Responding to Medvedev’s palace manager

Hi everyone. My name is Georgy Alburov, and

once again I’m doing a response-to-a-response.

It’s not that I really

enjoy it, but what I like even less is

when Medvedev and his cronies

take all of us for complete

idiots. A month and a half later, following

oligarch Alisher Usmanov, our

investigation also got a response from Ilya

Yeliseyev, who gave a detailed, extensive

interview. Let me remind you, this is the very same

deputy chairman of Gazprombank, one of

Medvedev’s closest friends, and the man in charge of all

the foundations that hold title to

the numerous palaces and estates. And right away,

here’s a lovely detail: Yeliseyev gave the interview

to the newspaper *Kommersant*, which—now, don’t

be surprised—is owned by Alisher Usmanov,

the very oligarch who gifted this

wonderful estate on Rublyovka (an elite area outside Moscow) to a foundation controlled by Medvedev.

I

actually counted exactly how much time

Yeliseyev spent preparing this

—sorry—response: 42 days, 12 hours, and 50 minutes.

That’s exactly how much time passed between the publication of

the investigation *He Is Not Dimon to You* and the release of

the interview in *Kommersant*. And that’s despite the fact that

both Medvedev and Usmanov can afford

pretty much an unlimited number of

lawyers and PR people. That is more than enough time

to demolish absolutely

any false accusation and defend

the prime minister. Anyone who knows how

to use the global

telecommunications network known as the internet and

a computer pointing device of the mouse variety

could expose this in about five minutes. But why am I

telling you this? Better to just

show you everything myself. Let’s go. First, the good news.

When Yeliseyev was answering our questions, he

seemed to have the diagram from

our investigation right in front of him and went from one company to

the next without denying ties to a single one of them.

All that effort, wasted for nothing.

These foundations deliberately came up with

different names and addresses, bought different

domains, registered phone numbers in the names of

people who were supposedly unrelated to one another, and yet

Yeliseyev just went ahead and acknowledged the links between all

of them. He even confirmed that he controls

most of them. The only thing

Yeliseyev didn’t borrow from our

investigation was the name for the scheme.

We called it everywhere Medvedev’s corrupt

empire. But for Yeliseyev, well, that’s not a very

convenient way to put it.

So he came up with a great substitute: “the foundation and

its perimeter.” All these palaces, yachts, dachas,

vineyards—apparently that’s the “perimeter” of

a nonprofit foundation. So whenever you see

“the foundation and its perimeter,” read: corrupt

empire. Now let’s take a closer

look at what exactly Yeliseyev said in

the interview. Here he is talking about

the Italian vineyards, calling them

a purely personal investment. That’s very

easy to verify, right?

The vineyards belong to a Cypriot offshore company.

Let’s look at its financial statements and

find out what kind of personal investment this really was,

and where the money came from to buy hundreds

of hectares of Italian land. Here’s the section on

loans. In 2012, when the vineyards were

purchased, the offshore company had $60 million, mostly

in the form of a loan from a company called Oron, which is

the renamed management company of

the Dar Foundation, and from Fin Consulting K, which is

the renamed financial

consulting company of the Dar Foundation. These are

the very companies that financed the construction of

palaces for Medvedev. We spent a long time looking for

where, exactly where, those so-called

purely personal investments of Ilya Yeliseyev were, and

you won’t believe it—we found them in more

recent financial statements, from 2014.

By then, yachts and Tuscan vineyards had already been bought through this company, and

the yachts and Tuscan vineyards were already there, and

Yeliseyev’s investment at that moment

had finally come through. And it was—attention—

$53.49. Yes, yes, you heard that right.

$53.49. So Medvedev’s money men

put $60 million into the company, while his

trusted associate puts in 53 dollars and calls

the company his personal investment.

Dmitry Anatolyevich, rein him in somehow—

he’ll leave you without your pants. Here are a couple more

great examples of how Yeliseyev

is not just lying, but setting everyone around him up.

About the oligarchs Simanovsky and

Mikhelson, who contributed more than 30

billion rubles to the Dar Foundation, he says:

“I meet with them periodically,”

“inform them about our projects.” That’s meant to

create the impression that responsible

managers are reporting back to

noble benefactors. But now

let’s take a look at Mikhelson’s interview. And

what do we see there?

A statement that he is not involved with the Dar Foundation at all,

that he didn’t even know how much

he had donated there. Mikhelson does not know what

the money is spent on because, quote, he “takes no

part whatsoever in managing

the foundation,” and therefore has nothing

to comment on. So he shows no interest in

its activities, let alone in receiving regular

reports. Yeliseyev is making it all

up. Here’s another good example.

Yeliseyev admits that Medvedev stays at

the residence in Plyos (a town on the Volga River), and—attention—pays for

his stay there. What is this nonsense?

Guys, do you not coordinate

with each other at all? Create, I don’t know, some kind of group

chat, throw your brilliant ideas in there,

write them down, for heaven’s sake, keep track of each

other, advise one another. Why, just half a year ago,

Medvedev’s press secretary, Natalya

Timakova, said that—and pay attention—

is owned by Medvedev and is not

being used by him on any other

legal grounds. So is it being used or

not? Is he paying or not, after all? Otherwise

it turns out the payments are being made under the table, without

any legal basis, without a contract.

Wait a second. And who is paying — Medvedev himself?

Out of his own pocket? That would be pretty expensive.

And what about the security detail, the Federal Protective Service officers (FSO, Russia’s state bodyguard service)?

Are they billed separately, or included in the price

of the hotel, or is it the Presidential Administration

— or perhaps the government —

that pays? And on what grounds would that come out of the budget?

There are already more than enough state

residences — why rent additional ones?

So let’s demand together

the receipts and invoices for Dmitry

Anatolyevich’s stay in Plyos. Surely we can’t help but

believe his best friend, Ilya Eliseev,

who says outright that

Medvedev pays for absolutely everything himself.

And the most interesting — even mysterious — part, I saved

for last. When Eliseev

talks about the foundations and the so-called

“perimeter,” he says it includes

the Mansurovo agricultural complex and the vineyards

at Skalisty Bereg in Anapa. He calls them

investments by the Dar Foundation in agriculture

and goes into great detail about

their achievements, plans, and other details.

It gives the unmistakable impression that both of these

these

agricultural assets are managed by Eliseev; he

talks about them as if they were his own. But here’s the

huge catch: both the vineyards and

the Mansurovo agricultural complex are

75% owned not by the foundations, but by the mysterious

— though very familiar to us — ZAO

Tech Pro. That’s the very company whose address

Medvedev uses to order himself

sneakers. Now that’s a twist. Now that’s

something else. In other words, the company whose email

and physical address he uses for

his online shopping also falls within

the perimeter of Ilya Eliseev and all his

foundations. So it turns out that within this so-called

“perimeter” there are

several dachas where Medvedev regularly

vacations, an agribusiness in his

native Mansurovo, a joint venture

with his cousin,

Medvedev’s wife’s charitable foundation,

and the company that delivers his sneakers.

So what kind of “perimeter” is this? Why

is absolutely everything in this perimeter directly

connected to Dmitry Anatolyevich? In fact,

I am 100% sure that Eliseev

simply forgot that the agricultural complex

and the vineyards had been re-registered to another legal

entity — that’s why he let it slip. He is constantly

getting confused in interviews, saying something

belongs to the Sotsgorod Foundation, when in fact

it belongs to Dar, and vice versa.

So many mistakes. Shame on you, Ilya Vladimirovich.

Even we have already memorized what

your scheme looks like. If it’s difficult, use

our investigation as a cheat sheet.

To be honest, I don’t really want to draw

any conclusions or repeat what

has already been said so many times. And in general, it is obvious

to anyone: what we are watching is

a giant operation unfolding to

to

cover up what he did, and

the people covering for him are the very same people who

helped Medvedev commit these

crimes. But the most important thing is this: if

you ever happen to run into Ilya Eliseev

on the street — or, for example,

if you happen to be a journalist and can

submit an official inquiry — then ask

him this: why is it that his — as he himself claims —

dacha in Plyos is guarded by the FSO,

and why is there a no-fly zone over it?

Do we really close the skies over the dacha of every

deputy chairman of Gazprombank?

Why does Medvedev use his yacht, Fotini,

and which Svetlana is it named after?

Why did Eliseev decide to build an agricultural

complex in

the tiny village of Mansurovo,

where Medvedev’s family comes from? How did it

happen that Medvedev stays only at

his dachas? Who exactly stays at these dachas?

Why has not a single one of the commercial projects

for reconstructing these palaces, over 10 years, ever

become available for use or

booking by ordinary people? How exactly would we

go about booking, say, a week in winter

at the residence in Plyos, or for summer

vacation the residence in Milovka? Vacation —

I’ve never even had a vacation yet. These are

the biggest inconsistencies, the things

that will be very, very hard to explain.

And they do need to be explained. Thank you for watching

our channel, and don’t forget

to subscribe. They tell the truth here.