BIOGRAPHY OF NILI ASKER-ZADE
Nailya Vagif kyzy Asker-zadeh is a TV journalist of VGTRK, presenter of the channel “Russia 1”, who received the Russian national award “TEFI” as the best interviewer in 2018 for high achievements. Previously, she worked as an international editor, reporter, columnist on RBC and Russia 24 channels, in Kommersant and Vedomosti. However, she became widely known in the media because of her affair with the head of VTB Andrey Kostin.
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
The future TV diva was born on December 13, 1987 in the capital of Azerbaijan, Baku, in the family of an engineer and a nurse. Later, the couple had another daughter. She was called Inara, which means “chosen one.” The name of Naili’s eldest daughter translates as a gift.
According to her, although she was 2 years old at that time, remembered the tragic events that took place in 1990 and known as “Bloody January”, when units of the Soviet Army were introduced into her hometown to defeat the opposition. Then the families of members of senior officers decided to temporarily send them to Crimea for security reasons, and her grandfather was a captain of the first rank and head of a military plant. Nailya remembered well how they sailed on the ship, how scary it was and how everyone in Sevastopol lay down with a temperature below forty.
Then they returned home, the girl went to school, from where she, to the envy of classmates and teachers, was picked up by her grandfather in beautiful naval uniform on the Volga with the driver. She did rhythmic gymnastics, attended a theater club in the Officers’ House. Nailya recalled in an interview that they once staged Romeo and Juliet in English. The boys didn’t have a very good language, and the role of the main character, where there were many words, was entrusted to her. During the performance, everything went well, the young artist played a role without stuttering. However, when she was “dieing,” she lay down uncomfortable, so she took it and turned over, making the hall laugh.
Nailya Asker-zadeh and her sister Inara
Then the parents divorced, and she and her mother and sister moved to Volgograd. There she studied at a French special school and originally read not William Shakespeare, but Victor Hugo and Jules Verne, and danced. To get the “golden” medal, she had to work hard. She had tutors in Russian and literature, and mathematics. After school, she entered the Faculty of Economics of the local university, graduating with honors.
CAREER IN JOURNALISM
At the age of 19, an ambitious and capable Azerbaijani woman moved to Moscow, completed an internship at NTV as an economist and got a job in the internal audit department of one raw material company.
Soon she found out that RBC was looking for an international editor, and moved there, resigning from the department. She followed the editing of stories, wrote and read texts about international events. Her shift began at five in the morning, but the work schedule “a week in a week” allowed her to work part-time as a financial correspondent of the Kommersant newspaper since 2007, where they generously paid one dollar per line. A couple of months after that, Nili’s abilities were properly assessed and offered to leave television to be able to fully work at Kommersant, which she did.
During her work in this socio-political publication, she, already as a columnist, interviewed businessmen, politicians, representatives of the largest companies, including the American securities market regulator Securities and Exchange Commission and the British Financial Services Authority, became the author of about six hundred notes. She has a good relationship with the owner of the publication Alisher Usmanov. And although the billionaire is not talkative in public and rarely agrees to an interview, he has repeatedly made an exception for conversations with Nileya.
Nailya Asker-zadeh with Andrey Kostin and Alisher Usmanov
In 2010-2011 Asker-zade worked in the newspaper “Vedomosti” and studied at the Institute for Advanced Training of Television and Radio Broadcasting Workers. She was entrusted with writing notes on economic issues. She specialized mainly in banks, including VTB.e. Thus, in May 2011, her interview was published with the Chairman of the Board of this banking institution Andrey Kostin, in which he answered a lot of questions about the acquisition of the Bank of Moscow.
According to colleagues, such a detailed conversation could not have happened if the guest had not sympathized with the journalist. But after working at the V Economic Forum in the city on the Neva, where Kostin represented the banking elite, she did not publish a single article about his bank. Soon the girl informed editor-in-chief Tatiana Lysova about her decision to resign due to a conflict of interest. Her romance with the “top manager of VTB” (she did not name her last name) could negatively affect her proper performance of her duties. The act of her subordinate editor-in-chief considered quite logical – most of the issues of the economic sphere were tied to VTB.
Television
Soon Nil was invited to television. She started at “Russia 24” as an interview journalist, then led news, prepared author’s reports. In 2013, she could be seen at “Russia 1” in “Vesty” as a columnist covering international meetings of economic leaders of countries, business events of the IMF, an economic forum in the Northern capital.
In 2015, the author’s project of the Azerbaijani TV presenter “At Working Noon” was launched on “Russia 24,” which grew two years later into the project “Actors” on “Russia 1.” During it, she had frank conversations with famous people, including Dmitry Peskov, Oleg Deripaska, Ramzan Kadyrov.
She organized meetings with the heroes of the program in an unusual atmosphere. For example, she talked to Mikhail Kovalchuk, president of the Kurchatov Institute Research Center, watching the manipulations of the robot in boxing, where radiation experiments are conducted, with Sergei Naryshkin, Director of the Foreign Intelligence Service – while playing billiards, with Igor Zyuzin, head of the Mechel mining and metall mining and metall
In 2018, as an economic observer, the TV presenter attended the annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, where she obtained interesting information from its participants – political leaders, prominent business leaders. However, Angela Merkel, as well as Petro Poroshenko did not want to talk to her.
At the end of the year, for the series of programs “Actors” she was recognized as the best interviewer in Russia and awarded TEFI. However, her appointment as the winner under such a nominee as Vladimir Pozner, a number of critics called “an insult to the profession.” At the exit from the ceremony, the new laureate was met by Andrei Kostin with a huge bouquet of flowers, provoking a new wave of assumptions that they are connected by something more than simple sympathy.
For example, Alexei Navalny subsequently analyzed the geography of the issues of her program and found out that she filmed Alisher Usmanov in Tashkent, Ramzan Kadyrov in Grozny, Chemezov in Kazan. Wherever the interlocutor was, Nailya was ready to shoot it. According to Navalny, she had the opportunity to use the plane due to a special relationship with Kostin.
In the period 2017-2019, the presenter received higher education at MGIMO in the field of training “International Finance”. She devoted her graduation work to anti-Russian sanctions. It was very difficult for her to work and study at the same time in full-time (full-time) education – often she managed to sleep for only three to four hours. In 2019, she passed state exams and entered graduate school, choosing economics as an educational direction.
SCANDALOUS INVESTIGATION
In 2019, about a thousand Internet resources were blocked by Roskomnadzor without a court decision for mentioning the alleged romance between Nailya and Andrei Kostin. The decision was motivated by “protection of the bank’s business reputation.”
Next came Alexei Navalny’s publication about the alleged novel of the TV presenter and head of VTB, which was watched 3 million times per day. As evidence, the oppositionist cited, among other things, a photo of a personalized bench in New York Park, which was engraved with the phrase: “Andrey Kostin. Don’t forget: you and I have the same blood. I love you. Nailya, 2015.” Shortly after publication, the plate disappeared.
According to Navalny, the TV presenter owns two VIP apartments worth 350 million rubles, a mansion in Zhukovka-3 and land estimated at 250 million rubles, three BMW cars in luxury configuration. In addition, the beauty was convicted of flying on a private plane and resting on a 62-meter yacht with a total cost of 8 billion rubles.
Kostin commented on Navalny’s investigation, saying that this is the last time he pays attention to the words of the oppositionist, as “it’s his job – throwing dirt and making money on it <…> it makes no sense when a person wants to lie to you and just throw dirt.” Nailya, using the so-called Streisand effect, promoted her Instagram profile. “I ordered native advertising of my insta from a popular blogger,” she signed one of her publications.
NILI ASKER-ZADEH’S PERSONAL LIFE
The journalist, recognized as the record holder for the number of interviews with “forbs”, prefers not to advertise information about private life. She is credited with a romantic relationship with the president of VTB, but Asker-zade herself refuses to advertise the name of her lover.
“Who he is, I won’t tell you in detail. Who needs it, they already know about it,” she told Tatler back in the summer of 2019.
Naila does not lead a secular life, considering it a waste of time. On Instagram, she generously shares scenes of her life with users. The girl travels a lot, loves theater, cinema, ballet, in particular, the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar. Colleagues admit that she is very efficient and ambitious.
She herself calls herself a shy person, really passionate about her work, and admits that her eyes never burn like when working on her projects. But she tries to ensure that she does not have a job in the first place, but a family that she may ever dare to talk to the press about. That’s when, according to her, her eyes will definitely burn even brighter.
A spectacular brunette has a beautiful figure. Under the guidance of an instructor who comes to her house, she is constantly engaged in Pilates and cardio training. But she considers sport not so much a means of maintaining physical shape as a source of resource and self-discipline necessary for her life and to cope with workloads.
NILYA ASKER-ZADEH NOW
The TV screen star in 2020 continues to work as the host of the program “Actors” and write articles for the Internet newspaper “Vesti”. Her detailed economic reports are also published there.
Nailya Asker-zadeh on the set of the film “Dangerous Virus”
Since April, the journalist has been shooting the current documentary series “Dangerous Virus”. He allowed to see the process of developing a coronavirus vaccine in the Center “Vector” of Novosibirsk, to hear comments from specialists and unique interviews. Among the heroes of her film was a patient who had a dangerous disease, representatives of WHO and Rospotrebnadzor. Naili’s work will help viewers assess the prospects in the fight against this terrible infection.
Nailya Asker-Zade, beloved of Mr. Kostin, a propaganda TV presenter with a TEFI award, turned out to have a private jet, a 62-meter yacht, luxury real estate and other amenities that she inherited from VTB Bank.
As soon as Navalny checked some open data, you and I understand how Kostin manages the money of the state bank.
Nailya has two apartments in the Novaya Ostozhenka residential complex, one with 229 square meters, the other with 155 square meters. It could be said that Naila spent 340 million rubles on this property, but in reality the squares simply passed to her from VTB Bank, which used to be the direct owner of the apartments.
Another 250 million could have gone to the dacha in Zhukovka-3 with a house of almost a thousand square meters and possessions of half a hectare of land, but it turned out that the dacha belonged to the VTB offshore, the registration address of which coincides with the registration address of another – Kostin himself, who owns a personal apartment.In addition, Asker-Zade has a private plane worth $60 million, on which she flies for her “popular” interviews, as well as a yacht on which she rests.
This begs the question, for what money did Kotin buy all this for her, if he only has one salary of ten million dollars? With our money and with the money of the state.
