Translated material
Khryushins are millions
The recipients of foreign grants are nailed to a shameful pillar. The Kremlin implies a patriotic slogan: feed from the bounty of the native government and sleep calmly. To whom and how to get gifts from the presidential shoulder in Russia - The New Times found out
Participants in the Khryusha Against project at the procession on the Day of National Unity, Moscow, November 4, 2014
The square of the five-story building is "Stalin" along the street of the Molodogvardeiskaya Street in Moscow, from its outer side-an inconspicuous porch. The doors are sealed by the Department of City Property of the Moscow City Hall, inside - not a soul, behind the dusty glass of windows - twilight. On the facade there are two faded announcements: “Humanitarian assistance to the citizens of Novorossia” and “The headquarters moved”. And also - the torn sign “The military Cossack society“ Central Cossack Army ”.
Ataman on vacation
A sleepy guard from neighboring parking recalls that a year ago, whole trucks with “humanitarian aid” arrived here. Now, only letters remained from the former greatness, although the legal address of the “military Cossack society” is still indicated as “Molodogvardeskaya, 46, building 3” in the Data database of the SPARK.
The current location of the Cossacks is reported on the official website of the company - Mira Avenue, 49A, p. 1. Ibid, on the site - the staff of the "headquarters". However, it is impossible to get through to the “chief of staff”: “It is on vacation,” the rude baritone answers on the other end of the wire. To the question “who are you?”, The baritone does not want to answer.
Meanwhile, it was the “bariton” and its colleagues recently by the state allocated 5 million budget money-for the “training of Cossacks-retirees to work as mentors in Russian schools”. To clearly explain what exactly the amount will be spent on, equal to the price of a budget apartment on the outskirts of the capital, the baritone could not.
Dig deeper - and the picture becomes even more strange. The head of the Cossack society, “Ataman” Ivan Mironov-a personnel Chekist, from September 1974 to April 2004 served in various departments of the KGB of the USSR and the FSB of Russia. From 2007 to 2013, Mironov-deputy chairman of the regional government in Samara, member of the Board of Directors of the State JSC Corporation Physotron-Ninir. In 2014, he also became an “chieftain”. How Mironov combines all these hypostasis and in which he now abides - a riddle. 
Mironov was supplied with the “Cossack army” by the “Cossack army” as the winner of the first open competition of presidential grants. The competition was announced back in April 2015, July 1 summed up. According to the organizers of the competition, financial support were awarded to the NGOs, “participating in the development of civil society institutions and implementing socially significant projects,” in any case, this is how the tasks of the competition are formulated on the project website. To whom it was to give budget money, the so-called grant operators chose, among them-the National Charity Fund, the Russian Union of Youth, the Union of Pensioners of Russia, the Health League of the Nation, the Institute of Socio-Economic and Political Research, and others-only eight organizations with which contracts were concluded before the competition.
The operators processed more than 4 thousand applications and selected 636 victorious projects, each of which received an average of 1 to 8 million rubles. In particular, 6 million budget money went to the activists of the Prochrevsky Proceedings of the Proceedings - thereby that in fake suits of pigs with formidable grimaces, the capital's supermarkets in search of expired and sanctioned products are inspected.
The little-known online newspaper “Highland” received more than 7 million rubles-for the publication of materials on a “wide circle of domestic and international problems”. On the simple website of the publication, headlines like “Kiev“ Opposition ”are shifted by the Gosdepovsky patterns” and banners of the foundation of Natalia Narochnitskaya, which heads the Institute of Democracy and Cooperation in Paris, designed to monitor the observance of human rights in Europe and France, in particular.
Another Kremlin project is Stopham, known for its aggressive actions against drivers who were incorrectly parked by the car, received 8 million rubles.
At the same time, many human rights organizations did not find support from the “public verdict” to the “memorial”, as well as a number of well -known social projects, for example, the ANO “Center for Autism of Autism” by Ekaterina Men and the Russian Help Fund (Rusfond), which helps sick children.
Question: What criteria did the grantors use and why did significant amounts be allocated either politically painted projects or unknown NGOs? 
Sovereign technologies
Representatives of the “grant operators” who accepted the applications, in response to the question why the money, for example, went to the “gruff” and did not go to those who help sick children, referred to the “decision of members of the competitive commission”, which works with each “operator”, that is, the whole commissions - eight. However, in these words there is a share of cunning: not all members of the commissions, as it turned out, independently read applications. “I watched only part of the applications, they don’t pay money for this, but I didn’t have time to read several hundreds of affairs,” the former athlete and member of the Public Chamber Irina Skvortsova, whose commission under the “Union of Russian Youth”, allocated a 5 millionth grant by an ambiguous project called “Eat Russian”, called up, called up, according to his authors "Tell people about how they are fooling around with advertising."
He submitted an application for grant and a certain “Modern Society” fund - by the numbers indicated in the Spark, they could not find them. However, as follows from the data of the same Spark, the head of the Foundation Stepan Krivosheev is listed in the co-owners of the “Association of Sports Fans”, and the network is mentioned primarily as the head of the Fan Zone football project. The co -founder of this fund Yevgeny Arsentyev, as reported in open sources, is the former head of the headquarters of the “ours” movement, then - a participant in the Prochrevsky movement “Local” and the chairman of the non -profit partnership of youth patriotic initiatives “People’s squad”. How are football fans related to products examination and advertising technologies? Irina Skvortsova could not explain this NT . But she admitted that the members of the commission, when choosing grant recipients, are focused on brief reviews-recommendations, which are accompanied by their applications-operators. “We may not accept their recommendation,” Skvortsova justifies. “But personally, I have not rejected a single approved application already approved.”
Oleg Matveychev, a member of the commission formed under the operator entitled “The Institute of Socio-Economic and Political Research”, in a conversation with NT assures: all applications were analyzed by members of the commission personally: “The institute’s specialists were engaged only in the technical side of the issue, determined how correctly the documents were executed”. He also assured that among the criteria for assessment there was no “political expediency”, and at least three members of the commission worked with each package of documents. At the same time, it was the Matveyichev Commission that was endowed with a grant in the amount of more than 6 million rubles not known to the general public “Institute of Economics and Legislation” with an application for the identification and description of certain “non -military” technologies of the “desevenness” of the Russian state. True, the deputy director of this “institute” Dmitry Alekseev, with whom NT managed to contact, could not explain what it was he and his colleagues by such “technologies”: “I can’t answer you by phone, I am not ready to discuss such issues immediately.”
He could not answer another question either: what specific research is his “institute” going to conduct in order to identify “ditch” technologies: “The program is only developed, its plan will be ready and presented until the end of the month,” Alekseev admitted, advised to call back “closer to August”.
So what kind of institution is this-“Institute of Economics and Legislation”? According to Spark, the general director of the institute Oleg Sopov (he was unavailable for commentary), is the co -founder of another NPO - OOD Rus, headed by the notorious deputy of the State Duma Evgeny Fedorov (by the way, the address indicated on the institute’s website, and the legal address of the Fedorov NCO - coincide). Fedorov, as you know, created the organization “National Liberation Movement” (“NOD”), which was promoted by terrorized its political opponents, attacking them in a bar and on the street (see NT , No. 2 of 01/26/2015 ). 
According to the volunteer and public figure Nikolai Levshitsa, a significant part of the organizations who received grants, “dark horses”, which until recently, the general public knew nothing, and this “largely compromises the choice of expert commissions.”
The creator of the Rus Sitting Public Movement, journalist Olga Romanova, also agrees with him: “It is enough to drive prisons, and we are there every week, and see who works there. Of all the grants to the aid of prisoners, I know only Maria Cannabikh. ” Budget grants are distributed to their own, Romanova is convinced, NPOs from the side fall into the list only for the species.
The strange luck that fell in the course of the competition for small research centers and funds, the member of the OP Irina Skvortsova explains by chance: “So, famous applicants had something with the documents.” But experts from the outside explain the situation differently.
Such funds, as a rule, are created for a particular person who, stepping as a director, already has a system of necessary ties - and, as a result, is guaranteed to receive financing and state orders, including grants, explains Kirill Martynov, an associate professor of the NIS philosophy faculty with NT .
A separate topic is the dubious “analytical services” and the development of empty “concepts” like “desavering technologies”. Today it has become a very common way to master budget funds. “Propanation and hack in such projects are easily calculated even during superficial examination, and above all, the inconsistency between the scale of the plan and the volume of the useful result,” Martynov explains. Texts, as a rule, are written under the heading like “Civilization specificity of Russia in the context of global competition in the 21st century”, they solve all eternal issues, but it is impossible to use such a study in practice. According to Martynov, the reason for the popularity of such topics is in opaque schemes for the distribution of orders. And the imperious course on isolationism, the passion for the theories of the conspiracy, the search for enemies everywhere and in everything allow the authors to sell a very dubious writings under the guise of “analysts”.
The “grant market” arising in this way develops to universal benefits - both those who distribute grants and orders, and those who receive them. The former thus demonstrate their usefulness to the state in “resolving issues”, the latter - get the opportunity to guarantee to earn money with the smallest intellectual and other costs.
Photo: Sergey Fadeichv/TASS, Anton Novoderezhkin/TASS