Everything for the victory! How Russian oligarchs are fighting against СOVID-19

Bloomberg reports how Russian billionaires are fighting against the coronavirus.

Arina Vinogradova

A few hours later, in Apatity, a polar city with a population of 55,000, he was diagnosed with coronavirus for the first time, and the first 100 rapid tests were delivered there on a Gulfstream airplane belonging to the family of billionaire Andrei Guryev. And soon this region, where PhosAgro Guryev’s company produces key ingredients for its phosphate fertilizers, received many other donations. This case is an example of where and how Russian billionaires invest $ 300 million, which they promised to donate to fight the pandemic.

While the coronavirus front line is shifting from Moscow to the regions where many of the country's industrial assets are located, tycoons are trying to soften the blow where they are the main employers. They buy medical equipment, protective equipment, finance the construction of hospitals - while their donations are faster and larger in size than government spending.

According to Natalya Zubarevich, director of the regional program of the Independent Institute of Social Policy, the measures that tycoons are taking can help keep their business in working condition. In Russian single-industry towns that exist around one city-forming enterprise, an outbreak of the disease can have disastrous consequences. Most donations go to the needs of medicine, and funds are also directed to measures to save small businesses and to products intended for vulnerable groups of the population.

Some companies, including Severstal Aleksey Mordashov and Norilsk Nickel Vladimir Potanin, also pay bonuses in order to maintain uninterrupted production under quarantine. Business leaders were among the first to support the introduction of regional locks. So, Cherepovets, the city whose main enterprises are PhosAgro and Severstal, was one of the first in Russia to approve a self-isolation regime, while Murmansk Oblast and Norilsk introduced restrictions at the earliest stages to keep residents from leaving.

People and numbers

* Nornickel by Vladimir Potanin invested 10.5 billion rubles to equip 4,000 beds in the regions where the enterprise operates, as well as to build a new hospital and laboratory. The Potanin Charity Fund also donated 1 billion rubles to support businesses and public organizations.

* Severstal Alexei Mordashov buys equipment for local hospitals and plans to start producing respirators.

* The PhosAgro company of the Guryev family spent 500 million rubles on test kits, medical equipment and protective equipment for doctors in cities where the holding enterprises operate.

* The gold mining company Polyus, controlled by the Karimov family, is a co-investor of a 1 billion rubles fund to prevent the spread of the virus in the Russian Far East.

* Oleg Deripaska finances the construction of three hospitals in the Irkutsk region.

* Victor Vekselberg sends 50,000 sets of rapid tests to the regions where the assets of his Renova group are located.

* The Alfa Group company, co-owned by Mikhail Fridman, is 1 billion rubles to the Coronavirus Anti-Corruption Operational Headquarters.

* Mail.ru group of Alisher Usmanov - 1 billion rubles to support small and medium-sized businesses. Usmanov himself allocated 2 billion rubles to hospitals and doctors.

* AFK Sistema Vladimir Yevtushenkov Group donated about 1 billion rubles, part of the funds is intended for the development of test kits.

* Gennady Timchenko, whose holdings include the gas production company Novatek and the petrochemical company SIBUR Holding, invested 1.3 billion rubles.

* Victor Rashnikov, the main shareholder of PJSC Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works, donated 500 million rubles to help hospitals located near his metallurgical plant.