In April 2018, Russian tour operators, in response to US sanctions, proposed blocking the most popular online hotel booking service Booking.com in Russia.
One of the few government officials who stood up to defend the resource was deputy and son of Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Igor Lebedev.
“For some reason, no one is proposing to ban Boeing in Russia, apparently because even the most frostbitten tour operators and officials understand that in this case the air transportation market in the country will disappear. But banning Booking.com, which, thanks to its reach, prevents hotels from raising prices, is welcome...,” the people’s representative was indignant at the time.
It would seem that what does Deputy Lebedev care about a foreign hotel aggregator? But, as Baza found out, the vice speaker of the State Duma defended the commercial interests of his family. The parliamentarian and his relatives have been doing business in Spain for a long time.
What kind of real estate in Barcelona, Altea and Ibiza is controlled by the family of State Duma Deputy Speaker Igor Lebedev, and why he hides his young wife and does not declare her income - in the Base investigation.
The town of Altea in the Spanish province of Alicante is located at the foot of the Sierra de Bernia mountain range, which locals call the dragon frozen in stone. In the middle of the last century, artists and musicians settled here, and today it is a popular fashionable resort, where wealthy tourists flock from all over the world, including from Russia. The beauties of Altea have long been to the taste of the family of LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky.
According to the Spanish commercial register, the property management company Go Evolution International 21 SL was registered in Altea in 2007. Its authorized capital in 2012 was 2.8 million euros, and its assets were estimated at 4.5 million euros. An apartment with an area of 133 square meters in the luxury residential complex Villa Gadea, almost on the very coast of the Mediterranean Sea, has been registered for this company. On average, apartments with this size in this complex cost about 400 thousand euros.
Residential complex Villa Gadea. Photo: © airbnb.ru
Russian politicians rarely register real estate in the name of themselves or their relatives, more often registering luxury villas, hotels and apartments with a legal entity. Apparently, Lebedev followed the same path.
It is unknown who owns Go Evolution International 21 SL, but, according to the commercial register, since November 2009 one of its managers was the namesake of Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s son. He served as the so-called trustee of apoderado (this position allows you to make transactions on behalf of the company: for example, buy real estate or enter into loan agreements. - Note from “Bases”).
Igor Lebedev represented the interests of the company until October 2015, although back in September 2014 he was included in the EU sanctions list due to the annexation of Crimea to Russia.
One might assume that we were mistaken (in fact, we were not) and that it was not the Russian parliamentarian, but his namesake, who participated in the management of the Spanish company. After all, you never know how many Lebedevs there are in Russia...
But the surnames of almost all the managers of the Go Evolution International 21 Sl company strangely coincide with the surnames of people close to the vice-speaker. So, from April to June last year, the only director of the company was Galina Lebedeva - the same name as the 72-year-old mother of Igor Lebedeva.
Then it’s even more interesting: management of the company passed from Lebedeva to Daniil Bondar and Sergei Chalyshev. The first became the director of the company, and the second, like Lebedev himself once, became a confidant. Both are no strangers to the vice speaker.
Since 2016, Sergei Chalyshev has been heading the secretariat of Igor Lebedev in the State Duma apparatus, and the prefix “acting” disappeared from his position only in July 2018 - a month after he became one of the managers of the Spanish company.
The degree of closeness between Chalyshev and the vice-speaker’s family can be assessed by the following detail. Galina Lebedeva has a construction company called Raritet in Sochi. The company is registered in the prestigious business-class residential complex “Barcelona Park” at building No. 59 on Kurortny Avenue. And at the same address, even in the same apartment - No. 28, another company is registered - Barcelona City, owned by... the wife of Sergei Chalyshev - Natalya.
Another manager of Go Evolution International 21 is also an old acquaintance of Lebedev. Daniil Bondar is a producer, documentary director, owner of the Fin-Art Group studio and a lover of motorcycle travel. The titles of his works - “Sketch ¾”, “The Madness of Paradise” and “November 16 of the Era of Mercy” - will not say anything to the general public. In the past, Bondar was involved in political PR, perhaps this is what brought him together with Igor Lebedev, who is very proud of his friendship with the director.
Friendship with Lebedev brings excellent dividends to the director. According to the financial statements of the LDPR, published on the CEC website, in 2017 alone, Daniil Bondar, as an individual entrepreneur, received about 164 million rubles from the Liberal Democrats for posting advertising and information materials. Judging by the reporting of the LDPR, the capital’s director received tranches from the party almost monthly. At the same time, the total income of the LDPR for 2017 amounted to about a billion rubles, and 97% of this money were payments from the budget, so, in fact, Lebedev’s friend received budget money from the pocket of the Liberal Democrats. And I received a lot. Over five years, his individual entrepreneur earned 830 million rubles from contacts with the Liberal Democratic Party.
There is, perhaps, no doubt that State Duma Deputy Speaker Igor Lebedev himself participated in the management of the Spanish company Go Evolution International 21 SL. However, as Baza found out, the company in Altea and the apartments registered to it are by no means the only thing that the vice speaker is hiding.
Spanish "Rublyovka"
At the foot of the Sierra de Bernia mountain, still in the same Altea, is located the elite cottage community “Altea Hills”. This is such a “Spanish Rublyovka”. Realtors call “Althea Hills” a metropolis resident’s dream, which “invites privacy and silence” and “where they know how to protect the privacy of their owners.”
Almost at the very top of the mountain range on Norway Street there is a luxurious villa with a total area of 461 square meters. This is a three-story mansion with a terrace, a small garden and a private pool, which offers excellent views of the Mediterranean coast.
Villa in Altea Hills. Photo: metrhispanic.com, booking.com, bluerock.es, comspain-holiday.com, google.com.br/maps
The villa and a plot of 800 square meters, according to the Spanish cadastral register, belong to the company Inaugural SL, which is managed by people we already know. From April to June 2018, it was the mother of State Duma Deputy Speaker Galina Lebedeva, and from June - Daniil Bondar and Sergei Chalyshev.
Extracts from the commercial register of Spain about the owners and change of management of the company Inaugural SL
The company’s authorized capital is 3.3 million euros. Most likely, this is the cost of the villa itself, which was indicated as a contribution to the authorized capital of Inaugural SL. In addition, the prices for mansions for sale in this location and with the same area are approximately the same.
Lebedev hotel business
The interests of the family of the Deputy Speaker of the State Duma and his relatives in Spain are not limited to the villa and apartments. In the fall of 2016, 72-year-old Galina Lebedeva founded the company Spanish Destiny Invest SL, which since 2017 has managed the Barcelona-registered travel company Areir SA.
According to extracts from the Spanish cadastre, the three-star Hotel Azul in Barcelona on one of the main avenues of the city, Gran Via, is registered to the latter. This hotel has a total of 22 rooms. On Booking, which Lebedev so defended, this hotel has very high ratings and dozens of laudatory reviews from tourists from all over the world.
Hotel Acta Azul Barcelona. Photo: © booking.com
In 2017, the hotel, judging by its financial statements, earned 144 thousand euros, that is, about 11 million rubles. The cost of the hotel itself is unlikely to be less than 14.5 million euros. It is this amount that appears in the accounting documents of Spanish Destiny Invest SL in the column “equity”.
Extracts from the commercial register about the owners of the companies
Spanish Destiny Invest SL and Areir SA
Also, at the beginning of January 2018, Galina Lebedeva became the founder of another company - Hotels Europe Daniella Invest SL, which, through its subsidiary Agua Azul SL, owns the three-star Azuline Hotel - Apartamento Rosamar in one of the most party places on earth - Ibiza.
Extracts from the commercial register about the owners of the companies Hotels Europe Daniella Invest SL, Agua Azul SL and Hotels Europe Marcello Invest SL
Several details indicate that the athlete is well acquainted with the family of the LDPR leader. For example, in Russia, according to the SPARK-Interfax database, in the summer of 2017, Nadezhda Grishaeva established the Destiny car rental company, and six months later, in January 2018, the mother of the State Duma Deputy Speaker Galina became the new owner of the company Lebedeva.
We mentioned above that in Sochi, the mother of the vice speaker owns the construction company Raritet, which is registered on the first floor of the prestigious Barcelona Park residential complex at number 59 on Kurortny Prospekt. In the fall and winter of 2018, Nadezhda Grishaeva purchased several apartments with an area of 276 and 597 square meters in this residential complex.
1. Data from SPARK-Interfax about the Raritet company.
2–3. Extract from Rosreestr for Nadezhda Grishaeva’s apartments
The ex-basketball player turned out to be well acquainted with the parliamentarian himself. Photojournalists from the Sputnik agency photographed them together at a friendly match between Russia and Chile in the summer of 2017, and Baza found several photographs of them together on social networks.
What connects the young athlete Nadezhda Grishaeva with the vice speaker of the State Duma and his family?
Secret wife
In April 2018, Igor Lebedev celebrated the birth of his third son. As the media wrote, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who became a grandfather for the ninth time, offered the baby’s parents a choice of three names: Timofey, Trofim, Nikifor. During the congratulations, no one paid attention to one important nuance: in Igor Lebedev’s declaration for 2017 there is not a word about his wife and her income. And on his Facebook page, in the “marital status” column, he still has the status “single.” Everyone knows that the deputy’s first wife, Lyudmila, gave him two twin sons, Alexander and Sergei. But he divorced her a long time ago, who then gave Lebedev a third son?
According to Baza, in August 2016, the Kutuzovsky Civil Registry Office in Moscow registered Lebedev’s marriage with ex-basketball player of the capital Dynamo and the Russian national team Nadezhda Grishaeva.
Where and under what circumstances they met remains a mystery. Perhaps the Deputy Speaker of the State Duma saw her on TV. The athlete twice participated in shows on Channel One - in the program “Fashionable Sentence” in 2013 and “Let’s Get Married” in 2014.
In the latter, the spectacular blonde without embarrassment recalled her affair with a married man. Nadezhda said that at the age of 19 she lost her head with a 49-year-old Spaniard. Despite rare meetings, this relationship lasted almost five years. At the same time, Grishaeva assured: she never set out to date men much older than herself (the age difference between Lebedev and Grishaeva is more than 15 years. - Note from “Base”).
— At the age of 24, I dreamed of winning an Olympic medal in London, but it didn’t work out very well. “I will do everything that depends on me to get into the prize-winners in Brazil,” the basketball player said with sparkling eyes. But her dreams were not destined to come true - the Russian team did not make it to the Summer Olympic Games in Rio. And Nadezhda had no time for professional sports anymore.
In the spring of 2016, the deputy and former basketball player had a girl, and last year a boy, the ninth grandson of the LDPR leader. The database knows the names of the babies, but for ethical reasons we will not name them. One hint: parents have decided that their children’s names should be included in the names of some Spanish companies. And this is far from Timofey, Trofim or Nikifor, as Vladimir Volfovich advised. For two years, Lebedev and Grishaeva did not advertise their marriage in any way; there was no mention that it was the model and ex-basketball player who became the mother of the vice speaker’s two children. Igor Lebedev’s marriage with a young and beautiful athlete explains why the vice speaker’s mother gave her a hotel in Ibiza. It turns out that Lebedev violated the law “On the status of a member of the Federation Council and the status of a deputy of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation,” which imposes a ban on the ownership of so-called foreign financial instruments by deputies and their wives, which includes Grishaeva’s company, which owns a hotel in Ibiza.
According to the same law on the status of a State Duma deputy, Lebedev was obliged to indicate the property and income of his new wife in the declaration for 2017.
And Grishaeva has something to declare. According to Rosreestr, a few months after the wedding, in December 2016, the basketball player bought from Dmitry Mostman, a business partner of the bankrupt initiator of the blockade of Crimea Lenur Islyamov, an apartment in an elite new building on Nezhinskaya Street near Kutuzovsky Prospekt. We are talking about apartments with an area of 117 square meters, the cadastral value of which is estimated at 36.5 million rubles. Judging by his declaration, Igor Lebedev earned approximately the same amount for the entire 2017.
Extract from Rosreestr for Nadezhda Grishaeva’s apartment
Nezhinskaya Street is well known to the family of Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Here, in the 3rd and 4th buildings of building No. 14, Galina and Igor Lebedev had as many as three four-story apartments of 328 square meters each, and the mother of the vice speaker herself, until recently, headed the homeowners association “Town “Reliable””, registered on this street. All three of these apartments, as well as another apartment with an area of almost 200 square meters on Tverskaya Street, now belong to the Telmi company. It was founded by Igor Lebedev himself in 2002, and since 2015 it has been owned by the Cyprus offshore Hargue Holding Limited.
PS
In 2014, the head of FBK* accused the vice speaker of purchasing an apartment for 86 million rubles in Dubai, which he did not indicate in the declaration. And although the evidence was reinforced concrete (Lebedev’s foreign passport was attached to the sale and purchase agreement. - Note by “Base”), the deputy got away with it. The politician called all the accusations nonsense and provocation, and that was the end of the story.
In the case of the Spanish assets of Igor Lebedev and his family, we have little hope for the law or a clear reaction from the Duma. And this despite the fact that the vice speaker managed to violate three points of the law “On the status of a member of the Federation Council and the status of a deputy of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation.”
Documents and extracts from the official register prove that Igor Lebedev, while a State Duma deputy, managed a business abroad, and his wife, whose income he did not declare, owns a hotel in Spain.
All this should become the basis for a parliamentary investigation and inspection by the Prosecutor General’s Office, and if the facts stated by the “Base” are confirmed, the subsequent deprivation of Deputy Speaker Igor Lebedev of his deputy mandate. Along with Lebedev, the head of his secretariat, Sergei Chalyshev, should also resign. By managing a business associated with the family of the vice speaker, Chalyshev violated the law on the state civil service.