Soviet-British joint venture "Ural" (corporation "Technezis")

On August 25, 1988 1988 in Sverdlovsk a multi-profile cooperative "Scientific and Engineering Center" was registered. There is reason to believe that Valery Chichkanov, director of the Institute of Economics of the Ural Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, took part in the creation of the cooperative. The cooperative was headed by Vladimir Koskov, head of the mechanization and automation department of the Gidrometpribor plant.

On March 9, 1989, the Scientific and Engineering Center cooperative created the Soviet-British joint venture Ural together with Sands Technology, a robot manufacturing firm from Cambridge (Great Britain). According to available information, this was the first joint venture established in the Sverdlovsk region. The head of the joint venture "Ural" is the head of the cooperative "Scientific and Engineering Center" Vladimir Koskov. The main activity of the created enterprise was the creation of robots. However, in reality, the joint venture was engaged in one of the most profitable activities at the time - the resale of computers.

In 1990, Valery Chichkanov, director of the Institute of Economics of the Ural Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, who presumably played a significant role in the formation of the Ural JV, was approved as Deputy Chairman of the RSFSR Council of Ministers in charge of the economy, investments and foreign economic relations.

Some data indicated a connection between the Ural joint venture and the state security officials and leaders of the Center organized criminal group.

In 1990, the joint venture undertook a rebranding, organizing a mass competition to choose a new name for the company as a PR move, and began operating under the name "Technezis". The joint-stock company "Tekhnezis" was registered, the founder of which was the JV "Ural". Among the founders of individuals with the largest share were Boris Davidovich Gitelman and Vladimir Pavlovich Zhegulsky (an employee of the Department of Hoisting and Transport Machines and Robots of the Ural Polytechnic Institute). Boris Gitelman's son is married to Valery Chichkanov's niece. Boris Gitelman's brother, Lazar Davidovich Gitelman, was the head of the Department of Energy Management and Industrial Enterprises at the Ural Polytechnic Institute, and received the title of Doctor of Economics.

In 1991, the tax inspection of Sverdlovsk accused the Ural joint venture of concealing 1.5 million rubles of profits in 1990 and decided to collect 3 million rubles from the enterprise to the state's income. Also, the British side accused the Russian partners of concealing the profits, stating that instead of manufacturing robots, the company was exclusively engaged in the resale of computers, and notified of the termination of the memorandum of association. It was reported that the British share in the joint venture was bought by the British firm "Hugh Stipert Ltd", specializing in the production of prostheses. Vladimir Koskov, in turn, accused Sergei Nikolaev, head of the Ural JV branch (Computing Machinery and Information Technologies), of concealing profits by organizing the assembly of "left-handed" comput-ers using Ural JV equipment. According to Koskov, these are the sums that the tax inspectorate missed.

It was reported that when checking the activities of the Ural JV, the officers of the KRU of the Ministry of Finance of the RSFSR, the Sverdlovsk police and the KGB, having seized the financial documentation of the enterprise, did not suspend its activities, which was an unprecedented case. The management of the enterprise explained the unprecedented tolerance by the fact that the law enforcement agencies "ran over" to the joint venture "Ural" by order of the competitors of the enterprise. Therefore, they do not have to forcefully ruin the joint venture - it is enough to transfer to competitors the commercial secrets discovered during the audit. The version was discussed that the Ural joint venture received such a soft treatment thanks to the connections of the enterprise management with the KGB officers. It was alleged that the director of the enterprise, Vladimir Koskov, established contacts with KGB officers during his work at the Kalinin Machine-Building Plant (an enterprise of the military-industrial complex), where, according to unconfirmed reports, he worked in the department for countering foreign intelligence. The media wrote that the assistance of the Ural JV was provided by the KGB captain Mikhail Voronkov, who was suspected of organizing the murder of Andrei Vasilyev, a warrant officer of the KGB in the Sverdlovsk region, who was allegedly investigating Voronkov's activities privately. According to media reports, Voronkov was dismissed from the state security organs, but the charges against him were dropped. It was not possible to establish the identity of Voronkov. Probably, this is Voronkov Mikhail Anatolyevich, who in 1996 headed the private security company "Legion", who worked on the orders of the director of the Tavda hydrolysis plant Vadim Tsurikov. In the late 1990s, the private security company acted in the interests of the UMMC.

In May 1991, in accordance with the order of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the RSFSR, the Higher Party School in Sverdlovsk was transformed into the Ural Social and Political Institute (USPI). A month and a half later, USPI and JV Ural established the Tekhnezis-Hotel joint-stock company, to whose founding fund the head of USPI Viktor Sankov transferred a considerable part of the institute's property. In November 1991, USPI was transformed into the Ural Personnel Center under the Depart-ment of State Service of the RSFSR, and its property was to be transferred to the balance of the government of the RSFSR. However, JSC "Technezis-Hotel" refused to return the property and in 1992 a trial began, which lasted throughout the 1990s and continued into the 2000s. According to media reports with reference to the words of the head of the Ural Personnel Center Vladimir Loskutov, the leaders of the central criminal group N. Shirokov, A. Doronin and I. Vecherny showed interest in this problem.

In 1991, the Tekhnezis commercial exchange was registered, where mainly transactions with consumer goods were carried out. In 1993, by the decision of the Ministry of Finance of Russia, the exchange was revoked the license for the right to exchange activities on the securities market, among other 50 exchange structures - for violations revealed during the audit of their activities. The exchange was soon closed.

In 1992, the Limited Liability Partnership "Soviet-British Joint Venture" Ural "was registered. The founders of the LLP were the Scientific and Engineering Center cooper-ative and the Modern technology and management house limited company, registered in the UK at 95 Park Lane, London. This time the British partner bore signs of a fly-by-night firm. The firm was incorporated in 1991 under the name "Coverobtain Limited", which loosely translates to "Hide the Booty". Subsequently, the firm was given a more respecta-ble name. Briton Jeffry Andrew Wild became the head of the company. And the financial director is Anatoly Evgenievich Dianov from Yekaterinburg. Later Anatoly Dianov was a representative of the Swiss partner of the Ural JV - Union of Finance and Trade S.A. At the end of the 1990s, Dianov already worked at the Ural Process Engineering Company Limited, whose Yekaterinburg branch was headed by Doctor of Technical Sciences, head of the Sverdlovsk branch of the Russian Jewish Congress, Khalemsky Aron Mikhailovich. His son Khalemsky Igor Aronovich was suspected of having links with the OCG Center and was killed in 1998. In the early 2000s, Dianov worked as Assistant to the US Consul General in Yekaterinburg for political affairs.

In 1992, Tekhnezis International Corporation LLP was registered, the founders of which were the Soviet-British Joint Venture Ural LLP and the German company Unicon Export Import GmbH (Hamburg, Kremon str., 34). The Tekhnezis corporation was diversified, its enterprises were engaged in the computer business, the sale of furniture, the export of copper, the import of tea, and international transportation.

At the end of 1992, the Tekhnezis corporation and the Yekaterinburg Committee for State Property Management organized the Bystrye Pelmeni Cafe LLP. On November 3, 1993, Tekhnezis - Bystrye Pelmeni OJSC passed state registration. Director of the Verkh-Isetsky Metallurgical Plant Vladislav Kavtrev, Director of the Institute of Economics of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexander Tatarkin, Archpriest Vladimir Zyazev, Director of the Opera House Vladislav Vyatkin, Deputy of the City Council Grigory Tsekher It was announced that the joint-stock company would implement a project to create an extensive network of fast food cafes in the Sverdlovsk Region (fast food). JSCT "Technezis-Invest" organized a collection of money and vouchers for the project "Fast dumplings" through many intermediary firms. Media, ruble post The payments were converted in SKB-Bank, dollars were transferred to the foreign currency account of the International Corporation "Technezis". Almost simultaneously with the conversion of funds, they are being transferred to the account of Unicon Export-Import GMBH in Deutsche Bank. All translations were made in accordance with the contract that this firm concluded on August 10, 1993 in Hamburg with the corporation "Technezis". Under this agreement, the firm promised to supply the corporation with goods worth one million DM.

About 5 billion rubles were collected for the Fast Pelmeni project, of which about 3 billion rubles were converted by Deutsche Bank. It was assumed that the population and legal entities would subscribe for money to the shares of the Tekhnezis - Bystrye Pelmeni OJSC being created, thereby forming the authorized capital of the joint-stock company. When the project is completed, the shareholders will receive dividends. However, the tax inspectorate considered this method of creating a joint-stock company illegal, since money from the population began to be collected in June 1993, and the joint-stock company itself was registered only in November. On November 20, 1993, the JSC account was arrested. And on December 27, the regional financial department officially refused to register the issue of shares of the joint-stock company. The activities of the joint-stock company began to be actively checked by the employees of the regional OBEP.

In April 1994, the head of the Sverdlovsk region administration, Alexei Strakhov, signed a decree "On the regional program for the development of a public catering network based on modern fast-food technologies" Bystrye dumplings ". After that, the issue of the company's shares was registered. collected from subscribers to the shares, so the JSC began to actively lend to banks. ”Teknezis-Continent” imported three consignments of goods from Italy for the equipment of the cafe.

In August 1994, a meeting of the Supervisory Board of Tekhnezis - Bystrye Pelmeni OJSC was held, at which the deputy of the Sverdlovsk City Council Grigory Tsekher sharply criticized the activities of the president of AO Vladimir Koskov. A number of members of the Supervisory Board decided to dismiss the president of JSC Koskov in connection with financial relations between the joint-stock company Tekhnezis - Bystrye dumplings and the International Corporation Tekhnezis. Koskov, nevertheless, remained president of the joint-stock company, and the supervisory board decided on the second issue of the company's shares.

In 1995, Tekhnezis International Company, which was a co-founder of Tekhnezis - Bystrye Pelmeni OJSC, announced its liquidation due to its inability to pay off its loan obligations. The corporation had neither cash nor production assets on its balance sheet. The creditor banks appealed to the Yekaterinburg Internal Affairs Directorate, the Sverdlovsk Region Prosecutor's Office and the Sverdlovsk Region UFSB with a request to initiate a criminal case against the president of the corporation Vladimir Koskov on grounds of large-scale embezzlement. According to the banks, the corporation owes 34 billion rubles. Koskov explained the reasons for the collapse of the corporation by his own underestimation of the development of the economy and the dishonesty of the company's management personnel. The banks, according to Koskov, were themselves to blame for issuing loans to the financial and commercial directors of the corporation, who did not always even provide powers of attorney for the right to sign. As a result, the money went past the corporation's account for some transactions that Koskov himself did not even know about.

On the basis of a fast food cafe, a chain of McPeak restaurants was created. But the Mak-Peak chain refused to undertake the obligation to return funds to the shareholders of Tekhnezis - Bystrye dumplings OJSC, since, according to representatives of the Mak-Peak chain, the owners of the new chain have nothing to do with the Bystrye dumplings project. The premises of the Bystrye Pelmeni cafe were transferred to the Mak-Peak chain by the Yekaterinburg Committee for State Property Management, which was one of the founders of Bystrye Pelmeni Cafe LLP. According to available data, the main owner of the Mak-Peak chain was Pavel Vladimirovich Kukarskikh.

The Fast Dumplings project was more and more perceived as a pyramid scheme. Information was announced that Tekhnezis International Corporation LLP had invested in Tekhnezis - Fast Pelmeni OJSC not real money, but promissory notes, which after the corporation's bankruptcy were of no value.

In 1997, Tekhnezis International Corporation LLP was declared bankrupt, and a decision was made to liquidate it through bankruptcy proceedings. The liquidation of Tekhnezis International Corporation LLP was completed in 2000. The criminal case against Vladimir Koskov was dropped for lack of corpus delicti.

In 1998, a group of lawyers from the former multidisciplinary cooperative Scientific and Engineering Center, which once established the Ural JV, created the United Lawyers company in Moscow. Valery Chichkanov became the president of the company.

In 1999, a joint stock company with the same name was established in Yekaterinburg, which indicated the address of the Moscow company United Lawyers as its address during registration. The head of the Yekaterinburg company was the daughter of Vladimir Koskov.

Summarizing the above, the following conclusions can be drawn.

The Soviet-British joint venture Ural and its successor, the Tekhnezis corporation, were created, most likely, with the direct participation of Valery Chichkanov, director of the Institute of Economics of the Ural Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, who in 1990 was approved as Deputy Chairman of the RSFSR Council of Ministers in charge of the economy and investments. and foreign economic relations. The management of the joint venture and the corporation included relatives, friends and colleagues of Chichkanov. Based on the available data, it can be assumed that Valery Chichkanov was one of the main characters in the group “near the scientific bureaucracy”, the organizational core of which was the authorities of the Kirovsky district of the city of Sverdlovsk, who oversaw the Ural branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences and the Ural Polytechnic Institute. This group at the turn of the 1980s - 1990s served as the backbone of the formation of the Yekaterinburg administration and was closely associated with the leaders of the OCG Center.

In the course of its development, the Ural JV, and subsequently the Technezis corporation, enjoyed the support of the Yekaterinburg administration and Alexei Strakhov, who from November 1993 to August 1995 headed the administration of the Sverdlovsk region, and before that was the deputy head of the Yekaterinburg administration. For some unknown reason, in the summer of 1994, the management of the corporation lost the support of the Yekaterinburg administration and, on the contrary, became the target of attacks by the city administration. The result of this, as well as the ineffective management of the corporation, was the bankruptcy of the Tekhnezis corporation.