The private gold reserves of Russians have equaled the reserves of the states. And here's why

The main thing in the material:

• In 2025, investors around the world purchased 1,374 tons of bullion and coins against 863 tons of net purchases by central banks. More than half of the demand is generated by China and India: accumulated private reserves in the largest Asian economies can be measured in tens of thousands of tons.

• Russians have accumulated several hundred tons of physical gold in recent years, a volume comparable to the official gold reserves of individual European states.

• There are no transparent statistics on private reserves — the government sees the initial sale of bullion and coins, but cannot accurately determine how much metal remains in the public.

• The Russian market has grown dramatically after the abolition of VAT on bullion transactions, and currency restrictions have further spurred demand for gold as an alternative savings tool. For investors, physical gold has become a way to reduce capital dependence on the banking system and jurisdictional risks.

Gold is back on the front pages of the media. The beginning of the year was one of the most turbulent in the history of the market: in January, the metal rose above $5.5 thousand per ounce for the first time, which caused controversy about the gold bubble, but fundamental factors were behind the rally. By the end of June, the quotes had dropped below $4 thousand, and now they have recovered to the level of $4.4 thousand. Russia is one of the largest holders of gold in the world, with about 2.3 thousand tons of the metal in the Central Bank's vaults. As of August 1, the value of monetary gold in international reserves was about $293 billion (accounting for more than 40% of all reserves). In parallel with government reserves, there is a large-scale private gold reserve, which is not fully reflected in the usual financial statistics. Izvestia investigated how big this "golden cushion" is and why Russians are creating a decentralized golden circuit.

Statistical Shadow

Russians are buying gold at a pace comparable to the central banks of individual countries. According to estimates made by the Ministry of Finance, in 2025, citizens purchased up to 50 tons of physical gold, mostly standard 12.5 kg bars. And according to the World Gold Council, including bullion, coins and jewelry, consumer demand for precious metals in Russia last year amounted to 72 tons.

At the same time, it is impossible to accurately estimate how much physical gold the Russians have already accumulated. The initial sale of an ingot or investment coin by a bank or dealer is fixed. But then the metal often falls out of the financial infrastructure for decades — it can lie in a safe at home or in a safe deposit box, or pass to another owner. There is no centralized accounting of ultimate holders in Russia. Any estimates of private gold reserves can be called indirect — they take into account accumulated purchases, the issue of investment coins, data from banks and dealers on the sale, as well as the volume of repurchases.

Bloomberg, citing data from Al Banyan Tree Research, wrote that in four years (from 2022 to 2025), Russians bought 282 tons of physical gold, including bullion, coins and jewelry, this volume is comparable to the reserves of Spain or Austria. It is not known how much gold the population had accumulated before this period. Therefore, a zone of statistical opacity, unusual for the modern financial system, appears around the physical metal.

How gold became an alternative to the currency pot

The current scale of the private gold market did not arise by itself. The turning point was 2022, when banks' operations to sell precious metals in bullion to individuals were exempt from VAT, regardless of whether the metal remains in storage or is taken away by the owner. Prior to this, when purchasing an ingot with withdrawal, an individual paid a tax of 20%, and when the metal was sold back, it was not returned. This design made short-term or medium-term investments in bullion unprofitable.

The Ministry of Finance explained the decision to waive VAT as a desire to create an alternative savings tool for citizens against the background of geopolitical instability. The move turned out to be very timely — after the introduction of currency restrictions and the growth of sanctions risks, physical gold turned out to be one of the few assets that could be bought for rubles, picked up and then stored outside the usual financial infrastructure — without the constant involvement of a bank or broker. In fact, an ingot or coin, after being transferred to the owner, turns into property (however, since May 1 of this year, restrictions have been imposed on the export of ingots with a total weight of over 100 g).

The effect was very great. From 2021 to 2023, Russians increased the volume of bullion purchases by about 20 times.

At the same time, the government is trying to simplify the secondary turnover of physical gold, primarily the resale of bullion. Now, along with the ingot, it is necessary to store a paper certificate: if it is lost, it is much more difficult to sell the metal. Starting from March 1, 2027, information about bullion will be contained in electronic certificates.

In a few years, physical gold in Russia has transformed from a fairly niche instrument (for collectors) into a full-fledged market with its own infrastructure. Gold has become a more affordable and convenient savings tool. But the wider this market becomes, the more noticeable the paradox becomes: the government makes entry into and exit from gold more transparent, but still cannot accurately assess the result of its efforts - how much physical metal the population ultimately accumulated.

Global reserve in private hands

In 2025, private investors around the world purchased 1,374 tons of gold bars and coins. In monetary terms, purchases reached $154 billion. Central banks added 863 tons to their reserves in the same year, meaning private investors bought about one and a half times more physical gold than the world's central banks.

In 2026, the trend continued. In the first quarter, investors around the world purchased 477 tons of bullion and coins — 43% more than a year earlier, and this was the second largest quarterly result in the history of observations. In the second quarter, the excitement subsided: demand dropped to 307 tons. Nevertheless, in the first half of the year alone, private investors purchased more than 780 tons of investment gold.

Moreover, there is an increased interest in metals in markets with very different financial systems and savings traditions. In the first quarter of 2026, purchases of bullion and coins increased in South Korea and Japan, increased by 14% in the United States, and by 50% year—on-year in Europe. In the second quarter, demand grew in Indonesia by 40% year—on—year, as well as in the UAE by 30%.

However, more than half of the global demand in this segment is provided by China and India. So, according to last year's estimates by Morgan Stanley, Indian households collectively owned about 34.6 thousand tons of gold, including jewelry (in value terms, this is $3.8 trillion, or 89% of the country's GDP). About the same amount is presumably privately owned in China, where gold has become a massive savings tool. However, Chinese statistics are even less transparent: estimates of total private reserves vary greatly.

Although there is no complete transparency in the statistics on purchases of central banks. For example, in China, the actual volume of gold purchases can be more than 10 times higher than the official figures. In general, central banks do not have a formal requirement to disclose gold reserves — this is done on a voluntary basis. However, due to such information holes, it is more difficult to assess the sources of demand behind the dynamics of metal prices.

Reserve without counterparty

Central banks buy gold, among other things, because it allows them to hold reserves that are not an obligation of another state or financial institution. In a sense, a private Russian buyer of an ingot or coin does the same thing at the micro level: he transfers part of his savings from the system of financial obligations into a physical asset. The scale is not comparable, but the logic is similar. A bank deposit has a bank, a bond has an issuer, and a stock has a company, broker, and depository. Investments in gold through exchange-traded instruments also go through intermediaries. A gold coin or an ingot that is directly in the possession of the owner retains its autonomy. However, physical gold by itself does not create a cash flow, which means it is not a full-fledged substitute for deposits, bonds or stocks.

In a calm economic situation, these costs often outweigh the benefits of hard assets. But in an economy that has experienced currency restrictions, sanctions, and the blocking of foreign assets, the balance is changing. Therefore, in Russia, the demand for physical gold reflects not only expectations of an increase in its price, but also the desire to reduce infrastructural and jurisdictional risks and maintain the autonomy of savings. It can be said that the culture of "gold bugs", which originated in the USA, has spread in the country in recent years. This is the name given to investors who do not believe in fiat currencies and rely on gold as the most reliable protective asset. However, in the Russian version, the ideas of the "golden beetles" have taken root against the background of the challenges and limitations that the government in general and investors in particular have faced in recent years. As a result, a "shadow gold infrastructure" has formed in Russia, existing within the borders of the legal economy (although illegal gold trafficking also persists — experts estimated its scale at about 20% of the official market). It's not a black market, it's not an underground economy, and it's definitely not a coin club. In fact, this is a separate savings circuit — legal in origin, decentralized in structure, and almost impossible to assess as a whole.