In our 2017 movie “Don’t call him Dimon”, we’ve already talked about Dmitry Medvedev’s mansion on Rublyovka that was donated to his sham charity foundation by the oligarch Alisher Usmanov. As it turns out, it’s not the only expensive gift that Usmanov made to Medvedev. The former Prime Minister of Russia also owns an entire island in the south of the country that he uses as a private fishing resort, and there is no doubt that everything on this island was built with Usmanov’s money.

We learned about the private fishing resort in Astrakhan oblast back in 2017 and even filmed it with a quadcopter. However, we decided not to talk about it back then because we lacked evidence that it’s actually being used by Dmitry Medvedev. We needed testimonies from local residents and people who constructed the resort or work in it, but we were unable to obtain them at that time.

Luckily, this month our colleagues from proekt.media published their own investigation about the same fishing resort. They spoke to Konstantin Petrusenko, one of the people who worked on the construction site. He still hasn’t received any money for his work, and gladly told the journalists everything he knew. Petrusenko confirmed that the resort was built for Dmitry Medvedev, and his wife Svetlana personally oversaw the construction.

For local residents, the fact that they live next to the Prime Minister’s dacha is no news. They told proekt.media that Medvedev visits the resort two or three times a year. During his visits, all the surrounding roads and riverways get blocked, and villagers are even told to lock their cows in the barns.

Now that it’s been proven that the fishing resort is practically Dmitry Medvedev’s dacha, we can talk about it in greater detail. The largest building on the 27,000 m2 land plot is the 2128 m2 spa complex with a sauna and a swimming pool. Right next to it is the 1688 m2 main house separated into three wings. Behind the main house are eight 225 m2 guest houses, a 1115 m2 restaurant complex and a separate 670m2 house for all the staff and guards. There’s also a 50x50 m helipad, a 100 m2 summer kitchen, a 320 m2 boat hangar and another 500 m2 sauna complex. The total price of all this would be very hard to estimate, since there are no comparable objects anywhere in the world. Luckily, we got access to the report of Truvoron Limited, the Cypriot company that owns the land plot on which the fishing resort was built. According to it, a total of $63 million has been spent on Medvedev’s private island in 2013.

Alisher Usmanov’s connection to the fishing resort can be proven fairly easily. The ownership chain of the land plot consists of a total of six companies. The last three of them are registered on the Isle of Man and operated by Bridgewaters, Alisher Usmanov’s pocket management company. Bridgewaters also manages USM holding (Usmanov’s main asset) and owns Usmanov’s London estate.

Thus, we can say without a doubt that the luxury fishing resort in Astrakhan oblast was another huge bribe that the then Prime Minister of Russia Dmitry Medvedev received from the oligarch Alisher Usmanov. We hope that an official investigation into this matter will be initiated some day.
You can learn more on this topic by watching Alexey Navalny’s latest video with English subtitles.