As Vedomosti found, a company owned by First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov and his wife held more than 10,000 square meters of office space in the Moskva Hotel
As Vedomosti found, a company owned by First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov and his wife held more than 10,000 square meters of office space in the Moskva Hotel. Before them, the owner was an offshore company possibly linked to Suleiman Kerimov, and now the owner is the Shuvalovs’ asset manager. ... According to EGRP (the Unified State Register of Real Estate Rights), Delovoy Tsentr owns 10,257 square meters on the 5th through 10th floors (not counting parking spaces). The Moskva Hotel website says the offices located here occupy an even slightly larger area—11,100 square meters. “Given the property’s unique location,” says Elena Denisova, head of CBRE’s office premises division, valuing 1 square meter at $10,000–12,000. That means Delovoy Tsentr is worth at least $100 million. According to SPARK (a Russian corporate database), in August of last year, Delovoy Tsentr came under the ownership of Open Assets LLC, which in turn belongs to First Deputy Prime Minister Shuvalov and his wife Olga (49% each). How did the Shuvalovs come to own offices near the Kremlin? http://www.vedomosti.ru/politics/news/21794651/igor-shuvalov-i-100-mln?full#cut And yet we still wonder why the economy is doing so badly, even with oil prices so high. And when exactly is there time to run the country? We set up companies. We buy $100 million worth of real estate. No conflict of interest at all—just an investment. And then there’s also an estate in Austria, a house in London, a house in the UAE, and an entire palace in "Skolkovo". By the time you mentally tally up the assets accumulated over years of “honest public service,” half the day is gone. Another half-day goes to speeches about how stability is very important and the boat must not be rocked. Then it’s time to go home—to whichever country one chooses.