Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov owns no cars and lives in a cramped 36-square-meter apartment in Grozny, making him one of Russia's poorest regional leaders — at least on paper.
According to his newly released income declaration, Kadyrov earned 4 million rubles ($131,000) last year, a slight increase from 3.4 million rubles in 2008, but the car that he declared in last year's statement is gone.
Kadyrov said he lives in a three-room, 36-square-meter apartment in Grozny. A posh family estate in the Chechen village of Tsentoroi is owned by his mother, Vedomosti reported.
Kadyrov's 2008 declaration listed a VAZ-21053 car among his personal assets. His spokesman, Alvi Karimov, could not say what happened to the car.
Kadyrov's wife, Medina, owns a 209-square-meter apartment, according to the declaration. Of his seven children, two own a stake in his wife's apartment, and the rest, all underage, have no property.
In 2006, two businessmen presented Kadyrov with a Ferrari and other luxury cars, including a Lexus and a Lamborgini, which were photographed parked by Kadyrov's family house. Karimov had no comment on any of these vehicles.
Kadyrov is also a collector of racehorses, including an Irish-bred stallion named Tsentoroi. He has said the horses belong to Chechnya, not to him personally.
All senior officials are supposed to declare their income and some assets under an anti-corruption drive initiated by President Dmitry Medvedev last year. The deadline for regional leaders to file their declarations with the tax authorities and publish them on their regional web sites was Friday, April 30. Kadyrov did not say why he waited until this week to publish his declaration.