The project documentation for the improvement of parks is a secret for everyone. In the spring of 2022, the aforementioned department refused to submit improvement of the park “Pokrovskoye-Streshnevo” to the Moscow City Duma deputy Darya Besedina, stating that the project documentation “does not apply to information about the activities of state bodies and local governments, as well as issues related to deputy activities.”
Much more interesting is the second contractor – the Yug-2008 company, it is his workers immured a kitten in the bridge under construction. The owner of Yug-2008, Roman Chinenov, used to work in the Universtroylux holding, owned by his younger brother Petra BiryukovaVice Mayor of Moscow, in charge of the complex of urban economy and landscaping, – Alexey Biryukov and brother-in-law Peter Biryukov – Timur Gutnov.
In 2014, Universtroylux was declared bankrupt and liquidated. However, the holding’s employees created a number of companies that began to compete with each other and win tenders for the My Street improvement program. SK Union, Avtodorstroy, Alliance, EVS, Ingoda, Serikat, MKT, Reconastroy 28 and Yug-2008 are the names of companies that came from the holding of relatives of vice- Mayor Pyotr Biryukov, who received more than 20.2 billion rubles for the improvement of Moscow streets.
Most of the companies used the same phone number and shared an office on the first floor of a residential building on Varshavskoe Shosse. Some of the companies were recognized by the Federal Antimonopoly Service as a cartel, having established that applications for participation in the auction were submitted from one IP address, and documents were created on one computer. However, the FAS investigation did not bring any consequences. Companies liquidated when problems arose. Thus, the Alliance company, which won contracts for 5.6 billion rubles, was liquidated without paying 208 million rubles in taxes. By the way, in one of the most successful companies of the new informal holding, Serikat, the chairman of the board of directors was Alexei Biryukov, the younger brother of Vice Mayor Petr Biryukov.
This year, in addition to work in the Bitsevsky Forest Park, Yug-2008 won contracts for the improvement of the territories around the Kashirskaya and Zyablikovo metro stations. The creation of the project for the improvement of the Bitsevsky forest park cost the city budget 330.9 million rubles. In 2022, the improvement will affect only 112.42 hectares of the entire park area of 380 hectares. The cost of construction work on improvement can be about 5.1 billion rubles.
MSK1.RU has a copy of the contract between ANO “Development of Urban Technologies” and the contractor “South-2008”, according to which the cost of the contract is 2.07 billion rubles. Taking into account the fact that the contractor “South-2008” has a smaller area of work in the “Bitsevsky Forest” than that of “Stroystandart”, this confirms the correctness of our calculations.
According to the documents, the contractor “Yug-2008” in the “Bitsevsky Forest” must create a public garden with an area of several hectares. More detailed information about this object is not available. Perhaps the city authorities will offer the townspeople to plant potatoes, beets and other vegetables for personal needs in the public garden. The cost of creating a public garden is several hundred million rubles.
One of Beniaminov’s projects, known to the general public, is the Depo food mall, which is located in the former building of the 4th trolleybus depot on Lesnaya Street, not far from the Belorusskaya metro station. At the end of the year planned opening of the second food mall — “Depo. Three Stations, which will occupy the territory of the former 2nd trolleybus depot on Novoryazanskaya Street. The Depo food malls are implemented by the Sigma Investment Group, which, together with Beniaminov, is owned by Banil Iskhakov, a relative of the owner of the South Gate market, and children Ilgam Ragimovclassmate of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The square adjacent to Kuskovo along Yunosti Street is being landscaped by Tent Stroy LLC. This company was previously engaged in the supply of gazebos and arched tents for parks of culture and recreation. Since the end of 2020, it has been owned by a resident of Tula, Alexei Patrikeev, who until recently worked as an ordinary electrician.
The contract for the improvement of the Shchukinsky forest park, the cost of work in which may be 3.1 billion rubles, was received by the rising star of the capital’s improvement market – the company AKP Stroy-invest. In 2019-2021, the company received almost 5.7 billion rubles from the Moscow Mayor’s Office for the improvement of the territories around the new metro stations. It soon became clear that the main owner of AKP Stroy-invest is the producer of political talk shows. Vladimir Solovyov Margarita Zhitnitskaya. She also owns the VM Development company, which owns a TV pavilion on Pravda Street, where many political talk shows are filmed for the Rossiya-1 and TVC channels. After the first publications in the press, Zhitnitskaya left the founders of AKP Stroy-invest. Now the sole owner of the company is 33-year-old Artem Pavlovsky, the son of the former Russian Consul General in New York. However, the company is still registered in a small office building on Pravda Street, which is shared by Zhitnitskaya’s companies and Dr. Myasnikov’s clinic (Zhitnitskaya is the producer of his TV show “About the Most Important Thing”).
“Pokrovskoe-Streshnevo”
The landscaping of the Pokrovskoye-Streshnevo park is carried out by the Genstroy company, which is associated with the Artstroytekhnologiya holding, which was engaged in the reconstruction of the Northern River Station. Although the company began its work in Moscow with contracts for the improvement of city cemeteries. Over the past five years, Artstroytekhnologiya and related companies have received more than 8.5 billion rubles worth of contracts from the mayor’s office. The cost of landscaping 164 hectares in Pokrovsky-Streshnevo could be about 7.4 billion rubles.
The contractor for the improvement of the Yauza floodplain in the Severnoye Medvedkovo area is the I-group company. This and related companies “Engineering Group” and “Bask” are long-standing contractors of the metropolitan improvement boom. In recent years, these companies have received more than 12.6 billion rubles worth of contracts from the mayor’s office. Despite the stable receipt of government orders, the owners of these companies are constantly changing.
The company’s balance sheet includes several dozen luxury cars, including a Maybach, which is often used by 39-year-old Alexander Voloshin, who previously worked at the state-owned Moszelenhoz. Judging by the Yandex.Food database leaked to the Internet, Voloshin and his wife live on the top, 33rd floor of a high-rise building on Kotelnicheskaya Embankment. Most of the top management of the holding in the late 2000s worked at the city hall’s enterprise, Moszelenkhoz. At that time, before the start of a large-scale street improvement program, landscaping was considered one of the most corrupt topics. Engineering Group received its first contracts from Moszelenkhoz.
According to MSK1.RU estimates, in 2022 ANO Development of Urban Technologies signed contracts for the improvement of parks for more than 32.5 billion rubles.
– Financing of work for the implementation of the program (improvement of the urban environment. – Note ed.) is carried out in strict accordance with the approved limits, on the basis of which the improvement projects included in the program are concluded and implemented, – answered MSK1.RU in the press service of the capital repairs department city of Moscow to the question about the cost of contracts.
An official from the Municipal Economy Complex confirmed to MSK1.RU that “the order of numbers is comparable,” but declined to give the exact number.
Don’t go into private property
As MSK1.RU was informed in the press service of the overhaul department, formally the founder of ANO was the Mosremont state institution subordinate to the department, which is engaged in the repair of buildings of police departments at the expense of the same city budget. However, according to the “All-Russian classifier of forms of ownership”, any autonomous non-profit enterprise, even if its founder is the state, belongs to the category of “private property”. And this allows them, while remaining formally state-owned, not only to receive budget funding, but also to circumvent the requirements for state organizations.
In addition to the law on public procurement, there is a law on the civil service that establishes the number of people and the level of salaries in state organizations, the Electronic Budget system that is mandatory for use by government agencies, and many other small and large restrictions, including reports on the use of budget funds.
In addition to the ANO “Development of Urban Technologies”, the Department of Capital Repairs has several subordinate organizations – the state institution “MoszhilNIIproekt”, the joint-stock company “MosvodokanalNIIproekt”, which conduct bidding for landscaping, using the facilitated public procurement procedure established by federal law (FZ-223).
When asked what the advantage of conducting public procurement through non-profit organizations is, the press service of the Department of Capital Repairs of the city of Moscow said:
– There are no advantages – this is just a form of bringing budget funds within the framework of the current legislation. In accordance with the regulatory and legislative framework, depending on the legal form of the enterprise, there are different sources of bringing funds in the form of state assignments. In this case, the form of communication is subsidies and grants.
“And then there will be no time to build”
The first state ANOs were established under the Government of Russia in 2012. Now there are more than a thousand such organizations registered. Some of the most famous are the Organizing Committee Russia 2018 (responsible for organizing and hosting the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia), TV Novosti (Russia Today TV channel), and the Russian Science Foundation (grants for scientific projects). In fact, by creating such organizations, the state bypasses the regulatory requirements for public administration, which it itself has established.
“Only to prepare and carry out a large purchase before the contractor enters the facility, it takes about six months of approvals, examinations, and checks,” an official of the City Administration Complex of the Moscow Government gave this explanation to MSK1.RU. – So there will be no time to build. The creation of non-profit organizations is necessary to accelerate the construction process.
For example, at the very beginning of the pandemic, the infectious diseases hospital in New Moscow was built from scratch and opened in one month.
“Yes, it was a shock construction site,” another official from the Moscow mayor’s office added. “But if the construction proceeded in compliance with all the requirements that the law imposes on state organizations, then the construction would take at least a year and a half.
“ANO status allows to implement projects that are important for the country, when you need a quick result, and not compliance with formalities”
MSK1.RU source in the Moscow City Hall
No reporting
Almost every department of the Moscow Mayor’s Office has created its own non-profit organizations for the implementation of “special projects”. In autumn 2021, Moscow became the first city in the CIS countries in which restaurants handed over stars of the prestigious Michelin gastronomy guide.
At that time, nine Moscow restaurants received Michelin stars, and another 45 establishments were recommended for visiting. ANO “Project office for the development of tourism and hospitality of Moscow”, created by the city committee for tourism, was responsible for the implementation of the project. The head of the committee, Ekaterina Pronicheva, said that in order to implement the project, it was necessary to “create from scratch an institution that could sign an agreement on the part of Moscow: by decision of the mayor, it became the Project Office for the Development of Tourism and Hospitality of Moscow,” an autonomous non-profit organization financed from the budget cities”. It was ANO that paid for the work of foreign inspectors in Moscow.
— Michelin provides services on a reimbursable basis. I can’t name the amount – we are bound by a non-disclosure agreement, ”the head of the tourism committee said earlier in an interview.
According to the ANO report posted on the website of the Ministry of Justice, in 2021 the company implemented two projects (we are talking about the Russpass digital platform and the discovermoscow.com website). Another 964.8 million rubles were spent on the project “Development of the city of Moscow as an international tourist and cultural center” (probably, under this name the special project “Michelin in Moscow” is hidden). True, the main item in the ANO budget was “administrative expenses” (salaries, office rent), almost 1.1 billion rubles were spent on them.
Some stand-alone nonprofits don’t break down their expenses at all. For example, ANO “My District”, which is engaged in a yard improvement project, the creation of sports and dog playgrounds, in its reporting indicates that in 2021 the organization spent 14.4 billion budget funds on “activities within the framework of the statutory activities”, and another 26 million rubles for “other statutory activities”. ANO “My District” does not publish any more detailed reporting on its activities.
Through ANO faster
In 2019, the ANO “Development of Social Technologies” appeared under the capital’s construction department, through which contracts for the construction of hospitals and schools pass. It was created by the mayor’s order to “provide services to promote the development of social infrastructure.” The most famous project of the ANO was the urgent construction of an infectious diseases hospital in New Moscow in the first months after the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Then in one month on a plot of 40 hectares in the village of Voronovo were built 50 one-story buildings, designed for 800 patients.
At the same time, about 11 thousand builders and more than 1.5 thousand pieces of construction equipment from dozens of different contractors worked at the construction site in three shifts.
– There was only one direction – as quickly as possible. And then to carry out the calculation of the cost and re-approve the estimates, – reported to Vedomosti official of the construction complex of Moscow.
Experts estimated the construction of the hospital at 16-22 billion rubles. According to ANO reports, the project turned out to be more expensive – 22.7 billion rubles were spent on the construction of the hospital.
Despite the end of the pandemic, ANO Development of Social Technologies continued to build social facilities. But, unlike other ANOs of the Moscow Government, builders publicly announce tenders on their website. Now the company is looking for contractors to build a building in the hospital of St. Vladimir for almost 11.1 billion rubles and a school for 1,100 places in the Molzhaninovsky district for 2.4 billion rubles.
