Head of CJSC "Inteko"

Wife of Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov. A major entrepreneur, the owner of the investment and construction corporation "Inteko", which occupies a leading position in the market for the production of polymers and plastic products, monolithic housing construction, and commercial real estate. In February 2007, she transferred 99 percent of the shares of Inteko to the closed-end investment fund Continental. Deputy head of the working group of the national project "Affordable Housing", member of the board of directors of the Russian Land Bank. Until 2005, she was the chairman of the Equestrian Federation of the Russian Federation. According to Forbes magazine for 2008, the richest woman in Russia, owning a personal fortune of $ 4.2 billion.

Elena Nikolaevna Baturina was born on March 8, 1963. According to other sources, in 1991 she was 25 years old, that is, she was born in 1966. After school (since 1980), Baturina worked for a year and a half at the Moscow Fraser plant, where her parents worked - she was a design engineer.

In 1982, Baturina graduated from the Moscow Institute of Management named after Sergo Ordzhonikidze (now a university). According to some reports, Baturina studied at the evening department of the institute.

In 1982-1989 she was a researcher at the Institute of Economic Problems of the Integrated Development of the National Economy of the City of Moscow, chief specialist of the commission of the Moscow City Executive Committee on cooperatives and individual labor activity. There is evidence that Baturina started her business with a cooperative that developed software.

In 1991, the company (cooperative) "Inteko" was registered, which began to manufacture polymer products. Baturina headed it together with her brother Viktor, and later in the press she was mentioned in the media as the president of Inteko, and her brother as the general director, as vice president, and first vice president of the company. According to other data published in 2007, Baturina became the president and main owner of Inteko in 1989.

In 1991, Baturina married the future mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov (this was his second marriage), who in the past was one of the leaders of the Research Institute of Plastics and the head of the science and technology department of the USSR Ministry of Chemical Industry.

In 1992, Luzhkov became the mayor of the capital. Subsequently, Baturina denied the connection between her marriage to Luzhkov and the beginning of her own career, although they almost coincided in time. A number of media wrote that Luzhkov never specified how Inteko received profitable municipal orders. So, it is known that in the early 1990s, the Inteko cooperative won a tender and received an order for the production of almost one hundred thousand plastic chairs for the capital's stadiums. Baturina herself, in an interview with reporters, mentioned that 80,000 plastic seats for the Luzhniki stadium were made by her company. In 1999, Baturina, in an interview with Moskovsky Komsomolets, indicated that the stadium was reconstructed at the expense of the funds that the joint-stock company received from leasing space, and at the expense of loans. “I don’t see anything reprehensible in the fact that the Luzhniki management decided to buy plastic seats from me, and not pay one and a half times more expensive to the Germans,” she said.

A few years later, Inteko's business for the manufacture of plastic products was supplemented by its own raw material production based on the Moscow Oil Refinery (MNPZ), which was under the control of the capital's government. A plant for the production of polypropylene was built on the territory of the Moscow Oil Refinery, and almost all of the polymer produced by the Moscow Oil Refinery belonged to Baturina's company. Demand for polypropylene products has always been high, and in the absence of competition from other manufacturers, Inteko, according to data published by the Kompaniya magazine, managed to occupy almost a third of the Russian market for plastic products.

February 3, 1997" New Newspaper"reported that part of the funds allocated by the Moscow government for the construction of the Prince Rurik brewery were transferred to Inteko CJSC. The company filed a lawsuit, believing that the article discredited its business reputation. On April 4, 1997, the court ordered the newspaper to publish a refutation.

In the late 1990s, the President of Kalmykia, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, put forward the idea of ​​building the City of Chess (City Chess) to host international chess tournaments. One of the main general contractors for the construction of the city was Inteko. As a result, the company turned out to be one of the defendants in the investigation concerning the misuse of budget funds during the construction of the City of Chess. The republic, according to media reports, owed a significant amount of money to Moscow entrepreneurs. At the end of 1998, the co-owner of Inteko, Baturin, at the suggestion of Ilyumzhinov, headed the government of Kalmykia. A few months later, under an agreement between the Ministry of State Property of Kalmykia and CJSC Inteko-Chess (a subsidiary of Inteko), the Moscow company became the owner of a 38 percent stake in Kalmneft belonging to the republic (according to some reports, this happened without the knowledge of the rest of the shareholders of the oil company) . According to one version, in this way Baturin provided guarantees for the return of funds invested in the construction of City Chess. Soon dissatisfied minority shareholders of Kalmneft applied to the arbitration court with a claim against CJSC Inteko-Chess and the Ministry of State Property of Kalmykia to declare the transaction invalid. The transfer of shares was canceled, and already in February 1999, Baturin left the post of Prime Minister of the Republic of Kalmykia. In 2004, Baturina, in an interview with Izvestia, stated that many subjects of the federation owe her "unlimited amounts of money", including Kalmykia.

In the fall of 1999, Baturina ran for deputies of the State Duma in the 14th Kalmyk single-mandate constituency. Baturina's rival in the elections was one of the leaders of the Agrarian Party of Russia and the movement "Fatherland - All Russia" (OVR) Gennady Kulik. With a request to go to the polls from Kalmykia, the Kalmyk branch of the OVR turned to Baturina, which, according to the magazine Profile, was a complete surprise for Ilyumzhinov. The publication indicated that, according to unofficial information, after some time in Moscow, a meeting took place between Ilyumzhinov, Kulik and the head of the Russian government, Yevgeny Primakov, who was asked to convince Luzhkov to dissuade his wife from running in Kalmykia. But Primakov's intervention did not help - Luzhkov refused. Returning to Elista, Ilyumzhinov made a telephone statement for Profile: "I respect and appreciate Elena Baturina and wish her good luck in the elections. If she wins, then the economy of the republic will win first of all." At a rally in Elista, organized by activists of the OVR movement, Baturina made a speech, promising that in the event of her victory, Kalmykia would live no worse than Moscow.

Earlier, in July 1999, Luzhkov's wife was at the center of a scandal involving the illegal export of capital abroad. According to employees of the Federal Security Service of the Vladimir Region, her firms Inteko and Bistroplast (whose head, according to Kommersant, was Baturin) cooperated with structures that were engaged in money laundering. According to media reports, these structures transferred $230 million abroad. Luzhkov immediately declared that Boris Berezovsky was behind this case, as well as "the administration of the President of the Russian Federation and general system, which is united by a political goal - to retain power as long as possible. "Baturina herself sent an official protest to the FSB and the Prosecutor General's Office. In the fall of 1999, she met with the director of the FSB, Nikolai Patrushev, who promised to apologize to her if the illegality of the seizure of documents by the employees of the Vladimir UFSB in firm "Inteko". In addition, auditing, conducted by the reputable firm "Ernst & Young", confirmed: "Inteko" did not transfer funds to Vladimir banks, suspected by security officers of financial fraud. Baturina herself said on this occasion: "The case is developing in such a way that it is the FSB that needs to think about own security and how to get out of the current situation. And I have nothing to be afraid of.” The wife of the capital's mayor denied that one of the motives for her participation in the parliamentary elections could be a desire to protect herself from persecution by the FSB.

However, Baturina lost the election. A week before voting day, on December 12, 1999, ORT TV presenter Sergei Dorenko told viewers that Baturina owned an apartment in New York. In response, she sued the journalist, demanding a refutation and the recovery of $400,000 from Dorenko and $100,000 from the ORT TV channel. The trial, which lasted nine months, was adversarial, and in October 2000 the Ostankino District Court granted Baturina's claim. He ordered ORT to refute, and certainly on Sunday in the Vremya program, the report that she has an apartment in New York. The court estimated the moral damage and moral suffering of the plaintiff at 10,000 rubles.

According to Oleg Soloshchansky, vice-president of Inteko, the company entered the construction business back in the mid-1990s, creating the Intekostroy firm and taking part in a development project in Kalmykia. However, the actual transformation of Inteko into a large investment and construction corporation began only in 2001, when the company bought a controlling stake in the leading house-building enterprise in Moscow, OAO Domostroitelny Kombinat No. 3 (the main manufacturer of panel houses of the P-3M series). Thus, Inteko managed to take control of about a quarter of the capital's panel housing market. A year later, a division of monolithic construction appeared as part of Inteko. At the same time, the company began the implementation of large-scale projects: residential complexes "Grand Park", "Shuvalovsky", "Kutuzovsky" and "Krasnogorie". In mid-2002, the company acquired the cement plants of OAO Podgorensky Cementnik and OAO Oskolcement, and later - ZAO Belgorodsky Cement, Kramatorsk Cement Plant, Ulyanovskcement and the leader of the North-West region, Pikalevsky Cement. Thanks to this, Inteko has become the largest cement supplier in the country.

In 2003, it became known about the project of a bonded loan of Inteko CJSC. At the same time, for the first time, it became clear that Baturina owns 99 percent of the company's shares, and 1 percent of the shares belong to her brother (earlier, in 1999, Baturina reported that her older brother owns half of the company's shares). Inteko estimated its share in the capital's panel housing market at 20 percent, while, according to media reports, the company built up to a third of standard houses under municipal housing construction programs for city orders. Some time later, "Inteko" announced the creation of its own real estate structure "Magistrat" ​​and launched its first advertising campaign. In February 2004, Baturina's company placed its debut bond issue for 1.2 billion rubles. The media indicated that investors were skeptical about Inteko's desire to borrow funds at a rate of no more than 13% per annum, so less than a quarter of the issue was sold at the auction. The rest, according to the experts of NIKoil, which carried out the placement, was sold by the underwriter in the negotiation deals mode. In turn, independent analysts suggested that the rest of the Inteko loan (more than 900 million rubles at face value) was bought up by NIKoil itself.

On July 8, 2003, the Vedomosti newspaper published an article "The Elena Baturina Complex", which, in particular, stated that the Moscow bureaucracy "makes a pleasant exception" for the mayor's wife's business. Baturina, believing that she was accused of using marital status in order to obtain advantages in business activities, she filed a lawsuit, and on January 21, 2004, the Golovinsky District Court ordered the publication to publish a refutation.

In 2003, Inteko-agro, a subsidiary of Inteko, bought more than a dozen farms in the Belgorod region that were on the verge of bankruptcy. In an interview with Izvestiya, Baturina said about her Belgorod business: “In Belgorod we are building a large plastics processing plant - and the local governor ordered us to take on the livestock complex and bring it out of unprofitability. We have to buy bull-calves and grow them for sale. " The governor of the Belgorod region, Yevgeny Savchenko, initially supported Baturina. However, in 2005, the regional authorities accused the agricultural holding of buying up land under "gray" schemes and underpriced prices with the aim of their further speculative resale. Later it turned out that the activities of Inteko-agro interfered with the development of the Yakovlevsky mine, which belonged to Metal-Group LLC, a company controlled by the Russian Ambassador to Ukraine Viktor Chernomyrdin and his son Vitaly (Baturina refused to transfer land to the regional authorities for construction railway to the mine under construction). On October 9, an attack was made on the executive director of Inteko-Agro LLC Alexander Annenkov in Belgorod, and the next day Inteko lawyer Dmitry Shteinberg was killed in Moscow. Baturina appealed to President Vladimir Putin with a request to dismiss the governor of the Belgorod region. After that, Savchenko, speaking on regional television, said that some "uninvited guests would like to change the government in the region," and "their black PR specialists stop at nothing, even blood." Deputy of the State Duma Alexander Khinshtein and deputy of Rosprirodnadzor Oleg Mitvol spoke openly in defense of the interests of Inteko-agro. However, at the federal level, no one began to publicly intercede for the Baturins. In the same month, elections to the regional duma were held in Belgorod: " United Russia"headed by Governor Savchenko. The Liberal Democratic Party, supported by Inteko, did not get even seven percent of the vote.

In 2004, the press named Inteko's participation in the construction of residential microdistricts on the Khodynka field, in the area of ​​Moscow State University and Tekstilshchiki among the largest projects of Inteko. The total cost of construction projects was estimated at $550 million. At the same time, the media noted that the cost of housing in the capital since the purchase of the construction company DSK-3 by Baturina has increased by 2.4 times. In the same year, the Internet publication Izvestia.ru published information that Baturina allegedly acquired 110 hectares of land along Novorizhskoye Highway outside the Moscow Ring Road for the construction of an elite microdistrict, for the sake of rising prices for apartments in which the Moscow authorities forced the construction of Krasnopresnensky Prospekt - he must was to connect the highway with the city center, which would make it possible to overcome the path from Krasnogorsk to the Kremlin in half an hour - without traffic jams and traffic lights.

On February 15, 2004, as a result of a partial collapse of the roof of the building of the Transvaal Park water park in the Moscow district of Yasenevo, 28 visitors to the entertainment complex were killed and more than 100 were injured. park" was financed by relatives of the Moscow mayor" said that by the time of the disaster, the water park business was completely controlled by Terra-Oil, and the deal to purchase shares from the previous owners of Transvaal-Park, the European Technologies and Service company, was financed by two presidents of CJSC "Inteko" - Baturina and her brother. The publication concluded that de jure Inteko was not among the founders of the companies managing Transvaal Park, but its shareholders in February 2004 were the largest creditors of Terra-Oil. In March 2005, the Tverskoy District Court of Moscow partially satisfied Baturina's claim for the protection of honor and dignity against the Kommersant publishing house and its journalists Rinat Gizatulin and Andrey Mukhin. The court recognized the information published in the newspaper as untrue and discrediting the honor and dignity of Baturina. At the same time, the court exacted 10,000 rubles from each defendant in favor of Baturina as compensation for non-pecuniary damage. In addition, the Tverskoy Court of Moscow satisfied another lawsuit filed by Baturina against the Kommersant newspaper in connection with the publication of the article "The Mayor with Complexes" (January 29, 2004). This article reported that Baturina decided "the fate of Moscow Vice Mayor Valery Shantsev" (after the election of the capital's mayor, Luzhkov reorganized the mayor's office, pushing Shantsev, who previously oversaw the capital's economy, to a less significant post). This information was also recognized by the court as untrue and subject to refutation.

On January 29, 2005, journalist Yulia Latynina on the air of Ekho Moskvy radio stated that Baturina is a co-owner of the Transvaal Park that collapsed on February 14, 2004, and the Inteko company received $ 200 million for the construction of the Moscow State University library, declared as a gift. On February 28, 2005, Baturina sent a request to the editor-in-chief of the radio station Alexei Venediktov to refute this information, which was subsequently done.

In 2005, Inteko sold all its cement plants to Filaret Galchev's Eurocement for $800 million, and some time later Baturina sold DSK-3 to the PIK Group. After the sale of the plant, Inteko left the panel housing market. According to a number of media reports, Inteko claimed that the sale of DSK-3 and cement plants was part of a strategy for consolidating resources for the development of monolithic housing construction and the creation of a pool of commercial real estate. Within 5–6 years, the company promised to build more than 1 million square meters office space and create a large national hotel chain covering the territory from Central Europe to the Asia-Pacific region. However, market participants expressed doubts about Inteko's intentions to become one of the largest players in the commercial real estate market in Moscow and the regions.

In the spring of 2006, Inteko returned to the cement market by purchasing the Verkhnebakansky cement plant in the Krasnodar Territory from the SU-155 group. In December 2006, Inteko vice-president Vladimir Guz told Vedomosti that Inteko had acquired another cement plant in the Krasnodar Territory, Atakaycement, located near Novorossiysk. The purchase of a small enterprise with a capacity of 600,000 tons per year was estimated by experts at $40-90 million. Guz did not name the sellers of the enterprise and the amount of the transaction, but the publication, referring to market participants and a source in the administration of the Krasnodar Territory, former owner"Atakaycement" called the president of the Samara "Wings of the Soviets" Alexander Baranovsky. "Inteko plans to create on the basis of two plants the largest cement production association in Russia with a total capacity of over 5 million tons of cement per year," Guz said. In addition, Inteko, he said, plans to build several more factories in Russia. Vedomosti drew readers' attention to the fact that Baturina is the deputy head of the working group of the national project "Affordable Housing". She, according to the newspaper, has repeatedly noted that the shortage and high prices for cement hold back the implementation of the project. UBS analyst Alexei Morozov remarked: "It's a good time to invest in cement... Those who start construction first will gain market share and shorten the payback period of their investments."

In July 2006, Baturina was elected to the Board of Directors of JSCB Russian Land Bank.

On December 1, 2006, information was published that the Axel Springer Russia Publishing House refused to print an article about Baturina and her business, destroying the entire circulation of the December issue of the Russian Forbes magazine. The leadership of the publishing house explained this step by the fact that the publication "did not follow the principles of journalistic ethics." One of the employees of the publishing house told Vedomosti that on the eve of the magazine's release, Ilya Parnyshkov, Inteko's vice president for foreign economic relations, came to the editorial office of Forbes with a copy of the statement of claim. The newspaper pointed out that representatives of Inteko threatened the publisher with claims for the protection of business reputation. In turn, the American Forbes demanded that Axel Springer release the current issue in the form in which it was printed. As a result, the December issue of the Russian Forbes came out in its original form, and cost 20 percent more than before the scandal.

In early February 2007, Vedomosti, referring to the lawyer of the editor-in-chief Maxim Kashulinsky and the editorial staff of the Russian Forbes, Alexander Dobrovinsky, reported on the lawsuits of the Inteko company against the magazine and its editor-in-chief. Lawsuits were filed in different courts: against Kashulinsky "On the dissemination of untrue information discrediting business reputation" - in the Chertanovsky court of Moscow, and "On the refutation of false information discrediting business reputation and the recovery of non-material losses caused as a result of the dissemination of data information" to the editors of the Russian version of Forbes magazine - to the Moscow Arbitration. Gennady Terebkov, press secretary of Inteko, told Vedomosti that the amount of each of the claims was 106,500 rubles (1 ruble for each copy of the December issue of Forbes magazine).

On March 21, 2007, the Chertanovsky Court of Moscow satisfied the claim of Inteko against Kashulinsky, recovering 109 thousand 165 rubles from the editor-in-chief of the Russian version of Forbes magazine, and not 106 thousand 500 rubles, since the legal costs of Baturina's company were estimated at 2 thousand 665 rubles. Kashulinsky's lawyer said he intends to appeal this decision in court. On May 15, 2007, the Moscow City Court refused to consider Kashulinsky's request to declare the decision of the Chertanovsky court illegal.

The lawsuit with the publishing house turned out to be protracted. On May 21, 2007, at the request of the defendant to conduct a linguistic examination of the published materials, the Moscow Arbitration Court suspended the proceedings on the suit of CJSC Inteko. In September 2007, he nevertheless recognized the fairness of the company's claims against the publishing house, but already in November 2007, the Ninth Arbitration Court of Appeal overturned this decision.

Then, in December 2007, representatives of Inteko decided to change the subject of the claim, claiming damage to Inteko's business reputation. The company demanded that not only Axel Springer Russia, but also the authors of the material, Mikhail Kozyrev and Maria Abakumova, be held jointly and severally liable, and that the same 106,500 rubles be collected from journalists and the publishing house. In January 2008, the claim under the rules of first instance was considered by the same Ninth Court of Appeal. He decided to satisfy the claim of Baturina, obliging the journal to publish a refutation of the article that caused judicial trial, and for damaging the business reputation of "Inteko" to recover from the defendants 106 thousand 500 rubles (35 thousand 500 thousand rubles from each). Commenting on the decision of the court, lawyer Dobrovinsky announced his intention to appeal this decision to the court of cassation,. However, already in April 2008, the publishing house submitted a written petition to the Federal Arbitration Court of the Moscow District to dismiss the cassation appeal against the decision of the appellate arbitration court on the suit of CJSC Inteko.

In 2006, Viktor Baturin sold his share in the company to his sister and finally left the business, receiving a "compensation" in the form of 50 percent of the shares of Inteko-agro, as well as the entire Sochi business of the company. According to other sources, at the beginning of January 2006, Baturin retained his 1 percent stake in Inteko. In January 2006, Inteko's press service, citing Baturina, announced that her brother "is no longer the vice president of the company and is not authorized to make any statements." According to a number of media outlets, his dismissal was a consequence of the events in the Belgorod region. According to experts, the owners of Inteko did not agree on the further development of the business. Baturin himself claimed in January that he left Inteko voluntarily. In March 2006, Inteko Corporation officially announced that back in February, Baturina's brother had left the company. On March 17, the shareholders of Inteko (that is, Baturina herself) at an extraordinary meeting decided to buy back from Viktor Baturin his block of shares.

However, on January 18, 2007, there were reports in the media that back in December 2006, Baturina's brother Viktor filed a lawsuit against Inteko CJSC in the Tverskoy District Court of Moscow. According to him, he was fired from the company illegally. Baturin demanded to reinstate him at work and pay him 6 billion rubles as compensation for unused vacation for 15 years of work for the company. Observers suggested that this was a "fictitious lawsuit", but in fact Viktor Baturin claims a quarter of the shares of Inteko, which, according to him, he was illegally deprived of. According to some reports, the value of this package at that time could be up to one billion dollars. On February 12, 2007, the Tverskoy Court of Moscow rejected Baturin's claim to reinstate him at Inteko. He also refused to pay the compensation demanded by Baturin.

On February 14, 2007, Elena Baturina, in turn, filed four lawsuits against her brother and his companies. The first lawsuit challenged Viktor Baturin's right to own management company"Ivan Kalita", in whose jurisdiction he once promised to transfer all his assets. The head of Inteko demanded that the company be returned to itself. Three more lawsuits motivated by "failure to fulfill obligations under contracts" contained property claims against Baturin's companies - Inteko-Agro-Service (for 48 million rubles) and Inteko-Agro (for 265 million rubles). Baturin did not comment on the first lawsuit, and called the amounts of claims against his companies "insignificant" and said that these lawsuits were "filed as a distraction." Baturin also said that he began preparing new lawsuits against his sister, including a lawsuit over 25 percent of Inteko shares, which, in his opinion, continue to belong to him. However, already on February 18, 2007, Inteko's spokesman Terebkov stated that "the parties renounce mutual property and other claims."

On February 19, 2007, it became known that Baturina transferred 99 percent of the shares of Inteko to the closed-end mutual investment fund (ZPIF) Continental, which is managed by the company of the same name. The media reported that the fund in terms of net asset value (82.8 billion rubles) took the lead by Russian market. Aleksey Chalenko, adviser to the president of Inteko, noted that "this was done as part of the company's strategy," Continental Management Company, according to RBC, declined to comment. Analysts did not come to a consensus about why Baturina took such a step. The following assumptions were made: the transfer of Inteko's assets to a closed-end mutual fund may insure the company against possible hostile takeovers, may also provide it with additional tax benefits, and may give Baturina the opportunity to quietly change the structure of property ownership. In 2007, in an interview with Vedomosti, Baturina confirmed that the Continental mutual fund belongs to her 100 percent. She called the structuring of Inteko through mutual funds "just a method of packing assets" ("How the money is in a bag, and not in a wallet - that's the whole difference").

On January 15, 2008, the Russian Land Bank named Baturina, who owned more than 20 percent of its shares, the main buyer of an additional issue of bank shares in the amount of 1 billion rubles. It was reported that after the buyback of shares, Baturina's share in the bank would exceed 90 percent. There was also an assumption by analysts that it would buy out the remaining shares of other shareholders of the bank.

In July 2008, Kommersant wrote about Inteko's participation in several development projects in Morocco through an affiliated company, Kudla Group. With reference to the words of the representative of the Department of Tourism of the Tetouan region of the Kingdom of Morocco, Mustafa Agundjabe, the publication reported that the company will invest more than 325 million euros in the construction of resort real estate in the country.

In December of the same year, CJSC "Inteko" Baturina won a lawsuit against the publication "Gazeta" for the protection of business reputation. The Federal Arbitration Court of the Moscow District ordered Gazeta to refute information about the conspiracy of the Moscow authorities with three leading property developers - Mirax Service (a subsidiary of Mirax Group), Inteko and the PIK group of companies - in order to divide the capital's housing and communal services market. The court did not see the guilt of State Duma deputy Galina Khovanskaya, on the basis of whose words the journalists made such a conclusion (Khovanskaya herself insisted that her words were quoted inaccurately in the article).

Baturina is the richest woman in Russia. According to Forbes magazine published in 2004, her personal fortune was $1.1 billion. Forbes experts estimated the turnover of the Inteko group at $525 million. At the same time, they admitted that it was not possible to accurately assess Baturina's assets, since, firstly, Inteko is a very closed company; secondly, she participated in almost all major metropolitan projects as a co-investor, contractor or subcontractor. According to the same Forbes, published in 2006, Baturina's fortune was already estimated at $2.3 billion. In August 2005, Inteko announced the purchase of shares in Gazprom and Sberbank. The company did not disclose which stakes Inteko owns (according to data for the first quarter of 2008, the share of Baturina - her mutual fund Kontinetal - in Sberbank was 0.38 percent). In 2006, information was published that Baturina and entrepreneur Suleiman Kerimov own more than 4.6 percent of Gazprom's shares for two (according to Vedomosti, they transferred the right to vote with their stakes to Alexei Miller, Chairman of the Board of Gazprom OJSC) . In February 2007, there were reports in the media that at the end of 2006, Baturina acquired shares in Rosneft, although this fact was not reflected in Inteko's financial statements for the last quarter of the year.

On April 19, 2007, the rating of the richest citizens of Russia was published in the Russian version of Forbes magazine. As in 2006, Baturina became the only woman included in the list: her fortune was estimated at 3.1 billion dollars (in 2006 it was 2.4 billion). In the spring of 2008, she entered the list of the richest inhabitants of the planet at number 253: Baturina's fortune, as reported by the American Forbes, at the time of the rating, was estimated at $ 4.2 billion.

Baturina plays tennis, rides well skiing. He drives a car, has the third category in shooting from a small-caliber rifle. Baturina is also seriously engaged in horseback riding. The media wrote that the well-known ophthalmologist surgeon and businessman Svyatoslav Fedorov once addicted her to this occupation. In an interview, Baturina recalled: “It so happened that I somehow immediately got into the saddle and rode. Then they began to give horses to the mayor, and the animals had to be taken care of somehow. Since 1999, Baturina has been mentioned in the media as the chairman of the Equestrian Federation In January 2005, Baturina was dismissed from the post of President of the Equestrian Federation sport of the Russian Federation, the deputy who took her place State Duma Gennady Seleznev argued that the interests of Russian athletes were poorly taken into account by the former leadership of the federation. Although there were many competitions, including high-level competitions, for example, the Moscow Mayor's Cup, which was one of the stages of the World Cup with large prize money, but, according to Seleznev, the organizers themselves chose those who were supposed to take part in them. The best athletes were invited from abroad, their arrival and accommodation in Russia were paid for by the organizing committee. The Russians invited by the Organizing Committee, whose number was limited, could not compete with the first numbers of the Old World. As a result, all the prize money was taken away by foreign guests. The Building Business publication noted that when Baturina was not re-elected to the post of head of the federation, she was "purely humanly offended", but noticed that she would not leave her horses anyway and would now take care of the affairs of the Moscow federation.

According to a number of media reports, even Baturina's enemies noted that she had invested a lot of money in equestrian sports. The media indicated that she had sincere feelings for horses. "Ordinary horsemen", according to them, said that Baturina keeps disabled horses in his personal stable and provides them with a decent existence. However, according to Building Business, horses for Baturina are not only a hobby, but also a business. A few years ago, Inteko bought dilapidated buildings of cowsheds in the Kaliningrad region in order to revive the Weedern stud farm, founded in the 18th century, where the Imperial Union of Private Horse Breeders was based until the 1920s - a partner of the largest in East Prussia, the Trakenen stud farm. In the autumn of 2005, the reconstruction of the factory buildings was completed ("with the preservation of historical facades") and the first stage of the "Weedern" was put into operation, work began on the reproduction of the Trakehner and Hanoverian breeds of horses. It is expected that this enterprise will become a source of considerable income: the second stage of the project includes the construction of hotels, a restaurant, the creation of a bypass road and the improvement of nearby territories. All this should attract tourists.

From her marriage to Luzhkov, Baturina has two daughters: Alena was born in 1992, Olga - in March 1994. The media also mentioned Baturina's sister - Natalya Nikolaevna Evtushenkova, head of the IBRD Office and wife of the chairman of the board of directors and the main shareholder of AFK Sistema Vladimir Evtushenkov

The story of the removal of the permanent mayor of the capital Yuri Luzhkov in September 2010 has a lot of versions. The most important question that is still of interest to the media is why was it removed after all? Jourdom conducted its own investigation and concluded: main reason The resignation of Yuri Luzhkov was a conflict between two influential wives - his wife Elena Baturina and Svetlana Medvedeva, the first lady of the country of those times. We decided to publicize this material now that the resignation of the Medvedev government is a foregone conclusion, searches are being carried out at Skolkovo and the oligarch Vekselberg, who is closest to Medvedev, is being interrogated. Luzhkov, who played first violin in retirement.

How it was

On August 26, 2010, President Dmitry Medvedev instructed the government to suspend the construction of the Moscow-Petersburg highway through the Khimki forest due to public protests. On September 1, in the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper, a certain political scientist under the pseudonym of Yuri Kovelitsyn published an article entitled “Competition Around Moscow”. The publication asserted that certain forces "are diligently courting Medvedev, inciting him both to his political father and to all his main pillars, including Luzhkov." A system of counterbalances has allegedly been created around the president, which inexorably leads him into a clash with both Vladimir Putin and Yuri Luzhkov.

Yuri Luzhkov himself was easily read as a clear interest in the publication in the publication controlled by the mayor. Moreover, after simple research by the Kremlin and White House PR specialists, it was established for certain that the press secretary of Yuri Luzhkov, Sergei Tsoi, personally placed the material of the “political scientist” in the newspaper. After this publication, the degree of tension between the Kremlin and the Moscow mayor's office became prohibitively high. “Competition around Moscow” was blamed on Luzhkov in behind-the-scenes conversations: it was the first public attempt to drive a wedge between the president and the prime minister.

On September 6, 2010, at one in the morning, the Internet version of Rossiyskaya Gazeta published the article “The Khimki Test” signed by Yuri Luzhkov himself. The deforestation of the Khimki forest was presented as a necessary evil, and Medvedev's decision to suspend construction as a clear mistake of a weak ruler. The stages of destruction of forests on 80 hectares, together with the accompanying flora and fauna, were consistently described. The transfer of the highway, which was insisted on by environmentalists and the left wing of the opposition, was not supported. In a fairly direct form, the author spoke about the savings from the expansion of an existing route.

Already on September 7, the media reported: “The investigating authorities are looking for, but so far they cannot find one of the deputy mayors of Moscow, Alexander Ryabinin, against whom a criminal case has been initiated under the article “bribery”.

On September 10, a few hours before the start of his troubles, Luzhkov, in an interview with the Interfax agency, rejected claims against him about an attempt to split the president and the prime minister and suggested that "this is all because of the publication on the Khimki forest." However, this did not help. At that time, both the mayor and his press secretary Tsoi already realized that they were openly set up and betrayed. After all, the request to publish the material "Khimki test" was broadcast to Tsoi from the chief PR manager of the presidential administration, Natalya Timakova, causing the uncontrollable fury of technical president Medvedev. And the text in the format that caused the greatest anger was prepared by Luzhkov's longtime adviser and speechwriter Valery Koretsky, who, in fact, betrayed the mayor and took part in an intrigue against the mayor. On the same day, with the approval of President Medvedev, his press secretary Timakova launched a media attack on the Moscow mayor.

On September 10, 11 and 12, the federal TV channels NTV, Rossiya 24 and Rossiya 1 aired pieces criticizing Elena Baturina and Yuri Luzhkov. The first in the revealing campaign was the NTV film "The Case in the Cap" (in the "Emergency" program). A running theme of all exposing programs has become entrepreneurial activity Elena Baturina and the Inteko group headed by her in the city headed by her husband. TV journalists also talked about traffic jams in Moscow and the demolition of historic buildings. NTV drew attention to criminal cases of corruption initiated against employees of the Moscow government, as well as to the scandal with the eviction of old residents of the Yuzhnoye Butovo district, as well as to Luzhkov's vacation during the August smog in Moscow.

On September 13, Luzhkov and Baturina, as president of CJSC Inteko, announced their intention to file lawsuits for the protection of honor, dignity and business reputation in connection with the dissemination of false information in critical television reports. On September 14, at the political council of the Moscow branch of the United Russia party, Luzhkov said that initially he "did not want to write this article, but he was asked for this service by the presidential administration." He called what is happening "harassment", and the position voiced in the article - only his opinion. The mayor flatly refused to leave and promised to fight slander. At the same political council, the Moscow branch of ER agreed with his position.

On September 15, an "unnamed source" in the presidential administration commented on Luzhkov's words in the sense that only the president is free to decide whether he remains in office or not. And on September 17, according to Luzhkov, he learned from the head of the presidential administration, Sergei Naryshkin, about the decision to remove him from office. The mayor was given options for voluntary or forced resignation. The reason was not explained, a week was allotted for reflection.

After that, all the demarches of Yuri Luzhkov no longer mattered. His merits and real (or imaginary) merits were no longer mentioned, but the press diligently exaggerated the shortcomings in Luzhkov's work. His departure was a foregone conclusion. On the morning of September 28, going to work, the mayor of Moscow learned that he had been removed from office by the president with the harsh wording "due to loss of confidence."

Quarreled ... because of school

Political scientist Boris Kagarlitsky believes that “what happened in Moscow is the result of larger and deeper processes. In particular, the struggle of power groups for access to Moscow resources.”

According to political scientist Stanislav Belkovsky, the structures of Elena Baturina, relying on her all-pervading influence in the capital, entered into irreconcilable antagonism with wide circles of oligarchs circling around Moscow in anticipation of a miss from Luzhkov - "from Abramovich to Rotenberg." And there was something to fight for. Belkovsky voiced only one figure: the shadow business in Moscow had a turnover of about $4 billion a year. This sharply distinguished the capital from all other regions and lured predators.

In fact, the immediate cause that led to the resignation of the mayor was not the struggle of the oligarchs for the Moscow shadow business. The removal of Luzhkov was due to a quarrel between his wives and President Medvedev.

In May 2010, Svetlana Medvedeva turned to Elena Baturina with a request to sell the elite school on Nikolina Gora, the most popular private school on Rublevo-Uspenskoye Highway in Moscow. Another name for this educational institution is the First Moscow Non-State Gymnasium. The gymnasium was founded in 2002 and is the brainchild of Elena Baturina. The children of the Luzhkov couple (from Luzhkov's second marriage to Baturina) studied here: Elena (b. 1992) and Olga (b. 1994). The territory of the Gymnasium on Rublyovka is about 7 hectares, it is equipped with canteens, cafes, swimming pools, gyms. Tuition in 2004 was €2,100 per month. Entry fee - €30.000. This is a record amount among all private schools in the country. The institution is famous not only for prices, but also for its closeness. The administration does not give any comments by phone. Parents are offered to go through an interview, since the institution has a very strict face control. In the second half of the 2000s, the Gymnasium even introduced an access control system based on biometrics (fingerprint and retina pass).

The elite school was originally created for the needs of the couple Luzhkov and Baturina: at the time of the foundation of the Gymnasium eldest daughter Luzhkov Elena just turned 7 years old. It is not surprising that the official founder of the gymnasium is the group of Elena Baturina "Inteko".

The wife of Dmitry Anatolyevich asked Elena Baturina to sell her this best gymnasium in Russia. However, Baturina replied: she is ready to simply give Medvedeva this educational institution with a grand gesture. Svetlana Vladimirovna nevertheless demanded to name the price, and Baturina asked for more than $ 50 million for the First Gymnasium. Svetlana Medvedeva was offended by this overpriced offer, and the ladies parted as mortal enemies. Offended in the best feelings, Medvedev turned to her husband and his press secretary Natalya Timakova for help. From that moment on, the countdown began for Moscow Mayor Luzhkov.

Ilya Barabanov, former deputy editor-in-chief of the New Times magazine, commented on this version with some bewilderment. In his opinion, in addition to the Honey Meadows gymnasium, Elena Baturina also had other, more expensive projects. They could also become a bone of contention with people, in any case, not inferior to the wife of Dmitry Anatolyevich in influence.

Boris Nemtsov was more specific in his comment: Yury Luzhkov was fired, not least for "disrespect for the then Zits-president Dmitry Medvedev."

Yuri Luzhkov and his former press secretary Sergei Tsoi, through their secretaries, refused to comment to Zhurdom on the version of a quarrel with Medvedeva over the First Gymnasium on Nikolina Gora. The administration of the gymnasium itself also decided not to violate traditions and did not begin to explain anything to our editors.

fatal article

Despite Yuri Luzhkov's attempts to retroactively justify the article dated 09/06/2010 in " Russian newspaper signed by him, the mayor himself no longer denies that the Khimki test was not written by him at all. As Ilya Barabanov noted, the mayor himself pointed to the fact that he wrote the article on the advice of the Presidential Administration. Moreover, the advice did not come from Medvedev's people, but either from Vladislav Surkov, or from Igor Sechin. At the same time, one should not forget that in tandem, the conditional “Putin's” side was playing a game not at all against Luzhkov.

However, the principled position taken by Yuri Mikhailovich turned out to be perverted and used against him. And this despite the fact that, as Stanislav Belkovsky notes, "Luzhkov was sure to the very end that Medvedev would not have the strength to remove him from office." Mainly due to good relations Moscow mayor with Vladimir Putin.

As we already mentioned, the real author of that article was a long-time adviser to the Moscow mayor - Valery Koretsky, who always remained in the shadows. He also had a hand in writing an article for Moskovsky Komsomolets. Although in the publication of September 1, under Yuri Kovelitsyn, the Moscow mayor himself is easily guessed, his authorship here is just as nominal as in the case of the Khimki test.

Koretsky was born in 1959. Graduated with honors from the Faculty of History of Donetsk State University, then - postgraduate studies at Moscow State University. In the early 1990s, he worked as the head of the Public Scientific Center for Humanitarian Problems at Moscow State University. Collaborated with the Security Council, analytical units of the presidential administration, with the old Supreme Council. In 1993-99 Valery Koretsky was the director of the Independent Institute of Social and Historical Problems, which he created on the basis of the history department of Moscow State University. In this position, he regularly monitored the socio-political situation in Russia. His reports were used in the work of Boris Yeltsin's administration.

In 1999, Koretsky became director of the Research Institute of Social Systems at Moscow State University. He still holds this position, not forgetting about teaching. Moreover, according to some students, he is a "shame on the faculty" and one of the most corrupt teachers. It is symbolic that it was Koretsky who became one of the coordinators of the working group of the State Council of the Russian Federation on administrative reform, created in September 2000. As you know, reforms in this direction were carried out under the direct supervision of Dmitry Medvedev, and this makes the version of the Zhurdom portal about Luzhkov's betrayal by Koretsky in 2010 even more plausible.

In November 2002, in an interview with Vek, Koretsky openly admitted that the developments of his group were applicable in reform activities Dmitry Medvedev. At the same time, the coordinator argued that the resistance working group The State Council came from the Ministry of Property. He implicitly hinted at Medvedev's defense, appealing to her.

Koretsky, as director of OAO Moscow Information Technologies, served the needs of Mayor Luzhkov, often providing him with analytics. It is known what importance Yuri Luzhkov attached to the trust of Muscovites. He referred to him during attempts to remove him from power in 1996. In September 2010, he attached decisive importance to the trust of Muscovites. And since Valery Koretsky was Luzhkov's eyes and ears on the issue of public opinion, it was he who was entrusted with writing an explanatory article about the Khimki Forest. The request from the Presidential Administration mentioned by the former mayor was most likely also broadcast by Koretsky.

When by September 6 the article signed by the mayor was ready, Yuri Luzhkov, out of old habit, trusted his adviser and speechwriter, signing its final version literally without looking. Taking into account the peculiarities of the presentation and the position defended in the Khimki Test, a negative resonance from Medvedev was ensured. Koretsky also coordinated the placement of the article with the Administration - and since Luzhkov's visa was already on the text - press secretary Sergei Tsoi, as an oriental and executive person, did not bother the boss once again with his doubts about the appropriateness of this publication. And he just posted an article in Rossiyskaya Gazeta. And this public opposition to Medvedev was the last straw that led to the resignation of the mayor.

Ilya Barabanov recalls how many rumors there were around this publication. It was even rumored that the notorious Anatoly Wasserman had a hand in the creation of the Khimki test. Stanislav Belkovsky expressed himself bluntly about the role of the article in the overthrow of Luzhkov: "It played a major role in the fact that Medvedev went berserk."

Direct performers

The publication of the article was prepared not only by Valery Koretsky, and not only at the suggestion of Dmitry Medvedev. The president only gave the command to prepare Luzhkov's departure. And his allies from the administration were directly involved in the project itself.

At the same time, as political scientist Sergei Ryzhenkov noted, Medvedev himself, most likely, implicitly counted on the approval of Vladimir Putin. “After all, it is not necessary for people to openly say to each other: “Listen, I will do this and that. What is your opinion on this?" The actor of political action always expects a reaction. So Medvedev, sending Luzhkov to resign, most likely was firmly convinced that Putin would treat this with understanding.

The team for "mopping up Moscow from Luzhkov" included the press secretary of the president, Natalia Timakova; her husband, board member of the Institute modern development Alexander Budberg; oligarchs Viktor Vekselberg and Alexander Mamut; former member of the Yeltsin "Family" and head of the administration of Boris Yeltsin, Valentin Yumashev; oligarch Roman Abramovich and, finally, the former head of the presidential administration Alexander Voloshin.

Former journalist Natalya Timakova started at Moskovsky Komsomolets, where she got on the recommendation of Alexander Budberg, who later married her. At that time, Budberg was successfully working for Chubais. Later, the couple just as successfully worked for Voloshin. In gratitude for the services rendered, Voloshin recommended Timakov to Medvedev. Now Timakova plays important role in the apparatus of Prime Minister Medvedev, accompanying him up the career ladder. Dmitry Anatolyevich's trust in his press secretary is boundless. Timakova answers him with exceptional devotion. And, as you can see, he often uses old connections. For example, in Moskovsky Komsomolets - to open fire on Medvedev's political opponents.

Medvedev's team trained Alexander Voloshin as Yury Luzhkov's successor. Indeed, he is mentioned in the list of candidates for mayoral appointment.

Voloshin, as former leader administration of Presidents Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin, developed good relations with Dmitry Medvedev. At one time, Medvedev even worked as Voloshin's deputy. Voloshin himself relied on previously earned capital of influence: he was an adviser to Vladimir Putin during his election campaign and pushed his candidacy at the behest of the “power triangle” of Dyachenko, Yumashev and himself.

The story with Yukos led in 2003 to a crisis of power. On October 29, 2003, by decree of Russian President Putin, Voloshin was dismissed from the post of head of the presidential administration, Dmitry Medvedev was appointed in his place. Until some time, Voloshin had every reason to dislike Medvedev. However, there is no evidence of a possible conflict between them at that time.

With the advent of Dmitry Medvedev to power, the period of temporary oblivion of Alexander Voloshin came to an end. In July 2010, Medvedev signed a decree on the working group to create the International Financial Center (IFC), appointing Voloshin as its head. In August 2010, Voloshin became a member of the board of directors of Yandex, and in September of the same year he was elected chairman of the board of directors of OJSC Uralkali.

As soon as the issue of Luzhkov's resignation was resolved, the first person remembered by Medvedev's team was Voloshin. However, the appointment of Alexander Stalievich to the post of mayor of Moscow was blocked by Vladimir Putin.

The ease with which the fate of the permanent Moscow mayor was decided because of a woman's offense can cast doubt on the professional qualities of Dmitry Medvedev. It is natural that today he himself and his government are on the verge of resignation, with the subsequent accusation in the media of the economic recession that has begun and other troubles of the country.

Anton Volnov

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Luzhkov Yuri Mikhailovich - a prominent political figure Russian Federation, who ruled Moscow for 18 years, doctor of chemical sciences, writer, recently a farmer.

Yuri Mikhailovich was born in Moscow (date of birth - September 21, 1936), but he spent his early childhood, as well as seven school years in Konotop - in his grandmother's house.

By the time of his birth, the situation in the family was disastrous. Trying to survive, the parents were forced to work hard: the father worked at the capital's oil depot, the mother got a job as a laborer at the plant. Therefore, it was decided to entrust the child to the paternal grandmother.

In 1953 Yuri Luzhkov, a graduate of the seven-year secondary school, returned to his parents in Moscow, where he completed his studies at the 529th school (current school No. 1259) and entered the Institute. Gubkin. Studying was not easy, especially since at the same time I had to earn a living. During the institute, the future doctor of chemical sciences managed to work as a janitor and loader at the railway station.

At the same time, his outstanding organizational skills were manifested - on the student's account, holding public events, continuous Komsomol work. At the initial stage of the working biography on Komsomol line Luzhkov ends up in Kazakhstan - he works as part of a student team, mastering the virgin lands.

Career and politics

Immediately after receiving his diploma, Yury Mikhailovich Luzhkov becomes a junior researcher at the Research Institute of Plastics, where he advances to the head of the group and deputy head of the laboratory. Further career developed on the rise.


In 1964, Luzhkov took up the position of head of the department for improving the management of the State Committee for Chemistry, seven years later he became the head of the automated control system of the Ministry of Chemistry. industry of the USSR, and then director of the department "Khimavtomatika" OKBA. A promotion to the position of director of NPO Khimavtomatika soon followed.

From the mid-80s, Luzhkov was again transferred to serve in the Ministry, this time to leadership position to the Department of the Ministry of Chemical Industry. A year later, Yuri Mikhailovich settled in the Moscow City Executive Committee, where he first became deputy head, and then received the position of acting chairman. In 1991, Luzhkov became the prime minister of the Moscow government, essentially performing the function of the mayor.


In addition to work, all these years, Yuri Mikhailovich pays attention social activities. In 1968 he joined the ranks of the CPSU, in 1975 he became a deputy of the Babushkinsky district, and from 1987 to 1990 he served as a deputy of the Supreme Council.

The ex-mayor of Moscow still pays attention to political events in Russia and the world, he expresses his thoughts on Twitter. Quotes of the former mayor of the capital are popular in social network, but Luzhkov does not have an official website.

Awards

  • Luzhkov's activities in many positions were awarded honorary awards:
  • medal "Defender of Freedom of Russia" for defending the White House;
  • the Order of Honor for the restoration of architectural monuments of the capital;
  • Order "For Military Merit" - for work for the benefit of the defense capability of Russia;
  • order to them. - for invaluable services to the Chechen Republic;
  • Its archives contain many departmental and public awards, as well as foreign insignia: from Armenia and Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia, Germany and Lebanon.

The passage published below tells how Elena Baturina earned her first million. […]


Did you take Yuri Luzhkov participation in the business of Elena Baturina or not? Was he aware of the decisions his wife wants to make? Did you share with Baturina your vision of the state of affairs in the city, thoughts about the prospects for its development? Of course. It would be strange if it were different. And it is strange if Baturina denied this. And she doesn't deny it.

“We spend most of our lives at work. If molds are not launched at my factory, suppliers fail to meet deadlines, an order is on fire ... Don't tell my husband?! And it's funny if Luzhkov, when he comes home, does not talk about the problems that exist in the city, ”Baturina said in her first big interview, which she gave in 1999 to Izvestia.

What follows is another matter. Baturina claims that the final decision is made by the one who should be responsible for it. It is understood that Luzhkov is not responsible for the affairs of the "family" business. And Baturin - for the urban economy of Moscow. But the fact of the matter is that in the case of Inteko, it is difficult to separate the urban economy from the interests of a family company that is fully integrated into the urban economy. […]


When Gavriil Popov submitted his resignation in 1992, the deputies of the Moscow City Council demanded that the election of the mayor be held. However, in the context of the already flaring conflict between the yesterday's winners of the 1991 putsch, Boris Yeltsin did not hold elections and appointed Yuri Luzhkov to the post of mayor of Moscow by his decree. The Moscow City Council tried to challenge the legitimacy of the decree, twice called the election of the head of the Moscow administration. However, both times the courts declared the decision invalid. In none of these cases did Luzhkov try to stand as a candidate, betting from the very beginning on the recognition of the elections as illegal.

But in the 1996 mayoral elections in Moscow, already announced by Boris Yeltsin, Yuri Luzhkov won with a score of 89.68%. In the 1999 elections - with a result of 69.89% of the vote. None of the competitors could even come close to Yuri Luzhkov's performance. Luzhkov's charisma and active social policy of the city authorities also played their role. But there are other factors as well.

The scruffy Moscow City Council was replaced by the obedient Moscow City Duma. The city parliament was headed by "loyalist" Vladimir Platonov. The “separatism” of the Moscow self-government was liquidated in the course of the administrative reform along with the self-government. In 1991, the capital was divided into prefectures, and the prefectures into councils. Both prefects and heads of councils receive their positions by order of the mayor. In other words, the vertical of power in Moscow was built ten years earlier than at the federal level.

The ability to keep the situation in the metropolitan metropolis under control and guaranteed loyalty to the president - all this allowed Luzhkov to stand firmly on his feet. And stand apart from others. […]

Luzhkov did not hesitate to speak out loud about his devotion to Yeltsin. “I am ready to declare publicly: one of my loves is Moscow, one love is my wife, one love is the president. No one will ever be able to quarrel me with any of them, ”this is from an interview with Luzhkov in 1997.

Stable and positive relations with Boris Yeltsin allowed Yuri Luzhkov to keep his "first love" - ​​Moscow and fiercely resist the attempts of the oligarchs to infiltrate the urban economy. And not only the oligarchs. Moscow implemented its own scheme for the privatization of state property.

Let's start with the fact that the Moscow bodies that carried out the privatization were removed from the control of the federal ones. One of the key differences of the Moscow model was also that voucher auctions (in which any holder of vouchers could theoretically participate) were offered not 29% of the shares of enterprises, as in Russia as a whole, but only 12-15%. At the same time, large blocks of shares remained outside the city, which later began to be sold at specialized auctions and investment competitions.

According to Moscow officials, such a decision made it possible to attract investment in the reconstruction and development of enterprises. This is on the one hand, and on the other - to cut off objectionable future owners. As for investments in privatized enterprises... In the overwhelming majority of cases, they remained only on paper. By the way, according to the investment competition scheme, Inteko also acquired one of its factories in Moscow.

Meanwhile, in 1995, Yuri Luzhkov obtained a special decree from Boris Yeltsin regulating privatization in Moscow. Among other things, it spelled out a model of 49-year land lease agreements, which later became the main form of land "quasi-ownership" in the capital.

"Quasi" - because the Moscow government, headed by Yuri Luzhkov, remained the real owner and manager of the land. This means that only with his permission in Moscow it became possible to implement large development projects. And only to the lucky few, these decisions are given with little bloodshed.

With the connivance of the Kremlin, the Moscow authorities have also adopted an extensive system of their own, different from the federal, legislation in other areas that are key to city life.

All this time, Yuri Luzhkov’s “second love”, his wife Elena Baturina, could, having strong rears, do her own business.

Yuri Luzhkov and Elena Baturina



The first "regular" business of Elena Baturina was the production of plastic products. Here Baturina managed to form, albeit small (against the background of today's billions of Inteko), but a stable financial flow.

Where did it all begin?

First, a workshop with several thermoplastics (machines for stamping plastic products) was rented. Then the first plant was launched. And by 1995, Inteko, as Viktor Baturin said in an interview in 1999, already owned five production facilities. Three factories were located in Moscow, one in the Moscow region, and one more in Kirov. The company's revenue, according to Baturin, by 1998 reached several tens of millions of dollars. And the amounts invested by the company in the acquisition and development of production amounted, according to Baturin, to several million dollars.

And here is what Elena Baturina said at about the same time: “I did not privatize oil companies, I am not a shareholder of Gazprom, I do not own banks. We acquired one of our plants through an investment competition. If ZIL was privatized for 5 million dollars, then I privatized my “livery” (300 people working) for 1 million dollars. Feel the difference, as they say.

How did Luzhkov help? Yes, nothing, well, if it didn’t interfere - in this sense, Baturina answers.

Viktor Baturin, who owned 50% of Inteko until the end of the 90s, says a little differently: “It's not my fault that my sister married the mayor. You have to be a complete idiot to refuse such a relationship. And it is clear that ... he [Luzhkov] had an indirect influence. At least the fact that during the bandit period they didn’t run into me and didn’t pay tribute. ”

But, be that as it may, the reporting of enterprises that are part of Inteko, and the capital's legislation allow us to add additional strokes to this picture.

The Almeko plant located in the industrial zone of Kotlyakovsky proezd became the flagship of the plastic business of Inteko.

A brief history of the project is as follows. In 1992, at one of the exhibitions in Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov went to the stand of the Soviet-Italian joint venture Sovplastital. The joint venture was established in 1987 on the basis of the Tashkent enterprise UzBytPlastic. Engaged in the manufacture of garden furniture, jewelry, Christmas decorations and other plastic products. Of the entire assortment of Sovplastital, Yuri Luzhkov liked plastic chairs and tables the most. The director of the joint venture, Alexander Melkumov, immediately promised to set up the production of such products in Moscow. He kept his promise.

Three months later, the Almeko plant, where Sovplastital acted as a co-founder and supplier of personnel, produced the first batch of products.

It would seem, what does the Moscow authorities care about the project of some Tashkent joint venture? Nevertheless, at the end of 1992, the Moscow government issued a special order concerning Almeko. A certain NPO "Mosgormash", as it turned out, owns a woodworking shop on the territory of the industrial zone allocated for the production of "Almeko". The workshop produced wooden pallets for bread, which were then delivered to bakeries. So, a document signed by Vice Mayor Boris Nikolsky demanded that Mosgormash NPO transfer the workshop to a new owner, Almeko Joint-Stock Company, within two weeks. And along with the building - the necessary equipment and working capital so that the new owner can continue production without slowing down. All contracts for the supply of trays were re-registered for Almeco.

On the one hand, of course, it can be assumed that Nikolsky's order pursued the goal of maintaining the production of products important for the urban industry. But another reason is more likely - to provide, albeit a small but sure income, the newborn Almeko.

The question arises: where does such an arrangement for a single project come from? The answer is simple. The thing is that it was not a foreign project for the Moscow mayor's office. Along with Sovplastital, the Innovation Fund of the Mayor's Office became the founder of the new enterprise. In 1993, the fund (within the framework of "improving the management system for scientific and technological development in Moscow") was transformed into the Moscow Committee on Science and Technology (MCST).

If the Innovation Fund of the Mayor's Office was a municipal enterprise, then the MKNT was a closed joint-stock company. What is the difference? First of all, in simplifying the procedures for disposing of municipal property entrusted to the care of "innovators".

The board of directors of the MKST was headed by Vladimir Evtushenkov. The same Yevtushenkov, who in the very near future will begin to grow his "empire", known today as AFK Sistema (the current value is about $ 9 billion, the main asset is the mobile operator MTS). Yevgeny Novitsky, one of Yevtushenkov's closest associates, was appointed General Director of Almeko. And among the shareholders of the plant there were companies associated with AFK Sistema. Together with the MKST, they disposed of the controlling stake in Almeko.

But already in 1995, the enterprise from Sistema and the city MKNT passed under the control of another structure not alien to the capital authorities - Inteko by Viktor and Elena Baturin. In 1996, the share of Inteko in the share capital of Almeko reached 53%.

The production of the Baturins grew at a rapid pace. If in 1995 Almeco produced 271 tons of products, then in 1998 - 2816 tons (the eighth indicator in Russia). The number of employees at the enterprise exceeded 180 people. Revenues in 1997 amounted to about $3 million. In 1998, however, Almeco's sales fell to $1.4 million. But the crisis and the dramatic drop in the exchange rate of the Russian national currency are to blame here. If we count in rubles, then the revenue of Almeko in 1998 reached 29 million against 18 million rubles. a year earlier.

So what do we have? For seven years, modern production has grown in Moscow, one of the largest in its industry.

The project was started by a resourceful native of Uzbekistan, who already had experience in the production of plastic products and well represented the market. However, almost from the very beginning, the project fell under the close tutelage of the Moscow authorities. Alexander Melkumov, an entrepreneur from Uzbekistan, was pushed aside from management. By 1993, the supervision of the project had passed to a group of city officials headed by Vladimir Yevtushenkov, head of the Moscow Committee for Science and Technology.

A couple of years later, Yevtushenkov transferred custody of the promising production to the relatives of the capital's mayor. Somewhere along the way, formal issues of ownership were also resolved. WITH municipal structures a controlling stake in Almeko was assigned to Inteko.

How exactly was this operation structured and how much money was the city able to raise from this de facto privatization deal? Today it is impossible to find out in open sources and city legislation available for study.


However, such details are known regarding another Inteko asset - the Moscow Krion plant. Located in Yuzhnoye Chertanovo, the company specialized in the manufacture and maintenance of lines for the production of plastic products. In other words, it was a critical element of Inteko's future "big plastic business".

Could Victor and Elena Baturina pass by? Of course no. In May 1996, at several investment competitions, the Moscow City Committee for State Property Management sold a 44% stake in Krion to two Baturin companies. 30% of the shares were bought directly by Inteko. 14% was acquired through Almeko, where the Baturins already controlled a controlling stake. (Another 5% of the shares of enterprises Viktor Baturin issued for himself, having bought the papers from the company's management.) In total, Inteko paid 234 million rubles for the state stake in Krion. Or $47,000 at the then exchange rate.

Is it a lot or a little? For comparison, a month earlier, in April 1996, the Moscow Committee for Property Management held a competition, which sold about a dozen departmental apartments that had become unnecessary for the city. The most expensive lot - a two-room apartment (43 sq. m.) in Kuntsevo - was sold for 124 million rubles. An enterprise with a hundred employees, a plot of land of 2.5 hectares and a production area of ​​about 10 thousand square meters. m for the price of two "Khrushchev" ...

Today, Elena Baturina claims that she did not receive any gifts from the city for Inteko. Well, let's assume that a plant at the price of two apartments is not a gift.

However, the competition was “investment”, and in addition to the money, Inteko signed up not to fire employees for 3 years, not to change the production profile for 5 years and invest at least $ 170 thousand investments during the year. But, frankly, it's hard to believe that the capital's officials were particularly zealous to follow such "little things" when it came to the company of the mayor's wife. Moreover, during that period Elena Baturina had another, more direct relation to the structures of Moscow power.

In one of the quarterly reports of the same Krion, after Elena Baturina joined the board of directors of the enterprise, the list of her official positions indicated: 1994-1997, Moscow City Hall, chief specialist. The field of activity is "city development".

Finally, the third of the Moscow "plastic" enterprises "Inteko" owes its birth to one of the initiatives of the city authorities.

“I don’t like McDonald’s, I never go there, except at the opening ceremony,” Luzhkov told journalists who crowded around him in August 1995, when the first cafe of the Russian Bistro chain opened in Bolshoy Bereznyakovskiy Lane. The creation of a national Russian fast food for the mayor of the capital was, at least at some point in his activity, if not a matter of honor, then a very personal matter. Suffice it to recall the patents for kulebyaka, pies and pies from the Russian Bistro menu, which Yuri Luzhkov issued for himself. However, from the point of view of Inteko's business development, the desire of the capital's mayor to provide his native brainchild with reliable supplies of disposable tableware from a trusted supplier played an important role.

So the Bistro-Plast company was born. “Established as part of a program to develop a fast food system in Moscow,” it will be said about it in the Inteko bond prospectus after almost a decade.

Bistro-Plast was registered in December 1995, a few months after the opening of the first Russian Bistro eatery. The founders were "Inteko" and "Mosstroyekonombank" (received 50% each). At the helm of the new company stood "intekovtsy". And it’s not their fault that Russian Bistro never managed to catch up with McDonald’s in Russia. Inteko regularly supplied plastic cups and plates to snack bars. However, in 1999, Russian Bistro had to, as Viktor Baturin then claimed , only 2-3% of sales of disposable tableware. Which, apparently, is true - the start-up customer did not justify Inteko's hopes. Nevertheless, the production of Inteko plastic tableware grew rapidly. The market was empty, and solvent demand had already formed. National manufacturers were just putting their capacities into operation, imported products were forced out of the market by the devaluation of the ruble in 1998.

Result: by the end of the 1990s, Inteko became one of the largest plastic tableware manufacturers in Russia with a 25% market share. And Baturina, on occasion, is ready to screw up that the disposable plastic "stack" is her invention.

In 2000, "plastic" brought Elena Baturina about $ 30 million in annual revenue. “By all European standards, this is an average business,” Baturina said in one of her first interviews. Average, not average - but rumors that Yuri Luzhkov has not just a wife, but quite a big businessman, began to circulate in Moscow.

And there was every reason for this, the interests of the wife of the Moscow mayor already extended far beyond the "plastic market".

In 1995, Elena Baturina created the Intekostroy company. Specialization — decoration and reconstruction of facades of buildings. The company immediately received several municipal orders. For example, to restore the historical appearance of Kamergersky lane, the buildings in the lane were painted in bright colors with Inteko paint. After digging into the city legislation, you can find that Elena Baturina took up paints and facades back in 1993. At least, it was then that Inteko was mentioned in the list of recipients financial assistance from the city under the article "Support for experimental design and construction." Primers and paints developed by Inteko were recommended for use by Moscow builders. Today they have painted the walls of hundreds of high-rise buildings in Moscow.

Baturina, meanwhile, in her activities covered more and more new areas. A subsidiary of Inteko, Trading House Moskva-River, in the late 90s, was engaged in the wholesale trade in food products. In 2002 the company will be appointed as the authorized supplier of food to the city by the Moscow authorities. At one time, the lion's share of grain supplies to the capital's bakeries went through the Moscow River. Inteko also came to oil refining.

As it was later written in the bond issue prospectus of Elena Baturina's company, "since 1999, in order to expand its activities, Inteko has begun its own petrochemical production on the basis of the Moscow oil refinery in Kapotnya." The output of the new "production" is 70-75 thousand tons of polypropylene (raw material for the production of plastic products) per year. About 50% of production is exported. The rest is recycled at Inteko factories that produce plastic products. In 2002, the turnover of the petrochemical business Elena Baturina was about $40 million.

However, "own production" was by no means such. Inteko only leased property (production equipment) that was owned by the Moscow Oil Refinery. At the same time, the Moscow government disposed of the controlling stake in the plant.

What else? Well, for example, "Russian Land Bank", whose board of directors since 1997 included Elena and Viktor Baturin.

In mid-1997, Yuri Luzhkov, by his order, appointed this credit institution as an authorized bank for serving the city budget in terms of collecting payments for land and rent. Through the accounts of the bank, on the board of which Yury Luzhkov's relatives sat, a powerful financial flow went from city revenues from land tax and rent payments. To clarify: in Luzhkov's decree it was stated that the transfer of funds to budget accounts should be made on the 25th day of each month.

In other words, the mayor's office officially allowed the RZB to use their money for a month. In the future, the noticeably grown Russian Land Bank will become the settlement center of the Inteko empire.

So, let's sum up. By the end of 1999, Baturina was engaged in the production of plastic products. The turnover is several tens of millions of dollars. (Not quite transparent, but apparently profitable and comparable in scale to the "plastic" petrochemical business at the Moscow refinery.) Food supplies to Moscow. Maintenance of the city budget.

Baturina's household has grown too large to avoid becoming a target for Yury Luzhkov's political opponents in the bitter war for power that erupted in Russia in the final months of Boris Yeltsin's presidency.