From Poverty to Oligarch: How Alsou's Father Built a Billion-Dollar Empire

As is well known, singer Alsou was born into a wealthy family. Her father, Ralif Safin, managed an oil giant, amassed a multi-billion dollar fortune, bought real estate abroad, and served as a senator for a long time. Ultimately, he stepped back from business, leaving it to his sons. UFA1.RU has gathered information about Safin«s life. Details are in our report.

From a Poor Family

Ralif Safin was born on January 6, 1954, in the village of Uyandykovo, Ilishivsky District, Bashkir ASSR (Soviet Union). In an interview with the newspaper Republic of Bashkortostan, he said he grew up in a poor family, and his father was a cattleman on a pig farm. After school, Safin tried to enter Bashkir State University but failed, so he returned to his homeland and became a primary school teacher. After brushing up on school subjects, he enrolled in the Ufa Petroleum Institute as a chemical technologist.

After graduating in 1975, he got a job at the oil and gas production department «Tuymazaneft» of the company «Bashneft.» He started as an operator of a dehydration and desalination unit and then rose to become a senior technologist in the oil preparation and pumping workshop.

In 1987, Ralif Rafilovich became the head of the «Kogalymneft» oil and gas production department. Simultaneously, he studied extramurally at the petroleum institute to become a mining engineer. Later, for a year, he served as vice president of the state oil concern «Langepas-Urai-Kogalymneft.» In the early 1990s, he participated in the creation and corporatization of the oil company LUKOIL. From 1993 to 2002, he held the posts of First Vice President and member of the board of directors of LUKOIL, as well as President of LUKOIL Europe Holdings Ltd.

In 2002, Safin sold his stake in LUKOIL and left the company. As reported by Kommersant, there was information that one of the reasons for his departure was a conflict with the then-president of LUKOIL, Vagit Alekperov. Safin himself explained his departure as follows:

«I understood that it was time to renew the management team, we needed new people with knowledge of languages. Besides, my children had already grown up, and I understood they needed more paternal attention. So the decision came to leave business and go into politics. I was personally acquainted with all the presidents of the CIS countries, many leaders of Eastern Europe, and knew what a politician»s tasks were.«

The Senator«s Seat

Less than two weeks after leaving LUKOIL, in June 2002, Ralif Safin unexpectedly became a member of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation representing the Republic of Altai. He noted that the remote region had many problems and stated he intended to solve them by attracting investors. Later, the senator claimed he spent about two million dollars of his personal funds in the region. In particular, the money went to building a hotel with a wellness complex, 11 ambulances for district hospitals, 17 Niva cars for the police, 14 KAMAZ trucks for agricultural producers, repairs to the parliament building, and vacations in Anapa for 450 children.

Furthermore, in 2003, a strong earthquake struck the Altai, destroying the village of Beltir. It was decided to rebuild it, but in a different location. Safin also participated in building the houses. Forty houses were erected in the village with his funds. In total, the politician spent about a million dollars on restoring the village, some of which went to purchase medical equipment. Incidentally, an entire microdistrict in New Beltir is named after the senator.

The Family Business

Parallel to his work in the Federation Council, Ralif Safin, together with his family, built a business empire. It began with Safin investing part of the money from the sale of his LUKOIL shares into real estate in Eastern Europe. This marked the start of the family business, linked to the company «Marr Capital,» which specialized in real estate investments. His eldest son, Ruslan Safin, was the general director of Marr Capital.

Back in 2005, Ralif Safin built the four-star «Onego Palace» hotel in Petrozavodsk (Republic of Karelia). Also, Marr Capital began building the «Riga Mall» shopping center on the Novorizhskoye Highway, 5 kilometers from Moscow, but did not complete it.

In 2007, the luxury shopping complex «Vremena Goda» (Seasons of the Year) with an area of 64,000 square meters (about 689,000 sq ft) opened on Kutuzovsky Avenue in Moscow. The shopping center«s developers were Marr Capital, as well as the companies »Okhtan + Alpha« and »Patero Development.« Among the tenants in the complex were brands like Porsche, Chanel, Cartier, Lacoste, Hermès, Montblanc, and Burberry.

In 2010, Ralif Safin«s company »MarrTEK« launched an assembly production for Hyundai »KuzbassAvto« buses in the Kemerovo region. The senator stated that 420 million rubles (about $6.8 million at current rates) were invested in the plant»s construction. Marr Capital was also a partner of Timur Timerbulatov«s »Konti« group in building the »Ilinka« lane-house village in the Krasnogorsk District of the Moscow Region.

The senator«s second son, Marat Safin, headed the investment company MARR Group, registered in Mauritius. MARR invested money in producing HIV rapid tests in the USA, as well as in sugar production and the construction of elite housing in Moldova. Furthermore, according to Baltic News, Marat, together with his uncle—Ralif»s brother—Rinat, owned shares in JSC Saliena Real. The company managed a cottage village on the Riga–Jūrmala highway and the «Center Valdemara» business center in the very center of Riga.

Another brother of Ralif—oligarch Rishat Safin—made money from oil companies and lived in Switzerland. He owned a villa in the village of Vesen near Geneva. The local newspaper Tribune de Genève wrote that he bought it around 2005 for 20 million francs (about half a billion rubles at the exchange rate of those years). Rishat then hired staff for his luxurious home. But, according to the publication Swissinfo, the working conditions turned out to be harsh, and the singer«s uncle paid too little. The Geneva labor inspectorate became interested in the situation. As a result, in 2016, Rishat Safin went to court, where he pleaded guilty to labor exploitation and paid the workers money.

But the story did not end there. The local prosecutor«s office uncovered other legal violations. For this, Safin was conditionally sentenced to a fine calculated as compensation for his stay in prison for 180 days at a rate of 1,500 francs per day, totaling 270,000 francs. In addition, he was fined an administrative penalty of 7,500 francs and court costs of 600 francs. According to the prosecutor»s definition, Rishat then officially earned 100,000 francs per month. After this story, the millionaire left Switzerland and settled in Cyprus, where he obtained citizenship, as reported by the Al Jazeera TV channel.

Daddy«s Sons… and Daughter

Ralif Safin«s wife is named Raziia. The businessman said she is an officer»s daughter, was born in Saratov, but lived in Bugulma. They met in Ufa, where Raziia was studying to be an architect.

«I met Raziia in 1974 in the square between the academic building and the cafeteria of the Ufa Petroleum Institute, fell in love at first sight, courted her for two years, and had to fight for her more than once, as I did boxing,» said Ralif.

Before meeting his wife, Safin had a son from another woman—Ruslan. He is now over fifty, graduated from the Ufa Petroleum Institute, and interned in Canada. The second child is 47-year-old Marat. According to his father, he studied at a school in Oxford and the London School of Economics. The third son is 28-year-old Renard, a graduate of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO).

At the age of 19, Renard married Zalina Suleymanova. The media call her the daughter of a certain businessman and the wealthy blogger Sophia Saravdi. Renard and Zalina have two daughters. It is also known that Marat Safin is married to Yulia, the owner of the clothing brand Icon, whom he met in London. They have four children.

Much more is known about the biography of Ralif«s only daughter, Alsou. Since the Safin family often lived abroad, little Alsou managed to study at schools in New York and Denmark, as well as at a college in London. Let us recall that she started her career in the late 1990s. It has been mentioned repeatedly that promoting the young artist was possible thanks to her wealthy father. However, Safin himself admitted this.

«At the initial stage of her career, I, of course, helped her, including with money, but more so organizationally. I taught her how to conduct business properly, how to protect copyrights, how to pay taxes. Now she manages her team herself,» he said.

News headlines often flashed about expensive gifts from Alsou«s father. For example, in 2007, as the newspaper Zhizn wrote, Safin gave his daughter a yacht named after her, from the luxury brand Fairline. For her 18th birthday, her parents gave the star an apartment in Moscow. For her wedding, her father gave the singer and her husband a country house.

Property

It is difficult to speak about Ralif Safin«s current property. We will examine the real estate and vehicles known about over the years. So, in the income declaration that the businessman had to publish during his senatorial years, it is stated that in 2013 he owned a dacha complex in Crimea with an area of 2,363 square meters (about 25,440 sq ft).

Safin«s wife owned a plot for subsidiary farming of 1,364 square meters (about 14,680 sq ft) and a house of 407 square meters (about 4,380 sq ft). Registered in the name of his then-minor son were land for individual housing construction of 6,712 square meters (about 72,260 sq ft) and a house with outbuildings with an area of 1,424 square meters (about 15,330 sq ft). It turned out this house was located in the village of Rassdory on Rublyovka.

Safin«s income for that year amounted to 15.5 million rubles (about $250,000), and his spouse»s—5.3 million rubles (about $85,000). And in 2011, Forbes magazine estimated Ralif«s fortune at half a billion dollars (about 15 billion rubles). Moreover, in 2004, Ralif Safin had a yacht named »Dream.« The media wrote about it citing data from the port registry. At that time, the businessman paid $1,500 per month to dock the vessel.

Now the family lives mainly in Moscow. According to the database of the Russian Union of Auto Insurers, Ralif Safin drives a Mercedes-Benz GLS 500, released in 2017, with the attractive license plate number 500. On the secondary market, such a car now costs about 4.5 million rubles (about $72,000).

Presidential Election

In December 2003, Ralif Safin fought for the position of president of Bashkortostan against Murtaza Rakhimov, who had already ruled the region for 13 years, and banker Sergei Veremeenko (now a State Duma deputy). The elections are called the most competitive and unpredictable in the republic«s history.

Several months before the campaign began, a scandal involving the Safin family occurred. In September, Ralif«s famous daughter Alsou planned to give a concert in the Bashkir city of Oktyabrsky, but, as the singer stated, at the last moment, the stadium where the performance was to take place was plowed up. In the end, the concert still took place; it was hastily moved to another venue—near the village of Uba, adjacent to Oktyabrsky, which is located on the territory of Tatarstan. The star»s father linked what happened to his intention to run for the presidency of Bashkortostan.

In December, on the eve of the announcement of the results, Veremeenko and Safin turned to the police, stating that they found tens of thousands of fake ballots for voting at the «Mir Pechati» printing house. According to them, the printing was ordered by employees of Murtaza Rakhimov«s administration. However, by the time the politicians and police arrived on the scene, the printing house unexpectedly caught fire, wrote Kommersant.

Veremeenko and Safin also repeatedly stated that the outcome of the Bashkir campaign would directly depend on whether it was possible to monitor the voting process and the vote count. However, when they tried to bring observers from other regions into the republic, they were either not allowed into Bashkortostan, or incidents occurred along the way, reported Kommersant.

The voting ended with the victory of Murtaza Rakhimov; Safin took third place. After this, the senator appealed to the Supreme Court of Bashkortostan demanding the annulment of the presidential election results due to «numerous gross violations of electoral legislation,» but later withdrew the lawsuit. Years later, Ralif Rafilovich spoke about the elections as follows:

«When I decided to put forward my candidacy in the 2003 presidential elections in Bashkortostan, the Kremlin gave the green light. However, between the first and second rounds of elections, personnel changes occurred in the Kremlin offices, and I was strictly recommended to withdraw my candidacy and return to Altai. After this, many of my former work colleagues »closed« communication with me.»

Residence Scandal

In 2003, Ralif Safin built a residence-hotel for himself near Gorno-Altaysk in the Katun River valley. He noted that there was nowhere to stay and receive high-ranking guests in Altai, so he decided to build his own hotel. However, due to the dacha«s construction, the republic»s prosecutor«s office opened a criminal case regarding the felling of rare species of trees.

The forestry department of the Mayminsky District, on whose territory the house was being built, filed a lawsuit for damages of 4 million rubles (about $65,000), wrote Kommersant. The ex-senator reported that the work was carried out by the company «Glencor» (owned by businessman Rashit Gubaidullin) and that he did not know about the tree felling.

«There was already a hotel next to the place they indicated. I wanted to buy it to save time, but I couldn»t. When the new owners found out who wanted to buy the building from them, they started raising the price. They drove it up so much that in the end I realized it would be cheaper to build,« stated Ralif Safin. »They allocated a plot for me right next to the fence of that former hotel. What rare trees grow there—I don«t know.»

Safin«s assistant, in a conversation with Kommersant, noted that the politician did allocate money for reclamation and compensation for possible damage.

«He Comes with Small Handouts»

Not everyone in Altai was pleased with Safin. In 2011, 14 deputies (out of 41) of the local State Assembly sent a request to the chairman demanding that Safin be recalled from his senatorial post. They were allegedly dissatisfied that the businessman was not a resident of the republic. According to them, the senator rarely visited Altai, communicated only with the regional leadership and «pocket» deputies of «United Russia» who voted for him, reported Kommersant.

For Ralif Safin, the initiative of the Altai deputies was unexpected; he said that «this fuss» was started by a local politician «who dreams of sitting in the senator»s chair.« This referred to the then-deputy of the Altai State Assembly, Alexander Manzyrov. He himself stated in a conversation with FederalPress that the initiative to remove the senator»s powers was related to the desire of Altai politicians to see natives of their republic in the Federation Council. Moreover, according to him, Safin does not participate in Altai«s life.

«He comes with small handouts instead of solving issues of major investment. The person has already held the post of senator for three terms. Our own cadres should grow, and Safin primarily cares about increasing his business,» asserted a deputy of the Altai Republic«s El Kurultai. »Before his election, he promised to move his business from Karelia, Moldova to the Kemerovo region and the Republic of Altai, register it here, and pay taxes into the local budget. I am sure he knew he would do none of this and was simply lying.«

Manzyrov also accused Safin of corruption.

«We believe there is a corrupt element in Ralif Safin»s actions. It is known that he pays those deputies who vote for him and also finances the elections of «United Russia.»«

Nevertheless, the senator remained in his seat until September 2014. His departure was again linked to the desire of the regional leadership to place a native of Altai in the Federation Council. Furthermore, RBC wrote that, according to Alexander Pozhalov, director of research at the Institute for Socio-Economic and Political Studies (ISEPI), the fact that Ralif Safin«s name appeared in a scandal with a criminal case, which will be discussed next, also played a role in the decision to replace him.

Extortion Case

In January 2014, Ralif Safin, still a senator, became a figure in a criminal case about extortion. At that time, Moscow police detained five natives of Chechnya and their accomplice from Tajikistan for attacking the notary office of Olga Kapura—the wife of former senator from Kalmykia Mikhail Kapura (who was a member of the Federation Council from 2005–2012). Threatening with a traumatic pistol, the attackers demanded the return of a debt of two million dollars.

The detainees reported that they were sent by ex-senator, Chechen businessman Umar Dzhabrailov, for whom they worked as bodyguards. However, during searches of Dzhabrailov«s house, no evidence of his guilt was found.

Later, investigators suspected that the person who ordered the attack could be Ralif Safin himself. According to one version, the senator believed that the Kapura family owed him two million dollars, wrote Kommersant, but they did not acknowledge the debt. And the head of the Russian Stuntmen Association, Alexander Inshakov, who also became a figure in the case, allegedly suggested to Safin that Dzhabrailov«s former bodyguards provided debt collection services. The three figures were linked by the fact that they all lived in the cottage village of Rassdory.

Safin was summoned for questioning, but he did not appear at the investigators« call due to health problems. A few days later, the senator was nevertheless interrogated at the Moscow Central District police department. However, the politician refused to testify, citing an article of the Russian Constitution that allows one not to testify against oneself and one»s close relatives. After the interrogation, Safin left Moscow by plane for an unknown destination, as reported to Izvestia by the senator«s office.

In November 2014, the case was transferred to court. However, the names of Safin and Inshakov disappeared from the high-profile criminal case. Inshakov«s lawyer, Oksana Mikhalkina, explained in a conversation with Kommersant that, according to the investigation»s version, Senator Safin only discussed his financial disagreements with Mikhail Kapura with Alexander Inshakov. And the Chechens, hearing about the large debt and expecting a reward, decided to collect it exclusively on their own initiative. In March 2015, the Zamoskvoretsky Court of Moscow sentenced the five natives of Chechnya and Tajikistan to prison terms ranging from 7.5 to 11 years.

Losing the Business

The famous family«s problems with creditors began after Ralif Safin lost his senatorial seat. In 2013, Bank Zenit gave his son Ruslan two loans totaling 95 million rubles (about $1.5 million) and another loan to Marat for 80 million rubles (about $1.3 million). However, they were unable to repay them, and in 2014, arbitration courts granted Zenit»s demand to foreclose on the pledged property for the debt. These were two land plots, a residential house, a garage, and outbuildings in the Moscow Region. The initial price of the assets was about 137 million rubles (about $2.2 million).

Apparently, it was not possible to seize the family«s property, and the bank went to court with a bankruptcy claim against Safin»s father and brothers. However, in December 2015, the case was terminated, as Ralif Safin began repaying the debt to the bank. During that period, the family actively sold off property. The aforementioned hotel in Karelia, shopping centers, the car plant, and other assets went under the hammer. Now, according to the Kontur.Focus service, Ralif Safin does not manage a single company, and Marr Capital has been liquidated.

Nevertheless, his sons continue to follow in their father«s footsteps. Ruslan Safin is a co-owner of the Skolkovo project participant company »Ansitens,« which works in the information technology sector, and also manages the firm »Adat« (the founder is the Cypriot offshore »Ordynka Investments Ltd«), registered in the Moscow Region and engaged in wholesale trade of other household goods. Marat owns a share in the firm »Uraltechnotrans,« which produces explosives in Ufa, owns the Moscow company »Swivel Security,« which develops computer software, and the »Fund for Intangible Assets.«

Renard founded the financial-industrial corporation «Rusneftekhimprom» and the firm «Marr Auto» in Moscow. He also manages the «Alaya Roza» (Scarlet Rose) recreation base in his father«s native village of Uyandykovo. By the way, Ralif Safin said he practically rebuilt his native village from scratch. He built a bypass road there, erected new houses, a school, a hospital, a mosque, restored a church in the neighboring village of Andreyevka, and built a gas pipeline, water supply, and cascading ponds. Ralif also built the hotel himself. We wrote here about how much a stay at the complex costs.