Business with kindred. Examining the business activities by the top officials’ family members

Part 5. Nikolai Patrushev, the Secretary of the Russia’s Security Council, the former director of FSB 

We continue monitoring of the businesses where involved are relatives of the high ranking officials. The series of the theme materials was published in the ## 58, 63, 84 of 2007 and in the # 4 of 2008. Below we shall take a look at the companies referring to Nikolai Patrushev, the Secretary of the Security Council and the former FSB Director. 

Examining the businesses by Nikolai Patrushev’s relatives we found Lubyansky Restaurant located in the FSB building, a few companies that are planning to invest $ 5 millions into construction of a shopping mall in St Petersburg, also former oil traders who used to have a relation to a charity fund of supporting the law enforcers that was created under initiative of Vladimir Putin.  

An old acquaintance of Putin, Nikolai Patrushev started his career in Leningrad department of KGB. In 1992 he was the security minister of Karelia. According to Moscow standards that was an ordinary region. However, some former security service officers believe that the financial flows of the budding St Petersburg group were passed through there. Anyway, with Putin’s aggrandizement Patrushev was transferred almost synchronically to the central apparatus of the Federal Intelligence Service and then to the President’s Administration for a while. Patrushev headed FSB in August 1999 and held this office for over 8 years. He left this post only after Dmitry Medvedev became the master of the Kremlin. Former colleagues consider it that he is no conjurer. He is faithful to Putin and will always remain reliable and predictable executor without any special initiatives and ambitions shown.      

The ardent nephew

The nephew of the Secretary of the Security Council, Alexei Patrushev, has created two St Petersburg companies – Lion Trade and Stroilesproduct. The latter one is engaged in trading with building materials and is going to invest $ 5 millions into the project of 2-storeyed shopping center with underground parking facilities in Warsaw Street in St Petersburg.  

A Moscow company “Kvorum-Invest” acts as a partner in the above project. Coincidently, in March 2006 the Lubyansky Restaurant was started by Kvorum-Invest on Malaya Lubyanka Street, right in the building of FSB. Besides the expensive classic interior, the restaurant is featured with a DJ bar and soundproof glass wall with changeable transparency, and with a podium for VIP guests on the second floor.   

They say in the FSB lobby conversations that one may often see the top officers in the restaurant and sometimes the decorations and awards are celebrated there.

General Director of Stroilesproduct Pavel Ivanov confirmed to Novaya Gazeta that Alexei Patrushev is a co-founder of the St Petersburg company that has a joint project with Kvorum-Invest from Moscow. However, he refused talking about the Moscow firm saying that he “is not allowed in those matters” and so he cannot discuss the details. A source in Stroilesproduct said that the St Petersburg firm is only a part of the system comprising several different-profile structures, a bank and a Spanish building company.

Eugenia Tsava, the director of Lubyansky Restaurant, said that about half a year ago the leadership and ownership of the Kvorum-Invest were changed. We were assured that they had not heard anything about Patrushev’s relatives and we were advised to discuss the question with former general director Andrei Sukhorukov. We were promised that our question would be passed to him, but we were not given the contact details of Mr. Sukhorukov himself. And we failed to get in touch with Kvorum-Invest using the phone numbers pointed in their registration form.

We failed either to find Sukhorukov through Stroilesproduct. General Director Pavel Ivanov said he had seen him only two times in his life. However, we managed to establish the old connections of the former owners of Lubyansky Restaurant with the oil and gas market and with the largest in Russia charity fund working under the aegis of the top persons in the country.

Oil, gas and the restaurant in FSB

Till the year 2000 Andrei Sukhorukov worked in Mosukrainsnab that got famous after it received 4,290,048,991 ruble from “Naftogas of Ukraine”. In May 2000 Gazprom paid this money to Naftogas for transit on the Ukraine’s territory. On same day Naftogas transferred that money to Mosukrainesnab as “prepayment for gas” and afterwards it attempted to be in law with this amazing structure, but that was in vain. Court of Cassation in Moscow was not favorable to Ukrainians.

Andrei Sukhorukov did not give any comment on the situation and did not explain who is behind Kvorum-Invest and the restaurant in the FSB building. We found out that the recent co-founders of this Moscow company, Sergei Nikolaev and Alexander Shevchuk had relation to two little known firms. Nikolaev headed The Managing ONVF Company, while Shevchuk managed the daughter company ONVF-Vostok. The latter pointed out in its registration that its main profile is trading with oil and gas. 

We established that ONVF-Invest was created by the All-Russian “National Military Fund”, which later was changed to “National Charity Fund”. It appeared in 1999 under initiative by Vladimir Putin with the purpose of giving an aid to the militaries and their families. In 2002 it was freed from all taxes. The fund was headed that time by the former deputy director of FSB Alexei Molyakov who worked in the military counter-intelligence in Germany at the same period when Putin himself was working as an agent in German Democratic Republic. The board of guardians of the fund is featured with presence of the heads of the main religious organizations and prominent businessmen.    

The list of the chief donators to the fund comprises Rosneft, Transneft, Vneshtorgbank, Sberbank, RAO EES, Surgutneftegas, LUKOIL, Basic Element, Interros, Euras Holding, TNK-VR, Alpha Bank and other leaders of the Russian business. 

That is no wonder. Being the president Vladimir Putin stressed that “The National Military Fund is the chief one in its status among other public associations working in the sphere of social protection of people with shoulder straps”. These words are placed on the Fund’s website along with the photo featuring the meeting of Vladimir Putin with that-time Director of the Fund Molyakov, which was held 4 November 2005. 

Still Waters

In the late 90’s Sergei Nikolaev and Alexander Shevchuk, the former constitutors of Kvorum-Invest owning the Lubyansky Restaurant, were business partners to Anatoly Zhuravlev who is the current director of the Fund. 

In the past, Shevchuk and Zhuravlev founded the company “Eksim Nafta” and together with Nikolaev they founded “Ecoresource” company.

Anatoly Zhuravlev told to Novaya Gazeta that he knows about Sergei Nikolaev and Alexander Shevchuk. According to him, they used to run the restaurant but without any success. As for ONVF-Invest company, it was organized at the outset of the Fund when it was planned to finance it also with this way. That idea also proved to be a failure. Mr. Zhuravlev explained that the Fund is no longer the co-founder of ONVF-Invest and has no relation to people in question. He also assured us the Fund is not engaged in any commercial activities. It only allots grants to public organizations in accordance with decisions made by the country’s leadership, while the charity programs are financed with private donations from different companies.

For some while the charity activity of the Fund was related to non-commercial partnership “Sports Club Dynamo”. It shall be reminded that Nikolai Patrushev’s brother, Viktor, is the advisor to the chairman of the St Petersburg branch of Dynamo.  

In October last year four physical persons became the founders of Kvorum-Invest possessing the restaurant in the FSB building. One of them is Alexander Leonidovich Gordienko, who is also director of Kvorum-Invest. Coincidently, the man with same name is the deputy General Director of the Russian Volleyball Federation. And Nikolai Patrushev is the President of the Federation.

We failed to get in touch with Alexander Gordienko as he was on business trip and so we did not get an answer from him whether he is the co-founder of Kvorum-Invest. 

Alexei Patrushev did not comment on the situation. The director of controlled by him Stroilesproduct, Pavel Ivanov, said he had passed to him our request for comment and he promised to decide the question with his uncle. Nikolai Patrushev has not responded yet to the request by Novaya Gazeta.   

“The idea itself is good of charity funds supporting the law enforcing officers” reflects the former Prosecutor General Yuri Skuratov. “However, there is a danger that those funds may become a favorable disguise for establishing informal relations between law enforcers and the business. Of course, we shouldn’t simplify the situation and should realize that in Russia businessmen often have to look for establishing such relations. But if we are talking about control over the situation, I don’t remember a case where charity funds or other organizations with participation of the law enforcers were checked as properly as the non-government organizations receiving money from abroad”. 

Family tree

Nikolai Patrushev’s elder son, Dmitry, works as vice-president and the chief of the third division of Vneshtorgbank dealing with the largest clients. He’s responsible for the coal-mining, oil extracting and processing industry, oil transportation piping, mechanical engineering and metal working, also instrument making, metallurgy and communication fields.   

The younger son, Andrei Patrushev, works as adviser to the chair of board of Rosneft Igor Sechin.  

Nikolai Patrushev’s elder brother, Viktor, is the advisor to the chair of St Petersburg branch of Dynamo sports club and the deputy administrative director of North-West branch of Megaphone that is one of the largest cellular operators in Russia.  

Viktor Patrushev has two sons and both of them are engaged in business in St Petersburg.