Russian Citizens for a Better Environment!

Kemerovo Oblast is the main coal-producing region of Russia. Over the past one and a half decades, the Kuzbass has increased its production and export of coal, largely through systematic violations of environmental legislation, which the regional authorities not only turn a blind eye to, but facilitate. One official who almost every month virtually donates new land to mining companies is the region’s Vice Governor, Vyacheslav Telegin. Here is his story. To start with, Telegin is not his original surname—it is actually Kamyshnikov. Why did he have to change name? That was because some facts from his family biography did not allow him to hold public office. He had been involved in some questionable practice; his father, too, had problems with the law back in the Soviet times. These facts meant he could not to hold civil servant positions, so Mr. Kamyshnikov had to become Mr. Telegin.

Anton Gorelkin is one of the most “noticeable” parliamentarians of the Russian State Duma, famous as the generator of strange laws. One of his draft bills once brought about a market crash of the Russian technological giant Yandex. Few people know, however, that Anton Gorelkin was one of the “masterminds” behind the Kuzbass propaganda machine. Even before Kremlin trolls invaded the Internet, Anton Gorelkin steamrolled the media space of Kemerovo Oblast.

The word mafia implies “family.” Kemerovo Oblast, which is often referred to as Kuzbass, is run by the Kuzbass crime family, part of Putin’s mafia. The true boss in the region is not Governor Tsivilyov, who is just a front man, but his wife, Anna, President Putin’s first cousin once removed. Why does the Russian dictator want to keep the region in his family’s control?

SERGEY (YEVGENYEVICH) TSIVILYOV [tsee-vee-LYOH-v] is an oligarch and Governor of Kemerovo Oblast (a.k.a. Kuzbass), which produces about 60 percent of all Russian coal. Together with billionaire Gennady Timchenko, one of Putin’s most trusted confidants, he owns the Kolmar coal company, which operates in Yakutia (officially referred to as the Republic of Sakha), Russia. Tsivilyov is a member of the Kremlin-friendly United Russia party and, since 2018, a member of the Supreme Council of United Russia. INN 783901472526.

To understand what JSC HC SDS-Ugol really is, we have to remember how this mega-corporation was established both within one region and within all of Russia. Mikhail Yurievich Fedyaev is a Russian entrepreneur and senior executive. He is one of the founders of the Sibirskiy Delovoy Souz holding company (Siberian Business Union), and its president since 2007.

Coal oligarchs would not have considered themselves safe and unpunished if not officials who had been covering them for years. Elena Aleksandrovna Kurlis, head of the Central village settlement in the Novokuznetsk region of the oblast of Kemerov in Kuzbass, has marked herself several times as one of the “coal-protectors” in defending interests of coal business.