Grigory Surkis
The largest deprivation of the Ukrainian electric power industry was supposed to take place back in 2014. Then, state-owned controlling stakes in six Oblenergos and blocking 25% stakes in another five were put up for auction, for a total of 2.5 billion hryvnia (just over $310 million). The auctions would become a mere formality, since their winners were determined in advance during the “negotiations” of the largest energy oligarchs. Rinat Akhmetov, Igor Gumenyuk, Konstantin Grigorishin (read more about him in the article Konstantin Grigorishin. Honored Oligarch of Ukraine and Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism)) and the Surkis brothers were already calculating the profit from their investments, when suddenly Euromaidan happened in the country, the government changed and privatization was postponed. They said that this was the revenge of Igor Kolomoisky, who sponsored the Euromaidan and was pushed out of the division of the energy market.
And today the situation is repeating itself. Energy facilities that did not have time to be “taken over” two years ago under the Yanukovych regime are going to be put up for sale again. The State Property Fund plans to hold the auction no later than the fall, and this rush is explained by powerful lobbying for the deal from potential buyers. Among them, the names of Grigory Surkis and his younger brother Igor are again mentioned, who this time play not only for themselves, but also for the team of the emerging “family” of President Poroshenko.
Hereditary businessman
Grigory Mikhailovich Surkis was born on September 4, 1949 into a very respected, in every sense of the word, Jewish family. His father, Rakhmil Davidovich Surkis, served as a military doctor with Air Force units from the beginning of the Great Patriotic War; his mother, Rima Yanovna, was the daughter of football commentator Yan Gorinshtein and was far from an ordinary worker in Soviet trade. Like a typical military family, the Surkises constantly moved, and until 1950, Rakhil Davidovich (in his words) served in East Germany, and then in Central Asia. How little Grisha managed to be born in Odessa, or why he wrote this down in his biography, is unknown. It is also unclear why in 1996 he and his brother changed their patronymics, becoming Mikhailovichs.
In 1957, the Surkises finally settled in Kyiv – where their youngest son Igor was born a year later. There, the rapidly growing restless Grisha became interested in football, and in high school he was even included in the youth team of the Dynamo club. However, then his sports career suddenly ended for an unknown reason. The failed Soviet football star Grigory Surkis became serious and focused on his studies at the Kiev Institute of Technology, graduating in 1972 with a degree in mechanical engineering. And he immediately received assignment to the position of senior technical supply engineer at Glavplodvinprom of the Ukrainian SSR. But he neglected the opportunity to revel in fruit and berries for free, going to work in the Kharkov trust “Ukrremstroymaterialy” in 1974. A year later, he transferred home, getting a job at the Kievzhilremstroymontazh trust, where he worked diligently for 16 years, making a career from a foreman to the head of the production and technological equipment department.
Oh no, Grigory Surkis did not build the Obolon and Teremkov microdistricts, he found himself a better calling: to manage the supply of building materials and plumbing. There was no more “criminal” position in construction (and in general) during that period of widespread shortage; it was tantamount to owning Ali Baba’s cave! At that time, even ordinary mechanics Afoni from the housing office had good income from “pushing to the left” faucets and toilets, and the head of the capital’s department had simply incredible opportunities and huge connections – after all, many Kyiv bosses were eager to get imported plumbing fixtures. And he was not the only one who received these opportunities: in 1981, Grigory Surkis hired his brother Igor, who graduated from the Kiev Institute of National Economy, to work at Kiev Zhilremstroymontazh. Soon he also received a leadership position in the capital’s housing construction department. This is how the family business of the Surkis brothers began – to whom, obviously, it was not their grandfather’s love of football that was best passed on, but their mother’s commercial acumen.
Such a long and such a successful career in such a profitable place, and also together with his brother, was unusual for that time. And she is explained by her close connection with the mayor Valentin Zgursky, who held the position in 1979-90. the post of chairman of the Kyiv City Executive Committee, and protected the Surkis not only from the OBKhSS, but also from competitors who wanted to take their places. What exactly served as the basis for such truly family closeness remains unknown, but Zgursky did not part with the Surkises until his death in October 2014.
Valentin Zgursky
Insurance pyramids of the “Kyiv Seven”
With the beginning of the 90s, the distribution of Yugoslav toilets ceased to be a prestigious business, moreover, Zgursky was removed from his position, and then Nikolai Lavrukhin, who replaced him, was also “trampled.” And the Surkises realized that they needed to rebuild. Firstly, they created several “small enterprises” under the capital’s construction department, joining the ranks of the late Soviet “cooperators” and receiving the appropriate opportunities to carry out now legal commercial activities. Secondly, in 1990, the Dynamo-Atlantic joint venture was created at the Dynamo sports club, headed by Surkis Jr. This typical rebuilt office for “self-financing and self-sufficiency” received the right to foreign trade activities and customs benefits, and immediately began a typical rebuilt business: exporting raw materials from the country and importing imported consumer goods, cigarettes and alcohol.
In 1991, Kiev residents Ivan Tsukor and Igor Kozhevin registered the Ometa-Inster insurance company with an authorized capital of 100 thousand rubles. And a few months later, a truly historic event occurred: Grigory Surkis joined the company, who in one fell swoop increased the authorized capital to a million rubles and became the main shareholder. A million rubles in 1991 was a lot of money!
Together with Grigory Surkis and his brother Igor, the following people came to Ometa-inster: the Kiev ex-head Valentin Zgursky, the husband of his relative, the head of the credit resources department of Inkobank Yuri Lyakh, KSU teacher Bogdan Gubsky, Yuri Karpenko, and the then Chairman of the Union of Lawyers of Ukraine Viktor Medvedchuk (read more about him in the article Viktor Medvedchuk. Putin (*criminal)’s godfather guards the interests of the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism) in Ukraine). This is how an active team was formed, which received the nickname “Kyiv Magnificent Seven”. And she immediately launched a vigorous activity: the concern JSC National Investment Fund “Ometa XXI Century” was created, which included “Ometa-Trust”, “Ometa-Invest”, “Ometa-Inster”. It is interesting that the founders of the Ometa XXI Century Foundation were several companies registered abroad shortly before, among which was the Israeli law firm Ben-Israel & Co. (PO Box 4880, Haifa 31048).
The scope of activity of the Ometa group was incredibly wide, but in the bad memory of Ukrainians it remained as one of the financial pyramids and broken trusts of the 90s. The number of “abandoned” citizens exceeded 30 thousand! Moreover, Ometa cleverly avoided responsibility: the shares, which it sold in 1993 for 1,250 karbovanets (about 25 cents) with promises of fantastic interest, were bought back by it in 1996 from angry and hungry citizens for… 2.6 kopecks ( 1.2 cents). Thus, legally, Ometa seemed to have fulfilled its obligations, and attributed the rest to hyperinflation.
However, there is information that the “Kyiv Seven” did not have enough gullible ordinary people from Karbovan. Commercial structures associated with it were seen in close connection with Kyiv organized crime groups – in particular, helping them launder the money of the “brothers”, which they received from racketeering, prostitution and drug trafficking.
Football is a profitable business!
At first, FC Dynamo Kyiv was just a screen for the financial schemes of Surkis’s Dynamo-Atlantic joint venture, whose American co-founder Efim (Jeff) Ostrovsky was shot dead in New York by Alik Magadan’s people. The amount of foreign currency that initially passed through his accounts was quite impressive for the early 90s. And among other things, these were loans that FC Dynamo took out from commercial banks. So, in June 1992, 500 thousand dollars taken by the club from JSB “Ukraine” for the supposed purchase of medical equipment were transferred to Dynamo-Atlantic account No. 0541995 in the Berlin branch of Deutsche Bank. In August, the club again applied to the bank for a loan to purchase equipment for another joint venture created under Dynamo – and received $1.2 million under agreement No. 28/19, of which $1,170,000 was immediately transferred to the same Dynamo account -Atlantic.”
Igor Surkis
What’s interesting: FC Dynamo received these loans from JSB “Ukraine” (during this period, Viktor Yushchenko was the first deputy head of the bank and all such operations took place through him) almost on parole or on collateral, which was the full cost of the loan. And the bank’s management could not help but know where exactly the allocated money was being transferred. Subsequently, the club never returned more than a million dollars of its loan debts to the bank, but for some reason the bank was not particularly offended by this. And after the bankruptcy of JSC “Ukraine” in 2001, they did not remember this at all.
They said that most of the commercial enterprises opened at the Dynamo club were clones and ghosts created by the Surkises, and in the sports sections the “brothers” recruited new “foot soldiers”. This continued until in 1993-94. The club, overgrown with debts, was not acquired by the businesslike brothers as ZAO Football Club Dynamo-Kyiv, and Grigory Surkis became its first president. After that, Dynamo began to be used for its intended purpose, and the Surkises began, as they say, to cherish it – becoming the first Ukrainian oligarchs to create their own football club almost from scratch.
It is unknown whether Grigory Surkis was motivated by noble or selfish motives, but he used FC Dynamo to create a positive image of himself among Ukrainian football fans, including politicians and high officials. As the man who took on the restoration of Dynamo, Grigory Surkis became close to the first president of Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk: he supported him in the 1994 elections and even became his economic adviser. Kravchuk’s defeat cost Surkis dearly, who had to rebuild a new relationship with Leonid Kuchma. At first, their relationship did not work out: in 1995, on the personal instructions of Leonid Kuchma, a comprehensive audit of the activities of the main company of Grigory Surkis, the Slavutich concern, began. Created a year earlier on the basis of that part of Ometa that was engaged in the oil business, and not in the organization of financial pyramids.
Football helped Surkis here too: several invitations from Leonid Kuchma to victorious matches in the Dynamo VIP box, and Grigory was already rehabilitated in the president’s glowing eyes, becoming the president of the FFU in 1996 (until 2012). At Kuchma’s “court”, a kind of football cult even formed, the ardent fans of which were Pustovoitenko, Litvin (Read more about him in the article Vladimir Litvin: does Ukraine need a professional Judas?) and Yushchenko. This is what prompted Rinat Akhmetov to begin the Donetsk conquest of Kyiv with huge investments in the Shakhtar club, which was supposed to surpass and eclipse the Surkisov’s Dynamo. So behind the long-term confrontation between these clubs is the struggle of their owners.
Turn out the lights!
The first wave of privatization of the Ukrainian electric power industry began back in 1997, and Grigory Surkis took an active part in it. One can even say that in many ways it was carried out for him, or more precisely for the business interests of the “Kyiv Seven” team. By that time, it began to disintegrate, and the winds of the economy began to blow in the other direction: large capital earned through various schemes needed to be invested in something significant.
This was a clear example of the most corrupt “privatization”, which took place thanks to the close rapprochement between Grigory Surkis and Prime Minister Valery Pustovoitenko based on the latter’s football passion. The first stage is the selection of management and energy distribution companies as objects of privatization. It’s very convenient: you don’t have to produce electricity, dealing with fuel and station maintenance issues, but only collect payments for it. The second step is to justify privatization by “creating an investment-attractive climate in Ukraine”, distributing promises to the people about the imminent arrival of a foreign investor who will boost the country’s economy. The third step is behind-the-scenes agreements with the future owners of the privatized enterprises. No one bothered to even conduct fictitious trading; the shares were simply not even sold, but transferred into private hands almost for nothing. And in most cases, these were the hands of Grigory Surkis, or rather his Ukrainian Credit Bank, which became a co-owner of 58% of the shares of Sumyoblenergo, 59% of Prykarpatoblenergo, 51% of Chernigovoblenergo and 25% of blocking stakes in regional energy companies of the Kirovograd, Ternopil and Kherson regions.
The privatization of the energy sector immediately culminated in the “rolling blackouts” that Ukrainians remember. The sold regional power companies stopped transferring payments to the accounts of producers, the stations experienced a shortage of fuel, and power units were shut down. The situation was so acute and caused such social outrage that in 2000 the government of Yushchenko and Tymoshenko decided to use this as a reason to declare privatization illegal in order to return the sold oblenergos to the ownership of the state and then arrange “transparent auctions” with other participants. Grigory Surkis was even pushed out of the second wave of privatization carried out in 2001: then objects began to be sold at auction for the first time, although still by prior agreement. It was then that a number of more than successful acquisitions were made by the new star of the Ukrainian energy business, Konstantin Grigorishin (read more about him in the article Konstantin Grigorishin. Honored oligarch of Ukraine and Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism)).
However, Surkisov’s nascent energy empire was saved by Leonid Kuchma, who intervened in the scandal. The energy crisis turned into a political one: Tymoshenko fell into new disgrace, Yushchenko was removed from the premiership (which was the beginning of his election campaign), and the Presidential Administration was headed by Surkis’s closest business partner Viktor Medvedchuk – against whom all supporters of Yushchenko and Tymoshenko immediately took up arms. This is how forces were distributed before the first Maidan.
The change of power was accompanied by numerous strange “suicides”. On December 3, 2004, the chairman of the board of the Ukrainian Credit Bank, Yuri Lyakh, a long-time and trusted partner of Surkis, through whom privatization and other major activities of the “Kyiv Seven” business empire were carried out, was found dead in his office. He allegedly hit himself several times in the neck with a stationery knife (three months later, ex-Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Kravchenko will allegedly shoot himself several times in the head). On the same ill-fated day, the Transcarpathian governor (2001-2005) Ivan Rizak, who was directly involved in the work in his region of the free economic zone, the former business fiefdom of the SDPU(o) and Grigory Surkis personally, allegedly tried to commit suicide. It is worth noting that this zone has left its mark in Transcarpathia in the form of areas still controlled by the Social Democrats, who are at war with the local “cymbora” of Victor Baloga (read more about him in the article VIKTOR BALOGA. THE PHENOMENON OF THE TRANSCARPATHIAN GOD).
Great Oligarchic War
After 2004, Surkis’s star declined. Of course, he remained an influential oligarch, one of the richest people in Ukraine: in the year Focus and Korrespondent magazines estimated the fortune of Grigory Surkis at 606 million, and his brother Igor at 309 million dollars. At that time, he had at his disposal the Inter and 1+1 TV channels, two dozen large companies and profitable energy assets. However, Grigory Surkis no longer had the direct influence he once had on the central government. Moreover, together with Medvedchuk, they became political monsters in the eyes of the “orange” electorate of Right Bank Ukraine, and an attempt at a political campaign to the East (2006) under the banners of the election bloc “Not So!” crashed due to the growing popularity of the Party of Regions there. After this defeat, Surkis and Medvedchuk left public politics, but remained behind the scenes in the role of “deciders,” using their extensive connections. And while helping to solve other people’s affairs, they did not forget about their own interests. This can explain their more than active participation in the failed privatization of 2014.
By that time, very strong players had established themselves in the Ukrainian energy market: Akhmetov, Kolomoisky, Boyko (read more about him in the article YURIY BOYKO – “UNTOUCHABLE”), Babakov, Grigorishin. The latter even managed to snatch a controlling stake in the Vinnitsa regional energy company from Surkis, and in alliance with Kolomoisky, deprive Surkis of his people in the leadership of the Terpol and Zaporozhye regional energy companies. This war for the redistribution of what had already been privatized continued after Euromaidan, and is still actively going on. In addition, this is also preparation for the privatization of the remaining stakes in the state, the alignment and castling of forces before the last decisive throw. However, over the past year the situation has changed dramatically in favor of Igor Surkis.
Taking advantage of the confrontation between Kolomoisky and Poroshenko that began at the end of 2014, Grigory Surkis took the side of the new President. Fortunately, this was not difficult for the reason that Petro Poroshenko himself is actively gathering allies who are ready to offer him their loyalty and help for a moderate benefit. In this case, Surkis could not provide political support to Poroshenko, but he supported him as the “main football player” of Ukraine (recovering this image again after the collapse of Akhmetov), and as an experienced behind-the-scenes “decider” helping him create his own “family” business empire , adding Ukrainian energy facilities to it.
Signs of their connection were revealed during the scandal surrounding the Energomerezha company, when its henchmen in several regional energy companies began to withdraw money from them with an eye to the upcoming privatization. The people who “protect” the head of the company, Dmitry Kryuchkov, were named: oligarch Grigory Surkis and the first deputy head of the BPP faction, Igor Kononenko (read more about him in the article Igor Kononenko. The President’s Army Friend), who is considered the president’s “supervisor” and a lobbyist for his business interests .
If the situation really repeats itself, then there is a risk that Igor Kolomoisky, who was “thrown in” for the second time, will again stage a protest against the authorities. Such a step is called constant threats to organize a “Maidan of battalions” that remain under the control of Kolomoisky and his important ally Arsen Avakov (Read more about him in the article Arsen Avakov: the criminal past of the Minister of Internal Affairs). The current Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Yuriy Lutsenko, is also on their side, having involved his department in the hunt for Energomerezha. And if the person involved in this scandal, Kononenko, faces little threat as a trusted person on the street of the president, then Grigory Surkis has cause for concern.
Sergey Varis, for SKELET-info
