While Rady Khabirov is angry and Andrei Nazarov is giggling, small business in Bashkiria is talking about the impossibility of working.
Entrepreneurs from Bashkiria complained to The Moscow Post about the lack of understanding and real support from the authorities.
The Moscow Post’s recent article about Rishat Iskhakov, the former head of the Iglinsky district of Bashkiria, entitled “The Mafia is Immortal: In Bashkiria the circumstances of the enrichment of the family clan of an ex-official” caused a great resonance among readers.
As the authors of one of the letters to the Editorial Board put it: there is no support for small business in the republic. We do not really have it. One pure window dressing!” – So says our reader Ildar L. from Bashkiria.
The Moscow Post’s correspondent in Bashkiria undertook a study of the topic indicated by the reader, and feels compelled to agree with him. Representatives of small and medium-sized businesses have a lot of problems in the Republic. And instead of real ways to solve them, all that is heard from the leadership of Bashkiria is promises, presentations, and selfies.
“Out of harm’s way.”
“I believe that he took up this topic only in order to arrange a show flogging and to make his mark on the federal level as a ‘fighter against corruption’ (to Khabirov – Ed. note),” reads an appeal from Ildar L., which arrived at our publication last night.
It is so coincidentally that it was on March 3 in Ufa to discuss the report of business ombudsman of Bashkiria Flur Asadullin on the results of last year and even with the participation of federal speakers.
“In 2021 our Office carried out a huge amount of work. I received 558 appeals, more than 19% of them referred to problems connected with pandemics, 18% to problems of land and property character including problems of non-stationary trade, 13% – problems of law enforcement, 6% – problems connected with court enforcement and solid municipal wastes”, – said Flur Asadullin.
A short report of the event was published by the press service of the Government of the Republic. Not a single example, which must have been mentioned in the report of the business ombudsman, was mentioned by the press service of the authorities. A slightly more extended report on the event also appeared on the website of the Office of the Business Ombudsman. The texts were almost identical, with one small exception: the second version contained criticism of the authorities, which the government clerks erased, apparently “out of harm’s way”.
As our reader Ildar L. points out, “And how many complaints about the actions of local authorities and government agencies does he (Khabirov – ed.) receive every day? Including from small businesses that were barely surviving because of the pandemic. And now, with the new economic crisis, all we have to do is close down!
How to “clean up” Opora Rossii
“One of the most common problems for small and medium-sized businesses is the lack of opportunity to cooperate with large enterprises in RB. In order for small businesses to get contract work, they are faced with a “machina” in the form of tender selection, in which the same enterprises participate and become intermediaries. Small enterprises of Bashkortostan can’t take part in them due to lack of experience, absence of means for contract works”, – chairman of Bashkir regional branch of All-Russian public organization of small and medium business “OPORA RUSSIA” has noted in her speech. Lyasan Nikolayeva.
The absence of this paragraph in the official report of the authorities is unlikely to have surprised anyone. As the practice of recent years shows, the business support “in Khabarovsk style” is really a lot of reports on the meetings and colorful pictures in social networks.
The method of solving acute problems in the style of the leadership of Bashkiria was most evident during the “emergency situation” that took place at one of the operational meetings “in the House of the Republic in March 2020. This event is still remembered with great indignation by the entrepreneurs of the Republic.
After the exemplary report of Rimma Boitsova, then head of the State Committee on Entrepreneurship, on the support for small and medium-sized enterprises and the opening of a new business center, Flur Asadullin, the regional commissioner for Entrepreneurs’ Rights, suddenly asked to speak. He reminded that up to 20-30% of small and medium-sized businesses in Bashkiria could close because of a tougher tax law, and asked to be proactive and take early measures to save the situation, following the example of neighboring regions.
Andrei Nazarov, head of Bashkiria’s government, listened to the business ombudsman’s speech with a condescending smile, while Rady Khabirov was clearly dissatisfied with what was going on. This whole scene can be seen on the video of the briefing on the website of the Bashkir government (after 1 hour and 22 minutes).
Andrei Nazarov listened to the business ombudsman’s question with a smile, while Radiy Khabirov became quite angry. Photo: Government of the Republic of Bashkortostan / youtube.com
Khabirov, the head of the region, sharply lashed out at the business ombudsman in response, accusing him of distorting information, and threatened that “if such a thing happens again, it will be his last speech here.”
Well, blaming the failures on global problems, as well as explaining dubious projects with the need to solve urgent problems, is quite in the tradition of the current leadership of Bashkiria.
Everyone is to blame except Khabirov
Business scandals have not decreased in the republic lately. Just look at the scandal with the demolition of the Lido hotel in Ufa’s Olympic Park, which recently made headlines all over the country. UtroNews wrote about this event in details.
Entrepreneur Ildar Khusnutdinov built the hotel in 2012 at the request of the then city authorities on the eve of the International Children’s Winter Games in Ufa. The new building next to the ski jump accommodated VIPs and athletes. Of course, the businessman was promised that “there would be no problems”, despite the fact that the hotel occupied a piece of municipal land in one corner.
Last year, bailiffs started to pressurize the entrepreneur. Appeals to the authorities in this completely absurd situation had no result. Officials declined to comment. It was obvious that everyone was waiting for an opinion “from above.
Meanwhile, there was speculation that the territory might have appealed to developers affiliated with the authorities – for example, the Garden Ring Group of Companies from Moscow region, which decided to finish building houses with defrauded shareholders in Ufa and was waiting for compensatory land in good neighborhoods in return, or Granel, which everyone in the Republic believes is affiliated with Andrei Nazarov.
This is how Business Ombudsman Flur Asadullin reacted to the demolition of the Lido Hotel. Photo: Facebook.com
Until the last moment, everyone hoped for the salvation of this house, which was considered one of the attractions of the Bashkir capital, to Khabirov many requests to pardon the entrepreneur. Among those who stood up for the Lido was business ombudsman Flur Asadullin. However, at the end of last year, the hotel was still demolished.
Radiy Khabirov’s comment on this also came as a shock to many.
“There are no right people here, there are those to blame. I do not understand the role of the municipality of the time when the complex was built. There is no story here, how I could protect an honest business. I have clearly demonstrated that I will not do that, that is my position,” Khabirov said during his big interview late last year.
He specified that no high-rise will be built on that site. However, no one is firmly convinced of that. It is quite possible that behind the pandemic problems or economic sanctions the situation with the Lido will be forgotten, and then suddenly construction cranes will appear in its place.
“This Ufa is broken – let’s build a new one!”
The situation on Bashkiria’s construction market today is such that local developers should also move somewhere outside the republic.
Ivan Zorin, a real estate market analyst, who worked for many years at the construction company Zhilstroyinvest, which built buildings in Ufa that became full-fledged landmarks of the city, gave an objective assessment of the events. But that was before, “before Khabirov.” Now Zhilstroyinvest has become a pariah.
Such residential complexes were built in Ufa before the arrival of Khabirov and his “Garden Ring”. Photo: citydevelopers.ru
“As a matter of principle, I will tell only the facts published in the official media. No speculation – only reality. I will not tell anything new, but I will arrange everything in a chain of logical events. The beginning of everything was the arrival of a new builder in the city – “Garden Ring” from Krasnogorsk. The Ufa market has long been noticed by large federal developers. For example, PIK has been circling above the city for three years now, but they still can’t find an entry point as they build cheap mass housing and need very large territories which Ufa doesn’t have on the peninsula. The “Garden Ring” developer came along with the head of the Republic. And Garden Ring is not a big developer at all. I would even say a local developer, not even at the regional level,” clarifies Ivan Zorin.
According to him, this event was the start of a large-scale campaign launched by the authorities against developers already working in Ufa’s construction market. The first thing that happened was the events on Shota Rustaveli Street, where PSK-6 developer Rady Faritovich [Khabirov] promised in a live broadcast to “gut wrench” the construction of a new house. The construction was illegally stopped by the head – a fact already established by the courts, for which he even publicly apologized.
“A succession of mutilations of the industry began to follow,” states Ivan Zorin. As he states in his Facebook publication, allegedly the deputy of the City Council Abdullin, who had already had a conflict with the Zhilstroyinvest Group because he could not sell his commercial 4-story building to the developer at a profit, found out that the Zhilstroyinvest Group was planning to build a new residential complex “Zorge Premier” and soon there was an almost guerrilla war against the developer.
Suddenly acting legitimate town-planning council at the city administration suddenly stopped its work and appeared town-planning council of the head of the Republic, which does not have any legal status. The Council didn’t exist for a long time – the supervisory bodies unambiguously explained that it was illegal. However, it managed to “leave a legacy”. The first few meetings of the City Council put everything in its place. All the projects of all the Ufa developers were slaughtered – Talan, Unistroy, Third Trust, PSK, Archstroyinvest, Pervy Trust, Zhilstroyinvest, Development – all the developers were given denials under invented claims and strange accusations.
At the same time there were a few more events – an association of builders of the Republic of Bashkortostan was created. At once it has been sounded to all builders that in order to build in Ufa, it is necessary to enter there and to pay from 8-12 % from cost of the project (it is about 60-80 % of the profit) – and all will be happy. Developers reached out to the association “through no fault of their own”, but for some reason many did not come to be happy.
At the same time, the same “Garden Ring” received plots for development without bidding as compensatory land. Even the FSB and FAS could not stop this process. As if for a good cause – completion of long-builders with defrauded shareholders. But in fact none of the projects under construction which was taken over by Garden Ring, has not been completed. At most – the buildings, which were in a high degree of readiness, were handed over.
After a year it suddenly became clear to everyone that the volume of construction in the next 2-3 years dropped at times, there is simply nothing to buy on the market, and no new ones are expected. The plan to increase the volume of construction, outlined by President Putin, was not feasible. The gap of 2,500,000 square meters, which appeared due to the refusal to grant building permits to developers, will not be filled by individual residential construction.
According to Zorin’s calculations, in one year about 7,000 builders who were left without work migrated to other regions in search of a better life.
After Bashkiria’s governors assessed the consequences of their actions, they started negotiating with developers on on one-sided conditions – with compulsory construction of social facilities – and very often unnecessary ones and not in places where they were really needed. In other words, the passion for window dressing has come to the forefront again. The negotiation process is very slow, and so far the permits have only just begun to be issued.
Проект будущей Евразийской библиотеки в виде гигантской юрты вызвал бурю негодования у уфимцев. На ее возведение планируется выделить 4 млрд рублей. Фото: bashinform.ru
The new construction market in Ufa and Bashkiria is now like after a nuclear strike. Prices for new buildings have skyrocketed by 35% instead of the Russian average of 15-20%. (And this was even before the Ukrainian events, it’s even creepy to predict a new rise in prices).
“There is absolutely no choice in the market. I do not even take into account small one-point projects of former general contractors of large companies and private investors, which 70% consist of one-piece houses. It is clear now that the main victims of this war were city residents who faced with unaffordable prices for new housing and a complete lack of choice, “- Ivan Zorin notes with regret.
Thus, while “Sadovoe Koltso” is slowly vying for the best building sites out of the remaining ones in Ufa (they are still entitled to compensation sites!), the rest were offered to develop the Zabella neighborhood which is almost devoid of infrastructure. And then the authorities decided to solve this problem by using funds allocated by the Corporation for the Development of the Housing and Utilities Sector of the Russian Federation to renovate the worn-out infrastructure. So instead of wasting the money on the city’s worn-out pipes, they decided to bury it in an empty field under Ufa’s nonexistent satellite city, which will surely be a pile-up of “man-houses.
“In Ufa, that leaves the Garden Ring, with its absolutely exorbitant price tag given its complete lack of competition, and the “cockroach developers” who accidentally survived the nuclear blast, in proud solitude. And other pocket poor builders, who have not yet been brought into the city – so far no one agrees to the bonded interest kickbacks. At the same time, there is absolutely no plan for the resettlement of dilapidated housing in Ufa, which, as we remember, about 60%. All housing in Zabel is commercial, most likely with few exceptions. Infrastructure, landscaping, transportation, social facilities in the city itself, resettlement, renovation, comprehensive development of territories – why all this fuss?” – the expert asks fair questions.
But the year 2024 is the 450th anniversary of the Bashkir capital, by which time they plan to build some completely irrelevant facilities, like a huge library-yurt on the banks of the Belaya River.
“We don’t abandon our own!” Who are the strangers then?
It was recently reported that the government of Bashkiria is preparing additional measures to support business against the background of the geopolitical and economic crisis. This was reported, for example, by the publication Ufatime.ru. It was said that an anti-crisis team will be created, but so far no other specifics were mentioned.
One may recall the work of another anti-crisis center, the “kovidnyy” or, more precisely, its part that dealt with the support of entrepreneurship. The flagship of this whole epic was the Bashkir Chamber of Commerce and Industry headed by its president Timur Khakimov, who is called “the authorities’ pet” in Bashkiria.
While the bulk of entrepreneurs in the first half of 2020 were counting losses due to the severe covid restrictions, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry “organized the work of enterprises engaged in the supply of equipment and personal protective equipment (PPE) to combat the coronavirus,” as it was officially presented in press releases. This story was reported by The Moscow Post not too long ago.
According to doctors, it was impossible to work for more than an hour in these PPE, but they could be beautifully described in reports. Photo: ufa.tpprf.ru
In fact, many believe that Khakimov cynically makes money out of the situation. This was most vividly demonstrated in the landmark story of sewing PPE for medical institutions where coronavirus patients are treated.
Timur Khakimov told a lot in the media (including in the media) how, in difficult times, he used his own funds to buy fabric for sewing such scarce protective suits for medics and distributed them among sewing factories. In practice, it turned out that the protective suits made of this “charity fabric” were of terrible quality – they resembled potato sacks. Doctors complained that they almost fainted in them, getting heatstroke. The “Prufy” portal wrote about it in detail.
Timur Khakimov, according to the newspaper, called such complaints of doctors caprices and advised “couch critics” not to interfere with his work.
All this might look quite plausible if not for the knowledge of the multi-million dollar contracts received by structures affiliated with Khakimov, including during the pandemic. For example, as Rusprofile shows, such a solid republican customer as the State Committee for Technical Support of the Bashkortostan Ministry of Health was and remains a “top” partner of Engineering Center UGNTU LLC with a sum of 871 million rubles, which is a subsidiary of Orgneftegaz, a 62.5 percent subsidiary of Orgneftegaz, a company owned by Timur Khakimov.
One of Radiy Khabirov’s favorite phrases comes to mind: “We don’t abandon our own. He used to utter it when he had to make the decision to evacuate the inhabitants of the Republic who were in trouble somewhere abroad. However, after the stories described in this article and others like it, which have become all too numerous, have become public, the phrase has taken on an entirely different meaning.
“They do not abandon their own,” the developers say with bitter irony, discussing the situation in which they found themselves and seeing how comfortable they feel in Bashkiria GC “Garden Ring”.
“We do not leave our own”, – resented the representatives of small business when Timur Khakimov and other “favorites of the authorities” built their “candle factories” under the tacit approval of the regional authorities, while hundreds of small businesses were closed during the pandemic.
And the same phrase was uttered when recently we read the news that the head of Bashkiria, Rady Khabirov, signed decree No. UG-78Yu, which raised the pay of officials. This was reported by Prufy.ru. The decree is allegedly issued retroactively – as of January 1. And on February 17, the State Assembly early lifted the moratorium on the indexation of officials’ salaries.
“Prufy” claims, citing its sources, that in reality the salaries of officials are being raised instead of 9 percent, by almost 25 percent. The publication draws attention to the clauses of the decree, according to which “monthly monetary incentives in the amount of the monthly salary” and “monetary incentives in the amount of the official salary” appear. By the way, the decree, a copy of which was obtained by journalists, was not published on the portal of legal information.
No one has ever refuted the existence of this decree. Photo: Prufy.ru
There is still hope that, against the backdrop of recent geopolitical events, Bashkir President Radiy Khabirov and Prime Minister Andrei Nazarov will have the resolve to give up the idea of raising official salaries and directing more money toward supporting entrepreneurs and other pressing issues.