The richest Federation Council member was Buryatia Senator Vitaly Malkin, who earned over $34 million last year, according to his tax declaration for 2011.
Before being elected as member of the upper chamber of the Russian parliament, Malkin served as a deputy chief of the Stoilensky Mining and Beneficiation Plant in western Russia.
Malkin and his wife own five plots of land with a total area of over 24 hectares and three houses, including 20 hectares of land and a house in Italy, as well as nine apartments with a total area of 1,500 square meters.
The Federation Council’s official website published on Thursday a total of 358 tax declarations of senators, their family members and Federation Council staff. A commission to control the reliability of senators’ tax declarations was set up in the Federation Council in March.
Dagestan Senator Suleiman Kerimov, who is listed as number 118 on Forbes' list of the World’s Billionaires with an estimated net worth of $7.8 billion, comes second in terms of annual income, declaring over 983 million rubles (almost $33.6 million) earned in 2011. Kerimov co-owns Russia’s gas giant Gazprom, the country’s largest bank, Sberbank, and the world’s No.1 potash producer, Uralkali.
Ulyanovsk Region Senator Sergei Bazhenov earned 300.3 million rubles ($10.1 million) and was ranked third. Before taking over as a Federation Council senator, Bazhenov was the president of St. Petersburg International Bank.
The richest senator’s wife was the spouse of Voronezh Region Senator Nikolai Olshansky, who earned over 561 million rubles ($19 million) in 2011.
The senator of northwestern Russia’s Novgorod Region, Dmitry Krivitsky, earned 116,000 rubles ($4,000) in 2011, posting the smallest annual income among Federation Council members.
Senator of South Russia’s Stavropol Territory Konstantin Skomorokhin declared the ownership of the most various property, including a “youth recreation facility with a discotheque and a cafeteria,” as well as various grain storage facilities and equipment. He also owns manufacturing facilities and plots of land, seven cars, eight trucks and five minibuses.
Valery Vasilyev, the senator of Central Russia’s Ivanovo Region, owns various housing and public utilities, such as sewage systems, an artesian well, two pumping stations, 507 meters of an insulated pipe and two electrical substations.
