PRESIDENTIAL ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS DECLARED INCOME: PRESIDENTIAL AIDE KONSTANTIN CHUICHENKO IS UNQUESTIONABLE LEADER
Konstantin Chuichenko, Chief of the Control Directorate of the Presidential Administration, made 368.5 million rubles in 2008. No other Presidential Administration official took home even 2% of what Chuichenko made.
Senior officials of the Presidential Administration and their families declared income. Presidential Aide Konstantin Chuichenko declared 368.5 million rubles made in 2008. This vast figure includes “income from sale of land plots and real estate”.
Chuichenko declared ownership of a land plot (5,000 square meters), an apartment owned together with the spouse (123 square meters), and some autos – Nissan Navara, Land Rover, and ATV Traxter Max XT. His wife Christine Tikhonova made 92.4 million rubles in 2008. She owns two land plots (1,113 and 4,500 square meters) and two manors (200 and 900 square meters).
Chuichenko told Vedomosti that there was no need to be surprised at his income because he had been a businessman before becoming a civil servant. Before becoming Chief of the Control Directorate last summer, he had sat on Gazprom Board of Directors as well as on those of Gazprom Oil, Gazprom Media, and Rosneftegaz. He had been one of RosUkrEnergo directors as well. Sources close to the RosUkrEnergo say that Chuichenko could earn $1 million in this company alone in 2008.
Tikhonova on the other hand founded and headed no companies. (It is known that her sister Yana Tikhonova is the head of Glencore International AG mission in Moscow.) Friends of the family say that Tikhonova spends all her time raising children. Chuichenko himself claims that his wife makes little (“… something about 10,000 rubles, I think”) and that her income in 2008 is attributed to the sale of some real estate or other.
Presidential Administration Director Sergei Naryshkin made 5.7 million rubles, Senior Assistant Director Vladislav Surkov 3.9 million rubles, Assistant Directors Aleksei Gromov and Alexander Beglov 3.7 million rubles each.
Pay is the least part of what officials make, a source in the Presidential Administration explained. There are also monthly allowances, awards for important and complicated missions accomplished, bonus for work with classified information, and seniority pay.
When a presidential aide makes between 3 and 3.5 million rubles, it means that there were no alternative sources of income worth mentioning, the source continued. This is exactly what Arkady Dvorkovich, Oleg Markov, Jahan Pollyeva, Larisa Brycheva, Press Secretary Natalia Timakova, and Chief of Protocol Marina Yentaltseva declared. Yentaltseva also declared a Bentley Continental GT Speed (market price in excess of 8 million rubles).
Assistant to the president Sergei Prikhodko (he is in charge of foreign affairs) made 5.3 million rubles but not because he sat on the boards of Tactical Missile Weapons and Sukhoi. Insiders say that as a representative of the state on these corporations’ boards of directors, Prikhodko is not supposed to get any pay there.
Where spouses are concerned, Dvorkovich’s wife Zumrud Rustamova made 27 million rubles as Polimetall assistant director general. Surkov’s wife Natalia Dubovitskaya made 16.8 million rubles and Pollyeva’s husband Mikhail Kazachkov 6.5 million rubles. Along with everything else, Kazachkov declared ownership of a manor (149 square meters) in Italy. Kazachkov is Russian Helicopter Systems Director General, which is a company specializing in the use and maintenance of domestic and foreign helicopters.
Presidential Plenipotentiary Representative Georgy Poltavchenko made 6.8 million rubles; Ilya Klebanov, Vladimir Ustinov, and Anatoly Kvashnin over 4 million rubles each; Oleg Safonov, Grigori Rapota, and Nikolai Vinnichenko more than 3 million rubles each. Rapota’s wife Tatiana Samolis, Press Secretary of the Foreign Intelligence Service, declared an apartment (51 square meter) in Montenegro.
