Tiles won't help

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin is setting a record: in the next three years, the capital will spend 5.7 billion rubles on the development of a network of public toilets. Almost 6 billion! To be more precise, according to the draft new city budget, officials will allocate 1.8 billion rubles in 2021, 2 billion in 2022 and another 1.9 billion in 2023 for the implementation of the activities of the Development of a Network of Public Toilets subprogram.

That is, they decided that if you go to the toilet with investments, you have to go big. Here are just the main part of these funds (90 percent) is planned for the maintenance and repair of existing toilets, while for the arrangement of new, so necessary for the city, the mayor's office will allocate a few millions.

But every Muscovite and especially a visitor to the capital knows that the shortage of public toilets is one of the main problems of urban infrastructure, much more pressing than the shortage of curbs or tiles. New curbs are, of course, great, but if there is a certain need, they can only satisfy dogs. But Moscow also invites tourists. After all, the virus will eventually end, and where will tourists go? On a tile, but not on a tile.

However, the mayor's office found a way out of this need. For several years now, a whole network of "golden toilets" has been operating in the city. But this network does not so much save Zolotoglavaya from the shortage of public toilets, as it gives the opportunity to their owners to get rich.

All is not gold like a toilet

Formally, these toilets were nicknamed "golden" for the color of the coating, although they could have been nicknamed for the fact that this color covers. The toilets, however, are also not gold, but the most ordinary ones, only dirtier, but the price for such a level of service is truly gold - from 50 rubles. Why "from"? Yes, because the terminals of these toilets "temporarily" (and in fact, for several years) do not give out. So, if need compels, who will have to pay for its satisfaction with a hundred, and some with five thousand. The firm "ORK" remains in the broth, which is responsible for such "golden toilets" under the state contract. That is, it must answer.

On the Internet, you can find many photo and video reports (including those made by state TV channels) about what is hidden behind the gilded facade: dirt, homeless people or simply closed doors. Although not only ordinary visitors pay for all this, but also the budget - every day "ORK" receives from the treasury over 2,000 rubles per booth.

By the dates of the scandalous reports, the "interlocutor" checked how well the city paid businessmen for those booths that, judging by the stories, did not work in those days. It turned out he paid. In the acts of acceptance of the work performed, all the necessary numbers in the necessary columns for the required dates are. As a result, under the state contract for 2017-2019, the mayor's office, through the accountable State Budgetary Institution Dorinvest, decided to pour 697 million rubles into the “golden toilets”, and for 2020-2021 it did not spare another 517 million. In total, over 1.2 billion over five years.

A bit of arithmetic.

Judging by the same acceptance certificates, there are 250-300 of these booths in the city (again on paper). If the city itself bought them at a wholesale price, it would spend a maximum of half a billion.

Further. Private organizations that serve toilet stalls charge an average of 500 rubles per object for their wholesale services. These costs can well be recouped at the expense of customers. So the mayor's office overpaid in this case, and these toilets actually came out gold. For the budget. The extra ten million dollars were actually flushed down the toilet.

But, as you may have guessed, "golden toilets" are not about economics and economics. It is rather a story about corruption. A story that was written by those who managed to properly gild the handle ... of the toilet stall.

Who profits from want

The first "toilet swallows" landed on the streets of Moscow back in 2013. It was then that the companies Komkhoz-Service and ST.Consulting received an investment contract for the right to install 600 cabins in the city, for which they pledged to pay 200 million rubles to the budget of the capital. That is, initially not Moscow paid for this pleasure, but Moscow.

The firms were then backed by Igor Tkach and Vladimir Simonenkov, associated with Avenue Management, Sergei Glyadelkin, the former head of the Moscow State Unitary Enterprise “Moscow Center” (Igor Tkach, the former deputy head of the city's control committee and head of Mosnadzor in 2009– 2011, whom the media call Glyadelkin's cousin). In addition, all three had previously worked at Inteko-Center, and suddenly, as if by magic, they became owners of assets worth millions of dollars, while breaking away from the previous owners and accusing the former vice-mayor of Moscow of extortion.

But very soon these businessmen themselves did not want to pay their obligations to the city, the mayor's office sued them, and in 2015 control over the toilets passed to companies from the Seychelles, registered at the same address ... In a word, the owners of the "golden toilets" are safely this address was washed away with all obligations.

It doesn't matter, the mayor's office found new ones, who agreed to pay for the already worn-out booths. The new contract was awarded to “ORK” LLC. Probably more responsible people have gathered there, since the officials trusted them. Let's see. The founder of "ORK" was Roman Nemchinov, a former subordinate of Simonenkov. Now, according to the documents, the company is owned by Sergei Frolov, who also previously worked for Simonenkov. Boris Ermakov, who occupied the chair of the general director of ORK in 2017, had previously headed Komkhoz-service, which had fled to the Seychelles. The company's telephone number coincides with the telephone number of another Simonenkov's company, and the legal address coincides with the address of the structures of Avenue Management Management Company. After the recent scandals on the market, it became known that everything was arranged according to Mayakovsky - you say "Simonenkov", but you mean Glyadelkin and Tkach. That is, the officials could not help but understand that they are giving hundreds of budget millions to the same people who once had already broken the contract.

Banknotes and bankrupts

According to the Federal Tax Service, in 2017, ORK employed only 7 people, and at the end of last year - 46. This is more, but still not enough to serve the entire network of “golden toilets”. That is, receiving money from the budget, the company acts only as an intermediary. But for whom?

Three years ago, the then general director of the company, Boris Ermakov, admitted to Life that ORK itself only rents cabins from the company Santex. It is interesting that at that time there was only one person on the staff of "Santex", and even that very soon resigned. Probably, we are talking about the former general director of "Santex" Sergei Frolov, who today heads just "ORK" and who worked in the structures of Glyadelkin for a long time. At the same time, Vladimir Simonenkov, already familiar to us, was the owner of Santex until last year, but he has already left his place in the management and founders of the company. I had to. And who wants to receive claims from the tax authorities for subsidiary liability and be disqualified for bankruptcy!

According to SKRIN.Kontragent, in 2018 Santex's income amounted to 1,065,187,000 rubles, but the budget's profit from paying taxes by it was much more modest. In February 2018, for non-payment of taxes, proceedings were initiated against her in the amount of 4.4 million rubles. In August - by another 4.7 million. In October - by 3.4 million ... But for some reason the bailiffs did not find any traces of the firm itself, or its property in the form of so-called "golden toilets". Probably not very looking.

As a result, last summer the FTS even filed for Santeks in arbitration, where, for some reason, without contacting the law enforcement agencies, she stated that the debtor had no property even to pay off all the costs of the case. So instead of reimbursing these LLCs for damage to the state, instead of imposing, as it should be, subsidiary liability on the founder or the head of the company, in an attack of unclear kindness, the tax authorities decided to simply exclude the company from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities.

By the way, a similar story is happening with other firms of Glyadelkin and Co. Last year, Avenue Management's net profit was less than 400 thousand rubles, and debts to the treasury exceed 13 million, and this with assets that can be estimated at billions. They are trying to collect 132.5 million from Avenue Capital. ETM Center is working at a disadvantage. Bankruptcy proceedings have been initiated against "Construction Technologies MSM-1" ...

Probably, the same fate awaits the "golden toilets". Probably, budgetary cream will also be skimmed off their toilets and poured, if not again offshore, then on an imaginary foreigner. Possibly, to the Englishman Jay Carpenter, to whom Simonenkov, on the advice of Ostap Bender, had already copied the Santex, which he had ruined.

Incredible adventures of a foreigner in the toilet

So, today the firm "Santex", from which "ORK" has rented "golden toilets", is owned and operated by some Englishman Jay Carpenter. True, it is not easy to ascertain whether it actually exists. The company does not have a telephone, and the location in the documents is indicated purely formally.

There is simply no tax resident in our country who would have a TIN with that name. Abroad, however, there are quite a few Carpenters. There is a famous DJ Jay Carpenter. There is the artist Carpenter. There is even a low-budget actor who has appeared in the movie Ninja vs. Zombies. He is also Carpenter. But among the businessmen of the Jay Carpenters (one in Britain, several in the United States), it was not possible to find a single one connected with Russia. It is possible that such a denomination exists exclusively on paper, so that the Federal Tax Service and creditors have no one to ask for debts. This is also possible, given that in the 90s the full namesake of Sergei Glyadelkin already fell under Article 327, part 1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (falsification of documents).

This version is confirmed by the fact that the same elusive Jay Carpenter in Russia has one more office - Ortex-M, which was also declared bankrupt this year due to debts to the Del Monte company, which supplies fruits. At the same time, Orteks-M no longer has any visible connection with Glyadelkin and Simonenkov. Probably, someone simply uses documents in the name of a mythical foreigner to cover up the financial frauds of clients, to impose subsidiary liability and disqualification provided for by law on him (and such a director is not able to ensure the safety of company documents). In short, it will be interesting for law enforcement agencies and the tax authorities to find out where the budget millions have gone and to whom Santex transferred them.

If so, then such a scam must involve completely different forces. Both from the business side (after all, Vladimir Simonenkov signed documents on the transfer of his share to this Carpenter and the appointment of a new director), and from the side of the registering authorities in the notary service and the tax inspection. And of course, from the side of the Moscow City Hall. After all, it is the city officials who throw out hundreds of millions of "toilet" rubles to entrepreneurs who, such an impression, have put bankruptcy on stream. Someone has to control these "golden toilets" and the flow of gold through them?

Call from the booth

Directly on the golden booth hangs "Instructions for using the toilet", at the very bottom of which there are two phone numbers - the operating organization LLC "ORK" and the controlling organization of the Moscow State Budgetary Institution "Dorinvest". Both numbers belong to the same mobile operator and differ only in the last digits, as if the SIM cards were bought in one package. The impression is that the owners of the toilets have merged so much with the officials from the Moscow government that they control themselves.

Most likely a mistake and a coincidence.