Michael weiss writes;  Igor Schualov, Moscow’s first deputy prime minister, is worth 250 million dollars.   Called Mr. Clean, where di he get his money?

Shuvalov used offshore companies to purchase close to $2 million in building materials from a Belgian contractor in order to outfit a lavish greenhouse for his 18.5-acre estate just outside Moscow. The company, Glas & Metaal Engineering, which filed for bankruptcy in June 2011 and no longer exists, was based in the municipality of Menen, Belgium. It was contracted in February 2006 to sell “glass-panels and the support-structures in stainless steel, and aluminium outside cleaning-gantry” for the glazed dome and walls for the “Wintergarden” on Shuvalov’s sprawling estate in Zarechye village in the Odintsovo district of Moscow, the buildings of which were designed by Italian architect Giuliano Moretti.

The land of Zarechye-4, Shuvalov’s property, formerly belonged to members of the Soviet Politburo, including hard-line communist ideologist Mikhail Suslov, for the purpose of hosting VIPs. Shuvalov’s neighbors include billionaire oligarchs Roman Abramovich and Suleyman Kerimov, with whom Shuvalov has profited enormously in financial dealings uncovered in 2011 and 2012.

Shuvalov was meant to be different. A reputed liberal in the Kremlin, once considered Russia’s business-friendly “sherpa” to the G-8, Davos, and the World Trade Organization, Shuvalov has long been thought of as an agreeable counterpoint to the hard-line siloviki, or strongmen, a faction that now seems dominant in the Kremlin. In congratulating the formation of the new Russian government after Putin’s return to the presidency in May 2012, the influential U.S.-Russia Business Council named Shuvalov first as an “[advocate] for improving the business climate and strengthening the U.S.-Russia bilateral commercial relationship.”

Shuvalov’s role has been to put a more respectable face on international Russian commerce, a face never more urgently needed than it is now.  Corruption in Control in Russia