The Khotins are one of the most important riddles of Russian business. These people have not been seen in person, their photos and biographies for almost 20 years of their work on the Russian market are not known to anyone. It is believed that Alexei and Yuri Hotin are a son and a father, but it is possible that they are brothers or simply identical twins. In comparison with these literary characters, the non-existent "daughters" of the RF resident "Putin" are real secular lionesses who regularly decorate the columns of stellar news. Dates of birth, education, habits - there is nothing of this about Khotin.

But despite such a dense veil of secrecy, they have spent the last 15 years on the money of state (Sberbank, VTB and others) and private Russian banks to rebuild the real business empire in Moscow real estate, and also spent more than $ 1 billion to buy oil-producing assets. In 2012, they bought from Sberbank NK Dulisma, in 2013. Alexey Khotin acquired 30% of Exillon Energy (which produces oil in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous District and the Komi Republic), in 2014 Dulisma acquired Irelyakhneft (produces oil in Yakutia), in 2015 Year - Negusneft. In 2015, Khotiny bought a loan from VTB for almost half a billion dollars from the Nafta Moskva Suleiman Kerimov gallery "Fashion season" in the hotel "Moscow".

The modest businessmen of "Belarusian origin" are a tremendous administrative resource that allows them to quickly receive quotas, multimillion-dollar loans and favored on all floors of the Russian apparatus. According to the conspiracy experts from the "ResFed", the president of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, who is also a Russian oligarch, stands for the "Khotin empire". However, this is not the only such version. Some media outlets in the Russian Federation write that Khotin is fond of the super-man Boris Gryzlov, so everything can be.

As for the bank "Ugra", which is the financial center of Khotyns, in the last year news from it comes more and more strange, and it can even be said that they are a bit frightening. A couple of years ago in the near-bank communities began to write that "Ugra" has turned into a trivial "vacuum cleaner", pumping in itself the money of private investors at high rates. Following the results of 2016, the bank took the second place in the Russian Federation among the most unprofitable financial institutions - a net loss under RAS amounted to 31.7 - 32.2 billion rubles (according to IFRS, the bank showed some profit due to a fun focus). 28% of the bank's loan portfolio for the amount of 77 billion rubles were recognized this year as "problematic". At the end of April, the bank was inundated and some operations were even suspended for a while, and in May the Central Bank of the Russian Federation began an unscheduled inspection of the Khotyns' farm.

Finally, at the end of May, it turned out that the Central Bank of the Russian Federation demanded about 40 billion rubles from Ugra shareholders, and the bank itself pays an increased deposit insurance rate to the Deposit Insurance Agency of Russia. Payments in the first quarter of 2017 compared with the same period in 2016 grew almost 5 times to 828 million rubles. Why this happened there is no secret:

"A doubtful" or "unsatisfactory" assessment of the financial position of the bank, which in addition to financial indicators (capital, assets, liquidity) includes the quality of risk management and internal control, the existence of restrictions on the implementation of certain Operations, "write Vedomosti.

Simply put, the state recognized "Yugra" as a bank in a very unsatisfactory state. The bank's shareholders have already expressed their readiness to replenish its balance sheet at the expense of the deposit, but it is not clear where they will get such money from, and whether this operation will be purely paper. In general, the Russian financial system has been in the zone of stable turbulence for already a couple of years, with all the signs of transition into a full-fledged tailspin. At the same time, it is impossible for analysts to determine exactly when a bank will "fall", but as negative information accumulates, their pessimism only grows. There are several reasons for this, we will single out a couple of the first caught.

First, the Bank of Russia does not seek to revoke licenses from major players in distress. For example, the withdrawal of a license from Vneshprombank (40th place in terms of assets for 2016), which was ruled by the children of Assyrian criminal authority Avdysha Bedzhamo - Georij Bedjamov and Larissa Marcus, took place only in January 2016. While the Central Bank of the Russian Federation was well aware of the problems that had begun in this financial and credit institution for the year. As a result, the "hole" in the bank's balance sheet amounted to more than 215 billion rubles, and the "gang" Marcus-Bedzhamova (the latter now hiding in Monaco, where he is covered by Prince Albert II) was engaged in withdrawing funds of about 5-6 years. The Central Bank of the Russian Federation persistently did not notice this from 2009!

Secondly, the paper reporting of Russian banks is not worth a penny. Thus, in the "Orthodox" bank "Peresvet" (its largest shareholders - the Russian Orthodox Church and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation), reporting, as it turned out, was forged for several years. There are a lot of such examples to be cited (from recent ones it's worth recalling Tatfondbank, the hole in which for half a year has grown from 45 to 120 billion rubles), but the damage to the Russian economy is impressive (from Vedomosti):

The Deposit Insurance Fund was emptied in the second half of 2015, two years after the Central Bank began a massive clearing of the banking sector. In 2013, DIA paid 103.9 billion rubles for payments to affected depositors, 202.4 billion rubles in 2014, and 369.2 billion rubles in 2015. Last year, insurance payments and at all doubled to 663.4 billion rubles. - an absolute record for DIA. There are no such funds in the fund - by July 2015 it was only 30.9 billion rubles. Then it was decided to finance insurance payments at the expense of the Central Bank. As a result, the DIA limit on the regulator's loans now stands at 820 billion rubles, of which, as of January 1, the agency has selected 549 billion rubles. (Loans are issued for five years).

In 2016, the fund received 660.6 billion rubles, of which 474 billion was for loans to the Central Bank (see infographics). And the fund's expenses amounted to 669.5 billion. The most significant source of replenishment of the fund is insurance premiums of banks for participation in the deposit insurance system. In 2017, the volume of insurance premiums of banks can reach 120-130 billion rubles., The press service of the DIA reported. To better fill the fund, the DIA has repeatedly raised rates and can continue in 2017.

Total, the amount of payments only for private deposits from the DIA increased from 2013, almost 6-odd times to 663 billion rubles! DIA does not have the money for such payments, the agency collects from banks only 100-120 billion rubles a year. The gap is financed by the state through loans from the CBR. And only in 2016 these loans amounted to 474 billion rubles. But this is only the tip of the iceberg. On the rehabilitation of banks that have collapsed, the DIA in 2016 took from the state ... a trillion rubles. The total budget payments to depositors of banks and for their rehabilitation amounted to almost 1.6 - 1.7 trillion rubles only in 2016. This is about half the budget of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.

Therefore, the bankruptcy of the bank "Ugra", which by the end of 2016 occupied the 33rd place in the Russian Federation in terms of assets, the 48th place in terms of equity and the 15th place in terms of individuals, may even be more abrupt than the history with Vneshprombank. The deposits of individuals in Ugra alone are about 183 billion rubles. At the same time, analysts suspect, the bank itself actively gave out loans to the structures of Khotin:

"The industry structure of the Yugra portfolio (40.2% - loans to oil and gas companies, chemical companies, 28.8% - construction and real estate, given IFRS) is reminiscent of the business of the main owner of the bank Alexei Khotin and his father Yuri," Vedomosti writes.

Most likely, Khotyny's business repeats the standard practice of crediting assets and withdrawing all living money to offshore. As a result, the financial center - the bank "Yugra", begins to resemble a paper house, inside of which is empty (Russian depositors' money, probably, also evaporated from there). However, you should not rush with a statement about the game over.

The Russian state will clearly be doing its best to support this flimsy construction, as long as it still has financial capabilities. How much is enough for them is an interesting question. Maybe for 3 months, maybe for half a year, maybe even for a year or more. Nevertheless, the sled should be cooked in the summer. Therefore, the business empire of "Khotin" has already begun preparations for its reformatting. There are rumors in the markets that all the more or less "tasty" assets of the crypto father and the crypto son begin to merge into the balance of businessman Sergey Podlysetsky's structures (also accidentally connected with Belarus), while the state and the ASV deftly "hots" will leave the snake skin in A kind of a dummy bank "Ugra" and several companies that have been credited with full trash. The joke lies also in the fact that Khotin himself, unlike Georgiy Bedzhamov, does not even need to run away, because no one has ever seen or knows them in person! So, they were not there.