I think this is one of those cases where there is no point in writing a grandiose introduction or explaining what happened. You already know it all. A hit was ordered on journalist Golunov. Someone made that decision and nearly pulled off an operation that could have landed Ivan in a penal colony for 20 years.
Who could have done this? Who has enough resources to organize this kind of persecution? Over the past few days, we have read many theories: that it could have been Moscow officials, or Moscow contractors, or the funeral mafia, or the security services protecting it. Golunov himself, speaking from behind bars, pointed specifically to the last possibility. He said he had been threatened.
We sat down and took a close look at the people who, according to the prevailing theories, "ordered" the hit on Ivan. We looked into it, were astonished, and decided you would find it interesting too.
Like many others, I am sure, I read this article by Roman Badanin's investigative outlet Proekt.
The essence of it is this: Golunov's persecution is connected to his unpublished investigation into the ties between the Moscow FSB and the state funeral enterprise Ritual. The funeral mafia, let's call things by their proper names.
The article names two FSB officers: Colonel General Alexei Dorofeyev and his aide, Lieutenant Colonel Marat Medoyev.
Naturally, I had never heard of either of them. But out of simple curiosity, we started looking into who they were and what they were about, and we dug up an extraordinary story about one of them: Lieutenant Colonel Medoyev.
Even if there had been no Golunov case, even if there had been no hints of protection rackets in the funeral business, Medoyev would still deserve a long film of his own. He comes from a family made up entirely of FSB officers and officials, yet in real estate alone we found nearly 1 billion rubles' worth. We also uncovered how they make their money, how they are connected to Sobyanin and City Hall, and much more besides.
The first fact about FSB Lieutenant Colonel Marat Medoyev makes our job much easier. He is not just a chekist (security officer), but a hereditary one. His father, Igor Basherovich Medoyev, served—and probably still serves—in the FSB.
He is a Hero of Russia, and he even has an entire Wikipedia page. His service record says: "Served in the FSB Directorate for the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania from 1992. From 1996, served in the FSB Special Purpose Center. From 2001 to 2010, held the post of aide to the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation."
There are serious gaps in that biography, though. According to our information, he also worked at the Moscow Mint, then at the Federal Tax Service, and remained connected to the Ministry of Defense even after 2010.
But one thing is clear. A chekist with a long service record, highly decorated, a Hero of Russia. So his son, Marat Medoyev, must have heard since childhood that a chekist should have a warm heart, a cool head, and clean hands. And so he followed in his father's footsteps. Most importantly: neither of the Medoyevs was allowed to engage in business.
Both have cool heads and clean hands. Neither is allowed to engage in business. Both live on their salaries, even if those salaries are large, and on nothing else. As befits honest FSB officers. Defenders of the Motherland, with nothing to their name except love of country and a bust of Felix Dzerzhinsky (founder of the Soviet secret police).
We planned to look at their assets and find basically nothing. Because really, where would it come from? But the first thing we found was this.
This, my friends, is a 200-square-meter apartment in one of Moscow's most elite and ostentatious residential complexes: Italian Quarter. Here is what it looks like. It is on the Garden Ring, between Tverskaya and Novoslobodskaya.
One square meter here costs 1 million rubles. So Medoyev's apartment is worth 200 million rubles.
How is that possible? A mistake? Planted there, like the drugs planted on Golunov?
Unlikely. Here are two more neighboring apartments—not quite as elite, of course, but both 100 square meters and in the city center, on Kazakova Street. Let's say they are worth about 30 million rubles each. One is registered to the FSB father, the other, until recently, to the FSB son. I will tell you a bit later what happened to it afterward.
Now we need to walk 200 meters down Kazakova Street, and we will see another building.
In it, the Medoyev family owns a two-story apartment measuring 180 square meters. One like that costs 80 million rubles. It was bought not so long ago, in 2015.
We have already found 340 million rubles' worth of real estate. And I am about to escalate the situation.
Behind this building there is this little 1,000-square-meter annex. Non-residential.
And it also belongs to the Medoyev family of chekists. Specifically to the elder Medoyev.
And it is tied to the most mind-blowing story in our mini-investigation today. One that will show you that the Medoyevs are connected not only to the funeral business, but above all to Moscow City Hall and to Sobyanin personally.
As can be seen from the extract above, Igor Medoyev bought this building in November 2016. Two months later, he registered himself as a sole proprietor and immediately leased the building to the Moscow Administrative Road Inspectorate. This is the Moscow agency that oversees parking, fines, and other transport-related matters.
So now FSB officer Medoyev, with his clean hands, receives more than 2 million rubles a month from the Moscow city government. Over two years of rent, that came to 67 million rubles.
But how could that happen?
To explain this scheme, we need to go back to the apartment records I already showed you. From them, it is very easy to reconstruct the entire Medoyev family tree.
From this record for the two-story apartment at 27 Kazakova Street, we learn that Igor Medoyev has not only a son, but also a daughter, Maya, who changed her surname to Ovsyannikova.
She married Pyotr Ovsyannikov, and here he is in another record, having bought Marat Medoyev's apartment.
Pyotr Ovsyannikov, incidentally, is an employee of Moscow City Hall. He heads the Control and Accounting Service of the Moscow Department of Labor and Social Protection.
And his father is Yury Petrovich Ovsyannikov. He is ALSO an official—he even managed to serve briefly as Crimea's transport minister. But before that, he headed the Moscow Road Inspectorate. In other words, the very agency that rented the non-residential building on Kazakova from the Medoyevs.
A very simple scheme. One member of the Medoyev family who is an official rents premises from another member of the Medoyev family who is an FSB officer—our Marat Medoyev's father—and guarantees him an income of 2,000,000 rubles a month.
What outrageous brazenness, and such an obviously corrupt scheme. So where is Sobyanin looking?
Well, Sergei Semyonovich Sobyanin, the mayor of Moscow, the boss of the officials whose activities Ivan Golunov was investigating, is personally putting money into the pockets of this wonderful FSB family.
Below are excerpts from the procurement documents for MADI's rental of premises on Kazakova Street. They make clear that MADI's management would gladly rent anything at all, but they will simply HAVE to rent this particular Medoyev property. Because Sobyanin personally wrote a letter—there is an official number and date—in which he approved the lease of this exact premises.
Honestly, we have not been this surprised in a long time. It is written there in black and white. They appealed to Sobyanin, and Sobyanin, out of a million available options—even city-owned property—chose one: to rent premises belonging to FSB officer Medoyev.
And how did you think this works? You have read Golunov's investigations: City Hall bought curbstones at twice the price, a city official owns nine penthouses. They steal hundreds of billions. You have seen with your own eyes how Sobyanin has the paving redone on the same streets eight times over, and you wondered: where are the authorities looking? Where is the FSB?
Sobyanin set up a kickback scheme for them and feels just fine about it. One hand washes the other. And if anyone is unhappy, drugs will quickly be found in their backpack.
That is not all. For the full picture, we need to introduce you to someone else as well: Igor Medoyev's second daughter, Elda Medoyeva.
A woman with a remarkable life story. She studied and lived in the United States and England. Then she returned to Moscow and became a City Hall official, heading the Department for Nationalities Policy. She is the third Sobyanin employee in our story.
Though a former one, to be fair. She left government service to devote herself fully to her passion—astrology. And to teaching English through Instagram.
But do not worry about Elda—she has plenty to live on in any case. She recently sold her 350-square-meter apartment in a residential complex in Pokrovskoye-Streshnevo. It is a very nice building, with good neighbors—for example, five apartments there are occupied by the Rotenbergs and their relatives.
Elda's property was worth 250 million rubles.
She received ownership of the apartment after divorcing her husband, Mikhail Robertovich Baranov.
In an attempt to find at least some justification for this chekist-official family, we even tried to locate the business interests of this ex-husband, Baranov. There is a lot there, but the revenue everywhere is negligible. The only substantial thing we found was a transport company that handled military cargo shipments for the Ministry of Defense—where, let me remind you, Medoyev worked as an adviser to the minister. Since 2014, when the couple divorced, Baranov's company has not won a single contract.
And it all started so well. They even established a family coat of arms. Take a look: there is a little ram on it (apparently symbolizing Baranov) and bees with honey—for Medoyev, of course.
And for the sake of completeness, let us look at the Medoyev family car fleet.
Three Range Rovers. Three Mercedes cars of different classes. Two Audi Q7 SUVs. A Lexus. A Porsche Cayenne. And six motorcycles—Harley-Davidsons and BMWs.
Here is the list of all the license plate numbers. Anyone interested can run them and verify everything personally.
Н850ВХ799 — LAND ROVER RANGE ROVER Н425СА777 — LAND ROVER RANGE ROVER (DARK GREEN) М782КР777 — LAND ROVER RANGE ROVER SPORT
С327ОК77 — MERCEDES-BENZ E63 AMG 4MATIC Т787ТТ99 — MERCEDES-BENZ GLS 400 4 М891МР77 — MERCEDES-BENZ V 250 D 4 MATIC
Т900РС777 — AUDI Q7 Н006АХ77 — AUDI Q7 О547ВС777 — LEXUS GX460 М289ММ99 — PORSCHE CAYENNE GTS
Let me remind you once again: all of this belongs to a family of chekists and officials.
There were also a whole bunch of other cars they had already managed to sell. But one deserves special attention. In 2017, Lieutenant Colonel Marat Medoyev sold his BMW X5 to a certain Valery Mikhailovich Bolshakov. Compare it yourself by the VIN.
By an amazing coincidence... imagine the most dramatic pause in the world here. A man with the same name works as a department head at the funeral state enterprise Ritual.
At that moment, we all stopped. Took a breath. And focused.
Journalist Golunov believes that the drugs planted on him were arranged by FSB officer Medoyev, who protects the funeral mafia. And FSB officer Medoyev sells his six-year-old BMW to that very "funeral mafia" Golunov was preparing to investigate.
After that, can anyone deny the existence of strong informal ties between the state enterprise Ritual (the "funeral mafia") and FSB Lieutenant Colonel Medoyev?
I think that is enough; there is nothing more to say here. I think it is clear to all of you whether FSB officer Medoyev is honest, or a bribe-taker and a traitor.
I have only one question for the other FSB officers. I know they will all watch this video or read this post.
Who exactly do you serve, and for what? So that people in Russia can live better lives, or so that a grandmother comes to bury her husband and this funeral mafia can strip her of her last money, enrich itself, and then kick some of it back to your bosses? And then use the powers of the service to jail a journalist who wrote about how people are being robbed by funeral service providers?
The Anti-Corruption Foundation sends its greetings and support to Ivan Golunov.
I also send my greetings to Leonid Volkov, the head of our headquarters, who was arrested again yesterday.
They must be released immediately.
By conducting this investigation, the Anti-Corruption Foundation is making its small contribution to the fight for Ivan Golunov's release. Make yours too. I have no doubt that many of those reading this post have already stood in pickets and spread information about the case. It will not be hard at all for you to post this video on your social media as well, adding a few words of your own.
Golunov must be released, but those who tried to put him away for 20 years must also be punished. At the very least, you and I can make sure the whole country learns who they are.
I call on all journalists to help their colleague Ivan with their own journalistic work: by following up on our investigation and collecting comments about it. Let us make every well-known person in the country give some kind of comment on this subject. Or at least record their refusal to comment. That is informative too.
In September, each of us will be able to take part in a real fight against all these Medoyevs, Sobyanins, Biryukovs, and Rituals. There will be elections, and either United Russia will keep all its mandates, or we will be able to push it back with "Smart Voting". Register and help bring people in.
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