Diligent, clear in wording, dressed to the nines, even a specially selected glamorous shirt for a photo shoot in a glossy magazine. He keeps track of time, which means that he values his time, is well organized and respects others. In general, there is nothing to complain about ... But personally, he conquered me not even with this, but with his endurance, the desire to realize his dream no matter what, and his love for our smaller brothers. The one who keeps four animals in the house cannot be indifferent to other people's troubles.
I am one of those people whose soul hurts ...
- Dmitry Alexandrovich, how did it happen that you, a person who seemed to be far from the municipal economy, were offered a job in the mayor's office?
- I consider myself an employee of the executive system, executive authorities. My work in the prosecutor's office was connected to a greater extent with supervision over the implementation of federal legislation, in particular, in the field of housing and communal services, the field of consumer protection, and the field of licensing. And before that, he worked in the city court for seven years. He started as a specialist, then became an assistant to the chairman of the court, he was from 2005 to 2009. Later he went to the prosecutor's office.
- So you consider your current position as a continuation of your career? Or is it a completely new topic for you in life?
- Of course, this is a continuation of a career. The very transition to the housing and communal services sector - first to the position of deputy head of the housing and communal services department - I considered it from the point of view of self-development, expanding knowledge, including in the field of legislation. This topic is quite complex in itself, and the legislation is also complex. And I came here with the thought: why not try yourself in this area and increase the area of your knowledge in practice.
- The position of the head of the DZhKH, one might say, is a firing squad. The sphere is so problematic that both the city leadership and the townspeople can always find a reason to reproach you. Do you feel in yourself the strength to seriously change something for the better in the field?
— Yes, I feel it. And what you say is true. Because every person faces the sphere of housing and communal services. We get up in the morning - turn on the light, go to cook, turn on the water. On the way to work, we again encounter the improvement of the city: these are roads, landscaping, and improvement of yard areas. That is why in the first place in my duties is to ensure the vital activity of the population of the city. I perfectly understand the share of responsibility that is entrusted to me.
- How did your life change when you took the chair of the head of the housing and communal services department?
- It so happened that before this position, I also held responsible positions when I worked in the prosecutor's office. There, too, every situation is the fate of people. The decisions you made depended on how the lives of others would turn out. But I’m still one of those people whose soul hurts ... It often happened that you would come home and think about the situation again late in the evening or at night. A year of work as deputy head of the DZhKH seemed to me calmer compared to work in the prosecutor's office. Now that I have been appointed head of the housing and communal services department, I have returned to my former rhythm of life. I get up early and go to bed late. During the day there is a lot of organizational work, meetings and meetings. Work not even twelve hours a day, but fourteen. I can't say that I'm doing this job with some dissatisfaction. I am satisfied. Yes, there are certain difficulties, technical problems, gaps in knowledge. But at the same time, I have selected two employees who are technical specialists, one in the field of engineering, the other in the field of road management. And I am a specialist in the field of jurisprudence. Together we can solve serious problems. I set ambitious goals for myself and the team and I am ready to prove that both the city authorities and the housing and communal services are functional.
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I made my childhood dream come true
- There was an opportunity to go on the prosecutor's path and further - why didn't it happen?
- After all, I didn’t leave the prosecutor’s office because something didn’t work out for me there. I myself decided to try myself in another industry and agreed to the offer to move to the department. I wanted to try myself in a different direction.
- Tell us how it all began, how did you choose a profession and why did you decide on jurisprudence?
- I graduated from the Capital Financial and Humanitarian Academy with a degree in jurisprudence. In general, the history of my professional definition is curious in itself. By and large, I realized my childhood dream. And he never regretted it. After all, I dreamed of working in law enforcement since childhood. At school, I was always better at humanities subjects. There were no difficulties with the exact sciences, but I liked the humanities more. After school, I wanted to get an education in Vladimir at the higher police school. But I didn’t manage to study there: my parents felt that the family would not be able to provide my accommodation and full-time education. I had no options but to find something in Cherepovets. Thoughts that it is possible to enter the same faculty of law in our city, neither I nor my parents arose. Yes, to be honest, when planning further employment in Cherepovets, many see the prospect of working at the plant. Therefore, I entered the ChSU with a degree in automation of technological processes and production. After studying there for two years, I realized that it was not mine, and left there. I did this against the will of my parents, in connection with which we did not talk for the next six months. I got a job as a loader in the company "Chicago" to the entrepreneur Igor Kozlov. As I remember now, it was spring. By autumn it was necessary to make a decision where and what kind of education to receive. Since I wanted to become a lawyer, I applied to the forestry technical school at the Faculty of Law. He studied and continued to work in Chicago, but not as a loader, but as a driver. In total, I worked at Igor Kozlov's enterprise for a year and a half, earned my first money here and went through a good school of life.
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- Did you come to work in the city court after graduation?
No, it was completely different. It was 2002. I continued to study at the forestry. But since it was hard to combine study and work as a driver, I found another one - an administrator in a computer club (at that time they were not yet gambling establishments). However, after working for the summer, I realized that this did not quite suit me, and again began to look for work.
In search, he also reached the employment center. I was asked a series of usual questions - where I study, do I have a driver's license - and in the end they suggested that I apply to the city court, where there was a vacancy for a driver. At the interview, the chairman of the court - at that time it was headed by Vitaly Petrovich Zaitsev - suggested that I take a position in my specialty, a position of a specialist. He said: "The salary is small, but at the same time you will start to develop a certain practice." I agreed.
So, while studying at a technical school, I started working in the city court. After graduating from a technical school, he entered the institute, immediately in the third year. True, my study after school was eight years, but I went to my dream. In court, I worked both as a specialist and as a specialist of the first category. Subsequently, I was offered the position of assistant to the chairman of the court.
What school was the city court for you?
“This is a good school in terms of life, because you are faced with the fate of people. I learned to understand the measure of responsibility for what I do. I still believe that the city court is a forge of legal personnel for the city. Of those who started here, today no one is left without a job. There are a lot of smart, professional workers here. I still communicate with the majority, many of those with whom I started, now occupy leadership positions.
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If you take up something, then you need to do it well.
- I think that the post of head of the housing and communal services department, which you occupy now, is not the limit of your dreams. What career heights would you like to conquer?
- I would like, of course, to do something good and significant in my life. But to date, I have not yet answered myself where I would like to work and what to do. I will not give a specific answer to your question today. My goal now is different - I want to show with my activities that I can work in the place of the head of the housing and communal services department. I want to justify the trust that was placed in me. And I will think about where to strive further when I achieve concrete results at this place.
- What are the main features of your character? In particular, are you ambitious?
- Maybe yes. I have quite high ambitions. As for some character traits ... Well, for example, I don’t like it when they speak badly of me. I begin to believe that if they speak negatively about me, it means that I did something wrong. I have an inner conviction that if I undertook something, then it is necessary to do it well. Or don't do it at all. This applies to everything in life. I try to finish everything I start. I have always respected this quality in people.
- What is typical for you in relations with subordinates?
— The employees, as well as people in general, must first of all be treated humanely and with understanding. I think that chopping off the shoulder is probably wrong. Every situation needs to be dealt with. If he or his employees are guilty, then yes, the guilty person must suffer the deserved punishment. But if, nevertheless, the information is not confirmed, then no. Any situation should be considered not one-sidedly, but comprehensively.
What do you not accept in people?
- I myself am a very patient person, this quality of character - poise - I inherited from my mother. I can endure and accumulate for a very long time. It is very difficult to bring me to a boiling point, but if you have brought me, then hold on. But that rarely happens. In addition, I do not accept when they shout or raise their voice at people, especially at subordinates, and, accordingly, I try to prevent this myself. In any case, it is better not to shout, but to argue why a person is wrong.
Are you terrible when angry?
- Well no (laughs). No, in principle. It doesn't come to handshake.
Everything that happens in life has to happen
- Do you have a thought - a quote or an aphorism - that helps you survive difficult situations?
- This is probably not a quote or an aphorism, but rather an inner conviction: in any negative you need to look for a touch of positive. I am like that in life. If there are any negative points, I always try to look for something positive, to see some positive aspects. They say that a pessimist in a cemetery sees only crosses, and an optimist sees only plus signs ... (Laughs.) I think that everything that happens in life should happen and life itself will put everything in its place. I had situations in my life when I tried to change something in it, but no matter how hard I tried, I did not succeed.
Is it a belief that everything in life is determined by someone?
“Not to say that I am a strong believer. I am baptized, I go to church. Moreover, I was baptized not in Cherepovets, but in the Pskov-Caves Monastery, which is located on the border with Estonia. When I was two years old, my parents went to those places to visit relatives, and I was christened there. I try to go to church on all church holidays, but not to say that I adhere to all the canons.
- What is your relationship with money, do you have enough of it in life?
- Money is evil (laughs). Money - everyone needs it, without it in any way. But I've never been obsessed with money. I take money very simply. Today I have them - good! There is no tomorrow - well, that means I will survive, there will be the day after tomorrow. Of course, I want to have enough for my needs. But I never aspired to earn a lot of money, drive expensive cars.
- And what do you drive?
- I have a Chinese SUV "Great Wall", and I'm fine with it. Before that, there was a Chevrolet Lacetti. I started with an eleven-year-old 99 with rotten props and an arch. I bought what I could then afford. Six months it restored, doing various repairs. Having traveled a bit, I changed the car for a better one, drove for a couple of years and changed again. Like most people, we live on credit, and I also bought my real car on credit.
About diving, hunting and pets
— Dmitry Aleksandrovich, which topic is closer to you — sports, cars, hunting or art?
- Probably, after all, hunting and sports, or rather underwater sports. At the time, I was a swimmer. I went to training in the pool on Stalevarov. In general, I learned to swim there, later I was engaged in sports groups. He did not become a master of sports, but he gained a lot of experience and skill in this matter. For a long time I wanted to go scuba diving. And then one day I went to rest in Egypt. There are many excursions where vacationers are invited to scuba dive, so I took a chance ... The pleasure cost 10 dollars. And it happened to me not so long ago, four years ago. It was then that I realized that this is mine, what I want, I want to go diving! After that, already here, in Cherepovets, he met the head of the Glubina club, the president of the Federation of Underwater Sports of the Vologda Region, Alexander Gubin, and began to study under his leadership.
At first I was engaged only in diving, the time came, and I reached a professional level. Now I also do freediving and spearfishing.
- Why did diving capture you so much, is there an explanation for this?
- I tried myself in several sports, and I never liked either football or hockey. I don't know why... Maybe not mine. I have always liked swimming. This was the main reason why I still took up diving. In general, I love water: it relaxes, relieves negativity and stress. Now I participate in competitions as a judge: today I have the status of a sports judge in underwater sports.
- I understand that it is diving that takes free time. Do you still have time for some hobbies?
— Sometimes I go fishing and hunting with my father. Both my father and brother are hunters. I started hunting with my father at the age of twelve, at sixteen I already had my own hunting license and hunted on my own. So I go hunting and now as expected. It is only in the light of my underwater sports that I began to relate to the extermination of animals differently. And more and more often I ask myself the question, do I really need to kill this or that little animal. Lately I've been hunting and taking more pictures than shooting. I am very interested in underwater photography, I am interested in capturing everything that happens under water. I even made a video for the Vologda regional branch of the Russian Geographical Society. So for several years I have not brought production. The main purpose of my hunting trips is to unload, chat with friends, and relax in nature. Friends even gave me a machine for launching skeet targets, so at the end of the hunt we had a good tradition - to go out into the field and shoot skeet.
- While you are hunting, who is waiting for you at home?
- My wife Irina, besides her, our animals: a ferret, a dog and two turtles. I'm pretty good with animals. When I was four years old, my parents gave me a dog of the Moscow watchdog breed. It was the first animal that lived in our house. At one time I could ride it like a horse. Then there were also dogs and cats. And now not one pet, but all four. Irina and I wanted to have an unusual animal, and we bought a ferret; and since we are at work most of the time, we decided that our pet was bored alone, and bought a second one. But one of them fell ill and died after living for seven years. Since he was like a family member for us, we worried for a long time, grieved, especially our spouse. In order to somehow alleviate stress, my parents and I bought Irina a dog - a Pomeranian. As a result, this is what our company turned out to be. An animal in the house is always good, they know how to give positive emotions and teach them a sense of responsibility.
- What is your home for you - a place to relax or a lair where you hide in order to gain strength?
“My home is my castle. We have a rather small one-room apartment in the Zasheksninsky district. We bought it with a mortgage, but at least it's our home now. Everything that we have in life, we built it ourselves, achieved it ourselves. Now we go step by step to other goals: we still need to build a house, plant a tree and raise a son.
Text: Elena Boronina
Photo: Alexey Ustimov
On April 3, 2018, Dmitry Buzlaev, who previously held the position of Chief Engineer of Transneft Druzhba, was appointed General Director of Transneft Volga.
Dmitry Yurievich Buzlaev was born in Kstovo, Gorky Region, in 1974.
In 1996 he graduated from the Togliatti Higher Military Command Engineering Construction School. Specialty - engineer for the construction and operation of buildings and structures.
In 2002 he graduated from the Ufa State Oil Technical University, professional retraining under the program: "Design and operation of gas and oil pipelines and gas and oil storage facilities."
In the system of Transneft, D.Yu. Buzlaev has been working since 1999. He began his career in the field of oil pipeline transportation at the Gorky oil pumping station of the Gorky Oil Pipeline Department of Verkhnevolzhsknefteprovod OJSC. For eleven years D.Yu. Buzlaev has worked his way up from a working position to senior positions in OJSC Verkhnevolzhsknefteprovod.
From February 2010, D. Yu. Buzlaev worked at Transneft Druzhba JSC as Deputy General Director for Operations, and since 2012 - Chief Engineer.
For his great contribution to the development of the oil pipeline industry, Dmitry Buzlaev has been repeatedly awarded departmental and corporate awards.
Good afternoon everyone! It so happened that, to my great regret, I had a chance to work at JSC "Transneft". Labor activity there was not long, only 3 months, but this was more than enough for me. As many have noted here, the working day is really irregular, human relations in the service in which I work were completely absent. One got the impression that they were simply ready to “tear apart the young specialist and let them go around the world”, constant psychological pressure, such as “these are natural things”, “you should know this”, etc. etc. With the advent of for work, almost in the second week, they threw such a volume of work that, naturally, a new employee - a specialist is simply not able to master. It is clear that when this "blockage" could not be disassembled, harsh criticism began. Work in the service where I worked is quite specific , and you can gain knowledge and experience only by working there, and you need to work for at least a year, it may take some time even more. I concluded for myself: "You just need to adapt there." Delegate work to subordinates and sit quietly doing your own business, perhaps business " for the soul. "In this system, there is no such thing when the head of the department is also responsible for the shortcomings of the employees and, accordingly, the employee is punished, and the boss seems to have nothing to do with it. This is what happened with me. Now, regarding the dismissal. Resigned by agreement of the parties, tk. was simply forced. There was such a threat, either you will quit by agreement, or you will work without a monthly bonus. Taking into account the fact that I had to get to my place of work from a neighboring city (60 km distance), it is unacceptable for me to work without a bonus. This was the main reason for my departure. Another unpleasant moment happened after the dismissal, when I found out, by chance from former colleagues, that I was being deprived of bonuses for the previous period. Everyone, probably, who worked in the OST knows that monthly bonuses are paid after 1.5 months. And in some way and on some basis, my name was included in the Order on the Remuneration of the RNU after I actually was not an employee. The result was that I was charged a bonus of 7% instead of the due 70% or 80% of the salary (I don’t remember exactly). Minusanuli in monetary terms by about 16,000 rubles. For my family, this is a big amount.
And finally, a wish to those who plan, dream of getting into the OST. Be realistic about your strengths. You must have a strong-willed character, be a charismatic, ambitious person, able to transcend universal principles and not feel remorse at the same time, then this is the job for you.
Nikolai Tokarev, a 65-year-old major-general of the State Security Service, served with Putin in a residency in Dresden, and for the past nine years has headed the state-owned Transneft, the world's largest pipeline company. Tokarev's daughter Maya Bolotova and her husband Andrei Bolotov have become successful entrepreneurs in recent years, with firms associated with them dealing in expensive real estate in Moscow, Latvia and Croatia.
Meduza published an investigation by Roman Shleinov, regional editor of the Center for Corruption and Organized Crime Research (OCCRP), about how the businesses of relatives and acquaintances of the head of Transneft correlate with enterprises that provide services to the state-owned company.
The ancient Cypriot city of Limassol, located on the shores of Akrotiri Bay, is well known to Russian entrepreneurs. It attracts them, however, not with beaches and ruins of ancient civilizations: the main place of power here is small office buildings, where thousands of Cypriot companies nest like in beehives, with the help of which Russian officials, politicians and businessmen prefer to own their assets.
On October 16, 2014, an announcement appeared in the Cypriot newspaper Simerini (Today) that one of the Russians wanted to obtain local citizenship (those who apply for a Cypriot passport through naturalization are required to publish such an announcement according to the laws of the country - moreover, the applicant is obliged to live in Cyprus for several years). The announcement brought “to the attention of interested parties” that Maya Bolotova had submitted an application to the Cypriot Ministry of Internal Affairs for obtaining citizenship by naturalization. And as her Cypriot address, office 301 was indicated in the building at 3 Pythagoras Street in Limassol.
The name of the woman who wished to obtain citizenship of Cyprus completely coincides with the name of the daughter of the president of the state company Transneft, Nikolai Tokarev. And the contact address indicated in Bolotova’s announcement is the Cypriot office of a large company that works with Transneft’s pension money and intersects with the personal assets of Tokarev’s daughter and son-in-law. A path stretches from Pythagoras Street, which leads to the branched business of his relatives.
A page in the issue of the Simerini newspaper announcing that Maya Bolotova is applying for citizenship through naturalization
Colleague in Dresden
Nikolai Tokarev is a longtime acquaintance of Russian President Vladimir Putin. In the 1980s, they served together in the Dresden KGB residency, and after Putin became head of state, Tokarev, who in the nineties worked in the structures of Sberbank and the Presidential Administration, headed the state-owned Zarubezhneft company, engaged in the exploitation of oil and gas fields in Russia and abroad . Then, in 2007, Tokarev became head of Transneft, the world's largest oil pipeline operator, with almost all of Russia's oil flowing through its pipes.
The business of Tokarev's relatives - his son-in-law Andrei Bolotov and daughter Maya - has recently expanded significantly. In the past, Maya Bolotova was a co-owner of a pharmaceutical company, and together with her husband controlled a company that supplied and washed bed linen for Russian trains. Today, the Bolotov companies are associated with a historic villa in Croatia and an elite residential complex in Jurmala. They occupied offices in the business center of Moscow City, bought a historic house on Ostozhenka and planned to renovate the seven-story monument of constructivism on Zubovskaya Square, which was supposed to house a branch of an international hotel chain. The Russian real estate alone, associated with the companies of Tokarev's daughter and her husband, was estimated by experts at about 3.5 billion rubles.
Neither the representative of Transneft nor the relatives of its leader answered questions about whether Maya Bolotova received Cypriot citizenship. The address indicated in Bolotova’s announcement is the Cyprus office of Ronin Europe, part of the Ronin Partners group, which specializes in trust management of large capital and works with the money of the Transneft pension fund.
Screenshot of the Ronin Europe website with the address in Limassol matching the address given in Maya Bolotova's application
“I don’t really understand what Maya Bolotova has to do with us. We don’t have it, and I haven’t even seen it in person,” says Anton Andronov, an employee of Ronin Europe, the only contact person listed on the company’s website. However, he refused to unequivocally answer the question of whether Bolotova works for the company or is her client: “Maybe she works - I don’t know, I can’t give any comments. All information relating to customers or our employees is confidential.” The fact that she indicated the address of Ronin Europe in her statement, Andronov also did not explain: “It is better to ask her herself. A person has the right to indicate any information in the application.
Obtaining a foreign passport by a close relative of the head of a state-owned company is not formally a violation of the law, but it can potentially become a source of problems, given the general course towards the nationalization of the elites. According to a source close to the former head of Russian Railways, Vladimir Yakunin, the information that his son Andrei received British citizenship in 2015 could become an emotional background for the decision to resign Yakunin from the post of head of Russian Railways.
Retirement money
Transneft is one of the main clients of the Ronin Group. Ronin Trust organized the bond issues of Transneft and manages the money of its non-state pension fund. In total, according to the results of 2015, the money of several different pension funds managed by Ronin Trust was 64 billion rubles. Director General of Ronin Trust Sergei Stukalov is pleased with the cooperation with NPF Transneft - he says that they have been working together since 2008 and that Transneft has "very competent, intelligible people." Representatives of the companies refused to disclose the specific amounts under the management of Ronin Trust. Stukalov assures that NPF Transneft is not their main client. But in the Ronin report, this fund ranks first, and in the report of the Ronin fund, it is in first place among management companies. In addition, market participants call large state-owned companies almost the main source of significant funds for management.
Both Sergey Stukalov and Andrey Bolotov, the son-in-law of the head of Transneft, occupied high positions in VTB in the past - the first headed VTB Capital Asset Management, the second worked as vice president and was responsible for working with large corporate clients. The head of the Ronin Trust, however, assures that he is unfamiliar with Bolotov.
Former communication center at Zubovskaya Square, 3, building 1. Photo: Roman Shleynov
Ronin Trust manages not only Transneft's pension money, but also property associated with the Bolotov companies. Ronin Trust, according to Rosreestr, has a house in Moscow at Zubovskaya Square, 3, building 1. The constructivist building was built for the telephone exchange of the Frunzensky district in the 1930s according to the project of the architect Solomonov. In 2014, it was intended to be reconstructed. The reconstruction project was prepared by the Aurora Group company, and its client, according to the Aurora website, was the Regionpromaktivy group (RPA). Relatives of the head of Transneft are directly related to her: according to SPARK, the RPA Management Company belongs to Andrey Bolotov, and his wife owns three-quarters of RPA Estate and half of RPA Hotel Management. According to Colliers International partner Stanislav Bibik, the cost of the house (8,000 square meters) on Zubovsky can be one and a half to two billion rubles, and the work on its reconstruction - from 400 to 800 million.
It was planned to place in the renovated building, as the designer informed, a branch of the international hotel chain. However, according to the Aurora Group, the project was not implemented. The RPA and Ronin did not answer questions. The house looks mothballed for renovation. The guard at the entrance assures that no one is sitting in the building.
Another project in which the RPA Group was a client of the Aurora Group is the Prohub business center, an office space measuring 3,750 square meters on the 13th floor of the City of Capitals business center in Moscow City (to rent one of the nineteen premises there costs from 300,000 up to 1.2 million rubles per month). Bibik estimates its cost at about one and a half billion rubles.
It is in Prohub that you get if you call the number of the Regionpromaktivy group, indicated during the registration of the company. By the same number you can find Sergey Romanov, General Director of CJSC Laboratory of Non-Destructive Testing (NKLab) (such a contact phone number of the organization is given in the Remtekhnadzor inspection plan). The laboratory is an expert organization dealing with industrial safety issues. Among its partners and clients, as indicated on its website, are the subsidiaries of Transneft: Transneft-Ural, Transneft-Siberia and Transneft-Druzhba. For example, the laboratory controlled the quality of welded joints of the Zapolyarye-Purpe, Kholmogory-Western Surgut and other oil pipelines. And the affiliated construction enterprise of the laboratory, Promneftegazavtomatika LLC, where the same Romanov works as the general director, in 2015 concluded contracts with Transneft structures for 1.25 billion rubles.
The laboratory is 70% owned by a Cypriot company (Milemeadow Trading), which is owned by Ronin Europe - it was her address that Maya Bolotova indicated in her application for obtaining Cypriot citizenship.
In the Ronin group, they did not answer the question in the interests of which client the company owns Transneft contractors. Andrey Bolotov's assistant, who was contacted by the same RPA and ProHub phone number, also did not answer the question whether the Transneft contractor really rents an office from the son-in-law of the president of the state-owned company. The laboratory worker, who picked up the phone on the direct telephone number of the laboratory, expressed bewilderment in response to the same questions: “And what does Andrey Yuryevich [Bolotov] have to do with the Laboratory [of non-destructive testing]? He is not an employee, not a founder ... There is a connection for renting premises.
The last acquisition of the Bolotovs was a historic mansion in the center of Moscow - Anna Kekusheva's (nee Bolotova's) apartment building on Ostozhenka, a monument of Art Nouveau architecture built more than a century ago. In mid-August 2016, RPA Estate paid 390 million rubles for it at an auction, as Vedomosti reported.
Former tenement house on Ostozhenka, acquired by RPA Estate. Photo: Roman Shleynov
In Russian law, top managers of state-owned companies are not equated with officials - however, as Ilya Shumanov, deputy director of Transparency International Russia, notes, "if a management company simultaneously provides services to a state-owned company and relatives of its head, this can be considered as an ethical conflict or a potential conflict of interest" .
Jurmala beaches
The nominal owners of another quarter of the Non-Destructive Testing Laboratory are Cypriot firms Dadlaw Nominees and Dadlaw Secretarial. Such firms can formally “own” dozens and hundreds of companies that are not related to each other in any way. In this case, they are also listed as the owners of the Cypriot Waterbird Investments, the head of the Russian branch of which in 2013 was Andrey Bolotov. The branch of the company was located in the same office in Moscow City as Prohub and RPA.
Another director of Waterbird was the first vice-president of Vneshprombank, Ali Ajina Odey. In December 2015, co-owner and chairman of the board of the bank, Larisa Markus, was arrested in a fraud case. In January 2016, the Central Bank revoked the license from Vneshprombank, having found an excess of liabilities over assets - in other words, a hole - in the amount of 187.4 billion rubles.
Meanwhile, Transneft, Rosneft, as well as relatives of major statesmen kept money in the bank. Vneshprombank's clients, as Forbes reported, were the wife of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and the wife of Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak, as well as the son-in-law of Transneft President Andrey Bolotov.
In 2001, Vneshprombank on its website (available in the archive) indicated that its largest participant was the state-owned Zarubezhneft, which was then headed by Tokarev. Clients said that they paid attention to Vneshprombank, since state-owned companies began to keep their money there - first Zarubezhneft, and then Transneft and Rosneft: it seemed that this spoke of reliability.
Bolotov is familiar with the leaders of Vneshprombank. Together with its co-owner Georgy Bedzhamov, he was a member of the presidium of the Bobsleigh Federation of Russia, and with Bedzhamov and Markus, he was on the board of directors of the Sakhalin Shipping Company.
Also, as Vedomosti discovered, together with Ajina, a former member of the board of Vneshprombank Alexei Chirkov and co-owner of the bank Nikolai Chilingarov (the son of a famous polar explorer, former senator Artur Chilingarov, who sits on the board of directors of Transneft), Andrey and Maya Bolotov are included in board of the Latvian company Dzintaru, 34. Dzintaru prospect 34 is a three-story residential complex with an underground garage “just 100 meters from the sandy beaches”, located at the corresponding address in Jurmala. Almost all twelve apartments ranging from 112 to 440 square meters are sold out. According to Ekaterina Fonareva, director of the residential real estate department at Colliers International, their cost starts from 4,000 euros per square meter (after the completion of the facility in 2014), and on the secondary market it can reach 6,285 euros per square meter.
Villa on the island of Lošinj
A company associated with Bolotov owns a piece of land with a historic villa on the Croatian resort island of Lošinj in the Adriatic Sea. According to the Croatian registers, Andrey Bolotov is a member of the management of Catina, representing the interests of its Cypriot owner, Xerate Investments. It is Catina who owns a plot of land measuring more than seven thousand square meters on the island of Lošinj, where the villa is located, built in the 19th century for the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I.
Losinj Island is located in the northern part of the Adriatic Sea. Photo: NordNordWest / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
“[Bolotov] has a person who comes here and does business here, he speaks Russian,” explains a Catina employee on the company’s phone. This number matches that of the modest Helios Hotel, located on the same island on land owned by Jadranka, one of Croatia's largest travel agencies. She has three five-star and five four-star hotels on the island of Lošinj. Villa Karolina is located just between them.
The Supervisory Board of Jadranka is headed by Kresimir Filipović. A person with the same name is the first vice-president of the Velesstroy construction company, one of the largest construction contractors of Transneft. The owner of Velesstroy, Mikhailo Perenchevich, is known, in particular, for being the tenant of the "Putin Palace" in Gelendzhik.
Jadranka also has Russian roots: it is owned by Beta Ulangaja, which in turn is owned by Promsvyaz Management Company, the management company of Promsvyazbank. This bank has been cooperating with Transneft for a long time: it (together with Credit Suisse) organized two issues of the company's Eurobonds for a total of $1.65 billion in 2008; participates in servicing Transneft accounts and is in first place among the banks whose guarantees must be accepted by the organizations of the Transneft system. In addition, Andrei Bolotov's wife Maya, as Novaya Gazeta reported, in the mid-2000s received income from firms associated with Promsvyazbank.
Jadranka, Velesstroy and RPA did not respond to a request to explain whether the relatives of the head of Transneft, its contractor, and the Croatian travel agency are connected. The representative of Promsvyazbank confirmed that the bank is the only member of Promsvyaz Management Company, in trust management of which is the firm that owns Jadranka. Information about in whose interests this management is carried out is not disclosed in the bank, referring to the prohibition in the legislation.
According to Ilya Shumanov from Transparency International Russia, if the businesses of relatives of current or former top managers of a state-owned company intersect with affiliated structures of this company or firms that simultaneously provide services to it, this may raise questions about the possible use of administrative resources.
Balkan factories
Not only Maya Bolotova has connections with Cyprus. The Panama Archive also contains information about Mikhail Arustamov, a former vice president of Transneft and a longtime acquaintance of Nikolai Tokarev (Arustamov worked as his deputy back in the state-owned Zarubezhneft company in 2001), whom sources characterize as very close to the head of Transneft » person. Together with his wife Tokarev, Arustamov owned a company that dealt with real estate in the Czech Republic. It follows from the Panama files that in 2014 Arustamov's address was an apartment in a house on the seashore on Vasileos Georgiou Street in the same Limassol.
The connections of Arustamov's Russian companies lead to another interesting story. Two sources familiar with Tokarev said that the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation opened a criminal case in early 2016, in which some former top managers of Transneft and Zarubezhneft stand as witnesses. We are talking about checking how Zarubezhneft's money was used under its former leadership. During the proceedings, according to sources, in particular, the “daughter” of Zarubezhneft was mentioned - the company Neftegazinkor, which owns an oil refinery, a network of gas stations and a motor oil plant in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Until 2009-2010, 40% of Neftegazinkor was owned by the Russian private firms Nepata and Invest-Technologies, registered in Domodedovo, and another 20% were owned by Nomos-Bank (New Moscow), from which Vasily Fedorov and Alexander Gaek in 2008 created the same Ronin group.
The former Yugoslav republics made no secret of their surprise at this ownership structure. In 2007, representatives of the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina stated that the refineries in the country were being bought by a structure of the Russian state company Zarubezhneft, which was supposed to modernize them - however, it turned out that Zarubezhneft controlled only 40% of Neftegazinkor, and the rest belonged to three frequent Russian companies. “We don’t know who owns them,” the Sarajevo-based economist Drazan Simic and the former finance minister of the Republika Srpska, Svetlana Cenic, were perplexed on Radio Liberty.
At the same time, Zarubezhneft invested significant funds in the assets of Neftegazinkor - as follows from its reports, in 2009 alone the state-owned company spent 5.16 billion rubles on the modernization of these foreign enterprises. As it turned out, the Nepata and Invest-Technologies firms were not strangers to Mikhail Arustamov, Tokarev's former deputy, and Larisa Mikhailovna Arustamova. The co-owners of Neftegazinkor were connected with the firms of the Arustamovs by a common phone number, a general director and a minority share of ownership. In 2013, Nepata became the owner of a microscopic stake in the Domodedovo firm Richland Arustamova. Richland and Invest-Technologies have one CEO, Sergey Tretyakov. And "Nepata" at registration indicated the same mobile phone as the company "Prospect Expo" Arustamov. To date, Nepata and Invest-Technologies have been liquidated.
By 2010, the state-owned Zarubezhneft bought out 55% of Neftegazinkor from private firms (a representative of Zarubezhneft confirmed this information, citing the decision of the board of directors). The state company at that time was headed by Nikolai Brunich, a former subordinate of Tokarev, who, according to sources familiar with the situation, was a member of his team.
Nikolai Brunich, at that time the General Director of Zarubezhneft, at a meeting with the then Prime Minister of Russia Vladimir Putin at the Palace of Culture in the city of Kirishi, July 8, 2011.
Photo: Alexander Nikolaev / Interpress / TASS
A representative of Zarubezhneft said that they knew nothing about the criminal case. Brunich said he knew nothing about it. The Investigative Committee did not respond to a request.
Arustamov left Transneft in 2012. Now he owns a quarter of the Vysotka-promotion company. The rest is owned by the Eurasian Pipeline Consortium (ETK), a longtime supplier of pipes for Transneft. Arustamov and the owner of ETK did not respond to letters and questions.
“When leaving a state-owned company, its former top manager takes his status and connections with him and can potentially monetize them, including through participation in business projects with a state-owned company contractor,” explains Ilya Shumanov. “And if a person starts a joint business with a contractor immediately after leaving the state-owned company, the question arises whether a close relationship with the contractor has developed even during the period of work of the head in the state-owned company.”
Sechin vs Tokarev?
Sources close to Tokarev believe that the criminal proceedings, as well as the appearance of data about his relatives and their property in the public field, may be due to the aggravated contradictions between Tokarev and the people of the chairman of the board of Rosneft, Igor Sechin. According to Tokarev's acquaintances, they are trying to put pressure on the head of Transneft.
Contradictions appeared five years ago, when Sechin, as deputy chairman of the government, wrote a letter to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin stating that Rosneft should buy the state stake in Novorossiysk Commercial Sea Port (NCSP). The official saw this as a state necessity. Transneft and the Summa group of Ziyavudin Magomedov claimed the same share. As a result, Transneft supported Rosneft's proposal, but the Russian government expressed its intention to sell the port's shares on three stock exchanges, fearing monopolization.
Novorossiysk commercial sea port.
Photo: Alexey Zotov / TASS
Two years later, the leaders of Rosneft and Transneft did not agree on tariffs for pumping oil to China. Tokarev's company asked to raise prices, Sechin's company was sharply opposed - Rosneft was unprofitable because of the already concluded contract for the supply of 360 million tons of oil, which did not provide for a change in the price of oil depending on the tariff for pumping it (if the tariff was raised, " Rosneft would be losing money because it had already received an advance payment for oil from China). On this occasion, Sechin also wrote a letter to Putin - and the tariffs were temporarily frozen.
By 2016, disagreements arose over Transneft preferred shares (a fixed income is paid on preferred shares, unlike an ordinary share, the income on which fluctuates depending on the company's profit - but the rights to participate in the management of the company of owners of preferred shares are limited). The UCP fund, whose president is Ilya Shcherbovich (he is considered a person close to Sechin), accumulated almost 500,000 such shares over several years and turned out to be, as Forbes reported, the owner of 6.8% of the capital of Transneft. In March 2016, UCP demanded through the court from Transneft the dividends that were not paid in 2013 - representatives of the fund said that preferred customers were paid much less than ordinary shareholders.
Sources familiar with the situation believe that there was some kind of agreement that Transneft supposedly had to buy back its preferred shares accumulated by the Shcherbovich fund. According to the UCP, a document was even signed on this occasion, as RBC reported. Transneft denies the existence of such agreements.
The source explains the unwillingness of Transneft to buy back its shares by the fact that they are at the disposal of an offshore company. In a crisis and an unstable ruble, it may be difficult for a state-owned company to transfer several billion abroad without the consent of the first person of the state. Opponents of Tokarev and his companies are calling for the implementation of informal agreements without additional conditions.
The state-owned companies themselves deny any conflict, insisting that there are normal “working relations” between Sechin and Tokarev.
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