"On the morals of the Russian elite"

The publication "Important Stories" published an investigation about Kirill Shamalov, a businessman, who is called the former son -in -law of Putin. About this today is the report of the TV channel present.

Kirill Shamalov was married to Katerina Tikhonova, the media called her the daughter of the President of Russia. As the journalists found out, in 2013, Shamalov bought 3.8% of the shares of the largest petrochemical company of Russia "Siber" worth $ 380 million for only $ 100 - 3.8 million times cheaper than their market price. About this investigation and its goals, the “present” was talked with one of the authors of the publication, the editor of “important stories” by Roman Aninin :

Your browser does not support HTML5

Roman Anin - On the investigation about the former son of Putin

What is this investigation about

[This publication] is about the morals of the president and the morals of the Russian elite. These customs do not withstand any criticism, [these people] lie, [they] corrupt, prohibit people with what they themselves are doing.

In general words, but by facts, but at the time when the president forbids the elites to own foreign foreign instruments, to own bank accounts abroad, his son -in -law using offshore companies and accounts abroad, buys real estate in the country of NATO, his daughter is engaged in the arrangement of the expensive interior of this house. This clearly says a lot about the moral appearance of the president and that in his family is practiced that he prohibits at the legislative level in Russia.

The story about how the president’s son -in -law for $ 100 buys shares that cost $ 380 million, again, a lot says about the morals of both the president and the Russian elite. And many other facts from this investigation that can be listed for a very long time.

Your browser does not support HTML5

Investigation of the corruption of the former son -in -law of Putin

Everyone can read this story in its own way. For me personally, she is more about the morals and life of the Russian elite with examples of specific transactions, on the example of specific facts of their biography. Buying Sibura is the most important indicator of how the elite is enriched. While the people are poor and impoverished, the elite is enriched. In what way? In this way - buying for $ 100 that costs $ 380 million. This is access to resources inaccessible to any resident of Russia.

For me, as the author of this publication, this is a story about everyday life and customs. We see how to Kirill Shamalov, a 27-year-old young man, his partners turn and ask to cancel the decisions of federal arbitration courts. This fact of this fact would be enough in any other country in the world to initiate a criminal case and investigate how it happened. In Russia, of course, we do not expect anything like this. I have already known everything about the Russian elite for so long, to be honest, but in this case, all these facts are in conjunction-in fact, for me this is an additional very important argument in disputes that are sometimes conducted: "Maybe they are still nothing? Maybe we converge the colors?" No, it’s worse there than we think.

On the significance of the investigation

[The social significance of the investigation], firstly, in the fact that the president’s son-in-law bought a share in Sibur for $ 100. In my opinion, this is a corruption fact. I explain such an incredible luck in the life of this young businessman with his family ties. Corruption has a wide interpretation. This is not only that which lends itself to interpretation from the point of view of the Criminal Code, but also that which lends itself to interpretation from the point of view of some moral norms, customs in society. Even in Russian society, the fact that the president’s son -in -law can afford such a deal, he, in my opinion, speaks of corruption.

The second is the use of marital status to promote your own business interests. What, probably, could be called lobbying. But lobbying and corruption are very such bordering spheres. Of course, when the president’s son-in-law uses his marital status to transfer his letters to someone, this is also not very good.

About the difficulties during the investigation

We, as journalists, when we proceed to the next topic, do not accept anything unconditionally for the truth. In this case, we understood that the origin of the information is morally dubious, and we took all measures in order to understand how much it is true.

The first thing we did was to check the headings of letters. By headlines, you can understand from which email address a letter was sent, whether it was a real address or whether it was a dummy address. We were convinced that these were real addresses.

Further, accordingly, we contacted some senders and recipients of letters, asked them if they sent or received letters from Shamalov. And they confirmed. We watched the day, date, time and content of the letter, and this was confirmed.

The third thing we did is - we checked everything from open sources. If Shamalov send documents for some company in Cyprus that he owns, we go to the Cyprus register, order a document from an open source and see if he was really the owner of this company. They made sure that it was - excellent. If Shamalov sends any real estate documents that he owns in Russia, we go to the real estate register, get documents, made sure that this is really his property. Cooked - that means excellent.

These are the steps we took on each document. In addition, we sent requests to all actors. We sent more than ten requests for this publication. He who wanted to answer. If there was something incorrect or incorrect in the publication and in our matters, people had the opportunity to inform us about it. They did not use her.

About the goals of publication

This is our work. Many people mistakenly believe that when we publish something, we have a goal. I will honestly tell you, my main goal is to inform people. On the one hand, it sounds modest, but in fact it is the most important function of the journalist: to inform people and write a story. Neither Vladimir Putin is eternal, nor we are eternal. And after decades, people will want to know: how was it really in Russia in the 21st century? It was like that. If we talk about the goal, well, I did not formulate it so when I wrote this publication. Probably the main goal in this is to record history.