Former procurement curator at Gazprom, head of the corporate cost management department, Mikhail Sirotkin became a co-owner of Mospromekspluatation. According to Rucriminal.info sources, in this way Sirotkin became the official partner of the owner of the Tashir group of companies Samvel Karapetyan. It is Karapetyan who is the real main owner of Mospromexploitation. Thus, the largest corruption connection of recent times has been revealed. As a top manager of Gazprom, Mikhail Sirotkin organized billions of rubles for Karapetyan’s structures.

Mikhail Sirotkin began his career in St. Petersburg with the authoritative businessman Ilya Traber (Antikvar). Sirotkin worked at the Peter Law Office, owned by Ilya Traber. It was then that Sirotkin met Alexei Miller, who was then Director of Development and Investments at St. Petersburg Sea Port OJSC. When Miller headed Gazprom, he immediately called Sirotkin to the state-owned company. In 2010-2011, Sirotkin first took the position of the head of the tender committee of Gazprom, and then - the chair of the head of the corporate expenses management department and began to redraw Gazprom's cash flows in favor of structures close to him. For “friends”, the average “key rate” is 1% of the contract value. But that is not all. In some cases, Sirotkin also became the unspoken minority shareholder of structures, which, as Gazprom’s top manager, shipped giant amounts.

Here are just some of the calculations revealed at one time by RBC. The largest contracts from Gazprom were found in companies associated with Tashir: Gazstroy (23.2 billion rubles in 2015), Neftegazstroy (8.5 billion rubles), Spetsgazstroy (4.3 billion rubles) and City Stroy Group (2.7 billion rubles). All four companies provide a variety of services to Gazprom subsidiaries: from overhaul of buildings, heating systems, water treatment facilities to the construction of large diameter gas pipelines.

From the beginning of 2016, Neftegazstroy received orders for another 11.4 billion rubles: the company will build 60.7 km of Power of Siberia from the Amginskaya compressor station to the Nimnyrskaya compressor station.

SPARK data indicate the connection of Neftegazstroy with the development company Tashir of the entrepreneur Samvel Karapetyan. 50% of Neftegazstroy is controlled by Norik Petrosyan, 25% each by Armen Grigoryan and Vaginak Ghazaryan. From 2005 to September 2015, Ghazaryan was led by IK Tashir, and Neftegazstroy General Director Sergey Mkhoyan headed Tashir S from 2009 to 2013. At the address "Neftegazstroy" - Kaluga, st. Azarovskaya, 2 - several management companies of the Tashir group were registered at once: the fund and association of the same name, Tashir Monolit, Tashir invest and others. The Kalugaglavsnab enterprise, one of the first assets of Samvel Karapetyan, purchased by him in 1997, is registered at the same address. Neftegazstroy is also a member of the SRO Union of Construction Companies Tashir, as indicated on the SRO website.

The MRO also included Mospromekspluatatsiya LLC. Previously, its owner was Vladimir Rubchenkov, another top manager of Samvel Karpetyan, who previously headed the Tashir Auto company. Mospromekspluatatsiya won the tender for the construction of the Seligerskaya transport hub.

Rucriminal.info sources say that when he was the procurement curator at Gazprom, Mikhail Sirotkin often talked personally with Karapetyan, both in Russia and in Italy. They were just discussing billions of gas monopoly contracts. Moreover, the interests of Sirotkin were also represented by the personal lawyer of Karapetyan Oleg Popov. Sirotkin and Popov are big lovers of nightclubs, model girls, general parties with singers and football players. It was at the request of Sirotkin that Popov once defended player of the national team Alexander Kokorin.

In the spring of 2019, Sirotkin’s sweet life in Gazprom ended — he was shown the door. For decency, he waited a while, and then stopped hiding his long-standing business partnership with Karapetyan. Sirotkin draws up on himself and proxies his shares in the structures of the Tashir empire. In fact, he confessed to corruption.

To be continued

Tomasz Wisniewski