Oligarch Gref's Daughter Refused Russian Sports Citizenship
- 14.07.2025, 15:56
For a career in equestrian sports.
Maria, the daughter of Sberbank chief Herman Gref, has renounced her Russian sports citizenship and signed a statement saying she does not support the war in Ukraine in order to take part in international equestrian competitions, knowledgeable sources told "We Can Explain". The International Equestrian Federation (FEI) confirmed that it had allowed the daughter of the Sberbank chief's daughter, who lives in London, to compete. "Maria Gref has been granted neutral status," it said, adding that a check on the 20-year-old revealed no compromising information or doubts about her trustworthiness.
Maria Gref is a candidate master of sports in dressage. She practiced equestrian sport at the elite equestrian club "Otrada" in the Moscow region, sources told "MO". According to the database of the Russian Equestrian Federation (FESR), in 2024 Maria actively participated in competitions in the category of young men (up to 18 years) on a horse named Dont Giv Up, who was also called Givi. According to her acquaintances, 20-year-old Maria moved the horse to London, where she has been living and studying for about two years. "Taking horses out of Russia is now difficult and expensive, but possible," said one of the interlocutors of the publication.
At the same time, Maria's younger sister Eva is also involved in equestrian sports. In addition to Givi, the Gref family owns three other horses: San Boy, Sandros Welt and Golden Aventura. Givi and San Boy are officially registered to Gref's wife Yana, Sandros Welt to Gref himself, and the latter to athlete and former owner Alexei Kolemasov. The cost of Sun Boy and Sandros Welt is 50 thousand euros each, and the price of Golden Aventura can reach 200 thousand euros, experts told "Verstka" earlier. According to the publication, the maintenance of one sport horse in a premium club in Russia costs at least 1.425 million rubles a year, excluding travel to competitions and the purchase of ammunition for horse and rider.
In the spring of 2023, the FEI refused to allow Russian and Belarusian riders to participate in international competitions, as well as horses owned by Russian citizens. However, in the fall of the same year, this decision was reconsidered and criteria were developed to allow individual athletes, horses and their owners to compete. According to these criteria, the athlete cannot be bound by a contract with the Russian or Belarusian armed forces or national security agencies, and must not "actively support" the war in Ukraine. An athlete seeking neutral status must complete, sign and send to the FEI a declaration that he or she meets these criteria. In total, the FEI has granted neutral status to 27 Russian riders as of the end of June. One of them, speaking to MO, noted that this implies a ban on performing under the Russian flag, including at tournaments in Russia.
The fact that Gref's daughter quietly received neutral status is a bug of the sanctions regime, said Ilya Shumanov of Transparency International. "Sanctions were conceived as a blow to the elites - to their assets and lifestyle. But in practice, they often affect them only formally. Herman Gref has been under sanctions for a long time, while his daughter Maria trains expensive horses without any problems and lives a quite ordinary life. Everything is according to the rules: she is not under sanctions, she has not made any political statements, she does not raise the flag of Russia, but in reality she continues to use the resources created at the expense of her father's position," Shumanov said. According to him, a serious vulnerability of the sanctions remains the fact that they do not affect the relatives of the blacklisted individuals.