MOSCOW, July 6. /TASS/. Russian billionaire Vladimir Potanin will spend 1 bln rubles ($17.7 mln) on charity in 2015. He made this statement in an interview with TASS.

"The size of the assistance I provide is growing. Starting from this year my spending on charity, which includes the budget of the Foundation, will amount to one billion rubles. In the future, they will grow. Strictly speaking, the matter is not in the transfer of money but in the growing volume of financial support to various programs of the Foundation. These are grants, scholarships, assistance to existing museums and creation of new ones ... We make a particular emphasis on the development of endowments. I believe in the long term perspective, I saw how that system worked in other countries. Actually, it’s been almost ten years, since I opened an endowment in the UK, I wanted to judge about everything from my personal experience. At the same time, as the head of the Charity Commission of the Public Chamber, I spent eight years on creation of a comfortable environment for doing this kind of activity in our country. Now we have the law on the endowment in Russia. You can get down to business. I also would like to note that I did not fund anything in the UK, all incomes were spent to finance programs in Russia,"- Potanin said.

According to him, investment in endowment in Russia will amount to about $110 mln.

"This money will provide the basis for the creation of endowment in Russia. In this respect, nothing will change, except the registration of Endowment Foundation, its geographical location. We did some training in the Wests and came back home," - Potanin said.

In March 2015, CEO and one of the owners of Norilsk Nickel, Vladimir Potanin, topped the Forbes rating of the richest Russians.

The rating included 85 Russian billionaires. With the fortune of $14.8 billion Potanin also ranks 60th among the richest people of the world.