Palaces and castles of Mr. Shu

In 2019, according to the official income Declaration, Igor Shuvalov received 179 million rubles. But in 2018, Mr. Shuvalov's income was only 71 million rubles. The former Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Government explains his new wealth by selling some real estate of more than 2 thousand square metres. It has been known for a long time that Mr. Shuvalov does not like to "trifle". It has also been known for a long time that he and his wife, Olga Shuvalova, own kilometres of residential space. And not only in "unwashed" Russia. The Shuvalovs have a castle in Austria, a mansion in Britain, and real estate in the United Arab Emirates. All these kilometres of luxury housing fell into the "clutches" of former Deputy Prime Minister Shuvalov during his "service" to the Fatherland in the Government of the Russian Federation.

Does it mean that he rowed under himself, regardless of etiquette? We will remind that Mr. Shuvalov was engaged in this "rowing" for more than 10 years. Not long ago, he finally left the White house. And ended up in the leadership of the VEB.RF state corporation, which seems to be driven by the most important national projects. But what in reality?

It looks like a fabulous animal, which is a character of Russian folk epics was let into the "garden" of VEB.RF. And isn't that why Mr. Shu's income has soared in just a year?

A correspondent of The Moscow Post tried to investigate this situation.

Personal plane disappeared from the Declaration

Journalists have calculated that Igor Shuvalov has got savings up for 115 years ahead… But what's curious: from the Declaration of Igor Shuvalov, it seems that a personal plane, a not-so-cheap Rolls-Royce car, as well as a castle in Austria, real estate in Dubai and many other assets that clung to Mr. Shuvalov from head to toe during his, of course, selfless work in the Government of the Russian Federation, suddenly disappeared.

What could be the secret? It turns out that Mr. Shuvalov might rent hidden real estate, and he rents it all from his trusted friends, former employees. This was reported by The Moscow Post.

So, in 2019, the Shuvalovs had 3 apartments in Russia of sizes 108.9; 73.8 and 115.8 sq. m. The Former Deputy Prime Minister still owns 6/20 shares in an apartment of 170.6 sq. m. Mr. Shuvalov also possesses a residential building in Russia with an area of - it's scary to say what size - but still we will specify - more than 4170 sq. m., as well as a castle and apartment in Austria and the UK with an area of 1479.8 and 483 sq. m.

Shuvalov's two underage children have a residential house and an apartment in Russia (with an area of 4174.1 and 107.6 square meters), and one of these happy children already owns a Mercedes GLE Coupe 350D 4MATIC car worth 10 million. This is reported by RBC.

Olga Shuvalova, wife of the former Deputy Prime Minister, has an annual income of 12 million rubles. The couple owns 4 cars: Jaguar XJ8 4.2 Executive, VAZ 2101, ZIL 41047 and GAZ 21, as well as a building in Austria with an area of more than 1470 sq. m. and a UK apartment of 483 sq. m.

Billionaire civil servant Igor Shuvalov and his "iron horses"

If we recall the number of defrauded real estate investors who have been waiting for years for their modest apartments in multi-storeyed buildings in rural areas, or hundreds of orphaned children who can wait for their fragile square metres God knows how long, somehow there appears a feeling of shame concerning the state man Igor Shuvalov.

The cadastral value is understated by 2800 times

A scandal began to unfold around the figure of former First Deputy Prime Minister, and now Head of Vnesheconombank GC Igor Shuvalov, after the cost of the oligarch's economy, consisting of luxury real estate, was lowered hundreds of times.

We are talking about a plot of 7.6 hectares in the Moscow region, which Rosreestr (The Federal Service for State Registration, Cadastre and Cartography) estimated at 107.5 thousand rubles. But the cadastral value of one hectare in this area is 39 million rubles. This is reported by Tsargrad.

British mansion of the Shuvalovs

Thus, the real cadastral value was underestimated by almost 2,800 times.

And it was previously known that Mr. Shuvalov has a collection of luxury real estate. Recently, he added two more luxury apartments to this collection in Moscow with a total cost of one billion rubles.

Igor Shuvalov's property is currently estimated at 17 billion rubles. Igor Shuvalov, indeed, was noticed for the fact that he likes to rent luxury housing from companies controlled by him.

In particular, a residential building rented in Austria, known as the Burgau Castle, is registered to one of Igor Shuvalov's firms. Journalists got to the bottom of it. Shuvalov also rents an apartment in London with an area of 483 square metres.

There is also a huge estate in Russia on the list: the estate is located in the village of Zarechye near the MKAD (Moscow Ring Road). This is a 4,000 sq. m. mansion, which he also rents from himself.

Shuvalov has a villa in the UAE: a mansion of 650 sq. m. located on the Jumeirah Islands in Dubai. This was written by Forbes.

A few years ago, as the first Deputy Prime Minister of the Government, Shuvalov declared a residential building in the Emirates of 753 sq. m.

The Shuvalov's villa is located on the Jumeirah Islands in the UAE

An official apartment of the Shuvalovs in Moscow with an area of 170 sq. m. is located in a Redan residential complex of business class on Mozhaisk highway. The Russian asset also includes two undeclared apartments on Kosygina street on Vorobyovy Gory. Another one - an apartment, or rather, a whole floor - is located in a high-rise building on the Kotelnicheskaya embankment.

And there are also premium apartments near the Kremlin on Nikolskaya street.

It should be recalled that earlier, as a state official, Shuvalov was surprised that Russian families are forced to buy "funny" apartments with an area of 20 sq. m.

Shuvalov and his family live in a mansion in Skolkovo. The land through Zarechye-4 LLC belongs to the Shuvalov the Sova-nedvizhimost LLC family company.

What's curious? The Skolkovo residential complex, built next door, is designed in such a way that residents have a blocked view of the mansion of Igor Shuvalov.

Bought the entire floor

Igor Shuvalov started buying apartments in a high-rise immediately after the Crimean campaign. And gradually acquired a whole floor. Shuvalov needed only 600 million rubles. The purchase area is also impressive – more than 700 sq. m. This is the city centre, with a panoramic view of the capital, including Red square.

Igor Shuvalov did not buy housing himself, but with the help of a lawyer Sergey Kotlyarenko, his classmate who manages family assets.

Stalinist high-rise on Kotelnicheskaya embankment

Igor Shuvalov is an official billionaire. If one looks at his declarations for 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015, simple arithmetic calculations give an exciting figure: during this time, together with his wife Olga Viktorovna he earned about 1 billion rubles. And even earlier, in 2008-2010, the couple received an income of 1,5 billion rubles.

600 apartments can be bought on the money that the Deputy Head of Government spent on housing in the Stalinist high-rise.

But, as they say, the well-fed does not understand the hungry!

Investments for "inner circle"

Loan portfolio of the VEB.RF today is 1 trillion 218 billion rubles.

The state corporation invests money in joint projects with very rich people of the Russian Federation. Top managers of VEB.RF receive huge income.

The main objective of the VEB.RF is to promote the economic development of Russia. The state Corporation is engaged in financing projects aimed at developing infrastructure, industry, social sphere, developing technological potential and improving the quality of life of Russians. Well, what is in reality?

Many of the beneficiaries were associated with the largest entrepreneurs. For example, together with Arkady Rotenberg, VEB.RF created the Natsproektstroy enterprise. And the media has already reported that this company will receive 120 billion rubles from the Russian Government without a competition for the construction of facilities in Krasnodar and the Rostov region. RBC wrote about this.

Arkady Rotenberg

Natsproektstroy has established subsidiaries that will be engaged in these projects. We are talking about NPS DOC LLC, NPC OZK LLC and NPS Aksay LLC. 1% in joint firms is controlled by Arkady Rotenberg's Transstroymekhanizatsiya. This office has mastered more than 230 billion rubles in state contracts.

DZOK office stands for far Western bypass of Krasnodar, the company EZK – Europe-Western China.

VEB.RF was supported by another famous businessman - Alexander Mamut. The state corporation agreed to purchase 20% of Strelka KB, which belongs to Mr. Mamut. This was reported by Forbes.

Alexander Mamut

VEB.RF supports several investment projects at once and provides assistance in expanding in the regions of the Russian Federation.

Let us recall that Igor Shuvalov should be grateful to Alexander Mamut for a brilliant start of his career: thanks to work in the Mamut's ALM Consulting company Shuvalov earned his first millions. And he's got necessary connections.

Let us go further. VEB.RF creates a holding company for projects in the timber industry together with Gleb Frank's Rockwell Capital. The first joint project is the construction of a timber chemical plant in the Krasnoyarsk territory. The volume of investments is more than 140 billion rubles. RBC wrote about this.

Gleb Frank

It us recall that Gleb Frank is the son-in-law of billionaire Gennady Timchenko and the son of Sergey Frank, the owner of Sovcomflot.

Govorun under the wing of Shuvalov?

But over the past year, not only Mr. Shuvalov has become rich, but also his Deputy at VEB.RF GC, infamous Oleg Govorun.

In the recent past, he served as the Minister of Regional Development, and then sat in the chair of the head of the Fund of defrauded real estate investors. Mr. Govorun was also found to have elite real estate worth more than 2 billion rubles. Lenta.ru writes about this.

In 2018 and 2019, Govorun purchased several apartments in the renovated Narkomfin Building on Novinsky Boulevard in Moscow with a total area of more than 2.070 sq. m. worth 1.7 billion rubles.

Govorun's wife at the same time, in 2018, bought a mansion with an area of 947 square metres in an elite village in the Moscow region. Price? Only 400 million rubles. And a month after the purchase of the Fazenda, along with a land plot of 50 acres, it came to the property of Oleg Govorun under a marriage contract.

Let us recall that the talented Govorun's husband went into politics from Alfa Bank, where he worked in the 1990s.

In the past, he was clearly noted for his scientific work on the topic: "The constitutional principle of equality of human and civil rights and freedoms regardless of property status in the Russian Federation", in which Mr. Govorun wrote about his concern about inequality in income distribution, which has increased over the past decade.

Oleg Govorun

Mr. Govorun likes to sit on cash flows. Even now, Igor Shuvalov sets a difficult task for him – to raise the standard of living of Russian citizens through the implementation of social projects. Modernize public transport, develop projects for urban infrastructure and dispose of solid household waste.

It is worth noting that the last few years Govorun has been changing positions like socks. Previously, he was fairly well-placed in positions under the Presidential Administration, he was a Plenipotentiary representative in the Central Federal district, then - Head of the Presidential Office for socio-economic cooperation with the CIS States, Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Some time ago, the media spread a rumor that Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin dismissed Govorun from the post of the Fund for the protection of the rights of real estate investors. This, in particular, was reported by Interfax.

It is not known whether Khusnullin really had a hand in the move of Govorun, but today the post of the Head of the Fund for the protection of the rights of real estate investors is occupied by Khusnullin's man - Konstantin Timofeev. Mr. Timofeev worked with the new Deputy Prime Minister in the city hall.

But there were financial questions to Govorun, as the Head of the Fund.

In December 2019, the head of the Foundation, Oleg Govorun, officially announced at the reception of the Prime Minister (at that time) Dmitry Medvedev, that in Russia there were about 200 thousand defrauded real estate investors and more than 3 thousand unfinished houses. It was proposed to solve the problems through an extensive network of regional Funds for the protection of the rights of real estate investors. Oleg Govorun then said that it was necessary to allocate an additional 0.5 trillion rubles for the construction of housing for all defrauded real estate investors.

Could he pay with his chair for such excessive appetites?

The Accounts Chamber also had questions about the Fund's activities. As if in December 2019, the Ministry of Construction of the Russian Federation, JSC Dom.RF and Rosimushchestvo signed an agreement on providing budget investments for the completion of 40 SU-155 houses. And as if the auditors of the Accounting Chamber found out that 37 objects at the time of signing the contract were already put into operation. This was written by Forbes.

How did billionaire Igor Shuvalov earn his fortune?

Govorun had problems with documentation preparing in the Fund.

"There was no register of real estate investors, no assessment of which houses are problematic was made, which need to be completed, where payments are required," - the statement of the Accounting Chamber of the Russian Federation said. This was written by Forbes.

What conclusions can be drawn?

It is completely unclear why the management of the VEB.RF state corporation were people, to put it mildly, dishonest. It seems that neither Shuvalov nor Govorun - and this is clear - are interested in the problems that exist in a huge country. What kind of development can we talk about if both the former Deputy Prime Minister and the former Head of the Fund of defrauded real estate investors can only think about their pockets, which become bigger and bigger?