Kirill Shamalov

At the time of the wedding, Kirill – a tall, dark-haired man with rimless glasses - was a rising star of Russian business, but still only 31. His fortunes began to skyrocket soon after his wedding to the president’s daughter, a competitive acrobatic dancer who is now helping to oversee a $1.7 billion expansion of Moscow State University. Within 18 months, Kirill acquired a large chunk of shares in a major Russian oil and petrochemical processor called Sibur - a stake now worth an estimated $2.85 billion, based on the value of recent share deals. He also quit his job as a business manager and set up a company to run his personal investments. A Reuters examination of Shamalov’s career shows that in the summer of 2013, months after he married Putin’s daughter, Kirill opened discussions about buying shares in Sibur from one of the president’s wealthiest friends. A year later, he was able to borrow more than $1 billion, judging by the published accounts of his investment company. The loan came from a bank headed by another longtime associate of Putin, and where Shamalov’s brother holds a senior position. The money was used to make an investment in Sibur that within months proved highly profitable for Kirill. When Kirill Shamalov was growing up in the 1990s, his father, Nikolai, was a co-founder with Putin and others of a development of dachas known as The Ozero (Lake) Cooperative, about 100 km (60 miles) north of St. Petersburg. Various members of the Ozero development went on to prominence in Putin’s Russia. Nikolai Shamalov became a shareholder in a small lender called Bank Rossiya, which over the past 15 years has grown to be one of Russia’s most influential banks. Kovalchuk, the co-owner of the Igora ski resort, is the largest Bank Rossiya shareholder. Nikolai Shamalov has two sons: Yury, born in 1970, and Kirill, born in 1982. Both have prospered during the Putin years.