Who is Volodin in the government. State Duma Speaker Volodin: biography, activities and interesting facts

Secretary of the General Council of the United Russia party
vice-chairman State Duma,
former vice-governor of the Saratov region
margarine "oligarch"

Born on February 4, 1964 in the working settlement of Alekseevka, Khvalynsky district, Saratov region, Russian

In 1986 he graduated from the Saratov Institute of Mechanization Agriculture(SIMSH), in 1995 - the Russian Academy of Public Administration (RAGS) under the President of the Russian Federation with a degree in law. Candidate of Technical Sciences, Doctor of Law (doctoral dissertation on the topic "Subject Russian Federation: problems of power, lawmaking and management", 1996).

In 1979 (at the age of 15) he began working as a machine operator at the Boevik state farm in the village of Belogornoye, Volsky district, Saratov region.

From 1984 to 1993 he worked as the chairman of the trade union committee of students, junior research fellow, graduate student, assistant, senior lecturer, associate professor at the Saratov Institute of Agricultural Mechanization.

In 1990 he was elected a deputy of the Saratov City Council; in 1990-92 - Chairman of the City Council Commission on Youth Affairs, member of the Presidium of the City Council.

From 1992 to November 1993, he worked as the manager of the administration of Saratov, deputy head of the city administration (head of administration - Yuri Kitov; first deputy head of administration - Dmitry Ayatskov).

In November-December 1993, he headed the election headquarters of D. Ayatskov during the campaign for elections to the first composition of the Federation Council.

From the end of 1993 to 1996 - Vice-Rector of the Volga Personnel Center (since 1995 - Volga Academy of Public Administration). He was the head of the Department of State and Regional Administration.

In parallel, in 1993-94. - Executive director of JSC "Silikat".

May 29, 1994 was elected to the Saratov Regional Duma from the regional electoral association "Russian Union of Reserve Officers". In 1994-96 - Deputy Chairman of the Saratov Regional Duma (Chairman - Alexander Kharitonov).

In February 1996, he was called by the press (in particular, the newspaper "Saratovskiye Vesti") as a possible contender for the post of head of the administration of the Saratov region. However, he himself did not run, actively helping D. Ayatskov to win the elections.

April 16, 1996 was appointed first deputy head of the administration of the Saratov region. Responsible for the work of the departments for economics and investment policy; on property and bankruptcy; on social issues; committee for analysis, information and press, representation in the legislature.

In September 1996, with the adoption of a new law on the Government of the Saratov Region, he was appointed Vice Governor - First Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Saratov Region (he oversaw the same departments - for economics and investment policy; for property and bankruptcy; for social issues; analysis, information and press, representation in the legislature). Until the beginning of 1999, the position of vice-governor was the only one, but in January 1999 a second position of vice-governor was introduced (it was occupied by Alexander Miroshin), which the media associated with Ayatskov's attempt to limit the increased influence of V. Volodin.

In 1997, he was nominated to the regional Duma in order, according to the media, to become its speaker and get into the Federation Council. He withdrew his candidacy due to D. Ayatskov's dissatisfaction with this ("Profile", May 24, 2004; "Novye Izvestiya", 24.02.99).

Since 1998, he has owned large blocks of shares in a number of companies of the Buket group (Vladislav Burov, president of the Buket group of companies).

In early February 1999, there were reports in the media about Volodin's possible transition to political work in the executive committee of the All-Russian Political Public Organization (OPOO) "Fatherland" Yuri Luzhkov.

In April 1999, he was elected a member of the Central Council of the OPOO "Fatherland".

Since the spring of 1999 - Deputy Head campaign headquarters- Head of the department for ensuring the elections of the OPOO "Fatherland" (head of headquarters - Artur Chilingarov; from June 1999 - Georgy Boos). He was responsible for the federal activities of the movement, drawing up federal lists of candidates from the "Fatherland", communication with the headquarters. In connection with the appointment, he left the post of vice-governor of the region.

August 18, 1999 co-opted (together with G. Boos) to the political council of the Fatherland. Elected deputy secretary of the political council of the "Fatherland" (secretary of the political council - Alexander Vladislavlev, 1st deputy secretary - Andrey Isaev).

In September 1999, he was included in the federal list of candidates for deputies of the State Duma from the electoral bloc "Fatherland - All Russia" (OVR) (No. 1 in the Volga regional group).

On December 19, 1999, he was elected to the State Duma of the Russian Federation of the third convocation on the list of the OVR electoral bloc.

On January 17, 2000, at a meeting of the OVR faction, he was elected first deputy chairman of the OVR faction in the State Duma (chairman - Yevgeny Primakov).

Since January 28, 2000 - Member of the State Duma Committee on Legislation. Since March 10, 2000 - Member of the Permanent Commission of the State Duma to study the practice of applying the electoral legislation of the Russian Federation in the preparation of elections and referendums in the Russian Federation.

In October 2000, he became one of the initiators of the creation (together with Anatoly Lukyanov, Pavel Krasheninnikov and Alexander Gurov) of the deputy inter-factional association of the State Duma of the Russian Federation "Lawyers of Russia".

In March 2001, he became a member of the inter-factional deputy group of the State Duma of the Russian Federation "Volga-Ural".

In May 2001, he sent a parliamentary request to the governor of the Saratov region D. Ayatskov on the use of $ 5 million intended in 2000 for the health care of the region. The request aroused D. Ayatskov's indignation ("Let them [the State Duma deputies] not look for fleas here. If they itch, let them itch elsewhere"). The activities of V. Volodin in the Saratov region began to be investigated by the responsible officer of the regional Security Council Sergei Yuryev (how the population treats the deputy, who pays Volodin for a hotel, when he arrives, etc. - Novye Izvestia, May 23, 2001).

After the departure of E. Primakov from the post of chairman of the Duma faction, OVR was elected chairman of the faction on September 3, 2001 (in August 2003, the faction "Fatherland - All Russia" was renamed OER - "Fatherland - United Russia").

October 18, 2001 voted in the State Duma for an amendment to the law "On the Protection environment", which allows the import into Russia of foreign nuclear waste (the so-called SNF - "spent nuclear fuel") for storage and processing.

In December 2001, he was elected to the General Council of the All-Russian Party "Unity and Fatherland" ("United Russia"). Responsible for preparing and holding elections to all levels of government.

April 19, 2002 voted for new law on Citizenship, which deprived former citizens of the USSR (including those born on the territory of the RSFSR, including ethnic Russians) of the right to obtain Russian citizenship under a simplified procedure. In accordance with this law, among others, several tens of thousands of military personnel who previously enjoyed the rights of citizens of the Russian Federation turned out to be stateless. Russian army who, before entering the service, had a permanent residence permit in the Union republics.

In February 2003, he was the initiator of initiating in the State Duma the issue of no confidence in the chairman of the Federal Energy Commission (FEC) Georgy Kutovoi. federal law"On the federal budget for 2003" provided for a maximum increase in electricity tariffs up to 14%, but in many regions it was exceeded. On February 11, 2003, the OVR faction held a meeting, to which G. Kutovoy was invited, and decided to vote for the resolution "On gross violation of the procedure for setting electricity tariffs for end consumers for 2003", submitted for consideration by the State Duma on the initiative of the leaders of the four centrist fractions. At the same time, V. Volodin proposed to issue a no-confidence to the chairman of the FEC ("We are outraged that the decision to increase tariffs was made almost everywhere, but there is no one responsible. The Federal Energy Commission denies everything. Its chairman, Georgy Kutovoy, could not answer a single question posed by the deputies." - regions.ru, February 11, 2003). In response, Kutovoy said that the Duma (including the OVR faction) itself adopted a law according to which tariffs should be reviewed once a year precisely from January 1 ("if not for this phrase, the change in tariffs would be smooth") and accused Volodin and his faction that they started the election campaign ("Kommersant", February 13, 2003).

On February 21, 2003, he voted for the adoption in the third reading of the government's "Law on the electric power industry" (the so-called "energy reform according to Chubais"). By approving this law, the State Duma passed a non-binding resolution calling on the government to fight unjustified increases in electricity tariffs. After the approval of the bill, he said: "The previous thoughtless reform has been stopped. Now the government has appeared responsible for it. And the situation will not happen again when the RECI inflates prices, and the FEK signs for helplessness."

On October 8, 2003, the court of the Zavodskoy district of Saratov satisfied the claim of V. Volodin against the newspaper "Sovetskaya Rossiya" for the protection of honor and dignity - regarding a publication in which it was alleged that Volodin acquired the cardiological sanatorium "Cheremshany-I" in the Khvalynsky district of the Saratov region in his personal property . The court ruled to oblige the editorial office of the newspaper and the author of the article to publish a refutation and to pay Volodin compensation for moral damages in the amount of 500,000 rubles from the editorial office of the newspaper and 5,000 rubles from the journalist.

In September 2003, he was included in the list of candidates for deputies of the State Duma from the United Russia party (No. 1 in the Volga-Urals regional group of candidates). He was also nominated as a candidate from "United Russia" in the Balakovo single-mandate constituency No. 156 (Saratov region).

On December 7, 2003, he was elected to the State Duma of the fourth convocation in the Balakovo constituency No. 156, receiving, according to official data, 82.9% of the vote (one of the best indicators in Russia).

Registered in the United Russia faction.

In December 2003, he was elected First Deputy Head of the United Russia faction. To simplify the coordination of their work, the faction was divided into four groups, one of which was headed by V. Volodin.

On March 17, 2004, he was elected deputy chairman of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union of Belarus and Russia (chairman - B. Gryzlov).

On September 2, 2004, a report was published by the Novosibirsk Zhirkombinat, which was bought by the Buket group in 2003, according to which Volodin is the owner of a 26% stake in the enterprise. A member of the board of directors of a number of companies that were part of Buket, told the Vedomosti newspaper that Volodin had always been a shareholder in some Buket companies, but only in 2004 began to transfer shares from affiliated companies to himself personally. ("Vedomosti", September 3, 2004).

On October 2, 2004, at a meeting of the political council of the Saratov branch of United Russia, the deputy head of the party faction in the State Duma, Franz Klintsevich, was asked the question: "Whom will the party support in the election of the governor of the Saratov region?" Klintsevich replied that the party leadership would definitely support Volodin. (Saratovbusinessconsulting, October 2, 2004).

At the end of 2004, information appeared in the Saratov press that the presidential envoy to the Volga Federal District, Sergei Kiriyenko, sent submissions to two candidates for the post of governor of the region - Dmitry Ayatskov and Volodin. Ayatskov's powers expired on April 2, 2005, and the Saratov region became one of the first regions of the Russian Federation in which the head of the region was elected not by the population, but by the regional parliament on the proposal of the president. However, in the end, Volodin's candidacy for the post of governor was not nominated by the president (the president introduced Pavel Ipatov to the Saratov Regional Duma, who was elected).

On hostile terms with Love Sliska. (Sliska: "One of my countrymen... has been thinking for the sixth year already, he has broken his head how to remove me from the first vice-speakers..." - "Profil", September 26, 2005)

Margarine "oligarch". Co-owner of the group "Bouquet" with the center in Saratov (President of the group - V. Burov); in 2003, the Buket group bought the Novosibirsk Zhirkombinat (Vedomosti, September 3, 2004). For 2006, he was a shareholder of the companies included in the Solar Products holding (in 2004, it was separated from the Buket group) (Chairman of the Board of Directors - V. Burov) of companies - Novosibirsk Fat Plant OJSC (26% of shares for 2004 - " Vedomosti, September 3, 2004; in 2006 - 27%), Zhirovoi Kombinat OJSC (Saratov region), Armavirsky Oil and Fat Plant OJSC and Moscow Fat Plant OJSC. In 2006, the enterprises of the holding produced 598,660 tons of products. The proceeds of OAO Zhirovoi Kombinat (Saratov Region) for 2005 amounted to 3.12 billion rubles, net profit - 4.13 million rubles. (data from SPARK-Interfax). In 2006, the proceeds of OJSC Novosibirsk Fat Plant amounted to 2.26 billion rubles, net profit - 19.52 million rubles. The proceeds of JSC "Moscow Fat Plant" for 2006 - 3.63 billion rubles, net loss - 16.56 million rubles. (company data). In 2007, he changed his shares in the Novosibirsk Fat Plant for a stake of about 7% in Zh.K. (two formal co-owners: 70% belonged to the Cypriot "Oneos Holdings Limited", 30% - to V. Burov), which owns the Saratov JSC "Zhirovoy Kombinat" and controlling stakes in JSC "Novosibirsk Fat Plant" and JSC "Moscow Zhirkombinat" .

Awarded the Order of Friendship (1997).

Enjoys hunting.

From his youth, he loves "Pesnyarov" and Alla Pugacheva, he has never been fond of underground rock.

Name:Viacheslav Volodin(Vyacheslav Volodin)

Age: 55 years

Height: 178

Activity: statesman and politician, chairman of the State Duma

Family status: married

Vyacheslav Volodin: biography

Vyacheslav Viktorovich Volodin is a significant figure in the modern Russian political world. Since October 2016, he has been the Chairman of the State Duma, and before that he was the First Deputy Head of the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation. According to the latest data from the Center for Political Technologies, Volodin's authority in the country is second only to recognized long-term leaders, and.

Vyacheslav Volodin, whose biography is increasingly of interest to his fellow citizens, was born in the small village of Alekseevka, which is located in the Saratov region. He became one of three children in the family of a captain of the river fleet and a teacher primary school. Today, all relatives of the politician, except for his wife and children, continue to live in Saratov. His sister works for one of the consulting firms, and his brother, a former soldier, is on a military pension.

After graduating from school, Volodin entered the Faculty of Organization and Technology of Machine Repair at the Saratov Institute of Agricultural Mechanization. At the university, he not only mastered the engineering profession, but also proved to be an excellent organizer and activist. Vyacheslav acted as commissar of the student brigade and was even elected chairman of the student trade union committee. Having received a diploma, the young man did not work in his specialty, but entered graduate school and chose a scientific field of activity.

He defended his Ph.D. thesis, taught at his native alma mater, and later became Vice-Rector of the Volga Region Academy of Public Administration. Much later, Vyacheslav Viktorovich received a second higher education. IN Russian Academy public service under the President of the Russian Federation, he became the owner of a legal specialty, and soon the degree of Doctor of Law.

Political activity

The political biography of Vyacheslav Volodin began after he was elected a deputy of the Saratov City Council in 1990. Four years later, he was already deputy chairman of the Saratov Regional Duma, and two more years later, he was the vice-governor of the region. The name of Vyacheslav Viktorovich Volodin had significant weight for the inhabitants of the region, many wanted to see him as the next head of the region. But the conflict with the current governor Dmitry Ayatskov forced the activist to resign, move to Moscow and engage in entrepreneurial activities, and at the same time organize the Fatherland movement together with.

However, Vyacheslav Volodin did not remain outside politics for long. In the last year of the 20th century, he was elected to the State Duma. In the government, the promising politician collaborated with the Fatherland - All Russia bloc, and then with the United Russia faction. In the latter, Vyacheslav Viktorovich was the secretary of the presidium until the moment he managed to take the post of first deputy head of the presidential administration of the Russian Federation. It should be noted that Volodin is an ardent supporter of the policies of President Vladimir Putin. He participated in his election campaign and it is he who owns the resonant phrase that at one time excited the public: "No Putin - no Russia."

The support of the president influenced the further career growth of Vyacheslav Volodin - the State Duma of the seventh convocation received a new chairman in his person, and it was precisely after the recommendation of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. After this appointment, a number of means mass media put forward the version that Volodin in the next elections will apply for the presidency. As a statesman and politician, Vyacheslav Volodin has both supporters and opponents. The former note his concern for the patriotic education of young people and active assistance to human rights activists, while the latter focus on the fact that under Volodin, control over the press was tightened, and special services began to monitor the media and Internet sites more closely.

Business

When Vyacheslav Viktorovich left his political career aside in the late 90s, he took up a profitable business. Volodin owned the shares of the Limited Liability Company, which controlled the work of fat plants in the Saratov, Novosibirsk and Moscow regions. The politician was also the owner of a number of subsidiaries of the Solar Products holding, however, back in 2007, according to Volodin, he sold the business in order to focus his attention on caring for the state.

A year before, the authoritative publication "Finance" included the name of Vyacheslav Viktorovich in the list of the most influential Russian billionaires. At the end of 2013, a resonant scandal erupted around him. A number of media outlets, including the famous Forbes magazine, the BBC Russian Service and the blog, spread information that the politician owns an undeclared plot in the Sosny dacha cooperative. Moreover, the “plot” meant a rather impressive territory - with a pond, a garden landscape, a helipad.

The anti-corruption department did not reveal any violations on the part of the official, but claims were found against Vyacheslav Viktorovich Volodin as a co-founder of the Sosny dacha cooperative from the Russian nature supervision. The cooperative was fined for building an illegal fence along the Istra River, which blocked the access of ordinary citizens to recreational areas near the river.

Personal life

The wife of Vyacheslav Volodin met on his way when he was still living in Saratov. Her name is Victoria Dmitrieva, and she is the daughter of former first Secretary of the Ershov District Committee of the CPSU. In the personal life of Vyacheslav Volodin, there is not only a beloved wife, but also children. The eldest daughter Svetlana graduated with honors from the law faculty of Moscow State University, and later defended her dissertation for the degree of candidate of legal sciences. Also, the chairman of the State Duma has two sons who are much younger than his sister.

On February 4, Vyacheslav Viktorovich celebrates his anniversary. Such a busy life, such a tumultuous career, such an incredible rise, and he is only 50.

The leader of United Russia, the Byzantine, the idol of rural women, a talented statesman, the Kremlin sage - that's all he is - Volodin, the most prominent Saratov citizen of recent history. On February 4, Vyacheslav Viktorovich celebrates his anniversary. Such a busy life, such a tumultuous career, such an incredible rise, and he is only 50.

This is a man who truly created himself. And he broke through to the Kremlin Olympus not by the old acquaintance and fellowship with the president. He seems to be the only person who happened to be near Putin on their own merit.

A symbolic historical coincidence. A native of the Khvalynsk region, like Volodin, was Mikhail Suslov, the main ideologist of the Brezhnev era. A quarter of a century later, his fellow countryman occupies a similar position in the Kremlin and is responsible for the internal politics and ideology of the state. It is noteworthy that many analogies are now being found between the Brezhnev and Putin eras. And at the beginning of the century, the governor of the Saratov province was an outstanding reformer-statist. Pyotr Stolypin. Volodin is also a staunch sovereign and a patriot.

mother cult
Vyacheslav Volodin was born in the village of Alekseevka, Khvalynsky district. This is one of the most beautiful places on the Volga in the Saratov region. The breadth of the local Volga open spaces seemed to have influenced the scale of thinking and activity of a native of this land. But if the mind was given to Volodin by nature, then his formation as a person took place in the hard hardening of everyday trials.
Until the age of four, Slava lived in Alekseevka and was brought up by his grandparents. The mother went to work in another village as a kindergarten teacher. Later when Lidia Petrovna settled there, took her son and eldest daughter with her to the village of Belogornoye, Volsky district. There her youngest son was born. Mother worked as a primary school teacher. She was a teacher in the classical sense of the word: intelligent, attentive, responsible. Different people who knew the Volodin family said the same thing - Lidia Petrovna was a simple hospitable woman, it was pleasant to come to their house, warmth and care were always felt. A sense of responsibility and care for loved ones (not just relatives) was also transferred to Volodin.

Love for his mother, who raised him as a person, the spiritual awareness of her warmth grew in the son into the cult of the mother, and also into the cult of the teacher. He was always kind to teachers and elderly women. He had a special trust in a woman. He even idealizes them. In the revelations that Vyacheslav Viktorovich shared with one of his assistants, now working in Saratov, he once said: “Women are faithful. They won't betray you for some game." Currently working in the Federation Council Ludmila Bokova, relatively for this position, a young woman who previously worked as a history teacher in the district town of Balashov. Logic defies her political advancement. How can a teacher be a senator? Apparently, here Volodin had the personification of the cult of the teacher. Maybe she is subconsciously associated with his mother, who was also a provincial teacher. Bokova does not shine, does not make stupid statements, he seems to protect her from attacks. What can not be said about another woman from Saratov in parliament - about Olga Batalina. She, like a commissar, is always at the forefront. And she, such an impression, is not at all associated with a woman by Volodin, this party functionary is perceived as an instrument, voice, tribune, herald of the party.

unpretentiousness
Slava Volodin studied at first no matter what. I took up my mind closer to the older classes. It came to the realization that, apart from yourself, no one will give you the way to life. Nothing to sit on the mother's neck. Then at the age of 14 he went to the state farm and began working as a combine operator. He began to study quite well, which made it possible to enter the Saratov Institute of Mechanization without patronage and cronyism, which the family simply did not have.

It often happens that people who come out of poverty cannot get enough of what they were deprived of in childhood. Volodin is not like that - he dresses simply, inexpensively, but stylishly. On business trips, almost always in a discreet jacket or jacket, in a sweatshirt, less often in a shirt without a tie. The lack of things and delights of life did not create a cult of things and food in Vyacheslav. I witnessed a funny episode. Volodin invited Saratov leading journalists to evening reception in the Pugachev boarding house. On TV they showed a story with the newly appointed governor Pavel Ipatov. The well-known Saratov sybarite, as if by the way, began to boast of his Brioni jacket, smugly sneered that such suits were sewn on Malaya Arnautskaya Street. Volodin exacerbated the irony: “Here I have a suit from Bolshevichka, I know for sure that it is branded, no one will fake it.” He opened the half of his jacket and showed the label of a well-known company from Soviet times.

His closest assistant in those days Vladimir Khanzhov recalls the unpretentiousness of his boss. When Volodin, as vice-governor, traveled around the districts, he never ordered special apartments for himself. He settled where he was supposed to. “Sometimes it happened that we were settled in the same room with him. And then, when he fell asleep, I went to another room on the sofa, so as not to wake him up with my snoring, so that he could sleep after exhausting trips, - says the assistant. - He is unpretentious in food. He loves simple Russian cuisine: pickles, cabbage, boiled potatoes, spoiled milk. Indifferent to delicacies.

He doesn't care about cars either. He often moved around the regions on the Volga. He once told me in one of our conversations about his clothes and transport: “It's not about the transport you use, but about what you do. It's not about the form, it's about the content.

First victory
Little is known about the childhood stage of Volodin's life. It did not spread itself. His social life begins with his studies at the institute. There he immediately showed himself to be an activist. He was a student commissar. Then he headed the trade union committee of the university. There he found his friends - Petra Glybochko, Valery Ponomarev And Yuri Zaigralov. All of them worked in trade union committees of universities. He always invited them to his Saratov house when he worked in Saratov and when he came on business trips from Moscow. Now he maintains friendly relations only with Glybochko, who now heads the Sechenov Medical Academy. Ponomarev, who worked as the executive director of the Saratov Radio and Television Transmitting Center, died in 2007, and Zaigralov somehow left and heads the administration of the Petrovsky district.

At the end of my studies, perestroika times and democratization began. And in 1990, graduate student Volodin decided to try himself in the elections to the City Council. Faced the first problems. I experienced for myself how the authorities, which do not want to see you in their ranks, put obstacles. Only the third time he managed to register. At that time, the mechanisms of falsification and total use of administrative resources had not yet been invented, which the authorities began to use later. Today, without patronage, Volodin would never have won the elections in the Saratov region, like all those who are not delegated to the elections by the ruling party. No matter how talented and effective you may be, the road to power is ordered for you if you are not in the cage. But then the strength of mind and the will to win brought results. And in the elections, Volodin received more than 50 percent of the vote. One of the youngest deputies, he was 26 years old. First election won, first victory. Thus begins the path of a politician, which is now admired by many. Rapid career growth begins. Six years later, Volodin becomes vice-governor. But this is later, but for now, turbulent whirlwind events await him.

Frenzied workaholic
In 1992, the mayor of Saratov Yuri Kitov, with whom Volodin once met, invites him to his office as manager of the administration. This caused surprise in political circles. The deputies of that State Council recall that this guy with a black mustache, with which he seemed older and more respectable, was an inconspicuous figure among them. He had an equal relationship with everyone. Watched, gained experience. And then immediately such a position, where only a hardened apparatchik gets.

Due to his young age and inexperience, Vyacheslav at first felt uncomfortable and insecure. Venerable guys worked with him, and he commanded many of them. “At first, of course, I had a complex,” Volodin admitted. - Especially due to the fact that there were colleagues around twice as old in age. There are six districts in Saratov, and each administration also had business managers: old cadres, very experienced people, real “bison”. All of them connected directly to the mayor's office. In order to give them some instructions and demand, it was necessary to know the essence of the issue thoroughly. I had to read a lot, study, meet with those who previously held these positions.” And so he always did. Because the career developed quickly, and sometimes he did not have time to prepare for a new job, for a new path. And it took place to grab everything from the wheels

Then in the city hall, in order to establish himself and gain authority, Volodin decided to take up discipline. His former comrade in the Duma, and now an ardent opponent t Vyacheslav Maltse V recalls: “Vyacheslav always came to work before everyone else. Maybe earlier only Kitov, who, according to the habit developed from the poultry farm, came to the mayor's office before seven o'clock. The rest of the officials were pulled up much later. So Vyacheslav took a list of employees, went to the entrance and noted who came to work when. Those who were late were summoned and scolded. After that, they began to fear him."

Volodin himself had already shown himself to be a workaholic. His usual mode of operation, which is also established in Moscow, moved from Saratov: “You come at half past seven in the morning and until 10-11 pm,” he said. His incredible performance amazed everyone. Khanzhov recalls the period of work in the regional government: “We got up with him at five in the morning, left for Kumysnaya Polyana, ran several kilometers. He will sometimes come up to a tree, hug it and absorb its energy. And then they went to work."

Former lieutenant governor Vladimir Maron recalls: “I treat Vyacheslav Viktorovich very respectfully for his work, for the way he works. When he was in the Saratov region, and then in the State Duma, how many times I saw him, he worked the most: he had neither the beginning of the working day nor the end. Here is a simple example. We lived in the same house on Chelyuskintsev, we return with him from work in the evening, at ten or eleven o'clock, it could have been twelve o'clock. I came and fell, fell asleep. At seven in the morning we go to work with him, he tells me that even before four in the morning at home he was thinking: “That was done wrong, it was necessary to do it this way.” And he had such a routine almost every day.

And trips to the regions exhausted all his entourage, but not himself. Khanzhov says that when Volodin was campaigning in the Balakovo single-mandate constituency, he made an incredible march, driving through 17 districts in two weeks. On average, one area per day. Each of them has three meetings: one - in the district center, the other two - in the villages. Sometimes, in addition to this, there is also the reception of residents. When he was vice-governor and deputy of the State Duma, during his visits he traveled three or four districts a day. When he saw that some of the assistants and the journalists accompanying him were exhausted, he sent them home, while he himself drove on. Here it must be taken into account that the people who accompanied him did not do intensive physical and mental work, he also spoke until two o'clock, examined objects, gave instructions. And now, working in Moscow, his routine is about the same. At night, he reads unread, comprehends the information received during the day, plans the next and future days. And from early morning again to the ongoing marathon in his life.

Once, when I asked him what helped him survive in difficult conditions in Moscow, he replied: “When you come to work, you forget a lot, and this helps to adapt.” Many wonder: “After all, working so intensively, he will soon run out of steam. The body has its own charge, and it wears out. But this is his uniqueness as a person. I am sure that if Volodin suddenly loses the need to work like this, he will burn out faster.

And yet such a regime exhausted him sooner or later. “One day he went on vacation with his wife and daughter. I accompanied them,” recalls Khanzhov. “Everyone swims, goes on excursions, and he sleeps all the time, sleeps off.” The only favorite activity where he can be distracted from business is hunting. This is his main hobby besides politics. He goes hunting, mostly when he comes to Saratov. He is looking for time for this, but it often does not remain. I witnessed twice when, for the first time, instead of opening the hunting season, he went with an inspection to Volsk, the second time, after a visit to one of the Trans-Volga regions, he wanted to hunt wolves, but it was already getting dark, and the hunt failed. But the people could, to the delight of everyone, dissolve early and rush off to the steppe.

mayoral times
But let us return to the beginning of Volodin's bureaucratic career. “Vyacheslav Viktorovich has always been a strict leader,” recalls the rector of the SSEU Sergey Naumov, who at the time worked at City Hall. - I could speak harshly, but without shouting, with a negligent official. He kept under control the entire area of ​​his responsibility and always monitored the execution of tasks. But at the same time, he did not shy away from helping someone who found it difficult to cope with the assignment. I worked as an assistant to the mayor. Once it was necessary to collect Kitov on a business trip to Moscow. And I came to the mayor’s office as a city boy, I didn’t know how to do many everyday things. So Volodin, having a rural knack, helped me pack and tie a box with things and products. Then Kitov praised us for the fact that we collected everything so well that nothing fell apart during the journey and life in the capital. Volodin himself, having become the manager of affairs, organized everything in the mayor's office clearly. To some extent, he was the architect of the team of Kitov and Ayatskov. Have recommended them to many people. He competently applied the professional and personal characteristics of those people with whom he communicated. He could even include oppositionists in his system, making them controllers of some directions. Work with society was skillfully built by him. He showed his remarkable talent as an organizer and communicator at all his next jobs.”

Peaceful existence in the mayor's office did not last long. By the summer of 1993, the mayor's team was split. Kitov gravitated toward the Supreme Soviet, of which he was, and his first deputy Dmitry Ayatskov, who had a wolf flair, was guided by Yeltsin. The DF, as the future governor was then called, began to intensify, and the intriguers began to slander Kitov against him. As a result, a quarrel broke out between them. The administration of Saratov split into two camps - Ayatsk and Kitov. There is a duality. Intuitively moving away from the dirty struggle for power in the mayor's office, which reached the point of criminal showdowns, Volodin wisely decided to wait out the political hard times at the university. He left the mayor's office, and took up teaching at the Volga Personnel Center (now the Volga Institute of Management - ed.), where he rose to the rank of professor. He defended his Ph.D. thesis while still in graduate school - then some politicians and officials wrote their dissertations themselves. “Kitov and his trusted people did everything to dramatize Volodin's departure,” Naumov says, hinting at threats and pressure, because the resigning official decided to support Ayatskov.

In the same year, Dmitry Fedorovich, in order to strengthen himself politically, decided to run for the Federation Council. It was the peak of the struggle in the mayor's office, because Kitov also wanted to become a senator. Ayatskov offered Volodin to head the election headquarters, and he agreed. Thus, for the first time he tried himself as a political strategist and made great intellectual and organizational efforts to win Ayatskov. Later, he repeatedly tested his political techniques and methods on the territory of the Saratov region, and then throughout the country. Now, according to the latest rating general newspaper”, the first deputy head of the presidential administration is the best political strategist in Russia, and this is undoubtedly true.

“Volodin is a more serious, profound and multifaceted figure than Ayatskov,” Naumov believes. - He was the brain and driving force of the headquarters, the main communicator. We worked in the basement of a house near the Children's Park (six years later, Volodin will again campaign in the same cramped conditions, but in Moscow. - ed.), he led a plan for carrying out activities, and they were always carried out clearly under his leadership. And the fact that Ayatskov won is the great merit of Vyacheslav Viktorovich.

Work in the headquarters of Ayatskov became the reason for the attack on him. One December evening he was walking with his wife Victoria from home. They were attacked by two bastards. The wife was not touched, but the future statesman was hit multiple times, and he was seriously injured. By the nature of the attack (it was not a robbery or random hooliganism) - a typical political order. The time was dashing then, and crime bosses were swarming around the authorities, who, without hesitation, carried out the orders of their powerful patrons. The case, as usual, was wiped out, no one was found.

Then Volodin's political career could have ended for the first time. But Ayatskov's party won, he won the elections together with the governor Yuri Belykh, who was also elected to the Federation Council. The final victory ended in blood. Kitov, unable to bear the defeat in the elections to the Federation Council, according to the official version, committed suicide by shooting himself with a hunting rifle.

Thinking about power
Volodin enters the political proscenium after the elections to the regional Duma in 1994. He was elected there on the list of the organization of the "Union of Reserve Officers", although he was not a military man, which later became a reason for sneers: an unrestrained officer. However, after graduating from the military department, he was formally a reserve officer. Then Volodin got lucky again. As Maltsev recalls, the chairman of the Soyuz was the first on the list Nikolay Semenets. But he also ran in the single-member Oktyabrsky constituency in Saratov. He did not have sufficient funds and administrative resources. Volodin joined in the organization of his campaign and literally snatched victory from his closest rival - Semenets won by a few votes.

The "Union of Reserve Officers" was created with the support of Ayatskov, as an opposition to the group of a new enemy - Governor Yuri Belykh. Then it was this organization that nominated him for governor. As a result of the elections, Volodin became the vice-speaker and the main support of Ayatskov in the parliament.

Vyacheslav Maltsev wrote in his blog about that period: “In general, Volodin was very well trained, he absorbed what he considered right from the environment, in those years he was not conceited. I think that it was the Regional Duma of the first convocation that made Volodin what he became. He understood the basics of governance, he understood how to influence the parliament, how to manipulate people, how to properly place them in his environment, etc.”

The young politician quickly organized a pro-Yayack group of deputies around him and turned out to be even more influential than the politically passive speaker Alexander Kharitonov, rushing between the two camps. It was with the support of the regional Duma under his control that Ayatskov launched an attack on Governor Yuri Belykh.

As a result of the struggle with Belykh, Ayatskov became governor in 1996. “Volodin again played a decisive role in his appointment,” Naumov believes. - Then many fought for the governorship - Kharitonov, Davydov, Rodionov(now the owner of the Avtodor basketball club, - ed.). But the proposal to become governor is very high level, one of Yeltsin's close people was made Volodin. Vyacheslav Viktorovich came to Moscow for an interview, but instead of agreeing, he said: “I am still young and not yet ready to become a governor. I propose to make them Ayatskov.

Master of Political Aikido

The newly-made governor appreciated the deed of his colleague, and he becomes the vice-governor. He was barely 32 years old. Career in the future will always be ahead of his age. Too young vice-governor, very young vice-speaker of the State Duma, young general secretary of the ER party.
“We agreed on the roles that were scheduled between us: he is a person who makes political decisions, I am on the farm,” Vyacheslav Viktorovich told me in the early 2000s. “For three years I was the second person in the region, but I never climbed onto the screens to show off, I didn’t run to cut red ribbons, I just did what was supposed to be done.”

“Volodin never lets down the person he works for,” says Naumov. - For him, the concept of a leader is a serious definition. He does exactly what he has been asked to do. Ayatskov was a fireworks governor, unpredictable, but Volodin plowed. They threw him where it was difficult. He quickly studied the problem, selected a team and began to work. According to the knowledge of the topic, he communicated with experts on an equal footing.

“He will clench his teeth and work,” says Khanzhov from the chef. - Never about Ayatskov, while he worked, bad word did not tell".

For Ayatskov, public, shocking politics was the element. He threw vernacular aphorisms and pearls, as a boyar went round his patrimony in order to arrange an ostentatious thrashing in the regions, to show who was the boss in the region. After inspecting the property, he and his retinue went to a banquet, the main toast at which was personally invented by DF: “How f-ah! Volodin was the opposite of him - he was engaged in farming: he oversaw the gasification of the region - the main project of that government, construction, energy, roads and other economic areas. He behaved harshly, but did not speak sybaritically, did not "zhahal" with the local authorities, but demanded a clear execution of instructions. He did not spare himself or people.

Later, he confesses to me: “I am not ashamed of most of the things that I did. There are mistakes and shortcomings. I missed the human factor somewhere. For example, he believed that 3,000 km of gas pipelines should be commissioned by December 31, and he was moving towards this figure with the rule of the problem over the human factor. And now I've revisited it. Now, with my subordinates, I take into account the human factor more, while still toughly asking them.”

“Yes, he is a hard man, but quick-witted,” says Khanzhov. - Nashumit, but then repent if a person offended in vain. Call first, apologize for being rude."

Volodin quickly recruited his team, which would accompany him along the path of life. He began to place his people in the districts. For example, his appointee is the head of his native Khvalynsky district Valery Radaev in the end, under the patronage of Volodin, he would become the current governor. Many still hold high positions in universities, federal structures, parliaments.

The lieutenant governor quickly began to gain political weight, and control of the situation on the ground and support for business executives made it possible to become very influential person. Being engaged in lobbying regional projects, he often had to travel to Moscow departments, where he also made the necessary contacts.

But ill-wishers believe that not only activity, efficiency and high efficiency exalted Volodin. At this time he got the nickname Byzantine. Some believe that he was so nicknamed for intrigue and resourcefulness, others believe that he is a master of non-banal, unpredictable multi-moves, which he intuitively and logically calculates in advance every time. Vyacheslav Maltsev quotes him as saying: "For a politician, the main thing is the ability to take a hit, the ability to wait and the ability to go to the end." He has repeatedly shown that he knows how to masterfully beat his rivals and competitors. He is a master of political aikido, when, without inflicting a direct blow to the enemy, but by redirecting his energy and actions, you knock him down and knock him out of the battlefield.

For three years, the second man in the province became so strong that he posed a real threat to Ayatskov's power. The governor saw him as a competitor. This was facilitated by the fact that the Nikolla M image-making company invited by Ayatskov conducted a sociological study in the region and found that Volodin had more authority and popularity, and people associated the future of the region with him. Naturally, the chief in the province did not like it. He stopped trusting Volodin, began to make decisions that were not coordinated with him, and increasingly ignored his proposals. The government has ceased to be a well-coordinated team. The discord was obvious, and Volodin's departure was inevitable. The growing extrusion of the vice-governor from power began. These were both hardware tricks, such as turning off a small automatic telephone exchange (special communications) in his office, and serious threats. For example, his daughter was threatened Svetlana. Toward the end of the relationship, Ayatskov made an appointment for Volodin to reach a new agreement. However, a local oligarch came to the negotiations Roman Pipia. He was a member of the Ayatskov Family, was associated with the criminal world and carried out special receipts from the Pope. After this raid, it became obvious that it was simply dangerous for the disgraced official to remain in Saratov.

But Ayatskov, squeezing Volodin out of the region, could not foresee that by doing so he outlined his sad future, and, on the contrary, directed his unemployed competitor on the path that led him to the Kremlin Olympus of power. The rise of Volodin turned into the fall of Ayatskov. He was dismissed in disgrace after a criminal case was opened against him. The case was later hushed up, but the authorities were deprived, and the mansion in the October Gorge was confiscated. DF will then make a fatal confession: "I consider it my biggest mistake that I brought Volodin to power." When this deflated titan gets the position of rector of PAGS, he will reach the point of humiliation and begin to curry favor with Volodin, offering him eulogies. But this will happen many years later. In the meantime, Volodin faced a dilemma: to remain in Saratov and be crushed - Ayatskov was then the all-powerful regional khan, he could trample a person, or go nowhere.

The defeat in Saratov turned out to be a great success. This political drama was a gift of fate - if Volodin had refused to move to Moscow then, he would never have become a statesman of this magnitude.

Moscow does not believe in tears. Survival period
A Moscow friend invites him to Moscow Sergei Yastrzhembsky Yeltsin's former press secretary. Now he is involved in the creation of a new political project"Fatherland" under the patronage Luzhkov. Volodin met the mayor of Moscow when he came to Saratov. They liked each other. And now he took in a gifted Saratov citizen and appointed him deputy head of the election headquarters of the "Fatherland" in the elections to the State Duma (later it merged with the movement Shaimiev"All Russia").

The most unsettled period of Volodin's life began. It was 1999, the post-default year, when many people were going through hard times. Among them was an exile from Saratov. Then, in order to live, he began to do business in parallel with the elections, the capital that he then earned allowed him to equip his future life at a decent level. In the meantime, having arrived in Moscow, he had nowhere to even stay. Khanzhov, the only assistant at that time who went with Volodin into the unknown, recalls that they were sheltered in his apartment by a party comrade. They did not provide a car, at first they had to take the subway. Then another comrade gave me an old Saab, and even then they didn’t always use it. I had to work in the beginning in cramped conditions. The place of work then was ... a window sill. On it, Volodin and Khanzhov came up with election campaign tactics, wrote action plans. Ate, as they say, than necessary.

“There were moments when sadness was found to such an extent that I wanted to take it and leave everything,” Volodin admitted to me in one of his early interviews. - After all, I had everything in Saratov that one could wish for a person: work, position, everyday life. Now you understand how much I risked.

But after the elections, their life began to improve, prosperity finally came. Despite the persecution that was staged by the central channels, Luzhkov's "Fatherland - All Russia", which became a rival of the official ruling party "Unity", although it did not achieve the desired result, showed itself worthy. Volodin became a deputy of the State Duma and the first deputy leader of the faction. Two years later, the head of the OVR faction Evgeny Primakov under pressure from the presidential administration - he was too capricious - he decided to leave active politics and offered his deputy instead of himself. Prior to this, he had been preparing his departure for a year and then said that he would leave as soon as he prepared a successor. They say that Yevgeny Maksimovich had a fatherly attitude towards Volodin, who was starting the path of a federal politician. Vyacheslav Viktorovich listened to the opinion and heeded the advice of Primakov, whom he considered a real statesman, and Volodin himself adhered to the same views. Since Maksimych's student always grasped everything on the fly, he did not have to study state affairs for a long time. And when Primakov finally decided to leave, he offered Putin Volodin instead of himself. The President met for the first time with a Saratov citizen little known to him and approved his candidacy.

General Secretary
Volodin was the leader of the faction for two years. After OVR and Unity were artificially merged into United Russia, a new wave of intrigues and a struggle for mandates and positions began. Edinovtsy ousted the Oveerites. Volodin became Vice Speaker of the State Duma and First Deputy Head of the United United Russia faction. But the intra-factional struggle continued further. The confrontation has reached the level of personal rivalry between Boris Gryzlov and Volodin. In 2004, the speaker of the State Duma and the then general secretary of the party wanted to remove his rival, who was rapidly gaining political weight, from federal politics and push him to the governorship. Such a chance presented itself when it was necessary to remove Dmitry Ayatskov. Then it seemed that Volodin's fate was sealed, he would cease to be a federal politician. And he himself thought so, because somewhere at that time he told me that he would go to the governorship.

In the Saratov region, this was looked forward to, since the expressive Ayatskov was already sick of everyone, and Volodin had a high trust rating. “It was better for the region if Vyacheslav was appointed governor at one time,” Maron admits. - He would work himself, and everyone would work. He would form an effective team." But the Saratov region was again unlucky, but its outstanding native was lucky.

They say he helped Vladislav Surkov, who came to the president and persuaded him to talk to Volodin face to face. Putin agreed, took him on board the plane and had a talk during the long flight to the Latin American country. It was a fateful moment. If Volodin did not charm Putin, and he can achieve this with his charm and persuasiveness, then he clearly liked him. Volodin was left in Moscow, and was soon made secretary of the presidium of the general council of the party. He was called in the usual way - General Secretary, as if emphasizing that he entered the Politburo of the state.

Boris Gryzlov only had to ironically laugh at him: “He is our Chrysostom,” the speaker once said to Surkov in 2010, listening to Volodin’s speech in the presidium. Chrysostom talked them over and went on promotion, while Gryzlov is no longer heard or seen. The same thing happened with Surkov. Volodin beat his competitor in two moves. At first, he furnished it ideologically: he offered Putin a fresh and salutary idea of ​​the "People's Front" instead of the "bronze" "ER". Then he jumped on the bureaucratic field: he became the head of Prime Minister Putin's apparatus and the unofficial head of the campaign headquarters. The formal chief of staff was Govorukhin, who, of course, was used exclusively as a brand. And after the presidential elections there was a castling with Surkov. Now it's time in my heart to be ironic over Gryzlov and Surkov to Volodina.

Height 156
And before that, another tense and exhausting stage of self-assertion in power was overcome. In 2003, Volodin decides to run for the State Duma in a single-mandate district in the Saratov region. He chose Balakovo constituency No. 156 not only because it included a small homeland. It included the Volga region. People live there worse than in the Right Bank - steppes, no water, no gas, then drought, then winds, then harsh winters. Abandoned land. And he, having lobbying opportunities, decided to help people there. Without any pathos, I can objectively say that Volodin did a lot to transform the social sphere of the Saratov Trans-Volga region. Of course, he didn’t build a flourishing region there - for this you need to have a Chechen budget for such a territory, but he also brought people out of the pre-revolutionary era.

Volodin trampled the entire district during his election campaign. He came to places where the foot of the regional official had not set foot. Khanzhov spoke about his intensive mode of work in the elections above.

Once, during another tiring trip, he approached the aforementioned assistant and asked: “Did you watch the Penal Battalion (then this film had just come out)? So I am in the eternal penal battalion. He always said to everyone: “I am a soldier, wherever they send me, I work there.”

She is echoed by the TV journalist of the State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company "Saratov" Alla Losina, which accompanied Volodin on all his visits: “I once said that Volodin worked as a whole ministry of construction. And a little later I thought: “If only it worked like that!”

I myself, following him, as they say, side by side, observed his behavior. In the morning he always has a minor mood. When he got into the car, I saw him sullen, withdrawn and taciturn. Gradually, on the road, he changed, began to smile, energetically comment on what was happening. And when he went out to people, there was no stopping him. At meetings, he spoke for an hour or two. In the intervals between performances, he traveled to facilities where construction or reconstruction was underway. All schools, hospitals and other social institutions climb from the basement to the attic, personally making sure that, where and how it was done.

And woe to officials and contractors if they did wrong. Demand from him for imperfections and hack work was tough. Once he came to Ozinki to see how the houses were built in the Veteran settlement. Veterans of war and labor were to be settled there. He examined, tapped the walls, saw that the houses were unreliable, partly built of wooden panels. Frowning, he approached the press secretary and asked to take the journalists away and occupy them with something. And then he yelled at officials and builders so much that his voice could be heard from the windows of the administration building. The contractor, who had received a thrashing, redid everything, and when the next time Volodin arrived there already in the already inhabited houses, people met him with sincere joyful emotions, inviting everyone to his house for a laid table. One grandmother told him then: "I have three sons, you are the fourth."

The started business, construction, reconstruction always brought to the end. He didn’t say: I got the money, and let the local authorities get the rest. If local budgets could not overpower the construction site, he obtained sponsorship money. Up to the point that he contributed his money, while not advertising his contribution, only assistants knew about it, who secretly told others. “I do it like my own home,” Volodin likes to say. Can't stand to be done anyhow.
“People felt in Vyacheslav Viktorovich a weak trait - not to refuse anyone's requests, and they use it,” his assistants complained to me then. - All complaints, requests makes us write down, he remembers everything and asks for their implementation. Try not to do it!"

He came up with himself: “Believe only deeds!”, Which he later presented to the United Russia for the election and which is now ridiculed by scoffers. But for Volodin personally, it worked. Once, having arrived in one of the villages, he was greeted by a banner with a response slogan: "Your deeds are in our hearts!" These were the times when United Russia had not yet expelled state employees and students to official events, where they shouted strainedly, as if inflated with furs: "The people and the party are united." People sincerely went to meet Volodin.

“He can’t stand orchestrated receptions in the regions, Potemkin villages, rounded up people with prepared eulogies. He immediately gets annoyed when he sees artificiality,” says Volodin’s media assistant, who asked not to be named. He likes live communication with people, he is not afraid of people, as many officials are now, his negligent students.
The chief teased and sneered at his retinue, which they called the "tail" or "zeros after one", of party functionaries and bureaucrats, many of whom are worthy of the hand of Gogol and Saltykov-Shchedrin. Their intelligence and behavior differ sharply from the Leader. Unlike officials and builders, he is kind and courteous to journalists, to ordinary people.
Volodin has the gift of an orator, he knows how to convince the crowd. At the same time, he speaks without oratorical pathos, not like a politician, but somehow insinuatingly, convincingly. He knows how to keep the audience, extinguish the negative, the irritation of the public. Alas, his students, who now rule in the region, did not learn the lessons of psychology and oratory from their guru. What was shamefully shown during meetings with the rebellious Pugachevites.

There is a concept "in the wilderness, in Saratov." But the Saratov region has its own wilderness. This is, for example, Dergachi, a steppe region bordering Kazakhstan. There is a drought, people are concerned about crop failure, they think about survival. Volodin arrived there. I entered the hall. Everyone sits silently. Silence. He starts talking, offers some ways to solve the problem. Looking forward to dialogue and discussion. And in response, silence. Everyone is silent. “Are you silent? They won’t send you further anyway,” he joked. The hall exploded with laughter, the tense atmosphere was relieved, and people began to talk about their troubles.

Once a woman, listening to Volodin and thinking that big man came to them from the capital, said: he is ours, not Moscow.

Volodin won the election with a stunning result: 82% of the vote. Then they mix with Kobzon set an electoral record. There is no reason to doubt the correctness of the vote count.

Governor Ayatskov was not pleased that his rival returned to the region and was jealous of him. Every effort was made to hinder his campaign. In addition to attempts to neutralize the administrative resource, an anti-PR attack was organized. “When Vyacheslav Viktorovich found out how many people voted for him, he was amazed, he did not expect such a result,” recalls Khanzhov. - He was very moved. He says: “Now I will do everything for them!”. I answer him: “You have already done a lot,” and he: “Now I will do even more.” And he kept his promises."

Best Lobbyist

Volodin is rightfully considered the best lobbyist in Russia. And not because he now occupies a high position in power. He has always been a successful lobbyist. Many petitioners walk around ministerial offices. But not everyone is given. Volodin knows how to convince a high official of the need to give money for a project in such a well-reasoned way that rarely anyone refuses him.

Alla Losina recalls such an episode. The Saratov deputy invited the heads of the Zavolzhsky districts to Moscow for a meeting with the Minister of Agriculture, so that the regions would allocate money for the construction of dams. They report indistinctly, unconvincingly. And then Vyacheslav Viktorovich takes on this mission - he talks about figures, facts, about the depth of the problem. The minister immediately appreciated this: “You, Vyacheslav Viktorovich, always have an iron argument!” “We only have arguments, and you have the opportunity to solve our problem,” Volodin answered the compliment with a kind smile. As a result, dams were built in the Volga region.

And Khanzhov recalls such a case. He came to Moscow to the boss. He says: "I need to go to the head of Rosatom" Alexander Rumyantsev ask for money to repair the roofs of the Balakovo houses. Let's go with me. "We drive up to Rosatom, he enters the door. Five minutes later he comes out, frowning. He says they didn’t let him in because the guards don’t have a sample of a deputy’s certificate. And he was the first deputy of the faction. We arrive at the State Duma, he calls in "Rosatom". Half an hour later, Rumyantsev himself rushed to us. All issues were resolved, and funds were allocated."

Cult of personality
Since the beginning of the 2000s, Volodin began to be mythologised in his small homeland. In part, this came from ordinary people grateful to him. Their sincere attitude was expressed by Khanzhov: “If a person’s merits could be perpetuated during his lifetime, Vyacheslav Viktorovich in many areas would want to erect a monument.”

The peak of deification fell on the period when he became Secretary General. A party competition was announced for best class. It was personally supervised by our chief deputy. Then suddenly school notebooks appeared with pupils' poems about Volodin printed on their title page.

For example, with these:

Viacheslav Volodin
Thinks about us.
Viacheslav Volodin,
To learn
In life and seriously -
Money and gifts
He brought to school.

Or with these:

We want to get older, smarter
And get more fives
To graduate with honors
And be in the party with Volodin.

The opposition press wrote that in the Saratov region, United Russia members are being educated in the villages. The resonance was such that local United Russia members tried to justify themselves by saying that this project was invented by Volodin's enemies in order to ridicule and defame the great fellow countryman. (Then there was just the apotheosis of the confrontation with the local oligarch Leonid Feitlicher, now in exile.) But this notebook could well have been made by thoughtlessness and in a fit of unbridled adoration of the leader by local party functionaries. As people who worked in the executive committee told me, these notebooks were made at the direction of the person who was responsible for the campaign at that time, and now resides in the State Duma. Knowing the attitude towards him in the districts, it is easy to believe that the narrow-minded, but sincere villagers gladly undertook the instruction to create such a panegyric for the glory of their great countryman. Volodin, they say, gave a dressing down. And the party had to divert this notion from itself, calling it a provocation. The notebooks were immediately seized.

In Saratov, there is a lot of punning on the topic of disservices that the Saratov edrosses arrange for their boss. From excessive ostentatious helpfulness, sycophancy, servility, they do not understand or they do not care that they undermine his prestige.

At the same time, Volodin was increasingly called the leader. After he switched to direct service to Putin, his prestige in the province began to decline, in which the Kremlin fellow countryman himself was clearly involved. “You’d better not say anything about me, don’t write anything good, just don’t carry nonsense,” - this is how he liked to reprimand his entourage. And in recent years, the sycophancy of the edross has ceased. In vain they don't remember him now.

One can say about the failed cult of personality in Stalin's language: there were excesses on the ground. But this does not in the least detract from Volodin's personality. All the people who worked with him, without saying a word, tell the same thing about his human qualities. He is a good psychologist, he sees the inside of a person: he feels that he thinks, what he wants, what is in his soul. He has the ability to select people, find common ground and whom it is more efficient to use where to do the job better. From those people whom he chose for his team, there is more demand from them. But for this and a caring attitude towards them. If he believes in a person, he is slowly disappointed in him. He never fired anyone. He never forgets the people who, one way or another, he moved away from him.

Losina speaks of him with love: “Vyacheslav Viktorovich Volodin is so different, extraordinary, exceptional that I don’t know others like him. He is a politician, but at the same time he does not like insincerity, acting. Vyacheslav Viktorovich is a subtly sensitive person - literally up to semitones! He sees the situation in all shades. And, of course, it was very comfortable for me to work with Volodin - he understood everything, humane, attentive, with a very penetrating mind, without arrogance.

Maltsev says that Volodin, since the dawn of time, still in the regional council, or maybe even earlier, started a notebook-diary, which he took with him everywhere. He wrote down all his affairs, tasks of the authorities, requests of people in it. And then I graded myself. Did the job, helped the person - a plus, did not do it - a minus. “When he got a lot of plus signs, he was happy,” says his former colleague in the thought. - He showed me how many pluses he scored. For him, it was fundamentally important to have a positive balance: a significant preponderance between "+" and "-". I watched this diary, in which he wrote something down, then constantly. Now he, sitting next to Putin, continues to write.

One of his sayings, which he often uses: "If you want to be needed, be useful."

The federal press respectfully described the case when, in December last year, Volodin drove from Novo-Ogaryovo, where the meeting of human rights activists with Putin, the chairman of the Moscow Helsinki Group Lyudmila Alekseeva to another event in the center of Moscow. “It means that his mother raised him well, since he understands that an old man needs help,” the human rights activist commented on the act of the Kremlin official to the press. So a wide circle of Russians, perhaps for the first time, learned about his human qualities. But for Saratov, there is nothing surprising in that act. Volodin was always easy to communicate with people. He invited journalists to a common table with officials, and not to the room where the attendants dined. He could easily take the journalist who accompanied him on the trip with him into the car.
Now he charms Moscow politicians and journalists. He is constantly compared with his predecessor Surkov, and often for the better. He has charm, insinuatingness, disposition to the interlocutor, there is no snobbery, inappropriate cleverness, arrogance. Recently, the writer spoke with enthusiasm about him as a patriot. Alexander Prokhanov from whom you never expect a kind word. Alexei Venediktov, during a trip to Saratov and a meeting with the Saratov bloggers of Ekho Moskvy, among whom I was, spoke with genuine enthusiasm about how the first deputy head of the Kremlin administration knows how to treat people kindly. “It’s easier for me with Volodin. He always directly and rudely says what he thinks. But, I know, he won’t do meanness behind his back, ”he shared with us.

“I have never seen so many virtues coexist in one person,” Khanzhov, who is many years older than him, speaks of him like a father. He has a heightened sense of gratitude. If anyone does good to him, he gives back many times afterward. If he promised something to someone, he will break, but he will fulfill it. Evil does not remember. If he remembers, he never takes revenge. Never lies. He has always been a romantic at heart. As a child, he was brought up on the books of Dumas, Conan Doyle, Jules Verne, Cooper. He is a conscientious person. He has a special relationship with the church. Both of his grandfathers ended up in the same prison in Volsk. And they were shot in the 37th. One of them was a priest, and the parishioners, when they took him away, begged the guards to leave them an innocent priest. Vyacheslav Viktorovich built churches in all the places where he lived in childhood - in Aleksevka, Belogorny, and also in Volsk. At the same time, not a single penny of the budget was spent on this matter. All from sponsorship money, among which were his personal funds.

Even the current opponent, Vyacheslav Maltsev, says this about him: “Volodin is absolutely not greedy, not a spendthrift, not a slave to money. Quite calmly, he can donate money for someone's benefit, help unselfishly. I never noticed him in corrupt ties. Once, a familiar businessman from Volgograd contacted me and asked me to recommend him to Volodin, so that he would help him get a land plot for construction. I was ready to give a good kickback. Vyacheslav calls me back and says: “How can he be useful in politics?” “Nothing,” I replied. And the businessman got nothing.”

Only now Volodin does not forgive slander or unsubstantiated accusations against him. So, a Saratov journalist was convicted for his insulting attacks Vladimir Spiryagin and PR technologist Ayatskova Eduard Abrosimov. The latter, however, having freed himself, was forgiven and accepted into the service of Volodin's confidant. Also, for libel, one more term was added to the convicted for corruption dealings in the road construction industry Gevorg Jlavyan, family businessman Ayatskov. Lost the court and the main public opponent of Volodin - a communist Valery Rashkin. For Volodin, bringing his opponents to criminal and judicial responsibility was done more likely not because of vindictiveness and the desire to punish the offenders, but in order to be cleared of their accusations. At the moment, Volodin seems to be almost the purest federal politician, there is no compromising evidence on him that would not be recognized by the court as slanderous. For this, he is also not loved in the ruling elite - there is nothing to cling to, nothing to hook on to. Only groundless rumors remain, the emergence and spread of which no person can influence.

For all his greatness, Volodin has one significant failure. Paradoxically, despite the fact that he is very well versed in people and can find employment for everyone according to his abilities, his biggest omission is his personnel policy and the arrangement of people in the Saratov region. He seems to be afraid to put in an independent person, he needs exclusively controlled people, like cogs in a machine he created. Therefore, the spiteful critics called Volodin Oorfene Deuce, and his comrades-in-arms - his soldiers. It needs the stability that a loyal person can provide. It doesn't matter if this person is a bad specialist, intellectually low and uneducated, the main thing is the precise implementation of instructions and tasks. He seems to adhere to this principle: “The commander thinks for everyone. Everyone is doing it right." And he loads himself with unnecessary problems and thoughts - he has to constantly monitor the management processes in the region himself. There is talk that this has recently become burdensome to him. Many of his henchmen are ineffective. They are devoted to him, they owe everything, but they are his antipodes in their character, business qualities and behavior.

However, with all the shortcomings, his team is not built on the principle of clans, there is no nepotism in it. Volodin's relatives and friends do not work, and he does not promote them anywhere. Neither wife, nor sister, nor now-deceased brother, nor father-in-law ever held high positions. His daughter Svetlana is now a PhD student at SSU, not at some MGIMO or Cambridge.

Regarding the fact that Volodin drags along and suits all those who once worked with him and did not let him down, Naumov recalls his own saying: “There are a lot of you in the sleigh, but I push alone.”

And at the same time, one of his favorite phrases: "We must rely on what resists." He is such a paradoxical person.

With such a rhythm, with such a workload, it is difficult to find time for a full-fledged personal, family life. Although, while still working as a vice-governor, he said that sometimes he still found time to help his daughter Svetlana study. Helped her to do essays on Walter and Chaplin. At the same time, he climbed into the Internet and books in search of the necessary information.

Now Vyacheslav Viktorovich seems lonely to me. Despite,
that he is always at work and surrounded by helpers even in his own home. Civil service is his way of life, a familiar and even, perhaps, a cozy environment. Otherwise, he will not be able to live.

Breakthrough!
Volodin is going through a difficult period on his birthday. Critical materials and publications of pseudo-compromising evidence have intensified. This is due to the fact that the Kremlin sage himself has greatly strengthened himself, supervising domestic politics. Many offended, envious people and those who do not want to crowd around the throne of the sovereign appeared. Volodin is gaining a negative mass, which is not yet critical, but still burdensome. Having become a Kremlin prisoner, he ceased to be a public politician. If he makes any statements, they are of an official nature. No interviews, no blogs. He does not even want to see any laudatory publications. He is imprisoned for only one thing - faithful service to the president. And this will help the master of political aikido cope with a hostile environment. The reader can now believe it himself after reading this material.

Born on February 4, 1964 in the working settlement of Alekseevka, Khvalynsky district, Saratov region.

His father was a captain in the river fleet. Mother is a primary school teacher. Until the age of four, Vyacheslav Volodin was brought up by his grandparents.

In 1986, Vyacheslav Volodin graduated from the Saratov Institute of Agricultural Mechanization named after M.I. Kalinin, faculty of organization and technology of machine repair, majoring in mechanical engineering. During his studies, Volodin was actively engaged in social activities: was the commissioner of the student brigade and chairman of the student trade union committee.

In the late 80s, he was a graduate student, assistant, senior lecturer, associate professor of the institute. After completing his postgraduate studies, in 1989, Vyacheslav Volodin defended his dissertation for the degree of Candidate of Sciences. He became one of the youngest candidates of technical sciences in the USSR - at the age of 25.

In 1990, Vyacheslav Volodin was elected a deputy of the Saratov city council, and in 1992 he was appointed manager of affairs, deputy head of the administration of Saratov.

In 1993, he moved to work at the Volga Personnel Center (since 1995 - the Volga Academy of Public Administration), where he took the position of head of the Department of State and Regional Administration. In 1995, Vyacheslav Volodin completed a full course of study at the Russian Academy of Public Administration under the President of the Russian Federation with a degree in law.

In March 1996, he defended his doctoral dissertation "The subject of the Russian Federation: problems of power, lawmaking and management" at the St. Petersburg Institute of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Since April 1996, Volodin served as vice-governor, first deputy chairman of the government of the Saratov region.

In 1999 he moved to Moscow and went into business.

Viacheslav Volodin and politics

In December 1999, Vyacheslav Volodin was elected to the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation of the third convocation from the Fatherland-All Russia party. Since September 2001, on the recommendation of Yevgeny Primakov, he became his successor as head of the Fatherland-All Russia faction in the State Duma. It was then that Yevgeny Primakov introduced Vyacheslav Volodin to Vladimir Putin. Volodin often said that he owed his political career to Yevgeny Primakov.

In 2001, he was elected to the General Council of the Unity and Fatherland party, created after the unification of the political movements "Unity" and "Fatherland - All Russia", where he was responsible for preparing elections to all government bodies. Immediately after the establishment of United Russia, Vyacheslav Volodin joined its general council.

Viacheslav Volodin in the government

In December 2003, he was elected a deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation of the fourth convocation in single-mandate constituency 156 (Balakovo constituency of the Saratov region). Then Iosif Kobzon won the largest number of votes among single-mandate deputies - 82.12%, Vyacheslav Volodin was second with 81.75% of the vote.

From 2003 to 2010, he was Deputy Chairman of the State Duma, First Deputy Head of the United Russia faction.

From April 2005 to October 2010, Vyacheslav Volodin was the secretary of the Presidium of the General Council of the All-Russian political party United Russia.

In the elections to the State Duma of the Russian Federation in 2007, he headed the regional list of candidates for deputies from United Russia. United Russia won with 64.3% of the vote, and Vyacheslav Volodin, in Once again, became a member of the Russian Parliament and Deputy Chairman of the State Duma.

He combined his work in the lower house of parliament with teaching. In 2009, Vyacheslav Volodin became the head of the Department of State Construction of the Faculty of Public Administration of Moscow State University, but, in 2010, after being appointed to the government, he left this position.

In October 2010, by decree of the President of Russia, Vyacheslav Volodin was appointed Deputy Prime Minister - head of the government apparatus.

In the elections to the State Duma in 2011, he again headed the list of United Russia in the Saratov region. Then the party received about 65% of the votes.

In December 2011, Vyacheslav Volodin became First Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration of Russia. In the 2012 presidential election, Vyacheslav Volodin participated in the campaign of Vladimir Putin.

In 2014, Vyacheslav Volodin, along with a number of Russian statesmen, came under sanctions from the European Union, the United States, Canada, Australia and Switzerland in connection with the ongoing crisis in Ukraine.

Since 2014, he has been the head of the Supervisory Board of the Higher School of Economics (HSE), and since 2016 he has been the Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Knowledge Society.

In September 2016, after the victory of the United Russia Party in the Duma elections, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed the candidacy of Vyacheslav Volodin for the post of Chairman of the State Duma.

In October 2016, at the first plenary session, the deputies of the seventh convocation elected Vyacheslav Volodin as Chairman of the State Duma of the Russian Federation.

Business of Vyacheslav Volodin

In the 90s, Vyacheslav Volodin participated in the development of several companies. In 2006, according to Finance magazine, he ranked 351st in the ranking of Russian billionaires.

The publication estimated his fortune at 2.7 billion rubles. At that time, Volodin was the owner of blocking stakes in a number of subsidiaries of the Solar Products holding. In 2007, he sold his shares in the business.

Vyacheslav Volodin regularly donates money to charity. In 2015, ten million rubles each were transferred to Chulpan Khamatova's Podari Zhizn foundation, Elizaveta Glinka's Fair Aid, and the Konstantin Khabensky Charitable Foundation. Vyacheslav Volodin sent eight million to the Timur Kizyakov Foundation and two million to an orphanage in the Saratov region. In 2016, he transferred 40 million rubles to various charitable organizations, as well as orphanages, children's art groups and youth schools in the Saratov region. Half of his income for 2017 - 25.5 million rubles - Vyacheslav Volodin gave to charity projects. He helped the Podari Zhizn foundation, transferred income for the construction of a school for gifted children from low-income families in the Smolensk region, allocated money for the construction of a residential building for resettlement from emergency barracks in the village of Saratov region and the creative team of Teatralika.

Vyacheslav Volodin has three children: a daughter and two sons.

In 2013, together with the Chairman of the Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG), Lyudmila Alekseeva, Vyacheslav Volodin attended the annual MHG award ceremony. He became the first official of this level in the last decade to attend a human rights event.
As the first deputy head of the presidential administration, Vyacheslav Volodin was able to build relationships with NGOs.
Vyacheslav Volodin is the author of the well-known expression "There is Putin - there is Russia, there is no Putin - there is no Russia." He said this phrase during a discussion with the participants of the Valdai International Forum in 2014.
Vyacheslav Volodin is called the founder and ideologist of the All-Russian Popular Front (ONF). At the same time, he repeatedly stated that the idea of ​​creating the ONF belongs to Vladimir Putin.
Viacheslav Volodin proclaimed the main theses that should determine the Duma campaign in 2016 - "competitiveness, openness, legitimacy."
In August 2016, Vyacheslav Volodin, in the midst of the election campaign, once again defined the basic principles for holding elections in the State Duma of the Russian Federation: decriminalization of elections and the destruction of political corruption, legitimacy, transparency, trust in the election results, equal conditions for competition.
With the name of Vyacheslav Volodin, some political scientists and journalists have associated the processes taking place in recent years that contribute to the openness of the political system in Russia. In the media, they received the name "Volodinsky spring".

Former Member of the Legislative Assembly Sverdlovsk region Nafik Famiyev published on Facebook an assumption that Alexei Navalny’s investigation film “He is not Dimon to you”, which deals with the “underground empire” of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, was an “order” of State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin. Many other Russian politicians agree with this. And today, Meduza published an investigation that can be considered a response “for Dimon”. It refers to the "underground empire" attributed to Volodin.

The post of Nafik Famiyev establishes a connection between the speaker of the State Duma VII convocation Vyacheslav Volodin, Valery Rashkin (KPRF) and Vyacheslav Maltsev (, a member of the PARNAS party, closely associated with the New Opposition nationalist movement). All three in 1994-1997 were deputies of the Saratov Regional Duma.

And, according to Famiev, it was also Maltsev and Rashkin who showed increased activity to implement the investigative project “he is not Dimon to you”:

Famiev concludes that

"All Russian politics, including Navalny, Maltsev, Rashkin, is Volodin's project."

And today Meduza is publishing Ivan Golunov's investigation One Absolutely Happy Village How Vyacheslav Volodin's relatives improve their villages, make money on mayonnaise and become saints.

Russian Press believes that both Navalny's film and Meduza's article are mutual volleys in the information war. This is evidenced by the similarity of the formats of the two investigations: both are focused on the close circle of the main characters. In particular, Meduza's investigation is dedicated to Vyacheslav Volodin's relatives, compatriots and relatives (including his supposed mother), who have seriously "risen" in recent years.

The publication did not bypass the personal capital of Volodin:

“As of June 1, 2016, Volodin kept almost 540 million rubles in accounts with Sberbank and Rossiya Bank. To earn the basis of his well-being, Vyacheslav Volodin had nine months and two days - when he was not a civil servant.

We are publishing the Meduza investigation (meduza.io) so that our readers can personally compare the facts and assess the scale of success achieved by people from the inner circle of the State Duma Speaker.

One absolutely happy village
How relatives of Vyacheslav Volodin improve villages,
earn on mayonnaise and become saints.
Ivan Golunov investigation

The store building in the village of Molgino, which was landscaped by Lidia Barabanova, the alleged mother of Vyacheslav Volodin
Photo: Semyon Katz

Born in the village of Saratov, Vyacheslav Volodin made a great political career in Moscow. At first he was one of the leaders of the United Russia parliamentary faction, then he worked in the government apparatus, then he oversaw domestic politics in the presidential administration (Volodin is usually associated with a tough fight against the opposition after the protests of 2011-2012), and now he has returned to the Duma, where was elected speaker. Volodin was also accompanied by financial success: in 2016, almost 540 million rubles appeared in his election declaration in Russian bank accounts. At the same time, as Meduza special correspondent Ivan Golunov discovered, while Volodin was moving up the career ladder, his Saratov friends and countrymen built successful businesses and received government contracts, a woman who is called Volodin’s mother in the media invested hundreds of millions of rubles in the improvement of two Smolensk villages, and the politician's relatives were canonized as saints.

Every sixth village in Russia has disappeared over the past 27 years - and the villages of Molgino and Gorodnya, located in the Smolensk region, also seemed to be waiting for death. In Soviet times, one and a half hundred people lived here, but then they closed first the local collective farm, then the school, then the medical assistant's station - and by the end of the 2000s, only 33 residents remained in two villages. By that time, they had already existed for seven years in the status of sparsely populated - which usually means an early liquidation. An article about the decline of settlements in the Novoduginsky district, to which Gorodnya and Molgino are assigned, published in the regional newspaper Rabochy Put, was called “Lower and Lower”.

Everything changed in 2010. The road leading to the villages from the district center was repaired, turning it into a smooth highway. Gas was supplied to the villages. In Gorodnya, the Bobrovo agricultural enterprise was registered and bought out about two thousand hectares of land that were previously used for animal husbandry, and are now overgrown with shrubs and trees. Bobrovo decided to grow grains there - barley, wheat and peas - and immediately developed a vigorous activity, purchasing German combines, American tractors, its own fuel truck and even a hang glider, with which crops are now cultivated, with a loan received from the Russian Agricultural Bank. A granary was built to store the crop, a warehouse for fertilizers, and a service station for equipment.

The main street connecting Molgino and Gorodnya
Photo: Semyon Katz

As the governor of the Smolensk region Alexei Ostrovsky said, in the first two years the investor invested more than 123 million rubles in the farm. The land allotments of "Bobrovo" gradually increased almost four times. In 2014, a cereal packaging plant was built on the territory, the products of which under the Agrostandard brand (peas, millet, buckwheat, etc.) began to be purchased by stores and budget institutions in the Smolensk and Tver regions. For four years, Bobrovo has taken second place among all agricultural holdings in the region in terms of production volumes and fourth in terms of productivity.

The sole owner and investor of the Bobrovo company is 80-year-old Lidia Petrovna Barabanova, who was called the mother of Vyacheslav Volodin in the media.

Bear corner

Now Molgino and Gorodnya - they have almost grown together - resemble a prosperous European village. On both sides of the main street, almost four dozen cottages with gas heating and sewerage and yards, almost in each of which there is a garage for one or two cars (many - with numbers near Moscow or Tambov). Employees of the farm receive very high salaries by local standards, they are given grain and vegetables for free, and after ten years of work for the company, they can take ownership of the house.

The center of Molgino is the Cherry Orchard rural park with benches, decorative lamps and paths paved with paving slabs. Along the perimeter of the park over the past two years, built kindergarten, a boarding school for gifted children, a supermarket with a hairdresser, a medical center with modern medical equipment, as well as a nursing home and a church. Almost everything - for the money of the company "Bobrovo". Its net profit in 2015 was 31.5 million rubles (with revenues of more than 112 million) - while, judging by the statements, the volume of Bobrovo's investments in Smolensk villages amounts to hundreds of millions.

The old-timers of Molgino do not know why the farm is called "Bobrovo". “There have never been such villages and names here. Maybe it's because in these places it's good to hunt beavers. After all, it all started with hunting grounds,” says one of the local residents.

Indeed, back in June 2008, Lidia Barabanova registered her first company in the Smolensk region, the Gorodnyanskoye Forest and Hunting Enterprise, a non-profit partnership headed by Marina Zhukova, a certified cultural worker who moved to the Novoduginsky district from Kazakhstan. Already in 2009, Zhukova began to lead Bobrovo, a year later she was elected a deputy of the district assembly, and in 2013 - a deputy of the Smolensk Regional Duma from United Russia (and in four years she came up with four legislative initiatives).

In an interview with Smolenskaya Gazeta, Zhukova tells the story of Bobrovo succinctly: “At first it was assumed that there would be just a hunting farm here. But the investor decided to create an agricultural enterprise as well.” Zhukova did not want to talk to the Meduza correspondent; the representative of Vyacheslav Volodin did not comment on the information that Lidia Barabanova is the mother of the politician.

The road leading to the territory of the agricultural holding "Bobrovo"
Photo: Semyon Katz for Meduza

Now the land plots of Lydia Barabanova amount to more than 14 thousand hectares of agricultural land - and almost 70 thousand hectares have been leased for 49 years to hunting farms owned by a pensioner. Part of the leased forests is fenced. The satellite map shows that not far from the central office of the Bobrovo farm, away from the village, there is a landscaped area with a helipad, a lake, a bathhouse and several houses. As Meduza's correspondents made sure when they arrived at the scene, all approaches to the site within a radius of one kilometer were blocked by a fence.

According to Kommersant, hunting is Vyacheslav Volodin's favorite hobby. In the late 1990s, the then head of Volodin's secretariat, Nikolai Pankov, established the European Non-Commercial Forest Hunting Fund, which owns vast hunting grounds in the Saratov region. Having moved to Moscow, Volodin flew on a safari to Tanzania, where a lion and "several smaller exotic animals" became his prey.

Not far from Molgino, on the territory received by Bobrovo for the construction of a recreational complex, there is another estate, on the territory of which there are several residential buildings and a helipad. The Dozhd TV channel, citing local residents, reports that Vyacheslav Volodin often stops there. Other local residents told Dozhd that in the nearby village of Domashenka, there is a house where the vice-speaker of the State Duma, the secretary of the general council of the United Russia party, often visits. In another neighboring village of Stepankovo, according to Rosreestr, there is a house on the bank of an artificial pond owned by Claudia Naydenova, who is the mother-in-law of Nikolai Pankov, a State Duma deputy and former head of the Secretariat of Vyacheslav Volodin.

In addition to the Gorodnyanskoye forestry, at the end of 2010, Barabanova acquired the neighboring Zaimka hunting farm. Shortly before this transaction, the Molno Development company was registered in the Novoduginsky district, one of the founders of which was Tatyana Kanunnikova, who holds the post of vice president of the NPF Gazfond (headed by Yuri Shamalov). A source close to Shamalov confirmed to Meduza that in 2010 he was considering buying a hunting farm in the Smolensk region. However, in the end, "Zaimka", located in the upper reaches of the Dnieper, went to Barabanova, and "Molno Development" was liquidated.

The administration of the Smolensk region and other officials have a good attitude towards the success of Bobrovo. In 2013, the company began to breed deer, having purchased 120 animals for this in the Altai Mountains, and became the only recipient of budgetary funds, soon launched by the governor of the Smolensk region, a program of state support for deer breeding in the region. Sergei Neverov and Governor of the Smolensk Region Alexei Ostrovsky come to the opening of each social facility built by Bobrovo. Local residents explain the frequent visits of high-ranking guests by the fact that infrastructure facilities are being built with funds from the regional budget and United Russia party programs - however, as Meduza found out, the state spent only on the construction of a nursing home for 50 places (235 were allocated for it). million rubles).

All subsequent facilities in Molgino and the Bobrovo district were built at their own expense and transferred to the ownership of the state. In addition to Molgino, nursing homes appeared in two more villages in the Novoduginsky district and in the village of Dugino in the neighboring Sychevsky district. The construction period of each of them did not exceed six months. Of the 13 nursing homes located in the Smolensk region, four were built over the past three years - on the initiative of "Bobrovo".

Also, for the money of the company, a boarding school for 55 gifted children of the region was built in Molgino, headed by Andrey Pantsevich, the former director of the best gymnasium in the Belarusian regional center of Grodno. At the site of the feldsher station in the village, it was first planned to open a diagnostic center of the Sechenov Moscow Medical University, whose rector is Volodin's student friend Petr Glybochko. In addition to an express laboratory, a pharmacy and an ultrasound complex, the newly opened medical center has rooms fully equipped with German technology, where doctors from Moscow and Smolensk come several times a week.

Building medical center in Gorodnya
Photo: Semyon Katz

The locals consider the restored Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord, originally built in 1820, to be the pearl of the village - as they say in Molgino, the surviving walls were dismantled to the ground and, in fact, a new church was built. In 2014, at the consecration of the temple, where a particle of the relics of the Matrona of Moscow was transferred from the Moscow Intercession Monastery, not only Ostrovsky and Neverov were present, but two heads of Volodin's secretariat in different years - the same Pankov and Anton Lopatin.

Later, Neverov recalled how he "got acquainted" with the region. “Once, with my comrades, we came to the Smolensk region: they had long wanted to get a farm here, sincerely falling in love with the nature of the region.” In an interview with Meduza, Neverov explained: “When I visited the Smolensk region, I immediately decided for myself: I need to choose one of the depressed areas of the region, take patronage over it, and try to implement a public-private partnership project. They pointed us to the Novoduginsky district - single enterprises worked there, there was no industry, young people left, a lot of disappeared villages, at the same time there are many villages where literally one or two old people live. And so the idea was born to help this area by making it an island social projects. Now we see how life in the region is really changing.” In the fall of 2016, Neverov, a native of Kuzbass, became a State Duma deputy, having been elected to parliament in a single-member constituency, which includes Novoduginsky, Sychevsky and a number of districts of the Smolensk region adjacent to the Moscow region.

The basis for the development of most of these areas are businesses associated with high-ranking officials. So, the first asphalt road in the Temkinsky district appeared thanks to the former minister economic development Alexei Ulyukaev, who has a dacha there (now Ulyukaev is accused of extorting a bribe of two million dollars from the Rosneft company). In the Vyazemsky district there is a hunting farm owned by the family of the chief oncologist of Russia, Mikhail Davydov. In the Novoduginsky and Kardymovsky districts, there is a hunting farm and the production of Kozy and Co. cheeses, owned by the daughter of the former governor of the Sverdlovsk region, vice-president of Russian Railways Alexander Misharin and her partner Yuri Igoshin, founder of the large Ekaterinburg IT company Microtest (works on contracts "RUSSIAN RAILWAYS"). Not far from Molgino is a reindeer herding farm owned by the family of former Russian Central Bank official Kirill Tikhonkov. In 2015, he even became a deputy of the local district assembly and was awarded the title of honorary citizen of Novodugino, but he became widely known because of the scandal with the retention of a child who, by a court decision, should live with his ex-wife. The same Neverov had to intervene in the conflict: he demanded to explain on what grounds Tikhonkov received the honorary title.

Neverov also participated in other local conflicts: for example, when the chief of police decided to sue the head of the Novoduginsky district, who refused to agree on holding a rally of the LDPR regional cell (the case was closed “due to the absence of signs of an offense in the actions of the head of the district”). Neverov also dealt with the head of the neighboring Sychevsky district, Yevgeny Orlov, who was in conflict with local activists - they complained about him to Vladimir Putin, and Orlov demanded through the court to send a refutation to the president.

Head of the Sychevsky District Yevgeny Orlov (left) and Sergei Neverov (right) in Sychevka, November 25, 2016
Photo: Administration of the municipal formation "Sychevsky district" of the Smolensk region

Lidia Barabanova also has interests in the Sychevsky district: shortly after the elections to the State Duma, she registered another agricultural enterprise there - Meshcherskoye, which bought and leased 5,700 hectares of land and, in particular, plans to open a large grain drying complex in Dugino. Until then, the main employer in the Sychevsky district was one of the largest psychiatric hospitals in Russia for criminals who were declared insane by the court.

Barabanova created another enterprise in the Novoduginsky district together with the former deputy chairman of Gazprom Alexander Ryazanov - it will be a pig-breeding complex for 50 thousand heads worth more than a billion rubles (in March 2017, the pensioner withdrew from the project). Ryazanov already has several pig complexes in the Tambov region, and in his father's homeland on the border of the Tambov and Saratov regions, he set up an apple orchard. It is curious that many cars with Tambov license plates are parked near the houses in Molgino and Gorodnya, and in the fall of 2016, a 60-hectare apple orchard was planted on the territory of Bobrovo, in which the company invested 300 million rubles.

Bobrovo continues to expand its holdings: at the beginning of 2017, the farm bought more than 4,000 hectares of agricultural land, along the way restoring the historical monuments of the area. At the consecration of the church in the village of Bolshevo, restored at the expense of Bobrovo, Bishop Sergiy of Vyazemsky and Gagarinsky personally thanked the Chairman of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin, saying that the revival of the village is happening "thanks to him and his associates and closest assistants." “Vyacheslav Viktorovich assists in the creation of many objects, but tries not to talk about it publicly,” a source close to Volodin commented on the participation of the speaker of the State Duma in the restoration of the temple.

Map of Novoduginsky and adjacent areas of the Smolensk region.
Objects related to Bobrovo and Vyacheslav Volodin's relatives are marked with green flags

Mechanic and "Bouquet"

Vyacheslav Volodin's mother, Lidia Barabanova, worked all her life as a primary school teacher - in particular, in the working settlement of Alekseevka in the Saratov region, where her daughter Tatyana and son Vyacheslav were born. Volodin's father Viktor, according to his official biography, was a captain in the river fleet. As Volodin later recalled, his father died of a heart attack when he was 51 years old. The future speaker of the State Duma was raised by his stepfather, whose last name - Barabanov - Volodin's mother took when she remarried, returning to her native village of Belogornoye (until 1961 it was called Samodurovka). Located 365 kilometers from Saratov, the village, in which about 600 people now live, is one of the most ancient Old Believer settlements in the region. One of the attractions of these places is the village of Shakhovskoye, located a few tens of kilometers away, where Mikhail Suslov was born and grew up, who was in charge of ideology in the CPSU during the Brezhnev era.

While studying at school, Volodin helped his mother check the notebooks of primary school students. During the summer holidays after the seventh grade, the schoolboy got a job at the local state farm "Boevik" as a helmsman on a combine; later - continued to be interested in technology, enrolling in the Saratov Institute of Agricultural Mechanization. There he became the chairman of the student trade union committee and met his first wife Victoria, the daughter of the head of one of the Saratov district committees and the niece of his half-brother Dmitry Ayatskov (governor of the Saratov region in 1996-2005), and also became friends with his future colleague Vladislav Burov, who headed the trade union committee of Saratov state university. Lidia Barabanova was registered in the same apartment with Volodin in Saratov - and in 2006 she presented Victoria Volodina with this apartment, and another one on Zoological Street in Moscow.

Volodin's Ph.D. thesis, which he defended in 1989, was devoted to the dosed distribution of long-stalk feed to ruminants; after her defense, he continued to work as an assistant professor at the institute, combining this with trade union activities, and a year later he seriously entered politics, being elected a deputy of the Saratov City Council and heading the commission on youth affairs there. Two years later, 28-year-old Volodin moved to the mayor's office of Saratov to the position of business manager - and in the summer of 1993, when a split occurred in the city administration, he did not take the side of Mayor Yuri Kitov, who supported the Supreme Council in the confrontation with Boris Yeltsin, but took the side his first deputy Ayatskov, who spoke for the president. As a result, Volodin was forced to resign from his post - however, already in 1994 he became vice speaker of the regional Duma, having got into it on the party list of the Russian Union of Reserve Officers (Volodin did not serve in the army). It was Volodin who headed Ayatskov's campaign headquarters in the gubernatorial elections in Saratov in 1996 - and after the victory he was appointed first vice-governor, whose area of ​​responsibility included, among other things, the region's economy.

Having become a high-ranking official, Volodin began to improve his native places in the Saratov region in approximately the same way that Molgino is now developing. In Belogorny, where he was born, gas was installed, a nursing home, a new church and a boarding school for children were built, and the school was renovated. In Alekseevka, where the politician spent his early childhood, already in the mid-2000s, a nursing home, a hospital, a boarding school for orphans, a kindergarten and a church in honor of John of Kronstadt were built, around which a convent subsequently arose. “Vyacheslav Viktorovich is convinced that it is necessary to help the young and the old. Therefore, kindergartens, schools and nursing homes. His caring attitude towards the elderly was even noted by [chairman of the Moscow Helsinki Group] Lyudmila Alekseeva, whom he once drove from a meeting from [the presidential residence] Novo-Ogaryovo to the center of Moscow, ”explains the interlocutor surrounded by Volodin.

Vyacheslav Volodin (at that moment - the leader of the faction "Fatherland - All Russia")
at a meeting of the State Duma, March 20, 2002
Photo: Vladimir Fedorenko / Sputnik / Scanpix / LETA

On August 13, 2005, when Bishop Longin arrived at the temple in Belogorny from Ukraine, Volodin, as the website of the Saratov diocese reported, was in the church and prayed for his relatives - “priest Jacob Ivanovich Loginov and deacon Philip Trofimovich Letov, the last clergymen of the Samodurovo church who died in the Gulag.

Loginov and Letov were first arrested and sent to camps in 1930, but they were soon released and were able to return to their homeland. In 1937, Letov was re-arrested for secretly conducting the rite of baptism, and in December of the same year, Loginov was detained. As the journal of the Saratov diocese tells, shortly before the arrest, fellow villagers tried to nominate Loginov for the election of deputies of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR - in the district in which the USSR prosecutor Andrei Vyshinsky ran. According to a source close to Volodin, Loginov is the maternal great-grandfather of the politician, and Letov is a distant relative. As Meduza found out, in 2011 Loginov became a locally venerated saint of the Saratov diocese, and Filipp Letov, by the decision of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church was numbered among the holy new martyrs and confessors.

While Volodin was making a political career, his friends in the Saratov student trade union committees began to succeed in business. Vladislav Burov, shortly after Volodin began working in the mayor's office, headed the municipal enterprise "City Center for Social Initiatives", and in 1995 became a co-founder of the trading company "Bouquet" - as Burov later recalled, she wholesaled food and power tools, as well as made blinds. Burov's business partners, according to the register of the Saratov administration, were his classmate Andrey Ampilogov - and Volodin's alleged mother Lidia Barabanova. For the 55-year-old teacher, this was not the first experience in business: a year before, she became a co-owner of the Agros-Eco LTD company - together with Volodin's subordinate Nikolai Pankov and his acquaintance Valery Ponomarev.

Publicly, Barabanova did not say anything about her business. The only interview that Meduza managed to find was given by her in 2002 to the Saratov newspaper Zemskoye Obozreniye, and it was about her son only. Barabanova’s Saratov apartment (the publication called the politician’s mother Lydia Volodina) was described by the author as “ordinary - with napkins on the shelves, with a closet full of books, with a picture depicting a loaf of bread, with a home-made stove and a comfortably purring teapot on the stove.” “My son works in the State Duma - so what? With the old women at the entrance, I am the same as everyone else, on the bus, on the tram, in the store, I am no different from the others - I have neither benefits nor privileges, the pensioner said. “My only privilege is to worry about my son.” Meduza was unable to contact Barabanova.

Mother Volodina Lidia Petrovna with students -
photo from her only interview,
given to the Saratov newspaper Zemskoye Obozreniye in 2002

Shortly after the appointment of Volodin as vice-governor for economics, the Buket created by Barabanova and Burov turned out to be one of the main specialists in the restructuring of industrial enterprises in the region. In 1997, the Saratov pasta factory and the fat plant came under the control of the company, a year later - the Saratov confectionery factory and Yantarnoye CJSC, which owns six butter factories in the Saratov region; in 2002, Buket acquired a controlling stake in Russia's largest trolleybus manufacturer, Trolza, and acquired the Nizhnevolzhsky Commercial Bank.

According to the reporting of the latter, in 2004 Lidia Barabanova owned a quarter of the Saratov confectionery factory and 30% of ZAO Yantarnoye. At the same time, it turned out that Vyacheslav Volodin, who at that moment was already a State Duma deputy, owns the assets of Bouquet - for example, he owned 26% of the Novosibirsk Fat Plant and 30% of the Armavir Oil and Fat Plant. Vedomosti wrote about this; referring to a member of the board of directors of one of the companies included in the "Bouquet" the publication also reported that Volodin's share in the enterprises of "Bouquet" is 26-30%.

Now the Buket group of companies ranks second in Russia in terms of sunflower oil production, third in the margarine market and fourth in the mayonnaise market, and is also among the top 25 largest landowners in Russia. Buket is also engaged in development: the company built housing in Moscow, Saratov, Novosibirsk, as well as an apart-hotel in Montenegrin Budva.

The law on the status of a State Duma deputy directly prohibits parliamentarians from engaging in entrepreneurial activities and participating in business management. Soon after the publication of Vedomosti, the president of Buket, Burov, confirmed that Volodin owned shares in a number of enterprises. “Volodin had free funds, which were officially declared. He does not take part in management, ”the businessman explained. Burov noted that Volodin acquired the shares in 1999 - "he then left the region, was in a teaching job and had every right to do business." However, both enterprises in which Volodin owned blocks of shares came under the control of Buket only at the end of 2002, and in 1999–2001 Volodin did not appear among the shareholders of the Novosibirsk and Armavir plants. According to the election declaration, the politician's income for the whole of 1998 amounted to 230,671 rubles, and he had no bank accounts.

Later, in 2006, Volodin said that he bought the shares of two fat plants “several years ago for 190 thousand dollars (6 million rubles).” Some time after the publication of Vedomosti, he sold them for $23.1 million (592.4 million rubles). The details of the deal became known only in 2016 - when Volodin's representative, explaining to Nezavisimaya Gazeta the source of the wealth of the first deputy head of the presidential administration, mentioned income from the sale of shares. At the same time, the official website of Vyacheslav Volodin notes that in 2006 he was ranked 351st in the rating of Russian billionaires compiled by the Finance magazine. The publication estimated the state of the politician at 2.7 billion rubles.

Shortly after Volodin sold the shares, the ownership structure of Bouquet became even more complicated - the key enterprises are controlled by Cypriot offshore companies, and the remaining shares are owned by Vladislav Burov. Almost disappeared from the list of shareholders of enterprises and Lidia Barabanova. In 2010–2015, she owned a controlling stake in Buket-ND, which, according to the resumes of former employees, leased land owned by Buket in Moscow, Saratov and Novosibirsk, and also prepared and held meetings of shareholders of the Solar Products holding ", which united the oil and fat plants "Bouquet".

In December 2006, Barabanova registered the Invest-Holding company, which combined a number of assets: commercial real estate in Saratov and Moscow, 70% of a construction company that was developing the Moskovsky residential microdistrict in Tambov, and City Transport. The latter, according to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, owns a 50% stake in the Trolza trolleybus plant, which is part of the Buket Group of Companies, and the Trolza-Market company (in fact, the company's sales department). In recent years, the volume of production of trolleybuses at the plant has been steadily declining (from 314 cars in 2012 to 57 in 2015) - however, when in May 2015 the federal government introduced subsidies for the regions for the purchase of trolleybuses, and the State Transport and Leasing Company, which used to deal with airplanes and railroad cars, announced an electric vehicle leasing program, the business went uphill. In 2016, four times more cars were produced than the year before.

Invest-Holding also owns a mansion on Sovetskaya Street in Saratov, where since 2001 the office of the regional branch of United Russia has been located. Since December 2014, reception rooms of three State Duma deputies - Olga Batalina, Nikolai Pankov and Vasily Maksimov - have been opened there under a lease agreement with the administration of the Saratov region. On the part of Invest-Holding, the contract was signed by Sergey Dushaev, who at that moment headed the State Budgetary Institution "Administrative and Economic Services" - and since 2015 he became an assistant to the same deputy Pankov and headed several public funds registered in Moscow.

Faust and the building on Babaevskaya

In the Moscow district of Sokolniki, on a quiet Babaevskaya street, there is a four-story office building in which Lidia Barabanova's Invest-Holding was registered until December 2016. One part of the building is owned by a company owned by the mother of former State Duma deputy Igor Rudensky, the other by his son. The interests of the Rudensky family in general often intersected with the interests of the family of Vyacheslav Volodin - and a lot of businesses are connected with the building on Babaevskaya, in which they somehow took part.

Office building on Babaevskaya, 6 (view from the 2nd Boevskaya street)

Rudensky family for a long time controlled a number of companies in the Penza region, from which Rudensky was elected a deputy in 1999: from bakeries and agricultural enterprises to alcohol production plants and the largest Penza department stores. After Vasily Bochkarev, whose daughter was among the shareholders of one of the Rudensky companies, ceased to be the Penza governor in 2015, Rudensky's son began to sell family assets. Some of them went to Gamal Zamaldinov, who at the same time acquired two shopping centers in the Saratov region - "Orange" in the capital of the region and "Azure" in the satellite city of Saratov Engels.

It was because of "Azure" in 2010 that Mayor Engels (and co-owner shopping center) Mikhail Lysenko - he was accused of a large bribe, banditry and organizing contract killings. Lysenko's stake was bought out by a Moscow company owned by Oleg Monzhosov from Penza, who also owns several other companies registered in the building on Babaevskaya.

One of the companies to which Monzhosov was related (Managing Company Trust-Active LLC) previously belonged to lawyers Oleg Shchenev, who also has an office in the building on Babaevskaya, and Valentin Faust. As it became known from the correspondence of Igor Rudensky, published by hackers from Shaltai-Boltai, Faust advised Rudensky and Sergey Neverov when two United Russia members filed a lawsuit against opposition leader Alexei Navalny - he published an investigation about the Sosny dacha cooperative they had founded. Faust is also the head of the Proektstroytsentr company, which belongs to 74-year-old Valentina Rudenskaya, the mother of the deputy, and owns part of the office center on Babaevskaya - and together with Shchenev, they carried out transactions by proxy to acquire land in the Smolensk region in the interests of Lidia Barabanova.

The lawyers also had interests in the Saratov region. So, Shchenev and Faust were members of the board of directors of the Saratov Aviation Plant. In 2007, the bankruptcy proceedings of the plant began (it was in its workshops that the Orange shopping center arose) - but shortly before that, he received guarantees for the completion of the last aircraft from Mast-Bank. The companies of Igor Rudensky's family members were one of the owners of the bank, it had a settlement account of the Sosny cooperative, and the central office of Mast-Bank was located in the same building on Babaevskaya - until July 2015, when the Central Bank revoked his license. The reason for the withdrawal was a violation of laws prohibiting banks from laundering money that was obtained by criminal means.

Shortly thereafter, the central office of Soyuzny Bank was opened in the building on Babaevskaya. Among its owners are the Italian architect Lanfranco Cirillo, who designed the so-called Putin's palace in Gelendzhik, and Tatyana Kuznetsova, according to Novaya Gazeta, is the wife of a former FSO colonel who represented the developer in a number of documents on the "palace" (Kuznetsova also has a joint business with the wife of the head of the Presidential Administration Alexander Kolpakov). Another shareholder of the bank is Anatoly Tsvetkov, a former top manager of the 1520 group owned by Alexei Krapivin (his “ New Newspaper"calls one of the beneficiaries of the "Moldovan schemes" for the withdrawal of capital from Russia).

Together with Soyuzny, Proxima Consulting, owned by Cypriot offshore companies, became a tenant in the office center on Babaevskaya. The CEO of Proxima also heads the board of directors of Soyuznoy, and three of the seven members of the board were employees of the company. Since August 2010, Proxima Consulting has owned a terminal in the port of Kavkaz, through which Crimea is supplied (on the day Vladimir Putin signed a decree on joining the region to Russia, the company sharply increased its authorized capital). Another joint project of Proxima and Soyuznoy is the Caspian Cooperation Institute, headed by political scientist Sergei Mikheev, known for harsh anti-Western statements on the air of federal television channels; in 2013, the organization received a presidential grant in the amount of five million rubles for the project "Caspian territory for development and security."

Parent, citizen and front

In recent years, the main business partner of Lydia Barabanova has become 29-year-old Yana Polyakina, who until recently owned 46% of Invest-Holding (since April 2016, Polyakina's father, a resident of the Mordovian village of Bolshoe Ignatovo, has owned a share). Polyakina has been in business for a long time. When a native of Mordovia was 21 years old, she became a co-owner of the Saratov Press House and the publisher of the newspaper Version in Saratov. In February 2011, Polyakina headed Barabanova's Moscow company Gortrans, which sold Trolza trolleybuses, replacing Anton Lopatin, the former head of the secretariat, Vyacheslav Volodin, in this post. He, in turn, went to work in the Central Election Commission of Russia, where he was responsible for the technical equipment of polling stations.

In 2012, already in Moscow, Polyakina established a fund to promote the development of civil society "I am a citizen." Little is known about the activities of this organization: in addition to the logo, its website contains only a link to a report on the continuation of activities sent to the Ministry of Justice. According to the document, in 2015 the organization's budget amounted to 9.3 million rubles, of which most of it falls on "expenses for the execution of a contract for the provision of services to the customer." In the same year, "I am a Citizen" received a four-story mansion in Staromonetny Lane from the Moscow government for use, from the windows of which a view of Bolotnaya Square opens.

The building in Staromonetny lane, which was received for its use by the fund "I am a Citizen"
Photo: Ivan Golunov

In the summer of 2016, people started registering en masse in the building in Staromonetny Lane. public organizations previously registered in Saratov - the Youth Programs Fund, the Regional Social Development Fund, the Social Programs and Environmental Projects Fund, the Professional Journalism Support Fund and others. The director of the first two funds is Sergey Dushaev, who signed state contracts for the lease of premises in Saratov on behalf of Invest Holding. The co-founders of both are Lydia Barabanova's partner in the very first business Valery Ponomarev, the supply manager of the Saratov Regional Duma Yevgeny Chirkov, State Duma deputy Nikolai Pankov and Vyacheslav Volodin's former deputy in the government apparatus Ivan Lobanov (now he works as rector of the Moscow University of Culture).

These foundations are also not very visible public activities. Thus, the Fund for the Social Development of Regions, according to reports, once held a competition for the best rural teacher of Russian language and literature in the Volsky district of the Saratov region, and the Youth Programs Fund in 2015 spent 2.3 million rubles on holding student KVN, supporting youth organizations and essay competition dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the Victory. Meduza was unable to locate the official websites of any of the organizations listed above. A security guard at the building in Staromonetny Lane, where I Am a Citizen and other funds are registered, told a Meduza correspondent that the office of the Ost Media company is located there.

Ost Media was founded in 2009 as a web design studio - in particular, it made websites for the same Buket group of companies, the Agrostandard company, which sells the products of the Smolensk agricultural holding Bobrovo, the For Clean Elections project !" and State Duma deputies from United Russia. Judging by the resumes of former Ost Media employees, she was also involved in creating content for socio-political sites like Regnews.ru, Yamer.rf and I am a Parent. One of the most famous projects supervised by Ost Media is the site and online TV channel Russia.ru, previously managed by State Duma deputy from United Russia and media manager (Dni.ru and Vzglyad.ru) Konstantin Rykov.

Ost Media receives its main income from government contracts: in three years the company has won several dozen tenders worth more than 245 million rubles, and not at all for creating websites. Thus, one of their largest customers is the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation, for which Ost Media has developed software for automated control over the work of regional election commissions. For another customer - the government of Moscow - the company organized the Youth Festival of Moscow communities, and for the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation it held "exchange cultural seasons" of Russia and the USA.

The head of Ost Media is Ruslan Ostashko. Previously, he posted ads on the Internet offering toastmaster services at weddings. His professional life went uphill in 2009, when he, together with the 23-year-old Polyakina, registered several companies that later became part of the Ost Media holding. Ostashko also started LiveJournal under the name PolitRussia, and subsequently created the socio-political website PolitRussia.ru, which posted materials in support of Vladimir Putin's course and against Alexei Navalny and his supporters. In 2016, he tried to nominate himself as a candidate for the State Duma from Crimea, but without success.

Now most of the sites that Ost Media was involved in filling do not work. The reductions in content staff began in early 2016, the last of which left the company shortly after the State Duma elections (three former Ost Media employees told Meduza), as a result of which Vyacheslav Volodin moved from the presidential administration to parliament. In recent months, the company also did not receive new government contracts.

Ruslan Ostashko (he did not respond to Meduza's request) is also mentioned in the correspondence of Timur Prokopenko, deputy head of the internal policy department of the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation, published by the Shaltai Dumpty hacker group (some participants in the correspondence confirmed its authenticity). For example, Prokopenko allegedly received e-mail reports from the organization I Am a Citizen about creating blog posts and promoting them on social networks. In addition, according to the published archive, Prokopenko received daily letters with the headings “Monitoring. Ostashko" - a digest of materials from the media and social networks, especially those where Vyacheslav Volodin was mentioned - with proposals for adjusting the information agenda (the address of Ostashko himself was in the copy of the letters).

Also in the “Prokopenko archive” you can find SMS from a subscriber whom he calls Artem: the alleged deputy head of the internal policy department of the presidential administration is discussing with him the schedule of meetings of the “chief”. In one of the SMS, "Artem" reports his email, which coincides with the mail of the candidate of legal sciences Artem Balykhin - the son of Grigory Balykhin, State Duma deputy and former head of the Federal Agency for Education. Since 2009, Balykhin Jr. has worked as an assistant to Vyacheslav Volodin in the government apparatus, and when Volodin moved to the presidential administration, he headed his apparatus there.
In 2013, Balykhin left the Presidential Administration for the All-Russian People's Front, where he became deputy head of the executive committee in charge of work with the regions (as Kommersant wrote in December 2016, now Balykhin can go to work in Volodin's Duma apparatus). Simultaneously with his appointment to the ONF, Artem Balykhin received 3% of Lidia Barabanova's company Invest-Holding. From the same moment Balykhina's wife Yulia has been the head of Invest-Holding.

Previously, Balykhin's stake in Invest Holding belonged to pensioner Klavdia Naydenova, the same one who is Nikolai Pankov's mother-in-law (two people who know the deputy's family told Meduza about this) and owns a house with an artificial pond in the village of Stepankovo. In the same place, not far from Molgino and the possessions of Lidia Barabanova, there is a plot of Artem Balykhin himself.

The patron of Balykhin and Pankov, Vyacheslav Volodin, declared income in the amount of 62 million rubles in 2016 - according to his representative, this income was received from securities and deposits, the basis of which was money from the sale of the business. On Volodin's official website, 1999 is marked by a biographical milestone: "Moved to Moscow and went into business." The decree on the resignation of Volodin from the post of vice-governor of the Saratov region was signed on March 17, 1999; at the end of April, he became deputy chairman of the election headquarters of the Fatherland movement, and on December 19, 1999, he was elected to the State Duma.
As of June 1, 2016, Volodin kept almost 540 million rubles in accounts with Sberbank and Rossiya Bank. To earn the basis of his well-being, Vyacheslav Volodin had nine months and two days - when he was not a civil servant.