“There’s no money, hold on!” Dmitry Medvedev rents a land plot worth almost $8,5 million for $25, which he doesn’t pay either.

Sergei Ezhov

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“There’s no money, but you hold on” is a phrase uttered in May 2016 by then-Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev during a visit to Crimea in response to a pensioner’s complaint about her small pension.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev mentions the use of a 1.16-acre plot in his tax declaration as deputy chairman of the Security Council. According to the hacked correspondence posted on the Black Mirror Telegram channel, Medvedev leased the land back in 2002 in the Krasnogorsk district. (See the documents - here and here)

The agreement term is 49 years. The rent is also specified: 1,354 rubles per year. It has not increased over the years: at least, as of 2015, it remained the same. But Medvedev did not pay even this puny amount of money. He owes 16,000 rubles and another 12,000 as a penalty.

Medvedev’s land plot is located in the Arkhangelskoye dacha community. One hundred square meters of land costs 13.5 million rubles there. Accordingly, Medvedev’s land is worth 630 million rubles.

From the same email it follows that other prominent government officials — Mikhail Men, Dmitry Kozak and German Gref — own the adjacent plots. It remains unclear at what price they are leasing the land, but by all appearances they did not get them at market prices.

The signature of the official who signed the agreement is also curious. The plot of land was made available to Medvedev on favorable terms by Boris Rasskazov, then head of the Krasnogorsk district. In May 2004, Rasskazov was charged with abuse of office for approving the 1999 sale of a 14-hectare land plot in the village of Petrovo-Dalneye, which had been taken away from the Zhukovka health resort, to JSC LogovoVAZ. The plot of land went to the daughter of the businessman Boris Berezovsky. In November, 2004 the land was returned to the state pursuant to a court decision, and soon Boris Rasskazov’s criminal case was closed. In other words, the case against the district head was closed immediately after he gave the elite property to Dmitry Medvedev, then first deputy head of the presidential administration.

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