore’s government began promoting the principle of meritocracy. The most prestigious posts started going to the smartest and most capable candidates. Officials’ salaries were raised to the level of top managers in private companies. These measures produced results. Singapore now ranks fifth in the world on the Corruption Perceptions Index, ahead of Norway, Switzerland, and Canada by this measure.

In the mid-1970s, Hong Kong began fighting corruption using methods similar to Singapore’s. The authorities created an anti-corruption commission staffed with graduates of leading universities who had no prior experience in law enforcement. Its first priority was to investigate the activities of the most powerful figures. Even Hong Kong’s police chief did not escape criminal prosecution: he first fled to London, but the Hong Kong authorities secured his extradition and put him on trial. Hong Kong now ranks 14th on the Corruption Perceptions Index, ahead of the United Kingdom and Japan.

In the early 1990s, Italy carried out the large-scale “Clean Hands” campaign. A total of 1,456 major businessmen, officials, and politicians were arrested. Former Prime Minister Bettino Craxi fled to Tunisia; in Italy, he was sentenced in absentia to 9 years and 8 months in prison. The property of corrupt officials was confiscated in favor of the state. As a result, the political landscape changed. Italy now has somewhat less overt corruption than it did in the early 1990s.

OFFICIALS’ PLAGIARISM

Doctors of Stolen Sciences

The authorities have failed to defeat plagiarism in officials’ academic dissertations. Many of them copy their work, buy it, or obtain it through connections. Even when plagiarists are exposed, they are not stripped of their degrees — the current government simply lacks the political will to do so.

Economist Galina Zhukova (pictured) is the youngest woman in Russia to earn a doctorate. She received her degree at 26, the same age as Lev Landau, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist. Zhukova has not received such prestigious international awards, but her father is the founder of Russian State Social University, where she defended her dissertation.

In October 2013, plagiarism was found in Zhukova’s academic work. Experts from the Dissernet community found that two-thirds of her dissertation had been copied, in part or in full. The university did not react in any way. Zhukova continues to teach at Russian State Social University, her sister Lidiya headed the university for two years, and her mother, Galina, still works there as a vice rector.

Dissernet’s reputation leaves little room for doubt about the authenticity of its findings. The community was founded by physicists Andrei Rostovtsev and Andrei Zayakin, biologist Mikhail Gelfand, and journalist Sergei Parkhomenko. They and their colleagues have uncovered plagiarism in at least 430 doctoral and candidate dissertations, mostly those of officials and civil servants.

For most of them, a dissertation is merely an impressive line on an official biography. They carry no scientific value. Writing such works has long since become a business. On the internet, candidate dissertations are openly offered for 100,000 to 300,000 rubles (roughly $1,100–$3,300), while doctoral dissertations start at 500,000 rubles (about $5,500). The price depends on the quality of the work and the university where it is to be defended.

Even federal officials acknowledged the existence of the problem a year and a half ago. It all began with the scandal surrounding the academic work of Andrei Andriyanov, director of Moscow State University’s Specialized Educational and Scientific Center and a trusted representative of Vladimir Putin. In November 2012, a commission from the Ministry of Education and Science found that 53.9% of his history dissertation had been borrowed from other sources. At first, Andriyanov said he disagreed with the accusations, but he later resigned of his own accord.

WHAT OFFICIALS GET CAUGHT FOR

1. Copying entire pages from other dissertations without any changes.

2. Unattributed quotations from books and academic articles passed off as original ideas.

3. Fabricating research and opinion polls whose results exactly match previously published studies.

4. Replacing one or more words in the text, such as the region or the subject of the study.

5. Defending dissertations at institutes run by relatives, or before committees where mass falsification is common.

The Fake Degree Hit Parade

Dissernet’s experts analyzed hundreds of dubious dissertations. Popular Politics selected the five most interesting.

5th place — Georgy Poltavchenko, governor of St. Petersburg. The head of Russia’s northern capital holds a Candidate of Economic Sciences degree. A Dissernet review showed that only 34 of the 214 pages in his dissertation are fully original. More than 140 pages contain text copied from other works. The St. Petersburg government’s press office said that the issue of defending the dissertation has no bearing on the governor’s work.

4th place — Vladimir Vasilyev, head of the United Russia faction in the State Duma, colonel general of the police. The lawmaker defended his Candidate of Law dissertation in 2001. His academic adviser was the criminology professor Avanesov. In Vasilyev’s 169-page dissertation, at least 92 pages contain improper borrowings. The total amount of copied and incorrectly cited text is about 60%. The source was the dissertation of former LDPR lawmaker Sergei Abeltsev. He gave no detailed comments on Vasilyev’s dissertation.

3rd place — Maxim Sokolov, Russia’s transport minister. The official defended his Candidate of Economics dissertation in 2008. Dissernet found that 108 of its 147 pages contain copied passages. The sources were two other dissertations. One of them, moreover, had the same academic adviser as Sokolov’s. In addition to his government job, the official heads a department at St. Petersburg State University. Responding to the accusations, the minister said the dissertation had been defended according to all the rules and that there would be no further comment.

2nd place — Pavel Astakhov, Russia’s presidential commissioner for children’s rights (children’s ombudsman). Doctor of Law. A total of 198 out of 391 pages of his dissertation contain fragments of other people’s texts not presented as quotations. Another 116 pages Astakhov partially took from his own earlier Candidate dissertation. The Russian State Library confirmed that 31% of the official’s dissertation text was copied from other authors’ works. The library later responded to the review by calling it “unofficial.” Astakhov called the accusations a provocation, but gave no detailed explanation regarding the instances of borrowing.

1st place — Igor Igoshin, a State Duma deputy from United Russia. The politician has worked in parliament for nearly 15 years. He was twice elected as a deputy from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, then joined United Russia. Igoshin defended his Candidate of Economics dissertation in 2004. He created it on the basis of someone else’s 2002 dissertation by replacing the word “chocolate” with “meat,” “milk chocolate” with “Russian beef,” and so on. Everything else is repeated almost verbatim. Igoshin did not comment on the scandal surrounding his dissertation.

How to punish plagiarists

Defeating fake dissertations by officials is easy. It is enough to dismiss those caught doing it, as is done in the United States and Europe.

10 of Navalny’s investigations

In April, the second criminal case against Alexei Navalny was sent to court. He and his brother were accused of stealing 26 million rubles from Yves Rocher. The real reason for the trial is anti-corruption investigations targeting senior officials and businessmen close to Vladimir Putin.

The drilling rigs case

Billions of dollars among friends

ALEXANDER BASTRYKIN has headed Russia’s Investigative Committee since 2010. In July 2012, Navalny proved that Bastrykin had an undeclared apartment, a company, and a residence permit in the Czech Republic. Before that, Bastrykin had officially stated that neither he nor his family members had ever engaged in business, either in Russia or abroad. After Navalny’s publication, Bastrykin admitted that he had a company in the Czech Republic. He denied having a residence permit, although the country’s Interior Ministry officially confirmed that he had one from 2007 to 2009.

The Defense Ministry’s “gold-plated” pistols

IN OCTOBER 2013, the Ministry of Defense decided to purchase Austrian Glock pistols. It seemed that there were official documents and justifications for these weapons. However, Navalny claimed that the procurement had been arranged at inflated prices and with the involvement of companies close to the authorities. The price of one pistol was listed as 210,000 rubles, while the real price was significantly lower. Navalny published documents and diagrams that confirmed the scheme.

Fighting corruption

The drilling rigs case

In December 2009, Alexei Navalny published documents about the purchase of 30 drilling rigs by a VTB subsidiary. They showed that the state-controlled bank had overpaid $156 million for the equipment. The money went to a company in Cyprus whose owners remain unknown to this day. As a shareholder, Navalny sent an official inquiry to VTB demanding clarification. He then filed a petition with the arbitration court to have the deal declared invalid. During the proceedings, the judge denied all motions, including requests to call witnesses and obtain documents. In the end, the court ruled against Navalny.

Fraud at Gazprom

In the fall of 2008, Alexei Navalny filed a complaint with Russia’s Interior Ministry (MVD) against Gazprom. He argued that the company’s actions had caused him financial harm as a shareholder. The issue was that Mezhregiongaz, a subsidiary of the state corporation, was buying gas not from producers but from an intermediary shell company at a price 70% higher than it could have paid by buying directly. The total damage to Gazprom from this scheme amounted to more than 2 billion rubles. The main defendant in the case was Igor Dmitriev, deputy head of Mezhregiongaz.

Kickbacks at Transneft

IN NOVEMBER 2010, Navalny published a Transneft auditors’ report prepared for the Accounts Chamber (Russia’s state audit office) on the results of an internal review of the construction of the Eastern Siberia–Pacific Ocean (ESPO) pipeline. According to these documents, more than 120 billion rubles were spent improperly during construction. The project was financed with public funds, while part of the spending was funneled to contractors close to the company’s management.

Deputy Pekhtin resigns

ON FEBRUARY 20, 2013, Vladimir Pekhtin, a United Russia lawmaker in the State Duma, announced that he was giving up his seat. This came a week after Alexei Navalny published information about the deputy’s real estate in the United States. The politician found that Pekhtin and his son owned two apartments in Miami and a plot of land in Florida worth a total of $2.5 million. At first, the United Russia member denied it. “I practically have no real estate abroad,” he said in an interview with the newspaper Izvestia. He also claimed that he might have filled in some fields in the paperwork by mistake. Such explanations did not sound very convincing coming from the head of the Duma ethics committee, and Pekhtin ultimately gave up his mandate. There was no investigation into where the deputy got the money. A year later, in 2013, Pekhtin joined the board of directors of the state-controlled company RusHydro.

One of former deputy Pekhtin’s apartments is located in this building

United Russia officials’ palaces outside Moscow

IN NOVEMBER 2013, Navalny published aerial footage and documents about the lavish country estates of senior officials in the Moscow region. He found that Vyacheslav Volodin, deputy head of the presidential administration (photo 1), owned a two-hectare plot with a 744-square-meter house, a pond the size of a football field, a tennis court, and a helipad. This property was worth about 150 million rubles. Formally, Volodin had that kind of money, since four years earlier he had sold shares in oil-and-fat processing plants for 360 million rubles. But the official never explained where he had gotten that money from.

Another country-home owner turned out to be Sergei Neverov, secretary of United Russia’s general council and a State Duma deputy (photo 2). Officially, the 614-square-meter house is registered in the name of his retired mother-in-law, while one of the land plots is in his wife’s name. The market value of the deputy’s dacha is about 112 million rubles, while his salary over the past three years was less than 6 million rubles. He explained the source of the money by citing the sale of an apartment in Novokuznetsk and his mother-in-law’s savings.

The family business of Russian Railways chief Yakunin

IN JULY 2013, Alexei Navalny published a diagram of the business interests of Vladimir Yakunin’s family. It turned out that the company of the senior state official’s elder son had built and operated a chain of 15 roadside hotels, which he had bought with borrowed money. Navalny also published data on Vladimir Yakunin’s property. In the Moscow region, the head of Russian Railways had a mansion with landscaping, a 1,400-square-meter sauna complex, a 50-meter swimming pool, a garage for 15 cars, a private movie theater, and a prayer room. Until February 2011, the estate’s land plot belonged to a company; it was then re-registered to a Cypriot company linked to the family of the Russian Railways chief.

OFFICIALS’ EXPENSES

VLADIMIR RESIN, State Duma deputy, former deputy mayor of Moscow

DeWitt watch, La Pressy Grande Complication

$1 million

THE OFFICIAL oversaw the entire capital’s construction sector for ten years. In 2009, it became known that he wore a unique Swiss watch made by DeWitt. The case is made of platinum, and the dial is covered with sapphire crystal. In 2010, Resin officially earned 22 million rubles, meaning the watch cost more than his annual income. After Luzhkov left office, the official became a United Russia deputy and now writes laws in the State Duma.

Photo © Kommersant, ITAR-TASS, AFP/EAST NEWS, REUTERS/RIA Novosti

SERGEI PRIKHODKO, head of the government staff

$440,000

Atlantis 42 motor yacht

In 2012, the official’s wife declared ownership of half of an Atlantis-42 motorboat. She is a co-owner of the Fairway yacht club, located on the Klyazma Reservoir (near Moscow). Prikhodko himself has spent his entire life in public service, which has not stopped him from owning a three-hectare country estate worth 235 million rubles. Popular Politics was unable to determine where the official got the money for such a luxurious lifestyle.

Photo © Kommersant / Alexander Miridonov

MARINA YENTALTSEVA, head of the prime minister’s protocol office

Bentley Continental GT Speed

$220,000

THE OFFICIAL has worked with Vladimir Putin since 1991, when she was his assistant at St. Petersburg City Hall. She came to the Kremlin together with her boss. Yentaltseva owns a luxury Bentley Continental GT Speed. The car’s top speed is 326 km/h, and the interior is finished in leather and natural wood. The official’s income last year was about 4 million rubles.

Fake Degrees Hit Parade — continued

How to punish plagiarists — defeating officials’ fake dissertations is easy. It is enough to force the resignation of those caught doing it, as is done in the United States and Europe.

The Moscow Mayor’s Daughters’ Apartments

IN AUGUST 2013, during the campaign for mayor of Moscow, Alexei Navalny published an investigation into luxury real estate owned by Sergei Sobyanin’s daughters, worth more than 360 million rubles. The elder daughter, 27-year-old Anna Sobyanina (pictured), was found to own two apartments in St. Petersburg and Moscow with a total area of 317 sq. m. It also turned out that she supplied furniture for government needs and received contracts for it.

The Moscow mayor registered a 308 sq. m apartment near the White House on his other daughter, 16-year-old Olga. Sobyanina received this property from the Presidential Administration and then privatized it. Why the official was recognized as being in need of housing and given a luxury apartment remains unknown. Sobyanin himself called the appearance of this information “speculation.” Navalny demanded an investigation by the prosecutor’s office and the Investigative Committee, but the request was denied.

OFFICIALS’ STYLE GUIDE

Public servants know how to live in style. They buy boats, cars, and watches worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Popular Politics selected the most striking luxury trinkets owned by officials.

ELENA SKRYNNIK, former Russian agriculture minister — Crocodile-skin Birkin bag — $48,000

DMITRY MEDVEDEV, Prime Minister of Russia — Leica S2-P camera — $30,000

VLADIMIR PUTIN, President of Russia — Diamond ring — $25,000

Photo © Kommersant, ITAR-TASS, AFP/EAST NEWS, Reuters

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