In May 2016, a mass brawl took place at the Khovansky cemetery in Moscow. In the conflict, which was accompanied by a shootout, participated from 200 to 400 people; three died. This event completed the redistribution of the Moscow market of ritual services: instead of immigrants from Khimki near Moscow, whose attempts to gain a foothold in the capital led to a clash at Khovansky, businessmen from Stavropol, associated with the capital's FSB office, were at the head of almost all Moscow cemeteries. The correspondent of the investigation department of Medusa, Ivan Golunov, tells us where the new beneficiaries of the Moscow funeral market came from - and who can stand behind their appearance. The investigation was prepared for several months. After the arrest of Golunov in June 2019, journalists from leading Russian publications - Forbes, The Bell, Vedomosti, Novaya Gazeta, RBC, BBC Russian Service and Fontanka joined the work on its text.
Mass graves
In November 2008, unknown persons brutally beat Khimki’s journalist Mikhail Beketov. For about a year and a half, the journalist spent in hospitals, where he was removed the remains of shattered bones that hit the brain, amputated his right leg and three fingers on his left hand. After the assassination attempt, he moved in a wheelchair, almost could not speak. Five years later, Beketov died.
The perpetrators of the attack on the journalist were never found. Beketov himself suggested that the leaders of the Khimki administration could stand behind this crime: several months before the beating, he began to receive threats, in 2007, unknown persons burned his car. The journalist linked all this with critical publications about the city authorities.
From 1994 to 2001, Mikhail Beketov worked as a press secretary for the mayor of Khimki Yuri Korablin, and after his resignation he founded the Khimkinskaya Pravda newspaper, which opposes the new mayor Vladimir Strelchenko. Since 2007, Khimkinskaya Pravda has been writing about various conflict situations, including the struggle to preserve the Khimki forest. Among other things, the newspaper published a series of articles on the reburial of the remains of six military pilots from a mass grave located in a square near the Leningrad highway.
Khimki authorities explained the need to move the mass grave from the square by the extension of the Leningrad highway; the media also featured a version that the square had become a place of work for prostitutes who "defile the memory of the war heroes." Local activists claimed that the mass grave was being transferred to free up land for the construction of a shopping center. After publications in Khimkinskaya Pravda, federal television channels turned their attention to this story.
Beketov wrote that the graves of soldiers were broken by tractors, bones were put in garbage bags, and some were completely lost. On the air of central TV, Beketov showed photographs of a bone that looked like a human one — he was found at the place of the mass grave after the completion of the work.
Now, on the site of a public garden, for which a journalist fought 12 years ago, there are business centers - after the outbreak of scandal, the Khimki authorities did not dare to build it up entirely (although the land was already demarcated on the cadastral map), limiting itself to only roadside sites. A year after the reburial, an office center belonging to Evgeny Golovkin, the son of the then head of the Main Department of Internal Affairs of the Moscow Region (2001–2014) Nikolai Golovkin, was built several hundred meters from the former mass grave. In addition to other companies, companies that had belonged to Vyacheslav Nyrkov’s wife, the director of Khimki’s funeral service, and the man who led the reburial of the remains of the mass grave, entered the business center.
CHAPTER 2
Classmates
A military builder by training, Vyacheslav Nyrkov fit well into the structure of the mayor’s office in Khimki. The head of the city, Vladimir Strelchenko, who in the past served as deputy commander of the Kantemirovskaya division, willingly recruited former military personnel.
The scandal with the transfer of the mass grave became for Nyrkova the first experience in resolving conflict situations with local residents. Before heading the municipal funeral enterprise, Nyrkov was the head of the course at the Emergencies Ministry's Civil Defense Academy, located on the outskirts of Khimki. Then he gave his first interview, telling reporters that he coped with hazing with the help of the honor roll.
During the conflict around the mass grave, Nyrkov spoke with journalists a lot: he explained that the remains were packed in autopsy bags that might seem trash because of the black color, the surgeons at the local hospital monitored the work, and the very bone that Beketov wrote about brought stray dogs - or planted themselves activists.
Mass graves
In November 2008, unknown persons brutally beat Khimki’s journalist Mikhail Beketov. For about a year and a half, the journalist spent in hospitals, where he was removed the remains of shattered bones that hit the brain, amputated his right leg and three fingers on his left hand. After the assassination attempt, he moved in a wheelchair, almost could not speak. Five years later, Beketov died.
The perpetrators of the attack on the journalist were never found. Beketov himself suggested that the leaders of the Khimki administration could stand behind this crime: several months before the beating, he began to receive threats, in 2007, unknown persons burned his car. The journalist linked all this with critical publications about the city authorities.
From 1994 to 2001, Mikhail Beketov worked as a press secretary for the mayor of Khimki Yuri Korablin, and after his resignation he founded the Khimkinskaya Pravda newspaper, which opposes the new mayor Vladimir Strelchenko. Since 2007, Khimkinskaya Pravda has been writing about various conflict situations, including the struggle to preserve the Khimki forest. Among other things, the newspaper published a series of articles on the reburial of the remains of six military pilots from a mass grave located in a square near the Leningrad highway.
Khimki authorities explained the need to move the mass grave from the square by the extension of the Leningrad highway; the media also featured a version that the square had become a place of work for prostitutes who "defile the memory of the war heroes." Local activists claimed that the mass grave was being transferred to free up land for the construction of a shopping center. After publications in Khimkinskaya Pravda, federal television channels turned their attention to this story.
Beketov wrote that the graves of soldiers were broken by tractors, bones were put in garbage bags, and some were completely lost. On the air of central TV, Beketov showed photographs of a bone that looked like a human one — he was found at the place of the mass grave after the completion of the work.
Now, on the site of a public garden, for which a journalist fought 12 years ago, there are business centers - after the outbreak of scandal, the Khimki authorities did not dare to build it up entirely (although the land was already demarcated on the cadastral map), limiting itself to only roadside sites. A year after the reburial, an office center belonging to Evgeny Golovkin, the son of the then head of the Main Department of Internal Affairs of the Moscow Region (2001–2014) Nikolai Golovkin, was built several hundred meters from the former mass grave. In addition to other companies, companies that had belonged to Vyacheslav Nyrkov’s wife, the director of Khimki’s funeral service, and the man who led the reburial of the remains of the mass grave, entered the business center.
CHAPTER 2
Classmates
A military builder by training, Vyacheslav Nyrkov fit well into the structure of the mayor’s office in Khimki. The head of the city, Vladimir Strelchenko, who in the past served as deputy commander of the Kantemirovskaya division, willingly recruited former military personnel.
The scandal with the transfer of the mass grave became for Nyrkova the first experience in resolving conflict situations with local residents. Before heading the municipal funeral enterprise, Nyrkov was the head of the course at the Emergencies Ministry's Civil Defense Academy, located on the outskirts of Khimki. Then he gave his first interview, telling reporters that he coped with hazing with the help of the honor roll.
During the conflict around the mass grave, Nyrkov spoke with journalists a lot: he explained that the remains were packed in autopsy bags that might seem trash because of the black color, the surgeons at the local hospital monitored the work, and the very bone that Beketov wrote about brought stray dogs - or planted themselves activists.
The construction business in Khimki has the same advantages as the ritual one: almost Moscow, only cheaper. Having taken up construction, Nyrkov retained influence in the funeral services market. In 2009, he invited his fellow student of the Kamyshin Military Construction School (Volgograd Region), Yuri Chabuyev, to head the city funeral service. Together, they created several firms that earned funeral services, construction, and garbage collection. In the meantime, small shopping centers and shops that belonged to Nyrkov’s wife appeared in Podrezkovo.
The work scheme of the ritual business of Nyrkov and Chabuyev was simple: representatives of the municipal Khimki funeral service sat in all the morgues, but they entered into contracts for a private company associated with officials. In his native village in the Penza region, Chabuyev established the production of coffins and ritual accessories. In addition, the company of Nyrkov’s wife built a columbarium at the Novoluzhinsky cemetery (it was there that they buried Beketov in 2013) and planned to build a crematorium with a new cemetery on the site of the Levoberezhny landfill in Khimki.
With the wife of another classmate in the Kamyshin military construction school - Yuri Schneider - they founded the company Clean City, which was engaged in garbage collection from Khimki enterprises.
Since the beginning of the 2010s, representatives of the public organizations “Healthy Nation” and “Night Wolves of Khimki” began to appear at rallies against scatter buildings in Khimki, which supported construction companies and sometimes dispersed protesters. Vyacheslav Nyrkov was co-owner of the local branch of the motorcycle club; "Night wolves" received a residence permit in one of the Khimki shopping centers owned by Chabuyeva and Nyrkova. The “Healthy Nation” was registered in the office of the Khimki funeral service - in the room where there was a pharmacy owned by a deputy of the Khimki City Council, who heads the commission on construction and housing and communal services.
In 2010, after another conflict of developers with local residents, environmentalist Konstantin Fetisov was beaten in Khimki. The police detained the performers and the organizer - they turned out to be the head of the Khimki municipal property department Andrei Chernyshev, Nyrkov's colleague and a subordinate of Alexei Valov, one of the deputy mayors, Vladimir Strelchenko (before joining the team Strelchenko Valov headed the military unit next to the Kantemirovskaya division). Chernyshev received six years in prison. The defendants said they were fulfilling the instructions of Valov, but these statements did not receive any development.
In 2012, shortly after the conflict due to the construction of the highway through the Khimki Forest, Vladimir Strelchenko was dismissed. Alexey Valov in 2014 headed the Schelkovsky district of the Moscow region.
CHAPTER 3
From Khimki to Khovanskoe
In 2013, the head of the Khimki funeral service, Yuri Chabuyev, went to work in Moscow, leading the territorial department of ritual services (TORO) No. 3 of the Moscow State Budgetary Institution “Ritual”, which included Khovanskoe, Vostryakovskoe and some other cemeteries (Khimki’s funeral service after Chabuev was headed by Peter Levchenko - Another classmate from the Kamyshin military construction school).
Two years later, TORO No. 3 expanded - a number of famous Moscow cemeteries were included in it, including Troekurovskoye, Vagankovskoye and Novodevichy - and became the largest subdivision of the State Budgetary Institution “Ritual”. Under the control of Chabuyev there were 31 cemeteries, including the most prestigious ones. Chabuev's schoolmate and business partner in the Clean City, Yuri Schneider, soon headed TORO No. 5, including several other large cemeteries in the south of Moscow — Shcherbinskoe, Domodedovo, Kotlyakovskoe. Thus, graduates of the Kamyshin School from the Volgograd Region extended their influence to the best cemeteries in Moscow.
Revenues partners grew. The production of ritual goods in Chabuyev’s homeland has also increased. TORO number 3 began to rent equipment from his wife Chabuyev. My wife opened the restaurant "Serbia" in one of the most expensive business centers of the capital "Romanov Dvor" - it is located a few hundred meters from the Kremlin.
One of the most notable episodes related to the way Yuri Chabuyev was increasing his influence on the Moscow market of ritual services was the famous conflict at the Khovansky cemetery. The fight was attended by representatives of the “Healthy Nation” - organizations whose members dispersed Khimki’s rallies against scatter buildings. The structure consisted of natives of Chechnya and the police, and one of the leaders of the organization was Alexander Bocharnikov, the son-in-law of the former deputy head of the Moscow State Traffic Safety Inspectorate, Mikhail Portashnikov.
The conflict, according to numerous testimonies, began after Chabuyev tried to increase the exactions from the Tajiks who worked at the cemetery.
Newcomers from Tajikistan make up a significant part of the labor force in Moscow’s cemeteries - they are engaged in cleaning and caring for the graves. As found out by “Medusa”, almost all of them come from one “village council” (a union of several villages) - Obigarm, located in the Rogun district of Tajikistan. Some are officially employed, others work without documents - but, according to their own words, unofficial deductions are paid to cemetery administrations. For a long time this item of income remained too insignificant for the leadership of the necropolis and was not paid attention to. This allowed migrants to save money and start expanding their fields of activity: at the Khovansky and Perepechinsky cemeteries, by 2016, they had official granite workshops. Chabuyev decided to take control of this business.
As they told, including later in court, migrants who worked at the Khovansky cemetery, Yuri Chabuyev suggested that they rewrite the official and unofficial business to their people and continue to work for wages. The Tajiks refused, and Chabuyev applied Khimki’s methods, connecting fighters from the Healthy Nation.
Young people from the “Healthy Nation” appeared at the Khovansky cemetery in the spring of 2016 — this time of year rituals who install monuments and maintain graves have their peak season. Moving on motor scooters, they began to “inspect” the cemetery - following the results of which the Tajiks were driven out of the territory.
On May 14, in the coming weekend after the holidays, there was a mass brawl between members of the “Healthy Nation” and the Tajiks. From 200 to 400 people participated in it; the migrants greatly exceeded the number, so their opponents staged a shooting, which soon ceased: riot police arrived at the cemetery. As a result of the collision, three people died, more than 30 were seriously injured. Among the victims were visitors to the cemetery.
In November 2018, the court found Yuri Chabuev guilty of organizing the riots and sentenced him to 11 years in a penal colony. Another organizer of the fight - the co-founder of the sports organization "Healthy Nation" Alexander Bocharnikov received nine years in prison. Another 13 participants in the fight were sentenced to terms ranging from three and a half to 11 and a half years in a penal colony. More than a hundred natives of Tajikistan were also detained - some of them were deported. 22 detainees received 15 days of administrative arrest, five more participants in the fight were sentenced to three years in prison.
During the court hearings, Yuri Chabuev said that he had repeatedly warned about the upcoming brawl of the then deputy director for security of the state institution “Ritual” Alexander Garakoev, but he did not take any action to prevent the conflict, and the employees of the private security forces guarding the cemeteries were ordered not to intervene. In the 1990s, Garakoev served in Tajikistan, and he came to GBU "Ritual" from the post of head of the logistics base of the border guard of the FSB of Russia, stationed in Stavropol.
After the arrest of Chabuyev and the dismissal of his friends from the State Budgetary Institution "Ritual", almost all Moscow cemeteries were headed by immigrants from the Stavropol Territory.
CHAPTER 4
Stavropol
According to the Moscow Department of Trade and Services, the volume of the capital’s funeral market is about 14–15 billion rubles a year. At the same time, according to official reports for the last three years, the income of the state-financed institution “Ritual” from paid services annually ranged from 1.7 to 3 billion rubles.
Ritual business is a reliable source of cash, says the interlocutor of Medusa in the funeral industry. The source of "black" money can be the preparation of bodies for burial, the sale of land in cemeteries, the payment for digging and improvement of graves, the organization of funerals. The volume of shadow cash in the Moscow funeral services market is three sources of “Medusa” estimated in the range of 12 to 14 billion rubles a year.
The redistribution of this market began even before the exchange of fire at the Khovansky cemetery, which occurred in May 2016, from the appointment of Artem Ekimov to the post of director of the state-financed institution “Ritual”. Former senior security officer of the Main Directorate for Economic Security and Anti-Corruption of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (GUEBiPK) Ekimov headed the enterprise in 2015. According to sources in the Moscow government, Ekimov’s appointment was submitted as a way to restore order in the ritual market, and the experience in the Ministry of Internal Affairs should have helped the new director to solve this problem.
The appointment was preceded by a series of operations against the influential leaders of the State Budgetary Institution “Ritual” - they brought cases of bribes to several people. Just a year before Ekimov’s transition to a new job, employees of the Economic Security Department of the State Ministry of Internal Affairs in Moscow detained Dmitry Anishchenko, a former deputy of the Samara Provincial Duma, who allegedly promised one businessman to assist in appointing the head of Ritual for a fee of two million euros. Anischenko was put on prison for a year and a half for attempted fraud. Ekimov participated in the operational development of this case, a former employee of GUEBiPK told Medusa.
As head of the state institution "Ritual", Ekimov began to change the head of the cemeteries, appointing his people. At the same time, the zones of influence of Yuri Chabuyev — that is, practically all the most prestigious necropolises of Moscow — practically did not affect these changes. But after the conflict in Khovansky, their turn came. The people appointed by Yekimov often had no experience in the ritual business. In addition to the lack of experience, appointees also united their origin - almost all of them came from the Stavropol Territory.
As a result of personnel changes and structural changes in the state budget institution, the main divisions of Ritual subordinated one person to the first deputy director. Valerian Mazaraki was appointed to this position, in the past - the owner of the alcohol business. Roman Molotkov, the singer of the Stavropol rap group “The Cross Family,” and co-owner of several restaurants in Stavropol, appeared among the heads of territorial divisions of the Moscow “Ritual”; Albert Utakaev - the former head of the border troops of the FSB in Karachay-Cherkessia, subsequently - deputy director of the state-financed institution “Ritual”; Yuri Kushnir - previously worked as a manager at a car dealership and bartender in a restaurant on the Bryusov motor ship - and others (12 people altogether).
After the change of leadership in Moscow cemeteries, changes were also made in the protection of necropolises — instead of several security firms, the contract was received by Alfa Horse Private Security Company. Its main owner is 28-year-old Emilia Leshkevich, who also owns a handicraft salon in Perm. Leshkevich - a relative of Anastasia Mazaraki, wife of Lev Mazaraki - brother of the First Deputy General Director of the State Budgetary Institution “Ritual” (appointed by Ekimov).
Six months after the clash at the Khovansky cemetery, Emilia Leshkevich established the First Ritual Company (PRK). She bought dozens of cars-hearses and subsequently won several contracts for the provision of transport services from the State Budgetary Enterprise "Ritual". Leshkevich’s PPK partner, Sardal Umalatov; in January 2019, he became the owner of another Moscow funeral company, the Grail.
Sardal Umalatov is the son of the head of the oil industry committee in the Chechen parliament since the time of Dzhokhar Dudayev. In 2009, the 23-year-old Umalatov was in the criminal chronicle as the owner of a burned car Bentley. In 2017, Umalatov's brother was killed during a conflict between employees of fixed-route taxi companies competing on the same route. The authorities of the Moscow region have assigned the carrier Trans-Road to this problematic route, which the media associate with Alexander Kolokoltsev, the son of Russian Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev. Sardal Umalatov owns several companies together with Alexander Kolokoltsev. Earlier, the Vedomosti newspaper linked the son of the Minister of Internal Affairs with several shuttle bus operators, who received multibillion-dollar contracts from the Moscow Transport Department for the carriage of passengers.
As head of the state institution "Ritual", Ekimov began to change the head of the cemeteries, appointing his people. At the same time, the zones of influence of Yuri Chabuyev — that is, practically all the most prestigious necropolises of Moscow — practically did not affect these changes. But after the conflict in Khovansky, their turn came. The people appointed by Yekimov often had no experience in the ritual business. In addition to the lack of experience, appointees also united their origin - almost all of them came from the Stavropol Territory.
As a result of personnel changes and structural changes in the state budget institution, the main divisions of Ritual subordinated one person to the first deputy director. Valerian Mazaraki was appointed to this position, in the past - the owner of the alcohol business. Roman Molotkov, the singer of the Stavropol rap group “The Cross Family,” and co-owner of several restaurants in Stavropol, appeared among the heads of territorial divisions of the Moscow “Ritual”; Albert Utakaev - the former head of the border troops of the FSB in Karachay-Cherkessia, subsequently - deputy director of the state-financed institution “Ritual”; Yuri Kushnir - previously worked as a manager at a car dealership and bartender in a restaurant on the Bryusov motor ship - and others (12 people altogether).
After the change of leadership in Moscow cemeteries, changes were also made in the protection of necropolises — instead of several security firms, the contract was received by Alfa Horse Private Security Company. Its main owner is 28-year-old Emilia Leshkevich, who also owns a handicraft salon in Perm. Leshkevich - a relative of Anastasia Mazaraki, wife of Lev Mazaraki - brother of the First Deputy General Director of the State Budgetary Institution “Ritual” (appointed by Ekimov).
Six months after the clash at the Khovansky cemetery, Emilia Leshkevich established the First Ritual Company (PRK). She bought dozens of cars-hearses and subsequently won several contracts for the provision of transport services from the State Budgetary Enterprise "Ritual". Leshkevich’s PPK partner, Sardal Umalatov; in January 2019, he became the owner of another Moscow funeral company, the Grail.
Sardal Umalatov is the son of the head of the oil industry committee in the Chechen parliament since the time of Dzhokhar Dudayev. In 2009, the 23-year-old Umalatov was in the criminal chronicle as the owner of a burned car Bentley. In 2017, Umalatov's brother was killed during a conflict between employees of fixed-route taxi companies competing on the same route. The authorities of the Moscow region have assigned the carrier Trans-Road to this problematic route, which the media associate with Alexander Kolokoltsev, the son of Russian Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev. Sardal Umalatov owns several companies together with Alexander Kolokoltsev. Earlier, the Vedomosti newspaper linked the son of the Minister of Internal Affairs with several shuttle bus operators, who received multibillion-dollar contracts from the Moscow Transport Department for the carriage of passengers.
Assistant Minister Irina Volk wrote in writing to Medusa on behalf of Vladimir Kolokoltsev that the minister’s son had never been involved in ritual business; the minister is also not aware of any illegal son’s commercial activities. Emilia Leshkevich told Medusa that she would not give any comments. Alexander Kolokoltsev replied that "he did not have and has nothing to do with the ritual (funeral) business." The Moscow department of trade and services did not respond to the request.
CHAPTER 5
Bankers
In the 1990s and 2000s, the brothers Lev and Valerian Mazaraki lived and did business in the Stavropol region, in Bashkortostan and the Krasnodar Territory. In particular, they owned a Stavropol alcohol producer - the company "Alliance". Rosalkogolregulirovanie repeatedly accused the "Alliance" in the use of alcohol of unknown origin. The brothers also owned shops and entertainment establishments in which, according to the Stavropol media, they also found dubious alcohol. In 2007, Valerian Mazaraki founded the “Time of Income” lottery: it did not last long - due to the fact that the advertisement used the image of Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.
From 2007 to 2012, Lev Mazaraki headed the North Caucasus branch of SG-Trans, one of the largest railway operators for the transportation of oil and gas cargo. In parallel, Mazaraki owned the company SG-Trade, which provided various services to SG-Trans. For example, the railway operator handed over the railway tanks, and a few years later it turned out that they were gone. At the same time, SG-Trade placed on the Internet an advertisement for the sale of tanks from tanks. In the history of the missing tanks featured several current head of the cemetery.
In the early 2010s, the Mazaraki brothers sold the Alliance company and moved to Moscow, replacing the alcohol business with a financial one. Mazaraki and some of their acquaintances became owners and managers of several banks - “Sots ekonbank”, the National Bank for Business Development, “Mast Bank”, “Vestinterbank”.
All these institutions have a common trait: shortly after the appearance of a team of managers associated with Mazaraki, the Central Bank revoked the bank’s license for “violating the law on counteracting legalization of income,” and later it turned out that assets had been removed from the bank. According to the Central Bank, after the revocation of the license, 1.1 billion rubles were missed in the Stavropol Social-Economic Bank, 13 billion in the National Bank for Business Development, 6.8 billion in the Mast Bank, and only 386 million rubles in the small Vestinterbank . The co-owner of Vestinterbank, together with Lev Mazaraki, was Nikolai Dorofeev, a former security officer. Two sources in the funeral industry believe that he is a relative of the head of the FSB in Moscow and the Moscow region, Alexei Dorofeev, but Medusa could not find documentary evidence of this information. Nikolay Dorofeev did not respond to the letter, he could not reach him by phone. Alexey Dorofeev did not respond to numerous requests from the authors of the investigation.
According to the Central Bank, funds were withdrawn from banks through the issuance of loans to one-day companies - but in some cases, money was received by familiar companies. So, shortly before the revocation of the license from the National Business Development Bank, a loan of 30 million rubles was received by the company SG-Trade by Lev Mazaraki (the one that lost the tanks). Soon she ceased operations.
Most of the employees moved from bank to bank. For example, Sergei Selyukov, a native of Stavropol, was a shareholder of the SotsEconombank, and later headed additional offices of the National Bank for Business Development and Mast Bank. In 2015–2016, he was the head of one of the territorial divisions of the Moscow State Budgetary Institution “Ritual”, and in the spring of 2017 he headed the Moscow office of the small bank Sputnik, registered in Samara.
In 2017, the Samara Bank Sputnik acquired a group of people who previously worked at the SotsEconombank and other burst banks. Shortly thereafter, Sputnik had a Moscow branch and operating cash desks on the Dubrovka, FoodCity clothing markets and the Moscow Trade and Fair Complex. Despite the large cash flow, few banks operate in the commodity markets - prior to the revocation of licenses, one of the largest players here was Mast Bank, which is also associated with a group of Stavropol financiers. As “Medusa” was convinced, “Sputnik” cash desks in the markets opened in the same premises that had previously been occupied by “Mast Bank”.
CHAPTER 5
Bankers
In the 1990s and 2000s, the brothers Lev and Valerian Mazaraki lived and did business in the Stavropol region, in Bashkortostan and the Krasnodar Territory. In particular, they owned a Stavropol alcohol producer - the company "Alliance". Rosalkogolregulirovanie repeatedly accused the "Alliance" in the use of alcohol of unknown origin. The brothers also owned shops and entertainment establishments in which, according to the Stavropol media, they also found dubious alcohol. In 2007, Valerian Mazaraki founded the “Time of Income” lottery: it did not last long - due to the fact that the advertisement used the image of Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.
From 2007 to 2012, Lev Mazaraki headed the North Caucasus branch of SG-Trans, one of the largest railway operators for the transportation of oil and gas cargo. In parallel, Mazaraki owned the company SG-Trade, which provided various services to SG-Trans. For example, the railway operator handed over the railway tanks, and a few years later it turned out that they were gone. At the same time, SG-Trade placed on the Internet an advertisement for the sale of tanks from tanks. In the history of the missing tanks featured several current head of the cemetery.
In the early 2010s, the Mazaraki brothers sold the Alliance company and moved to Moscow, replacing the alcohol business with a financial one. Mazaraki and some of their acquaintances became owners and managers of several banks - “Sots ekonbank”, the National Bank for Business Development, “Mast Bank”, “Vestinterbank”.
All these institutions have a common trait: shortly after the appearance of a team of managers associated with Mazaraki, the Central Bank revoked the bank’s license for “violating the law on counteracting legalization of income,” and later it turned out that assets had been removed from the bank. According to the Central Bank, after the revocation of the license, 1.1 billion rubles were missed in the Stavropol Social-Economic Bank, 13 billion in the National Bank for Business Development, 6.8 billion in the Mast Bank, and only 386 million rubles in the small Vestinterbank . The co-owner of Vestinterbank, together with Lev Mazaraki, was Nikolai Dorofeev, a former security officer. Two sources in the funeral industry believe that he is a relative of the head of the FSB in Moscow and the Moscow region, Alexei Dorofeev, but Medusa could not find documentary evidence of this information. Nikolay Dorofeev did not respond to the letter, he could not reach him by phone. Alexey Dorofeev did not respond to numerous requests from the authors of the investigation.
According to the Central Bank, funds were withdrawn from banks through the issuance of loans to one-day companies - but in some cases, money was received by familiar companies. So, shortly before the revocation of the license from the National Business Development Bank, a loan of 30 million rubles was received by the company SG-Trade by Lev Mazaraki (the one that lost the tanks). Soon she ceased operations.
Most of the employees moved from bank to bank. For example, Sergei Selyukov, a native of Stavropol, was a shareholder of the SotsEconombank, and later headed additional offices of the National Bank for Business Development and Mast Bank. In 2015–2016, he was the head of one of the territorial divisions of the Moscow State Budgetary Institution “Ritual”, and in the spring of 2017 he headed the Moscow office of the small bank Sputnik, registered in Samara.
In 2017, the Samara Bank Sputnik acquired a group of people who previously worked at the SotsEconombank and other burst banks. Shortly thereafter, Sputnik had a Moscow branch and operating cash desks on the Dubrovka, FoodCity clothing markets and the Moscow Trade and Fair Complex. Despite the large cash flow, few banks operate in the commodity markets - prior to the revocation of licenses, one of the largest players here was Mast Bank, which is also associated with a group of Stavropol financiers. As “Medusa” was convinced, “Sputnik” cash desks in the markets opened in the same premises that had previously been occupied by “Mast Bank”.
In March 2019, police officers searched the territories of the Gardener, Food City and the Moscow TYAK, completely blocking their work. Shortly thereafter, Sputnik's cash desks on the clothing markets closed.
It was not possible to get through to Valerian and Lev Mazaraki “Medusa”. Valerian did not respond to the letter addressed to his name through the mail of the press service of the State Budgetary Institution “Ritual”. Leo did not answer questions sent to him on Facebook.
Chapter 6
Friends from the Children's World
Artyom Yekimov, a man who appointed Valerian Mazaraki as his deputy and put his Stavropol countrymen at the head of the Moscow TORO, soon began working at the Ritual State Budgetary Institution soon after the special operation at his former place of work. As a result of this operation, the entire leadership of the Main Directorate for Economic Security and Anti-Corruption of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (GUEBiPK) was in prison.
The reason for the operation was an investigative experiment, arranged by employees of GUEBiPK: they tried to provoke the deputy head of the 6th service of the Department of personal security of the FSB, Igor Demin, to receive a bribe. After that, seven employees of GUEBiPK, headed by the head of department, General Denis Sugrobov, were accused of provoking bribes and exceeding their official powers, and later an article was added on the organization of the criminal community. In 2017, Sugrobov was sentenced to 22 years in prison (later reduced to 12 years).
It is believed that Sugrobov’s case was a milestone in the struggle of several security groups for control of the banking sector, which was traditionally supervised by the banking unit (K department) of the FSB Economic Security Service.
Denis Sugrobov knew about the upcoming care of Artem Yekimov from his department in the state budgetary institution “Ritual”, a source from Sugrobov’s entourage told “Medusa”. Back in 2013, Sugrobov assumed, the source said, that Ekimov would head the Moscow funeral service, since he was a friend of Marat Medoev, assistant head of the FSB department in Moscow and the Moscow region. Moreover, Sugrobov was informed by his acquaintances from the presidential administration that the head of the UFSB, Alexei Dorofeyev, allegedly lobbied for the appointment of Ekimov.
FSB Colonel-General Alexei Dorofeev (now 58 years old) graduated from the Leningrad Mechanical Institute, then went to serve in the KGB and worked in the city structures of the state security management of Leningrad and St. Petersburg. In 2005 he headed the FSB department in Karelia. According to media reports, he was removed from this post after the riots in Kondopoga in 2006, but soon moved to Moscow. In 2010–2012, Dorofeev headed the “M” Directorate of the FSB, which subsequently engaged in an operation to disperse GUEBiPK. Then, in 2012, he headed the head of the FSB in the metropolitan area.
Information about the fact that it was General Dorofeev who was behind Artem Yekimov’s appointment as the head of the Moscow State Budgetary Institution “Ritual” was confirmed by a source of “Medusa” in law enforcement agencies. An officer of one of the special services, personally acquainted with Marat Medoev, told Medusa that Ekimov was considered a “man of Dorofeev”.
The same interlocutor of “Medusa” characterizes Dorofeev as a “celestial being”: “Colonel General, office, winter garden. Not every boss from the Children's World can get to him. ”
It was not possible to get through to Valerian and Lev Mazaraki “Medusa”. Valerian did not respond to the letter addressed to his name through the mail of the press service of the State Budgetary Institution “Ritual”. Leo did not answer questions sent to him on Facebook.
Chapter 6
Friends from the Children's World
Artyom Yekimov, a man who appointed Valerian Mazaraki as his deputy and put his Stavropol countrymen at the head of the Moscow TORO, soon began working at the Ritual State Budgetary Institution soon after the special operation at his former place of work. As a result of this operation, the entire leadership of the Main Directorate for Economic Security and Anti-Corruption of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (GUEBiPK) was in prison.
The reason for the operation was an investigative experiment, arranged by employees of GUEBiPK: they tried to provoke the deputy head of the 6th service of the Department of personal security of the FSB, Igor Demin, to receive a bribe. After that, seven employees of GUEBiPK, headed by the head of department, General Denis Sugrobov, were accused of provoking bribes and exceeding their official powers, and later an article was added on the organization of the criminal community. In 2017, Sugrobov was sentenced to 22 years in prison (later reduced to 12 years).
It is believed that Sugrobov’s case was a milestone in the struggle of several security groups for control of the banking sector, which was traditionally supervised by the banking unit (K department) of the FSB Economic Security Service.
Denis Sugrobov knew about the upcoming care of Artem Yekimov from his department in the state budgetary institution “Ritual”, a source from Sugrobov’s entourage told “Medusa”. Back in 2013, Sugrobov assumed, the source said, that Ekimov would head the Moscow funeral service, since he was a friend of Marat Medoev, assistant head of the FSB department in Moscow and the Moscow region. Moreover, Sugrobov was informed by his acquaintances from the presidential administration that the head of the UFSB, Alexei Dorofeyev, allegedly lobbied for the appointment of Ekimov.
FSB Colonel-General Alexei Dorofeev (now 58 years old) graduated from the Leningrad Mechanical Institute, then went to serve in the KGB and worked in the city structures of the state security management of Leningrad and St. Petersburg. In 2005 he headed the FSB department in Karelia. According to media reports, he was removed from this post after the riots in Kondopoga in 2006, but soon moved to Moscow. In 2010–2012, Dorofeev headed the “M” Directorate of the FSB, which subsequently engaged in an operation to disperse GUEBiPK. Then, in 2012, he headed the head of the FSB in the metropolitan area.
Information about the fact that it was General Dorofeev who was behind Artem Yekimov’s appointment as the head of the Moscow State Budgetary Institution “Ritual” was confirmed by a source of “Medusa” in law enforcement agencies. An officer of one of the special services, personally acquainted with Marat Medoev, told Medusa that Ekimov was considered a “man of Dorofeev”.
The same interlocutor of “Medusa” characterizes Dorofeev as a “celestial being”: “Colonel General, office, winter garden. Not every boss from the Children's World can get to him. ”
37-year-old Marat Medoev (whose source from Sugrobov’s entourage called Artem Yekimov’s friend) is Alexey Dorofeev’s personal assistant. Medoev was born in Leningrad, but at least since the beginning of the 2000s he lives in Moscow, until 2012 he worked in the investigative department of the FSB. Officially, he never did business, but he used to buy expensive cars and motorcycles. So, in 2012, he bought a new BMW X5 Drive, and two years later - a BMW R1 motorcycle. The car, as Alexey Navalny, the founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, wrote, Medoev then sold Valery Bolshakov; as found out "Medusa", Bolshakov - head of the department of transport services of the State Budgetary Institution "Ritual". Valery Bolshakov declined to comment and hung up. The son of Bolshakov, Alexander, said that his father did not know Marat Medoev, and that he bought a car by advertisement. At the same time, Alexander Bolshakov is a close friend of the Medoevs and Mazaraki families, and often spends leisure time with them. So, for example, Valerian Mazaraki and Marat Medoev's wife Natalya were present at the Bolshakov Jr. wedding at the Soho Rooms club.
Marat Medoev has been familiar with Dorofeev at least since the beginning of the 2010s. According to a source in the Moscow FSB, personally acquainted with Medoev, Dorofeyev took him under his head, heading the administration in 2012. The source of “Medusa” in law enforcement agencies, also familiar with Medoev, calls him “the right hand” of Dorofeyev and “the executor of all his errands”: “If the commission comes from him, then it comes from the boss and must be carried out, no one doubts”. The source confirms that the FSB officers are directly connected with the state institution “Ritual”: the same Marat Medoev, according to the interlocutor of “Medusa”, sometimes “resolves unpleasant situations” from the side of “Ritual”, which arise among the employees of the department.
Director of the State Budgetary Institution “Ritual” Artem Yekimov offered to meet one of the authors of the investigation, but at the last moment postponed the meeting for an indefinite time “due to the complexity of the topic” and could not provide an operational comment at the time of the text.
CHAPTER 7
"Shayka-Lake"
In February 2018, Anastasia Mazaraki, the wife of Lev Mazaraki, was celebrated at the Soho Rooms Club in Moscow (she is known as the owner of one of the most expensive cars in the capital - the orange Lamborghini Aventador LP 700-4 sports car cost from 23.7 million rubles). The party was held in the style of "The Great Gatsby." Among the guests was Artem Ekimov, director of the state-funded institution “Ritual”.
The Mazaraki family often spends their free time in the company of the Medoev family. So, in May 2019, the restaurant “Moscow Evenings” on Rublevka celebrated the birthday of Natalia Medoeva, the wife of Marat Medoeva. Among the guests are Anastasia Mazaraki and Maya Ovsyannikov, nee Medoeva, the younger sister of Marat Medoeva. The event called “Evening Natasha” was led by Ivan Urgant, the guests were entertained by the “Disco Crash”. According to the sources of "Medusa", the cost of the event was 18-20 million rubles. Safit Event, an event agency, organized the holiday - it also organized an Agent Provocateur-style theme party in honor of the birthday of Anastasia Mazaraki in February 2019, which included Marat Medoeva Elda’s sister.
Soho Rooms Club belongs to the son of Anastasia and Lev Mazaraki - 19-year-old Egor. Yegor Mazaraki came to the club-restaurant business by buying several establishments at the Trekhgornaya Manufactory in Moscow, including the Hooligan Moscow club (formerly owned by Denis Simachev and Andrei Kobzon), the Blacksmith Irish pub and the Jagger Hall banquet hall. In addition, Egor Mazaraki owns the 20/15 barbershop and the Shayka-Lake bath complex.
Marat Medoev has been familiar with Dorofeev at least since the beginning of the 2010s. According to a source in the Moscow FSB, personally acquainted with Medoev, Dorofeyev took him under his head, heading the administration in 2012. The source of “Medusa” in law enforcement agencies, also familiar with Medoev, calls him “the right hand” of Dorofeyev and “the executor of all his errands”: “If the commission comes from him, then it comes from the boss and must be carried out, no one doubts”. The source confirms that the FSB officers are directly connected with the state institution “Ritual”: the same Marat Medoev, according to the interlocutor of “Medusa”, sometimes “resolves unpleasant situations” from the side of “Ritual”, which arise among the employees of the department.
Director of the State Budgetary Institution “Ritual” Artem Yekimov offered to meet one of the authors of the investigation, but at the last moment postponed the meeting for an indefinite time “due to the complexity of the topic” and could not provide an operational comment at the time of the text.
CHAPTER 7
"Shayka-Lake"
In February 2018, Anastasia Mazaraki, the wife of Lev Mazaraki, was celebrated at the Soho Rooms Club in Moscow (she is known as the owner of one of the most expensive cars in the capital - the orange Lamborghini Aventador LP 700-4 sports car cost from 23.7 million rubles). The party was held in the style of "The Great Gatsby." Among the guests was Artem Ekimov, director of the state-funded institution “Ritual”.
The Mazaraki family often spends their free time in the company of the Medoev family. So, in May 2019, the restaurant “Moscow Evenings” on Rublevka celebrated the birthday of Natalia Medoeva, the wife of Marat Medoeva. Among the guests are Anastasia Mazaraki and Maya Ovsyannikov, nee Medoeva, the younger sister of Marat Medoeva. The event called “Evening Natasha” was led by Ivan Urgant, the guests were entertained by the “Disco Crash”. According to the sources of "Medusa", the cost of the event was 18-20 million rubles. Safit Event, an event agency, organized the holiday - it also organized an Agent Provocateur-style theme party in honor of the birthday of Anastasia Mazaraki in February 2019, which included Marat Medoeva Elda’s sister.
Soho Rooms Club belongs to the son of Anastasia and Lev Mazaraki - 19-year-old Egor. Yegor Mazaraki came to the club-restaurant business by buying several establishments at the Trekhgornaya Manufactory in Moscow, including the Hooligan Moscow club (formerly owned by Denis Simachev and Andrei Kobzon), the Blacksmith Irish pub and the Jagger Hall banquet hall. In addition, Egor Mazaraki owns the 20/15 barbershop and the Shayka-Lake bath complex.
The entertainment business of the Mazaraki family is managed by Igor Nelyubov - he previously headed the Krasnaya Riding Hood strip club, and then was the general director of the First Ritual Company. Nelyubov is also headed by several companies owned by Mazaraki’s friend, Vyacheslav Martynenko. After moving to the capital after Mazaraki, Martynenko also became a co-owner of several popular metropolitan institutions: Designer and Mix clubs, as well as the Mir banquet hall, which is located in the building of the cinema of the same name.
At the end of 2018, Martynenko had a new business - he won the tender for the right to trade at the metro stations located in the center of Moscow. Shortly before, the deputy head of the Moscow Department of Transport, which manages the subway, was Alexander Garakoev, former deputy director of the state institution “Ritual” - FSB colonel in reserve and the former head of the security service “Ritual”, who refused to support Yury Chabuyev’s Khimki during fights at Khovansky cemetery.
A relative of the Medoevs, Yuri Ovsyannikov, who headed the Moscow Administrative Road Inspectorate (MADI) also worked in the transport complex of the capital. Under the MADI office, she rented a room on Kazakov Street, owned by Marat Medoev’s father Igor. Earlier this room was located the central office of Arksbank. In 2016, this bank was in the center of a major scandal: after revocation of the license from Arksbank, it turned out that almost 90% of the deposits in the amount of 35.1 billion rubles were not recorded on the balance sheet and were withdrawn from the bank.
Pensioner Igor Medoev, the father of an influential security official Marat Medoev, is a close friend of the figure in the Magnitsky list, FSB general Viktor Voronin, who until 2016 headed the “K” department responsible for banking control, according to two sources of “Medusa” who are familiar with Igor Medoev. Bank owners have repeatedly accused Voronin of attempting a raider seizure of their assets. In May of 2011, banker Alexander Lebedev published an open letter in which he noted that some Voronin’s subordinates “confuse their own wool with the state one”. Dorofeev is also well acquainted with Voronin: at the end of the 2000s, they flew from St. Petersburg to Moscow together, and from 2010 to 2012 they simultaneously headed the directorates of the FSB FSB.
Prior to retirement, Igor Medoev served in the management of the Federal Security Service of North Ossetia, and since 2001 he was Anatoly Serdyukov's assistant in the Federal Tax Service and the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (Serdyukov consistently headed both departments). While serving in the Ministry of Defense, Medoev was awarded the title “Hero of Russia”, but in 2010 he was dismissed by a decree of President Dmitry Medvedev. Now Igor Medoev lives in Slovakia. Next to him settled people associated with the company "Faraday" - the main supplier of footwear in the FSB, the Interior Ministry, the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the Rosgvardiyu.
Another assistant Serdyukov - Sergei Korolev, appointed in 2016, the head of the Economic Security Service of the FSB of Russia. Novaya Gazeta calls him the godfather of Marat Medoev (this is confirmed by Medusa's sources close to the Ministry of Internal Affairs). According to the source of "Medusa" in the FSB, Marat Medoev became Alexey Dorofeev's assistant under the patronage of his father.
Igor Medoev did not answer calls and messages in the vatsape. At the Center for Public Relations of the FSB of Russia and in the press service of the UFSB in Moscow and the Moscow region, requests for comments addressed to Marat Medoev and Alexei Dorofeyev were left unanswered.
At the end of 2018, Martynenko had a new business - he won the tender for the right to trade at the metro stations located in the center of Moscow. Shortly before, the deputy head of the Moscow Department of Transport, which manages the subway, was Alexander Garakoev, former deputy director of the state institution “Ritual” - FSB colonel in reserve and the former head of the security service “Ritual”, who refused to support Yury Chabuyev’s Khimki during fights at Khovansky cemetery.
A relative of the Medoevs, Yuri Ovsyannikov, who headed the Moscow Administrative Road Inspectorate (MADI) also worked in the transport complex of the capital. Under the MADI office, she rented a room on Kazakov Street, owned by Marat Medoev’s father Igor. Earlier this room was located the central office of Arksbank. In 2016, this bank was in the center of a major scandal: after revocation of the license from Arksbank, it turned out that almost 90% of the deposits in the amount of 35.1 billion rubles were not recorded on the balance sheet and were withdrawn from the bank.
Pensioner Igor Medoev, the father of an influential security official Marat Medoev, is a close friend of the figure in the Magnitsky list, FSB general Viktor Voronin, who until 2016 headed the “K” department responsible for banking control, according to two sources of “Medusa” who are familiar with Igor Medoev. Bank owners have repeatedly accused Voronin of attempting a raider seizure of their assets. In May of 2011, banker Alexander Lebedev published an open letter in which he noted that some Voronin’s subordinates “confuse their own wool with the state one”. Dorofeev is also well acquainted with Voronin: at the end of the 2000s, they flew from St. Petersburg to Moscow together, and from 2010 to 2012 they simultaneously headed the directorates of the FSB FSB.
Prior to retirement, Igor Medoev served in the management of the Federal Security Service of North Ossetia, and since 2001 he was Anatoly Serdyukov's assistant in the Federal Tax Service and the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (Serdyukov consistently headed both departments). While serving in the Ministry of Defense, Medoev was awarded the title “Hero of Russia”, but in 2010 he was dismissed by a decree of President Dmitry Medvedev. Now Igor Medoev lives in Slovakia. Next to him settled people associated with the company "Faraday" - the main supplier of footwear in the FSB, the Interior Ministry, the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the Rosgvardiyu.
Another assistant Serdyukov - Sergei Korolev, appointed in 2016, the head of the Economic Security Service of the FSB of Russia. Novaya Gazeta calls him the godfather of Marat Medoev (this is confirmed by Medusa's sources close to the Ministry of Internal Affairs). According to the source of "Medusa" in the FSB, Marat Medoev became Alexey Dorofeev's assistant under the patronage of his father.
Igor Medoev did not answer calls and messages in the vatsape. At the Center for Public Relations of the FSB of Russia and in the press service of the UFSB in Moscow and the Moscow region, requests for comments addressed to Marat Medoev and Alexei Dorofeyev were left unanswered.
CHAPTER 8
Neighbors
In the early 2010s, Marat Medoev received a plot in the dacha non-commercial partnership “Dachny Island”, located in the Istrinsky district of the Moscow region. In addition to the head of the Moscow FSB, Alexei Dorofeev, in this village owned the land: the head of the FSB control service, Vladimir Kryuchkov, the former first deputy head of the Federal Customs Service, Igor Zavrazhnov and Konstantin Gavrikov, deputy head of the K department of the Economic Security Service of the FSB in charge of the banking market. In addition, the neighborhood is the home of FSB General Oleg Feoktistov (he was in 2016, working as vice president of Rosneft, oversaw the operation to detain the head of the Ministry of Economic Development Alexei Ulyukayev).
Medoevy and Dorofeev coexist in another cottage village - Forest Bay, located on the shores of the Istra reservoir (40 minutes by car from Dachny islet). According to the USRN, in April 2012, Igor Medoev received a loan in the amount of 119 million rubles from Strategy Bank for the purchase of a land plot in Lesnaya Bay. A month before the loan was received, law enforcement agencies conducted searches in the bank and seizure of documents on the case of bringing abroad 20–25 billion rubles. The management of the bank avoided punishment, although subsequently the institution was repeatedly convicted of non-execution of laws on countering money laundering, and later deprived of a license.
In 2015, Alexey Dorofeev acquired the land in the “Forest Bay” next to Medoev (now the owner of the “Russian Federation” is indicated in the statement). The cottages Medoev and Dorofeyev were registered on themselves in one day in 2017. As evidenced by aerial survey conducted by Novaya Gazeta in June 2019, there is no fence between the sections of Dorofeyev and Medoev.
In the spring of 2018, Anastasia Mazaraki, the wife of Lev Mazaraki, bought a plot near the possessions of Alexei Dorofeev and Igor Medoeva.
Families Mazaraki and Dorofeev may also be familiar. Sites Dorofeev, Medoeva and Mazaraki coexist with each other and actually form a separate street. On the same street there is a plot that until recently belonged to the daughter of Igor Medoeva (and sister of Marat Medoeva) Elda, but in 2018 she sold it. According to the extract from the Rosreestr received on June 12, 2019, the Russian Federation became the buyer of the site. However, in the earlier extracts it was stated that the buyer was Boris Sergeevich Korolev. His name, patronymic and surname coincide with the data of the son of Sergei Korolev - the head of the Security and Security Service of the FSB of Russia. Like Alexey Dorofeev, Sergei Korolev began his career in the St. Petersburg State Security Administration; like Igor Medoev, he worked as assistant minister of defense Serdyukov. A friend of the Medoevs argues that the son of a high-ranking FSB officer did indeed act as a buyer of the plot. Elda Medoeva refused to answer the questions of Medusa.
The story of Aleksey Dorofeev and Elda Medoevoy’s sites is not the only example when real estate previously recorded for a family of officials becomes the property of the Russian Federation. Since the early 1990s, the family of the FSB FSB Chief Sergei Korolev has been registered in a state apartment in St. Petersburg. The extract from the Rosreestr indicated that in July 2018 the apartment was transferred "to the ownership of citizens." However, the next owner does not indicate individuals, but the same “Russian Federation”, and in private ownership with itself.
In June 2019, the Russian Federation also became the owner of Alexey Dorofeev’s mansion in Lesnaya Bay.
* * *
Epilogue
At the end of 2018, the governor of the Moscow region, Andrei Vorobyev, replaced the agency responsible for the funeral business. Instead of the Ministry of Consumer Market, the supervision of the rituals was transferred to the General Directorate of Regional Security (GURB), headed by Roman Karatayev. Prior to joining the Moscow region, Karataev worked in the management of "M" of the FSB of Russia. He headed the management of "M" at that time Alexey Dorofeev.
Dmitry Yevtushenko was appointed deputy to Karatayev, who oversees the funeral industry in GURB. He previously worked in the government of the Stavropol Territory, in the homeland of the Mazaraki brothers. In addition, Yevtushenko led the company Voentorg-Yug, in which Sergey Selyukov worked, director of one of the units of the SBI Ritual, seen in schemes for withdrawing money from several Moscow banks. Roman Karataev, in a telephone conversation, advised journalists to “look at his life’s path to make sure that he has been in office for a long time”. He refused to answer Medusa's questions on the phone, offering to make an appointment with him instead.
In December 2018, the authorities in the Moscow region established a structure similar to the Moscow State Budgetary Institution “Ritual” - the Memorial Service Center, which will take control of the funeral business in the region (now each municipality has its own ritual company). The new venture was headed by Nikolai Kazakov, co-founder of the All-Russian Cheerleading Federation - since 2017 he has led the funeral service of Khimki. Now, judging by government purchases, the new state-owned unit of state budgetary enterprise buys furniture, office supplies and rents premises for offices in the cities of the Moscow Region.
A source in the region’s funeral industry told Medusa that new people have already taken control of the funeral business in four districts of the Moscow region bordering the capital, Krasnogorsk, Leninsky, Domodedovo and Khimki. According to the source, most of the cemeteries in these areas are converted to closed status, prohibiting new burials, which "creates a shortage and can increase the size of a bribe for allotting space for the grave."
A source in the region’s funeral industry told Medusa that new people have already taken control of the funeral business in four districts of the Moscow region bordering the capital, Krasnogorsk, Leninsky, Domodedovo and Khimki. According to the source, most of the cemeteries in these areas are converted to closed status, prohibiting new burials, which "creates a shortage and can increase the size of a bribe for allotting space for the grave."
