Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Guard Viktor Zolotov flew to the Seychelles for three years in a row in the company of the main supplier of products for the Russian Guard, other military personnel and organizers of a pro-Kremlin art exhibition. The Dossier Center writes about this.
A source told the publication that these flights took place in 2017-2019. One of the passengers in question is the director of the Crimean plant "Friendship of Peoples" Boris Vaninsky. In August 2018, Alexei Navalny, in his investigation, said that the Russian Guard spent more than 2 billion rubles to buy cabbage, carrots and potatoes from the plant at a price 2-3 times higher than the retail market.
After that, in 2019, the National Guard asked to classify information about its purchases, but this never happened. According to the open data of SPARK-Interfax, in 2021 the Russian Guard concluded contracts worth more than 11 billion rubles with the Friendship of Peoples.
On December 2, 2017, the Russian government signed a decree according to which the Vaninsky plant became the exclusive supplier of the Russian Guard. The next day, according to the Dossier source, the first joint flight of Zolotov and Vaninsky to the Seychelles took place.
The businessman and the commander-in-chief were then accompanied by the head of the anti-terrorist center of the CIS countries Andrey Novikov, Zolotov's son Roman (then deputy head of the Moscow Department of Physical Education and Sports), his companion Anastasia Buevich, Lieutenant General Roman Gavrilov (until March 2022 - Zolotov's right hand), the current Ivan Shmelev (then Zolotov's assistant), Evelina Levieva, Emotional Intelligence Coach, Anastasia Andreeva, founder of the Artlife project, her employee Krestina Lantsova, serviceman Alexander Pashlov (probably a security guard) and ex-girlfriend of rapper Guf Lilia Taradymenko.
Artlife - educational courses in painting, as well as the festival of the same name, which is held in Moscow with the support of the mayor's office and is annually visited by the National Guard. So, in September 2019, the festival was attended by about 2 thousand Russian guardsmen, and in 2020 they even donated their works to it. At the festival in October 2021, they also "revealed themselves as connoisseurs of art".
Instagram accounts of Artlife employees, as well as Levieva and Buevich, confirm that they were in the Seychelles for three years in a row in December. And every time - in the same place, at the Four Seasons Resort Seychelles.
Before the war, 10 days of staying at a hotel in December cost €12,000–20,000, depending on the class. The cost of renting a four-bedroom villa for the same period is €115,000-121,000.
All flights, according to the Dossier source, were carried out on a Falcon 7X business jet. According to Vash Charter airline, the price for flights on it in 2017–2019 from Moscow to the Seychelles and back was about €160–170 thousand.
According to official figures, Zolotov Sr. earned 6.7 million rubles in 2017, 6.8 million in 2018, and 6.9 million in 2019. At the exchange rate at that time, about €100,000 a year. There is no public information about the income of his son. Gavrilov earned 1.9 million rubles in 2017, 2.5 million in 2018. Shmelev earned 1.6 million rubles in 2017. Levieva is registered as an individual entrepreneur, her income is unknown. According to SPARK, the profit of Andreeva's company in 2019 amounted to 1.9 million rubles, in 2020 it lost 3.5 million rubles. Lantsova - IP, there is no data on her income. The annual profit of the company Buevich "Expert Energo Yug" is from 30 thousand to 230 thousand rubles.
These amounts show that none of the above could afford a holiday in the Seychelles. Probably, Vaninsky paid for the vacation. In 2017, his "Friendship of Peoples" earned 1.37 billion rubles, and by 2021, after three holidays with Zolotov, 7 times more - 9.8 billion.