Alisher Usmanov / sister Gulbakhor Ismailova

Early life

Usmanov was born in Uzbekistan in the provincial town of Chust. He spent his childhood in the capital Tashkent, where his father was a state prosecutor, thus providing for a privileged life, and his mother, Dilbar taught Russian language. Planning to pursue a career of a diplomat, he later moved to Moscow. After first failing to be accepted, one year later he was accepted to the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, from which he graduated in 1976 with a degree in international law. Usmanov then returned to Tashkent, where he was appointed director of the Foreign Economic Association of the Soviet Peace Committee. Usmanov was arrested and convicted on charges of fraud, corruption, and theft of state property, which charges included shaking down an Army officer, in Uzbek SSR in August 1980. From 1980, when he was 26 years old, until 1986, when he was 33 years old, he was imprisoned in a remote Uzbek prison for six years of an eight-year sentence. In July 2000, his conviction was vacated, nine years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, by the Supreme Court of Uzbekistan, which ruled that "the original conviction was unjust, no crime was ever committed, and that the evidence was fabricated." His version of events has been questioned by Craig Murray, the British Ambassador to Uzbekistan from 2002 to 2004. Years later, Usmanov's public relations firm tried to delete reference to his conviction and imprisonment from Wikipedia.

Usmanov became a dollar millionaire in the years before the Soviet Union collapsed. In the late 1980s, he set up a privately owned for-profit company, cooperative Agroplast which produced plastic bags, at a time when they were very scarce. He enriched himself considerably after the collapse of the USSR, but always stressed that he never participated in the privatization of state property. Usmanov worked as the Deputy General Director of Intercross JSC from 1990 to 1994, and from 1994 to 1998, he headed Interfin Interbank Investment and Finance Company. He also acted as an Adviser to the General Director of Moscow Aviation Industrial Enterprise from 1994 to 1995, and served as the First Deputy Chairman of MAPO-Bank from 1995 to 1997. From August 1997 to February 2000 he was First Deputy General Director of Gazprom Vestholding LLC. From November 2000 to July 2001, he served as advisor to the chairman of the board of Gazprom. From February 2000 to October 2014, he served as general director of Gazprom Vestholding LLC, a subsidiary of Gazprom that focused on managing non-core assets. In this position, Usmanov had Gazprom acquire Severneftegazprom, which owns the largest South Russian field, controlling stakes in Zapsibgazprom and Sibur, as well as over 50% of Stroytransgaz. Usmanov left the company in 2014.

Sanctions & controversy

On 2 September 2007, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray claimed that Usmanov "was in no sense a political prisoner, but a gangster and racketeer who rightly did six years in jail" and his pardon was the work of Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov on the instructions of Uzbekistani power broker and alleged drug trafficker Gafur Rakhimov and that Usmanov paid a bribe of $88 million to the daughter of Karimov, Gulnara Karimova. Murray also stated that "Usmanov is also dogged by the widespread belief in Uzbekistan that he was guilty of a particularly atrocious rape, which was covered up and the victim and others in the know disappeared". Murray also implicated Usmanov in the death of a journalist. In December 2007, The Mail on Sunday re-published the allegations. Usmanov, represented by Schillings, threatened libel and The Mail on Sunday apologized for publishing the accusations. The article was subsequently removed by Murray's web host, allegedly under pressure from Schillings. Schillings warned owners of independent blogs and websites to remove any references to Murray's allegations, and any reproduction of Murray's blog post. Indymedia was issued with a take-down notice, on 10 September 2007 and again on 21 September. Unrelated political blogs that were hosted on the same server, such as one by Boris Johnson and Bloggerheads.com suffered from downtime.

Notwithstanding the imposition of sanctions on Alisher Usmanov by the U.S. Department of Treasury and, therefore, the fact that Kommersant is owned by the SDN, OFAC issued General License No. 64 to authorize any transactions "ordinarily incident and necessary to the operations of the newspaper Kommersant". U.S. officials consider the newspaper as of one of the last independent media outlets in Russia. Despite the official exemption from sanctions, Kommersant was still severely affected by the sanctions regime. Due to vague wording in the license regarding the range of permitted transactions, almost all of Kommersant's international partners chose to simply stop cooperating with the newspaper. As a result, Kommersant lost access to the basic tools used by all major media outlets, such as the Bloomberg Terminal, and was also disconnected from the Google Discover service, which accounted for almost 40% of daily clicks on links to Kommersant's website.

In 2018, US Senators Marco Rubio, Roger Wicker, Lindsey Graham, and Cory Gardner called on the Trump administration to sanction Usmanov alleged is his corruption and bribery of Russian government officials.

In February 2022, in reaction to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the European Union designated Usmanov, imposing an EU-wide travel ban on him and freezing all his assets. In March 2022, the United States imposed similar sanctions on him, with some exceptions for companies in which Usmanov directly or indirectly holds or held stakes. Also in March 2022, he was sanctioned by the British government. In March 2024, Swedish economist an

Personal life

Usmanov is estimated to be among the world's 200 wealthiest individuals. Usmanov, of Muslim heritage, married Jewish rhythmic gymnastics coach Irina Viner in 1992. Viner is considered to be close to Putin, having introduced him to former rhythmic gymnast Alina Kabaeva, now Putin's most famous mistress. On July 4, 2022, Usmanov and Viner divorced. Usmanov has no biological children. He has a stepson, Anton Viner, with his former wife Irina Viner. The stepson is a real-estate investor, co-owner of Rodina development group. Usmanov, who now lives in Tashkent, is related by marriage to President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev and has been credited for helping him consolidate power.

The fortune

In 2009, Mark Zuckerberg solicited investments in Facebook from Russian investors at a meeting brokered by Goldman Sachs. Usmanov made his first investment to Facebook in 2009 by Mail.ru, investing $200 million for a 1.96% stake that valued Facebook at $10 billion. He accepted Zuckerberg's conditions and did not receive voting rights on those shares. Usmanov netted $1.4 billion from the sale of those shares in 2013. In 2011, DST Global made a $400 million investment in Twitter for 5% of the company. The investment was sold in 2014. Through Mail.Ru Group, Usmanov made notable investments in other international technology companies, including Groupon, Zynga, Airbnb, Zocdoc, Xiaomi, Alibaba Group and JD.com. In 2013, Usmanov invested $100 million in Apple. He disposed of his shares in early 2014. In September 2018, Mail.ru entered into a $2 billion joint venture with Alibaba to merge the online marketplaces of both companies in the Russian market and was backed by the Kremlin via the Russian Direct Investment Fund.

According to media reports, Usmanov has donated about $7.3 billion to charity. In March 2026, one of the world's largest cultural and educational complexes dedicated to the history of Islam - the Center for Islamic Civilization - opened in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, with major funding from Alisher Usmanov. President Shavkat Mirziyoyev expressed his official gratitude to Usmanov for his participation in the project. In 2021, The Sunday Times named Usmanov the most generous philanthropist on its Rich List, donating more than £4.2 billion to charity over the 20-year history of The Sunday Times Giving List. In 2012, Russian Forbes named Usmanov Philanthropist of the Year. In 2006, Usmanov founded "Art, Science and Sport" Charity Fund. The fund provided financial support for exhibitions at Tate Britain in London including the J. M. W. Turner exhibition in 2008 and the Pre-Raphaelites exhibition in 2013. Usmanov is a Trustee for the Russian Geographical Society, Moscow State Institute of International Relations, National Research University Higher School of Economics, and the European University at St Petersburg. In 2015, he donated €1.5 million toward the restoration of the Basilica Ulpia in Rome. In February 2020, Usmanov purchased Pierre de Coubertin's original 1892 Olympic Manifesto for $8.8 million, which he donated to the Olympic Museum. The manifesto has become the world's most expensive piece of sports memorabilia. Two years in a row, in 2020 and 2021, Usmanov topped the list of contributors to causes related to COVID-19 among the participants of The Sunday Times Rich List with donations Russia, Uzbekistan and Italy of £134.2 m. On 17 September 2007, Usmanov paid more than £20 million for an art collection owned by the late Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, days before it was to be auctioned by Sotheby's in London. He gave all the artwork to the Russian state, where it is housed in the Konstantinovsky Palace near St. Petersburg. Later

Yachts & assets

In 2004, Usmanov bought the Grade I listed Tudor mansion Sutton Place set in 120 hectares (300 acres) in Surrey, which he bought for £10 million in 2004. In 2012, Boris Berezovsky claimed that Usmanov was given Sutton Place as part of a business deal, a claim that Usmanov denied. In 2008, Usmanov bought Beechwood House, a Grade II listed Regency property in 4.5 ha (11 acres) of grounds in the London suburb of Highgate from the Qatari sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani for £48 million. Currently these properties are owned by a discretionary irrevocable trust created by the magnate. Usmanov also owns a 12-hectare (30-acre) property in Moscow and a villa on the Italian island of Sardinia.

In 2016, the German shipyard Lürssen built the Dilbar yacht. The yacht was included in the irrevocable discretionary trust The Sister Trust, which Alisher Usmanov established for estate planning. Since then, the yacht has been owned and controlled by an independent trustee of this trust. In 2017, Alisher Usmanov left The Sister Trust. His sister, Gulbakhor Ismailova, remained the only beneficiary of the trust. At the start of hostilities in Ukraine, the Dilbar yacht was undergoing maintenance at the Lürssen shipyard in Hamburg. On March 2, 2022, Forbes reported that German authorities allegedly "seized" Dilbar as a yacht belonging to Alisher Usmanov. On April 8, 2022, the EU included Gulbakhor Ismailova in the sanctions list, citing an investigation by the Federal Criminal Police Office of Germany, which allegedly established that Usmanov "transferred assets", including the Dilbar yacht, to Ismailova. The following was stated in the EU sanctions rationale: "Since 2017, Usmanov has no longer been a shareholder of this trust company. As a result, his sister, Ms. Gulbakhor Ismailova, has remained the sole beneficial owner of the Dilbar yacht". The charter of the trust in which the yacht is held contained a clause on the automatic removal of any person from the list of beneficiaries immediately after being sanctioned. In this regard, after the imposition of sanctions, Ismailova was automatically excluded from the list of beneficiaries of the trust. In September 2022, German investigatory authorities conducted a search of the Dilbar yacht. In May 2023, the Regional Court of Frankfurt am Main ruled that the search of the Dilbar yacht conducted by German law enforcement agencies in September 2022 was illegal. The court ruled that the issued search warrants were unlawful. In October 2023, the court of Frankfurt am Main ruled that all items seized during the illegal search in 2022, including that of the Dilbar yacht, must be returned to their owners. In March 2024, the statement by the Federal Criminal Police Office of Germany including the publications on X in which it was stated that Ismailova was the "owner" of the Dilbar yacht were removed. The agency officially undertook to no longer disseminate those statements. During the same period Ismailova signed an offic