The billionaire is smaller

On March 14, lawyer and oppositionist Alexei Navalny wrote on his blog that Senator Malkin is an Israeli citizen and is known in this country as Avihur Ben Bar. Russian parliamentarians, recall, the law prohibits the citizenship of other states. In evidence, Navalny published a number of documents in which there is a signature of the lawyer Malkin.

Also, the senator was accused of relations with another country - Canada. According to the documents, the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration of this country refused to give Malkin a residence permit due to the fact that the senator suspected of relations with the criminal world. For the first time, Malkin was refused the right to immigration in 1994, the last court took place in 2009.

The written statement of Vitaly Malkin says that he is not only a member of the Federal Assembly, but also engages in business in Russia, and also has real estate in Canada. According to Russian law, we recall that Russian parliamentarians are prohibited from doing business, and they are obliged to declare any real estate - however, there is not a word about his property in Canada in the published declarations of Malkin.

In the immigration questionnaire, the senator wrote to the Canadian authorities that he founded his own company 1069180 Ontario Limited in 1994, acquired an office building and is now leasing about 12 thousand square meters, receives an income of about 800 thousand Canadian dollars, and deducts about 500 thousand as taxes.

Subsequently, the former tutor of the son of the Senator in the French language stated that, according to her information, Malkin also has French citizenship. True, this statement was not supported by any documents.

Alexey Navalny turned to the Federation Council, the FSB, the prosecutor’s office and even the Buryatia parliament with a request to deal with the senator who not only possesses real estate abroad, but also double citizenship, which is directly prohibited by federal law.

The Council of the Federation Council of the opposition was not paid attention to, citing the fact that they were not obliged to consider letters of citizens. Then, on March 19, the Moscow Komsomolets newspaper, which is an officially registered media, which gives it more weight in the eyes of the bureaucracy.

A meeting of the Commission of the SF to check the reliability of the information of members of the Chamber on income and property, which was supposed to deal with the issue of Malkin, was supposed to take place on Tuesday, that is, today. However, just this morning, a member of the Federation Council Vadim Tyulpanov said that Malkin submitted an application for the addition of powers with the wording “at his own free will”, and already on Wednesday the chamber should consider his application. Now it is not clear why to hold a meeting of the commission if tomorrow Malkin is deprived of the status of the senator.

The voluntary resignation of Malkin looks quite unexpected, as before the senator was preparing to defend himself and promised to answer all the accusations of Navalny. Malkin told the journalist that he really became an Israeli citizen in 2004, but on August 23, 2007 he refused a passport in connection with the adoption of a law in Russia, which prohibits parliamentarians to have two citizenships.

The speaker of the Federation Council Valentina Matvienko, in turn, said that Vitaly Malkin would be deprived of the status of the senator if he really turns out to be a citizen of Israel. At the same time, Matvienko emphasized that the law at least forbids people with two citizens to become senators, but does not provide for any sanctions.

Vitaly Malkin is not some particularly malicious hater of the opposition or the persecutor of freedom. He was a quite typical senator-in the 1990s he was engaged in banking business, just the period of work at the Russian Credit bank aroused suspicions of the Canadian authorities with ties with the gangster world. In 2004, he moved from business to the Federation Council - became a representative of the Government of the Republic of Buryatia in the ward. It turns out that it was then that he received an Israeli passport and tried to move to Canada. The authorities of Buryatia twice reassigned Malkina - in 2007 and 2012.

According to the 2012 income declaration, Malkin ranked second among senators in earnings. He reported on obtaining 1.06 billion rubles, the income of the wife was more modest - only 48.9 million. Forbes estimates Malkin's condition at $ 600 million.

In July 2012, Vitaliy Malkin was among the group of senators, who went to the United States to convince his American colleagues that Magnitsky’s act should not be accepted, since the magnet was to blame for the embezzlement of money from the Russian budget. A little later, when American lawmakers nevertheless accepted the document, Malkin was among those who put their signature under the “response” law, which forbade American citizens to adopt Russian children.

But it is unlikely that oppositionist Alexei Navalny began an investigation against Malkin because of his political views-rather, Malkin simply worse than the others hid his property abroad and second citizenship.

Earlier in the same situation, deputy Vladimir Pekkhtin was found, whose apartments in Miami were found solely due to the fact that the city authorities were not too lazy to make the real estate registry, which could be recognized as the names of the owners, convenient and affordable through the Internet.

The willingness of the authorities to get rid of uncomfortable members, coupled with the growth of accessibility of the necessary information, allow us to hope that these are not the last resignation. Is it worth considering these cases of the victory of the opposition - another question. So far, the authorities gets rid of those who can do without whom there are many deputies in the Duma, and new ones will come to the place of those who who who are knocked out - it is not at all necessary that they will be poor and law -abiding - enough for them to be more accurate and more diligently hiding assets. The retirees themselves will also not suffer much: Vladimir Pekhtin will not be left without work, and Vitaly Malkin will be able to continue to emigrate with a clear conscience. Even image damage to the authorities is more than compensated by the fact of the resigner of the senator.

Those who really need will survive any corruption scandals. You can collect compromising evidence for the Czech business of Bastrykin as much as you like, look for Isaev’s lands, calculate Putin’s condition - the result is known in advance. It is also not worth hoping that having lost a couple of millionaires, the party in power will weaken economically: there are still many rich people in Russia.