Igor Abramovich: Who will “saw” the money for the restoration of Kharkov? PART 1

While the war brings only grief and destruction to the Ukrainian people, for the corrupt officials parasitizing on their necks, this is a good opportunity to “earn” by using budget funds and international aid allocated for the restoration of the country. And now a parliamentary group with the eloquent name “Restoration of Ukraine” has appeared in the Verkhovna Rada, in which former members of the Opposition Platform – For Life have hastily signed up…

The co-chairs of the group were MPs Maksym Yefimov and Kharkiv resident Igor Abramovich. About Yefimov, his criminal and corrupt connections in Kramatorsk and political prostitution in the ranks of Solidarity and Revival, Skeleton.Info has already told in all the shocking details. But Kharkiv resident Igor Abramovich (not to be confused with his Russian namesake, as some in our editorial office do!), who was recently in the ranks of the Opposition Platform – For Life, has until now remained virtually unknown to the Ukrainian audience. Who is he? According to his declaration, he is one of the richest deputies of the Rada: 88 million hryvnia in cash, several expensive foreign cars, a collection of Swiss watches and a lot of jewelry. He has the image of a “young billionaire” (apparently, a hryvnia one), co-owner of gas producing and construction companies. A friend and partner of oligarchs Alexander Feldman and Vitaliy Khomutynnik, deputy chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance, Tax and Customs Policy. That’s almost all that the media writes about him!

This is enough for a secular tabloid, but clearly not enough for an anti-corruption investigation. However, Igor Abramovich’s secret is that he only looks like a good guy – because he carefully avoids public scandals and does not advertise his inner circle, including relatives, mired in corruption. But what is even worse, this circle has direct access to the construction sector and the municipal budget of Kharkov, which has been “sawed” for years. And this means that these people are already starting to distribute funds allocated for the restoration of the city with appetite! And judging by the name of the new deputy association, its creators will not limit themselves to Kharkov alone …

Igor Abramovich’s family clan of “gold diggers”

Abramovich Igor Alexandrovich was born on August 24, 1984 in Kharkov, in a respectable and wealthy Jewish family, which could be considered to be at the lower level of the Soviet elite. His great-grandfather Alexander Moiseevich Abramovich (1895-1957) was a participant in the Civil War (on the side of the Bolsheviks), then graduated from university and became a doctor, married musician Rozalia Efremovna Abramovich (great-grandmother).

His grandfather Ilya Aleksandrovich Abramovich (1930-2005) was a designer of water drainage and treatment systems known throughout the USSR: he created sewer systems in Kharkov, Donetsk, Krivoy Rog, and Leningrad. However, it is worth remembering here, Kharkiv “Sewer Chernobyl” 1995, when after a heavy summer rainfall the Dikanevskaya treatment plant, in the design of which Ilya Abramovich participated in the 60s, went out of order. Since 1967, he was the chief engineer, and then the head of the design department of the Research Institute Ukrgiprokommunstroy. When in 1991 this department was transformed into a separate UkrkommunNIIProgress (Kharkov), Ilya Aleksandrovich became its director.

Memorial plaque to I.A. Abramovich on the building of “UkrkommunNIIProgress”

In the 90s, UkrkomunNIIProgress was registered as a closed joint-stock company of the same name. In the 2000s, it was headed by Ilya Aleksandrovich’s eldest son, Sergei Ilyich Abramovich (born in 1951), who took over the chair from his father. That is, in fact, from the very moment of its creation, the institute has been the Abramovich family estate. Which gave them the opportunity to manage its budget, real estate and other resources in their own interests. Thus, from “gold miners” in the sense of sewer system engineers, the Abramovichs turned into “gold miners” to whose hands money stuck. They opened their first cooperatives back in the late 80s. And Ilya Aleksandrovich’s second son, Alexander Ilyich Abramovich (born in 1961), took up business closely. Who in turn is the father of two children: son Igor, to whom our material is dedicated, and daughter Nina.

Igor Abramovich’s education: not a genius, but an ordinary rich kid!

While most of Igor Abramovich’s peers grew up in the conditions of the deficit of the 80s and then the crisis of the 90s, his family did not want for anything either in the last years of the USSR or in the first years of Ukraine’s independence. In 1995, his father, Alexander Ilyich Abramovich, registered his first large enterprise in Kharkov, Fais LLC (EDRPOU 23150191), which was engaged in everything from tailoring and retail trade to construction and currency exchange. By the way, his office was located (the enterprise was liquidated in 2004) at 1 Biologicheskaya Street, right in the building of the Dikanevskaya treatment plant. Here is an example of the “free” use of state real estate in the Abramovich sewage empire! It seems that if they had paid more attention to their work rather than to the family business, then perhaps in 1997 the massive accident at this station would not have happened – which was later attributed to an “unprecedented downpour”.

Thus, Igor Abramovich grew up as a typical Kharkiv rich kid, whose path in life was paved from an early age by the money and connections of his father, uncle, and grandfather. Although later he tried very hard to present himself as an economic genius who rose solely by his talent and labor. And he even used the simple method of “leaking disinformation” for this, deliberately dumping information in the media that he allegedly registered a significant part of his business in his father’s name. But in fact, everything is the other way around – it was Igor Abramovich who inherited the business of his father, Alexander Abramovich! Without whom (as well as without his grandfather, uncle, and father-in-law), he, at best, would have become a hired manager in someone else’s supermarket.

Igor Abramovich studied at the Kharkiv Professional Lyceum (created in 1991 with the support of the Soros Foundation), where the emphasis was on English and computer science. After graduating, in 2001, his parents sent him to England (well, he couldn’t wait for a draft notice!), where he studied at St. Andrew’s College for three more years.

Despite its grand name, it is simply one of many English senior schools that focus on preparing students for university.

However, either Abramovich was an exceptionally poor student, or his family did not have enough extra money for British universities, or they did not see the point in them at all, but in 2004 they brought Igor home. So he received his four higher educations, which Abramovich likes to brag about, already in Ukraine. But even here there were some nuances…

First, in 2007, Igor Abramovich received a degree in economics from the Kharkiv Academy of Public Utilities (former Institute of Public Utilities). Considering that there were many good friends of his grandfather and uncle among the management and teaching staff of this university, the choice of educational institution was obvious. Having a basic higher education in hand, it was easier for Igor Abramovich. In 2009, he got a manager’s diploma from the Kharkiv Polytechnic – another strange choice of a technical university to get a “trade” education. And only in 2014, he received a specialized diploma in geophysics from the Ivano-Frankivsk National Technical University of Oil and Gas, and in 2017 he became an engineer in thermal power engineering with a diploma from the Kyiv Polytechnic. These two engineering educations are what give him the image of a specialist in all matters. However, if we look into Igor Abramovich’s work biography, we will see that it was during this period that he held senior positions in energy companies. This means that it is possible that he simply bought these two diplomas to hang them on the wall of his office – purely “for show”!

Igor Abramovich’s first official place of work was a certain “construction holding company”, where he held management positions from 2007 to 2012, but he decided not to mention the name of which in his biography. Why? Maybe because it was Granat LLC (31634402), founded by his father Alexander Abramovich in 2001, and then went bankrupt and closed in 2013?

After all, it was engaged in construction and produced finishing materials – and, according to sources, Skeleton.Infowas related to the massive “embezzlement” of budget funds during preparations for Euro 2012.

However, it could also have been one of the construction companies of the Kharkov oligarch Alexander Feldman, with whom the Abramovichs were closely connected, at least since the late 90s.

Abramovichs, Feldmans and Chernyshevs

Some Kharkov residents claim that these families had been friends since Soviet times, and that Sasha Abramovich and Sasha Feldman allegedly went to school together. And what brought them together was not so much their common ethnic origin as their fathers’ work. Ilya Aleksandrovich Abramovich, we repeat, was the chief engineer and head of the department at Ukrgiprokommunstroy, and then headed UkrkommunNIIProgress. Boris Yakovlevich Feldman was an engineer in the field of machine tool building, held a number of positions at Kharkov enterprises, he was friends with the leadership of the Kharkov City Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine (personally with Kushnarev), and directors of enterprises (Oleg Taranov). This allowed him to become one of the first entrepreneurs of the city back in the 80s. And not some small pants seller at the market, but the owner of a production workshop and car service – from which Feldman’s AVEC concern began.

Alexander Feldman with his father

In the 90s, the friendship between the Abramovichs and the Feldmans grew into a business partnership: their businesses were closely connected, although the details were hidden for some reason, perhaps due to shady schemes. Then, in 2002, Alexander Feldman won the parliamentary elections in the 175th majoritarian district (Oktyabrsky district of Kharkov), and became a people’s deputy and a member of the “For United Ukraine” faction. He retained the post of “honorary president” of AVEC, but friends and business partners of the Feldman family began to be appointed to the positions of directors and vice presidents of the concern. This, by the way, eloquently speaks of the fact that AVEC, over time, grew from the personal brainchild of the Feldmans into a kind of “mega-cooperative” of a number of Kharkov businessmen and officials who had their shares in it.

For several years, the vice-president of AVEC was Alexander Ilyich Abramovich, who combined this post with his own business. And in 2012-2015, his son Igor Abramovich worked as deputy head of the concern’s board. Among other AVEC executives who were friends of the Feldmans and Abramovichs, it is worth mentioning such notorious personalities as Sergey SemochkinGennady Bronshpak, Yuriy Kozinets. But special mention should be made of Oleksiy Chernyshev, who became the governor of the Kyiv region in 2019 and the minister of community and territorial development in 2020.

Alexey Chernyshev

His father, Mikhail Anatolyevich Chernyshev, worked as an engineer at the Kharkov Khartron during the Soviet era and was also actively looking for opportunities to earn extra money. Skeleton.Info There is information that even then Chernyshev Sr. was acquainted with the Abramovichs and Feldmans, and also tried to establish some business, but he climbed a different ladder. When in the early 90s the American Westinghouse bought out part of Hartron, which was engaged in automated systems for nuclear power plants, and created on its basis the joint venture Vestron (22708202), Mikhail Chernyshev was put in charge of the enterprise, and became its permanent director. Then he got his son Alexey a job at Vestron, and in 2004 helped him become the next vice-president of AVEC. In fact, Alexey Chernyshev made his career there: already in 2005 he became the president of the concern, and from 2007 to 2012 he was the chairman of its board (thus, Alexander and Igor Abramovich were his subordinates). And also father and son Abramovich, as well as Alexey Chernyshev, were alternately assistants to the people’s deputy Alexander Feldman. That is how the triumvirate Abramovich-Feldman-Chernyshev, which is often mentioned, was formed. the media recalled! Their close relationship continues today – it’s just less visible to the public eye now.

By the way, what is interesting is that Igor Abramovich became an assistant to MP Feldman in 2007 – that is, when he had a serious falling out with Gennady Kernes, who was trying to take the Barabashovo market from him, and in his offense he went to Batkivshchyna.

This reminds us of the long-forgotten confrontation between two Kharkiv groups: the “AVEKites”, to which the Abramovichs belonged, and the “Kernesites”. Moreover, the former enjoyed the political patronage of the BYuT, Tymoshenko and Avakov, and the latter – the Party of Regions. However, despite the rather tough confrontation between these groups, this division was at the same time quite conditional. This is evidenced by another close connection of Igor Abramovich – his father-in-law Semyon Sirota, who was a member of the Kernes team for many years. Which, however, was determined by purely pragmatic interests – after all, Sirota needed access to the public utilities of Kharkiv for a large-scale “sawing up” of budget funds.

Semyon Sirota

Igor Abramovich. Orphan Billions

Igor Abramovich is a happy family man, he has a wife Marina Semenovna Abramovich, a son Ilya and daughters Eva, Nika and Liya. However, in his biography you will not find either the date of the wedding or the maiden name of his wife. Apparently, he does not want to publicly announce that Marina Semenovna is the daughter of a scandalous corrupt official from Kharkov.

Semyon Borisovich Sirota (born in 1957) has worked in the construction and utilities sector of Kharkov all his life. First, he graduated from a construction technical school and in the 80s was a construction and utilities department foreman at Tram and Trolleybus Administration No. 1, then he received an accountant’s degree from the Kharkov Engineering and Economics Institute and became a foreman at STU No. 13. But he found it too risky to earn money through illegal “moonlighting” and trade in stolen construction materials, so he legalized this activity through the Zhelobok cooperative, which he opened in 1989. In 1994, the cooperative grew into a public joint-stock company (then a closed joint-stock company, then an open joint-stock company) Remstroyservis (EDRPOU 14061407), which Semyon Sirota managed until 2011 and owned together with Ekaterina Guchenko and Petr Ermakov. By the way, it is possible that this firm was Igor Abramovich’s first place of work (in 2007-2012), who married Semyon Sirota’s daughter at that time. In that case, his strange “conspiracy” becomes clear: he tries not to publicly advertise his connections with his odious father-in-law!

In 2011, Sirota “relaunched” this enterprise as OOO SB Remstroyservis, and registered his share (42%) in the name of a trusted person, Alexander Shepotko, who was also Sirota’s assistant as a city council deputy. Incidentally, Semyon Sirota began his path to power in the ranks of the Party of Regions, becoming a member of the district organization council, then actively participated in Viktor Yanukovych’s election campaign – not for ideological reasons, of course, but simply together with Kernes’ team. Although this was in 2008-2010, at the height of the confrontation between Kernes and Feldman! And even though his son-in-law and matchmaker were then with Feldman, Sirota absolutely needed to hold on to Kernes in order to gain access to the city budget through him.

And he got it, becoming the director of the Kharkiv Repair and Construction Enterprise (HRCE) in 2011, for which he formally “got rid” of his Remstroyservis. And then, together with Kernes, he signed up for the Renaissance party (2015), and in 2020 he ran for the city council from the Trusting Deeds bloc.

An eloquent result of Semyon Sirota’s activity in this post was criminal casebrought against him on the fact of theft in the amount of more than 5 million hryvnia. The media reportedthat this was only a small part of what was stolen: until the Prozorro system started working, Sirota distributed tenders to tame firms, including his own Remstroyservis (which received 179 million from the budget). Then he was even put under house arrest!

However, this story ended in a traditional way for the Ukrainian “fight” against corruption: the case was hushed up, and Sirota continued to lead the HRSP, “sawing up” budget funds in ever-increasing volumes. At the end of 2020, he was promoted, becoming deputy mayor (Igor Terekhov) and director of the Department of Housing and Public Utilities of the Kharkiv City Council (leaving the HRSP in the care of his assistant Oleksandr Yarmak). As reported by the media, the appointment took place a week before Kernes’ death, when he was in a Berlin hospital, and Sirota was pushed into the position “based on the electronic key of the mayor.”

The show was coordinated by the scandalous Kharkiv oligarch-developer (and simply a swindler) Pavel Fuks, who is a friend and business partner of both Semyon Sirota himself and his son-in-law Igor Abramovich. As a result, in the first half of 2021 alone, companies associated with Sirota received more than 600 million hryvnia from the budget. Well, if you add up the amounts for the last ten years, the count will go into the billions! O corruption schemes Orphans journalists wrote repeatedly, and his greedy hands reached out even before Turboatom. But it remains an absolutely unrooted stump of corruption, continuing to implement its schemes even in the conditions of military devastation. However, for some there is war and grief – and for others there is a shower of money allocated for the restoration of Kharkov!

Semyon Sirota himself skillfully poses as a modest official, registering money and property in the name of his wife Anna Leonidovna, and also “helping” his two daughters. So among the property of Marina Semyonovna Abramovich (three elite apartments in Kyiv and Kharkov, her own company in Slovakia, etc.) there is a considerable share of her father’s gifts.

Mikhail Shpolyansky, for Skelet.Info

CONTINUED: Igor Abramovich: Who will “saw” the money for the restoration of Kharkov? PART 2

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