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The family of Rostec head Sergei Chemezov hid property worth 22 billion rubles offshore, including a superyacht and a villa in Spain
“I don’t hoard. I don't store money in corners. I don't have yachts or planes. There is a nice big house where we live with our family. There is a large apartment... I’m not going to build palaces, and there’s no need for one. What I have is quite enough,” said Sergei Chemezov in an interview with RBC in 2019.
Formally, Chemezov really does not own the 85-meter yacht Valerie. According to an extract from the ship registry of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, the yacht is owned by a company from the British Virgin Islands, Delima Services Limited. And the offshore, as it turned out from the documents of the Trident Trust registrar, is owned by Anastasia Ignatova, Chemezov’s 34-year-old stepdaughter.
The boat was launched in 2011 by the German shipyard Lürssen, beloved among Russian billionaires, which builds some of the most expensive yachts in the world. The interior decoration was done by Reymond Langton, a studio specializing in superyacht design. The publication SuperYachtFan valued Valerie at approximately 140 million dollars (more than 10 billion rubles today).
85 meter yacht Valerie Photo: Lürssen Interior of yacht Valerie Photo: Dynamiq Sales and Charter
In the summer of 2021, Valerie visited Monaco and Antibes, a resort town on the Cote d'Azur in France. Chemezov himself could not visit these countries due to EU sanctions. He was included in the sanctions list in 2014 as an old friend of Vladimir Putin: Chemezov is a colleague of the Russian president in the KGB. But Chemezov’s children, judging by their social networks, fly to vacation in the resorts of Monaco, Ibiza and mainland Spain, where in the semi-closed village of S'Agaro Anastasia Ignatova has a villa worth 15 million euros (1.3 billion rubles).
As it became known from the “Pandora archive”, the Chemezov family may own another villa in another elite resort in Spain.
Grandmother and granddaughter
In 2013, Sergei Chemezov’s mother-in-law, Lyudmila Rukavishnikova, noted on her Facebook page that she visited a restaurant on the shores of the Spanish city of Marbella “with Oleg and Nastya” (probably with her husband and granddaughter Anastasia Ignatova). In 2016, Chemezov’s youngest son Sergei posted a photo from a vacation in Marbella on VKontakte.
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Marbella ("beautiful sea") is one of the most popular and luxurious resorts in Spain. Along its Costa del Sol coastline, which is called the Golden Mile, there are luxury villas. One of them, in the city of Estepona near Marbella, according to the Spanish real estate registry, belongs to the company Holytown Limited. The registry does not indicate in which country the company is registered. However, she acquired real estate in Spain in the summer of 1998, and in the largest database of international companies, Orbis, there is only one operating company with that name, which already existed at that time - it was established in April 1998 in the capital of Ireland.
In 2014, the Irish Holytown was bought by a company from the British Virgin Islands, Penimar Holdings Limited, which, according to documents from the offshore registrar Trident Trust, is owned in half by Anastasia Ignatova and Lyudmila Rukavishnikova.
In the latest available accounts for 2018, Holytown reported that it owned real estate worth 8.5 million euros (more than 600 million rubles at that year's average exchange rate). The real estate valuation service of the Spanish bank BBVA estimates the villa at 4.7 million euros. But this is only a building of more than 800 square meters, and there is also a plot of 27 “golden” acres.
Holytown Limited villa in Marbella resort in Spain Photo: Google Earth
Anastasia Ignatova’s offshores may be hiding more than one villa and more than one yacht. In the archive studied by “Important Stories”, there were eight offshore companies, the beneficiary of which was Ignatova. The documents of four of them indicated the value of their assets - 21 billion rubles (most likely, this amount already includes a yacht worth 10 billion). Plus a villa, a total of almost 22 billion rubles.
To see a list of all offshore companies and the value of their assets (where it is known), click the “Fact Check” button at the beginning of the text.
Offshores of Anastasia Ignatova and their investments (converted into rubles - at the average annual rate)
Penimar Holdings Limited (BVI), 8.5 million euros (more than 600 million rubles at the average exchange rate of that year); this amount is indicated in the statements of Penimar’s subsidiary - Holytown Limited (Ireland);
On the shores of the Croatian island of Krk is the small resort town of Malinska. The picturesque place with healing air attracted Austrian monarchs in the 18th century, and in the 20th century, Bob Guccione, the founder of the erotic magazine Penthouse, appreciated its potential. In the 1970s, he made Malinska one of the best resorts on the Adriatic coast. His Haludovo Palace Hotel with the Penthouse Adriatic Club Casino is the stuff of legends: guests from all over the world supposedly ate hundreds of kilograms of lobster every day, one of the pools was filled with champagne, and among the politicians who vacationed at the hotel was Saddam Hussein. In 1991, war began in Croatia, and by this time Guccione had already gone bankrupt. Refugees lived in the hotel, and after the end of the war it was in a dilapidated state.
Swimming pools at Haludovo Hotel Palace, architect Boris Magash. 05/31/1972 Malinska Photo: Boris Magaš / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0) Ruins of Haludovo Hotel Palace. 06/19/2014 Malinska Photo: Usien/Wikimedia Commons
At the beginning of the 21st century, businessman Ara Abrahamyan, president of the Union of Armenians of Russia and friend of Sergei Chemezov (the latter himself spoke about this) became the owner of the joint-stock company Hoteli Haludovo Malinska. And in 2003, as Important Stories learned, Chemezov’s second wife, Ekaterina Ignatova, received almost 10% of Hoteli Holudovo Malinska .
Abrahamyan wanted to rebuild the resort. He has experience in real estate: he was involved in the reconstruction of the Kremlin, built an elite house in the Swedish impasse, known as the “house of Putin’s friends,” and sold plots in Barvikha. But his business did not work out in Croatia. Abrahamyan was unable to get the necessary plots of land at his disposal, in particular beaches and parking lots, got stuck in the courts and began to scold the Croatian authorities.
Since 2009, Ekaterina Ignatova has reduced her stake in Hoteli Holudovo Malinska to 0.49% and two years later transferred it to an offshore company from the British Virgin Islands, Linkpoint Services Limited, whose beneficiary is her daughter Anastasia.
Where does the money come from?
Of course, it is easy to assume that Sergei Chemezov gives money for yachts and villas to his stepdaughter and mother-in-law. After all, he is even officially a rich man: over the last eight years alone, Chemezov and his wife have declared an income of 7.5 billion rubles. But Chemezov himself denies this. When journalists talked about the villa of Anastasia Ignatova and Lyudmila Rukavishnikova in the village of S'Agaro, Chemezov replied that they “are not supported by him,” but are engaged in business themselves and “receive the corresponding income.” However, studying open sources casts doubt on this: of course, there is income, but it is not adequate for the purchase of yachts and villas.
Presentation of the annual Pirelli calendar for 2017. Participant of the Pirelli calendar, MGIMO teacher Anastasia Ignatova. 11/29/2016 Paris Photo: Dmitry Lebedev / Kommersant
In documents of offshore companies, Anastasia Ignatova is called either an entrepreneur or a university teacher, and Rukavishnikova is called a real estate agent . The source of their funds is indicated as salaries and personal savings, and the question of whether they belong to “politically exposed persons” or their relatives is left unanswered.
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Ignatova worked at MGIMO as a teacher in the department of political theory from 2012 until at least 2018 - in particular, she taught the course “State Corporations”, and also prepared the monograph “State Policy in the Field of High Technologies” edited by her stepfather. The average salary of a MGIMO teacher is almost 160 thousand rubles per month. She has a couple of companies in Russia that can bring in tens of millions a year - but in rubles, not dollars. Click the "Fact Check" button at the beginning of the text to find out more.
Companies of Anastasia Ignatova
AIS Development owns a historical estate in the center of Moscow, on Alexander Solzhenitsyn Street, 38. Renting out this estate could bring the company about 24 million rubles a year.
Another Ignatova company, Farmapt, according to the Kontur.Focus company database, from 2017 to 2019 owned 25% of the Mega Pharm pharmacy chain owned by Alexander Vinokurov, whose pharmaceutical business is associated with Rostec. The net profit of Pharmapt in 2018–2020 amounted to 46 million rubles.
Anastasia Ignatova is allegedly married to the president of the CSKA basketball club Andrei Vatutin. Vatutin owns 50% of the Vodaconsultinggroup company, which owns 25% of RT-Vodokanal (another 25% is owned by a subsidiary of Rostec). Both companies were registered at the end of 2020; their financial statements are not yet available.
75-year-old Rukavishnikova is indeed closely connected with real estate. True, most of her assets discovered so far rather aggravate the question of where the money comes from. Thus, journalists at different times found her ownership of eight hectares of land on Rublyovka, a huge penthouse on Malaya Nikitskaya Street and an apartment in a house on Povarskaya Street in Moscow.
Of the assets that generate money, several are known that Rukavishnikova received from Rostec companies. This is a business center on Spiridonovka, office premises on Znamenka and part of the Sochi sanatorium “Green Grove”. Here we can talk about tens of millions a year, but also rubles. Click the "Fact Check" button at the beginning of the text to find out more.
Companies of Lyudmila Rukavishnikova
AFK Service, in which Rukavishnikova has 42.5%, owns a business center on Spiridonovka, 20 with a rentable area of 2,200 square meters, which can bring in up to 60 million rubles a year.
According to the materials of the Arbitration Court, Lyudmila Rukavishnikova rents out non-residential premises with a total area of 274 square meters in the Znamenka Residence within walking distance of the Kremlin. She acquired them from a company previously owned by the former financial director of AvtoVAZ, Mikhail Moskalev (AvtoVAZ is part of Rostec). Renting out these premises can bring in about 12 million rubles a year.
Rukavishnikova also owned a mansion with an area of almost a thousand square meters next to the Green Grove sanatorium in Sochi, which Rostec was restoring for the Olympics. According to the publication “KO Magazine”, Rukavishnikova owned the mansion until July 2020 (now the owner is hidden in the Russian real estate register).
In general, the well-known businesses of Anastasia Ignatova and Lyudmila Rukavishnikova do not make it possible to understand where the grandmother and granddaughter got 22 billion rubles from offshore. The press service of Rostec also did not help Important Stories answer this question.
With input from Antonio Baquiero (OCCRP)
Editor: Maxim Solyus
Header photo: Mikhail Japaridze / TASS
Yacht, villa and Rostec • Vazhnye Istorii • RIMA — Russian Independent Media Archive
