Since yesterday, quite a lot of details have emerged about yesterday’s clash with thugs during an attempt to hold a peaceful #daching in Akulinino, so I won’t repeat what is already known.
Well, except that I’ll give you a link to this detailed post — have a read:
Better to tell you what we’re doing: a) Farit Murtazin, a lawyer from Agora (many thanks to them), is already working with those who were injured
b) we are bringing more lawyers and legal experts into this case. We will seek to hold both the thugs and the police officers who acted together with them accountable
c) we are continuing to document the material damage done (smashed car windows, broken mirrors, slashed tires) so that we can raise some money and reimburse everyone’s expenses. We hope you will help.
What we are going to do:
Personally, I think we need to organize another trip to Akulinino. #daching-3 Only this time we should gather a couple hundred people, bring several lawyers, more video cameras, more journalists, more dashboard cameras, State Duma deputies (Dmitry Gudkov has already agreed), and human rights defenders. With a group like that, we can calmly and orderly, without breaking the peace, walk through our native Moscow region outskirts, where every citizen of the Russian Federation has the right to walk along roads and paths.
This time we did not make those preparations, because after the scandals involving “Sosny”, everyone thought the authorities would not behave so foolishly.
Life has shown that this was a naive assumption.
And most importantly, what I wanted to write was this: to explain once again why this is happening. I have two words for you: ILLICIT ENRICHMENT.
I quote Article 20 of the UN Convention against Corruption, which Russia still has not ratified:
In plain language, that means this: if an official (or some guy from a state corporation) cannot explain where his money and palaces came from, then welcome to the defendant’s bench. You have already committed a crime.
Yes, in Russia formally this is not considered a crime. But that does not change the essence of it or society’s attitude toward it.
Two specific examples from the settlement of Akulinino:
My old “subject,” Igor Zavyalov, will be well remembered by those who followed the investigation into the “VTB drilling rigs case.” I consider him one of the main organizers of the theft of $156 million from that state bank. And not just me. VTB chief Kostin says (clearly referring to Zavyalov) that he fired all the villains responsible for the bribe.
Zavyalov’s biography tells us that for the past 15 years the poor man has been drifting from one state company to another: VEB, then VTB, then Rostec. The salaries there are not small, but not so large as to let him build palace-and-park estates like these. Where did the money come from? We all know where.
The second example:
There sits FSB Colonel General Beseda in his office under a portrait of Dzerzhinsky (founder of the Soviet secret police), and Felix Edmundovich looks down at him and silently asks: what kind of money, you counterrevolutionary, did you use to build two palaces?
There is no answer from Colonel General Beseda (who, incidentally, ended up on the EU sanctions list).
Maybe his dear “businessman” son, in whose name everything is registered, earned it? Okay, let’s look at the “businessman” son.
In 2014, 32-year-old Alexei Sergeyevich Beseda appeared on the board of directors of AvtoVAZAggregat. AvtoVAZAggregat is the manufacturer and supplier of all seats, mufflers, and brake and fuel system pipelines for all VAZ models.
He also appears on the board of directors of IT Invest.
According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, he also owns a 51% stake in Vending Initiative LLC, a company that installs food vending machines. Among its partners, the company lists the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Health, Russian Railways, Sheremetyevo Airport, and MGIMO (Moscow State Institute of International Relations).
Despite the prominence of its clients, the company says on its website that its network consists of only 700 machines.
Even by the most optimistic estimates, we assume that would not be enough to pay for two houses and a 4.3-hectare (10.6-acre) plot in Akulinino.
We found no other information about how Alexei Beseda earned the money for an estate outside Moscow. In response to an inquiry from Vedomosti, the FSB said that “Sergei Beseda has never owned a plot in Akulinino,” while Alexei Beseda is an adult, “is not in government service, and the law does not require disclosure of information about his income and property.”
That’s all. I hope these two examples make it perfectly clear why we are forbidden from approaching the settlement of “Akulinino”?
Of course, we will keep approaching it anyway. Because their illicit enrichment is what was stolen from us.
Once again, huge thanks to everyone who took part in yesterday’s expedition. You were great. We apologize for the unpleasant moments, the damage suffered, and the injuries, but such are the realities of our life. Everything has its price, as old man Gangrene reminds us.
We need to gather more often and in larger groups.