A ray of sunlight cuts through the glass roof of the station. Cut to: a deserted platform arrives at a brand new electric train in the branded colors of Railways. This video is about the achievements of the railway monopoly in the Olympic Sochi shot iMars agency. Railways - one of the agency's largest clients. Which, in turn, became one of the leaders of the ranking compiled by Forbes contractors, the most earned in 2014 in the state-owned open competitions related to PR and communications. In the three leaders entered and two other contractors Railways - autonomous non-profit organization (ANO) "Zheldorreforma Center" and the company MultiTec. Together, these three companies have won 21 major tender by almost 960 million rubles.

Forbes analyzed the public procurement system in large tenders, which was carried out state-owned companies. Unfortunately, to say that it was possible to identify all the big players can not. In some cases, such as with "Rosneft", "Aeroflot", shall be concluded with a single supplier, whose name was not disclosed. Most state-owned companies conduct tenders through the "daughters" and "grandson", in relation to which the trebovaniya of the PPL apply less strictly. Therefore, the rating did not hit a few large state-owned companies working with agencies such as the "apostle of the Media", "Cros", "Mikhailov and Partners."

ranking leader, NGO "Center Zheldorreforma" is not even a communication agency. One hundred percent "daughter" of Russian Railways was established in 2005 to participate in the structural reform of the railway transport, but then it has been extended: it became responsible for communications Railways, control system with emergency response information, and work with the corporate style. Market participants argue that this structure is technical: Tenders are then distributed to other agencies. The press service of "Center Zheldorreforma» Forbes explained that in some cases the company actually attracts sub-contractors, but refused to disclose their names and the amount of transmitted jobs.

Why Railways such a structure?

"Daughter," Railways can not use strict tender procedures for selecting subcontractors and report publicly on their choice and the costs, and the formANO avoids the attention of tax authorities.

As the director of strategic development of an advertising agency Andrew Mobydee Yablonskikh it easier for accountability: "Otherwise Railways would have had to sign hundreds of contracts with agencies. Correctly make statements - this is one of the key tasks in the performance of government contracts. "
The second place on the volume of orders taken iMars agency.

Among his clients - Russian Railways, "Rossetti" and VTB. iMars - one of the largest communication agencies in the Russian market in 2013, it occupied the 6th place in the National ranking of communication agencies of Russia and is among the top 100 PR-agencies of the world. However, according to market players, the company that is not very public. According to SPARK, owns iMars its CEO Natalya Evdokimenko. But several interlocutors Forbes argue that iMars associated with Vice President Railways Anatoly Meshcheryakov. Partner iMars Vladimir Stupnikov, in 2003-2006 worked in the Railways, argues that the agency's revenue for 2014 contracts with the railway occupy less than 10%: "Relations with iMars Railways are only a slaveChimi and conditions of cooperation with the company very hard. " The press service of Railways information on communication with iMars Meshcheryakov denied: "No vice-president of Russian Railways Alexander Meshcheryakov, nor any member of his family had never owned shares / shares of any commercial enterprise."

Co structures Railways iMars Agency began work in 2012. Just after the founder of the agency "Mikhailov and Partners" Sergei Mikhailov, in 2004 entered the board of Russian Railways and head of the department since 2006, state-owned corporate communications, has resigned. How to tell the market sources, while Mikhailov PR-accompaniment engaged Railways Agency created by it - directly and through affiliates. Now "Mikhailov & Partners" cooperates with Russian Railways primarily on direct advertising issues: in 2014 his unit MultiTec won three tenders by almost 215 million rubles.

Tenders in PR and communications are often arranged to beat a certain contractor. "Many of these requirements are deadlines that it is impossible to prepare, taking into account the entire volume of documentation"- Explains CEO Advanza Event Management Agency Anton Winter. For example, the tender "Rostec" for the development of the brand "Kalashnikov" was available for the submission of applications for a few days, says Ilya Lazuchenkov, CEO Plenum agency, which is part of Defa Group (lost in tender Agency "Apostle Media" and filed a complaint with the FAS, to be unfounded). "We noticed the tender and submitted documents, but no one of my colleagues in the Association of branding companies do not have time to react," - he says.

Terms and conditions for the victory of a particular agency, you can create different: the first filing an application, the availability of contracts with certain companies to a certain amount, often inflated, the addition of requirements already published the terms of reference.

It tells the public relations officer of one of the state-owned companies, the tender until recently it was possible to "hide" so that none of the foreign agencies have not found: to put in place a zero letter "o", or use the Latin alphabet instead of the Cyrillic alphabet.

Does this mean that the agency side can not win the tenderstate-owned companies? "It is a misconception that there is some pool of agencies that solves everything. Too large market, - says CEO Andrew Barannikoff SPN Communications. - We ourselves have come to the market of public procurement only five years ago, any experience with state-owned companies before we did not. " At the end of 2014 Forbes discovered three wins SPN Communications tenders in state-owned companies, the total amount of 105 million rubles. "Now the chances of getting into the market is at all", - said the head of the communication group "Byzantium" Igor Reichman.