We respond to oligarch Usmanov and show his house

Let's talk about a very rich and very

dishonest man. Oligarch Alisher Usmanov,

one of the richest people in Russia,

with a fortune of $13 billion, or 738

billion rubles, has sued me and, in fact,

the entire Anti-Corruption Foundation, and wants

to obtain a court ruling saying that he

did not pay bribes to Dmitry Medvedev. As

we claim in our investigation,

*He Is Not Dimon to You* (title of a well-known anti-corruption investigation). Interestingly, Usmanov

is actually a resident of either the United Kingdom

or Switzerland. He also pays taxes

outside Russia, yet he files suit

in a Russian court. He knows that only

here will he be guaranteed the court

decision he wants. Of course. After all, the bribes he paid

went to the very top of the power vertical,

which means any judge will snap to attention.

But we are actually glad about this court

case, because first of all, it gives us

a reason to ask all the citizens

of the country: "Whose side are you on? Ours, or

oligarch Usmanov's?" And second, most

importantly, it gives us a chance once again

to prove that we are right. I will do that

right now, without waiting for the trial, because

your opinion matters more to me than any

court. And while we're at it, we'll entertain you with footage

of Alisher Usmanov's estate. Take a look at how

Russian oligarchs live. He called

my work superficial. So let's do something

superficial—let's look from above at how things

are arranged there. So, let me remind you that

we established the following: Usmanov gave

the Sotsgosproekt foundation, controlled

by people close to Medvedev, an estate on Rublyovka

worth 5 billion rubles. We are convinced that

this was a bribe. Usmanov is now asking

all of us to believe the following desperate

story. He had a plot in the settlement of

Znamenskaya, 4 hectares (about 9.9 acres), with a huge house and

a whole bunch of other buildings. He says that

he built this house for his sister, but it

seemed too big to her, and she turned it

down. And the Sotsgosproekt foundation had

a 12-hectare plot (about 29.7 acres) directly adjacent to

the plot where Usmanov has lived for 20 years.

This is the settlement of Uspenskoye, and they decided

to swap. A non-cash deal, supposedly,

the assets were worth the same, and both sides

were happy. Thus, Usmanov tells us,

the Sotsgosproekt foundation, "

whose beneficiary, I insist,

is Dmitry Medvedev," acquired

the house we know so well. "No, no, and

no, I tell you. You are fooling us, Alisher

Burkhanovich, just as you fool all the citizens

of Russia by trying to prove that your

wealth was acquired honestly, or that

you were not imprisoned for committing

actual crimes back in the days of the

USSR?"

Let's start with the fact that in this story

there is only one fragment of truth.

Usmanov really did, in 2010,

expand his holdings in Uspenskoye and

add a neighboring plot with an area

even larger than 12 hectares. And that is where

the truth ends, because Usmanov bought that

plot from a commercial

company, East Invest. And this

is confirmed by documents. And Usmanov was

badly let down here by Rosreestr (Russia's state property registry),

which stores historical data on

all transactions. And in such an extract

you can clearly see that since 2007 the plot

has been owned by this company,

East Invest. And there is not the slightest trace

of the Sotsgosproekt foundation here,

nor of any swap. It clearly states

a purchase and sale agreement.

It would seem that this is already the end

of the story. What more is there to add? In order

to shield the corrupt official

Medvedev, Usmanov simply took a real

transaction that he carried out in 2010

and swapped out the parties involved.

Under which one? Not here, not here, here

it is.

But an hour after the publication of Usmanov's interview

with *Vedomosti*, in the middle of the night,

a comment appears from our good

acquaintance, Gazprombank deputy chairman of the board

Ilya Yeliseyev. Yeliseyev rushes to help

and tries to clarify the situation, understanding

that we will very quickly catch Usmanov

in a lie. He says that yes, the plot

really did not belong to Sotsgosproekt; it

belonged to a commercial company, but Sotsgosproekt

was going to provide financing

for a development project. They were planning

to build a cottage community there. The land, supposedly,

belonged to East Invest, while construction

was to be financed with Sotsgosproekt's money,

but then it all fell through—the crisis, and so on.

So we decided to swap with Usmanov.

What I want to say at this

point is this: one is an oligarch, the other a deputy chairman

of Gazprombank—seemingly serious people—and

they are seriously asking us

to believe this. Well, let's stop and

think about it. A non-profit foundation

for supporting socially significant

state projects is supposedly going

to build cottages for sale on

Rublyovka. A foundation that was, by the way, only recently created,

registered to some nominal figurehead,

with only 50 million rubles on its books,

and nothing else at all. What kind of

financing could it possibly provide? And

that is not even the only problem. As a result

of such a deal, East Invest

really does give its plot

to Usmanov, while Usmanov gives his estate

not to that company, but to Sotsgosproekt. How

can anyone believe this at all? Even if

we imagine for a minute that there really was some kind of

development project, it still was not

went ahead. No financing was

needed. The land remained exactly where it was —

with the commercial company East

Invest. It could only be bought, traded for,

taken, or exchanged from that company alone.

So what do some supposed partners and

some failed project have to do with any of this? Say,

for example, you own an apartment, and then

Usmanov comes to you and says: "Listen,

my friend, I want your apartment so badly I

can’t stand it — I need it urgently. Take mine

in exchange, just give me yours." Then you

hand your apartment over to Usmanov, and he, in

return, gives his apartment not to you, but to me

or donates it to FBK (the Anti-Corruption Foundation). That means you were either very

seriously deceived, or this whole story was

simply made up. And in the case of the stories told by

Usmanov and Eliseev, it is, of course,

the latter. We caught them taking a bribe. They

spent a month thinking up what to say, and came up with

some nonsense: a nonexistent

development project, some kind of exchanges,

which, on closer inspection,

turn out to be a commercial transaction.

They gave a quick interview and disappeared.

By the way, these are not all the arguments for why

I consider this story an absurd

fantasy, but I’ll come back to them a bit later.

But for now, let’s take a look at what exactly

oligarch Alisher Usmanov supposedly traded for himself. Here

this wooded plot is the very

same old Usmanov estate where he

lived for many years. Here you can see the main

house. It is quite imposing.

Several stories, some greenhouses,

access to the river. But on this not exactly

small plot — a full 9 hectares (about 22 acres) — Alisher

Usmanov started to feel cramped, so he decided

to expand. And in the distance you can already see how

he did it. An open

space on which several houses have been

built — that is precisely the plot

of 12 hectares (about 30 acres) that Usmanov supposedly

traded for from the Sotsgosproekt Foundation. But we

already know that in reality he

bought it from an entirely different company.

Take note: in the far part of

the property, an entire stretch of river has been fenced off. This

is completely illegal, because

access to the shoreline must be

open to anyone who wants it. Back

last year we filed a complaint, and

the Ministry of Natural Resources acknowledged

the violation and opened an administrative

case. So Usmanov will have to

free up the river. On the right you can see the new main

house. Everything is very grand: nearly 4,000 m² (about 43,000 sq ft), and on

the front steps there is a red carpet.

We circle the house and move

on. On the left there is another house, smaller.

Most likely it is a guest house. Or

perhaps it is Usmanov’s sister’s new house.

Its area is 1,600 m² (about 17,200 sq ft). And here, quite

by accident, an FSB facility enters the frame.

Some kind of boiler house or heating plant. People

often write to us, by the way, saying that flying over

FSB facilities is impossible because

the super-tight security would instantly shoot the drone down.

But as you can see, we are flying completely without

any problems. And now the last structure.

A huge garage and some technical

facilities. These are apparently some kind of

ceremonial gates through which one can

make a grand entrance onto the property directly

from Rublyovka (an elite residential area west of Moscow). All of this is exactly the

hectares by which Usmanov expanded in

2010. He bought this land from

the neighbors and built all the splendor

we have just been looking at. Eliseev,

Medvedev, and their foundations have absolutely nothing

to do with it. I understand that it is already

completely obvious that the version involving an

exchange is total nonsense, but I cannot

deny myself the pleasure of savoring

the details of this ridiculous lie. According to

Usmanov’s story, he bought this plot

and built a house on it for his sister

so that she could live nearby. But his sister did not like

the house. She refused

to live in it. She said the house was too

big; she did not need one that large.

Let’s take a close look at the house.

Here are the photographs we have already

published. They were taken by workers on

the site. Do you see what is in the background

of the picture? It is an Orthodox chapel. It is

right inside the main house. Doesn’t that strike you as

odd? Alisher Burkhanovich constantly

emphasizes that he is Muslim,

receives honorary orders from muftis,

and so on and so forth. And then suddenly

he builds, for his family, for his

closest relative, a house without a mosque

or a minaret, but with an Orthodox

chapel. But it is obvious that Usmanov

was building the house for someone else from the start. And

for whom was it labeled back in 2015 by an

ordinary worker at the residence who

was showing off the photos on VKontakte. Or

here is another interesting excerpt from Usmanov’s interview

with Vedomosti. Asked what

the Sotsgosproekt Foundation does, Usmanov

answers that he knows the foundation

donated money for the restoration of

the Konstantinovsky Palace in

St. Petersburg. At first I was so pleased,

thinking: "Well, finally,

at least some real activity from

Sotsgosproekt — instead of just estates and

vineyards." But I was not pleased for long,

because the Konstantinovsky Palace, for whose

restoration the foundation supposedly

donated money, was fully

reconstructed and opened in 2003 for

St. Petersburg’s 300th anniversary. The work

there had been underway since 2001. The Sotsgosproekt Foundation

was established eight years later, in 2009.

Nice try, Alisher Burkhanovich. Well

No, once again you’re failing

to whitewash our dear Dmitry

Anatolyevich Medvedev. This is just yet

another brazen and blatant lie. All these

stories and Usmanov’s belated excuses

and Eliseev’s are, in fact—let me quote

one well-known line here—nonsense, murk, and

complete gibberish, only unfortunately, not even with

the paperwork that one would really like to

see. This whole story is

stitched together with white thread and just as

credible as if we were told

that Medvedev’s palaces had been planted

by aliens or printed on a

3D printer. And I’d like to finish

with a quote from Usmanov himself, from his

interview with Forbes. When asked how

he manages to buy up any assets

he wants, even if they’re not

for sale, he replied: "You just have to give a person

something in such a way that it’s convenient for him

to take it." It was convenient for Dmitry Anatolyevich

to take it through the Sotsgosproekt Foundation. If you,

like me, are disgusted by this whole thieving

Kremlin oligarchic gang with its

endless lying and stealing, then on June 12

— Russia Day (a national holiday in Russia) — come out together with

everyone else for a new nationwide protest

against corruption. If we stay

at home, they will never stop

robbing us. Please help me

spread this video. And I also need

your signature to support my nomination

as a presidential candidate. If you support

Navalny rather than Usmanov, then

sign up using the link in the description. And

of course, don’t forget to subscribe

to our channel. This is where the truth is told.