President Vladimir Putin’s official spokesman has been called out by the Russian opposition, for wearing a watch claimed to be worth £397,000 – more than four times his declared annual income.
Dmitry Peskov, 47, married former Olympic ice dancer Tatyana Navka, 40, in a lavish ceremony last weekend.
But the eagle-eyed opposition spotted the extravagant watch in photographs taken at the “wedding of the year”, in Sochi.
The Swiss wristwatch, which features a gold skull on the dial, has been identified as a limited edition Richard Mille 52-01 watch, only 30 of which have ever been made.
Alexei Navalny, the opposition campaigner who spotted the watch, demanded yesterday that the Kremlin explain just how Mr Peskov came by it.
‘Clearly there are some details of his life that we do not know about,’ wrote Mr Navalny, on his blog.
‘Because of the “wedding of the year”, there were so many photos of the watch that we decided to ask these questions publicly.
‘How could the head of state’s press secretary have a watch worth more than four times his annual income?’
Mr Navalny added if the watch was a gift, anti-corruption laws forced him to forfeit it.
Officials in Russia have to declare gifts that are worth more than 3,000 rubles (£30), he added on the blog.
One wedding guest leapt to Mr Peskov’s aid, claiming that the watch was merely an elaborate ruse, designed to fool journalists that would inevitably analyse the wedding pictures.
Oleg Mitvol, a politician who attended the wedding, said that Mr Peskov borrowed the watch from a very rich friend for the trick.
The opposition refused to accept the explanation, however, holding up another photograph taken two weeks before the wedding, in which the luxury wristwatch can also be clearly seen.
But Mr Peskov last night said that the watch was a wedding present from his new wife and partner of five years.
‘It’s a gift from Tanya,’ he told RBK media group.
‘The watch really is very expensive. But it is considerably less expensive than some comrades are saying.’
He added that Tatyana, who won an Olympic gold medal in 2006, bought the watch with her own money and how much she spent ‘is no one else’s business’.
The Kremlin official declared his income to have been 9,184,358 rubles (about £93,000) in 2014.
The Kremlin has yet to respond to the allegations of corruption.
But this isn’t the first time the Russian elite’s love of extravagant timepieces has landed them in hot water.
President Putin himself was called out by the opposition – which devotes itself to exposing corruption – in 2012, when it was revealed his collection of watches was worth £500,000, considerably more than his declared income.
Meanwhile Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, provoked internet backlash when his £19,000 Breguet watch was airbrushed out of a photograph.
He was found out when keen-eyed internet users spotted that the watch could still been seen in a reflection on the top of the table at which Kirill was sitting.
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Source: Daily Mail