A few days before the Russian parliamentary election, the Russian anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny released a video of the country house used by the prime minister — and former president — Dmitry Medvedev. Navalny and his colleagues had located Medvedev after he posted a photo on Instagram of his mushroom-picking excursion near the Volga River.
Navalny's foundation hired a drone fitted with a camera and sent it over the area. The resulting footage revealed a vast estate of some 80 hectares with helipads, swimming pools, an artificial ski slope, servants' quarters, guest houses, communications stations, large garages, a harbor with two hovercraft and a large, beautifully renovated 18th-century mansion. The compound, allegedly paid for by two billionaire oligarchs, is registered as belonging to a charity, Dar, with ties to Medvedev's wife, Svetlana.
As a piece of evidence of corruption at the top, the video was powerful. As a ploy to get voters to use their ballots to protest against such behavior, it was a flop. In the parliamentary election it was designed to influence, President Vladimir Putin's ruling United Russia substantially increased the number of seats it commands in the Duma. Three other parties that usually vote with United Russia also returned to Parliament, though all with fewer seats.
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