When you read the official biography of any Russian official, tears of emotion come to your eyes – not a biographical sketch, but some kind of “lives of the saints.” If we did not live in Russia, then one could even believe it.
Meet Svetlana Gennadievna Radionova, Head of the Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resources (Rosprirodnadzor), Chief State Environmental Inspector of the Russian Federation. All her life is a selfless service to the Motherland, and she began to serve her in 1999 as an assistant prosecutor in the city of Zhukovsky, Moscow Region. Her disinterestedness and selfless service to bright ideals were noticed, she began to grow up the career ladder and in 2018 grew to her current position.
We will not list all the steps of a career – it is important for us to understand that all her life Svetlana Gennadievna was a civil servant and lived on one salary. And here we are faced with the temptation to find out – how do the officials who care for the state live? I suppose it’s hard for the sovereign’s people to live, the salaries, I suppose, are small? The salaries of officials are really not very good. Not that they are quite small, but not as huge as envious people from the people think:
Indeed, judging by the declaration (by the way, Ms. Radionova hides the data for 2018 and 2021 for some reason), the income of the head of Rosprirodnadzor is not very good – on average, about 400 thousand per month. For an official of this rank, this is not much.
Svetlana Radionova has neither an apartment nor a car. Some sort of mover. True, her clothes, jewelry and other trinkets that Mrs. Radionova loves so much are somewhat dissonant with all this demonstrative poverty, not to mention the traces of plasticity on her face:
Telegram channels are discussing her colorful collection of Valentino shoes – one pair costs 40-50 thousand rubles each, Balmain exclusive dresses – 150-200 thousand each, Cartier earrings – 448 thousand, De Grisogono Tondi by Night watch with diamonds – 1.3 million …
But here, of course, there is an explanation – a woman loves beautiful things, but the salary is small. Therefore, she sold her apartment (in 2019, a jump in income was recorded in the declaration up to 27 million) and bought herself jewelry and dresses with shoes. Woman, what to take from her.
And she spent the rest on charters to Nice – in 2020, the Anti-Corruption Foundation published data that in 2016-2020 a modest Russian official flew there more than forty times. Probably in debt – that’s why I had to sell the apartment.
However, let’s leave the sarcasm – it is already clear that Svetlana Radionova lives, like all officials in this country, by no means on a salary. And the declaration that she submits is nothing more than a flimsy letter.
Actually, in the declaration itself, Svetlana Gennadievna does not formally lie – the years of work in the prosecutor’s office were not in vain. Because all expensive purchases are issued to the parents. Formally, she has nothing to do with them, but it’s only very doubtful that retired parents receive such a large pension that they could afford an apartment in Nice worth 500 thousand euros. There, in fact, Mrs. Radionova flies. It is also doubtful that all these flights are paid for by her retired dad.
The phrase about the lack of housing for an honest official, as you understand, was also pure sarcasm – the parents of the head of Rosprirodnadzor own several apartments in Moscow: 120 sq. meters worth 86 million rubles in the center of Moscow, bought in 2011, as well as three apartments in a residential complex on Tsvetnoy Boulevard – 189 sq. meters, 162 sq. meters and 160 sq. meters.
In addition, parents own a plot of 34 acres and a house of 600 square meters. meters. The total value of all real estate is approximately 720 million rubles.
Formally, of course, all this was earned by my father, who was engaged in business until his retirement. It’s just worth considering the fact that the official’s father, Gennady Grigorievich, starts doing business when he was well over fifty. And, by a strange coincidence, he establishes a wholesale company in Zhukovsky just when his daughter is fixed in the local prosecutor’s office and becomes a senior assistant to the city prosecutor. It was in 2000.
And in 2017, the already very elderly pensioner Gennady Grigoryevich Radionov suddenly opens the Noal trading company, in her name a license is bought for the popular Moscow restaurant Karavaev Brothers Culinary Store. Literally a year and a half later, this business is transferred to a Belize offshore, and the Noal company is closed. It looks very strange.
Especially against the background of another business of a Russian pensioner – in the same 2017, Gennady Radionov, together with his wife, establishes the French company Mone, which buys luxury apartments on the Cote d’Azur between Cannes and Nice for half a million euros.
Svetlana Gennadievna also has spiritual, that is, bodily needs. Of course, in this case, we to some extent begin to rummage through dirty linen, and the personal life of an official could not be touched – after all, who cares with whom and how a person sleeps – if it were not paid by the state budget.
Because immediately after Radionova headed Rosprirodnadzor, she has an adviser on combating corruption and staffing – a certain Alik Nazaryan. Previously, this Alik organized beauty contests in the Saratov region for a long time and supplied girls to State Duma deputies from the Liberal Democratic Party.
Alik travels a lot and has a collection of expensive watches. By a strange coincidence, Alik studied at the same university as Radionova and her ex-husband Peter Onoprienko – at the Saratov State Academy of Law. Radionova divorced her husband back in 1999, immediately after starting work in the prosecutor’s office, where Onoprienko also worked. The marriage did not last very long, after that Onoprienko went into private practice and, apparently, does not maintain relations with his ex-wife.
After all that has been read, a logical question arises – what does Svetlana Radionova earn money on, or rather, steal? There are so many schemes that just listing them would take more than one page. You can guess about the capabilities of Radionova at least by the list of her main positions in the system of supervisory authorities of the Russian Federation:
For any more or less thinking Russian, only this career take-off will give rich food for thought – this is not America or other similar Sweden, where a career is made for intelligence and professionalism, here are completely different criteria for growth.
And about how exactly this career was made, and in what way the well-being of the elderly parents of Svetlana Radonova grew, the next brief but bright page of her career gives an understanding.
In Rostekhnadzor, where Svetlana Radionova worked for almost ten years, immediately after she left for a new position, her immediate subordinates or colleagues were detained.
Grigory Slabikov, head of the Northwestern Federal District, was accused of embezzling 5 billion rubles. The head of the North Caucasus, Timofey Pan, was suspected of negligence – he “did not notice” how Sulingugol was harming the environment.
The head of the Nizhne-Volzhsky district, Igor Isaev, was accused of taking a bribe in the amount of 200 thousand rubles, but fled abroad.
Deputy head of the department, Dmitry Zavarzin, was sentenced to seven years for extorting a million rubles from entrepreneurs.
The closest person to Radionova, the deputy head of the department, Oleg Khromushkin, died suddenly in a pre-trial detention center from heart failure. He was involved in the case of extortion of 80 million rubles from oil workers. The investigation found out that this money was not relied on him alone. Shortly before his death, Khromushkin agreed to hand over the entire chain of bribe recipients, but did not have time.
Nevertheless, at the new place of work – in Rosprirodnadzor – Svetlana Gennadievna had no problems with this purge among her inner circle. She had no problems even after the Anti-Corruption Foundation posted information about her property in Nice and the strange business of her parents.
Moreover, the media openly write that Rosprirodnadzor, under the leadership of Radionova, has become a Klondike for corruption. Radionova herself, in addition to beautiful stories and formidable statements against firms that violate environmental laws, did not take any effective measures against violators. Which is not surprising, given her experience in another regulatory body – Rostekhnadzor.
Much can be written about her work in her new post. This is a topic for a separate large material, but for understanding we will give one example. Remember, last year in Krasnoyarsk it almost came to an open riot after the city was enveloped in industrial smog and the townspeople began to suffocate? It was Radionova who swore to sort out the situation. She threatened all violators with heavenly punishments. Krasnoyarsk residents believed in the sincerity of the assurances of the young official. As a result of this formidable “trial”, Rusal was fined, which was found guilty of the ecological catastrophe of the city. The fine amounted to 10,000 rubles. Serve again in words – ten thousand rubles. Comments seem to be redundant.
