Oh, Sergei Semyonovich, this endless lying by “public officials” is like a swamp bog.
Acting Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that the apartment in central Moscow had long been properly declared, and that opposition claims on the matter were mere speculation. “Everything has been declared for years already; no one is hiding anything. It has been in the declaration for seven years, so everything else is speculation,” Sobyanin told reporters. Gulnara Penkova, the acting press secretary for the acting mayor, confirmed that the apartment had been privatized in accordance with procedure and officially declared. “This is standard practice,” she said. Earlier, Penkova reported that the 308 sq. m apartment at 12/1 Rochdelskaya Street had been allocated to Sobyanin by the Presidential Property Management Department in January 2006, when he was head of the presidential administration. http://www.vedomosti.ru/politics/news/15125381/sobyanin-kvartira-v-moskve-byla-zadeklarirovana-sem-let
We’re not talking about declarations here, but about whether it was obtained legally. At this rate, tomorrow you could declare Gorky Park (a famous Moscow park) as your private property and tell everyone: “The park has long been declared, so everything else is speculation.”
All right, as for the wonderful 308 sq. m apartment in central Moscow, we’ll wait for the prosecutor’s office to respond. It will be interesting, of course, to see what they come up with: whether they declare Sobyanin an orphan or say he has leprosy—but we just have to wait.
In the meantime, let’s remember that public official Sobyanin has a second daughter: Anna Sergeyevna Sobyanina.
As befits the daughter of a senior public official, she is tremendously talented. As everyone knows, a flair for business awakens in officials’ children almost the moment their parents take office.
On October 18, 2011, two weeks after her 25th birthday (she was born on October 2, 1986), Anna Sergeyevna Sobyanina purchased an apartment in St. Petersburg’s Tsentralny District, at 14 Malaya Konyushennaya Street.
Even if you’ve never been to St. Petersburg, the names of nearby landmarks—“Field of Mars,” “Nevsky Prospekt,” “Palace Square”—which you’ve come across a million times in books, speak for themselves: it’s a prime location. VERY EXPENSIVE.
The apartment owned by public official Sobyanin’s daughter, Anna Sobyanina, measures 204.9 sq. m.
Right now, a 152 sq. m apartment in this building is listed for sale for 86.2 million rubles, which means young Anna Sergeyevna’s apartment is now worth roughly 116.6 million rubles.
This is what her building looks like:
Beautiful, isn’t it? Few people are lucky enough even to visit a building like that. Then again, few people are lucky enough to be born the daughter of public official Sobyanin.
How can the 25-year-old daughter of a public official—whose maximum income over the last ten years was 27 million rubles—possibly own an apartment worth 116 million rubles?
We indignantly reject even the thought that public official Sobyanin gave his daughter a luxurious apartment in central St. Petersburg as a present for her 25th birthday. That would be so unlike public officials!
Of course, Anna Sergeyevna Sobyanina earned it all herself.
A year earlier, she became one of the founders of Forus-Group LLC.
Another founder was her neighbor in the building—Vyacheslav Vladimirovich Kalashnikov (born July 12, 1984).
The Forus-Group website describes in detail what the company does:
“To anticipate the client’s highest expectations.” Magnificent. Now let’s quickly find out who these clients are. Let’s go to the “Projects” section.
SUDDENLY
Administrative Government Building (Khanty-Mansiysk)
Negotiation Room of the President of the Russian Federation
Government International Communications Station Unit
Engineering and Utilities Complex (Khanty-Mansiysk)
Office of the Head of the Government International Communications Station Unit
And finally, my favorite part. A shout-out to Serdyukov and Vasilyeva (figures associated with a major Russian Defense Ministry corruption scandal):
Reception House of the Russian Defense Ministry
Meeting Room in the Russian Defense Ministry Administration Building
The only thing missing is “JSC Oboronservis. Executive Office”
WHAT AN AMAZING COINCIDENCE.
The talented daughter of public official Sobyanin so talentfully supplies furniture to the very places where her father, Sergei Sobyanin, serves in government.
Anna Sobyanina’s company operates exclusively in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Khanty-Mansiysk. And exclusively on government sites.
Forus-Group not only builds houses and renovates executive offices, but also set up a separate company (called Rosinterio) and opened a production facility in Reutov, outside Moscow, that manufactures furniture for them. The relevant price list [copy on Google Docs] is posted on the website.
Here is a short excerpt:
We managed to find only one tender won by Anna Sobyanina’s company. It was for the supply of luxury furniture for the leadership of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug.
All of Forus-Group’s other contracts come without any competitive bidding. Quietly and elegantly: through subcontracting. At the Anti-Corruption Foundation, we see this all the time: if you want to win a contract, first make a deal with the right subcontractor—one owned by these wonderfully talented children of public officials.
One might suppose that Anna Sergeyevna Sobyanina simply found herself a wealthy husband.
But apparently—and fortunately—she married for love. We have not noticed her husband (here is his VKontakte page, have a look before he takes it down) engaging in any entrepreneurial activity.
Presumably he’s just not the son of a public official, so he lacks business talent.
In light of all the above, I have some simple, proper, and reasonable questions for public official Sobyanin:
Sergei Semyonovich, by what means and on what income did your daughter, at age 25, buy an apartment worth three times your total income over ten years? Is the fact that your daughter’s business consists of supplying luxury furniture for government needs connected to the possibility that you may have exercised direct influence over the awarding of these contracts while serving in government in Moscow and the Tyumen Region?
Since public official Sobyanin still has not answered the previous questions, we have sent requests to the prosecutor’s office and the Investigative Committee asking them to examine the Sobyanin family’s actions for possible corruption and, separately, to examine the Defense Ministry supply contracts for links to JSC Oboronservis.
We would very much like all Muscovites and all residents of Russia to ask public official Sobyanin these questions. A website has been created for this purpose:
It’s very easy. Print out a flyer from the website on your home or office printer and post it in your apartment building entrance every day for a week.
50,000 people can easily distribute 500,000 flyers, informing 2 million Russian citizens within a couple of days about the remarkable business success of public official Sobyanin’s daughter.
They won’t talk about this on television, so we have to tell people ourselves. We have every means to do it. Don’t be lazy—your laziness hurts the state budget and delights the “public officials.”
I would be grateful for any help in spreading this post and the information in it. Thank you in advance.