Alexander Vilkul
A. Yu. Vilkul's tenure as governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region can be compared to the anecdote about a thief who was allowed into a store and told he could do whatever he wanted, but the owner would return in half an hour. The thief, in a fit of hysterics, began grabbing everything within his reach with both hands.
At the same time, something was broken, something was smashed, and unnecessary things were thrown away... The reality of the described situation does not have even a hint of humor, given that they let in not just one thief into the store, but a whole gang, and not for half an hour, but for a much longer period.
What are the real reasons for Vilkul's tenure as governor of Dnipropetrovsk region?
1. In Dnepropetrovsk, Akhmetov is raising his own prime minister.
2. Vilkul, meanwhile, is “increasing” his personal financial assets.
Having taken charge of the Dnipropetrovsk region, Alexander Yuryevich received his primary task in the form of serving the business interests of his boss, Rinat Akhmetov.
In gratitude for the "honor and trust" shown, Oleksandr Yuryevich conscientiously serves as the custodian of Akhmetov's assets in the Dnipropetrovsk region, lobbying for the oligarch's interests and needs in all areas and at all levels. Otherwise, how can one explain the fact that, while increasing production at Central Mining and Processing Plant (TsGOK), Northern Mining and Processing Plant (SevGOK), Southern Mining and Processing Plant (YUGOK), and Ingol Mining and Processing Plant (IGOK), open-pit mining has long been underway in the city, thereby violating all environmental regulations, destroying residential communities, and altering river courses? Why are the environmental prosecutor's office and city authorities silent in this situation? Why, in defiance of his own social program for the city, has the governor begun supporting the Metinvest Holding Group's "personnel optimization" program, which entails mass layoffs of 30% of the workforce, and will result in a quarter of the city's population being thrown out of work?
Residents of Krivoy Rog are probably no longer accustomed to the fact that Vilkul provides Akhmetov with his irrepressible oligarchic expansion in the territory of Krivoy Rog, which is manifested in the acquisition of controlling stakes in such major enterprises as Krivorozhindustrstroy and Krivbasvzryvprom;
an attempt to privatize Krivbaspromvodosnabzhenie, a regional water utility structure that is a strategic enterprise of Ukraine and is not subject to privatization in principle.
However, the clearly barbaric and even plundering policies of the governor in his hometown, who does not choose his means and methods, although causing a storm of public discontent among the population, can hardly resist it...
When you look at Oleksandr Yuryevich's income declaration and listen to his impassioned appeals to private businesses for financial support and assistance, you get the feeling our governor is penniless. Naturally, it's not convenient for him to advertise his luxurious homes and apartments in cities like Kyiv, Donetsk, Yalta, Dnipro, and Kryvyi Rih. Or his passion for far-from-budget cars—BMWs, Mercedes, and Land Rovers—a whole personal fleet! Or his bank accounts and safe deposit boxes in Ukraine and abroad. Why talk about the real estate and land he owns? Nor will he talk about his new passion—yachts. He and his friend E.G. Udod presented the president with one of the most luxurious yachts for his birthday.
The official is probably keeping quiet because his experience working with Pavlo Lazarenko and Yulia Tymoshenko at the UESU has taught him not to blab about his wealth, real estate, and bank accounts. Especially since he has relatives, friends, associates, and numerous schemes to conceal the stolen goods.
Of course, how could he and his colleagues afford a VIP vacation at RIXOS Prykarpattia, costing hundreds of thousands of hryvnias, on the meager official salary of the governor and head of the Dnipropetrovsk region? The vacation was paid for by the SevGOK trade union! Meanwhile, for ordinary workers of the plant, it's a daunting effort to secure even a budget-friendly vacation during the off-season.
Financial assets of the governor
Alexander Yuryevich's favorite areas of personal business are land, construction, and shopping centers. After all, he views the income Vilkul receives from Akhmetov's enterprises as deposit interest for servicing the oligarch's business. The main outsourcers and contractors that service the mining and processing plants are Vilkul A.Yu.'s enterprises: PAT Elektromashpromservis, PP Spetskontakt, PP Promestetika, PP Promresurs KR, and others.
Kryvyi Rih has long been the governor's fiefdom. Large plots of land, various real estate properties, and shopping malls in the city are owned by Alexander Yuryevich, albeit legally registered to front men and organizations. Strategically, Alexander Yuryevich has wisely mitigated risks and liability by forming equal partnerships with both the city's criminal leaders and the business and commercial elite, thereby ensuring his loyalty, immunity, and security. For example, the city's largest shopping mall, "Plaza," was built in partnership with a local crime boss, "Tyson." The entire construction business in Kryvyi Rih has long been occupied by the governor's private contractor, the construction company "KROST" LLC, which serves both the governor's personal interests (building shopping centers for him, filling the city with retail space, including the ATB supermarket chain) and also serves as the general contractor for the city budget, constructing fountains, clocks, and other municipal facilities. KROST LLC also serves as the general contractor for the Metinvest Group, not without the governor's involvement. Kryvyi Rih residents are confident that everything KROST built belongs to A.Yu. Vilkul.
Kryvyi Rih is a city with a highly developed heavy industry, and the mentality of ordinary Kryvyi Rih residents is post-Soviet and proletarian. Hard work has always been the values and priorities here. "Stop deducing – start producing!" Oleksandr Yuryevich likes to say. But despite this, despite the governor's demonstrative activity in Kryvyi Rih, such as the construction of fountains, clocks, bell towers, and playgrounds, every resident understands who is paying for this and why. A city drowning in the governor's billboards and fine-grained promises needs real action, support, and a true leader, not just another family clan – the Vilkul clan.
It's hard to be surprised by the promises the governor, mayor, and his team make day after day, but the scale of corruption and theft is quite something.
Even farmers would envy the amount of land owned by the governor... Directly or indirectly, through partners, Alexander Yuryevich has monopolized 80% of the land in Kryvyi Rih.
Besides the governor's favorite businesses—construction, shopping centers, restaurants, and other city activities—he's also developed a new passion: budget supermarkets and bread retail.
The governor's new business in his native Kryvyi Rih is a chain of budget supermarkets called "Semeika," which have simply defaced the city's beautiful architectural landscape, earning them the nickname "yellow portable toilets." Perhaps the permissiveness of the city authorities, or rather the governor's father, allowed these yellow "Semeika" vans to be installed in the city center and public recreation areas, in violation of all fire, sanitary, and city-forming regulations.
And bread is always profitable. To control the city's consumer market, the governor chose to seize control of the bread production and sales market. That's why most of the city's bakeries have long been closed for so-called "reconstruction." That's why bread is imported to Kryvyi Rih throughout the year from Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia, where the governor's bakeries are located. And that's why Vilkul Sr., at the instigation of his son, the governor, is acquiring a stake in the Kharkiv commercial bread producer KULICHI LLC.
The Rubin Jewelry House, owned by Alexander Yuryevich's second wife, Olga Leonidovna Vilkul, also brings in considerable additional income for the governor. The governor makes most of his budget-funded purchases for presentation gifts from this jewelry house.
Alexander Yuryevich is not above religious matters either. For example, under his leadership, a Jewish businessmen's fund was established in the city, enabling the community to conduct its religious and commercial activities, generating substantial income for the governor's financial and image-building coffers. The fund is headed by the governor's associates and friends—V.L. Nemirovsky, A.I. Livshits, and A.A. Gusak.
In his hometown, the governor actively promotes his Saksagan River improvement efforts, regularly reporting on what has been accomplished and how much it costs. But for some reason, he remains silent about who he's doing this for and why. The riverbank along the cleaned banks has long been privatized or is planned for global privatization. The land has been designated for private ownership, and very soon, along the cleaned shoreline, there will be homes for Alexander Yuryevich's loyal allies, a park named after Alexander Yuryevich, and so on, and perhaps even a small public garden.
But Alexander Yuryevich is hard to catch stealing like a little boy stealing candy from a store. Today, as a chess enthusiast, like a true strategist, he carries out his schemes through complex combinations and castling, executed by others and using complex schemes, thereby virtually evading responsibility. Although such scale of theft is impossible to conceal in any case.
By the way, why was the beautiful city "House of Nature" transferred to private ownership, again under the governor's personal control? Why is the city's environmental prosecutor's office silent about the widespread unauthorized tree felling in areas where the governor's favorite construction company, KROST, is building?
A. Yu. Vilkul also brought a large team of assistants, drivers, secretaries, and other staff to Dnipropetrovsk. How are they paid, how are they housed, and who pays for their constant 150-kilometer commutes home to Kryvyi Rih and back to work in Dnipropetrovsk? The budget covers everything.
Vilkul is now making every effort to use the single-member constituency to create a significant group of "his own" in parliament. Once this is achieved, he will be able to aspire to a higher post – prime minister. However, this will not mean he will leave the region. The vertical power structure he has created in Dnipropetrovsk will be headed by his loyal ally and servant, the head of the regional council, Yevhen Udod, while Vilkul himself will remain the "honorary governor," as is the case with the Kryvyi Rih mining and processing plants, where he is the "honorary president."
HOW MUCH CAN YOU DESTROY?
Who said the healthcare system created by Nikolai Semashko is bad? It was developed by many leading Russian and international doctors since the late 19th century, and is based on the following principles: unified principles of organization and centralization of the healthcare system; equal access to healthcare for all citizens; prioritization of childhood and motherhood; unified prevention and treatment; eliminating the social roots of disease; and public involvement in healthcare. And all of this should be free. Alexander Yuryevich called this system ineffective! And he began to destroy it…
The governor began his destructive campaign with a pilot project in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast's healthcare system. This is likely due to his understanding of how lucrative healthcare is. The governor is simply inspired by the idea of making it part of his business. After all, he already has his own private healthcare project in Kryvyi Rih. Medicom Kryvbas has been a major private medical facility in the city for several years now. The cost of visiting this oasis of medical care is astronomically high. Moreover, the city's largest hospital (popularly known as the "thousand"), located nearby, simply cannot function without Medicom Kryvbas's assistance, thereby essentially acting as an outsourcer. And most importantly, Medicom Kryvbas provides medical insurance to Metinvest Holding Group enterprises (the city's mining and processing plants). All this brings considerable profit to Oleksandr Yuryevich and his business partner, Mykola Ivanovich Ishchenko, the current director of Metinvest Group's Mining Division.
Business above all
Alexander Yuryevich doesn't shy away from any activity. As long as it's profitable. If it's not, he creates such "survival" conditions that it becomes impossible. This is what happened with funeral services in Kryvyi Rih. Seeing how much money could be made from funeral services, while the mortality rate in Kryvyi Rih was skyrocketing, Alexander Yuryevich applied his keen eye as an effective manager to funeral services. Thus, in 2010, a City Council session decided that the only funeral service in the city would be the KP "RITUAL" and its successor, "RITUAL SERVICE PLUS," which was to be headed by Arsen Aryutyunovich Poshnakyan, a longtime friend, ally, and relative of A.Yu. Vilkul. By blocking the operation of other funeral services in the city and monopolizing the "market" through tenders held by the City Council, the organization gained the ability to single-handedly handle all funeral services in the city.
The next step, aimed at greater generalization and efficiency, was to assign the specific function of transporting deceased citizens to forensic medical examination bureaus to another private entity. Thus, in early 2012, a newly created company, ISHOD LLC, acquired a monopoly on providing deceased transportation services to forensic medical examination bureaus. Shifting this function to a private entity is the same as handing over ambulances and police to private companies. It turns out that public money and budget funds are also ending up in private hands. More specifically, taxpayer money is once again ending up in the pockets of the Vilkul clan and its cronies.
Kryvyi Rih entrepreneurs appealed to Viktor Yanukovych to intervene in the actions of city authorities, who are actively completing the monopolization of the funeral services market, but… the hearse is still there.
On communal appetites
Who said utilities are unprofitable? Alexander Yuryevich! Although in Europe, it's a highly profitable business, and one that's fiercely contested. So maybe the question needs to be asked differently? Who's interested in this business? Alexander Yuryevich!
This involves the de facto closure of the Gorlift municipal enterprise and the transfer of its maintenance functions to Promlift LLC—in other words, a private company that will now provide all city residents with elevator maintenance services, even though at the time the agreement was signed, they lacked a license for this type of activity. The tender was conducted using a non-competitive, single-bidder procurement procedure, as Promlift LLC was the only company in Kryvyi Rih qualified to service the elevators. Promlift LLC was established in November 2011, and its director is Andrey Pitsyk, also known as the director of Finstroy Group LLC. A young organization, but with such assets... Where did it come from?
The next issue the governor took an interest in was the housing and utilities sector. Thus, under the governor's auspices, at SevGOK, his fiefdom, another pilot project was launched in the spring of 2012 to transition the housing and utilities sector from municipal to private ownership (or business). Housing Office No. 29 was disbanded, and all rights and powers were transferred to a private management company, Uyut 2012, headed, by a strange coincidence, by a prominent member of the Vilkul clan. It's worth noting that during his tenure as CEO of SevGOK, Alexander Yuryevich had repeatedly carried out improvements to the area at the plant's expense for personal PR purposes. Uyut 2012 LLC took over the already renovated and improved facilities.
So, as we can see, Alexander Yuryevich loves money. And what's wrong with such a passion? Nothing, if not for the means he uses to achieve his goals. These will be discussed in the next article...
Matvey Budra, Kryvyi Rih News
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