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MOSCOW - Russia's likely future president, Dmitry Medvedev, does not have a car of his own and the only family transport is his wife's nine-year-old Volkswagen Golf, an official income declaration showed on Monday.
The modest means set out in the declaration submitted to election officials contrast sharply with the funds he controls: he is chairman of gas giant Gazprom which in 2006 notched up a net profit of about US$13 billion ($17.4 billion).
President Vladimir Putin, who has to step down as president at the end of his second term in May, backed Medvedev last month as his favoured candidate in the March 2 election. Putin's support makes Medvedev a near-certainty to win the election.
Medvedev took home about US$71,000 in pay per year over the past four years, the election commission said in an official declaration on its website.
But the only car in the Medvedev household is a 1999 Volkswagen Golf car owned by his wife, Svetlana, according to the declaration.
Medvedev, a 42-year-old former lawyer, has a 367.8sqm flat in Moscow and a 4700sqm plot of land outside Moscow.
He also has savings of 2.74 million roubles ($148,703). His wife has just one bank account with 380.2 roubles on deposit.
The Russian media has treated such declarations of income with much scorn, saying senior Kremlin officials live a lavish lifestyle with many of their expenses subsidised by the state.
Medvedev, a first deputy prime minister, like most senior officials is ferried around in a chauffeur-driven limousine with a bodyguard.
The declarations by the Kremlin elite are tiny compared to the money being divided up by Moscow's investment bankers, lawyers and businessmen, who can take home much more than US$1 million a year.
Putin declared an income of about US$81,000 last year when he ran for parliament. The Kremlin chief said he owned a small flat in St Petersburg and a plot of land outside Moscow.
- REUTERS
