Foratec group of companies
Short information
Foratec's businesses began in the late 1980s with software development, telecommunications equipment supplies from Germany (Siemens), timber trade and car imports from the United States (Ford). There is reason to believe that the founders of the Foratec group were close to the group of the Sverdlovsk elite, the leading representatives of which were the former secretary of the Sverdlovsk regional committee of the CPSU Vladimir Zhitenev and the director of the Institute of Economics of the Ural Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences Valery Chichkanov.
In the field of telecommunications equipment supplies, Foratec worked closely with the Ural Government Communications Center FAPSI (General Vladimir Luchinin) and the Sverdlovsk Railway (Pyotr Korotkevich and Alexander Misharin). Assistance to the Foratec group, presumably, was provided by a former employee of the KGB for the Sverdlovsk region Bakunin Yuri Nikolevich, deputy chairman of the Sverdlovsk regional committee for state property management, and later deputy head of the Russian Federal Property Fund Yakovlev Alexander Vasilyevich, one of the leaders of the organized criminal group "Center" Vladimir Klementyev. There is information that suggests that the activities of the Foratec group could have been closely connected with the activities of one of the most influential Russian criminal clans under the leadership of thief in law Aslan Usoyan.
In the second half of the 1990s and in the 2000s, Alexander Misharin became the main lobbyist of the Foratec group, who, from the employees of the Sverdlovsk railway, rose to the posts of Deputy Minister of Railways of the Russian Federation, Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation, Governor of the Sverdlovsk Region and, ultimately, Vice President of Russian railways.
Detailed information
At the beginning of 2012, the Foratec group of companies included:
- CJSC Foratec -EnergoTransStroy (power supply of railways, construction of railways, railway stations, highways, the number of main employees for September 2011 - 2 thousand people, the planned turnover of the company at the end of 2011 - 4.5 billion rubles; turnover Foratec-EnergoTransStroy accounts for about 80% of the turnover of the entire Foratec group of companies);
- "Foratec Automation and Telemechanics" (production and installation of microprocessor systems for railway automation and safety);
- Foratec LLC (consulting services).
It is assumed that the main shareholder of the group is Vladimir Alexandrovich Chizhevsky.
The official history of the creation of the Foratec Group of Companies.
The Foratec Group was founded in 1989 and was engaged in a wide range of activities - from the auto business to telecommunications. In the field of telecommunications, the Foratec group collaborated with the German concern "Siemens". According to the Kommersant newspaper's own information, the group was created by graduates of the Ural Polytechnic Institute, who were engaged in the development and production of medical equipment.
Prehistory of the creation of the Foratec Group of Companies.
In 1985 in the USSR it was decided to introduce the subject "Fundamentals of Informatics and Computer Engineering" into school curricula. At the initiative of the founder of the Ural Computing Center, Academician Nikolai Krasovsky, supported by the Sverdlovsk Regional Committee of the CPSU (Vladimir Andreevich Zhitenev – Secretary for Ideology) and the leading industrial enterprises of Sverdlovsk, 250 Robotron computers were purchased for 2 million transferable rubles for schools in the Sverdlovsk Region. The computers were manufactured by the Robotron plant in the German Democratic Republic. This purchase was a significant event, as evidenced by the holding in 1988 of the first All-Union Olympiad in Informatics in Sverdlovsk. Sverdlovsk was chosen as the venue for the Olympiad, because only in this city all the participants of the Olympiad at that time could be provided with computers with suitable characteristics.
The headquarters of the Robotron mill was located in Dresden. It was in this city from 1985 to the end of 1989 that the KGB officer Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, who later became the president of the Russian Federation, served. Robotron maintained contacts with Siemens (Germany) and IBM (USA), and one of the tasks of the Dresden group of Soviet intelligence officers was to oversee the Robotron plant. In 1990, the Robotron mill was liquidated. Siemens Nixdorf (a subsidiary of the Siemens concern) became the main buyer of the enterprises included in the plant. The main markets for Siemens Nixdorf are the countries of the former USSR.
The main role in the informatization of the Sverdlovsk region in the second half of the 1980s was played by the research and production association "Uralsystem". NPO Uralsistem was located in the Kirovsky district of Sverdlovsk. In the same area, the aforementioned Ural Computing Center of the Academy of Sciences and the largest technical university in the region, the Ural Polytechnic Institute, were lo-cated. This determined the significant role of district government bodies and structures of the CPSU of the Kirov district in the creation of the first commercial structures engaged in the supply of computer equipment and the development of software. Therefore, it is not surprising that the main partner of the Siemens concern in the Sverdlovsk region was the Foratec group, the first enterprises of which were registered in the Kirovsky district of Sverdlovsk (Yekaterinburg), the founders of which were graduates of the Ural Polytechnic Institute, who established contact with the head of the Kirovsky district executive committee of Sverdlovsk (which will be see details below).
Creation of the Foratec Group of Companies.
One of the first legal entities of the Foratec group was registered in Yekaterinburg under the name Research and Technology Center Foratec (later Foratec JSC, tax number 6660062068). Its founders included:
- Grigory Vladimirovich Butenko -16.76% of the authorized capital;
- Mikhail Borisovich Lurie -16.76% of the authorized capital;
- Sergey Borisovich Petukhov -16.76% of the authorized capital;
- Vladimir Iraklievich Stuk -16.76% of the authorized capital;
- Vladimir Alexandrovich Chizhevsky -16.76% of the authorized capital;
- Viktor Alexandrovich Litvinov - 8.94% of the authorized capital;
- Sergey Arkadievich Kulanov - 7.26% of the authorized capital.
Sergey Borisovich Petukhov was registered as the head.
In fact, the company was located at the address Yekaterinburg, Gagarina St., 8. This address was the location of Uraltranspetsstroy OJSC (road construction), which is the legal successor of the former state enterprise Uraltranspetsstroy trust, subordinate to the Sreduralstroy SPA.
Subsequently, the founders of Foratec RDC gained control over Uralchermetavtomatika OJSC, the successor of the state experimental and technical enterprise of the same name (an institute that studied the problems of introducing automation in the ferrous metallurgy industry), located at 50 Blukhera Street, Yekaterinburg. After that, most of the enterprises of the Foratec group are registered and actually located at this address.
In 1990, on the initiative of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations, the state enterprise "Ural Information Center" InformVES "was created, the main task of which was to provide information services to government bodies in the field of foreign economic activity. The enterprise was managed by former employees of the KGB Directorate for the Sverdlovsk Region, in particular, Yuri Nikolayevich Bakunin. In the 1990s, the enterprises of the Fora-tec group, together with the Information and Research Center "InformVES" and personally Yuri Bakunin, were among the shareholders of a number of joint firms, in particular, the Yekaterinburg bank Nord-Bank (TIN 6608000414) and the insurance company CJSC Ural JSC (TIN 6608005370 ). In the 2000s, the wife of Yuri Bakunin (Bakunina Tatyana Alekseevna) acted as a partner in a number of commercial firms (in the field of forestry) together with one of the founders of the Foratec group, Mikhail Lurie (for example, Tekh-no-form CJSC (OGRN 1026604946620) and LLC Trading House Forest Technologies "(OGRN 1069670125887)).
In 1992, the state enterprise "Ural Information Center" InformVES "established the Ural Trade and Industrial Company" InformVES "of the Committee for Foreign Economic Relations of the Russian Federation (TIN 6658019957). The head of this company was Sergey Stepanov, the founder of the Kyokushinkai karate sports club. Vladimir Klementyev was a student of Sergei Stepanov. The Kyokushinkai club was organized by Stepanov together with Klementyev. Klementyev, in turn, created an organized criminal group of karate athletes, which began its activities in the Kirovsky district of Sverdlovsk. Over time, Klementyev became one of the leaders of the Yekaterinburg organized criminal group "Center" (one of the largest organized criminal groups in the Sverdlovsk region).
In 1991, on the basis of the Sverdlovsk regional administration of the Agroprombank of the USSR, the Bank for the Promotion of Commerce and Business (SKB-Bank) was created. In 1992, with the participation of the bank, the insurance company SKB-Policy (TIN 6608002588) was established. The Yekaterinburg branch of SKB-Policy is headed by Vladimir Klementyev. It is noteworthy that the St. Petersburg branch of this insurance company, created in 1993, was headed by a certain Leshchev Yuri Sergeevich. Appar-ently, it was this Yuri Leshchev who was an employee of the USSR KGB representative office at the GDR MGB in Berlin since 1986 and oversaw the Dresden group of KGB officers, which included Vladimir Putin. Leshchev and Putin both came from the Leningrad KGB department and continued to maintain personal relationships in the 1990s. In the first half of the 1990s, Putin headed the committee for foreign economic relations of the government of St. Petersburg.
In 1991, the founders of the Foratec group created the Yekaterinburg-Ford center, which was engaged in the sale of Ford cars in the Sverdlovsk region. In 1992, the Russian-American CJSC Mega- Foratec Systems (TIN 6660011610) was registered, the founders of which were Mega International Enterprises, registered in the state of Delaware, USA (90% of the authorized capital) and CJSC Foratec (10% authorized capital). The director of the enterprise was one of the founders of the Foratec group Lurie Mikhail Borisovich. The American company "Mega International Enterprises" as of 1993-1994 was a dealer of the company "Ford" in Yekaterinburg (the company's representative in Yekaterinburg was Alexander Flom, who is most likely a relative of a car dealer from New York, Gary Flom, who emigrated from the USSR in the past). On the basis of these commercial firms, the Avtolend holding was subsequently created, which sold cars from Ford and a number of other leading world manufacturers.
In the 1990s, Foratec worked closely with the Ural Center for Government Communications under the Federal Agency for Government Communications and Information. Probably, the interaction takes place through the supply of Siemens equipment, which is equipped with government communication lines. Interaction with the regional leadership of the government communications center is deepening to such an extent that after his retirement in the early 2000s, the head of the Ural government communications center, General Vladimir Luchinin, will become the general director of one of the main firms of the Foratec group of companies - Foratec Communications.
It is necessary to dwell in detail on the issue of the supply of Siemens equipment to the FAPSI at the federal level, since the traces of this story lead to the Sverdlovsk region.
In 1991, Valery Ivanovich Monastyretsky, an officer of the USSR KGB (presumably worked in the economic management), resigned from the service and took the position of deputy general director of the Simako trading company, established by the Moscow City Committee of the CPSU. The head of the company is a former employee of the state for-eign trade association "Licensintorg" Vyacheslav Alekseevich Kushchev (a native of the Sverdlovsk region).
In 1992, Kushchev and Monastyretsky left Simako and set up Roskomtech (OJSC Concern - Russian Communications Systems and Technologies), founded by Agroprom-bank, Vneshtorgbank, Tokobank and Nizhny Tagil Metallurgical Plant (NTMK; Sverdlovsk Region). According to Monastyretsky, the main activity of the Roskomtech company was the sale of metal from NTMK abroad. The Yekaterinburg branch of the Roskomtech company, established in the same 1992, was headed by Asadulla Murtuz Oglu Kuliev, who would later play a very significant role in the public organizations of the Azerbaijani diaspora in Yekaterinburg.
Concern Siemens goes to the leadership of FAPSI with a proposal for the supply of equipment for government communication systems (FAPSI is the legal successor of the department of government communications of the KGB of the USSR). The head of the financial department of FAPSI, Vladimir Malinin, refuses to sign the contract, citing inflated prices for equipment.
In 1993, Monastyretsky, at the invitation of the head of FAPSI, Alexander Starovoitov, returned to serve in the state security bodies. At first, Monastyretsky works in the economic department, and later heads the financial and economic department of the FAPSI. Cooperation between FAPSI and the German concern Siemens begins. The amount of contracts between FAPSI and Siemens amounted to about 500 million German marks. Of these, Siemens for consulting services transferred about 5% to the accounts of MKL AG, founded in Liechtenstein by Monastyretskiy and Kushchev. There was information in the press that the co-owners of the company were the head of FAPSI Starovoitov and the deputy head of the Russian Federal Property Fund Alexander Vasilyevich Yakovlev.
Alexander Yakovlev (a native of the Sverdlovsk Region) served as Deputy Chairman of the RFBR from 1993 to 1995. From 1991 to 1993, he headed the legal department of the Sverdlovsk Regional Committee for State Property Management. Many companies controlled by Yakovlev were registered in Yekaterinburg at Gagarina st., 8, where OJSC Trest Uraltranspetsstroy is located and where the first enterprises of the Foratec group were registered. In the quarterly reports of Trest Uraltranspetsstroy OJSC for 1999-2000, Yakovlev is mentioned as a minority shareholder of the company. Yakovlev kept in touch not only with the federal administration of FAPSI, but also with the regional one, so in 2011 a member of the board of directors of OJSC Digital Channels Network, owned by Yakovlev, was the former head of the Ural Center for Government Communications, General Vladimir Luchinin, whose connection with the Foratec group was already mentioned. In Yakovlev's company "Digital Channels Network" in the 2000s, the information technology department was headed by the nephew of one of the founders of the Foratec group (Mikhail Lurie), Komarovsky Maxim Evgenievich (son of Evgeny Lurie). In addition, a possible connection between Alexander Yakovlev and the aforementioned member of the organized criminal group "Center" Vladimir Klementyev is noted: Alexander Yakovlev's brother (Ivan Vasilyevich Yakovlev) in the 1990s worked in the Lestorgprom (forestry business) company controlled by Vladimir Klementyev.
Of interest is the personality of a person who, apparently, was the patron saint of Alexander Yakovlev in state structures. This was Vladimir Valentinovich Sokolov, who from 1991 to 1993 headed the Sverdlovsk Regional Committee for State Property Management, and from 1993 to 1996 he was the chairman of the Russian Federal Property Fund. That is, Vladimir Sokolov was the direct supervisor of Yakovlev from 1991 to 1995. Until 1991, Sokolov was the chairman of the Kirovsky district executive committee in Sverdlovsk. At the same time, the addresses at which the enterprises of the Foratec group of companies were registered in the first half of the 1990s (Gagarina St., 8 and Blukhera St., 50) were located in the Kirovsky district of Yekaterinburg. In the section "Prehistory of the Foratec Group", it has already been said about the importance that the state authorities of the Kirovsky district of Sverdlovsk (Yekaterinburg) ) played in the activities of the first private companies in the field of information technology, to which the Foratec group belongs. As mentioned above, among the founders of the Foratec group were graduates of the Ural Polytechnic Institute (in particular, Vladimir Chizhevsky), and Vladimir Sokolov, before working in the structures of the CPSU, was a teacher at this institute. The connection that can be traced between the Foratec group and the former chairman of the Kirovsky district executive committee Vladimir Sokolov could be one of the defining ones in the creation of the Foratec group.
Until 1995, the director of RFI Gmbh, which officially represented the RFBR in the European Union, was the future Minister of Energy of the Russian Federation Sergei Ivanovich Shmatko, who at least until 1991 lived in the Sverdlovsk Region, where he graduated from high school and university. In 1996, Vladimir Sokolov moved from the position of RFBR chairman to the position of a member of the supervisory board of the All-Russian Regional Development Bank, where Sergei Shmatko headed the foreign relations department.
After his resignation from the post of Deputy Chairman of the RFBR, Alexander Yakovlev leaves to work at AFK Sistema as Vice President (AFK Sistema was formed on the basis of the Science and Technology Committee of the Moscow Government). The founder of AFK Sistema, Vladimir Yevtushenkov, according to information for 2010, is the honorary consul of the Duchy of Luxembourg in the Sverdlovsk region and the Khabarovsk Territory. At the same time, the three founders of the Foratec group of companies received Luxembourg citizenship in the 1990s, and it was there that the companies that owned shares in the main enterprises of the Foratec group were registered. Vladimir Yevtushenkov is married to the sister of Elena Baturina (wife of the former mayor of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov), which determines the connection between Yevtushenkov and the former leadership of Moscow. At the same time, the main en-terprises of the Foratec group were serviced for a long period of time by the Bank of Moscow OJSC, which was controlled by persons close to Yuri Luzhkov. The same bank served the Ural Center for Government Communications under the FAPSI and the Ural House of Science and Technology, which in the 1990s housed the Sverdlovsk office of the Siemens concern. It should be noted that the vice-president of AFK Sistema is Sergei Pavlovich Shamanov, the son-in-law of Vladimir Zhitenev, who until 1986 was the secretary for ideology of the Sverdlovsk Regional Committee of the CPSU, and since 1986 worked in the ideological department of the Central Committee of the CPSU. As men-tioned above, Zhitenev facilitated the delivery of Robotron computers to the Sverdlovsk region in the second half of the 1980s.
Considering that Yevtushenkov, presumably associated with people close to the Foratec group, became the consul of Luxembourg in the Sverdlovsk region and the Khabarovsk Territory, it is interesting what unites these regions, geographically significantly distant from each other. The press service of AFK Sistema commented that Yevtushenkov became the honorary consul of Luxembourg, because the subsidiary bank of Sistema, the Moscow Bank for Reconstruction and Development, owns a controlling stake in the Luxembourg bank East-West United Bank (EWUB). And the choice of regions is explained by the fact that the companies belonging to AFK Sistema have long and fruitful work in the Sverdlovsk Region and the Khabarovsk Territory.
Firstly, one of the founders of the Foratec group, Mikhail Lurie, is a native of the Magadan region, located in the Far East, the administrative center of which, in fact, is Khabarovsk. Secondly, there is information about the connection of the aforementioned founder of the Kyokushinkai club in Yekaterinburg, Vladimir Klementyev, with the most in-fluential Far Eastern crime bosses in the 1990s: Vasin Yevgeny Petrovich (nickname “Jam”) and Podatev Vladimir Petrovich (nickname “Poodle”). The head of the security ser-vice of the Svoboda Association, founded by Vladimir Podatev in the early 1990s in Khabarovsk, was the president of the Far Eastern Kyokushinkai Karate Federation Sergei Konkin. Thirdly, the founders of the Foratec group were allegedly associated with the former director of the Institute of Economics of the Ural branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences Valery Chichkanov, who previously worked at the Far Eastern Scientific Center of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Khabarovsk.
In 1993, the founders of the Foratec group, Mikhail Lurie and Vladimir Chizhevsky, received Luxembourg citizenship. The enterprises of the Foratec group received orders for the creation of a communication center commissioned by the government of the Sverdlovsk region, the implementation of several projects for the regional energy system, the development and construction of telephone networks for the administrative institutions of Novouralsk. Novouralsk is a closed administrative-territorial entity in which the nuclear industry enterprise is located. In such settlements, the FSB has more influence than in ordinary cities. Therefore, it is highly likely that the receipt of orders for the development and construction of telephone networks in Novouralsk was due to the connections of the Foratec group in the FSB (in particular, through the aforementioned Yuri Bakunin). The Novouralsk construction company, controlled by the deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation Valery Afonasyevich Yazev, took part in the construction of Novouralsk's telephone networks, whose ties with the Foratec group can be traced both through the KGB officers and through the organizers of the Kyokushinkai sports club. The head of the enterprise security service Valeria Yazeva, retired KGB general Yuri Nikolaevich Kuznetsov, together with Yuri Bakunin, established a non-profit organization "Sverdlovsk Regional Fund of Security Bodies Veterans" (TIN 6658078751). The number of legal entities that established the fund included the State Enterprise "InformVES", the oil company "Lukoil" and the Sverdlovsk railway. The individual private enterprise of Valery Yazev "YAVA" was a part of the founders of LLP "Erkor" (TIN 6660072732) together with Sergey Stepanov, Vladimir Klementyev and the club "Kyokushinkai" controlled by them. Also among the founders of Erkor LLP was the former chairman of the commission on foreign economic affairs of the Sverdlovsk Regional Council of People's Deputies, Yevgeny Mikhailovich Korolev.
In 1993, CJSC Foratec-A (TIN 6660054564, sawmill), CJSC Foratec Wood (TIN 6660007405, woodworking industry) and AOZT Foratec Trading Lux (TIN 6660007941, sale of furniture and building materials) were registered in Yekaterinburg. household audio and video equipment). The main founder of "Foratec-A" was AOZT "Foratec". The main founder of Foratec Wood and Foratec Trading Lux was Acsonn International Group, registered in Luxembourg, as well as Foratec CJSC. Mikhail Lurie was the director of Foratec-A and Foratec Wood, and he is also mentioned as the manager of the Аcsonn International Group.
Thus, by 1993, three main areas of activity of the enterprises of the Foratec group were developed:
- information technology (development and construction of communication networks, equipment supply);
- car trade;
- logging and timber processing.
In 1995, the leadership of the Sverdlovsk Railway decided to implement a project to build a digital communication system (the first on Russian railways). Siemens was chosen as a foreign partner, and Foratec, which was the official partner of Siemens in the Urals, was chosen as a regional partner. At this time, Pyotr Grigorievich Korotkevich worked as the deputy head of SvRD for economics and finance, and Alexander Sergeevich Misharin was the head of the SvRd energy supply service. The value of the contract between SvZhD and Siemens was 100 million German marks. According to Korotkevich, Foratec was selected as a regional partner on the recommendation of Siemens.
In the early 1990s, the Tsentr organized criminal group had connections with the leadership of the Sverdlovsk Railroad through the Commercial Center of the Sverdlovsk Railroad: Deputy Director of the Sverdlovsk Railroad Commercial Center Mikhail Vasilyevich Kovach was one of the founders of PKP Morion LLP (TIN 6659002307) together with the former leader of the organized criminal group "Center" by Nikolay Shirokov. After the assassination of Nikolai Shirokov in 1993, the ties between the Center OCG and SvZhD were carried out by Vladimir Klementyev, who was probably associated with Alexander Yakovlev, who had relations with the Foratec group and the FAPSI leadership. Also, Klementyev probably contacted former KGB officers from Yekaterinburg and St. Petersburg, who until 1991 were engaged in foreign intelligence, and after the collapse of the USSR, they headed a number of state structures in the field of foreign economic activity (Bakunin, Leshchev, possibly Putin through Leshchev).
In addition, the entrepreneur Evgeny Mitelman, who gained fame in the late 1980s, playing KVN for the team of the Ural Polytechnic Institute, probably had a hand in estab-lishing a connection between FAPSI and SvZhD. Mitelman made deals with bills of energy companies in Siberia and the Urals, probably due to family ties with Sverdlovenergo power engineer Mark Mitelman. The structures of the Sverdlovsk railway were also involved in these transactions, according to available information, on the direct order of the head of SvRd Kolesnikov, who obliged the director of the SvRd Commercial Center Sholomov to cooperate with Mitelman. At the same time, Mitelman is establishing contacts with the leadership of the Ural Center for Government Communications of the FAPSI, thanks to the fact that his colleague on the KVN team married the daughter of the head of the Ural FAPSI, General Luchinin. As a result, Mitelman begins to play the role of an intermediary between SvZhD and FAPSI, which, possibly, resulted in the placement of orders by SvZhD in the Foratec company. Subsequently, Mitelman was accused of fraud due to various financial fraud and put on the wanted list by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Therefore, Mitelman moved to a permanent residence in the United States, where, as of 2011, he lived in Brooklyn (New York) and was engaged in real estate transactions in Manhattan.
Thus, by the mid-1990s, it can be stated that the Foratec group was one of the elements of the system, the main components of which were state structures (FAPSI and SvZhD), providing effective demand for the services of the Foratec group, former foreign intelligence officers of the KGB of the USSR, capable organize foreign economic activity of the group, and members of the organized criminal group "Center", capable of providing force support in the conditions of criminal lawlessness of the 1990s. The main foreign partner of the group is the German concern Siemens.
In 1996, Alexander Misharin took the position of chief engineer of SvRd (the second most important position after the head of SvR). In the same year, another of the founders of the Foratec group, Sergei Petukhov, received the citizenship of Luxembourg. Advanced Communication Systems is established in Luxembourg and will be renamed Foratec International Holding in 2004.
In 1997 CJSC Foratec Energo Trans (TIN 6660017026) and CJSC Foratec Communications (construction of fiber-optic communication lines, supply of com-munication equipment) were registered. The main founder of both legal entities is the company “Advanced Communication Systems” registered in Luxembourg. Both companies begin to work on the orders of SvRW: Foratec Energo Trans carries out the installation of electrical equipment, and Foratec Communications - equips locomotives and dispatchers with communication systems. CJSCO "Foratec Trading Lux" appears as a supplier of equipment for SvRW.
A limited liability company "FORATEC (CYPRUS) LIMITED" is registered in Cyprus, which will subsequently become the founder of the main legal entity of the Foratec group.
One of the founders of the Foratec group, Grigory Butenko, receives Canadian citizenship.
In 1998, Alexander Misharin , chief engineer of SvRW, was appointed Deputy Minister of Railways of the Russian Federation, responsible for the creation of a telecommunications network on Russian railways (the project is being implemented by a subsidiary of the ministry, CJSCO Company TransTeleCom). It is believed that the reason for this appointment was the successful implementation of the project for the construction of a digital communication system on the Sverdlovsk railway with the participation of the Foratec group. Petr Korotkevich, Deputy Head of SvRW for Economics and Finance, holds the position of Head of the Finance Department of the Ministry of Railways of the Russian Federation. In this regard, Misharin and Korotkevich move for permanent residence from Yekaterinburg to Moscow, and after that a number of new enterprises of the Foratec group begin to register in Moscow.
In the quarterly report of CJSC Foratec Communications for 1999, Alexander Misharin and the head of the information and computing center of the SvRW Zaitsev Viktor Nikolaevich are mentioned among the members of the company's board of directors; Vladimir Chizhevsky (one of the founders of the Foratec group) is the chairman of the board of directors.
In March 2000, Vladimir Putin was elected President of Russia.
In April 2000, the aforementioned founder of the Kyokushinkai club, Vladimir Klementyev, was killed in Yekaterinburg; in 2001, the Far Eastern crime boss Yevgeny Vasin (Jem), associated with him, was killed.
In 2000-2001, the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation conducted an audit of the activities of the Ministry of Railways of the Russian Federation, which revealed multiple violations and a significant scale of corruption in the department. In particular, impressive expenses were noted on the maintenance of the ministry's employees: in 1998, Deputy Minister Alexander Misharin acquired a five-room apartment for 649 thousand US dollars, for the head of the finance department Pyotr Korotkevich - a four-room apartment for 477 thousand US dollars.
In 2001, LLC "Edvansed Management and Engineering" was registered in Moscow, which, in fact, will be the holding structure of the Foratec group. Subsequently, this legal entity will be renamed into Foratec Group LLC. The main founder of Edvansed Management and Engineering LLC was FORATEC (CYPRUS) LIMITED. Also among the founders is Pyotr Korotkevich.
In 2001, Foratec Avtomatika i Telemekhanika LLC was registered in Yekaterinburg, and in 2002, Foratec AT CJSC was registered in Moscow. The founder of both legal entities is LLC "Edvansed Management and Engineering". CJSC Foratec AT developed the MPTs-MZ-F system (a system of microprocessor-based centralization of points and traffic lights on the railway network) within the framework of the Memorandum of Cooperation between the Ministry of Railways of Russia and Siemens AG dated January 23, 2001 and the Agreement between the Ministry railways of the Russian Federation and Siemens AG, Germany ": the hardware was built on a specialized Siemens control com-puter, and the technological software was developed by the specialists of Foratec AT.
In 2002, CJSC Foratec Communication was registered in Yekaterinburg, the founder of which was LLC Edvansed Management and Engineering, and the general di-rector was Vladimir Luchinin, who resigned from the post of head of the Ural Center for Government Communications under FAPSI. The main activity of the company will be the provision of telecommunications services for the structures of the Sverdlovsk railway, as well as for individuals using fiber-optic communication networks of the subsidiary of Rus-sian Railways CJSC Ural-TransTeleKom (mainly in the Khanty-Mansiysk and Yamalo-Nenets autonomous districts, as well as in the north Sverdlovsk region, where there is a shortage of communication networks).
Alexander Misharin passes from the post of Deputy Minister of Railways of the Russian Federation to the post of Head of the Sverdlovsk Railway. Pyotr Korotkevich was relieved of his post as Head of the Finance Department of the Ministry of Railways of the Russian Federation and ceases to work at CJSC TransTelecom. Despite the fact that Misharin's resignation from the post of Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Railways is called "disgraced", the Foratec group continues to work under the contracts of the Ministry of Railways, and subsequently (after the division of the Ministry of Transport into the Ministry of Transport and OJSC Russian Railways) - under contracts of OJSC Russian Railways.
In 2003, CJSC "Foratec EnergoTransStroy" was registered in Moscow, the founder of which was LLC "Edvansed Management and Engineering". The company is engaged in the construction and electrification of new sections of railways ordered by Russian Railways. Also one of the largest clients is OJSC Novatek. Since the establishment of the company, Petr Korotkevich has been working in it, who in 2004 will become the chairman of the board of directors of the company.
In 2004, Petr Korotkevich was mentioned as the chairman of the board of directors of the Foratec group.
A criminal case has been initiated against Pyotr Korotkevich. He is charged under Article 286 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (abuse of office). According to the investigation, due to the actions of the former head of the finance department of the Ministry of Railways of the Russian Federation Korotkevich, who in 2000 issued an illegal order to offset $ 16 million as paid on account of a loan taken by the Ministry of Railways from an Austrian bank, the ministry lost budget funds. The loan itself was taken back in 1996 in the amount of $ 396 million for the purchase of telecommunications systems from Ericsson. Korotkevich, on the other hand, became the head of the finance department of the Ministry of Railways of the Russian Federation only in 1998, therefore, according to Korotkevich himself, it is foolish to blame him for the justification of the payment of this amount, since this issue was decided before he came to the ministry.
In 2003, the total turnover of the enterprises of the Foratec group amounted, according to the group's management, to 3.5 billion rubles. At the same time, in 2003-2004, the enterprises of the Foratec group (primarily CJSC Foratec Systems, OGRN 1027739595916) transferred more than 1 billion rubles for the supply of equipment to a certain LLC Ecomet (OGRN 1037100570847), registered in Tula in 2003. As the main activity of LLC "Ecomet" indicated: "Wholesale trade in finished food products, including trade in baby and diet food and other homogenized food products." The structure of the founders of LLC "Ecomet" has all the characteristics of a "one-day" company. The main supplier of equipment for Ecomet LLC, in turn, was Komrail LLC (OGRN 1037739091972), a one-day company from Moscow, to which Ecomet LLC transferred over 700 million rubles in 2003-2004. This LLC Komrail was the founder of CJSC Foratec EnergoTrans (OGRN 1026604935235). Thus, significant funds were transferred from the main company of the Foratec group to affiliates through shell companies.
It should be noted that in Tula, where Ecomet LLC was registered, a certain Strelnikov Sergey Vladimirovich had good connections, who in 2006 became an advisor to the head of the administration of Tula and was called by the Tula media a “gray cardinal”. After the institution in 2008 of a criminal case against a number of members of the Tula city administration, Sergei Strelnikov resigned, and since 2010 he accompanied Alexander Misharin as an advisor both in the administration of the governor of the Sverdlovsk region and subsequently in the staff of Russian Railways. Recall that Alexander Misharin, presumably, lobbied for the interests of the Foratec group.
In 2004, Alexander Misharin became a confidant of the candidate for the presidency of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin, later Misharin will be transferred from the post of the head of SvZhD to the post of director of the De-partment of Integrated Development of Infrastructure of the Ministry of Transport and Communications of the Russian Federation. Since June 2004 - Deputy Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation.
In 2006, the Siemens concern became the target of an operation by German law enforcement agencies. The German prosecutor's office suspected that since the beginning of the 1990s, suspected Siemens employees had created an extensive network of so-called “black cash desks” abroad, where at least one hundred million euros had been pumped. As needed, this money was then spent in order to obtain lucrative orders to bribe officials in foreign countries where the concern operates.
In 2007, the court considered the criminal case initiated against Pyotr Korotkevich in 2004. The case was closed due to the expiration of the statute of limitations.
In 2007, Pyotr Korotkevich tried to be elected to the State Duma of the Russian Federation on the list of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia in the Kirov region.
At the end of 2008, Viktor Anatolyevich Sheptiy, a former employee of the FSB Directorate for the Sverdlovsk Region, became the secretary of the political council of the Sverdlovsk regional branch of the United Russia party. There is a connection between Viktor Shepty and the aforementioned former KGB officer Yuri Bakunin, who is associated with the Foratec group: in 2004, with the participation of Yuri Bakunin, the non-profit organization “V. A. Sheptia Charitable Foundation” was established.
In November 2009, on the proposal of the Sverdlovsk regional branch of the United Russia party, Alexander Misharin was appointed governor of the Sverdlovsk region. Konstantin Koltonyuk, the son of Aleksandr Aronovich Koltonyuk, the head of the Yekaterinburg branch of Foratec EnergoTransStroy CJSC, became Minister of Finance in Misharin's government. Foratec EnergoTransStroy began to win tenders for large contracts for the construction of highways ordered by the regional government (as of April 2011, the company had contracts for the construction of highways, according to various sources, in the amount of 700 million rubles to 1.3 billion) ... Some public figures (journalist Maksim Borodin, deputy Leonid Volkov) accused the leadership of the Sverdlovsk region of lobbying the interests of the company and submitted applications to the Office of the Federal Antimonopoly Service. In the second half of 2011, representatives of CJSC Foratec EnergoTransStroy announced that the company had decided to abandon the construction of highways. It was emphasized that this decision was not made under pressure from allegations of corruption, but for economic reasons.
In 2010, CJSC Foratec Communication ceased its activities when merged with OJSC Vimpel-Communications (mobile operator Beeline).
In 2010, the bankrupt holding "Autoland" (car sales), created by the founders of the Foratec group, joined the "Independence" group of companies.
After taking office as Governor of the Sverdlovsk Region, Alexander Misharin began lobbying for the construction of the Moscow-Yekaterinburg high-speed railway, which received support from the Russian government, which was then headed by Vladimir Putin. The main lobbyist for the idea of building high-speed railways in Russia in the 1990s was Bolshakov Alexey Alekseevich, who in 1991 headed the first joint-stock company High-Speed Railways (the project for the construction of a high-speed highway Moscow - St. Petersburg). Until 1988, Aleksey Bolshakov headed the state enterprise Dalnyaya Svyaz in Leningrad (devel-opment and production of multichannel communication systems), and from 1988 to 1991 he served as First Deputy Chairman of the Leningrad City Executive Committee. In 1994, Bolshakov was appointed Deputy Prime Minister of the Government of the Russian Federation, presumably under the patronage of the then Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Oleg Ivanovich Lobov (a native of Sverdlovsk, who was one of the closest associates of the first President of the Russian Federation Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin). In 1996, when Bolshakov becomes the first deputy prime minister of the Russian government, he will provide patronage to the future President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin, who at that moment, with his assistance, will receive a post in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation. The project for the construction of a high-speed highway Moscow-St. Petersburg in the 1990s was never implemented, and the press reported on the embezzlement of $ 100 million allocated for this project. In 2009, the company OJSC High-Speed Railways, which develops projects for the construction of high-speed highways Moscow - St. Petersburg and Moscow-Yekaterinburg, was headed by a native of Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg) Muratov Denis Gelievich, who from 2006 to 2009 was vice president of AFK Sistema , and since 2009 has been a member of the Board of Directors of CJSC TransTeleCom.
As of September 2011, the Foratec group was negotiating with the Siemens concern for inclusion in the program for the construction of high-speed railways of the Foratec group enterprises. The management of CJSC Foratec EnergoTransStroy stated that their company is the only one in Russia that has the right and license to build a contact network of high-speed railways.
Initially, a Russian-made Sokol train was developed to travel on high-speed highways, but in the end this project was recognized as a failure and it was decided to use the Sapsan train, manufactured using Siemens technologies. In 2010, a joint venture LLC Uralskie locomotives was organized with the participation of the Siemens concern (49% of the authorized capital) and the Sverdlovsk group of enterprises Sinara (51% of the authorized capital), which will produce electric trains using Siemens technologies at the site of the Ural Railway Engineering Plant ( Sverdlovsk region), which is part of the Sinara group. It is planned that this particular enterprise will produce trains for high-speed railways in the future. The owner of the Sinara group is Dmitry Vladimirovich Pumpyansky (the head of OJSC Pipe Metallurgical Company). There is a connection between the Foratec group and the Sinara group of Dmitry Pumpyansky in the company SPLAV CJSC (OGRN 1047796301024), established in 2004 in Moscow by Sinara Group CJSC and Ed-vansed Management and Engineering LLC (the aforementioned holding company of the Foratec group ).
In 2012, Alexander Misharin, who presumably lobbied for the interests of the Foratec group, resigned from the post of governor of the Sverdlovsk region and was appointed first vice president of JSC Russian Railways and General Director of JSC High-Speed Railways (project for the construction of high-speed railways ).
According to the Vedomosti newspaper, until 2015, Foratec won orders from Russian Railways for no more than 400 million rubles a year, but since 2015, cooperation with the state-owned company and its subsidiaries has reached a new level: in 2015, the group received 3 , 5 times more contracts - by 1.39 billion rubles, and in 2016 - already by 2 billion rubles. Perhaps this was due to the fact that the main shareholder of the Foratec group was OSK 1520 LLC, controlled by the son of Andrei Krapivin, a longtime acquain-tance of the president of Russian Railways, Vladimir Yakunin. It should be noted that in the spring of 2015 Andrei Krapivin died, and Vladimir Yakunin in the same year resigned from the post of head of Russian Railways. Oleg Belozerov was appointed President of Russian Railways. It was assumed that Belozerov would "cleanse" Russian Railways from Yakunin's legacy and a number of officials close to Yakunin were forced to leave Russian Railways, but the companies of Krapivin Jr. have so far (in 2016) retained their positions as "privileged" partners of Russian Railways.
Information for thought.
On the Internet, there are references to the drug FORATEC, which was sold by the Indian company Cipla Pharmaceuticals Ltd. This drug was manufactured by MIR Pharmaceutical Inc., registered in New York (USA) in 1993. The main activity of the company was called the creation of production of generics in pharmaceuticals in Russia. Among the founders of the company were four American firms and two foreign ones. The main ingredient in FORATEC is formoterol. In 2006, a report by scientists from Cornell University (USA) was published, which claims that 80% of sudden deaths from asthma are caused by the use of Formoterol and Salmeterol (commercial analogues - "Foradil" and "Serevent"). These substances are part of the combined means "Seretide" and "Symbicort", which are widely prescribed in Russia.
There were some connections between the Russian branch of MIR Pharmaceutical Inc. and the pharmaceutical company Bioprocess Kakha Bendukidze, who controlled the Sverdlovsk Uralmashzavod in the 1990s. There is some reason to believe that the United Machine-Building Plants company, which controlled the Uralmashzavod owned by Bendukidze, was associated with the Chernoi brothers.
In the 1990s, the address www.mir.ru was specified as the website of MIR Pharmaceutical in Russia. Since 2000, this address belongs to the Interregional Public Or-ganization for Assistance to Democratic Reforms "Mobilization and Development". The head of the organization was Lev Semyonovich Chernoi – one of the three Chernoi brothers, who controlled a significant part of the Russian metallurgy in the 1990s.
In the 1990s, there was a connection between the Chernoi brothers and the businessman Vyacheslav Kushchev, who was mentioned in connection with the Foratec group, who was in contact with the leadership of FAPSI. So, when in 1997-1998 Kushchev had a conflict with the Yekaterinburg raider Pavel Fedulev over the shares of the Kachkanar mining and processing plant "Vanadium" (Sverdlovsk region), Kushchev turned to Jalol Khaidarov for help, who acted in the Urals in the interests of the Chernoi brothers. It was mentioned on the Internet that the youngest of the Chernoi brothers (David), even before the collapse of the USSR, left for permanent residence in New York (USA), where he allegedly kept in touch with the “Russian mafia” in Brooklyn, whose members were emigrants from the USSR. It was mentioned above that the founders of the Foratec group began selling cars in Yekaterinburg in partnership with an American company, whose representatives, apparently, were emigrants from the USSR who worked in the Brooklyn district of New York.
One of the prominent representatives of the "Russian mafia" in New York was the crime boss Vyacheslav Ivankov (nickname "Yaponchik"). When Ivankov (Yaponchik) was arrested in 1995, during a search of his apartment, the American police found a photograph of the Far Eastern crime bosses "Dzhem" and "Poodle" with the caption: "To Brother Slavik in eternal memory from the Far East." In his book "Poodle" claims that he was closely acquainted with "Yaponchik". The crime bosses "Jam" and "Poodle" were mentioned above in connection with a member of the Yekaterinburg organized criminal group "Center" Vladimir Klementyev, who was in close contact with the Foratec group. There are also mentions on the Internet that the crime boss Datiko Tsikhelashvili ("Dato Tashkentsky"), who crowned "Dzhema", actually controlled the "Central Research and Production Association" Cascade ", which installed government special communications equipment under contracts with FAPSI. Vyacheslav Ivankov and Datiko Tsikhelashvili belonged to the inner circle of the former one of the most authoritative thieves in the law of the Russian criminal world, Aslan Usoyan ("grandfather Khasan"). Thus, it is not excluded that the Foratec company was closely associated with this particular criminal clan, as well as with the famous Chernoi brothers, who probably acted in conjunction with the aforementioned criminal clan.
Date of information update: 2016.