When Denis Shershnev was elected to the Legislative Assembly of the Irkutsk Region, he promised the residents of the Tulunsky District a lot of things.
They believed him – he received a deputy mandate. And now he uses all its advantages, but not so much for the benefit of the residents, but for the well-being of his own business.
Businessman Shershnev’s case: how to make money on emergencies
When massive flooding hit Tulun in 2019, few stood aside and many tried to help restore the affected areas. But there were also those who decided to earn extra money on the situation. Among them was the company of Denis Shershnev “Baikalsvyazenergostroy” (LLC “BSES-Irkutsk”, TIN 3808098592). She signed a contract with the Tulun mayor’s office, according to which she had to carry out urgent emergency and restoration work in order to restore the power supply to houses and social facilities. The contractor restored power supply, but did it with mistakes, not on time and not in full, allowing various violations (according to complaints from local residents, it came to the point that people were shocked due to poor-quality insulation).
Due to violations, the administration of Tulun refused to sign the acts of completed work. “BSES-Irkutsk” did not rush to eliminate the violations, but instead decided to sue the mayor’s office. Litigation is still going on, and the networks have actually remained ownerless all this time: before the flood, the main part of the networks was owned by the region and Oblkommunenergo was responsible for them. After the flood, Oblkommunenergo was unable to restore power supply to the affected territories within a reasonable time and also attracted third-party contractors. By the way, among them was Baikalenergosvyazstroy, which managed to get another contract from Oblkommunenergo without a tender, which is supposed to be held in such cases by law.
The newly built “Baikalenergosvyazstroy” problematic networks “Oblkommunenergo” refused to take on the balance sheet, and then the mayor’s office of Tulun had to independently look for someone who would take the networks that had become ownerless for temporary free maintenance. IESK assumed responsibility for the maintenance of the networks and actually took up the elimination of violations that the contractor had committed.
By the way, this is not the only trial for Mr. Shershnev’s company. In the file cabinet of the Arbitration Court of the Irkutsk Region, an impressive list of court cases is found, where BSES-Irkutsk is the defendant, and the plaintiffs are companies that are trying to declare BSES bankrupt and collect debts.
For Mr. Shershnev, being in debt is generally a common thing (once bailiffs came for him to the building of the Legislative Assembly due to his debts for housing and communal services), and it is common for his firm to negligently fulfill its obligations under contracts. After the 2019 flood, BSES-Irkutsk tried to make money on contracts not only in Tulun, but also in Nizhneudinsk: there the company undertook to conduct an instrumental survey of houses affected by the flood, but also showed blatant lack of professionalism, and as a result, the contract with it was terminated.
On the sidelines then there were rumors that BSES-Irkutsk received contracts for contracts in the flood zone thanks to recommendations from the government of the Baikal region, and the deputy governor Dmitry Chernyshov patronized the company at that time.
“Oblkommunenergo” and “BSES-Irkutsk” and their mutually beneficial cooperation
“BSES-Irkutsk” is engaged in the construction, repair and reconstruction of buildings and structures, and is one of the contractors who regularly win tenders for the repair of networks from “Oblkommunenergo”. As Babr wrote earlier, in 2020-2021, BSES-Irkutsk signed contracts with OKE for a total amount of more than 285 million rubles. Some of them are the performance of work in remote areas, which is very profitable and convenient for the company – they pay well, and there is no one to check the quality of the work performed.
Businessman Shershnev’s company sits tightly on the development of budgetary funds, receiving from them under contracts with OKE, which, of course, affects his preferences in deputy activities. The media and social networks are full of reports about the meetings of the “Development of Regions” deputy group, which has practically replaced the profile committee on the development of the electric grid economy, where a respected deputy chastises objectionable (or in legal relations with his business) companies, forgetting only about his counterparty “Oblkommunenergo”, questions to the activities of which arise on a regular basis both from the control and supervisory bodies and from other deputies.
There is another nuance that affects Shershnev’s relationship with Oblkommunenergo. Denis Shershnev received the mandate of the deputy thanks to the support of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, which the party provided to him during the elections. True, later Shershnev chose to renounce them: formally, he left the Communist Party faction in the Legislative Assembly, saying that he was not satisfied with the position of the faction, which is to criticize any decisions of the current government. But he still had connections with representatives of the team of ex-governor Sergei Levchenko and his deputy Dmitry Chernyshov: among them was the head of Oblkommunenergo, Alexander Anfinogenov, who also received his post thanks to Chernyshov’s patronage and was able to keep it even after Levchenko’s resignation. A separate article will be devoted to Anfinogenov’s biography, now let’s explain: deputy Shershnev and the head of the OKE Anfinogenov can be called at least good friends, and therefore it is not surprising that such mutually beneficial cooperation is developing between Oblkommunenergo and BSES-Irkutsk.
At the end of January, the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation approved the indictment in the case against the son of the ex-governor of the Baikal region Andrei Levchenko, as well as four other defendants. They are accused of fraud and cartel conspiracy. The investigation believes that Andrey Levchenko created an organized group in which people controlled by him entered into an agreement (cartel) restricting competition with representatives of elevator manufacturers. All this led to the fact that the Fund for the Overhaul of Apartment Buildings entered into contracts with these manufacturers, and Levchenko and Co. received illegal income of almost a billion rubles.
Today, in the conditions of the modern information society, there is no need to knock on the thresholds of the offices of high-ranking security officials, write statements, complaints. It is much easier to share interesting facts from the lives of wonderful people on social media pages. There is no doubt – law enforcement officers successfully monitor the Internet and will certainly attach this information first to the operational materials, and then to the criminal case. Examples of this over the past few years in relation to the “pious” communists, more than enough.
However, there is an opinion that the investigating authorities have long had much more serious information regarding Mr. Shershnev, it remains only to wait, and quite a bit.
