Elections in Moscow, where opposition candidates are currently being removed for weak reasons, are overseen by the head of the Moscow City Electoral Committee, Major General Olga Kirillova. The Insider found a luxury apartment decorated for an older family member and an expensive car belonging to the electoral general. It's hard to explain all this based on her officially stated income. Prior to leading the Moscow City Electoral Committee, Kirillova worked as the head of the Federal Migration Service of Russia in Moscow and the Main Directorate for Migration of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs. Incidentally, her husband found a job at the Kyiv Ploshchad Group of Companies, a business mainly reliant on immigrant labor.
Olga Kirillova was appointed as the head of the Moscow City Electoral Commission in December 2021. Her election was uncontested with no other candidates, as all 14 members of the commission unanimously voted for Kirillova. As the chair, she will be responsible for organizing elections in Moscow for the President of Russia in 2024, State Duma deputies in 2026, the mayor of the capital, and deputies of the Moscow City Duma in 2023 and 2024.
Additionally, the city's electoral committee oversees the municipal elections in Moscow this year, which have already been marred by scandals. For instance, the current deputy from the Zyuzino district Konstantin Jankauskas was denied candidacy under the pretext of alleged ties to Navalny’s headquarters. Other opposition candidates are also being barred from the elections, including Mundep in the Filevsky Park district Denis Prokuronov, candidates from Yabloko Irina Sobyanina and , and Nicholas of the Caucasus, candidates from the “Nomination” platform Ivan Shmatin , and Eduard Kormyshakov and Yulia Ivanova. Furthermore, independent deputies are facing significant persecution from the security forces and the courts for displaying symbols deemed extremist – the Smart Voting logo has been classified as such. Being charged under such a law prevents them from participating in the elections. and Kirilova has dedicated her entire career to public service. Since 1992, she has been employed in law enforcement on Sakhalin. In 2006, she transitioned to the Federal Migration Service, where she held the position of head of the FMS Department for the Sakhalin Region until 2012. In October 2012, Kirillova moved to Moscow and became the head of the Federal Migration Service of Russia. In 2016, she was appointed as the head of the Main Directorate for Migration of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia. A year later, she was awarded the rank of Major General of Police by presidential decree. Olga met her husband, Yakov Kirillov, in Sakhalin. He is also a former police officer who once led the Department of Internal Affairs for the Sakhalin Region., Starting from 2020, she possesses an apartment measuring 141.7 sq. m with a current market value of about 60 million rubles in the elite residential complex “Dubrovskaya Sloboda”. This occurred after Kirillova vacated her position, so there was no need for her to declare this acquisition. In reality, Major General Kirillova had been using this apartment previously, but it was registered under the name of an older relative.The apartment was bought in 2014 in the name of
Kirillova Agapia Yakovlevna
, who was born in 1932 and is the mother-in-law of the head of the Moscow City Electoral Committee. At the time of the purchase, Agapia Yakovlevna was 82 years old. The Insider could not find any information about her business activities or involvement in legal entities. The Kirillov couple, who bought the apartment five years prior, earned a total of less than 19 million rubles.
Yakov Kirillov not only prefers large apartments, but also large cars. He travels around Moscow in a Toyota Land Cruiser Prado. The price of such a car in 2017 may reach 4.5 million rubles, which is approximately equal to the earnings of the head of the family for two years. According to The Insider, Yakov Kirillov
was employed at Kyiv Ploshchad 1 LLC. The Kyiv Ploshchad group of companies was founded in 1992 by God Nisanov and Zarakh Iliev, who are the largest landlords in Russia.
God Nisanov is known not only as a billionaire and friend of the Naryshkin family, but also as a co-owner of the Sadovod market and the Food City agricultural cluster, which is the largest wholesale and retail food center in Russia. Food City is known in Moscow as a meeting place for illegal migrants. There are frequent reports in the media about conflicts, protests by migrants, and appeals to Putin from residents of nearby areas to restore order. Nisanov's companies also earned from the construction of migration centers. “I am officially divorced from my husband now. I didn't want to get divorced while I was in the military. When I retired in 2020, I was able to quietly get divorced to avoid public attention. But I still live at the same address. We are not hostile. Since it's closer to my work, no one is asking me to leave the apartment,” Kirillova told The Insider.
Could Agapiya Yakovlevna have bought this apartment on her own?
Could Agapiya Yakovlevna buy this apartment on her own?
According to the surviving archive announcements, an apartment of comparable area could be purchased for 28 million rubles before the house was commissioned. This is more than two times lower than its current market value, but still amounts to almost 10 annual family income while working on Sakhalin, and neither she nor her husband had any other real estate that Kirillova could sell. And if it weren’t for the design of a capital apartment for her mother-in-law, Kirillova would have to justify the origin of the funds – according to the law, this is done if the purchase price exceeds 3 annual incomes. In a conversation with The Insider, Kirillova said: “If I’m not mistaken, the apartment cost 22 million. But I don’t remember exactly.” Even in this case, the registration of real estate in the mother-in-law allowed to bypass the anti-corruption requirement to justify income.
Why did they register an apartment in the name of an elderly woman and thus avoided declaration? Kirillova explains it this way: “Because she had a Moscow residence permit. When we arrived in Moscow to work on a transfer, we did not have a Moscow residence permit. She also had an apartment” (according to The Insider, we are talking about a 30-meter apartment on Donelaitis Street, now it has also been re-registered as Yakov Kirillov).
As for a possible conflict of interest in the control of migrants in Moscow, Kirillova also denies it:
