Mysterious property holdings

Journalists trace mansions outside Moscow to the new prime minister’s family

Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin’s family owns 2.6 hectares (about 6.4 acres) of land in the “Cotton Way” community outside Moscow, in the prestigious Rublyovka neighborhood, according to Rosreestr records uncovered by Open Media, which says the Mishustins own five homes with a total area of 2,457 square meters (more than 26,445 square feet). The two biggest houses on these properties are 861 square meters (9,267 square feet) and 741 square meters (7,976 square feet), respectively.

According to Mishustin’s 2017 financial declaration, his underage son owns 0.55 hectares (1.4 acres) of land that the website Proekt has located in the Cotton Way community outside Moscow. At the beginning of the year, Proekt discovered, the owner of this land was listed in Rosreestr as “Russian Federation” — a registration trick used to conceal the names of real property owners.

Two land plots neighboring another larger property allegedly owned by the Mishustins are also registered to “Russian Federation.” Open Media identified the owners by looking at archival data from Rosreestr and finding records that listed their real names, before they were hidden.

Until 2015, the land in question was divided into several small plots, each about 1,250 square meters (13,455 square feet). In 2012, a man named Vladimir Mishustin (believed to be the new prime minister’s father) bought several of these land plots from Rosneft Vice President Gennady Bukaev. At various times, the property has also been registered to Mishustin’s suspected sister, Natalia Stenina, and her business partner, Alexander Udodov, who also belongs to Mishustin’s inner circle, according to Znak.com.

Open Media estimates that the Mishustins’ real estate is worth roughly 1.5 billion rubles ($24.4 million). Based on his income disclosures, this is more than Mikhail Mishustin has earned since 2010, when he became the director of Russia’s Federal Tax Service. Between 2010 and 2019, he reported 213 million rubles ($3.5 million) in earnings, while his wife, Vladlena Mishustina, made 790 million rubles ($12.9 million).

Anti-corruption activist and opposition politician Alexey Navalny has publicly demanded that Mishustin explain how his wife earned so much money in the past decade. According to the “SPARK-Interfax” database, she owns no businesses and is not registered as an individual entrepreneur. In the 2010s, however, she was formally affiliated with the “International Computer Club” joint-stock company, where her husband began his career and first started networking with state officials and representatives of the foreign hi-tech industry.

Summary by Alexander Baklanov

Translation by Kevin Rothrock