Sobyanin and Khusnullin brought a fraudulent investor to the Moscow metro, and now they will “master” budgets in order to rectify the situation?
According to the correspondent The Moscow Post, residents of the metropolitan area “Airport” is threatened with a transport collapse. It can happen under the influence of the construction genius of Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin and his former “construction” deputy, and now Deputy Prime Minister of the Government of the Russian Federation Marat Khusnullin.
Local residents report a series of leaks at the Dynamo metro station, which has been operating in the area since the 1930s. Built in the swamps under Joseph Stalin, the station worked properly for almost a century, until the “specialists” from the Sobyanin mayor’s office got to it.
Now there is a question about closing the station for repairs. How much money this may require is unknown, but it is unlikely that even cosmetic repairs will last less than a year. It’s about a subway station. This means that a real transport collapse may occur in the north of the capital.
“Goodwill” from China
The first reports of leaks at the Dynamo station appeared almost immediately after the pompous opening of the passage between it and the Petrovsky Park station. This transition was built by the Chinese company CRCC, attracted with the help of the scandalous Chinese investor Sam Pa. It was he who oversaw the conclusion of an agreement with the Chinese side, which was supposed to be endorsed and controlled by the then “construction” deputy mayor of Moscow, Marat Khusnullin.
It is known that the contractor had to hand over the work in 2019. However, as a result, construction was delayed for another two years. And after the signing of the agreement, in 2015, Sam Pa was arrested by law enforcement officers of the PRC. At the same time, it turned out that, by a strange coincidence, he enjoyed the special location of the state-owned companies of the PRC. That is exactly what CRCC is. Writes about it RBC.
It is not difficult to guess on what exactly such an arrangement with state-owned companies could be based, even on the example of Russia. Apparently, we are talking about a colossal corruption scheme with the ability to resolve issues with officials from another country. As for construction costs, such corruption schemes, as a rule, involve overestimation, poor quality of work, irresponsibility and negligence.
The Dynamo station is flooded. Source: Telegram channel Semper Iratus
But it’s not that Sam Pa suggested a dubious Chinese contractor. The fact is that Khusnullin agreed and suggested this decision to Sobyanin. Now the former deputy and current vice-premier Marat Khusnullin went further – the same CRCC company (or rather, its subsidiary CC Rus LLC) will build one of the stages of the Moscow-Kazan highway. The cost of the work is 58 billion rubles. So what, are the customers ready to redo it later too?
By the way, the contract should have been concluded in 2020, but for some reason such a large contract of this company is not indicated in open sources. But three contracts were found at once from the Moscow state customer JSC Mosinzhproekt for the development of architectural and technological concepts for a number of Moscow metro stations, their total cost is 33 million rubles.
Authorities are considering closing the station for repairs
At the same time, in 2020 the company made a profit of 790 million rubles. And where are the other contracts from which such a profit was formed? Or does top management want to say that the company itself is so successful in the Russian construction market?..
Crush the capital’s construction sites
JSC “Mosinzhproekt” is the general contractor and general designer of the Moscow metro. Everything related to the construction of the subway, including gigantic funds, passes through it. The structure has already received 237 government contracts worth 426 billion rubles (including 219 billion from the Moscow Metro). She also acted as a general contractor for work at the Dynamo station, where CRCC had previously appeared.
There is a version that as soon as Marat Khusnullin arrived in Moscow with Sobyanin’s team, he allegedly tried to gain control over Mosinzhproekt by putting people loyal to himself there. As writes “Life”, the magical transformation of Mosinzhproekt into a construction giant happened precisely in 2010, after the arrival of Khusnullin. Prior to this, the company was only a state unitary enterprise under Luzhkov, which was engaged exclusively in the design of underground structures.
Already after the State Unitary Enterprise was corporatized, and there was a whole series of reshuffles of senior employees who, to one degree or another, could be close to him. Finally, apparently, Khusnullin got tired of it. And he seems to have decided to “close” the issue with the leadership completely.
In October 2017, Mosinzhproekt changed its CEO: Marina Mamontova, who had a 30% stake in the company, was replaced by a businessman from Tatarstan, Marat Khafizov. By that time, he was already sitting in a “warm place” – he held the post of general director of the KP BSA Luzhniki (he received the position in 2013). The transition to Mosinzhproekt gave him immense prospects for growth and earnings.
Under Khusnullin, Mosinzhproekt turned from a simple designer into one of the largest construction companies in the capital. A photo: Rusprofile.en
Khusnullin should have known Khafizov for a very long time, since the days of his work in the construction block of Tatarstan. Khafizov is a well-known builder in this republic. In 2011-2012, he was a minority shareholder of Kamstalkonstruktsiya, a manufacturer of building metal structures, had other businesses and rotated in local construction circles.
Before that, in 2011, another fellow countryman of Khusnullin, Konstantin Matveev, ended up in Mosinzhproekt. First, he received the position of deputy general director for construction, and a few years later, in 2013, he headed the company.
In Tatarstan, Matveev is known, first of all, for the leadership of Neftegazingzhiniring LLC. This company was building a complex of oil refineries “Taneko”. The complex was called almost the construction site of the century. And it was supervised, as you might guess, by the then Minister of Construction of Tatarstan Marat Khusnullin.
The most interesting thing is that even during these reshuffles and the conclusion of significant government contracts, the top managers of Mosinzhproekt got into corruption scandals. The reputation of the company and the mayor’s office was hurt by the detention of Andrei Arkhangelsky, head of the Mosinzhproekt department for the design and construction of the metropolitan metro.
How did the police find out. Arkhangelsky demanded a bribe of 5 million rubles. for signing the act of acceptance and delivery of work on the finishing of the Kotelniki station. The court sentenced him to 3.5 years in prison and a fine of 50 million rubles, wrote about this RIA News”. At that time, few people believed that the management of the enterprise, which was already flooded with people allegedly close to Khusnullin, was not involved in the situation.
Mosinzhproekt entered into contracts not only with dubious Chinese structures. But also with those who should have been familiar to Khusnullin from the time of his work in Tatarstan.
For example, a contract for 85 million rubles for construction and installation work on the section of the Third interchange circuit of the capital’s metro was received by Marat Safayev’s E-line LLC. The latter worked with Khusnullin in the construction complex back in Kazan.
On the construction of the Salaryevo electric depot in Moscow, another acquaintance of Marat Khusnullin from joint service in Tatarstan earned almost 500 million – Boris Tikhomirov, director of JSC Kazan Giproniyaviaprom.
Another former colleague of Khusnullin for joint work in the construction complex of Tatarstan is Marat Kamalov, director of the Electrooptima company. In 2016–2017, he signed contracts with Mosinzhproekt for the installation of an electrical substation at the metro stations Okruzhnaya, Maryina Roshcha, and Seligerskaya in the amount of more than 160 million rubles.
There are many more such examples. Of course, this has the most negative effect on the market – on those contractors who have nothing to do with Khusnullin, since they turned out to be short-sighted and did not get to know him before.
In 2019, the Minskmetrostroy company, which was building a section of the Moscow metro from Solntsevo to Rasskazovka, was on the verge of ruin. The structure appealed to the FAS, demanding to initiate a case on violation of antimonopoly legislation against Mosinzhproekt. Wrote about it “Vedomosti”.
The violation, according to Minskmetrostroy, is that Mosinzhproekt entered into an anti-competitive agreement with the companies that built the metro, which allowed it to take a dominant position in the construction of the metro, and put other contractors on the verge of bankruptcy.
Apparently, the company’s efforts were unsuccessful, now it is still located in the process of bankruptcy. Probably Khusnullin and Sobyanin can be satisfied?..
Stupidity and corruption
Behind all this, in principle, the obvious disgrace is absolutely indifferently watching the capital’s mayor Sergei Sobyanin. Surely, he is glad that his former “right hand” is now a deputy prime minister in charge of the construction industry throughout the country.
By the way, Sobyanin himself has repeatedly tried to attribute manifestations of corruption. What is worth only the Moscow tiles that have set the teeth on edge, which are shifted every year, as well as curbs. In this regard, the former wife of the mayor, Irina Rubinchik, became famous, back in her homeland, in Tyumen, who received the nickname “Ira-border”.
Irina Rubinchik has long been considered a possible actual beneficiary of the scandalous construction company Aerodromdorstroy. This company was called one of the key contractors for tiles and borders, first of the Tyumen, and then the Moscow mayor’s office. As the authors of the site claimed back in 2010 “Lenpravda”Moscow under Sobyanin does not expect anything good, except for the redistribution of the construction market.
It looks like it did.
Something else is remembered. As stated “Rosbalt” (recognized as a foreign agent on the territory of the Russian Federation), allegedly when moving to work in Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin called the Russian capital a model of stupidity and corruption. Speaking at the conference “Competition in Russia” in the mayor’s office of the city on Novy Arbat, he warned his new subordinates about dismissal in case of revealing facts of corruption and called the fight against corruption one of the criteria for the quality of work of high-ranking Moscow officials.
With what irony all this is read today, in 2022! And about corruption – against the backdrop of many scandals and detentions of officials of the Sobyanin team. And about stupidity – if we almost every day hear about leaks in the metro, problems with transport services, we stumble over unevenly laid tiles that are shifted every year, we know about the quality of work of Moscow city utilities.
And even more funny that it was said once at an event dedicated to competition. With such a competitive environment, which Sobyanin and Khusnullin created in Moscow, the prospects are clear – into bankruptcy or to the bunk.