Russian entrepreneur killed as he falls out of hotel window on vacation in India

Pavel Antov, a deputy of the Legislative Assembly of the Vladimir region of Russia, was killed as he fell out of a hotel window. He fell to his death from the third floor of the building, Indian television channel NDTV said citing the local police.

Vice-speaker of the regional parliament Vyacheslav Kartukhin confirmed the information about his death.

Antov was 65 years old. He was on vacation in India with three other Russians. One of them, Vladimir Bydanov, died two days earlier. His body was found in a room of the same hotel. There were several empty wine bottles next to his body, NDTV reports.

According to Zebra-TV, Bydanov was a 61-year-old entrepreneur from the city of Yoshkar-Ola. The man was also said to be a friend of Pavel Antov.

The Indian police do not exclude a version of Antov's suicide. Pavel was depressed because of the death of his friend.

The Russian Consulate General in Calcutta, India, told RIA Novosti that the investigation into Bydanov's death had already been completed. His body was cremated. Neither the police nor the Consulate General saw anything criminal about the death of the two men.

Pavel Antov is known as the founder of Vladimir Standard — a large company that manufactures meat and sausage products. He was elected to the Vladimir Legislative Assembly in 2018 from United Russia. In 2019, Antov declared an income of 9.97 billion rubles. Forbes ranked him as the richest Russian civil servant. In 2020, Antov dropped to 26th place with an income of 558.2 million, he was not included in the 2021 rating.