Nikolai Shamalov has two sons: Yury, born in 1970, and Kirill, born in 1982. Both have prospered during the Putin years.

After studying naval engineering and foreign trade at university, Yury Shamalov worked, according to his official corporate biography, as a staffer on the foreign economic relations committee of the St. Petersburg city council. Putin ran the committee.

On the eve of 2000, Putin became president and began to stamp his authority on Russia's economy. One company he paid particular attention to was the gas giant Gazprom, which he brought back under state control. Among Gazprom's assets were Sibur, the petrochemical company, and a lender called Gazprombank.

Both Yury and Kirill Shamalov went on to take important roles in these and other institutions as Putin consolidated his power.

The Bank

In August 2003, according to his corporate biography, Yury became president of Gazfond, a huge investment fund that controls the assets of Gazprom's pensioners. Led by Yury, Gazfond later acquired control of Gazprom's banking subsidiary, Gazprombank. Yury went on to become one of the bank's deputy chairmen.

Gazfond had effectively bought a state asset and turned it into a private bank controlled by people with long-standing links to Putin.

Kirill Shamalov, meanwhile, was also making rapid progress. In 2002, he was appointed Gazprom's "Chief Legal Counsel for foreign economic activity," according to a biography on Sibur's website. He was just 20 and had not yet graduated from his law studies at St. Petersburg State University.

Three years later, after completing his law degree, Shamalov became "Chief Legal Counsel" at Gazprombank, then still a subsidiary of Gazprom. Then, in June 2008, Kirill joined Sibur as vice-president for business administration.

It was a notably small world. Kirill's brother Yury was already both a director of Sibur and a deputy chairman of Gazprombank. Chairman of the bank was Alexei Miller, who in the 1990s had worked with Putin in St. Petersburg. When Putin became president, he had trusted Miller enough to put him in charge of Gazprom.

In addition, Gazfond, where Yury Shamalov was chairman, exerted strong influence at both Sibur and Gazprombank. And the same month that Kirill joined Sibur, according to financial declarations, Gazfond, through its control of Gazprombank, became the ultimate owner of Sibur.