Alexander Tkachev became richer. Tkachev

Encyclopedia of Plants 25.11.2023

Encyclopedia of Plants

Evgeniy Titov

Another large agricultural enterprise in the Kuban became the property of the Agrokompleks company, affiliated with the family of the Kuban governor Tkachev. We are talking about Pobeda JSC. Before this, the leadership of Pobeda trumpeted the raider takeover and wrote letters to Moscow, but it all ended the way it has been ending in Kuban for the last fifteen years. The peculiarities of Kuban agricultural production became known to the general public only thanks to the events in the village of Kushchevskaya, where the Tsapkov family kept the entire district in fear, and bandits killed dissenting farmers. Before this, the showcase of Kushchevka was the Tsapkovsky agricultural company - one of the most successful agricultural enterprises in the region. In this sense, the showcase of the entire Kuban is the Tkachev “Agrocomplex”, located in the homeland of the Kuban governor in the village of Vyselki. Before every harvest, distinguished guests are brought here, including Putin. Among the country's agricultural enterprises, Agrocomplex occupies one of the first places, if not the first. This agricultural holding united more than 10 agricultural enterprises, the same number of poultry factories, 6 factories, several elevators and meat processing plants. And every month “Agrocomplex” is growing. Novaya's correspondent found out how the Tkachevs created their company in the 90s and how the myth of the great Kuban prosperity is created.

This is Europe. This is what you think at the entrance to the village, when you are rushing along a smooth road. There is not a speck on the roadside, and the road signs seem to be washed every day. Why there are several branded road junctions near Vyselki at once is a substantive question. The village itself greets me with a Ferris wheel and a gazebo with columns and a marble floor. A path paved with paving slabs stretches from it to the amusement park. And about 50 meters down the street there is a rickety wooden shack. And the general impression of the village is like in Tarkovsky’s “Stalker”: deserted streets, destroyed fences, rusty carriages on the tracks. In a word, Vyselki is a village of contrasts. You feel this contrast especially strongly in the area of the sugar factory, where the local elite lives. The houses are in no way inferior to those on Rublevskoye Highway. The house of Alexander Tkachev himself is located on Kommunisticheskaya Street. Three-story red brick mansion. Surveillance cameras everywhere.

Nearby is the house of the Kuban vice-governor Yevgeny Gromyko. Only this mansion is already made of white brick. On the third floor there are porthole windows. The villagers speak either well of the governor or in whispers. Local residents with whom we managed to have a heart-to-heart talk put forward a condition: not to give their names. Outwardly, they have nothing against the governor. And how could it be otherwise, if the head of the Vyselkovsky district, Sergei Firstkov, is the godfather of Alexander Tkachev: the governor is the godfather of his daughter.

Kushchevka is resting

In the mid-90s, dashing guys operated in Vyselki. They bought agricultural products from peasants for pennies, not allowing outsiders into the area. Victor (name changed) was a driver at the Vyselkovsky elevator of the Agrocomplex. Today he recalls: “There were a lot of cars standing in line. These guys walked around and looked for other people's buyers in the queue. Then they forced me into their car and took me away for a conversation. An hour later, the buyer arrived, gave gas, and was never seen in Vyselki again.” In addition to fighting competitors, the group was also involved in other serious matters. A typical case occurred in 1996. Four farmers sold wheat to an entrepreneur from the Buryakovsky farm, in the Korenovsky district of Kuban (the name of the entrepreneur is known to the editors). To pay for the products, the entrepreneur went to Korenovsk to withdraw money from his bank account. The Vyselkovsky guys stopped him on the way on the highway and suggested: they go to Korenovsk together and the entrepreneur gives the money withdrawn from the account. Otherwise, his family will be killed on the farm right now. So the Vyselkovskys ended up with 300 million rubles in cash in their pockets. Moreover, they promised the entrepreneur that they would pay the farmers for the wheat, but, in simple terms, they cheated.

The farmers turned to the local police, who warned them: “Better not interfere, otherwise they might shoot you.” The Vyselkovsky District Prosecutor's Office also threw up its hands. Then the farmers moved to Krasnodar and turned to a large security company. They got down to business with enthusiasm, and then suddenly refused, mentioning Alexei Tkachev, the brother of the current governor. But the security company helped me contact a serious person from the Central Internal Affairs Directorate. They took testimony from the farmers and a few days later they sent four cars with fighters to Vyselki. During the operation, Alexey Sotnikov, Vladimir Belikov, Ivan Lazebnik, Igor Badykov, as well as Igor Moroz, whom the Vyselkovites called the leader, were detained. But he was released on the second day. A former Vyselkovo policeman assured me that along with this company they allegedly took the governor’s elder brother, Alexei Tkachev, who was also immediately released. Of course, this is hard to believe: the governor’s brother, like Caesar’s wife, is above suspicion in the Kuban. True, at that moment Alexander Tkachev was not a governor, but a State Duma deputy from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.

The next day after the arrest, at half past six in the morning, the remaining brothers called the employees of the Vyselkovo branch of Sberbank to work, withdrew money from the account and gave what was due to the farmers. The criminal case against the Vyselkovo group was considered by the Korenovsky District Court. Immediately after the trial, Igor Badykov and Vladimir Belikov were released from the pre-trial detention center. But Alexey Sotnikov and Ivan Lazebnik remained behind bars, but they also didn’t serve long.

The Vyselkovsky boys were taken in by a lieutenant colonel named Cherep. It would seem that in the mid-gangster 90s, the Kuban City Internal Affairs Directorate turned out to be on top. But we must take into account that the lieutenant colonel had personal complaints against Alexei Sotnikov: they say that once upon a time Sotnikov stole a woman from the Skull. A few years after the trial, Alexei Sotnikov was found dead in one of the Krasnodar hotels. The official version of death is heart failure. And then Lieutenant Colonel Skull passed away - he was shot by bandits during a special operation in the Kuban city of Tikhoretsk. The rest of the participants in the story have become respected people, are engaged in agribusiness in Vyselki and live happily ever after.

Don Corleone

The main driving force of the Tkachev family is the governor’s father, Nikolai Ivanovich. It was he who began the privatization of Agrocomplex, which his youngest son Alexander successfully continued. Now the son-governor has no formal relationship with Agrocomplex CJSC. But Nikolai Ivanovich is the chairman of the board of directors. His eldest son, State Duma deputy from United Russia Alexey Tkachev, is on the board of directors and, together with his father, owns part of the shares.

Nikolai Ivanovich Tkachev began thinking about collective farm lands back in the mid-70s, when he was deputy chairman of the Vyselkovsky district executive committee. Under him, a campaign to cut down collective farm vineyards and orchards was in full swing. This was explained by the fact that it was necessary to enlarge farms and create so-called inter-farm enterprises - Soviet analogues of holding companies, where each farm operates only in its own profile. As a result, collective farms were left without fruit. But with livestock farming, everything was as it should be: in Vyselki there was an enterprise “Myasoprom”, whose 500 workers did not complain about life. But in the early 80s, that same interfarm appeared - a feed mill, built with money from regional collective and state farms.

Nikolai Ivanovich Tkachev had an excellent relationship with the then first secretary of the district committee of the CPSU, Alexei Klimov, who helped him head the feed mill. Nikolai Ivanovich placed his youngest son Sasha there, who had just graduated from the Krasnodar Polytechnic Institute. Sasha was a heating engineer, and then the head of a factory boiler room. As a former employee of the plant says, the future governor had problems with accounting reports: “He will bring the report to the chief accountant, and she will read it and throw it in the trash.” But Sasha did well in the factory amateur performances, where he played guitar, accordion and piano. But they did not allow him to develop his musical talent, appointing Sasha to the position of chief mechanic of the plant. Then the director-father moved his son along the party line: with the help of the same district committee secretary Alexei Klimov, Sasha was appointed first secretary of the Vyselkovsky district Komsomol committee. During the year of his work, Sasha managed to change five deputies. So the removal of more than 40 district heads (during the years of his subsequent governorship) is just a character trait.

By the beginning of the 90s, Nikolai Ivanovich Tkachev began to fall ill. Sasha came again to the secretary of the district committee, Klimov, and asked to take his father’s place. No sooner said than done. In 1990, an inter-farm council consisting of collective farm chairmen voted for Sashino’s appointment. Tkachev-papa became Sasha’s deputy. In 1993, the Tkachevs turned Agrokompleks into a closed joint stock company, taking away what had been created by the labor of several generations of peasants.

Now let's return to the Myasoprom enterprise. Under the USSR, it was headed by Alexey Tereshchenko. But the Tkachevs again “processed” the secretary of the district committee, Klimov, and Tereshchenko was removed. A certain Bakhtin was put in his place, who soon wanted to join the feed mill. When the plant was merged with Myasoprom, the new enterprise was named Agrokompleks. There is, however, a problem. “Myasoprom” owned more than 5 thousand hectares of land. In the early 90s, according to Yeltsin’s decree, the lands were to be distributed to the villagers. But these 5 thousand hectares went to Agrocomplex. Who owns them now? We officially address this question to the law enforcement agencies of the Krasnodar Territory.

The company had no problems with obtaining profitable loans: Papa Tkachev knew Alexander Zaveryukha, who was Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian government in the early 90s. Soon, Agrocomplex began to absorb neighboring farms, which, in fact, created it. At the Druzhba farm, at the meeting where the decision was made to join the Agrocomplex, there was a small part of the team. The same situation was observed at the Kolos farm. But these farms, like others in the district, became part of the Agrocomplex.

Without St. George's Day

Even when the 90s passed, the expansion of Agrocomplex continued. In Vyselki there was a successful sugar factory “Crystal” of the Moscow company “Russian Sugar”. But in 2005, the Vyselkovsky District Court banned Kristall from operating. They say the plant violates environmental requirements. The Vesky Sugar company stated that such decisions are a manifestation of unfair competition. The plant management tried to fight, challenge decisions, and write letters to the president. But then it simply sold 89.66% of the shares to Agrokompleks.

Until last year, there were only two independent farms left in the Vyselkovsky district - Niva and Rassvet. These were profitable closed joint-stock companies, but they were also taken over by Agrocomplex. A comparison of enterprise balance sheets shows that the owners of Niva should have received almost 6% of Agrocomplex, the owners of Rassvet - 1.8%. However, according to the Kommersant newspaper, they received tens of times less. But Agrocomplex received almost 20 thousand hectares of new land, and now it owns more than 100 thousand hectares. Is it any wonder that the Kuban governor is called the largest latifundist in Europe?

By a strange coincidence, Agrokompleks often buys enterprises that shortly before go bankrupt. In the village of Buzinovskaya, for example, there was a closed joint-stock company named after Chernyakovsky, which had a not very bad hotel, a kindergarten with a lot of outbuildings, a fuel and lubricants warehouse, a gas station building, and agricultural machinery. Just 6 years ago, the combines of this company were transferred to the Agrokompleks company. Then the company went bankrupt. An arbitration manager appeared who sold his property to the same Agrocomplex. Four days after the deal, the regional Arbitration Court liquidated the Chernyakovsky JSC. Last September, the Vyselkovo Enterprise for Providing Fuel to the Population, Institutions and Organizations was declared bankrupt. The lender, you understand, turned out to be the company Agrokompleks. In addition, Agrokompleks is now taking over AOZT named after. Kalinina is a former collective farm located in the village of Beisug near Vyselok. AOZT, of course, is also in the process of bankruptcy.

Approximately 10 thousand people work at Agrocomplex. The Kuban press writes about salaries of almost 16 thousand rubles, which by rural standards is above the roof. However, some employees of the enterprise, on condition of anonymity, complained to me that receiving five thousand in hand is already considered a great success. We were unable to find out whether we are talking about possible isolated disagreements that can arise at any enterprise (well, the accountant made a mistake somewhere), or about a certain system. But quitting is more expensive: those who quit Agrocomplex will not be hired by other enterprises in the region. Because enterprises are afraid of subsequent problems with the prosecutor’s office, Rospotrebnadzor, the district administration, and the court. “It’s like serfdom here. If you left Agrocomplex, then it’s best to go to another region,” shares the wife of a local farmer. But you can be happy for the agricultural cows, who are played the music of Beethoven and Mozart to improve their milk yield.

One million one hundred thousand tons

In Kushchevskaya they told me that a couple of years ago tough guys came to the village and simply forbade a number of farmers to go out into the field during the sowing period. As a result, unplanted fields became overgrown with weeds, farmers were considered “ineffective owners” and their land was confiscated. In Vyselki the situation is different: instead of bandits, conditions are dictated by the district department of agriculture. It requires farmers to produce the required yield. Last year, for example, officials demanded from everyone 49 centners per hectare of wheat, 30 centners per hectare of corn and 20 centners per hectare of sunflower. If the yield is lower, the farmer also falls into the category of “ineffective” and seriously risks losing the land. The best farming method to increase performance is to steal wheat from the fields of neighboring farms. The farmer negotiates with the combine operator and driver, they remove and transport the stolen grain to the farmer’s farm. And then he hands it over to the elevator as his own. Last summer, drivers transporting “left-handed” grain received approximately a thousand rubles per ton. But the most effective and simple way to avoid trouble is to write the necessary numbers in the agronomist’s official report. He transmits the report to the district, where it is summarized with others and sent to the region. And then the federal media talk about the great Kuban harvest. And about the successful holding "Agrocomplex". And about how good, fun and simple life is for a farmer in Kuban.

Made my own business

One of the few long-lived governors is resigning: Alexander Tkachev, who led the Krasnodar Territory for fourteen years, was appointed Minister of Agriculture. There were several candidates to replace Nikolai Fedorov, who failed in the strategic sector, from his deputy, the former head of the Stavropol Territory, Valery Gaevsky, to the Governor of the Novgorod Region, Sergei Mitin.
Tkachev, as they say in the presidential administration, got onto the shortlist at the very last moment. For several years now, the Ministry of Agriculture has had virtually no influence on anything, and all strategic decisions in the field of agriculture were made at the level of the Deputy Prime Minister of the government in charge of the industry. New position - demotion or promotion for the authoritarian "heavyweight" governor and powerful lobbyist?

The clouds are gathering

The governor of the Krasnodar Territory, Alexander Tkachev, was closer than ever to resignation in the spring of 2014, immediately after the end of the Olympics in Sochi. Then a large-scale campaign was launched against the head of the region. He was reminded of everything: the massacre in the village of Kushchevskaya in the fall of 2010 (during the investigation it turned out that Kushchevka had been controlled for a long time by a criminal group that had connections in government structures and law enforcement agencies); the flood in Krymsk in July 2012, which killed 170 people; overestimation of the cost of Olympic facilities in Sochi. And plus the governor’s inappropriate excuses, which only added fuel to the fire. “What, you had to go around everyone? This is impossible. By what forces? This time. Secondly, would you even get up and leave the house?” - Tkachev fought off the attacks of the inhabitants of the destroyed Krymsk. “This crime could have happened anywhere in the region and country,” he said after the events in Kushchevka. “Unfortunately, such gangs, gangs, and crime are present everywhere to one degree or another. And law enforcement agencies, officials of various stripes support them. And the threads of this support can go to the regional level.”

Immediately after the events in Kushchevskaya, then Russian President Dmitry Medvedev fired the head of the regional police, Sergei Kucheruk. The first deputy head of the Central Internal Affairs Directorate for the Krasnodar Territory, Major General Boris Glebov, and the head of the personnel department, Vladimir Kalashnikov, lost their posts. The governor, who was involved in preparing Sochi facilities for the Olympic Games, was spared these scandals. The construction of the century had to be completed or stability in the region should be maintained - it is not clear. “Tkachev was on the verge of resignation, but as a result of a complex combination he managed to retain his post,” comments Evgeniy Minchenko, director of the International Institute of Political Expertise. “No one knows what was the decisive factor.”

Military events in Ukraine, Crimea, sanctions and anti-sanctions “froze” the situation with the Krasnodar governor, especially since he distinguished himself in Sochi and was even awarded the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, II degree, from the hands of the president. And upon his appointment to the Ministry of Agriculture, Vladimir Putin remembered his Olympic achievements. “You made a significant contribution to the holding of the Olympic Games in Sochi,” the president said. Tkachev even found himself on the list of politicians formed at the end of August 2014 who could get into the Federation Council under the presidential quota. But there was no resignation then.

Nevertheless, the clouds over Tkachev continued to thicken against the background of the anti-corruption campaign initiated by the Kremlin. His deputies came under attack. At the beginning of February 2015, the Federal Security Service arrested the deputy head of the regional administration, Vadim Lukoyanov, for exceeding his authority. Allegedly, a Kuban official gave an order to include a substation in the Sochi area in the investment program of Kubanenergo OJSC. The estimated damage amounted to about 50 million rubles. In early February, former vice-governor of the Krasnodar Territory Alexander Ivanov was arrested. He, according to law enforcement officers, exceeded his authority during the construction of the Basket Hall sports complex, illegally seizing a land plot. Local authorities had to compensate the affected agricultural enterprise 950 million rubles. At the same time, information appeared about the possible resignation of Tkachev’s key deputy, Galina Zolina, who oversaw all internal politics in the region. This information was not confirmed, but everyone in the administration of the Krasnodar region had to worry a lot.

Three reasons to resign

There are several versions of the transfer of Alexander Tkachev to Moscow. Official: the already former governor of the country’s main breadbasket must improve agriculture throughout Russia. “We need to fill our own market with our own products, the products of domestic producers, and we need to do this quickly, in order to reduce the tension in the food market, lower prices, and so on,” Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with Tkachev. With this, in fact, the president identified the main task facing the new minister, to which he promised to work on import substitution, increasing production volumes and reducing food prices. Vice-President of the Russian Grain Union Alexander Korbut says that “Tkachev professionally knows the problems of agriculture, since he himself created a large, effective agricultural enterprise and did a lot for the region. Under him, the region became the core of Russia’s grain export cluster, issues of infrastructural development of the industry were resolved, the processes of transition of commercial private farms to farmers began, and a lot of work was done to solve the problems of the African plague.”

The Krasnodar region is a tasty morsel with large budgetary investments. And the second version of the governor’s resignation: the desire of other pro-Kremlin groups to plant their man in the region and gain control over financial flows. After the Olympic Games, the cost of which increased several times compared to the original estimate (up to 1.5 trillion rubles), many had the impression that the Krasnodar Territory was “flooded” with money. Sochi is the main presidential project of the last few years, and no money was really spared on it.

Now Vladimir Putin has a new “object No. 1” - the Kerch Bridge, no less important from a political point of view than the Olympics. And the construction of this facility can bring good political dividends to its curators. No less important is Putin’s Sochi residence “Bocharov Ruchey”, where the governor is the host of the first person of the state. By the way, Vladimir Putin’s good relationship with Alexander Tkachev developed, among other things, thanks to the president’s visits to the Sochi residence and other Olympic venues.

It is likely that the president’s patronage helped the governor hold his post for so long, despite the scandals and conflicts that accompanied him all these years. The Krasnodar region became his patrimony, which in the old days Yuri Luzhkov considered Moscow, and Alexander Khoroshavin - Sakhalin. “During the fourteen years of Alexander Tkachev’s tenure as governor of the Krasnodar Territory, an authoritarian model of governance has developed. The democratic institutions guaranteed by the Constitution were consistently dismantled, the regional branch of the Progress Party responded to Tkachev’s resignation. “All power and most financial flows ended up in the hands of the governor’s team.” As in many other Russian regions, a significant part of business in the Krasnodar Territory is controlled by the governor’s relatives and people close to him. But the Kremlin considered it too much to make Tkachev a second Khoroshavin. You can simply remove him from the region, thereby weakening his influence at the local level and reducing the discontent of the population. And given his business qualities, he can also serve the authorities.

“There is no single reason for such a personnel change. This is a difficult solitaire game,” says Evgeniy Minchenko. “And he stayed too long as governor, and the reshuffle was influenced by a set of conflicts in the region, and the former Minister of Agriculture was supported, and they were urgently looking for a candidate to replace him.” According to the expert, the current situation is optimal for Tkachev. His former deputy was appointed acting governor, and he himself received a ministerial portfolio. “Whether it’s a demotion or a promotion, everything will depend on how competently Tkachev behaves in his new position.”

The path to the Minister of Agriculture for Tkachev does not look accidental: he and his family have been involved in agricultural business all their lives and have succeeded in it. Alexander Tkachev’s father Nikolai Tkachev and brother Alexey (State Duma deputy) created the largest holding company in the region, Firm Agrokompleks, whose land bank is 450,000 hectares - the fifth largest in the country, according to BEFL estimates. His son-in-law Roman Batalov is the owner of the agro-industrial company Osnova, which is one of the Top 5 grain traders in the country, and his niece Anastasia Crattli (daughter of Alexei Tkachev) owned 22.5% of the shares of the largest poultry farm in the Southern Federal District - Yugptitseprom. The total turnover of these commercial structures in 2013 amounted, according to Kontur-Focus data, to more than 26.1 billion rubles. And this does not take into account other businesses, although not so large.

Father's business

CJSC Firm Agrokompleks (revenue in 2013 19.2 billion rubles) is a holding company that includes over forty companies of various profiles: crop farming, rice growing, beef and dairy cattle breeding, pig farming, poultry farming, processing industry and trading activities , this is about 16,000 employees and 400 retail outlets. The holding has 450,000 hectares of land. According to its own description, “Agrokompleks” was one of the first to implement the concept of a full-cycle agricultural enterprise - from field to counter.” The central office is based in the village of Vyselki, where Alexander Tkachev was born. In March of this year, the company was renamed Agrocomplex named after. N.I. Tkachev” - in honor of the father of ex-governor Nikolai Ivanovich, who was chairman of the company’s board of directors and died last August at the age of 89. Food products under the brands “Under the Kuban Sun” and “Natural Products of Kuban” are sold not only in Kuban, but also in the Rostov region and Stavropol region, including in large retail chains (Magnit, Auchan and X5) . Rice and grain are sold throughout the European part of Russia.

But CJSC Firm Agrokompleks did not become so powerful right away. In 1993, he only had a feed mill and a cattle fattening complex with 4,000 hectares of land. As Nikolai Tkachev said, the feed mill was the only one working, and everyone went there to buy feed. Alexander Tkachev was then the director of CJSC Firm Agrokompleks. From that moment on, the company began buying up bankrupt farms and land, usually for debt. Thus, CJSC Firm Agrokompleks repaid the debt of the Sever Kuban Group of Companies to Rosselkhozbank, and as a result, in November 2014, the company became the property of Agrokompleks. We are talking about four enterprises in the Kushchevsky district and one enterprise in the Starominsky district. They all grow grain.

Governor Tkachev actively supported his father’s business. Thus, the broiler poultry farm "Yugptitseprom" (since June 2014 - CJSC, revenue in 2013 was 1.0 billion rubles), the largest in the Southern Federal District, has become a priority national project of the region. The state subsidized the interest on a bank loan taken from Rosselkhozbank. The factory was opened in the summer of 2010. Its construction cost investors 3 billion rubles. Today, control is held by CJSC Firm Agrokompleks - 61.4%, 37.5% - by Lyubov Tkacheva, the wife of Alexander Tkachev. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev visited the poultry farm and Agrocomplex in September last year and was very pleased with what he saw: “I wanted to eat looking at it. Beauty, and that’s all!” “Agrocomplex” was also a source of personnel for Governor Tkachev. Former deputy director of Agrocomplex for social issues Galina Zolina and Tkachev’s partner in Agrocomplex Evgeny Gromyko became vice-governors.

Son-in-law, niece and fellow senator

30-year-old Roman Batalov, the husband of Alexander Tkachev’s daughter Tatyana, in March 2014 became the owner of Agro-Industrial Company Osnova LLC (revenue in 2013 was 6.9 billion rubles). The company was founded in October 2011, and already in March 2012 it became one of the five leading Russian grain exporters: at the end of 2012, the volume of deliveries exceeded 1 million tons. Osnova deals not only with grain, but also with trading of fresh fruits and vegetables on the Russian domestic market. Batalov bought it from Andrei Doluda, the son of the vice-governor of the Krasnodar region Nikolai Aleksandrovich Doluda.

Previously, Tkachev's son-in-law was involved in development, built a hotel in Sochi for the Olympics with a children's amusement park, the largest shopping mall in Krasnodar "Gallery Krasnodar", which then became the property of TPS Real Estate (33% owned by Igor Rotenberg, Alexander Ponomarenko and Alexander Skorobogatko ).

Tkachev's niece, Anastasia Crattli, had shares in 18 companies. Until 2012, she had a 10% stake in the Southern Pipe Plant and 10% in Pipe Insulation Plant LLC. Until 2014, she also owned 22.5% of Yugptitseprom LLC and 30% of the shares of Krasnodar Masterstroy LLC. This construction company has erected eleven 16-story buildings, and is now building the Moskovsky microdistrict in Krasnodar with a housing volume of 490,000 sq. m. m. Currently, Anastasia Crattli owns a warehouse business - Agrokomplekt LLC (revenue 61.5 million rubles) and several other small enterprises.

Senator from the Krasnodar Territory and former first vice-governor Evgeny Gromyko also created an agribusiness. She and Tkachev come from the same village. Gromyko worked with the ex-governor at Agrokompleks starting in the 1990s, then became his first deputy in the administration, and then received a senatorial seat. It is clear that the senatorial position does not imply the presence of assets. His son Vadim runs the business. He owns and manages the Management Company VIP Beisug, which, in turn, owns PJSC Krasnodarzernoprodukt (revenue of 1.7 billion rubles for 2013, according to Kontur-Focus), which is one of the Top 10 grain exporters.

Will Tkachev's entourage regret his departure from Krasnodar? Tkachev's term as governor expired in March 2017, but his resignation appears to be a promotion rather than a dismissal. It seems that this is the first time that the president has publicly invited a minister to solve a state problem with the help of his own business. Now the company of Alexander Tkachev’s relatives and friends awaits new opportunities.

In the governor’s homeland, a gang similar to the Kushchevskaya gang operated, and behind the external well-being of the best agricultural enterprise in Russia there is a serfdom

The villagers speak either well of the governor or in whispers. Local residents with whom we managed to have a heart-to-heart talk put forward a condition: not to give their names. Outwardly, they have nothing against the governor. And how could it be otherwise, if the head of the Vyselkovsky district, Sergei Firstkov, is the godfather of Alexander Tkachev: the governor is the godfather of his daughter.

Kushchevka is resting

Don Corleone

Without St. George's Day

Even when the 90s passed, the expansion of Agrocomplex continued. In Vyselki there was a successful sugar factory “Crystal” of the Moscow company “Russian Sugar”. But in 2005, the Vyselkovsky District Court banned Kristall from operating. They say the plant violates environmental requirements. The Russian Sugar company stated that such decisions are a manifestation of unfair competition. The plant management tried to fight, challenge decisions, and write letters to the president. But then it simply sold 89.66% of the shares to Agrokompleks.

Approximately 10 thousand people work at Agrocomplex. The Kuban press writes about salaries of almost 16 thousand rubles, which by rural standards is above the roof. However, some employees of the enterprise, on condition of anonymity, complained to me that receiving five thousand in hand is already considered a great success. We were unable to find out whether we are talking about possible isolated disagreements that can arise at any enterprise (well, the accountant made a mistake somewhere), or about a certain system. But quitting is more expensive for yourself: those who quit Agrocomplex will not be hired by other enterprises in the region. Because enterprises are afraid of subsequent problems with the prosecutor’s office, Rospotrebnadzor, the district administration, and the court. “It’s like serfdom here. If you left Agrocomplex, then it’s best to go to another region,” shares the wife of a local farmer. But you can be happy for the agricultural cows, who are played the music of Beethoven and Mozart to improve their milk yield.

One million one hundred thousand tons

As became known source, the head of the Ministry of Agriculture, Alexander Tkachev, faces a possible resignation in the near future. There are several candidates for his chair and opinions about who will take his place are very different.
It is not yet clear whether the authorities will risk changing the minister before the elections or will wait until they are held and, at the same time, the government is replaced.
Alexander Tkachev himself is tipped to leave the post of minister for the post of plenipotentiary representative for the Southern Federal District. They can supposedly replace the current plenipotentiary representative Ustinov, who has been planning to retire since the summer. For the minister, this outcome is not too bad - part of his family’s business (read: the minister’s business) concerns the same Krasnodar region. However, he, of course, would like to control the Central Federal District, where another ex-Minister of Agriculture, Alexey Gordeev, now “reigns”.

Alexander Tkachev

Two candidates are allegedly being considered to replace Tkachev himself in the Presidential Administration. And both of them, as usual, are very dubious. Are there successors in line? Recently, rumors have been actively circulating that Comrade Tkachev’s post in the new ministry could be taken by a comrade, a presidential candidate from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, who is predicted to lose in advance. And supposedly the head of the State Farm named after him was walking. Lenin did this only in order to get some good position based on the election results. True, until now, the most likely position for him was the position of governor of the Moscow region, but, as they say, why is the AP not kidding? Grudinin, of course, has already shown himself to be an effective manager using the example of State Farm. But it is simply not possible to transfer this practice to the entire country. And given the fact that he simply sold off part of the State Farm’s lands, such a successor does not look like a good idea. In addition, back in 2015, the presidential candidate spoke in support of Minister Tkachev when he sat in a chair for a little over six months But the version with Grudinin is more like a political joke. At the same time, according to rumors in political circles, the post of head of the Ministry of Agriculture may be transferred to Sergei Levin, deputy minister. Levin is a former head of the United Grain Company; in 2012-2015 he served as an adviser to the Prime Minister. That is, this candidate is an obvious creation of Dmitry Medvedev. And if Tkachev’s resignation takes place after the elections, and Medvedev retains the post of prime minister in the new government, then such a situation is most likely.

Sergey Levin

At the same time, on the sidelines, they do not hesitate to declare that Tkachev and Levin are in open confrontation. Perhaps Tkachev doesn’t like the fact that his right hand is actually the prime minister’s right hand. Therefore, Medvedev knows about everything that happens in the ministry, including “undercover” events that are not created for outside eyes and ears. In general, for Tkachev it looks as if a spy appeared in his department, whom he exposed, but cannot expel. If Levin comes to the post of minister, Tkachev will immediately lose the opportunity to push the interests of his agribusiness through the ministry. And this definitely doesn’t make him happy. At the same time, the owner of a large agricultural holding, poultry farms and vineyards in the Krasnodar Territory can most likely only laugh at the “ambitious” strawberry producer Grudinin. Naturally, the minister does not see a better candidate than his own. It’s just that he, with his impudence, seems to already be in everyone’s hearts – including the AP’s. Potato crisis? At the end of the year, most Russians sum up the results of the year. Minister Tkachev did not particularly talk about the results of the year for his department - at least publicly. Well, we can do it for him. For example, based on the results of 2017, Russia started buying potatoes. Yes, not from friendly Belarus, for example, but from France! Sanctioned potatoes. Exorbitantly expensive. This is attributed to the cold summer, as a result of which the harvest decreased by as much as 40%!
But experts say that this is not about a crop failure, but about a banal lack of storage conditions. And only because of this, Russia can lose 2% of GDP on vegetables, despite the fact that all agriculture provides only 4.5% of GDP! The situation with wheat is even stranger: a large harvest led to a collapse in prices, as a result of which the United States suffered. Tkachev rejoiced - the Americans were defeated! But he, in fact, also defeated domestic farmers, who were left to either throw the grain right there in the fields or sell it at a loss. In the Novosibirsk region alone, the cost of 1 ton of grain was 6,300 rubles, and the average price on the market was 4,800 rubles. So hurray for Minister Tkachev! Agribusiness of the Agricultural Minister However, he still manages his business more carefully. Of course, billions of rubles should flow into the accounts of the Tkachev family without interruption! So it spins as best it can.

For example, in November 2017, Agrocomplex named after. N.I. Tkacheva acquired a chain of food stores “Products at Home” in Crimea. I wonder what he made the deal with the Ukrainian retailer "ATB-Market". But could a holding directly connected with the minister make deals with Ukrainian oligarchs? Maybe he will then buy something from Poroshenko? But at least the deal was fair. Because Tkachev is still remembered acquisition of the Akashevskaya poultry farm, more like a raider takeover with the participation of security forces. The security forces, however, according to competent sources, were not from Tkachev, but from Patrushev - the minister also managed to quarrel with the head of Rosselkhozbank. So there is someone to advocate for his resignation. And this is not all of Tkachev’s merits in the wake of business. At one time, for example, he managed to acquire Gorki Gorod resort on Krasnaya Polyana in Sochi. Moreover, the purchase was made, in fact, with government money - through a loan from VEB. And she still can’t pay him back. Or doesn’t he want to? In January 2017, the first casino opened in Gorki Gorod, for the sake of which the authorities of the Krasnodar region even decided to close the previously opened gambling zone “Azovo-City”. So everything is fine with the minister’s money, despite his millions of debts to the state. In general, he will not be out of work - even after leaving the post of minister. Maybe they will return him to the governorship, maybe they will appoint him as a plenipotentiary envoy. But a business without millions in subsidies and various types of permits can fall apart. However, it will be deserved.

As Minister of Agriculture, Alexander Tkachev fights with competitors, depriving Russians of imported snacks, but promising to give them homemade wine.

Last week, during his press conference, President Vladimir Putin said that Russia expects a record grain harvest at the end of the year. “Yesterday Tkachev said: there will probably be 130.5 million [tons]. Maybe there will be more. This is generally the largest harvest in history. In the RSFSR, I think it was approximately 127 [million tons] in 1978. That is, there has never been such a harvest at all.” Putin specifically emphasized that “there are no postscripts here.”

The main creator of this miracle is the same “Tkachev” - Russian Minister of Agriculture Alexander Tkachev, who in August, in an interview with RBC, gave a conservative forecast of 120 million tons. The setting of new records - also blessed by the national leader - should, in theory, strengthen the position of Tkachev, who is still remembered for his gubernatorial stage of his career, the scandal with the purchase of a helicopter and Kushchevka. However, already in his new post since 2015, the current Minister of Agriculture has done so much that even a record grain harvest is not a guarantee against dismissal next year.

Tkachev is the winner of the “sanction”

Tkachev’s most significant act as minister, for which he will be remembered years later, was his proposal to wage a war of sanctions between Russia and Europe to the death. “Don’t take prisoners of tomatoes!” - Tkachev decided, and proposed using the scheme: “If Parmesan is not ours, it is destroyed.” “I would like to ask the government and you (Putin - Ed.) to do everything so that we can destroy shipments of agricultural products that arrive illegally across the border on the spot,” the minister said at a government meeting on July 24, 2015. Before this, goods that entered the border illegally had to be returned, and this was “ineffective” - including no didactic effect for Europeans.

Putin agreed to the development of such a proposal, and the flywheel of food repression began working at full speed within two weeks (and the decree on permission to crush food was signed five days after Tkachev’s proposal - that’s what “knows how to put pressure” means). On August 6, 2015 alone—the first day of the decree—according to official data, 320 tons of cheese, meat and fish were destroyed. During one year of the destruction plan, 7.5 thousand tons of “forbidden” products were crushed by tractors and burned in ovens.

Did Tkachev think that it would be better to confiscate these products and, after inspection, distribute them to the poor? This is not known for certain, but it is known that the minister with sincere enthusiasm invited his partners in the Eurasian Union to take part in the border food madness. Kazakhstan and Belarus reacted to this idea, to put it mildly, with skepticism (in two years, Kazakhstan, however, will begin to crush Kyrgyz cheese, but that’s another story). But Tkachev went into a frenzy: already in September 2015, he proposed to press products not only at the border, but throughout the country - all to combat foreign counterfeits, in general.

Two facts speak eloquently about how effective this whole bacchanalia was. Firstly, food sanctions have not yet been lifted, which suggests that Europeans were not very afraid of Tkachev’s food repressions. And secondly, it has become so convenient to transport sanctioned products through Belarus that Tkachev on October 13, 2017 announced the need to tighten measures against those who facilitate the transportation of “banned goods.” “It is necessary to tighten responsibility for imports and provide for the seizure of not only the products themselves, but also the vehicles that transport them,” Tkachev said. Cars, obviously, will also be burned - they explode and burn spectacularly.

Tkachev and the turn of the rivers

One of Tkachev’s most short-lived, but no less global initiatives dates back to May 2016, when he had already settled into his new position. During a visit to China, the Russian Minister of Agriculture proposed reviving the idea of turning back the rivers, which seemed to have sunk into oblivion. Only now - in accordance with geopolitical interests. “We are ready to propose a project to transfer fresh water from the Altai region of Russia through the Republic of Kazakhstan to the arid Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the PRC,” Tkachev said then. Allegedly, Russia has “surplus” water - left over from floods - and besides, it is possible to jointly develop the engineering infrastructure of the Gilevsky reservoir of the Alei irrigation system and the Kulundinsky main canal, fed from the Ob reservoir: this way, the water supply can be increased to 1 billion cubic meters per year.

Tkachev was, of course, not the first to imagine himself as a master of the elements. However, the transfer of water specifically to China as an idea caused particularly strong rejection among experts. “This is a completely ill-conceived statement. I think there is no longer a single person who holds this point of view. In any case, among those who understand at least something about water transfers, water resources and the costs of overcoming watersheds,” RAS academician Viktor Danilov-Danilyan told Rossiyskaya Gazeta and added that “there is nothing to design here.” The Ministry of Natural Resources was also at a loss, with whom Tkachev did not think to consult, although this is precisely their diocese (moreover, Tkachev actually proposed breaking the law “On Environmental Protection”).

Tkachev was also accused of essentially just wanting to sell water to China, which is always interested in this (both for objective reasons and for subjective expansionist reasons) - despite the fact that there is no “surplus” water in Siberia: sometimes there is not enough for ourselves. Faced with a barrage of criticism, the minister wisely backed down the very next day, although he left himself some room for maneuver. “The project to supply the arid regions of the PRC with fresh water will not be implemented in the near future and is possible only if the interests of the Russian Federation are unconditionally respected, including from an environmental point of view,” RIA Novosti quoted the minister as saying.

Tkachev's relationship with wine materials

If the Minister of Agriculture looks at products from abroad with great prejudice, seeing a foreign spy in every apple, then Tkachev treats foreign wine materials differently - depending on the circumstances.

At the end of July 2015, Tkachev announced that the food embargo on wine from abroad would not apply. The Interfax agency quoted the minister as saying that the embargo on wine and sweets “could have a very bad effect, first of all, on the food balance in our country.” And in general - “it’s not time yet, we need to analyze everything.”

The “time” came in a month. On August 23, 2015, on the Rossiya 24 TV channel, Tkachev said that the Ministry of Agriculture was considering the possibility of introducing a ban on the import of foreign wine. He also added that wines of Russian brands are foreign drinks bottled “in workshops”. “We can already bottle wine here in Russia, but someone else’s wine... Well, what competition. Of course, the economy will be better for the one who used other wine materials, bottled them and sells them under the Russian brand,” the minister said.

On the same day, the Union of Winemakers of Russia made it clear that the minister was mistaken: bottling foreign wine in Russia and calling it “Russian wine” is normal, and if this practice is banned, the amount of wine alcohol in the country will immediately fall by a third. We need to wait five years - during this time domestic grapes grow - then it will be possible to think about something like that.

The idea seemed to have been buried, but this year it was remembered again - in the A Just Russia faction. Taking a break from muskrats, Sergei Mironov proposed banning foreign wine and, in general, all foreign alcohol for import. The idea also seemed to be rejected, however, by coincidence, a long-time friend and business partner of Alexander Tkachev, also Alexander Remezkov, is a member of A Just Russia. And the minister’s wife owns huge vineyards in the Krasnodar region, Tkachev’s former patrimony. There, by coincidence, there are vineyards mentioned in conjunction with the name of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev: information about them was published in the cult film “He’s Not Dimon to You” (just in case, screw its authors).

In general, Tkachev treats wine as such with great respect. In September of this year, in an interview with RBC, the minister said that he drinks exclusively Russian wines and that “I am from Kuban and I must note that Kuban wines have proven themselves very well in quality over the past five years.” And shortly before this - in a July interview with NTV - Tkachev said that the consumption of wine, rather than strong drinks, by Russians would have a positive effect on the demographic situation in the country. Apparently, this will happen even faster if Russians drink good domestic wines from a company owned, coincidentally, by the minister’s wife.

Tkachev and colleagues

It should be noted that Alexander Tkachev is not in the most comfortable position among all the ministers of Medvedev’s cabinet (not like Ulyukaev, of course, but still). His colleagues, who are more important in terms of status or recognition, constantly come out on him - although Tkachev, in fairness, himself constantly gives reasons.

In mid-December last year, during the government hour, the leader of the LDPR, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, unleashed all the dogs on Tkachev. “You slaughter pigs all over the country from private farms, and at all large farms, where there are millions of heads, you have everything (we are talking about the outbreak of African swine fever in Russia and how the Ministry of Agriculture reacts to it. - Ed.) . This is sabotage! What your ministry is doing is sabotage. You list problems but don't say reasons. They didn’t say anything good about the achievements of agriculture. But the communists praise everything, they have a good Stalin, and Khrushchev, and Brezhnev, and Yeltsin, and now they have a good minister. What’s good when all the products on the market are poisoned, everything contains nitrates!” - Zhirinovsky exclaimed.

Before the minister could say anything, Zhirinovsky added that “your ministry feeds our citizens poorly.” “In prisons and the army, you feed them all sorts of nasty things, waste. Therefore, there is nothing to praise here! They ruined agriculture, you can’t raise it for 100 years,” said the head of the LDPR. And finally, he said that if Minister Tkachev continues to propose advertising wine on Russian television, even after 22.00 (and Tkachev proposes this), then the LDPR will “drive out such a minister.”

In mid-March of this year, Tkachev got it from State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin. “You, naturally, first of all, perhaps passionately, perhaps emotionally, are trying to convey [the existing problems] to the authorities, to government structures,” Tkachev said at an extended meeting of United Russia. In response, Volodin said that the deputies “are the power.” Tkachev tried to correct himself and say that he meant the Russian government, but Volodin clarified again. “The source of power is the people, and deputies are representatives. “You are not at a village meeting,” the State Duma chairman besieged the minister to applause.

At the end of March (Tkachev had a difficult month in general), Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev publicly attacked the minister. The head of the Cabinet of Ministers was infuriated by Tkachev’s lateness to the meeting, and he gave birth to another meme, advising his subordinate to “set the alarm clock in different places.”

It even got to the point that even State Duma deputy from the Kaliningrad region Alexander Pyatikop dared to criticize Tkachev. All in the same March, he criticized Minister Tkachev and his department for the fact that pumping stations, due to underfunding, did not completely pump out water from the fields - and now there are big problems regarding the future harvest. In September, Pyatikop's tone, however, changed. “The “Government Hour” with the Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation Alexander Nikolaevich Tkachev has ended in the State Duma,” Pyatikop wrote on his Facebook. “...In recreation, I thanked Alexander Nikolaevich for the fact that the situation in the Kaliningrad region to prevent flooding of polder lands is really improving... He At first he was offended, but after the support of the entire faction, he took emergency measures - a commission from the land reclamation department was sent to the Kaliningrad region... Now half of the pumping stations have been restored... Under this program, next year we expect additional assistance from the state.”

However, it seems that all these attacks on Tkachev have not yet caused him much damage. The main thing is that he is treated well by the best of all his colleagues, who praises him for his harvests and just laughs at the reservations about supplying pork to Muslim Indonesia, and not to South Korea. "Who cares? “They will eat,” Tkachev said then in response to his reservation.