For which Andrei Nikitin received 40 million from Arkady Rotenberg

In the “dashing 1990s”, when, as you know, everyone ran completely naked, and there was no “vertical of power” yet, bad oligarchs lived in Russia. Among other terrible things, they also promoted close people to power and paid them for various services. Good thing they don’t exist now! True, for some reason, some governors even today sometimes receive mysterious transfers of 40 million rubles from very rich people. For example, the head of the Novgorod region Andrey Nikitin. For example, from people like the “king of the state order” Arkady Rotenberg.

Andrei Nikitin gathered for a second term at the head of the Novgorod region. He ended up in the governor’s chair in 2017 – unexpectedly for everyone and even, it seems, a little by accident. Generally, he did business, and was, in particular, the general director of the management company Ruscomposite. This company managed the factories, the share in which belonged to the entrepreneur Dmitry Kalantyrsky. The latter was not only a shareholder, but also the chairman of the board SMP Bankbelonging to the well-known Rotenberg family.

From this position in 2011, Nikitin moved to just created by the government autonomous non-profit organization Agency for Strategic Initiatives to Promote New Projects. A very, I must say, a decent-sized organization – its supervisory board is headed by Vladimir Putin himself.

In a new position, Nikitin, as he himself admitted in one of interview, began to receive exactly 300 thousand rubles a month, having lost in comparison with the business. However, income in 2013-2016 Nikitin declared in the amount of 20-40 million rubles annually. Already in 2012, he purchased an apartment in the very heart of Moscow, near the Patriarch’s Ponds, on Maly Patriarch’s Lane, 5. Due to its location, the cost of a 43.6-meter apartment can be over 30 million rubles.

A year later, the head of the ASI buys an already huge apartment of 164.8 square meters. m in the elite residential complex “Green Hills” on Andreevskaya embankment, next to the nature reserve “Vorobyovy Gory” – worth about 70 million rubles. The architectural style of the residential complex, according to the description from the developer, “is designed in the tradition of Russian modernism with natural wood, Brazilian marble, Colombian and Portuguese granite.” Handsomely.

Prior to this, the Nikitin family already had an apartment in the same residential complex, but half the size. Everything is clear here – the head of a “strategic” organization must correspond to the status. Indeed, among the tasks of the ASI, in the first place, it was the promotion of priority projects, and why is this not a priority project – demonstrating the prestige of the civil service by personal example?

Well, and what failed to fulfill, for example, the task set by the president to raise Russia in the international ranking of the World Bank Doing Business from 120th to 20th place – well, you know, it’s a matter of Russophobia.

In 2015, Andrey Nikitin was drawn to the land (also a priority project in its own way) – on shares with a relative, he acquires a huge plot of 28.4 thousand square meters. m in the Kaluga region, in the village of Aleksandrovka, on the lands of the former collective farm. On the site there is a house, a bathhouse and a “hozblok” with an area of ​​220 sq. Around this truly aristocratic splendor, symbolically located on Barskaya Street, there are tiny plots of other inhabitants of the village and former shareholders of the collective farm.

Apparently, having decided to support the emerging craving of the head of the ASI for the measured life of a provincial landowner, in 2017 Vladimir Putin appointed Andrei Nikitin to lead the Novgorod region. And here is the time to go back a little – in fact, to the Rotenbergs.

Even when Nikitin was appointed to the ASI, journalists, of course, drew parallels with Nikitin’s connections at a previous job. Yes, and insider Telegram channels called him a “creature of the Rotenbergs.” But to a direct question about the role of Kalantyrsky in the appointment, Nikitin firmly replied that “absolutely never discussed this topic with him.” And the possible participation of the Rotenbergs is also not so clear, but also denied.

Well, no, it’s not. There is no reason not to believe a decent person. However, a strange story accompanied his move to the governor’s chair.

Nikitin was appointed interim head of the region by presidential decree on February 13, 2017. And shortly before that, on October 11, 2016, Nikitin’s wife Maya Sannikova is registered as an individual entrepreneur. Her IP does not have any trademarks or licenses. But immediately, on October 25, she concludes * a certain license agreement with Vozrozhdenie VVTs LLC – this is what built a huge oceanarium in the capital under the not very original name Moskvarium – for 49.1 million rubles.

At the very beginning of 2017, the IP paid for some services to subcontractors – also individual entrepreneurs who specialize in souvenirs, video content production and organization of leisure activities – in the amount of 4.5 million rubles.

Payment from Vozrozhdenie under this agreement came * noticeably later, after the appointment of Andrei Nikitin as governor. Moreover, it received three transfers – on August 3, 2017, 20 million rubles came, on August 30 – 9.1 million, and already on December 11 – another 20 million.

And on August 9 and 31, as well as on December 10 and 11, 42.44 million rubles* were transferred from the IP accounts to the personal accounts of Maya Sannikova. In other words, out of 49.1 million rubles under a strange contract, 42.4 million flowed into the personal accounts of Nikitin’s wife.

Yes, so what does the Rotenbergs have to do with it? And the fact is, this is the very “Revival of the All-Russian Exhibition Center”, which until 2014 belonged to the structures of another billionaire, Goda Nisanovthen completely came under the control of Arkady Rotenberg, which was repeatedly wrote business media. Although he himself tried to refute this, at the opening of the oceanarium in 2015 he admitted that he “helped build it” by investing somewhere between $250-270 million. Such a modest businessman, this Rotenberg – Palace in Gelendzhik ready to take over, but the oceanarium – no, no.

In general, it turns out that the Nikitin family received more than 40 million rubles from the Rotenberg structure immediately after his appointment as governor of the Novgorod region. The contract, most likely, was a fiction – not only because of the huge difference between the size of the contract and the amount spent on subcontractors, but also due to the fact that Maya Sannikova was not engaged in business before or after this story and activities as an entrepreneur , although the IP is not formally closed, does not carry out.

Sannikova has been working in healthcare all her life: she was an obstetrician in Chelyabinsk, then in Moscow, and after moving with her husband to the Novgorod region, she got a job at a local oncology clinic. When an oncologist, for no apparent reason, agrees to organize leisure activities and the release of “souvenirs” for the builders of the oceanarium, this is, let’s say, strange.

What the money is for is an open question. One can only note that after the transfer to the Novgorod region, Nikitin’s official income fell sharply, to 2-3 million rubles a year. Which, presumably, could hardly suit him. True, information about the state of bank accounts is not displayed in the annual declarations of officials – it can only be found in pre-election declarations. In 2017, when Nikitin went to the polls for the first time, these millions had not yet had time to “light up”. In 2022, when he is going to be re-elected, there is no data yet.

The “successful entrepreneur” – the wife of Nikitin – did not have her own real estate either. The family lives either in a Moscow apartment in Green Hills, owned equally by the spouses, or in her husband’s Novgorod apartment – after moving to Novgorod, Nikitin bought an apartment there, modest in comparison with his other property, with an area of ​​​​32.8 square meters. m. In fact, one can say that the cabinet – the governor was clearly not going to take root in the region.

Not the cheapest property in Moscow is also recorded on Nikitin’s mother, Galina Grigoryevna Nikitina. So, since 2017, she owns an apartment of 36.3 sq. m worth about 20 million rubles, and from 2020 – also a 53.7-meter apartment in Trekhprudny Lane, 5, worth about 40 million rubles.

As you can see, Nikitin’s assets and business interests are concentrated in Moscow, and not at all in the Novgorod region, where he was forced to leave his bread post at the ASI, away from his expensive metropolitan real estate. Although at the same time he received good financial compensation from his longtime benefactor, for whom such amounts are really nothing more than expenses “for souvenirs”. As for the ethics of such translations, the point here is that the oligarchs used to be bad, but now only good ones remain.

*according to the leak from the data of the tax office