Alexander Ponomarev
It was worth digging into the personality of the magnate from Berdyansk, Alexander Ponomarev, and a lot of interesting things immediately emerged.
The former head of the Berdyansk city branch of the Party of Regions, a member of the eponymous faction in the Verkhovna Rada, who voted for the dictatorial laws on January 16, didn't emigrate, but rather settled in even better under the new government. He's now a friend of the Zaporizhzhia governor, and he's also got protection in the Presidential Administration. And while Vadym Kryvokhatko, a BPP MP who was terrorized during the Yanukovych era, is getting a hard time from his own government, former Party of Regions member Ponomarev not only gets away with everything, but is even given the green light.
In the glorious city of Berdyansk, Ponomarev is a solid manager. People sometimes say of him, "Yes, Sasha is a real jerk. But his business operates without the help of government money; he created it himself." For many years, Oleksandr Ponomarev, now a member of parliament, portrayed himself as a tough but honest businessman. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Mr. Ponomarev is in many ways (except for his size) similar to other Ukrainian oligarchs whose wealth came from parasitizing on the state. Rinat Akhmetov's DTEK cannot exist without preferential treatment in the energy sector, and his Metinvest trembles at the slightest tariff revision at Ukrzaliznytsia. And so, Oleksandr Ponomarev's "self-sufficient" business group, left without a foothold in power, will crumble within six months. Because there are people for whom the only way to get things done is by delivering envelopes to every government office.
Berdyansk's Golden Coast
Publications on the website "Nashi Groshi," which specializes in uncovering all sorts of equipment, are a continuous chronicle of the exploits of businessman Ponomarev's companies: "sold at an inflated price," "Ponomarev's company received ... millions," "Ponomarev's company won a contract," "a tender was awarded to companies close to A. Ponomarev." As the joke goes in the region, the aforementioned website could soon be renamed "Nashi Groshi, which Ponomarev owns."
From a recent epic. The 2015 local elections proved no less profitable for Ponomarev than the 2014 parliamentary elections. His insiders, who had gained power at all levels, began to recoup the money spent on the election campaign. We've already written about the Berdyansk MP's ties to the head of the Zaporizhia Regional State Administration, Kostiantyn Bryl. But having the ability to order the mayor or the regional council around is leverage no less powerful than a friendship with the governor. And he has both.
Speaking of land issues, Ponomarev is currently planning to expand his recreational lands on the spit. Currently, his private enterprise, "Azov Resorts," includes five resorts on the Berdyansk Spit. But the land at the base of the spit, located almost within the city limits, is much more attractive. It's this land that the millionaire has set his sights on after the local elections.
Thus, back in early 2016, a scandal erupted over a fictitious auction for the purchase of the destroyed buildings of a children's tuberculosis sanatorium.
Under Yanukovych, the sanatorium, which was owned by the Zaporizhzhia Regional Council, was being actively demolished by local Party of Regions members for subsequent privatization. But Oleksandr Ponomarev was fortunate enough to pick up the already "dilapidated" health resort. Behind seven locks, without any notices, the crumbling buildings and the accompanying two-plus hectares of land were auctioned off by regional council officials for 660 hryvnias.
Both companies, the notorious "Azov Resorts" and "Azov Voyage," were registered to Ponomarev's managers. When the story came to light, the main voice of the deal's legitimacy and the lack of alternatives emerged from another of the MP's associates, Serhiy Tkachenko, who had been appointed head of the regional council's budget committee. Tkachenko ran in the elections as deputy director of Berdyanskbudtrest LLC, a construction firm within Ponomarev's business group. Tkachenko's positions and his remarkable company are worth remembering; they will appear repeatedly in our story.
Sergey Tkachenko
Both regional council members and officials spent six months arguing over the ill-fated auction, only to finally admit that everything had been legal. And now Ponomarev will begin settling into the plot of land, bordering the Sea of Azov on one side and an estuary with healing mud on the other. Not a bad buy for 660 hryvnias, right? Even if the amount of "cutlets" they had to distribute to offices was three times that amount, it's still not bad.
But now Ponomarev, they say, has set his sights on a much more lucrative slab. The old Soviet health resorts, sprawled out at the base of the Berdyansk Spit, are major tenants of this golden land. Their owner, Priazovkurort, a private joint-stock company owned by the Federation of Trade Unions, is accumulating rental arrears. Now, Priazovkurort has reached a compromise with the city government—to give up most of its land outside the existing buildings and the area where "active recreational activities" take place. Priazovkurort has already given up its lease on ten hectares, and another 40-hectare plot is in the works.
In total, half a square kilometer at the very beginning of the spit, just outside the city, is freed up.
So who will the Berdyansk authorities choose as an investor willing to lease 50 hectares of land? A look at the biographies of the current "fathers and mothers of the city" reveals the obvious. Mayor Vladimir Chepurnoy came to power from "Nashe Krai" (Our Land) with Ponomarev's money. His deputies, Irina Plyushchiy, Oksana Deyeva, and Yulia Doynova, either worked for Ponomarev or his associates, or are related to his managers. Doynova, in particular, is the sister-in-law of Viktor Tsukanov, the head of the local BPP, a longtime Ponomarev employee, and the curator of "Sasha's" majority in the City Council. And City Council Secretary Alexey Kholod is also a trusted associate of Ponomarev and his assistant as a people's deputy.
And the heads of the council's relevant committees (land, planning and budget, municipal property): Bezverkhy, Popova, Bratenkov—all his people. Naturally, these worthy people will be impartial in their choice of a tenant for the coastal hectares.
By the way, a hundred square meters of land in this section of the Spit cost up to $10,000 in its heyday. Multiply that by 50 hectares… Well, you know, it's bingo!
How much money can be buried in the road and the shore?
But it's not just land matters that Ponomarev's "landing party" is helping their boss with. Contracting is also starting to improve. The construction firm "Berdyanskbudtrest" is in full swing. Since last fall, the company has received 11,2 million hryvnias for routine road repairs, according to the E-data portal. Of this amount, 2,44 million hryvnias were paid by local councils in the district of Ponomarev's junior business partner, Sergei Valentinov. The remaining 8,76 million hryvnias were "tossed in" by the Housing and Utilities Department of the Berdyansk Executive Committee. Considering the size of Berdyansk, all the roads there should be smooth as a mirror. But something's not quite right.
And Berdyanskbudtrest Deputy Director Sergei Tkachenko, appointed head of the regional council's budget committee, is even more "concerned" about his firm. Thanks to him, the regional budget has decided to spend a little money on the main bottomless pit in the south of our region—embankment protection. As the saying goes, you can watch running water, burning fires, and embankment protection work forever. For over a decade, officials from Berdyansk and other districts have been begging for money to protect these precious sandbars. They'll beg for 5-10 million, bury it in yet another plot, and then a storm will hit in a year or six months and blow everything to hell. And the civil servants and contractors will sigh and say, "Oh, well, it's the elements, what can you do?" And who knows how much money was buried there.
This year, Berdyanskbudtrest snagged another lucrative 11,4 million hryvnias. That's the cost of coastal protection work along Naberezhnaya Street, in the private sector at the base of the spit. In July, the company's bid was accepted by the regional Capital Construction Department, and the contract is now expected to be signed. Ponomarev had been fighting for this contract since last year, when the mayor and city council hadn't yet been reappointed. Berdyanskbudtrest representatives thwarted the bidding process with complaints, filed police reports, and strove to drag out the tender until the government finally got everything under control. And they finally did—now they have no rivals.
Also, at a Berdyansk City Council session in late July, the Ponomarev majority pushed through the allocation of 3 million rubles from the city treasury for road repairs on the spit. And the regional council, thanks to Tkachenko, also contributed another 12 million. The catch is that the city's roads remain in disrepair, but new asphalt will now be laid near the Ponomarev bases. Considering that the roads to the spit are already in fairly good condition, one wonders how much money will be stolen.
Bases and oils on a budget
The Ponomarev recreation centers, which are slated for road repairs, deserve special mention. Over the past few years, Alexander Sergeyevich has acquired a whole "bunch" of five recreational facilities at the southern end of the Berdyansk Spit, and it appears he's continuing to add more. And why not, if each of them consistently wins health-improvement tenders.
This year, the "Arktika" sanatorium was crowned the "champion." The sanatorium received a record-breaking 23,5 million hryvnias from the Industrial Accident and Occupational Disease Insurance Fund—a quarter of the total cost of the vouchers the Fund had ordered from various companies. To secure such a chunk of the proceeds, it was necessary to have connections at the capital level, which Mr. Ponomarev had already acquired during his short tenure as a member of parliament.
And last year, the Social Protection Fund for the Disabled ordered vouchers worth 10 million hryvnias from Ponomarevsky's "Arktika Sanatorium" and "Priazovye Resorts."
But Alexander Sergeyevich doesn't get rich solely from travel vouchers. His fuel company, Agrinol, where physical education teacher Sergei Valentirov, who later became a member of parliament, grew up and matured, also enjoys participating in tenders. For example, people can sell transformer oil to Zaporizhzhiaoblenergo at almost double the markup due to the inflated delivery lead.
Or they could rig the tender to supply lubricants to the Berdyansk seaport with an 80% markup, allowing only Agrinol and its own dealers to participate. And what Ponomarev did to the state-owned AZMOL with the help of his Agrinol warrants a separate criminal offense. Or several, but this time under the criminal code.
Land, roads, travel packages, and oil—all of this brings in millions. So you understand why people run for parliament. At the same time, our hero doesn't refuse even such a small thing as budget compensation for MPs' travel and accommodations. Oleksandr Sergeyevich, a multimillionaire with an impressive fleet of luxury cars, doesn't refuse compensation of 10-20 hryvnias.
I could go on and on about all this, but I think there are special bodies for that. No?
Let's conclude with a conclusion. Alexander Ponomarev's current algorithm for a "self-sufficient" business is as follows:
1. Through your connections as a member of parliament in Kyiv, you resolve the issue of budget travel to your bases.
2. Through your people in the regional council, you receive contracts and subsidies for your company to build roads to your own bases and other things.
3. Through your people in the city council, you grab land for more recreation centers and other things.
4. By participating in tenders, you can successfully secure sales contracts for your products, such as Agrinol oil. Very often at inflated prices. And so on.
Ultimately, Alexander Ponomarev, having become deeply involved in politics himself and brought in his own people, created a mechanism for skimming the cream off the budget at all levels. A Klondike!
This "independent" businessman is now striving for power in the Zaporizhzhia region. Because without leverage, his business won't survive for long.
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