Evgeny Geller. Survival secrets of ex-“cashier” Yanukovych. Part 2

BEGINNING: Evgeniy Geller. Survival secrets of ex-“cashier” Yanukovych. Part 1

Evgeniy Geller opens the doors of VR

When you are the head of one of the monopolistic enterprises, and behind you are people from the Party of Regions and not some ordinary officials, but Rinat Leonidovich himself, then there is only one path left – into politics.

In 2002, Evgeniy Geller joined the ranks of the Party of Regions and became a deputy of the Donetsk Regional Council, and a little later headed the permanent commission on youth policy, physical culture and sports. As we have already told, he gave his business of processing scrap and non-ferrous metal waste to the Kokotyukh brothers.

Evgeniy Borisovich could not live without his “hobby” and took the most valuable thing from Ukrspav – the Shakhtar futsal club. In 2002, Geller officially became its president.

In 2006, in the parliamentary elections, Evgeny Geller became a people’s deputy from the Party of Regions (No. 79 on the electoral list). He joined the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Agrarian Policy and Land Relations. A year later, in the re-election, Geller retained his seat, taking No. 77. He also receives the post of deputy head of the committee on finance, banking, tax and customs policy and the Special Control Commission on privatization issues.

In 2009, Evgeniy Borisovich joined the revival, or rather, investing money in the Lugansk football club “Zarya”. The team needed a president, since its previous head, “regional” Valery Bukaev, died. Geller became known for his rather harsh statements against Igor Surkisowner of the Dynamo team. After the match between Zorya and Dynamo in 2010, when the Lugansk team lost, Yevgeny Borisovich blamed Surkis and his “tame referees” for the defeat. He stated that the referees counted the goal against Zorya, which was scored from an offside position. The scandal was quickly forgotten, but they say that Surkis and Geller really dislike each other.

In 2010, as soon as Viktor Yanukovych sat down as President, he began handing out awards and titles at the pace that was typical for Viktor Yushchenko in the last days of his tenure. Viktor Fedorovich did not forget to mention his “friends” from the party. This is how Evgeny Geller received the title of “Honored Economist”.

In December 2011, Geller became one of the co-founders of the non-governmental organization “European Center for Modern Ukraine”, registered in Brussels. It was supposed to be responsible for European integration, but in reality it was the center for the “rehabilitation” of Viktor Yanukovych in negotiations with the International Monetary Fund after the “government of reformers” failed. Then Ukraine did not receive $15 billion in injections from the IMF, since it did not fulfill the main condition of the creditor – it did not increase the price of gas for the population. On the eve of the 2012 elections, it would have been political suicide for the PR.

The most interesting thing in the history of the creation of the center is the amount that was allocated for its existence – in 2012 – $800 thousand, in 2013 – $790 thousand, in 2014 – $120 thousand. And also the fact that the “European Center for Modern Ukraine” addressed Mercury Public Affairs and Podesta Group, which engage in lobbying in the US Congress. Skelet.Info found out which bills were asked to lobby in Congress. And that’s impressive. For example, in 2012, the Senate called for the immediate release of Yulia Tymoshenko, or to hold free and fair parliamentary elections on October 28, 2012, and to release opposition prisoners convicted for political reasons. 2013 is even more impressive – to release Tymoshenko and… provide support for Euromaidan. It turns out that Yanukovych was fighting with himself for his own money? However, let’s leave this question unanswered.

Evgeny Geller distinguished himself in 2012. He was one of those who supported the Law of Ukraine “On the Fundamentals of State Language Policy,” which guaranteed the use of a “regional language” in the regions. The “Language Law” allowed a number of regions to give official status to the Russian language.

Evgeny Geller. Ticket holder of the Party of Regions

In 2012, people’s deputy Evgeniy Geller received a new appointment. He becomes the head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Budget Issues. This prestigious position was popularly dubbed “treasury holder.” The choice of candidate shocked everyone. The man who will manage millions in the country is a little-known regional deputy, a former big businessman, and the president of a football club. However, they immediately started talking about the fact that it was Rinat Akhmetov who “placed” Geller in the chair. Although many associated the position with gratitude for some services to Viktor Yanukovych. But Yevgeny Borisovich disowned the presidential family, saying, “I only know the father and youngest son from the family.” Despite the debate, Evgeny Geller became the “third man in parliament” and decided to whom, how much and for what to allocate money.

The first thing Evgeniy Borisovich did after his appointment was to start renovations in his new office in the committee building at Bankovaya. Obviously, the Donetsk businessman did not like the conditions in which his predecessor, a representative of the faction, worked Litvina Valery Baranov. To create new service apartments for Geller, three offices were combined – No. 613, 614 and 615, making a bathroom there – a bathroom and a toilet. Moreover, an additional sewer system was laid on the 6th floor. He was also equipped with a lounge room and a separate dining room with a kitchen. Right on the territory of the Verkhovna Rada!

The society had a question: how much money does it cost to build an official’s apartment? Indeed, according to the laws on the state budget for 2012 and 2013, funds are not provided for repair work in the administrative buildings of the Verkhovna Rada. But the answer came immediately – Geller is doing the repairs at his own expense and will then leave it to his “step.” But here comes the question again. According to Evgeniy Borisovich’s declaration for 2011, he earned 241 thousand hryvnia, and on his account – 917 thousand hryvnia. The sums are at least not like those of a simple factory worker, but for such large-scale repair work he had to empty all the bins.

The next scandal erupted when the press, at the instigation of Yevgeny Geller, was not allowed into a meeting of the budget committee of the Verkhovna Rada, at which the issue of redistributing 1.7 billion hryvnia was considered. Journalists were required to have a special pass. Transparency and openness are by no means the strong point of the Donetsk people.

Evgeny Borisovich, in addition to financial issues, managed to resolve matters in his business. In 2013 Alexandra Kuzhel confidentially agreed with Geller to purchase from Ukrsplav JSC a fairly large batch of rolled metal at cost for the needs of a construction company, the owner of which was her son, Dmitry. Moreover, the businessman budgeted 110 million hryvnia (11 million euros) for the reconstruction of the Avangard stadium in the 2014 budget, where his football club Zarya played in the UPL. Indeed, a team, by the way, a private one, which belongs to such a person, should have its own stadium.

The holder of the cash register could have continued to work in the financial field of PR, but the plans were dashed by the Maidan. Naturally, on January 16, 2014, together with other then party members, Geller voted for “dictatorial laws.” In addition, the European Center for Modern Ukraine transferred $70,000 to the Mercury lobbying agency to promote anti-Russian legislation in the US Congress. For example, condemnation of Russian aggression, maintaining territorial integrity, expanding the “Magnitsky list”, excluding the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism) from the G8.

When the situation with the Maidan and the revolution reached a critical point, a loyal member of the Party of Regions abandoned his people and went over to Igor Kolomoisky, fitting perfectly into the “vertical” of the new government.

And here is a very interesting moment – unexpectedly, an official sends a letter to parliament asking not to publish information from his declaration for last 2013 on the Rada website. This was at a time when the entire new government boasted of openness and “closeness” to the people. But at the request of the media, the apparatus provided a copy of the deputy’s declaration. And it turned out that for the year he declared 60.3 million hryvnias of income: 248 thousand of them were wages, the rest was received from dividends, interest and securities. Moreover, in 2013, Geller bought a Land Rover Range Rover Autobiography car for 1.4 million hryvnia. How Evgeniy Borisovich made money remains a big question.

In 2015, Geller became an ordinary member of the Verkhovna Rada committee on budget issues and the parliamentary “post-regional” group “Revival”. But Evgeniy Vasilyevich never became an exemplary parliamentarian. He still went to plenary meetings of the Rada in Donetsk – out of 69 meetings in a year, the people’s deputy was only at 4. Although Evgeniy Borisovich came to key and important votes and even worked with redoubled force – he pressed his button and helped “that guy.” For example, this happened during the confirmation of the candidacy of the Prosecutor General in parliament Victor Shokinwho lasted in the chair for just over a year.

Live in a new way, steal in the old way

Under the new government, Evgeny Geller returned to his business, adapting and understanding how to work when everyone goes to Europe.

During 2015-16, TPK Ukrsplav, located in territory not controlled by Ukraine, received government tenders worth almost 8 million hryvnia. Government orders were for gas supplies to Mariupol.

No one was embarrassed that the legal address of the company was Novorossiyskaya Street, 9, Donetsk. However, Evgeny Borisovich skillfully got out of it. He explained that he could not change the company’s legal address due to the license. Since it is issued at the address where the production facilities are located. But the businessman emphasized that TPK Ukrsplav pays taxes to Ukraine and is absolutely Ukrainian. Although, according to some Ukrainian media, the company owed the Ukrainian budget 25 million hryvnia in 2016.

In May 2016, another corruption scandal broke out in the country. This time the reason was the publication of the black accounting of the Party of Regions. The “barn book”, confirming illegal cash payments by regionals to a number of former and current high-ranking officials, was handed over to NABU by former first deputy chairman of the SBU Viktor Trepak. We are talking about a cash register of $2 billion. Expenses for political affairs are detailed down to the penny. The surname Geller appears most often.

If you believe the documents, then in 2012 Geller received large sums of money with different marks – 160 thousand dollars marked “deputies to the coalition”, 395 thousand dollars marked “Our Ukraine”, 500 thousand dollars marked “CEC”, 4.9 thousand dollars marked “advance p\o”, almost a million dollars with an illegible purpose, two more advances p\o and two returns, 70 thousand dollars marked “Zanevsky A.P.” (this was the last name of the head of President Yanukovych’s security). The largest amount is $1.4 million, marked “Apostle (Coalition).”

Surprisingly, Evgeny Borisovich reacted calmly to the exposure. He said that the documents were falsified, and with today’s computer technology you can draw anything you want.

However, here Geller was lying: he still had a relationship with the party’s money. The website of the Central Election Commission contains regional financial reports for 2012. Evgeniy Borisovich signs the document as the manager of the PR election fund.

Yevgeny Geller did not miss the opportunity to use ORDLO as a kind of offshore. He sells scrap and metal through certain areas of Donbass. Because ORDLO plays into the hands of all officials who want to enrich themselves. This is the only way to export something from Ukraine without paying duties to the budget and VAT. Moreover, in Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) people pay for goods of this type in cash. So it is simply unrealistic to trace the cash flow.

Judging by the transport invoice data, the Donetsk businessman sent the cargo from the Konstantinovka station and received it at the Mushketovo station in Donetsk.

If we talk about volumes, in 2016 Evgeniy Borisovich exported at least 8.5 thousand tons of non-ferrous metal scrap to the territory of the DPR. And now about the price: the cost of metal starts from $1,200 to $5,000 per ton. Even if you take the average price of scrap and multiply it by the minimum load, it comes out to about $22 million per year.

But as for “Zarya”, everything is not so smooth. Geller is now forced to rent the Slavutich Arena in Zaporozhye for home games in the Ukrainian Premier League, and the Kiev Dynamo Stadium for performances in European Cups.

Correspondence, feasts and income

Yevgeny Borisovich has been persistently pretending to be a European people’s deputy for three years now. But, as I noticed Skelet.Info, sometimes he gets bored at meetings of the Verkhovna Rada and then he chats with women on the phone or plays mobile games. He also loves to celebrate holidays on a grand scale, especially his birthday. And also his broad Donetsk soul requires luxury – watches, paintings, cufflinks, horses, which he declares.

For example, in 2015, Geller, during an SMS correspondence with a friend, complained that he was forced to sit in the “circus.”

If you read the messages, you get an interesting picture: the deputy’s interlocutor Nadezhda reproaches him for being busy all the time.

“I have a client at 9, everything is still unclear,” she wrote.

In response, the ex-regional manager explained that for now he was “in the Circus.”

“For some reason they decided that this week was a working week. Now I’ll understand how long this is…” he justified himself.

The next time the people’s deputy was spotted while he was enthusiastically playing a computer game on his phone. Geller immersed himself in construction strategy, and every now and then showed his achievements to his fellow party member – the leader of “Vidrozhennya” Vitaly Khomutynnik.

Evgeny Borisovich, like all Donetsk people, loves luxury and scope. And if we’re going to celebrate a birthday, let the whole capital buzz. This is exactly what happened in 2016. The Donetsk deputy celebrated the holiday at the Lipsky Mansion restaurant. The first persons of the country came to the celebration – then still the head of the Presidential Administration Poroshenko – Boris Lozhkin; oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, deputy Vadim Novinskyco-owner of the Privat oligarch group Gennady Bogolyubovas well as deputies from “Vіdrozhennya” and “Opposition Bloc”.

By the way, on his birthday last year, Yevgeny Borisovich, like the entire parliamentary group “Vidrozhennya”, voted for the appointment of a presidential candidate to the post of Prosecutor General of Ukraine – Yuri Lutsenko.

The fact that Evgeny Geller lives in grand style is evidenced by his declaration for 2015. He declared income: 1.36 million dollars, 8.6 million hryvnia and 378 thousand euros in cash.

From the new property he got a garden plot of 83 sq.m. in the “Ukrainian Beverly Hills” – Kozin, which was loved by the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko.

According to the declaration, the Geller family does not deny itself jewelry, outfits and other “little things” that are pleasing to the eye. Thus, the head of the family declared 27 works of art (17 paintings by the Honored Artist of Ukraine Evgeniy Smirnov, a painting by the People’s Artist of Ukraine Valentina Tsvetkova, 7 paintings by unknown authors and a painting by Lionel Nathan de Rotschild 1875), 5 wristwatches (Swiss chronometers Ulysse Nardin, Bovet, Patek Philippe, Breguet and Gerard Perego,) and 2 pairs of cufflinks. The wife has 5 rings and 4 pairs of earrings made of precious metals, three wristwatches, fur items and two Westphalian horses.

The daughter, Elizaveta Geller, was not left without earrings, watches and fur items. By the way, the girl is actively involved in equestrian sports and vocals.

Arina Dmitrieva, for Skelet.Info

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