Russia releases the yearly earnings of top officials

While many in the US are upset over the Donald Trump’s partially disclosed tax returns, Russia has published the annual earnings and assets of top Government, Kremlin and Duma officials.

Here are the figures for some Russia’s most famous politicians: 

Vladimir Putin earned 8.858 million rubles ($157,712) in 2016. Among the list of Putin’s more unique assets include two Soviet Volga cars and a Lada Niva that look something like this…

Meanwhile Russian Prime Minister and former President Dmitri Medvedev earned 8.6 million rubles ($153,000).

Dmitry Peskov, who has one of the toughest jobs in the world, having to fend off constant Russophobic attacks from the usual suspects, earned 12.8 million rubles (over $227,000). I say he’s worth every penny.

Sergey Kirienko, the current head of Russia’s Presidential Administration and former chief of Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation, is the richest man in the Kremlin earning 85 million rubles ($1.5 million). I suppose it pays to be a saver as most of this money was earned prior to entering public service.

In addition to Kremlin and government officials, Duma party leaders were also on the list.

The richest party leader in the Duma is LDPR founder Vladimir Zhirinovsky who earned 79 million rubles ($1.4 million) in 2016.

That’s a lot of Zhirinovsky brand vodka!

Or maybe it’s because of thepart-time singing career?

In actual fact, it’s do to a combination of business investments in addition to authoring books and making many media and academic speaking appearances.