WHO HAS CHOSEN LATVIA AS A SECOND BASE
ALISHER USMANOV
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he largest rea l e s t ate t ransac t ion for i n di vi du a l p rop er t y in Lat via l a s t ye a r was when I lya G e rc h i kov, t he C EO of t he loc al Dzint ar s co s me t i c s comp any, sold his villa in t he we a l t hy resor t town of Jur m ala fo r € 3 .9 million to t he fam ily of bi l l i o n a i re Alish er Usmanov. For be s has nam ed Usmanov t he r ic hes t p e r s o n in Russia. He sp end s t im e b e t we e n M oscow and Lond on where h e ow n s a num b er of exp ensive pro p e r t i e s ( a s we l l as a sta ke i n th e fo ot b all c lub Ar senal). R e: Balt ic a p ar t ner s i n t h i s i nve s t i g at io n , th e T V3 pro gra m “ Not hing Per sonal,” c laimed t hat none of Us ma n ov ’s f a m il y m e m b e rs h ave a ppl i ed for Lat via’s resid ence p er mit s. Usmanov ’s w i fe’s son , N at an (Anto n ) Vi n er, w h o i s a real est ate d evelop er in Russia and i n w h o s e n a me t h e p ro per t y at K ā pu i el a h as b een registered, d id not resp ond to q u e s t i o n s.
The price of villa was 3.9 million euros
MIHAIL ZADORNOV
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ussian satirist Mihail Zadornov has added to his real estate portfolio an apartment in one of Riga’s Art-Nouveau buildings on Alberta Street. According to data from Latvia’s Land Register, he purchased it from SIA I.M. Centrs for approximately € 458,000. Shortly afterwards, Zadornov, who has a Latvian residence permit, angered Mihail Zadornov a number of local parliamentarians with an article which they perceived to contain incitement to hatred. They invited the Interior Minister to consider the annulment of his permit, but he did not see grounds to do so.
Eduard Janakov
EDUARD YANAKOV
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duard Yanakov, a former member of Russia’s parliament (State Duma) from Putin’s United Russia party, also owns a 410.8 square meter apartment in this same building which he bought for almost € 1.5 million. The Dalpolimetal metallurgical company, which is partly owned by Yanakov, was one of the bidders in the rescue of the bankrupt Liepājas Metalurgs. He is also believed to be one of the people who has a stake in Russianlanguage newspaper publishing in Latvia, via companies in Cyprus. Yanakov has a residence permit in Latvia. “No, no, no, that doesn’t interest me. I won’t respond to you at all,” he told reporters.
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A n u m ber o f bo a rd members from t he st ate co nt ro l l ed tel eco mmu n i cati ons comp any, Tran s te l eko m, i n cl u di n g C EO Ar tem Ku d r yavcev a n d Vi ce - Presi d ent Sh u k h rat I b ra g i m ov , p u rc h ased a n a pa r tment wor t h €700, 000 in J ūr m al a at Dz i nta ru pro spekts w it h t wo ot her peopl e, an d o b t ai ned resi den ce per mi ts. Transtelekom is a sub s id iar y o f th e state gi a nt R u ssi an R ailways. I t is a mo n g t h e fi ve l ea di n g R u ssi a n communic at ions com pa n ie s, c l ai m s th e co mpa ny ’s website. They d id not w i s h to re s p o n d to qu esti o n s f rom R e: Balt ic a
ARTEM KUDRYAVCEV SHUKHRAT IBRAGIMOV
Artem Kudryavcev
Shukhrat Ibragimov
ROTENBERG BROTHERS
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One of the first people to receive a residence permit under Latvia’s investor program was another close ally of Putin, the billionaire Arkady Rotenberg, who has now been sanctioned by the US and the European Union. His permit was valid from 2010 to 2013; when it expired, he did not renew it. The permit was obtained not through the purchase of real estate, but in the least transparent way: by making a bank deposit. Until sanctions were imposed, the Rotenbergs owned the SMP Bank in Latvia. The other brother - Boris Rotenberg–had acquired a property at Garkalne, as the sole shareholder in the company which owns the property. He has Finnish citizenship and as such does not need a Latvian residence permit. After the US and EU sanctions were introduced, in August 2014 he transferred his shares in the company to his son Roman Rotenberg, who is the vice-president of Gazprombank and the vice-president of SKA Hockey Club.
Arkady Rotenberg
Boris Rotenberg
Roman Rotenberg
Boris Rotenberg acquired a property at Garkalne - Saphires
NIKOLAI KORENEV
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A popular building among permit holders is in Kāpu street in Jurmala. Nikolai Korenev, another member of Gazprombank’s leadership (Deputy Chairmаn of the Management Board) purchased an apartment for € 275,000 and obtained a Latvian residence permit in 2014. Prior to Gazprombank, he’d worked in the state bureaucracy, and since 2004 has held similar positions in Areximbank in Armenia and Belgazprombank in Belarus, which are affiliated with Gazprombank. Gazprombank, the third largest bank in Russia, is controlled by the national energy giant Gazprom and its pension fund. Gazprom-MediaHolding, a subsidiary of Gazprom, controls a media enterprise which encompasses NTV, radio Echo Moskvi and the Izvestija newspaper, among others. The bank is under EU and US sanctions, which were introduced after the annexation of Crimea and Russia’s support for the pro-Russian fighters in Ukraine.“ As Gazprombank is not a state company, this theme is not important to us,” Re:Baltica was informed by the press office.
GANNA PUSHKAROVA
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Korenev has a number of Ukrainian businessmen’s families as neighbors, including Ganna Pushkarova, whose husband Vadim Pushkarov was, for many years, the president of another bank under EU and US sanctions, VTB in Ukraine. The majority of the bank is owned by the Russian state. In 2013, he stepped down from this position and later contested Ukraine’s parliamentary elections as a candidate from Sergey Tigipko’s party list, Strong Ukraine, but did not get elected. Both men are linked by previous business dealings. Pushkarova has a residence permit. She refused to comment.
Vadim Pushkarov
NATALIA KONOVALOVA
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he Sky Garden residential complex in Jūrmala is another property valued by residence permit holders. Natalia Konovalova, who until last November was the Vice-President of the Bank of Moscow (also under EU and US sanctions as the subsidiary of VTB), purchased an apartment and got a residence permit. According to data from the Land Register, her apartment in the complex cost € 290,000. She left Bank of Moscow last November for a small private bank, and could not be reached for comment.
VADIM ZINGMAN
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Last year, Vadim Zingman, Deputy General Director for Customer Service and a member of the management boardof Aeroflot, the Russian state-controlled airline, bought half of an apartment in Rīga, at Teātra street, for € 390,000, data from the Land Register indicates. He also holds a Latvian residence permit. In August, The Russian state-owned RT television station named Zingmanas among the people with whom the Russian Prime Minister and Transport Minister had discussed a possible response to the EU sanctions in aviation. Re:Baltica’s questions to the company’s PR desk remained unanswered.
MARIA KHAYARD
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aria Khayard, the wife of Maxim Nogotkov, founder of Svjaznoi Group (one of the largest mobile telephone retailers and a bank in Russia), purchased a house for €500,000 in Jūrmala, from SIA Millenium Investments. In 2012, Nogotkov was included in Forbes’list of global billionaires. In the same year, he was a confidant of Mikhail Prokhorov, an opposition candidate in Russia’s presidential elections. Nogotkov also created an activist platform called Yopolis. In 2014, he lost control of the Svjaznoi Group, apparently for business reasons. Last year, a number of high-ranking employees in the group purchased properties in Latvia. Maria Khayard, who has a Latvian residence permit, did not wish to reply to questions.
Maxim Nogotkov
DMITRY ORLOV
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An apartment in a renovated posh building in the heart of Riga, on Lacplesastreet, has been acquired by Dmitry Orlov, a political scientist close to the Kremlin and a member of Putin’s United Russia Supreme Council. According to the Land Register data, Orlov purchased the property for € 275,000 in August, 2014. Orlov is the Director General of the Agency for Political and Economic Communication. He holds a Certificate of Honor for his contribution to the presidential election campaign of Dmitri Medvedev and is an adviser to the president’s administration, his company’s web page claims. When contacted by telephone, Orlov denied that he’s been issued a Latvian residence permit, but not the fact that he’d purchased a property. “I won’t provide answers to any questions at all,” he said. No one answered the door at his Riga apartment when Re:Baltica visited. Emails to him went unanswered, too. The Land registry data entries match his personal data. Orlov’s writings posit that the Eurasian Union, Putin’s envisaged counterweight to the EU, shouldn’t limit itself to the former USSR, but should also include Finland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Mongolia, Vietnam, Bulgaria, Cuba and Venezuela.
ANDRII GUBSKYI
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krainian businessman Andrii Gubskyi, who owns the largest pharmaceutical distribution company in Ukraine, Optima Farm, also purchased an apartment in Rīga at Grēcinieku street, for € 325,000, with his family. His brother, Bogdan Gubskyi, was the richest of the oligarchs in the so-called Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko. In Ukraine, Gubskyi’s company gained some negative publicity when during the heat of the panic caused by bird flu, it was revealed that it received the sole import license for Tamiflu, and retailed it for 600 Ukrainian hryvnias, though it had been purchased for 250. The Gubskyi family got residence permits in Latvia. He refused to comment.
VLADIMIR SHEMYAKIN
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ladimir Shemyakin is a former member of the Russian Duma with Putin’s party United Russia, who up until recently was first deputy general director of GazpromMedia Holding. He bought a luxurious property in Jūrmala, at Bulduru prospekts, in 2011 from the son of the disgraced Parex Banka’s ex-owner, Valery Kargin. The Delfi.lv website reported that the transaction, worth € 1.7 million, was the fifth largest in the Latvian real estate market that year. Another of the Parex Banka ex-owner’s family projects –the Transport and Telecommunication Institute (TSI) -- also came under the control of the Shemyakin family. According to Latvia’s Register of Enterprises, TSI is controlled by JSC Potok, where Shemyakin’s wife Svetlana and one of their children, Nikita, are on the board. They both are on the board of TSI, too. As both persons have Latvian social security numbers, it is safe to assume that they have been issued residence permits. Re:Baltica was unable to find out whether Vladimir Shemyakin has one as well. Both Shemyakins did not reply to Re:Baltica’s questions.
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Until December 2014, Shemyakin was still an influential person in Gazprom Media Holding – the largest Russian media holding company affiliated with Gazprombank, where he was both the Deputy Director-General, and CEO of one of the companies, Gazprom Media, which is the second largest advertising retailer in Russia’s TV market. The Russian publication Vedomosti reported that since December, Shemyakin has been one of the leading people at Vi, Russia’s largest TV ads sales house.
ALEXANDER RUDIK
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he former Vice-Governor of Irkutsk, Rudik is now a professional investor (Region Group, Nova Capital) who is also on the board of the Swedish owned RusForest company operating in the timber industry in Eastern Siberia. He has purchased an apartment in old Riga. “It’s true, I bought an apartment in Rīga last year, that’s no secret, but it’s not connected with any events taking place in Russia or Ukraine. It’s a dream I’ve had for a long time. The city is very interesting and I just wanted a little nest there,” he explained. “Plus there is a good corporate tax system for business in Latvia, and I’ll consider whether I should transfer part of my business operations there. I’m not thinking about living in Latvia permanently, it’s more a summer home thing. I will seek a residence permit though, as it’s useful for travelling freely around Europe.”
Authors: Inga Spriņģe, Sanita Jemberga, Re:Baltica Ilze Jaunalksne (Riga), Olesya Shmagun (Moscow), Elena Loginova (Kiev) contributed to this report Photo: Nekā Personīga for Re:Baltica Portraits: Mārtiņš Upītis for Re:Baltica Interactive infograph: Ivo Simsons for Re:Baltica Layout: Raivis Vilūns for Re:Baltica Copyright: Re:Baltica 2015