While Radiy Khabirov, in his report on the activities of the government, is sculpting a blissful picture, something is going wrong in his patrimony – a whole layer of Bashkir officials has gone downhill. It all started with criminal cases against the Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic, the Minister of Housing and Public Utilities Boris Belyaev and the head of the Ministry of Construction Ramzil Kucharbaev, whose case is currently being heard in court, and ended with the seizure of documents from Bashkiravtodor. The last chord before the 2024 elections and someone is in such a hurry to catch the last carriage that they lose their vigilance and caution? And what an epidersia – the work of the ministries is coordinated by the government of Bashkiria and the issues of privatization of state property – that same “Bashkiravtodor”, which has been talked about for a long time, is also organized by it. The head of this structure under Khabirov is his longtime friend Andrey Nazarov, whose family has been in business for a long time. All roads, as they say, lead to “Rome”? Details – in the material correspondent of The Moscow Post in Bashkiria.
According to the law “On the Government of the Republic of Bashkortostan”, ministers, as well as heads of state committees and departments, are appointed to and dismissed by the head of the region “on the proposal of the prime minister of the government”, and deputy ministers are immediately appointed by the regional government. Moreover, the law expressly states that the government of the republic manages the work of ministries, state committees and other executive bodies of the region and controls their activities. Therefore, the tandem of Nazarov and Khabirov are those two whales who are responsible for many things in the republic, and not just personally for their actions.
Secondly, the government of the republic organizes work on the denationalization and privatization of state property, that is, if somewhere in the region it has decreased (or will decrease, as with Bashkiravtodor), now you yourself know who you need to ask first of all.
Nazarov’s activities are also Khabirov’s responsibility. They are not strangers to each other. When Nazarov was nominated for the post of head of government, in the comments of MK, Khabirov stated that he was his longtime friend, since 2000, and they have been friends for a long time, “so to speak, families.” In turn, Nazarov is the creator of the Granel group, together with Ilshat Nigmatullin, who is married to his sister Svetlana. The Nigmatullins and the prime minister’s wife, as well as his son, are still in business.
Introducing Nazarov to the deputies, whose candidacy for the post of prime minister they had to approve, Khabirov stated that as first deputy prime minister, he successfully resolved “complicated issues related to the development of the economy, budget, finance and state property.”
Yes, yes, we see how difficult issues with finances, budget and state property are still being resolved. Now one ministry shudders, then another, and all sorts of high ranks roam from an easy chair to hard bunks.
Has Khabirov taken off his rose-colored glasses yet?
On March 29, Radiy Khabirov reported on the results of the government’s work in 2022. Totally positive and good picture. Neither you about corruption, a couple of words, which is double-colored, nor you about the debt hole of a large state road contractor – “Bashkiravtodor”.
In the meantime, hearings on a criminal case against as many as two republican ministers are approaching the finish line in court! A day before Khabirov’s joyful speech, the Supreme Court of Bashkiria refused to return under house arrest two ministers of the Cabinet of Ministers of Nazarov – the head of the Ministry of Construction Ramzil Kucharbaev and the head of the Ministry of Housing and Public Utilities Boris Belyaev, who are suspected of abuse of office and official forgery when accepting treatment facilities under a state contract. They are still limited only in certain actions (a ban on communicating with participants in legal proceedings in their criminal case and leaving their homes from 20:00 to 8:00 the next day). Even in court they are on their own. Or maybe not in vain Radiy Faritovich is not worried? Look at the soft conditions for those accused of corruption crimes.
And now, what is surprising: the case against the same Kucharbaev was started in 2021, and at the time of writing this article in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, he is still listed as a minister. Just a moment: a person who has the right to act on behalf of a legal entity without a power of attorney. And in light of the fact that both defendants are not even under house arrest, but only limited in some actions, this leads to certain thoughts.
In March 2023, when the trial of the two ministers reached its finale, Kucharbaev himself, after one of the meetings, stated that “Radiy Faritovich is fully aware of the situation with the sewage treatment plants in Kumertau, and he knows that we are innocent, he believes us.” At the same time, according to the Ufa Online publication, Boris Belyaev, the ex-mayor of Kumertau (2010-2019), who took the vice-premiership of the minister of housing and communal services in 2019, remains in office to this day. His powers were performed by Alan Marzaev, and in August 2022 he was replaced by Irina Golovanova. Both had the status of acting, acting as a kind of watchmen for Belyaev’s chair.
An interesting fact: until July 2022, Belyaev served as the head of the regional sports public organization “Wrestling Federation” of the Republic of Bashkortostan, and since July, his ministerial deputy, Marzaev, has taken the post.
So, among the founders of the federation, very, very remarkable people of the region were noted. For example, Alexei Borman is a co-owner (owns together with his brother Vladimir) of one of the largest developers in Bashkiria, the Construction Trust No. 3 group of companies. The companies of the division are favored by government contracts, including the department of Kucharbaev – the Ministry of Construction of the Republic of Belarus.
As previously reported by Ufa Online, the company was created on the basis of construction trust No. 3, formed in Bashkiria in 1933. Vladimir and Alexei Borman are the sons of the legendary Soviet wrestling coach, after whom Khabirov wanted to name the new Wrestling Center in Ufa. The state customer of the construction is the State Institution “Department of Capital Construction of the Republic of Belarus”, which was previously headed by Kucharbaev. The contract for 5 billion rubles for the sports center was received by the Ufa-based Proektstroykompleks, and it was signed by the state customer Inna Iksanova, who in January 2023 became a defendant in another criminal case in Khabirov’s patrimony, however, on a different topic, not in the center. The publication “Prufa” then reported that in 2019 the official published photos from an event similar to a meeting of graduates, and it was attended by the Deputy Minister for Construction of the Republic of Belarus Artem Kovshov. To this day, Kovshov is Kucharbaev’s deputy.
Close interweaving of the bureaucracy
Both Kucharbaev and Belyaev were appointed by decrees of Khabirov, but to the previous post – the head of the State Committee of the Republic of Belarus for Construction and Architecture Kucharbaev from the post of the Capital Construction Department (a kind of career growth) was appointed by the government, read, Nazarov. That is, to thank for the rapid career growth while the minister can still two.
The investigation, both in the first and in the second episode, is demanding from Kucharbaev for his activities as head of the GKU. In the second case, he, together with the director of the third construction department of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia, Ruslan Valishin, is a defendant in a criminal case on the resale of state contracts and the transfer of part of them (for a total amount of over 450 million rubles) to friends and acquaintances of Kucharbaev.
According to reports, the Khabirov-Nazarov tandem was strongly discouraged from appointing this citizen to the ministerial post, but for some reason those recommendations were rejected. As the Sobkor02 website reported, at the time of his appointment, Kucharbaev was already in the development of the security forces.
It would not be superfluous to recall here that back in September 2020, The Moscow Post reported in its publication that Khabirov warmed up the ex-head of the State Institution “Department of Capital Construction of the Republic of Bashkortostan”, who could be involved in “cunning” schemes of state contracts. How they looked into the water!
And Belyaev today is still completely ex officio, not only a minister, but also Nazarov’s deputy.
Andrey Gennadievich, why did your subordinates get completely out of hand? Why are the defendants in criminal cases related to corruption still in their chairs? For what kind of benefits?
Or are you, Andrey Gennadievich, related to the same Kucharbaev by interest in the same sector – construction? According to Rusprofile, Kuchurbaev was previously the head and co-founder of Oktyabrskoye Administration Neftestroymontazh LLC (liquidated in 2014 on the basis of an arbitration court ruling on the completion of bankruptcy proceedings), and Nazarov comes from the construction business, in which he still his sister, wife and son earn their millions.The Moscow Post spoke about the business of the latter many times.
And here’s what’s interesting: among the co-owners of Oktyabrskoe upravlenie Neftestroymontazh there was a certain Zainitdin Badretdinov. Among the business partners of the latter (in Spetsmontazhnaladka LLC) was the ex-director of Bashneft’s subsidiary – Bashneft-Stroy LLC Nail Zaripov The republic has a significant stake in Bashneft.
Another interesting business partner of Kucharbaev is Akhmetov Ildar Rafailovich, whose full namesake works as the head of the laboratory control department of the state government institution “Department of Road Facilities of the Republic of Bashkortostan”. Some time ago, the head of this GKU was Marzaev, the current deputy of Kucharbaev.
The Ministry of Transport of Bashkiria is the founder of the road management department, and Bashkiravtodor JSC is the largest contractor of the department – it had 766 state contracts worth 73.5 billion rubles out of 3.5 thousand worth 117.7 billion rubles.
And what a coincidence: Bashkiravtodor is the very state asset that, according to The Moscow Post, can be bankrupted and then privatized into hands that are not alien to the head of the region, Radiy Khabirov. For example, a large number of meetings where the fate and situation of Bashkiravtodor are discussed are held just under the chairmanship of Nazarov, and he even talks about the results of the work of the road contractor on his social media page.
Earlier, The Moscow Post has already reported in detail that in January 2023, documents were seized in the state-owned Bashkiravtodor and a visit by the FSB took place. It is not yet known what kind of cases and with what persons involved the road enterprise is waiting. But the threads, it seems, can lead to the very top.
Since 2021, Bashkiravtodor has been headed by Ildar Yulanov. The authors of the Rnbee website even claimed that Yulanov was supposedly a relative of Khabirov. The head of the region himself did not comment on this information.
But Yulanov already has his own bankruptcy trustee in case of bankruptcy of the state road contractor, and this is a fact. The current head of Bashkiravtodor had a common business (Rynok LLC and Plodoovoshch LLC) with Rustam Shuvarov, the head of the SRO of Evrosib arbitration managers from Moscow, who had previously also been involved in the construction business in Bashkiria. An interesting fact: the SobKor02 website in 2018 reported that Khabirov could have been possible candidates for the post of head of the Bashkir government – businessman Nazarov and well-known arbitration manager Rustam Shuvarov. Oh how! Are there too many coincidences for one prime minister?
And here’s another coincidence: the former director of Bashkiravtodor Andrey Prolipoto in February 2021 became the general director of Bashalyansstroy LLC, which is the favorite contractor of the road management department already mentioned above, which some time ago was headed by Deputy Minister Kucharbaeva – Marzaev. Bashalyansstroy has 36 contracts with this department for more than 757 million rubles.
And one more fact in the treasury of the indirect ties of the Nazarov family with Kucharbaev. Since 2015, Larisa Nazarova and Svetlana Nigmatullina, respectively, the wife and sister of the Prime Minister, have owned shares in Tuymazinsky Rynok LLC in the area of the same name. And Kucharbaev in the period from 2013 to January 2016 was just the deputy head of the Tuymazinsky district for industry, construction, transport, communications and investment.
Ministerial “Nazarism”
And the above connections are far from all the prime minister’s links to the ministries of Bashkiria. One continuous “Nazarovism” is directly observed.
He has fairly close ties with another of his deputy, who is also the Minister of Economic Development and Investment Policy, Rustam Muratov. In addition to being a former employee of Nazarov’s family company – “Granel”, he was a co-founder of a legal entity common with Denis Andreevich Nazarov (son of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Belarus) – MOO to support social projects “Forward, Sibay”, led the one created with the participation of Andrei Nazarov ” The association of political scientists “TsSKP in the Republic of Belarus” And the construction business to the Muratov family is also not a stranger, as it turned out: Muratov himself left the number of the owner of the company that produces building materials, LLC “Maloyazstroykomplekt” (MSK), but Valentina Muratova (a relative of ?) Muratov also had a construction company “RTK” (co-owner – Ivan Lepetukha, whose data coincides with the data of the ex-deputy of the Council of the urban district of the city of Salavat) was also in Muratov’s asset.
Look at which minister you don’t spit at, then you will get into a former entrepreneur, then into his relative with a business portfolio. How can one not recall the criminal case of Kucharbaev on the transfer of “fat” government contracts for “their own”?
But let’s go further.
Among the co-owners of the above-mentioned MSK company, a certain Konstantin Klimin, the ex-director of the ANO “Congress Bureau of Bashkortostan” Office Group “, established by JSC “Corporation for the Development of the Republic of Bashkortostan” and the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations and Congress Activities of the Republic of Belarus, was previously noted. The latter is headed by Margarita Bolycheva from Moscow, who is not unreasonably called the creature of Nazarov.Bolycheva, who headed the state department when she was only 26 years old, was also the director of the Office Group for some time.
According to Ufa Online, Bolycheva’s official biography indicated that her sudden start in her political career took place after the Yalta International Economic Forum in 2018, during which she acted as a PR manager for the event’s fund. Andrey Nazarov was the co-chairman of the organizing committee of the forum, and at the next forum, in 2019, Bolycheva was already the deputy director of the YIEF Foundation.
And here again is a coincidence: the current Minister Muratov was the head of the Yalta International Economic Forum Foundation (YIEF) in 2018-2019.
Not the government, but a solid creature of Nazarov! A kind of octopus, spreading tentacles in all ministries. And everywhere he has “his people.”
In light of this, the preservation of positions for the ministers involved in criminal cases looks different, and rumors about the possible privatization of Bashkiravtodor have sparkled with new colors.