A fragile woman and the head of a large welding and assembly company celebrates her anniversary. Belyaeva Valentina Yakovlevna General Director of JSC Welding and Assembly Trust Trust in itself

On the last day of the outgoing year, the “round” birthday is celebrated by Valentina Yakovlevna Belyaeva, Director of Welding and Assembly Trust, a living legend among her colleagues and a symbol of the entire industry.

More than half a century in the ranks

Dear Valentina Yakovlevna!
On the day of your anniversary, we, your employees and students, recall with pleasure the years, who and decades, of joint friendly work under your leadership in a difficult field - the construction of oil and gas pipelines. It was a time of impressive work achievements that the whole country was talking about.

You have devoted your whole life to strengthening the economy of your Motherland, serving the people, writing new bright lines in the history of the country. You never strive to follow the well-trodden paths, preferring your own path, which always leads you to success. And we are proud to be with you.

Over the decades of your work, you have shown outstanding qualities of a talented leader, decisive reformer, brilliant economist, the ability to capture the whole picture, identify the most acute problems in it, and offer unexpected solutions. You always just gush with ideas, radiate irrepressible energy, demonstrating fantastic efficiency and unwillingness to retreat and give up.

How time is compressed, how tightly - link to link - the successes of the team of the Welding and Assembly Trust, which you are successfully heading, are soldered into a single chain! Your multifaceted activity has reaffirmed the old truth: "His Majesty Success always accompanies those who persistently move towards Her Majesty the Goal."

I wish you health and further work for the benefit of our Motherland!

EASerikov, Deputy General Director of OJSC SMT, SI Kuznetsov, Head of the Ipatovo WUA Section and the entire staff of the Welding and Assembly Trust.

What if you were born a fragile woman, but a leader by nature? And what if your position in life does not allow you to remain in the shadows? Valentina Yakovlevna 50 years ago simply solved this issue. She got a job at the Welding and Assembly Trust and stayed here forever. A brilliant, solid career, woven from numerous labor victories and successes on a national scale, was crowned in 2000 by the election as CEO of the oldest, one of the largest pipelines in the country.

Pipeline construction is a complex and at the same time amazing industry, in which mathematical precision and creativity, a high technical level of knowledge and inspiration, technology and enormous human potential are magically intertwined. The main pipeline builders are one of the most skillful squads of the construction army. Like no other structures, the lines of trunk transport systems have always been an indicator of the level of development of the national economy.

Valentina Yakovlevna has all the qualities of a leader of just such a team. In her character, the facets of the talent of an administrator and a professional are highlighted, a person with a rare charm and adamant in achieving the set goal. She managed to implant all her personal qualities into the fabric of her favorite work, to which she has given all of herself without a trace for more than half a century.

Always first!

Not everyone is given to be the first. One must have an indomitable character of high temper. Exactly the same as that of Valentina Yakovlevna Belyaeva. It is no coincidence that she entered the history of the development of the oil and gas complex as an active participant in several large projects that have become milestones in the development of the country's economy and its regions.

In the early 1980s, Valentina Yakovlevna was appointed one of the leaders of the construction of the Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhgorod transcontinental gas pipeline. This grandiose megaproject was considered one of the most important even in the USSR, a country with a powerful economy. Belyaeva brilliantly coped with problems of any complexity, and there were a lot of them on the track. And even managed to think over, substantiate and prove a fundamentally new method of construction. Her proposals were innovative and broke stereotypes that had been established for decades, which seemed unshakable even among venerable professionals.

Today this flow-dismembered method proposed by her seems to be a "classic of the genre", but thirty years ago it became a major step forward in the practice of oil and gas construction, and thanks to its application in the industry, labor productivity has significantly increased. Suffice it to say that gas builders began to lay 1 kilometer of finished pipes every day (or 20 kilometers per month), significantly accelerating the pace of work. This fact is recorded in the Guinness Book of Records. And the government awarded the renowned innovator with the Gold Star of the Hero of Socialist Labor. And there are many such facts in her biography.

Flamboyant leader

More than half a century of Valentina Yakovlevna's activity from the first day to the last is illuminated by the high meaning of serving her homeland and people. The daily circle of her worries is truly the circle of life. She draws reserves of her own spirit in communication with her colleagues, and of any rank, who see in her a person who is always ready to help in word and deed. Her calmness and confidence create a zone of attraction that people always guess correctly. A leader always radiates powerful energy, which, in turn, generates energy in the people around him. Especially if this leader is a Woman.

Belyaeva is characterized by a large-scale vision of the problems of the development of the industry, constant search and high professionalism in the implementation of practical tasks of preparation for the implementation of the next project. Oil and gas construction workers are a nomadic profession. It is important not only to fulfill the next order on time, but also to confirm the high bar of the team's image. And here I must say about one more character trait of the CEO - her constant concern for people. Wherever the next construction begins, the work starts with the arrangement of everyday life and recreation, the creation of household towns. Valentina Yakovlevna personally checks the readiness of these objects. For example, she tries food and helps young cooks with advice, and if necessary, she herself stands at the stove, prepares food for several hundred hungry men.

Chinese wisdom says: "Graceful words are untrue, truthful words are inelegant." Valentina Yakovlevna can always find the words she needs, understandable to everyone present. She knows how to mentally and confidentially talk with workers, after a conversation they seem to grow wings. By nature, constantly charged with energy, able to look at problems through a magnifying glass, possessing a rare ability to bring things to a victorious end, she is wise and reckless at the same time in her favorite business. He never tries to look "white and fluffy", does not give up his positions and principles. Always and with everyone consistently defends the letter and spirit of laws, state interests. The search for truth is more important for her than any conventional barriers. Therefore, she is called the first everywhere, no matter what she undertakes. The best leader and specialist, the best mother and grandmother, the best culinary specialist and the soul of the company, at the same time does not indulge himself or those around him. Because the main thing in life for her is the Deed.

Fate issued a long-distance ticket for Valentina Yakovlevna's activities. And today the collective of the trust performs important tasks, which are set by the key partner of the trust, OAO Gazprom. The trust, headed by its illustrious leader, is a direct participant in the implementation of the largest oil and gas projects in recent years: Yamal-Europe, Severo-Evropeyskiy, Tengiz-Novorossiysk, Yaroslavl-Kirishi, Sakhalin-2 and many others. The projects are of major national importance and are designed to strengthen the country's economy. This is the whole meaning of her life.

According to the SPARK-Interfax database and the lists of affiliates, 22.9% of SMT shares belong to the chairman of the board of directors Alexei Mikhailichenko, 20% to Valentina Belyaeva, the same amount to her son Sergei, the executive director of the trust. Another 20% - from the deputy general director for economics Lyudmila Nevler, 11% - from the head of the production and technical department, Lyudmila Kapralenko, 0.24% - from the deputy general director for supply Sergei Nazarov (the remaining 6% control, according to Belyaeva, almost 180 more shareholders ).

All of the current owners have been working in the trust for most of their lives and are just as familiar with each other. The average age of members of the CMT board of directors is 73.6 years, of top managers - over 60 years. The transformation of the state trust into a private company has changed almost nothing for them, Belyaeva admits: “We just continue to work as before. I never even think that we are some kind of separate shareholders. " More than 20 dynasties work in SMT, and the company's head office does not at all look like a faceless administrative building - rather, it resembles an apartment where photographs from objects, gratitude and diplomas are hung on the walls. All issues in the trust are still resolved together: they train new personnel, help with housing, there is even a small own pension fund, says Belyaeva. “The old workers appreciate all this and do not leave, but young people do not really take root: the conditions are difficult,” she adds bitterly.

The chairman of the board of directors of SMT Aleksey Mikhailichenko headed the trust for 20 years, but in 2000 transferred the management of the company to Valentina Belyaeva

Fight for survival

The Welding and Assembly Trust was founded in 1947. During the Soviet era, he built sections on almost all the main gas and oil pipelines of the country, participated in the development of 59 fields and even built the Togliatti-Odessa ammonia pipeline. “There were dozens of such trusts in the system of the Ministry of Oil and Gas Construction, and only one has survived,” notes Mikhail Altmark, First Vice President of Stroygazconsulting, with regret.

In the early 1990s, large oil and gas construction projects came to a halt and the CMT management had to think about business diversification for the first time. The then head of the company, Alexei Mikhailichenko, was familiar with the head of the Moscow Construction Complex, Vladimir Resin, and through him asked the then mayor of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov to accept the trust as a part of the city's construction assets. Resin's representative did not respond to RBC's request.

Luzhkov accepted the offer, and SMT began to lay communications in new districts of Moscow. “We built water pipelines, heating systems, sewerage systems in Mitino, Lyubertsy and Maryino. Then they began to make the second stage of Zelenograd and for ten years they laid all communications in this city. The trust did in a year what Moscow builders did in two years, ”Mikhailichenko says with pride.

In 1993, it was corporatized. “They wanted to split us into departments of 350 people, but we didn’t allow this: at the general meeting we decided that we wanted to be corporatized as a single company,” Mikhailichenko recalls. At that time, the SMT employed 4.5 thousand people. Privatization took place in two stages: first, employees bought out 50% plus one share of the company (the top management then had only 1%). Three to four months later, the owners of the remaining 49%, the State Property Committee and the Moscow government, announced new auctions for 25 and 24% of the trust, respectively. “To redeem the remaining shares, we, together with the State Property Committee, had to open points for accepting applications for participation in auctions in Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod and Ukhta (Komi),” says Mikhailichenko.

Until the end of the 1990s, the company continued to lay communications in Moscow and began to engage in gasification of regions - Mordovia, Komi, Oryol region. “We survived the lack of money and the collapse of the currency, we were paid with cement and vodka. We built everything that we offered, that's why we survived: we did not refuse any work, ”says Belyaeva.

“Before the default, we invested the money we earned in projects frozen by Gazprom - we were slowly completing facilities with our own funds. It was clear that the concern would soon need these objects anyway, ”adds Mikhailichenko. “As a result, the company received payment for the constructed gas pipelines at new, post-default rates.”

At the beginning of the 2000s, the Russian economy began to grow, and the monopolies began building new pipelines. In 2000, SMT began work on the large-diameter Tengiz-Novorossiysk (CPC) oil pipelines and the Baltic Pipeline System, and later Gazprom also began building new lines.

In 2000, the head of LUKOIL, Vagit Alekperov, invited Alexei Mikhailichenko to head LUKOIL-Neftegazstroy (now Globalstroy-Engineering). “Alekperov promised large-scale projects, I agreed, and transferred the trust to Valentina,” says Mikhailichenko, who retained his seat on the board of directors of the trust. He returned to SMT in 2008, is now in charge of production and occupies an office opposite Belyaeva. LUKOIL's representative did not respond to RBC's request.

"Construction of the century" and SMT

Sakhalin-2
More than 800 km of oil and gas pipelines running in parallel and designed to transport gas from north to south of the island. SMT built 380 km of routes on Sakhalin-2

Gryazovets - Vyborg
The Russian part of Nord Stream is 917 km long and has a design capacity of 55 billion cubic meters. m per year. SMT built 190 km of the first string of the gas pipeline

Bovanenkovo \u200b\u200b- Ukhta and Ukhta - Torzhok
Gas pipelines with a length of about 1.1 thousand km, with a design capacity of 140 billion cubic meters. meters of gas per year and 1.3 thousand km, with a capacity of 81.5 billion cubic meters. m of gas per year, respectively. SMT built 134.5 km of pipes on Bovanenkovo \u200b\u200b- Ukhta, 100 km on the Ukhta - Torzhok gas pipeline and two compressor stations - Chikshinskaya and Sosnogorskaya

After another crisis in 2008, gas pipeline construction proceeded unevenly, in 2010 and 2013, SMT's revenue fell by almost half compared to previous years. The trust was forced to look for other sources of income, for example, it built several compressor stations. The company came out of these projects with losses, but Belyaeva claims that she decided to build the stations for image reasons: once again it was necessary to prove to the big general contractors that “SMT can do it”.

Customers and competitors

Workers of the Welding and Assembly Trust have welded the first joints of many of the largest gas pipelines in recent years. In archival photographs from the beginning of construction of the second line Gryazovets - Vyborg (through which export gas enters Nord Stream) in 2005 and the first line Bovanenkovo \u200b\u200b- Ukhta (intended for transporting gas from the Yamal fields) in 2008, Belyaeva stands next to the head of “ Gazprom ”by Alexey Miller.

Under her leadership, SMT has over the past 15 years built sections of the Yamal - Europe, Pochinki - Gryazovets, Ukhta - Torzhok gas pipelines, both Gryazovets - Vyborg lines, the Southern Corridor, the Sakhalin-2 gas pipeline and oil pipeline, and sections of the Tengiz - Novorossiysk and Baltic oil pipelines. pipeline system contracted by Transneft. “The company can make 400 km of large-diameter pipes per year, but on average we have 200 km - then the economy is normal,” says Belyaeva.


In 1983, the current general director of SMT, Valentina Belyaeva, was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor for the introduction of an integrated method in the construction of trunk gas pipelines. (Photo: Anton Berkasov for RBC)

The main customer of such pipelines is Gazprom, but SMT rarely works directly with it. “For the last 10-12 years, most of our contracts have been subcontracting, so building a portfolio of orders every year is a test,” Belyaeva admits. When asked who the main competitors of the trust are, he jokes: "That's it!" Most often, CMT enters into contracts with companies with which it competes in tenders, but the cost of a contract under such a scheme is reduced by 30% or more. The representative of "Gazprom" did not respond to the request of RBC.

The bulk of Gazprom's contracts are traditionally divided between three main general contractors: Stroygazmontazh by Arkady Rotenberg, ZAO Stroytransgaz controlled by Gennady Timchenko, and Stroygazconsulting, which grew up under Ziyad Manasir, and now belongs to Gazprombank and the UCP fund under the management Ilya Shcherbovich. How does the CMT manage to survive surrounded by such giants?

“When choosing a subcontractor, we invite the Welding and Assembly Trust first,” says Andrey Klepach, Deputy General Director of Stroytransgaz for Onshore Oil and Gas Construction. According to him, the trust has a reputation of a company that always fulfills what it promises: CMT can work on complex objects and has never failed. “We work with everyone who offers orders, and we always try to fulfill them with high quality,” agrees Belyaeva. She conducts negotiations with customers personally. “Valentina never allowed anyone to sit on her neck,” says Mikhail Altmark. “Belyaeva stands her ground to the last and defends the interests of the trust,” agrees Alexey Polyakov, general director of Transneft-Sever, another major customer of SMT.

The heads of Stroytransgaz, Stroygazconsulting and Transneft interviewed by RBC could only call the Armenian company Zakneftegazstroy-Prometey a direct competitor to SMT, although it has significantly reduced its presence on the Russian market in recent years. “There are practically no subcontractors capable of working on large-diameter pipes: some have disappeared into large general contractors [like Lengazspetsstroy and Krasnodargazstroy at Stroygazmontazh], others just went bankrupt,” says Klepach.

SMT's position on the market is determined by how successfully the company cooperates with major players such as Stroytransgaz, Stroygazconsulting and Stroygazmontazh, summarizes Sergey Ter-Sarkisyants, advisor to the general director of Stroytransgaz.

Trust in yourself

“Valentina comes from the system of the Ministry of Oil and Gas Construction, she kept both the old system and the people in the trust,” says Mikhail Yakibchuk, First Vice President of Stroygazconsulting. “The most valuable thing for a contractor is people, and at SMT, every person is over five years old and has been working together for decades,” Altmark insists.

At noon, at a long table in Belyaeva's office, secretary Galina serves lunch for the inhabitants of the second floor: earthenware, simple hearty food - salad, fish soup and a second. Lunch looks the same in the dining room at the base of the SMT "Chornaya Gryaz" near Moscow. Here they repair equipment, prepare materials for shipment to facilities, retrain welders. Buildings of "Black Mud", trailers and even a gazebo by a small pond with crucians are decorated with carved forged gratings - they are made here in one of the workshops. Belyaeva visits the base regularly, at least once every two months. She personally checks the variety of dishes in the dining room and the cleanliness of the workshops. “For the dirt in the workplace, the CEO will pull out my mustache,” jokes one of the employees of “Black Mud”.

CMT in numbers

73.6 years - average age of members of the CMT board of directors
53 years works at SMT, CEO Valentina Belyaeva
278% accounted for the growth of revenue of the trust in 2014
72,5% was the drop in the trust's revenue in 2013



Belyaeva Valentina Yakovlevna - Head of the Integrated Technological Stream No. 2 of the State Welding and Assembly Trust of the Ministry of Construction of Oil and Gas Industry Enterprises of the USSR.

She was born on December 31, 1937 in the village of Alekseevka, Kamyzyaksky District, Astrakhan District, Stalingrad Region, now Kamyzyaksky District, Astrakhan Region. Russian.

She graduated from high school in 1953, entered the Astrakhan Oil Technical School, from where she transferred to the Stalingrad Oil Technical School and graduated in 1957. Since 1957 - plant operator, plant manager at the Novogorkovsky refinery in the town of Kstovo, Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod) region.

Since 1962, throughout his life, he has been continuously working in the State Welding and Assembly Trust, which was then located in the city of Zheleznovodsk, Stavropol Territory and carried out the construction of the Zaterechny-Grozny oil pipeline and the Stavropol-Ukraine-Moscow-Leningrad gas pipeline. The first position in the trust is a gasification foreman.

But already in 1963 the trust was transferred to the development of oil and gas fields in Western Siberia and was based in the city of Urai in the Tyumen region, where it performed tasks for the construction of the Druzhba oil pipeline. Together with the trust, V.Ya. Belyaeva, worked as a construction site foreman, foreman, head of the construction and installation site of the construction and installation department No. 13. Since 1967 - the head of the site of the specialized department No. 4 of the trust in Perm, since 1970 - the head of the site of the specialized department No. 6 of the trust in Ukhta, Komi ASSR ... Since 1980, as part of the trust, she has been working on laying the main route of the Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhgorod gas pipeline.

Since 1982 he has been the head of the complex technological stream No. 2 of the welding and assembly trust, continuing work on the construction of the same gas pipeline. On the stream, the stream-dismembered method of organizing construction and brigade contract proposed by her was introduced. This organization of labor made it possible to achieve the rate of pipe laying in the main line of the gas pipeline of 21 kilometers per month, which is 2.5 times higher than the industry norm.

For outstanding services in the construction of oil and gas industry enterprises and in connection with the early commissioning of the Urengoy - Pomary - Uzhgorod gas pipeline at the installed capacity by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated October 6, 1983 Belyaeva Valentina Yakovlevna awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor with the Order of Lenin and the Hammer and Sickle gold medal.

He continues to work in the industry at the same enterprise (since 1993 - a joint stock company). Since 1988 - head of the specialized department No. 4 of the trust. Since February 2000 - General Director of the Joint Stock Company Welding and Assembly Trust, which is building gas and oil pipelines throughout the territory of the Russian Federation. Over the years of work in the industry, with her direct participation and under her leadership, the oil pipelines Shaim - Tyumen, Gorky - Ryazan, Gorky - Yaroslavl, Tengiz - Novorossiysk, gas pipelines Punga - Ukhta - Torzhok, Vyngapur - Chelyabinsk, Central Asia - Center, "Shining of the North ", Nyuksenitsa - Plesetsk-Mirny, Yamal - Europe, SRTO - Torzhok, Gryazovets - Vyborg, Bovashinovo - Ukhta, Baltic Pipeline System, North European Gas Pipeline, distribution transshipment complex for oil products in the city of Vysotsk, Yuzhno-Shapkinskoye oil and gas condensate field has been developed , a lot others. In 2013, the personal state of V.Ya. Belyaeva was estimated at US $ 65 million.

She was elected a deputy of the Pochinkovsky District Council of People's Deputies (Gorky Region).

Lives in the hero city of Moscow.

She was awarded the Orders of Lenin (06.10.1983), the Order of the Red Banner of Labor (02.03.1981), the medal "For Labor Merit" (01.07.1966), and other medals.

State Prize of the Republic of Mordovia (2000). "Honored Builder of the Russian Federation" (31.05.1998). "Honorary Oil and Gas Builder" (2002).

Women's novels with big business

Just don't compare them with Vassa Zheleznova. Otherwise, the enlightened public will laugh for a long, long time, to tears. The heroine of Gorky's play is by no means a model for modern business women. Another century, a different pace and style of life, somewhat European, somewhat American. Although let's be fair: some of our entrepreneurs still "conduct business in an overly Russian way", demonstrating an irresistible will, exceptional determination and a stubborn unwillingness to raise their hands up when attacking ruthless competitors.

"Hammer and Sickle" of the general director of the trust

Perhaps the most non-standard, most striking character in the rating of the fifty richest women in Russia published in the fall issue of the Forbeswumen quarterly business publication is Valentina Belyaeva, General Director of Welding and Assembly Trust (SMT). Experts estimate her fortune - 19.9% \u200b\u200bof CMT shares - at $ 50 million. But who, tell me, will try to assess how much this woman has endured on her shoulders, who has been engaged in one business for more than half a century - the construction of trunk pipelines in the country.

She is from the "children of war" generation. Her native village Alekseevka was not in the front line. But even there, not far from the Caspian, one could feel the harsh breath of the great Battle of Stalingrad. In the mid-fifties, young Valentina will come to the hero city. After graduating from an oil technical school in Stalingrad, she will go to her first construction site in Kstovo, where the Novogorkovsky refinery was being built. Then there will be a lot of them, construction projects - on a huge area from Sakhalin to the Baltic coast.

Let's think for a minute: why did Boris Evdokimovich Shcherbina, who headed the Ministry of Construction of Oil and Gas Industry Enterprises of the USSR for more than ten years, appointed Valentina Belyaeva in 1982 as the head of the Integrated Technological Stream No. 3 on the construction of the Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhgorod transcontinental gas pipeline? Wasn't there a highly experienced Siberian engineer in the industry for this job? Yes, everything is simple: the famous minister knew the personnel of the builders very well. He knew that even the aces brigade leaders admitted: "Belyaeva is a specialist with a divine spark. Her decisions are always verified and accurate."

In 1983, Valentina Belyaeva experienced her finest hour: a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was issued on awarding her the title of Hero of Socialist Labor with the award of the Order of Lenin and the Hammer and Sickle gold medal.

Imagine how a professional denouncer, playing the role of a left radical in front of the household, will start up at these words, how he will scream hysterically: our heroine has become bourgeois, she has become a privatizer. Yes, Belyaeva and her closest employees privatized the SMT. But any other options could be disastrous for the team. It is easy to guess what would have happened to the trust if it had been seized by patented swindlers, "tsehoviks" with a criminal past, who sewed slippers and caps. Nothing would have remained of it - it would have been resold and plundered many times.

SMT held out in the "dashing nineties". And its specialists, who went through the magnificent Soviet school, did not remain idle. They have participated in the implementation of major projects in recent years. Such as the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline, the Baltic pipeline system and others.

Elena Baturina changed the region

It was in the "dashing nineties" that the business career of Elena Baturina began, who with a fortune of one billion dollars is the first in the list of the richest entrepreneurs of the Russian Federation. In an interview with Forbeswomen, she said, not without pride, that the study of her "workers 'and peasants' pedigree right up to the 16th century" had testified that in the Baturyn clan "there is no one but Russians."

But it was not this "discovery" that influenced the transformation of the creator of a modest metropolitan cooperative into the owner of the large Inteko company. Other springs have worked here. It is clear that she is unlikely to ever agree that her "ascent to the billion" would have been impossible without the active use of the enormous administrative resource that her husband, Yuri Luzhkov, who held the post of mayor of Moscow for 18 years, had at his disposal. And yet, and yet ...

After his resignation in 2010, she sold Inteko to Mikhail Shishkhanov, who is a close relative of the Gutseriev oligarchic clan. "Until I completed the project" business in Russia ", that's for sure. Probably, my, so to speak, insight and wisdom," praised "in the media, do not allow me to step on the same rake," - said not without humor. However, he does not interfere with the feeling: the ex-mayor's wife knows her worth. And Yuri Luzhkov never misses an opportunity to pay tribute to the talents of his wife: "I am still amazed by the eccentricity of my wife. She always, even in acute cases, finds non-standard solutions."

But in the case of "embassy lands" the word "always" is clearly inappropriate. Let's not think about how the Inteko company got the squares, which, according to the Foreign Ministry officials, were intended for the construction of Moscow representations of foreign states. Let's just note that after Luzhkov's resignation, this tidbit of the capital's space was seized by the Russian authorities. But, apparently, Baturina still hopes for a successful outcome: she wrote and is still writing to Russian President Vladimir Putin about the illegal, from her point of view, the seizure of "embassy lands" and is suing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

There are many connoisseurs of "Moscow life" who know whose side the capital's court would have taken seven or eight years ago. But let's not engage in frivolous historical reconstructions. Let's better listen to how projects are being implemented in the West, in which the money received from the sale of Inteko is invested: "In principle, we are now continuing to do the same thing as in Russia - construction, development. We have just changed the region, now we are working in America and Europe ". How easy and simple it turns out in the global world economy: they just changed the region ...

And one more striking statement: "By the way, I was pleasantly surprised: it seemed to me that the most profitable business can only be done here, in Russia." According to Baturina, if projects in the West are selected correctly, then "the profitability can be comparable to that which we received in Russia, even higher."

But this is hard to believe. Nowhere on the planet, except in our country, have the top officials engaged with such zeal in the high-speed cultivation of dollar billionaires. Not surprisingly, successive governments in post-Soviet Russia invariably followed the main neoliberal slogan: "The less state in the economy, the better for the economy." In order to raise the first hundred billionaires, it took gardeners from the Cabinet of Ministers not centuries, not decades, but a few years.

The parable of the fishing rod and the swamp with frogs

To get an idea of \u200b\u200bBaturina's business interests, it is not enough to mention construction and development. Do not forget about the network of four hotels in Austria, Ireland, the Czech Republic and Russia managed from its head office in London, about the project in the field of alternative energy, which is supposed to be implemented in Italy, and, of course, about Luzhkov's agribusiness in the Kaliningrad region. He "plans to feed the Russian fleet with buckwheat" and wants to recreate the Romanov breed of sheep. His special concern for horses: after all, they awaken memories of the time when Elena Baturina was engaged in equestrian sports.

The oligarchic world is bizarre and cruel. Its inhabitants live a life that does not in any way intersect with the primordial folk. They often make surprised eyes: where are so many poor in an "equal opportunity society"? So we, like them, received in 1991 not a fish, but a fishing rod. But for some reason, our bite is always excellent, and their float does not even twitch. Well, let's answer the metaphor with a metaphor: the officials just sat you down at a lured fishing place, sending the poor to the swampy shore of a swamp covered with mud, where only frogs are found. However, the business of the super-rich, convinced that they have managed to get everyone around their fingers, is not as sustainable as it might seem. At the first breath of the financial and economic crisis, they send an "SOS" signal to the government. This winter, it has spent hundreds of billions of rubles on saving private banks and enterprises.

And the Cabinet of Ministers has new expenses ahead. The August turmoil in the global stock market caused panic in the community of Russian oligarchs. When they woke up, they found that several entrepreneurs, whose assets had plummeted in value, had to leave the ranks of dollar billionaires. Among them was Alexander Lutsenko, who, together with his wife Natalia, owns 90% of the shares of the Sodruzhestvo company, which began with the sale of compound feed. Then, having built oil extraction plants in the Kaliningrad Special Economic Zone, it became one of the largest producers of vegetable oils in the Russian Federation. The terminal in Kaliningrad, which belongs to the Commonwealth, has a similar specialization: they are engaged in transshipment of tropical vegetable oils.

All in all, the business for the couple, whose combined fortune was estimated at $ 1.1 billion, was very profitable. And it is not surprising that Natalya Lutsenko followed Baturina in number two in the Forbeswomen rating: after all, her capital "weighed" $ 550 million. But now this is the figure of yesterday. After calculating the losses incurred at the end of the summer by the family tandem, according to experts, it may decrease by a quarter.

The problems of revaluation of own assets did not pass by the deputy general director of the TAIF group, Guzelia Safina, who, with a fortune of $ 430 million, occupies the third line in the list of the richest entrepreneurs in our country. Now the company where she has been working for almost twenty years is going through hard times. Brothers Airat and Radik Shaimiev, sons of the first president of Tatarstan, who are among the co-owners of TAIF, have recently lost their status as dollar billionaires. There is nothing to be done, the collapse of the global stock market is usually accompanied by emptying the pockets of gaping tycoons. But Kamilya, the granddaughter of Mintimer Shaimiev, who ruled the republic until March 2010, was right: in the summer of 2014, she sold her two-percent stake in TAIF. Apparently very successful. According to the women's business publication, her current capital is $ 190 million.

The ex-wife of the oligarch has the wrong address

Having found themselves at the helm of hydrocarbon, industrial, transport, construction, information technology and other companies of various profiles, our entrepreneurs diligently demonstrate that the lady's aphorism: "Our strength is in weakness" is not about them. Their management style is often much tougher than that of men. As one businesswoman said, "any manifestation of sentimentality in our country is vulgar, and nothing more."

Of course, one must bear in mind: even a complete transfer of capital into kindred female hands does not mean that yesterday's business owner has retired forever. Sometimes this is just a cover-up operation, allowing, in particular, federal officials to avoid accusations of violating legal and ethical norms: they say, you have a conflict of interest, doing business, you are using your official position. But as soon as the assets go to the wife of the clerk, he is clean and impeccable.

For several years now, we have been hearing from the press service of the first deputy prime minister of the Russian government: Igor Shuvalov is not engaged in business and does not participate in the management of family capital. Here the first violin is played by his wife Olga - the main keeper of the common "money box" with 125 million dollars.

Well, now about one of Igor Shuvalov's predecessors - Vladimir Potanin, who served as First Deputy Prime Minister in 1996-1997. The inventor of loans-for-shares auctions, he launched the next stage in the plundering of the Soviet industrial heritage: highly profitable industrial giants were sold to the "chosen ones" for a pittance. Naturally, Potanin and his companion Mikhail Prokhorov were not left without a prize, they went to the Norilsk Mining and Metallurgical Combine.

By the standards of the business community, life is good: this spring Potanin, whose capital, according to Forbes magazine, has grown to $ 15.4 billion, has become the richest entrepreneur in the Russian Federation. But is the pedestal on which the oligarch was erected so strong? The fact is that he has a series of lawsuits ahead of him with an unpredictable outcome. The ex-wife of super-rich man No. 1, who has filed lawsuits in Russia, the United States and Cyprus, claims half of Potanin's stake in Norilsk Nickel and Interros.

This story could be considered unworthy of public attention, if not for one circumstance. In case of winning the case in court, Natalya Potanina "plans to transfer to the state the management" of the assets of Norilsk Nickel being transferred to her. She did not take into account one thing: the mission of our government is not reduced to the management of private capital - it is sacred and inviolable for officials, but to the sale of state-owned companies. It is now calm at the privatization fair. And the crisis will end, and its gates will open wide to the exclamations calling out: "Come in, gentlemen! State property is getting cheaper right before our eyes!"

 

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