Tomsk in the grip of a deputies’ mafia

You know how this happens in science fiction movies.

You look at a city and see a beautiful, peaceful

scene: someone is riding a bike, a couple is

kissing,

retirees are sitting on a bench, parents are

rocking a baby in a stroller. But if

you look with some special magical

vision, the picture is completely different: above

the city there’s a vortex, electrical

discharges are everywhere, and horrible

bloodsucking creatures are flying back and forth. That’s what it’s like here too: I look

and I see Russia’s student capital, a city of

education. But if you look through

special glasses, you’ll see that all of this,

the whole city, is so tightly wrapped in a web

of corruption that every single person—the retiree,

the cyclist, the kissing couple—they have all

simply been turned into a kind of prey,

whose job is to supply, every day,

a life-giving stream of money to those

bloodsucking creatures that have declared

themselves the masters of the city.

If I’ve already started traveling around the country’s cities

and declaring war on United Russia in them,

then obviously this place should be one

of the first, because it badly needs

this war. Let’s keep playing

an interesting game together: I’ll tell you

how the city works, and you’ll help me

tell everyone about it. Starting September 13,

together we will cut through the web and

throw the spiders the hell out

with Smart Voting.

[music]

[music]

You probably thought I was exaggerating

something—some kind of war with United

Russia, what’s the point of all this? But I’ll prove everything

in the best possible way, and most importantly I’ll call

half a million Tomsk residents as my witnesses.

Today I’ll be helped by two wonderful

people: Ksenia Fadeeva and Andrei

Fateev.

We didn’t pick them because of their surnames. They are not

relatives, not even namesakes, but something interesting

is happening with them. On the one

hand, these guys are running against

United Russia. On the other hand, they are

sponsors of United Russia. Ksenia, how did that

even happen to you? — Not on purpose. And actually,

that’s just how the whole

city is structured: it’s entangled in a giant

web of utility companies, and that’s why all Tomsk residents

are forced to pay tribute.

Andrei, that’s quite a title—sponsor

of the United Russia party. How does that feel, really?

— Honestly, it’s a very dubious

pleasure, especially considering that

the sponsorship payments get higher and

higher every year.

Ksenia, in your opinion, do the people of this city

walking around here have any idea that

they are prey for United Russia? — No, not really.

Most people just pay

their utility bills and don’t look into

how any of it is actually set up. But if we

tell them,

will their opinion of

United Russia change? What do you think? — I think yes,

because everyone pays more and more

every year, and it irritates people more and more.

All right, we’ll do something very simple.

We’ll try to reconstruct your day

minute by minute and see just how many

times a day you and everyone else in Tomsk

pay United Russia. What does your day

start with?

scottish

Think carefully—what else

happens before coffee? You turn on the light. Let’s

start there.

[music]

[music]

I’m in an ordinary apartment in Tomsk, and

you’re probably puzzled, because you don’t

understand how there could possibly be

a connection between an investigation into Tomsk’s mafia

and these little actions that our

former candidates for deputy once did. How can

turning on a light or buying

coffee be connected to the mafia? But I intend to prove to you

that every such small

action, done 20 times a day,

100 times a day, gives a little bit of money

to Tomsk’s United Russia machine, and I’ll prove

it using what’s in every Tomsk resident’s

mailbox: utility bills,

these receipts right here.

In fact, for this investigation I

don’t need anything else. Let’s begin

with the biggest, prettiest bill

— the electricity bill that was

issued.

Fateev Andrei Leonidovich—there’s yours already.

And it says here that Fateev

Andrei Leonidovich used electricity in

July worth 245 rubles, and now we’re going to

find out whether, out of those 245 rubles, the crooks

took something

for themselves.

[music]

We met when, two years

ago—or actually three years ago—when I

came to open the headquarters. That day they

filled your apartment door with foam. — Yes, they sealed

the door, so I couldn’t get out or get in.

It was funny. I was still living with my parents, and

they woke me up and said, “Listen, we really

can’t open the door. The lock seems

jammed.” I had friends living in the neighboring building,

so I said, “Throw the keys down to the guys from

the balcony, let them open it from the outside entrance.”

So a friend from the neighboring building came over,

and I wanted to look through the peephole to see how he

was trying to open it, but all I could see there was

just foam. I mean, it didn’t even occur to me yet

that this was deliberate—who would

go around pouring foam like that on someone’s door?

the neighbors, and he calls out to me through the door and

says on the phone, basically, that your

lock is broken, and your whole doorframe is covered in

construction foam, expanding foam

foam, yes, and that same day they slashed

my tires. Yes, I go outside and there are already just four

tires on the car, the windshield, and the hood

all covered in some stupid paint,

splashed with orange and brown paint

and the same thing happened to the exhaust pipe.

This happens to you, and then you decide

to stay in politics. Honestly, maybe

I shouldn't say this, but it wasn't that

it really scared me that much.

It all felt more ridiculous and absurd than frightening.

But now you're running for the City Duma

and you've already thrown down a really

serious challenge to the big United Russia figures.

Back then you were fighting in general, but now you're

fighting against specific

corrupt officials and villains, hurting their

interests. So, there is this nice little

city. It has always felt completely European

— really, a city with lots of

students, one of Siberia's most charming cities.

It's relatively small.

So you really do have a completely European-style

city. And there is the Tomsk City Duma,

which currently has 37 deputies, 32 of whom are

from United Russia. Obviously, that doesn't

reflect reality at all. How did that

happen? Tomsk really is one of the most

advanced cities — you can see it simply from the

voting results. Here there is almost

never any falsification, but this total

dominance by United Russia — how could that

have happened? Well, when it comes to municipal

elections, the problem is that, honestly,

people just aren't very interested in them.

For voters here, in the last elections in

2015, turnout was

under 20 percent. Then in the gubernatorial election

we also had one of the

lowest turnout rates in the country — about

23 percent showed up. So a very small

number of people ends up choosing all these

— all of them.

crooks and thieves. But it's just that we don't have

the kind of blatant polling-station fraud you see in

some places — I don't know, like Chechnya (a republic of Russia), where

results are simply manufactured. Here, it's the administrative resource instead.

How are you fundamentally different from a United Russia politician?

Let's say I'm

skeptical. Explain it to me, please — why isn't it just one bad option replacing another?

How is Ksenia Fadeeva different

from some face out of the public utilities system

who, aside from presenting themselves in a better light,

still tries to win over voters without outright buying them?

I am absolutely independent of the current

authorities, and I think I've proven that over

the last

at least three years that I've been working in the

headquarters, by showing that I'm not afraid of them. I am not intimidated by

any of their

status. I feel no awe whatsoever, no

reverence toward all those

high-ranking officials and so on. To me,

they are simply public servants, and if

they do their job badly, they should not

remain in office.

And how many people do you need? How many residents

would it take, in general, to vote out all

the United Russia deputies — all of them? 10, 35?

Thirty thousand. In a city of about a million people, you need

only 30,000 voters in order

to do it. So, let's put it all together: electrical grids

wrap around any city — they are its circulatory

system.

They're everywhere: wires, poles,

transformer boxes. Through these networks,

electricity generated at the

power station is delivered to your street, your

house, your stairwell. The person

who controls all this effectively controls the whole

city — a kind of mega-boss who can

just flip a switch like this, and

Tomsk will be plunged into darkness. And this mega-boss

understands that if the circulatory system is under his control,

then he will be paid

whatever amount he wants

and can steal as much as

he pleases. Our first character is named

Vladimir Tikhonovich Reznikov. Tomsk's city

electrical networks ended up in the hands

of this fairly well-known

man in Tomsk.

Well-known because for many years he worked as director of the

city power networks when they

were still state-owned. I remember when

I started gathering all this information, and they were still very

small. In general, he's a prominent

figure: since 2001, a deputy in the

regional legislative assembly and the City Duma.

He is an Honored Builder, an honorary

citizen, and of course the main United Russia figure

in Tomsk, the head of the Tomsk branch of

United Russia. But the catch is that few

people noticed the key change in his

status. Reznikov used to be a hired

director of a municipal enterprise

that managed the city power networks, but now

he has become the owner of a commercial company

that does the same thing. Do you feel the

difference?

He was a director; now he's an owner. These

facilities behind me — do you think this is what

public property looks like?

In reality, it isn't Tomsk that profits here.

The money isn't flowing into the city budget, but into

the pockets of Reznikov and his partners,

first and foremost

his own son, Maxim Reznikov,

whom he also pushed into elected office, and

right now he too

is running for the City Duma. We are trying,

after all, for the residents — for themselves.

Reznikov Sr. brought his son into politics by the

hand a long time ago, and he has already...

The deputy also managed to serve as acting mayor of Tomsk.

Then he became a deputy again, and now he is responsible

in the City Duma for municipal services, as the head

of the committee. Very convenient. And the

"electricity mafia" even has a backup

deputy: Elena Borisovna Telkova.

She was elected from the party list

of United Russia. Telkova is Reznikov's deputy

on the municipal services committee

and, coincidentally, also the Lednikovs' business

partner, and owns 10 percent of

the company

Gorseti. In other words, one son in the city council is not enough for them;

they are seizing power

literally by taking over entire committees. So how do our

utility-deputies make money, and

why exactly are we so focused on them?

Look, the scheme is as follows. I'm simplifying, but

the basic idea is this: the number you see in

your bill here, this tariff for

a kilowatt-hour

of electricity, is made up of

several components. Roughly 40

percent of that amount is payment for

the use of the city's power grids—that is,

for getting electricity delivered through the wires

to your home. The more efficiently the

company transmitting the electricity operates, the

less you will pay for that transmission. And

now let's look at how this works

in practice. For example, Gorseti spends

4.5 million rubles on

repairing its video surveillance system. The supplier is

Sistem Kompleks, and below that, Gor

Seti is supplied with fire alarm systems. It would seem

that everything is fine, but no—the company is owned by

another son of Deputy Reznikov, Igor. Or take this example from a completely

different field:

Gorseti buys drinking water for itself from

the company Sibirskie Eco Napitki for 8

million rubles. This company belongs to

Reznikov Sr.'s grandson. Or here's another one I really

like:

the rental of executive cars—

Mercedeses and Land Cruisers. And who does Gorseti

rent them from? From a company owned by a certain Galina

Petrovna Ishchuk. She is quite the enterprising woman:

she sells crushed stone, pipes, cables, and

decorative lighting to Gorseti.

Do you know who she is? She is the head of Gorseti's cafeteria.

And along with her cafeteria job, she also

manages to sell whatever

her bosses feel like buying. If

a municipal utility company buys everything from

bottled water to Land Cruisers not

from normal suppliers in a competitive

market, but from its own affiliated companies, what do you call that?

Corruption and kickbacks. And they

will be paid by you through your electricity

bill.

[music]

Look around: a tram is moving, in the evening

a streetlight is on, a traffic light changes. For

all of this, the people of Tomsk are paying the Reznikov deputies

thanks to the enormous sums of money flowing

through their companies. As in a board game, they are

buying up more and more

squares across the city of Tomsk. See those cameras?

They were installed for the city by a company owned by Reznikov Sr.

Do you use the internet at home?

One of the largest providers also

belongs to the Reznikovs. Hair salons,

a hotel—you can even just walk into

a store and accidentally buy a bottle of water like this,

which is also produced and sold by

the Reznikov family. They have even moved beyond Tomsk, and

their production facilities in Lodka also belong to

the Reznikovs. The Reznikovs are very wealthy

deputies.

Over the past three years, their combined

family income has been 226 million rubles,

and that includes only those family members who file

asset declarations—that is, not counting brothers, grandchildren, and

various friends in whose names the businesses are registered.

So I think you, the people of Tomsk, have every

reason to take a look at where and how your

deputies live.

Before us, near Tomsk, stands

Maxim Reznikov's four-story mansion.

The plot here covers 1,000 square meters.

Notice

the grand staircase on the courtyard side,

which leads to the second floor of this 300-square-meter

house. On the other side, you can

see another staircase.

They were built because Reznikov's car collection

doesn't fit in a separate garage,

so he had to convert

the first floor of the house into parking. And now let's

take a look at where the elder Reznikov lives.

His house is no worse. No, it is not located

in the middle of the taiga, as you might think, but

just a few kilometers from

Tomsk. The house itself, which is so conveniently

hidden by trees, has an area of 510 square meters.

The house has three floors, and judging by

the number of chimneys, a great many fireplaces.

The actual plot area is about 7,000

square meters. There is also a garage there,

several other buildings,

a garden with trees, and a private pond. I want

to say frankly: I love my city,

I like it.

I have a house outside the city, a good house of my own.

You have to build things properly.

[music]

And this little piece of paper is our

guide into the story of another deputy

who pulled off the same neat

scheme, only this time with water. What interests us most here

are the names of the companies

that received the money, and the name of the company through which

the payment was made: LLC Tomsk

Vodokanal and the Tomsk Settlement Center.

Let's sort out what is going on with Tomsk's water supply.

[music]

Another municipal giant in Tomsk

is Vodokanal, an enterprise that, as is not hard to

As you can guess, it pumps water from the river and from wells.

It treats it and sells it to consumers.

to private individuals and businesses.

The sewer system, accordingly, was theirs too.

Yes, it "floated away"—an unfortunate pun when we're

talking about a water utility, but that's exactly what happened to

it: it was municipal property,

managed by the city, and then all of a sudden a deputy

from United Russia (the ruling political party) took it for himself.

Who exactly? Let's meet him. This is yet

another United Russia deputy who has spent 19 years

sitting in the city council and wants to stay there

even longer. He's a typical decorated

official: deputy chairman

of the city council, head of the United Russia faction.

His name is Kirill

Novozhilov. They say, well, no big deal

if you don't actually do anything—the main thing is to promise one thing.

You just have to make sure a person

hears what they wanted to hear,

and whether you actually do it or not doesn't matter. In 2010,

the city's water supply and

wastewater system were handed over under long-term

management to a well-known French company

that promised multi-billion-ruble

investments,

new European expertise, and so on.

And so on. Today, the tender commission

completed its work; the winner of the tender for the lease of

the water supply and

wastewater systems was the company

This is a limited liability company,

Veolia Water Tomsk LLC.

Veolia Water Tomsk is a structure

registered by the French specifically

for the Tomsk tender; through it, a major international utility

group entered the city.

So far, it all sounds very good, right?

But in practice, everything turned out

completely differently.

There were indeed some upgrades, but

the promised billions in investment and the full

modernization of the water utility never

happened. Instead, in 2011, city council deputies

approved a new

investment program: instead of seven

billion rubles, there was just one billion,

and for some reason they decided to invest not through

the French, but with the help of ordinary ratepayers—

that is, through tariff hikes. Among the

deputies

who approved this

was our hero, Novozhilov. The city and the winner

of the tender will do everything so that it doesn't

fall on people—damn it, the transfer could

to the new lessee's hands, says

Kirill Novozhilov, drag on for two or

three months. All this time, the water utility will

operate as usual.

Neither staff numbers

nor hydraulic operating modes will change. Novozhilov himself, in

principle, is ready to work on the team

if invited. "That needs to be discussed with

the winner of the tender. In any case,

now I need to get in touch with them and

hold consultations,

because I think they

are interested in making this transition

period, at least, go

smoothly." All this time, under the banner

of the French, through offshore companies,

the water utility was actually owned by him. And today,

dear Tomsk residents, your Tomsk water utility

is not Tomsk at all—it is Czech. Through a

Czech company, the real owner turns out to be

the sister of United Russia member Novozhilov,

Daria Takhminina, while deputy Novozhilov himself

owns the Tomsk Settlement Center.

You've seen it at the top of your water bill—

you pay through it,

so that not a single kopeck slips past the United Russia crowd.

Novozhilov runs

the water utility in exactly the same way

his fellow United Russia member does in the city utility networks.

Holding a monopoly position in the market, he

knows you'll have to pay for everything

they can stuff into the tariff, and

that is why the biggest water utility contracts

go to him and his relatives.

This enterprising family handles pipe laying,

construction, design

of pumping stations, and even the treatment

of sewage water. The relatives' services

do not come cheap. That is exactly why water tariffs

in Tomsk have nearly doubled

over the past five years,

and make no mistake—they will rise again.

That is precisely why United Russia member Novozhilov needs

his seat in the city council.

This Tomsk anomaly—how United Russia members

managed

to swipe virtually the entire city's

infrastructure—is no

accident. Everyone knows the famous

Russian meme that everything

is Chubais's fault.

But here, it's not a meme—it's reality. In the early

2000s, Tomsk launched a supposedly

smart housing and utilities reform. It was a well-known

Putin-era initiative rolled out across the

country: a specially created utilities

giant was supposed to handle housing and utilities services

in a centralized way.

This mega-company was called Russian

Communal Systems,

and its founding father was none other than Anatoly

Chubais.

And it was headed by, among others,

Mikhail Abyzov.

They planned to combine electricity, heat,

gas, and all the other sectors into one, and

manage the whole thing centrally. What came

of that? Rather than

retell it to you myself, I suggest we speak

with a direct participant in those events,

the mayor of Tomsk at the time, Alexander

Sergeyevich Makarov. Not only was he

a key figure in this process, but

and then he also became Makarov's victim

he was sentenced to 12 years on several charges

and all of this is directly

connected to how United Russia members

took over Tomsk's infrastructure

the entire city, all the utility networks

literally belong to just a few

people. This is an absolutely unique

situation. How did this even happen?

The governor arrived

and the chairman of our regional

Duma (regional legislature) flew in from Moscow. What year was it? I think it

was around 1999 or 2000

I could be mistaken. And they said, they invited me

and said, 'Alexander Sergeyevich,

Moscow is providing major funding for repairs

and all sorts of others are trying, they want

to create a structure, and this structure

was called, in short, Utility

Networks. I was categorically against it, after all

this is a serious matter, a Siberian city

we don't know these people, we don't even know

their qualifications, how they would be able

to maintain it. Just some Muscovites

who had been brought in from somewhere—who knows what they'd bring, good or bad

The federal authorities, the federal authorities

gave them the task of finding several cities

where they could carry out certain

experiments

I was categorically against it, but they

convinced me. They said they would provide money for

reconstructing the networks there

there would be a third of it covered

So they got to work, they got to work

and right away not in the best way

I didn't like any of it. But that's how it was

the governor's weight and the regional

Duma's influence would obviously outweigh the opinion

of the mayor. These Muscovites—it was RKS, that is,

it was Chubais's project, and Chubais

was involved, and Abyzov, and now I don't remember the surname

of the man who is now abroad

basically in hiding

At first it seemed like a good idea. Excuse me

for interrupting. So it turns out RKS had to

I hope—what needed to be done was to create a culture

of fair competition, as we should recall, right? But instead it

was all framed as a fight against

monopolies, yes, but in the end you supported

the RKS plan. I was forced to support it

There was nowhere to go. We're trying

to understand what happened, because there were

several different players, and each of them

said, 'We'll do it better,' of course, but

in the end it turned out that everything was literally

stolen by specific people there

several families control everything, and all of it under

some supposedly good intentions. How, in the end,

did it happen that everything

state-run that we wanted to reform

ended up once again

with absolutely no oversight at all there

As for their goals, literally after about

three or four months I realized their number one goal

was, as they say, to launder money. Putin's

vertical power structure, the prosecutor's office

the Investigative Committee—everything was right there

that was naturally how it all went

because essentially no one was overseeing it

And in the very first winter, the first

winter, when we started falling behind on network repairs, I

said, 'See, I warned you, guys, that

these are not people who really know how

to make money—they don't know how this

is actually done, and they don't know at all, they say, what

to do with these utility networks

This city

is over 400 years old, and the networks were simply so

worn out that

it was impossible to accept it, and

then these Moscow guys came in

they failed in the very first year, they

were, let's say, pressured—I wouldn't say they were

forced out

[music]

They lasted about two years, and then

it really became clear that they

couldn't cope

Well, what's interesting is that what they did was

they removed the Moscow guys, but the monopoly

they did not remove. What they had supposedly fought against, they did not remove. That's

the whole point. It was useless to argue

because someone was backing these people

as always in Russia, someone is always standing

behind these interests, and that's what gets protected

But this is very interesting. Let's speak

plainly

So, when this happened, Moscow gave it the go-ahead

Chubais, Abyzov—is that right? Am I understanding correctly?

Yes, the federal authorities. When they created

the monopoly, and then various other guys took over this monopoly

Who were these other guys? That

I don't know. That I don't know, because

you'll probably say—why? Well, because I

don't know, because by then it was already outside

my

competence. I'm very

interested in understanding your sense of whether it really

happened that everything was stolen, and on that

everyone agrees, right? The entire utility

system of the city of Tomsk was stolen. We

put you in prison for fraud

What conclusion do you draw from that? What do you feel

given that, essentially, years of your life were taken from you

years of your life

you were accused of what other people did, while

they, they are now earning hundreds

of millions every day, and they have already

made such vast sums that it will help them

far more than it did back when this was

first conceived in Moscow

as a broader project, not only in Tomsk

it was operating, if I remember correctly

if memory serves, at first in seven

cities, and then more were added; there were

southern and northern cities. In other words, it was

part of a large-scale operation

on a broad scale

In the end, everything belongs to specific people.

to United Russia party members, to the people who hold positions here

and higher political posts in United Russia.

You were also a member of United Russia.

for as long as two whole months, two months, but these

faces are beyond measure.

So, what are your feelings about that?

Your impression of United Russia—there still is no united

Russia. Do you remember why you joined it?

Where did you draw that kind of reserve from?

A reserve—how could there be such a reserve of scoundrels,

low-lifes, crooks? Back then, I didn’t see

that many.

Honestly, in United Russia there was this

impression that they were just gathering whoever they could,

and by what criteria they were selected

I still don’t understand. Why are they

all such freaks? Why are they all loafers and

vario

why—that’s completely unclear, really.

In fact, I think I’m the most

radically minded person here against

what I’ve seen in Russia and abroad over the years.

Mayor Makarov outdid them all. He told us

half the story; beyond that, he simply doesn’t

know—he was in jail. But we figured it out. A few

weeks after Makarov’s arrest,

Russian Communal Systems announced

that they were leaving Tomsk.

And the assets they had created returned

to city management, but they didn’t stay there

for long. The crafty United Russia politicians saw that

RKS had created ready-made machines

for making money, and rushed to

privatize them. First, the city networks went to

Reznikov’s people, and a few years

later Tomsk Vodokanal went to deputy

Novozhilov.

[music]

Our last utility bill is an invoice from

the management company. The name of this

outfit, by the way, we’ve seen before.

Right here—look, UK Zhilishche is listed on

the electricity bill too.

UK Zhilishche—these guys take a lot of money.

If we look at the bill’s contents:

apartment building maintenance,

electricity for the maintenance of common

property, cold water, hot water,

heating, and so on. In other words,

Tomsk residents are paying substantial sums here.

Tomsk residents.

And what’s remarkable about this story is that here

we run into some old acquaintances.

It really is a small world. Andrei, we’re walking through

your electoral district, and I don’t

understand—where are the ads for your opponent,

the United Russia candidate? Well, because he’s such a

popular United Russia politician that they’re even

embarrassed to put him on billboards.

What did he do, eat a few

children? Almost. He’s the director of Tomsk RTS, and

we all pay him for hot water and

then sit for a month, sometimes even longer, without

hot water in the summer. And do all these people know

that he’s their deputy? I think most of them don’t,

because he never shows up here. You can’t

get to him—not for a meeting, not at all. He

doesn’t make himself visible in any way.

I understand that all the people who

live in these wonderful buildings, one way

or another, are paying something—not directly to him,

but his family owns very large

management companies. All of these

buildings are essentially under their

management.

So this is a United Russia politician who collects

everyone’s money, and with that money every time

things get nice and warm for him, right?

Last time, even Tomsk RTS directly

sponsored its director in

the election campaign. But Tomsk RTS is a

state company, so that means

it’s illegal. Yes, it’s illegal. Complaints were filed about it,

but as always, United Russia politicians can get away with

anything. All right, so your villain Panasyuk—

he owns a management company, which means

all the janitors, the people who walk through the entryways

every day,

they work for him. How are you planning to beat him?

Panasyuk’s own work over the

last 10 years has been campaigning against him.

All you need to do is get it across to people

that if they stay home on September 13,

then Panasyuk will remain their deputy for another five years,

and all of this will

continue. Am I right in understanding that

the setup looks like this: Andrei

Fateyev

wants to take money away from the utilities mafia boss?

It’s not that I want any money from him.

I want the money that residents pay

for heating, for

hot water, for maintenance of

apartment buildings to actually buy them

quality services. The nest of yet another

utilities giant is located here.

This is where the management companies

Zhilishche and Tverskaya are based. Together, these two

companies manage nearly 150 buildings in

Tomsk’s Kirovsky and Sovetsky districts. They

collect utility payments, they

issue bills for electricity used for

maintaining common areas, they haul away

garbage and maintain the entryways—everything

we call housing and utility fees. All this money

goes

to the management companies. And of course, the United Russia politicians in Tomsk

simply couldn’t pass up such a juicy piece of infrastructure.

They just couldn’t let it go.

I know I’m repeating myself for the third

time, but what can you do—the scheme is the same everywhere.

At one time, this was a municipal

enterprise called UK Zhilishche.

It serviced residential buildings, and its hired director

was Panasyuk. At the same time,

while serving as deputy mayor for housing and utilities, he later

created a commercial company with the same

under the name Zhilishche, and gradually

the maintenance of residential buildings was transferred to it

now the firm is registered to his wife

and most interestingly, the secret partner in

Nosikov in this business is Artyom Yuryevich

Chaika; the stake is registered to his wife's aunt

Marina Chaika. Right here, in this building, where

the Zhilishche management company is located, for many years there have lived and

lived side by side both Nosikov and Artyom

Chaika's mother-in-law, and this is also where payments from

tens of thousands [of residents] flow. Sergey Panasyuk,

a deputy and director of the state-owned

company Tomsk RTS, which handles the distribution

of thermal energy and maintains the heating

networks of the city of Tomsk. His wife, Elena

Panasyuk, together with the wife of another former

deputy and deputy mayor, Vladimir

Khan, founded several management

companies. Panasyuk's daughter was also brought into the business; she

has at least two more management

companies in other districts. In total, there are 4

firms and nearly 200 buildings. This is the largest

management company in the city, and

under all these different brand names

the same people are in charge

the wives of officials and the family of the former

Prosecutor General Chaika

What is Chaika even doing in Tomsk?

you might ask in surprise. That's a separate story worth

dwelling on. The wife of the son

of former Prosecutor General Artyom

Chaika, Marina,

is from Tomsk. Her family still lives here

including her aunt, Elena

Karpenko

You could say, well, so what if she lives here

they are different families, distant relatives, and

so on. But that's not the case. Elena Karpenko

is one of the key figures in Artyom

Chaika's empire. She acts as his

trusted representative and nominee—a relative

to whom things can be registered that Artyom

does not want to own

openly. An example is the salt business that

we described in our investigation

"Chaika: Kireyevsk and Maloyaroslavets, Kisuli

salt works in the Tula and Kaluga regions"

After our investigation, Artyom Chaika

admitted that these were his assets and that he

had registered them in her name

But in 2018, in a single day, he seemingly

got rid of them—sold them. But in fact, he did not

get rid of them; he simply transferred them to this very

Karpenko, his wife's aunt. The deal

was absolutely a sham, because

in 2019, a year after the sale,

when Governor Dyumin was inspecting

the Kireyevsk salt works, the person showing him around

there was Artyom Chaika himself. Honestly, I'm not even

sure that this relative of

Chaika knows that she is, in fact,

a major business owner

and that her property in the Tula region

is being inspected personally by the governor. I think

not. What is happening in Tomsk

is completely clear: city deputies, with the help of

their relatives, wives, friends, and

acquaintances, have seized and registered in their own names

literally everything connected to

public utilities: electricity,

heating, water, housing fees

A truly perfect scheme has been built

thanks to which several deputies

managed to arrange things so that half a million

Tomsk residents, one way or another, paid them for

everything. Their presence in the city council

their status on city committees and

commissions is an integral and absolutely

necessary part of a large scheme for

stealing money. The Committee on Municipal

Services has been turned into a club of villains; there

all our characters sit. In a normal

system, there should be deputies there whose job

is to make sure services are

better and people pay less. In Tomsk,

it's exactly the opposite: there, literally,

sit people who have no other goal

except to raise tariffs for city residents

This isn't even a conflict of interest; it's

legalized mafia. That's why they do not

let ordinary outsiders become deputies

The city council must remain

a mafia club, otherwise newcomers who arrive

will destroy everything and put at risk

not only the family money of United Russia (Russia's ruling political party)

but also the freedom of the city's bosses, because for

what they have been doing for many years, they one hundred

percent deserve to be jailed. There is a funny

word: ouroboros, a snake that

bites its own tail

It is an ancient symbol that means

the cyclical nature of things, and exactly such a

damned vicious circle has existed for many years

in Tomsk

United Russia deputies own the entire

urban infrastructure and take money

from every resident. With that money, they

get elected and become deputies; as

deputies, they raise tariffs, and

people pay them more

And with the money they receive, the deputies are once again

elected in order to repeat the cycle again and

again, raising tariffs for people

And in order to earn more and

get elected again. Breaking this circle

is easy: you simply need not to elect them this

time, but make other people deputies

so that they, on the contrary,

would control tariffs and fight

utility monopolies. If just

31,000 Tomsk residents register for

smart voting and on September 13

vote according to their

recommendations, then in the city council

there will not be a single United Russia deputy left, not

one

It will be a colossal blow both to

the utilities mafia and to the ruling party

So everything depends entirely on us.

Smart Voting is a tool that works.

It exists now, and it is a personal choice for everyone.

Every city resident: take part and bring down United

Russia (United Russia, the ruling political party), or stay at home, sit in front of the

TV, and then keep paying for it

more and more with each passing year. This video is about

Tomsk, but something similar is happening in your city too.

Something similar is happening there, and your vote is needed too.

With Smart Voting, a normal life

is closer than we think.

Do something to bring it closer.