Sergunina Natalya: responsible for the image of the capital

Personality Image Date of birth: August 22, 1978 Place of birth: Moscow, USSR Country: USSR, Russia

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“Interview”: Natalya Sergunina - about the results of 2020 // Moscow 24 N. A. Sergunina at a meeting of the Moscow Government

Natalya Alekseevna Sergunina

(born August 22, 1978, Moscow) - first deputy and chief of staff of the mayor of Moscow, as well as his plenipotentiary representative in the Moscow City Duma. In 2011-2018 - minister, deputy mayor of Moscow in the Moscow government on economic policy and property and land relations. She became the heroine of Navalny’s investigation, published on August 1, 2019. Navalny claims her involvement in the sale of a number of buildings in Moscow to a company controlled through offshore companies by her sister’s husband. As Navalny points out, citing official information on the Moscow City Duma website, it is Sergunina who is responsible for all elections at all levels in Moscow.[1]

Biography

In 1995 she graduated from school No. 325 in Moscow with a silver medal.

In 2000 she received a honors diploma from Moscow State University. M. V. Lomonosov, majoring in “Jurisprudence”.[2] In the same year, on the recommendation of scientific advisor Vladimir Yema, she began working in the legal department of the Ministry of Property of the Russian Federation[3]

From 2000 to 2004 she worked in the Department of Legal Support of the Ministry of Property of Russia as a consultant, advisor, and deputy head of the department.

Since 2004, she continued her career at the Federal Agency for State Property Management as Deputy Head of the Department, Head of the Department of Real Estate and Movable Property.

By order of the Ministry of Economic Development on August 22, 2008, she was appointed deputy head of the Federal Agency for State Property Management.

By decree of the Moscow Mayor on October 26, 2010, Natalya Sergunina was appointed Deputy Mayor of Moscow in the Moscow Government and head of the Moscow City Property Department.

By decree of the Moscow Mayor dated December 6, 2011, she was appointed to the position of Deputy Mayor of Moscow in the Moscow Government on issues of property and land relations[4].

On June 6, 2013, she was appointed acting Deputy Mayor of Moscow in the Moscow Government on issues of property and land relations.

On September 17, 2013, she was appointed Deputy Mayor of Moscow in the Moscow Government for economic policy and property and land relations[5].

On September 19, 2020, she became Deputy Mayor of Moscow in the Moscow Government - Head of the Office of the Mayor and the Moscow Government.

To information

Natalya Alekseevna Sergunina was born in Moscow, but since her father was a judge of a military tribunal, her childhood was spent constantly moving. She not only visited a variety of Russian cities, right up to Khabarovsk, but even lived for some time in Germany. And everywhere parents tried to place their daughter in various sports and creative clubs. However, Natalya graduated from school in the Mother See, and with a silver medal. By this time, the head of the family was already working in the Ministry of Justice and helped ensure that his daughter entered the law faculty of the prestigious Moscow State University.

By the time Natalya Alekseevna graduated from the university, Alexey Kimovich had gone into private practice, but had not lost contacts in government offices. It was thanks to them that Sergunina ended up in the Ministry of Property, initially as a simple consultant, but quite soon changing this position to deputy head of a department in the Department of Legal Support. In 2004, the Ministry was transformed into the Federal Agency for State Property Management (Rosimushchestvo), in which the young employee received the position of deputy head of the Department of Real and Movable Property. After a short time, Sergunina became the head of this department.

In August 2008, Natalya Alekseevna received a new promotion; she was appointed deputy head of the Federal Property Management Agency. It was rumored that the next promotion was due to the fact that the recently elected President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev

decided to provide patronage to the young official. Medvedev oversaw the Federal Property Management Agency while he was still first deputy prime minister and noticed Natalya Alekseevna when a bill on the return of church property and lands was initiated through her. At that time, museums sharply opposed Sergunina’s initiative. For example, the Ryazan Kremlin museum-reserve was supposed to go to the diocese, which was opposed by the city public, who addressed this issue to Dmitry Anatolyevich.

It was Sergunin who was sent to Moscow to monitor the next wave of privatization, when in 2010 Sergei Sobyanin

.
Natalya Alekseevna was only 32 years old at the time, but she had already become the deputy mayor of one of the largest metropolises in the world, and also the head of the “grain” property department. Three years later, Sergunina managed to hook up another Sobyanin deputy, Andrei Sharonov
.
After the embarrassing elections for the mayor of Moscow, in which Sergei Semenovich risked ending up in the second round with oppositionist Alexei Navalny
, a number of personnel decisions were made. Among other things, Sharonov resigned, and Natalya Alekseevna took over his functions.

By combining economic and property issues, as well as budget formation tasks, she became one of the most influential Moscow officials in Sobyanin’s team. Privatization remained the main direction for Sergunina. She actively reduced the extensive Moscow economy in order to replenish the city budget, first with profits from auctions, and then with taxes. Under her supervision, the National Hotel, Metropol Hotel and other large objects were transferred to investors at open auctions, and state unitary enterprises were also corporatized.

However, many doubted that the girl was an independent figure in her post. Despite the fact that she tried to keep a low profile, she was still accused of unprofessionalism from time to time. So in 2020, she assured that Moscow had a budget surplus, while it was executed with a record deficit for the 2010s of more than 200 billion rubles.

In addition, it was confusing how Sergunina’s department conducted tenders for government procurement. So the device bought 25 floors in the prestigious and expensive Moscow new building “Oko” for 13.6 billion rubles. The money was transferred through a Cypriot company to the direct developer Capital Group. Sergunina’s father also worked closely with this developer, who, by the way, became a co-owner of Moscow City. What attracted attention was not only the incorrectness of the tender held and the family connections of the participants in the transaction, but also the fact that 135 parking spaces were simultaneously purchased for 1.52 billion rubles. In other words, the state paid almost 8 million rubles for each parking space, which was equal to the cost of a two-room apartment in not the worst area of ​​Moscow.

Pavel Te was enriched with state money

, to whom the “Eye” tower belonged.
The tender for renovations in the offices of Sergunina’s department was won by the company, which also belonged to a businessman with a Korean surname. He worked closely with Sobyanin’s other deputy, Marat Khusnullin
, who is responsible for urban planning policy and also placed his subordinates in the Oko building.
He was, in turn, recommended to Khusnullin as a “reliable partner” by the then Minister of Construction and Housing and Communal Services Mikhail Men
. At the same time, many noticed that Sergunina herself wears a necklace and ring from a set from VanCleefArpels worth about 42.3 thousand dollars, with an income of less than 100 thousand dollars a year. And then rumors spread that it was Te who was so beautifully courting the official, despite his marriage.

However, Natalya Alekseevna’s relatives are also far from poor people, and the city authorities are also surprisingly extremely supportive of them. So, during the time that Sergunina was responsible for property and land relations in Moscow, the company of Irina Sergunina’s

the sisters of a Moscow official bought several historical buildings at reduced prices.

So, in June 2020, an early 20th century building on Serebryanichesky Lane was put up for sale. The winner of the auction was Mercury LLC, which offered for a house with an area of ​​1.3 thousand square meters. meters in the city center 86 million rubles. The company also bought several more buildings in the center at reduced prices, where Custos hotels were eventually opened. Moreover, the difference between the minimum price and the final price in all three cases was 466 thousand rubles. In 2020, the company exchanged one of the premises from the city for two larger buildings.

According to the Russian register of legal entities, Mercury belongs to the offshore FLORESTAR. In turn, FLORESTAR belongs to two offshore companies from the British Virgin Islands, the beneficiary of which is the husband of Sergunina’s sister, Lazar Safaniev

, whose middle name is Aaron Eliezer ben Telmit Safaniev.
At the same time, Safaniev is officially listed as a co-owner of the venture fund Jen, the founder of which is also listed as Sergunina’s adviser Alexander Smbatyan
, and his partner is the former head of the presidential administration
Alexander Voloshin
.

In addition, real estate transactions were concluded with the help of Dita Plaza LLC, which also belongs to an offshore in Cyprus, and that one belongs to an offshore in the British Virgin Islands. Its beneficiary is the same Safaniev. At the same time, the Cyprus offshore company has another subsidiary, registered in the name of a certain Alexander Dobrynin

. The company owns 40% of the Oktyabr cinema. According to the reports of Safaniev's English company, he is also the owner of real estate worth 10.5 million pounds.

Irina Sergunina herself was associated with the Ottepel and Moscow Sky restaurants, which were located in historical pavilions at VDNKh. She also owned premises on Tsvetnoy Boulevard, which previously housed the WineTime restaurant. Irina and Natalya’s father, in turn, owned a room with an area of ​​350 square meters in the Capital City tower in Moscow City.

The entire large Sergunin family owned real estate, the total value of which was 6.5 billion rubles. In 2011, the family purchased a 136-meter apartment in the Neskuchny Sad residential complex for 68 million rubles and a penthouse with an area of ​​289 square meters. meters for 180 million rubles. In addition, the Sergunins had a private house with an area of ​​700 square meters. meters in Vienna for 2 million euros. Also in one of the shopping centers in Vienna, through the company Lazar Multimedia Technology, they owned a children's interactive show “Alice in Wonderland”.

However, none of the guardians of law and order saw the corruption component in Sergunina’s work, but her business qualities were appreciated at the Moscow mayor’s office. After the 2020 mayoral elections, Natalya Alekseevna took the position of first deputy mayor and headed the mayor’s office and the Moscow government. In these positions she replaced Anastasia Rakova

, which has long been considered Sobyanin’s right hand and largely determined the general policy of the city. She was also responsible for organizing the elections and secretly following the opposition agenda in the capital. It was she who was credited with the initiative to allow Navalny to participate in the 2013 mayoral elections and a number of opposition candidates in the 2020 municipal elections.

According to some information, at some point the Presidential Administration began to express dissatisfaction with the rather liberal style of government of the capital’s authorities and the excessive independence of its internal political bloc. As a result, Rakova was reoriented to social policy, and Sergunina took her place. Thus, two influential women of the Moscow government turned out to be hardware enemies. Anastasia Vladimirovna moved away from Sobyanin, but Natalya Alekseevna, on the contrary, began to exert more and more influence on the head of the city. At the same time, she herself listened sensitively to orders from the Kremlin.

It was Sergunina who had to prepare the elections to the Moscow City Duma in 2020. Despite the fact that she had very little experience in political work, while Rakova was involved in the same topic of elections back in the Tyumen region. In addition, the castling occurred suddenly and Natalya Alekseevna did not even have time to form a team for new tasks. The only person left from the Rakovo team was the head of the department of territorial bodies, Evgeniy Struzhak.

, previously involved in the adoption and implementation of political decisions.
Vyacheslav Shulenin
, who was considered Rakova’s right hand and worked with political strategists,
left the apparatus for VEB He was replaced by the head of the department of trade and services of the mayor's office Alexey Nemeryuk
, who retained his previous position.

Nemeryuk, unlike Sergunina, had experience in political governance. Previously, he held the position of deputy prefect of the Zelenograd district of Moscow and participated in the organization of elections at various levels. However, he was distinguished by rather harsh methods of solving the tasks assigned to him. The so-called “night of the long buckets,” when all Moscow tents were demolished in one night, was attributed to his initiative. Then he preferred to radically resolve the issue with tents, and then think about how to hush up the fuss that had flared up.

Andrei Maksimov became the main political strategist of the Duma campaign

, however, he held this position only nominally.
The actual head of the election headquarters was a certain Irina Shcherbina
, who previously acted as a contractor in holding holidays commissioned by the mayor's office, and now has become an employee of the press service.
It was Shcherbina’s man Nikolai Krapivin
who was recruiting political strategists for the 2019 campaign. However, Krapivin’s qualities as a political strategist were not highly rated by his professional colleagues.

As a result, Sergunina’s new team, under pressure from the Presidential Administration, decided not to weave the “Surkov” lace of the election campaign, but to take the simplest path, preventing almost all opposition candidates from participating in the elections. This approach led to outrage among Muscovites. They were still ready to believe that the liberal candidates were unable to collect the notorious signatures, but, as in this case, these signatures were collected by United Russia members who were embarrassed to go to the elections from their own party and chose the path of self-nominated candidates. As a result, out of nowhere, the protest activity of Muscovites increased significantly.

For a long time, Natalya Alekseevna Sergunina dealt with the economic and property issues of Moscow and did this, apparently, not without benefit for the pocket of her family and the capital’s oligarch, who was very close to her. However, career growth brought Sergunina to a position that forces her to deal with political issues. The first serious test for her was the elections to the Moscow City Duma. So far, Natalya Alekseevna has successfully failed this test. Instead of “targeted” work in every district of Moscow, she decided to take the simplest path, not allowing most of the opposition candidates to participate in the elections. In response, the Moscow authorities received mass protests. As a result, wanting to please the Presidential Administration, Sergunina risks achieving the completely opposite result.

Incidents and criticism

Sergunina is known for being at the origins of a high-profile bill on the return of church property and lands[8]. In her opinion, property that does not ensure the performance of government functions should find an effective owner. Most often, religious facilities are now occupied by the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Agriculture, colonies, detention centers, gyms and private clubs. And the bill is aimed at taking away these objects and transferring them to dioceses. According to Rosokhrankultura, the total number of objects falling under the law is 20-25 thousand.

In 2006, the media described her behavior at a meeting in the government of the Ryazan region regarding the transfer of the Ryazan Kremlin museum to the diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church, when she demanded the immediate eviction of the museum from the Kremlin and stated that there was no money and there would not be money for the construction of a new museum building. Museum.ru website writes:[9]

Scattering threats of administrative punishment left and right, including the dismissal of the director of the museum-reserve, she categorically demanded an immediate solution to all issues.

In 2013, in the “Smak” program on Channel One, she showed how to cook lazy dumplings.[10]

In 2020, the editors of the newspaper Literary Russia claimed that Sergunina was involved in the persecution of the newspaper:[11]

Deputy Mayor of Moscow Sergunina, dissatisfied with the fact that the newspaper was in no hurry to move out onto the street, was already trying to set a criminal investigation against our editorial office. It’s good that we came across wise police officers who saw in this whole case not criminality, but the pressure of the authorities on the publication they did not like, and, citing the relevant articles of the Criminal and other codes, refused to initiate a criminal case against the editorial office of “LR”.

Also, the authors of the article in Literary Russia state:

It seems that for this person there is not only no culture and literature, but for her there is nothing sacred in this world except money.

The city hall website does not indicate the year of her birth, only the date and month: “August 22.”[12]

On August 1, 2020, an investigation by Alexei Navalny dedicated to Natalya Sergunina was published. It alleges her involvement in the sale for next to nothing of a number of buildings in the center of Moscow, which, according to Navalny, is affiliated with the family of Sergunina’s sister, Irina Safanieva. Also used was Dita Plaza LLC, which, according to Navalny, is controlled by a Cyprus offshore company, which in turn is controlled by an offshore company from the British Virgin Islands - CANDEE INVESTMENTS, owned by Lazar Safaniev (sister’s husband).[13]

Scheme published in Navalny's investigation

As it became known in 2020, she signed an additional agreement from the Moscow mayor’s office, according to which residents will be forcibly evicted in the interests of the developer.[14]

Planned and implemented projects

While working in the Moscow government, Natalya Sergunina oversaw many projects and carried out orders from the Mayor, which became successful and were of great importance for the capital.

Among them it is worth noting:

• Increasing the attractiveness of Moscow for tourists. Last summer alone, during the World Cup, more than 4 million people visited the capital. Almost half of them were foreigners. In addition, during the New Year holidays 2018-2019, the dynamics of booking hotels in the capital was the same as during the World Cup. In total, in 2020, capital tourism brought more than 112 billion rubles to the city treasury. This is 4 times more than in 2010. Also, over the past 2 years, Moscow has repeatedly occupied the leading positions in the ratings of many international publications in various categories, such as:

— Top 10 cities in the world with the best Christmas markets.

— Top 3 most photographed cities in the world.

— Top 5 most interesting destinations for traveling during the winter holidays and many others.

• One of the important directions in the city is the development of family recreation. For 5 years now, the Moscow Seasons cycle festivals have been taking place in the capital. These large-scale events take place on various pedestrian streets, parks, squares and squares. This includes such festivals as: “Journey to Christmas”, “Moscow Spring A Cappella”, “Easter Gift”, “Golden Autumn” and others. The main message of the organizers of the Moscow Seasons is to show that the capital is beautiful at any time of the year and you can always find entertainment options and organize your leisure time. In 2020, more than 65 million people, both Moscow residents and guests, attended events as part of the cycle.
• The VDNKh restoration project has become no less large-scale and significant for the capital. The restoration took place in several stages, but is still not completed: in 2014-2016, the main efforts were aimed at improving the territory where the exhibition complex is located. Only in 2020 did builders begin restoration work on the pavilions, which had fallen into almost complete disrepair. The work is still ongoing, but already the attendance at VDNKh has increased significantly. More than 30 million people come here every year.

Notes

1. https://duma.mos.ru/ru/527/page/polnomochnyiy-predstavitel-mera-moskvyi-v-moskovskoy-gorodskoy-dume-2
2. Sergunina N. A. Brief biographical information
3. Moscow Government website
4. Decree of the Mayor of Moscow
5. Sergunina will head the economic, property and land complexes
6. DGI of Moscow
7. Interview with Vedomosti - Natalya Sergunina, Deputy Mayor of Moscow
8. Natalya Sergunina headed the property and land complex of Moscow
9. https://museum.ru/N28974
10. https://www.1tv.ru/shows/smak/vypuski/gost-natalya-sergunina-smak-vypusk-ot-21-12-2013
11. https://litrossia.ru/item/9335-novyj-etap-gonenij-moskovskikh-chinovnikov-na-literaturnuyu-rossiyu/
12. https://www.mos.ru/authority/person/19156093/
13. https://navalny.com/p/6185/
14. https://newizv.ru/news/city/03-09-2019/apofeoz-proizvola-vladeltsev-zhilya-v-moskve-pereselyayut-s-pomoschyu-suda-i-topora
15. Information on income, property and property-related obligations of Moscow city employees
16. Brief biography of Sergunin A.K.
17. Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of April 5, 2020 No. 145 “On awarding state awards of the Russian Federation”

Family and hobbies

Natalya Sergunina loves to spend her free time in her hometown, paying maximum attention to her family and loved ones. She names Voroboevy Gory, Sokolniki Park and Izmailovo as her favorite places in the capital. Also, together with her family, Natalya Alekseevna attends festivals and exhibitions, which she herself is the curator of. Thus, she has the opportunity to look at her work “from the outside,” says the vice mayor. For good service and dedication to her work she was awarded various awards and orders.

Among them: Medal of the Order “For Services to the Fatherland”, II degree, Gratitude from the Mayor of Moscow and Certificate of Honor from the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation. Sometimes Sergunina can be seen in various interviews on federal channels. And once she participated in the culinary entertainment show “Smak” and prepared lazy dumplings.

Links

• https://www.rospres.com/s/tag/Sergunina Natalya Alekseevna/ // Ruspres
• https://www.anews.com/p/30428172-krasota-trebuet-millionov-samye-dorogie-ukrasheniya-rossijskih-chinovnic/ (about Sergunina’s jewelry)
• https://www.mos.ru/authority/person/19156093/

1. People who are not included in other templates are included in the template

Childhood and youth

Sergunina Natalya was born on August 22, 1978 in the family of a military judge, a graduate of the military law faculty. Natalya’s mother is a food industry technologist by her first education, and a linguist and translator from English and Italian by her second. My father’s service required regular moves - the family left Moscow for a long time, until the end of the 80s. The Sergunins literally wandered around the military settlements of the USSR - for example, in the Far East - and beyond, and the girl had to change several educational institutions. However, Natalya still completed her education in the capital, where she later took her first steps in a managerial career.

Moscow festival

In 2020, thanks in part to Natalya Sergunina, a new powerful cultural brand “Moscow Seasons” appeared in the capital. He united the capital’s rich festival program and brought it to a common denominator. The main idea behind Moscow Seasons is that Moscow is beautiful no matter what time of year it is outside.

The Russian capital is capable of equally surprising and delighting in winter, spring, summer or autumn. At any time of the day, any person will definitely find where to go, what to see and what to do. At the end of last year, all events of the Moscow Seasons cycle accommodated more than 65 million people. This is a remarkable indicator even against the backdrop of such world cultural capitals as Edinburgh, Barcelona and London.

Investment climate

Over the years of her work in the Moscow government, Natalya Sergunina took part in solving many important problems for the city, one of which was to increase the investment attractiveness of the Russian capital. The results of this work can be considered quite successful:

• compared to 2010, revenues to the Moscow treasury increased by almost 90 percent;
• dependence on tax payments from oil and gas companies decreased from 17 to 4 percent;
• the total volume of investments in the capital's economy increased by one and a half times;
• the volume of investments in fixed assets reached a record 2 trillion rubles in the modern history of Moscow.

The results of this work are recognized as successful not only by domestic but also by foreign experts, who at the end of 2018 included the Russian capital in the list of the five most attractive European megacities for investors. And in the “Eastern Europe” section, Moscow took first place in the ranking.

Good results were also achieved in changing approaches to public procurement. According to representatives of the expert community, today Moscow has one of the most transparent systems in the world, which allows you to use budget money with maximum efficiency, saving, on average, one ruble out of three.

Goals and objectives

Today, the vice mayor is in charge of developing culture, improving the tourist and investment image of Moscow and supporting capital entrepreneurs. All this forms a set of tasks that Sergunina deals with:

• stimulate the development of entrepreneurship by simplifying the conditions for doing business;
• unlock the rich tourism potential of the capital by developing event tourism;
• stimulate high-tech production;
• expand the innovation infrastructure, form an innovation core;
• to form a scientific and educational complex in the capital that develops promising areas - specialties of the future.

Some of the above issues were included in the draft anti-crisis plan of the Moscow Government. A rational and systematic approach to solving them led to successful results. According to Sergunina, this allowed Moscow to mobilize, ensuring a strong relationship between the city and businessmen.

Technoparks of the city

According to Sergunina, one of the key areas of work of the Moscow Government in 2020 is the creation of a Moscow innovation cluster with the support of innovative industries and technology companies. The global mission of the innovation cluster is to create the basis for the breakthrough development of the entire country. In particular, strengthen the cooperation of researchers, developers and manufacturers, build internal connections and supply chains between them, reduce their costs and increase competitiveness. Back in 2014, there were 6 technology parks in Moscow, and today there are already 35 of them, and this is just the beginning.

Education

Natalya decided on her future profession in early childhood. The shining example of her father, a professional lawyer, and other relatives predetermined her choice. This path was conscious and understandable, the vice mayor later recalled. Therefore, after receiving a certificate of secondary education, the girl took the entrance exams to the Faculty of Law of Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov and successfully passed them. The freshman chose the specialty “Civil Law” to study and easily mastered the curriculum. At the same time, she completed an internship in various institutions of the city. The culmination of her efforts was a diploma in law from one of the most prestigious universities in our country.