“Garden of Pleasures” on 3 hectares in Belgium, a dacha on the Cote d’Azur, “Central Asian Electric Power Corporation” and other assets of the Nazarbayev family’s “wallet”

Alexander Klebanov, major shareholder Central Asian Electric Power Corporation and one of the beneficiaries of “old Kazakhstan”, owns a historic estate in the suburbs of Brussels, the capital of the European Union. Klebanov was not associated with Nazarbayev family family ties, but for many years he acted as a nominal owner for them and earned his capital from this. It was used to record assets in industries of interest to the Nazarbayev clan – aviation, energy, telecommunications, the mining industry, and even cryptocurrency mining. So Alexander Klebanov, a classmate of her first husband Dariga Nazarbayeva Rakhat Aliyeva at the Almaty Medical Institute, became a dollar multimillionaire.

Of course, a person close to Nursultan Nazarbayev’s family simply needs an “alternate airfield.” Preferably in Europe. Firstly, it is relatively close, there are direct flights, and if not with the desired country, one flight on a business jet will still be enough. Secondly, reliability: real protection of private property, an independent court and the ability of the banking system of many countries to keep financial transactions secret. In addition, it is very convenient to optimize local high taxes through offshore companies, which are located not only on distant ocean islands, but right here, just a few hours drive from the European home of almost any Kazakh oligarch. There is no need to talk about comfort and safety.

We have already talked about “dacha” on the French Riviera, registered in the name of Alexander Klebanov and his son Yakov, co-owner of the Bek Air airline that went bankrupt after the fatal crash. But the most important family residence of the Klebanovs is located a thousand kilometers to the north. And this is a unique place.

More than three hectares of land in the commune of Dilbeck once belonged to the Belgian baron Robert de Viron. At the beginning of the last century, he laid out a luxurious “pleasure garden” there, as he himself called it, with greenhouses, artificial ponds, and built a real castle. However, the new owner, who gained control of the estate during the German occupation of Belgium, decided to demolish the Viron castle and built in its place in the late 60s a modern villa of almost a thousand square meters with two above-ground and one underground floors.

In the late 90s, the old European aristocracy was replaced by a new Kazakh aristocracy. The Klebanov family registered the estate in the name of the local company Fresinvest, which in turn was registered in the name of Alexander Klebanov’s father-in-law, the famous Kazakh film director Vladimir Tatenko. After his death in 2014, the company and estate, as follows from the Belgian commercial register, came under the direct control of Alexander and his wife Daria. It is unknown how much the Klebanovs paid for this historical object – there is no information in the public domain about documents relating to this transaction in the 90s.

If compared with similar objects nearby, the estate could now cost about €6-7 million. This is almost half the money that was spent on modernizing the thermal power plant in Ekibastuz after a large-scale accident that left thousands of townspeople without heat in the cold a year ago. This thermal power plant was owned by the company of Alexander Klebanov, which, as the audit showed, did not actually invest in the modernization of outdated Soviet equipment.

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Yesterday, the Turksib district court of Almaty arrested the property of the scandalous airline Bek Air, thereby satisfying the claim of the Committee for the Protection of Consumer Rights. The official basis for the claim was the appeal of almost seven hundred Kazakhstanis who were unable to return money for tickets purchased but not used. The amount of claims is 44 million tenge (approximately €100 thousand).

Bek Air stopped operating flights in December last year after one of its aircraft crashed at Almaty airport, which killed 12 people. A month later, the Aviation Administration of Kazakhstan published preliminary test results airlines. It turned out that technical log data was falsified there. The plates with serial numbers on the engines were changed, which made it essentially impossible for regulatory authorities to determine the number of hours worked by such engines. Instead of buying new parts, they simply removed them from one side and put them on the other. The average age of Bek Air aircraft is 20 years. Half of which is for operation in Kazakhstan. During this time, the company did not receive a single application from the Rolls Royce engine manufacturers to carry out major overhauls of power plants. In April, aviation authorities revoked Bek Air’s aircraft operator and airworthiness certificates.

One of the co-owners of the airline is Yakov Klebanov (No. 50 in Forbes), the son of businessman Alexander Klebanov (No. 17 in Forbes) and ex-Mazhilis deputy from the Nur Otan party Daria Klebanova. Yakov Klebanov’s participation scheme in Bek Air became known after publication investigations journalist Ainur Koskina.

But in addition to business projects in Kazakhstan, Yakov Klebanov also has foreign assets. We found one of these in France, just 10 kilometers from Cannes. According to the French business directory, Yakov Klebanov is the founder of the company SCI DU 985 CHEMIN DU RETENAOU. Authorized capital – €10 thousand. Specialization: real estate transactions.

In fact, the company simply owns a mansion at Vallauris, 985 Chemin du Retenaou (as can be seen from the name of the company, its owner decided not to split hairs). The house has belonged to Yakov Klebanov since 2007. Since the mansion has not been put up for sale and is not offered for rent, it is quite difficult to quickly assess its exact parameters. The house has two floors, a swimming pool, several gazebos. Judging by the prices of similar mansions nearby, the cost of Yakov Klebanov’s French dacha ranges from €1 to €3 million. Even at the minimum threshold, this money would be enough to cover debts to Bek Air passengers 10 times. But something tells us that Yakov Klebanov will not part with his seaside home for this.

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Interestingly, Klebanov himself is often associated with the Nazarbayev family. Specifically, with the eldest daughter of the ex-president Dariga. Not only various opposition media outlets write about this, but foreign politicians also state this quite openly.

For example, member of the British Parliament Margaret Hodge. In February 2022, she performed with report on the “kleptocratic elite of Kazakhstan”. During her report, Hodge stated that both Alexander Klebanov himself and his son Yakov are trusted financial representatives of the Nazarbayev family. Hodge also noted that the Klebanovs likely helped Dariga Nazarbayeva avoid the unexplained wealth order.

An unexplained wealth order (UWO) is a British court order requiring persons involved in serious crimes or politically exposed persons to disclose the sources of their wealth, which appears to the court to be unexplained.

At the same time, when the aforementioned Erkyn Amirkhanov was already under investigation and sold his share of the holding, CAPEC either sold or transferred its shares of Eximbank Kazakhstan JSC to him. Klebanov himself also hastened to leave the board of directors of the troubled bank. Literally a couple of days after the transaction, the bank was deprived of its license. Six months later, the bank was liquidated, its property was sold, and Amirkhanov left Kazakhstan.

It is in CAEPCO that the main assets of Klebanov and other shareholders are currently concentrated. Among them are the strategically important Pavlodar-Vodokanal Severny, Pavlodarenergo and SevKazEnergo. Through these organizations, Klebanov and the company own the Pavlodar water utility, heating networks in Pavlodar and Ekibastuz, the Pavlodar energy supply organization and a thermal power plant. In addition, through Pavlodarenergo, the oligarchs own CAPEC Green Energy, which is engaged in “green” energy and built a wind power plant EXPO-2017 in 2015.

Through SevKazEnergo they own thermal power plants and distribution networks in Petropavlovsk. In the same Petropavlovsk, where quite recently residents also found themselves under the threat of cold death due to an accident at a thermal power plant.

The CAPEC holding also partially includes Astana ERC LLP, a company engaged in “improving the system of settlements and collection of payments for utility services.” In February 2021, an audit revealed financial irregularities in its work. The company purchased services from Astanaenergosbyt LLP without government procurement. “Astanaenergosbyt” helped “Astana URC”, supplying at least 30% of the total volume of the Unified Payment Document.

Of particular interest to the story is the fact that Astanaenergosbyt was also part of Klebanov’s holding back in December 2021. But at the moment its only leader and founder is Alexander Zinkevich.

The story with the owners of the TV channel was generally interesting. Back in 2010, the television company belonged to Daria Klebanova and Svetlana Tatenko. However, already in 2011, Alexander Klebanov became the sole founder, and Batyr Kazybaev became the leader.

Batyr Kazybaev is the founder of the Kazakh portal Tengrinews.kz.

In 2012, Alash Media Group LLP joined Klebanov.

Today the situation has changed. The TV channel completely came under the control of Alash Media Group, and Alash Media Group lost all visible connection with Alexander Klebanov. However, until recently, Batyr Kazybaev remained the leader and founder of the medical holding. And after his death, this place was taken by his wife Zaure Kazybaeva.

In addition to STV, Alash Media Group includes the websites Vesti.kz and Tengrinews.kz. It is interesting that Klebanov owned part of these news publications through Effective Media Liaison LLP. Then, for an unclear reason, he left the list of founders of both companies and all these media remained under the control of Batyr Kazybaev.

Open sources say that Yakov Klebanov also owns half of the shares of Circle Maritime Invest JSC. For some reason this information is not available on the e-government website. The company is engaged in maritime transport and logistics. The joint-stock company owns a fleet of sea vessels operating in the Caspian Sea. The company, for example, collaborated with Tengizchevroil. Last year alone, Circle Maritime Invest paid more than two billion in taxes.

The first is Le Grand LLP, through which Olesya Klebanova owns the “niche perfumery” store LE GRAND PARFUM. The boutique is located at the Rixos hotel in Almaty. In addition, the company, together with the Scavia House, launched the SCAVIA jewelry salon in 2013. Over the past year, the company paid 25 million tenge in taxes, and for the first six months of 2022 – 14.4 million tenge.

The second company of Olesya Klebanova is Be Couture. This company owns a beauty salon, which is also located in the Rixos hotel. The company pays many times less taxes. A total of 1.8 million for the first half of 2022 and 581 thousand tenge for the entire last year.

Klebanov connections

Immediately after the accident, the Minister of Emergency Situations, Yuri Ilyin, flew to Ekibastuz. His son Igor Ilyin was appointed deputy chairman of the board at CAEPCO last year. This is the same holding that includes, among other things, the problematic Ekibastuz Thermal Power Plant.

It was also not a stranger who was appointed to perform the duties of akim of the Pavlodar region. Oleg Kruk in 2007 served as president of Pavlodar Heating Networks JSC. Just at the time when Igor Ilyin headed the board of directors of the company.