Pop-lobbing. How priests promote the interests of water bodies and fight the FAS

One of the latest layouts of the anonymous international, based on the correspondence of the professional lobbyist Alexei Ulyanov, did not cause a big resonance - at first glance in these letters there was nothing but routine showdowns between commercial groups, FAS, government and deputies. Upon more careful consideration, however, one curious fact is striking: prominent representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church play the most active role in the promotion of purely commercial interests. Using their connections in the government and the presidential administration, the priests actively promoted the topics of interest to lobbyists, justifying this with the struggle for morality.

Especially closely, Alexei Ulyanov collaborated with Hieromonk Dmitry (secular name - Mikhail Pershin), serving in the Krutitsky courtyard and is also an expert at the Synodal Department for Youth of the Moscow Patriarchate. In his free time from serving God, hieromonk, as it turned out, is actively engaged in the lobbying struggle.

Among other things, Pershin participates in the active struggle of lobbyists with the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS), a significant part of the correspondence of Ulyanov is devoted to this struggle, whose specialization just affects antimonopoly legislation. This struggle has many fronts, including even such exotic ones as Wikipedia, where lobbyists actively made edits with criticism of the FAS and fought editing the FAS. Hieromonk Dmitry, of course, did not participate in such a bustle, his role was much more seriously - a scan of his letter to one of the most influential officials, the first deputy head of the presidential administration Alexei Gromov, is discovered in the correspondence, in which Hieromonk accuses the head of the FAS Artemyev of the discrediting of the government policies, at the same time juggling with excessive fees, insurance contributions and other quite secular problems.

Another front of the struggle of lobbyists is associated with an attack on the so -called PET Upakovka (or simply - plastic bottles). Since 2011, manufacturers of strong alcoholic beverages have actively lobbied for the prohibition of PET taxes for alcoholic beverages (supposedly-this is harmful) to take the market share from beer manufacturers. In this struggle, the "vodochniks" was supported by manufacturers of glass and aluminum containers. The FAS, like a number of other departments, sided with the brewers - they say, there are no real reasons to consider plastic containers for alcoholic beverages harmful.

The struggle against Pat-Tara is one of the main plots of Aleksey Ulyanov’s activity, and in this direction he also actively collaborated with prominent figures of the Russian Orthodox Church, who presented the struggle with PET Tara as a measure to “combat an alcohol threat”. So in February 2013, a whole “Congress of the Church and Presidential Council for Protection against Alcohol Threat” was organized, within the framework of which a press conference on the struggle with PET Tara was held. In addition to Pershin and Ulyanov, Archpriest Dmitry Smirnov, chairman of the church interaction department with the armed forces and law enforcement agencies (there is such a position) was also supposed to speak on it.

Thanks to his scandalous tricks, Smirnov became a real “pop star”: he tore off the concert on the anniversary of the “silver rain”, announced the rock music of demon (causing a wave of creative on this occasion on the Internet), explained on the sermons that the character of a person can be improved by knocking out his teeth, and after the death of a well-known sexologist, professor Igor Kona said that he took this news with feelings with feelings Deep satisfaction - in a word, Smirnov worked well on his recognition and therefore perfectly suited to promote certain messages. Smirnov’s participation in the PET Upakovka press conference was planned and even widely advertised, but something fell off, and he did not appear at it, as a result, Pershin was reduced for the Russian Orthodox Church alone. The lobbyists did not give up their hands after this failure and continued the search, moreover, they tried to succeed under their tasks not of anyone, but of the Holy Patriarch.

This is not to say that this task was absurd, because in the end it was Vladimir Gundyaev who in 1996 turned the famous operation to lobby for the preferential import of tobacco and alcohol into Russia as “humanitarian aid”. Why don't he help him the “vodka” lobby and raise this question in a conversation with Putin? One way or another, Pershin tried to transmit a request to the patriarch through Archpriest Chaplin. Chaplin, in turn, replied that Father Tikhon was dealing with these issues.

About Bishop Tikhon (George Shevkunov), the governor of the Sretensky monastery, and about his close connection with Putin The Insider already wrote , but in a completely different context - in one of the wires of the Security Service of Ukraine, the name Shevkunov is mentioned by Konstantin Malofeev, one of the key organizers and sponsors of the invasion of Ukraine. Obviously, Shevkunov also played a serious role in this, although it is not known to what extent he performed on his own, and to which Putin was “connected” for Malofeev. One way or another, Shevkunov’s close connection with Putin does not raise doubts, and there is nothing surprising in the fact that Chaplin advised passing the message to Putin through him, and not through the patriarch - obviously, Shevkunov meets with Putin more often than Vladimir Gundyaev.

The letter for Shevkunov was prepared, but it was not addressed to Putin, but to Medvedev. It is reported that the allegedly proved the harm of PET UPAKS is proposed to prohibit it.

Shevkunov handed this a letter, though on which channels - in correspondence is not specified. However, as follows from another letter, the theme of PET was interested in Shevkunov and regardless of Ulyanov and Pershin: Bishop Tikhon himself already fought at the State Duma and Rosalkol level:

It is not entirely clear what exactly was Shevkunov’s interest when promoting the prohibition of PET Tara, whether he acted here as an intermediary lobbyist, or whether the Russian Orthodox Church and the companies affected with it have its own interests in the alcohol market. The latter option seems more convincing, given the deep integration of the structures of the Russian Orthodox Church with commercial companies in various fields. Recently, the Russian Orthodox Church has been seriously conceived even about entering the banking market. In correspondence, you can even find the concept of “Orthodox banking” - a project of the supervised personally Vsevolod Chaplin. Although this exotic project is unlikely to be implemented, it looks very curious and The Insider offers you to get acquainted with his concept: