Gods of Olympstroy

Over the course of three years, the Olympic construction in Sochi has changed three general directors. The “chief foremen” of a fantastically expensive project stay in a responsible position for no more than a year. Why?

Bustle at Olympus

The leaders of Olympstroy in Sochi are jokingly called gods: by analogy with the Greek inhabitants of Olympus, they are also practically invisible to mere mortals and almost omnipotent. And the task they face is, one might say, inhuman – to prepare the summer resort of Sochi for the 2014 Winter Olympics. True, they were given huge means to achieve their goal - 70 billion rubles.

The new head of Olimpstroy, Sergei Gaplikov, was appointed recently. All three of his predecessors set some kind of “Olympic” records for their tenure, having served in office from 7 months to a year and a half.

Semyon Vainshtok was the first and most famous CEO. His subordinates remembered him for his unique sense of humor. I began my acquaintance with the team with a phrase that is still remembered here:

– You all work very poorly. And only the presence of women in the hall does not allow me to frankly tell how bad it is. But everyone has a chance to improve the situation and do better.

After many years of leading Transneft, Weinstock spent only six months in the chair of the head of Olympstroy. Dragging oil pipelines through swamps turned out to be an easier task.

“In the oil industry, everything is decided authoritarianly - as the head of the company said, so it will be,” one of the experts told Interlocutor. – And at the Olympic construction site there are several opposing forces, and you need to get along with everyone: the federal government, regional officials led by Governor Tkachev, the International Olympic Committee, which comes to Sochi with inspections, the top management of Olimpstroy, which consists of small “kings,” and a bunch of construction and contracting organizations... Everyone is pulling in their own direction and wants to make money at the Olympics. It's extremely difficult to keep track of everyone. It is not surprising that in this situation Weinstock decided not to risk his established reputation, but to retire and move to London, and as an additional insurance, obtain Israeli citizenship...

The second to start the Olympic construction was the former mayor of Sochi, Viktor Kolodyazhny. He is a nominee of the local elite, which indirectly points to those who “ate” Weinstock. But it quickly became clear that the former head of the southern city did not have enough experience to implement such a global project. Citing personal problems (there was drama in his family - his little daughter tragically died), Kolodyazhny left his post. For the third time, the authorities decided to “try” an effective businessman - the famous brewer Taimuraz Bolloev. Sochi residents began to wonder: how quickly and under what pretext would he leave his post? A year and a half later, Bolloev cited health problems.

The new head of Olimpstroy, Sergei Gaplikov, is still a dark horse. His last position was deputy. the head of the government apparatus, that is, he was the right hand of Sergei Sobyanin. But Gaplikov worked in the White House for only six months, and several years before that he headed the government of Chuvashia. And the most remarkable thing in his biography is three higher educations, two of which (in the “brain-mad” Plekhanovka and MGIMO) he received in parallel. Whether this potential will help him is still unclear... The personnel reshuffle in the management of Olympstroy only reinforces the worst fears about the future Olympics.

How to “master” a million

– The main problem is that Olympstroy is a state corporation in form, which means it is practically not controlled in any way, and it can only be influenced through a change of leadership. Formally, there is still a supervisory board of Olympstroy, but who is on it and how they “monitor” is unclear. The head of Olimpstroy is a non-public figure and reports only to the president, but not to society and not to journalists,” Alexander Valov, head of the BlogSochi resource, told Interlocutor. – I personally saw Viktor Kolodyazhny many times when he was the mayor of Sochi - he was super-public, but as soon as he headed Olympstroy, he immediately disappeared from view. Taimuraz Bolloev went out for a walk in Sochi with his children, surrounded by security, but such an environment was clearly not conducive to communication. “Olympstroy” recently disseminated information that the construction equator has already been passed - more than half of the work has been completed. True, they later reduced their ambitions to 40%, but this also seems to Sochi residents to be an exaggeration. Construction of the central stadium was supposed to begin in January 2010, but in reality work only began on July 15. The construction of the Kurortny Prospekt alternate with the tunnel has not yet begun. Construction is progressing quickly in some places - for example, the Rosa Khutor ski complex, the Big Ice Arena...

Businessmen speak very carefully about Olympic spending, corruption and the “exploitation” of budget money. And only anonymously. Everyone remembers the recent scandalous story with entrepreneur Valery Morozov, who told federal officials supervising Olympic construction about kickbacks, but his business collapsed, and he himself left for London.

“There are basically three schemes used to get money from the budget,” a representative of the contracting organization told Interlocutor. – The first option is that “dead souls” are hired to staff the company, and their salaries are paid from the budget. The second method is when “Olympstroy” imposes “its” subcontractors, affiliated with certain persons in the corporation or in government structures, and pumps in profits through “its” company. The third case is when suppliers of equipment or raw materials are imposed, who often sell their products at inflated prices. It is clear whose pocket the difference goes into.

Personnel decide

The invisible part of the iceberg is the Olympstroy team. These are top managers who hold the main levers in their hands and press all the main buttons. They are the ones who solve the main issues. They say that even federal officials try not to quarrel with influential Olympic top officials. The salary of the general manager of Olimpstroy is 1.2 million rubles per month, the head of the human resources department is 500 thousand rubles monthly.

The team of the real owners of the Olympic construction - top managers - was formed in two stages. The “first call” included former security officers, retired police officers, friends of the most famous “St. Petersburg”, proteges of the largest companies - Russian Railways, energy companies, as well as officials of the North Caucasus republics and “profile departments” - Rosfinmonitoring, Rosstroy, the Ministry of Regional Development. Thus, in the managerial solitaire there was a clear bias towards the security forces and a large shortage of builders. The question of who will build it was decided by three “Varyags” from Moscow: the former Minister of Construction of the Moscow Region Alexander Gornostaev, the head of the Moscow City Order Leonid Monosov and the ex-head of the capital’s Central Internal Affairs Directorate Vladimir Pronin. All three had serious problems in their departments just before the “business trip to the south” - anti-corruption investigations began in the Ministry of Construction and the Moscow City Order, and the Moscow Central Internal Affairs Directorate was seriously shaken by the story with Major Evsyukov. "Olympstroy" became a kind of base for honorary retirees.

One glamor magazine calculated that for the money spent on the construction of Olympic roads (more than 100 million euros per 1 km), it was possible not only to lay asphalt, but also enough for a thin layer of oysters, black caviar, fur coats or Hennessy cognac. If we add to these costs the personnel leapfrog that accompanies the main construction project, we end up with only questions: will they be able to meet the deadline and at what cost?

– The country’s leadership realized that some of the objects are only 10-15% complete, while some objects should be ready a year before the start of the Olympics. The situation is urgent, says Dmitry Abzalov, leading expert at the Center for Current Political Affairs. – Therefore, they decided to rely on a relatively young leader (Gaplikov is 40 years old), but who has experience in federal work and is not involved in political clans. He will have to “reconcile” and create a balance of all interests - from contractors to the federal center - and give new impetus to construction. But the most interesting thing is that Sergei Gaplikov is most likely also not the final, but an intermediate figure. He must deal with the construction, and someone else will hand over the 2014 Olympics facilities on a turnkey basis.