Putin awarded Roldugin with the Order of Merit for the Fatherland

Russian President Vladimir Putin awarded cellist Sergei Roldugin with the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, IV degree. The decree about this was published on the official portal of legal information.

The decree says that Roldugin received the order “for his great contribution to the development of national culture and art, many years of fruitful work.”

Roldugin’s name appeared in the “Panama archives” – journalists found the musician’s $ 2 billion offshore. Putin stated then that all the money he spent on musical instruments. The newspaper “Vedomosti” on the same day published customs statistics, from which it follows that the import of all musical instruments to Russia in 2015 did not exceed $ 50 million, and “other bowed instruments”, which include cellos, were imported for only 75 thousand.

The Insider wrotethat Roldugin keeps Putin’s money in his offshores; this is confirmed by what they are spent on. Here are some of the expenses:

– A plot of land in the Priozersk district of the Leningrad region. The Igora ski resort is located on this site. According to Reuters, the wedding of the president’s daughter took place in this place in February 2013.

– Yacht club on the shores of Lake Ladoga (where Vladimir Putin likes to rest, including on a yacht).

– “Winter’s Dacha” is a “premium” class hotel on Lake Ladoga, which has long been described by the media as one of Putin’s supposed palaces.

The Organized Crime and Corruption Research Center (OCCRP) has concluded that the money associated with Vladimir Putin – about $ 24 billion – is controlled by people from the president’s inner circle. According to the authors of the investigation, $ 24 billion is the money of “family members, old friends and friends who have become family members.” The publication notes that most of these people are associated with oil and gas assets or state-owned companies (Yuri Kovalchuk, Gennady Timchenko, Rotenberg). OCCRP writes that there are three main “wallets” of Putin: the owner and CEO of Accept LLC, the son of Putin’s cousin Mikhail Shelomov, former co-owner of the Gunvor oil company, businessman Pyotr Kolbin, and cellist Sergei Roldugin.