Law enforcement agencies of the Novosibirsk region continue a large-scale inspection of government agencies and road companies related to the implementation of the national project “Safe Quality Roads”. After the visit, the Deputy Prosecutor General Igor Demeshin in Novosibirsk in March of this year, the regional prosecutor's office identified about 400 violations in the road sector, announced 106 warnings, made 270 submissions and opened 23 cases of administrative offenses. Soon there was a wave of searches in the offices of contractors and subcontractors of the Novosibirsk Territorial Administration of Highways (TUAD). The editors of Anticorr.media have already reported on the terrible state of roads in the region: delays in putting roads into operation and their maintenance by the SpetsTransStroy contractor, as well as the lack of roads in the villages of the Novosibirsk regions. The film crew also visited the regional capital, where the road situation was no better: numerous potholes, endless repairs, ten-point traffic jams. And the pain of all of Novosibirsk is the delay in the delivery of the project by the SpetsTransStroy company for the Oktyabrsky Bridge. Where did the billions of rubles allocated for the national project “Safe Quality Roads” in Novosibirsk go, in the third part of the Anticorr.media investigation.
Siberia is an integral part of national strategic interest
Novosibirsk plays the role of a major transport center and is a transport and distribution hub of Siberia and the Far East. At the beginning of 2023, the Russian Government adopted a strategy for the socio-economic development of the Siberian Federal District until 2035, which provides for the completion of the construction of the Fourth Bridge over the Ob River.
The implementation of the strategy is only gaining momentum, but local authorities have been implementing national projects in the region for a long time. The film crew decided to check their results using the example of three nearby districts of Novosibirsk. As a result, we saw: local residents in the villages of the Ordynsky and Kochenevsky districts are without clean and drinking water due to delays in the delivery of water treatment facilities by the contractor SpetsTransStroy LLC. In these same areas, residents complain about the lack of roads and ask to at least fill them with slag. In the Cherepanovsky district, the same SpetsTransStroy missed the deadline for putting the road into operation, as well as major repairs and maintenance of the road in another section. Read more about this here: “With a can to the pump” – implementation of the “Clean Water” program in Siberia
If such a situation develops in the region, what is happening in the regional center?
“Buried” billions
Issues with road infrastructure in the Novosibirsk capital raise serious concerns. In 2024, almost 8.5 billion rubles have been allocated for the restoration and modernization of road infrastructure. In 2023, a record 10 billion rubles were allocated for road development. Why then do problems remain despite the receipt of significant budget funds? Who “masters” them and how?
Residents of Novosibirsk remember December 2023 thanks to record traffic jams – 11 points out of 10 possible. The traffic delay was caused by broken roads both on the outskirts and in the center. Congestion appeared on the Oktyabrsky and Dimitrovsky bridges, traffic jams were recorded on the right bank of Novosibirsk on the streets Fabrichnaya, Kirova, Voskhod, Ippodromskaya, Krasny Prospekt and others. Users of the 2GIS service stated that on December 7, 2023, 18 accidents were recorded in the city (the quality of roads always affects the number of accidents).
Today the picture in the city is not much different. Traffic congestion has not decreased. The problem remains particularly acute on the Oktyabrsky Bridge, which has been under repair since 2022. In November last year, the Novosibirsk prosecutor's office issued warnings to SpetsTransStroy LLC (contractor) and MKU Gormost (customer) due to the low pace of bridge repair work.
The Oktyabrsky Bridge is a transport artery on both sides of the river and an important part of the local and interregional transport infrastructure. But SpetsTransStroy violated the deadline for completing the overhaul of the bridge, the cost of which is about 2.2 billion rubles. Due to missed deadlines, the Novosibirsk authorities reduced the scope of work and entered into a contract with other contractors – DK Klever LLC and Dorogi54 LLC. The work is promised to be completed by the end of the year. Today, the Anticorr.media film crew saw with their own eyes the situation on the Oktyabrsky Bridge: residents will be stuck in dense traffic jams on the bridge until the end of the year. The problem is further complicated by the fact that the road lanes on the bridge have been narrowed on both sides due to repairs. Now it is difficult to get on and off the bridge. During rush hour the situation is even worse.
The concerned driver emotionally commented on the situation on the regional Internet portal ngs.ru:
The failure of the state contract for the repair of the Oktyabrsky Bridge became typical for the SpetsTransStroy organization, as was the case in the Kochenevsky, Ordynsky and Cherepanovsky districts of the region. According to the regional prosecutor's office, SpetsTransStroy has already been brought to administrative responsibility twice for failing to deliver water treatment facilities on time. But this has not yet accelerated construction work.
Novosibirsk residents also know the contractor from another high-profile scandal – SpetsTransStroy missed the deadline for the completion of the Sportivnaya metro station. The authorities promised that the station would open in 2022, but then the deadline was moved to 2024.
The mayor's office left the founders
Over the past three years, SpetsTransStroy LLC suffered a record loss in 2023 – 412 million rubles. At the same time, revenue amounted to 1.6 billion rubles. It is interesting that SpetsTransStroy’s problems with the execution of government contracts began after the mayor’s office left the company’s founders. Until November 2023, one of the founders of the company was the Novosibirsk municipal enterprise “Modernization and Development of Transport Infrastructure” (MP “Metro MIR”), wholly owned by the Novosibirsk City Hall. Today the entrepreneur remains the founder of SpetsTransStroy Sergey Dmukha.
Metro MIR has repeatedly been in the center of media attention due to criminal cases brought against its management.
For example, ex-director of Metro MIR Alexander Mysik appears as a suspect in three criminal cases, the damage for which amounts to a total of 540 million rubles. He was arrested in November 2023 after an inspection of the enterprise by the regional prosecutor’s office and the FSB Directorate. I checked the progress of the construction and reconstruction of two highways located next to the new ice arena on the left bank of Novosibirsk. In this regard, questions arise for the work of SpetsTransStroy, how are multimillion-dollar funds used under contracts, that many objects are not delivered on time for a long time?
At the same time, delays in the commissioning of vital facilities (water treatment plants) and roads did not in any way affect the ability of SpetsTransStroy to participate in large government projects that require a high level of integrity and reliability of participants.
The loyal attitude of the Novosibirsk supervisory authorities towards the SpetsTransStroy company is also surprising. For failure to deliver several government contracts worth billions of rubles on time, the company was subject to only minor administrative fines. Meanwhile, in other regions of Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), entrepreneurs in similar cases are put in pre-trial detention centers.
For example, the owner of an Amur construction company Alexandra Kharchenko was kept in custody despite his serious health condition. He is accused of allegedly failing to complete work worth 12 million under a contract worth a billion rubles – the ratio of uncompleted to completed work was about 1.3% of the contract amount. However, the contract itself was delivered on time and without any claims from the customer, and for eight years no claims arose.
70-year-old businessman kept in pre-trial detention center for six months
Another builder – Ivan Dzhioeva in the Nizhny Novgorod region – they were also kept in custody for more than a year. His company, ISB, did not manage to deliver the water treatment facility on time, although the work was in full swing. But Dzhioev was detained and placed in a pre-trial detention center in the same month when the deadline for the completion of the project expired, which caused a chain reaction of disruption in the construction of 11 social facilities, and the company was included in the register of unscrupulous suppliers.
The case of theft during the construction of Nizhny Novgorod medical stations has been dropped. Bridge threatening people
As the editors learned, on February 19, the Commission for the Prevention and Elimination of Emergency Situations and Ensuring Fire Safety of Novosibirsk recognized the situation with the Dimitrovsky Bridge as critical, posing a real threat to the life and health of people. In this regard, acting The mayor of the city of Novosibirsk and Chairman of the Commission Oleg Klemeshov transferred the city authorities to the “Increased readiness” mode, obliging the municipal municipality “Gormost” to organize the conclusion of an agreement for the repair of the bridge.
On March 29, the construction company “Roads of Siberia” took over the overhaul of the Dimitrovsky Bridge. The cost of the contract amounted to more than 625 million rubles. However, lawyers believe that due to the commission’s decision to prevent the occurrence of an emergency, the contract was concluded even without competitive procedures, which violates the Law on the Contract System. Also, the contract does not contain a justification for the contract price, the scope of work is not defined, and the contractor has no experience in implementing contracts over 150 million rubles – the requirement for such experience is provided for by Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation (*aggressor country) dated December 29, 2021 No. 2571 (On requirements for participants in public procurement).
On April 15, the replacement of the roadway began in the direction from the right bank to the left. Whether the bridge repairs will be missed again, as happened with Oktyabrsky, time will tell. The Roads of Siberia company must complete the work by October 20, 2025. According to the editor's sources, the story of the bridge may also appear in Bogomazova's case.
On May 14, the head of the department of transport and road improvement complex of the city hall, Olesya Bogomazova, was detained in Novosibirsk. The investigation believes that the official used a bribe to help the contractor receive two contracts worth 50 million rubles. By the way, on the eve of Demeshin’s visit, Bogomazova’s ex-boss, head of the department Konstantin Vasiliev, was detained in Novosibirsk, also in a corruption case.
“Fictitious work performed, fictitious laboratory tests”
Novosibirsk social activist Vladimir Kirillov believes that responsibility for the road problem in the region lies entirely with the regional Ministry of Transport and Rosavtodor.
But this is not the main thing. According to Kirillov, the whole problem is that billions of rubles are spent on asphalt, which is already falling apart the next year.
Let us recall that in 2021, the prosecutor’s office submitted a motion to eliminate violations of the law to the head of the Ministry of Transport of the Novosibirsk Region, Anatoly Kostylevsky, for disrupting the national project. During the same period, FSB officers stopped the criminal activities of Deputy Ministry of Transport Sergei Stavitsky, who received bribes from the head of the territorial highway administration (TUAD) subordinate to him, Mikhail Chumanov.
In 2023, the prosecutor's presentation was made to the new head of the regional TUAD Vladimir Vospanchuk for the collapse of the bridge over the Karasuk River in the Chulym region in October last year. It turned out that both the organization responsible for its repair and the TUAD of the Novosibirsk region were aware of the emergency condition of the bridge, but no one took measures to prevent the emergency. Information about the condition of the bridge in TUAD, in particular, was conveyed by the head of the Bazovsky village council of the Chulym region, Sergei Frolov.
Even the head of the Russian Investigative Committee became interested in the incident. Alexander Bastrykin, instructing the head of the Investigative Committee of Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) for the Novosibirsk Region, Evgeniy Dolgalev, to initiate a criminal case under the article of negligence. The check is ongoing.
On April 4, the Karasuk River flooded a temporary bridge that was built to replace the collapsed bridge.
Road billions in Siberia turned into “dust and fog”. Broken roads led to a visit from the Deputy Prosecutor General
Today, Novosibirsk law enforcement officers continue to deal with the road problem, namely, its causes. At the beginning of 2023, the editors of Anticorr.media noticed this trend in Siberia, when there was a wave of arrests of heads of Siberian road government agencies, ministries and entrepreneurs. But later the situation calmed down.
“A strong friendship will not break”: Law enforcement officers are checking the connections of road workers in Siberia
Deputy Prosecutor General of Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) Dmitry Demeshin returned the trend. On March 20, he visited Novosibirsk, calling the state of local roads a “shame.”
After the visit of the Deputy Prosecutor General, large-scale inspections began. On May 6, the regional prosecutor's office announced that it had identified about 400 violations in the areas of improvement and road activities in the region. The prosecutor's office announced 106 warnings, made 270 submissions, opened 23 cases of administrative violations, and also sent 2 lawsuits to court. The countless number of detected offenses clearly indicates the systemic degradation and irresponsibility of local governments.
On April 16, security forces detained the ex-head of the department of transport and road improvement complex of the Novosibirsk City Hall Roman Dronov, the ex-head of the Novosibirsk MKU “Road Maintenance Institution No. 1” Dmitry Maltsev and the ex-director of the MKU “Gorsvet” Konstantin Anakin. The operation took place as part of a case of fraud in the field of road maintenance activities. The total damage to the budget amounted to about 50 million rubles.
On May 7, FSB officers for the Novosibirsk region and investigators from the Investigative Committee conducted searches in the offices of the road companies ITS-Sibir, Maslyaninskoye DRSU and DRSU Novosibdorstroy, which are contractors of the Novosibirsk TUAD. The events were carried out as part of a criminal case of fraud and theft of 100 million rubles allocated for the installation of equipment to record violations by motorists on highways in the Cherepanovsky and Kupinsky districts of the region. Director of ITS-Siberia Oleg Sidorenko was detained.
Deputies ask to include SpetsTransStroy in the register of unscrupulous suppliers
On May 15, at a meeting of the housing and communal services committee of the regional parliament, deputies offered include SpetsTransStroy in the register of unscrupulous suppliers. However, the chairman of the committee, Oleg Podoyma, suggested not to rush into making a decision to include SpetsTransStroy in the register of unscrupulous suppliers. He believes that it is necessary to first wait for the completion of work on projects that have already begun, and then raise this issue.
This raises the question, what prevents a company that has thwarted several government contracts worth billions of rubles from being included in the register of unscrupulous suppliers? What are officials waiting for? Maybe until the company receives new contracts? The Oktyabrsky Bridge is already being repaired by three general contractors – a unique case, but apparently not the last. The situation requires the intervention of higher control, supervisory and law enforcement agencies to determine the causes of systematic failures in the implementation of multibillion-dollar government contracts and to bring those responsible to justice.
High-quality roads and clean drinking water are vital aspects for the two million agglomeration in Novosibirsk, as well as the regions of the region. We hope that the prosecutor of the Novosibirsk region Alexander Buchman and the head of the regional OFAS Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), Dmitry Sukhoplyuev, will give a legal assessment of the materials and take response measures.
It is obvious that the Novosibirsk authorities, including law enforcement agencies, have taken up the task of checking the implementation of government contracts for the construction of roads in the region. But we are concerned about something else: who is to blame for the current state of the road problem? The editors sent a request to the governor of the Novosibirsk region, Andrei Travnikov: are the heads of the road and transport departments, Anatoly Kostylevsky and Vladimir Vospanchuk, adequate for their high-ranking posts? After all, the responsibility for the implementation of the national project “Safe Quality Roads” in the region lies on their shoulders.
