© novayagazeta.ru, 04/03/2016, Photo: pskov.ru, via novayagazeta.ru, RIA Novosti, Illustrations: novayagazeta.ru
Gold score
On March 24, 2016, the Academic Symphony Orchestra of the Moscow Philharmonic under the direction of Yuri Simonov performed in the Great Hall of the Conservatory. The orchestra performed the first composition (Adagio for strings by Samuel Barber), after which the presenter announced the second number of the program - Ernest Bloch's work "Shelomo" - Jewish rhapsody for cello and orchestra. The musicians stood up, and a man in a black satin shirt, with a slightly old-fashioned, but artistic hairstyle that suited him, came onto the stage. The full hall greeted him with a standing ovation. He took the place of the soloist, adjusted his experienced and, apparently, beloved cello more comfortably and froze. After a slight hesitation with the notes, which caused an approving smile in the audience, the orchestra began to play. The cellist, who embodied the voice of the glorious King of the Jews Solomon in this work, played with rapture, closing his eyes in order to abstract himself from the surrounding world and remain alone with the magic of music.Roldugin is not just a friend of the leader of Russia, to which (not always justifiably) many successful people in the country have been counted in recent years, but, indeed, a person with whom much in the life of the president is connected. In the book “In First Person,” Roldugin is one of the most mentioned characters: he could not only observe the life of Vladimir Putin from the outside, but from his youth he was a participant in the most important events in the life of the president. They went through street fights together on the streets of the then troubled St. Petersburg; they went AWOL together while Roldugin served in the army, and, singing songs, drove around Leningrad at night in an old Zaporozhets; went to the theater together with a “pretty girl” girl Luda”, at that time not yet Putin.
“Before leaving for Germany they have Masha ( Putin's first daughter. - Ed.) was born. My ex-father-in-law had a dacha outside Vyborg, a luxurious place, and when she was taken from the maternity hospital, we went there and everyone lived there: Volodya, Lyuda, my wife and I... We, of course, celebrated the birth of Masha... In the evenings They organized such dances... “Stop the thief, stop the thief, it’s time to catch him!” - said Sergei Roldugin, who became the godfather of the first daughter of the future president of Russia.
Unlike other friends of Vladimir Putin who were included in the Forbes list during his reign, nothing was known about the wealth of Sergei Roldugin until today. Although the cellist made no secret of his friendship with the president, his only asset that was discussed publicly was a minority stake in JSCB Rossiya, known as the “bank of the president’s friends.” “I’m not a businessman, I don’t have millions,” Roldugin admitted in an interview with The New York Times in 2014. [...]
Offshore empire
In the corridor of the conservatory, after Sergei Roldugin performed his part of the musical program, a line of former students and fans lined up to join him. In front of Novaya Gazeta reporters, a young man approached the maestro - either a former student, or the son of an acquaintance. “I’m currently involved in finance, I work at Vnesheconombank,” he began... “Well, I’m far from that: you see, I even have a used cello,” Roldugin answered. And then he met us and invited us to his dressing room.When we asked him about offshore companies with a turnover of billions of dollars, he did not shut down (openness seems to be one of his main positive qualities), but he walked away from the answer as if he really was not very immersed in this topic: “Guys, To be honest, I can’t give any comments now. I have to look and understand what can be said and what cannot be said. I'm just afraid to give interviews. When I refused to give an interview to some Germans, they wrote that Putin had intimidated his acquaintances and friends so much that they were afraid to speak. This is how they present me. I understand that there are very important things here. Are you in business or not? Where does the money come from? Whose? I know all this. These are delicate things,” the cellist agreed.
Then we informed Maestro Roldugin the names of offshore companies, as well as their transactions with strategic assets in the country, in particular KAMAZ, AVTOVAZ, Video International (a key player in the TV advertising market), and directly asked whether he had attitude towards them. “I have been involved in this business for a long, long time. Even before perestroika. It happened. And then it began to develop, and things like this turned out. This money also subsidizes the House of Music (which Roldugin heads in St. Petersburg - Ed.). This is a subject for a separate conversation,” said the musician, putting a request from Novaya Gazeta in a case with a cello and promising to talk to us in a few days. But he then did not answer our phone calls.
However, judging by the documents, the offshore companies in question were registered not before perestroika, but in 2006-2009, and existed until 2014-2015 (then they were closed). The main ones in this story will be four companies, two of which belonged to the Russian cellist directly, the rest to people associated with him.
In particular, Roldugin was the owner of Sonnette Overseas from the British Virgin Islands and International Media Overseas (IMO) from Panama. In these companies, the interests of the president's friend were represented by entrepreneurs from St. Petersburg Oleg Gordin and Alexander Plekhov (both associated with Rossiya Bank). They, in turn, were shareholders of Sandalwood Continental and Sunbarn Ltd (see diagram).
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But together they can be considered part of the same scheme: the same employees conducted business on their behalf; their documents were sent in one package; many transactions were carried out and signed on the same day. And these companies were also managed from one place - Rossiya Bank.
Where does the money come from?
Judging by documents from the MF database, the total turnover in bank accounts of Sandalwood Continental alone was about $2 billion, and reports for 2009 indicate that the value of its assets is 18 billion rubles. The turnover of other companies in the scheme, as far as we can judge from the documents available to us, is less, but also amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars. Where do they get that kind of money?Sources of financing for the group of offshore companies associated with Roldugin can be divided into three groups:
A) dubious off-exchange transactions with shares of the largest state-owned companies in Russia - Rosneft and Gazprom;
B) “donations” from large Russian businessmen;
C) preferential loans from the Cyprus RCB Bank.
"Trading" shares
For example, in 2010, the IMO company owned by Roldugin was supposed to enter into a deal to purchase Rosneft shares from another offshore structure. There are two contracts in the MF database. One is for the purchase of shares, and the second is for termination of this agreement. What's the point? Roldugin’s company immediately received compensation for breaking the contract - 750 thousand dollars.We were able to find many similar transactions with other companies associated with Sergei Roldugin. Such operations made it possible to earn millions of dollars out of thin air. (It is curious that the same method - failure to fulfill share purchase and sale agreements - was used by scammers in the Magnitsky case to create fictitious obligations and then steal income taxes from the budget.)
In some cases, the agreements were still fulfilled, but the musician was still incredibly lucky over and over again. His companies bought shares of Russian enterprises, and the next day they sold exactly the same packages to exactly those from whom they bought them yesterday, but with a significant profit, which allowed them to earn 400-500 thousand dollars. Roldugin's counterparties always lost in these operations. They were companies associated first with the Troika Dialog investment fund, and then with Sberbank (after the latter purchased Troika). Troika and Sberbank refused to comment on these transactions.
Sergei Roldugin’s managers seemed to know in advance how the market would behave and how the value of the shares would change. But there is no magic here.
The experts we interviewed believe that in reality these transactions might not have taken place and, apparently, only served as a documentary basis for payments from other sources. This version is also supported by the fact that some contracts were closed retroactively, when market fluctuations were already known.
Reporters from the Swiss newspaper Sonntagszeitung showed documents related to these transactions to Mark Piet, a professor of criminal law and criminology at the University of Basel and a former member of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). “These transactions are very suspicious. They should have raised a red flag for the bank,” the expert said.
Why didn’t banks react to these transactions? In the case of Sergei Roldugin, this is explained simply. The musician’s companies kept money in foreign subsidiaries of Russian banks, which, judging by the documents, did not carefully follow customer verification procedures.
For example, when IMO opened an account with the Swiss branch of Gazprombank in 2014, Sergei Roldugin, as a beneficiary, had to indicate whether he was a “pep” (a person with political connections) or knew another “pep”. In both cases, the Russian cellist answered “no,” although information about his friendship with Vladimir Putin was public at the time.
According to expert Mark Peet, Gazprombank, under Swiss law, was obliged to verify Roldugin’s statements. “But I see no signs that this has been done. Otherwise, the bank would most likely refuse to open an account for the client. If the bank accepted an inaccurate declaration of customer data, then it was breaking Swiss law,” says Piet.
"Donations" from businessmen
The transactions of large Russian entrepreneurs with Sergei Roldugin’s companies may in some ways be reminiscent of those described in 2010 by Sergei Kolesnikov, who previously worked with other close friends of the Russian President. After Kolesnikov left Russia, he open letter wrote to then-President Dmitry Medvedev that Russian oligarchs made donations to the president’s friends, and 35% of this money ended up in offshore accounts. In the case of Roldugin, we are not talking about donations in the literal sense of the word, but about payments with unclear economic feasibility. Here are the most striking examples.In July 2007, Sergei Roldugin's company Sonnette Overseas received a loan from another offshore structure, Levens Trading, $6 million at 2% per annum. And after a couple of months, the lender forgave this debt to the president’s friend for a “reward” of 1 dollar. Levens Trading may be connected to a Russian businessman Alexey Mordashov: according to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, this offshore company owned 100% of Severstal-vtormet.
Structures apparently close to Mordashov also paid other companies associated with Roldugin. For example, in 2009-2010, Sunbarn Ltd entered into several standard contracts for consulting services totaling $30 million with the offshore companies Jabiru Consultants and Pearl Kite Trading. Under the terms of these agreements, Sunbarn Ltd was required to provide information “on investment opportunities in Russia.” At least one of the payers, Jabiru Consultants, was previously a shareholder in Severstal structures.
Alexey Mordashov was also mentioned in Sergei Kolesnikov’s letter as one of the businessmen who made donations to friends of President Putin. Alexey Mordashov refused to discuss transactions with Sergei Roldugin with us. [...]
The prosperity of offshore companies associated with Sergei Roldugin was also helped by structures close to Suleiman Kerimov. As a result of only two complex transactions, Roldugin’s offshore companies received rights to claim 4 billion rubles and 200 million dollars, respectively, having paid for this no less than 2 dollars. How did this become possible?
In 2007, the offshore Tokido Holdings lent 4 billion rubles to OJSC National Telecommunications (NTK), the largest Russian cable TV and Internet operator. At that time, NTK, according to their annual report, was controlled by the Nafta group of companies owned by Suleiman Kerimov. In 2008, NTK shares were sold to the National Media Group, owned by Rossiya Bank. However, the debt to Tokido Holdings had not yet been repaid at that time.
And then on one day, September 20, 2010, two transactions were made: first, Tokido Holdings, under an assignment agreement, transferred the right to claim 4 billion rubles from NTK to another offshore - Desmin Holdings; and on the same day Desmin transferred the same right to Sandalwood Continental, a company associated with Sergei Roldugin, for $1. In 2011-2012, NTK was acquired by the state company Rostelecom. And it was the state-owned company that eventually paid off the old debts, paying 4 billion rubles.
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Regarding these transactions, Kerimov’s representative explained that “in the context of difficult economic realities after the 2008 crisis, the company managing the project decided to write off the installment payment for the transaction, due to the deterioration of the company’s development opportunities compared to the stated plans. The deal remained within an acceptable level of profitability.”
In addition, Kerimov’s representative said that he, as a member of the Federation Council, is not involved in business, information about transactions is unknown to him, and he is not familiar with Sergei Roldugin and was not in any relationship.
The MF database contains documents about other similar cases. For example, in 2011, IMO, owned by Roldugin, “bought” the right to claim another $200 million from another offshore company, Ove Financial Corp., for the same $1. Unfortunately, we were unable to find out who is behind this structure.
Bank loans
The other most important source of financing for Roldugin’s offshore group were loans from the Cypriot RCB Bank, which was controlled by the state-owned VTB. Documents show that a credit line of at least $650 million was opened for Sandalwood Continental in 2010-2012. This means that the offshore could at any time use RCB Bank as a huge money bag, from where, at the necessary time, it was possible to obtain funds to finance a variety of projects.At the same time, some loan agreements were drawn up in such a way that even MF lawyers had questions about whether the money would be returned to the bank. The documents show that MF employees were wary of whether they should even sign such agreements, which did not clearly state either the purpose of the loan or the repayment procedure.
Money laundering expert Mark Peat has the same opinion: “There appears to be no commercial component to these loans. They do not include adequate security, which is usually present in normal agreements.” And indeed: in most of the loan agreements that are in the database, there is no talk of any collateral - a company associated with Roldugin received hundreds of millions of dollars from the “daughter” of the Russian state bank without any risk. The bank itself categorically denies this point of view.
A representative of RCB Bank told ICIJ that the bank follows all legal requirements in its activities, so “the assumption that RCB Bank is a so-called “wallet” for high-ranking Russian officials has no basis and does not correspond to the current state of affairs.” Moreover, the bank assured that it had voluntarily forwarded the request from ICIJ to the anti-money laundering authority in Cyprus for an independent investigation.
What did you spend it on?
Some of the funds that were accumulated in offshore companies were then invested in Russia. These investments can be divided into two groups - “for recreation” and for the purchase of strategic assets.Resorts, yacht clubs, palaces
In 2011, Sandalwood Continental, a company associated with Sergei Roldugin, issued about 200 million rubles in two loans to the Russian company Ozon. These agreements had “friendly” terms: one of the loans was for 10 years, the other for 20, and both at 1% per annum.The following year, 2012, Ozon became the owner of a large plot of land in the Priozersky district of the Leningrad region. The Igora ski resort is located on this site. Last year, Reuters reported that allegedly in this place in February 2013 a wedding of the president's daughter.
In the same 2011, Sandalwood Continental issued 40 million rubles as a loan to the Laguna company under the same “gentlemanly” conditions. Laguna has the same address as the Igora ski resort. And the company itself owns a yacht club on the shores of Lake Ladoga.
A company associated with Sergei Roldugin provided about 50 million rubles on preferential terms to the Russian company Nord House, which owned plots of land and a hotel complex in the city of Sortavala in the Republic of Karelia. Today, according to Rosreestr, this property is owned by Dacha Wintera LLC. In this picturesque place, on the shores of Ladoga, surrounded by coniferous forests, today there is a premium hotel with the same name - “Dacha Winter”.
All these Russian companies are in one way or another connected with Rossiya Bank and its co-owner Yuri Kovalchuk. Kovalchuk's representatives refused to answer ICIJ's questions.
Strategic assets
Offshore companies associated with Sergei Roldugin controlled shares in the country's largest enterprises in a variety of sectors of the economy - from the production of trucks to the sale of TV advertising."Video International"(Vi) is the largest seller of television advertising in the country. A man who recently died in the USA was involved in the creation of the company. Mikhail Lesin, former Minister of Press Affairs and Presidential Adviser.
In 2010, all business media in Russia reported that Vi had come under the control of structures associated with Rossiya Bank. This acquisition was preceded by legislative initiatives that could significantly affect the company's market value. At that time, Vi controlled 70% of the advertising market, but then amendments to the Law “On Advertising” were adopted, limiting the share of one seller to 35%. And on bad news, which usually leads to a significant decrease in the value of an asset, it became known that the company was acquired by structures of Rossiya Bank. But among these structures there were also offshore companies owned by Sergei Roldugin.
What’s curious: after Vi passed to new influential owners, the company’s income, despite legal restrictions, did not decrease - it’s just that instead of direct contracts with channels, consulting agreements began to be concluded.
According to Rosstat, 20% of Vi belongs to the Cyprus company Med Media Network. The MF database contains a decision by the sole shareholder of Med Media Network dated December 15, 2010 to acquire a 12.5% stake in Vi for $20 million. (We were unable to clarify when this share was increased to 20%.) This sole shareholder of Med Media Network was the offshore IMO, whose beneficiary is Sergey Roldugin. When IMO opened an account with the Swiss Gazprombank, Med Media Network was listed as the company's only subsidiary. Moreover, in the application for opening an account it was written that Med Media Network must pay almost 270 million rubles in dividends to its parent structure.
Vi did not answer our questions.
["Vedomosti", 04/04/2016, "Music Millionaire": Judging by the materials of Mossack Fonseca, the company did not have any other assets. It turns out that in total the Vi group (current name Video International) allocated 1.34 billion rubles for payments to shareholders.
Just in 2010, it was announced that nine co-owners of Vi (among them was the general director of the group, Sergei Vasiliev) sold 100% of the seller’s shares to the structures of Rossiya Bank, Surgutneftegaz and the owner of Severstal Alexei Mordashov. Vi has not disclosed its shareholder structure since then. And only in 2014, after the introduction of sanctions against Rossiya, a Vi representative stated that the bank itself owned only 16% of the group’s shares, but did not name other owners.
Vi was forced to disclose the size of the bank's stake due to numerous requests from major advertisers - American and European manufacturers of consumer goods, an employee of the group and employees of large advertising agencies explained to Vedomosti. Advertisers with foreign headquarters feared that by working with a seller controlled by Russia, they were violating sanctions.
Vi itself also feared that at any moment it could end up on an expanded list of sanctions, its employee admitted. In the fall of 2014, the four largest Russian media holdings (VGTRK, Gazprom-Media, National Media Group, Channel One) announced the creation of a single seller of TV advertising. An employee of Vi and the head of a large media holding explained that one of the main reasons for the emergence of such a single seller was precisely to remove Vi from the risk of sanctions. The organizer of the project was the head of Gazprom Media, Mikhail Lesin, who died last November in the USA. After his resignation in early 2015, the project fell apart, but in March of this year the same four holdings again announced their intention to create a single TV advertising seller. A Vi employee says that the resuscitation of the project is largely due to the desire to escape the risk of sanctions. And this risk will be even higher when information is published that Roldugin, Kovalchuk’s partner and Putin’s friend, is a co-owner of Vi, he argues.
At the same time, a Vi employee assures that Roldugin did not take any part in the management of the group, neither he himself nor his representatives are on its board of directors. Moreover, Vedomosti’s interlocutor insists that he first learned about such a person from media publications. The only people Vi deals with as representatives of shareholders are employees of Rossiya Bank, he said. Leaders of other large media companies interviewed by Vedomosti say that they also did not know that Roldugin owned any media assets.
However, last summer Roldugin transferred 100% of Media Overseas to Belizean Robertson Financial, the materials say. Vedomosti was unable to find out who owns this company. - Insert K.ru]
For many years, a large stake in KAMAZ was owned by the Cypriot company Avtoinvest Ltd, owned by Troika Dialog. In 2008, Troika structures, according to media reports, even managed to increase their share in the largest truck manufacturer in Russia to almost 51%. This information is indirectly confirmed by documents from the MF database: judging by them, the Troika, with the help of several hidden agreements, could only act as an agent in the interests of much more influential players. One of these players was Sergei Roldugin.
The fact is that since 2007, Troika transferred all rights to manage its company Avtoinvest Ltd to a certain offshore Avto Holdings Ltd. According to the agreement, Avto Holdings received the right to participate in meetings of Avtoinvest shareholders, appoint and dismiss directors and take 95% of dividends. That is, in fact, one of the main shareholders of KAMAZ was subordinate to a previously unknown offshore company. And 15% of this unknown offshore belonged to cellist Sergei Roldugin through his company Sonnette Overseas.
Moreover, Avto Holdings had a ten-year option to purchase 100% of Avtoinvest: the offshore company, co-owned by Sergei Roldugin, had the right to gain control over one of the largest shareholders of KAMAZ for just $100,000.
There were similar agreements between Troika and offshore companies associated with Roldugin regarding shares of AVTOVAZ. In these agreements, only the dates, company names, shares and amounts differed. But the meaning remained the same: offshore companies close to Roldugin had privileged rights to manage large blocks of shares in strategic enterprises of the country, to receive dividends and purchase these blocks for ridiculous amounts.
The Kremlin refused to answer questions related to this investigation. Presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov convened a special briefing, where he warned about what he believed was an upcoming “attack on the president.” “We received papers from an organization that calls itself an international consortium of investigative journalism, which includes various media outlets and journalists from different countries. We are sure that not only journalists, but also representatives of other organizations and services. They are going to publish their next opuses in the coming days in Germany, the USA, Great Britain, France, Switzerland, Russia and several other countries, which we consider an obvious “order,” Peskov said.
A person who knows Roldugin confirmed to us the special role of the musician: “To solve operational and sometimes non-public problems, Vladimir Putin relied on a circle of businessmen, the basis of which was friends from the St. Petersburg period of his life. But many lost his trust, let's say, because of insatiability. The President needed a person who could be trusted without a doubt, in order to look at the real state of affairs through his “shares”. In addition, Roldugin never took anything; he is not attracted by a luxurious life. In our circle they call him Prince Myshkin.”
Another person from the circle of the famous Russian cellist, when asked by Novaya Gazeta to describe him in one word, responded with lightning speed: “Call him a “guardian.” It will be for sure."
[Interfax news agency, 04/04/2016, “Peskov spoke about the authors of Panamagate: “We know this so-called journalistic community well, it is obvious that there are many journalists there whose main profession is hardly journalism: many former representatives and the State Department, and the CIA, other intelligence services,” Russian Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
According to him, in Moscow they know “and who finances this organization, this is also quite open information, but it speaks for itself, I mean from the point of view of the bias and predictability of the methods of these comrades.” - Insert K.ru]
Soloist and conductor of the Mariinsky Theatre. Head of the St. Petersburg House of Music.
Sergei Roldugin was born on September 28, 1951 on Sakhalin. His father was a military man. Soon he was transferred to Riga, where Sergei grew up and studied at a Latvian school. Speaks Latvian perfectly. At the age of 5, the boy began to learn to play the piano, and at the age of 8 he became seriously interested in playing the cello. In 1970 he graduated from the E. Darzin Music School in Riga.
In 1975 he graduated with honors from the Leningrad State Conservatory in cello. During his student years he became a musician in the symphony orchestra of the Leningrad Philharmonic under the direction of Evgeniy Mravinsky. In 1978 he completed his postgraduate studies at the same conservatory. In 1980, Sergei Roldugin won the 3rd prize at the Prague Spring international competition. From 1984 to 2003 he was soloist-accompanist of the Mariinsky Theater cello group.
Roldugin Sergei Pavlovich is a close friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The acquaintance took place in the 70s during Roldugin’s military service in Leningrad through the musician’s older brother, Evgeny Pavlovich Roldugin. Sergei Pavlovich is the godfather of Putin’s eldest daughter, Maria Vladimirovna, in this capacity he authoritatively confirmed that Putin has a grandson.
From 2002 to 2004, Roldugin served as rector of the St. Petersburg Conservatory. In 2004 he began studying conducting. Since 2004, he was invited as a conductor to the Mariinsky Theater. Since 2006, he has been the artistic director of the St. Petersburg House of Music, created on his initiative and with the support of Vladimir Putin. Initiator of the restoration of the Palace of Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich at Moika, 122, which housed the House of Music in 2008. The palace was restored with funds from the Konstantinovsky charitable foundation and the city budget. In 2008, Putin attended the opening of the restored House of Music.
He is the chairman of the board and founder of the Talent and Success Foundation, which, together with the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Sports, is the founder of the Sirius charitable foundation. The latter manages an educational center created in Sochi on the basis of the Olympic buildings for gifted children from 11 to 15 years old who have demonstrated talents in sports, natural sciences, music and ballet. The project was invented personally by Putin. Roldugin also oversees, as artistic director, the “River of Talents” program - long tours of young performers in the Volga region, and the “Embassy of Excellence” - foreign tours of Russian performers.
Together with the Mariinsky Theater Symphony Orchestra, on May 5, 2016, Sergei Pavlovich gave a concert entitled “With a Prayer for Palmyra” in the ancient amphitheater of the Syrian city of Palmyra, liberated by the Syrian government army with the support of the Russian Aerospace Forces from terrorists on March 27, 2016 as part of a joint military operation. The concert was dedicated to Victory Day and dedicated to the memory of the caretaker of Palmyra, Khaled Asaad, who was executed by militants, and to the Russian officer, Hero of the Russian Federation, Alexander Prokhorenko, who died during the liberation of the city.
Awards of Sergei Roldugin
Order of Alexander Nevsky (July 4, 2016) - for great contribution to the development of domestic and world musical and theatrical art, many years of creative activity
Order of Honor (September 28, 2011) - for his great contribution to the domestic musical art and training of music pedagogical personnel
Medal “For the Liberation of Palmyra” (RF Ministry of Defense, 2016) - for assistance in solving the tasks assigned to the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation during the military operation to liberate Palmyra
People's Artist of the Russian Federation (August 1, 2005) - for great achievements in the field of art
“Vovka and I sometimes went to the Philharmonic after work,” Roldugin’s memories are contained in the book about Putin “In the First Person” (2000). “He asked me how to listen to symphonic music correctly.” Also, according to him, he and Putin played football: “I played football much better. But he lost to him because he was tenacious, like a bulldog.” In the book, another famous acquaintance of the president, St. Petersburg wrestler and now State Duma deputy from United Russia Vasily Shestakov, is also called a common friend of both. All three went to a sports camp on the eve of Putin’s departure to serve in the GDR.
Shestakov told RBC that he did not remember the circumstances of his acquaintance with Roldugin and Putin, but it was “somewhere in the eighties” in a common company. He described Roldugin as a “decent person.”
As a friend of Putin, Roldugin became the godfather of his eldest daughter Maria, The New York Times wrote in 2014.
“I know that they (Putin and Roldugin. - RBC) are really friends,” Ildar Abdrazakov, soloist of the Mariinsky Theater, told RBC. “Sergei Pavlovich is a very positive person, with a wonderful sense of humor.”
Roldugin’s brother hasn’t gotten lost since then either.
Evgeny Roldugin, the full namesake of Sergei’s brother, is listed on Gazprom’s official website as the director of the company’s representative office in Riga. In 2010, the publication “Marker” claimed that he was the cellist’s brother. The office telephones in Riga were not answered. Gazprom did not comment on the family ties of its manager.
Musician and philanthropist
When an RBC correspondent called Sergei Roldugin on his mobile phone, a woman answered the phone and said that he was busy at a rehearsal and would not be able to talk. Roldugin is a widely known musician, conductor and music manager.
All the time that Putin was building a political career, Roldugin was engaged in music. In 1980 he received a bronze medal at the Prague Spring International Cello Competition. From 1984 to 2003, judging by the biography on the website of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, he was the first soloist-accompanist of the cello group of the Mariinsky Theater Orchestra.
In 2002, Roldugin became vice-rector for scientific work of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, and in 2003 he became rector, replacing Vladislav Chernushenko, who had headed it for a quarter of a century. The Vedomosti newspaper wrote that Roldugin could even become the next Minister of Culture, although in April 2004 this post was given to the rector of the Moscow Conservatory, Alexander Sokolov. In November 2004, Roldugin left the conservatory. In his farewell speech to the academic council, he said that he could no longer combine creative and administrative activities. The head of the Federal Agency for Culture, Mikhail Shvydkoy, then explained his departure by saying that Roldugin only wants to study music, and the post of rector takes up a lot of his time.
However, the administrative work only increased. In 2005, an old friend came to the president with the idea of building a St. Petersburg House of Music, and, according to Roldugin himself, the president liked this idea. In the same year, the Ministry of Culture transferred to the House of Music the building of the palace of Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich on the embankment of the Moika River. The palace was restored with funds from the Konstantinovsky charitable foundation and from the city budget, which invested 800 million rubles in it. In 2008, Putin attended the opening of the restored House of Music.
The renovation of the building of the palace of Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich, which became the Roldugin House of Music, in 2009 pleased Putin (in the center), who approved this project (Photo: Dmitry Astakhov/TASS)
In addition to all of the above, Roldugin - also chairman of the board and founder of the Talent and Success Foundation. This foundation, together with the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Sports, is the founder of the Sirius charitable foundation. “In Sochi, on the basis of the Olympic buildings, an educational center was created for gifted children of Russia. Children from 11 to 15 years old who have demonstrated talent in sports, natural sciences, music and ballet are selected there. Children come to Sochi, and the best Russian professors, teachers and coaches in their field are invited to them,” he described the work of Sirius. Roldugin in an interview with the portal Belcanto.ru This project was invented by Putin, the musician emphasized in his interview.
Sergei is very fond of philanthropic activities and always talks about helping talented youth, recalls his friend Shestakov. “Once, he and I even came up with a club where we would practice sambo and classical music, but for some reason this idea was never implemented,” he says.
However, while doing administrative work, the famous cellist still did not forget music - at least when it helped friendship. Speaking to the New York Times in 2014, Roldugin recalled how the year before, at Putin’s request, he came with three young performers (violin, piano and clarinet) to the presidential residence in Novo-Ogarevo to give a private chamber concert. They played Mozart, Weber and Tchaikovsky, Roldugin recalled. Putin liked it so much that the next evening he asked the musicians to play again - for exactly the same few high-ranking listeners. “These were very famous people... almost all of them were under sanctions,” is how the musician described the audience, without naming names.
Partner of the President's Friends
Roldugin is not only a friend of the head of state, he is connected by business with many other St. Petersburg acquaintances of the president (about Roldugin’s participation in the capital of Rossiya Bank together with Gennady Timchenko, Yuri Kovalchuk and others, see below).
In the 1990s, Sergei Roldugin, together with Vladimir Putin’s classmate Nikolai Egorov, was listed as one of the founders of the Petrointeroil company. Political scientist Vladimir Pribylovsky wrote about this in his study. Roldugin owned 50% of the company, Egorov directly owned 10%, and controlled another 17% through St. Petersburg Intertrade. Vladimir Yakovlev and Nikolai Khrameshkin each had 10% in Petrointeroil. According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, Petrointeroil was actually registered in August 1993, and in 2006 it was liquidated. What the company did is not indicated in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities extract; there is also no data on who was among the founders of the company in the extract.
Egorov’s representative did not respond to RBC’s request at the time of publication of the material.
St. Petersburg lawyer Nikolai Egorov is famous for giving Putin's political career a boost by recommending him to then St. Petersburg mayor Anatoly Sobchak to work on the foreign relations committee. Egorov’s scientific advisor, Yuri Tolstoy, wrote about this fact in an essay for the lawyer’s 60th anniversary (published in the journal “Jurisprudence” in 2007). During the presidential elections in 2000, Egorov was Putin's confidant. Back in the early 1990s, Egorov, together with his partners, created the law firm “Egorov, Puginsky, Afanasyev and Partners,” which, among other things, represented the interests of the Russian side in the case of the murder of Chechen separatist Zelimkhan Yandarbiev in Qatar, allegedly by GRU agents.
Roldugin said that he organized chamber concerts for the president’s “narrow circle of friends.” In the photo - with Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin in 2010 (Photo: PhotoXPress)
Shareholder of a “personal bank for a narrow circle of associates”
Roldugin owns a 3.2% stake in Rossiya Bank, according to information published on the bank’s website. He is accompanied by Yuri Kovalchuk, Gennady Timchenko, Nikolai Shamalov, Alexey Mordashov and others. This bank came under US sanctions in 2014; the Barack Obama administration calls it a “personal bank for a narrow circle” of people close to Putin.
Roldugin himself says (he is quoted by The New York Times) that he does not have millions, and his entire paper fortune, which The New York Times estimated in 2014 at $350 million, was formed thanks to the fact that many years ago he bought a stake “in a small bank run by people close to his old friend Vladimir Putin."
Now the capital of Rossiya Bank is 57.4 billion rubles. Managing Partner of the National Agency for Financial Research Pavel Samiev, who previously, as director of the Expert RA agency, assigned ratings to Russia, proposes to evaluate the bank at a multiplier of 0.3 to capital (Bank St. Petersburg trades with such a multiplier, which is comparable to "Russia" according to financial indicators). In this case, Roldugin’s share can be estimated at 550 million rubles. without taking into account the discount for the non-publicity of the bank and its inclusion in the sanctions list.
The bank pays dividends. For 2014, he paid 220 rubles. per share, or 559 million rubles, Roldugin’s share accounted for 18 million rubles.
RBC's interlocutor, familiar with Rossiya's management, claims that Roldugin never took part in managing the bank.
Regional media tycoon
Since November 2005, Roldugin, together with his partner in the Non-Profit Partnership “Support for Children’s Sports” Vladislav Kopylov, owned the Priboy company in equal shares, and from November 2009 to November 2012, the partners were listed as co-founders of the Volna company (SPARK data, company phone numbers match up). In October 2015, “Priboy” was liquidated, and “Volna” has been controlled since 2012 by the son of the ex-head of the Baltic Media Group (BMG) Oleg Rudnov, Sergei.
What were “Volna” and “Priboy” doing? In the 2000s, the companies played an important role in the media life of St. Petersburg, as through them Roldugin and Kopylov allegedly controlled BMG. In 2003, the media group was organized and headed by St. Petersburg journalist and media manager Oleg Rudnov. It included Radio Baltika, the 100 TV channel (now Life 78), the newspapers Nevskoe Vremya, Smena, Vecherniy Peterburg and the Baltic Information Agency.
As rector of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, in 2003, Roldugin awarded a diploma of honorary professor to Beatles member Paul McCartney (pictured right) (Photo: PhotoXPress)
In 2004, Priboy received 100% of the shares of the Baltika company, the telephone number of which coincides with the data of the radio station of the same name, part of BMG. Priboi controlled Baltika until 2007, after which Volna acquired 100% of the company through a chain of owners. In July 2015, Baltika ended up being owned by the News SPB company (75% belongs to Oleg Rudnov’s son Sergei, and 25% to Aram Gabrelyanov).
Gabrelyanov has long been cooperating with the National Media Group (NMG), founded in 2008 by the same Yuri Kovalchuk and his partners from Severstal and Surgutneftegaz. NMG does not disclose the shares of the owners, however, before the imposition of sanctions by the US Treasury, Kovalchuk was considered the controlling shareholder of the holding.
Gabrelyanov, describing to RBC his entry into the Baltika business, said that he acquired 25% of the entire Baltic media group from Sergei Rudnov. Gabrelyanov does not know about the Rudnovs’ business relations with Roldugin and Kopylov; he did not disclose the amount of his transaction.
An employee of Volna suggested that RBC contact the legal department, after which the company stopped answering calls.
Football functionary
Perhaps Roldugin is also related to another important side of the life of the Northern capital - sports.
Although the Priboy company of Roldugin and Kopylov was liquidated in October 2015, it is still listed as the founder of the non-profit organization “Fund for Development and Support of Media” (the new founders of the fund are not yet reflected in the databases). The telephone number of this fund coincides with the telephone number of Volna and Priboy, as well as the Baltika radio station.
According to SPARK, this fund owns 10.8% in the Zenit football club. Gazprombank has a controlling stake in the club (more than 51%). Two other holders of large stakes are Gazprom Transgaz and Sibur Holding. According to financial statements, in 2014 Zenit received revenue of 6.1 billion rubles. and a net loss of 5.2 billion rubles.
Zenit representative Zhanna Dembo told RBC that the fund is still a shareholder of the club. “The Media Development and Support Fund has historically been a shareholder of the Zenit club, even before Gazprombank appeared among the co-owners. This fund was created by Oleg Rudnov,” she said.
President Vladimir Putin rejected suggestions that he actually owns a significant part of the assets of his friend, cellist Sergei Roldugin, who became one of the key heroes of the Panama Papers. He said this in an interview with a journalist from an American TV channel. NBC Megyn Kelly.
“Yes, I know this man very well, he is one of my friends,” Putin answered Kelly’s first question about Roldugin. - He is a wonderful musician. His whole life is devoted to art and music. By the way, we have many artists who are involved in business in one way or another. Besides me, he has other connections in the country, including with business representatives who included him in this work. He earned some money legally. He didn't earn any hundreds of billions. He used all the money that he personally earned to purchase musical instruments abroad and imported them into the territory of the Russian Federation. He uses some of these instruments himself, almost alone, the cello, he plays the cello.”
The journalist clarified that we were talking about an instrument worth 12 million dollars, to which Putin replied that it was a unique instrument. “Imagine, he is such an abnormal person, and people of art are all a little greetings, he spent all this money on purchasing musical instruments. I think he bought two cellos, two violins, I think, he plays one himself, he gave the rest to other musicians, and they use them in their work. They were all imported into Russian territory,” the president explained.
The journalist then continued to ask questions about Roldugin’s mentions in the Panama Papers, in which he was credited with assets worth $100 billion. “You know, I don’t know about his business, his affairs, but you can believe me, I know for sure that he has just enough real income to buy these musical instruments. Everything else is some kind of paper movements, on paper, he has nothing else except what he acquired. Maybe he has something else, but you should ask him, I don’t control his life.”
In response to clarifying questions, Putin invited Kelly to compare Roldugin’s successes in business with the successes of representatives of American show business and emphasized: “According to my information, he did not violate anything.”
“It’s definitely not my money. I didn’t even count how many of them Mr. Roldugin had, as I said. But, according to my data, in his activities, both in the creative and business components, he never violated anything, not a single Russian law, not a single legal norm,” Putin concluded.
In April 2016, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and the Center for the Study of Corruption and Organized Crime published an investigation into an international offshore network based on documents from a Panamanian law firm. Mossack Fonseca. The Panama Papers also included Russian citizens, including cellist Sergei Roldugin. Sources of Novaya Gazeta called him the “custodian” of Vladimir Putin’s personal assets.
It seems that the ministry came up with an elegant scheme for this: his employer was not the minister, like others, but the director of the St. Petersburg House of Music, where he works as artistic director.
Roldugin refused to communicate with Forbes when the editors were preparing.
The press service of the Ministry of Culture reported that the difference between him and other artistic directors of state cultural institutions (such as Vladimir Spivakov from the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia, Yuri Bashmet from the State Symphony Orchestra “New Russia” and dozens of others. - Forbes) is that “in accordance with the order of the Ministry of Culture of Russia dated August 14, 2015 No. 2222... the artistic director of the St. Petersburg House of Music Sergey Pavlovich Roldugin, appointed to his position by the general director Oleg Gennadievich Anisimov, does not provide information on income, expenses, property and property-related obligations in the Ministry of Culture of Russia... The “House of Music” has no obligation to publish such information (the obligation to publish such information lies with the ministry).”
An elegant two-step - and citizens interested in the fight against corruption will never know whether it’s time to include a little-known musician before the Panama scandal on the Forbes list.
Deputy General Director of Transparency International - Russia Ilya Shumanov emphasizes that the order of the Ministry of Culture, which determines the list of managers required to report on their income and property, lists three positions: manager, deputy manager and chief accountant. Nevertheless, artistic directors also regularly submit reports. “From the point of view of conspiracy theories, I can imagine that, perhaps, initially this order also dealt with artistic directors, and this is supported by the fact that the ministry publishes the data of the artistic directors of other organizations,” says Shumanov. “And then this position could be deleted from the order.”
Artistic directors, he explains, often have the responsibility to O greater responsibility than administrators. Although “if we approach it formally, Roldugin really shouldn’t report.” Shumanov is also confused by the fact that the last order with a list of positions was signed on December 29, 2015, and registered with the Ministry of Justice on March 15, 2016 - just between these dates, a scandal broke out with documents from the Mossack Fonseca company.
As a result, one can only guess what figures would have emerged if Roldugin had reported on an equal basis with his fellow artistic directors. Judging by data from the website of the Ministry of Culture, the artistic director of the Mariinsky Theater Valery Gergiev earned the most in 2015 - 130 million rubles, or about $2 million. From the schedule of his performances posted on the artist’s personal website, it follows that during the year he performed with the orchestra 286 times (of which 154 in Russia and 132 abroad) - significantly more than once every two days.
Roldugin does not have a full-fledged website of his own, but if we collect his performances mentioned on the House of Music website, it turns out that in the 2015-2016 season he, as a performer and conductor, gave 13 concerts in Russia and two abroad. The head of one of the concert agencies, who knows him well, confirms: “He has a lot of master classes, and there are actually 15 concerts [per year].”
Roldugin also oversees, as artistic director, the “River of Talents” program (long tours of young performers in the Volga region) and the “Embassy of Excellence” (foreign tours of Russian performers). The head of the agency doubts that information about Roldugin’s income was hidden on purpose. In his opinion, “apparently, Sergei Pavlovich did not want to take on the administrative burden and chose this option of applying for a job.”
Income is often measured by the amount of expenses a person can afford. According to Putin, Roldugin spends all his earnings on the purchase of unique violins and cellos. On the last direct line, the president said that the artist bought two violins and two cellos. For only one of them—a Stradivarius Stuart cello (1732)—Roldugin allegedly paid $12 million, Putin admitted.
This purchase was also not without its oddities. As soon as Putin announced the expensive acquisition of Roldugin and its price, the Reuning auction house that sold the cello