Simon Zhavoronkov: "I walked and asked"

Simon Zhavoronkov Sergey Roldugin Photo: Press Service of the XIV International Competition named after P.I. Tchaikovsky

The cellist Sergei Roldugin, whose name was in the spotlight after the publications of the investigation based on the “Panama Archive”, personally decided to protect his good name. At the weekend, he gave an interview to Vesti Week.

Recall that before the publication of the “Panama archive” from open sources, it was known that Sergei Roldugin owns a relatively small package of shares at the Rossiya bank, 3.2%. There was also information that Roldugin was the godfather of one of the daughters of Vladimir Putin.

According to the results of the journalistic investigation, Roldugin turned out to be the owner of the Sonnette Overseas company from the British Virgin Islands and the International Media Overseas (IMO) from Panama. These companies received loans from the RCB Cyprus Bank, which is controlled by the Russian VTB, shares in large Russian companies were also recorded on them. In total, the turnover of companies belonging to Roldugin was estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars, and their capital at the end of 2015 - at least two billion dollars.

Certificate of powers issued by Mossack Fonseca on February 1, 2005, which indicates information about the only shareholder of Sonnette Overseas Source

Vladimir Putin, commenting on a journalistic investigation, admitted that Sergei Roldugin and, moreover, familiar with his business for a long time. According to the president, he is proud of acquaintance with Roldugin, and he spends almost all the money earned on the purchase of foreign musical instruments that state institutions later donate.

In general, the president’s comment is not the best characteristic, it allows you to consider Roldugin and Putin “connected persons”, which the first should have notified Western banks when working with them (the rules for combating money laundering requires disclosing relations with politically significant figures), but, apparently, did not do this.

In addition, the Vedimos Ty newspaper studied customs statistics on the import of musical equipment, and it turned out that in 2015, about 40 thousand instruments with a total value of $ 48.1 million were imported into the country. More than a quarter of the total amount was for digital piano - 13.2 million dollars. The second largest imports were acoustic guitars, they cost $ 11 million, piano and piano imported 8.4 million.

Now Roldugin decided to get into his defense. On the air of the Russia 1 channel, he said that most of his life asked the billionaires to support culture. “I wanted the best tools, the best professors, the best halls. It costs crazy money. And I walked and asked, ”he explained. At some point, Roldugin simply transferred a small share in business so that he could support the domestic music school at his own expense.

Roldugin also talked about how he helped to restore the Alekseevsky Palace in St. Petersburg, which later housed the house of music. According to the musician, now in the House of Music there is a cello Stradivari, which costs a lot of millions of dollars, as well as the cellon of Gofriller at the end of the 17th century.

Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin at a concert in the English hall of the House of Music. 2009 photo: kremlin.ru

The fact that he is a billionaire, Roldugin, according to him, learned only from the press after the publication of the investigation. At the same time, he is glad that his acquaintance with Vladimir Putin gives him the opportunity to support Russian culture.

Thus, we can say that neither Putin nor Roldugin himself definitely deny the fidelity of the conclusions that participants in the journalistic investigation came to. And what the money spent through offshore is spent on, the official bodies of Western countries are interested, as a rule, last.

See also: Russia was suspected of organizing Panama leaks Roldugin told about his expenses the Kremlin defended Roldugin's right to preserve the secrets of offshore