In Russia, corruption is worn on the wrist

Vedomosti, a gutsy Russian business newspaper, has come up with a rather ingenious way of studying local officials for possible signs of corruption.

It published 36 photos of Russian officials, including Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev.

Vedomosti found the most expensive watch on the wrist of Vladimir Resin, the deputy mayor of Moscow responsible for the construction sector. In his official biography, he says his only hobby is labor.

That labor has been quite lucrative for Deputy Mayor Resin. He is shown above wearing a GreubelForsey Double Tourbillon 30° that costs either $360,000 (for the white gold edition) or $425,000 for the platinum edition.

But that’s not even the most expensive watch in his collection.

He was also photographed wearing a watch made by DeWitt, the La Pressy Grande Complication model. This is a watch that retails for more than $1 million.

Resin has overseen a building boom in Moscow that has been thoroughly corrupted. Earlier this year, the Russian interior ministry announced that a group of Moscow city officials took $250 million in bribes. Also this year, Ikea halted construction in Russia, citing pervasive corruption and demands for bribes, according to The New York Times.

Ramzan Kadyrov, the former warlord who switched sides to become president the Chechen region wears a Bovet watch worth around $300,000, the newspaper wrote. The governor of the industrial Samara region, Vladimir Artyakov, poses in a DeWitt watch worth $223,427.

President Dmitry Medvedev’s timepiece is a far more modest $32,200 Breguet. Putin has twice given away Blancpain watches worth $10,500.

Transparency International ranks Russia 147th out of 180 in its global corruption index.

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