Tulun is being blown away: will the scandal with Karikh lead to the Krasnoshtanovs?
The previously convicted mayor of Tulun, who is caught up in a criminal case of fraud, can seriously complicate the lives of both Governor Kobzev and the influential family of Far Eastern politicians, the Krasnoshtanovs.
A criminal case has been opened in the Irkutsk region for real estate fraud and abuse of power. We are talking about the resettlement of people from dilapidated and dilapidated housing, as well as the resettlement of citizens from flooded areas in the city of Tulun. The mayor of Tulun, Yuri Karikh, was interrogated; his procedural status is not clear. Perhaps he has every reason to be nervous.
In the region, Mr. Karikh is associated with the influential Krasnoshtanov family of politicians. They also remind him that he was previously convicted of official forgery, and many other scandals. In this sense, it is generally unclear how he is still in municipal service.
Behind Karikh are the Krasnoshtanovs?
In the situation with alleged fraud with land in Tulun, as well as dubious government contracts from the Tulun administration, the names of influential politicians and businessmen Krasnoshtanovs in the region may emerge. Namely, the former State Duma deputy, and now the Legislative Assembly of the Irkutsk region, Alexei Krasnoshtanov and his son Dmitry.
The latter was the founder of the construction company SMPC-7, where Dmitry works as a director. The same Alexey Krasnoshtanov is the head (and, presumably, the beneficiary) of the DomStroy Group of Companies, a fairly closed construction holding that every now and then receives contracts for the construction of social facilities in the region.
However, they may also have an unofficial business registered to completely different people. In 2022, SPMK-7 won a contract for the construction of children’s clinic No. 10 on Ryabikov Boulevard in Irkutsk for almost 1.2 billion rubles. The contract was immediately terminated – as if Krasnoshtanov did not like the price. And soon they signed it with another company, Domostroy, and the initial price of the contract immediately increased by 10 million rubles.
The interests of the Krasnoshtanovs may lie behind this company. And this same office turned out to be one of the largest recipients of government contracts from the Tulun mayor’s office – in 2022 it won a tender for 386 million rubles. And not at all for capital construction, but for planning, installation of power supply networks and other work.
Photo: Rusprofile.ru
The cost is huge, especially for small Tulun. And even though the contract was terminated, the company should have received a significant part of the funds. Do law enforcement officers want to take a closer look at this situation?
Moreover, the total volume of government contracts of the structure exceeded 3.4 billion rubles. Most of them, 2.6 billion, come from the State Public Institution “Unified Customer of the Irkutsk Region”. In second place is the administration of Tulun. And this is with billions of dollars in revenue at the end of 2022 and a very modest authorized capital of only 30 thousand rubles. Is this office the “beloved wife” of the administration of Governor Igor Kobzev?
Photo: Rusprofile.ru
The owner of the company since February 2023 is Galina Grigorishina. But the owners have changed over the past years, like gloves. And this also suggests that the real beneficiaries may not be those listed in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities. It is interesting that according to reviews on the Internet, many people who bought apartments from the DomStroy Group of Companies claim that there are numerous problems – rudeness of the sales department, plastic windows that were not immediately installed, etc.
Photo: https://irkutsk.100domov.ru/company-fsk-domstroj-irkutsk-1129
Some of the “reviewers” even call the company “Domostroy”. Is it a mistake, or is this their real counterparty, behind whom it may not be Grigorishina, but the Krasnoshtanovs?
Previously, our publication has already mentioned the company FSK “DomStroy”. In particular, journalists from The Moscow Post suggested that the company of Irkutsk deputy Vladimir Chebotarev “Grand-Stroy” could develop a water conservation area in order to build a residential complex in the area of the Angarsky Bridge in Irkutsk. And Chebotarev’s partner in that project was the Krasnoshtanovsky FSK. Apparently they can do anything?
Earlier, when Alexey Krasnoshtanov was a State Duma deputy. He, as well as his son and daughter, were allegedly summoned to the police at the request of the Speaker of the Irkutsk City Duma, Evgeny Stekachev, who suspected the entire Krasnoshtanov family of distributing defamatory materials about himself.
However, Krasnoshtanov visited the security forces before. Back in 2016, he was summoned for questioning by the investigative department of the Investigative Committee for the region as part of a criminal case related to the mayor of the Olkhonsky district, Sergei Kopylov.
We would like to remind you that a criminal case was opened against Kopylov under the article “Exceeding official authority” for allowing the Krasnoshtanov-affiliated company SMPC-7 to extract gravel in the Pribaikalsky National Park during the reconstruction of the Bayandai-Elantsy-Khuzhir road. The Irkutsk Online portal wrote about the situation.
Will Alexey Krasnoshtanov “surface” in Tulun? Photo: https://irkutskmedia.ru/news/567398/?from=51
This situation did not end with anything bad for Krasnoshtanov. He himself hoped that ill-wishers were trying to deprive him of his chances of being elected to the State Duma in 2016. Now, when clouds are gathering over the mayor of Tulun, Yuri Karikh, this situation may sparkle with new colors.
Beyond good and evil
As for the current scandal itself, the message about the initiation of a criminal case initially appeared in the official Telegram channel of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation. However, the security forces did not provide any details then. Today there were comments from representatives of the Popular Front, who claim that they are familiar with these details.
According to a representative of the movement, the claims of law enforcement officers to the mayor of the city of Tulun Karikh are justified and relate to the distribution of plots for families affected by the devastating flood of 2019. It’s as if the lands were transferred to city ownership and distributed; Karikh raffled off one plot for himself at an auction, and the bidding took place through a figurehead.
If residents of Tulun had to pay 15 thousand rubles of rent per year for a plot, then his figurehead won the plot for 500 rubles of annual rent, and the payment did not go to the city budget. After some time, the plot was assigned the right of assignment in relation to the youngest son of the mayor of Tulun, and was not returned to the ownership of the city, which is a violation of federal law.
On another street, the mayor of Tulun also allegedly raffled off a plot of land in favor of his son. The cost of the land was 1.8 million rubles. The words of a Popular Front activist are quoted by Izvestia.
Let us remember that in the flood of 2019, 34 people died and hundreds lost their homes. Profiting from this is not just a crime, it is beyond good and evil.
Criminal trail of Yuri Karikh
But there have been calls about Karikh for a long time. The official has served as mayor of Tulun since 2010. Before that, he was a deputy of the Tulun parliament, and in 2013 he completely disgraced himself, becoming a defendant in a criminal case. In court, law enforcement officers were able to prove that the mayor provided the city administration with false documents about business trip expenses in order to reimburse them from the city budget.
As a result, the mayor was removed from office and fined 50 thousand rubles. However, he avoided punishment due to the expiration of the statute of limitations, after which, as if nothing had happened, he returned to his position through nomination from United Russia.
There may be something more serious behind Karikh. According to the authors of the website Babr24.com, allegedly even during his first tenure, Karikh, with the support of a local organized crime group, could create a corruption structure in the city administration.
After this, law enforcement officers allegedly opened several criminal cases against employees of his administration on facts of fraud, including against his former relatives who could have committed the theft of funds from the budget in the form of payment of subsidies to support small businesses.
If this is true, it turns out that Mr. Karikh could have hired his relatives to work in the administration? Let us note that Karikh is credited with a family connection with Marina Mironova – as if she were a cousin of his deceased wife.
As the information and analytical portal “Sibinform.com” wrote in 2014 (the media registration certificate from 2017 has now been terminated), in 2014 the Sverdlovsk District Court of Irkutsk invalidated the higher education diploma of the head of one of the key departments of the Tulun administration – management on municipal property and land relations.
This post was then occupied by Marina Mironova. And she, Mironova, was a defendant in the very case of official forgery in which Karikh was subsequently convicted. In the case of Mironova, her prosecution was stopped due to active repentance – apparently, she told everything as it happened, and this cost Karikh a lot of problems.
Yuri Karikh. Photo: https://www.irk.ru/news/20200918/groundwater/
According to the authors of the website Babr24.com, allegedly in 2012, Mayor Karikh became involved in another criminal case – under the article of abuse of power. We could talk about repairing the road from the Ugolshchikov microdistrict to Sosnovy Bor.
As if the local Chamber of Control and Accounts found out that a tender for the work was not held, the contract with the contractor (Municipal Unitary Enterprise “Blagoustroistvo”) was concluded retroactively, and the work itself was performed extremely poorly. It was not possible to find official confirmation of this information. There is also information that Karikh could have previously been convicted under this article. But, as you know, there is no smoke without fire.
Governor Igor Kobzev may also have reasons to worry, although Karikh is not his creature at all. Kobzev was one of the first to report searches in Tulun, even though the authorities do not like to comment on such things. Meanwhile, it is believed that he and Krasnoshtanov have a tense relationship. Perhaps he decided to “attack” the Krasnoshtanovs through the situation with Karikh?
In any case, the main thing in this whole scandal should be the restoration of the rights of people affected by the flood. Let Messrs. Kobzev, Karikh and others like them do this.
