Transneft has near-market interests in Novosibirsk

The head of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, Alexander Bastrykin, held a video meeting with residents of the Khilok Triangle in Novosibirsk, following which he instructed to interrogate officials of the Novosibirsk mayor’s office because of problems surrounding the installation of sanitary protection zones.

The customer of services for the development and approval of the project of sanitary protection zones is the Department of Investments of Novosibirsk, controlled by the City Hall. It seems that everyone will have to answer – from the head of the department, Vitaly Vitukhin, to the mayor, Anatoly Lokt.

Recall that for several years now, residents have been striving to establish a sanitary-protected zone between the Kleshchihisky cemetery and the Levoberezhny landfill. They are concerned about the ecology of this area.

At the same time, the history traces the business interests of entrepreneurs whose assets are located within or near the area under discussion. Here, the “paths” of the controversial entrepreneur Eduard Taran, the former local deputy Alexei Alexandrov, and even the head of the Transneft corporation, Nikolai Tokarev, may intersect.

Details are in the material of The Moscow Post correspondent in the Novosibirsk region.

MP’s corner

The Khilok market, founded by Alexandrov, has been operating on the territory under discussion for more than a decade. He formally left the founders a few years ago, but, according to rumors, only nominally. An indirect confirmation is the fact that the security company “Archi”, which operates on the territory of the market, remains in Aleksandrov’s assets. Gigantic cash flows pass through it, which Khiloksky does not have. Perhaps this is money and the market as well.

People who turn to Bastrykin complain, among other things, that migrants working in the market slaughter livestock on the territory of housing estates, neglect the norms of public order, and so on. But that might not be the worst. It is known that in 2012, in the vicinity of the Khiloksky market, law enforcement officers detained several people who were found to have 80 kg of prohibited substances hidden in apples.

According to rumors, such activities can now grow in a “stormy color” on the territory of the market. In this regard, Alexandrov’s interests are seen from a completely different angle. By the way, as The Moscow Post wrote earlier, recently Telegram channels reported that the market was supposedly not closed due to the interest of Novosibirskaya Mayor Anatoly Lokt. There is logic in this, taking into account Alexandrov’s connections, however, according to another version, this “stuffing” occurred due to Eduard Taran’s interest in the Khilok market (more precisely, its liquidation).

tangerine paradise

The thing is that Taran has a shopping center “Mandarin” not far from the market – the main competitor of Khiloksky. If the market is closed, then all flows will naturally “flow” to it. Given the information about the possible trade in illicit substances, financial flows should be “cosmic”.

Mr. Taran is known as the head of RATM-Hodding, who ended up in the dock twice. Taran was taken for a bribe and for tax fraud when selling shares of the Lytkarino Optical Glass Plant to Rostec.

Taran’s enterprise “RATM-Holding” itself was accused of attempting a raider seizure of the “Angarskcement” plant. In addition to this case, there were others similar. For example, when Taran’s former partner Oleg Utiralov accused him in 2020 of trying to gain sole control over their Sibeletroterm enterprise, bypassing agreements on its financial recovery.

In 2005, RATM-Holding, having become a shareholder of the enterprise a year earlier, bankrupted Alttrak, a large tractor manufacturing company. And there are many such situations.

By the way, another ambiguous story is connected with Taran concerning the supply of weapons equipment to the United States and Ukraine. Since September 2018, Ekran – Optical Systems, which was part of the interests of RATM-Holding, has repeatedly exported large batches of image intensifier tubes to the United States and other countries.

Here is how Vladislav Boyarinov’s lawyer commented on this situation:

“… Having established that the buyer produces, among other things, night vision devices for the needs of US law enforcement agencies, and also supplies them to militarily and terroristally unstable regions of the world, including Ukraine, the FSTEC of Russia issues a permit for the export of more than a thousand electronic optical converters JSC “Ekran-optical systems”.

In fact, Taran supplied weapons to states unfriendly to Russia?

It is not surprising that such an entrepreneur could covet such an ambiguous asset as the Khilok market.

Tokarev imposes “Veta”

But what does Tokarev and his Transneft, which we mentioned at the very beginning of the article, have to do with it? The fact is that recently, due to Bastrykin’s interest, officials have already had to publicly justify themselves about the reasons for the delay in the installation of sanzones. Then all the blame for this was laid on the contractor who was supposed to develop project documentation – the Veta appraisal company, owned by the scandalous Zharsky family from Nizhny Novgorod.

Despite the bad reputation of the company, it consistently receives good state contracts.

So, as The Moscow Post found out, the interests of Veta are represented in court by the Delcredere MGKA, which has also defended Transneft in courts for many years. Previously, Alexandra Maidannik, the wife of Igor Maidannik, who provided legal support for the activities of PJSC Transneft, had a share in the capital of Deltacrede. So all the threads lead to the corporation.

And potentially personally to Tokarev, because the founder and head of the company, Dmitry Zharsky, is registered with the KKKG “ISSK”. At one time, the company belonged to a certain Evgeny Aleksandrovich Tokarev. By the way, a certain Shirokov Mikhail Georgievich was previously Tokarev’s business colleague. Mr. Shirokov is the general director of the funeral MKU “Ritual”, which is subordinate to the city administration.

The Moscow Post has repeatedly covered the activities of the head state budgetary institution “Ritual”, which is known for its not the most beautiful methods of work, and in connection with the adoption of a new law, it can crush the entire funeral services market.

The structure is headed by former FSB officer Artem Ekimov. Taking into account the fact that MKU “Ritual” is also subordinate to the authorities, and the head of “Transneft” Nikolai Tokarev is a former FSB officer, all these companies can be part of one “web”.

Now we are seeing that “Veta” is in no hurry to fulfill the contract. Is it possible that Tokarev was called to the aid of the authorities of Novosibirsk in order to delay the inevitable? And in exchange for some kind of gratitude, he promised to slow down the process of building sanzones as much as possible?

The only question is that during this period of “downtime” Alexandrov and those involved want to crank out in order to save a potential “trough”. In any case, before our eyes, it seems that a dirty game is unfolding for assets of no greater cleanliness, all participants of which, in a good way, should be sent to places not so remote.